Having heard that you think I might have written to you upon the occasion by my breaking out in this new light, and partly concurring in that sentiment, and finding myself as much at leisure for the rest of the evening as if the destinies of no country, much less the destinies of two, depended upon me, I sit down to shake mental hands with you, and to wish you prosperity during my eclipse and setting behind the Atlantic.I will not trouble you with explanations concerning my inducement for taking so considerable a step as this. You will easily understand that I had to listen to more inward voices than one, and to wait the result of much confused inward debate before I decided to take it. Fortunately there was no question as to the comparative worth of the said two voices, nor any doubt as to the side on which they respectively appeared. It was the Fiend,i.e.the baser nature, the human instinct, that said, “Budge not.” The better voice said, “Go, why not?” The decision was soon taken, andbeing taken, the thing itself seemed much easier than it looked at first. It is now above three weeks since I have looked at it only as a thing that is to be, and I almost feel as if it would be strange if it were otherwise. What the effect of it may be on my character and fortunes I do not trouble myself to prophesy. It will at least make me think many things easy which seemed unapproachably difficult a month ago. It will teach me to keep accounts. And it will give me some insight into the nature of a state-conscience, a state-reason, a state-understanding, and a state-character. Many things besides. It may very likely ruin my reputation, but I am not sure that that would be an evil. I should be much happier, I think, without any reputation, not to add that if it were gone, I should be thrown upon my resources, which might after all turn out to be a better thing. But let these things pass. One thing is quite clear, that I could not spend the next six months in any way by which I should gain so much either in knowledge or in power. My immortal work must, of course, be suspended, but what is six months in an immortality? By the way, touching my Falstaff Platonizing, I agree with you, as reported by Merivale, that the insertion of such a joke would be unbecoming in a Museum Academicum, the more’s the pity, for with the joke itself I was a good deal pleased. But then, on the other hand, you will not let me prefix a serious introduction, explaining the thing which it is meant to illustrate. I can only suggest that you should yourself write an introductionrefutingthe said theory, if you really believe that the thing is worth putting in at all. But let this also pass, for I see the bottom of my paper (by the way I suppose I must not say such a thing in the U.S.), and the chambermaid would fain be dismissed to her bed. At present you may truly say that I am going ahead, for I alone of the suite have arrived, and my master, by being unpunctual, has lost a day of fair wind.
Having heard that you think I might have written to you upon the occasion by my breaking out in this new light, and partly concurring in that sentiment, and finding myself as much at leisure for the rest of the evening as if the destinies of no country, much less the destinies of two, depended upon me, I sit down to shake mental hands with you, and to wish you prosperity during my eclipse and setting behind the Atlantic.
I will not trouble you with explanations concerning my inducement for taking so considerable a step as this. You will easily understand that I had to listen to more inward voices than one, and to wait the result of much confused inward debate before I decided to take it. Fortunately there was no question as to the comparative worth of the said two voices, nor any doubt as to the side on which they respectively appeared. It was the Fiend,i.e.the baser nature, the human instinct, that said, “Budge not.” The better voice said, “Go, why not?” The decision was soon taken, andbeing taken, the thing itself seemed much easier than it looked at first. It is now above three weeks since I have looked at it only as a thing that is to be, and I almost feel as if it would be strange if it were otherwise. What the effect of it may be on my character and fortunes I do not trouble myself to prophesy. It will at least make me think many things easy which seemed unapproachably difficult a month ago. It will teach me to keep accounts. And it will give me some insight into the nature of a state-conscience, a state-reason, a state-understanding, and a state-character. Many things besides. It may very likely ruin my reputation, but I am not sure that that would be an evil. I should be much happier, I think, without any reputation, not to add that if it were gone, I should be thrown upon my resources, which might after all turn out to be a better thing. But let these things pass. One thing is quite clear, that I could not spend the next six months in any way by which I should gain so much either in knowledge or in power. My immortal work must, of course, be suspended, but what is six months in an immortality? By the way, touching my Falstaff Platonizing, I agree with you, as reported by Merivale, that the insertion of such a joke would be unbecoming in a Museum Academicum, the more’s the pity, for with the joke itself I was a good deal pleased. But then, on the other hand, you will not let me prefix a serious introduction, explaining the thing which it is meant to illustrate. I can only suggest that you should yourself write an introductionrefutingthe said theory, if you really believe that the thing is worth putting in at all. But let this also pass, for I see the bottom of my paper (by the way I suppose I must not say such a thing in the U.S.), and the chambermaid would fain be dismissed to her bed. At present you may truly say that I am going ahead, for I alone of the suite have arrived, and my master, by being unpunctual, has lost a day of fair wind.
At this time FitzGerald wrote to Laurence, the artist:
You have, of course, read the account of Spedding’s forehead landing in America. English sailors hail it in the Channel, mistaking it for Beachy Head. There is a Shakespeare cliff, and a Spedding cliff. Good old fellow! I hope he’ll come back safe and sound, forehead and all. Not swords,nor cannon, nor all the bulls of Bashan butting at it, could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable forehead. No wonder that no hair can grow at such an altitude; no wonder his view of Bacon’s virtue is so rarefied, that the common consciences of men cannot endure it. Thackeray and I occasionally amuse ourselves with the idea of Spedding’s forehead; we find it somehow or other in all things, just peering out of all things; you see it in a milestone, Thackeray says. He also draws the forehead rising with a sober light over Mont Blanc, and reflected in the Lake of Geneva. We have great laughing over this.
You have, of course, read the account of Spedding’s forehead landing in America. English sailors hail it in the Channel, mistaking it for Beachy Head. There is a Shakespeare cliff, and a Spedding cliff. Good old fellow! I hope he’ll come back safe and sound, forehead and all. Not swords,nor cannon, nor all the bulls of Bashan butting at it, could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable forehead. No wonder that no hair can grow at such an altitude; no wonder his view of Bacon’s virtue is so rarefied, that the common consciences of men cannot endure it. Thackeray and I occasionally amuse ourselves with the idea of Spedding’s forehead; we find it somehow or other in all things, just peering out of all things; you see it in a milestone, Thackeray says. He also draws the forehead rising with a sober light over Mont Blanc, and reflected in the Lake of Geneva. We have great laughing over this.
Tennyson’s 1842 volume came out while Spedding was at Washington, and FitzGerald, writing to Pollock, regretted that it contained some pieces which he thought better omitted.
I agree with you quite about the skipping-rope, etc. But the bald men of the Embassy would tell you otherwise. I should not wonder if the whole theory of the Embassy, perhaps the discovery of America itself, was involved in that very Poem. Lord Bacon’s honesty may, I am sure, be found there.“The Yankees,” Donne writes to Bernard Barton, “seem to think baldness a rarity appertaining to the old country, for their papers could not sufficiently express their wonder, when Ld. Ashburton went over about the Boundary question, at the lack of hair among his attachés. Spedding’s crown imperial of a cranium struck them like a view of Teneriffe or Atlas.”“Nothing has been heard of Spedding,” says FitzGerald, “but we all conclude, from the nature of the case, that he has not been scalped.”
I agree with you quite about the skipping-rope, etc. But the bald men of the Embassy would tell you otherwise. I should not wonder if the whole theory of the Embassy, perhaps the discovery of America itself, was involved in that very Poem. Lord Bacon’s honesty may, I am sure, be found there.
“The Yankees,” Donne writes to Bernard Barton, “seem to think baldness a rarity appertaining to the old country, for their papers could not sufficiently express their wonder, when Ld. Ashburton went over about the Boundary question, at the lack of hair among his attachés. Spedding’s crown imperial of a cranium struck them like a view of Teneriffe or Atlas.”
“Nothing has been heard of Spedding,” says FitzGerald, “but we all conclude, from the nature of the case, that he has not been scalped.”
The mission ended happily in the treaty of Washington, and Spedding returned to his friends, in spite of the forebodings of FitzGerald, who says:
A man on the coach the other day told me that all was being settled very easily in America, but stage-coach politicians are not always to be trusted.
A man on the coach the other day told me that all was being settled very easily in America, but stage-coach politicians are not always to be trusted.
By the end of the year (1842), Spedding was again at Mirehouse.
“I am at present,” he writes to Thompson, “absorbed in teaching the young idea of a water spaniel how to shoot. He promises to be an accomplished dog. He can already catch a wounded hare and bring it, rescue a snipe out of a rapid stream, hunt (though in vain) for a water-hen among the roots of an alder-bush, and wait with intense breathless anxiety to hear the sound of a duck’s wing in the gloaming. In time I hope to teach him to do as I bid him. We are all well here. How is all at Cambridge? What shall you do at Christmas? If I am still here, can you come so far north? You shall see the dog.”
“I am at present,” he writes to Thompson, “absorbed in teaching the young idea of a water spaniel how to shoot. He promises to be an accomplished dog. He can already catch a wounded hare and bring it, rescue a snipe out of a rapid stream, hunt (though in vain) for a water-hen among the roots of an alder-bush, and wait with intense breathless anxiety to hear the sound of a duck’s wing in the gloaming. In time I hope to teach him to do as I bid him. We are all well here. How is all at Cambridge? What shall you do at Christmas? If I am still here, can you come so far north? You shall see the dog.”
But although these country delights had their attractions for him, he had for some years established himself in London, where his rooms at 60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields were the meeting-place of Tennyson, Thackeray, FitzGerald, and any of his friends who happened to be in London at the time.
“Spedding is just now furnishing chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” FitzGerald writes in 1836, “so that we may look on him as a fixture in London. He and I went to dine with Tennant at Blackheath last Thursday: there we met Edgeworth, who has got a large house at Eltham, and is lying in wait for pupils. I am afraid he will not find many. We passed a very delightful evening.”
“Spedding is just now furnishing chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” FitzGerald writes in 1836, “so that we may look on him as a fixture in London. He and I went to dine with Tennant at Blackheath last Thursday: there we met Edgeworth, who has got a large house at Eltham, and is lying in wait for pupils. I am afraid he will not find many. We passed a very delightful evening.”
His return from America after four months at Washington, led to his being selected by the editor of theEdinburgh Reviewto write an article on Dickens’sAmerican Notes, which gave the novelist strange and unreasonable offence. Spedding had originally written, “He is understood to have gone out as a kind of missionary in the cause of international copyright,” and this had been changed by the editor to “He went out, if we are rightly informed, as a kind of missionary,” etc. To this Dickens writes in a towering passion, “I deny it wholly. He is wrongly informed, and reports without enquiry, a piece of information which I could only characterise by using one of the shortest and strongestwords in the language.” And yet his letters show that, whether the subject of international copyright were the real object of his visit or not, his speeches on it are referred to with a kind of satisfaction as if they were of the utmost importance. Apparently he was dissatisfied with the impartial way in which Spedding distributed his praise and blame, praising only where praise was due and blaming where it was not, and not attributing too much value to the hasty results of a four months’ experience of the country.
But for several years Spedding had been a contributor to theEdinburgh Review, and the articles which he selected for republication are full of that calm wisdom which distinguished all that he wrote. In 1836 he reviewed his friend Henry Taylor’sStatesman; in 1838 he wrote on “Negro Apprenticeship”; in 1839 on the “Suspension of the Jamaica Constitution”; in 1840 on the “Wakefield Theory of Colonization”; in 1841 on the “Civilization of Africa and the Niger Expedition,” in which his friend John Allen lost a brother; and in 1842 on “South Australia in 1841,” a sequel to the article on the “Wakefield Theory of Colonization.” And now for the next thirty years of his life he devoted himself to the task of what FitzGerald called washing his blackamoor, “a Tragedy pathetic as Antigone or Iphigenia.” His own special work was the arrangement of Bacon’s letters and minor writings, which had hitherto been very carelessly edited, and for this purpose he spent his days among the originals in the Lambeth Library and the British Museum. “Spedding devotes his days to Lord Bacon in the British Museum,” writes FitzGerald in 1844; and again in 1846, “I saw very little of Spedding in London, for he was out all day at State paper offices and Museums.”
But he was not so absorbed in his special pursuits as not to take interest in public affairs, and theMaynooth Grant in 1845 and the opposition which it excited caused him to take part in an address to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in its favour.
“You will see in theMorning Heraldof to-day,” he writes to Thompson, “that the great event has already taken place, and though the world continues to move as it did, there does appear to be a change of weather.“We had only 300 names. But that was quite enough, considering all things, especially the respectability of the people, and the imperfection of the agitation, to make the address well worth presenting. Having gone so far, to hold back altogether would have been to confess that the attempt was a mere failure, which nobody can say it was. To hold it back past the time specified in the circulars and originally designed, for the chance of obtaining more signatures, would have been useless: people would have only said that though we boasted of the shortness of the time in which the signatures were collected, yet in fact we waited as long as there was any chance of gathering any more. And in point of fact they had begun to come in very slowly by Monday morning. At best, it could not have been improved into an effectual canvass, and as it is, it shows very well. Let any one put the two lists side by side, and then say, if the weight of opinion in Cambridge inclines one way, which way is it? I was doubtful of the expediency of stirring it at first, but I am now very glad that it has been done. I wish theHeraldhad printed the names. But it was an unlucky day, there being a great debate in both Houses.“Hare declined presenting; upon which H. Lushington, Venables, Micklethwaite, and myself (who had, in fact, been the chief actors), distributed ourselves into two cabs: and drove slap up to the Chancellor of Exchequer’s. Harry Lushington was the chief speaker, and did it very well and gracefully. Goulburn was, of course, gracious, but I should hardly have inferred that he was glad. However, he said he was; glad that this had been done, and glad that no more had been done; and (upon the whole) easy about the matter. The fever (he said) appeared to be gradually subsiding, and indeed the opposition was less formidable than might be supposed. ‘From what the gentleman said who presented the address on the other side, he gathered that it was for the most partaconscientiousopposition, not arising from any political animosity.’ CertainlyPunchcannot be said to beat Nature.”
“You will see in theMorning Heraldof to-day,” he writes to Thompson, “that the great event has already taken place, and though the world continues to move as it did, there does appear to be a change of weather.
“We had only 300 names. But that was quite enough, considering all things, especially the respectability of the people, and the imperfection of the agitation, to make the address well worth presenting. Having gone so far, to hold back altogether would have been to confess that the attempt was a mere failure, which nobody can say it was. To hold it back past the time specified in the circulars and originally designed, for the chance of obtaining more signatures, would have been useless: people would have only said that though we boasted of the shortness of the time in which the signatures were collected, yet in fact we waited as long as there was any chance of gathering any more. And in point of fact they had begun to come in very slowly by Monday morning. At best, it could not have been improved into an effectual canvass, and as it is, it shows very well. Let any one put the two lists side by side, and then say, if the weight of opinion in Cambridge inclines one way, which way is it? I was doubtful of the expediency of stirring it at first, but I am now very glad that it has been done. I wish theHeraldhad printed the names. But it was an unlucky day, there being a great debate in both Houses.
“Hare declined presenting; upon which H. Lushington, Venables, Micklethwaite, and myself (who had, in fact, been the chief actors), distributed ourselves into two cabs: and drove slap up to the Chancellor of Exchequer’s. Harry Lushington was the chief speaker, and did it very well and gracefully. Goulburn was, of course, gracious, but I should hardly have inferred that he was glad. However, he said he was; glad that this had been done, and glad that no more had been done; and (upon the whole) easy about the matter. The fever (he said) appeared to be gradually subsiding, and indeed the opposition was less formidable than might be supposed. ‘From what the gentleman said who presented the address on the other side, he gathered that it was for the most partaconscientiousopposition, not arising from any political animosity.’ CertainlyPunchcannot be said to beat Nature.”
Nothing, however, diverted him from his great object. FitzGerald writes to Frederick Tennyson:
Spedding, you know, does not change: he is now the same that he was fourteen years old when I first knew him at school, more than twenty years ago; wise, calm, bald, combining the best qualities of Youth and Age.
Spedding, you know, does not change: he is now the same that he was fourteen years old when I first knew him at school, more than twenty years ago; wise, calm, bald, combining the best qualities of Youth and Age.
But his calmness was not proof against the enthusiasm created by the advent of Jenny Lind in 1847. Again FitzGerald writes:
All the world has been, as I suppose you have read, crazy about Jenny Lind.... Spedding’s cool blood was moved to hire stalls several times at an advanced rate.... I have never yet heard the famous Jenny Lind, whom all the world raves about. Spedding is especially mad about her, I understand: and, after that, is it not best for weaker vessels to keep out of her way? Night after night is that bald head seen in one particular position in the Opera house, in a stall; the miserable man has forgot Bacon and philosophy, and goes after strange women.
All the world has been, as I suppose you have read, crazy about Jenny Lind.... Spedding’s cool blood was moved to hire stalls several times at an advanced rate.... I have never yet heard the famous Jenny Lind, whom all the world raves about. Spedding is especially mad about her, I understand: and, after that, is it not best for weaker vessels to keep out of her way? Night after night is that bald head seen in one particular position in the Opera house, in a stall; the miserable man has forgot Bacon and philosophy, and goes after strange women.
His health, however, had been giving some cause for anxiety at this time to his old friend, who writes to Carlyle:
Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding’s life is a very ticklish one.
Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding’s life is a very ticklish one.
Hitherto Spedding had been working in his own way at Bacon’s life and letters without any idea of contributing to a complete edition of his works, but rather with the object of defending him against what he believed to be the injustice done him by Macaulay in his famousEssay. But in 1847 Mr. Leslie Ellis had been preparing an edition of Bacon’s philosophical works which was offered for publication to Messrs. Longman, and Spedding acted as intermediary.
“Better, I think,” he writes to Thompson, “to be with the publishers than against them so long as one keeps the reins. Therefore I have written to Longman, reporting Ellis’s proposition, and recommending them to treat immediately with him upon those terms; for that if they get the philosophical works alone so edited, their edition will command the market, even if they do nothing but reprint the rest as they are. Whereas, if any other publisher should engage Ellis’s services for that portion, their trade edition would be worthless for ever. All which I believe to be true, and I hope will be conclusive. When that point is fixed there will be time enough to consider what else may be done. If they refuse the opportunity, I think I shall decline further connexion with the enterprise. My own project, as I never counted upon anything but expense from it, will not be much affected either way.”
“Better, I think,” he writes to Thompson, “to be with the publishers than against them so long as one keeps the reins. Therefore I have written to Longman, reporting Ellis’s proposition, and recommending them to treat immediately with him upon those terms; for that if they get the philosophical works alone so edited, their edition will command the market, even if they do nothing but reprint the rest as they are. Whereas, if any other publisher should engage Ellis’s services for that portion, their trade edition would be worthless for ever. All which I believe to be true, and I hope will be conclusive. When that point is fixed there will be time enough to consider what else may be done. If they refuse the opportunity, I think I shall decline further connexion with the enterprise. My own project, as I never counted upon anything but expense from it, will not be much affected either way.”
The result, as is well known, was a complete edition of Bacon’s works, in which Mr. Leslie Ellis undertook the philosophical, Mr. Douglas Heath the legal and professional, and Spedding the literary and miscellaneous, to which he afterwards added the life and letters. In the meantime he wrote, but never published, for his own satisfaction and that he might gather the opinions of his friends,Evenings with a Reviewer, the reviewer being Macaulay and the review his Essay on Bacon. In sending a copy to Dr. Whewell he says:
It may seem absurd in a man to print a book, and yet to wish not only to keep it private, but also to prevent it fromcirculatingprivately. But after considering the matter carefully, with reference to what I may call the interest of the subject—I mean to the chance of making a successful and durable impression upon the popular opinion—I am satisfied that it would not be judicious to present the question to the publicfirstin this form. It would probably provoke controversy. The result of the controversy would depend upon reviewers. Reviewers, until they have heard the evidence as well as the argument, are not in a condition to judge; yet unless the evidence be made easily accessible and bound up with the argument, they cannot be expected either to seek it out or to suspend theiropinions, but will simply proceed to judgmentwithouthearing it. In such a case, considering the strength of popular prepossessions and the tendency of the first blow at them to raise a dust of popular objections, the verdict would in the first instance go against me; and though I might appeal with a better chance to the second thoughts and the next generation, yet the appeal would be conducted at great disadvantage, because I should then stand in the position of an advocate with a personal interest in the cause. As it is, I hope in my division of Bacon’s works to set forthallthe evidence clearly and impartially, so that everybody who has the book will have the means of judging for himself, and if I can get that credit for justice and impartiality which I mean to deserve, I do not much doubt the issue. But the first reception of the work, upon which in these times so much depends, will itself depend very much upon my coming before the public with a clear and unsuspected character: and this, if I should previously acquire the reputation (justly or not) of an advocate engaged to make good his own cause, I could not expect.
It may seem absurd in a man to print a book, and yet to wish not only to keep it private, but also to prevent it fromcirculatingprivately. But after considering the matter carefully, with reference to what I may call the interest of the subject—I mean to the chance of making a successful and durable impression upon the popular opinion—I am satisfied that it would not be judicious to present the question to the publicfirstin this form. It would probably provoke controversy. The result of the controversy would depend upon reviewers. Reviewers, until they have heard the evidence as well as the argument, are not in a condition to judge; yet unless the evidence be made easily accessible and bound up with the argument, they cannot be expected either to seek it out or to suspend theiropinions, but will simply proceed to judgmentwithouthearing it. In such a case, considering the strength of popular prepossessions and the tendency of the first blow at them to raise a dust of popular objections, the verdict would in the first instance go against me; and though I might appeal with a better chance to the second thoughts and the next generation, yet the appeal would be conducted at great disadvantage, because I should then stand in the position of an advocate with a personal interest in the cause. As it is, I hope in my division of Bacon’s works to set forthallthe evidence clearly and impartially, so that everybody who has the book will have the means of judging for himself, and if I can get that credit for justice and impartiality which I mean to deserve, I do not much doubt the issue. But the first reception of the work, upon which in these times so much depends, will itself depend very much upon my coming before the public with a clear and unsuspected character: and this, if I should previously acquire the reputation (justly or not) of an advocate engaged to make good his own cause, I could not expect.
FitzGerald, writing to Donne at the end of 1848, says ofEvenings with a Reviewer:
I saw many of my friends in London, Carlyle and Tennyson among them; but most and best of all, Spedding. I have stolen his noble book away from him; noble, in spite (I believe, but am not sure) of someadikologyin the second volume: some special pleadings for his idol: amica Veritas, sed magis, etc.
I saw many of my friends in London, Carlyle and Tennyson among them; but most and best of all, Spedding. I have stolen his noble book away from him; noble, in spite (I believe, but am not sure) of someadikologyin the second volume: some special pleadings for his idol: amica Veritas, sed magis, etc.
And Donne in reply:
I, too, have Spedding’s “glorious book,” which I prefer to any modern reading. Reading one of his “Evenings” is next to spending an evening with the author.
I, too, have Spedding’s “glorious book,” which I prefer to any modern reading. Reading one of his “Evenings” is next to spending an evening with the author.
Thompson, whose health had completely broken down in 1849, was undergoing the water-cure at Great Malvern, and early in 1850 Spedding writes to him:
They tell me that a letter will find you at Great Malvern. Indeed, I had reason to think so before, for I had heard of you twice since you went thither; once from Spring Riceand once from Blakesley.... I have been stationary here since August, seeing nobody and hearing nothing, so you must not expect any news.... You want to know, perhaps, what I am about myself. I am at this moment sitting in an easy-chair with the ink on a table beside me, and the papers on a blotting-board on my knee. On the little table beside me is first a leaden jar, bought long since to keep tobacco in, now holding snipe-shot. Next to it a pocket Virgil lying on its belly. On my left a ledge made for a lamp, on which are three different translations of Bacon’sSapientia Veterum, and some loose pieces of paper destined in due time to be enriched with a fourth translation, of which I need say no more. Next to my little table stands a large round table, now quite uninhabitable by reason of the litter of books that has taken possession of it, as, for instance, another Virgil with English translation and notes, open, upon its back; a Dryden’s translation shut, and standing upright on its edge. A letter-clip holding a packet in brown-paper cover, inscribed “De sapientia veterum: translation.” A volume of Bacon standing shut on its edge. A Cruden’sConcordance; and near it, lying on its side and shut, Alford’s Greek Testament (an excellent book of immense industry, and very neat execution; good in all ways so far as I have looked, and so far as I can judge of what I see in such a matter; it seems as if one might find in it everything one can want to know about the four gospels, that an editor can tell one). Another volume of Bacon open, on its back; beneath it a folio Aristotle (!) also open, and beneath that again a huge old folio Demosthenes and Æschines (but this was brought down from the garret two days ago, and has not yet been put away). Many other things of the same kind; which, however, I cannot describe particularly without getting up, which I do not feel disposed to do. But I must not forget a striped box which belongs to my portmanteau, but serves here as a receptacle for loose papers, and stands on the table. Another table in the corner sustaining two vols. of Facciolati evidently out for use, reposing on a huge Hogarth which lies there because no bookcase is big enough to hold it, and itself reposes upon all the Naval Victories, flanked by a ball of string, an unopened packet of Bernard Barton’s remains, a Speed’sHistory of England, a ream of scribbling paper, and an Ainsworth. Under my chair lies my own dog Tip, who once went with you and me to the top ofUllock. Opposite stands a long narrow box containing bows, and hung about with quivers, belts, and other archery equipments. The chimney-piece is littered with disabled arrows. It is now half-past 3P.M., I have a slight headache, due (I really believe) to a sour orange. The lake was yesterday frozen over with ice as smooth and transparent as glass. I had no skates, and to-day it is going either to thaw or to snow. I intended to buy a pair of skates last midsummer, but forgot. I have a great mind to go and buy a pair now. I leave you to gather the condition of my mind from the condition of my room. I am in truth doing very little. These family establishments are not favourable for work. I do not know how it is; the day seems as long, and one seems to have it all to oneself, but there are nohoursin it. What becomes of half of them I cannot guess. Time leaks in a gentleman’s house.My father has had a bad cold this winter, which hung about him longer than usual, and made him both look and feel ill. But he has thrown it quite off and seems now to be as well [as] usual, which is very well. His sight grows worse as of course it must do; but as fast as it leaves him he learns to make less do, so that he does not appear to be much distressed by the gradual privation. His old bitch is dead, and his old mare retires upon a pension, a paddock, a horse-pond, and a house, all to herself, with a daily feed of corn. He is now very well mounted on a fast walking pony, borrowed from a neighbour, and has a boy to walk with him and two puppies. He looks after his farming affairs as usual, and does not at all believe that land can be ruined by plenty. In truth we hear little in these latitudes of the agricultural distress of which we see so much in the newspapers.I have not heard from Ellis since he left England, and I do not know exactly where he is. He talked of staying some time at Avignon. But I am so doubtful whether a letter would find him there that I do not care to write upon the chance. Our publishers seem to be quite easy in mind, and made no enquiries as to the rate of progress. If Ellis can be ready within two years, I shall have to stir myself in order to be ready with my contribution. But I expect a good year’s respite. I have finished theHenry VII., however, which is my principal labour; and I like very well what I have done.
They tell me that a letter will find you at Great Malvern. Indeed, I had reason to think so before, for I had heard of you twice since you went thither; once from Spring Riceand once from Blakesley.... I have been stationary here since August, seeing nobody and hearing nothing, so you must not expect any news.... You want to know, perhaps, what I am about myself. I am at this moment sitting in an easy-chair with the ink on a table beside me, and the papers on a blotting-board on my knee. On the little table beside me is first a leaden jar, bought long since to keep tobacco in, now holding snipe-shot. Next to it a pocket Virgil lying on its belly. On my left a ledge made for a lamp, on which are three different translations of Bacon’sSapientia Veterum, and some loose pieces of paper destined in due time to be enriched with a fourth translation, of which I need say no more. Next to my little table stands a large round table, now quite uninhabitable by reason of the litter of books that has taken possession of it, as, for instance, another Virgil with English translation and notes, open, upon its back; a Dryden’s translation shut, and standing upright on its edge. A letter-clip holding a packet in brown-paper cover, inscribed “De sapientia veterum: translation.” A volume of Bacon standing shut on its edge. A Cruden’sConcordance; and near it, lying on its side and shut, Alford’s Greek Testament (an excellent book of immense industry, and very neat execution; good in all ways so far as I have looked, and so far as I can judge of what I see in such a matter; it seems as if one might find in it everything one can want to know about the four gospels, that an editor can tell one). Another volume of Bacon open, on its back; beneath it a folio Aristotle (!) also open, and beneath that again a huge old folio Demosthenes and Æschines (but this was brought down from the garret two days ago, and has not yet been put away). Many other things of the same kind; which, however, I cannot describe particularly without getting up, which I do not feel disposed to do. But I must not forget a striped box which belongs to my portmanteau, but serves here as a receptacle for loose papers, and stands on the table. Another table in the corner sustaining two vols. of Facciolati evidently out for use, reposing on a huge Hogarth which lies there because no bookcase is big enough to hold it, and itself reposes upon all the Naval Victories, flanked by a ball of string, an unopened packet of Bernard Barton’s remains, a Speed’sHistory of England, a ream of scribbling paper, and an Ainsworth. Under my chair lies my own dog Tip, who once went with you and me to the top ofUllock. Opposite stands a long narrow box containing bows, and hung about with quivers, belts, and other archery equipments. The chimney-piece is littered with disabled arrows. It is now half-past 3P.M., I have a slight headache, due (I really believe) to a sour orange. The lake was yesterday frozen over with ice as smooth and transparent as glass. I had no skates, and to-day it is going either to thaw or to snow. I intended to buy a pair of skates last midsummer, but forgot. I have a great mind to go and buy a pair now. I leave you to gather the condition of my mind from the condition of my room. I am in truth doing very little. These family establishments are not favourable for work. I do not know how it is; the day seems as long, and one seems to have it all to oneself, but there are nohoursin it. What becomes of half of them I cannot guess. Time leaks in a gentleman’s house.
My father has had a bad cold this winter, which hung about him longer than usual, and made him both look and feel ill. But he has thrown it quite off and seems now to be as well [as] usual, which is very well. His sight grows worse as of course it must do; but as fast as it leaves him he learns to make less do, so that he does not appear to be much distressed by the gradual privation. His old bitch is dead, and his old mare retires upon a pension, a paddock, a horse-pond, and a house, all to herself, with a daily feed of corn. He is now very well mounted on a fast walking pony, borrowed from a neighbour, and has a boy to walk with him and two puppies. He looks after his farming affairs as usual, and does not at all believe that land can be ruined by plenty. In truth we hear little in these latitudes of the agricultural distress of which we see so much in the newspapers.
I have not heard from Ellis since he left England, and I do not know exactly where he is. He talked of staying some time at Avignon. But I am so doubtful whether a letter would find him there that I do not care to write upon the chance. Our publishers seem to be quite easy in mind, and made no enquiries as to the rate of progress. If Ellis can be ready within two years, I shall have to stir myself in order to be ready with my contribution. But I expect a good year’s respite. I have finished theHenry VII., however, which is my principal labour; and I like very well what I have done.
But all his plans were disarranged by Mr. Ellis’s illness. In the latter part of 1849, while travelling on the Riviera, Ellis had a severe attack of rheumatic fever, from which he never recovered, and which entirely disabled him for the work he had undertaken and in which he had made some progress. Spedding, therefore, had to take his place and edit as best he could Bacon’s Philosophical Works. He has explained very fully in the Preface to them the method he adopted, and the careful manner in which he kept Mr. Ellis’s work distinct. “Early in 1853,” he says, “I took the work in hand.” In the meanwhile he was to be found at his rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there FitzGerald visited him in April 1850.
“Spedding is my sheet-anchor,” he says, “the truly wise and fine fellow: I am going to his rooms this very evening, and there I believe Thackeray, Venables, etc. are to be. I hope not a large assembly, for I get shyer and shyer even of those I know.”“I was in London only for ten days this spring,” FitzGerald writes to Frederick Tennyson, “and those ten days not in the thick of the season.... The most pleasurable remembrance I had of my stay in town was the last day I spent there; having a long ramble in the streets with Spedding, looking at books and pictures; then a walk with him and Carlyle across the Park to Chelsea, where we dropped that Latter-Day Prophet at his house; then, getting upon a steamer, smoked down to Westminster; dined at a chop-house by the Bridge, and then went to Astley’s; old Spedding being quite as wise about the horsemanship as about Bacon and Shakespeare. We parted at midnight in Covent Garden, and this whole pleasant day has left a taste on my palate like one of Plato’s lighter, easier, and more picturesque dialogues.”
“Spedding is my sheet-anchor,” he says, “the truly wise and fine fellow: I am going to his rooms this very evening, and there I believe Thackeray, Venables, etc. are to be. I hope not a large assembly, for I get shyer and shyer even of those I know.”
“I was in London only for ten days this spring,” FitzGerald writes to Frederick Tennyson, “and those ten days not in the thick of the season.... The most pleasurable remembrance I had of my stay in town was the last day I spent there; having a long ramble in the streets with Spedding, looking at books and pictures; then a walk with him and Carlyle across the Park to Chelsea, where we dropped that Latter-Day Prophet at his house; then, getting upon a steamer, smoked down to Westminster; dined at a chop-house by the Bridge, and then went to Astley’s; old Spedding being quite as wise about the horsemanship as about Bacon and Shakespeare. We parted at midnight in Covent Garden, and this whole pleasant day has left a taste on my palate like one of Plato’s lighter, easier, and more picturesque dialogues.”
In August he went into Suffolk to stay with FitzGerald and the Cowells at their home in Bramford, near Ipswich. FitzGerald again writes to Frederick Tennyson:
I have not seen any one you know since I last wrote; nor heard from any one: except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two days with us, me and that Scholar and his Wife in their Village, in their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the River side. Old Spedding was delicious there; always leaving a mark, I say, in all places one has been at with him, a sort of Platonic perfume. For has he not all the beauty of the Platonic Socrates, with some personal beauty to boot? He explained to us one day about the laws of reflection in water; and I said then one never could look at the willow whose branches furnished the text without thinking of him. How beastly this reads! As if he gave us a lecture! But you know the man, how quietly it all came out; only because I petulantly denied his plain assertion. For I really often cross him only to draw him out; and vain as I may be, he is one of those that I am well content to make shine at my own expense.
I have not seen any one you know since I last wrote; nor heard from any one: except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two days with us, me and that Scholar and his Wife in their Village, in their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the River side. Old Spedding was delicious there; always leaving a mark, I say, in all places one has been at with him, a sort of Platonic perfume. For has he not all the beauty of the Platonic Socrates, with some personal beauty to boot? He explained to us one day about the laws of reflection in water; and I said then one never could look at the willow whose branches furnished the text without thinking of him. How beastly this reads! As if he gave us a lecture! But you know the man, how quietly it all came out; only because I petulantly denied his plain assertion. For I really often cross him only to draw him out; and vain as I may be, he is one of those that I am well content to make shine at my own expense.
In August 1851 he writes again to Frederick Tennyson:
Almost the only man I hear from is dear old Spedding, who has lost his Father, and is now, I suppose, a rich man. This makes no apparent change in his way of life; he has only hired an additional Attic in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, so as to be able to bed a friend upon occasion. I may have to fill it ere long.
Almost the only man I hear from is dear old Spedding, who has lost his Father, and is now, I suppose, a rich man. This makes no apparent change in his way of life; he has only hired an additional Attic in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, so as to be able to bed a friend upon occasion. I may have to fill it ere long.
And a few months later:
Spedding is immutably wise, good, and delightful; not as immutably well in Body, I think, though he does not complain.
Spedding is immutably wise, good, and delightful; not as immutably well in Body, I think, though he does not complain.
The great work went slowly on, but nothing as yet was published. Spedding had just taken over Ellis’s portion and was devoting himself to this. We get a glimpse of him again in FitzGerald’s letters:
I saw old Spedding in London; only doubly calm after the death of a Niece he dearly loved, and whose death-bed at Hastings he had just been waiting upon.
I saw old Spedding in London; only doubly calm after the death of a Niece he dearly loved, and whose death-bed at Hastings he had just been waiting upon.
It was 1857 before the first three volumes appeared, followed by three others in 1858, and by the final volume in 1859. Ellis did not live to see the completion of the work, for he died in May of that year.
FitzGerald, writing in 1857 to Cowell, who was now in Calcutta, from Portland Terrace, where he lived during his early married life, says:
Spedding has been once here in near three months. HisBaconkeeps coming out: his part, the Letters, etc., of Bacon, is not come yet; so it remains to be seen what he will do then, but I can’t help thinking he has let the Pot boil too long.
Spedding has been once here in near three months. HisBaconkeeps coming out: his part, the Letters, etc., of Bacon, is not come yet; so it remains to be seen what he will do then, but I can’t help thinking he has let the Pot boil too long.
It was 1861, however, before the first volume of theLife and Lettersappeared, and Spedding found that he had already been forestalled by Hepworth Dixon inThe Story of Lord Bacon’s Life. In a note to the earliest letter printed, probably the earliest specimen remaining of Bacon’s handwriting, he says, with quiet contempt:
The copies of some of these letters lately published by Mr. Hepworth Dixon ... differ, I observe, very much from mine; most of them in the words and sense, more or less, and some in the name of the person writing, or the person written to, or both. But as mine are more intelligible, and were made with care and at leisure, and when my eyes were better than they are now, I do not suspect any material error in them, and have not thought it worth while to apply for leave to compare them again with the originals.“I am very glad,” FitzGerald writes to Thompson, “to hear old Spedding is really gettinghisshare of Bacon into Print: I doubt if it will be half as good as the “Evenings,” where Spedding was in thePassionwhich is wanted to fill his Sail for any longer Voyage.”
The copies of some of these letters lately published by Mr. Hepworth Dixon ... differ, I observe, very much from mine; most of them in the words and sense, more or less, and some in the name of the person writing, or the person written to, or both. But as mine are more intelligible, and were made with care and at leisure, and when my eyes were better than they are now, I do not suspect any material error in them, and have not thought it worth while to apply for leave to compare them again with the originals.
“I am very glad,” FitzGerald writes to Thompson, “to hear old Spedding is really gettinghisshare of Bacon into Print: I doubt if it will be half as good as the “Evenings,” where Spedding was in thePassionwhich is wanted to fill his Sail for any longer Voyage.”
Some three years later, he says:
Spedding’sBaconseems to hang fire; they say he is disheartened at the little Interest, and less Conviction, thathis two first volumes carried; Thompson told me they had convincedhimthe other way; and thatEllishad long given up Bacon’s Defence before he died.
Spedding’sBaconseems to hang fire; they say he is disheartened at the little Interest, and less Conviction, thathis two first volumes carried; Thompson told me they had convincedhimthe other way; and thatEllishad long given up Bacon’s Defence before he died.
And so it continued to the end. When the sixth volume appeared in 1872 FitzGerald wrote:
And here is Spedding’s vol. vi. which leaves me much where it found me about Bacon: but though I scarce care for him, I can read old Spedding’s pleading for him for ever; that is old Spedding’s simple statement of the case, as he sees it. The Ralegh business is quite delightful, better than Old Kensington.
And here is Spedding’s vol. vi. which leaves me much where it found me about Bacon: but though I scarce care for him, I can read old Spedding’s pleading for him for ever; that is old Spedding’s simple statement of the case, as he sees it. The Ralegh business is quite delightful, better than Old Kensington.
Carlyle alone of all the critics was unstinted, though rather patronizing, in his praise. Writing to FitzGerald, he says:
Like yourself I have gone throughSpedding, seven long long volumes, not skipping except when I had got the sense with me, and generally reading all of Bacon’s own that was there: I confess to you I found it a most creditable and even surprising Book, offering the most perfect and complete image both of Bacon and of Spedding, and distinguished as the hugest and faithfullest bit of literary navvy-work I have ever met with in this generation. Bacon is washed down to the natural skin; and truly he is not, nor ever was, unlovely to me; a man of no culpability to speak of; of an opulent and even magnificent intellect, but all in the magnificent prose vein. Nothing or almost nothing of the “melodies eternal” to be traced in him. There is a grim strength in Spedding, quietly, very quietly invincible, which I did not quite know of till this Book; and in all ways I could congratulate this indefatigably patient, placidly invincible and victorious Spedding.
Like yourself I have gone throughSpedding, seven long long volumes, not skipping except when I had got the sense with me, and generally reading all of Bacon’s own that was there: I confess to you I found it a most creditable and even surprising Book, offering the most perfect and complete image both of Bacon and of Spedding, and distinguished as the hugest and faithfullest bit of literary navvy-work I have ever met with in this generation. Bacon is washed down to the natural skin; and truly he is not, nor ever was, unlovely to me; a man of no culpability to speak of; of an opulent and even magnificent intellect, but all in the magnificent prose vein. Nothing or almost nothing of the “melodies eternal” to be traced in him. There is a grim strength in Spedding, quietly, very quietly invincible, which I did not quite know of till this Book; and in all ways I could congratulate this indefatigably patient, placidly invincible and victorious Spedding.
But for the last eight years he had given up his rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and gone to live with his nieces at 80 Westbourne Terrace, where he remained till his death. Thompson, in succession to Dr. Whewell, had been appointed Master of Trinity, and in writing to congratulate him Spedding says:
I was not unprepared for your news, having just returned from Kitlands, where the Pollocks were, and the rumour was under discussion and generally thought to be well-founded, and the thing if true very much rejoiced over. I have great pleasure in adding my own congratulations, as well to yourself as to Trinity. It was all that was wanted to make one of the last acts of Lord Russell a complete success. I should be very glad to think that I had as much to do with it as you suppose: but I was only one of many, and not by any means the most influential, and as the thing is done, no matter how it was brought about.I am myself preparing for a shift of position, though the adventure is of a milder kind. My nephew (J. J. S.) is going to be married within a month or so: and it has been settled that he is to live at Greta Bank, and that the rest of the party now living there are to take a house in London: where I am invited to join them, with due securities for liberties and privileges. Though the exertion incident to dislodgment from quarters overgrown with so many superfetations of confusion and disorder, is formidable to contemplate, the proposed arrangement is so obviously convenient and desirable, that I am going to encounter it. And though the place is not yet settled, it seems probable that before the end of the year I shall be transferred or transferring myself and my goods to the western part of London, and preparing to remodel my manners and customs (in some respects) according to the usages of civilized society. Though I shall live among women, they will be women of my own house, and therefore not worshippers, which is a great advantage, and though there may be some danger for an obedient uncle in being where he can always be caught, I hope to be able to preserve as much independence as is good for a man.I have four proof sheets to settle, and have just been interrupted by an engraver with a proof [of] the D. of Buccleugh’s miniature of Bacon, which will be the best portrait that has yet been done of him in black and white.
I was not unprepared for your news, having just returned from Kitlands, where the Pollocks were, and the rumour was under discussion and generally thought to be well-founded, and the thing if true very much rejoiced over. I have great pleasure in adding my own congratulations, as well to yourself as to Trinity. It was all that was wanted to make one of the last acts of Lord Russell a complete success. I should be very glad to think that I had as much to do with it as you suppose: but I was only one of many, and not by any means the most influential, and as the thing is done, no matter how it was brought about.
I am myself preparing for a shift of position, though the adventure is of a milder kind. My nephew (J. J. S.) is going to be married within a month or so: and it has been settled that he is to live at Greta Bank, and that the rest of the party now living there are to take a house in London: where I am invited to join them, with due securities for liberties and privileges. Though the exertion incident to dislodgment from quarters overgrown with so many superfetations of confusion and disorder, is formidable to contemplate, the proposed arrangement is so obviously convenient and desirable, that I am going to encounter it. And though the place is not yet settled, it seems probable that before the end of the year I shall be transferred or transferring myself and my goods to the western part of London, and preparing to remodel my manners and customs (in some respects) according to the usages of civilized society. Though I shall live among women, they will be women of my own house, and therefore not worshippers, which is a great advantage, and though there may be some danger for an obedient uncle in being where he can always be caught, I hope to be able to preserve as much independence as is good for a man.
I have four proof sheets to settle, and have just been interrupted by an engraver with a proof [of] the D. of Buccleugh’s miniature of Bacon, which will be the best portrait that has yet been done of him in black and white.
This was the miniature which was reproduced at the beginning of the third volume of theLife and Letters, and which Spedding regarded as the original of Van Somer’s portrait.
The following letter to Tennyson, written in 1870, isnecessary to the full understanding of Tennyson’s reply (seeMemoir by his Son)[107]:
My dear Alfred—I do not know where you are, and I want to know for three reasons: 1st, that I may thank you for your book; 2nd, that I may send you mine; 3rd, that I may let you know, if you do not know it already, that there has been a box here these many weeks, which is meant for you and comes from FitzGerald.A copy of your new volume[108]came early from the publisher, yet not so early but that it found me already half way through. I was happy to observe that neither years nor domestic happiness have had any demoralizing effect upon you as yet. Your touch is as delicate and vigorous and your invention as rich as ever: and I am still in hope that your greatest poem of all has not yet been written. Some years ago, when you were in want of a subject, I recommended Job. The argument of Job, to be treated as you treat the legends of Arthur, as freely and with as much light of modern thought as you find fit. As we know it now, it is only half intelligible, and must be full of blunders and passages misunderstood. Probably also the peculiar character of the oriental style would at any rate stand in the way and prevent it from producing its proper effect upon the modern and western mind. Yet we can see through all the confusion what a great argument it is, andI think it was never more wanted than now. If you would take it in hand, and tell it in verse in your own way, without any scruples about improving on Scripture, I believe it would be the greatest poem in the language. The controversy is as much alive to-day in London as it could ever have been in the place where and the time when it was composed, of which, as the author, I am altogether ignorant. And the voice out of the whirlwind may speak without fear of anachronisms.My own book,[109]though there is only one volume this time, is much bigger than yours. It is wrapped up ready to go by the book-post, and only wants to know to which of your many mansions it is to be directed.Fitz’s box, which is about as large as a tailor’s box for a single suit, contains a drawing of Thackeray’s, an illustration of the “Lord of Burghley,” a pretty sketch of the landskip-painter and the village maiden. He sent it here under the vain delusion that whenever you happened to come to London I should be sure to know. And I presume he sent word to you of what he had done, for he did not ask me to communicate the fact. I was only to write tohimin case the box didnotarrive, and as the box did arrive I did not write. If you will let me know what you wish to be done with it, I will do with it accordingly.There is a line in your last volume which I can’t read: the last line but one of the “flower in the crannied wall.”
My dear Alfred—I do not know where you are, and I want to know for three reasons: 1st, that I may thank you for your book; 2nd, that I may send you mine; 3rd, that I may let you know, if you do not know it already, that there has been a box here these many weeks, which is meant for you and comes from FitzGerald.
A copy of your new volume[108]came early from the publisher, yet not so early but that it found me already half way through. I was happy to observe that neither years nor domestic happiness have had any demoralizing effect upon you as yet. Your touch is as delicate and vigorous and your invention as rich as ever: and I am still in hope that your greatest poem of all has not yet been written. Some years ago, when you were in want of a subject, I recommended Job. The argument of Job, to be treated as you treat the legends of Arthur, as freely and with as much light of modern thought as you find fit. As we know it now, it is only half intelligible, and must be full of blunders and passages misunderstood. Probably also the peculiar character of the oriental style would at any rate stand in the way and prevent it from producing its proper effect upon the modern and western mind. Yet we can see through all the confusion what a great argument it is, andI think it was never more wanted than now. If you would take it in hand, and tell it in verse in your own way, without any scruples about improving on Scripture, I believe it would be the greatest poem in the language. The controversy is as much alive to-day in London as it could ever have been in the place where and the time when it was composed, of which, as the author, I am altogether ignorant. And the voice out of the whirlwind may speak without fear of anachronisms.
My own book,[109]though there is only one volume this time, is much bigger than yours. It is wrapped up ready to go by the book-post, and only wants to know to which of your many mansions it is to be directed.
Fitz’s box, which is about as large as a tailor’s box for a single suit, contains a drawing of Thackeray’s, an illustration of the “Lord of Burghley,” a pretty sketch of the landskip-painter and the village maiden. He sent it here under the vain delusion that whenever you happened to come to London I should be sure to know. And I presume he sent word to you of what he had done, for he did not ask me to communicate the fact. I was only to write tohimin case the box didnotarrive, and as the box did arrive I did not write. If you will let me know what you wish to be done with it, I will do with it accordingly.
There is a line in your last volume which I can’t read: the last line but one of the “flower in the crannied wall.”
In the course of the same year he edited theConference of Pleasure, written by Bacon for some masque or festive occasion, and printed from a MS. belonging to the Duke of Northumberland which had been slightly injured by fire. FitzGerald, in a letter to me, says of it:
Spedding’s Introduction to his grilled Bacon, I call it really a beautiful littleIdyll, the mechanical Job done so perfectly and so elegantly.
Spedding’s Introduction to his grilled Bacon, I call it really a beautiful littleIdyll, the mechanical Job done so perfectly and so elegantly.
But while he was engaged in the great labour of his life he found time to write beautiful pieces of criticism on Shakespeare to which FitzGerald would willinglyhave had him devote his whole attention. “I never heard him read a page,” he writes to Sir Frederick Pollock, “but he threw some new light upon it.” In theGentleman’s Magazinefor August 1850 he contributed a paper on “Who wrote Shakespeare’sHenry VIII.?” which he discussed with characteristic thoroughness. His conclusion was that it was the work of two authors, one of whom was Fletcher, and this was confirmed by the investigations of another enquirer, who independently arrived at substantially the same result. The division of the Acts inMuch Ado,Twelfth Night,Richard II., andKing Learformed the subject of other discussions, and these he considered his most valuable contribution to the restoration of Shakespeare. A criticism of Miss Kate Terry’s acting in Viola gave him the opportunity of pointing out the corruptions by which the fine comedy,Twelfth Night, has been degraded into farce.
“Spedding says,” FitzGerald writes in 1875 to Fanny Kemble, “that Irving’s Hamlet is simply—hideous—a strong expression for Spedding to use. But—(lest I should think his condemnation was only the Old Man’s fault of depreciating all that is new) he extols Miss Ellen Terry’s Portia as simplya perfect Performance: remembering (he says) all the while how fine was Fanny Kemble’s.”
“Spedding says,” FitzGerald writes in 1875 to Fanny Kemble, “that Irving’s Hamlet is simply—hideous—a strong expression for Spedding to use. But—(lest I should think his condemnation was only the Old Man’s fault of depreciating all that is new) he extols Miss Ellen Terry’s Portia as simplya perfect Performance: remembering (he says) all the while how fine was Fanny Kemble’s.”
Again to the same correspondent early in 1880 he says:
By far the chief incident in my life for the last month has been the reading of dear old Spedding’s Paper on theMerchant of Venice, there, at any rate, is one Question settled, and in such a beautiful way as only he commands. I could not help writing a few lines to tell him what I thought, but even very sincere praise is not the way to conciliate him. About Christmas I wrote him, relying on it that I should be most likely to secure an answer if I expressed dissent from some other work of his, and my expectation was justified by one of the fullest answers he had written to me for many a day and year.
By far the chief incident in my life for the last month has been the reading of dear old Spedding’s Paper on theMerchant of Venice, there, at any rate, is one Question settled, and in such a beautiful way as only he commands. I could not help writing a few lines to tell him what I thought, but even very sincere praise is not the way to conciliate him. About Christmas I wrote him, relying on it that I should be most likely to secure an answer if I expressed dissent from some other work of his, and my expectation was justified by one of the fullest answers he had written to me for many a day and year.
The paper referred to was “The Story of theMerchant of Venice” in theCornhill Magazinefor March 1880. In sending a copy to Frederick Tennyson he says:
I now post you a paper by old Spedding—a very beautiful one, I think;settlingone point, however unimportant, and in a graceful, as well as logical, way such as he is Master of.A case has been got up—whether by Irving, the Stage Representative of Shylock, or by his Admirers—to prove the Jew to be a very amiable and ill-used man: insomuch that one is to come away from the theatre loving him and hating all the rest. He dresses himself up to look like the Saviour, Mrs. Kemble says. So old Jem disposes ofthat, besides unravelling Shakespeare’s mechanism of the Novel he draws from, in a manner (as Jem says) more distinct to us than in his treatment of any other of his Plays “not professedly historical.” And this latter point is, of course, far more interesting than the question of Irving and Co.,—which is a simple attempt, both of Actor and Writer, to strike out an original idea in the teeth of common-sense and Tradition.
I now post you a paper by old Spedding—a very beautiful one, I think;settlingone point, however unimportant, and in a graceful, as well as logical, way such as he is Master of.
A case has been got up—whether by Irving, the Stage Representative of Shylock, or by his Admirers—to prove the Jew to be a very amiable and ill-used man: insomuch that one is to come away from the theatre loving him and hating all the rest. He dresses himself up to look like the Saviour, Mrs. Kemble says. So old Jem disposes ofthat, besides unravelling Shakespeare’s mechanism of the Novel he draws from, in a manner (as Jem says) more distinct to us than in his treatment of any other of his Plays “not professedly historical.” And this latter point is, of course, far more interesting than the question of Irving and Co.,—which is a simple attempt, both of Actor and Writer, to strike out an original idea in the teeth of common-sense and Tradition.
And now came the end, unexpected and the result of an accident, which he maintained was entirely his own fault. In writing to tell me of the fatal result, one of his dearest friends said:
I grieve to tell you that all is over with our dear old friend.... He intended to cross before two carriages—crossed before one—found there was not time to pass before the other, and instead of pausing stepped back under the hansom which he had not seen, and which had not time to alter its course. He spent more strength in exculpating the poor driver than on any personal matter during his illness as soon as he regained memory of the circumstances.“Mowbray Donne,” says FitzGerald, when all was over, “wrote me that Laurence had been there four or five days ago, when Spedding said, that had the Cab done but a little more, it would have been a good Quietus. Socrates to the last.”
I grieve to tell you that all is over with our dear old friend.... He intended to cross before two carriages—crossed before one—found there was not time to pass before the other, and instead of pausing stepped back under the hansom which he had not seen, and which had not time to alter its course. He spent more strength in exculpating the poor driver than on any personal matter during his illness as soon as he regained memory of the circumstances.
“Mowbray Donne,” says FitzGerald, when all was over, “wrote me that Laurence had been there four or five days ago, when Spedding said, that had the Cab done but a little more, it would have been a good Quietus. Socrates to the last.”
And in another letter:
Tennyson called at the Hospital, but was not allowed to see him, though Hallam did, I think. Some one calling afterwards, Spedding took the doctor’s arm, and asked, “Was it Mr. Tennyson?” Doctors and nurses all devoted to the patient man.
Tennyson called at the Hospital, but was not allowed to see him, though Hallam did, I think. Some one calling afterwards, Spedding took the doctor’s arm, and asked, “Was it Mr. Tennyson?” Doctors and nurses all devoted to the patient man.
To Fanny Kemble he writes:
It was very, very good and kind of you to write to me about Spedding. Yes: Aldis Wright had apprised me of the matter just after it happened—he happening to be in London at the time; and but two days after the accident heard that Spedding was quite calm, and even cheerful; only anxious that Wright himself should not be kept waiting for some communication which S. had promised him! Whether to live, or to die, he will be Socrates still.Directly that I heard from Wright I wrote to Mowbray Donne to send me just a Post Card—daily, if he or his wife could, with but one or two words on it—“Better,” “Less well,” or whatever it might be. This morning I hear that all is going on even better than could be expected, according to Miss Spedding. But I suppose the Crisis, which you tell me of, is not yet come; and I have always a terror of that French Adage—“Monsieur se porte mal—Monsieur se porte mieux—Monsieur est—” Ah, you know, or you guess, the rest.My dear old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years and more—and probably should never see him again—but he lives—his old Self—in my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but embellish the recollection of him—if it could be embellished—for he is but the same that he was from a Boy—all that is best in Heart and Head—a man that would be incredible had one not known him.
It was very, very good and kind of you to write to me about Spedding. Yes: Aldis Wright had apprised me of the matter just after it happened—he happening to be in London at the time; and but two days after the accident heard that Spedding was quite calm, and even cheerful; only anxious that Wright himself should not be kept waiting for some communication which S. had promised him! Whether to live, or to die, he will be Socrates still.
Directly that I heard from Wright I wrote to Mowbray Donne to send me just a Post Card—daily, if he or his wife could, with but one or two words on it—“Better,” “Less well,” or whatever it might be. This morning I hear that all is going on even better than could be expected, according to Miss Spedding. But I suppose the Crisis, which you tell me of, is not yet come; and I have always a terror of that French Adage—“Monsieur se porte mal—Monsieur se porte mieux—Monsieur est—” Ah, you know, or you guess, the rest.
My dear old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years and more—and probably should never see him again—but he lives—his old Self—in my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but embellish the recollection of him—if it could be embellished—for he is but the same that he was from a Boy—all that is best in Heart and Head—a man that would be incredible had one not known him.
Again he writes of him to Professor Norton:
He was the wisest man I have known; a great sense of Humour, a Socrates in Life and in Death, which he faced with all Serenity so long as Consciousness lasted. I suppose something of him will reach America, I mean, of his Death; run over by a Cab and dying in St. George’s Hospital to which he was taken, and from which he could not be removed home alive.“I did not know,” he says in another letter, “that I should feel Spedding’s Loss as I do, after an interval of more than twenty years [since] meeting him. But I knew that I could always get the Word I wanted of him by Letter, and also thatfrom time to time I should meet with some of his wise and delightful Papers in some Quarter or other. He talked of Shakespeare, I am told, when his Mind wandered. I wake almost every morning feeling as if I had lost something, as one does in a Dream; and truly enough, I have losthim. ‘Matthew is in his Grave, etc.’”
He was the wisest man I have known; a great sense of Humour, a Socrates in Life and in Death, which he faced with all Serenity so long as Consciousness lasted. I suppose something of him will reach America, I mean, of his Death; run over by a Cab and dying in St. George’s Hospital to which he was taken, and from which he could not be removed home alive.
“I did not know,” he says in another letter, “that I should feel Spedding’s Loss as I do, after an interval of more than twenty years [since] meeting him. But I knew that I could always get the Word I wanted of him by Letter, and also thatfrom time to time I should meet with some of his wise and delightful Papers in some Quarter or other. He talked of Shakespeare, I am told, when his Mind wandered. I wake almost every morning feeling as if I had lost something, as one does in a Dream; and truly enough, I have losthim. ‘Matthew is in his Grave, etc.’”
In apologizing to Fanny Kemble for not writing to her as usual, he says:
I have let the Full Moon pass because you had written to me so lately, and so kindly, about our lost Spedding, that I could not call on you too soon again. Of him I will say nothing except that his Death has made me recall very many passages in his Life in which I was partly concerned. In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with Tennyson in the May of 1835.... His Father and Mother were both alive—he a wise man, who mounted his Cob after Breakfast, and was at his Farm till Dinner at two—then away again till Tea: after which he sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but always courteous and quite content with any company his Son might bring to the house, so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would have gone whether they let him or no. But he had seen enough of Poets not to like them or their Trade: Shelley for a time living among the Lakes: Coleridge at Southey’s (whom perhaps he had a respect for—Southey, I mean); and Wordsworth, whom I do not think he valued. He was rather jealous of “Jem,” who might have done available service in the world, he thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson conning over the “Morte d’Arthur,” “Lord of Burleigh,” and other things which helped to make up the two Volumes of 1842. So I always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy, if you know of such a Person inNickleby.
I have let the Full Moon pass because you had written to me so lately, and so kindly, about our lost Spedding, that I could not call on you too soon again. Of him I will say nothing except that his Death has made me recall very many passages in his Life in which I was partly concerned. In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with Tennyson in the May of 1835.... His Father and Mother were both alive—he a wise man, who mounted his Cob after Breakfast, and was at his Farm till Dinner at two—then away again till Tea: after which he sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but always courteous and quite content with any company his Son might bring to the house, so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would have gone whether they let him or no. But he had seen enough of Poets not to like them or their Trade: Shelley for a time living among the Lakes: Coleridge at Southey’s (whom perhaps he had a respect for—Southey, I mean); and Wordsworth, whom I do not think he valued. He was rather jealous of “Jem,” who might have done available service in the world, he thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson conning over the “Morte d’Arthur,” “Lord of Burleigh,” and other things which helped to make up the two Volumes of 1842. So I always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy, if you know of such a Person inNickleby.
We will conclude with what his old friend, Sir Henry Taylor, wrote of him after his death: