Not many years since, not far from Ipswich, some practical agriculturists met—as, for all I know, they may meet now—at a Farmers’ Club to discuss such questions as bear practically upon their business and interests. One evening the subject for discussion was, “How to cure hot yards,”i.e., yards where the manure has become so heated as to be hurtful to the cattle’s feet. Many remedies were suggested, some no doubt well worth trying, others dealing too much maybe in small-talk of acids and alkalis. None of the party was satisfied that a cure had been found which stood the test of general experience. Then they asked an elderly farmer, who had preserved a profound silence through all the discussion, what he would recommend. His answer was very true and to the point. “Gentlemen,” he said, “yeou shu’nt have let it got so.”
Hippicus.
A Suffolk Clergyman’s Reminiscence.[52a]
Our young parson said to me t’other däa, “John,” sez he, “din’t yeou nivver hev a darter?” “Sar,” sez I, “I had one once, but she ha’ been dead close on thatty years.” And then I towd him about my poor mor.[52b]
“I lost my fust wife thatty-three years ago. She left me with six bors and Susan. She was the owdest of them all, tarned sixteen when her mother died. She was a fine jolly gal, with lots of sperit. I coon’t be alluz at home, and tho’ I’d nivver a wadd[52c]to säa aginst Susan, yet I thowt I wanted some one to look arter her and the bors. Gals want a mother more than bors. So arter a year I married my second wife, and a rale good wife she ha’ bin to me. But Susan coon’t git on with her. She’d dew[52d]what she was towd, but ’twarn’t done pleasant, andwhen she spŏok she spŏoksoshort. My wife was werry patient with her; but dew all she could, she nivver could git on with Susan.
“I’d a married sister in London, whue cum down to see us at Whissuntide. She see how things fared, and she säa to me, ‘John,’ sez she, ‘dew yeou let Susan go back with me, and I’ll git her a good place and see arter her.’ So ’twas sattled. Susan was all for goin’, and when she went she kiss’t me and all the bors, but she nivver sed nawthin’ to my wife, ’cept just ‘Good-bye.’ She fared to git a nice quite[53]place; but then my sister left London, and Susan’s missus died, and so she had to git a place where she could. So she got a place where they took in lodgers, and Susan and her missus did all the cookin’ and waitin’ between ’em. Susan sed arterwards that ’twarn’t what she had to dew, but the runnin’ up-stairs; that’s what killt her. There was one owd gentleman, who lived at the top of the house. He’d ring his bell, and if she din’t go di-reckly, he’d ring and ring agen, fit to bring the house down. One daa he rung three times, but Susan was set fast, and coon’t go; and when she did, he spŏok so sharp, that it whŏlly upset her, and she dropt down o’ the floor all in a faint. He hollered out at the top o’ the stairs; and sum o’ the fŏoks cum runnin’ up to see what was thematter. Arter a bit she cum round, and they got her to bed; but she was so bad that they had to send for the doctor. The owd gentleman was so wexed, he sed he’d päa for the doctor as long as he could; but when the doctor sed she was breedin’ a faver, nawthing would satisfy her missus but to send her to the horspital, while she could go.
“So she went into the horspital, and läa five weeks and din’t know nobody. Last she begun to mend, and she sed that the fŏoks there were werry kind. She had a bed to herself in a big room with nigh twenty others. Ivry däa the doctor cum round, and spŏok to ’em all in tarn. He was an owdish gentleman, and sum young uns cum round with him. One mornin’ he säa to Susan, ‘Well, my dear,’ sez he, ‘how do yeou feel to-day?’ She säa, ‘Kind o’ middlin’, sir.’ She towd me that one o’ the young gentlemen sort o’ laffed when he h’ard her, and stopped behind and saa to her, ‘Do yeou cum out o’ Suffolk?’ She säa, ‘Yes; what, do yeou know me?’ She wassopleased! He axed her where she cum from, and when she towd him, he säa, ‘I know the clargyman of the parish.’ He’d a rose in his button-hole, and he took it out and gov it her, and he säa, ‘Yeou’ll like to hev it, for that cum up from Suffolk this mornin’.’ Poor mor, she wassopleased! Well, arter a bit she got better, and the doctor säa, ‘Mydear, yeou must go and git nussed at home. That’ll dew more for yeou than all the doctors’ stuff here.’
“She han’t no money left to päa for her jarney. But the young gentleman made a gatherin’ for her, and when the nuss went with her to the station, he holp her into the cab, and gov her the money. Whue he was she din’t know, and I don’t now, but I alluz säa, ‘God bless him for it.’
“One mornin’ the owd parson—he was yar father—sent for me, and he säa, ‘John,’ sez he, ‘I ha’ had a letter to say that Susan ha’ been in the horspital, but she is better now, and is cummin’ home to-morrow. So yeou must meet her at Halser,[55]and yeou may hiv my cart.’ Susan coon’t write, so we’d nivver h’ard, sin’ her aunt went away. Yeou may s’pose how I felt! Well, I went and met her. O lawk, a lawk! how bad she did look! I got her home about five, and my wife had got a good fire, and ivrything nice for her, but, poor mor! she was whŏlly beat. She coon’t eat nawthin’. Arter a bit, she tuk off her bonnet, and then I see she han’t no hair, ’cept a werry little. That whŏlly beat me, she used to hev such nice hair. Well, we got her to bed, and for a whole week she coon’t howd up at all. Then she fare to git better, and cum down-stairs, and sot by the fire, and begun to pick a little.And so she went on, when the summer cum, sometimes better and sometimes wuss. But she spook werry little, and din’t seem to git on no better with my wife. Yar father used to cum and see her and read to her. He was werry fond of her, for he had knowed her ivver sin’ she was born. But she got waker and waker, and at last she coon’t howd up no longer, but took whŏlly to her bed. How my wife did wait upon her! She’d try and ’tice her to ate suffen,[56a]when yar father sent her a bit o’ pudden. I once säa to him, ‘What do yeou think o’ the poor mor?’ ‘John,’ sez he, ‘she’s werry bad.’ ‘But,’ sez I, ‘dew she know it?’ ‘Yes,’ sez he, ‘she dew; but she een’t one to säa much.’ But I alluz noticed, she seem werry glad to see yar father.
“One day I’d cum home arly; I’d made one jarney.[56b]So I went up to see Susan. There I see my wife läad outside the bed close to Susan; Susan was kind o’ strokin’ her face, and I h’ard her säa, ‘Kiss me, mother dear; yeou’re a good mother to me.’ They din’t see me, so I crep’ down-stairs, but it made me werry comforble.
“Susan’s bed läa close to the wall, so that she could alluz make us know at night if she wanted anything byjest knockin’. One night we h’ard her sing a hymn. She used to sing at charch when she was a little gal, but I nivver h’ard her sing so sweetsome as she did then. Arter she’d finished, she knockt sharp, and we went di-reckly. There she läa—I can see her now—as white as the sheets she läa in. ‘Father,’ sez she, ‘am I dyin’?’ I coon’t spake, but my wife sed, ‘Yeou’re a-dyin’, dear.’ ‘Well, then,’ sez she, ‘’tis bewtiful.’ And she lookt hard at me, hard at both of us; and then lookt up smilin’, as if she see Some One.
“She was the only darter I ivver had.”
John Dutfen.
Is it extravagant to believe that this simple story, told by a country parson, is worth whole pages of learned arguments against Disestablishment?[57]Anyhow, to support such arguments, I will here cite an ancient ditty of my father’s. He had got it from “a true East Anglian, of Norfolk lineage and breeding,” but the exegesis is wholly my father’s own.
Robin Cook’s wife[58a]she had an old mare,[58b]Humpf, humpf, hididdle, humpf!And if you’d but seen her, Lord! how you’d have stared,[58c]Singing, “Folderol diddledol, hidum humpf.”
This old mare she had a sore back,[58d]Humpf, &c.And on her sore back there washulltan old sack,[58e]Singing, &c.
Give the old mare some corn in the sieve,[59a]Humpf, &c.And ’tis hoping God’s husband (sic) the old mare may live,Singing, &c.
This old mare she chanced for to die,[59b]Humpf, &c.And dead as a nit in the roadway she lie,[59c]Singing, &c.
All the dogs in the townspŏokfor a bone,[59d]Humpf, &c.All but the Parson’s dog,[59e]he went wi’ none,Singing, “Folderol diddledol, hidum humpf.”
A Suffolk Labourer’s Story.
The Owd Master at the Hall had two children—Mr James and Miss Mary. Mr James was ivver so much owder than Miss Mary. She come kind o’ unexpected like, and she warn’t but a little thing when she lost her mother. When she got owd enough Owd Master sent her to a young ladies’ skule. She was there a soot o’ years, and when she come to stäa at home, shewassuch a pretty young lady,thatshe was. She was werry fond of cumpany, but there warn’t the lissest bit wrong about her. There was a young gentleman, from the shēres, who lived at a farm in the next parish, where he was come to larn farmin’. He was werry fond of her, and though his own folks din’t like it, it was all sattled that he was soon to marry her. Then he hear’d suffen about her, which warn’t a bit true, and he went awäa, and was persuaded to marry somebody else. Miss Mary took on bad about it, but that warn’t the wust of it. She had a baby before long, and he was the father on’t.
O lawk, a lawk! how the Owd Master did break outwhen he hear’d of it! My mother lived close by, and nussed poor Miss Mary, so I’ve h’ard all about it. He woun’t let the child stop in the house, but sent it awäa to a house three miles off, where the woman had lost her child. But when Miss Mary got about, the woman used to bring the baby—he was “Master Charley”—to my mother’s. One däa, when she went down, my mother towd her that he warn’t well; so off she went to see him. When she got home she was late, and the owd man was kep’ waitin’ for his dinner. As soon as he see her, he roared out, “What! hev yeou bin to see yar bastard?” “O father,” says she, “yeou shoun’t säa so.” “Shoun’t säa so,” said he, “shoun’t I? I can säa wuss than that.” And then he called her a bad name. She got up, nivver said a wadd, but walked straight out of the front door. They din’t take much notiz at fust, but when she din’t come back, they got scared, and looked for her all about; and at last they found her in the mŏot, at the bottom of the orchard.
O lawk, a lawk!
The Owd Master nivver could howd up arter that. ’Fore that, if he was put out, yeou could hear ’im all over the farm, a-cussin’ and swearin’. He werry seldom spŏok to anybody now, but he was alluz about arly and late; nŏthin’ seemed to tire him. ’Fore that he nivver went tochărch; now he went reg’ler. But he wud säa sumtimes, comin’ out, “Parson’s a fule.” But if anybody was ill, he bod ’em go up to the Hall and ax for suffen.[62]There was young Farmer Whoo’s wife was werry bad, and the doctor säa that what she wanted was London poort. So he sent my father to the marchant at Ipswich, to bring back four dozen. Arter dark he was to lave it at the house, but not to knock. They nivver knew where ta come from till arter he died. But he fare to get waker, and to stupe more ivry year.
Yeou ax me about “Master Charley.” Well, he growed up such a pretty bor. He lived along with my mother for the most part, and Mr James was so fond of him. He’d come down, and pläa and talk to him the hour togither, and Master Charley would foller ’im about like a little dawg.
One däa they was togither, and Owd Master met ’em. “James,” said he, “what bor is that alluz follerin’ yeou about?” He said, “It’s Mary’s child.” The owd man tărned round as if he’d bin shot, and went home all himpin’ along. Folks heared him säa, “Mary’s child! Lord! Lord!” When he got in, he sot down, and nivver spŏok a wădd, ’cept now and then, “Mary’s child! Lord! Lord!” He coun’t ate no dinner; but he towd ’em togo for my mother; and when she come, he säa to her, “Missus, yeou must git me to bed.” And there he läa all night, nivver slāpin’ a bit, but goin’ on säain, “Mary’s child!Lord!Lord!” quite solemn like. Sumtimes he’d säa, “I’ve bin a bad un in my time, I hev.”
Next mornin’ Mr James sent for the doctor. But when he come, Owd Master said, “Yeou can do nothin’ for me; I oon’t take none o’ yar stuff.” No more he would. Then Mr James säa, “Would yeou like to see the parson?” He din’t säa nŏthin’ for some time, then he said, “Yeou may send for him.” When the parson come—and he was a nice quite[63]owd gentleman, we were werry fond of him—he went up and stäa’d some time; but he nivver said nŏthin’ when he come down. Howsomdiver, Owd Master läa more quiter arter that, and when they axed him to take his med’cin he took it. Then he slep’ for some hours, and when he woke up he called out quite clear, “James.” And when Mr James come, he säa to him, “James,” sez he, “I ha’ left ivrything to yeou; do yeou see that Mary hev her share.” You notiz, he din’t säa, “Mary’s child,” but “Mary hev her share.” Arter a little while he said, “James, I should like to see the little chap.” He warn’t far off, and my mother made him tidy, and brushed his hair and parted it. Then shetook him up, and put him close to the bed. Owd Master bod ’em put the curtain back, and he läa and looked at Master Charley. And then he said, quite slow and tendersome, “Yeou’re a’most as pritty as your mother was, my dear.”
Them was the last words he ivver spŏok.
Mr James nivver married, and when he died he left ivrything to Master Charley.
My earliest recollections of FitzGerald go back to thirty-six years. He and my father were old friends and neighbours—in East Suffolk, where neighbours are few, and fourteen miles counts for nothing. They never were great correspondents, for what they had to say to one another they said mostly by word of mouth. So there were notes, but no letters; and the notes have nearly all perished. In the summer of 1859 we were staying at Aldeburgh, a favourite place with my father, as the home of his forefathers. They were sea-folk; and Robinson Groome, my great-grandfather, was owner of the Unity lugger, on which the poet Crabbe went up to London. When his son, my grandfather, was about to take orders, he expressed a timid hope that the bishopwould deem him a proper candidate. “And who the devil in hell,” cried Robinson Groome, “should he ordain if he doesn’t ordain you, my dear?”[68]This I have heard my father tell FitzGerald, as also of his “Aunt Peggy and Aunt D.” (i.e., Deborah), who, if ever Crabbe was mentioned in their hearing, always smoothed their black mittens and remarked—“Wenever thought much of Mr Crabbe.”
Edward FitzGerald
Our house was Clare Cottage, where FitzGerald himself lodged long afterwards. “Two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil woman pleased to have me in them.” It fronts the sea, and is (or was) a small two-storeyed house, with a patch of grass before it, a summer-house, and a big white figurehead, belike of the shipwrecked Clare. So over the garden-gate FitzGerald leant one June morning, and asked me, a boy of eight, was my father at home. I remember him dimly then as a tall sea-browned man, who took us boys out for several sails, on the first of which I and a brother were both of us woefully sea-sick. Afterwards I remember picnics down the Deben river, and visits to him at Woodbridge, first in hislodgings on the Market Hill over Berry the gunsmith’s, and then at his own house, Little Grange. The last was in May 1883. My father and I had been spending a few days with Captain Brooke of Ufford, the possessor of one of the finest private libraries in England.[69]From Ufford we drove on to Woodbridge, and passed some pleasant hours with FitzGerald. We walked down to the riverside, and sat on a bench at the foot of the lime-tree walk. There was a small boy, I remember, wading among the ooze; and FitzGerald, calling him to him, said—“Little boy, did you never hear tell of the fate of the Master of Ravenswood?” And then he told him the story. At dinner there was much talk, as always, of many things, old and new, but chiefly old; and at nine we started on our homeward drive. Within a month I heard that FitzGerald was dead.
From my own recollections, then, of FitzGerald himself, but still more of my father’s frequent talk of him, from some notes and fragments that have escaped hebdomadal burnings, from a visit that I paid to Woodbridge in the summer of 1889, and from reminiscences and unpublishedletters furnished by friends of FitzGerald, I purpose to weave a patchwork article, which shall in some ways supplement Mr Aldis Wright’s edition of his Letters.[70]Those letters surely will take a high place in literature, on their own merits, quite apart from the interest that attaches to the translator of Omar Khayyám, to the friend of Thackeray, Tennyson, and Carlyle. Here and there I may cite them; but whoso will know FitzGerald must go to the fountain-head. And yet that the letters by themselves may convey a false impression of the man is evident from several articles on them—the best and worst Mr Gosse’s in the ‘Fortnightly’ (July 1889). Mr Gosse sums him up in the statement that “his time, when the roses were not being pruned, and when he was not making discreet journeys in uneventful directions, was divided between music, which greatly occupied his younger thought, and literature, which slowly, but more and more exclusively, engaged his attention.” There is truth in the statement; still this pruner of roses, who of rose-pruningknew absolutely nothing, was one who best loved the sea when the sea was rough, who always put into port of a Sunday that his men might “get their hot dinner.” He was one who would give his friend of the best—oysters, maybe, and audit ale, which “dear old Thompson” used to send him from Trinity—and himself the while would pace up and down the room, munching apple or turnip, and drinking long draughts of milk. He was a man of marvellous simplicity of life and matchless charity: hereon I will quote a letter of Professor Cowell’s, who did, if any one, know FitzGerald well:—
“He was no Sybarite. There was a vein of strong scorn of all self-indulgence in him, which was very different. He was, of course, very much of a recluse, with a vein of misanthropy towards men in the abstract, joined to a tender-hearted sympathy for the actual men and women around him. He was the very reverse of Carlyle’s description of the sentimental philanthropist, who loves man in the abstract, but is intolerant of ‘Jack and Tom, who have wills of their own.’”
“He was no Sybarite. There was a vein of strong scorn of all self-indulgence in him, which was very different. He was, of course, very much of a recluse, with a vein of misanthropy towards men in the abstract, joined to a tender-hearted sympathy for the actual men and women around him. He was the very reverse of Carlyle’s description of the sentimental philanthropist, who loves man in the abstract, but is intolerant of ‘Jack and Tom, who have wills of their own.’”
FitzGerald’s charities are probably forgotten, unless by the recipients; and how many of them must be dead, old soldiers as they mostly were, and suchlike! But this I have heard, that one man borrowed £200 of him. Three times he regularly paid the interest, and the third time FitzGerald put his note of hand in the fire, just saying he thought that would do. His simplicity dated from veryearly times. For when he was at Trinity, his mother called on him in her coach-and-four, and sent a gyp to ask him to step down to the college-gate, but he could not come—his only pair of shoes was at the cobbler’s. And down to the last he was always perfectly careless as to dress. I can see him now, walking down into Woodbridge, with an old Inverness cape, double-breasted, flowered satin waistcoat, slippers on feet, and a handkerchief, very likely, tied over his hat. Yet one always recognised in him the Hidalgo. Never was there a more perfect gentleman. His courtesy came out even in his rebukes. A lady one day was sitting in a Woodbridge shop, gossiping to a friend about the eccentricities of the Squire of Boulge, when a gentleman, who was sitting with his back to them, turned round, and, gravely bowing, gravely said, “Madam, he is my brother.” They were eccentric, certainly, the FitzGeralds. FitzGerald himself remarked of the family: “We are all mad, but with this difference—Iknow that I am.” And of that same brother he once wrote to my father:—
Lowestoft:Dec.2/66.My dear Groome,—“At least for what I know” (as old Isaac Clarke used to say), I shall be at home next week as well as this. How could youexpectmy Brother3 times? You, as well as others, should really (for his Benefit, as well as your own) either leave it all to Chance, or appointoneDay, and then decline any further Negotiation. This would really spare poor John an immense deal of (in sober Truth) “Taking the Lord’s Name in vain.” I mean his eternalD.V., which, translated, only means, “IfIhappen to be in the Humour.” You must know that the feeling of beingboundto an Engagement is the very thing that makes him wish to break it. Spedding once told me this was rather my case. I believe it, and am therefore shy of ever making an engagement.O si sic omnia!—Yours truly,E. F. G.
Lowestoft:Dec.2/66.
My dear Groome,—“At least for what I know” (as old Isaac Clarke used to say), I shall be at home next week as well as this. How could youexpectmy Brother3 times? You, as well as others, should really (for his Benefit, as well as your own) either leave it all to Chance, or appointoneDay, and then decline any further Negotiation. This would really spare poor John an immense deal of (in sober Truth) “Taking the Lord’s Name in vain.” I mean his eternalD.V., which, translated, only means, “IfIhappen to be in the Humour.” You must know that the feeling of beingboundto an Engagement is the very thing that makes him wish to break it. Spedding once told me this was rather my case. I believe it, and am therefore shy of ever making an engagement.O si sic omnia!—Yours truly,
E. F. G.
Of another brother, Peter, the Catholic brother, as John was the Protestant one, he wrote:—
Lowestoft,Tuesday,Feb.16, 1875.You may have heard that my Brother Peter is dead, of Bronchitis, at Bournemouth. He was taken seriously ill on Thursday last, and died on Saturday without pain; and I am told that his last murmured words weremyname—thrice repeated. A more amiable Gentleman did not live, with somethinghelplessabout him—what the Irish call an “Innocent man”—which mixed up Compassion with Regard, and made it perhaps stronger. . . .
Lowestoft,Tuesday,Feb.16, 1875.
You may have heard that my Brother Peter is dead, of Bronchitis, at Bournemouth. He was taken seriously ill on Thursday last, and died on Saturday without pain; and I am told that his last murmured words weremyname—thrice repeated. A more amiable Gentleman did not live, with somethinghelplessabout him—what the Irish call an “Innocent man”—which mixed up Compassion with Regard, and made it perhaps stronger. . . .
Many odd tales were current in Woodbridge about FitzGerald himself. How once, for example, he sailed over to Holland, meaning to look upon Paul Potter’s “Bull,” but how, on arriving there, he found a favourable homeward breeze, and so sailed home. How, too, he took a ticket for Edinburgh, but at Newcastle found a train on the point of starting for London, and, thinking it a pity to lose the chance, returned thereby. Both stories must be myths, for we learn from his letters that in 1861 he really did spend two days in Holland, and in 1874 other two in Scotland. Still, I fancy both stories emanated from FitzGerald, for all Woodbridge united could not have hit upon Paul Potter’s “Bull.”
Except in February 1867, when he was strongly opposed to Lord Rendlesham’s election, he took no active part in politics. “Don’t write politics—I agree with you beforehand,” is a postscript (1852) to Frederic Tennyson; and in a letter from Mr William Bodham Donne to my father occurs this passage: “E. F. G. informs me that he gave his landlord instructions in case any one called about his vote to say that Mr F. wouldnotvote, advised every one to do the same, and let the rotten matter bust itself.” So it certainly stands in the letter, which bears date 29th October 1868; but, according to Mr Mowbray Donne, “the phrase wasrather: ‘Let the rotten old ship go to pieces of itself.’ At least,” he adds, “so I have always heard it; and this suggests that once there was a galleon worth preserving, but that he would not patch up the old craft. He may have said both, of course.” Anyhow, rightly or wrongly, FitzGerald was sorrowfully convinced that England’s best day was over, and that he, that any one, was powerless to arrest the inevitable doom. “I am quite assured that this Country is dying, as other Countries die, as Trees die, atop first. The lower limbs are making all haste to follow.” He wrote thus in 1861, when the local squirearchy refused to interest itself in the “manuringandskrimmaging” of the newly established rifle corps. And here are some more vaticinations of evil:—
“I have long felt about England as you do, and even made up my mind to it, so as to sit comparatively, if ignobly, easy on that score. Sometimes I envy those who are so old that the Curtain will probably fall on them before it does on their Country. If one could save the Race, what a Cause it would be! not for one’s own glory as a member of it, nor even for its glory as a Nation: but because it is the only spot in Europe where Freedom keeps her place. Had I Alfred’s voice, I would not have mumbled for years over In Memoriam and The Princess, but sung such strains as would have revived the Μαραθωνομαχους ανδρας to guard the territory they had won.”
“I have long felt about England as you do, and even made up my mind to it, so as to sit comparatively, if ignobly, easy on that score. Sometimes I envy those who are so old that the Curtain will probably fall on them before it does on their Country. If one could save the Race, what a Cause it would be! not for one’s own glory as a member of it, nor even for its glory as a Nation: but because it is the only spot in Europe where Freedom keeps her place. Had I Alfred’s voice, I would not have mumbled for years over In Memoriam and The Princess, but sung such strains as would have revived the Μαραθωνομαχους ανδρας to guard the territory they had won.”
The curtain has fallen twelve years now on FitzGerald,—it is fifty-four years since he wrote those words: God send their dark forebodings may prove false! But they clouded his life, and were partly the cause why, Ajax-like, he loitered in his tent.
His thoughts on religion he kept to himself. A letter of June 1885 from the late Master of Trinity to my father opens thus:—
“My dear Archdeacon,—I ought to have thanked you ere this for your letter, and the enclosed hymn, which we much admire, and cannot but be touched by.[76]The more perhaps as our dear dead friend seems to have felt its pathos. I have more to repent of than he had. Two of the purest-living men among my intimates, FitzGerald and Spedding, were prisoners in Doubting Castle all their lives, or at least the last half of them. This is to me a great problem,—not to be solved by the ordinary expedients, nor on this side the Veil, I think.”
“My dear Archdeacon,—I ought to have thanked you ere this for your letter, and the enclosed hymn, which we much admire, and cannot but be touched by.[76]The more perhaps as our dear dead friend seems to have felt its pathos. I have more to repent of than he had. Two of the purest-living men among my intimates, FitzGerald and Spedding, were prisoners in Doubting Castle all their lives, or at least the last half of them. This is to me a great problem,—not to be solved by the ordinary expedients, nor on this side the Veil, I think.”
A former rector of Woodbridge, now many years dead, once called on FitzGerald to express his regret that he never saw him at church. “Sir,” said FitzGerald, “you might have conceived that a man has not come to my years of life without thinking much of these things. I believe I may say that I have reflected on them fully as much as yourself. You need not repeat this visit.” Certainit is that FitzGerald’s was a most reverent mind, and I know that the text on his grave was of his own choosing—“It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” I know, too, that sometimes he would sit and listen in a church porch while service was going on, and slip away unperceived before the people came out. Still, it seems to me beyond question that his version of the ‘Rubáiyát’ is an utterance of his soul’s deepest doubts, and that hereafter it will come to be recognised as the highest expression of Agnosticism:—
“With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’Into this Universe, andWhynot knowingNorWhence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,I know notWhither, willy-nilly blowing.* * * * *We are no other than a moving rowOf Magic Shadow-shapes that come and goRound with the Sun-illumined Lantern heldIn Midnight by the Master of the Show;But helpless Pieces of the Game He playsUpon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,And one by one back in the Closet lays.”
“With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’
Into this Universe, andWhynot knowingNorWhence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,I know notWhither, willy-nilly blowing.
* * * * *
We are no other than a moving rowOf Magic Shadow-shapes that come and goRound with the Sun-illumined Lantern heldIn Midnight by the Master of the Show;
But helpless Pieces of the Game He playsUpon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,And one by one back in the Closet lays.”
Yet to how many critics this has seemed but a poem of the wine-cup and roses!
FitzGerald proved a most kindly contributor to the series of “Suffolk Notes and Queries” that I edited for the ‘Ipswich Journal’ in 1877-78. The following were some of his notes, all signed “Effigy”—a play on his initials:—
“Major Moor,David Hume,and the Royal George.—In a review of Burton’s Life of Hume, p. 354 of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ April 1849, is the following quotation from the book, and the following note upon it:
“‘Page 452. “Major M---, with whom I dined yesterday, said that he had frequently met David Hume at their military mess in Scotland, and in other parties. That he was very polite and pleasant, though thoughtful in company, generally reclining his head upon his hand, as if in study; from which he would suddenly recover,” &c. [Note by the Editor, John Mitford of Benhall.] We merely add that Major M--- was Major Moor, author of the Hindoo Pantheon, a very learned and amiable person.’
“‘Page 452. “Major M---, with whom I dined yesterday, said that he had frequently met David Hume at their military mess in Scotland, and in other parties. That he was very polite and pleasant, though thoughtful in company, generally reclining his head upon his hand, as if in study; from which he would suddenly recover,” &c. [Note by the Editor, John Mitford of Benhall.] We merely add that Major M--- was Major Moor, author of the Hindoo Pantheon, a very learned and amiable person.’
“A very odd blunder for one distinguished Suffolk man to make of another, and so near a neighbour. For David Hume died in 1776, when Major Moor was about seven years old; by this token that (as he has told me) he saw the masts of theRoyal Georgeslope under water as she went down in 1782, while he was on board the transport that was to carry him to India, a cadet of thirteen years old.
“Nearly sixty years after this, Major Moor (as I also heard him relate) was among the usual company going over one of the Royal Palaces—Windsor, I think—when the cicerone pointed out a fragment of the Royal George’s mast, whereupon one elderly gentleman of the party told them thathehad witnessed the disaster; after which Major Moor capped the general amazement by informing the little party that they had two surviving witnesses of it among them that day.
“Suffolk Minstrelsy.—These fragments of a Suffolk Harvest-Home Song, remembered by an old Suffolk Divine, offer room for historical and lyrical conjecture. I think the song must consist oftewseveral fragments.
“‘Row tu me, tow tu me,’ says He-ne-ry Burgin,‘Row tu me, row tu me, I prah;For I ha’ tarn’d a Scotch robber across the salt seas,Tu ma-i-nt’n my tew brothers and me.’”“The Count de Grasse he stood amaz’d,And frigh-te-ned he were,For to see these bold Bri-tonsSo active in war.”
“‘Row tu me, tow tu me,’ says He-ne-ry Burgin,‘Row tu me, row tu me, I prah;For I ha’ tarn’d a Scotch robber across the salt seas,Tu ma-i-nt’n my tew brothers and me.’”
“The Count de Grasse he stood amaz’d,And frigh-te-ned he were,For to see these bold Bri-tonsSo active in war.”
“Limb.—I find this word, whose derivation has troubled Suffolk vocabularies, quoted in its Suffolk sense from Tate Wilkinson, in ‘Temple Bar Magazine’ for January 1876. Mrs White—an actress somewhere in the Shires,—she may have derived from Suffolk, however—addresses her daughter, Mrs Burden, in these words: ‘I’ll tell you what, Maam, if you contradict me, I’ll fell you at my feet, and trample over your corse, Maam, for you’re alimb, Maam, your father on his deathbed told me you were alimb.’ (N.B.—Perhaps Mr White it was who derived fromus.) And again when poor Mrs Burden asks what is meant by aparenthesis, her mother exclaims, ‘Oh, what an infernallimbof an actress you’ll make, not to know the meaningof prentice, plural ofapprentices!’ Such is Tate’s story if correctly quoted by ‘Temple Bar.’ Not long ago I heard at Aldbro’, ‘My mother is alimbfor salt pork.’”
The Suffolk dialect was ever a pet hobby of FitzGerald’s. For years he was meditating a new edition of Major Moor’s ‘Suffolk Words,’ but the question never was settled whether words of his own collecting were to be incorporated in the body of the work or relegated toan appendix. So the notion remained a notion. Much to our loss, for myself I prefer his ‘Sea-Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast’ (in the scarce ‘East Anglian,’ 1868-69[81]) to half his translations. For this “poor old Lowestoft sea-slang,” as FitzGerald slightingly calls it, illustrates both his strong love of the sea and his own quaint lovable self. One turns over its pages idly, and lights on dozens of entries such as these:—
“Bark.—‘The surfbarkfrom the Nor’ard;’ or, as was otherwise said to me, ‘The sea aint lost his woice from the Nor’ard yet,’—a sign, by the way, that the wind is to come from that quarter. A poetical word such as those whose business is with the sea are apt to use. Listening one night to the sea some way inland, a sailor said to me, ‘Yes, sir, the sea roar for the loss of the wind;’ which a landsman properly interpreted as meaning only that the sea made itself heard when the wind had subsided.”
“Brustle.—A compound ofBustleandRustle, I suppose. ‘Why, the old girlbrustlealong like a Hedge-sparrow!’—said of a round-bowed vessel spuffling through the water. I am told that, comparing little with great, the figure is not out of the way. Otherwise,what should these ignorant seamen know of Hedge-sparrows? Some of them do, however; fond of birds, as of other pets—Children, cats, small dogs—anything in short considerably under the size of—a Bullock—and accustomed to birds-nesting over your cliff and about your lanes from childhood. A little while ago a party of Beechmen must needs have a day’s frolic at the old sport; marched bodily into a neighbouring farmer’s domain, ransacked the hedges, climbed the trees, coming down pretty figures, I was told, (in plainer language) with guernsey and breeches torn fore and aft; the farmer after them in a tearing rage, calling for his gun—‘They were Pirates—They were the Press-gang!’ and the boys in Blue going on with their game laughing. When they had got their fill of it, they adjourned to Oulton Boar for ‘Half a pint’; by-and-by in came the raging farmer for a like purpose; at first growling aloof; then warming towards the good fellows, till—he joined their company, and—insisted on paying their shot.”
“Cards.—Though often carried on board to pass away the time at All-fours, Don, or Sir-wiser (q.v.), nevertheless regarded with some suspicion when business does not go right. A friend of mine vowed that, if his ill-luck continued, over the cards should go; andover they went. Opinions differ as to swearing. One Captain strictly forbade it on board his lugger; but he, also continuing to get no fish, called out, ‘Swear away, lads, and see what that’ll do.’ Perhaps he only meant as Ménage’s French Bishop did; who going one day to Court, his carriage stuck fast in a slough. The Coachman swore; the Bishop, putting his head out of the window, bid him not do that; the Coachman declared that unless he did, his horses would never get the carriage out of the mud. ‘Well then, says the Bishop, just for this once then.’”
“Egg-bound.—Probably an inland word; but it was only from one of the beach I heard it. He had a pair of—what does the reader think?—Turtle-doves in his net-loft, looking down so drolly—the delicate creatures—from their wicker cage on the rough work below, that I wondered what business they had there. But this truculent Salwager assured me seriously that he had ‘doated on them,’ and promised me the first pair they should hatch. For a long while they had no family, so long ‘neutral’ indeed as to cause grave doubts whether they were a pair at all. But at last one of them began to show signs of cradle-making, picking at some hay stuffed into the wicker-bars to encourage them; and I was told that she was manifestly ‘egg-bound.’”
“New Moon.—When first seen, be sure to turn your money over in your pocket by way of making it grow there; provided always that you see her face to face, not through a glass (window)—for, in that case, the charm works the wrong way. ‘I see the little dear this evening, and give my money a twister; there wasn’t much, but I roused her about.’ Where ‘her’ means the Money, not the Moon. Every one knows of what gender all that is amiable becomes in the Sailor’s eyes: his Ship, of course—the ‘Old Dear’—the ‘Old Girl’—the ‘Old Beauty,’ &c. I don’t think the Sea is so familiarly addrest;sheis almost too strong-minded, capricious, and terrible a Virago, and—he is wedded to her for better or worse. Yet I have heard the Weather (to whose instigation so much of that Sea’s ill-humours are due) spoken of by one coming up the hatchway, ‘Let’s see howshelook now.’ The Moon is, of course, a Woman too; and as with the German, and, I believe, the ancient Oriental people, ‘the blessed Sun himself a fair hot Wench in a flame-colour’d taffeta,’ and sosherises,shesets, andshecrosses the Line. So the Timepiece that measures the hours of day and night. A Friend’s Watch going wrong of late, I advised Regulating; but was gravely answer’d that ‘Shewas a foreigner, and he did not like meddling withher.’ The same poorignorant was looking with me one evening at your fine old church [Lowestoft] which sadly wanted regulating too: lying all along indeed like a huge stranded Ship, with one whole side battered open to the ribs, through which ‘the Sea-wind sang shrill, chill’; and he ‘did not like seeing her so distress’d’; remembering boyish days, and her good old Vicar (of course I mean theformerone: pious, charitable, venerable Francis Cunningham), and looking to lie under her walls, among his own people—‘if not,’ as he said, ‘somewhere else.’ Some months after, seeing the Church with her southern side restored to the sun, the same speaker cried, ‘Well done, Old Girl! Up, and crow again!’”
* * * * *
FitzGerald’s hesitancy about Major Moor’s book was typical of the man. I am assured by Mr John Loder of Woodbridge, who knew him well, that it was inordinately difficult to get him to do anything. First he would be delighted with the idea, and next he would raise up a hundred objections; then, maybe, he would again, and finally he wouldn’t. The wonder then is, not that he published so little, but that he published so much; and to whom the credit thereof was largely due is indicated in this passage from a letter of Mr W. B. Donne’s, of date 25th March 1876.
“I am so delighted at the glory E. F. G. has gained by his translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. The ‘Contemporary Review’ and the ‘Spectator’ newspaper! It is full time that Fitz should be disinterred, and exhibited to the world as one of the most gifted of Britons. And Bernard Quaritch deserves a piece of plate or a statue for the way he has thrust the Rubáiyát to the front.”
“I am so delighted at the glory E. F. G. has gained by his translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. The ‘Contemporary Review’ and the ‘Spectator’ newspaper! It is full time that Fitz should be disinterred, and exhibited to the world as one of the most gifted of Britons. And Bernard Quaritch deserves a piece of plate or a statue for the way he has thrust the Rubáiyát to the front.”
There is no understanding FitzGerald till one fully realises that vulgar ambition had absolutely no place in his nature. Your ass in the lion’s skin nowadays is the ass who fain would be lionised; and the modern version of the parable of the talents is too often the man who, untalented, tries to palm off Brummagem counterfeits. FitzGerald’s fear was not that he would write worse than half his compeers, but that he might write as ill. “This visionary inactivity,” he tells John Allen, “is better than the mischievous activity of so many I see about me.” He applied Malthus’s teaching to literature; he was content so long as he pleased the Tennysons, some half-dozen other friends, and himself, than whom no critic ever was more fastidious. And when one thinks of all the “great poems” that were published during his lifetime, and read and praised (more praised than read perhaps), and then forgotten, one wonders if, after all, he was so wholly wrong in that he read for profit and scribbled for amusement,—that he communed with hisown heart and was still. Besides, had he not “awful examples”? There was the Suffolk parson, his contemporary, who announced at nineteen that he had read all Shakespeare and Milton, and did not see why he should not at any rate equal them. So he fell to work—his poems were a joy to FitzGerald. Then there was Bernard Barton. FitzGerald glances at his passion for publishing, his belief that “there could not be too much poetry abroad.” And lastly there was Carlyle, half scornful of FitzGerald’s “ultra modesty and innocentfar-nientelife,” his own superhuman activity regarded meanwhile by FitzGerald with a gentle half-pitying wonder, of which one catches a premonitory echo in this extract from a long letter[87]of Sir Frederick Pollock’s to W. H. Thompson. It bears date 14th February 1840, two years before Carlyle and FitzGerald met:—
“Carlyle’s ‘Chartism’ has been much read. It has fine things in it, but nothing new. He is eminently a man of one idea, but then neither he nor any one else knows exactly what that one is. So that by dint of shifting it about to and fro, and, as youobserve, clothing his remarks in the safe obscurity of a foreign language, he manages to produce a great impression. Truly he is a trumpet that gives an uncertain sound, an instrument of no base metal, but played without book, whose compass is not ascertained, and continually failing from straining at too high a note. Spedding has not yet found him out; FitzGerald has, and we lamentably rejoice at our melancholy discovery. Never was there such a waste of Faith as in that man. He is ever preaching Faith. Very well, but in what? Why, again says he, ‘Faith’—that is, Faith in Faith. Objectless, purposeless, unmeaning, disappearing, and eluding all grasp when any occasion for action arises, when anything is to be done, as sufficiently appears from the miserable unpracticability of the latter chapters of the ‘Chartism,’ where he comes forward to give directions for what is to be done.”
“Carlyle’s ‘Chartism’ has been much read. It has fine things in it, but nothing new. He is eminently a man of one idea, but then neither he nor any one else knows exactly what that one is. So that by dint of shifting it about to and fro, and, as youobserve, clothing his remarks in the safe obscurity of a foreign language, he manages to produce a great impression. Truly he is a trumpet that gives an uncertain sound, an instrument of no base metal, but played without book, whose compass is not ascertained, and continually failing from straining at too high a note. Spedding has not yet found him out; FitzGerald has, and we lamentably rejoice at our melancholy discovery. Never was there such a waste of Faith as in that man. He is ever preaching Faith. Very well, but in what? Why, again says he, ‘Faith’—that is, Faith in Faith. Objectless, purposeless, unmeaning, disappearing, and eluding all grasp when any occasion for action arises, when anything is to be done, as sufficiently appears from the miserable unpracticability of the latter chapters of the ‘Chartism,’ where he comes forward to give directions for what is to be done.”
FitzGerald’s wide, albeit eclectic reading, is sufficiently illustrated on every page of his published Letters. When, fourteen years before his death, his eyesight began to fail him, he employed boy-readers, one of whom read him the whole of the Tichborne trial. One summer night in 1889 I sat and smoked with this boy, a pleasant young man, in the bar-parlour of the Bull Hotel. He told me how Mr FitzGerald always gave him plenty of plum-cake, and how they used to play piquet together. Only sometimes a tame mouse would come out and sit on the table, and then not a card must be dropped. A pretty picture! In the bar-parlour sat an oldish man, who presentlyjoined in our conversation. He had made the lead coffin for “the old Major” (FitzGerald’s father), and another for Mr John; and he seemed half to resent that he had not performed the same office for Mr Edward himself, for whom, however, he once built a boat. He told me, moreover, how years before Mr FitzGerald had congratulated him on some symptoms of heart disease, had said he had it himself, and was glad of it, for “when he came to die, he didn’t want to have a lot of women messing about him.”
Next day I went and called on FitzGerald’s old housekeeper, Mrs Howe, and her husband. She the “Fairy Godmother,” as FitzGerald delighted to call her, was blithe and chirpy as ever, with pleasant talk of “our gentleman”: “So kind he was, not never one to make no obstacles. Such a joky gentleman he was, too. Why, once he says to me, ‘Mrs Howe, I didn’t know we had express trains here.’ And I said, ‘Whateverdoyou mean, sir?’ and he says, ‘Why, look at Mrs ---’s dress there.’ And, sure enough, she had a long train to it, you know.” Her husband (“the King of Clubs”) was eighty-four, but the same cheery, simple soul he always was. Mr Spalding, one broiling day, saw him standing bare-headed, and peering intently for good five minutes into the pond at Little Grange. “What is it, Howe?” he asked him; andthe old man presently answered, “How fond them ducks dew seem of water,tobe sure.” Which, for some cause or other, greatly tickled FitzGerald.
I was staying in Woodbridge at the “Bull,” kept whilom by “good John Grout,” from whom FitzGerald procured the Scotch ale which he would set to the fire till it “just had a smile on it,” and who every Christmas sent him a present of mince-pies and a jug of punch. An excellent man, and a mighty horse-dealer, better versed in horse-flesh than in literature. After a visit from Lord Tennyson, FitzGerald told Grout that Woodbridge should feel itself honoured. John had not quite understood, so presently took a chance of asking my father who that gentleman was Mr FitzGerald had been talking of. “Mr Tennyson,” said my father, “the poet-laureate.” “Dissáy,”[90]said John, warily; “anyhow he didn’t fare to know much about hosses when I showed him over my stables.”
From my bedroom window I could see FitzGerald’s old lodgings over Berry’s, where he sojourned from 1860 till 1873. The cause of his leaving them is only half told in Mr Aldis Wright’s edition of the Letters (p. 365, footnote). Mr Berry, a small man, had taken to himself a second wife, a buxom widow weighing fourteen stone;and she, being very genteel, could not brook the idea of keeping a lodger. So one day—I have heard FitzGerald tell the story—came a timid rap at the door of his sitting-room, a deep “Now, Berry, be firm,” and a mild “Yes, my dear;” and Berry appeared on the threshold. Hesitatingly he explained that “Mrs Berry, you know, sir—really extremely sorry—but not been used, sir,” &c., &c. Then from the rear, a deep “And you’ve got to tell him about Old Gooseberry, Berry,” a deprecatory “Certainly, my love;” and poor Berry stammered forth, “And I am told, sir, that you said—you said—I had long been old Berry, but now—now you should call me Old Gooseberry.” So FitzGerald had to make up his mind at last to migrate to his own house, Little Grange, which he had bought more than nine years before, and enlarged and made a very pretty place of. “I shall never live in it, but I shall die there,” he once said to a friend. Both predictions were falsified, for he did live there nearly ten years, and his death took place at Merton, in Norfolk.
Little Grange
I wandered through the grounds of Little Grange, hardly changed except that there were now no doves. There was the “Quarterdeck” walk, and there was the Summerhouse, to which Charles Keene used to retire with his bagpipes. I can hear FitzGerald saying to my father,“Keene has a theory that we open our mouths too much; but whether he bottles up his wind to play the bagpipes, or whether he plays the bagpipes to get rid of his bottled-up wind, I do not know, and I don’t suppose I ever shall know.”
From Little Grange I walked two miles out to Bredfield Hall, FitzGerald’s birthplace. It is a stately old Jacobean mansion, though sadly beplastered, for surely its natural colour is red-brick, like that of the outbuildings. Among these I came upon an old, old labourer, who “remembered Mr Edward well. Why, he’d often come up, he would, and sit on that there bench by the canal, nivver sayin’ nothin’. But he took on wonnerful, that he did, if ivver they touched any of the owd trees.” Not many of them are standing now, and what there are, are all “dying atop.”
The Cottage, Boulge
It is a short walk from Bredfield Hall to Bredfield church and vicarage. Both must be a good deal altered by restoration and enlargement since the days (1834-57) of George Crabbe, the poet’s son, about whom there is so much in the Letters, and of whom I have often heard tell. He went up to the great Exhibition of 1851; and, after his return, my father asked him what he thought of it. “Thought of it, my dear sir! When I entered that vast emporium of the world’s commerce, I liftedup my arms andshoutedfor amazement.” From Bredfield a charming walk through the fields (trudged how many times by FitzGerald!) leads to the little one-storeyed cottage in Boulge Park, where he lived from 1838 till 1853. It probably is scarcely changed at all, with its low-pitched thatch roof forming eyebrows over the brown-shuttered windows. “Cold and draughty,” says the woman who was living in it, and who showed me FitzGerald’s old parlour and bedroom. The very nails were still in the walls on which he hung his big pictures. Boulge Hall, then tenantless, a large modern white-brick house, brought me soon to Boulge church,half-hidden by trees. Fitzgerald sleeps beneath its redbrick tower. His grave is marked by a flat granite monument, carved with a cross-fleury. Pity, it seemed, that no roses grew over it.[94]
Afterwards, for auld langsyne, I took a long pull down the Deben river; and next morning I visited Farlingay Hall, the farmhouse where Carlyle stayed with FitzGerald in 1855. It is not a farmhouse now, but a goodly old-fashioned mansion, red-tiled, dormer-windowed, and all covered with roses and creepers. A charming young lady showed me some of the rooms, and pointed out a fine elm-tree in the meadow, beneath which Carlyle smoked his pipe. Finally, if any one would know more of the country round Woodbridge, let him turn up an article in the ‘Magazine of Art’ for 1885, by Professor Sidney Colvin, on “East Suffolk Memories, Inland and Home.”
Farlingay Hall
But, besides this, I saw a good deal of Mr John Loder, third in a line of Woodbridge booksellers, who knew FitzGerald for many years, and has much to tell of him which were well worth preserving. From him I receiveda loan of Mr Elihu Vedder’s splendid illustrations to the ‘Rubáiyát,’ and a couple of presents. The first is a pencil-drawing of FitzGerald’s yacht; the second, a book, “made up,” like so many others, by FitzGerald, and comprising this one, three French plays, a privately printed article on Moore, and the first edition of ‘A Little Dinner at Timmins’s.’ Then with Mr Barrett, the Ipswich bookseller, who likewise knew FitzGerald, I had two chance meetings; and last but not least, I spent a most pleasant day at Colchester with Mr Frederick Spalding, curator now of the museum there.
Sitting in his alcove, hewn out of the massy wall of the Norman keep, he poured forth story after story of FitzGerald, and showed me his memorials of their friendship. This was a copy of Miss Edgeworth’s ‘Frank,’ in German and English, given to FitzGerald at Edgeworthstown (cf.‘Letters,’ p. 74); and that, FitzGerald’s own school copy of Boswell’s ‘Johnson,’ which he gave Mr Spalding, first writing on the fly-leaf—“He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were alone in his study, ‘Boswell, I am almost easier with you than with anybody’ (vol. v. p. 75).” Here, again, was a scrap-book, containing,inter alia, a long and interesting unpublished letter from Carlyle to FitzGerald about the projected Naseby monument, and a fragment of a letter from Frederic Tennyson, criticisingthe Laureate’s “Welcome to Alexandra.” Not being a short-hand reporter or American interviewer, I am not going to try to reproduce Mr Spalding’s discourse (he must do that himself some day); but a letter of his in the ‘East Anglian’ of 8th July 1889 I will reprint:—
The fishing Lugger built at Lowestoft was named the “Meum and Tuum,” commonly called by the fishermen there the “Mum and Tum,” much to Mr FitzGerald’s amusement; and the ship alluded to by Mr Gosse was the pretty schooner of 15 tons, built by Harvey, of Wyvenhoe, and named the “Scandal,” after “the main staple of Woodbridge.” My friend, T. N., the skipper, gave a different account of the origin of the name. I was standing with him on the Lowestoft Fish Market, close to which the little “Scandal” was moored, after an early dive from her deck, when Tom was addressed by one of two ladies: “Pray, my man, can you tell me who owns that very pretty yacht?” “Mr Edward FitzGerald of Woodbridge, ma’am,” said Tom, touching his cap. “And can you tell us her name?” “The ‘Scandal,’ ma’am.” “Dear me! how came he to select such a very peculiar name?” “Well, ma’am, the fact is, all the other names were taken up, so that we were forced to have either that or none.” The ladies at once moved on.
The fishing Lugger built at Lowestoft was named the “Meum and Tuum,” commonly called by the fishermen there the “Mum and Tum,” much to Mr FitzGerald’s amusement; and the ship alluded to by Mr Gosse was the pretty schooner of 15 tons, built by Harvey, of Wyvenhoe, and named the “Scandal,” after “the main staple of Woodbridge.” My friend, T. N., the skipper, gave a different account of the origin of the name. I was standing with him on the Lowestoft Fish Market, close to which the little “Scandal” was moored, after an early dive from her deck, when Tom was addressed by one of two ladies: “Pray, my man, can you tell me who owns that very pretty yacht?” “Mr Edward FitzGerald of Woodbridge, ma’am,” said Tom, touching his cap. “And can you tell us her name?” “The ‘Scandal,’ ma’am.” “Dear me! how came he to select such a very peculiar name?” “Well, ma’am, the fact is, all the other names were taken up, so that we were forced to have either that or none.” The ladies at once moved on.
Mr Spalding, further, has placed in my hands a bundle of seventy letters, written to himself by FitzGerald between 1862 and 1882. Some of them relate to mere business matters (such as the building of Little Grange), and some to private affairs; but the following extractshave a high and exceptional value, as illustrating a feature in FitzGerald’s life that is little touched on in the published Letters—his strong love of the sea and of sailors:—
“Geldestone Hall,Beccles,Feb.5, 1862.[‘Letters,’ p. 284.][98]
“. . . I have been twice to old Wright, who has built a Boat of about 14 feet on speculation: and has laid down the keel of a new wherry, on speculation also. But he has as yet no Orders, and thinks his Business is like to be very slack. Indeed theRailnow begins to creep over the Marsh, and even to come pretty close to the River, over which it is to cross into Beccles. But you, I think, surmise that this Rail will not hurt Wright so much as he fears it will. Poor old Boy—I found him well and hearty on Sunday; but on Sunday night and Monday he was seized with such Rheumatism (I think Rheumatic Gout) in one leg as has given him no rest or sleep since. It is, he says, ‘as if somethin’ was a-tearin’ the Flesh off his Bones.’ I showed him two of the guilty Screws which had almost let my Leaden Keel part from the wooden one: he says he had desired the Smith not to maketoolarge heads, and the Smith accordingly made them too small; andsome Apprentice had, he supposes, fixed them in without further inspection. There is such honesty and cheerfulness in Wright’s Saxon Eyes and Countenance when he faces such a charge as disarms all one’s wrath.”
“11Marine Terrace,Lowestoft,July17, ’65.[‘Letters,’ p. 301.]
“. . . Yes, I sent Newson and Cooper home to the Shipwreck Dinner at Woodbridge, and supposing they would be maudlin on Saturday, gave them Sunday to repent on, and so have lost the only fine Days we have yet had for sailing. To-day is a dead Calm. ‘These are my Trials!’ as a fine Gentleman said to Wesley, when his Servant put rather too many Coals on the Fire.
“. . . Somehow, I always feel at home here,—partly that the place itself is very suited to me: I have known it these 40 years, particularly connected with my Sister Kerrich, whose Death has left a sort of sad interest shed over it. It was a mere Toss-up in 1860 whether I was to stay at Woodbridge, or come to reside here, when my residing would have been of some use to her then, and her Children now.
“Now then I am expecting my ‘Merry Men’ from Woodbridge, to get out my Billyboy, and get into what Sailors callthe Doldrums, . . . ”
“3Sion Hill,Ramsgate,August25/65.[‘Letters,’ p. 301.]
“I got here all right and very quick from our Harbour on Monday Morng. And here I shall be till Monday: then shall probably go with my Brother [Peter] to Dover and Calais: and so hope to be home by the middle or later part of next week. . . . To-day is going on a Regatta before the windows where I write: shall I never have done with these tiresome Regattas? And to-night the Harbour is to becapturedafter an obstinate defence by 36-pounders in a sham fight, so we shall go deaf to Bed. We had really a famous sail from Felixtow Ferry; getting out of it at 7a.m., and being off Broadstairs (3 miles from here) as the clock on the shore struck twelve. After that we were an hour getting into this very Port, because of a strong Tide against us. . . .”
“11Marine Terrace,Lowestoft,March28, 1866.[‘Letters,’ p. 303.]
“. . . The change has been of some use, I think, in brightening me. My long solitary habit of Life now begins to tell upon me, and I am got past the very cure which only could counteract it: Company or Society: of which I have lost the Taste too long to endure again. So, as I have made my Bed, I must lie in it—and die in it. . . .”
“Lowestoft,April2, ’66. [Ib.]
“. . . I am going to be here another week: as I think it really has freshened me up a bit. Especially going out in a Boat with my good Fletcher, though I get perished with the N.E. wind. I believe I never shall do unless in a Lodging, as I have lived these 40 years. It is too late, I doubt, to reform in a House of one’s own. . . . Dove,[101]unlike Noah’s Dove, brings no report of a green leaf when I ask him about the Grass seed. . . .”
“Lowestoft,April3, ’66. [Ib.]
“. . . Looking over the Tombstones of the old Churchyard this morning, I observed how very many announced the Lease of Life expired at about the same date which I entered upon last Saturday [fifty-seven]. I know it is time to set one’s House in order—when Mr Dove has done his part.”
“Cowes,Isle of Wight,Friday,June30, 1866.[‘Letters,’ p. 305.]
“We got here very well on Tuesday eveng. Wednesday I sent Newson and Crew over to Portsmouth, where they didn’t see the one thing I sent them for, namely, Nelson’s Ship, the ‘Victory,’ but where they bought two Pair of Trousers, which they call ‘Dungaree.’Yesterday we went to Poole—a place I had long a very slight Desire to see; and which was not worth the seeing. To-day we came back here: I regretting rather we had not run further along the Coast to Weymouth and Teignmouth, where I should have seen my Friend Mansfield the Shipwright. It was a little weakness of mine, innotchanging orders, but, having talked of going only to Poole, I left it as it was. The weather has been onlytoofine: the sea too calm. Here we are in front of this pretty place, with many Yachts at anchor and sailing about us: nearly all Schooners, little and great, of all which I think we are the ‘Pitman’ (see Moor’s ‘Words’). I must say I am very tired of seeing only Schooners. Newson was beaten horribly yesterday by a Ryde open Boat of about 7 or 8 tons, which stood right into the wind, but he soon afterwards completely distanced a Billy-boy, which put us in Spirits again. I am very contented (in my way) pottering about here alone, or with my Crew of two, and I believe cdbundle on for a Month in such a way. But I shall soon be home. I have thought of you To-day when your Sale is going on, at the same time as mySail. Pretty Wit! . . .”
* * * * *
The next letter refers to an accident that befell theScandal. She was lying at Lowestoft, in the Fishmarket basin, when a huge Continental steamer came drifting down on her. “Mr FitzGerald,” so Mr Spalding tells me, “just said in his slow melodious voice,[103]‘My poor little ship will be cracked like a nutshell;’ and he took my arm to force me ashore. But I refused to go unless he went too, and just then the cable held on the weather-side of the steamer towering up above us; still, our ‘channel-boards,’ over which the shrouds are tautened, were crushed up flat to the yacht’s side, and perhaps some stanchions were injured too.”
“Scandal,Sept.19, ’66. [Ib.]
“. . . Mr Manby is wrong about our getting no compensation for the Damage (so far as it cdbeseen) inflicted on us by the steamer. Whether we couldclaimit or not, the Steamer Captain granted it: being (as Newson says) quite a Gentleman, &c. So we have had the Carpenters for two Days, who have restored the broken Stanchions,&c. What mischief the Shock may have done to the Body of the Ship remains to be proved: ‘Anyhow, it can’t have done her any good,’ says Job’s Comforter, Captn. Newson. The Steamer’s Captain admitted that he had expected us to be cracked like a Walnut.
“Now, I want you to tell me of this. You know of Newson’s lendingPosh[104]money. I have advised that, beside an I.O.U. from Posh, he should give security upon some of his Effects: Boats, Nets, or other Gear. Tell me how this should be done, if you can: the Form of Writing required: and perhaps what Interest Newson should have on his Money.
“Last night at the ‘Suffolk’ I was where Newson, Posh, & Co. were at their Ale: a little of which got into Newson’s head: who began to touch up Posh about such an Apparatus of Rockets, Mortars, etc., for the Rescue of those two stranded Vessels, when he declares that he and one or two Felixstowe Men would have pushed off a Boat through the pauses of the Surf, and done all that was wanted.Hehad seen, and been on, the Shipwash scores of times when the jump of the Ship pitched him on his Back, and sent the Topmast flying. So had Poshon the Home-sand here, he said; his Sand was just as bad as Tom’s, he knew; and the Lowestoft Men just as good as the Felixstowe, &c. I fomented the Quarrel gently:—noQuarrel, or I should not: all Newson meant (which I believe is very true) there are somanymen here, and noone Man to command, that they are worse off with all their Men and Boats than at the Ferry [Bawdsey], where Newson or Percival are Spokesmen and Masters. This I have explained to Posh To-day, as he was sitting, like Abraham, in his Tent—like an Apostle, mending his nets. ‘Posh, your Frill was out last night?’ ‘No—no—only I didn’t like to hear the Lowestoft Chaps weren’t as good, etc., especially before the Stranger Men from Harwich, etc.’”
“Lowestoft,October7, ’66. [Ib.]
“. . . ‘Posh’ went off in his new, old Lugger,[105]which I call ‘The Porpoise,’ on Thursday: came in yesterday with a Last and a half of Herrings: and is just put to Sea again, Sunday though it be. It is reported to be an extraordinary Herring Year,along shore: and now he goes into deeper Water. I am amused to see Newson’sdevotionto his younger Friend: he won’t leave him a moment if possible, was the first to see him come inyesterday, and has just watched him out of sight. He declined having any Bill of Sale on Posh’s Goods for Money lent; old as he is (enough to distrust all Mankind)—has perfect reliance on his Honour, Industry, Skill, and Luck. This is a pretty Sight to me. I tell Newson he has at last found his Master, and become possessed of that troublesome thing: an anxious Regard for some one.