diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 01:46:18 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 01:46:18 -0700 |
| commit | 895c760b0dd213be7eacd9fc462e36dc4cadd61d (patch) | |
| tree | 5f20134a8550de5d3011a50be801ac161044dc2f | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 21869-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 152050 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 21869-h/21869-h.htm | 7665 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 21869.txt | 6212 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 21869.zip | bin | 0 -> 138366 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
7 files changed, 13893 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/21869-h.zip b/21869-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9386826 --- /dev/null +++ b/21869-h.zip diff --git a/21869-h/21869-h.htm b/21869-h/21869-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6d73b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/21869-h/21869-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7665 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Immortal Memories</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Immortal Memories, by Clement Shorter</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Immortal Memories, by Clement Shorter + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Immortal Memories + + +Author: Clement Shorter + + + +Release Date: June 19, 2007 [eBook #21869] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMMORTAL MEMORIES*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1907 Hodder and Stoughton edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>IMMORTAL MEMORIES</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">By<br /> +CLEMENT SHORTER</p> +<p style="text-align: center">HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br /> +LONDON MCMVII</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><!-- page iv--><a +name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iv</span><i>Butler and +Tanner</i>, <i>The Selwood Printing Works</i>, <i>Frome</i>, +<i>and London</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>PREFATORY</h2> +<p>The following addresses were delivered at the request of +various literary societies and commemorative committees. +They amused me to write, and they apparently interested the +audiences for which they were primarily intended. Perhaps +they do not bear an appearance in print. But they are not +for my brother-journalists to read nor for the judicious men of +letters. I prefer to think that they are intended solely +for those whom Hazlitt styled “sensible +people.” Hazlitt said that “the most sensible +people to be met with in society are men of business and of the +world.” I am hoping that these will buy my book and +that some of them will like it.</p> +<p>It is recorded by Sir Henry Taylor of Samuel Rogers that when +he wrote that very indifferent poem, <i>Italy</i>, he said, +“I will make people buy. Turner shall illustrate my +verse.” It is of no importance that the biographer of +Rogers tells <!-- page vi--><a name="pagevi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. vi</span>us that the poet first made the +artist known to the world by these illustrations. +Taylor’s story is a good one, and the moral worth taking to +heart. The late Lord Acton, most learned and most +accomplished of men, wrote out a list of the hundred best books +as he considered them to be. They were printed in a popular +magazine. They naturally excited much interest. I +have rescued them from the pages of the <i>Pall Mall +Magazine</i>. Those who will not buy my book for its seven +other essays may do so on account of Lord Acton’s list of +books being here first preserved “between +boards.” I shall be equally well pleased.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">CLEMENT SHORTER.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Great Missenden</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Bucks</span>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>I. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL +JOHNSON</h2> +<p>A toast proposed at the Johnson Birthday Celebration held at +the Three Crowns Inn, Lichfield, in September, 1906.</p> +<p>In rising to propose this toast I cannot ignore what must be +in many of your minds, the recollection that last year it was +submitted by a very dear friend of my own, who, alas! has now +gone to his rest, I mean Dr. Richard Garnett. <a +name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3" +class="citation">[3]</a> Many of you who heard him in this +place will recall, with kindly memories, that venerable +scholar. I am one of those who, in the interval have stood +<!-- page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>beside his open grave; and I know you will permit me to +testify here to the fact that rarely has such brilliant +scholarship been combined with so kindly a nature, and with so +much generosity to other workers in the literary field. One +may sigh that it is not possible to perpetuate for all time for +the benefit of others the vast mass of learning which such men as +Dr. Garnett are able to accumulate. One may lament even +more that one is not able to present in some concrete form, as an +example to those who follow, his fine qualities of heart and +mind—his generous faculty for ‘helping lame dogs over +stiles.’</p> +<p>Dr. Garnett had not only a splendid erudition that specially +qualified him for proposing this toast, he had also what many of +you may think an equally exceptional qualification—he was a +native of Lichfield; he was born in this fine city. As a +Londoner—like Boswell when charged with the crime of being +a Scotsman I may say that I cannot help it—I suppose I +should come to you with hesitating footsteps. Perhaps it +was rash of me to come at all, in spite of an invitation so +kindly worded. Yet how gladly does any lover, not only of +Dr. Johnson, but of all good literature, <!-- page 5--><a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>come to +Lichfield. Four cathedral cities of our land stand forth in +my mind with a certain magnetic power to draw even the most +humble lover of books towards them—Oxford, Bath, Norwich, +Lichfield, these four and no others. Oxford we all love and +revere as the nourishing mother of so many famous men. Here +we naturally recall Dr. Johnson’s love of it—his +defence of it against all comers. The glamour of Oxford and +the memory of the great men who from age to age have walked its +streets and quadrangles, is with us upon every visit. Bath +again has noble memories. Upon house after house in that +fine city is inscribed the fact that it was at one time the home +of a famous man or woman of the past. Through its streets +many of our great imaginative writers have strolled, and those +streets have been immortalized in the pages of several great +novelists, notably of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.</p> +<p>For the City of Norwich I have a particular affection, as for +long the home in quite separate epochs of Sir Thomas Browne and +of George Borrow. I recall that in the reign of one of its +Bishops—the father of Dean Stanley—there <!-- page +6--><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>was a +literary circle of striking character, that men and women of +intellect met in the episcopal palace to discuss all +‘obstinate questionings.’</p> +<p>But if he were asked to choose between the golden age of Bath, +of Norwich, or of Lichfield, I am sure that any man who knew his +books would give the palm to Lichfield, and would recall that +period in the life of Lichfield when Dr. Seward resided in the +Bishop’s Palace, with his two daughters, and when they were +there entertaining so many famous friends. I saw the other +day the statement that Anna Seward’s name was unknown to +the present generation. Now I have her works in nine +volumes <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6" +class="citation">[6]</a>; I have read them, and I doubt not but +that there are many more who have done the same. Sir Walter +Scott’s friendship would alone preserve her memory if every +line she wrote <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>deserved to be forgotten as is too +readily assumed. Scott, indeed, professed admiration for +her verse, and a yet greater poet, Wordsworth, wrote in praise of +two fine lines at the close of one of her sonnets, that entitled +‘Invitation to a Friend,’ lines which I believe +present the first appearance in English poetry of the form of +blank verse immortalized by Tennyson.</p> +<blockquote><p>Come, that I may not hear the winds of night,<br +/> +Nor count the heavy eave-drops as they fall.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“You have well criticized the poetic powers of this +lady,” says Wordsworth, “but, after all, her verses +please me, with all their faults, better than those of Mrs. +Barbauld, who, with much higher powers of mind, was spoiled as a +poetess by being a dissenter.”</p> +<p>Less, however, can be said for her poetry to-day than for her +capacity as a letter writer. A letter writing faculty has +immortalized more than one English author, Horace Walpole for +example, who had this in common with Anna Seward, that he had the +bad taste not to like Dr. Johnson.</p> +<p>Sooner or later there will be a reprint of a selection of Anna +Seward’s correspondence; you will find in it a picture of +country life in the <!-- page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>middle of the eighteenth +century—and by that I mean Lichfield life—that is +quite unsurpassed. Anna Seward, her friends and her +enemies, stand before us in very marked outline. As with +Walpole also, she must have written with an eye to +publication. Veracity was not her strong point, but her +literary faculty was very marked indeed. Those who have +read the letters that treat of her sister’s betrothal and +death, for example, will not easily forget them. The +accepted lover, you remember, was a Mr. Porter, a son of the +widow whom Johnson married; and Sarah Seward, aged only eighteen, +died soon after her betrothal to him. That is but one of a +thousand episodes in the world into which we are introduced in +these pages. <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8" +class="citation">[8]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>The Bishop’s Palace was the scene of brilliant +symposiums. There one might have met Erasmus Darwin of the +<i>Botanic Garden</i>, whose fame has been somewhat dulled by the +extraordinary genius of his grandson. There also came +Richard Edgeworth, the father of Maria, whose <i>Castle +Rackrent</i> and <i>The Absentee</i> are still among the most +delightful books that we read; and there were the two young +girls, Honora and Elizabeth Sneyd, who were destined in +succession to become Richard Edgeworth’s wives. +There, above all, was Thomas Day, the author of <i>Sanford and +Merton</i>, a book which delighted many of us when we were <!-- +page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>young, and which I imagine with all its priggishness +will always survive as a classic for children. There, for a +short time, came Major André, betrothed to Honora Sneyd, +but destined to die so tragically in the American War of +Independence. It is to Miss Seward’s malicious talent +as a letter writer that we owe the exceedingly picturesque +account of Day’s efforts to obtain a wife upon a particular +pattern, his selection of Sabrina Sidney, whom he prepared for +that high destiny by sending her to a boarding school until she +was of the right age—his lessons in stoicism—his +disappointment because she screamed when he fired pistols at her +petticoats, and yelled when he dropped melted sealing-wax on her +bare arms; it is a tragi-comic picture, and one is glad that +Sabrina married some other man than her exacting guardian. +But we would not miss Miss Seward’s racy stories for +anything, nor ignore her many letters with their revelation of +the glories of old-time Lichfield, and of those ‘lunar +meetings’ at which the wise ones foregathered. Now +and again these worthies burst into sarcasm at one +another’s expense, as when Darwin satirizes the publication +<!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>of Mr. Seward’s edition of <i>Beaumont and +Fletcher</i>, and Dr. Johnson’s edition of +<i>Shakspere</i></p> +<blockquote><p>From Lichfield famed two giant critics come,<br /> +Tremble, ye Poets! hear them! Fe, Fo, Fum!<br /> +By Seward’s arm the mangled Beaumont bled,<br /> +And Johnson grinds poor Shakspere’s bones for bread.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But perhaps after all, if we eliminate Dr. Johnson, the lover +of letters gives the second place, not to Miss Seward and her +circle, but to David Garrick. Lichfield contains more than +one memento of that great man. The actor’s art is a +poor sort of thing as a rule. Johnson, in his tarter +moments, expresses this attitude, as when he talked of Garrick as +a man who exhibited himself for a shilling, when he called him +‘a futile fellow,’ and implied that it was very +unworthy of Lord Campden to have made much of the actor and to +have ignored so distinguished a writer as Goldsmith, when thrown +into the company of both. Still undoubtedly Johnson’s +last word upon Garrick is the best—‘his death has +eclipsed the gaiety of nations and diminished the public stock of +harmless pleasure.’ We who live more than a hundred +years later are able to recognize that Garrick has been the one +<!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>great actor from that age to this. As a rule the +mummers are mimics and little more, and generations go on, giving +them their brief but glorious hour of fame, and then leaving them +as mere names in the history of the stage. Garrick was +preserved from this fate, not only by the circumstance that he +had an army of distinguished literary friends, but by his +interesting personality and by his own writings. Many lines +of his plays and prologues have become part of current +speech. Moreover his must have been a great personality, as +those of us who have met Sir Henry Irving in these latter days +have realized that his was also a great personality. It is +fitting, therefore, that these two great actors, the most famous +of an interesting, if not always an heroic profession, should lie +side by side in Westminster Abbey.</p> +<p>I now come to my toast “The memory of Dr. +Johnson.” After all, Johnson was the greatest of all +Lichfieldians, and one of the great men of his own and of all +ages. We may talk about him and praise him because we shall +be the better for so doing, but we shall certainly say nothing +new. One or two points, however, seem to me worthy of +emphasis in this company of Johnsonians. <!-- page 13--><a +name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>I think we +should resent two popular fallacies which you will not hear from +literary students, but only from one whom it is convenient to +call “the man in the street.” The first is, +that we should know nothing about Johnson if it were not for +Boswell’s famous life, and the second that Johnson the +author is dead, and that our great hero only lives as a brilliant +conversationalist in the pages of Boswell and others. +Boswell’s <i>Life of Johnson</i> is the greatest biography +in the English language; we all admit that. It is crowded +with incident and anecdote. Neither Walter Scott nor +Rousseau, each of whom has had an equal number of pages devoted +to his personality, lives so distinctly for future ages as does +Johnson in the pages of Boswell. Understanding all this, we +are entitled to ask ourselves what we should have thought of Dr. +Johnson had there been no Boswell; and to this question I do not +hesitate to answer that we should have loved him as much as ever, +and that there would still have been a mass of material with the +true Boswellian flavour. He would not have made an appeal +to so large a public, but some ingenious person <!-- page 14--><a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>would have +drawn together all the anecdotes, all the epigrams, all the +touches of that fine humanity, and given us from these various +sources an amalgam of Johnson, that every bookman at least would +have desired to read and study. In Fanny Burney’s +<i>Letters and Diaries</i> the presentation of Johnson is +delightful. I wonder very much that all the Johnson +fragments that Miss Burney provides have not been published +separately. Then Mrs. Thrale has chatted about Johnson +copiously in her “Anecdotes,” and these pleasant +stories have been reprinted again and again for the +curious. I recall many other sources of information about +the great man and his wonderful talk—by Miss Hawkins, Miss +Reynolds, Miss Hannah More for example—and many of you who +have Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s <i>Johnson Miscellanies</i> have +these in a pleasantly acceptable form.</p> +<p>My second point is concerned with Dr. Johnson’s position +apart from all this fund of anecdote, and this brilliant +collection of unforgettable epigram in Boswell and +elsewhere. As a writer, many will tell you, Dr. Johnson is +dead. The thing is absurd on the face of it. There is +room for some disagreement as to his position as a poet. +<!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>On that question of poetry unanimity is ever hard to +seek; so many mistake rhetoric for poetry. Only twice at +the most, it seems to me, does Dr. Johnson reach anything in the +shape of real inspiration in his many poems, <a +name="citation15"></a><a href="#footnote15" +class="citation">[15]</a> although it must be admitted that +earlier generations admired them greatly. To have been +praised ardently by Sir Walter Scott, by Byron, and by Tennyson +should seem sufficient to demonstrate that he was a poet, were it +not that, as I could prove if time allowed, poets are almost +invariably bad critics of poetry. Sir Walter Scott read +<i>The Vanity of Human Wishes</i> with “a choking sensation +in the throat,” and declared that he had more pleasure in +reading that and Johnson’s other long poem, <i>London</i>, +than any other poetic compositions he could mention. But +then I think it was always the sentiment in verse, and not its +quality, that attracted Scott. Byron also declared that +<i>The Vanity of Human Wishes</i> was “a great +poem.” <!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 16</span>Certainly these poems are quotable +poems. Who does not recall the line about “surveying +mankind from China to Peru,” or think, as Johnson taught +us, to:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Mark what ills the scholar’s life assail,<br +/> +Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Or remember his epitaph on one who:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Left a name at which the world grew pale,<br /> +To point a moral or adorn a tale.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One line—“Superfluous lags the veteran on the +stage” has done duty again and again. I might quote a +hundred such examples to show Johnson, whatever his qualities as +a poet, is very much alive indeed in his verse. It is, +however, as a great prose writer, that I prefer to consider +him. Here he is certainly one of the most permanent forces +in our literature. <i>Rasselas</i>, for example, while +never ranking with us moderns quite so high as it did with the +excellent Miss Jenkins in <i>Cranford</i>, is a never failing +delight. So far from being a dead book, is there a young +man or a young woman setting out in the world of to-day, aspiring +to an all-round literary cultivation, who <!-- page 17--><a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>is not +required to know it? It has been republished +continually. What novelist of our time would not give much +to have so splendid a public recognition as was provided when +Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli, after the Abyssinian +Expedition, pictured in the House of Commons “the elephants +of Asia dragging the artillery of Europe over the mountains of +Rasselas.”</p> +<p>Equally in evidence are those wonderful <i>Lives of The +Poets</i> which Johnson did not complete until he was seventy-two +years of age, literary efforts which have always seemed to me to +be an encouraging demonstration that we should never allow +ourselves to grow old. Many of these ‘Lives’ +are very beautiful. They are all suggestive. Only the +other day I read them again in the fine new edition that was +prepared by that staunch Johnsonian, Dr. Birkbeck Hill. The +greatest English critic of these latter days, Mr. Matthew Arnold, +showed his appreciation by making a selection from them for +popular use. From age to age every man with the smallest +profession of interest in literature will study them. Of +how many books can this be said?</p> +<p><!-- page 18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>Greatest of all was Johnson as a writer in his least +premeditated work, his <i>Prayers and Meditations</i>. They +take rank in my mind with the very best things of their kind, +<i>The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius</i>, <i>The Confessions of +Rousseau</i>, and similar books. They are healthier than +any of their rivals. William Cowper, that always +fascinating poet and beautiful letter writer, more than once +disparaged Johnson in this connexion. Cowper said that he +would like to have “dusted Johnson’s jacket until his +pension rattled in his pocket,” for what he had said about +Milton. He read some extracts, after Johnson’s death, +from the <i>Meditations</i>, and wrote contemptuously of them. <a +name="citation18"></a><a href="#footnote18" +class="citation">[18]</a> But if Cowper had always +possessed, in addition to his <!-- page 19--><a +name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>fascinating +other-worldliness the healthy worldliness of Dr. Johnson, perhaps +we should all have been the happier. To me that collection +of <i>Prayers and Meditations</i> seems one of the most helpful +books that I have ever read, and I am surprised that it is not +constantly reprinted in a handy form. <a name="citation19"></a><a +href="#footnote19" class="citation">[19]</a> It is a +valuable inspiration to men to keep up their spirits under +adverse conditions, to conquer the weaknesses of their natures; +not in the stifling manner of Thomas à Kempis, but in a +breezy, robust way. Yes, I think that these three works, +<i>Rasselas</i>, <i>The Lives of the Poets</i>, and the +<i>Prayers and Meditations</i>, make it quite clear that Johnson +still holds his place as one of our greatest writers, even if we +were not familiar with his many delightful letters, and had not +read his <i>Rambler</i>—which his old enemy, Miss Anna +Seward, insisted was far better than Addison’s +<i>Spectator</i>.</p> +<p>All this is only to say that we cannot have too much of Dr. +Johnson. The advantage of such a gathering as this is that +it helps us to keep that <!-- page 20--><a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>fact +alive. Moreover, I feel that it is a good thing if we can +hearten those who have devoted themselves to laborious research +connected with such matters. Take, for example, the work of +Dr. Birkbeck Hill: his many volumes are a delight to the Johnson +student. I knew Dr. Hill very well, and I have often felt +that his work did not receive half the encouragement that it +deserved. We hear sometimes, at least in London, of authors +who advertise themselves. I rather fancy that all such +advertisement is monopolized by the novelist, and that the +newspapers do not trouble themselves very much about literary men +who work in other fields than that of fiction. Fiction has +much to be said for it, but as a rule it reaps its reward very +promptly, both in finance and in fame. No such rewards come +to the writer of biography, to the writer of history, to the +literary editor. Dr. Hill’s beautiful edition of +Boswell’s <i>Life</i>, with all its fascinating annotation, +did not reach a second edition in his lifetime. I am afraid +that the sum that he made out of it, or that his publishers made +out of it, would seem a very poor reward indeed when gauged by +the results in other fields of labour.</p> +<p><!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>Within the past few weeks I have had the privilege of +reading a book that continues these researches. Mr. Aleyn +Lyell Reade has published a handsome tome, which he has privately +printed, entitled <i>Dr. Johnson’s Ancestry</i>: <i>His +Kinsfolk and Family Connexions</i>. I am glad to hear that +the Johnson Museum has purchased a copy, for such a work deserves +every encouragement. The author must have spent hundreds of +pounds, without the faintest possibility of obtaining either fame +or money from the transaction. He seems to have employed +copyists in every town in Staffordshire, to copy wills, registers +of births and deaths, and kindred records from the past. +Now Dr. Birkbeck Hill could not have afforded to do this; he was +by no means a rich man. Mr. Reade has clearly been able to +spare no expense, with the result that here are many interesting +facts corrective of earlier students. The whole is a +valuable record of the ancestry of Dr. Johnson. It shows +clearly that whereas Dr. Johnson thought very little of his +ancestry, and scarcely knew anything of his grandfather on the +paternal or the maternal side, he really sprang from a very +remarkable <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>stock, notably on the maternal side; +and that his mother’s family, the Fords, had among their +connexions all kinds of fairly prosperous people, clergymen, +officials, professional men as well as sturdy yeomen. These +ancestors of Dr. Johnson did not help him much to push his way in +the world. Of some of them he had scarcely heard. All +the same it is of great interest to us to know this; it in a +manner explains him. That before Samuel Johnson was born, +one of his family had been Lord Mayor of London, another a +Sheriff, that they had been associated in various ways, not only +with the city of his birth, but also with the great city which +Johnson came to love so much, is to let in a flood of fresh light +upon our hero. My time does not permit me to do more than +make a passing reference to this book, but I should like to offer +here a word of thanks to its author for his marvellous industry, +and a word of congratulation to him for the extraordinary success +that has accrued to his researches.</p> +<p>I mention Mr. Reade’s book because it is full of +Lichfield names and Lichfield associations, and it is with Dr. +Johnson’s life-long connexion with <!-- page 23--><a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>Lichfield +that all of us are thinking to-night. Now here I may say, +without any danger of being challenged by some visitor who has +the misfortune not to be a citizen of Lichfield—you who are +will not wish to challenge me—that this city has +distinguished itself in quite an unique way. I do not +believe that it can be found that any other town or city of +England—I will not say of Scotland or of Ireland—has +done honour to a literary son in the same substantial measure +that Lichfield has done honour to Samuel Johnson. The +peculiar glory of the deed is that it was done to the living +Johnson, not coming, as so many honours do, too late for a man to +find pleasure in the recognition. We know that—</p> +<blockquote><p>Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,<br /> +Through which the living Homer begged his bread.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But I doubt whether in the whole history of literature in +England it can be found that any other purely literary man has +received in his lifetime so substantial a mark of esteem from the +city which gave him birth, as Johnson did when your Corporation, +in 1767, “at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, +without any <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 24</span>solicitation,” presented him +with the ninety-nine years’ lease of the house in which he +was born. Your citizens not only did that for Johnson, but +they gave him other marks of their esteem. He writes from +Lichfield to Sir Joshua Reynolds to express his pleasure that his +portrait has been “much visited and much +admired.” “Every man,” he adds, +“has a lurking desire to appear considerable in his native +place.” Then we all remember Boswell’s +naïve confession that his pleasure at finding his hero so +much beloved led him, when the pair arrived at this very +hostelry, to imbibe too much of the famous Lichfield ale. +If Boswell wished, as he says, to offer incense to the spirit of +the place, how much more may we desire to do so to-night, when +exactly 125 years have passed, and his hero is now more than ever +recognized as a king of men.</p> +<p>I do not suggest that we should honour Johnson in quite the +same way that Boswell did. This is a more abstemious +age. But we must drink to his memory all the same. +Think of it. A century and a quarter have passed since that +memorable evening at the <i>Three Crowns</i>, when Johnson and +Boswell thus <!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 25</span>foregathered in this very room. +You recall the journey from Birmingham of the two +companions. “We are getting out of a state of +death,” the Doctor said with relief, as he approached his +native city, feeling all the magic and invigoration that is said +to come to those who in later years return to +“calf-land.” Then how good he was to an old +schoolfellow who called upon him here. The fact that this +man had failed in the battle of life while Johnson had succeeded, +only made the Doctor the kinder. I know of no more human +picture than that—“A Mr. Jackson,” as he is +called by Boswell, “in his coarse grey coat,” +obviously very poor, and as Boswell suggests, “dull and +untaught.” The “great Cham of Literature” +listens patiently as the worthy Jackson tells his troubles, so +much more patiently than he would have listened to one of the +famous men of his Club in London, and the hero-worshipping +Boswell drinks his deep potations, but never neglects to take +notes the while. Of Boswell one remembers further that +Johnson had told Wilkes that he had brought him to Lichfield, +“my native city,” “that he might see for once +real Civility—for <!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 26</span>you know he lives among savages in +Scotland, and among rakes in London.” All good +stories are worth hearing again and again, and so I offer an +apology for recalling the picture to your mind at this time and +in this place.</p> +<p>Alas! I have not the gift of the worldfamed Lord Verulam, who, +as Francis Bacon, sat in the House of Commons. The members, +we are told, so delighted in his oratory that when he rose to +speak they “were fearful lest he should make an +end.” I am making an end. Johnson then was not +only a great writer, a conversationalist so unique that his +sayings have passed more into current speech than those of any +other Englishman, but he was also a great moralist—a superb +inspiration to a better life. We should not love Johnson so +much were he not presented to us as a man of many weaknesses and +faults akin to our own, not a saint by any means, and therefore +not so far removed from us as some more ethereal characters of +whom we may read. Johnson striving to methodize his life, +to fight against sloth and all the minor vices to which he was +prone, is the Johnson whom some of us prefer to keep ever in +mind. “Here was,” I quote <!-- page 27--><a +name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>Carlyle, +“a strong and noble man, one of our great English +souls.” I love him best in his book called <i>Prayers +and Meditations</i>, where we know him as we know scarcely any +other Englishman, for the good, upright fighter in this by no +means easy battle of life. It is as such a fighter that we +think of him to-night. Reading the account of <i>his</i> +battles may help us to fight ours.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I give you the toast of the evening. Let us +drink in solemn silence, upstanding, “The Immortal Memory +of Dr. Samuel Johnson.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>II. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF WILLIAM COWPER</h2> +<p>An address entitled ‘The Sanity of Cowper,’ +delivered at the Centenary Celebration at Olney, Bucks, on the +occasion of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Death of the poet +William Cowper, April 25, 1900.</p> +<p>I owe some apology for coming down to Olney to take part in +what I believe is a purely local celebration, in which no other +Londoner, as far as I know, has been asked to take part. I +am here not because I profess any special qualification to speak +about Cowper, in the town with which his name is so pleasantly +associated, but because Mr. Mackay, <a name="citation31"></a><a +href="#footnote31" class="citation">[31]</a> the son-in-law of +your Vicar, has written a book about the Brontës, and I have +done likewise, and he asked me to come. <!-- page 32--><a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>This common +interest has little, you will say, to do with the Poet of +Olney. Between Cowper and Charlotte Brontë there were, +however, not a few points of likeness or at least of +contrast. Both were the children of country clergymen; both +lived lives of singular and, indeed, unusual strenuousness; both +were the very epitome of a strong Protestantism; and yet +both—such is the inevitable toleration of genius—were +drawn in an unusual manner to attachment to friends of the Roman +Catholic Church—Cowper to Lady Throckmorton, who copied out +some of his translations from Homer for him, assisted by her +father-confessor, Dr. Gregson, and Miss Brontë to her +Professor, M. Héger, the man in the whole world whom she +most revered. Under circumstances of peculiar depression +both these great Protestant writers went further on occasion than +their Protestant friends would have approved, Cowper to +contemplate—so he assures us in one of his +letters—the entering a French monastery, and Miss +Brontë actually to kneel in the Confessional in a Brussels +church. Further, let me remind you that there were moments +in the lives of Charlotte Brontë and her sisters, when +Cowper’s <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>poem, <i>The Castaway</i>, was their +most soul-stirring reading. Then, again, Mary Unwin’s +only daughter became the wife of a Vicar of Dewsbury, and it was +at Dewsbury and to the very next vicar, that Mr. Brontë, the +father of Charlotte, was curate when he first went into +Yorkshire. Finally, let it be recalled that Cowper and +Charlotte Brontë have attracted as much attention by the +pathos of their lives as by anything that they wrote. Thus +far, and no further, can a strained analogy carry us. The +most enthusiastic admirers of the Brontës can only claim for +them that they permanently added certain artistic treasures to +our literature. Cowper did incomparably more than +this. His work marked an epoch.</p> +<p>But first let me say how interested we who are strangers +naturally feel in being in Olney. To every lover of +literature Olney is made classic ground by the fact that Cowper +spent some twenty years of his life in it—not always with +too genial a contemplation of the place and its +inhabitants. “The genius of Cowper throws a halo of +glory over all the surroundings of Olney and Weston,” says +Dean Burgon. But Olney <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>has claims +apart from Cowper. John Newton <a name="citation34"></a><a +href="#footnote34" class="citation">[34]</a> presents himself to +me as an impressive personality. There was a time, indeed, +of youthful impetuosity when I positively hated him, for Southey, +whose biography I read very early in life, certainly endeavours +to assist the view that Newton was largely responsible for the +poet’s periodical attacks of insanity.</p> +<p>But a careful survey of the facts modifies any such +impression. Newton was narrow at times, he was +over-concerned as to the letter, often ignoring the spirit of +true piety, but the student of the two volumes of his <i>Life and +Correspondence</i> that we owe to Josiah Bull, will be compelled +to look at “the old African blasphemer” as he called +himself, with much of sympathy. That he had a note of +tolerance, with which he is not usually credited, we learn from +one of his letters, where he says:</p> +<blockquote><p>I am willing to be a debtor to the wise and to the +unwise, <!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 35</span>to doctors and shoemakers, if I can +get a hint from any one without respect of parties. When a +house is on fire Churchmen and Dissenters, Methodists and +Papists, Moravians and Mystics are all welcome to bring +water. At such times nobody asks, “Pray, friend, whom +do you hear?” or “What do you think of the five +points?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Even my good friend Canon Benham, who has done so much to +sustain the honourable fame of Cowper, and who would have been +here to-day but for a long-standing engagement, is scarcely fair +to Newton. <a name="citation35"></a><a href="#footnote35" +class="citation">[35]</a> It is not true, as has been +suggested, that Cowper always changed his manner into one of +painful sobriety when he wrote to Newton. One of his most +humorous letters—a rhyming epistle—was addressed to +that divine.</p> +<blockquote><p>I have writ (he says) in a rhyming fit, what will +make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though +against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to +an end of what I have penned; which you may do ere Madam and you +are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here +you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble +me, W. C.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>Now, I quote this very familiar passage from the +correspondence to remind you that Cowper could only have written +it to a man possessed of considerable healthy geniality.</p> +<p>At any rate, alike as a divine and as the author of the +<i>Olney Hymns</i>, Newton holds an important place in the +history of theology, and Olney has a right to be proud of +him. An even more important place is held by Thomas Scott, +<a name="citation36"></a><a href="#footnote36" +class="citation">[36]</a> and it seems to me quite a wonderful +thing that Olney should sometimes have held at one and the same +moment three such remarkable men as Cowper, Newton, and +Scott.</p> +<p>In my boyhood Scott’s name was a household word, and +many a time have I thumbed the volumes of his +<i>Commentaries</i>, those <i>Commentaries</i> which Sir James +Stephen declared to be “the greatest theological +performance of our age and country.” Of Scott +Cardinal Newman in his <i>Apologia</i> said, it will be +remembered, that “to <!-- page 37--><a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>him, humanly +speaking, I almost owe my soul.” Even here our +literary associations with Olney and its neighbourhood are not +ended, for, it was within five miles of this town—at Easton +Maudit—that Bishop Percy <a name="citation37"></a><a +href="#footnote37" class="citation">[37]</a> lived and prepared +those <i>Reliques</i> which have inspired a century of ballad +literature. Here the future Bishop of Dromore was visited +by Dr. Johnson and others. What a pity that with only five +miles separating them Cowper and Johnson should never have +met! Would Cowper have reconsidered the wish made when he +read Johnson’s biography of Milton in the <i>Lives of the +Poets</i>: “Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made +his pension jingle in his pocket!”?</p> +<p>But it is with Cowper only that we have here to do, and when +we are talking of Cowper the difficulty is solely one of +compression. So much has been written about him and his +work. The Lives of him form of themselves a most +substantial library. He has been made the subject of what +is surely the very worst biography in the <!-- page 38--><a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>language and +of one that is among the very best. The well-meaning Hayley +<a name="citation38a"></a><a href="#footnote38a" +class="citation">[38a]</a> wrote the one, in which the word +“tenderness” appears at least twice on every page, +and Southey <a name="citation38b"></a><a href="#footnote38b" +class="citation">[38b]</a> the other. Not less fortunate +has the poet been in his critics. Walter Bagehot, James +Russell Lowell, Mrs. Oliphant, George Eliot <a +name="citation38c"></a><a href="#footnote38c" +class="citation">[38c]</a>—these are but a few of <!-- page +39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>the +names that occur to me as having said something wise and to the +point concerning the Poet of Olney.</p> +<p>I somehow feel that it is safer for me to refer to the Poet of +Olney than to speak of William Cowper, because I am not quite +sure how you would wish me to pronounce his name. +<i>Cooper</i>, he himself pronounced it, as his family are in the +habit of doing. The present Lord Cowper is known to all the +world as Lord Cooper. The derivation of the name and the +family coat-of-arms justify that pronunciation, and it might be +said that a man was, and is, entitled to settle the question of +the pronunciation of his own name. And yet I plead for what +I am quite willing to allow is the incorrect pronunciation. +All pronunciation, even of the simplest words, is settled finally +by a consensus of custom. Throughout the English-speaking +world the name is now constantly pronounced Cowper, as if that +most useful and ornamental animal the cow had given it its +origin. Well-read Scotland is peculiarly unanimous in the +custom, and well-read America follows suit. William +Shakspere, I doubt not, called himself Shaxspere, and we <!-- +page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>decline to imitate him, and so probably many of us will +with a light heart go on speaking of William Cowper to the end of +the chapter. At any rate Shakspere and Cowper, divergent as +were their lives and their work—and one readily recognizes +the incomparably greater position of the former—had alike a +keen sense of humour, rare among poets it would seem, and hugely +would they both have enjoyed such a controversy as this.</p> +<p>This suggestion of the humour of Cowper brings me to my main +point. Humour is so essentially a note of sanity, and it is +the sanity of Cowper that I desire to emphasize here. We +have heard too much of the insanity of Cowper, of the +“maniac’s tongue” to which Mrs. Browning +referred, of the “maniacal Calvinist” of whom Byron +wrote somewhat scornfully. Only a day or two ago I read in +a high-class journal that “one fears that Cowper’s +despondency and madness are better known to-day than his +poetry.” That is not to know the secret of +Cowper. It is true that there were periods of maniacal +depression, and these were not always religious ones. Now, +it was from sheer nervousness at <!-- page 41--><a +name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>the prospect +of meeting his fellows, now it was from a too logical acceptance +of the doctrine of eternal punishment. Had it not been +these, it would have been something else. It might have +been politics, or a hundred things that now and again give a +twist to the mind of the wisest. With Cowper it was +generally religion. I am not here to promote a +paradox. I accept the only too well-known story of +Cowper’s many visitations, but, looking back a century, for +the purpose of asking what was Cowper’s contribution to the +world’s happiness and why we meet to speak of our love for +him to-day, I insist that these visitations are not essential to +our memory of him as a great figure in our literature—the +maker of an epoch.</p> +<p>Cowper lived for some seventy years—sixty-nine, to be +exact. Of these years there was a period longer than the +full term of Byron’s life, of Shelley’s or of +Keats’s, of perfect sanity, and it was in this period that +he gave us what is one of the sanest achievements in our +literature, view it as we may.</p> +<p>Let us look backwards over the century—a century which +has seen many changes of which Cowper had scarcely any +vision—the <!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 42</span>wonders of machinery and of +electricity, of commercial enterprise, of the newspaper press, of +book production. The galloping postboy is the most +persistent figure in Cowper’s landscape. He has been +replaced by the motor car. Nations have arisen and fallen; +a thousand writers have become popular and have ceased to be +remembered. Other writers have sprung up who have made +themselves immortal. Burns and Byron, Coleridge and +Wordsworth, Scott and Shelley among the poets.</p> +<p>We ask ourselves, then, what distinctly differentiates +Cowper’s life from that of his brothers in poetry, and I +reply—his sanity. He did not indulge in vulgar +amours, as did Burns and Byron; he did not ruin his moral fibre +by opium, as did Coleridge; he did not shock his best friends by +an over-weening egotism, as did Wordsworth; he did not spoil his +life by reckless financial complications, as did Scott; or by too +great an enthusiasm to beat down the world’s conventions, +as did Shelley. I do not here condemn any one or other of +these later poets. Their lives cannot be summed up in the +mistakes they made. I only urge that, as it is not good to +be at warfare <!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span>with your fellows, to be burdened +with debts that you have to kill yourself to pay, to alienate +your friends by distressing mannerisms, to cease to be on +speaking terms with your family—therefore Cowper, who +avoided these things, and, out of threescore years and more +allotted to him, lived for some forty or fifty years at least a +quiet, idyllic life, surrounded by loyal and loving friends, had +chosen the saner and safer path. That, it may be granted, +was very much a matter of temperament, and for it one does not +need to praise him. The appeal to us of Robert Burns to +gently scan our brother man will necessarily find a ready +acceptance to-day, and a plea on behalf of kindly toleration for +any great writer who has inspired his fellows is natural and +honourable. But Cowper does not require any such kindly +toleration. His temperament led him to a placid life, where +there were few temptations, and that life with its quiet walks, +its occasional drives, its simple recreations, has stood for a +whole century as our English ideal. It is what, amid the +strain of the severest commercialism in our great cities, we look +forward to for our declining years as a haven on this side of the +grave.</p> +<p><!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>But I have undertaken to plead for Cowper’s +sanity. I desire, therefore, to beg you to look not at this +or that episode in his life, when, as we know, Cowper was in the +clutches of evil spirits, but at his life as a whole—a life +of serene contentment in the company of his friends, his hares +Puss, Tiny and Bess, his “eight pair of tame +pigeons,” his correspondents; and then I ask you to turn to +his work, and to note the essential sanity of that work also.</p> +<p>First there is his poetry. When after the Bastille had +fallen Charles James Fox quoted in one of his speeches +Cowper’s lines—written long years +before—praying that that event might occur, he paid an +unconscious tribute to the sanity of Cowper’s genius. <a +name="citation44"></a><a href="#footnote44" +class="citation">[44]</a> Few poets who have let their +convictions and aspirations find expression in verse have come so +near the mark.</p> +<p>Wordsworth’s verse—that which was written at the +same age—is studded with prophecy of evils that never +occurred. It was not because of any supermundane +intelligence, such as latter-day poets have been pleased to +affect and latter-day <!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span>critics to assume for them, that +Cowper wrote in anticipation of the fall of the Bastille in those +thrilling lines, but because his exceedingly sane outlook upon +the world showed him that France was riding fast towards +revolution.</p> +<p>We have been told that Cowper’s poetry lacked the true +note of passion, that there was an absence of the “lyric +cry.” I protest that I find the note of passion in +the “Lines on the Receipt of my Mother’s +Picture,” in his two sets of verses to Mrs. Unwin, in his +sonnet to Wilberforce not less marked than I find it in other +great poets. I find in <i>The Task</i> and elsewhere in +Cowper’s works a note of enthusiasm for human brotherhood, +for man’s responsibility for man, for universal kinship, +that had scarcely any place in literature before he wrote quietly +here at Olney thoughts wiser and saner than he knew. To-day +we call ourselves by many names, Conservatives or Liberals, +Radicals, or Socialists; we differ widely as to ways and means; +but we are all practically agreed about one thing—that the +art of politics is the art of making the world happier. +Each politician who has any aspirations beyond mere ambition +desires to leave the world a little better <!-- page 46--><a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>than he found +it. This is a commonplace of to-day. It was not a +commonplace of Cowper’s day. Even the great-hearted, +lovable Dr. Johnson was only concerned with the passing act of +kindliness to his fellows; patriotism he declared to be the last +refuge of a scoundrel; collective aspiration was mere charlatanry +in his eyes, and when some one said that he had lost his appetite +because of a British defeat, Johnson thought him an impostor, in +which Johnson was probably right. There have been plenty of +so-called patriots who were scoundrels, there has been plenty of +affectation of sentiment which is little better than charlatanry, +but we do not consider when we weigh the influence of men whether +Rousseau was morally far inferior to Johnson. We know that +he was. But Rousseau, poor an instrument as he may have +been, helped to break many a chain, to relieve many a weary +heart, to bring to whole peoples a new era in which the horrors +of the past became as a nightmare, and in which ideals were +destined to reign for ever. Cowper, an incomparably better +man than Rousseau, helped to permeate England with that +collective sentiment, which, while it does not excuse us <!-- +page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>for neglecting our neighbour, is a good thing for +preserving for nations a healthy natural life, a more and more +difficult task with the growing complications of +commercialism. Cowper here, as I say, unconsciously +performed his greatest service to humanity; and it was performed, +be it remembered, at Olney. It has been truly said that in +Cowper:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The poetry of human wrong begins, that long, long +cry against oppression and evil done by man to man, against the +political, moral, or priestly tyrant, which rings louder and +louder through Burns, Coleridge, Shelley, and Byron, ever +impassioned, ever longing, ever prophetic—never, in the +darkest time, quite despairing. <a name="citation47"></a><a +href="#footnote47" class="citation">[47]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>And Cowper achieved this without losing sight for one moment +of the essential necessity for personal worth:</p> +<blockquote><p> Spend all thy powers<br /> +Of rant and rhapsody in Virtue’s praise,<br /> +Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and it profiteth nothing, he said in effect.</p> +<p>That was not his only service as a citizen. He struck +the note of honest patriotism as it had not <!-- page 48--><a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>been struck +before since Milton, by the familiar lines commencing:</p> +<blockquote><p>England, with all thy faults, I love thee +still,<br /> + My country!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As also in that stirring ballad “On the Loss of the +<i>Royal George</i>:”</p> +<blockquote><p>Her timbers yet are sound,<br /> + And she may float again,<br /> +Full charged with England’s thunder,<br /> + And plough the distant main.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There are two other great claims that might here be made for +Cowper did time allow, that he anticipated Wordsworth alike as a +lover of nature, as one who had more than a superficial affection +for it—the superficial affection of Thomson and +Gray—and that he anticipated Wordsworth also as a lover of +animal life. Cowper’s love of nature was the less +effective than Wordsworth’s only, surely, in that he had +not had Wordsworth’s advantage of living amid impressive +scenery. His love of animal life was far less platonic than +Wordsworth’s. To his hares and his pigeons and all +dumb creatures he was genuinely devoted. Perhaps it was +because he had in him the blood <!-- page 49--><a +name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>of +kings—for, curiously enough, it is no more difficult to +trace the genealogical tree of both Cowper and Byron down to +William the Conqueror than it is to trace the genealogical tree +of Queen Victoria—it was perhaps, I say, this descent from +kings which led him to be more tolerant of “sport” +than was Wordsworth. At any rate, Cowper’s vigorous +description of being in at the death of a fox may be contrasted +with Wordsworth’s “Heart Leap Well,” and you +will prefer Cowper or Wordsworth, as your tastes are for or +against our old-fashioned English sports. But even then, as +often, Cowper in his poetry was less tolerant than in his prose, +for he writes in <i>The Task</i> of:</p> +<blockquote><p> detested +sport<br /> +That owes its pleasures to another’s pain,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We may note in all this the almost entire lack of indebtedness +in Cowper to his predecessors. One of his most famous +phrases, indeed, that on “the cup that cheers, but not +inebriates,” he borrowed from Berkeley; but his borrowings +were few, far fewer than those of any other great poet, whereas +mine would be a long essay were I to produce by the medium of +<!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>parallel columns all that other poets have borrowed from +him.</p> +<p>Lastly, among Cowper’s many excellencies as a poet let +me note his humour. His pathos, his humanity—many +fine qualities he has in common with others; but what shall we +say of his humour? If the ubiquitous Scot were present, so +far from his native heath—and I daresay we have one or two +with us—he might claim that humour was also the prerogative +of Robert Burns. He might claim, also, that certain other +great characteristics of Cowper were to be found almost +simultaneously in Burns. There is virtue in the +<i>almost</i>. Cowper was born in 1731, Burns in +1759. At any rate humour has been a rare product among the +greater English poets. It was entirely absent in +Wordsworth, in Shelley, in Keats. Byron possessed a gift of +satire and wit, but no humour, Tennyson only a suspicion of it in +“The Northern Farmer.” From Cowper to Browning, +who also had it at times, there has been little humour in the +greatest English poetry, although plenty of it in the lesser +poets—Hood and the rest. But there was in Cowper a +great sense of humour, as there was also plenty of what <!-- page +51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>Hazlitt, almost censoriously, calls “elegant +trifling.” Not only in the imperishable “John +Gilpin,” but in the “Case Between Nose and +Eyes,” “The Nightingale and Glow-worm,” and +other pieces you have examples of humorous verse which will live +as long as our language endures.</p> +<p>Cowper’s claims as a poet, then, may be emphasized under +four heads:—</p> +<p>I. His enthusiasm for humanity.</p> +<p>II. His love of nature.</p> +<p>III. His love of animal life.</p> +<p>IV. His humour.</p> +<p>And in three of these, let it be said emphatically, he stands +out as the creator of a new era.</p> +<p>There is another claim I make for him, and with this I +close—his position as a master of prose, as well as of +poetry. Cowper was the greatest letter-writer in a language +which has produced many great letter-writers—Walpole, Gray, +Byron, Scott, FitzGerald, and a long list. But nearly all +these men were men of affairs, of action. Given a good +literary style they could hardly have been other than +interesting, they had so much to say that they gained from +external sources. Even FitzGerald—the one <!-- page +52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>recluse—had all the treasures of literature +constantly passing into his study. Cowper had but eighteen +books altogether during many of his years in Olney, and some of +us who have lent our volumes in the past and are still sighing +over gaps in our shelves find consolation in the fact that six of +Cowper’s books had been returned to him after a friend had +borrowed for twenty years or so. Now, it is comparatively +easy to write good letters with a library around you; it is +marvellous that Cowper could have done this with so little +material, and his letters are, from this point of view, the best +of all—“divine chit-chat” Coleridge called +them. His simple style captivates us. And here let me +say—keeping to my text—that it is the <i>sanest</i> +of styles, a style with no redundancies, no rhetoric, no +straining after effect. The outlook on life is +sane—what could be finer than the chase for the lost hare, +or the call of the Parliamentary candidate, or the flogging of +the thief?—and the outlook on literature is particularly +sane.</p> +<p>Cowper was well-nigh the only true poet in the first rank in +English literature who was at the same time a true critic. +Literary history affords a singular revelation of the wild and +incoherent <!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 53</span>judgments of their fellows on the +part of the poets. For praise or blame, there are few +literary judgments of Byron, of Shelley, of Wordsworth that will +stand. Coleridge was a critic first, and his poetry, though +good, is small in quantity, and the same may be said of Matthew +Arnold. Tennyson discreetly kept away from prose, and his +letters, be it remembered, lack distinction as do most letters of +the nineteenth century. If, however, as we are really to +believe, he it was who really made the first edition of +Palgrave’s <i>Golden Treasury of Lyric Poetry</i>, he came +near to Cowper in his sanity of judgment, and one delights to +think that in that precious volume Cowper ranks third—that +is, after Shakspere and Wordsworth—in the number of +selections that are there given, and rightly given, as +imperishable masterpieces of English poetry. Tennyson, +also, was at one with Cowper in declaring that an appreciation of +<i>Lycidas</i> was a touchstone of taste for poetry. To +Tennyson, as to Cowper, Milton was the one great English poet +after Shakspere; and here, also, we revere the saneness of +view. More sane too, was Cowper than any of the <!-- page +54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>modern critics, in that he did not believe that mere +technique was the standpoint from which all poetry must +ultimately be judged.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Give me,” he says, “a manly +rough line with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem +full of musical periods, that have nothing in them, only +smoothness to recommend them!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And thus he justified Robert Browning and many another +singer.</p> +<p>Let us then dismiss from our minds the one-sided picture of +Cowper as a gloomy fanatic, who was always asking himself in +Carlylian phrase, “Am I saved? Am I +damned?” Let us remember him as staunch to the +friends of his youth, sympathetic to his old schoolfellow, Warren +Hastings, when the world would make him out too black. +Opposed in theory to tobacco, how he delighted to welcome his +good friend Mr. Bull. “My greenhouse,” he says, +“wants only the flavour of your pipe to make it perfectly +delightful!” Naturally tolerant of total abstinence, +he asks one friend to drink to the success of his Homer, and +thanks another for a present of bottle-stands. From +beginning to end, save in those periods of aberration, there is +no more <!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 55</span>resemblance to Cowper in the picture +that certain narrow-minded people have desired to portray than +there is in these same people’s conception of Martin +Luther. The real Luther, who loved dancing and mirth and +the joy of living as much as did any of the men he so +courageously opposed, was not more remote from a conception of +him once current in this country than was the real +Cowper—the frank, genial humorist, who wrote “John +Gilpin,” who in his youth “giggled and made +giggle” with his girl-cousins, and in his maturer years +“laughed and made laugh” with Lady Austen and Lady +Hesketh.</p> +<p>To all men there are periods of weariness and depression, side +by side with periods of happiness and hopefulness. Cowper, +alas! had more than his share of the tragedy of life, but let us +not forget that he had some of its joy, and that joy is reflected +for us in a substantial literary achievement, which has lived, +and influenced the world, while his more tragic experiences may +well be buried in oblivion. This, you may have noted, is +not a criticism of Cowper, but an eulogy. I would wish to +say, however, that the criticism of Cowper by living writers has +been of surpassing <!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 56</span>excellence. For the first fifty +or sixty years of the century that we are recalling Cowper was +the most popular poet of our country, with Burns and Byron for +rivals. He has been largely dethroned by Wordsworth and +Shelley, and Tennyson, not one of whom has been praised too +much. But if Cowper has sunk somewhat out of sight of late +years, owing to inevitable circumstances, it is during these late +years that he has secured the goodwill of the best living +critics. Would that Mr. Leslie Stephen <a +name="citation56"></a><a href="#footnote56" +class="citation">[56]</a>—who wrote his life in the +<i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>—would that Mr. +Edmund Gosse—who has so recently published a great +biography of Cowper’s memorable ancestor, Dr. +Donne—were, one or other of them, here to-day; or Mr. +Austin Dobson, who has visited Olney, and described his +impressions; or Dr. Jessopp, who lives near Cowper’s tomb +in East Dereham Church. These writers are, alas! not with +us, and some presentment of a poet they love has fallen to less +capable hands.</p> +<p><!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>But not the most brilliant of speeches, not all the +enthusiasm of all the critics, can ever restore Cowper to his +former immense popularity. We do well, however, to +celebrate his centenary, because it is good at certain periods to +remember our indebtedness to the great men who have helped us in +literature or in life. But that is not to say that we work +for the dethronement of later favourites. “Each age +must write its own books,” says Emerson, and this is +particularly the case with the great body of poetry. +Cowper, however, will live to all time among students of +literature by his longer poems; he will live to all time among +the multitude by his ballads and certain of his lyrics. He +will, assuredly, live by his letters, to study which will be a +thousand times more helpful to the young writer than many volumes +of Addison, to whom we were once advised to devote our days and +our nights. Cowper will live, above all, as a profoundly +interesting and beautiful personality, as a great and good +Englishman—the greatest of all the sons of this his adopted +town.</p> +<h2><!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>III. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF GEORGE BORROW</h2> +<p>An Address delivered in Norwich on the Occasion of the Borrow +Centenary, 1903.</p> +<p>One hundred years ago there was born some two miles from the +pleasant little town of East Dereham, in this county, a child who +was christened George Henry Borrow. That is why we are +assembled here this evening. I count it one of the most +interesting coincidences in literary history that only three +years earlier there should have left the world in the same little +town—a town only known perhaps to those of us who are +Norfolk men—a poet who has always seemed to me to be one of +the greatest glories of our literature: I mean William +Cowper. Cowper died in April, 1800, and Borrow was born in +July, 1803, in this same town of East Dereham: and there very +much it might be thought, any point of likeness or of contrast +must surely end.</p> +<p><!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>Cowper and Borrow do, indeed, come into some trivial +kind of kinship at one or two points. In reading +Cowper’s beautiful letters I have come across two addressed +by him to one Richard Phillips, a bookseller of that day, who had +been in prison for publishing some of Thomas Paine’s +works. Cowper had been asked by Phillips to write a +sympathetic poem denunciatory of the political and religious +tyranny that had sent Phillips to jail. Cowper had at first +agreed, but was afterwards advised not to have anything more to +do with Phillips. Judging by the after career of Phillips, +Cowper did wisely; for Phillips was not a good man, although +twenty years later he had become a sheriff of London and was +knighted. As Sir Richard Phillips he was visited by George +Borrow, then a youth at the beginning of his career. Borrow +came to Phillips armed with an introduction from William Taylor +of Norwich, and his reception is most dramatically recorded in +the pages of <i>Lavengro</i>. This is, however, to +anticipate. Then there is a poem by Cowper to Sir John Fenn +<a name="citation62"></a><a href="#footnote62" +class="citation">[62]</a> the antiquary, the <!-- page 63--><a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>first editor +of the famous <i>Paston Letters</i>. In it there is a +reference to Fenn’s spouse, who, under the pseudonym of +“Mrs. Teachwell,” wrote many books for children in +her day. Now Borrow could remember this lady—Dame +Eleanor Fenn—when he was a boy. He recalled the +“Lady Bountiful leaning on her gold-headed cane, while the +sleek old footman followed at a respectful distance +behind.” Lady Fenn was forty-six years old when +Cowper referred to her. She was sixty-six when the boy +Borrow saw her in Dereham streets. At no other points do +these great East Dereham writers come upon common ground: Cowper +during the greater part of his life was a recluse. He +practically fled from the world. In reading the many +letters <!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 64</span>he wrote—and they are among the +best letters in the English language—one is struck by the +small number of his correspondents. He had few +acquaintances and still fewer friends. He had never seen a +hill until he was sixty, and then it was only the modest hills of +Sussex that seemed to him so supremely glorious. He was +never on the Continent. For half a lifetime he did not move +out of one county, the least picturesque part of Buckinghamshire, +the neighbourhood of Olney and of Weston. There he wrote +the poems that have been a delight to several generations, poems +which although they may have gone out of fashion with many are +still very dear to some among us; and there, as I have said, he +wrote the incomparable letters that have an equally permanent +place in literature.</p> +<p>You could not conceive a more extraordinary contrast than the +life of this other writer associated with East Dereham, whom we +have met to celebrate this evening. George Borrow was the +son of a soldier, who had risen from the ranks, and of a mother +who had been an actress. Soldier and actress both imply to +all of us a restless, wandering life. The soldier was a +Cornishman <!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>by birth, the actress was of French +origin, and so you have blended in this little Norfolk +boy—who is a Norfolk boy in spite of it all—every +kind of nomadic habit, every kind of fiery, imaginative +enthusiasm, a temperament not usually characteristic of those of +us who claim East Anglia as the land of our birth or of our +progenitors. I wish it were possible for me to reconstruct +that Norwich world into which young George Borrow entered at +thirteen years of age. That it was a Norwich of great +intellectual activity is indisputable. In the year of +Borrow’s birth John Gurney, who died six years later, first +became a partner in the Norwich bank. His more famous son, +Joseph John Gurney—aged fifteen—left the Earlham home +in order to study at Oxford. His sister, the still more +famous Elizabeth Fry, was now twenty-three. So that when +Borrow, the thirteen year old son of the veteran +soldier—who had already been in Ireland picking up scraps +of Irish, and in Scotland adding to his knowledge of +Gaelic—settled down for some of his most impressionable +years in Norwich, Joseph John Gurney was a young man of +twenty-eight and Elizabeth Fry was thirty-six. <!-- page +66--><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>Dr. +James Martineau was eleven years of age and his sister Harriet +was fourteen. Another equally clever woman, not then +married to Austin, the famous jurist, was Sarah Taylor, aged +twenty-three. This is but to name a few of the crowd of +Norwich worthies of that day. Would that some one could +produce a picture of the literary life of Norwich of this time +and of a quarter of a century onward—a period that includes +the famous Bishop Stanley’s <a name="citation66"></a><a +href="#footnote66" class="citation">[66]</a> occupancy of the See +of Norwich and the visits to this city from all parts of England +of a great number of famous literary men. It is my pleasant +occupation to-night to endeavour to show that Borrow, the very +least of these men and women in public estimation for a good +portion of his life, and perhaps the least in popular judgment +even since his death, was really the greatest, was really the man +of all others to whom this beautiful city should do honour if it +asks for a name out of its nineteenth century history to crown +with local recognition.</p> +<p><!-- page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>For whatever homage may have fallen to Borrow during the +half-century or more since his name first came upon many tongues +Norwich, it must be admitted, has given very little of it. +No one associated with your city, I repeat, but has heard of the +Gurneys and the Martineaus, of the Stanleys and the Austins, +whose life stories have made so large a part of your literary and +intellectual history during this very period. But I turn in +vain to a number of books that I have in my library for any +information concerning one who is indisputably the greatest among +the intellectual children of Norwich. I turn to Mr. +Prothero’s <i>Life of Dean Stanley</i>—not one word +about Borrow; to that pleasant <i>Memoir</i> of Sarah Austin and +her mother, Mrs. Taylor, called <i>Three Generations of a Norfolk +Family</i>—again not one word. I turn to Mr. +Braithwaite’s biography of Joseph John Gurney, and to Mr. +Augustus Hare’s book <i>The Gurneys of +Earlham</i>—upon these worthy biographers Borrow made no +impression whatever, although Joseph John Gurney was personally +helpful to him and we read in <i>Lavengro</i> of that pleasant +meeting between the pair on the river bank when Mr. Gurney chided +<!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>the boy Borrow or Lavengro for angling. +“From that day,” he says, “I became less and +less a practitioner of that cruel fishing.” In +Harriet Martineau’s <i>Autobiography</i>, which enjoyed its +hour of fame when it was published twenty-six years ago, there is +a contemptuous reference to the disciple of William Taylor, +“this polyglot gentleman, who went through Spain +disseminating Bibles.” If Miss Martineau were alive +now she would hear the works of “this polyglot +gentleman” praised on every hand, and would find that a +cult had arisen which to her would certainly be quite +incomprehensible. In that large, dismal book—the +<i>Life of James Martineau</i>, again, there is but one mention +of Dr. Martineau’s famous schoolfellow whose name has been +linked with him only by a silly story. Do not let it be +thought that I am complaining of this neglect; the world will +always treat its greatest writers in precisely this +fashion. Borrow did not lack for fame of a kind, but he +was, as I desire to show, praised in his lifetime for the wrong +thing, where he was praised at all. Everyone in the fifties +and sixties read <i>The Bible in Spain</i>, as they read a +hundred other books of <!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>that period, now forgotten. +Many read it who were deceived by its title. They expected +a tract. Many read it as we to-day read the latest novel or +biography of the hour. Then a new book arises and the +momentary favourite is forgotten. We think for a whole week +that we are in contact with a well-nigh immortal work. A +little later we concern ourselves not at all whether the book is +immortal or not. We go on to something else. The +critic is as much to blame as the reader. Not one man in a +hundred whose profession it is to come between the author and the +public, and to guide the reader to the best in literature, has +the least perception of what is good literature. It is easy +when a writer has captured the suffrages of the crowd for the +critic to tell the world that he is great. That happened to +Carlyle, to Tennyson, to many a popular author whose earliest +books commanded little attention: but, happily, these writers did +not lose heart. They kept on writing. Borrow was +otherwise made. He wrote <i>The Bible in Spain</i>—a +book of travel of surprising merit. It sold largely on its +title. Mr. Augustine Birrell has told us that he knew a boy +in a very <!-- page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 70</span>strict household who devoured the +narrative on Sunday afternoons, the title being thought to cover +a conventional missionary journey. Well, when I was a boy +<i>The Bible in Spain</i> had gone out of fashion and the public +had not taken up with the author’s greater work, +<i>Lavengro</i>. Borrow was naturally disappointed. +He abused the critics and the public. Perhaps he grew +somewhat soured. He did not hesitate in <i>The Romany +Rye</i> to talk candidly about those “ill-favoured dogs . . +. the newspaper editors,” and he made the gentleman’s +gentleman of <i>Lavengro</i> describe how he was excluded from +the Servants’ Club in Park Lane because his master followed +a profession “so mean as literature.” In fact +as a reaction from the unfriendly reception accorded to the +<i>Romany Rye</i>—now one of the most costly of his books +in a first edition—he lost heart, and he grew to despise +the whole literary and writing class. Hence the various +stories presenting him in not very sympathetic guise, the story +of Thackeray being snubbed on asking Borrow if he had read the +<i>Snob Papers</i>, of Miss Agnes Strickland receiving an even +more forcible rebuff when she offered to send him her <i>Queens +of England</i>. <!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 71</span>“For God’s sake +don’t Madame; I should not know where to put them or what +to do with them.” These stories are in Gordon +Hake’s <i>Memoirs of Eighty Years</i>, but Mr. Francis +Hindes Groome has shown us the other side of the picture, and +others also to whom I shall refer a little later have done the +same. Perhaps the literary class is never the worse for a +little plain speaking. The real secret of Borrow is +this—that he was a man of action turned into a writer by +force of circumstances.</p> +<p>The life of Borrow, unlike that of most famous men of letters, +has not been overwritten. His death in 1881 caused little +emotion and attracted but small attention in the +newspapers. <i>The Times</i>, then as now so excellent in +its biographies as a rule, devoted but twenty lines to him. +Here I may be pardoned for being autobiographical. I was +last in Norwich in the early eighties. I had a wild +enthusiasm for literature so far as my taste had been +directed—that is to say I read every book I came across and +had been doing so from my earliest boyhood. But I had never +heard of George Borrow or of his works. In my then not +infrequent <!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>visits to Norwich I cannot recall +that his name was ever mentioned, and in my life in London, among +men who were, many of them, great readers, I never heard of +Borrow or of his achievement. He died in 1881, and as I do +not recall hearing his name at the time of his death or until +long afterwards, I must have missed certain articles in the +<i>Athenaeum</i>—two of them admirable +“appreciations” by Mr. Watts-Dunton—and so my +state of benightedness was as I have described. It may be +that those who are a year or two older than I am and those who +are younger may find this extraordinary. You have always +heard of Borrow and of his works, but I think I am entitled to +insist that when Borrow sank into his grave, an old, and to many +an eccentric and bitter man, he had fallen into the most curious +oblivion with the public that has ever come to a man, I will not +say of equal distinction, but of any distinction whatever. +Mr. Egmont Hake told the readers of the <i>Athenaeum</i> in a +biography that appeared at the time of Borrow’s death that +Borrow’s works were “forgotten in England” and +I find in turning to the biography of Borrow in <i>The <!-- page +73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>Norvicensian</i>, for 1882—the organ of the +Norwich Grammar School—that the writer of this obituary +notice confessed that there were none of Borrow’s works in +the library of the school of which Borrow had been the most +distinguished pupil.</p> +<p>From that time—in 1881—until 1899, a period of +eighteen years, Borrow had but little biographical +recognition. A few introductions to his books, sundry +encyclopaedia articles, and one or two magazine essays made up +the sum total of information concerning the author of +<i>Lavengro</i> until Dr. Knapp’s <i>Life</i> appeared in +1899. That <i>Life</i> has been severely handled by some +lovers of Borrow, and lovers of Borrow are now plentiful +enough. Dr. Knapp had not the cunning of the really +successful biographer. His book still remains in the huge +two-volumed form in which it was first issued four years ago, and +I do not anticipate that it will ever be a popular book. +There is no literary art in it. There is a capacity for +amassing facts, but no power of co-ordinating these facts. +Moreover Dr. Knapp did a great deal of mischief by very +over-zeal. He made too great a research into all the +current gossip in Norfolk and Suffolk concerning Borrow. +<!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>If you were to make special research into the life of +any friend or acquaintance of the past you would hear much +foolish gossip and a great many wrong motives imputed, and +possibly you would not have an opportunity of checking the +various statements. The whole of Dr. Knapp’s book +seems to be written upon the principle of “I would if I +could” say a good many things, and, indeed, every few +months there appears in the <i>Eastern Daily Press</i>, a journal +of your city that I have read every day regularly since boyhood, +a letter from some one explaining that the less inquiry about +this or that point in Borrow’s career the better for +Borrow. Take, for example, last Saturday’s issue of +the journal I have named, where I find the following from a +correspondent:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Dr. Knapp, from dictates of courtesy, left it +unrevealed, and as he could say nothing to Borrow’s credit, +passed the affair over in silence, and on this point all +well-wishers of Borrow’s reputation would be wise to take +their cue from this biographer’s example.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Now there is nothing more damnatory than a sentence of this +kind. What does it amount to? What is the +‘it’ that is unrevealed by the <!-- page 75--><a +name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>courteous Dr. +Knapp? It seems to amount to the charge that Borrow is +accused of gibbeting in his books the people he dislikes; this is +what every great imaginative writer has been charged with to the +perplexing of dull people. There are many characters in +Dickens’s novels which are supposed to be a presentation of +near relatives or friends. These he ought to have treated +with more kindliness. That heroic little woman, Miss +Brontë, gave a picture of Madame Héger, who kept a +school at Brussels, that conveyed, I doubt not, a very mistaken +presentation of the subject of her satire. Imaginative +writers have always taken these liberties. When the worst +is said it simply amounts to this, that Borrow was a good +hater. Dr. Johnson said that he loved a good hater, and he +might very well have loved Borrow. Dante, whom we all now +agree to idolize, treated people even more roughly; he placed +some of his acquaintances who had ill-used him in the very lowest +circles of hell. May I express a hope, therefore, that this +type of letter to the Norwich newspapers about Dr. Knapp’s +“kindness” to Borrow’s reputation may +cease. If Dr. Knapp <!-- page 76--><a +name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>had printed +the whole of the facts we should know how to deal with them; but +this is one of his limitations as a biographer. He has not +in the least helped to a determination of Borrow’s real +character.</p> +<p>Had Borrow possessed a biographer so skilful with her pen as +Mrs. Gaskell in her <i>Life of Charlotte Brontë</i>, so +keen-eyed for the dramatic note as Sir George Trevelyan in his +<i>Life of Macaulay</i>, he would have multiplied readers for +<i>Lavengro</i>. There are many people who have read the +Brontë novels from sheer sympathy with the writers that +their biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, had kindled. Let us not, +however, be ungrateful to Dr. Knapp. He has furnished those +of us who are sufficiently interested in the subject with a fine +collection of documents. Here is all the material of +biography in its crude state, but presenting vividly enough the +live Borrow to those who have the perception to read it with care +and judgment. Still more grateful may we be to Dr. Knapp +for his edition of Borrow’s works, particularly for those +wonderful episodes in <i>Lavengro</i> which he has reproduced +from the original manuscript, episodes as dramatic as any other +portion of the <!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 77</span>text, and making Dr. Knapp’s +edition of <i>Lavengro</i> the only possible one to possess.</p> +<p>But to return to the main facts of Borrow’s career, +which every one here at least is familiar with. You know of +his birth at East Dereham, of his life in Ireland and in +Scotland, of his school days at Norwich, of his departure from +Norwich to London on his father’s death, of his dire +struggles in the literary whirlpool, and of his wanderings in +gipsy land. You know, thanks to Dr. Knapp, more than you +could otherwise have learned of his life at St. Petersburg, +whither he had been sent by the Bible Society, on the +recommendation of Mr. Joseph John Gurney and another +patron. Then he has himself told us in picturesque fashion +of his life in Portugal and Spain. After this we hear of +his marriage to Mary Clarke, his residence from 1840 to 1853 at +Oulton, in Suffolk, from 1853 to 1860 at Yarmouth, from 1860 to +1874 in Hereford Square, London, and finally from 1874 to 1881 at +Oulton, where he died. That is the bare skeleton of +Borrow’s life, and for half his life, I think, we should be +content with a skeleton. For the other half of it we have +the best autobiography <!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 78</span>in the English language. An +autobiography that ranks with Goethe’s <i>Truth and Poetry +from my Life</i> and Rousseau’s <i>Confessions</i>. +In four books—in <i>Lavengro</i>, <i>Romany Rye</i>, <i>The +Bible in Spain</i>, and <i>Wild Wales</i> we have some delightful +glimpses of an interesting personality, and here we may leave the +personal side of Borrow. Beyond this we know that he was +unquestionably a devoted son, a good husband, a kind +father. The literary life has its perils, so far as +domesticity is concerned. Sir Walter Scott in his life of +Dryden speaks of:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Her who had to endure the apparently causeless +fluctuation of spirits incidental to one compelled to dwell for +long periods of time in the fitful realms of the imagination,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and it is certain that those who dwell in the realms of the +imagination are usually very irritable, very difficult to live +with. Literary history in its personal side is largely a +dismal narrative of the uncomfortable relations of men of genius +with their wives and with their families. Your man of +genius thinks himself bound to hang up his fiddle in his own +house, however merry a fellow he may prove himself to a hundred +boon companions outside. George Borrow was perhaps <!-- +page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>the opposite of all this. As a companion and a +neighbour he did not always shine, if the impression of many a +witness is to be trusted. They tell anecdotes of his lack +of cordiality, of his unsociability, and so on. They have +told those anecdotes more industriously in Norwich than anywhere +else. He himself in an incomparable account of going to +church with the gypsies in <i>The Romany Rye</i> has the +following:</p> +<blockquote><p>It appeared as if I had fallen asleep in the pew +of the old church of pretty Dereham. I had occasionally +done so when a child, and had suddenly woke up. Yes, +surely, I had been asleep and had woke up; but no! if I had been +asleep I had been waking in my sleep, struggling, striving, +learning and unlearning in my sleep. Years had rolled away +whilst I had been asleep—ripe fruit had fallen, green fruit +had come on whilst I had been asleep—how circumstances had +altered, and above all myself whilst I had been asleep. No, +I had not been asleep in the old church! I was in a pew, it +is true, but not the pew of black leather, in which I sometimes +fell asleep in days of yore, but in a strange pew; and then my +companions, they were no longer those of days of yore. I +was no longer with my respectable father and mother, and my dear +brother, but with the gypsy cral and his wife, and the gigantic +Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people. And what was I +myself? No longer an innocent child but a moody man, +bearing in my face, <!-- page 80--><a name="page80"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 80</span>as I knew well, the marks of my +strivings and strugglings; of what I had learnt and unlearnt.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But this “moody man,” let it be always remembered, +was a good husband and father. His wife was devoted to him, +his step-daughter carries now to an old age a profound reverence +and affection for his memory. Grieved beyond all words was +she—the Henrietta or “Hen” of all his +books—at what is maintained to be the utterly fictitious +narrative of Borrow’s described deathbed that Professor +Knapp presented from the ill-considered gossip that he picked up +while staying in the neighbourhood. <a name="citation80"></a><a +href="#footnote80" class="citation">[80]</a> Borrow has +himself something to say concerning his family in <i>Wild +Wales</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Of my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect +paragon of wives—can make puddings and sweets and treacle +posset, and is the best woman of business in East Anglia: of my +step-daughter, for such she is though I generally call her +daughter, and with good reason seeing that she <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>has always +shown herself a daughter to me, that she has all kinds of good +qualities and several accomplishments, knowing something of +conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, +and playing remarkably well on the guitar.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yes, I am not quite sure but that Borrow was really a good +fellow all round, as well as being a good husband and +father. He hated the literary class, it is true. He +considered that the “contemptible trade of author,” +as he called it, was less creditable than that of a jockey. +He avoided as much as possible the writers of books, and +particularly the blue-stocking, and when they came in his way he +was not always very polite, sometimes much the reverse. +Only the other day a letter was published from the late Professor +Cowell describing a visit to Borrow and his not very friendly +reception. Well, Borrow was here as elsewhere a man of +insight. The literary class is usually a very narrow +class. It can talk about no trade but its own. Things +have grown worse since Borrow’s day, I am sure, but they +were bad enough then. Borrow was a man of very varied +tastes. He took interest in gypsies and horses and prize +fighters and a hundred other entertaining <!-- page 82--><a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>matters, and +so he despised the literary class, which cared for none of these +things. But unhappily for his fame the literary class has +had the final word; it has revealed all the gossip of a gossiping +peasantry, and it has done its best to present the recluse of +Oulton in a disagreeable light. Fortunately for Borrow, who +kept the bores at bay and contented himself with but few friends, +there were at least two who survived him to bear testimony to the +effect that he was “a singularly steadfast and loyal +friend.” One of these was Mr. Watts-Dunton, who tells +us in one of his essays that:</p> +<blockquote><p>George Borrow was a good man, a most winsome and a +most charming companion, an English gentleman, straightforward, +honest, and brave as the very best examplars of that fine old +type.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I have dwelt longer on this aspect of my subject than I should +have done had I been addressing any other audience than a Norwich +one. But the fact is that all the gossip and backbiting and +censoriousness that has gathered round Borrow for a hundred years +has come out of this very city, commencing with the “bursts +of laughter” that, according to Miss Martineau, greeted +Borrow’s <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 83</span>travels in Spain for the Bible +Society. Borrow was twenty-one years of age when he left +Norwich to make his way in the world. During the next +twenty years he may have undergone many changes of intellectual +view, as most of us do, as Miss Martineau notably did, and Miss +Martineau and her laughing friends were diabolically +uncharitable. That lack of charity followed Borrow +throughout his life. He was libelled by many, by Miss +Frances Power Cobbe most of all. However, the great city of +Norwich will make up for it in the future, and she will love +Borrow as Borrow indisputably loved her. How he praised her +fine cathedral, her lordly castle, her Mousehold Heath, her +meadows in which he once saw a prize fight, her pleasant +scenery—no city, not even glorious Oxford, has been so well +and adequately praised, and I desire to show that that praise is +not for an age but for all time.</p> +<p>If George Borrow has not been happy in his biographer, and if, +as is true, he has received but inadequate treatment on this +account—such series of little books as <i>The English Men +of Letters</i> and the <i>Great Writers</i> quite ignoring <!-- +page 84--><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>him—he has been equally unfortunate in his +critics. There are hardly any good and distinctive +appreciations in print of Borrow’s works. While other +great names in the great literature of the Victorian Period have +been praised by a hundred pens, there has scarcely been any +notable and worthy praise of Borrow, and if I were in an audience +that was at all sceptical as to Borrow’s supreme merits, +which happily I am not; if I were among those who declared that +they could see but small merit in Borrow themselves, but were +prepared to accept him if only I could bring good authority that +he was a very great writer, I should be hardly put to to comply +with the demand. I can only name Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton +and Mr. Augustine Birrell as critics of considerable status who +have praised Borrow well. “The delightful, the +bewitching, the never sufficiently-to-be-praised George +Borrow,” says Mr. Birrell in one of the essays he has +written on the subject; <a name="citation84"></a><a +href="#footnote84" class="citation">[84]</a> while Mr. Theodore +<!-- page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>Watts-Dunton, has written no less than four papers on +one whom he knew and admires personally, and of whom he insists +that “his idealizing powers, his romantic cast of mind, his +force, his originality, give him a title to a permanent place +high in the ranks of English prose writers.”</p> +<p>All this is very interesting, but in literature as in life we +have got to work out our own destinies. <!-- page 86--><a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>We have not +got to accept Borrow because this or that critic tells us he is +good. I have therefore no quarrel with any one present who +does not share my view that Borrow was one of the greater glories +of English literature. I only desire to state my case for +him.</p> +<p>To be a lover of Borrow, a Borrovian, in fact, it is not +necessary to know all his books. You may never have seen +copies of the <i>Romantic Ballads</i> or of <i>Faustus</i>, of +<i>Targum</i> or of <i>The Turkish Jester</i>, of Borrow’s +translation of <i>The Talisman</i> of Pushkin. Your state +may be none the less gracious. To possess these books is +largely a collector’s hobby. They are interesting, +but they would not have made for the author an undying +reputation. Further, you may not care for <i>The Bible in +Spain</i>, you may be untouched by the <i>Gypsies in Spain</i> +and <i>Wild Wales</i>, and even then I will not deny to you the +title of a good Borrovian, if only you pronounce <i>Lavengro</i> +and <i>The Romany Rye</i> to be among the greatest books you +know. I can admire the <i>Gypsies in Spain</i> and <i>Wild +Wales</i>. I can read <i>The Bible in Spain</i> with +something of the enthusiasm with which our fathers read it. +It is a stirring narrative of <!-- page 87--><a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>travel and +much more. Robert Louis Stevenson did, indeed, rank it +among his “dear acquaintances” in bookland, +“the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> in the first rank, +<i>The Bible in Spain</i> not far behind,” he says. +All the same, it has not, none of these three books has, the +distinctive mark of first class genius that belongs to the other +two in the five-volumed edition of Borrow’s Collected Works +that many of us have read through more than once. Not all +clever people have thought <i>Lavengro</i> and <i>The Romany +Rye</i> to be thus great. A critic in the <i>Athenaeum</i> +declared <i>Lavengro</i> when it was published in 1851 to be +“balderdash,” while a critic writing just fifty years +afterwards and writing from Norfolk, alas! insisted that the +author of this book “was absolutely wanting in the power of +invention” that he (Borrow) could “only have drawn +upon his memory,” that he had “no sense of +humour.” If all this were true, if half of it were +true, Borrow was not the great man, the great writer that I take +him to be. But it is not true. <i>Lavengro</i> with +its continuation <i>The Romany Rye</i>, is a great work of +imagination, of invention; it is in no sense a photograph, a +memory picture, and it abounds <!-- page 88--><a +name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>in humour as +it abounds in many other great characteristics. What makes +an author supremely great? Surely a certain quality which +we call genius, as distinct from the mere intellectual power of +some less brilliant writer:—</p> +<blockquote><p>True genius is the ray that flings<br /> +A novel light o’er common things</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and here it is that Borrow shines supreme. He has +invested with quite novel light a hundred commonplace aspects of +life. Not an inventor! not imaginative! Why, one of +the indictments against him is that philologists decry his +philology and gyptologists his gypsy learning. If, then, +his philology and his gypsy lore were imperfect, as I believe +they were, how much the greater an imaginative writer he +was. To say that <i>Lavengro</i> merely indicates keen +observation is absurd. Not the keenest observation will +crowd so many adventures, adventures as fresh and as novel as +those of Gil Blas or Robinson Crusoe, into a few months’ +experience. “I felt some desire,” says +Lavengro, “to meet with one of those adventures which upon +the roads of England are generally as plentiful as blackberries +in autumn.” I <!-- page 89--><a +name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>think that +most of us will wander along the roads of England for a very long +time before we meet an Isopel Berners, before we have such an +adventure as that of the blacksmith and his horse, or of the +apple woman whose favourite reading was <i>Moll +Flanders</i>. These and a hundred other adventures, the +fight with the Flaming Tinman, the poisoning of Lavengro by the +gypsy woman, the discourse with Ursula under the hedge, when once +read are fixed upon the memory for ever. And yet you may +turn to them again and again, and with ever increasing +zest. The story of Isopel Berners is a piece of imaginative +writing that certainly has no superior in the literature of the +last century. It was assuredly no photographic +experience. Isopel Berners is herself a creation ranking +among the fine creations of womanhood of the finest +writers. I doubt not but that it was inspired by some +actual memory of Borrow—the memory of some early love +affair in which the distractions of his mania for +word-learning—the Armenian and other languages—led +him to pass by some opportunity of his life, losing the substance +for the shadow. But whether there were ever a real Isopel +we shall <!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 90</span>never know. We do know that +Borrow has presented his fictitious one with infinite poetry and +fine imaginative power. We do know, moreover, that it is +not right to describe Isopel Berners as a marvellous episode in a +narrative of other texture. <i>Lavengro</i> is full of +marvellous episodes. Some one has ventured to comment upon +Borrow’s style—to imply that it is not always on a +high plane. What does that matter? Style is not the +quality that makes a book live, but the novelty of the +ideas. Stevenson was a splendid stylist, and his admirers +have deluded themselves into believing that he was, therefore, +among the immortals. But Stevenson had nothing new to tell +the world, and he was not, he is not, therefore of the +immortals. Borrow is of the immortals, not by virtue of a +style, but by virtue of having something new to say. He is +with Dickens and with Carlyle as one of the three great British +prose writers of the age we call Victorian, who in quite +different ways have presented a new note for their own time and +for long after. It is the distinction of Borrow that he has +invested the common life of the road, of the highway, the path +through the meadow, the gypsy encampment, <!-- page 91--><a +name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>the country +fair, the very apple stall and wayside inn with an air of romance +that can never leave those of us who have once come under the +magnificent spell of <i>Lavengro</i> and the <i>Romany +Rye</i>. Perhaps Borrow is pre-eminently the writer for +those who sit in armchairs and dream of adventures they will +never undertake. Perhaps he will never be the favourite +author of the really adventurous spirit, who wants the real +thing, the latest book of actual travel. But to be the +favourite author of those who sit in arm-chairs is no small +thing, and, as I have said already, Borrow stands with Carlyle +and Dickens in <i>our</i> century, by which I mean the nineteenth +century; with Defoe and Goldsmith in the eighteenth century, as +one of the really great and imperishable masters of our +tongue.</p> +<p>What then will Norwich do for George Borrow? I ask this +question, although it would, perhaps, be an impertinence to ask +it were I not a Norwich man. If you have read Dr. +Knapp’s <i>Life of Borrow</i>, you will have seen more than +one reference to Mrs. Borrow’s landlord, “old +King,” “Tom King the carpenter,” and so on, who +owned the house in Willow Lane in which Borrow <!-- page 92--><a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>spent his +boyhood. That ‘old King the carpenter’—I +believe he called himself a builder, but perhaps this was when he +grew more prosperous—was my great-great-uncle. One of +his sons became physician to Prince Talleyrand and married a +sister of John Stuart Mill. One of his great-nieces was my +grandmother, and her mother’s family, the Parkers, had +lived in Norwich for many generations. So on the strength +of this little piece of genealogy let me claim, not only to be a +good Borrovian, but also a good Norvicensian. Grant me then +a right to plead for a practical recognition of Borrow in the +city that he loved most, although he sometimes scolded it as it +often scolded him. I should like to see a statue, or some +similar memorial. If you pass through the cities of the +Continent—French, German, or Belgian—you will find in +well-nigh every town a memorial to this or that worthy connected +with its literary or artistic fame. How many memorials has +Norwich to the people connected with its literary or artistic +fame? Nay, I am not rash and impetuous. I would beg +any one of my hearers who thinks that Borrow might well have <!-- +page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>a memorial in marble or bronze in your city to wait a +while. You are busy with a statue to Sir Thomas +Browne—a most commendable scheme. To attempt to raise +one to Borrow at this moment would probably be to court +disaster. Nor do I advocate a memorial by private +subscription. Observation has shown me what that means: +failure or half failure in nearly every case. The memorial +when it comes must be initiated by the City Fathers in council +assembled. That time is perhaps far distant. But let +us all do everything we can to make secure the high and +honourable achievement of George Borrow, to kindle an interest in +him and his writings, to extend a taste for the undoubted +beauties of his works among all classes of his +fellow-citizens—that is to secure Borrow the best of all +monuments. More durable than brass will be the memorial +that is contained in the assurance that he possesses the +reverence and the homage of all true Norfolk hearts.</p> +<h2><!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>IV. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF GEORGE CRABBE</h2> +<p>An Address delivered at the Crabbe Celebration at Aldeburgh in +Suffolk on the 16th of September, 1905.</p> +<p>I have been asked to say something in praise of George +Crabbe. The task would be an easier one were it not for the +presence of the distinguished critic from the University of Nancy +who is with us to-day. M. Huchon <a +name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97" +class="citation">[97]</a> has devoted to the subject a +singleminded zeal to which one whose profession is primarily that +of a journalist can make no claim. Moreover it has been +well said that <i>the judgment of foreigners is the judgment of +posterity</i>, and I fully believe that where a writer has +secured the suffrages of men of another nation than his own, he +has done more for his ultimate fame than the <!-- page 98--><a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>passing and +fickle favour of his countrymen can secure for him. In any +case Crabbe has been praised more eloquently than almost any +other modern, and this in spite of the fact that he was not read +by the generation succeeding his death, nor is he read much in +our own time.</p> +<p>If you want to read Crabbe to-day in his entirety, you must +become possessed of a huge and clumsy volume of sombre +appearance, small type and repellant double columns. For +fully seventy years it has not paid a publisher to reprint +Crabbe’s poems properly. <a name="citation98"></a><a +href="#footnote98" class="citation">[98]</a> When this was +achieved in 1834, the edition in eight volumes was comparatively +a failure, and the promised two volumes of essays and sermons +were not forthcoming in consequence. Selections from Crabbe +have been many, but when all is said he has been the least read +for the past sixty or seventy years of all the authors who have +claims to be considered classics. The least read but +perhaps the best praised—that is one point of +certainty. The praise began <!-- page 99--><a +name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>with the +politicians—with the two greatest political leaders of +their age. The eloquent and noble Edmund Burke, the +great-hearted Charles James Fox. Burke “made” +George Crabbe as no poet was ever made before or since. To +me there is no picture in all literature more unflaggingly +interesting than that of the great man, whose life was so full of +affairs, taking the poor young stranger by the hand, reading +through his abundant manuscripts, and therefrom +selecting—as the poet was quite unable to +select—<i>The Library</i> and <i>The Village</i> as the +most suitable for publication, helping him to a publisher, +introducing him to friends, and proving himself quite untiring on +his behalf. There is a letter of Burke’s printed in a +little known book—<i>The Correspondence of Sir Thomas +Hanmer</i>, Speaker of the House of Commons—in which Burke +takes the trouble to defend Crabbe’s moral character and to +press his claims for being admitted to holy orders. +“Dudley North tells me,” he continues, “that he +has the best character possible among those with whom he has +always lived, that he is now working hard to qualify, and has not +only Latin, but some smattering of Greek.” It had +<!-- page 100--><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +100</span>its gracious amenities, that eighteenth century, for I +do not believe that there is a man in the ranks of the present +Government, or of the present Opposition, who would take all this +trouble for a poor unknown who had appealed to him merely by two +or three long letters recounting his career. Nay, Cabinet +Ministers are less punctilious than formerly, and the newest +type, I understand, leaves letters unanswered. I can +imagine the attitude of one of our modern statesmen in the face +of two quite bulky packages of many sheets from a young +author. He would request his secretary to see what they +were all about, and then would follow the curt +answer—“I am directed by Dash to say that he cannot +comply with your request.” Burke not only wrote to +the Speaker of the House of Commons, but enclosed Crabbe’s +letter to him, a quite wonderful piece of autobiography. <a +name="citation100"></a><a href="#footnote100" +class="citation">[100]</a> All Crabbe’s admirers +should read that letter. Crabbe apologizes for writing +again, and refers to “these repeated attacks on your +patience.” “My <!-- page 101--><a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>father,” he said, “had a place in the +Custom House at Aldeburgh. He had a large family, a little +income and no economy,” and then the story of his life up +to that time is told to Burke in fullest detail.</p> +<p>Again, there is that other statesman-admirer of Crabbe, +Charles James Fox. Fox gave to Crabbe’s work an +admiration which never faltered, and on his death-bed requested +that the pathetic story of Phœbe Dawson in <i>The Parish +Register</i> should be read to him—it was, we are told, +“the last piece of poetry that soothed his dying +ear.”</p> +<p>In Lord Holland’s <i>Memoirs of the Whig Party</i> there +is a statement by his nephew which no biographer so far has +quoted:—</p> +<blockquote><p>I read over to him the whole of Crabbe’s +<i>Parish Register</i> in manuscript. Some parts he made me +read twice; he remarked several passages as exquisitely +beautiful, and objected to some few which I mentioned to the +author and which he, in almost every instance, altered before +publication. Mr. Fox repeated once or twice that it was a +very pretty poem, that Crabbe’s condition in the world had +improved since he wrote <i>The Village</i>, and his view of life, +likewise <i>The Parish Register</i>, bore marks of considerably +more indulgence to our species; though not so many as he could +have wished, especially <!-- page 102--><a +name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>as the few +touches of that nature were beautiful in the extreme. He +was particularly struck with the description of the substantial +happiness of a farmer’s wife.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>From great novelists the tributes are not less noteworthy than +from great statesmen. Jane Austen, whose personality +perhaps has more real womanly attractiveness than that of any +sister novelist of the first rank, declared playfully that if she +could have been persuaded to change her state it would have been +to become Mrs. Crabbe; and who can forget Sir Walter +Scott’s request in his last illness: “Read me some +amusing thing—read me a bit of Crabbe.” They +read to him from <i>The Borough</i>, and we all remember his +comment, “Capital—excellent—very +good.” Yet at this time—in 1832—any +popularity that Crabbe had once enjoyed was already on the +wane. Other idols had caught the popular taste, and from +that day to this there was to be no real revival of appreciation +for these poems. There were to be no lack of admirers, +however, of the audience “fit though few.” +Byron’s praise has been too often quoted for +repetition. Wordsworth, who rarely praised his +contemporaries in poetry, declared of Crabbe that his works <!-- +page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>“would last from their combined merit as poetry +and truth.” Macaulay writes of “that +incomparable passage in Crabbe’s <i>Borough</i> which has +made many a rough and cynical reader cry like a +child”—the passage in which the condemned felon</p> +<blockquote><p>Takes his tasteless food, and when ’tis +done,<br /> +Counts up his meals, now lessen’d by that one,—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>a story which Macaulay bluntly charges Robert Montgomery with +stealing. Lord Tennyson, again, at a much later date, +admitted that “Crabbe has a world of his own.”</p> +<p>Not less impressive surely is the attitude of the two writers +as far as the poles asunder in their outlook upon life and its +mysteries—Cardinal Newman and Edward FitzGerald. The +famous theologian, we learn from the <i>Letters and +Correspondence</i> collected by Anne Mozley, writes in 1820 of +his “excessive fondness” for <i>The Tales of the +Hall</i>, and thirty years later in one of his <i>Discourses</i> +he says of Crabbe’s poems that they are among “the +most touching in our language.” Still another twenty +years, and the aged cardinal reread Crabbe to find that he <!-- +page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>was more delighted than ever with our poet. That +great nineteenth century pagan, on the other hand, that prince of +letter-writers and wonderful poet of whom Suffolk has also reason +to be proud, Edward FitzGerald, was even more ardent. +Praise of Crabbe is scattered freely throughout the many volumes +of his correspondence, and he edited, as we all know, a book of +Selections, which I want to see reprinted. It contains a +preface that, it may be admitted, is not really worthy of +FitzGerald, so lacking is it in the force and vigour of his +correspondence. But this also was in fact yet another +death-bed tribute, for it was, I think, one of the last things +FitzGerald wrote. FitzGerald, however, has done more for +Crabbe among the moderns than any other man. His keen +literary judgment must have brought new converts to that limited +brotherhood of the elect, of which this gathering forms no +inconsiderable portion.</p> +<p>We have one advantage in speaking about George Crabbe that +does not obtain with any other poet of great eminence; that is to +say, that his life story has not been hackneyed by +repetition. <!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>With almost any other writer there +is some standing biography which is widely familiar. The +<i>Life of George Crabbe</i>, written by his son, although it is +one of the very best biographies that I have ever read, is little +known. It was quite out of print for years, and it has +never been reprinted separately from the poems. It is an +admirable biography, and it offers a contradiction of the view +occasionally urged that a man’s life should not be written +by a member of his own family; for George Crabbe the second would +seem not only to have been an exceedingly able man, but possessed +of a frankness of disposition in criticizing his father which +sons are often prone to show in real life, but which, I imagine, +they rarely show in print. His book is a model of candid +statement, treating of Crabbe’s little weaknesses—and +who of us has not his little weaknesses—in the most cheery +possible manner. It is perhaps a small matter to tell us in +one place of his father’s want of “taste,” his +insensibility to the beauty of order in his +composition—that had been done by the critics before him; +but he even has something to say about the philandering which +characterized the old gentleman in the <!-- page 106--><a +name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>last years +of his life, his apparent anxiety to get married again. <a +name="citation106"></a><a href="#footnote106" +class="citation">[106]</a> The only thing that he all but +ignores is Crabbe’s opium habit—a habit that came to +him as a sedative from a painful complaint and inspired, as was +the case with Coleridge, his more melodious utterances. +Taken altogether the picture is as pleasant as it is capable and +exhaustive. We see his early boyhood at Aldeburgh, his +schooldays: his first period of unhappiness at Slaughden Quay, +his apprenticeship near Bury St. Edmunds, where we seem to hear +his master’s daughters, when he reached the door, exclaim +with laughter, “La! Here’s our new +’prentice.” We follow him a little higher, to +the house of the Woodbridge surgeon, then through his prolonged +courtship of Sarah Elmy, then to those dreary, uncongenial duties +of piling up butter casks on Slaughden Quay. A brief period +of starvation in London, and we find him again in a +chemist’s shop in Aldeburgh. Lastly comes his most +important journey to London upon the borrowed sum of £5, +only three of which he <!-- page 107--><a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>carried in +hard cash. His hand to mouth existence in London for some +months is among the most interesting things in literature. +Chatterton’s tragic fate might have been his, but, more +fortunate than Chatterton, he had friends at Beccles who helped +him, and he was even able to publish a poem, <i>The +Candidate</i>. Although this poem contained only +thirty-four pages, one is not quite sure but that it helped to +ruin its publisher. In any case that publisher went +bankrupt soon after.</p> +<p>Crabbe has been reproached for having continually attempted to +secure a “patron” at this time, and it has been +hinted by Sir Leslie Stephen that he ought to have recognized +that the patron was out of date, killed by Dr. Johnson’s +sturdy defiance. I do not agree with this view. Dr. +Johnson, in spite of his famous epigram, was always more or less +assisted by the patron, although his personality was strong +enough to enable him to turn the tables at the end. When +one comes to think of it, Thrale the brewer was a patron of +Johnson, so was Strahan the printer. And does he not say in +his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield that “Seven years, +my <!-- page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward +rooms, or was repulsed from your door,” clearly implying +that if Chesterfield was not Johnson’s patron it was not +the great Doctor’s fault? In any case the patron must +always exist for the poor man of letters in every age. Now, +he is frequently a collective personality rather than an +individual. He is represented for the author who has tried +and failed by the Royal Literary Fund, by such bounty as is +awarded by the Society of Authors, or by the Civil List +Grant. For the author in embryo he is assisted above all by +the literary log-roller who flourishes so much in our day. +If he is not this “collective personality,” or one of +the others I have named, then he is something much +worse—that is, a capitalist publisher. We can none of +us who have to earn a living run away from the patronage of +capital, and when Sir Leslie Stephen was being paid a salary by +the late Mr. George Smith for editing the <i>Dictionary of +National Biography</i>, and was told, as we remember that he +frequently was, that it was not a remunerative venture and that, +as Mr. Smith was fond of saying, his publishing business did not +pay for his vineries, Sir <!-- page 109--><a +name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>Leslie +Stephen was experiencing a patronage, if he had known it, not +less melancholy than anything Crabbe suffered from Edmund Burke +or the Duke of Rutland.</p> +<p>When one meets a writer who desires to walk on high stilts and +to talk of the independence of literature, one is entitled to ask +him if it was a greater indignity for Lord Tennyson in his +younger days to have received £200 a year from the Civil +List than for Crabbe to have received the same sum as the Duke of +Rutland’s chaplain; in fact, Crabbe earned the money, and +Tennyson did not. There are, as I have said, some most +wonderful and pathetic touches in the account of Crabbe’s +attempt to conquer London. There are his letters to his +sweetheart, for example, his “dearest Mira,” in one +of which he says that he is possessed of 6¼<i>d.</i> in +the world. In another he relates that he has sold his +surgical instruments in order to pay his bills. +Nevertheless, we find him standing at a bookstall where he sees +Dryden’s works in three volumes, octavo, for five +shillings, and of his few shillings he ventures to offer +3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>—and carries home the Dryden. +What bibliophile but <!-- page 110--><a name="page110"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 110</span>must love such a story as that, even +though a day or two afterwards its hero writes, “My last +shilling became 8<i>d.</i> yesterday.” But what a +good investment withal. Dryden made him a much better +poet. Then comes the famous letter to Burke, and the less +known second letter to which I have referred, and Burke’s +splendid reception of the writer. Nothing, I repeat, in the +life of any great man is more beautiful than that. As +Crabbe’s son finely says: “He went in Burke’s +room a poor young adventurer, spurned by the opulent and rejected +by the publishers, his last shilling gone, and his last hope with +it. He came out virtually secure of almost all the good +fortune that by successive stages afterwards fell to his +lot.” The success that comes to most men is built up +on such chances, on the kind help of some one or other +individual.</p> +<p>Finally there came—for I am hastily recapitulating +Crabbe’s story—the years of prosperity, curacies, +rectories, the praise of great contemporaries, but nothing surely +more edifying than the burning of piles of manuscripts so +extensive that no fireplace would hold them. The +son’s account of his assisting at these conflagrations is +<!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>not the least interesting part of his biography, the +merits of which I desire to emphasize.</p> +<p>People who make jokes about that most succulent edible, the +crab, when the poet Crabbe is mentioned in their +presence—and who can resist an obvious pun—are not +really far astray. There can be little doubt but that a +remote ancestor of George Crabbe took his name from the +“shellfish,” as we all persist, in spite of the +naturalist, in calling it; and the poet did not hesitate to +attribute it to the vanity of an ancestor that his name had had +two letters added. Nor when we hear of Cromer crabs, or +crabs from some other part of Norfolk as distinct from what I am +sure is equally palatable, the crustacean as it may be found in +Aldeburgh, are we remote from the story of our poet’s +life. For there cannot be a doubt but that Norfolk shares +with Suffolk the glory of his origin. His family, it is +clear, came first from Norfolk. The Crabbes of Norfolk were +farmers, the Crabbes of Suffolk always favoured the seacoast, and +all the glory that surrounds the name of the poet to whom we do +honour to-day is reflected in the town in which he was born and +bred. Aldeburgh is Crabbe’s <!-- page 112--><a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>own town, +and it is an interesting fact that no other poet can be +identified with one particular spot in the way in which Crabbe +can be identified with this beautiful watering-place in which we +are now assembled. Shakspere was more of a Londoner than a +Stratfordian; nearly all his best work was written in London, and +many of the most receptive years of his life were spent in that +city. Milton’s honoured name is identified with many +places, apart from London, the city of his birth. Shelley, +Byron and Keats were essentially cosmopolitans in their writings +as in their lives. Wordsworth was closely identified with +Grasmere, although born in a neighbouring county; but he went to +many and varied scenes, and to more than one country, for some of +his most inspired verses. Then Cowper, the poet of whom one +most often thinks when one is recalling the achievement of +Crabbe, is a poet of some half-dozen places other than Olney, and +perhaps his best verses were written at Weston-Underwood. +Now George Crabbe in the years of his success was identified with +many places other than Aldeburgh: with Belvoir Castle, with +Muston, and with Trowbridge, where he died, <!-- page 113--><a +name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>and some of +his admirers have even identified him with Bath. When all +this is allowed, it is upon Aldeburgh that the whole of his +writings turned, the place where he was born, where he spent his +boyhood, and the earlier years of a perhaps too sordid manhood, +whither he returned twice, as a chemist’s assistant and as +curate. It is the place that primarily inspired all his +verses. Aldeburgh stands out vividly before us in each +succeeding poem—in <i>The Village</i>, <i>The Borough</i>, +<i>The Parish Register</i>, <i>The Tales</i>, and even in those +<i>Tales of the Hall</i>, composed in later life in faraway +Trowbridge. Crabbe’s vivid observations indeed come +home to every one who has studied his works when they have +visited not only Aldeburgh but its vicinity. Every reach of +the river Ald recalls some striking line by him: the scenery in +<i>The Lover’s Journey</i> we know is a description of the +road between Aldeburgh and Beccles, and all who have sailed along +the river to Orford have recognized that no stream has been so +perfectly portrayed by a poet’s pen. Here in his +writings you may have a suggestion of Muston, here of Allington, +and here again of Trowbridge; but in the main it is the Suffolk +scenery that most <!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 114</span>of us here know so well that was +ever in his mind.</p> +<p>When an attempt was once made to stir up the Great Eastern +Railway to identify this district with the name of Crabbe as the +English Lakes were identified with the name of Wordsworth, and +the Scots Lakes with that of Sir Walter Scott, a high official of +the railway made the statement that up to that moment he had +never even heard the name of Crabbe. Well, all that is +going to be changed. I do not at all approve of the phrase +beloved of certain book-makers and of railway companies that +implies that any county or district is the monopoly of one man, +be he ever so great a writer. Yet I venture to say that +within the next ten years the “Crabbe Country” will +sound as familiar to the officials of the Great Eastern as the +“Wordsworth Country” does to those of the Midland or +the North Western. It is true that once in the bitterness +of his heart the poet referred to Aldeburgh as “a little +venal borough in Suffolk” and that he more than once +alluded to his unkind reception upon his reappearance as a +curate, when he had <!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 115</span>previously failed at other +callings. “In my own village they think nothing of +me,” he once said. But who does not know how the +heart turns with the years to the places associated with +childhood and youth, and Crabbe was a remarkable exemplification +of this. A well-known literary journal stated only last +week that “Crabbe’s connexion with Aldeburgh was not +very protracted.” So far from this being true it +would be no exaggeration to say that it extended over the whole +of his seventy-eight years of life. It included the first +five-and-twenty years almost entirely. It included also the +brief curacy, the prolonged residence at Parham and Glenham, +frequent visits for holidays in after years, and who but a lover +of his native place would have done as his son pictures him doing +when at Stathern—riding alone to the coast of Lincolnshire, +sixty miles from where he was living, only to dip in the waves +that also washed the beach of Aldeburgh and returned immediately +to his home. “There is no sea like the Aldeburgh +sea,” said Edward FitzGerald, and we may be sure that was +Crabbe’s opinion also, for revisiting it in later life he +wrote:—</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 116</span>There once again, my native place I +come<br /> +Thee to salute, my earliest, latest home.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One picture in Crabbe’s life stands out vividly to us +all—the long years of devotion given by him to Sarah Elmy, +and the reciprocal devotion of the very capable woman who finally +became his wife. Crabbe’s courtship and marriage +affords a pleasant contrast to the usual unhappy relations of +poets with their wives. Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, Byron, +Shelley, and many another poet was less happy in this respect, +and I am not sure how far the belief in Crabbe’s powers as +a poet has been affected by the fact that he lived on the whole a +happy, humdrum married life. The public has so long been +accustomed to expect a different state of things.</p> +<p>I have given thus much time to Crabbe’s life story +because it interests me, and I do not believe that it is possible +nowadays to kindle a very profound interest in any writer without +a definite presentation of his personality. Apart from his +biography—his three biographies by George Crabbe the +second, Mr. T. E. Kebbel, and Canon Ainger, there are the seven +volumes of his works. Now I do not imagine that any great +accession will <!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 117</span>be made to the ranks of +Crabbe’s admirers by asking people to take down these seven +volumes and read them right through—a thing I have myself +done twice, and many here also I doubt not. Rather would I +plead for a reprint of Edmund FitzGerald’s Selections, or +failing that I would ask you to look at the volume of Selections +made by Mr. Bernard Holland, or that other admirable selection by +the Rev. Anthony Deane. “I must think my old Crabbe +will come up again, though never to be popular,” wrote +FitzGerald to Archbishop Trench. Well, perhaps the +“large still books” of the older writers are never +destined to be popular again, but they will always maintain with +genuine book lovers their place in English Literature, and if the +adequate praise they have received from many good judges is well +kept to the front there will be constant accessions to the ranks, +and readers will want the whole of Crabbe’s works in which +to dig for themselves. Crabbe’s place in English +Literature needed not such a gathering as this to make it secure, +but we want celebrations of our literary heroes to keep alive +enthusiasm, and to encourage the faint-hearted.</p> +<p><!-- page 118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>In the glorious tradition of English Literature, then, +Crabbe comes after Cowper and before Wordsworth. There is a +lineal descent as clear and well-defined as any set forth in the +peerages of “Burke” or “Debrett.” +We read in vain if we do not fully grasp the continuity of +creative work. Cowper was born in 1731, Crabbe in 1754, and +Cowper was called to the Bar in the year that Crabbe was +born. In spite of this disparity of years they started upon +their literary careers almost at the same time. <i>The +Village</i> was published in 1783, and <i>The Task</i> in 1785, +yet Cowper is in every sense the elder poet, inheriting more +closely the traditions of Pope and Dryden, coming less near to +humanity than Crabbe, and being more emphatically a child of the +eighteenth century in its artificial aspects. It is +impossible to indict a whole century with all its varied +accomplishments, and the century that produced Swift and Cowper +and Crabbe had no lack of the finer instincts of +brotherhood. Yet the century was essentially a cruel +one. Take as an example the attitude of naturally kindly +men to the hanging of Dr. Dodd for forgery. Even Samuel +Johnson, who did <!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>what he could for Dodd, did not +find, as he should have done, his whole soul revolted by such a +punishment for a crime against property. Cowper has immense +claim upon our regard. He is one of the truest of poets, +and one of the most interesting figures in all English +literature, although no small share of his one-time popularity +was due to his identification with Evangelicalism in +religion. Cowper had humour and other qualities which +enabled him to make the universal appeal to all hearts which is +the test of the greatest literature—the appeal of +“John Gilpin,” the “Lines” to his +Mother’s Portrait, and his verses on “The loss of the +<i>Royal George</i>.” Crabbe made no such appeal, and +he has not the adventitious assistance that association with a +religious sect affords. Hence the popularity he once +enjoyed was more entirely on his merits than was that of +Cowper. He was the first of the eighteenth century poets +who was able to <i>see things as they really are</i>. +Therein lies his strength. Were they poets at +all—those earlier eighteenth century writers? It +sounds like rank blasphemy to question it, but what is +poetry? Surely it is the expression artistically in +rhythmic form—<!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 120</span>or even without it—of the +sincerest emotions concerning nature and life. The greatest +poet is not the one who is most sincere—a very bad poet can +be that—but the poet who expresses that sincerity with the +most perfect art. From this point of view the poets before +Cowper and Crabbe, Pope, Goldsmith, Johnson and others were +scarcely poets at all. Masters of language every one of +them, able to command a fine rhetoric, but not poets. Gray +in two or three pieces was a poet, but for Johnson that claim can +scarcely be made. Cowper was the first to emancipate +himself from the conventionality of his age, and Crabbe +emancipated himself still further. He had boundless +sincerity, and he is really a very great poet even if he has not +the perfection of art of some later poets. Many know Crabbe +only by the parody of his manner in <i>Rejected +Addresses</i>:</p> +<blockquote><p>John Richard William Alexander Dwyer<br /> +Was footman to Justinian Stubbs Esquire;<br /> +But when John Dwyer listed in the blues,<br /> +Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs’s shoes.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and it must be admitted that there are plenty of lines like +these in Crabbe, as for example:—</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 121--><a name="page121"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 121</span>Grave Jonas Kindred, Sybil +Kindred’s sire<br /> +Was six feet high, and looked six inches higher.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>or this:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The church he view’d as liberal minds will +view<br /> +And there he fixed his principles and pew.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Banalities of this kind are scattered through his pages as +they are scattered through those of Wordsworth. +Nevertheless he was a great poet, bringing us before Wordsworth +out of the ruck of artificiality and insincerity. Does any +one suppose that Pope in his <i>Essay on Man</i>, that Johnson in +his <i>London</i> or that Goldsmith in his <i>Deserted +Village</i> had any idea other than the production of splendid +phrases. Each and all of them were brilliant men of +letters. Crabbe was not a brilliant man of letters, but he +was a fine and a genuine poet. You will look in vain in his +truest work for the lyrical and musical gift that we associate +with poets who came after:—Shelley, Keats, +Tennyson—poets who made Crabbe’s work quite +distasteful for some three generations. Crabbe it has been +claimed had that gift also, to be found in “Sir Eustace +Grey” and other verses written under the inspiration of +opium, as much <!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>of Coleridge’s best work was +written—but it is not in these that his admirers will seek +to emphasize his achievement—it is in his work which treats +of</p> +<blockquote><p>The simple annals of my parish poor.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><i>The Village</i>, <i>The Parish Register</i>, <i>The +Borough</i>, and many of the <i>Tales</i> bear witness to a clear +vision of life as it is lived by the majority of people born into +this world. I have seen criticism of Crabbe which calls him +the poet who took the middle classes for his subjects, criticism +which compared him with George Eliot. All this is quite +beside the mark. Crabbe is pre-eminently the poet of the +poor, with a lesson for to-day as much as for a century +ago. Villages are not now what they were then, we are +told. But I fully believe that there are all the conditions +of life to-day hidden beneath the surface as Crabbe’s close +observations pictured them. “The altered position of +the poor,” says Mr. Courthope, “has fortunately +deprived his poems of much of the reality they once +possessed.” I do not believe it. The closely +packed towns, the herding together of families, the squalor are +still to be found <!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>in our midst. Crabbe has his +message for our time as well as for his own. How he tore +the veil from the conventional language of his day, the picture +of the ideal village where the happy peasantry passed through +life so joyously. Contrast such pictures with his sad +declaration—</p> +<blockquote><p>I’ve seldom known, though I have often +read<br /> +Of happy peasants on their dying-bed.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Solution Crabbe offers none for the tragedy of poverty. +He was no politician. He signed the nomination paper for +John Wilson Croker the Tory in his native Aldeburgh, and he +supported a Whig at the same election at Trowbridge. His +politics were summed up in backing his friends of both +parties. But he did see, as politicians are only beginning +to see to-day, that the ultimate solution was a social one and +not a mere question of political parties. Generations have +passed away since he lived, and men are still shouting themselves +hoarse to prove that in this Shibboleth or in that may be found +the salvation of the country, yet we have still our thousands on +the verge of starvation, we have still the very poor in our +midst, and the problem seems as far from solution <!-- page +124--><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>as +ever. But it would be all the better for the State if we +could keep the questions raised by Crabbe in his wonderful +pictures more continually in view,—lacking in taste as they +may sometimes seem to weak stomachs, coarse, unvarnished +narratives though they be of a life which is really almost +entirely sordid.</p> +<p>Then let us turn to Crabbe’s gallery of pictures. +Phœbe Dawson, and the equally pathetic Ruth, Blaney and +Clelia, Peter Grimes and many another. They are as clearly +defined a set of entirely human beings as any Master has given +us. It is not assuredly in George Eliot, as Canon Ainger +suggests, that I find an affinity to Crabbe among the moderns, +but in two much greater writers of quite different texture, +Balzac and Dickens. Had Crabbe not been bounded and +restrained by the conventions of his cloth, he might have become +one of the most popular story-tellers in our literature—the +English Balzac. At a hundred points Charles Dickens is an +entire contrast to Crabbe—in his buoyant humour, his gaiety +of heart, in the glamour that he throws over the life of the +poor, a glamour that was more present in the early Victorian <!-- +page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>era than in our own, but Crabbe is with Balzac and with +Dickens in that he presents as no other moderns have done living +pictures of suffering human lives.</p> +<p>There is yet one other literary force, powerful in our day, +that has been largely influenced by Crabbe. Those who love +the novels of Mr. Thomas Hardy, whom we rejoice to see with us at +this Celebration,—his <i>Woodlanders</i>, <i>The Return of +the Native</i>, <i>Far from the Madding Crowd</i>, and many +another book that touches the very heart of things in nature and +human life, will rejoice to hear that this great writer has +admitted George Crabbe to be the most potent influence that has +affected his work. I have heard him declare many times how +much he was inspired by Crabbe, whereas the later French realists +had no influence upon him whatever. “Crabbe was our +first great English realist” Mr. Hardy would tell you if +only we could persuade him to speak from this platform, as +unfortunately he will not.</p> +<p>Lastly let us take Crabbe as a great story-teller. He +has many more ideas than most of the novelists. That is why +we do well to recall the hint <!-- page 126--><a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>of the +writer who said that when a new work came out we should take down +an old one from our shelves. Instead of the +“un-idead” novels, that come out by the dozen and are +so popular. I wish we could agree to read Crabbe’s +novels in verse. Unhappily their form is against them in +the present age. But it would not be at all a misfortune if +we could make Crabbe’s <i>Tales</i> once more the +vogue. They are good stories, absorbingly +interesting. They leave a very vivid impression on the +mind. Once read they are unforgettable.</p> +<p>I have seen it stated that these stories are old-fashioned +both in manner and in substance. In manner they may be, but +in substance I maintain they are intensely modern, alive with the +spirit of our time. Any latter-day novelist might envy +Crabbe his power of developing a story. It is this +essential modernity that is to make Crabbe’s place in +English literature secure for generations yet to come.</p> +<p>Finally, Crabbe’s place in English literature is as the +bridge between the eighteenth and nineteenth century. With +him begins that “enthusiasm of humanity” which the +eighteenth <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>century so imperfectly +understood. Byron and Wordsworth, disliking each other +cordially, did well to praise him, for he was their +forerunner. A master of pathos, you may find in his work +incentive to tears and laughter, although sometimes the humour, +as in <i>The Learned Boy</i>, is sadly unconscious.</p> +<p>But I must bring these rambling remarks to a close, and in +doing so I must once again quote that other Suffolk worthy to +whom many of us are very much attached, I mean Edward +FitzGerald. When Sir Leslie Stephen wrote what is to my +mind a singularly infelicitous essay on Crabbe in the +<i>Cornhill</i>, he quoted the remark, which seemed to be new to +FitzGerald, as to Crabbe being a “pope in worsted +stockings”—a remark made by Horace Smith of +<i>Rejected Addresses</i>, although I have seen it ascribed to +Byron and others. “Pope in worsted stockings,” +exclaimed FitzGerald, “why I could cite whole paragraphs of +as fine a texture as Molière; ‘incapable of +epigram,’ the jackanapes says—why, I could find fifty +of the very best epigrams in five minutes,” and later, in +another letter he writes—</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 128</span>I am positively looking over my +everlasting Crabbe again; he naturally comes in about the fall of +the year.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here surely is an appropriate quotation, a little prophetic +perhaps, for our gathering—the “everlasting +Crabbe.” We cannot all love Crabbe as much as +FitzGerald loved him, but this gathering will not be vain if +after this we handle his volumes more lovingly, read his poems +more sympathetically, and continue with more zeal than ever +before to be proud of the man who, born in Aldeburgh a century +and a half ago, is closely identified with this county of Suffolk +as I believe no other great writer is closely identified with any +county in England. An Aldeburgh man—a Suffolk man he +was—yet even more in the future than in the past, he is +destined to gain the whole world for his parish. He is the +everlasting Crabbe!</p> +<h2><!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 131</span>V. THE LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS +OF EAST ANGLIA</h2> +<p>An address to the East Anglian Society on the occasion of a +dinner to Mr. William Dutt, author of “Highways and Byways +in East Anglia.” March 25, 1901.</p> +<p>I appreciate the privilege of being allowed to speak this +evening for a few minutes upon the literary associations of East +Anglia, of being permitted to ask you, while doing honour to a +well-known East Anglian writer of to-day, to cast a glance back +upon the literature of the past so far as it affects that portion +of the British Empire with which we nearly all of us here are +proud to be associated. There is necessarily some +difference of opinion as to what constitutes East Anglia. I +find that our guest of to-night tells us that it is +“Norfolk, Suffolk and portions of Essex, Cambridgeshire and +Lincolnshire.” Dr. Knapp, the biographer of Borrow, +says that it is Norfolk, <!-- page 132--><a +name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>Suffolk and +Cambridgeshire; personally I am content with that classification, +because, although I was born in London, I claim, apart from +schoolboy days at Downham Market, a pretty lengthy ancestry from +Norwich on one side—which is indisputably East +Anglia—and from Welney, near Wisbeach, on another side, and +Welney and Wisbeach are, I affirm, just as much East Anglia as +Norwich and Ipswich. With reference to those other counties +and portions of counties, I think that the inhabitants must be +allowed to decide for themselves. I imagine that they will +give every possible stretch to the imagination in order to allow +themselves the honour of being incorporated in East Anglia, a +name that one never pronounces without recalling that fine +old-world compliment of St. Augustine of Canterbury to our +ancestors, that they ought to be called not “Angles” +but “Angels.”</p> +<p>Every one in particular who loves books must be proud to +partake of our great literary tradition. If it is difficult +to decide precisely what East Anglia is, it is perhaps equally +difficult to speak for a few minutes on so colossal a theme as +the literature of East Anglia. It would be <!-- page +133--><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +133</span>easy to recapitulate what every biographical dictionary +will provide, a long list of famous names associated with our +counties; to remind you that we have produced two +poet-laureates—John Skelton, of Diss, the author of +<i>Colyn Cloute</i>, and Thomas Shadwell, of Broomhill, the +playwright—the latter perhaps not entirely a subject for +pride; two very rough and ready political philosophers, Thomas +Paine, born at Thetford, and William Godwin, born at Wisbeach; a +very popular novelist in Bulwer Lytton, and a very popular +theologian in Dr. Samuel Clarke; as also the famous brother and +sister whose works appealed to totally different minds, James and +Harriet Martineau. Then there was that pathetic creature +and indifferent poet, Robert Bloomfield, whose <i>Farmer’s +Boy</i> once appeared in the luxurious glories of an expensive +quarto. Finally, one recalls that two of the most popular +women writers of an earlier generation, Clara Reeve, the +novelist, and Agnes Strickland, the historian, were Suffolk +women.</p> +<p>But I am not concerned to give you a recapitulation of all the +East Anglian writers, whose names, as I have said, can be found +in any biographical <!-- page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 134</span>dictionary, and the quality of whose +work would rather suggest that East Anglia, from a literary point +of view, is a land of extinct volcanoes. I am naturally +rather anxious to make use of the golden opportunity that has +been afforded me to emphasize my own literary sympathies, and to +say in what I think lies the glory of East Anglia, at least so +far as the creation of books is concerned. Here I make an +interesting claim for East Anglia, that it has given us in +Captain Marryat perhaps the very greatest prose writer of the +nineteenth century who has been a delight to youth, and two of +the very greatest prose writers of all times for the inspiration +of middle-age, Sir Thomas Browne and George Borrow. It has +given us in Sarah Austin an example of a learned woman who was +also a fascinating woman; it has given us again the most +remarkable letter-writers in the English language—Margaret +Paston, Horace Walpole and Edward FitzGerald. To these +there were only three serious rivals as +letter-writers—William Cowper, Thomas Grey and Charles +Lamb; and the first found a final home and a last resting-place +in our midst. It has given us that remarkable novelist and +entertaining diarist, <!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 135</span>Fanny Burney. Finally, it has +given us in that same William Cowper—who rests in East +Dereham Church, and for whom we claim on that and for other +reasons some share and participation in his genius—a great +and much loved poet. It has given us indeed in William +Cowper and George Crabbe the two most natural and the two most +human poets in the English literature of two centuries, only +excepting the favourite poet of Scotland—Robert +Burns. It is to these of all writers that I would pin my +faith in talking of East Anglia and its literature; it is their +names that I would have you keep in your mind when you call up +memories of the literature which has most inspired our East +Anglian life.</p> +<p>In connexion with many writers a point of importance will +occur to us. Only occasionally has a great English author a +special claim on one particular portion of England. He has +not been the lesser or the greater for that, it has merely been +an accident of his birth and of his career. The greatest of +all writers, the one of whom all Englishmen are naturally the +most proud, Shakspere, has, it is true, an abundant association +with Warwickshire, but Shakspere stands almost alone <!-- page +136--><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>in +this, as in many things. Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Byron +and Keats were born in London; they travelled widely, they lived +in many different counties or countries, and cannot be said to +have adorned any distinctively local tradition. Shelley was +born in Sussex, but a hundred cities, including Rome, where his +ashes rest, may claim some participation in his fine +spirit. Wordsworth, on the other hand, who was born in +Cumberland, certainly obtained the greater part of his +inspiration from the neighbouring county of Westmorland, where +his life was passed. But when we come to East Anglia we are +face to face with a body of writers who belong to the very soil, +upon whom the particular character of the landscape has had a +permanent effect, who are not only very great Englishmen and +Englishwomen, but are great East Anglians as well.</p> +<p>I have said that Captain Marryat was an East Anglian, and have +we not a right to be proud of Marryat’s breezy stories of +the sea? Our youth has found such plentiful stimulus in +<i>Peter Simple</i>, <i>Frank Mildmay</i>, and <i>Mr. Midshipman +Easy</i>; generations of boys have read them with delight, +generations of boys will read them. And not <!-- page +137--><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>only boys, but men. One recalls that Carlyle, in +one of his deepest fits of depression, took refuge in +Marryat’s novels with infinite advantage to his peace of +mind. Speaking of Captain Marryat and books for boys, a +quite minor kind of literature perhaps some of you may think, I +must recall that an earlier and still more famous story for +children had an East Anglian origin. Did not The Babes in +the Wood come out of Norfolk? Was it not their estate in +that county that, as we learn from Percy’s <i>Reliques</i>, +their wicked uncle coveted, and were not the last hours of those +unfortunate children, in this most picturesque and pathetic of +stories, solaced by East Anglian robins and their poor bodies +covered by East Anglian vegetation?</p> +<p>Let me pass, however, to what may be counted more serious +literature. What can one say of Sir Thomas Browne unless +indeed one has an hour in which to say it. Every page of +that great writer’s <i>Religio Medici</i> and <i>Urn +Burial</i> is quotable—full of worldly wisdom and of an +inspiration that is not of the world. Browne was born in +London, and not until he was thirty-two years of age did he +settle in Norwich, where he was <!-- page 138--><a +name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>“much +resorted to for his skill in physic,” and where he lived +for forty-five years, when the fine church of St. Peter Mancroft, +received his ashes—a church in which, let me add, with +pardonable pride, my own grandfather and grandmother were +married. I am glad that Norwich is shortly to commemorate +by a fitting monument not the least great of her sons, one who +has been aptly called “the English Montaigne.” <a +name="citation138"></a><a href="#footnote138" +class="citation">[138]</a></p> +<p>Perhaps there are those who would dispute my claim for Marryat +and for Sir Thomas Browne that they were East Anglians—both +were only East Anglians by adoption. There are even those +who dispute the claim for one whom I must count well-nigh the +greatest of East Anglian men of letters—George +Borrow. Borrow, I maintain, was an East Anglian if ever +there was one, although this has been questioned by Mr. Theodore +Watts-Dunton. Now I have the greatest possible regard for +Mr. Watts-Dunton. He is distinguished alike as a critic, a +poet, and a romancer. But I must join issue <!-- page +139--><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span>with him here, and you, I know, will forgive me for +taking up your time with the matter; for if Mr. Watts-Dunton were +right, one of the chief glories would be shorn from our East +Anglian traditions. He denies in the Introduction to a new +edition of <i>The Romany Rye</i>, just published, the claim of +Borrow to be an East Anglian, although Borrow himself insisted +that he was one.</p> +<blockquote><p>One might as well call Charlotte Brontë a +Yorkshire woman as call Borrow an East Anglian. He was no +more an East Anglian than an Irishman born in London is an +Englishman. His father was a Cornishman and his mother of +French extraction. Not one drop of East Anglian blood was +in the veins of Borrow’s father, and very little in the +veins of his mother. Borrow’s ancestry was pure +Cornish on one side, and on the other mainly French. But +such was the egotism of Borrow that the fact of his having been +born in East Anglia made him look upon that part of the world as +the very hub of the universe.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Well, I am not prepared to question the suggestion that East +Anglia is the hub of the universe, only to question Mr. +Watts-Dunton’s position. There is virtue in that +qualification of his that there was “very little” +East Anglian blood in the veins of Borrow’s mother, and +that <!-- page 140--><a name="page140"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 140</span>she was “mainly” +French. As a matter of fact she was, of course, partly East +Anglian; that is to say, she must have had two or three +generations of East Anglian blood in her, seeing that it was her +great-grandfather who settled in Norfolk from France, and he and +his children and grandchildren intermarried with the race. +But I do not pin my claim for Borrow upon that fact—the +fact of three generations of his mother’s family at +Dumpling Green—or even on the fact that he was born near +East Dereham. There is nothing more certain than that we +are all of us influenced greatly by our environment, and that it +is this, quite as much as birth or ancestry, that gives us what +characteristics we possess. It is the custom, for example, +to call Swift an Irishman, whereas Swift came of English +parentage and lived for many of his most impressionable years in +England. Nevertheless, he may be justly claimed by the +sister-island, for during a long sojourn in that country he +became permeated with the subtle influence of the Irish race, and +in many things he thought and felt as an Irishman. It is +the custom to speak of Maria Edgeworth as an Irish novelist, yet +Miss Edgeworth was born in <!-- page 141--><a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>England of +English parentage. Nevertheless, she was quite as much an +Irish novelist as Charles Lever and Samuel Lover, for all her +life was spent in direct communion with the Irish race, and her +books were Irish books. It is, on the other hand, quite +unreasonable to deny that Charlotte Brontë was a Yorkshire +woman. Only once at the end of her life did she visit +Ireland for a few weeks. Her Irish father and her Cornish +mother doubtless influenced her nature in many ways, but not less +certain was the influence of those wonderful moors around +Haworth, and the people among whom she lived. Neither +Ireland nor Cornwall has as much right to claim her as +Yorkshire. I am the last to disclaim the influence of what +is sometimes called “Celticism” upon English +literature; upon this point I am certain that Matthew Arnold has +said almost the last word. The Celts—not necessarily +the Irish, as there are three or four races of Celts in addition +to the Irish—have in the main given English literature its +fine imaginative quality, and even where he cannot trace a Celtic +origin to an English writer we may fairly assume that there is +Celtic blood somewhere in an earlier generation.</p> +<p><!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span>Nevertheless, the impressions, as I have said, derived +from environment are of the utmost vitality, and assuredly Borrow +was an East Anglian, as Sir Thomas Browne was an East +Anglian. In each writer you can trace the influence of our +soil in a peculiar degree, and particularly in Borrow. +Borrow was proud of being an East Anglian, and we are proud of +him. In <i>Lavengro</i>, I venture to assert, we have the +greatest example of prose style in our modern literature, and I +rejoice to see a growing Borrow cult, a cult that is based not on +an acceptance of the narrower side of Borrow—his furious +ultra-Protestantism, for example—as was the popularity that +he once enjoyed, but upon the fact that he was a magnificent +artist in words. No artist in words but is influenced by +environment. Charles Kingsley, for example, who came from +quite different surroundings, was profoundly influenced by the +East Anglian fen-country:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“They have a beauty of their own, those +great fens,” he said, “a beauty of the sea, of +boundless expanse and freedom. Overhead the arch of heaven +spreads more ample than elsewhere, and that vastness gives such +cloud-lands, such sunrises, such sunsets, as can be seen nowhere +else within these isles.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 143--><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +143</span>But I must hasten on, although I would fain tarry long +over George Borrow and his works. I have said that East +Anglia is the country of great letter writers. First, there +was Margaret Paston. There is no such contribution to a +remote period of English history as that contained in the +<i>Paston Letters</i>, and I think we must associate them with +the name of a woman—Margaret Paston. Margaret’s +husband, John Paston; her son, Sir John Paston; and her second +son, who, strangely enough, was also a John, and called himself +“John Paston the Youngest,” come frequently before us +in the correspondence, but Margaret Paston is the central +figure.</p> +<p>It may not be without interest to some of my hearers who are +married to recall that Margaret Paston addresses her husband not +as “Dear John,” or “My dear John,” as I +imagine a wife of to-day would do, but as “Right Reverend +and Worshipful Husband.” Nowhere is there such a +vivid picture of a bygone age as that contained in these +<i>Paston Letters</i>. We who sit quietly by the hearth in +the reign of King Edward VII may read what it meant to live by +the hearth in the reign of King Edward IV. It is <!-- page +144--><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +144</span>curious that the most humane documents of far-off times +in our history should all come from East Anglia, not only those +<i>Paston Letters</i>, brimful of the most vital interest +concerning the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV, but also an even +earlier period—the life, or at least the monastic life in +the time of the first Richard and of King John is in a most +extraordinarily human fashion mirrored for us in that Chronicle +of St. Edmund’s Bury Monastery known as the Jocelyn +Chronicle, published by the Camden Society, which Carlyle has +vitalized so superbly for us in <i>Past and Present</i>.</p> +<p>But I was speaking of the great letter writers, commencing +with Margaret Paston. Who are our greatest letter +writers? Undoubtedly they are Horace Walpole, William +Cowper and Edward FitzGerald. You know what a superb +picture of eighteenth century life has been presented to us in +the nine volumes of correspondence we have by Horace Walpole. <a +name="citation144"></a><a href="#footnote144" +class="citation">[144]</a> Walpole was to all practical +purposes an East Anglian, although he <!-- page 145--><a +name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 145</span>happened to +be born in London. His father, the great Sir Robert +Walpole, was a notable East Anglian, and he had the closest ties +of birth and association with East Anglia. Many of his +letters were written from the family mansion of Houghton. <a +name="citation145"></a><a href="#footnote145" +class="citation">[145]</a></p> +<p>Next in order comes William Cowper. I believe that more +than one literary historian has claimed Cowper as a Norfolk +man. Cowper was born in Hertfordshire; he lived for a very +great deal of his life in Olney, in Buckinghamshire, in London +and in Huntingdon, but if ever there was a man who took on the +texture of East Anglian scenery and East Anglian life it was +Cowper. That beautiful river, the Ouse, which empties +itself into the Wash, was a peculiar inspiration to Cowper, and +those who know the scenery of Olney know that it has conditions +exactly <!-- page 146--><a name="page146"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 146</span>analogous in every way to those of +East Anglia. One of Cowper’s most beautiful poems is +entitled “On Receipt of my Mother’s Portrait out of +Norfolk,” and he himself, as I have said, found his last +resting-place on East Anglian soil—at East Dereham.</p> +<p>If there may be some doubt about Cowper, there can be none +whatever about Edward FitzGerald, the greatest letter-writer of +recent times. In mentioning the name of FitzGerald I am a +little diffident. It is like introducing “King +Charles’s head” into this gathering; for was he not +the author of the poem known to all of us as the <i>Rubaiyat of +Omar Khayyám</i>, and there is no small tendency to smile +to-day whenever the name of Omar Khayyám is mentioned and +to call the cult a “lunacy.” It is perhaps +unfortunate that FitzGerald gave that somewhat formidable title +to his paraphrase, or translation, of the old Persian poet. +It is not the fault of those who admire that poem exceedingly +that it gives them a suspicion of affecting a scholarship that +they do not in most cases possess. What many of us admire +is not Omar Khayyám the Persian, nor have we any desire to +see or to know <!-- page 147--><a name="page147"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 147</span>any other translation of that +poet. We simply admit to an honest appreciation of the poem +by Edward FitzGerald, the Suffolk squire, the poem that Tennyson +describes as “the one thing done divinely +well.” That poem by FitzGerald will live as long as +the English language, and let it never be forgotten that it is +the work of an East Anglian, an East Anglian who, like Borrow, +possessed a marked Celtic quality, the outcome of a famous Irish +ancestry, nevertheless of an East Anglian who loved its soil, its +rivers and its sea.</p> +<p>Then I come to another phase of East Anglian literary +traditions. It is astonishing what a zest for learning its +women have displayed; I might give you quite a long list of +distinguished women who have come out of East Anglia. +Crabbe must have had one in mind when he wrote of Arabella in one +of his <i>Tales</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p>This reasoning maid, above her sex’s +dread<br /> +Had dared to read, and dared to say she read,<br /> +Not the last novel, not the new born play,<br /> +Not the mere trash and scandal of the day;<br /> +But (though her young companions felt the shock)<br /> +She studied Berkeley, Bacon, Hobbes and Locke.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The one who perhaps made herself most <!-- page 148--><a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>notorious +was Harriet Martineau, and in spite of her disagreeable egotism +it is still a pleasure to read some of her less controversial +writings. Her <i>Feats on the Fiord</i>, for example, is +really a classic. But I can never quite forgive Harriet +Martineau in that she spoke contemptuously of East Anglian +scenery, scenery which in its way has charms as great as any part +of Europe can offer. No, in this roll of famous women, the +two I am most inclined to praise are Sarah Austin and Fanny +Burney. Mrs. Austin was, you will remember, one of the +Taylors of Norwich, married to John Austin, the famous +jurist. She was one of the first to demonstrate that her +sex might have other gifts than a gift for writing fiction, and +that it was possible to be a good, quiet, domestic woman, and at +the same time an exceedingly learned one. Even before +Carlyle she gave a vogue to the study of German literature in +this country; she wrote many books, many articles, and made some +translations, notably what is still the best translation of von +Ranke’s <i>History of the Popes</i>. In the +muster-roll of East Anglian worthies let us never forget this +singularly good woman, this correspondent of all the <!-- page +149--><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +149</span>most famous men of her day, of Guizot, of Grote, of +Gladstone, and one who also, as a letter-writer, showed that she +possessed the faculty that seems, as I have said, to be peculiar +to the soil of East Anglia. Still less must we forget Fanny +Burney, who, born in King’s Lynn, lived to delight her own +generation by <i>Evelina</i> and by the fascinating <i>Diary</i> +that gives so pleasant a picture of Dr. Johnson and many another +of her contemporaries. <i>Evelina</i> and the <i>Diary</i> +are two of my favourite books, but I practise self-restraint and +will say no more of them here.</p> +<p>I now come to my ninth, and last, name among those East +Anglian worthies whom I feel that we have a particular right to +canonize—George Crabbe—“though Nature’s +sternest painter yet the best,” as Byron described +him. Now it may be frankly admitted that few of us read +Crabbe to-day. He has an acknowledged place in the history +of literature, but there pretty well even well-read people are +content to leave him. “What have our literary critics +been about that they have suffered such a writer to drop into +neglect and oblivion?” asks a recent Quarterly +Reviewer. He does not live as Cowper <!-- page 150--><a +name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>does by a +few lyrics and ballads and by incomparable letters. +Scarcely a line of Crabbe survives in current conversation. +If you turn to one of those handy volumes of +reference—Dictionaries of Quotation, as they are +called—from which we who are journalists are supposed to +obtain most of the literary knowledge that we are able to display +on occasion, you will scarcely find a dozen lines of +Crabbe. And yet I venture to affirm that Crabbe has a great +and permanent place in literature, and that as he has been a +favourite in the past, he will become a favourite in the +future. Crabbe can never lose his place in the history of +literature, a place as the forerunner of Wordsworth and even of +Cowper, but it would be a tragedy were he to drop out of the +category of poets that are read. A dainty little edition in +eight volumes is among my most treasured possessions. I +have read it not as we read some so-called literature, from a +sense of duty, but with unqualified interest. We have had +much pure realism in these latter days; why not let us return to +the most realistic of the poets. He was beloved by all the +greatest among his contemporaries. Scott and Wordsworth +<!-- page 151--><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>were devoted to his work, and so also was Jane +Austen. At a later date Tennyson praised him. We have +heard quite recently the story of Mr. James Russell Lowell in his +last illness finding comfort in reading Scott’s <i>Rob +Roy</i>. Let us turn to Scott’s own last illness and +see what was the book he most enjoyed, almost on his +deathbed:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Read me some amusing thing,” said Sir +Walter, “read me a bit of Crabbe.” “I +brought out the first volumes of his old favourite that I could +lay hand on,” says Lockhart, “and turned to what I +remembered was one of his favourite passages in it. He +listened with great interest. Every now and then he +exclaimed, “Capital, excellent, excellent, very +good.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Cardinal Newman and Edward FitzGerald at the opposite poles, +as it were, of religious impressions, agree in a devotion to +Crabbe’s poetry. Cardinal Newman speaks of <i>Tales +of the Hall</i> as “a poem whether in conception or in +execution one of the most touching in our language,” and in +a footnote to his <i>Idea of a University</i> he tells us that he +had read the poem thirty years earlier with extreme delight, +“and have never lost my <!-- page 152--><a +name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 152</span>love of +it,” and he goes on to plead that it is an absolute +<i>classic</i>.</p> +<p>Not to have read Crabbe, therefore, is not to know one of the +most individual in the glorious muster-roll of English poets, and +Crabbe was pre-eminently an East Anglian, born and bred in East +Anglia, and taking in a peculiar degree the whole character of +his environment, as only Shakspere, Cowper and Wordsworth among +our great poets, have done.</p> +<p>In conclusion, let me recapitulate that the names of Marryat, +Sir Thomas Browne, George Borrow, Margaret Paston, Horace +Walpole, Sarah Austin, Fanny Burney, Edward FitzGerald, and +George Crabbe are those that I prefer to associate with East +Anglian Literature. We are well aware that literature is +but an aspect of our many claims on the gratitude of those +Englishmen who have not the good fortune to be East +Anglians. We have given to the Empire a great scholar in +Porson, a great statesman in Sir Robert Walpole, a great lawyer +in Sir Edward Coke, great ecclesiastics in Cardinal Wolsey and +Archbishop Parker, great artists in Gainsborough, Constable and +Crome, and perhaps above all great sailors in Sir Cloudesley <!-- +page 153--><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>Shovel and the ever memorable Lord Nelson. +Personally I admire a certain rebel, Kett the Tanner, as much as +any of those I have named.</p> +<p>Of all these East Anglian worthies the praise has often been +sung, but let me be pardoned if, on an occasion like this, I have +dwelt rather at length on the less familiar association of East +Anglia with letters. That I have but touched the fringe of +the subject is obvious. What might not be said, for +example, concerning Norwich as a literary centre under Bishop +Stanley—the Norwich of the Taylors and the Gurneys, +possessed of as much real intellectual life as London can boast +of to-day. What, again, might not be said of the influence +upon writers from afar. Read Kingsley’s <i>Hereward +the Wake</i>, Mr. Swinburne’s <i>Midsummer Holiday</i>, +Charles Dickens’ description of Yarmouth and +Goldsmith’s poetical description in his <i>Deserted +Village</i>, where clearly Houghton was intended. <a +name="citation153"></a><a href="#footnote153" +class="citation">[153]</a> <!-- page 154--><a +name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>These, and +a host of other memories touch the heart of all good East +Anglians, but that East Anglians do not forget the living in +doing honour to the dead is indicated by this gathering +to-night. We are grateful to Dr. Augustus Jessopp, to Mr. +Walter Rye, to Mr. Edward Clodd, and to our guest of this +evening, Mr. William Dutt, for keeping alive the folk-lore, the +literary history, the historical tradition of that portion of the +British Isles to which we feel the most profound attachment by +ties of residence or of kinship.</p> +<h2><!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 157</span>VI. DR. JOHNSON’S +ANCESTRY</h2> +<p>A paper read before the members of the Johnson Club of London +at Simpson’s Restaurant in the Strand.</p> +<p>There is, I believe, a definite understanding among our +members that we, the Brethren of the Johnson Club, have each and +all of us read every line about Dr. Johnson that is in print, to +say nothing of his works. It is particularly accepted that +the thirteen volumes in which our late brother, Dr. Birkbeck +Hill, enshrined his own appreciation of our Great Man, are as +familiar to us all as are the Bible and the Book of Common +Prayer. For my part, with a deep sense of the +responsibility that must belong to any one who has rashly +undertaken to read a paper before the Club, I admit to having +supplemented these thirteen volumes by a reperusal of the little +book entitled <i>Johnson Club Papers</i>, by Various Hands, +issued in 1899 by Brother Fisher Unwin. I feel as I reread +these addresses that there were indeed giants in those days, <!-- +page 158--><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +158</span>although my admiration was moderated a little when I +came across the statement of one Brother that Johnson’s +proposal for an edition of Shakspere “came to +nothing”; and the statement of another that +“Goldsmith’s failings were almost as great and as +ridiculous as Boswell’s;” while my bibliographical +ire was awakened by the extraordinary declaration in an article +on “Dr. Johnson’s Library,” that a first folio +edition of Shakspere might have realized £250 in the year +1785. Still, I recognize the talent that illuminated the +Club in those closing years of the last century. Happily +for us, who love good comradeship, most of the giants of those +days are still in evidence with their polished armour and +formidable spears.</p> +<p>What can I possibly say that has not already been said by one +or other of the Brethren? Well, I have put together these +few remarks in the hopes that no one of you has seen two books +that are in my hands, the first, <i>The Reades of Blackwood +Hill</i>, <i>with Some Account of Dr. Johnson’s +Ancestry</i>, by Aleyn Lyell Reade; the other, <i>The Life and +Letters of Dr. Birkbeck Hill</i>, by his daughter Mrs. +Crump. The first of these <!-- page 159--><a +name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>is +privately printed, although it may be bought by any one of the +Brethren for a couple of guineas. As far as I am able to +learn, Brother Augustine Birrell is the only one of the Brethren +who has as yet purchased a copy. The other book, our +Brother Birkbeck Hill’s biography, is to be issued next +week by Mr. Edward Arnold, who has kindly placed an early copy at +my disposal. In both these volumes there is much food for +reflection for all good Johnsonians. Dr. Johnson’s +ancestry, it may be, makes little appeal to the crowd, but it +will to the Brethren. There is no more favourite subject +for satire than the tendency to minute study of an author and his +antecedents. But the lover of that author knows the +fascination of the topic. He can forgive any amount of +zeal. I confess that personally I stand amazed at the +variety and interest of Mr. Reade’s researches. Let +me take a sample case of his method before coming to the main +issue. In the opening pages of Boswell’s +<i>Johnson</i> there is some account of Mr. Michael Johnson, the +father. The most picturesque anecdote told of Johnson +Senior is that concerning a young woman of Leek in Staffordshire, +who <!-- page 160--><a name="page160"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 160</span>while he served his apprenticeship +there conceived a passion for him, which he did not return. +She followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite +to the house in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless +flame. Ultimately she died of love and was buried in the +Cathedral at Lichfield, when Michael Johnson put a stone over her +grave. This pathetic romance has gone unchallenged by all +Boswell’s editors, even including our prince of editors, +Dr. Birkbeck Hill. Mr. Reade, it seems to me, has +completely shattered the story, which, as all Johnsonian students +know, was obtained by Boswell from Miss Anna Seward. Mr. +Reade is able to show that Michael Johnson had been settled in +Lichfield for at least eleven years before the death of Elizabeth +Blaney, that for five years she had been the much appreciated +domestic in a household in that city. Her will indicates +moreover a great affection for her mistress and for that +mistress’s son; she leaves the boy a gold watch and his +mother the rest of her belongings. The only connexion that +Michael Johnson would seem to have had with the woman was that he +and his brother were <!-- page 161--><a name="page161"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 161</span>called in after her decease to make +an inventory of her little property. I think that these +little facts about Mistress Blaney, her five years’ +residence at Lichfield apparently in a most comfortable position, +her omission of Michael Johnson from her will, and the fact that +he had been in Lichfield at least six months before she arrived, +are conclusive.</p> +<p>There is another picturesque fact about Michael Johnson that +Mr. Reade has brought to light. It would seem that twenty +years before his marriage to Sarah Ford, he had been on the eve +of marriage to a young woman at Derby, Mary Neyld; but the +marriage did not take place, although the marriage bond was drawn +out. Mary was the daughter of Luke Neyld, a prominent +tradesman of Derby; she was twenty-three years of age at the time +and Michael twenty-nine. Even Mr. Reade’s industry +has not been able to discover for us why at the very last moment +the marriage was broken off. It explains, however, why +Michael Johnson married late in life and his melancholia. +The human romance that Mr. Reade has unveiled has surely a +certain interest for Johnsonians, for had Michael <!-- page +162--><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>Johnson brought his first love affair to a happy +conclusion, we should not have had the man described twenty years +later as “possessed of a vile melancholy,” who, when +his wife’s tongue wagged too much, got upon his horse and +rode away. There would have been no Samuel Johnson, and +there would have been no Johnson Club—a catastrophe which +the human mind finds it hard to conceive of. Two years +after the breaking off of her engagement with Michael Johnson, I +may add, Mary Neyld married one James Warner.</p> +<p>Mr. Reade also calls in question another statement of +Boswell’s, that Michael Johnson was really apprenticed at +Leek in Staffordshire; our only authority for this also is the +excellent Anna Seward. Further, it is sufficiently curious +that the names of two Samuel Johnsons are recorded as being +buried in one of the churches at Lichfield, one before our Samuel +came into the world, the other three years later: of these, one +died in 1654, the other in 1712. But these points, although +of a certain interest, have nothing to do with Dr. +Johnson’s ancestry. Now before we left our homes this +evening, <!-- page 163--><a name="page163"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 163</span>each member of the Johnson +Brotherhood, as is his custom, turned up Brother Birkbeck +Hill’s invaluable index to see what Johnson had to say upon +the subject of ancestry. We know that the Doctor was very +keen upon the founding of a family; that when Mr. Thrale lost his +only son Johnson’s sympathies went out to him in a double +way, and perhaps in the greater degree because as he said to +Boswell, “Sir, don’t you know how you yourself +think? Sir, he wished to propagate his name.” +Johnson himself, Boswell tells us, had no pretensions to +blood. “I here may say,” he said, “that I +have great merit in being zealous for subordination and the +honours of birth; for I can hardly tell who was my +grandfather.” Johnson further informed Mrs. Thrale +that he did not delight in talking much of his family: +“There is little pleasure,” he says, “in +relating the anecdotes of beggary.” He constantly +deprecated his origin. According to Miss Seward, he told +his wife before he married her that he was of mean extraction; +but the letter in which Miss Seward gives her version of +Johnson’s courtship is worth recalling, although I do not +believe a single word of it:—</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 164--><a name="page164"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 164</span>The rustic prettiness and artless +manners of her daughter, the present Mrs. Lucy Porter, had won +Johnson’s youthful heart, when she was upon a visit at my +grandfather’s in Johnson’s school-days. +Disgusted by his unsightly form, she had a personal aversion to +him, nor could the beautiful verses he addressed to her teach her +to endure him. The nymph at length returned to her parents +at Birmingham, and was soon forgotten. Business taking +Johnson to Birmingham on the death of his own father, and calling +upon his coy mistress there, he found her father dying. He +passed all his leisure hours at Mr. Porter’s, attending his +sick bed, and in a few months after his death, asked Mrs. +Johnson’s consent to marry the old widow. After +expressing her surprise at a request so +extraordinary—“No, Sam, my willing consent you will +never have to so preposterous a union. You are not +twenty-five, and she is turned fifty. If she had any +prudence, this request had never been made to me. Where are +your means of subsistence? Porter has died poor, in +consequence of his wife’s expensive habits. You have +great talents, but, as yet, have turned them into no profitable +channel.” “Mother, I have not deceived Mrs. +Porter: I have told her the worst of me; that I am of mean +extraction; that I have no money, and that I have had an uncle +hanged. She replied, that she valued no one more or less +for his descent; that she had no more money than myself; and +that, although she had not had a relation hanged, she had fifty +who deserved hanging.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>Now why did Dr. Johnson take this attitude about his +ancestry, so contrary to the spirit that guided him where other +people’s genealogical trees were concerned? It was +certainly not indifference to family ties, because Brother +Birkbeck Hill publishes many interesting letters written by +Johnson in old age, when finding that he had a certain sum of +money to bequeath, he looked around to see if there were any of +his own kin living. The number of letters the old man +wrote, inquiring for this or that kinsman, are quite +pathetic. It seems to me that it was really due to an +ignorant vagueness as to his family history. During his +early years his family had passed from affluence to penury. +They were of a type very common in England, but very rare in +Scotland and Ireland, that take no interest whatever in +pedigrees, and never discuss any but their immediate relations, +with whom, in the case of the Johnsons, very friendly terms did +not prevail. I think we should be astonished if we were to +go into some shops in London of sturdy prosperous tradesmen in +quite as good a position as old Michael Johnson, and were to try +and draw out one or other individual upon <!-- page 166--><a +name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>his +ancestry. We should promptly come against a blank wall.</p> +<p>What then do we know of Johnson’s father from the +ordinary sources? That he was a bookseller at Lichfield, +and that he was Sheriff of that city in the year that his son +Samuel was born; that he feasted the citizens, as Johnson tells +us, in his <i>Annals</i>, with “uncommon +magnificence.” He is described by Johnson as “a +foolish old man,” because he talked with too fond a pride +of his children and their precocious ways. He was a zealous +High Churchman and Jacobite. We are told by Boswell +further, on the authority of Mr. Hector of Birmingham, that he +opened a bookstall once a week in that city, but lost money by +setting up as a maker of parchment. “A pious and most +worthy man,” Mrs. Piozzi tells us of him, “but +wrong-headed, positive and affected with +melancholia.” “I inherited a vile melancholy +from my father,” Johnson tells us, “which has made me +mad all my life.” When he died in 1731 his effects +were estimated at £20. “My mother had no value +for his relations,” Johnson tells us. “Those we +knew were much lower than hers.” Of Michael +Johnson’s <!-- page 167--><a name="page167"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 167</span>brother, Andrew, Johnson’s +uncle, we know still less. From the various Johnson books +we only cull the story mentioned in Mrs. Piozzi’s +<i>Anecdotes</i>. She relates that Johnson, after telling +her of the prowess of his uncle, Cornelius Ford, at jumping, went +on to say that he had another uncle, Andrew—“my +father’s brother, who kept the ring at Smithfield for a +whole year, and was never thrown or conquered. Here are +uncles for you, Mistress, if that is the way to your +heart.” Mr. Reade has supplemented this by showing us +that not only was Andrew Johnson a skilful wrestler, but that he +was a very good bookseller. For a time he assisted his +brother in the conduct of the business at Lichfield. Later, +however, he settled as a bookseller at Birmingham, which was to +be his home until his death over thirty years later. Here +he published some interesting books; the title-pages of some of +these are given by Mr. Reade, who reproduces of course his +will. He had a son named Thomas who fell on evil +days. You will find certain letters to Thomas in Birkbeck +Hill’s edition; Dr. Johnson frequently helped him with +money.</p> +<p>Of more interest, however, than Andrew <!-- page 168--><a +name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>Johnson was +Catherine, the one sister of Michael and Andrew, an aunt of +Samuel’s, who was evidently for some unknown reason ignored +by her two brothers. Here we are not on absolutely firm +ground, but it seems to me clear that Catherine Johnson married +into a position far above her brothers. A fortnight before +his death Dr. Johnson wrote to the Rev. William Vyse, Rector of +Lambeth; a letter in which he asked him to find out +“whether Charles Skrymsher”—he misspelt it +“Scrimshaw”—“of +Woodseaves”—he misspelt it +“Woodease”—“in your neighbourhood, be now +alive,” and whether he could be found without delay. +He added that “it will be an act of great kindness to +me,” Charles Skrymsher being “very nearly +related.” Charles Skrymsher was not found, and +Johnson told Dr. Vyse that he was disappointed in the inquiries +that he had made for his relations. This particular +relation, indeed, had been twenty-two years dead when Dr. +Johnson, probably with the desire of leaving him something in his +will, made these inquiries. His mother, Mrs. Gerald +Skrymsher, was Michael Johnson’s sister. One of her +daughters became the wife of Thomas <!-- page 169--><a +name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +169</span>Boothby. Boothby was twice married, and his two +wives were cousins, the first, Elizabeth, being the daughter of +one Sir Charles Skrymsher, the second, Hester, as I have said, of +Gerald Skrymsher, Dr. Johnson’s uncle. Hence Johnson +had a cousin by marriage who was a potentate in his day, for it +is told of Thomas Boothby of Tooley Park, grand-nephew of a +powerful and wealthy baronet, that he was one of the fathers of +English sport. An issue of <i>The Field</i> newspaper for +1875 contains an engraving of a hunting horn then in the +possession of the late Master of the Cheshire Hounds, and upon +the horn is the inscription: “Thomas Boothby, Esq., Tooley +Park, Leicester. With this horn he hunted the first pack of +fox hounds then in England fifty-five years.” He died +in 1752. His eldest son took the maternal name of +Skrymsher, and under the title of Thomas Boothby Skrymsher became +M.P. for Leicester, and an important person in his day. His +wife was Anne, daughter of Sir Hugh Clopton of New Place, +Stratford-on-Avon. Admirers of Mrs. Gaskell will remember +the Clopton legend told by her in Howett’s <i>Visits to +Remarkable Places</i>.</p> +<p><!-- page 170--><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +170</span>I wish that I had time to follow Mr. Reade through all +the ramifications of an interesting family history, but I venture +to think that there is something pathetic in Dr. Johnson’s +inquiries a fortnight before his death as to cousins of whose +life story he knew nothing, whose well-known family home of +Woodseaves he—the great Lexicographer—could not spell +correctly, and of whose very name he was imperfectly +informed. Yet he, the lover of family trees and of +ancestral associations, was all his life in ignorance of these +wealthy connexions and their many substantial intermarriages.</p> +<p>Before Mr. Reade it was known that Johnson’s father was +a manufacturer of parchment as well as a bookseller; but it was +supposed that only in his last few years or so of life did he +undertake this occupation which ruined him. Mr. Reade shows +that he had been for thirty years engaged in this trade in +parchment. Brother Birkbeck Hill quotes Croker, who hinted +that Johnson’s famous definition of Excise as “a +hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the +Common Judge of Property but by wretches hired by those to whom +Excise is paid,” was <!-- page 171--><a +name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>inspired by +recollections of his father’s constant disputes with the +Excise officers. Mr. Reade has unearthed documents +concerning the crisis of this quarrel, when Michael Johnson in +1718 was indicted “for useing ye Trade of a +Tanner.” The indictment, which is here printed in +full, charges him, “one Michael Johnson, bookseller,” +“that he did in the third year of the reign of our Lord +George by the Grace of God now King of Great Britain, for his own +proper gain, get up, use and exercise the art, mystery or manual +occupation of a Byrseus, in English a Tanner, in which art, +mystery or manual occupation of a Tanner the said Michael Johnson +was not brought up or apprenticed for the space of seven years, +an evil example of all others offending in such like +case.” Michael’s defence was that he was +“tanned for” and did not tan himself, he being only +“a merchant in skins tradeing to Ireland, Scotland and the +furthermost parts of England.” The only known example +of Michael Johnson’s handwriting is this defence. +Michael was committed for trial but acquitted. It is +probable, however, that this prosecution laid the foundation of +his ruin.</p> +<p><!-- page 172--><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>But I must pass on to the other branch: the family of +Dr. Johnson’s mother. Here Dr. Johnson did himself a +great injustice, for he had a genuine right to count his +mother’s “an old family,” although the term is +in any case relative. At any rate he could carry his +pedigree back to 1620. “In the morning,” says +Boswell, “we had talked of old families, and the respect +due to them. Johnson said—</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘Sir, you have a right to that kind +of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am for +supporting the principle, and I am disinterested in doing it, as +I have no such right.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Nevertheless, Boswell, in this opening chapter, refers to the +mother as “Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of +substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire,” and Johnson’s +epitaph upon his mother’s tomb describes her as “of +the ancient family of Ford.” Thus one is considerably +bewildered in attempting to reconcile Johnson’s +attitude. The only one of his family for whom he seems to +have had a good word was Cornelius Harrison, of whom, writing to +Mrs. Thrale, he said that he was “perhaps the only one of +my relations who ever rose in fortune <!-- page 173--><a +name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>above +penury or in character above neglect.” This Cornelius +was the son of John Harrison, who had married Johnson’s +aunt, Phœbe Ford. Johnson’s account of Uncle +John in his <i>Annals</i> is not flattering, but he was the son +of a Rector of Pilborough, whose father was Sir Richard Harrison, +one of the gentlemen of the King’s Bedchamber, and a +personality of a kind. Cornelius, the reputable cousin, +died in 1748, but his descendants seem to have been a poor lot, +whatever his ancestors may have been. Mr. Reade traces +their history with all the relentlessness of the genealogist.</p> +<p>Johnson’s great-grandfather was one Henry Ford, a yeoman +in Birmingham. One of his sons, Henry, Johnson’s +grand-uncle, was born in 1628. He owned property at West +Bromwich and elsewhere, and was a fellow of Clifford’s Inn, +London. Then we come to Cornelius +Ford—“Cornelius Ford, gentleman,” he is styled +in his marriage settlement. Cornelius died four months +before Samuel Johnson was born. Cornelius had a sister +Mary, who married one Jesson, and their only son, I may mention +incidentally, entered at Pembroke College in 1666, <!-- page +174--><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +174</span>sixty years before his second-cousin, our Samuel, +entered the same college. Another cousin by marriage was a +Mrs. Harriots, to whom Johnson refers in his <i>Annals</i>, and +also in his <i>Prayers and Meditations</i>. The only one of +Cornelius Ford’s family referred to in the biographies is +Joseph Ford, the father of the notorious Parson Ford, +Johnson’s cousin, of whom he several times speaks. +Joseph was a physician of eminence who settled at +Stourbridge. He married a wealthy widow, Mrs. +Hickman. He was a witness to the marriage of his sister +Sarah to Michael Johnson. There can be no doubt but that +the presence of Dr. Ford and his family at Stourbridge accounts +for Johnson being sent there to school in 1725. He stayed +in the house of his cousin Cornelius Ford, not as Boswell says +his <i>uncle</i> Cornelius, at Pedmore, about a mile from +Stourbridge. He walked in every day to the Grammar +School. A connexion of the boy, Gregory Hickman, was +residing next to the Grammar School. A kinsman of Johnson +and a descendant of Hickman, Dr. Freer, still lives in the +house. I met him at Lichfield recently, and he has sent me +a photograph of the very house, which stands to-day much <!-- +page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span>as it did when Johnson visited it, and wrote at +twenty-two, a sonnet to Dorothy Hickman “playing at the +Spinet.” Dorothy was one of Johnson’s three +early loves, with Ann Hector and Olivia Lloyd. Dorothy +married Dr. John Turtin and had an only child, Dr. Turtin, the +celebrated physician who attended Goldsmith in his last +illness.</p> +<p>I have not time to go through the record of all Dr. +Johnson’s uncles on the maternal side, and do full justice +to Mr. Reade’s industry and mastery of detail. I may, +however, mention incidentally that the uncle who was hanged, if +one was, must have been one of his father’s brothers, for +to the Fords that distinction does not seem to have +belonged. Much that is entertaining is related of the +cousin Parson Ford, who, after sharing with the famous Earl of +Chesterfield in many of his profligacies, received from his +lordship the Rectory of South Luffenham. There is no +evidence, however, that Chesterfield ever knew that his at one +time chaplain and boon companion was cousin of the man who wrote +him the most famous of letters.</p> +<p>The mother of Cornelius Ford was a Crowley, <!-- page 176--><a +name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>and this +brings Johnson into relationship with London city worthies, for +Mrs. Ford’s brother was Sir Ambrose Crowley, Kt., Alderman, +of London, the original of Addison’s Jack Anvil. One +of Sir Ambrose Crowley’s daughters married Humphrey +Parsons, sometime M.P. for London and twice Lord Mayor. +Thus we see that during the very years of Johnson’s most +painful struggle in London one of his distant cousins or +connexions was Chief Magistrate of this City. Another +connexion, Elizabeth Crowley, was married in 1724 at Westminster +Abbey to John, tenth Lord St. John of Bletsoe. “Here +are ancestors for you, Mistress,” Dr. Johnson might have +said to Mrs. Thrale if he had only known—if he had had a +genealogist at his elbow as well as a pushful biographer.</p> +<p>Mr. Reade prints the whole of the marriage settlement upon the +union of Johnson’s mother and father. It is a very +elaborate document, and suggests the undoubted prosperity of the +parties at the time. The husband was fifty, the bride +thirty-seven. Samuel was not born until three years and +three months after the marriage. The pair frequently in +early married <!-- page 177--><a name="page177"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 177</span>life received assistance by +convenient deaths as the following extracts from wills +indicate:—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Cornelius Ford of Packwood in the Co. of +Warwick</i>.</p> +<p>I give and bequeath unto my son-in-law Michaell Johnson the +sum of five pounds, and to his wife my daughter five and twenty +pounds.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Proved May 1, 1709.</p> +<p><i>Jane Ford of Old Turnford</i>, <i>widow of Joseph +Ford</i>.</p> +<p>I do will and appoint that my son Cornelius Ford do and shall +pay to my brother-in-law, Mr. Michael Johnson and his wife and +their trustees, the sum of 200 pounds which is directed by his +late father’s Will to be paid to me and in lieu of so much +moneys which my said late husband received in trust for my said +brother Johnson and his wife.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Proved at Worcester, October 2, +1722.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Then “good cousin Harriotts” does not forget +them:—</p> +<blockquote><p>I give and bequeath to my cousin Sarah the wife of +Michael Johnson the like sum of 40 pounds for her own separate +use, and one pair of my best flaxen sheets and pillow coats, a +large pewter dish and a dozen of pewter plates, provided that her +husband doth at the same time give the like bond to my executor +to permit his wife to dispose of the same at her will and +pleasure.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Elizabeth Harriotts of Trysall in +Staff.,<br /> +October 23, 1726.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 178--><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +178</span>But I must leave this fascinating volume. I +cannot find time to tell you all it has to say about the Porter +family. Mr. Reade is as informative when treating of the +Porters, of Mrs. Johnson and her daughter Lucy, as he is with the +family trees of which I have spoken.</p> +<p>I hasten on to Dr. Hill’s <i>Life</i>, with which I am +only concerned here at the point where it is affected by Mr. +Reade’s book. The reflection inevitably arises that +it is well-nigh impossible efficiently to do work involving +research unless one has an income derived from other +sources. Your historian in proportion to the value of his +work must be a rich man, and so must the biographer. Good +as Brother Birkbeck Hill’s work was, it would have been +better if he had had more money. He might have had many of +these wills and other documents copied, upon the securing of +which Mr. Reade must have expended such very large sums. +Dr. Hill was fully alive to this. “If I had not some +private means,” he wrote to a friend in 1897, “I +could never edit Johnson and Boswell; but I do not get so well +paid as a carpenter.” As a matter of fact, I find +that he lost exactly £3 <!-- page 179--><a +name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>by +publishing <i>Dr. Johnson</i>: <i>his Friends and his +Critics</i>. He made £320 by the first four +years’ sale of the “Boswell.” This +£320, including American rights, made the bulk of his +payments for his many years’ work, and the book has not yet +gone into a second edition. I think 2,000 were +printed. There were between 40,000 and 50,000 copies of +Croker’s editions sold, so that we must not be too boastful +as to the improved taste of the present age. £320 is +a mere bagatelle to numbers of our present writers of utterly +foolish fiction. Several of them have been known to spend +double that sum on a single motor-car. In connexion with +this matter I cannot refrain from giving one passage from a +letter of Brother Hill’s:—</p> +<blockquote><p>My old friend D--- lamented that the two new +volumes (of my <i>Johnson Miscellanies</i>) are so dear as to be +above his reach. The net price is a guinea. On Sunday +he had eight glasses of hollands and seltzer—a shilling +each, a pint of stout and some cider, besides half a dozen cigars +or so. Two days’ abstinence from cigars and liquor +would have paid for my book.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mrs. Crump, who writes her father’s life, has expressed +regret to me that there is so little in <!-- page 180--><a +name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>the book +concerning the Johnson Club to which Brother Hill was so +devoted. She had asked me for letters, but I felt that all +in my possession were unsuited for publication, dealing rather +freely with living persons. Brother Hill was impatient of +the mere bookmaker—the literary charlatan who wrote without +reading sufficiently. There are two pleasant glimpses of +our Club in the volume; I quote one. It was of the night +that we discussed <i>Dr. Johnson as a Radical</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p>I wish that you and Lucy could have been present +last night and witnessed my scene of triumph. I was indeed +most nobly welcomed. The scribe told me with sympathetic +pride that the correspondent of the <i>New York Herald</i> had +asked leave to attend, as he wished to telegraph my paper out to +America!!! as well as the discussion. There were some very +good speeches made in the discussion that followed, especially by +a Mr. Whale, a solicitor, who spoke remarkably well and with +great knowledge of his <i>Boswell</i>. He said that he +preferred to call it, not Johnson’s radical side, but his +humanitarian side. Mr. Birrell, the <i>Obiter Dicta</i> +man, also spoke very well. He is a clever fellow. He +was equally complimentary. He maintained in opposition to +Mr. Whale that radical was the right term, and in fact that +radicalism and humanitarianism were the same. Many of <!-- +page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +181</span>them said what a light the paper had thrown on +Johnson’s character. One gentleman came up and +congratulated me on the very delicate way in which I had handled +so difficult a subject, and had not given offence to the Liberal +Unionists and Tories present. Edmund Gosse, by whom I sat, +was most friendly, and called the paper a wonderful <i>tour de +force</i>, referring to the way in which I had linked +Johnson’s sayings. He asked me to visit him some day +at Trinity College, Cambridge, and assured me of a hearty +welcome. It is no wonder that what with the supper and the +smoke I did not get to sleep till after two. Among the +guests was the great Bonner, the Australian cricketer, whose +health had been drunk with that of the other visitors, and his +praise sounded at having hit some balls over the pavilion at +Lord’s. With great simplicity he said that after +seeing the way in which Johnson’s memory was revered, he +would much rather have been such a man than have gained his own +greatest triumphs at cricket. He did not say it jocularly +at all.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Another letter from Dr. Hill describes how he found himself at +Ashbourne in Derbyshire with the Club, or rather with a fragment +of it. He wrote from the <i>Green Man</i> there concerning +his adventures.</p> +<p>I have far exceeded my time, but I would like in conclusion to +say how admirably his daughter has written this book on our +Brother Birkbeck <!-- page 182--><a name="page182"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 182</span>Hill. What a pleasant picture +it presents of a genuine lover of literature. His was not +an analytical mind nor was he a great critic. His views on +Dante and Newman will not be shared by any of us. But, what +is far more important than analysis or criticism, he had an +entirely lovable personality and was a most clubbable man. +He was moreover the ideal editor of Boswell. What more +could be said in praise of a beloved Brother of the Johnson +Club!</p> +<h2><!-- page 185--><a name="page185"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 185</span>VII. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF +FERDINAND LASSALLE <a name="citation185"></a><a +href="#footnote185" class="citation">[185]</a></h2> +<blockquote><p>Ich habe die Inventur meines Lebens gemacht.<br /> +Es war gross, brav, wacker, tapfer und glänzend genug.<br /> +Eine künftige Zeit wird mir gerecht zu warden wissen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">—<span class="smcap">Ferdinand +Lassalle</span>, <i>August</i> 9, 1864.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>I. The Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt.</h3> +<p>Ferdinand Lassalle was born at Breslau on April 11, +1825. His parents were of Jewish race, his father a +successful silk merchant. From boyhood he was now the +tyrant, now the slave of a mother whom he loved and by whom he +was adored. Heymann Lassal—his son changed the <!-- +page 186--><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>spelling during his Paris sojourn—appears to have +been irritable and tyrannical; and there are some graphic +instances in the recently published “Diary” <a +name="citation186"></a><a href="#footnote186" +class="citation">[186]</a> of the differences between them, +ending on one occasion in the boy rushing to the river, where his +terrified father finds him hesitating on the brink, and becomes +reconciled. A more attractive picture of the old man is +that told of his visit to his son-in-law, Friedland, who had +married Lassalle’s sister. Friedland was ashamed of +his Jewish origin, and old Lassalle startled the guests at dinner +by rising and frankly stating that he was a Jew, that his +daughter was a Jewess, and that her husband was of the same +race. The guests cheered, but the host never forgave his +too frank father-in-law.</p> +<p>Lassalle was a student at Breslau University, and later at +Berlin, where he laid the foundation of those Hegelian studies to +which he owed his political philosophy. In 1845 he went to +Paris, and there secured the friendship of Heine, being included +with George Sand in the interesting circle around the +“mattress grave” of the sick poet.</p> +<p><!-- page 187--><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +187</span>Among Heine’s letters <a +name="citation187"></a><a href="#footnote187" +class="citation">[187]</a> there are four addressed to Lassalle, +now as “Dear and best beloved friend,” now as +“Dearest brother-in-arms.” “Be +assured,” he says, “that I love you beyond +measure. I have never before felt so much confidence in any +one.” “I have found in no one,” he says +again, “so much passion and clearness of intellect united +in action. You have good right to be audacious—we +others only usurp this Divine right, this heavenly +privilege.” And to Varnhagen von Ense he +writes:—</p> +<blockquote><p>My friend, Herr Lassalle, who brings you this +letter, is a young man of the most remarkable intellectual +gifts. With the most thorough erudition, with the widest +learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever known, +and with the richest gift of exposition, he combines an energy of +will and a capacity for action which astonish me. . . . In no one +have I found united so much enthusiasm and practical +intelligence.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“In every line,” says Brandes, “this letter +shows the far-seeing student of life, indeed, the +prophet!”</p> +<p>Lassalle is not backward in reciprocating the enthusiasm.</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 188--><a name="page188"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 188</span>“I love Heine,” he +declares; “he is my second self. What audacity! what +crushing eloquence! He knows how to whisper like a zephyr +when it kisses rose-blooms, how to breathe like fire when it +rages and destroys; he calls forth all that is tenderest and +softest, and then all that is fiercest and most daring. He +has the command of all the range of feeling.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Lassalle’s sympathy with Heine never lessened. It +was Heine who lost grasp of the intrinsically higher nature of +his countryman and co-religionist, and an acute difference +occurred, as we shall see, when Lassalle interfered in the +affairs of the Countess von Hatzfeldt. Introduced to the +Countess by his friend Dr. Mendelssohn, in 1846, Lassalle felt +that here in concrete form was scope for all his enthusiasm of +humanity, and he determined to devote his life to championing the +cause of the oppressed lady. <a name="citation188"></a><a +href="#footnote188" class="citation">[188]</a> The Countess +<!-- page 189--><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>was the wife of a wealthy and powerful nobleman, who +ill-treated her shamefully. He imprisoned her in his +castles, refused her doctors and medicine in sickness, and +carried off her children. Her own family, as powerful as +the Count, had often intervened, and the Count’s +repentances were many but short-lived. In 1846 matters +reached a crisis. The Count wrote to his second son, <!-- +page 190--><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>Paul, asking him to leave his mother. The boy +carried this letter to the Countess; and Lassalle relates that, +finding the lady in tears, he persuaded her to a full disclosure +of the facts. He pledged himself to save her, and for nine +years carried on the struggle, with ultimate victory, but with +considerable loss of reputation. He first told the story to +Mendelssohn and Oppenheim, two friends of great wealth, the +latter a Judge of one of the superior courts in Prussia. +They agreed to help him; for then, as always, Lassalle’s +persuasive powers were irresistible. They went with him +from Berlin to Düsseldorf, the Count being in that +neighbourhood. Von Hatzfeldt was at Aix-la-Chapelle, caught +in the toils of a new mistress, the Baroness Meyendorff. +Lassalle discovered that she had obtained from the Count a deed +assigning to her some property which should in the ordinary +course have come to the boy Paul. The Countess, hearing of +the disaster which seemed likely to befall her favourite son, +made her way into her husband’s presence, and in the scene +which followed secured a promise that the document should be +revoked—destroyed. But no sooner had she left him +than <!-- page 191--><a name="page191"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 191</span>the Count returned to the Meyendorff +influence, and refused to see his wife again. Soon +afterwards it was discovered that the woman had set out for +Cologne. Lassalle begged his friends Oppenheim and +Mendelssohn, to follow her and, if possible, to ascertain whether +the momentous document had actually been destroyed. They +obeyed, and reached the hotel at Cologne about the same time as +the Baroness. Here they were guilty of an indiscretion, if +of nothing worse, for which Lassalle can surely in no way be +blamed, but which was used for many a year to tarnish his +name. Oppenheim, on his way upstairs, observed a servant +with the luggage of the Baroness; among other things a desk or +casket of a kind commonly used to carry valuable papers. +Thinking only of the fact that it was desirable to obtain a +certain document from the brutal Count, he pounced upon the +casket when the servant’s back was turned. But he had +no luggage with him in which to conceal it, and so handed it to +Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn, although fully sensible of the +blunder that had been committed, could not desert his friend, and +placed the casket in his trunk.</p> +<p><!-- page 192--><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +192</span>The whole hotel was in an uproar when the Baroness +discovered her loss. The friends fled panic-stricken in +opposite directions. Suspicion immediately fell upon Dr. +Mendelssohn, because his room was seen to have been left in +confusion. He was pursued, but succeeded in escaping from a +railway carriage and fleeing to Paris, leaving his luggage in the +hands of the police. In his box some papers were found +which incriminated Oppenheim; and Oppenheim, a Judge of one of +the superior courts, and the son of a millionaire, was arrested +and imprisoned for theft!</p> +<p>Lassalle visited Oppenheim in prison, and extracted from him a +promise of silence as to the motive for his conduct. He +then threw himself vigorously into the struggle, both in the +press and in the law courts. Here he seems to have parted +company with Heine, because, as he tells us, “the Baroness +Meyendorff was a friend of the Princess de Lieven, and the +Princess de Lieven was the mistress of Guizot, and Heine received +a pension from Guizot.”</p> +<p>Oppenheim was acquitted in 1846, and Mendelssohn, who was +really innocent of the actual robbery, naturally thought it safe +to return to <!-- page 193--><a name="page193"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 193</span>Germany. He was, however, +tried before the assize court of Cologne, and sentenced to five +years’ imprisonment. Alexander von Humboldt obtained +a reduction of the sentence to one year, but on condition that +Mendelssohn should leave Europe. He went, after his release +from prison, to Constantinople, and when the Crimean war broke +out joined the Turkish army, dying on the march in 1854.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Germany rang for many years with the story of the +so-called robbery, and Lassalle’s name was even more +associated therewith than were those of his more culpable +friends. And this was not unnatural, because he was engaged +year after year in continuous warfare with Count Hatzfeldt. +At length, in 1854, about the time that the unfortunate Dr. +Mendelssohn died in the East, he secured for the Countess +complete separation and an ample provision.</p> +<p>Lassalle’s friendship with this lady inevitably gave +rise to scandal. But never surely was scandal so little +justified. She was twenty years his senior, and the +relation was clearly that of mother and son. In her letters +he is always “my dear child,” <!-- page 194--><a +name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>and in his +she is the confidante of the innumerable troubles of mind and of +heart of which so impressionable a man as Ferdinand Lassalle had +more than his share.</p> +<p>“You are without reason and judgment where women are +concerned,” she tells him, when he confides to her his +passion for Helene von Dönniges; and the remark opens out a +vista of confidences of which the world happily knows but +little. From the assize court of Düsseldorf, of all +places, we have a very definite glimpse of a good-looking man, +likely to be a favourite in the society of the opposite +sex:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Ferdinand Lassalle,” runs the +official document, “aged twenty-three, a civilian, born at +Breslau, and dwelling recently at Berlin. Stands five feet +six inches in height, has brown curly hair, open forehead, brown +eyebrows, dark blue eyes, well proportioned nose and mouth, and +rounded chin.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He was indeed a favourite in Berlin drawing-rooms, pronounced +a “Wunderkind” by Humboldt, and enthusiastically +admired on all sides. But, assuming the story of Sophie +Solutzeff to be mythical, there is no evidence that Lassalle <!-- +page 195--><a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +195</span>had ever had any very serious romance in his life until +he met Helene von Dönniges.</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Es ist eine alte Geschichte</i>,<br /> +<i>Doch bleibt sie immer neu</i>.—<span +class="smcap">Heine</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>II. Helene von Dönniges</h3> +<p>Helene von Dönniges has told us the story in fullest +detail—the story of that tragic love which was to send +Lassalle to his too early death. She was the daughter of a +Bavarian diplomatist who had held appointments in Italy, and +later in Switzerland. She was betrothed as a child of +twelve to an Italian of forty years of age. At a time when, +as she says, her thoughts should have been concentrated upon her +studies, they were distracted by speculations on marriage and the +marriage tie. A young Wallachian student named Yanko +Racowitza crossed her path. His loneliness—he was far +from home and friends—kindled her sympathy. Dark and +ugly, she compared him to Othello, and called him her +“Moor.” In spite of some parental opposition +she insisted upon plighting her troth to him, and the Italian +lover was scornfully dismissed. Then comes <!-- page +196--><a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>the opening scene of the present story. It was in +Berlin, whither Helen—we will adopt the English spelling of +the name—had travelled with her grandmother in 1862, that +she was asked at a ball the momentous question, “Do you +know Lassalle?” She had never heard his name. +Her questioner was Baron Korff, a son-in-law of Meyerbeer, who, +charmed by her originality, remarked that she and Lassalle were +made for one another. Two weeks later her curiosity was +further excited, when Dr. Karl Oldenberg let fall some similar +remark as to her intellectual kinship with the mysterious +Lassalle. She asked her grandmother about him, and was told +that he was a “shameless demagogue.” Then she +turned to her lover, who promised to inquire. Racowitza +brought her information about the Countess, the casket, and other +“sensations”—only to excite her curiosity the +more. Finally a friend, Frau Hirsemenzel, undertook to +introduce her to the notorious Socialist. The introduction +took place at a party, and if her account is to be trusted, no +romance could be more dramatic than the actuality. They +loved one another at first sight, conversed with freedom, <!-- +page 197--><a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +197</span>and he called her by an endearing name as he offered +her his arm to escort her home.</p> +<p>“Somehow it did not seem at all remarkable,” she +says, “that a stranger should thus call me ‘Du’ +on first acquaintance. We seemed to fit to one another so +perfectly.”</p> +<p>She was in her nineteenth year, Lassalle in his +thirty-ninth. The pair did not see one another again for +some months, not in fact until Helen visited Berlin as the guest +of a certain lawyer Holthoff. Here she met Lassalle at a +concert, and the friendly lawyer connived at their being more +than once together. At a ball, on one occasion, Lassalle +asked her what she would do if he were sentenced to death, and +she beheld him ascending the scaffold.</p> +<p>“I should wait till your head was severed,” was +her answer, “in order that you might look upon your beloved +to the last, and then—I should take poison.”</p> +<p>He was pleased with her reply, but declared that there was no +fear—his star was in the ascendant! And so it seemed; +for although young Racowitza even then accosted him in the +ballroom, the friendly Holthoff soon arranged an <!-- page +198--><a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +198</span>informal betrothal; and Lassalle was on the eve of a +great public triumph which seemed more likely to take him to the +throne than to the scaffold.</p> +<p>To many this will seem an exaggeration. Yet hear Prince +Bismarck in the Reichstag seventeen years after Lassalle’s +death:—</p> +<blockquote><p>He was one of the most intellectual and gifted men +with whom I have ever had intercourse, a man who was ambitious in +high style, but who was by no means Republican: he had very +decided national and monarchical sympathies, and the idea which +he strove to realize was the German Empire, and therein we had a +point of contact. Lassalle was extremely ambitious, and it +was perhaps a matter of doubt to him whether the German Empire +would close with the Hohenzollern dynasty or the Lassalle +dynasty; but he was monarchical through and through. +Lassalle was an energetic and very intellectual man, to talk with +whom was very instructive. Our conversations lasted for +hours, and I was always sorry when they came to an end. <a +name="citation198"></a><a href="#footnote198" +class="citation">[198]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>The year 1864, which was to close so tragically, opened indeed +with extraordinary promise. Lassalle left Berlin in +May—Helen had gone <!-- page 199--><a +name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>back to +Geneva two or three months earlier—travelling by Leipzig +and Cologne through the Rhenish provinces, and holding a +“glorious review” the while.</p> +<blockquote><p>“I have never seen anything like it,” +he writes to the Countess von Hatzfeldt. “The entire +population indulged in indescribable jubilation. The +impression made upon me was that such scenes must have attended +the founding of new religions.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And it appeared possible that Heine’s description of +Lassalle as the Messiah of the nineteenth century was to be +realized. The Bishop of Mayence was on his side, and the +King of Prussia sympathetic. As he passed from town to town +the whole population turned out to do him honour. Countless +thousands met him at the stations: the routes were ornamented +with triumphal arches, the houses decorated with wreaths, and +flowers were thrown upon him as he passed. As the cavalcade +approached the town of Ronsdorf, for example, it was easy to see +that the people were on tip-toe with expectation. At the +entrance an arch bore the inscription:—</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 200--><a name="page200"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 200</span>Willkommen dem Dr. Ferdinand +Lassalle<br /> +Viel tausendmal im Ronsdorfer Thal!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Under arches and garlands, smothered with flowers thrown by +young work-girls, whose fathers, husbands, brothers, cheered +again and again, Lassalle and his friends entered the town, while +a vast multitude followed in procession. It was at Ronsdorf +that Lassalle made the speech which had in it something of +fateful presentiment:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I have not grasped this banner,” he +said, “without knowing quite clearly that I myself may +fall. The feelings which fill me at the thought that I may +be removed cannot be better expressed than in the words of the +Roman poet:</p> +<p>‘<i>Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus +ultor</i>!’</p> +<p>or in German, ‘<i>Möge</i>, <i>wenn ich beseitigt +werde</i>, <i>irgend ein Rächer und Nachfolger aus meinen +Gebeinen auferstehen</i>!’ May this great and +national movement of civilization not fall with my person, but +may the conflagration which I have kindled spread farther and +farther, so long as one of you still breathes. Promise me +that, and in token raise your right hands.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All hands were raised in silence, and the impressive scene +closed with a storm of acclamation.</p> +<p><!-- page 201--><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>But Lassalle was worn out, and he fled for a time from +the storm and conflict to Switzerland. Helen at Geneva +heard of his sojourn at Righi-Kaltbad, and she made an excursion +thither with two or three friends, and thus on July 25 (1864) the +lovers met again. An account of their romantic interview +comes to us in Helen’s own diary and in the letter which +Lassalle wrote to the Countess Hatzfeldt two days later. +Helen tells how they climbed the Kulm together, discussing by the +way the question of their marriage and the possibility of +opposition.</p> +<p>“What have your parents against me?” asked +Lassalle; and was told that only once had she mentioned his name +before them, and that their horror of the Jew agitator had ever +since closed her mouth. So the conversation sped. The +next morning their hope of “a sunrise” was destroyed +by a fog. “How often,” says Helen, “when +in later years I have stood upon the summit of the Righi and seen +the day break in all its splendour, have I recalled this foggy, +damp morning, and Lassalle’s disappointment!”</p> +<p>As he looked upon her, so pale and trembling, he abused the +climate, and promised that he <!-- page 202--><a +name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>would give +up politics, devote himself to science and literature, and take +her to Egypt or India. He talked to her of the Countess, +“who will think only of my happiness,” and he talked +of religion. Was his Jewish faith against him in her +eyes? Mahommedanism and Judaism, it was all one to her, was +the answer, but paganism by preference! They parted, to +correspond immediately, and Lassalle to write to the astonished, +and in this affair, unsympathetic Countess, of the meeting with +his beloved. With the utmost friendliness, however, he +endeavoured to keep the elder lady at a distance for a time.</p> +<p>On July 20 Helen writes to him, repeating her promise to +become his wife.</p> +<blockquote><p>You said to me yesterday: “Say but a +sensible and decided ‘Yes’—<i>et je me charge +du reste</i>.” Good; I say +“Yes”—<i>chargez-vous donc du reste</i>. +I only require that we first do all in our power to win my +parents to a friendly attitude. To me belongs, however, a +painful task. I must slay in cold blood the true heart of +Yanko von Racowitza, who has given me the purest love, the +noblest devotion. With heartless egotism I must destroy the +day-dream of a noble youth. But for your sake I will even +do what is wrong.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Meanwhile Lassalle’s unhappy attempts to <!-- page +203--><a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +203</span>conciliate the Countess continue. He writes of +Helen’s sympathy and dwells upon her entire freedom from +jealousy. He tells Frau von Hatzfeldt how much Helen is +longing to see his old friend. In conclusion, as though not +to show himself too blind a lover, he remarks that Helen’s +one failing is a total lack of will. “When, however, +we are man and wife,” he adds, “then shall I have +‘will’ enough for both, and she will be as clay in +the hands of the potter.” The Countess continues +obdurate, and in a further letter (Aug. 2) Lassalle +says:—</p> +<blockquote><p>It is really a piece of extraordinary good fortune +that, at the age of thirty-nine and a half, I should be able to +find a wife so beautiful, so sympathetic, who loves me so much, +and who—an indispensable requirement—is so entirely +absorbed in my personality.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>At Lassalle’s request, Helen herself wrote thus to the +Baroness von Hatzfeldt:—</p> +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear and Beloved +Countess</span>,—</p> +<p>Armed with an introduction from my lord and master, I, his +affianced wife, come to you—unhappily only in +writing—<i>le cœur et la main ouverte</i>, and beg of +you a little of that friendship which you have given to him so +abundantly. How deeply do I regret that your <!-- page +204--><a name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +204</span>illness separates us, that I cannot tell you face to +face how much I love and honour him, how ardently I long for your +help and advice as to how I can best make my beautiful and noble +eagle happy. This my first letter must necessarily seem +somewhat constrained to you; for I am an insignificant, +unimportant being, who can do nothing but love and honour him, +and strive to make him happy. I would fain dance and sing +like a child, and drive away all care from him. My one +desire is to understand his great and noble nature, and in good +fortune and in bad to stand faithful and true by his side.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Then followed a further appeal for the love and help of this +friend of Lassalle’s early years. It was all in +vain. Instead of a letter, Helen received from the Countess +what she called “a scrawl,” and Lassalle a long +homily on his lack of judgment and foresight. Lassalle +defended himself, and so the not too pleasing correspondence went +on.</p> +<p>Yet these days in Berne were the happiest in the lives of +Lassalle and his betrothed. Helen was staying with a Madame +Aarson, and was constantly visited by her lover. It was +agreed between them that Lassalle should follow her to Geneva, +and see her parents. But no sooner had he entered his room +at the Pension Leovet, <!-- page 205--><a +name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>in the +neighbourhood of the house of Herr von Dönniges, than a +servant handed him a letter from Helen. It told how on her +arrival she had found the whole house excited by the betrothal of +her sister Margaret to Count von Keyserling. Her +mother’s delight in the engagement had tempted her +(contrary to Lassalle’s express wish) to confidences, and +she had told of her love for the arch-agitator. Her mother +had turned upon her with loathing, execrated Lassalle without +stint, spoken scornfully of the Countess, the casket robbery, and +kindred matters. “It is quite impossible,” +urged the frantic woman, “that Count Keyserling will unite +himself to a family with a connexion of this kind.” +The father joined in the upbraiding, the disowning of an +undutiful daughter. One has but to remember the vulgar, +tradesman instinct, which then, as now, guides the marriage +ideals of a certain class, to take in the whole situation at a +glance.</p> +<p>Lassalle had hardly begun to read the letter when Helen +appeared before him, and begged him to take her away +immediately—to France—anywhere! Her +father’s violence, her mother’s abuse, had driven her +to despair.</p> +<p><!-- page 206--><a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +206</span>Lassalle was indignant with her. Why had she not +obeyed him? He would speak to her father. All would +yet be well. But—she was compromised there—at +his hotel. Had she a friend in the neighbourhood?</p> +<p>At this moment her maid came in to say that there was a +carriage ready to take them to the station. A train would +start for Paris in a quarter of an hour. Helen renewed her +entreaty, but Lassalle remained resolute. He would only +receive her from her father. To what friend could he take +her? Helen named Madame Caroline Rognon, who beheld them +with astonishment.</p> +<p>A few minutes later Frau von Dönniges and her daughter +Margaret entered the house. Then followed a disagreeable +scene between Lassalle and the mother, ending, after many +scornful words thrown at the ever self-restrained lover, in Helen +being carried off before his eyes—indeed, by his +wish. Lassalle had shown dignity and self-restraint, but he +had killed the girl’s love—until it was too late.</p> +<p>Dühring speaks of Lassalle’s “inconceivable +stupidity,” and there is a great temptation at this date, +with all the circumstances before us, <!-- page 207--><a +name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>to look at +the matter with Dühring’s eyes. But to one whom +Heine had called a Messiah, whom Humboldt had termed a +“Wunderkind,” and Bismarck had greeted as among the +greatest men of the age, it may well have seemed flatly +inconceivable that this insignificant little Swiss diplomatist +could long refuse the alliance he proposed. Yet stronger +and more potent may have been the feeling—although of this +there is no positive evidence extant—that the social +movement which he had so much at heart could not well endure a +further scandal. The Hatzfeldt story had been used against +him frequently enough. An elopement—so sweetly +romantic under some circumstances—would have been the ruin +of his great political reputation.</p> +<p>Lassalle speedily regretted his course of action—what +man in love would not have done so?—but his first impulse +was consistent with the life of strenuous effort for the cause he +had embraced. To a romantic girl, however, his conduct +could but seem brutal and treacherous. Helen had done more +than enough. She had compromised herself irretrievably, and +an immediate marriage was imperatively demanded by the +conventionalities. <!-- page 208--><a +name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>She was, +however, seized by a brutal father and confined to her room, +until she understood that Lassalle had left Geneva. Then +the entreaties of her family, the representation that her +sister’s marriage, even her father’s position, were +in jeopardy, caused her to declare that she would abandon +Lassalle.</p> +<p>At this point the story is conflicting. Helen herself +says that she never saw Lassalle again after he had handed her +over to her mother, and that after a long period of ill-usage and +petty persecution, she was hurried one night across the +lake. Becker, however, declares that as Lassalle and his +friend Rüstow were walking in Geneva a carriage passed them +on the way to the station containing Helen and another lady, and +that Helen acknowledged their salute. Anyway, it is clear +that Helen went to Bex on August 9, and that Lassalle left Geneva +on the 13th. Letter after letter was sent by Lassalle to +Helen—one from Karlsruhe on the 15th, and one from Munich +on the 19th, but no answer. In Karlsruhe, according to von +Hofstetten, Lassalle wept like a child. His correspondence +with the Countess and with Colonel Rüstow becomes forcible +<!-- page 209--><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span>in its demands for assistance. Writing to +Rüstow, he tells of a two hours’ conversation with the +Bavarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baron von Schrenk, who +assures him of his sympathy, says that he cannot understand the +objections of von Dönniges, and that in similar +circumstances he would be proud of the alliance, although he +deprecated the political views of Lassalle. Finally this +accommodating Minister of State—here, at least, the +tragi-comedy is but too apparent—engages to send a lawyer, +Dr. Haenle, as an official commissioner to negotiate with the +obdurate father and refractory ambassador.</p> +<p>Richard Wagner, the great composer, the Bishop of Mayence, and +noblemen, generals, and scholars without number were also pressed +into the service, but in vain. The treachery of intimate +friends more than counterbalanced all that could be achieved by +well-meaning strangers. If Helen is to be +believed—and the charge is not +denied—Lassalle’s friend Holthoff, sent to negotiate +in his favour, entreated her to abandon Lassalle, and to comply +with her parents’ wishes. Lassalle, he declared, was +not in any way a suitable <!-- page 210--><a +name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>husband, +and her father had decided wisely. The poor girl lived in a +constant atmosphere of petty persecution. Her father, she +was told, might lose his post in the Bavarian service if she +married this Socialist, her brother would have absolutely no +career open to him, her sisters could not marry in their own rank +of life; in fact, the whole family were alleged to be entirely +unhappy and miserable through her stubbornness. The +following letter—obviously dictated—was the not +unnatural outcome:—</p> +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">To Herr Lassalle</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—</p> +<p>I have again become reconciled to my betrothed bridegroom, +Herr Yanko von Racowitza, whose love I have regained, and I +deeply repent my earlier action. I have given notice of +this to your legal representative, Herr Holthoff, and I now +declare to you of my own free will and firm conviction, that +there never can be any further question of a marriage between us, +and that I hold myself in all respects to be released from such +an engagement. I am now firmly resolved to devote to my +aforesaid betrothed bridegroom my eternal love and fidelity.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Helene von +Dönniges</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This letter came through Rüstow, and Lassalle <!-- page +211--><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>addressed the following reply to Helen, which, however, +she never received—it came in fact into the possession of +the Countess—a sufficient commentary on the duplicity and +the false friendship not only of Holthoff, but of Colonel +Rüstow and the Countess Hatzfeldt in this sad affair.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Munich</span>, <i>Aug.</i> 20, 1864.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Helen</span>,—</p> +<p>My heart is breaking! Rüstow’s letter will +kill me. That you have betrayed me seems impossible! +Even now I cannot believe in such shamelessness, in such +frightful treachery. It is only for a moment that some one +has overridden your will and obliterated your true self. It +is inconceivable that this can be your real, your abiding +determination. You cannot have thrown aside all shame, all +love, all fidelity, all truth. If you did, you would +dishonour and disfigure humanity. There can be no truth +left in the world if you are false, if you are capable of +descending to this depth of abandonment, of breaking such holy +oaths, of crushing my heart. Then there is nothing more +under the sun in which a man can still believe.</p> +<p>Have you not filled me with a longing to possess you? +Have you not implored me to exhaust all proper measures, before +carrying you away from Wabern? Have you not by your own +lips and by your letters, sworn to me the most sacred +oaths? Have you not declared <!-- page 212--><a +name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>to me, even +in your last letters, that you were nothing, nothing but my +loving wife, and that no power on earth should stay your +resolution? And now, after you have bound this true heart +of mine to yourself so strongly, this heart which when once it +gives itself away gives itself for ever; now, when the battle has +scarcely begun, do you cast me off? Do you betray me? +Do you destroy me? If so, you succeed in doing what else no +fate can do; you will have crushed and shattered one of the +hardest of men, who could withstand unflinchingly all outward +storms. No, I can never survive such treachery. It +will kill me inwardly and outwardly. It is not possible +that you are so dishonourable, so shameless, so reckless of duty, +so utterly unworthy and infamous. If you were, you would +deserve of me the most deadly hatred. You would deserve the +contempt of the world. Helen, it is not your own resolution +which you have communicated to Rüstow. Some one has +fastened it upon you by a coercion of your better feelings. +Listen to me. If you abide by this resolution, you will +lament it as long as you live.</p> +<p>Helen, true to my words, “<i>Je me charge du +reste</i>,” I shall stay here, and shall take all possible +steps to break down your father’s opposition. I have +already excellent means in my hand, which will certainly not +remain unused, and if they do not succeed, I shall still possess +thousands of other means, and I will grind all hindrances to dust +if you will but remain true to me. If you remain true, +there is no limit to my strength or to my love of you, <i>Je me +charge toujours du reste</i>! The battle is <!-- page +213--><a name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +213</span>hardly begun, you cowardly girl. But can it be, +that while I sit here, and have already achieved what seemed +impossible, you are betraying me, and listening to the flattering +words of another man? Helen, my fate is in your +hands! But if you destroy me by this wicked treachery, from +which I cannot recover, then may evil fall upon you, and my curse +follow you to the grave! This is the curse of a true heart, +of a heart that you wantonly break, and with which you have +cruelly trifled. Yes, this curse of mine will surely strike +you.</p> +<p>According to Rüstow’s message, you want your +letters to be returned to you. In any case, you will never +receive them otherwise than from me—after a personal +interview. For I must and will speak to you personally, and +to you alone. I must and will hear my death-doom from your +own lips. It is only thus that I can believe what otherwise +seems impossible to me.</p> +<p>I am continuing here to take further steps to win you, and +when I have done all that is possible, I shall come to +Geneva. Helen, our destinies are entwined!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">F. +Lassalle</span>. <a name="citation213"></a><a href="#footnote213" +class="citation">[213]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is pitiable to realize the amount of false or imperfect +friendship which led Lassalle on to his ruin. Rüstow +was false, and Holthoff was false, if it were not rather that +both looked upon Lassalle’s affection for this girl, half +his age, as a <!-- page 214--><a name="page214"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 214</span>mad freak to be cured and +forgotten. More might have been expected from the Countess, +to whom Lassalle had given so much pure and disinterested +devotion; but here again, a sense of maternal ownership in +Lassalle was sufficient to justify, in such a woman, any means to +keep him apart from this fancy of the hour. To the +Countess, however, Helen had turned for help, and had received a +note which had but enraged her, and made the breach between her +and Lassalle yet wider. In the after years, Helen published +one letter and the Countess another as the actual reply of the +Countess to Helen’s appeal, and the truth will now never be +known. Meanwhile Dr. Arndt, a nephew of von Dönniges, +had gone to Berlin to fetch Yanko von Racowitza. Of Yanko +Helen has herself given us a pleasant picture, as the one man for +whom she really cared until the overwhelming presence of Lassalle +appeared upon the scene, as her one friend during her +persecution. Absent from Lassalle’s influence, it was +not strange that the delicate Wallachian—even younger than +herself and the slave of her every whim—should have an +influence in her life. Had Lassalle, however, had <!-- page +215--><a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +215</span>yet another personal interview with her, there can +scarcely be a doubt that she would have been as he had once said, +“as clay in the hands of the potter”—but this +was not to be. Lassalle came back to Geneva on August 23, +and immediately wrote an earnest letter to Herr von +Dönniges, begging for an interview, and stating that he had +not the least enmity towards him for what had happened. +With the fear of the Foreign Minister at Munich before his eyes +Helen’s father could not well refuse again, and the +interview took place. Lassalle, according to von +Dönniges, demanded that Yanko von Racowitza should be +forbidden the house, while he himself should have ready access to +Helen. He further charged von Dönniges with cruelty to +his daughter, and was called a liar to his face, while even the +cook was called upon the scene to give her evidence as to the +domestic ethics of this family circle. The letter of von +Dönniges to Dr. Haenle was clearly meant to be shown to the +Foreign Minister, and the wily diplomatist naturally took the +opportunity both to justify himself and to vilify Lassalle. +Then began a painful dispute as to whether Herr von Dönniges +<!-- page 216--><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +216</span>had ill-used his daughter; the overwhelming evidence, +which includes the testimony of that daughter, written long after +her father’s death, tending to prove the truth of +Lassalle’s allegation. Lassalle meanwhile found no +opportunity of approaching Helen, and having every reason to +believe that she was entirely faithless, gave up the +struggle. He referred to the girl in language +characteristic of a despairing and jilted lover, and sent von +Dönniges a challenge, although many years before, in a +political controversy, he had declined to fight—on +principle. His seconds were to be General Becker and +Colonel Rüstow, and the latter has left us a long account of +the affair.</p> +<p>On the appointed day, August 22, Rüstow went everywhere +to look for Herr von Dönniges, but the minister had fled to +Berne. Rüstow then saw Lassalle at the rooms of the +Countess von Hatzfeldt. Lassalle mentioned that he had that +morning had his challenge accepted by von Racowitza, whose +seconds were Count Keyserling and Dr. Arndt. Rüstow +insisted, both to Lassalle and to Racowitza’s friends, that +von Dönniges should have priority, but was overruled; <!-- +page 217--><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>and it was agreed that the duel should be fought that +very evening. Rüstow protested that he could not find +another second in so short a time—General Becker does not +seem to have been available—but at length it was arranged +that General Bethlem should be asked to fill the office, and that +the duel should take place on the following morning, August +28. There seems to have been considerable difficulty in +finding suitable pistols, and at the last moment General Bethlem +declined to be a second, and Herr von Hofstetten consented to +act. Rüstow called upon Lassalle at the Victoria Hotel +at five o’clock. At half-past six the party started +for Carouge, a village in the neighbourhood of Geneva, which they +reached an hour later. Lassalle was quite cheerful, and +perfectly confident that he would come unharmed out of the +conflict. The opponents faced one another and Racowitza +wounded Lassalle, who was carried by Rüstow and Dr. Seiler +to a coach, and thence to the Victoria Hotel, Geneva. He +suffered dreadfully both then and afterwards, and was only +relieved by a plentiful use of opium. Three days later, on +Wednesday, August 31, 1864, he died.</p> +<p><!-- page 218--><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span>Was it the chance shot of a delicate boy that killed +one of the most remarkable men of the nineteenth century, or was +it a planned attack upon one who loved the people? This +last view was taken and is still taken by many of his followers; +but it is needless to say that it has no foundation in +fact. Lassalle was killed by a chance shot, and killed in a +duel which had not even the doubtful justification of hatred of +his opponent. “Count me no longer as a rival; for you +I have nothing but friendship,” were the words written to +Racowitza at the moment that he challenged von Dönniges, and +he declared on his death-bed that he died by his own hand.</p> +<p>The revolutionists of all lands assembled around his dead +body, which was embalmed by order of the Countess. This +woman talked loudly of vengeance, called not only von Racowitza +but Helen a murderer, <a name="citation218"></a><a +href="#footnote218" class="citation">[218]</a> little thinking +that posterity would judge her more hardly than Helen. She +proposed to take the corpse in solemn procession through Germany; +but an order from the Prussian Government disturbed her plans, +and at Breslau, Lassalle’s native town, it was allowed <!-- +page 219--><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span>to rest. Lassalle is buried in the family vault +in the Jewish Cemetery, and a simple monument bears the +inscription:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">here rests what is mortal</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">of</span><br /> +FERDINAND LASSALLE,<br /> +<span class="smcap">The</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Thinker and the Fighter</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To understand the whole tragedy and to justify its great +victim is to feel something of the strain which comes to every +thinker and fighter who, like Lassalle, writes and speaks +persistently to vast audiences, often against great odds, and +always with the prospect of a prison before him. That his +nerves were utterly unstrung, that he was not his real self in +those last days, is but too evident. Armed, as he claimed, +with the entire culture of his century, a maker of history if +ever there was one, he became the victim of a love drama which I +suppose that Mr. Matthew Arnold would describe as of the +surgeon’s apprentice order: but which, apart from his +political creed, will always endear him to men and women who have +“lived and loved.”</p> +<p><!-- page 220--><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>And what shall we say of Helen von Dönniges? +Her own story is surely one of the most romantic ever +written. In <i>My Relation to Ferdinand Lassalle</i>, she +tells how Yanko broke to her the news that he was going to fight +Lassalle, and how much she grieved. “Lassalle will +inevitably kill Yanko,” she thought; and she pitied him, +but her pity was not without calculation. “When Yanko +is dead and they bring his body here, there will be a stir in the +house,” she said, “and I can then fly to +Lassalle.” But the hours flew by, and finally Yanko +came to tell her that he had wounded his opponent. For the +moment, and indeed until after Lassalle’s death, she hated +her successful lover; but a little later his undoubted goodness, +his tenderness and patience, won her heart. They were +married, but he died within a year, of consumption. Being +disowned by her relations, Helen then settled in Berlin, and +studied for the stage. She herself relates how at Breslau +on one occasion, when acting a boy’s part in one of +Moser’s comedies, some of Lassalle’s oldest friends +being present remarked upon her likeness to Lassalle in his +youth, a resemblance on which she and Lassalle had more <!-- page +221--><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +221</span>than once prided themselves. At a later date Frau +von Racowitza married a Russian Socialist, S. E. Shevitch, then +resident in America. M. Shevitch returned to Russia a few +years after this and lived with his wife at Riga. Those who +have seen Madame Shevitch describe her as one of the most +fascinating women they have ever met. She and her husband +were very happy in their married life. Madame Shevitch is +now living in Munich. Our great novelist and poet George +Meredith has immortalized her in his <i>Tragic Comedians</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 225--><a name="page225"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 225</span>VIII. LORD ACTON’S LIST +OF THE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS</h2> +<p>Every one has heard of Lord Avebury’s (Sir John +Lubbock’s) Hundred Best Books, not every one of Lord +Acton’s. It is the privilege of the <i>Pall Mall +Magazine</i> <a name="citation225"></a><a href="#footnote225" +class="citation">[225]</a> to publish this latter list, the final +impression as to reading of one of the most scholarly men that +England has known in our time. The list in question is, as +it were, an omitted chapter of a book that was one of the +successes of its year—<i>The Letters of Lord Acton to Miss +Mary Gladstone</i>—published by Mr. George Allen. +That series of letters made very pleasant reading. They +showed Lord Acton not as a Dryasdust, but as a very human +personage indeed, with sympathies invariably in the right +place.</p> +<p><!-- page 226--><a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +226</span>Nor can his literary interests be said to have been +restricted, for he read history and biography with avidity, and +probably knew more of theology than any other layman of modern +times. In imaginative literature, however, his critical +instinct was perhaps less keen. He called Heine “a +bad second to Schiller in poetry,” which is absurd; and he +thought George Eliot the greatest of modern novelists. In +arriving at the latter judgment he had the excuse of personal +friendship and admiration for a woman whose splendid intellectual +gifts were undeniable.</p> +<p>In one letter we find Lord Acton discussing with Miss +Gladstone the eternal question of the hundred best books. +Sir John Lubbock had complained to her of the lack of a guide or +supreme authority on the choice of books. Lord Acton had +replied that, “although he had something to learn on the +graver side of human knowledge,” Sir John would execute his +own scheme better than almost anybody. We all know that Sir +John Lubbock attempted this at a lecture delivered at the Great +Ormond Street Working Men’s College; that that lecture has +been reprinted again and again in a book entitled <i>The <!-- +page 227--><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +227</span>Pleasures of Life</i>, and that the publishers have +sold more than two hundred thousand copies—a kind of +success that might almost make some of our popular novelists turn +green with envy. Later on in the correspondence Lord Acton +quoted one of the popes, who said that “fifty books would +include every good idea in the world.” +“But,” continued Lord Acton, “literature has +doubled since then, and it would be hard to do without a +hundred.”</p> +<p>Lord Acton was possessed of the happy thought that he would +like some of his friends and acquaintances each to name his ideal +hundred best books—as for example Bishop Lightfoot, Dean +Church, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, Professor Max Muller, Mr. J. +R. Lowell, Professor E. A. Freeman, Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. John +Morley, Sir Henry Maine, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Tennyson, +Cardinal Newman, Mr. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, Professor Goldwin +Smith, Mr. R. H. Hutton, Mr. Mark Pattison, and Mr. J. A. +Symonds. Strange to say, he thought there would be a +surprising agreement between these writers as to which were the +hundred best books. I am all but certain, however, that +<!-- page 228--><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span>there would not have been more than twenty books in +common between rival schools of thought—the secular and the +ecclesiastical—between, let us say, Mr. John Morley and +Cardinal Newman. But it is probable that not one of these +eminent men would have furnished a list with any similarity +whatever to the remainder. Each would have written down his +own hundred favourites, and herein may be admitted is an evidence +of the futility of all such attempts. The best books are +the books that have helped us most to see life in all its complex +bearings, and each individual needs a particular kind of mental +food quite unlike the diet that best stimulates his +neighbour. Writing more than a year later, Lord Acton said +that he had just drawn out a list of recommended authors for his +son, as being the company he would like him to keep; but this +list is not available—it is not the one before me. +That was compiled yet another twelve months afterwards, when we +find Lord Acton sending to Miss Mary Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) his +own ideal “hundred best books.” This list is +now printed for the first time. Evidently Miss Gladstone +remonstrated with her friend over the <!-- page 229--><a +name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>character +of the list; but Lord Acton defended it as being in his judgment +really the hundred <i>best books</i>, apart from works on +physical science—that it treated of principles that every +thoughtful man ought to understand, and was calculated, in fact, +to give one a clear view of the various forces that make +history. “We are not considering,” he adds, +“what will suit an untutored savage or an illiterate +peasant woman, who would never come to an end of the +<i>Imitation</i>.”</p> +<p>However, here is Lord Acton’s list, which Mrs. Drew has +been kind enough to place in the hands of the Editor of the +<i>Pall Mall Magazine</i>. I give also Lord Acton’s +comment with which it opens, and I add in footnotes one or two +facts about each of the authors:</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>“In answer to the question: Which are the hundred best +books in the world?</p> +<p>“Supposing any English youth, whose education is +finished, who knows common things, and is not training for a +profession.</p> +<p>“To perfect his mind and open windows in every +direction, to raise him to the level of his age so that he may +know the (20 or 30) forces that have made our world what it is +and still reign over it, to guard him against surprises and +against the constant sources of error within, <!-- page 230--><a +name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 230</span>to supply +him both with the strongest stimulants and the surest guides, to +give force and fullness and clearness and sincerity and +independence and elevation and generosity and serenity to his +mind, that he may know the method and law of the process by which +error is conquered and truth is won, discerning knowledge from +probability and prejudice from belief, that he may learn to +master what he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he may +understand the origin as well as the strength and vitality of +systems and the better motive of men who are wrong, to steel him +against the charm of literary beauty and talent; so that each +book, thoroughly taken in, shall be the beginning of a new life, +and shall make a new man of him—this list is +submitted”:—</p> +<p>1. Plato—<i>Laws</i>—Steinhart’s +<i>Introduction</i>. <a name="citation230a"></a><a +href="#footnote230a" class="citation">[230a]</a></p> +<p>2. +Aristotle—<i>Politics</i>—Susemihl’s +<i>Commentary</i>. <a name="citation230b"></a><a +href="#footnote230b" class="citation">[230b]</a></p> +<p>3. +Epictetus—<i>Encheiridion</i>—<i>Commentary</i> of +Simplicius. <a name="citation230c"></a><a href="#footnote230c" +class="citation">[230c]</a></p> +<p>4. St. Augustine—<i>Letters</i>. <a +name="citation230d"></a><a href="#footnote230d" +class="citation">[230d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 231--><a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>5. St. Vincent’s <i>Commonitorium</i>. <a +name="citation231a"></a><a href="#footnote231a" +class="citation">[231a]</a></p> +<p>6. Hugo of S. Victor—<i>De Sacramentis</i>. <a +name="citation231b"></a><a href="#footnote231b" +class="citation">[231b]</a></p> +<p>7. St. Bonaventura—<i>Breviloquium</i>. <a +name="citation231c"></a><a href="#footnote231c" +class="citation">[231c]</a></p> +<p>8. St. Thomas Aquinas—<i>Summa contra +Gentiles</i>. <a name="citation231d"></a><a href="#footnote231d" +class="citation">[231d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 232--><a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +232</span>9. Dante—<i>Divina Commedia</i>. <a +name="citation232a"></a><a href="#footnote232a" +class="citation">[232a]</a></p> +<p>10. Raymund of Sabunde—<i>Theologia Naturalis</i>. +<a name="citation232b"></a><a href="#footnote232b" +class="citation">[232b]</a></p> +<p>11. Nicholas of Cusa—<i>Concordantia +Catholica</i>. <a name="citation232c"></a><a href="#footnote232c" +class="citation">[232c]</a></p> +<p>12. Edward Reuss—<i>The Bible</i>. <a +name="citation232d"></a><a href="#footnote232d" +class="citation">[232d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 233--><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +233</span>13. Pascal’s +Pensées—<i>Havet’s Edition</i>. <a +name="citation233a"></a><a href="#footnote233a" +class="citation">[233a]</a></p> +<p>14. Malebranche, <i>De la Recherche de la +Vérité</i>. <a name="citation233b"></a><a +href="#footnote233b" class="citation">[233b]</a></p> +<p>15. Baader—<i>Speculative Dogmatik</i>. <a +name="citation233c"></a><a href="#footnote233c" +class="citation">[233c]</a></p> +<p>16. Molitor—<i>Philosophie der Geschichte</i>. <a +name="citation233d"></a><a href="#footnote233d" +class="citation">[233d]</a></p> +<p>17. Astié—<i>Esprit de Vinet</i>. <a +name="citation233e"></a><a href="#footnote233e" +class="citation">[233e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 234--><a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +234</span>18. Pünjer—<i>Geschichte der +Religions-philosophie</i>. <a name="citation234a"></a><a +href="#footnote234a" class="citation">[234a]</a></p> +<p>19. Rothe—<i>Theologische Ethik</i>. <a +name="citation234b"></a><a href="#footnote234b" +class="citation">[234b]</a></p> +<p>20. Martensen—<i>Die Christliche Ethik</i>. <a +name="citation234c"></a><a href="#footnote234c" +class="citation">[234c]</a></p> +<p>21. Oettingen—<i>Moralstatistik</i>. <a +name="citation234d"></a><a href="#footnote234d" +class="citation">[234d]</a></p> +<p>22. Hartmann—<i>Phänomenologie des sittlichen +Bewusstseins</i>. <a name="citation234e"></a><a +href="#footnote234e" class="citation">[234e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 235--><a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +235</span>23. Leibniz—<i>Letters</i> edited by Klopp. +<a name="citation235a"></a><a href="#footnote235a" +class="citation">[235a]</a></p> +<p>24. Brandis—<i>Geschichte der Philosophie</i>. <a +name="citation235b"></a><a href="#footnote235b" +class="citation">[235b]</a></p> +<p>25. Fischer—<i>Franz Bacon</i>. <a +name="citation235c"></a><a href="#footnote235c" +class="citation">[235c]</a></p> +<p>26. Zeller—<i>Neuere Deutsche Philosophie</i>. <a +name="citation235d"></a><a href="#footnote235d" +class="citation">[235d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 236--><a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +236</span>27. Bartholomess—<i>Doctrines Religieuses +de la Philosophie Moderns</i>. <a name="citation236a"></a><a +href="#footnote236a" class="citation">[236a]</a></p> +<p>28. Guyon—<i>Morale Anglaise</i>. <a +name="citation236b"></a><a href="#footnote236b" +class="citation">[236b]</a></p> +<p>29. Ritschl—<i>Entstehung der Altkatholischen +Kirche</i>. <a name="citation236c"></a><a href="#footnote236c" +class="citation">[236c]</a></p> +<p>30. Loening—<i>Geschichte des Kirchenrechts</i>. +<a name="citation236d"></a><a href="#footnote236d" +class="citation">[236d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 237--><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +237</span>31. Baur—<i>Vorlesungen über +Dogmengeschichte</i>. <a name="citation237a"></a><a +href="#footnote237a" class="citation">[237a]</a></p> +<p>32. Fénelon—<i>Correspondence</i>. <a +name="citation237b"></a><a href="#footnote237b" +class="citation">[237b]</a></p> +<p>33. Newman’s <i>Theory of Development</i>. <a +name="citation237c"></a><a href="#footnote237c" +class="citation">[237c]</a></p> +<p>34. Mozley’s <i>University Sermons</i>. <a +name="citation237d"></a><a href="#footnote237d" +class="citation">[237d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 238--><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +238</span>35. Schneckenburger—<i>Vergleichende +Darstellung</i>. <a name="citation238a"></a><a +href="#footnote238a" class="citation">[238a]</a></p> +<p>36. +Hundeshagen—<i>Kirckenvorfassungsgeschichte</i>. <a +name="citation238b"></a><a href="#footnote238b" +class="citation">[238b]</a></p> +<p>37. Schweizer—<i>Protestantische +Centraldogmen</i>. <a name="citation238c"></a><a +href="#footnote238c" class="citation">[238c]</a></p> +<p>38. Gass—<i>Geschichte der Lutherischen +Dogmatik</i>. <a name="citation238d"></a><a href="#footnote238d" +class="citation">[238d]</a></p> +<p>39. Cart—<i>Histoire du Mouvement Religieux dans +le Canton de Vaud</i>. <a name="citation238e"></a><a +href="#footnote238e" class="citation">[238e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 239--><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>40. Blondel—<i>De la Primauté</i>. +<a name="citation239a"></a><a href="#footnote239a" +class="citation">[239a]</a></p> +<p>41. Le Blanc de Beaulieu—<i>Theses</i>. <a +name="citation239b"></a><a href="#footnote239b" +class="citation">[239b]</a></p> +<p>42. Thiersch.—<i>Vorlesungen über +Katholizismus</i>. <a name="citation239c"></a><a +href="#footnote239c" class="citation">[239c]</a></p> +<p>43. Möhler—<i>Neue Untersuchungen</i>. <a +name="citation239d"></a><a href="#footnote239d" +class="citation">[239d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 240--><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>44. Scherer—<i>Mélanges de Critique +Religieuse</i>. <a name="citation240a"></a><a +href="#footnote240a" class="citation">[240a]</a></p> +<p>45. Hooker—<i>Ecclesiastical Polity</i>. <a +name="citation240b"></a><a href="#footnote240b" +class="citation">[240b]</a></p> +<p>46. Weingarten—<i>Revolutionskirchen Englands</i>. +<a name="citation240c"></a><a href="#footnote240c" +class="citation">[240c]</a></p> +<p>47. Kliefoth—<i>Acht Bücher von der +Kirche</i>. <a name="citation240d"></a><a href="#footnote240d" +class="citation">[240d]</a></p> +<p>48. Laurent—<i>Etudés de l’Histoire +de l’Humanitè</i>. <a name="citation240e"></a><a +href="#footnote240e" class="citation">[240e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 241--><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +241</span>49. Ferrari—<i>Rèvolutions de +l’ltalie</i>. <a name="citation241a"></a><a +href="#footnote241a" class="citation">[241a]</a></p> +<p>50. Lange—<i>Geschichte des Materialismus</i>. <a +name="citation241b"></a><a href="#footnote241b" +class="citation">[241b]</a></p> +<p>51. Guicciardini—<i>Ricordi Politici</i>. <a +name="citation241c"></a><a href="#footnote241c" +class="citation">[241c]</a></p> +<p>52. Duperron—<i>Ambassades</i>. <a +name="citation241d"></a><a href="#footnote241d" +class="citation">[241d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 242--><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +242</span>53. Richelieu—<i>Testament Politique</i>. +<a name="citation242a"></a><a href="#footnote242a" +class="citation">[242a]</a></p> +<p>54. Harrington’s Writings. <a +name="citation242b"></a><a href="#footnote242b" +class="citation">[242b]</a></p> +<p>55. Mignet—<i>Négotiations de la Succession +d’Espagne</i>. <a name="citation242c"></a><a +href="#footnote242c" class="citation">[242c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 243--><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>56. Rousseau—<i>Considérations sur +la Pologne</i>. <a name="citation243a"></a><a +href="#footnote243a" class="citation">[243a]</a></p> +<p>57. Foncin—<i>Ministère de Turgot</i>. <a +name="citation243b"></a><a href="#footnote243b" +class="citation">[243b]</a></p> +<p>58. Burke’s <i>Correspondence</i>. <a +name="citation243c"></a><a href="#footnote243c" +class="citation">[243c]</a></p> +<p>59. Las Cases—<i>Mémorial de Ste. +Hélène</i>. <a name="citation243d"></a><a +href="#footnote243d" class="citation">[243d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 244--><a name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +244</span>60. Holtzendorff—<i>Systematische +Rechtsenzyklopädie</i>. <a name="citation244a"></a><a +href="#footnote244a" class="citation">[244a]</a></p> +<p>61. Jhering—<i>Geist des Römischen +Rechts</i>. <a name="citation244b"></a><a href="#footnote244b" +class="citation">[244b]</a></p> +<p>62. Geib—<i>Strafrecht</i>. <a +name="citation244c"></a><a href="#footnote244c" +class="citation">[244c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 245--><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +245</span>63. Maine—<i>Ancient Law</i>. <a +name="citation245a"></a><a href="#footnote245a" +class="citation">[245a]</a></p> +<p>64. Gierke—<i>Genossenschaftsrecht</i>. <a +name="citation245b"></a><a href="#footnote245b" +class="citation">[245b]</a></p> +<p>65. Stahl—<i>Philosophie des Rechts</i>. <a +name="citation245c"></a><a href="#footnote245c" +class="citation">[245c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 246--><a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +246</span>66. Gentz—<i>Briefwechsel mit Adam +Müller</i>. <a name="citation246a"></a><a +href="#footnote246a" class="citation">[246a]</a></p> +<p>67. Vollgraff—<i>Polignosie</i>. <a +name="citation246b"></a><a href="#footnote246b" +class="citation">[246b]</a></p> +<p>68. Frantz—<i>Kritik aller Parteien</i>. <a +name="citation246c"></a><a href="#footnote246c" +class="citation">[246c]</a></p> +<p>69. De Maistre—<i>Considérations sur la +France</i>. <a name="citation246d"></a><a href="#footnote246d" +class="citation">[246d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 247--><a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +247</span>70. Donoso Cortès—<i>Ecrits +Politiques</i>. <a name="citation247a"></a><a +href="#footnote247a" class="citation">[247a]</a></p> +<p>71. Périn—<i>De la Richesse dans les +Societes Chretiennes</i>. <a name="citation247b"></a><a +href="#footnote247b" class="citation">[247b]</a></p> +<p>72. Le Play—<i>La Réforme Sociale</i>. <a +name="citation247c"></a><a href="#footnote247c" +class="citation">[247c]</a></p> +<p>73. Riehl—<i>Die Bürgerliche Sociale</i>. <a +name="citation247d"></a><a href="#footnote247d" +class="citation">[247d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 248--><a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +248</span>74. Sismondi—<i>Etudes sur les +Constitutions des Peuples Libres</i>. <a +name="citation248a"></a><a href="#footnote248a" +class="citation">[248a]</a></p> +<p>75. Rossi—<i>Cours du Droit Constitutionnel</i>. +<a name="citation248b"></a><a href="#footnote248b" +class="citation">[248b]</a></p> +<p>76. Barante—<i>Vie de Royer Collard</i>. <a +name="citation248c"></a><a href="#footnote248c" +class="citation">[248c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 249--><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +249</span>77. Duvergier de Hauranne—<i>Histoire du +Gouvernement Parlementaire</i>. <a name="citation249a"></a><a +href="#footnote249a" class="citation">[249a]</a></p> +<p>78. Madison—<i>Debates of the Congress of +Confederation</i>. <a name="citation249b"></a><a +href="#footnote249b" class="citation">[249b]</a></p> +<p>79. Hamilton—<i>The Federalist</i>. <a +name="citation249c"></a><a href="#footnote249c" +class="citation">[249c]</a></p> +<p>80. Calhoun—<i>Essay on Government</i>. <a +name="citation249d"></a><a href="#footnote249d" +class="citation">[249d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 250--><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +250</span>81. Dumont—<i>Sophismes Anarchiques</i>. <a +name="citation250a"></a><a href="#footnote250a" +class="citation">[250a]</a></p> +<p>82. Quinet—<i>La Révolution +Française</i>. <a name="citation250b"></a><a +href="#footnote250b" class="citation">[250b]</a></p> +<p>83. Stein—<i>Sozialismus in Frankreich</i>. <a +name="citation250c"></a><a href="#footnote250c" +class="citation">[250c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 251--><a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +251</span>84. Lassalle—<i>System der Erworbenen +Rechte</i>. <a name="citation251a"></a><a href="#footnote251a" +class="citation">[251a]</a></p> +<p>85. Thonissen—<i>Le Socialisme depuis +l’Antiquité</i>. <a name="citation251b"></a><a +href="#footnote251b" class="citation">[251b]</a></p> +<p>86. Considérant—<i>Destines Sociale</i>. <a +name="citation251c"></a><a href="#footnote251c" +class="citation">[251c]</a></p> +<p>87. Roscher—<i>Nationalökonomik</i>. <a +name="citation251d"></a><a href="#footnote251d" +class="citation">[251d]</a></p> +<p>89. Mill—<i>System of Logic</i>. <a +name="citation251e"></a><a href="#footnote251e" +class="citation">[251e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 252--><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +252</span>90. Coleridge—<i>Aids to Reflection</i>. <a +name="citation252a"></a><a href="#footnote252a" +class="citation">[252a]</a></p> +<p>91. Radowitz—<i>Fragmente</i>. <a +name="citation252b"></a><a href="#footnote252b" +class="citation">[252b]</a></p> +<p>92. Gioberti—<i>Pensieri</i>. <a +name="citation252c"></a><a href="#footnote252c" +class="citation">[252c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 253--><a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +253</span>93. Humboldt—<i>Kosmos</i>. <a +name="citation253a"></a><a href="#footnote253a" +class="citation">[253a]</a></p> +<p>94. De Candolle—<i>Histoire des Sciences et des +Savants</i>. <a name="citation253b"></a><a href="#footnote253b" +class="citation">[253b]</a></p> +<p>95. Darwin—<i>Origin of Species</i>. <a +name="citation253c"></a><a href="#footnote253c" +class="citation">[253c]</a></p> +<p>96. Littré—<i>Fragments de Philosophie</i>. +<a name="citation253d"></a><a href="#footnote253d" +class="citation">[253d]</a></p> +<p>97. Cournot—<i>Enchaînements des +Idées fondamentales</i>. <a name="citation253e"></a><a +href="#footnote253e" class="citation">[253e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 254--><a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +254</span>98. <i>Monatschriften der wissenschaftlichen +Vereine</i>. <a name="citation254"></a><a href="#footnote254" +class="citation">[254]</a></p> +<p>This list, written in 1883 in Miss Gladstone’s (Mrs. +Drew’s) Diary, must always have an interest in the history +of the human mind.</p> +<p>But my readers will, I imagine, for the most part, agree with +me that there are others besides untutored savages and illiterate +peasant women to whom such a list is entirely +impracticable. It indicates the enormous preference which +on the whole Lord Acton gave to the Literature of Knowledge over +the Literature of Power, to use De Quincey’s famous +distinction. With the exception of Dante’s <i>Divine +Comedy</i> there is practically not a single book that has any +title whatever to a place in the Literature of Power, a +literature which many of us think the only thing in the world of +books worth consideration. Great philosophy is here, and +high thought. <!-- page 255--><a name="page255"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 255</span>Who would for a moment wish to +disparage St. Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, or Aquinas the +Angelic? Plato and Pascal, Malebranche and Fenelon, Bossuet +and Machiavelli are all among the world’s immortals. +Yet now and again we are bewildered by finding the least +important book of a well-known author—as for example +Rousseau’s <i>Poland</i> instead of the <i>Confessions</i> +and Coleridge’s <i>Aids to Reflection</i> instead of the +<i>Poems</i> or the <i>Biographia Literaria</i>. Think of +an historian whose ideal of historical work was so high that he +despised all who worked only from printed documents, selecting +the <i>Memorial of St. Helena</i> of Las Casas in preference not +only to a hundred-and-one similar compilations concerning +Napoleon’s exile, but in preference to Thucydides, +Herodotus and Gibbon.</p> +<p>Sometimes Lord Acton names a theologian who is absolutely +out-of-date, at others a philosopher who is in the same +case. But on the whole it is a fascinating list as an index +to what a well-trained mind thought the noblest mental equipment +for life’s work. At the best, it is true, it would +represent but one half of life. But then Lord Acton +recognized this when he asked that <!-- page 256--><a +name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 256</span>men should +be “steeled against the charm of literary beauty and +talent,” and he was assuming in any case that all the books +in aesthetic literature, the best poetry and the best history had +already been read, as he undoubtedly had read them.</p> +<p>“The charm of literary beauty and talent!” +There is the whole question. Nothing really matters for the +average man, so far as books are concerned, but this charm, and I +am criticizing Lord Acton’s list for the average man. +The student who has got beyond it need not worry himself about +classified lists. He may read his Plato, and Aristotle, his +Pascal and Newman, his Christian apologists and German +theologians, as he wills; or he may read in some other quite +different direction. Guidance is impossible to a mind at +such a stage of cultivation as Lord Acton had in view.</p> +<p>Only minds at a more primitive stage of culture than this most +learned and most accomplished man seemed able to conceive of, +could be bettered by advice as to reading. Given, indeed, +contact with some superior mind, which out of its rich equipment +of culture should advise <!-- page 257--><a +name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 257</span>as to the +books that might be most profitably read, I could imagine advice +being helpful. It would be of no value, it is true, to an +untutored savage or illiterate peasant, but to a youth fresh from +school-books and much modern fiction, to a young girl about to +enter upon life in its more serious aspects, it would be +immensely serviceable. It was of such as these that Mr. +Ruskin thought when he wrote of “King’s +Treasures” in <i>Sesame and Lilies</i>, and the same idea +was doubtless in Sir John Lubbock’s mind when he lectured +on the “Hundred Best Books.” But Lord +Avebury’s list had its limitations, it seems to me, for any +one who has an interest in good literature and guidance to the +reading thereof. To give “Scott” as one book +and “Shakspere” as another was I suggest to shirk +much responsibility of selection. Scott is a whole library, +Shakspere is yet another. One may give “Keats” +or “Shelley” because they are more limited in +quantity. Even to name novels by Charles Kingsley and +Bulwer Lytton in this select hundred was to demonstrate to men of +this generation that Lord Avebury being of an earlier one had a +bias in favour of the books <!-- page 258--><a +name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 258</span>that we are +all outgrowing. To include Mill’s <i>Logic</i> is to +ignore the Time Spirit acting on philosophy; to include +Tennyson’s <i>Idylls</i> its action on poetry. Mill +and Tennyson will always live in literature but not I think by +these books.</p> +<p>But the fact is that there is no possibility of naming the +hundred best books. No one could quarrel with Lord Avebury +if he had named these as his hundred own favourites among the +books of the world. Still, it might have been <i>his</i> +hundred; it could not possibly have been any one else’s +hundred because every man of education must make his own +choice. No! the naming of the hundred best books for any +large, general audience is quite impossible. All that is +possible in such a connexion is to state emphatically that there +are very few books that are equally suitable to every kind of +intellect. Temperament as well as intellectual endowment +make for so much in reading. Take, for example, the +<i>Imitation</i> of <i>Christ</i>. George Eliot, although +not a Christian, found it soul-satisfying. Thackeray, as I +think a more robust intellect, found it well nigh as mischievous +as did Eugene Sue, whose <!-- page 259--><a +name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +259</span>anathematizations in his novel <i>The Wandering Jew</i> +are remembered by all. Other books that have been the +outcome of piety of mind leave less room for difference of +opinion. Surely Dante’s <i>Divine Comedy</i>, and +Bunyan’s <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, make an universal +appeal. That universal appeal is the point at which alone +guidance is possible. There are great books that can be +read only by the few, but surely the very greatest appeal alike +to the educated and the illiterate, to the man of rich +intellectual endowment and to the man to whom all processes of +reasoning are incomprehensible. <i>Hamlet</i> is a +wonderful test of this quality. It “holds the +boards” at the small provincial theatre, it is enacted by +Mr. Crummles to an illiterate peasantry, and it is performed by +the greatest actor to the most select city audience. It is +made the subject of study by learned commentators. It is +world-embracing.</p> +<p>Are there in the English language, including translations, a +hundred books that stand the test as <i>Hamlet</i> stands +it? No two men would make the same list of books that +answer to this demand of an universal appeal, and obviously each +nation <!-- page 260--><a name="page260"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 260</span>must make its own list. Mine +is for English boys and girls just growing into manhood and +womanhood, or for those who have had no educational advantages in +early years. I exclude living writers, and I give the +hundred in four groups.</p> +<h3>POETRY.</h3> +<p>1. The Bible. <a name="citation260a"></a><a +href="#footnote260a" class="citation">[260a]</a></p> +<p>2. <i>The Odyssey</i>, translated by Butcher and Lang. +<a name="citation260b"></a><a href="#footnote260b" +class="citation">[260b]</a></p> +<p>3. The <i>Iliad</i>, translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers. +</p> +<p><!-- page 261--><a name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +261</span>4. Aeschylus, translated by George Warr. <a +name="citation261a"></a><a href="#footnote261a" +class="citation">[261a]</a></p> +<p>5. Sophocles, translated by J. S. Phillimore. +<p>6. Euripides, translated by Gilbert Murray. +<p>7. Virgil, translated by Dryden. <a +name="citation261b"></a><a href="#footnote261b" +class="citation">[261b]</a></p> +<p>8. Catullus, translated by Theodore Martin. <a +name="citation261c"></a><a href="#footnote261c" +class="citation">[261c]</a></p> +<p>9. Horace, translated by Theodore Martin. <a +name="citation261d"></a><a href="#footnote261d" +class="citation">[261d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 262--><a name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +262</span>10. Dante, translated by Cary. <a +name="citation262a"></a><a href="#footnote262a" +class="citation">[262a]</a></p> +<p>11. Shakspere, <i>Hamlet</i>. <a +name="citation262b"></a><a href="#footnote262b" +class="citation">[262b]</a></p> +<p>12. Chaucer, <i>Canterbury Tales</i>. <a +name="citation262c"></a><a href="#footnote262c" +class="citation">[262c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 263--><a name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +263</span>13. FitzGerald, <i>Omar Khayyám</i>. <a +name="citation263a"></a><a href="#footnote263a" +class="citation">[263a]</a></p> +<p>14. Goethe, <i>Faust</i>. <a name="citation263b"></a><a +href="#footnote263b" class="citation">[263b]</a></p> +<p>15. Shelley. <a name="citation263c"></a><a +href="#footnote263c" class="citation">[263c]</a></p> +<p>16. Byron. <a name="citation263d"></a><a +href="#footnote263d" class="citation">[263d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 264--><a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>17. Wordsworth. <a name="citation264a"></a><a +href="#footnote264a" class="citation">[264a]</a></p> +<p>18. Keats. <a name="citation264b"></a><a +href="#footnote264b" class="citation">[264b]</a></p> +<p>19. Burns. <a name="citation264c"></a><a +href="#footnote264c" class="citation">[264c]</a></p> +<p>20. Coleridge. <a name="citation264d"></a><a +href="#footnote264d" class="citation">[264d]</a></p> +<p>21. Cowper. <a name="citation264e"></a><a +href="#footnote264e" class="citation">[264e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 265--><a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +265</span>22. Crabbe. <a name="citation265a"></a><a +href="#footnote265a" class="citation">[265a]</a></p> +<p>23. Tennyson. <a name="citation265b"></a><a +href="#footnote265b" class="citation">[265b]</a></p> +<p>24. Browning. <a name="citation265c"></a><a +href="#footnote265c" class="citation">[265c]</a></p> +<p>25. Milton. <a name="citation265d"></a><a +href="#footnote265d" class="citation">[265d]</a></p> +<h3><!-- page 266--><a name="page266"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 266</span>FICTION.</h3> +<p>1. <i>The Arabian Nights Entertainment</i>. <a +name="citation266a"></a><a href="#footnote266a" +class="citation">[266a]</a></p> +<p>2. <i>Don Quixote</i>, by Cervantes. <a +name="citation266b"></a><a href="#footnote266b" +class="citation">[266b]</a></p> +<p>3. <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, by Bunyan. <a +name="citation266c"></a><a href="#footnote266c" +class="citation">[266c]</a></p> +<p>4. <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, by Defoe. <a +name="citation266d"></a><a href="#footnote266d" +class="citation">[266d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 267--><a name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +267</span>5. <i>Gulliver’s Travels</i>, by Swift. <a +name="citation267a"></a><a href="#footnote267a" +class="citation">[267a]</a></p> +<p>6. <i>Clarissa</i>, by Richardson. <a +name="citation267b"></a><a href="#footnote267b" +class="citation">[267b]</a></p> +<p>7. <i>Tom Jones</i>, by Fielding. <a +name="citation267c"></a><a href="#footnote267c" +class="citation">[267c]</a></p> +<p>8. <i>Rasselas</i>, by Johnson. <a +name="citation267d"></a><a href="#footnote267d" +class="citation">[267d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 268--><a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +268</span>9. <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, by Goldsmith. <a +name="citation268a"></a><a href="#footnote268a" +class="citation">[268a]</a></p> +<p>10. <i>Sentimental Journey</i>, by Sterne. <a +name="citation268b"></a><a href="#footnote268b" +class="citation">[268b]</a></p> +<p>11. <i>Nightmare Abbey</i>, by Peacock. <a +name="citation268c"></a><a href="#footnote268c" +class="citation">[268c]</a></p> +<p>12. <i>Kenilworth</i>, by Walter Scott. <a +name="citation268d"></a><a href="#footnote268d" +class="citation">[268d]</a></p> +<p>13. <i>Père Goriot</i>, by Balzac. <a +name="citation268e"></a><a href="#footnote268e" +class="citation">[268e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 269--><a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +269</span>14. <i>The Three Musketeers</i>, by Dumas. <a +name="citation269a"></a><a href="#footnote269a" +class="citation">[269a]</a></p> +<p>15. <i>Vanity Fair</i>, by Thackeray. <a +name="citation269b"></a><a href="#footnote269b" +class="citation">[269b]</a></p> +<p>16. <i>Villette</i>, by Charlotte Brontë. <a +name="citation269c"></a><a href="#footnote269c" +class="citation">[269c]</a></p> +<p>17. <i>David Copperfield</i>, by Charles Dickens. <a +name="citation269d"></a><a href="#footnote269d" +class="citation">[269d]</a></p> +<p>18. <i>Barchester Towers</i>, by Anthony Trollope. <a +name="citation269e"></a><a href="#footnote269e" +class="citation">[269e]</a></p> +<p>19. Boccaccio’s <i>Decameron</i>. <a +name="citation269f"></a><a href="#footnote269f" +class="citation">[269f]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 270--><a name="page270"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +270</span>20. <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, by Emily +Brontë. <a name="citation270a"></a><a href="#footnote270a" +class="citation">[270a]</a></p> +<p>21. <i>The Cloister and the Hearth</i>, by Charles +Reade. <a name="citation270b"></a><a href="#footnote270b" +class="citation">[270b]</a></p> +<p>22. <i>Les Misèrables</i>, by Victor Hugo. <a +name="citation270c"></a><a href="#footnote270c" +class="citation">[270c]</a></p> +<p>23. <i>Cranford</i>, by Mrs. Gaskell. <a +name="citation270d"></a><a href="#footnote270d" +class="citation">[270d]</a></p> +<p>24. <i>Consuelo</i>, by George Sand. <a +name="citation270e"></a><a href="#footnote270e" +class="citation">[270e]</a></p> +<p>25. <i>Charles O’Malley</i>, by Charles Lever. <a +name="citation270f"></a><a href="#footnote270f" +class="citation">[270f]</a></p> +<h3><!-- page 271--><a name="page271"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 271</span>MISCELLANEOUS.HISTORY, ESSAYS, +ETC.</h3> +<p>1. Macaulay, <i>History of England</i>. <a +name="citation271a"></a><a href="#footnote271a" +class="citation">[271a]</a></p> +<p>2. Carlyle, <i>Past and Present</i>. <a +name="citation271b"></a><a href="#footnote271b" +class="citation">[271b]</a></p> +<p>3. Motley, <i>Dutch Republic</i>. <a +name="citation271c"></a><a href="#footnote271c" +class="citation">[271c]</a></p> +<p>4. Gibbon, <i>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>. +<a name="citation271d"></a><a href="#footnote271d" +class="citation">[271d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 272--><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>5. Plutarch’s <i>Lives</i>. <a +name="citation272a"></a><a href="#footnote272a" +class="citation">[272a]</a></p> +<p>6. Montaigne’s <i>Essays</i>. <a +name="citation272b"></a><a href="#footnote272b" +class="citation">[272b]</a></p> +<p>7. Richard Steele, <i>Essays</i>. <a +name="citation272c"></a><a href="#footnote272c" +class="citation">[272c]</a></p> +<p>8. Lamb, <i>Essays of Elia</i>. <a +name="citation272d"></a><a href="#footnote272d" +class="citation">[272d]</a></p> +<p>9. De Quincey, <i>Opium Eater</i>. <a +name="citation272e"></a><a href="#footnote272e" +class="citation">[272e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 273--><a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +273</span>10. Hazlitt, <i>Essays</i>. <a +name="citation273a"></a><a href="#footnote273a" +class="citation">[273a]</a></p> +<p>11. Borrow, <i>Lavengro</i>. <a +name="citation273b"></a><a href="#footnote273b" +class="citation">[273b]</a></p> +<p>12. Emerson, <i>Representative Men</i>. <a +name="citation273c"></a><a href="#footnote273c" +class="citation">[273c]</a></p> +<p>13. Landor, <i>Imaginary Conversations</i>. <a +name="citation273d"></a><a href="#footnote273d" +class="citation">[273d]</a></p> +<p>14. Arnold, <i>Essays in Criticism</i>. <a +name="citation273e"></a><a href="#footnote273e" +class="citation">[273e]</a></p> +<p>15. Herodotus, <i>Macaulay’s Translation</i>. <a +name="citation273f"></a><a href="#footnote273f" +class="citation">[273f]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 274--><a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +274</span>16. Howell’s <i>Familiar Letters</i>. <a +name="citation274a"></a><a href="#footnote274a" +class="citation">[274a]</a></p> +<p>17. Buckle’s <i>History of Civilization</i>. <a +name="citation274b"></a><a href="#footnote274b" +class="citation">[274b]</a></p> +<p>18. Tacitus, Church and Brodribb’s Translation. <a +name="citation274c"></a><a href="#footnote274c" +class="citation">[274c]</a></p> +<p>19. Mitford’s <i>Our Village</i>. <a +name="citation274d"></a><a href="#footnote274d" +class="citation">[274d]</a></p> +<p>20. Green’s <i>Short History of the English +People</i>. <a name="citation274e"></a><a href="#footnote274e" +class="citation">[274e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 275--><a name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +275</span>21. Taine, <i>Ancient Régime</i>. <a +name="citation275a"></a><a href="#footnote275a" +class="citation">[275a]</a></p> +<p>22. Bourrienne, <i>Napoleon</i>. <a +name="citation275b"></a><a href="#footnote275b" +class="citation">[275b]</a></p> +<p>23. Tocqueville, <i>Democracy in America</i>. <a +name="citation275c"></a><a href="#footnote275c" +class="citation">[275c]</a></p> +<p>24. Walton, <i>Compleat Angler</i>. <a +name="citation275d"></a><a href="#footnote275d" +class="citation">[275d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 276--><a name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +276</span>25 White, <i>Natural History of Selbourne</i>. <a +name="citation276a"></a><a href="#footnote276a" +class="citation">[276a]</a></p> +<h3>BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL.</h3> +<p>1. Boswell’s Johnson. <a +name="citation276b"></a><a href="#footnote276b" +class="citation">[276b]</a></p> +<p>2. Lockhart’s Scott. <a name="citation276c"></a><a +href="#footnote276c" class="citation">[276c]</a></p> +<p>3. Pepys’s Diary. <a name="citation276d"></a><a +href="#footnote276d" class="citation">[276d]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 277--><a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +277</span>4. Walpole’s Letters. <a +name="citation277a"></a><a href="#footnote277a" +class="citation">[277a]</a></p> +<p>5. The Memoirs of Count de Gramont. <a +name="citation277b"></a><a href="#footnote277b" +class="citation">[277b]</a></p> +<p>6. Gray’s Letters. <a name="citation277c"></a><a +href="#footnote277c" class="citation">[277c]</a></p> +<p>7. Southey’s Nelson. <a name="citation277d"></a><a +href="#footnote277d" class="citation">[277d]</a></p> +<p>8. Moore’s Byron. <a name="citation277e"></a><a +href="#footnote277e" class="citation">[277e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 278--><a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +278</span>9. Hogg’s Shelley. <a +name="citation278a"></a><a href="#footnote278a" +class="citation">[278a]</a></p> +<p>10. Rousseau’s Confessions. <a +name="citation278b"></a><a href="#footnote278b" +class="citation">[278b]</a></p> +<p>11. Froude’s Carlyle. <a +name="citation278c"></a><a href="#footnote278c" +class="citation">[278c]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 279--><a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +279</span>12. Rogers’s Table Talk. <a +name="citation279a"></a><a href="#footnote279a" +class="citation">[279a]</a></p> +<p>13. Confessions of St. Augustine. <a +name="citation279b"></a><a href="#footnote279b" +class="citation">[279b]</a></p> +<p>14. Amiel’s Journal. <a name="citation279c"></a><a +href="#footnote279c" class="citation">[279c]</a></p> +<p>15. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. <a +name="citation279d"></a><a href="#footnote279d" +class="citation">[279d]</a></p> +<p>16. Lewes’s Life of Goethe. <a +name="citation279e"></a><a href="#footnote279e" +class="citation">[279e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 280--><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +280</span>17. Sime’s Life of Lessing. <a +name="citation280a"></a><a href="#footnote280a" +class="citation">[280a]</a></p> +<p>18. Franklin’s Autobiography. <a +name="citation280b"></a><a href="#footnote280b" +class="citation">[280b]</a></p> +<p>19. Greville’s Memoirs. <a +name="citation280c"></a><a href="#footnote280c" +class="citation">[280c]</a></p> +<p>20. Forster’s Life of Dickens. <a +name="citation280d"></a><a href="#footnote280d" +class="citation">[280d]</a></p> +<p>21. Madame D’Arblay’s Diary. <a +name="citation280e"></a><a href="#footnote280e" +class="citation">[280e]</a></p> +<p><!-- page 281--><a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +281</span>22. Newman’s Apologia. <a +name="citation281a"></a><a href="#footnote281a" +class="citation">[281a]</a></p> +<p>23. The Paston Letters. <a name="citation281b"></a><a +href="#footnote281b" class="citation">[281b]</a></p> +<p>24. Cellini’s Autobiography. <a +name="citation281c"></a><a href="#footnote281c" +class="citation">[281c]</a></p> +<p>25. Browne’s Religio Medici. <a +name="citation281d"></a><a href="#footnote281d" +class="citation">[281d]</a></p> +<p>My readers for the most part have read every one of these +books. I throw out this list as a <!-- page 282--><a +name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 282</span>tentative +effort in the direction of suggesting a hundred books with which +to start a library. The young student will find much to +amuse, and certainly nothing here to bore him. These books +will not make him a prig, as Mr. James Payn said that Lord +Avebury’s list would make him a prig. They will make +the dull man less dull, the bright man brighter. Here is +good, cheerful, robust reading for boy and girl, for man and +woman. There are many sins of omission, but none of +commission. Our young friend will add to this list fast +enough, but there is nothing in it that he may not read with +profit. These books, I repeat, make an universal +appeal. The learned man may enjoy them, the unlearned may +enjoy them also. They are, as <i>Hamlet</i> is, of +universal interest. Devotion to science will not impair a +taste for them, nor will zest for abstract speculations. +Not even those who are “better skilled in grammar than in +poetry” can fail to appreciate. These hundred books +will in the main be the hundred best books of many of my readers +who are quite capable of selecting for themselves. One last +word of advice. Let not the young reader buy large +quantities of books <!-- page 283--><a name="page283"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 283</span>at once or be beguiled into +subscribing for some cheap series which will save him the trouble +of selecting. He may buy many books from such cheap series +afterwards, but not his first hundred, I think. These +should be acquired through much saving, and purchased with great +thought and deliberation. The purchase of a book should +become to the young book-lover a most solemn function.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Butler and Tanner</i>, <i>The +Selwood Printing Works</i>, <i>Frome</i>, <i>and London</i></p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> Richard Garnett (1835-1906) was +son of the philologist of the same name who was for a time +priest-vicar of Lichfield Cathedral. He attended the +Johnson Celebration on Sept. 18, 1905, and proposed “the +Immortal Memory of Dr. Johnson.” He died on the +following Good Friday, April 13, and was buried in Highgate +Cemetery April 17, 1906.</p> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6" +class="footnote">[6]</a> Anna Seward (1747-1809). Her +works were published after her death:—<i>The Poetical Works +of Anna Seward</i>. <i>With Extracts from her Literary +Correspondence</i>. Edited by Walter Scott, Esq. In +three volumes—<i>John Ballantyne & Co.</i>, 1810. +<i>Letters of Anna Seward written between the Years</i> 1784 +<i>and</i> 1807. In six volumes. Archibald Constable +& Co., 1811. “Longwinded and florid” one +biographer calls her letters, but by the aid of what Scott calls +‘the laudable practice of skipping’ they are quite +entertaining.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8" +class="footnote">[8]</a> Sir Robert Thomas White-Thomson, +K.C.B., wrote to me in reference to this estimate of Miss Seward +from Broomford Manor, Exbourne, North Devon, and his letter +seemed of sufficient importance from a genealogical standpoint +for me to ask his permission to make an extract from the letter: +“I have read your address in a Lichfield newspaper. +Apart from the wider and more important bearings of your words, +those which had reference to the Seward family were especially +welcome to me. You will understand this when I tell you +that, with the exception of the Romney portrait of Anna, and a +few other objects left ‘away’ by her will, my +grandfather, Thomas White, of Lichfield Close, her cousin and +residuary legatee, became possessed of all the contents of her +house. Some of the books and engravings were sold by +auction, but the remainder were taken good care of, and passed to +me on my mother’s death in 1860. As thus, ‘in a +way’ the representative of the ‘Swan of +Lichfield,’ you can easily see what such an appreciation of +her as was yours means to me. Of course I know her weak +points, and how the pot of clay must suffer in trying to +‘bump’ the pot of iron in midstream, but I also know +that she was no ordinary personage in her day, when the standard +of feminine culture was low, and I have resented some things that +have been written of her. Mrs. Oliphant treats her kindly +in her <i>Literary History of England</i>, and now I have your +‘appreciation’ of her, for which I beg to thank +you.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15" +class="footnote">[15]</a> Once certainly in the lines +“On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Well try’d through many a varying year,<br +/> + See Levet to the grave descend,<br /> +Officious, innocent, sincere,<br /> + Of ev’ry friendless name the friend.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18" +class="footnote">[18]</a> <i>Prayers and Meditations</i>: +composed by Samuel Johnson, LL.D., and published from his +Manuscripts by George Straham, D.D., Prebendary of Rochester and +Vicar of Islington in Middlesex, 1785. Dr. Birkbeck Hill +suggests that Johnson could not have contemplated the publication +of the work in its entirety, but the world is the better for the +self revelation, notwithstanding Cowper’s remark in a +letter to Newton (August 27, 1785), that “the publisher of +it is neither much a friend to the cause of religion nor to the +author’s memory; for by the specimen of it that has reached +us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct tendency +to expose both to ridicule.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19" +class="footnote">[19]</a> There is an edition with a brief +Introduction by Augustine Birrell, published by Elliot Stock in +1904, and another, with an Introduction by “H. C.,” +was issued by H. R. Allenson in 1906.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31" +class="footnote">[31]</a> The Rev. Angus Mackay, author of +<i>The Brontës In Fact and Fiction</i>. He was Rector +of Holy Trinity Church, Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, when he died, +aged 54, on New Year’s Day, 1907. Earlier in life he +had been a Curate at Olney.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34"></a><a href="#citation34" +class="footnote">[34]</a> John Newton (1725-1807) had been +the captain of a slave ship before his +‘conversion.’ He became Curate of Olney in 1764 +and published the famous Olney Hymns with Cowper in 1779. +In 1780 Newton became the popular Incumbent of St. Mary Woolnoth, +London.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35"></a><a href="#citation35" +class="footnote">[35]</a> See the Globe <i>Cowper</i>, with +an Introduction by the Rev. William Benham, the Rector of St. +Edmund’s, Lombard Street. Canon Benham has written +many books, but he has done no better piece of work than this +fine Introduction which first appeared in 1870.</p> +<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36" +class="footnote">[36]</a> Thomas Scott (1747-1821). +His commentaries first appeared in weekly parts between 1788 and +1792, and were first issued in ten volumes, 1823-25. He was +Rector of Astin Sandford in Buckinghamshire from 1801 until his +death. His <i>Life</i> was published by his son, the Rev. +John Scott, in 1822.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37"></a><a href="#citation37" +class="footnote">[37]</a> Thomas Percy (1729-1811) became +Vicar of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, in 1753. Johnson +visited him here in 1764. In 1765 Percy published his +<i>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry</i>. He became Bishop +of Dromere in 1782.</p> +<p><a name="footnote38a"></a><a href="#citation38a" +class="footnote">[38a]</a> William Hayley (1745-1820) was +counted a great poet in his day and placed in the same rank with +Dryden and Pope. He wrote <i>Triumphs of Temper</i> 1781, +<i>Triumphs of Music</i> 1804, and many other works; but he is of +interest here by virtue of his <i>Life and Letters of William +Cowper</i>, <i>Esq.</i>, <i>with Remarks on Epistolary +Writers</i>, published in 1803.</p> +<p><a name="footnote38b"></a><a href="#citation38b" +class="footnote">[38b]</a> Robert Southey (1774-1843), +whose <i>Life and Works of Cowper</i> is in fifteen volumes, +which were published by Baldwin & Cradock between the years +1835 and 1837. The attractive form in which the works are +presented, the many fine steel engravings, and the excellent type +make this still the only way for book lovers to approach +Cowper. Southey had to suffer the competition of the Rev. +T. S. Grimshawe, who produced, through Saunders & Otley, +about the same time a reprint of Hayley’s biography with +much of Cowper’s correspondence that is not in +Southey’s volumes. The whole correspondence was +collected by Mr. Thomas Wright, and published by Hodder & +Stoughton in 1904.</p> +<p><a name="footnote38c"></a><a href="#citation38c" +class="footnote">[38c]</a> Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) in +his <i>Literary Studies</i>. James Russell Lowell +(1819-1891) in his <i>Essays</i>. Mrs. Oliphant (1828-1897) +in her <i>Literary History of England</i>; and George Eliot +(1819-1880) in her <i>Essays</i> (Worldliness and Other +Worldliness).</p> +<p><a name="footnote44"></a><a href="#citation44" +class="footnote">[44]</a> It has no bearing upon the +subject that the horrors of the Bastille at the time of its fall +were greatly exaggerated.</p> +<p><a name="footnote47"></a><a href="#citation47" +class="footnote">[47]</a> <i>Theology in the English +Poets</i>, by Stopford A. Brooke.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56"></a><a href="#citation56" +class="footnote">[56]</a> Mr. Leslie Stephen, who became +Sir Leslie Stephen, K.C.B., in 1902, was born in 1832 and died in +1904. In addition to the article in the <i>D.N.B.</i>, this +great critic has one on “Cowper and Rousseau” in his +<i>Hours in a Library</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote62"></a><a href="#citation62" +class="footnote">[62]</a> Sir John Fenn (1739-1794), the +antiquary, obtained the originals of the <i>Paston Letters</i> +from Thomas Worth, a chemist of Diss. The following lines +were first printed in Cowper’s Collected Poems, by Mr. J. +C. Bailey in his admirable edition of 1906, published by the +Methuens:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Two omens seem propitious to my fame,<br /> +Your spouse embalms my verse, and you my name;<br /> +A name, which, all self-flattery far apart<br /> +Belongs to one who venerates in his heart<br /> +The wise and good, and therefore of the few<br /> +Known by these titles, sir, both yours and you.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They were written to please his cousin John Johnson who was to +oblige Fenn by giving him an autograph of Cowper’s.</p> +<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66" +class="footnote">[66]</a> Edward Stanley (1779-1849), the +father of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881), Dean of +Westminster, was Bishop of Norwich from 1837 to 1849.</p> +<p><a name="footnote80"></a><a href="#citation80" +class="footnote">[80]</a> Borrow’s step-daughter, +Henrietta Clarke, married James McOubrey, an Irish doctor. +She outlived Borrow for many years, dying at Great Yarmouth in +1904. All her literary effects, including many interesting +manuscripts, have been passed on to me by her executor, Mr. +Hubert Smith, and these will be used in my forthcoming biography +of Borrow.</p> +<p><a name="footnote84"></a><a href="#citation84" +class="footnote">[84]</a> I ventured to ask my friend Mr. +Birrell for a line to read to my Norwich audience and he sent me +the following characteristic letter dated December 8, +1903:—</p> +<p>“. . . For my part I should leave George Borrow alone, +to take his own part even as Isopel Berners learnt to take hers +in the great house at Long Melford. He has an appealing +voice which no sooner falls on the ear of the born Borrovian, +than up the lucky fellow must get and follow his master to the +end of the chapter.</p> +<p>“However, if you will insist upon going out into the +highways and hedges and compelling the wayfaring man—though +a fool—to come in and take a seat at the <i>Lavengro</i> +feast, nobody can stop you.</p> +<p>“The great thing is to get people to read the Borrow +books: there is nothing else to be done. If, after having +read them, some enthusiasts go on to learn <i>Romany</i> and seek +to trace authorities on Gypsies and Gypsy lore—why, let +them. They may soon know more about Gypsies than Borrow +ever did—but they will never write about them as he +did.</p> +<p>“The essence of the matter is to enjoy Borrow’s +books for themselves alone. As for Borrow’s +biography, it appears to me either that he has already written +it, or it is not worth writing. Anyhow, place the books in +the forefront, reprint things as often as you dare without +<i>note or comment</i> or even <i>prefatory appreciation</i>, and +you cannot but earn the gratitude of every true Borrovian who in +consequence of your efforts come upon the Borrow books for the +first time.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97" +class="footnote">[97]</a> M. René Huchon, who +addressed the visitors at the Crabbe Celebration, published his +<i>George Crabbe and his Times</i>: <i>A Critical and +Biographical Study</i>, through Mr. John Murray, early in the +present year, 1907.</p> +<p><a name="footnote98"></a><a href="#citation98" +class="footnote">[98]</a> This reproach has since been +removed by the appearance of the <i>Complete Works of George +Crabbe</i> in three volumes of the Cambridge English Classics +Series, published by the Cambridge University Press, and edited +by Dr. A. W. Ward, the Master of Peterhouse.</p> +<p><a name="footnote100"></a><a href="#citation100" +class="footnote">[100]</a> The original letter is in the +possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley, of Bridport. It is +reprinted from the Hanmer Correspondence in an appendix to M. +Huchon’s biography.</p> +<p><a name="footnote106"></a><a href="#citation106" +class="footnote">[106]</a> But M. Huchon makes it clear in +<i>George Crabbe and his Times</i> that Crabbe declined at the +last moment to marry Miss Charlotte Ridout, who seems to have +been really in love with him.</p> +<p><a name="footnote138"></a><a href="#citation138" +class="footnote">[138]</a> This monument, a fine statue +facing the house which replaces the one in which Sir Thomas +Browne lived, was unveiled in October, 1905.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144"></a><a href="#citation144" +class="footnote">[144]</a> For every student +Cunningham’s nine volumes have been superseded since this +Address was delivered by the sixteen volumes of the Letters of +Horace Walpole, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee for the Clarendon +Press.</p> +<p><a name="footnote145"></a><a href="#citation145" +class="footnote">[145]</a> The other side of the picture +may, however, be presented. Horace, says Cunningham +(Walpole’s <i>Letters</i>, vol. i.), hated Norfolk, the +native country of his father, and delighted in Kent, the native +country of his mother. “He did not care for Norfolk +ale, Norfolk turnips, Norfolk dumplings and Norfolk +turkeys. Its flat, sandy aguish scenery was not to his +taste.” He dearly liked what he calls most happily, +“the rich, blue prospects of Kent.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote153"></a><a href="#citation153" +class="footnote">[153]</a> Goldsmith doubtless had +more than one experience in his mind when he wrote of:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Lissoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland, served to provide many +concrete features of the picture, but that the author drew upon +his experiences of Houghton is believed by his principal +biographer, John Forster, by Professor Masson and others, and on +no other assumption than that of an English village can the lines +be explained:—</p> +<blockquote><p>A time there was, ere England’s griefs +began,<br /> +When every rood of ground maintained its man.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="footnote185"></a><a href="#citation185" +class="footnote">[185]</a> Originally written to serve as +an Introduction to an edition of Mr. George Meredith’s +<i>Tragic Comedians</i>, of which book Lassalle is the +hero. That edition was published by Messrs. Ward Lock & +Bowden, who afterwards transferred all rights in it to Messrs. +Archibald Constable & Co., by whose courtesy the paper is +included here.</p> +<p><a name="footnote186"></a><a href="#citation186" +class="footnote">[186]</a> Lassalle’s +<i>Tagebuch</i>, edited by Paul Lindau, 1891.</p> +<p><a name="footnote187"></a><a href="#citation187" +class="footnote">[187]</a> <i>Henrich Heine’s +sämmtliche Werke</i>, vol. xxii., pp. 84-99.</p> +<p><a name="footnote188"></a><a href="#citation188" +class="footnote">[188]</a> The most concise account of the +affair is contained in the story of Sophie Solutzeff, entitled, +<i>Eine Liebes-episode aus dem Leben Ferdinand +Lassalle’s</i>. This booklet, which is published in +German, French, and Russian, professes to be an account of +Lassalle’s love for a young Russian lady, Sophie Solutzeff, +some two years before he met Helene von Dönniges. He +is represented as being himself in a frenzy of passion; the lady, +however, rejecting as a lover the man she had been prepared to +worship as a teacher. There can be little doubt that the +whole story is a fabrication, in which the Countess von Hatzfeldt +had a considerable part. The Countess was rightly judged by +popular opinion to have played a discreditable rôle in the +love passages between Lassalle and Helene; and Helene’s own +account of the matter in her <i>Reminiscences</i> was an +additional blow at the pseudo-friend who might have helped the +lovers so much. What more natural than that the Countess +should be anxious to break the force of Helene’s +indictment, by endorsing the popular, and indeed accurate +judgment, that Lassalle was very inflammable where women were +concerned. This she could do by depicting him, a little +earlier, in precisely similar bondage to that which he had +professed to Helene. That the Countess wrote, or assisted +to write, the compilation of letters and diaries, does not, +however, destroy its value as a record of Lassalle’s +struggle on her behalf. That account, if not written by +Lassalle, was written or inspired by the other great actor in the +Hatzfeldt drama, and may therefore be considered a fairly safe +guide in recounting the story. Mr. Israel Zangwill, since +the above was written, has published an article on Lassalle in +his <i>Dreamers of the Ghetto</i>. He accepts Sophie +Solutzeff’s story as genuine, but that is merely the +credulity of an accomplished romancer.</p> +<p><a name="footnote198"></a><a href="#citation198" +class="footnote">[198]</a> Debate in the German Reichstag, +April 2, 1881. Quoted by W. H. Dawson.</p> +<p><a name="footnote213"></a><a href="#citation213" +class="footnote">[213]</a> Becker’s +<i>Enthüllungen</i>, 1868.</p> +<p><a name="footnote218"></a><a href="#citation218" +class="footnote">[218]</a> Briefe an Hans von Bülow, +1885.</p> +<p><a name="footnote225"></a><a href="#citation225" +class="footnote">[225]</a> Reprinted with alterations from +the <i>Pall Mall Magazine</i> of July, 1905, by kind permission +of the proprietor and editor; and of Miss Mary Gladstone (Mrs. +Drew) to whom the list of books was sent in a letter.</p> +<p><a name="footnote230a"></a><a href="#citation230a" +class="footnote">[230a]</a> Plato (<span +class="smcap">b.c.</span> 427-347). Dr. Jowett has +translated the <i>Laws</i>. See <i>The Dialogues</i> of +Plato With Analysis and Introductions by Benjamin Jowett. +In Five Volumes. Vol. V. The Clarendon Press.</p> +<p><a name="footnote230b"></a><a href="#citation230b" +class="footnote">[230b]</a> Aristotle (<span +class="smcap">b.c.</span> 384-322). Dr. Jowett has +translated the <i>Politics</i> into English. Two +volumes. The Clarendon Press.</p> +<p><a name="footnote230c"></a><a href="#citation230c" +class="footnote">[230c]</a> Epictetus (born <span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 50, died in Rome, but date +unknown). His <i>Encheiridion</i>, a collection of Maxims, +was made by his pupil Arrian. The best translation into +English is that by George Long, first published in 1877. +(George Bell.)</p> +<p><a name="footnote230d"></a><a href="#citation230d" +class="footnote">[230d]</a> St. Augustine (<span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 353-430). See a translation of +his <i>Letters</i> edited by Mary Allies, published in 1890.</p> +<p><a name="footnote231a"></a><a href="#citation231a" +class="footnote">[231a]</a> St. Vincent of +Lerins—Vincentius Lirinensis. Native of Gaul. +Monk in monastery of Lerinat, opposite Cannes. Died about +450. In 434 wrote <i>Commonitorium adversus profanus omnium +heretiecrum novitates</i>. It contains the famous threefold +text of orthodoxy—“quod ubique, quod semper, quod ad +omnibus creditum est.” Printed at Paris, 1663 and +later. Also in Mignes, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 50. +Hallam calls the text “the celebrated rule.” It +is all now remembered of St. V. by most educated men. It is +shown to be of no practical value in an able criticism by Sir G. +C. Lewis, <i>Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion</i>, +2nd ed., 1875, p. 57. Mr Gladstone reviewed this work of +Lewis, <i>Nineteenth Century</i> March, 1877.</p> +<p><a name="footnote231b"></a><a href="#citation231b" +class="footnote">[231b]</a> Hugo of St. Victor (1097-1141), +a celebrated Mystic born at Ypres in Flanders. His +collected works first appeared at Rouen in 1648.</p> +<p><a name="footnote231c"></a><a href="#citation231c" +class="footnote">[231c]</a> St. Bonaventura (<span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1221-1274). Born at Bagnarea, +near Orvieto, in Tuscany, became a Franciscan monk and afterwards +a Professor of Theology at Paris, where he gained the title of +the “Seraphic Doctor.” Made a Cardinal by Pope +Gregory X, who sent him as his Legate to the Council at Lyons, +where he died. In 1482 he was canonized. His writings +appeared at Rome in 1588-96.</p> +<p><a name="footnote231d"></a><a href="#citation231d" +class="footnote">[231d]</a> St. Thomas Aquinas (<span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1225-1274). The Angelic Doctor +was born at the castle of Rocca-Secca near Aquino, between Rome +and Naples. Entered the Dominican Order in 1243. Went +to Paris in 1252 and attained great distinction as a +theologian. His <i>Summa Theologiæ</i> was followed +by his <i>Summa contra Gentiles</i>. His works were first +collected in 17 volumes in 1570. Aquinas was canonized in +1323.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232a"></a><a href="#citation232a" +class="footnote">[232a]</a> Dante (<span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1265-1321). The <i>Divina +Commedia</i> has been translated into English by many +scholars. The best known version is the poetical renderings +of H. F. Cary (1772-1844) and W. W. Longfellow (1807-1882) and +the prose translations (the “Inferno” only) of John +Carlyle (1801-79) and A. J. Butler in whose three volumes of the +“Purgatory,” “Paradise” and +“Inferno” the original Italian may be studied side by +side with the translation.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232b"></a><a href="#citation232b" +class="footnote">[232b]</a> Raymund of Sabunde, a physician +of Toulouse of the fifteenth century. He published his +<i>Theologia naturalis</i> at Strassburg in 1496. “I +found the concerts of the author to be excellent, the contexture +of his works well followed, and his project full of pietie” +writes Montaigne in telling us of his father’s request that +he should translate Sabunde’s <i>Theologia +naturalis</i>. Florio’s Translation. Book II, +Ch. XII.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232c"></a><a href="#citation232c" +class="footnote">[232c]</a> Nicholas of Cusa (<span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1401-1464) was born at Kues on the +Moselle. His <i>De Concordantia Catholica</i> was a +treatise in favour of the Councils of the Church and against the +authority of the Pope. He was made a Cardinal by Pope +Nicholas V.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232d"></a><a href="#citation232d" +class="footnote">[232d]</a> Edward Reuss (1804-1891), a +professor of Theology, who was born at Strassburg. +Published his <i>History of the New Testament</i> in 1842 and his +<i>History of the Old Testament</i> in 1881. <i>The +Bible</i>, <i>a new translation with Introduction and +Commentaries</i>, appeared in 19 volumes between 1874 and +1881.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233a"></a><a href="#citation233a" +class="footnote">[233a]</a> Pascal, Blaise +(1623-1662). Born at Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne. +His <i>Letters to a Provincial</i>, written in 1656-7, made his +fame by their attack on the Jesuists. His +<i>Pensées</i> appeared after his death, in 1669, and they +have reappeared in many forms, “edited” by many +schools of thought. The edition edited by Ernest Havet +(1813-1889) was published in 1852.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233b"></a><a href="#citation233b" +class="footnote">[233b]</a> Malebranche, Nicolas +(1638-1715). Born in Paris. The works of Descartes +drew him to philosophy. The famous dictum, +“Malebranche saw all things in God,” had reference to +his treatise, <i>De la Recherche de la Vérité</i>, +first published in 1674.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233c"></a><a href="#citation233c" +class="footnote">[233c]</a> Baader, Franz +(1765-1841). A speculative philosopher and theologian, born +at Munich, who endeavoured to reconcile the tenets of the Church +of Rome with philosophy. Of his many works his +<i>Vorlesungen über Spekulative Dogmatik</i> is here +selected. It appeared between 1828 and 1838 in five +parts.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233d"></a><a href="#citation233d" +class="footnote">[233d]</a> Molitor, Franz Joseph +(1779-1860). A philosophical writer, born near +Frankfurt. His <i>Philosophie der Geschichte</i>, <i>oder +über Tradition</i> was published in 4 volumes between 1827 +and 1853.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233e"></a><a href="#citation233e" +class="footnote">[233e]</a> Astié, Jean +Frédéric (1822-1894). A French Protestant +theologian, who held a Chair of Theology in New York from 1848 to +1853. In 1856 became a Professor in Switzerland. He +published his <i>Esprit d’Alexandre Vinet</i> at Paris in +1861. In 1882 appeared his <i>Le Vinet de la légende et +celui de l’histoire</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote234a"></a><a href="#citation234a" +class="footnote">[234a]</a> Pünjer, Bernard +(1850-1884). A theologian whose <i>Geschichte der +Religions-philosophie</i> was much the vogue with theological +students at the time of its publication in 1880. It was +reissued in 1887 in an English translation by W. Hastie, under +the title, <i>History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion +from the Reformation to Kant</i>. Pünjer also wrote +<i>Die Religionslehre Kant’s</i>, published at Jena in +1874.</p> +<p><a name="footnote234b"></a><a href="#citation234b" +class="footnote">[234b]</a> Rothe, Richard +(1799-1867). A Protestant theologian. Was for a time +preacher to the Prussian Embassy in Rome, and afterwards in +succession Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, at Heidelberg, +and at Bonn. His <i>Theologische Ethik</i> appeared at +Wittenberg in 3 volumes between 1845 and 1848.</p> +<p><a name="footnote234c"></a><a href="#citation234c" +class="footnote">[234c]</a> Martensen, Hans Lassen +(1808-1884). A Danish theologian, born at Fleusburg and +died at Copenhagen, where he was long a Professor of +Theology. He became Bishop of Zeeland. <i>Die +Christliche Ethik</i> was one of many works by him. He also +wrote <i>Die Christliche Dogmatik</i>, <i>Die Christliche +Taufe</i>, and a <i>Life of Jakob Böhme</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote234d"></a><a href="#citation234d" +class="footnote">[234d]</a> Oettingen, Alexander von +(1827-1905). A theologian and statistician principally +associated with Dorpat in Livonia, where he studied from 1845 to +1849. He became Professor of Theology at its famous +University. His principal book is entitled, <i>Die +Moralstatistik in ihrer Bedeutung für eine +Sozialethik</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote234e"></a><a href="#citation234e" +class="footnote">[234e]</a> Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard +von (1842-1906). Born in Berlin, the son of General Robert +von Hartmann, and served for some time in the Artillery of the +German Army. He has written many philosophical works. +His <i>Phänomenologie des sittlichlen Bewusstseins</i> was +published in Berlin in 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235a"></a><a href="#citation235a" +class="footnote">[235a]</a> Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm +(1646-1716). Born at Leipzig and died at Hanover. +Visited Paris and London, and became acquainted with Boyle and +Newton. In 1676 appointed to a librarianship at +Hanover. His philosophical views are mainly derived from +his letters. The edition of the <i>Letters</i>, edited by +Ouno Klopp (1822-1903), appeared at Hanover between 1862 and 1884 +in 11 volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235b"></a><a href="#citation235b" +class="footnote">[235b]</a> Brandis, Christian August +(1790-1867). A philosopher and philologist, born in +Hildesheim, studied in Gottingen and Kiel. Accompanied +Niebuhr as Secretary to the Embassy to Rome in 1816. In +1822 became Professor of Philosophy in Bonn. His +<i>Handbuch der Geschichte der griechischrömischen +Philosophie</i>, doubtless here referred to by Lord Acton, was +published in Berlin at long intervals (1835-66) in 3 volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235c"></a><a href="#citation235c" +class="footnote">[235c]</a> Fischer, Kuno +(1824-1907). Born at Sandewalde in Silesia. Deprived +of his professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg by the Baden +Government in 1853 on account of charge of Pantheism, but +recalled to Heidelberg in 1872. His principal book is +<i>Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie</i> (1852-1903). His +<i>Franz Baco von Verulam</i> appeared in 1856, and <i>Francis +Bacon und seine Schule</i> made the 10th volume of his +<i>Geschichte</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235d"></a><a href="#citation235d" +class="footnote">[235d]</a> Zeller, Eduard (1814- still +living). Theologian and historian of philosophy. +Studied at Tübingen and Berlin, became Professor of Theology +at Berne, afterwards held chairs successively at Heidelberg and +Berlin. His many works include <i>The Philosophy of Ancient +Greece</i>, <i>Platonic Studies</i> and <i>Zwingli’s +Theological System</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote236a"></a><a href="#citation236a" +class="footnote">[236a]</a> Bartholomess, Christian +(1815-1856). A French philosopher, born at Geiselbronn in +Alsace. From 1853 Professor of Philosophy at +Strassburg. Died at Nuremberg. Wrote a <i>Life of +Giordano Bruno</i>, and <i>Philosophical History of the Prussian +Academy</i>, <i>particularly under Frederick the Great</i>, as +well as the <i>Histoire critique des doctrines religieuses de la +philosophie moderne</i>, published in 2 volumes in 1855.</p> +<p><a name="footnote236b"></a><a href="#citation236b" +class="footnote">[236b]</a> Madame Guyon (1648-1717) was +born at Montargis in France, and her maiden name was Jeanne Marie +Bouvières de la Mothe. She married at 16 years of +age Jacques Guyon. Left a widow, she devoted herself to a +religious mysticism which raised up endless controversies during +the succeeding years. She was compelled to leave Geneva +because her doctrines were declared to be heretical. She +was imprisoned in the Bastile from 1695 to 1702. Her works +are contained in 39 volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote236c"></a><a href="#citation236c" +class="footnote">[236c]</a> Ritschl, Albrecht +(1822-1889). Professor of Theology, born in Berlin, died in +Göttingen. Became Professor of Theology in Bonn and +later in Göttingen. He wrote many books. His +<i>Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche</i> first appeared +in 1850.</p> +<p><a name="footnote236d"></a><a href="#citation236d" +class="footnote">[236d]</a> Loening, Edgar (1843- still +living), was born in Paris. Has held professorial chairs at +Strassburg, Dorpat, Rostock, and at Halle. His +<i>Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts</i> first appeared in +1878.</p> +<p><a name="footnote237a"></a><a href="#citation237a" +class="footnote">[237a]</a> Baur, Ferdinand Christian +(1792-1860). Born at Schmiden, near Kannstatt. Held +various theological chairs before that of Tübingen, which he +occupied from 1826 until his death. He wrote a great number +of theological works, of which his <i>Vorlesungen über die +christliche Dogmengeschichte</i> was published in Leipzig in 3 +volumes between 1865 and 1867.</p> +<p><a name="footnote237b"></a><a href="#citation237b" +class="footnote">[237b]</a> Fénelon, François +de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715). Born in Perigord in +France, and famous alike as a divine and as a man of letters, his +<i>Télémaque</i> living in literature. His +controversy over Madame Guyon is well known. Louis XIV made +him preceptor to his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, and later +Archbishop of Cambrai. His <i>Correspondence</i> was +published between 1727 and 1729 in 11 volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote237c"></a><a href="#citation237c" +class="footnote">[237c]</a> Newman, John Henry +(1801-1890). A famous Cardinal of the Church of Rome; born +in London, educated at Trinity College, Oxford; first Vicar of +St. Mary’s, Oxford; took part in the Tractarian Movement +with some of the <i>Tracts for the Times</i>. His +<i>Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ</i> appeared in 1864, his +<i>Dream of Gerontius</i> in 1865. There is no <i>Theory of +Development</i> by Newman. His <i>Essay on the Development +of Christian Doctrine</i> appeared in 1845, and was replied to by +the Rev. J. B. Mozley in a volume bearing the title <i>The Theory +of Development</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote237d"></a><a href="#citation237d" +class="footnote">[237d]</a> Mozley, James Bowling +(1813-1878). A Church of England divine; born at +Gainsborough, educated at Oriel College, Oxford; became Vicar of +Old Shoreham, Canon of Worcester, and, in 1871, Regius Professor +of Divinity at Oxford. His <i>Oxford University Sermons</i> +appeared in 1876.</p> +<p><a name="footnote238a"></a><a href="#citation238a" +class="footnote">[238a]</a> Schneckenburger, Matthias +(1804-1848). A Protestant theologian; born at Thalheim and +died in Berne, where he was for a time Professor of Theology at +the newly founded University. His <i>Vergleichende +Darstellung des lutherischen und reformierten Lehrbegriffs</i> +was published in Stuttgart in 2 volumes in 1855.</p> +<p><a name="footnote238b"></a><a href="#citation238b" +class="footnote">[238b]</a> Hundeshagen, Karl Bernhard +(1810-1872). A Protestant theologian who held a +professorship in Berne, later in Heidelberg and finally in Bonn, +where he died. His many works included one upon the +Conflict between the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and the Zwinglian +Churches. His <i>Beiträge zur +Kirchenverfassungsgeschichte und Kirchenpolitik insbesondere des +Protestantismus</i> was published at Wiesbaden in 1864 in 1 +volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote238c"></a><a href="#citation238c" +class="footnote">[238c]</a> Schweizer, Alexander +(1808-1888). A theologian and preacher who studied in +Zürich and Berlin. He wrote his <i>Autobiography</i> +which was published in Zürich the year after his +death. His book, <i>Die protestantischen Centraldogmen +innerhalb der reformierten Kirche</i>, appeared in Zürich in +2 volumes in 1854 and 1856.</p> +<p><a name="footnote238d"></a><a href="#citation238d" +class="footnote">[238d]</a> Gass, Wilhelm +(1813-1889). A Protestant theologian; born at Breslau and +died in Heidelberg, where he held a theological chair. His +best-known book is his <i>Geschichte der protestantischen +Dogmatik</i>, published in Berlin between 1854 and 1867 in 4 +volumes, and to this Lord Acton doubtless refers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote238e"></a><a href="#citation238e" +class="footnote">[238e]</a> Cart, Jacques Louis (1826- +probably still living). A Swiss pastor; born in Geneva; the +author of many books, of which the one named by Lord Acton is +fully entitled, <i>Histoire du mouvement religieux et +ecclesiastique dans le canton de Vaud pendant la première +moitié du XIX</i><sup><i>e</i></sup><i> +siècle</i>. It appeared between 1871 and 1880 in 6 +volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote239a"></a><a href="#citation239a" +class="footnote">[239a]</a> Blondel, David +(1590-1655). Born at Chalons-sur-Marne in France; a learned +theologian and historian who defended the Protestant position +against the Catholics. Was Professor of History at +Amsterdam. His <i>De la primauté de +l’Église</i> appeared in 1641.</p> +<p><a name="footnote239b"></a><a href="#citation239b" +class="footnote">[239b]</a> Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis +(1614-1675). A French Protestant theologian who enjoyed the +consideration of both parties and was approached by Turenne with +a view to a reunion of the churches. His position was +sustained before the Protestant Academy at Sedan with certain +theses published under the title of <i>Theses Sedanenzes</i> in +1683.</p> +<p><a name="footnote239c"></a><a href="#citation239c" +class="footnote">[239c]</a> Thiersch, Heinrich Wilhelm +Josias (1817-1885). Born in Munich and died in Basle; held +for a time a Professorship of Theology in Marburg, then became +the principal pastor of the Irvingite Church in Germany, +preaching in many cities. He wrote many books. His +<i>Vorlesungen über Katholizismus und Protestantismus</i> +appeared first in 1846.</p> +<p><a name="footnote239d"></a><a href="#citation239d" +class="footnote">[239d]</a> Möhler, Johann Adam +(1796-1838). Born in Igersheim and died in Munich. A +Catholic theologian and Professor of Theology at +Tübingen. His <i>Neue Untersuchungen der +Lehrgegensatze zwischen den Katholiken und Protestanten</i> was +first published in Mainz in 1834.</p> +<p><a name="footnote240a"></a><a href="#citation240a" +class="footnote">[240a]</a> Scherer, Edmond +(1815-1889). A French theologian; born in Paris, died at +Versailles. Was for a time in England, then Professor of +Exegesis in Geneva. Was for many years a leader of the +French Protestant Church. His <i>Mélanges de +critique religieuse</i> appeared in Paris in 1860.</p> +<p><a name="footnote240b"></a><a href="#citation240b" +class="footnote">[240b]</a> Hooker, Richard +(1554-1600). Born in Exeter. In 1584 was Rector of +Drayton-Beauchamp, near Tring, and the following year became +Master of the Temple. In 1591 became Vicar of Boscombe and +sub-Dean of Salisbury. His <i>Laws of Ecclesiastical +Polity</i> was published in 1594. In 1595 he removed to +Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, where he died.</p> +<p><a name="footnote240c"></a><a href="#citation240c" +class="footnote">[240c]</a> Weingarten, Hermann +(1834-1892). Protestant ecclesiastical historian, born in +Berlin, where in 1868 he became a professor, later held chairs +successively at Marberg and Breslau. His book <i>Die +Revolutionskirchen Englands</i> appeared in 1868.</p> +<p><a name="footnote240d"></a><a href="#citation240d" +class="footnote">[240d]</a> Kliefoth, Theodor Friedrich +(1810-1895). A Lutheran theologian; born at Kirchow in +Mecklenburg, and died at Schwerin, where he was for a time +instructor to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and held +various offices in connexion with that state. He wrote many +theological works. His <i>Acht Bücher von der +Kirche</i> was published at Schwerin in 1 volume in 1854.</p> +<p><a name="footnote240e"></a><a href="#citation240e" +class="footnote">[240e]</a> Laurent, François +(1810-1887). Born in Luxemburg and died in Gent, where he +long held a professorship. His principal work, +<i>Études sur l’histoire de +l’humanité</i>, <i>Histoire du droit des gens</i> +was published in Brussels in 18 volumes between 1860 and +1870.</p> +<p><a name="footnote241a"></a><a href="#citation241a" +class="footnote">[241a]</a> Ferrari, Guiseppe (1812-1876) +was born in Milan, and died in Rome. Achieved fame as a +philosophical historian. Held a chair at Turin and +afterwards at Milan. As member of the Parliament of +Piedmont he was an opponent of Cavour’s policy of a United +Italy. His principal book is entitled <i>Histoire des +révolutions de l’Italie</i>, <i>ou Guelfes et +Gibelins</i>, published in Paris in four volumes between 1856 and +1858.</p> +<p><a name="footnote241b"></a><a href="#citation241b" +class="footnote">[241b]</a> Lange, Friedrich Albert +(1828-1875). Philosopher and economic writer, born at Wald +bei Solingen, died at Marburg. Held a professorial chair at +Zurich and later at Marburg. His most famous book, the +<i>Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedentung in +der Gegenwart</i>, first appeared in 1866. It was published +in England in 1878-81 by Trubner in three volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote241c"></a><a href="#citation241c" +class="footnote">[241c]</a> Guicciardini, Francesco +(1483-1540), the Italian historian and statesman, was born at +Florence. Undertook in 1512 an embassy from Florence to the +Court of Ferdinand the Catholic, and learned diplomacy in +Spain. In 1515 he entered the service of Pope Leo X. +His principal book is his <i>History of Italy</i>. The +<i>Istoria d’Italia</i> appeared in Florence in ten volumes +between 1561 and 1564. His <i>Recordi Politici</i> consists +of some 400 aphorisms on political and social topics and has been +described by an Italian critic as “Italian corruption +codified and elevated to a rule of life.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote241d"></a><a href="#citation241d" +class="footnote">[241d]</a> Duperron, Jacques Davy +(1556-1618), a Cardinal of the Church, born at Saint +Lô. He was a Court preacher under Henry III of France +and denounced Elizabeth of England in a funeral sermon on Mary +Stuart. It is told of him that he once demonstrated before +the king the existence of God, and being complimented upon his +irrefutable arguments, replied that he was prepared to bring +equally good arguments to prove that God did not exist. He +became Bishop of Evreux in 1591.</p> +<p><a name="footnote242a"></a><a href="#citation242a" +class="footnote">[242a]</a> Richelieu, +Cardinal—(Armand-Jean Du Plessis)—(1585-1642). +The famous minister of Louis XIII; born in Paris, of a noble +family of Poitou. Was made Bishop of Luçon by Henry +IV at the age of twenty-two. Became Almoner to Marie de +Medici, the Regent of France. Was elected a Cardinal in +1622. He wrote many books, including theological works, +tragedies, and his own Memoirs. The authenticity of his +<i>Testament politique</i> was disputed by Voltaire.</p> +<p><a name="footnote242b"></a><a href="#citation242b" +class="footnote">[242b]</a> Harrington, James (1611-1677) +was born at Upton, Northamptonshire; was educated at Trinity +College, Cambridge. He travelled on the Continent, but was +back in England at the time of the Civil War, in which, however, +he took no part. He published his <i>Oceana</i> in +1656. He is buried in St. Margaret’s Church, +Westminster, next to the tomb of Sir Walter Raleigh. His +<i>Writings</i> in an edition issued in 1737 by Millar contained +twenty separate treatises in addition to <i>Oceana</i>, but +concerned with that book.</p> +<p><a name="footnote242c"></a><a href="#citation242c" +class="footnote">[242c]</a> Mignet, François Auguste +Marie (1796-1884). The historian; was born at Aix and died +in Paris. Published his <i>History of the French +Revolution</i> in 1824. His <i>Négociations +relatives à la succession d’Espagne</i> appeared in +4 volumes between 1836 and 1842. He also wrote a <i>Life of +Franklin</i>, a <i>History of Mary Stuart</i>, and many other +works.</p> +<p><a name="footnote243a"></a><a href="#citation243a" +class="footnote">[243a]</a> Rousseau, Jean Jacques +(1712-1778), the famous writer, was born in Geneva and died at +Ermenonville. Much of his life story has been told in his +incomparable <i>Confessions</i>. In 1759 he published +<i>Nouvelle Héloïse</i>; in 1762, <i>L’Emile ou +de l’Education</i>. His <i>Considerations sur la +Pologne</i> was written by Rousseau in 1769 in response to an +application to apply his own theories to a scheme for the +renovation of the government of Poland, in which land anarchy was +then at its height. Mr. John Morley (<i>Rousseau</i>, Vol. +II) dismisses the pamphlet with a contemptuous line.</p> +<p><a name="footnote243b"></a><a href="#citation243b" +class="footnote">[243b]</a> Foncin, Pierre (1841- still +living). A French Professor of History; born at Limoges, +and has long held important official positions in connexion with +education. He has written many books, including an <i>Atlas +Historique</i>. His <i>Essai sur le ministere Turgot</i> +appeared in 1876, and obtained a prize from the French +Academy.</p> +<p><a name="footnote243c"></a><a href="#citation243c" +class="footnote">[243c]</a> Burke, Edmund (1729-1797), the +famous statesman, was born in Dublin and died at Beaconsfield, +Bucks, where he was buried. His <i>Vindication of Natural +Society</i> appeared in 1756. Burke entered Parliament for +Wendover in 1765, sat for Bristol, 1774-80, and Malton, +1780-94. His <i>Collected Works</i> first appeared in +1792-1827 in 8 volumes, the first three of which were issued in +his lifetime; his <i>Collected Works and Correspondence</i> was +published in 8 volumes in 1852, but the <i>Correspondence</i> had +appeared separately in 4 volumes in 1844.</p> +<p><a name="footnote243d"></a><a href="#citation243d" +class="footnote">[243d]</a> Las Cases, Emmanuel Augustine +Dieudonne Marir Joseph (1766-1842). Educated at the +Military School in Paris but entered the French navy; emigrated +at the Revolution; fought at Quiberon; taught French in London; +published in 1802 his <i>Atlas historique et +géographique</i> under the pseudonym of “Le +Sage.” On his return to France he came under the +notice of Napoleon, who made him a Count of the Empire and sent +him upon several important missions. During the +Emperor’s exile in Elba he again went to England. He +returned during the Hundred Days and accompanied Napoleon to St. +Helena. Here he recorded day by day the conversations of +the great exile. At the end of eighteen months he was +exiled by Sir Hudson Lowe to the Cape of Good Hope. He +returned to France after the death of Napoleon and became a +Deputy under Louis Philippe. His <i>Memorial de +Sainte-Hèléne</i>, published in 1823-1824, secured +a great success.</p> +<p><a name="footnote244a"></a><a href="#citation244a" +class="footnote">[244a]</a> Holtzendorff, Franz von +(1829-1889), was Professor of Jurisprudence first at Berlin and +afterwards at Munich, where he died. He wrote many books +concerned with crime and its punishment, with the prison systems +of the world, etc. His <i>Enzyklopädie der +Rechtswissenschaft in systematischer und alphabetischer +Bearbeitung</i> was first published at Leipzig in 1870 and +1871.</p> +<p><a name="footnote244b"></a><a href="#citation244b" +class="footnote">[244b]</a> Jhering, Rudolph von +(1818-1892), was for a time professor at Basle, Rostock, Kiel and +Vienna. His <i>Geist des römischen Rechts auf den +verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwickelung</i> appeared in Leipzig +between 1852 and 1865, and is counted a classic in +jurisprudence.</p> +<p><a name="footnote244c"></a><a href="#citation244c" +class="footnote">[244c]</a> Geib, Karl Gustav +(1808-1864). An eminent criminologist. Was a +Professor of Zurich and afterwards of Tübingen, where he +died. Wrote many books, of which the most important was his +<i>Geschichte des romischen Kriminalprozesses bis zum Tode +Justinians</i> in 1842. His <i>Lehrbuch des deutschen +Strafrechts</i> appeared in 1861 and 1862, but was never +completed.</p> +<p><a name="footnote245a"></a><a href="#citation245a" +class="footnote">[245a]</a> Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner +(1822-1888). Jurist; born in Kelso, Scotland; educated at +Christ’s Hospital, London, and at Pembroke College, +Cambridge; was Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge, +1847-54. In 1862 he became a legal member of Council in +India and held the office for seven years. In 1871 he +became a K.C.S.I. and had a seat on the Indian Council. In +1877 he was elected Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and in +1887 became Whewell Professor of International Law at +Cambridge. He died at Cannes. His principal work is +his <i>Ancient Law</i>: <i>its Connexion with the Early History +of Society and its Relation to Modern Ideas</i>, first published +in 1861.</p> +<p><a name="footnote245b"></a><a href="#citation245b" +class="footnote">[245b]</a> Gierke, Otto Friedrich (1841- +still living), was born in Stettin; was Professor of Law in +Breslau, Heidelberg and Berlin successively. Served in the +Franco-German War of 1870. His principal work, <i>Das +deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht</i>, appeared in 3 volumes in +Berlin, the first in 1868, the third in 1881.</p> +<p><a name="footnote245c"></a><a href="#citation245c" +class="footnote">[245c]</a> Stahl, Friedrich Julius +(1802-1861), was born in Munich of Jewish parents, died in +Brückenau. Held chairs of law and jurisprudence in +Berlin and other cities, and wrote many books. His <i>Die +Philosophie des Rechts und geschichtlicher Ansicht</i> appeared +at Heidelberg in 2 volumes in 1830 and 1837.</p> +<p><a name="footnote246a"></a><a href="#citation246a" +class="footnote">[246a]</a> Gentz, Friedrich von +(1764-1832). A distinguished publicist and statesman; born +in Breslau, died at Weinhaus, near Vienna; studied Jurisprudence +in Königsberg. One of his earliest literary efforts +was a translation of Burke’s <i>Reflections upon the French +Revolution</i>. Played a very considerable part in the +combination of the powers of Europe against Napoleon in +1809-15. He was the author of many books. His +<i>Briefewechsel mit Adam Müller</i> was published in +Stuttgart in 1857—long after his death.</p> +<p><a name="footnote246b"></a><a href="#citation246b" +class="footnote">[246b]</a> Vollgraff, Karl Friedrich +(1794-1863), was for a time Professor of Jurisprudence at +Marburg, where he died. His two most important books were: +(1) <i>Der Systeme der praktischen Politik im Abendlande</i>; (2) +<i>Erster Versuch einer Begründung der allgemeinen +Ethnologie durch die Anthropologie und der Staats und Rechts +Philosophie durch die Ethnologie oder Nationalität der +Völker</i>, published in 4 volumes in 1851 to 1855. It +is in this last volume that a section is devoted to +Polignosie.</p> +<p><a name="footnote246c"></a><a href="#citation246c" +class="footnote">[246c]</a> Frantz, Konstantin +(1817-1891). Distinguished publicist; born at Halberstadt +and died at Blasewitz, near Dresden, where he made his home for +many years. Was for a time German Consul in Spain. +His great doctrine laid down in his <i>Die Weltpolitik</i>, 1883, +was the union of Central Europe against the growing power of +Russia and the United States of America. His <i>Kritik +aller Parteien</i> was published in Berlin in 1862.</p> +<p><a name="footnote246d"></a><a href="#citation246d" +class="footnote">[246d]</a> Maistre, Joseph Marie Comte de +(1753-1821). A distinguished French publicist; born at +Chambéry; studied at the University of Turin. Lived +for some years at Lausanne, where he published in 1796 his +<i>Considerations sur la Révolution +française</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote247a"></a><a href="#citation247a" +class="footnote">[247a]</a> Donoso Cortès, Jean +François (1809-1853). A famous Spanish publicist; +born in Estremadura; played a considerable part in Spanish +affairs under Marie-Christine and Queen Isabella. Was for a +time Spanish Ambassador to Berlin, and later to France, where he +died in Paris. He wrote much upon such questions as the +Catholic Church and Socialism.</p> +<p><a name="footnote247b"></a><a href="#citation247b" +class="footnote">[247b]</a> Périn, Henri Charles +Xavier (1815- ), a Belgium economist, born at Mons; became an +advocate at Brussels and also Professor of Political Economy in +that city. His book <i>De la Richesse dans les +Sociétés Chrétiennes</i> appeared in Paris +in 2 volumes in 1861.</p> +<p><a name="footnote247c"></a><a href="#citation247c" +class="footnote">[247c]</a> Le Play, Pierre Guillaume +Frédéric (1806-1882). Born at Honfleur. +He directed the organization of the Paris International +Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867. He wrote many books. +His <i>La réforme sociale en France déduite de +l’observation comparée des peuples +Européens</i> was published in two volumes in 1864.</p> +<p><a name="footnote247d"></a><a href="#citation247d" +class="footnote">[247d]</a> Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich +(1823-1897). A well-known author; born at +Biebrich-am-Rhein, died in Munich. He was associated with +several German newspapers, and edited from 1848 to 1851 the +<i>Nassauische Allgemeine Zeitung</i>, from 1851 to 1853 the +<i>Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung</i>, and afterwards became a +Professor of Literature at Munich. In 1885 he became the +director of the Bavarian National Museum. He wrote many +books, the one referred to by Lord Acton having been published in +1851 under the title of <i>Die bürgerliche +Gesellschaft</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote248a"></a><a href="#citation248a" +class="footnote">[248a]</a> Sismondi, Jean Charles +Léonard Sismonde de (1773-1842), the distinguished +historian of the Italian republics, was born at Geneva of an +Italian family originally from Pisa. He resided for a time +in England. His famous book the <i>Histoire des +Républiques Italiennes de Moyen-Age</i> appeared between +1807 and 1818 in 16 volumes. His <i>Etudes sur les +Constitutions des Peuples Libres</i>, was one of many other +books.</p> +<p><a name="footnote248b"></a><a href="#citation248b" +class="footnote">[248b]</a> Rossi, Pellegrino Luigi Odoardo +(1787-1848). An Italian publicist; born at Carrara. +Keenly sympathized with the French Revolution and served under +Murat in the Hundred Days, after which he fled to Geneva. +In later years he became a nationalized Frenchman, occupied a +Chair of Constitutional Law, and finally became a peer. As +Comte Rossi he went on a special embassy to Rome. He was +assassinated in that city during the troubles of 1848. His +<i>Traité du Droit Constitutionnel</i> appeared in 2 +volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote248c"></a><a href="#citation248c" +class="footnote">[248c]</a> Barante, Aimable Guillaume +Prosper Brugière, baron de (1782-1868), historian and +politician, was born at Riom. He was made a Counciller of +State by Louis XVIII in 1815, and a peer of France in 1819. +He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1828. +Under Louis Philippe he became Ambassador first at Turin and +afterwards at St. Petersburg. After the revolution of 1848 +he devoted himself entirely to literature. He wrote many +historical and literary studies, and translated the works of +Schiller into French. His <i>Vie politique de +Royer-Collard</i> has several times been reprinted.</p> +<p><a name="footnote249a"></a><a href="#citation249a" +class="footnote">[249a]</a> Duvergier de Hauranne, Prosper +(1798-1881), was a distinguished French publicist, born at +Rouen. He was parliamentary deputy for Sancerre in 1831 and +took part in most of the political struggles of the following +twenty years. He was exiled from France at the time of the +<i>Coup d’État</i>, but returned during the reign of +Napoleon III. Henceforth he devoted himself exclusively to +historical studies. His <i>Histoire du gouvernement +parlementaire en France</i>, published in 1870, secured his +election to the French Academy.</p> +<p><a name="footnote249b"></a><a href="#citation249b" +class="footnote">[249b]</a> Madison, James +(1751-1836). The fourth President of the United States; +born at Port Conway, Virginia. Acted with Jay and Hamilton +in the Convention which framed the Constitution and wrote with +them <i>The Federalist</i>. He had two terms of +office—between 1809 and 1817—as President. He +died at Montpelier, Virginia. His <i>Debates of the +Congress of Confederation</i> was published in Elliot’s +“Debates on the State Conventions,” 4 vols., +Philadelphia, 1861.</p> +<p><a name="footnote249c"></a><a href="#citation249c" +class="footnote">[249c]</a> Hamilton, Alexander +(1757-1804). A great American statesman, who served in +Washington’s army, and after the war became eminent as a +lawyer in New York. He wrote fifty-one out of the +eighty-five essays of <i>The Federalist</i>. He was +appointed Secretary of the Treasury to the United States in +1789. He was mortally wounded in a duel by Aaron Burr in +1804. His influence upon the American Constitution gives +him a great place in the annals of the Republic.</p> +<p><a name="footnote249d"></a><a href="#citation249d" +class="footnote">[249d]</a> Calhoun, John Campbell +(1782-1850). An American statesman; born in Abbeville +County, South Carolina and studied at Yale. As a Member of +Congress he supported the war with Great Britain in +1812-15. He was twice Vice-President of the United +States. He died at Washington. A <i>Disquisition on +Government</i> and a <i>Discourse on the Constitution and +Government of the United States</i> were written in the last +months of his life. His <i>Collected Works</i> appeared in +1853-4.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250a"></a><a href="#citation250a" +class="footnote">[250a]</a> Dumont, Pierre Etienne Louis +(1759-1829). A great publicist; born in Geneva, and +principally known in England by his association with Bentham, to +whom he acted as an editor and interpreter. Lived much in +Paris, St. Petersburg, and, above all, in London, where he knew +Fox, Sheridan, and other famous men, and taught the children of +Lord Shelburne. Dumont’s <i>Sophismes Anarchiques</i> +appears in Bentham’s <i>Collected Works</i> as +<i>Anarchical Fallacies</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250b"></a><a href="#citation250b" +class="footnote">[250b]</a> Quinet, Edgar +(1803-1875). French historian and philosopher; born at Borg +and died in Paris. His epic poem of <i>Ahasuerus</i> was +placed upon the Index. Of his many books his <i>La +Révolution Française</i> is the best known. +It was written in Switzerland, where he was an exile during the +reign of Napoleon III. He returned to France in 1870.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250c"></a><a href="#citation250c" +class="footnote">[250c]</a> Stein, Lorenz von +(1815-1890). Writer on economics, studied in Kiel and in +Jena. In 1855 he became Professor of International Law in +Vienna. He wrote books on statecraft and international +law. His work entitled <i>Der Sozialismus und Kommunismus +des heutigen Frankreich</i> appeared in Leipzig in 1843.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251a"></a><a href="#citation251a" +class="footnote">[251a]</a> Lassalle, Ferdinand +(1825-1864), the famous social democrat, was of Jewish birth; +born at Breslau. He took part in the revolution of 1848 and +received six months’ imprisonment. He was wounded in +a duel at Geneva over a love affair and died two days +later. His <i>System der Erworbenen Rechte</i> appeared in +1861.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251b"></a><a href="#citation251b" +class="footnote">[251b]</a> Thonissen, Jean Joseph +(1817-1891). A distinguished jurist; born in Belgium. +He studied at Liege and in Paris; became a Professor of the +Catholic University of Louvain; afterwards became a Minister of +State. Of his many works his <i>Socialisme depuis +l’antiquité jusqu’à la constitution +française de 1852</i> is best known.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251c"></a><a href="#citation251c" +class="footnote">[251c]</a> Considérant, Victor +(1808-1894). Born at Salins, and, after the Revolution of +1848, entered the Chamber of Deputies. He crossed to +America to found a colony in Texas, but ruined himself by the +experiment. He returned to France in 1869. He was the +author of many socialistic treatises.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251d"></a><a href="#citation251d" +class="footnote">[251d]</a> Roscher, Wilhelm (1817-1894), +economist, was born in Hanover. Held a chair first in +Göttingen and afterwards in Leipzig, where he died. +His <i>Geschichte der Nationalökonomik in Deutschland</i> +appeared in Munich in 1874.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251e"></a><a href="#citation251e" +class="footnote">[251e]</a> Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873), +the famous publicist and author, was born in London, and educated +by his father, James Mill (1773-1836). He served in the +India Office, 1823-58; he was M.P. for Westminster, +1865-68. His works include the <i>Principles of Political +Economy</i>, 1848; the <i>Essay on Liberty</i>, 1859, and the +<i>System of Logic</i>, which first appeared in 1843.</p> +<p><a name="footnote252a"></a><a href="#citation252a" +class="footnote">[252a]</a> Coleridge, Samuel Taylor +(1772-1834), poet and critic, was born at Ottery St. Mary, +Devonshire; educated at Christ’s Hospital, London, and at +Jesus College, Cambridge. In the volume of <i>Lyrical +Ballads</i> by Wordsworth of 1798 Coleridge contributed the +<i>Ancient Mariner</i>, and he was to make his greatest +reputation by this and other poems. His best prose work was +his <i>Biographia Literaria</i> (1817). His <i>Aids to +Reflection</i> was first published in 1825.</p> +<p><a name="footnote252b"></a><a href="#citation252b" +class="footnote">[252b]</a> Radowitz, Joseph Maria von +(1797-1853). A Prussian general and statesman; born in +Blankenberg and died in Berlin. Fought in the Napoleonic +wars and was wounded at the battle of Leipzig. Afterwards +served as Ambassador to various German Courts. He wrote +several treatises bearing upon current affairs, and his +<i>Fragments</i> form Vols. IV and V of his <i>Collected +Works</i> in 5 volumes, which were issued in Berlin in +1852-53.</p> +<p><a name="footnote252c"></a><a href="#citation252c" +class="footnote">[252c]</a> Gioberti, Vincent +(1801-1852). An Italian statesman and philosopher; born in +Turin, where he afterwards became Professor of Theology. +Was for a time Court Chaplain, but his liberal views led to +exile, and he retired first to Paris, then to Brussels. +Afterwards became famous as a neo-Catholic with his attempt to +combine faith with science and art, and urged the independence +and the unity of Italy. His <i>Jésuite moderne</i>, +published in 1847, created a sensation. After some years of +home politics he was appointed by King Victor Emmanuel as +Ambassador to Paris. It is noteworthy in the light of Lord +Acton’s recommendation of his <i>Pensieri</i> that his +works have been placed on the Index.</p> +<p><a name="footnote253a"></a><a href="#citation253a" +class="footnote">[253a]</a> Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich +Alexander Baron von (1769-1859), the great naturalist, was born +and died in Berlin, and studied at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Berlin +and Göttingen; he spent five years (1799-1804) in exploring +South America, and in 1829 travelled through Central Asia. +His <i>Kosmos</i> appeared between 1845 and 1858 in 4 +volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote253b"></a><a href="#citation253b" +class="footnote">[253b]</a> De Candolle, Alphonse de +(1806-1893). The son of the celebrated botanist, Augustin +Pyramus de Candolle, and was himself a professor of that science +at Geneva. His <i>Histoire des sciences et des savants +depuis deux siecles</i> appeared in 1873.</p> +<p><a name="footnote253c"></a><a href="#citation253c" +class="footnote">[253c]</a> Darwin, Charles Robert +(1809-1882), the great naturalist and discoverer of natural +selection, was born at Shrewsbury, where he was educated at the +Grammar School, at Edinburgh University, and at Christ’s +College, Cambridge. His most famous book, <i>The Origin of +Species by means of Natural Selection</i>, was first published in +1859.</p> +<p><a name="footnote253d"></a><a href="#citation253d" +class="footnote">[253d]</a> Littré, Maximilien Paul +Emile (1801-1884), the famous lexicographer whose <i>Dictionnaire +de la langue française</i> gave him a world-wide +reputation. He was born in Paris. He associated +himself with Auguste Comte and the <i>Positive Philosophy</i>, +and contributed many volumes in support of Comte’s +standpoint.</p> +<p><a name="footnote253e"></a><a href="#citation253e" +class="footnote">[253e]</a> Cournot, Antoine Augustin +(1801-1877). Born at Gray in Savoy; wrote many mathematical +treatises. His <i>Traité de +l’enchaînement des idées fondamentales dans +les sciences et dans l’histoire</i> was published in 2 +volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote254"></a><a href="#citation254" +class="footnote">[254]</a> This was a most comprehensive +addition, and fully makes up for the abrupt termination of the +list of the hundred best books with two omissions. The +omission of the book numbered 88 will also have been +remarked. There are probably a hundred +“Monatschriften der Wissenschaftlichen Vereine” or +magazines of scientific societies issued in Germany. +Sperling’s <i>Zeitschriften-Adressbuch</i> gives more than +two columns of these.</p> +<p><a name="footnote260a"></a><a href="#citation260a" +class="footnote">[260a]</a> The Bible can be best read in +paragraph form from the Eversley edition, published by the +Macmillans, or from the Temple Bible, issued by J. M. +Dent—the latter an edition for the pocket. The +translation of 1610 is literature and has made literature. +The revised translation of our own day has neither +characteristic. Something can be said for the Douay Bible +in this connexion. It was published in Douay in the same +year as the Protestant version appeared—1610. Certain +words from it, such as “Threnes” for +“Lamentations” as the Threnes of Jeremiah, have a +poetical quality that deserved survival.</p> +<p><a name="footnote260b"></a><a href="#citation260b" +class="footnote">[260b]</a> The Iliad may be read in a +hundred verse translations of which those by Pope and Cowper are +the best known. Both these may be found in Bohn’s +Libraries (G. Bell & Sons); but the prose translation for +which Mr. Lang and his friends are responsible (Macmillan) is for +our generation far and away the best introduction to Homer for +the non-Grecian.</p> +<p><a name="footnote261a"></a><a href="#citation261a" +class="footnote">[261a]</a> Under the title of “The +Athenian Drama,” George Allen has published three fine +volumes of the works of the Greek dramatists.</p> +<p><a name="footnote261b"></a><a href="#citation261b" +class="footnote">[261b]</a> Dryden’s translation of +Virgil has been followed by many others both in prose and +verse. There was one good prose version by C. Davidson +recently issued in Laurie’s Classical Library. An +interesting translation of Virgil’s <i>Georgics</i> into +English verse was recently made by Lord Burghclere and published +by John Murray. The young student, however, will do well to +approach Virgil through Dryden. He will find the book in +the Chandos Classics, or superbly printed in Professor +Saintsbury’s edition of <i>Dryden’s Works</i>, Vol. +XIV.</p> +<p><a name="footnote261c"></a><a href="#citation261c" +class="footnote">[261c]</a> There have been many +translations of Catullus. One, by Sir Richard Burton, was +issued by Leonard Smithers in 1894. In Bohn’s Library +there is a prose translation by Walter K. Kelly. Professor +Robinson Ellis made a verse translation that has been widely +praised. Grant Allen translated the Attis in 1892. On +the whole, the English verse translation by Sir Theodore Martin +made in 1861 (Blackwood & Son) is far and away the best +suited for a first acquaintance with this the ‘tenderest of +Roman Poets.’</p> +<p><a name="footnote261d"></a><a href="#citation261d" +class="footnote">[261d]</a> Horace has been made the +subject of many translations. Perhaps there are fifty now +available. John Conington’s edition of his complete +works, two volumes (Bell), is well known. The best +introduction to Horace for the young student is in Sir Theodore +Martin’s translation, two volumes (Blackwood), and a volume +by the same author entitled <i>Horace</i> in “Ancient +Classics for English Readers” (Blackwood) is a charming +little book.</p> +<p><a name="footnote262a"></a><a href="#citation262a" +class="footnote">[262a]</a> Dante’s <i>Divine +Comedy</i> as translated by Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) has +been described by Mr. Ruskin as better reading than +Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” James Russell +Lowell, with true patriotism, declared that his countrymen +Longfellow’s translation (Routledge) was the best. +Something may be said for the prose translation by Dr. John +Carlyle of the <i>Inferno</i> (Bell) and for Mr. A. J. +Butler’s prose translation of the whole of the <i>Divine +Comedy</i> in three volumes (Macmillan). Other translations +which have had a great vogue are by Wright and Dean +Plumptre. The best books on Dante are those by Dr. Edward +Moore (Clarendon Press). Cary’s translation can be +obtained in one volume in Bohn’s Library (Bell) or in the +Chandos Classics (Warne).</p> +<p><a name="footnote262b"></a><a href="#citation262b" +class="footnote">[262b]</a> I contend that while most of +the poets are self-contained in a single volume, +Shakspere’s plays are best enjoyed as separate +entities. Certainly each of them has a library attached to +it, and it is quite profitable to read Hamlet in Mr. Horace +Howard Furness’s edition (Lippincott) with a multitude of +criticisms of the play bound up with the text of Hamlet. +But Hamlet should be read first in the Temple Shakspere (Dent) or +in the Arden Shakspere (Methuen). To this last there is an +admirable introduction by Professor Dowden.</p> +<p><a name="footnote262c"></a><a href="#citation262c" +class="footnote">[262c]</a> Chaucer’s <i>Canterbury +Tales</i> should be read in Mr. Alfred W. Pollard’s +edition, which forms two volumes of the “Eversley +Library” (Macmillan). The “Tales” may be +obtained in cheaper form in the <i>Chaucer</i> of the Aldine +Poets (Bell), of which I have grateful memories, having first +read “Chaucer” in these little volumes. The +enthusiast will obtain the Complete Works of Chaucer edited for +the Clarendon Press by Professor W. W. Skeat.</p> +<p><a name="footnote263a"></a><a href="#citation263a" +class="footnote">[263a]</a> FitzGerald’s <i>Omar +Khayyám</i> can be obtained in its four versions, each of +which has its merits, only from the Macmillans, who publish it in +many forms. The edition in the Golden Treasury Series may +be particularly commended. The present writer has written +an introduction to a sixpenny edition of the first version. +It is published by William Heinemann.</p> +<p><a name="footnote263b"></a><a href="#citation263b" +class="footnote">[263b]</a> Goethe’s <i>Faust</i> has +been translated in many forms. Certainly Anster’s +version (Sampson Low) is the most vivacious. Anna Swanwick, +Sir Theodore Martin and Bayard Taylor’s translations have +about equal merit.</p> +<p><a name="footnote263c"></a><a href="#citation263c" +class="footnote">[263c]</a> Shelley’s <i>Poetical +Works</i> should be read in the one volume issued in green cloth +by the Macmillans, with an introduction by Edward Dowden, or in +the Oxford Poets (Henry Froude), with an introduction by H. +Buxton Forman, but perhaps the best edition is that of the +Clarendon Press with an introduction by Thomas Hutchinson. +Mr. Forman’s library edition of <i>Shelley’s Complete +Works</i> is the desire of all collectors.</p> +<p><a name="footnote263d"></a><a href="#citation263d" +class="footnote">[263d]</a> <i>Byron’s Poetical +Works</i>, edited by Ernest Coleridge, form seven volumes of John +Murray’s edition of Byron’s <i>Works</i> in thirteen +volumes. There is not a good one-volume Byron. I +particularly commend the three-volume edition (George +Newnes).</p> +<p><a name="footnote264a"></a><a href="#citation264a" +class="footnote">[264a]</a> Wordsworth may be read in his +entirety in the sixteen volumes of <i>Prose and Poetry</i> edited +by William Knight in the Eversley Library (Macmillan). The +same publisher issues an admirable <i>Wordsworth</i> in one +volume, edited, with an introduction by John Morley. But +the first approach to Wordsworth’s verse should be made +through Matthew Arnold’s <i>Select Poems</i> in the Golden +Treasury Series (Macmillan).</p> +<p><a name="footnote264b"></a><a href="#citation264b" +class="footnote">[264b]</a> <i>Keats’s Works</i> are +issued in one volume in the Oxford Poets (Froude), and in five +shilling volumes by Gowans and Gray of Glasgow. Mr. Buxton +Forman’s annotations to this cheap edition exceed in value +those attached to his more expensive “Library +Edition,” which, however, as with the <i>Shelley</i>, in +eight volumes, is out of print.</p> +<p><a name="footnote264c"></a><a href="#citation264c" +class="footnote">[264c]</a> The four volumes of Burns, with +an introduction by W. E. Henley, are pleasant to read. They +are published by Jack, of Edinburgh. The best single-volume +<i>Burns</i> is that in the Globe Library (Macmillan), with an +introduction by Alexander Smith.</p> +<p><a name="footnote264d"></a><a href="#citation264d" +class="footnote">[264d]</a> There is no rival to the +one-volume edition of <i>Coleridge’s Poems</i>, with an +introduction by J. Dykes Campbell, published by Macmillan. +Mr. Dykes Campbell’s biography of Coleridge should also be +read. The prose works of Coleridge are obtainable in +Bohn’s Library. The fortunate book lover has many in +Pickering editions.</p> +<p><a name="footnote264e"></a><a href="#citation264e" +class="footnote">[264e]</a> <i>Cowper’s Complete +Works</i> are acquired for a modest sum of the second-hand +bookseller in Southey’s sixteen-volume edition. The +two best one-volume issues of the <i>Poems</i> are the Globe +Library Edition with an introduction by Canon Benham (Macmillan), +and <i>Cowper’s Complete Poems</i> with an introduction by +J. C. Bailey (Methuen). The best of the letters are +contained in a volume in the Golden Treasury Series, with an +introduction by Mrs. Oliphant. <i>The Complete Letters of +Cowper</i>, edited by Thomas Wright, have been published by +Hodder & Stoughton in four volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote265a"></a><a href="#citation265a" +class="footnote">[265a]</a> <i>Crabbe’s Works</i>, in +eight volumes, with biography by his son, may be obtained very +cheaply from the second-hand book seller. With all the +merits of both <i>Works</i> and <i>Life</i> they have not been +reprinted satisfactorily. The only good modern edition of +<i>Crabbe’s Poems</i> is in three volumes published by the +Cambridge University Press, edited by A. W. Ward.</p> +<p><a name="footnote265b"></a><a href="#citation265b" +class="footnote">[265b]</a> The best one-volume +<i>Tennyson</i> is issued by the Macmillans, who still hold +certain copyrights. The Library Edition of <i>Tennyson</i>, +with the Biography included in the twelve volumes, is a desirable +acquisition.</p> +<p><a name="footnote265c"></a><a href="#citation265c" +class="footnote">[265c]</a> Not all the sixteen volumes of +the Library Edition of <i>Browning</i> pay for perusal. The +most convenient form is that of the two-volume edition (Smith, +Elder & Co.), with notes by Augustine Birrell.</p> +<p><a name="footnote265d"></a><a href="#citation265d" +class="footnote">[265d]</a> <i>Milton’s Poetical +Works</i> as annotated by David Masson (Macmillan) make the +standard library edition, and the same publishers have given us +the best one-volume <i>Milton</i> in the Globe Library, with an +introduction by Professor Masson, Milton’s one effective +biographer.</p> +<p><a name="footnote266a"></a><a href="#citation266a" +class="footnote">[266a]</a> <i>The Arabian Nights’ +Entertainments</i> is first introduced to us all as a +children’s story-book. Tennyson has placed on record +his own early memories:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“In sooth it was a goodly time,<br /> +For it was in the golden prime<br /> + Of good Haroun Alraschid.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But the collector of the hundred best books will do well to +read the <i>Arabian Nights</i> in the translation by Edward +William Lane, edited by Stanley Lane Poole, in 4 volumes, for +George Bell & Sons.</p> +<p><a name="footnote266b"></a><a href="#citation266b" +class="footnote">[266b]</a> The most satisfactory +translation of Cervantes’s great romance is that made by +John Ormesby, revised and edited by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, +published by Gowans & Gray in 4 shilling volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote266c"></a><a href="#citation266c" +class="footnote">[266c]</a> <i>The Pilgrim’s +Progress</i> is presented in a hundred forms. The present +writer first read it in a penny edition. It should be +possessed by the book-lover in a volume of the Cambridge English +Classics, in which <i>Grace Abounding</i> and <i>The +Pilgrim’s Progress</i> are given together, edited by Dr. +John Brown, and published by the Cambridge University Press.</p> +<p><a name="footnote266d"></a><a href="#citation266d" +class="footnote">[266d]</a> Schoolboys, notwithstanding +Macaulay, usually know but few good books, but every schoolboy +knows Defoe’s <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> in one form or +another. The maker of a library will prefer it as a Volume +of Defoe’s <i>Works</i> (J. M. Dent), or as Volume VII of +Defoe’s <i>Novels and Miscellaneous Works</i> (Bell & +Sons). There are many good shilling editions of the book by +itself, but Defoe should be read in many of his works and +particularly in <i>Moll Flanders</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote267a"></a><a href="#citation267a" +class="footnote">[267a]</a> As with <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, +<i>Gulliver’s Travels</i> can be obtained in many cheap +forms, but it is well that it should be obtained as Volume VIII +of <i>Swift’s Prose Works</i>, published in Bohn’s +Libraries by George Bell & Sons. There has not been a +really good edition of Swift’s works since Scott’s +monumental book.</p> +<p><a name="footnote267b"></a><a href="#citation267b" +class="footnote">[267b]</a> <i>Clarissa</i> should be read +in nine of the twenty volumes of Richardson’s Novels, +published by Chapman & Hall—a very dainty well-printed +book. “I love these large, still books,” said +Lord Tennyson.</p> +<p><a name="footnote267c"></a><a href="#citation267c" +class="footnote">[267c]</a> The greatest of all novels, +<i>Tom Jones</i>, is obtainable in several Library Editions of +Fielding’s <i>Works</i>. A cheap well-printed form is +that of the <i>Works of Henry Fielding</i> in 12 volumes, +published by Gay & Bird. Here <i>The Story of Tom Jones +a Foundling</i> is in 4 volumes. The book is in 2 volumes +in Bohn’s Library—an excellent edition.</p> +<p><a name="footnote267d"></a><a href="#citation267d" +class="footnote">[267d]</a> Johnson’s <i>Rasselas</i> +has frequently been reprinted, but there is no edition for a +book-lover at present in the bookshops. It is included in +<i>Classic Tales</i> in a volume of Bohn’s Standard +Library. The wise course is to look out for one of the +earlier editions with copper plates that are constantly to be +found on second-hand bookstalls. But Johnson’s +<i>Works</i> should be bought in a fine octavo edition.</p> +<p><a name="footnote268a"></a><a href="#citation268a" +class="footnote">[268a]</a> Goldsmith’s <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i> should be possessed in the edition which Mr. Hugh +Thomson has illustrated and Mr. Austin Dobson has edited for the +Macmillans. There is a good edition of Goldsmith’s +<i>Works</i> in Bohn’s Library.</p> +<p><a name="footnote268b"></a><a href="#citation268b" +class="footnote">[268b]</a> Sterne’s <i>Sentimental +Journey</i> is also a volume for the second-hand bookstall, +although that and the equally fine <i>Tristram Shandy</i> may be +obtained in many pretty forms. I have two editions of +Sterne’s books, but they are both fine old copies.</p> +<p><a name="footnote268c"></a><a href="#citation268c" +class="footnote">[268c]</a> There are two very good +editions of Peacock’s delightful romances. +<i>Nightmare Abbey</i> forms a volume of J. M. Dent’s +edition in 9 volumes, edited by Dr. Garnett; and the whole of +Peacock’s remarkable stories are contained in a single +volume of Newnes’ “Thin Paper Classics.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote268d"></a><a href="#citation268d" +class="footnote">[268d]</a> Sir Walter Scott’s novels +are available in many forms equally worthy of a good +library. The best is the edition published by Jack of +Edinburgh. The Temple Library of Scott (J. M. Dent) may be +commended for those who desire pocket volumes, while Mr. Andrew +Lang’s Introductions give an added value to an edition +published by the Macmillans, Scott’s twenty-eight novels +are indispensable to every good library, and every reader will +have his own favourite.</p> +<p><a name="footnote268e"></a><a href="#citation268e" +class="footnote">[268e]</a> Balzac’s novels are +obtainable in a good translation by Ellen Marriage, edited by +George Saintsbury, published in New York by the Macmillan Company +and in London by J. M. Dent.</p> +<p><a name="footnote269a"></a><a href="#citation269a" +class="footnote">[269a]</a> A translation of Dumas’ +novels in 48 volumes is published by Dent. <i>The Three +Musketeers</i> is in 2 volumes. There are many cheap one +volume editions.</p> +<p><a name="footnote269b"></a><a href="#citation269b" +class="footnote">[269b]</a> Thackeray’s <i>Vanity +Fair</i> is pleasantly read in the edition of his novels +published by J. M. Dent. His original publishers, Smith, +Elder & Co., issue his works in many forms.</p> +<p><a name="footnote269c"></a><a href="#citation269c" +class="footnote">[269c]</a> The best edition of Charlotte +Brontë’s <i>Villette</i> is that in the “Haworth +Edition,” published by Smith, Elder & Co., with an +Introduction by Mrs. Humphry Ward.</p> +<p><a name="footnote269d"></a><a href="#citation269d" +class="footnote">[269d]</a> Charles Dickens’ novels, +of which <i>David Copperfield</i> is generally pronounced to be +the best, should be obtained in the “Oxford India Paper +Dickens” (Chapman & Hall and Henry Frowde). A +serviceable edition is that published by the Macmillans, with +Introductions by Charles Dickens’s son, but that edition +still fails of <i>Our Mutual Friend</i> and <i>The Mystery of +Edwin Drood</i>, of which the copyright is not yet exhausted.</p> +<p><a name="footnote269e"></a><a href="#citation269e" +class="footnote">[269e]</a> Anthony Trollope’s novels +are being reissued, in England by John Lane and George Bell & +Sons, and in America in a most attractive form by Dodd, Mead +& Co. All three publishers have a good edition of +<i>Barchester Towers</i>, Trollope’s best novel.</p> +<p><a name="footnote269f"></a><a href="#citation269f" +class="footnote">[269f]</a> Boccaccio’s +<i>Decameron</i> is in my library in many forms—in 3 +volumes of the Villon Society’s publications, translated by +John Payne; in 2 handsome volumes issued by Laurence & +Bullen; and in the Extra Volumes of Bohn’s Library. +There is a pretty edition available published by Gibbons in 3 +volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270a"></a><a href="#citation270a" +class="footnote">[270a]</a> Emily Brontë’s +<i>Wuthering Heights</i> forms a volume of the Haworth Edition of +the Brontë novels, published by Smith, Elder & Co. +It has an introduction by Mrs. Humphry Ward.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270b"></a><a href="#citation270b" +class="footnote">[270b]</a> Charles Reade’s +<i>Cloister and the Hearth</i> is available in many forms. +The pleasantest is in 4 volumes issued by Chatto & Windus, +with an Introduction by Sir Walter Besant. There is a +remarkable shilling edition issued by Collins of Glasgow.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270c"></a><a href="#citation270c" +class="footnote">[270c]</a> Victor Hugo’s <i>Les +Misèrables</i> may be most pleasantly read in the 10 +volumes, translated by M. Jules Gray, published by J. M. Dent +& Co.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270d"></a><a href="#citation270d" +class="footnote">[270d]</a> Mrs. Gaskell’s +<i>Cranford</i> can be obtained in the six volume edition of that +writer’s works published by Smith, Elder & Co., with +Introductions by Dr. A. W. Ward; in a volume illustrated by Hugh +Thomson, with an Introduction by Mrs. Ritchie, published by the +Macmillans, or in the World’s Classics (Henry Frowde), +where there is an additional chapter entitled, “The Cage at +Cranford.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote270e"></a><a href="#citation270e" +class="footnote">[270e]</a> The translation of George +Sand’s <i>Consuelo</i> in my library is by Frank H. Potter, +4 volumes, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270f"></a><a href="#citation270f" +class="footnote">[270f]</a> Lever’s <i>Charles +O’Malley</i> I have as volumes of the <i>Complete Works</i> +published by Downey. There is a pleasant edition in +Nelson’s “Pocket Library.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote271a"></a><a href="#citation271a" +class="footnote">[271a]</a> Macaulay’s <i>History of +England</i> is available in many attractive forms from the +original publishers, the Longmans. There is a neat thin +paper edition for the pocket in 5 volumes issued by Chatto & +Windus.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271b"></a><a href="#citation271b" +class="footnote">[271b]</a> For Carlyle’s <i>Past and +Present</i> I recommend the Centenary Edition of Carlyle’s +<i>Works</i>, published by Chapman & Hall. There is an +annotated edition of <i>Sartor Resartus</i> by J. A. S. Barrett +(A. & C. Black), two annotated editions of <i>The +French-Revolution</i>, one by Dr. Holland Rose (G. Bell +& Sons), and an other by C. R. L. Fletcher, 3 volumes +(Methuen), and an annotated edition of <i>The Cromwell +Letters</i>, edited by S. C. Lomax, 3 volumes (Methuen). No +publisher has yet attempted an annotated edition of <i>Past and +Present</i>, but Sir Ernest Clarke’s translation of +<i>Jocelyn of Bragelond</i> (Chatto & Windus) may be +commended as supplemental to Carlyle’s most delightful +book.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271c"></a><a href="#citation271c" +class="footnote">[271c]</a> Motley’s <i>Works</i> are +available in 9 volumes of a Library Edition published by John +Murray. A cheaper issue of the <i>Dutch Republic</i> is +that in 3 volumes of the World’s Classics, to which I have +contributed a biographical introduction.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271d"></a><a href="#citation271d" +class="footnote">[271d]</a> For many years the one standard +edition of <i>Gibbon</i> was that published by John Murray, in 8 +volumes, with notes by Dean Milman and others. It has been +superseded by Professor Bury’s annotated edition in 7 +volumes (Methuen).</p> +<p><a name="footnote272a"></a><a href="#citation272a" +class="footnote">[272a]</a> Plutarch’s <i>Lives</i>, +translated by A. Stewart and George Long, form 4 volumes of +Bohn’s Standard Library. There is a handy volume for +the pocket in Dent’s Temple Classics in 10 volumes, +translated by Sir Thomas North.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272b"></a><a href="#citation272b" +class="footnote">[272b]</a> Montaigne’s <i>Essays</i> +I have in three forms; in the Tudor Translations (David Nutt), +where there is an Introduction to the 6 volumes of Sir Thomas +North’s translation by the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham; in +Dent’s Temple Classics, where John Florio’s +translation is given in 5 volumes. A much valued edition is +that in 3 volumes, the translation by Charles Cotton, published +by Reeves & Turner in 1877.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272c"></a><a href="#citation272c" +class="footnote">[272c]</a> Steele’s essays were +written for the <i>Tatler</i> and the <i>Spectator</i> side by +side with those of Addison. The best edition of <i>The +Spectator</i> is that published in 8 volumes, edited by George A. +Aitken for Nimmo, and of <i>The Tatler</i> that published in 4 +volumes, edited also by Mr. Aitken for Duckworth & Co.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272d"></a><a href="#citation272d" +class="footnote">[272d]</a> Lamb’s <i>Essays of +Elia</i> can be read in a volume of the Eversley Library +(Macmillan), edited by Canon Ainger. The standard edition +of Lamb’s <i>Works</i> is that edited by Mr. E. V. Lucas, +in 7 volumes, for Methuen. Mr. Lucas’s biography of +Lamb has superseded all others.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272e"></a><a href="#citation272e" +class="footnote">[272e]</a> Thomas de Quincey’s +<i>Opium Eater</i> may be obtained as a volume of Newnes’s +Thin Paper Classics, in the World’s Classics, or in +Dent’s Everyman’s Library. But the <i>Complete +Works</i> of De Quincey, in 16 volumes, edited by David Mason and +published by A. & C. Black, should be in every library.</p> +<p><a name="footnote273a"></a><a href="#citation273a" +class="footnote">[273a]</a> William Hazlitt never received +the treatment he deserved until Mr. J. M. Dent issued in 1903 his +<i>Collected Works</i>, in 13 volumes, edited by A. R. Waller and +Arnold Glover. Of cheap reprints of Hazlitt I commend +<i>The Spirit of the Age</i>, <i>Winterslow</i> and <i>Sketches +and Essays</i>, three separate volumes of the World’s +Classics (Frowde).</p> +<p><a name="footnote273b"></a><a href="#citation273b" +class="footnote">[273b]</a> George Borrow’s +<i>Lavengro</i> should only be read in Mr. John Murray’s +edition, as it there contains certain additional and valuable +matter gathered from the original manuscript by William I. +Knapp. The Library Edition of Borrow, in 6 volumes +(Murray), may be particularly commended.</p> +<p><a name="footnote273c"></a><a href="#citation273c" +class="footnote">[273c]</a> Emerson’s <i>Complete +Works</i> are published by the Routledges in 4 volumes, in which +<i>Representative Men</i> may be found in Vol. II. Some may +prefer the Eversley Library <i>Emerson</i>, which has an +Introduction by John Morley. There are many cheap editions +of about equal value.</p> +<p><a name="footnote273d"></a><a href="#citation273d" +class="footnote">[273d]</a> Lander’s <i>Imaginary +Conversations</i> form six volumes of the complete <i>Landor</i>, +edited by Charles G. Crump, and published in 10 volumes by J. M. +Dent.</p> +<p><a name="footnote273e"></a><a href="#citation273e" +class="footnote">[273e]</a> Matthew Arnold’s +<i>Essays in Criticism</i> is published by Macmillan. It +also forms Vol. III of the Library Edition of his <i>Works</i> in +15 volumes. A “Second Series” has less +significance.</p> +<p><a name="footnote273f"></a><a href="#citation273f" +class="footnote">[273f]</a> <i>The Works of Herodotus</i>, +published by the Macmillans, translated by George C. Macaulay, is +the best edition for the general reader. Canon +Rawlinson’s <i>Herodotus</i>, published by John Murray, has +had a longer life, but is now only published in an abridged +form.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274a"></a><a href="#citation274a" +class="footnote">[274a]</a> James Howell’s +<i>Familiar Letters</i>, or <i>Epistolae Ho Elianae</i>, should +be read in the edition published in 2 volumes by David Nutt, with +an Introduction by Joseph Jacobs.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274b"></a><a href="#citation274b" +class="footnote">[274b]</a> <i>The History of +Civilization</i>, by Henry Thomas Buckle, is in my library in the +original 2 volumes published by Parker in 1857. It is now +issued in 3 volumes in Longman’s Silver Library, and in 3 +volumes in the World’s Classics.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274c"></a><a href="#citation274c" +class="footnote">[274c]</a> <i>The History of Tacitus</i> +should be read in the translation by Alfred John Church and +William Jackson Brodripp. It is published by the +Macmillans.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274d"></a><a href="#citation274d" +class="footnote">[274d]</a> <i>Our Village</i>, by Mary +Russell Mitford, is a collection of essays which in their +completest form may be obtained in two volumes of Bohn’s +Library (Bell). The essential essays should be possessed in +the edition published by the Macmillans—<i>Our Village</i>, +by Mary Russell Mitford, with an Introduction by Anne Thackeray +Ritchie, and one hundred illustrations by Hugh Thomson.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274e"></a><a href="#citation274e" +class="footnote">[274e]</a> Green’s <i>Short History +of the English People</i> is published by the Macmillans in 1 +volume, or illustrated in 4 volumes. The book was enlarged, +but disimproved, under the title of <i>A History of the English +People</i>, in 4 volumes, uniform with the <i>Conquest of +England</i> and the <i>Making of England</i> by the same +author.</p> +<p><a name="footnote275a"></a><a href="#citation275a" +class="footnote">[275a]</a> Taine’s <i>Ancient +Régime</i> is a good introduction to the conditions which +made the French Revolution. It forms the first volume of +<i>Les Origines de la France Contemporaine</i>, and may be read +in a translation by John Durand, published by Dalby, Isbister +& Co. in 1877.</p> +<p><a name="footnote275b"></a><a href="#citation275b" +class="footnote">[275b]</a> <i>The Life of Napoleon</i> has +been written by many pens, in our own day most competently by Dr. +Holland Rose (2 vols. Bell); but a good account of the Emperor, +indispensable for some particulars and an undoubted classic, is +that by de Bourrienne, Napoleon’s private secretary, +published in an English translation, in 4 volumes, by Bentley in +1836.</p> +<p><a name="footnote275c"></a><a href="#citation275c" +class="footnote">[275c]</a> <i>Democracy in America</i>, by +Alexis de Tocqueville, may be had in a translation by Henry +Reeve, published in 2 volumes by the Longmans. Read also +<i>A History of the United States</i> by C. Benjamin Andrews, 2 +volumes (Smith, Elder), and above all the <i>American +Commonwealth</i>, by James Bryce, 2 volumes (Macmillan).</p> +<p><a name="footnote275d"></a><a href="#citation275d" +class="footnote">[275d]</a> <i>The Compleat Angler</i> of +Isaac Walton may be purchased in many forms. I have a fine +library edition edited by that prince of living anglers, Mr. R. +B. Marston, called The Lea and Dove Edition, this being the 100th +edition of the book (Sampson Low, 1888). I have also an +edition edited by George A. B. Dewar, with an Introduction by Sir +Edward Grey and Etchings by William Strang and D. Y. Cameron, 2 +volumes (Freemantle), and a 1 volume edition published by Ingram +& Cooke in the Illustrated Library.</p> +<p><a name="footnote276a"></a><a href="#citation276a" +class="footnote">[276a]</a> There are many editions of +Gilbert White’s <i>Natural History of Selbourne</i> to be +commended. Three that are in my library are (1) edited with +an Introduction and Notes by L. C. Miall and W. Warde Fowler +(Methuen); (2) edited with Notes by Grant Allen, illustrated by +Edmund H. New (John Lane); (3) rearranged and classified under +subjects by Charles Mosley (Elliot Stock).</p> +<p><a name="footnote276b"></a><a href="#citation276b" +class="footnote">[276b]</a> Of <i>Boswell’s Life of +Johnson</i> there are innumerable editions. The special +enthusiast will not be happy until he possesses Dr. Birkbeck +Hill’s edition in 6 volumes (Clarendon Press). The +most satisfactory 1 volume edition is that published on thin +paper by Henry Frowde. I have in my library also a copy of +the first edition of <i>Boswell</i> in 2 volumes. It was +published by Henry Baldwin in 1791.</p> +<p><a name="footnote276c"></a><a href="#citation276c" +class="footnote">[276c]</a> The best edition of +Lockhart’s <i>Life of Scott</i> is that published in 10 +volumes by Jack of Edinburgh. Readers should beware of +abridgments, although one of these was made by Lockhart +himself. The whole eighty-five chapters are worth reading, +even in the 1 volume edition published by A. & C. Black.</p> +<p><a name="footnote276d"></a><a href="#citation276d" +class="footnote">[276d]</a> <i>Pepys’s Diary</i> can +be obtained in Bohn’s Library or in Newnes’ Thin +Paper Classics, but Pepys should only be read under Mr. H. B. +Wheatley’s guidance. A cheap edition of his book, in +8 volumes, has recently been published by George Bell & +Sons. I have No. 2 of the large paper edition of this book, +No. 1 having gone to Pepys’s own college of Brazenose, +where the Pepys cypher is preserved.</p> +<p><a name="footnote277a"></a><a href="#citation277a" +class="footnote">[277a]</a> Until recently one knew +Walpole’s <i>Letters</i> only through Peter +Cunningham’s edition, in 9 volumes (Bentley), and this has +still exclusive matter for the enthusiast, Cunningham’s +Introduction to wit; but the Clarendon Press has now published +Walpole’s <i>Letters</i>, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, in +16 volumes, or in 8. Here are to be found more letters than +in any previous edition.</p> +<p><a name="footnote277b"></a><a href="#citation277b" +class="footnote">[277b]</a> <i>The Memoirs of Count de +Gramont</i>, by Anthony, Count Hamilton, can be obtained in +splendid type, unannotated, in an edition published by Arthur L. +Humphreys. A well-illustrated and well-edited edition is +that published by Bickers of London and Scribner of New York, +edited by Allan Fea.</p> +<p><a name="footnote277c"></a><a href="#citation277c" +class="footnote">[277c]</a> Gray’s <i>Letters</i>, +with poems and life, form 4 volumes in Macmillan’s Eversley +Library, edited by Edmund Gosse.</p> +<p><a name="footnote277d"></a><a href="#citation277d" +class="footnote">[277d]</a> You can obtain Southey’s +<i>Nelson</i>, originally written for Murray’s Pocket +Library as a publisher’s commission, in one well-printed +volume, with Introduction by David Hannay, published by William +Heinemann. It should, however, be supplemented in the +<i>Life</i> by Captain Mahan (2 volumes, Sampson Low & Co.), +or by Professor Laughton’s <i>Nelson and His Companion in +Arms</i> (George Allen).</p> +<p><a name="footnote277e"></a><a href="#citation277e" +class="footnote">[277e]</a> Moore’s <i>Life and +Letters of Byron</i> is published by John Murray in 6 +volumes. It is best purchased second-hand in an old +set. Moore’s book must be supplemented by the 6 +volumes of <i>Correspondence</i> edited by Rowland Prothero for +Mr. Murray.</p> +<p><a name="footnote278a"></a><a href="#citation278a" +class="footnote">[278a]</a> Sir George Trevelyan says in +his <i>Early History of Charles James Fox</i> that Hogg’s +<i>Life of Shelley</i> is “perhaps the most interesting +book in our language that has never been +republished.” The reproach has been in some slight +measure removed by a cheap reprint in small type issued by the +Routledges in 1906. The reader should, however, secure a +copy of the first edition, 2 volumes, 1857. Professor +Dowden, in his <i>Life of Shelley</i>, 1886, uses the book +freely.</p> +<p><a name="footnote278b"></a><a href="#citation278b" +class="footnote">[278b]</a> “What is the best book +you have ever read?” Emerson is said to have asked George +Eliot when she was about twenty-two years of age and residing, +unknown, near Coventry. “Rousseau’s +<i>Confessions</i>,” was the reply. “I agree +with you,” Emerson answered. But the book should not +be read in a translation. The completest translation is one +in 2 volumes published by Nicholls. There is a more +abridged translation by Gibbons in 4 volumes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote278c"></a><a href="#citation278c" +class="footnote">[278c]</a> <i>The Life of Carlyle</i>, by +James Anthony Froude, which created so much controversy upon its +publication, is worthy of a cheap edition, which does not, +however, seem to be forthcoming. The book appeared in 4 +volumes, <i>The First Forty Years</i> in 1882 and <i>Life in +London</i> in 1884. It had been preceded by +<i>Reminiscences</i> in 1881. Every one should read the +<i>Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle</i>, 3 volumes, +1883. All the 9 volumes are published by the Longmans.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279a"></a><a href="#citation279a" +class="footnote">[279a]</a> Samuel Rogers’ <i>Table +Talk</i> has been given us in two forms, first as +<i>Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers</i>, edited +by Alexander Dyce, 1856, and second as <i>Reminiscences of Samuel +Rogers</i>, 1859. The <i>Recollections</i> were reprinted +in handsome form by H. A. Rogers, of New Southgate, in 1887, and +the material was combined in a single volume in 1903 by G. H. +Powell (R. Brimley Johnson). I have the four books, and +delight in the many good stories they contain.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279b"></a><a href="#citation279b" +class="footnote">[279b]</a> <i>The Confessions of St. +Augustine</i> may be commended in many small and handy +editions. One, with an Introduction by Alice Meynell, was +published in 1900. The most beautifully printed modern +edition is that issued by Arthur Humphreys in his Classical +Series.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279c"></a><a href="#citation279c" +class="footnote">[279c]</a> Amiel’s <i>Journal</i> is +a fine piece of introspection. A translation by Mrs. +Humphry Ward is published in 2 volumes by the Macmillans. +De Senancour’s <i>Obermann</i>, translated by A. E. Waite +(Wellby), should be read in this connexion.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279d"></a><a href="#citation279d" +class="footnote">[279d]</a> <i>The Meditations of Marcus +Aurelius</i>, translated by George Long, appears as a volume of +Bohn’s Library, and more beautifully printed in the Library +of Arthur Humphreys. There are many other good +translations—one by John Jackson, issued in 1906 by the +Clarendon Press, has great merit.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279e"></a><a href="#citation279e" +class="footnote">[279e]</a> George Henry Lewes’s +<i>Life of Goethe</i> has gone through many editions and remains +a fascinating book, although it may be supplemented by the +translation of Duntzer’s <i>Life of Goethe</i>, 2 volumes, +Macmillan, and Bielschowsky’s <i>Life of Goethe</i>, Vols. +I and II (Putnams).</p> +<p><a name="footnote280a"></a><a href="#citation280a" +class="footnote">[280a]</a> <i>The Life of Lessing</i>, by +James Sime, is not a great biography, but it is an interesting +and most profitable study of a noble man. Lessing will be +an inspiration greater almost than any other of the moderns for +those who are brought in contact with his fine personality. +The book is in 2 volumes, published by the Trübners.</p> +<p><a name="footnote280b"></a><a href="#citation280b" +class="footnote">[280b]</a> You can read Benjamin +Franklin’s <i>Autobiography</i> in 1 volume (Dent), or in +his Collected Works—<i>Memoirs of the Life and Writings of +Benjamin Franklin</i>, edited by his grandson, William Temple +Franklin, 6 volumes (Colburn), 1819. There have been at +least two expensive reprints of his <i>Works</i> of late +years.</p> +<p><a name="footnote280c"></a><a href="#citation280c" +class="footnote">[280c]</a> <i>The Greville Memoirs</i> +were published in large octavo form in the first place. +Much scandal was omitted from the second edition. They are +now obtainable in 8 volumes of Longmans’ Silver +Library. They form an interesting glimpse into the Court +life of the later Guelphs.</p> +<p><a name="footnote280d"></a><a href="#citation280d" +class="footnote">[280d]</a> It has been complained of John +Forster’s <i>Life of Charles Dickens</i> that there is too +much Forster and not enough Dickens. Yet it is the only +guide to the life-story of the greatest of the Victorian +novelists. Is most pleasant to read in the 2 volumes of the +Gadshill Edition, published by Chapman & Hall.</p> +<p><a name="footnote280e"></a><a href="#citation280e" +class="footnote">[280e]</a> <i>The Early Diary of Frances +Burney</i>, afterwards Madame D’Arblay, edited by Annie +Raine Ellis, has just been reprinted in two volumes of +Bohn’s Library (Bell). We owe also to Mr. Austen +Dobson a fine reprint of the later and more important +<i>Diaries</i>, which he has edited in 6 volumes for the +Macmillans.</p> +<p><a name="footnote281a"></a><a href="#citation281a" +class="footnote">[281a]</a> The <i>Apologia pro Vita +Suâ</i> of John Henry Newman is one of the volumes of +Cardinal Newman’s <i>Collected Works</i> issued by the +Longmans. It is the most interesting, and is perhaps the +most destined to survive, of all the books of theological +controversy of the nineteenth century.</p> +<p><a name="footnote281b"></a><a href="#citation281b" +class="footnote">[281b]</a> There is practically but one +edition of the <i>Paston Letters</i>, that edited by James +Gairdner, of the Public Record Office, and published by the firm +of Archibald Constable. The luxurious Library Edition +issued by Chatto & Windus in 6 volumes should be acquired if +possible.</p> +<p><a name="footnote281c"></a><a href="#citation281c" +class="footnote">[281c]</a> <i>The Autobiography of +Benvenuto Cellini</i> is best known in the translation of Thomas +Roscoe in Bohn’s Library. Mr. J. Addington Symonds, +however, made a new translation, issued in two fine volumes by +Nimmo.</p> +<p><a name="footnote281d"></a><a href="#citation281d" +class="footnote">[281d]</a> The <i>Religio Medici</i> of +Sir Thomas Browne can be obtained in many forms, although the +well-to-do collector will be satisfied only with the edition +edited by Simon Wilkin. The book is admirably edited by W. +A. Greenhill for the “Golden Treasury Series.”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMMORTAL MEMORIES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 21869-h.htm or 21869-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/8/6/21869 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/21869.txt b/21869.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f46256 --- /dev/null +++ b/21869.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6212 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Immortal Memories, by Clement Shorter + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Immortal Memories + + +Author: Clement Shorter + + + +Release Date: June 19, 2007 [eBook #21869] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMMORTAL MEMORIES*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1907 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +IMMORTAL MEMORIES + + +By +CLEMENT SHORTER + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON +LONDON MCMVII + +_Butler and Tanner_, _The Selwood Printing Works_, _Frome_, _and London_. + + + + +PREFATORY + + +The following addresses were delivered at the request of various literary +societies and commemorative committees. They amused me to write, and +they apparently interested the audiences for which they were primarily +intended. Perhaps they do not bear an appearance in print. But they are +not for my brother-journalists to read nor for the judicious men of +letters. I prefer to think that they are intended solely for those whom +Hazlitt styled "sensible people." Hazlitt said that "the most sensible +people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world." I +am hoping that these will buy my book and that some of them will like it. + +It is recorded by Sir Henry Taylor of Samuel Rogers that when he wrote +that very indifferent poem, _Italy_, he said, "I will make people buy. +Turner shall illustrate my verse." It is of no importance that the +biographer of Rogers tells us that the poet first made the artist known +to the world by these illustrations. Taylor's story is a good one, and +the moral worth taking to heart. The late Lord Acton, most learned and +most accomplished of men, wrote out a list of the hundred best books as +he considered them to be. They were printed in a popular magazine. They +naturally excited much interest. I have rescued them from the pages of +the _Pall Mall Magazine_. Those who will not buy my book for its seven +other essays may do so on account of Lord Acton's list of books being +here first preserved "between boards." I shall be equally well pleased. + +CLEMENT SHORTER. + +GREAT MISSENDEN, +BUCKS. + + + + +I. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON + + +A toast proposed at the Johnson Birthday Celebration held at the Three +Crowns Inn, Lichfield, in September, 1906. + +In rising to propose this toast I cannot ignore what must be in many of +your minds, the recollection that last year it was submitted by a very +dear friend of my own, who, alas! has now gone to his rest, I mean Dr. +Richard Garnett. {3} Many of you who heard him in this place will +recall, with kindly memories, that venerable scholar. I am one of those +who, in the interval have stood beside his open grave; and I know you +will permit me to testify here to the fact that rarely has such brilliant +scholarship been combined with so kindly a nature, and with so much +generosity to other workers in the literary field. One may sigh that it +is not possible to perpetuate for all time for the benefit of others the +vast mass of learning which such men as Dr. Garnett are able to +accumulate. One may lament even more that one is not able to present in +some concrete form, as an example to those who follow, his fine qualities +of heart and mind--his generous faculty for 'helping lame dogs over +stiles.' + +Dr. Garnett had not only a splendid erudition that specially qualified +him for proposing this toast, he had also what many of you may think an +equally exceptional qualification--he was a native of Lichfield; he was +born in this fine city. As a Londoner--like Boswell when charged with +the crime of being a Scotsman I may say that I cannot help it--I suppose +I should come to you with hesitating footsteps. Perhaps it was rash of +me to come at all, in spite of an invitation so kindly worded. Yet how +gladly does any lover, not only of Dr. Johnson, but of all good +literature, come to Lichfield. Four cathedral cities of our land stand +forth in my mind with a certain magnetic power to draw even the most +humble lover of books towards them--Oxford, Bath, Norwich, Lichfield, +these four and no others. Oxford we all love and revere as the +nourishing mother of so many famous men. Here we naturally recall Dr. +Johnson's love of it--his defence of it against all comers. The glamour +of Oxford and the memory of the great men who from age to age have walked +its streets and quadrangles, is with us upon every visit. Bath again has +noble memories. Upon house after house in that fine city is inscribed +the fact that it was at one time the home of a famous man or woman of the +past. Through its streets many of our great imaginative writers have +strolled, and those streets have been immortalized in the pages of +several great novelists, notably of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. + +For the City of Norwich I have a particular affection, as for long the +home in quite separate epochs of Sir Thomas Browne and of George Borrow. +I recall that in the reign of one of its Bishops--the father of Dean +Stanley--there was a literary circle of striking character, that men and +women of intellect met in the episcopal palace to discuss all 'obstinate +questionings.' + +But if he were asked to choose between the golden age of Bath, of +Norwich, or of Lichfield, I am sure that any man who knew his books would +give the palm to Lichfield, and would recall that period in the life of +Lichfield when Dr. Seward resided in the Bishop's Palace, with his two +daughters, and when they were there entertaining so many famous friends. +I saw the other day the statement that Anna Seward's name was unknown to +the present generation. Now I have her works in nine volumes {6}; I have +read them, and I doubt not but that there are many more who have done the +same. Sir Walter Scott's friendship would alone preserve her memory if +every line she wrote deserved to be forgotten as is too readily assumed. +Scott, indeed, professed admiration for her verse, and a yet greater +poet, Wordsworth, wrote in praise of two fine lines at the close of one +of her sonnets, that entitled 'Invitation to a Friend,' lines which I +believe present the first appearance in English poetry of the form of +blank verse immortalized by Tennyson. + + Come, that I may not hear the winds of night, + Nor count the heavy eave-drops as they fall. + +"You have well criticized the poetic powers of this lady," says +Wordsworth, "but, after all, her verses please me, with all their faults, +better than those of Mrs. Barbauld, who, with much higher powers of mind, +was spoiled as a poetess by being a dissenter." + +Less, however, can be said for her poetry to-day than for her capacity as +a letter writer. A letter writing faculty has immortalized more than one +English author, Horace Walpole for example, who had this in common with +Anna Seward, that he had the bad taste not to like Dr. Johnson. + +Sooner or later there will be a reprint of a selection of Anna Seward's +correspondence; you will find in it a picture of country life in the +middle of the eighteenth century--and by that I mean Lichfield life--that +is quite unsurpassed. Anna Seward, her friends and her enemies, stand +before us in very marked outline. As with Walpole also, she must have +written with an eye to publication. Veracity was not her strong point, +but her literary faculty was very marked indeed. Those who have read the +letters that treat of her sister's betrothal and death, for example, will +not easily forget them. The accepted lover, you remember, was a Mr. +Porter, a son of the widow whom Johnson married; and Sarah Seward, aged +only eighteen, died soon after her betrothal to him. That is but one of +a thousand episodes in the world into which we are introduced in these +pages. {8} + +The Bishop's Palace was the scene of brilliant symposiums. There one +might have met Erasmus Darwin of the _Botanic Garden_, whose fame has +been somewhat dulled by the extraordinary genius of his grandson. There +also came Richard Edgeworth, the father of Maria, whose _Castle Rackrent_ +and _The Absentee_ are still among the most delightful books that we +read; and there were the two young girls, Honora and Elizabeth Sneyd, who +were destined in succession to become Richard Edgeworth's wives. There, +above all, was Thomas Day, the author of _Sanford and Merton_, a book +which delighted many of us when we were young, and which I imagine with +all its priggishness will always survive as a classic for children. +There, for a short time, came Major Andre, betrothed to Honora Sneyd, but +destined to die so tragically in the American War of Independence. It is +to Miss Seward's malicious talent as a letter writer that we owe the +exceedingly picturesque account of Day's efforts to obtain a wife upon a +particular pattern, his selection of Sabrina Sidney, whom he prepared for +that high destiny by sending her to a boarding school until she was of +the right age--his lessons in stoicism--his disappointment because she +screamed when he fired pistols at her petticoats, and yelled when he +dropped melted sealing-wax on her bare arms; it is a tragi-comic picture, +and one is glad that Sabrina married some other man than her exacting +guardian. But we would not miss Miss Seward's racy stories for anything, +nor ignore her many letters with their revelation of the glories of old- +time Lichfield, and of those 'lunar meetings' at which the wise ones +foregathered. Now and again these worthies burst into sarcasm at one +another's expense, as when Darwin satirizes the publication of Mr. +Seward's edition of _Beaumont and Fletcher_, and Dr. Johnson's edition of +_Shakspere_ + + From Lichfield famed two giant critics come, + Tremble, ye Poets! hear them! Fe, Fo, Fum! + By Seward's arm the mangled Beaumont bled, + And Johnson grinds poor Shakspere's bones for bread. + +But perhaps after all, if we eliminate Dr. Johnson, the lover of letters +gives the second place, not to Miss Seward and her circle, but to David +Garrick. Lichfield contains more than one memento of that great man. The +actor's art is a poor sort of thing as a rule. Johnson, in his tarter +moments, expresses this attitude, as when he talked of Garrick as a man +who exhibited himself for a shilling, when he called him 'a futile +fellow,' and implied that it was very unworthy of Lord Campden to have +made much of the actor and to have ignored so distinguished a writer as +Goldsmith, when thrown into the company of both. Still undoubtedly +Johnson's last word upon Garrick is the best--'his death has eclipsed the +gaiety of nations and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure.' +We who live more than a hundred years later are able to recognize that +Garrick has been the one great actor from that age to this. As a rule +the mummers are mimics and little more, and generations go on, giving +them their brief but glorious hour of fame, and then leaving them as mere +names in the history of the stage. Garrick was preserved from this fate, +not only by the circumstance that he had an army of distinguished +literary friends, but by his interesting personality and by his own +writings. Many lines of his plays and prologues have become part of +current speech. Moreover his must have been a great personality, as +those of us who have met Sir Henry Irving in these latter days have +realized that his was also a great personality. It is fitting, +therefore, that these two great actors, the most famous of an +interesting, if not always an heroic profession, should lie side by side +in Westminster Abbey. + +I now come to my toast "The memory of Dr. Johnson." After all, Johnson +was the greatest of all Lichfieldians, and one of the great men of his +own and of all ages. We may talk about him and praise him because we +shall be the better for so doing, but we shall certainly say nothing new. +One or two points, however, seem to me worthy of emphasis in this company +of Johnsonians. I think we should resent two popular fallacies which you +will not hear from literary students, but only from one whom it is +convenient to call "the man in the street." The first is, that we should +know nothing about Johnson if it were not for Boswell's famous life, and +the second that Johnson the author is dead, and that our great hero only +lives as a brilliant conversationalist in the pages of Boswell and +others. Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is the greatest biography in the +English language; we all admit that. It is crowded with incident and +anecdote. Neither Walter Scott nor Rousseau, each of whom has had an +equal number of pages devoted to his personality, lives so distinctly for +future ages as does Johnson in the pages of Boswell. Understanding all +this, we are entitled to ask ourselves what we should have thought of Dr. +Johnson had there been no Boswell; and to this question I do not hesitate +to answer that we should have loved him as much as ever, and that there +would still have been a mass of material with the true Boswellian +flavour. He would not have made an appeal to so large a public, but some +ingenious person would have drawn together all the anecdotes, all the +epigrams, all the touches of that fine humanity, and given us from these +various sources an amalgam of Johnson, that every bookman at least would +have desired to read and study. In Fanny Burney's _Letters and Diaries_ +the presentation of Johnson is delightful. I wonder very much that all +the Johnson fragments that Miss Burney provides have not been published +separately. Then Mrs. Thrale has chatted about Johnson copiously in her +"Anecdotes," and these pleasant stories have been reprinted again and +again for the curious. I recall many other sources of information about +the great man and his wonderful talk--by Miss Hawkins, Miss Reynolds, +Miss Hannah More for example--and many of you who have Dr. Birkbeck +Hill's _Johnson Miscellanies_ have these in a pleasantly acceptable form. + +My second point is concerned with Dr. Johnson's position apart from all +this fund of anecdote, and this brilliant collection of unforgettable +epigram in Boswell and elsewhere. As a writer, many will tell you, Dr. +Johnson is dead. The thing is absurd on the face of it. There is room +for some disagreement as to his position as a poet. On that question of +poetry unanimity is ever hard to seek; so many mistake rhetoric for +poetry. Only twice at the most, it seems to me, does Dr. Johnson reach +anything in the shape of real inspiration in his many poems, {15} +although it must be admitted that earlier generations admired them +greatly. To have been praised ardently by Sir Walter Scott, by Byron, +and by Tennyson should seem sufficient to demonstrate that he was a poet, +were it not that, as I could prove if time allowed, poets are almost +invariably bad critics of poetry. Sir Walter Scott read _The Vanity of +Human Wishes_ with "a choking sensation in the throat," and declared that +he had more pleasure in reading that and Johnson's other long poem, +_London_, than any other poetic compositions he could mention. But then +I think it was always the sentiment in verse, and not its quality, that +attracted Scott. Byron also declared that _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ +was "a great poem." Certainly these poems are quotable poems. Who does +not recall the line about "surveying mankind from China to Peru," or +think, as Johnson taught us, to:-- + + Mark what ills the scholar's life assail, + Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail. + +Or remember his epitaph on one who:-- + + Left a name at which the world grew pale, + To point a moral or adorn a tale. + +One line--"Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage" has done duty again +and again. I might quote a hundred such examples to show Johnson, +whatever his qualities as a poet, is very much alive indeed in his verse. +It is, however, as a great prose writer, that I prefer to consider him. +Here he is certainly one of the most permanent forces in our literature. +_Rasselas_, for example, while never ranking with us moderns quite so +high as it did with the excellent Miss Jenkins in _Cranford_, is a never +failing delight. So far from being a dead book, is there a young man or +a young woman setting out in the world of to-day, aspiring to an +all-round literary cultivation, who is not required to know it? It has +been republished continually. What novelist of our time would not give +much to have so splendid a public recognition as was provided when Lord +Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli, after the Abyssinian Expedition, +pictured in the House of Commons "the elephants of Asia dragging the +artillery of Europe over the mountains of Rasselas." + +Equally in evidence are those wonderful _Lives of The Poets_ which +Johnson did not complete until he was seventy-two years of age, literary +efforts which have always seemed to me to be an encouraging demonstration +that we should never allow ourselves to grow old. Many of these 'Lives' +are very beautiful. They are all suggestive. Only the other day I read +them again in the fine new edition that was prepared by that staunch +Johnsonian, Dr. Birkbeck Hill. The greatest English critic of these +latter days, Mr. Matthew Arnold, showed his appreciation by making a +selection from them for popular use. From age to age every man with the +smallest profession of interest in literature will study them. Of how +many books can this be said? + +Greatest of all was Johnson as a writer in his least premeditated work, +his _Prayers and Meditations_. They take rank in my mind with the very +best things of their kind, _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_, _The +Confessions of Rousseau_, and similar books. They are healthier than any +of their rivals. William Cowper, that always fascinating poet and +beautiful letter writer, more than once disparaged Johnson in this +connexion. Cowper said that he would like to have "dusted Johnson's +jacket until his pension rattled in his pocket," for what he had said +about Milton. He read some extracts, after Johnson's death, from the +_Meditations_, and wrote contemptuously of them. {18} But if Cowper had +always possessed, in addition to his fascinating other-worldliness the +healthy worldliness of Dr. Johnson, perhaps we should all have been the +happier. To me that collection of _Prayers and Meditations_ seems one of +the most helpful books that I have ever read, and I am surprised that it +is not constantly reprinted in a handy form. {19} It is a valuable +inspiration to men to keep up their spirits under adverse conditions, to +conquer the weaknesses of their natures; not in the stifling manner of +Thomas a Kempis, but in a breezy, robust way. Yes, I think that these +three works, _Rasselas_, _The Lives of the Poets_, and the _Prayers and +Meditations_, make it quite clear that Johnson still holds his place as +one of our greatest writers, even if we were not familiar with his many +delightful letters, and had not read his _Rambler_--which his old enemy, +Miss Anna Seward, insisted was far better than Addison's _Spectator_. + +All this is only to say that we cannot have too much of Dr. Johnson. The +advantage of such a gathering as this is that it helps us to keep that +fact alive. Moreover, I feel that it is a good thing if we can hearten +those who have devoted themselves to laborious research connected with +such matters. Take, for example, the work of Dr. Birkbeck Hill: his many +volumes are a delight to the Johnson student. I knew Dr. Hill very well, +and I have often felt that his work did not receive half the +encouragement that it deserved. We hear sometimes, at least in London, +of authors who advertise themselves. I rather fancy that all such +advertisement is monopolized by the novelist, and that the newspapers do +not trouble themselves very much about literary men who work in other +fields than that of fiction. Fiction has much to be said for it, but as +a rule it reaps its reward very promptly, both in finance and in fame. No +such rewards come to the writer of biography, to the writer of history, +to the literary editor. Dr. Hill's beautiful edition of Boswell's +_Life_, with all its fascinating annotation, did not reach a second +edition in his lifetime. I am afraid that the sum that he made out of +it, or that his publishers made out of it, would seem a very poor reward +indeed when gauged by the results in other fields of labour. + +Within the past few weeks I have had the privilege of reading a book that +continues these researches. Mr. Aleyn Lyell Reade has published a +handsome tome, which he has privately printed, entitled _Dr. Johnson's +Ancestry_: _His Kinsfolk and Family Connexions_. I am glad to hear that +the Johnson Museum has purchased a copy, for such a work deserves every +encouragement. The author must have spent hundreds of pounds, without +the faintest possibility of obtaining either fame or money from the +transaction. He seems to have employed copyists in every town in +Staffordshire, to copy wills, registers of births and deaths, and kindred +records from the past. Now Dr. Birkbeck Hill could not have afforded to +do this; he was by no means a rich man. Mr. Reade has clearly been able +to spare no expense, with the result that here are many interesting facts +corrective of earlier students. The whole is a valuable record of the +ancestry of Dr. Johnson. It shows clearly that whereas Dr. Johnson +thought very little of his ancestry, and scarcely knew anything of his +grandfather on the paternal or the maternal side, he really sprang from a +very remarkable stock, notably on the maternal side; and that his +mother's family, the Fords, had among their connexions all kinds of +fairly prosperous people, clergymen, officials, professional men as well +as sturdy yeomen. These ancestors of Dr. Johnson did not help him much +to push his way in the world. Of some of them he had scarcely heard. All +the same it is of great interest to us to know this; it in a manner +explains him. That before Samuel Johnson was born, one of his family had +been Lord Mayor of London, another a Sheriff, that they had been +associated in various ways, not only with the city of his birth, but also +with the great city which Johnson came to love so much, is to let in a +flood of fresh light upon our hero. My time does not permit me to do +more than make a passing reference to this book, but I should like to +offer here a word of thanks to its author for his marvellous industry, +and a word of congratulation to him for the extraordinary success that +has accrued to his researches. + +I mention Mr. Reade's book because it is full of Lichfield names and +Lichfield associations, and it is with Dr. Johnson's life-long connexion +with Lichfield that all of us are thinking to-night. Now here I may say, +without any danger of being challenged by some visitor who has the +misfortune not to be a citizen of Lichfield--you who are will not wish to +challenge me--that this city has distinguished itself in quite an unique +way. I do not believe that it can be found that any other town or city +of England--I will not say of Scotland or of Ireland--has done honour to +a literary son in the same substantial measure that Lichfield has done +honour to Samuel Johnson. The peculiar glory of the deed is that it was +done to the living Johnson, not coming, as so many honours do, too late +for a man to find pleasure in the recognition. We know that-- + + Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, + Through which the living Homer begged his bread. + +But I doubt whether in the whole history of literature in England it can +be found that any other purely literary man has received in his lifetime +so substantial a mark of esteem from the city which gave him birth, as +Johnson did when your Corporation, in 1767, "at a common-hall of the +bailiffs and citizens, without any solicitation," presented him with the +ninety-nine years' lease of the house in which he was born. Your +citizens not only did that for Johnson, but they gave him other marks of +their esteem. He writes from Lichfield to Sir Joshua Reynolds to express +his pleasure that his portrait has been "much visited and much admired." +"Every man," he adds, "has a lurking desire to appear considerable in his +native place." Then we all remember Boswell's naive confession that his +pleasure at finding his hero so much beloved led him, when the pair +arrived at this very hostelry, to imbibe too much of the famous Lichfield +ale. If Boswell wished, as he says, to offer incense to the spirit of +the place, how much more may we desire to do so to-night, when exactly +125 years have passed, and his hero is now more than ever recognized as a +king of men. + +I do not suggest that we should honour Johnson in quite the same way that +Boswell did. This is a more abstemious age. But we must drink to his +memory all the same. Think of it. A century and a quarter have passed +since that memorable evening at the _Three Crowns_, when Johnson and +Boswell thus foregathered in this very room. You recall the journey from +Birmingham of the two companions. "We are getting out of a state of +death," the Doctor said with relief, as he approached his native city, +feeling all the magic and invigoration that is said to come to those who +in later years return to "calf-land." Then how good he was to an old +schoolfellow who called upon him here. The fact that this man had failed +in the battle of life while Johnson had succeeded, only made the Doctor +the kinder. I know of no more human picture than that--"A Mr. Jackson," +as he is called by Boswell, "in his coarse grey coat," obviously very +poor, and as Boswell suggests, "dull and untaught." The "great Cham of +Literature" listens patiently as the worthy Jackson tells his troubles, +so much more patiently than he would have listened to one of the famous +men of his Club in London, and the hero-worshipping Boswell drinks his +deep potations, but never neglects to take notes the while. Of Boswell +one remembers further that Johnson had told Wilkes that he had brought +him to Lichfield, "my native city," "that he might see for once real +Civility--for you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among +rakes in London." All good stories are worth hearing again and again, +and so I offer an apology for recalling the picture to your mind at this +time and in this place. + +Alas! I have not the gift of the worldfamed Lord Verulam, who, as Francis +Bacon, sat in the House of Commons. The members, we are told, so +delighted in his oratory that when he rose to speak they "were fearful +lest he should make an end." I am making an end. Johnson then was not +only a great writer, a conversationalist so unique that his sayings have +passed more into current speech than those of any other Englishman, but +he was also a great moralist--a superb inspiration to a better life. We +should not love Johnson so much were he not presented to us as a man of +many weaknesses and faults akin to our own, not a saint by any means, and +therefore not so far removed from us as some more ethereal characters of +whom we may read. Johnson striving to methodize his life, to fight +against sloth and all the minor vices to which he was prone, is the +Johnson whom some of us prefer to keep ever in mind. "Here was," I quote +Carlyle, "a strong and noble man, one of our great English souls." I +love him best in his book called _Prayers and Meditations_, where we know +him as we know scarcely any other Englishman, for the good, upright +fighter in this by no means easy battle of life. It is as such a fighter +that we think of him to-night. Reading the account of _his_ battles may +help us to fight ours. + +Gentlemen, I give you the toast of the evening. Let us drink in solemn +silence, upstanding, "The Immortal Memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson." + + + + +II. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF WILLIAM COWPER + + +An address entitled 'The Sanity of Cowper,' delivered at the Centenary +Celebration at Olney, Bucks, on the occasion of the Hundredth Anniversary +of the Death of the poet William Cowper, April 25, 1900. + +I owe some apology for coming down to Olney to take part in what I +believe is a purely local celebration, in which no other Londoner, as far +as I know, has been asked to take part. I am here not because I profess +any special qualification to speak about Cowper, in the town with which +his name is so pleasantly associated, but because Mr. Mackay, {31} the +son-in-law of your Vicar, has written a book about the Brontes, and I +have done likewise, and he asked me to come. This common interest has +little, you will say, to do with the Poet of Olney. Between Cowper and +Charlotte Bronte there were, however, not a few points of likeness or at +least of contrast. Both were the children of country clergymen; both +lived lives of singular and, indeed, unusual strenuousness; both were the +very epitome of a strong Protestantism; and yet both--such is the +inevitable toleration of genius--were drawn in an unusual manner to +attachment to friends of the Roman Catholic Church--Cowper to Lady +Throckmorton, who copied out some of his translations from Homer for him, +assisted by her father-confessor, Dr. Gregson, and Miss Bronte to her +Professor, M. Heger, the man in the whole world whom she most revered. +Under circumstances of peculiar depression both these great Protestant +writers went further on occasion than their Protestant friends would have +approved, Cowper to contemplate--so he assures us in one of his +letters--the entering a French monastery, and Miss Bronte actually to +kneel in the Confessional in a Brussels church. Further, let me remind +you that there were moments in the lives of Charlotte Bronte and her +sisters, when Cowper's poem, _The Castaway_, was their most soul-stirring +reading. Then, again, Mary Unwin's only daughter became the wife of a +Vicar of Dewsbury, and it was at Dewsbury and to the very next vicar, +that Mr. Bronte, the father of Charlotte, was curate when he first went +into Yorkshire. Finally, let it be recalled that Cowper and Charlotte +Bronte have attracted as much attention by the pathos of their lives as +by anything that they wrote. Thus far, and no further, can a strained +analogy carry us. The most enthusiastic admirers of the Brontes can only +claim for them that they permanently added certain artistic treasures to +our literature. Cowper did incomparably more than this. His work marked +an epoch. + +But first let me say how interested we who are strangers naturally feel +in being in Olney. To every lover of literature Olney is made classic +ground by the fact that Cowper spent some twenty years of his life in +it--not always with too genial a contemplation of the place and its +inhabitants. "The genius of Cowper throws a halo of glory over all the +surroundings of Olney and Weston," says Dean Burgon. But Olney has +claims apart from Cowper. John Newton {34} presents himself to me as an +impressive personality. There was a time, indeed, of youthful +impetuosity when I positively hated him, for Southey, whose biography I +read very early in life, certainly endeavours to assist the view that +Newton was largely responsible for the poet's periodical attacks of +insanity. + +But a careful survey of the facts modifies any such impression. Newton +was narrow at times, he was over-concerned as to the letter, often +ignoring the spirit of true piety, but the student of the two volumes of +his _Life and Correspondence_ that we owe to Josiah Bull, will be +compelled to look at "the old African blasphemer" as he called himself, +with much of sympathy. That he had a note of tolerance, with which he is +not usually credited, we learn from one of his letters, where he says: + + I am willing to be a debtor to the wise and to the unwise, to doctors + and shoemakers, if I can get a hint from any one without respect of + parties. When a house is on fire Churchmen and Dissenters, Methodists + and Papists, Moravians and Mystics are all welcome to bring water. At + such times nobody asks, "Pray, friend, whom do you hear?" or "What do + you think of the five points?" + +Even my good friend Canon Benham, who has done so much to sustain the +honourable fame of Cowper, and who would have been here to-day but for a +long-standing engagement, is scarcely fair to Newton. {35} It is not +true, as has been suggested, that Cowper always changed his manner into +one of painful sobriety when he wrote to Newton. One of his most +humorous letters--a rhyming epistle--was addressed to that divine. + + I have writ (he says) in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and + as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing + away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned; + which you may do ere Madam and you are quite worn out with jigging + about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to + the ground, from your humble me, W. C. + +Now, I quote this very familiar passage from the correspondence to remind +you that Cowper could only have written it to a man possessed of +considerable healthy geniality. + +At any rate, alike as a divine and as the author of the _Olney Hymns_, +Newton holds an important place in the history of theology, and Olney has +a right to be proud of him. An even more important place is held by +Thomas Scott, {36} and it seems to me quite a wonderful thing that Olney +should sometimes have held at one and the same moment three such +remarkable men as Cowper, Newton, and Scott. + +In my boyhood Scott's name was a household word, and many a time have I +thumbed the volumes of his _Commentaries_, those _Commentaries_ which Sir +James Stephen declared to be "the greatest theological performance of our +age and country." Of Scott Cardinal Newman in his _Apologia_ said, it +will be remembered, that "to him, humanly speaking, I almost owe my +soul." Even here our literary associations with Olney and its +neighbourhood are not ended, for, it was within five miles of this +town--at Easton Maudit--that Bishop Percy {37} lived and prepared those +_Reliques_ which have inspired a century of ballad literature. Here the +future Bishop of Dromore was visited by Dr. Johnson and others. What a +pity that with only five miles separating them Cowper and Johnson should +never have met! Would Cowper have reconsidered the wish made when he +read Johnson's biography of Milton in the _Lives of the Poets_: "Oh! I +could thresh his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his +pocket!"? + +But it is with Cowper only that we have here to do, and when we are +talking of Cowper the difficulty is solely one of compression. So much +has been written about him and his work. The Lives of him form of +themselves a most substantial library. He has been made the subject of +what is surely the very worst biography in the language and of one that +is among the very best. The well-meaning Hayley {38a} wrote the one, in +which the word "tenderness" appears at least twice on every page, and +Southey {38b} the other. Not less fortunate has the poet been in his +critics. Walter Bagehot, James Russell Lowell, Mrs. Oliphant, George +Eliot {38c}--these are but a few of the names that occur to me as having +said something wise and to the point concerning the Poet of Olney. + +I somehow feel that it is safer for me to refer to the Poet of Olney than +to speak of William Cowper, because I am not quite sure how you would +wish me to pronounce his name. _Cooper_, he himself pronounced it, as +his family are in the habit of doing. The present Lord Cowper is known +to all the world as Lord Cooper. The derivation of the name and the +family coat-of-arms justify that pronunciation, and it might be said that +a man was, and is, entitled to settle the question of the pronunciation +of his own name. And yet I plead for what I am quite willing to allow is +the incorrect pronunciation. All pronunciation, even of the simplest +words, is settled finally by a consensus of custom. Throughout the +English-speaking world the name is now constantly pronounced Cowper, as +if that most useful and ornamental animal the cow had given it its +origin. Well-read Scotland is peculiarly unanimous in the custom, and +well-read America follows suit. William Shakspere, I doubt not, called +himself Shaxspere, and we decline to imitate him, and so probably many of +us will with a light heart go on speaking of William Cowper to the end of +the chapter. At any rate Shakspere and Cowper, divergent as were their +lives and their work--and one readily recognizes the incomparably greater +position of the former--had alike a keen sense of humour, rare among +poets it would seem, and hugely would they both have enjoyed such a +controversy as this. + +This suggestion of the humour of Cowper brings me to my main point. +Humour is so essentially a note of sanity, and it is the sanity of Cowper +that I desire to emphasize here. We have heard too much of the insanity +of Cowper, of the "maniac's tongue" to which Mrs. Browning referred, of +the "maniacal Calvinist" of whom Byron wrote somewhat scornfully. Only a +day or two ago I read in a high-class journal that "one fears that +Cowper's despondency and madness are better known to-day than his +poetry." That is not to know the secret of Cowper. It is true that +there were periods of maniacal depression, and these were not always +religious ones. Now, it was from sheer nervousness at the prospect of +meeting his fellows, now it was from a too logical acceptance of the +doctrine of eternal punishment. Had it not been these, it would have +been something else. It might have been politics, or a hundred things +that now and again give a twist to the mind of the wisest. With Cowper +it was generally religion. I am not here to promote a paradox. I accept +the only too well-known story of Cowper's many visitations, but, looking +back a century, for the purpose of asking what was Cowper's contribution +to the world's happiness and why we meet to speak of our love for him to- +day, I insist that these visitations are not essential to our memory of +him as a great figure in our literature--the maker of an epoch. + +Cowper lived for some seventy years--sixty-nine, to be exact. Of these +years there was a period longer than the full term of Byron's life, of +Shelley's or of Keats's, of perfect sanity, and it was in this period +that he gave us what is one of the sanest achievements in our literature, +view it as we may. + +Let us look backwards over the century--a century which has seen many +changes of which Cowper had scarcely any vision--the wonders of machinery +and of electricity, of commercial enterprise, of the newspaper press, of +book production. The galloping postboy is the most persistent figure in +Cowper's landscape. He has been replaced by the motor car. Nations have +arisen and fallen; a thousand writers have become popular and have ceased +to be remembered. Other writers have sprung up who have made themselves +immortal. Burns and Byron, Coleridge and Wordsworth, Scott and Shelley +among the poets. + +We ask ourselves, then, what distinctly differentiates Cowper's life from +that of his brothers in poetry, and I reply--his sanity. He did not +indulge in vulgar amours, as did Burns and Byron; he did not ruin his +moral fibre by opium, as did Coleridge; he did not shock his best friends +by an over-weening egotism, as did Wordsworth; he did not spoil his life +by reckless financial complications, as did Scott; or by too great an +enthusiasm to beat down the world's conventions, as did Shelley. I do +not here condemn any one or other of these later poets. Their lives +cannot be summed up in the mistakes they made. I only urge that, as it +is not good to be at warfare with your fellows, to be burdened with debts +that you have to kill yourself to pay, to alienate your friends by +distressing mannerisms, to cease to be on speaking terms with your +family--therefore Cowper, who avoided these things, and, out of +threescore years and more allotted to him, lived for some forty or fifty +years at least a quiet, idyllic life, surrounded by loyal and loving +friends, had chosen the saner and safer path. That, it may be granted, +was very much a matter of temperament, and for it one does not need to +praise him. The appeal to us of Robert Burns to gently scan our brother +man will necessarily find a ready acceptance to-day, and a plea on behalf +of kindly toleration for any great writer who has inspired his fellows is +natural and honourable. But Cowper does not require any such kindly +toleration. His temperament led him to a placid life, where there were +few temptations, and that life with its quiet walks, its occasional +drives, its simple recreations, has stood for a whole century as our +English ideal. It is what, amid the strain of the severest commercialism +in our great cities, we look forward to for our declining years as a +haven on this side of the grave. + +But I have undertaken to plead for Cowper's sanity. I desire, therefore, +to beg you to look not at this or that episode in his life, when, as we +know, Cowper was in the clutches of evil spirits, but at his life as a +whole--a life of serene contentment in the company of his friends, his +hares Puss, Tiny and Bess, his "eight pair of tame pigeons," his +correspondents; and then I ask you to turn to his work, and to note the +essential sanity of that work also. + +First there is his poetry. When after the Bastille had fallen Charles +James Fox quoted in one of his speeches Cowper's lines--written long +years before--praying that that event might occur, he paid an unconscious +tribute to the sanity of Cowper's genius. {44} Few poets who have let +their convictions and aspirations find expression in verse have come so +near the mark. + +Wordsworth's verse--that which was written at the same age--is studded +with prophecy of evils that never occurred. It was not because of any +supermundane intelligence, such as latter-day poets have been pleased to +affect and latter-day critics to assume for them, that Cowper wrote in +anticipation of the fall of the Bastille in those thrilling lines, but +because his exceedingly sane outlook upon the world showed him that +France was riding fast towards revolution. + +We have been told that Cowper's poetry lacked the true note of passion, +that there was an absence of the "lyric cry." I protest that I find the +note of passion in the "Lines on the Receipt of my Mother's Picture," in +his two sets of verses to Mrs. Unwin, in his sonnet to Wilberforce not +less marked than I find it in other great poets. I find in _The Task_ +and elsewhere in Cowper's works a note of enthusiasm for human +brotherhood, for man's responsibility for man, for universal kinship, +that had scarcely any place in literature before he wrote quietly here at +Olney thoughts wiser and saner than he knew. To-day we call ourselves by +many names, Conservatives or Liberals, Radicals, or Socialists; we differ +widely as to ways and means; but we are all practically agreed about one +thing--that the art of politics is the art of making the world happier. +Each politician who has any aspirations beyond mere ambition desires to +leave the world a little better than he found it. This is a commonplace +of to-day. It was not a commonplace of Cowper's day. Even the great- +hearted, lovable Dr. Johnson was only concerned with the passing act of +kindliness to his fellows; patriotism he declared to be the last refuge +of a scoundrel; collective aspiration was mere charlatanry in his eyes, +and when some one said that he had lost his appetite because of a British +defeat, Johnson thought him an impostor, in which Johnson was probably +right. There have been plenty of so-called patriots who were scoundrels, +there has been plenty of affectation of sentiment which is little better +than charlatanry, but we do not consider when we weigh the influence of +men whether Rousseau was morally far inferior to Johnson. We know that +he was. But Rousseau, poor an instrument as he may have been, helped to +break many a chain, to relieve many a weary heart, to bring to whole +peoples a new era in which the horrors of the past became as a nightmare, +and in which ideals were destined to reign for ever. Cowper, an +incomparably better man than Rousseau, helped to permeate England with +that collective sentiment, which, while it does not excuse us for +neglecting our neighbour, is a good thing for preserving for nations a +healthy natural life, a more and more difficult task with the growing +complications of commercialism. Cowper here, as I say, unconsciously +performed his greatest service to humanity; and it was performed, be it +remembered, at Olney. It has been truly said that in Cowper:-- + + The poetry of human wrong begins, that long, long cry against + oppression and evil done by man to man, against the political, moral, + or priestly tyrant, which rings louder and louder through Burns, + Coleridge, Shelley, and Byron, ever impassioned, ever longing, ever + prophetic--never, in the darkest time, quite despairing. {47} + +And Cowper achieved this without losing sight for one moment of the +essential necessity for personal worth: + + Spend all thy powers + Of rant and rhapsody in Virtue's praise, + Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, + +and it profiteth nothing, he said in effect. + +That was not his only service as a citizen. He struck the note of honest +patriotism as it had not been struck before since Milton, by the familiar +lines commencing: + + England, with all thy faults, I love thee still, + My country! + +As also in that stirring ballad "On the Loss of the _Royal George_:" + + Her timbers yet are sound, + And she may float again, + Full charged with England's thunder, + And plough the distant main. + +There are two other great claims that might here be made for Cowper did +time allow, that he anticipated Wordsworth alike as a lover of nature, as +one who had more than a superficial affection for it--the superficial +affection of Thomson and Gray--and that he anticipated Wordsworth also as +a lover of animal life. Cowper's love of nature was the less effective +than Wordsworth's only, surely, in that he had not had Wordsworth's +advantage of living amid impressive scenery. His love of animal life was +far less platonic than Wordsworth's. To his hares and his pigeons and +all dumb creatures he was genuinely devoted. Perhaps it was because he +had in him the blood of kings--for, curiously enough, it is no more +difficult to trace the genealogical tree of both Cowper and Byron down to +William the Conqueror than it is to trace the genealogical tree of Queen +Victoria--it was perhaps, I say, this descent from kings which led him to +be more tolerant of "sport" than was Wordsworth. At any rate, Cowper's +vigorous description of being in at the death of a fox may be contrasted +with Wordsworth's "Heart Leap Well," and you will prefer Cowper or +Wordsworth, as your tastes are for or against our old-fashioned English +sports. But even then, as often, Cowper in his poetry was less tolerant +than in his prose, for he writes in _The Task_ of: + + detested sport + That owes its pleasures to another's pain, + +We may note in all this the almost entire lack of indebtedness in Cowper +to his predecessors. One of his most famous phrases, indeed, that on +"the cup that cheers, but not inebriates," he borrowed from Berkeley; but +his borrowings were few, far fewer than those of any other great poet, +whereas mine would be a long essay were I to produce by the medium of +parallel columns all that other poets have borrowed from him. + +Lastly, among Cowper's many excellencies as a poet let me note his +humour. His pathos, his humanity--many fine qualities he has in common +with others; but what shall we say of his humour? If the ubiquitous Scot +were present, so far from his native heath--and I daresay we have one or +two with us--he might claim that humour was also the prerogative of +Robert Burns. He might claim, also, that certain other great +characteristics of Cowper were to be found almost simultaneously in +Burns. There is virtue in the _almost_. Cowper was born in 1731, Burns +in 1759. At any rate humour has been a rare product among the greater +English poets. It was entirely absent in Wordsworth, in Shelley, in +Keats. Byron possessed a gift of satire and wit, but no humour, Tennyson +only a suspicion of it in "The Northern Farmer." From Cowper to +Browning, who also had it at times, there has been little humour in the +greatest English poetry, although plenty of it in the lesser poets--Hood +and the rest. But there was in Cowper a great sense of humour, as there +was also plenty of what Hazlitt, almost censoriously, calls "elegant +trifling." Not only in the imperishable "John Gilpin," but in the "Case +Between Nose and Eyes," "The Nightingale and Glow-worm," and other pieces +you have examples of humorous verse which will live as long as our +language endures. + +Cowper's claims as a poet, then, may be emphasized under four heads:-- + +I. His enthusiasm for humanity. + +II. His love of nature. + +III. His love of animal life. + +IV. His humour. + +And in three of these, let it be said emphatically, he stands out as the +creator of a new era. + +There is another claim I make for him, and with this I close--his +position as a master of prose, as well as of poetry. Cowper was the +greatest letter-writer in a language which has produced many great letter- +writers--Walpole, Gray, Byron, Scott, FitzGerald, and a long list. But +nearly all these men were men of affairs, of action. Given a good +literary style they could hardly have been other than interesting, they +had so much to say that they gained from external sources. Even +FitzGerald--the one recluse--had all the treasures of literature +constantly passing into his study. Cowper had but eighteen books +altogether during many of his years in Olney, and some of us who have +lent our volumes in the past and are still sighing over gaps in our +shelves find consolation in the fact that six of Cowper's books had been +returned to him after a friend had borrowed for twenty years or so. Now, +it is comparatively easy to write good letters with a library around you; +it is marvellous that Cowper could have done this with so little +material, and his letters are, from this point of view, the best of +all--"divine chit-chat" Coleridge called them. His simple style +captivates us. And here let me say--keeping to my text--that it is the +_sanest_ of styles, a style with no redundancies, no rhetoric, no +straining after effect. The outlook on life is sane--what could be finer +than the chase for the lost hare, or the call of the Parliamentary +candidate, or the flogging of the thief?--and the outlook on literature +is particularly sane. + +Cowper was well-nigh the only true poet in the first rank in English +literature who was at the same time a true critic. Literary history +affords a singular revelation of the wild and incoherent judgments of +their fellows on the part of the poets. For praise or blame, there are +few literary judgments of Byron, of Shelley, of Wordsworth that will +stand. Coleridge was a critic first, and his poetry, though good, is +small in quantity, and the same may be said of Matthew Arnold. Tennyson +discreetly kept away from prose, and his letters, be it remembered, lack +distinction as do most letters of the nineteenth century. If, however, +as we are really to believe, he it was who really made the first edition +of Palgrave's _Golden Treasury of Lyric Poetry_, he came near to Cowper +in his sanity of judgment, and one delights to think that in that +precious volume Cowper ranks third--that is, after Shakspere and +Wordsworth--in the number of selections that are there given, and rightly +given, as imperishable masterpieces of English poetry. Tennyson, also, +was at one with Cowper in declaring that an appreciation of _Lycidas_ was +a touchstone of taste for poetry. To Tennyson, as to Cowper, Milton was +the one great English poet after Shakspere; and here, also, we revere the +saneness of view. More sane too, was Cowper than any of the modern +critics, in that he did not believe that mere technique was the +standpoint from which all poetry must ultimately be judged. + + "Give me," he says, "a manly rough line with a deal of meaning in it, + rather than a whole poem full of musical periods, that have nothing in + them, only smoothness to recommend them!" + +And thus he justified Robert Browning and many another singer. + +Let us then dismiss from our minds the one-sided picture of Cowper as a +gloomy fanatic, who was always asking himself in Carlylian phrase, "Am I +saved? Am I damned?" Let us remember him as staunch to the friends of +his youth, sympathetic to his old schoolfellow, Warren Hastings, when the +world would make him out too black. Opposed in theory to tobacco, how he +delighted to welcome his good friend Mr. Bull. "My greenhouse," he says, +"wants only the flavour of your pipe to make it perfectly delightful!" +Naturally tolerant of total abstinence, he asks one friend to drink to +the success of his Homer, and thanks another for a present of +bottle-stands. From beginning to end, save in those periods of +aberration, there is no more resemblance to Cowper in the picture that +certain narrow-minded people have desired to portray than there is in +these same people's conception of Martin Luther. The real Luther, who +loved dancing and mirth and the joy of living as much as did any of the +men he so courageously opposed, was not more remote from a conception of +him once current in this country than was the real Cowper--the frank, +genial humorist, who wrote "John Gilpin," who in his youth "giggled and +made giggle" with his girl-cousins, and in his maturer years "laughed and +made laugh" with Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh. + +To all men there are periods of weariness and depression, side by side +with periods of happiness and hopefulness. Cowper, alas! had more than +his share of the tragedy of life, but let us not forget that he had some +of its joy, and that joy is reflected for us in a substantial literary +achievement, which has lived, and influenced the world, while his more +tragic experiences may well be buried in oblivion. This, you may have +noted, is not a criticism of Cowper, but an eulogy. I would wish to say, +however, that the criticism of Cowper by living writers has been of +surpassing excellence. For the first fifty or sixty years of the century +that we are recalling Cowper was the most popular poet of our country, +with Burns and Byron for rivals. He has been largely dethroned by +Wordsworth and Shelley, and Tennyson, not one of whom has been praised +too much. But if Cowper has sunk somewhat out of sight of late years, +owing to inevitable circumstances, it is during these late years that he +has secured the goodwill of the best living critics. Would that Mr. +Leslie Stephen {56}--who wrote his life in the _Dictionary of National +Biography_--would that Mr. Edmund Gosse--who has so recently published a +great biography of Cowper's memorable ancestor, Dr. Donne--were, one or +other of them, here to-day; or Mr. Austin Dobson, who has visited Olney, +and described his impressions; or Dr. Jessopp, who lives near Cowper's +tomb in East Dereham Church. These writers are, alas! not with us, and +some presentment of a poet they love has fallen to less capable hands. + +But not the most brilliant of speeches, not all the enthusiasm of all the +critics, can ever restore Cowper to his former immense popularity. We do +well, however, to celebrate his centenary, because it is good at certain +periods to remember our indebtedness to the great men who have helped us +in literature or in life. But that is not to say that we work for the +dethronement of later favourites. "Each age must write its own books," +says Emerson, and this is particularly the case with the great body of +poetry. Cowper, however, will live to all time among students of +literature by his longer poems; he will live to all time among the +multitude by his ballads and certain of his lyrics. He will, assuredly, +live by his letters, to study which will be a thousand times more helpful +to the young writer than many volumes of Addison, to whom we were once +advised to devote our days and our nights. Cowper will live, above all, +as a profoundly interesting and beautiful personality, as a great and +good Englishman--the greatest of all the sons of this his adopted town. + + + + +III. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF GEORGE BORROW + + +An Address delivered in Norwich on the Occasion of the Borrow Centenary, +1903. + +One hundred years ago there was born some two miles from the pleasant +little town of East Dereham, in this county, a child who was christened +George Henry Borrow. That is why we are assembled here this evening. I +count it one of the most interesting coincidences in literary history +that only three years earlier there should have left the world in the +same little town--a town only known perhaps to those of us who are +Norfolk men--a poet who has always seemed to me to be one of the greatest +glories of our literature: I mean William Cowper. Cowper died in April, +1800, and Borrow was born in July, 1803, in this same town of East +Dereham: and there very much it might be thought, any point of likeness +or of contrast must surely end. + +Cowper and Borrow do, indeed, come into some trivial kind of kinship at +one or two points. In reading Cowper's beautiful letters I have come +across two addressed by him to one Richard Phillips, a bookseller of that +day, who had been in prison for publishing some of Thomas Paine's works. +Cowper had been asked by Phillips to write a sympathetic poem +denunciatory of the political and religious tyranny that had sent +Phillips to jail. Cowper had at first agreed, but was afterwards advised +not to have anything more to do with Phillips. Judging by the after +career of Phillips, Cowper did wisely; for Phillips was not a good man, +although twenty years later he had become a sheriff of London and was +knighted. As Sir Richard Phillips he was visited by George Borrow, then +a youth at the beginning of his career. Borrow came to Phillips armed +with an introduction from William Taylor of Norwich, and his reception is +most dramatically recorded in the pages of _Lavengro_. This is, however, +to anticipate. Then there is a poem by Cowper to Sir John Fenn {62} the +antiquary, the first editor of the famous _Paston Letters_. In it there +is a reference to Fenn's spouse, who, under the pseudonym of "Mrs. +Teachwell," wrote many books for children in her day. Now Borrow could +remember this lady--Dame Eleanor Fenn--when he was a boy. He recalled +the "Lady Bountiful leaning on her gold-headed cane, while the sleek old +footman followed at a respectful distance behind." Lady Fenn was forty- +six years old when Cowper referred to her. She was sixty-six when the +boy Borrow saw her in Dereham streets. At no other points do these great +East Dereham writers come upon common ground: Cowper during the greater +part of his life was a recluse. He practically fled from the world. In +reading the many letters he wrote--and they are among the best letters in +the English language--one is struck by the small number of his +correspondents. He had few acquaintances and still fewer friends. He +had never seen a hill until he was sixty, and then it was only the modest +hills of Sussex that seemed to him so supremely glorious. He was never +on the Continent. For half a lifetime he did not move out of one county, +the least picturesque part of Buckinghamshire, the neighbourhood of Olney +and of Weston. There he wrote the poems that have been a delight to +several generations, poems which although they may have gone out of +fashion with many are still very dear to some among us; and there, as I +have said, he wrote the incomparable letters that have an equally +permanent place in literature. + +You could not conceive a more extraordinary contrast than the life of +this other writer associated with East Dereham, whom we have met to +celebrate this evening. George Borrow was the son of a soldier, who had +risen from the ranks, and of a mother who had been an actress. Soldier +and actress both imply to all of us a restless, wandering life. The +soldier was a Cornishman by birth, the actress was of French origin, and +so you have blended in this little Norfolk boy--who is a Norfolk boy in +spite of it all--every kind of nomadic habit, every kind of fiery, +imaginative enthusiasm, a temperament not usually characteristic of those +of us who claim East Anglia as the land of our birth or of our +progenitors. I wish it were possible for me to reconstruct that Norwich +world into which young George Borrow entered at thirteen years of age. +That it was a Norwich of great intellectual activity is indisputable. In +the year of Borrow's birth John Gurney, who died six years later, first +became a partner in the Norwich bank. His more famous son, Joseph John +Gurney--aged fifteen--left the Earlham home in order to study at Oxford. +His sister, the still more famous Elizabeth Fry, was now twenty-three. So +that when Borrow, the thirteen year old son of the veteran soldier--who +had already been in Ireland picking up scraps of Irish, and in Scotland +adding to his knowledge of Gaelic--settled down for some of his most +impressionable years in Norwich, Joseph John Gurney was a young man of +twenty-eight and Elizabeth Fry was thirty-six. Dr. James Martineau was +eleven years of age and his sister Harriet was fourteen. Another equally +clever woman, not then married to Austin, the famous jurist, was Sarah +Taylor, aged twenty-three. This is but to name a few of the crowd of +Norwich worthies of that day. Would that some one could produce a +picture of the literary life of Norwich of this time and of a quarter of +a century onward--a period that includes the famous Bishop Stanley's {66} +occupancy of the See of Norwich and the visits to this city from all +parts of England of a great number of famous literary men. It is my +pleasant occupation to-night to endeavour to show that Borrow, the very +least of these men and women in public estimation for a good portion of +his life, and perhaps the least in popular judgment even since his death, +was really the greatest, was really the man of all others to whom this +beautiful city should do honour if it asks for a name out of its +nineteenth century history to crown with local recognition. + +For whatever homage may have fallen to Borrow during the half-century or +more since his name first came upon many tongues Norwich, it must be +admitted, has given very little of it. No one associated with your city, +I repeat, but has heard of the Gurneys and the Martineaus, of the +Stanleys and the Austins, whose life stories have made so large a part of +your literary and intellectual history during this very period. But I +turn in vain to a number of books that I have in my library for any +information concerning one who is indisputably the greatest among the +intellectual children of Norwich. I turn to Mr. Prothero's _Life of Dean +Stanley_--not one word about Borrow; to that pleasant _Memoir_ of Sarah +Austin and her mother, Mrs. Taylor, called _Three Generations of a +Norfolk Family_--again not one word. I turn to Mr. Braithwaite's +biography of Joseph John Gurney, and to Mr. Augustus Hare's book _The +Gurneys of Earlham_--upon these worthy biographers Borrow made no +impression whatever, although Joseph John Gurney was personally helpful +to him and we read in _Lavengro_ of that pleasant meeting between the +pair on the river bank when Mr. Gurney chided the boy Borrow or Lavengro +for angling. "From that day," he says, "I became less and less a +practitioner of that cruel fishing." In Harriet Martineau's +_Autobiography_, which enjoyed its hour of fame when it was published +twenty-six years ago, there is a contemptuous reference to the disciple +of William Taylor, "this polyglot gentleman, who went through Spain +disseminating Bibles." If Miss Martineau were alive now she would hear +the works of "this polyglot gentleman" praised on every hand, and would +find that a cult had arisen which to her would certainly be quite +incomprehensible. In that large, dismal book--the _Life of James +Martineau_, again, there is but one mention of Dr. Martineau's famous +schoolfellow whose name has been linked with him only by a silly story. +Do not let it be thought that I am complaining of this neglect; the world +will always treat its greatest writers in precisely this fashion. Borrow +did not lack for fame of a kind, but he was, as I desire to show, praised +in his lifetime for the wrong thing, where he was praised at all. +Everyone in the fifties and sixties read _The Bible in Spain_, as they +read a hundred other books of that period, now forgotten. Many read it +who were deceived by its title. They expected a tract. Many read it as +we to-day read the latest novel or biography of the hour. Then a new +book arises and the momentary favourite is forgotten. We think for a +whole week that we are in contact with a well-nigh immortal work. A +little later we concern ourselves not at all whether the book is immortal +or not. We go on to something else. The critic is as much to blame as +the reader. Not one man in a hundred whose profession it is to come +between the author and the public, and to guide the reader to the best in +literature, has the least perception of what is good literature. It is +easy when a writer has captured the suffrages of the crowd for the critic +to tell the world that he is great. That happened to Carlyle, to +Tennyson, to many a popular author whose earliest books commanded little +attention: but, happily, these writers did not lose heart. They kept on +writing. Borrow was otherwise made. He wrote _The Bible in Spain_--a +book of travel of surprising merit. It sold largely on its title. Mr. +Augustine Birrell has told us that he knew a boy in a very strict +household who devoured the narrative on Sunday afternoons, the title +being thought to cover a conventional missionary journey. Well, when I +was a boy _The Bible in Spain_ had gone out of fashion and the public had +not taken up with the author's greater work, _Lavengro_. Borrow was +naturally disappointed. He abused the critics and the public. Perhaps +he grew somewhat soured. He did not hesitate in _The Romany Rye_ to talk +candidly about those "ill-favoured dogs . . . the newspaper editors," and +he made the gentleman's gentleman of _Lavengro_ describe how he was +excluded from the Servants' Club in Park Lane because his master followed +a profession "so mean as literature." In fact as a reaction from the +unfriendly reception accorded to the _Romany Rye_--now one of the most +costly of his books in a first edition--he lost heart, and he grew to +despise the whole literary and writing class. Hence the various stories +presenting him in not very sympathetic guise, the story of Thackeray +being snubbed on asking Borrow if he had read the _Snob Papers_, of Miss +Agnes Strickland receiving an even more forcible rebuff when she offered +to send him her _Queens of England_. "For God's sake don't Madame; I +should not know where to put them or what to do with them." These +stories are in Gordon Hake's _Memoirs of Eighty Years_, but Mr. Francis +Hindes Groome has shown us the other side of the picture, and others also +to whom I shall refer a little later have done the same. Perhaps the +literary class is never the worse for a little plain speaking. The real +secret of Borrow is this--that he was a man of action turned into a +writer by force of circumstances. + +The life of Borrow, unlike that of most famous men of letters, has not +been overwritten. His death in 1881 caused little emotion and attracted +but small attention in the newspapers. _The Times_, then as now so +excellent in its biographies as a rule, devoted but twenty lines to him. +Here I may be pardoned for being autobiographical. I was last in Norwich +in the early eighties. I had a wild enthusiasm for literature so far as +my taste had been directed--that is to say I read every book I came +across and had been doing so from my earliest boyhood. But I had never +heard of George Borrow or of his works. In my then not infrequent visits +to Norwich I cannot recall that his name was ever mentioned, and in my +life in London, among men who were, many of them, great readers, I never +heard of Borrow or of his achievement. He died in 1881, and as I do not +recall hearing his name at the time of his death or until long +afterwards, I must have missed certain articles in the _Athenaeum_--two +of them admirable "appreciations" by Mr. Watts-Dunton--and so my state of +benightedness was as I have described. It may be that those who are a +year or two older than I am and those who are younger may find this +extraordinary. You have always heard of Borrow and of his works, but I +think I am entitled to insist that when Borrow sank into his grave, an +old, and to many an eccentric and bitter man, he had fallen into the most +curious oblivion with the public that has ever come to a man, I will not +say of equal distinction, but of any distinction whatever. Mr. Egmont +Hake told the readers of the _Athenaeum_ in a biography that appeared at +the time of Borrow's death that Borrow's works were "forgotten in +England" and I find in turning to the biography of Borrow in _The +Norvicensian_, for 1882--the organ of the Norwich Grammar School--that +the writer of this obituary notice confessed that there were none of +Borrow's works in the library of the school of which Borrow had been the +most distinguished pupil. + +From that time--in 1881--until 1899, a period of eighteen years, Borrow +had but little biographical recognition. A few introductions to his +books, sundry encyclopaedia articles, and one or two magazine essays made +up the sum total of information concerning the author of _Lavengro_ until +Dr. Knapp's _Life_ appeared in 1899. That _Life_ has been severely +handled by some lovers of Borrow, and lovers of Borrow are now plentiful +enough. Dr. Knapp had not the cunning of the really successful +biographer. His book still remains in the huge two-volumed form in which +it was first issued four years ago, and I do not anticipate that it will +ever be a popular book. There is no literary art in it. There is a +capacity for amassing facts, but no power of co-ordinating these facts. +Moreover Dr. Knapp did a great deal of mischief by very over-zeal. He +made too great a research into all the current gossip in Norfolk and +Suffolk concerning Borrow. If you were to make special research into the +life of any friend or acquaintance of the past you would hear much +foolish gossip and a great many wrong motives imputed, and possibly you +would not have an opportunity of checking the various statements. The +whole of Dr. Knapp's book seems to be written upon the principle of "I +would if I could" say a good many things, and, indeed, every few months +there appears in the _Eastern Daily Press_, a journal of your city that I +have read every day regularly since boyhood, a letter from some one +explaining that the less inquiry about this or that point in Borrow's +career the better for Borrow. Take, for example, last Saturday's issue +of the journal I have named, where I find the following from a +correspondent:-- + + Dr. Knapp, from dictates of courtesy, left it unrevealed, and as he + could say nothing to Borrow's credit, passed the affair over in + silence, and on this point all well-wishers of Borrow's reputation + would be wise to take their cue from this biographer's example. + +Now there is nothing more damnatory than a sentence of this kind. What +does it amount to? What is the 'it' that is unrevealed by the courteous +Dr. Knapp? It seems to amount to the charge that Borrow is accused of +gibbeting in his books the people he dislikes; this is what every great +imaginative writer has been charged with to the perplexing of dull +people. There are many characters in Dickens's novels which are supposed +to be a presentation of near relatives or friends. These he ought to +have treated with more kindliness. That heroic little woman, Miss +Bronte, gave a picture of Madame Heger, who kept a school at Brussels, +that conveyed, I doubt not, a very mistaken presentation of the subject +of her satire. Imaginative writers have always taken these liberties. +When the worst is said it simply amounts to this, that Borrow was a good +hater. Dr. Johnson said that he loved a good hater, and he might very +well have loved Borrow. Dante, whom we all now agree to idolize, treated +people even more roughly; he placed some of his acquaintances who had ill- +used him in the very lowest circles of hell. May I express a hope, +therefore, that this type of letter to the Norwich newspapers about Dr. +Knapp's "kindness" to Borrow's reputation may cease. If Dr. Knapp had +printed the whole of the facts we should know how to deal with them; but +this is one of his limitations as a biographer. He has not in the least +helped to a determination of Borrow's real character. + +Had Borrow possessed a biographer so skilful with her pen as Mrs. Gaskell +in her _Life of Charlotte Bronte_, so keen-eyed for the dramatic note as +Sir George Trevelyan in his _Life of Macaulay_, he would have multiplied +readers for _Lavengro_. There are many people who have read the Bronte +novels from sheer sympathy with the writers that their biographer, Mrs. +Gaskell, had kindled. Let us not, however, be ungrateful to Dr. Knapp. +He has furnished those of us who are sufficiently interested in the +subject with a fine collection of documents. Here is all the material of +biography in its crude state, but presenting vividly enough the live +Borrow to those who have the perception to read it with care and +judgment. Still more grateful may we be to Dr. Knapp for his edition of +Borrow's works, particularly for those wonderful episodes in _Lavengro_ +which he has reproduced from the original manuscript, episodes as +dramatic as any other portion of the text, and making Dr. Knapp's edition +of _Lavengro_ the only possible one to possess. + +But to return to the main facts of Borrow's career, which every one here +at least is familiar with. You know of his birth at East Dereham, of his +life in Ireland and in Scotland, of his school days at Norwich, of his +departure from Norwich to London on his father's death, of his dire +struggles in the literary whirlpool, and of his wanderings in gipsy land. +You know, thanks to Dr. Knapp, more than you could otherwise have learned +of his life at St. Petersburg, whither he had been sent by the Bible +Society, on the recommendation of Mr. Joseph John Gurney and another +patron. Then he has himself told us in picturesque fashion of his life +in Portugal and Spain. After this we hear of his marriage to Mary +Clarke, his residence from 1840 to 1853 at Oulton, in Suffolk, from 1853 +to 1860 at Yarmouth, from 1860 to 1874 in Hereford Square, London, and +finally from 1874 to 1881 at Oulton, where he died. That is the bare +skeleton of Borrow's life, and for half his life, I think, we should be +content with a skeleton. For the other half of it we have the best +autobiography in the English language. An autobiography that ranks with +Goethe's _Truth and Poetry from my Life_ and Rousseau's _Confessions_. In +four books--in _Lavengro_, _Romany Rye_, _The Bible in Spain_, and _Wild +Wales_ we have some delightful glimpses of an interesting personality, +and here we may leave the personal side of Borrow. Beyond this we know +that he was unquestionably a devoted son, a good husband, a kind father. +The literary life has its perils, so far as domesticity is concerned. Sir +Walter Scott in his life of Dryden speaks of:-- + + Her who had to endure the apparently causeless fluctuation of spirits + incidental to one compelled to dwell for long periods of time in the + fitful realms of the imagination, + +and it is certain that those who dwell in the realms of the imagination +are usually very irritable, very difficult to live with. Literary +history in its personal side is largely a dismal narrative of the +uncomfortable relations of men of genius with their wives and with their +families. Your man of genius thinks himself bound to hang up his fiddle +in his own house, however merry a fellow he may prove himself to a +hundred boon companions outside. George Borrow was perhaps the opposite +of all this. As a companion and a neighbour he did not always shine, if +the impression of many a witness is to be trusted. They tell anecdotes +of his lack of cordiality, of his unsociability, and so on. They have +told those anecdotes more industriously in Norwich than anywhere else. He +himself in an incomparable account of going to church with the gypsies in +_The Romany Rye_ has the following: + + It appeared as if I had fallen asleep in the pew of the old church of + pretty Dereham. I had occasionally done so when a child, and had + suddenly woke up. Yes, surely, I had been asleep and had woke up; but + no! if I had been asleep I had been waking in my sleep, struggling, + striving, learning and unlearning in my sleep. Years had rolled away + whilst I had been asleep--ripe fruit had fallen, green fruit had come + on whilst I had been asleep--how circumstances had altered, and above + all myself whilst I had been asleep. No, I had not been asleep in the + old church! I was in a pew, it is true, but not the pew of black + leather, in which I sometimes fell asleep in days of yore, but in a + strange pew; and then my companions, they were no longer those of days + of yore. I was no longer with my respectable father and mother, and + my dear brother, but with the gypsy cral and his wife, and the + gigantic Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people. And what was I + myself? No longer an innocent child but a moody man, bearing in my + face, as I knew well, the marks of my strivings and strugglings; of + what I had learnt and unlearnt. + +But this "moody man," let it be always remembered, was a good husband and +father. His wife was devoted to him, his step-daughter carries now to an +old age a profound reverence and affection for his memory. Grieved +beyond all words was she--the Henrietta or "Hen" of all his books--at +what is maintained to be the utterly fictitious narrative of Borrow's +described deathbed that Professor Knapp presented from the ill-considered +gossip that he picked up while staying in the neighbourhood. {80} Borrow +has himself something to say concerning his family in _Wild Wales_:-- + + Of my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of + wives--can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, and is the + best woman of business in East Anglia: of my step-daughter, for such + she is though I generally call her daughter, and with good reason + seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me, that she + has all kinds of good qualities and several accomplishments, knowing + something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the + Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar. + +Yes, I am not quite sure but that Borrow was really a good fellow all +round, as well as being a good husband and father. He hated the literary +class, it is true. He considered that the "contemptible trade of +author," as he called it, was less creditable than that of a jockey. He +avoided as much as possible the writers of books, and particularly the +blue-stocking, and when they came in his way he was not always very +polite, sometimes much the reverse. Only the other day a letter was +published from the late Professor Cowell describing a visit to Borrow and +his not very friendly reception. Well, Borrow was here as elsewhere a +man of insight. The literary class is usually a very narrow class. It +can talk about no trade but its own. Things have grown worse since +Borrow's day, I am sure, but they were bad enough then. Borrow was a man +of very varied tastes. He took interest in gypsies and horses and prize +fighters and a hundred other entertaining matters, and so he despised the +literary class, which cared for none of these things. But unhappily for +his fame the literary class has had the final word; it has revealed all +the gossip of a gossiping peasantry, and it has done its best to present +the recluse of Oulton in a disagreeable light. Fortunately for Borrow, +who kept the bores at bay and contented himself with but few friends, +there were at least two who survived him to bear testimony to the effect +that he was "a singularly steadfast and loyal friend." One of these was +Mr. Watts-Dunton, who tells us in one of his essays that: + + George Borrow was a good man, a most winsome and a most charming + companion, an English gentleman, straightforward, honest, and brave as + the very best examplars of that fine old type. + +I have dwelt longer on this aspect of my subject than I should have done +had I been addressing any other audience than a Norwich one. But the +fact is that all the gossip and backbiting and censoriousness that has +gathered round Borrow for a hundred years has come out of this very city, +commencing with the "bursts of laughter" that, according to Miss +Martineau, greeted Borrow's travels in Spain for the Bible Society. +Borrow was twenty-one years of age when he left Norwich to make his way +in the world. During the next twenty years he may have undergone many +changes of intellectual view, as most of us do, as Miss Martineau notably +did, and Miss Martineau and her laughing friends were diabolically +uncharitable. That lack of charity followed Borrow throughout his life. +He was libelled by many, by Miss Frances Power Cobbe most of all. +However, the great city of Norwich will make up for it in the future, and +she will love Borrow as Borrow indisputably loved her. How he praised +her fine cathedral, her lordly castle, her Mousehold Heath, her meadows +in which he once saw a prize fight, her pleasant scenery--no city, not +even glorious Oxford, has been so well and adequately praised, and I +desire to show that that praise is not for an age but for all time. + +If George Borrow has not been happy in his biographer, and if, as is +true, he has received but inadequate treatment on this account--such +series of little books as _The English Men of Letters_ and the _Great +Writers_ quite ignoring him--he has been equally unfortunate in his +critics. There are hardly any good and distinctive appreciations in +print of Borrow's works. While other great names in the great literature +of the Victorian Period have been praised by a hundred pens, there has +scarcely been any notable and worthy praise of Borrow, and if I were in +an audience that was at all sceptical as to Borrow's supreme merits, +which happily I am not; if I were among those who declared that they +could see but small merit in Borrow themselves, but were prepared to +accept him if only I could bring good authority that he was a very great +writer, I should be hardly put to to comply with the demand. I can only +name Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton and Mr. Augustine Birrell as critics of +considerable status who have praised Borrow well. "The delightful, the +bewitching, the never sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow," says Mr. +Birrell in one of the essays he has written on the subject; {84} while +Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, has written no less than four papers on one +whom he knew and admires personally, and of whom he insists that "his +idealizing powers, his romantic cast of mind, his force, his originality, +give him a title to a permanent place high in the ranks of English prose +writers." + +All this is very interesting, but in literature as in life we have got to +work out our own destinies. We have not got to accept Borrow because +this or that critic tells us he is good. I have therefore no quarrel +with any one present who does not share my view that Borrow was one of +the greater glories of English literature. I only desire to state my +case for him. + +To be a lover of Borrow, a Borrovian, in fact, it is not necessary to +know all his books. You may never have seen copies of the _Romantic +Ballads_ or of _Faustus_, of _Targum_ or of _The Turkish Jester_, of +Borrow's translation of _The Talisman_ of Pushkin. Your state may be +none the less gracious. To possess these books is largely a collector's +hobby. They are interesting, but they would not have made for the author +an undying reputation. Further, you may not care for _The Bible in +Spain_, you may be untouched by the _Gypsies in Spain_ and _Wild Wales_, +and even then I will not deny to you the title of a good Borrovian, if +only you pronounce _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_ to be among the +greatest books you know. I can admire the _Gypsies in Spain_ and _Wild +Wales_. I can read _The Bible in Spain_ with something of the enthusiasm +with which our fathers read it. It is a stirring narrative of travel and +much more. Robert Louis Stevenson did, indeed, rank it among his "dear +acquaintances" in bookland, "the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in the first rank, +_The Bible in Spain_ not far behind," he says. All the same, it has not, +none of these three books has, the distinctive mark of first class genius +that belongs to the other two in the five-volumed edition of Borrow's +Collected Works that many of us have read through more than once. Not +all clever people have thought _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_ to be thus +great. A critic in the _Athenaeum_ declared _Lavengro_ when it was +published in 1851 to be "balderdash," while a critic writing just fifty +years afterwards and writing from Norfolk, alas! insisted that the author +of this book "was absolutely wanting in the power of invention" that he +(Borrow) could "only have drawn upon his memory," that he had "no sense +of humour." If all this were true, if half of it were true, Borrow was +not the great man, the great writer that I take him to be. But it is not +true. _Lavengro_ with its continuation _The Romany Rye_, is a great work +of imagination, of invention; it is in no sense a photograph, a memory +picture, and it abounds in humour as it abounds in many other great +characteristics. What makes an author supremely great? Surely a certain +quality which we call genius, as distinct from the mere intellectual +power of some less brilliant writer:-- + + True genius is the ray that flings + A novel light o'er common things + +and here it is that Borrow shines supreme. He has invested with quite +novel light a hundred commonplace aspects of life. Not an inventor! not +imaginative! Why, one of the indictments against him is that +philologists decry his philology and gyptologists his gypsy learning. If, +then, his philology and his gypsy lore were imperfect, as I believe they +were, how much the greater an imaginative writer he was. To say that +_Lavengro_ merely indicates keen observation is absurd. Not the keenest +observation will crowd so many adventures, adventures as fresh and as +novel as those of Gil Blas or Robinson Crusoe, into a few months' +experience. "I felt some desire," says Lavengro, "to meet with one of +those adventures which upon the roads of England are generally as +plentiful as blackberries in autumn." I think that most of us will +wander along the roads of England for a very long time before we meet an +Isopel Berners, before we have such an adventure as that of the +blacksmith and his horse, or of the apple woman whose favourite reading +was _Moll Flanders_. These and a hundred other adventures, the fight +with the Flaming Tinman, the poisoning of Lavengro by the gypsy woman, +the discourse with Ursula under the hedge, when once read are fixed upon +the memory for ever. And yet you may turn to them again and again, and +with ever increasing zest. The story of Isopel Berners is a piece of +imaginative writing that certainly has no superior in the literature of +the last century. It was assuredly no photographic experience. Isopel +Berners is herself a creation ranking among the fine creations of +womanhood of the finest writers. I doubt not but that it was inspired by +some actual memory of Borrow--the memory of some early love affair in +which the distractions of his mania for word-learning--the Armenian and +other languages--led him to pass by some opportunity of his life, losing +the substance for the shadow. But whether there were ever a real Isopel +we shall never know. We do know that Borrow has presented his fictitious +one with infinite poetry and fine imaginative power. We do know, +moreover, that it is not right to describe Isopel Berners as a marvellous +episode in a narrative of other texture. _Lavengro_ is full of +marvellous episodes. Some one has ventured to comment upon Borrow's +style--to imply that it is not always on a high plane. What does that +matter? Style is not the quality that makes a book live, but the novelty +of the ideas. Stevenson was a splendid stylist, and his admirers have +deluded themselves into believing that he was, therefore, among the +immortals. But Stevenson had nothing new to tell the world, and he was +not, he is not, therefore of the immortals. Borrow is of the immortals, +not by virtue of a style, but by virtue of having something new to say. +He is with Dickens and with Carlyle as one of the three great British +prose writers of the age we call Victorian, who in quite different ways +have presented a new note for their own time and for long after. It is +the distinction of Borrow that he has invested the common life of the +road, of the highway, the path through the meadow, the gypsy encampment, +the country fair, the very apple stall and wayside inn with an air of +romance that can never leave those of us who have once come under the +magnificent spell of _Lavengro_ and the _Romany Rye_. Perhaps Borrow is +pre-eminently the writer for those who sit in armchairs and dream of +adventures they will never undertake. Perhaps he will never be the +favourite author of the really adventurous spirit, who wants the real +thing, the latest book of actual travel. But to be the favourite author +of those who sit in arm-chairs is no small thing, and, as I have said +already, Borrow stands with Carlyle and Dickens in _our_ century, by +which I mean the nineteenth century; with Defoe and Goldsmith in the +eighteenth century, as one of the really great and imperishable masters +of our tongue. + +What then will Norwich do for George Borrow? I ask this question, +although it would, perhaps, be an impertinence to ask it were I not a +Norwich man. If you have read Dr. Knapp's _Life of Borrow_, you will +have seen more than one reference to Mrs. Borrow's landlord, "old King," +"Tom King the carpenter," and so on, who owned the house in Willow Lane +in which Borrow spent his boyhood. That 'old King the carpenter'--I +believe he called himself a builder, but perhaps this was when he grew +more prosperous--was my great-great-uncle. One of his sons became +physician to Prince Talleyrand and married a sister of John Stuart Mill. +One of his great-nieces was my grandmother, and her mother's family, the +Parkers, had lived in Norwich for many generations. So on the strength +of this little piece of genealogy let me claim, not only to be a good +Borrovian, but also a good Norvicensian. Grant me then a right to plead +for a practical recognition of Borrow in the city that he loved most, +although he sometimes scolded it as it often scolded him. I should like +to see a statue, or some similar memorial. If you pass through the +cities of the Continent--French, German, or Belgian--you will find in +well-nigh every town a memorial to this or that worthy connected with its +literary or artistic fame. How many memorials has Norwich to the people +connected with its literary or artistic fame? Nay, I am not rash and +impetuous. I would beg any one of my hearers who thinks that Borrow +might well have a memorial in marble or bronze in your city to wait a +while. You are busy with a statue to Sir Thomas Browne--a most +commendable scheme. To attempt to raise one to Borrow at this moment +would probably be to court disaster. Nor do I advocate a memorial by +private subscription. Observation has shown me what that means: failure +or half failure in nearly every case. The memorial when it comes must be +initiated by the City Fathers in council assembled. That time is perhaps +far distant. But let us all do everything we can to make secure the high +and honourable achievement of George Borrow, to kindle an interest in him +and his writings, to extend a taste for the undoubted beauties of his +works among all classes of his fellow-citizens--that is to secure Borrow +the best of all monuments. More durable than brass will be the memorial +that is contained in the assurance that he possesses the reverence and +the homage of all true Norfolk hearts. + + + + +IV. TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF GEORGE CRABBE + + +An Address delivered at the Crabbe Celebration at Aldeburgh in Suffolk on +the 16th of September, 1905. + +I have been asked to say something in praise of George Crabbe. The task +would be an easier one were it not for the presence of the distinguished +critic from the University of Nancy who is with us to-day. M. Huchon +{97} has devoted to the subject a singleminded zeal to which one whose +profession is primarily that of a journalist can make no claim. Moreover +it has been well said that _the judgment of foreigners is the judgment of +posterity_, and I fully believe that where a writer has secured the +suffrages of men of another nation than his own, he has done more for his +ultimate fame than the passing and fickle favour of his countrymen can +secure for him. In any case Crabbe has been praised more eloquently than +almost any other modern, and this in spite of the fact that he was not +read by the generation succeeding his death, nor is he read much in our +own time. + +If you want to read Crabbe to-day in his entirety, you must become +possessed of a huge and clumsy volume of sombre appearance, small type +and repellant double columns. For fully seventy years it has not paid a +publisher to reprint Crabbe's poems properly. {98} When this was +achieved in 1834, the edition in eight volumes was comparatively a +failure, and the promised two volumes of essays and sermons were not +forthcoming in consequence. Selections from Crabbe have been many, but +when all is said he has been the least read for the past sixty or seventy +years of all the authors who have claims to be considered classics. The +least read but perhaps the best praised--that is one point of certainty. +The praise began with the politicians--with the two greatest political +leaders of their age. The eloquent and noble Edmund Burke, the great- +hearted Charles James Fox. Burke "made" George Crabbe as no poet was +ever made before or since. To me there is no picture in all literature +more unflaggingly interesting than that of the great man, whose life was +so full of affairs, taking the poor young stranger by the hand, reading +through his abundant manuscripts, and therefrom selecting--as the poet +was quite unable to select--_The Library_ and _The Village_ as the most +suitable for publication, helping him to a publisher, introducing him to +friends, and proving himself quite untiring on his behalf. There is a +letter of Burke's printed in a little known book--_The Correspondence of +Sir Thomas Hanmer_, Speaker of the House of Commons--in which Burke takes +the trouble to defend Crabbe's moral character and to press his claims +for being admitted to holy orders. "Dudley North tells me," he +continues, "that he has the best character possible among those with whom +he has always lived, that he is now working hard to qualify, and has not +only Latin, but some smattering of Greek." It had its gracious +amenities, that eighteenth century, for I do not believe that there is a +man in the ranks of the present Government, or of the present Opposition, +who would take all this trouble for a poor unknown who had appealed to +him merely by two or three long letters recounting his career. Nay, +Cabinet Ministers are less punctilious than formerly, and the newest +type, I understand, leaves letters unanswered. I can imagine the +attitude of one of our modern statesmen in the face of two quite bulky +packages of many sheets from a young author. He would request his +secretary to see what they were all about, and then would follow the curt +answer--"I am directed by Dash to say that he cannot comply with your +request." Burke not only wrote to the Speaker of the House of Commons, +but enclosed Crabbe's letter to him, a quite wonderful piece of +autobiography. {100} All Crabbe's admirers should read that letter. +Crabbe apologizes for writing again, and refers to "these repeated +attacks on your patience." "My father," he said, "had a place in the +Custom House at Aldeburgh. He had a large family, a little income and no +economy," and then the story of his life up to that time is told to Burke +in fullest detail. + +Again, there is that other statesman-admirer of Crabbe, Charles James +Fox. Fox gave to Crabbe's work an admiration which never faltered, and +on his death-bed requested that the pathetic story of Phoebe Dawson in +_The Parish Register_ should be read to him--it was, we are told, "the +last piece of poetry that soothed his dying ear." + +In Lord Holland's _Memoirs of the Whig Party_ there is a statement by his +nephew which no biographer so far has quoted:-- + + I read over to him the whole of Crabbe's _Parish Register_ in + manuscript. Some parts he made me read twice; he remarked several + passages as exquisitely beautiful, and objected to some few which I + mentioned to the author and which he, in almost every instance, + altered before publication. Mr. Fox repeated once or twice that it + was a very pretty poem, that Crabbe's condition in the world had + improved since he wrote _The Village_, and his view of life, likewise + _The Parish Register_, bore marks of considerably more indulgence to + our species; though not so many as he could have wished, especially as + the few touches of that nature were beautiful in the extreme. He was + particularly struck with the description of the substantial happiness + of a farmer's wife. + +From great novelists the tributes are not less noteworthy than from great +statesmen. Jane Austen, whose personality perhaps has more real womanly +attractiveness than that of any sister novelist of the first rank, +declared playfully that if she could have been persuaded to change her +state it would have been to become Mrs. Crabbe; and who can forget Sir +Walter Scott's request in his last illness: "Read me some amusing +thing--read me a bit of Crabbe." They read to him from _The Borough_, +and we all remember his comment, "Capital--excellent--very good." Yet at +this time--in 1832--any popularity that Crabbe had once enjoyed was +already on the wane. Other idols had caught the popular taste, and from +that day to this there was to be no real revival of appreciation for +these poems. There were to be no lack of admirers, however, of the +audience "fit though few." Byron's praise has been too often quoted for +repetition. Wordsworth, who rarely praised his contemporaries in poetry, +declared of Crabbe that his works "would last from their combined merit +as poetry and truth." Macaulay writes of "that incomparable passage in +Crabbe's _Borough_ which has made many a rough and cynical reader cry +like a child"--the passage in which the condemned felon + + Takes his tasteless food, and when 'tis done, + Counts up his meals, now lessen'd by that one,-- + +a story which Macaulay bluntly charges Robert Montgomery with stealing. +Lord Tennyson, again, at a much later date, admitted that "Crabbe has a +world of his own." + +Not less impressive surely is the attitude of the two writers as far as +the poles asunder in their outlook upon life and its mysteries--Cardinal +Newman and Edward FitzGerald. The famous theologian, we learn from the +_Letters and Correspondence_ collected by Anne Mozley, writes in 1820 of +his "excessive fondness" for _The Tales of the Hall_, and thirty years +later in one of his _Discourses_ he says of Crabbe's poems that they are +among "the most touching in our language." Still another twenty years, +and the aged cardinal reread Crabbe to find that he was more delighted +than ever with our poet. That great nineteenth century pagan, on the +other hand, that prince of letter-writers and wonderful poet of whom +Suffolk has also reason to be proud, Edward FitzGerald, was even more +ardent. Praise of Crabbe is scattered freely throughout the many volumes +of his correspondence, and he edited, as we all know, a book of +Selections, which I want to see reprinted. It contains a preface that, +it may be admitted, is not really worthy of FitzGerald, so lacking is it +in the force and vigour of his correspondence. But this also was in fact +yet another death-bed tribute, for it was, I think, one of the last +things FitzGerald wrote. FitzGerald, however, has done more for Crabbe +among the moderns than any other man. His keen literary judgment must +have brought new converts to that limited brotherhood of the elect, of +which this gathering forms no inconsiderable portion. + +We have one advantage in speaking about George Crabbe that does not +obtain with any other poet of great eminence; that is to say, that his +life story has not been hackneyed by repetition. With almost any other +writer there is some standing biography which is widely familiar. The +_Life of George Crabbe_, written by his son, although it is one of the +very best biographies that I have ever read, is little known. It was +quite out of print for years, and it has never been reprinted separately +from the poems. It is an admirable biography, and it offers a +contradiction of the view occasionally urged that a man's life should not +be written by a member of his own family; for George Crabbe the second +would seem not only to have been an exceedingly able man, but possessed +of a frankness of disposition in criticizing his father which sons are +often prone to show in real life, but which, I imagine, they rarely show +in print. His book is a model of candid statement, treating of Crabbe's +little weaknesses--and who of us has not his little weaknesses--in the +most cheery possible manner. It is perhaps a small matter to tell us in +one place of his father's want of "taste," his insensibility to the +beauty of order in his composition--that had been done by the critics +before him; but he even has something to say about the philandering which +characterized the old gentleman in the last years of his life, his +apparent anxiety to get married again. {106} The only thing that he all +but ignores is Crabbe's opium habit--a habit that came to him as a +sedative from a painful complaint and inspired, as was the case with +Coleridge, his more melodious utterances. Taken altogether the picture +is as pleasant as it is capable and exhaustive. We see his early boyhood +at Aldeburgh, his schooldays: his first period of unhappiness at +Slaughden Quay, his apprenticeship near Bury St. Edmunds, where we seem +to hear his master's daughters, when he reached the door, exclaim with +laughter, "La! Here's our new 'prentice." We follow him a little +higher, to the house of the Woodbridge surgeon, then through his +prolonged courtship of Sarah Elmy, then to those dreary, uncongenial +duties of piling up butter casks on Slaughden Quay. A brief period of +starvation in London, and we find him again in a chemist's shop in +Aldeburgh. Lastly comes his most important journey to London upon the +borrowed sum of 5 pounds, only three of which he carried in hard cash. +His hand to mouth existence in London for some months is among the most +interesting things in literature. Chatterton's tragic fate might have +been his, but, more fortunate than Chatterton, he had friends at Beccles +who helped him, and he was even able to publish a poem, _The Candidate_. +Although this poem contained only thirty-four pages, one is not quite +sure but that it helped to ruin its publisher. In any case that +publisher went bankrupt soon after. + +Crabbe has been reproached for having continually attempted to secure a +"patron" at this time, and it has been hinted by Sir Leslie Stephen that +he ought to have recognized that the patron was out of date, killed by +Dr. Johnson's sturdy defiance. I do not agree with this view. Dr. +Johnson, in spite of his famous epigram, was always more or less assisted +by the patron, although his personality was strong enough to enable him +to turn the tables at the end. When one comes to think of it, Thrale the +brewer was a patron of Johnson, so was Strahan the printer. And does he +not say in his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield that "Seven years, my +lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was +repulsed from your door," clearly implying that if Chesterfield was not +Johnson's patron it was not the great Doctor's fault? In any case the +patron must always exist for the poor man of letters in every age. Now, +he is frequently a collective personality rather than an individual. He +is represented for the author who has tried and failed by the Royal +Literary Fund, by such bounty as is awarded by the Society of Authors, or +by the Civil List Grant. For the author in embryo he is assisted above +all by the literary log-roller who flourishes so much in our day. If he +is not this "collective personality," or one of the others I have named, +then he is something much worse--that is, a capitalist publisher. We can +none of us who have to earn a living run away from the patronage of +capital, and when Sir Leslie Stephen was being paid a salary by the late +Mr. George Smith for editing the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and +was told, as we remember that he frequently was, that it was not a +remunerative venture and that, as Mr. Smith was fond of saying, his +publishing business did not pay for his vineries, Sir Leslie Stephen was +experiencing a patronage, if he had known it, not less melancholy than +anything Crabbe suffered from Edmund Burke or the Duke of Rutland. + +When one meets a writer who desires to walk on high stilts and to talk of +the independence of literature, one is entitled to ask him if it was a +greater indignity for Lord Tennyson in his younger days to have received +200 pounds a year from the Civil List than for Crabbe to have received +the same sum as the Duke of Rutland's chaplain; in fact, Crabbe earned +the money, and Tennyson did not. There are, as I have said, some most +wonderful and pathetic touches in the account of Crabbe's attempt to +conquer London. There are his letters to his sweetheart, for example, +his "dearest Mira," in one of which he says that he is possessed of +6.25_d._ in the world. In another he relates that he has sold his +surgical instruments in order to pay his bills. Nevertheless, we find +him standing at a bookstall where he sees Dryden's works in three +volumes, octavo, for five shillings, and of his few shillings he ventures +to offer 3_s._ 6_d._--and carries home the Dryden. What bibliophile but +must love such a story as that, even though a day or two afterwards its +hero writes, "My last shilling became 8_d._ yesterday." But what a good +investment withal. Dryden made him a much better poet. Then comes the +famous letter to Burke, and the less known second letter to which I have +referred, and Burke's splendid reception of the writer. Nothing, I +repeat, in the life of any great man is more beautiful than that. As +Crabbe's son finely says: "He went in Burke's room a poor young +adventurer, spurned by the opulent and rejected by the publishers, his +last shilling gone, and his last hope with it. He came out virtually +secure of almost all the good fortune that by successive stages +afterwards fell to his lot." The success that comes to most men is built +up on such chances, on the kind help of some one or other individual. + +Finally there came--for I am hastily recapitulating Crabbe's story--the +years of prosperity, curacies, rectories, the praise of great +contemporaries, but nothing surely more edifying than the burning of +piles of manuscripts so extensive that no fireplace would hold them. The +son's account of his assisting at these conflagrations is not the least +interesting part of his biography, the merits of which I desire to +emphasize. + +People who make jokes about that most succulent edible, the crab, when +the poet Crabbe is mentioned in their presence--and who can resist an +obvious pun--are not really far astray. There can be little doubt but +that a remote ancestor of George Crabbe took his name from the +"shellfish," as we all persist, in spite of the naturalist, in calling +it; and the poet did not hesitate to attribute it to the vanity of an +ancestor that his name had had two letters added. Nor when we hear of +Cromer crabs, or crabs from some other part of Norfolk as distinct from +what I am sure is equally palatable, the crustacean as it may be found in +Aldeburgh, are we remote from the story of our poet's life. For there +cannot be a doubt but that Norfolk shares with Suffolk the glory of his +origin. His family, it is clear, came first from Norfolk. The Crabbes +of Norfolk were farmers, the Crabbes of Suffolk always favoured the +seacoast, and all the glory that surrounds the name of the poet to whom +we do honour to-day is reflected in the town in which he was born and +bred. Aldeburgh is Crabbe's own town, and it is an interesting fact that +no other poet can be identified with one particular spot in the way in +which Crabbe can be identified with this beautiful watering-place in +which we are now assembled. Shakspere was more of a Londoner than a +Stratfordian; nearly all his best work was written in London, and many of +the most receptive years of his life were spent in that city. Milton's +honoured name is identified with many places, apart from London, the city +of his birth. Shelley, Byron and Keats were essentially cosmopolitans in +their writings as in their lives. Wordsworth was closely identified with +Grasmere, although born in a neighbouring county; but he went to many and +varied scenes, and to more than one country, for some of his most +inspired verses. Then Cowper, the poet of whom one most often thinks +when one is recalling the achievement of Crabbe, is a poet of some half- +dozen places other than Olney, and perhaps his best verses were written +at Weston-Underwood. Now George Crabbe in the years of his success was +identified with many places other than Aldeburgh: with Belvoir Castle, +with Muston, and with Trowbridge, where he died, and some of his admirers +have even identified him with Bath. When all this is allowed, it is upon +Aldeburgh that the whole of his writings turned, the place where he was +born, where he spent his boyhood, and the earlier years of a perhaps too +sordid manhood, whither he returned twice, as a chemist's assistant and +as curate. It is the place that primarily inspired all his verses. +Aldeburgh stands out vividly before us in each succeeding poem--in _The +Village_, _The Borough_, _The Parish Register_, _The Tales_, and even in +those _Tales of the Hall_, composed in later life in faraway Trowbridge. +Crabbe's vivid observations indeed come home to every one who has studied +his works when they have visited not only Aldeburgh but its vicinity. +Every reach of the river Ald recalls some striking line by him: the +scenery in _The Lover's Journey_ we know is a description of the road +between Aldeburgh and Beccles, and all who have sailed along the river to +Orford have recognized that no stream has been so perfectly portrayed by +a poet's pen. Here in his writings you may have a suggestion of Muston, +here of Allington, and here again of Trowbridge; but in the main it is +the Suffolk scenery that most of us here know so well that was ever in +his mind. + +When an attempt was once made to stir up the Great Eastern Railway to +identify this district with the name of Crabbe as the English Lakes were +identified with the name of Wordsworth, and the Scots Lakes with that of +Sir Walter Scott, a high official of the railway made the statement that +up to that moment he had never even heard the name of Crabbe. Well, all +that is going to be changed. I do not at all approve of the phrase +beloved of certain book-makers and of railway companies that implies that +any county or district is the monopoly of one man, be he ever so great a +writer. Yet I venture to say that within the next ten years the "Crabbe +Country" will sound as familiar to the officials of the Great Eastern as +the "Wordsworth Country" does to those of the Midland or the North +Western. It is true that once in the bitterness of his heart the poet +referred to Aldeburgh as "a little venal borough in Suffolk" and that he +more than once alluded to his unkind reception upon his reappearance as a +curate, when he had previously failed at other callings. "In my own +village they think nothing of me," he once said. But who does not know +how the heart turns with the years to the places associated with +childhood and youth, and Crabbe was a remarkable exemplification of this. +A well-known literary journal stated only last week that "Crabbe's +connexion with Aldeburgh was not very protracted." So far from this +being true it would be no exaggeration to say that it extended over the +whole of his seventy-eight years of life. It included the first five-and- +twenty years almost entirely. It included also the brief curacy, the +prolonged residence at Parham and Glenham, frequent visits for holidays +in after years, and who but a lover of his native place would have done +as his son pictures him doing when at Stathern--riding alone to the coast +of Lincolnshire, sixty miles from where he was living, only to dip in the +waves that also washed the beach of Aldeburgh and returned immediately to +his home. "There is no sea like the Aldeburgh sea," said Edward +FitzGerald, and we may be sure that was Crabbe's opinion also, for +revisiting it in later life he wrote:-- + + There once again, my native place I come + Thee to salute, my earliest, latest home. + +One picture in Crabbe's life stands out vividly to us all--the long years +of devotion given by him to Sarah Elmy, and the reciprocal devotion of +the very capable woman who finally became his wife. Crabbe's courtship +and marriage affords a pleasant contrast to the usual unhappy relations +of poets with their wives. Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, Byron, Shelley, +and many another poet was less happy in this respect, and I am not sure +how far the belief in Crabbe's powers as a poet has been affected by the +fact that he lived on the whole a happy, humdrum married life. The +public has so long been accustomed to expect a different state of things. + +I have given thus much time to Crabbe's life story because it interests +me, and I do not believe that it is possible nowadays to kindle a very +profound interest in any writer without a definite presentation of his +personality. Apart from his biography--his three biographies by George +Crabbe the second, Mr. T. E. Kebbel, and Canon Ainger, there are the +seven volumes of his works. Now I do not imagine that any great +accession will be made to the ranks of Crabbe's admirers by asking people +to take down these seven volumes and read them right through--a thing I +have myself done twice, and many here also I doubt not. Rather would I +plead for a reprint of Edmund FitzGerald's Selections, or failing that I +would ask you to look at the volume of Selections made by Mr. Bernard +Holland, or that other admirable selection by the Rev. Anthony Deane. "I +must think my old Crabbe will come up again, though never to be popular," +wrote FitzGerald to Archbishop Trench. Well, perhaps the "large still +books" of the older writers are never destined to be popular again, but +they will always maintain with genuine book lovers their place in English +Literature, and if the adequate praise they have received from many good +judges is well kept to the front there will be constant accessions to the +ranks, and readers will want the whole of Crabbe's works in which to dig +for themselves. Crabbe's place in English Literature needed not such a +gathering as this to make it secure, but we want celebrations of our +literary heroes to keep alive enthusiasm, and to encourage the +faint-hearted. + +In the glorious tradition of English Literature, then, Crabbe comes after +Cowper and before Wordsworth. There is a lineal descent as clear and +well-defined as any set forth in the peerages of "Burke" or "Debrett." We +read in vain if we do not fully grasp the continuity of creative work. +Cowper was born in 1731, Crabbe in 1754, and Cowper was called to the Bar +in the year that Crabbe was born. In spite of this disparity of years +they started upon their literary careers almost at the same time. _The +Village_ was published in 1783, and _The Task_ in 1785, yet Cowper is in +every sense the elder poet, inheriting more closely the traditions of +Pope and Dryden, coming less near to humanity than Crabbe, and being more +emphatically a child of the eighteenth century in its artificial aspects. +It is impossible to indict a whole century with all its varied +accomplishments, and the century that produced Swift and Cowper and +Crabbe had no lack of the finer instincts of brotherhood. Yet the +century was essentially a cruel one. Take as an example the attitude of +naturally kindly men to the hanging of Dr. Dodd for forgery. Even Samuel +Johnson, who did what he could for Dodd, did not find, as he should have +done, his whole soul revolted by such a punishment for a crime against +property. Cowper has immense claim upon our regard. He is one of the +truest of poets, and one of the most interesting figures in all English +literature, although no small share of his one-time popularity was due to +his identification with Evangelicalism in religion. Cowper had humour +and other qualities which enabled him to make the universal appeal to all +hearts which is the test of the greatest literature--the appeal of "John +Gilpin," the "Lines" to his Mother's Portrait, and his verses on "The +loss of the _Royal George_." Crabbe made no such appeal, and he has not +the adventitious assistance that association with a religious sect +affords. Hence the popularity he once enjoyed was more entirely on his +merits than was that of Cowper. He was the first of the eighteenth +century poets who was able to _see things as they really are_. Therein +lies his strength. Were they poets at all--those earlier eighteenth +century writers? It sounds like rank blasphemy to question it, but what +is poetry? Surely it is the expression artistically in rhythmic form--or +even without it--of the sincerest emotions concerning nature and life. +The greatest poet is not the one who is most sincere--a very bad poet can +be that--but the poet who expresses that sincerity with the most perfect +art. From this point of view the poets before Cowper and Crabbe, Pope, +Goldsmith, Johnson and others were scarcely poets at all. Masters of +language every one of them, able to command a fine rhetoric, but not +poets. Gray in two or three pieces was a poet, but for Johnson that +claim can scarcely be made. Cowper was the first to emancipate himself +from the conventionality of his age, and Crabbe emancipated himself still +further. He had boundless sincerity, and he is really a very great poet +even if he has not the perfection of art of some later poets. Many know +Crabbe only by the parody of his manner in _Rejected Addresses_: + + John Richard William Alexander Dwyer + Was footman to Justinian Stubbs Esquire; + But when John Dwyer listed in the blues, + Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes. + +and it must be admitted that there are plenty of lines like these in +Crabbe, as for example:-- + + Grave Jonas Kindred, Sybil Kindred's sire + Was six feet high, and looked six inches higher. + +or this:-- + + The church he view'd as liberal minds will view + And there he fixed his principles and pew. + +Banalities of this kind are scattered through his pages as they are +scattered through those of Wordsworth. Nevertheless he was a great poet, +bringing us before Wordsworth out of the ruck of artificiality and +insincerity. Does any one suppose that Pope in his _Essay on Man_, that +Johnson in his _London_ or that Goldsmith in his _Deserted Village_ had +any idea other than the production of splendid phrases. Each and all of +them were brilliant men of letters. Crabbe was not a brilliant man of +letters, but he was a fine and a genuine poet. You will look in vain in +his truest work for the lyrical and musical gift that we associate with +poets who came after:--Shelley, Keats, Tennyson--poets who made Crabbe's +work quite distasteful for some three generations. Crabbe it has been +claimed had that gift also, to be found in "Sir Eustace Grey" and other +verses written under the inspiration of opium, as much of Coleridge's +best work was written--but it is not in these that his admirers will seek +to emphasize his achievement--it is in his work which treats of + + The simple annals of my parish poor. + +_The Village_, _The Parish Register_, _The Borough_, and many of the +_Tales_ bear witness to a clear vision of life as it is lived by the +majority of people born into this world. I have seen criticism of Crabbe +which calls him the poet who took the middle classes for his subjects, +criticism which compared him with George Eliot. All this is quite beside +the mark. Crabbe is pre-eminently the poet of the poor, with a lesson +for to-day as much as for a century ago. Villages are not now what they +were then, we are told. But I fully believe that there are all the +conditions of life to-day hidden beneath the surface as Crabbe's close +observations pictured them. "The altered position of the poor," says Mr. +Courthope, "has fortunately deprived his poems of much of the reality +they once possessed." I do not believe it. The closely packed towns, +the herding together of families, the squalor are still to be found in +our midst. Crabbe has his message for our time as well as for his own. +How he tore the veil from the conventional language of his day, the +picture of the ideal village where the happy peasantry passed through +life so joyously. Contrast such pictures with his sad declaration-- + + I've seldom known, though I have often read + Of happy peasants on their dying-bed. + +Solution Crabbe offers none for the tragedy of poverty. He was no +politician. He signed the nomination paper for John Wilson Croker the +Tory in his native Aldeburgh, and he supported a Whig at the same +election at Trowbridge. His politics were summed up in backing his +friends of both parties. But he did see, as politicians are only +beginning to see to-day, that the ultimate solution was a social one and +not a mere question of political parties. Generations have passed away +since he lived, and men are still shouting themselves hoarse to prove +that in this Shibboleth or in that may be found the salvation of the +country, yet we have still our thousands on the verge of starvation, we +have still the very poor in our midst, and the problem seems as far from +solution as ever. But it would be all the better for the State if we +could keep the questions raised by Crabbe in his wonderful pictures more +continually in view,--lacking in taste as they may sometimes seem to weak +stomachs, coarse, unvarnished narratives though they be of a life which +is really almost entirely sordid. + +Then let us turn to Crabbe's gallery of pictures. Phoebe Dawson, and the +equally pathetic Ruth, Blaney and Clelia, Peter Grimes and many another. +They are as clearly defined a set of entirely human beings as any Master +has given us. It is not assuredly in George Eliot, as Canon Ainger +suggests, that I find an affinity to Crabbe among the moderns, but in two +much greater writers of quite different texture, Balzac and Dickens. Had +Crabbe not been bounded and restrained by the conventions of his cloth, +he might have become one of the most popular story-tellers in our +literature--the English Balzac. At a hundred points Charles Dickens is +an entire contrast to Crabbe--in his buoyant humour, his gaiety of heart, +in the glamour that he throws over the life of the poor, a glamour that +was more present in the early Victorian era than in our own, but Crabbe +is with Balzac and with Dickens in that he presents as no other moderns +have done living pictures of suffering human lives. + +There is yet one other literary force, powerful in our day, that has been +largely influenced by Crabbe. Those who love the novels of Mr. Thomas +Hardy, whom we rejoice to see with us at this Celebration,--his +_Woodlanders_, _The Return of the Native_, _Far from the Madding Crowd_, +and many another book that touches the very heart of things in nature and +human life, will rejoice to hear that this great writer has admitted +George Crabbe to be the most potent influence that has affected his work. +I have heard him declare many times how much he was inspired by Crabbe, +whereas the later French realists had no influence upon him whatever. +"Crabbe was our first great English realist" Mr. Hardy would tell you if +only we could persuade him to speak from this platform, as unfortunately +he will not. + +Lastly let us take Crabbe as a great story-teller. He has many more +ideas than most of the novelists. That is why we do well to recall the +hint of the writer who said that when a new work came out we should take +down an old one from our shelves. Instead of the "un-idead" novels, that +come out by the dozen and are so popular. I wish we could agree to read +Crabbe's novels in verse. Unhappily their form is against them in the +present age. But it would not be at all a misfortune if we could make +Crabbe's _Tales_ once more the vogue. They are good stories, absorbingly +interesting. They leave a very vivid impression on the mind. Once read +they are unforgettable. + +I have seen it stated that these stories are old-fashioned both in manner +and in substance. In manner they may be, but in substance I maintain +they are intensely modern, alive with the spirit of our time. Any latter- +day novelist might envy Crabbe his power of developing a story. It is +this essential modernity that is to make Crabbe's place in English +literature secure for generations yet to come. + +Finally, Crabbe's place in English literature is as the bridge between +the eighteenth and nineteenth century. With him begins that "enthusiasm +of humanity" which the eighteenth century so imperfectly understood. +Byron and Wordsworth, disliking each other cordially, did well to praise +him, for he was their forerunner. A master of pathos, you may find in +his work incentive to tears and laughter, although sometimes the humour, +as in _The Learned Boy_, is sadly unconscious. + +But I must bring these rambling remarks to a close, and in doing so I +must once again quote that other Suffolk worthy to whom many of us are +very much attached, I mean Edward FitzGerald. When Sir Leslie Stephen +wrote what is to my mind a singularly infelicitous essay on Crabbe in the +_Cornhill_, he quoted the remark, which seemed to be new to FitzGerald, +as to Crabbe being a "pope in worsted stockings"--a remark made by Horace +Smith of _Rejected Addresses_, although I have seen it ascribed to Byron +and others. "Pope in worsted stockings," exclaimed FitzGerald, "why I +could cite whole paragraphs of as fine a texture as Moliere; 'incapable +of epigram,' the jackanapes says--why, I could find fifty of the very +best epigrams in five minutes," and later, in another letter he writes-- + + I am positively looking over my everlasting Crabbe again; he naturally + comes in about the fall of the year. + +Here surely is an appropriate quotation, a little prophetic perhaps, for +our gathering--the "everlasting Crabbe." We cannot all love Crabbe as +much as FitzGerald loved him, but this gathering will not be vain if +after this we handle his volumes more lovingly, read his poems more +sympathetically, and continue with more zeal than ever before to be proud +of the man who, born in Aldeburgh a century and a half ago, is closely +identified with this county of Suffolk as I believe no other great writer +is closely identified with any county in England. An Aldeburgh man--a +Suffolk man he was--yet even more in the future than in the past, he is +destined to gain the whole world for his parish. He is the everlasting +Crabbe! + + + + +V. THE LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF EAST ANGLIA + + +An address to the East Anglian Society on the occasion of a dinner to Mr. +William Dutt, author of "Highways and Byways in East Anglia." March 25, +1901. + +I appreciate the privilege of being allowed to speak this evening for a +few minutes upon the literary associations of East Anglia, of being +permitted to ask you, while doing honour to a well-known East Anglian +writer of to-day, to cast a glance back upon the literature of the past +so far as it affects that portion of the British Empire with which we +nearly all of us here are proud to be associated. There is necessarily +some difference of opinion as to what constitutes East Anglia. I find +that our guest of to-night tells us that it is "Norfolk, Suffolk and +portions of Essex, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire." Dr. Knapp, the +biographer of Borrow, says that it is Norfolk, Suffolk and +Cambridgeshire; personally I am content with that classification, +because, although I was born in London, I claim, apart from schoolboy +days at Downham Market, a pretty lengthy ancestry from Norwich on one +side--which is indisputably East Anglia--and from Welney, near Wisbeach, +on another side, and Welney and Wisbeach are, I affirm, just as much East +Anglia as Norwich and Ipswich. With reference to those other counties +and portions of counties, I think that the inhabitants must be allowed to +decide for themselves. I imagine that they will give every possible +stretch to the imagination in order to allow themselves the honour of +being incorporated in East Anglia, a name that one never pronounces +without recalling that fine old-world compliment of St. Augustine of +Canterbury to our ancestors, that they ought to be called not "Angles" +but "Angels." + +Every one in particular who loves books must be proud to partake of our +great literary tradition. If it is difficult to decide precisely what +East Anglia is, it is perhaps equally difficult to speak for a few +minutes on so colossal a theme as the literature of East Anglia. It +would be easy to recapitulate what every biographical dictionary will +provide, a long list of famous names associated with our counties; to +remind you that we have produced two poet-laureates--John Skelton, of +Diss, the author of _Colyn Cloute_, and Thomas Shadwell, of Broomhill, +the playwright--the latter perhaps not entirely a subject for pride; two +very rough and ready political philosophers, Thomas Paine, born at +Thetford, and William Godwin, born at Wisbeach; a very popular novelist +in Bulwer Lytton, and a very popular theologian in Dr. Samuel Clarke; as +also the famous brother and sister whose works appealed to totally +different minds, James and Harriet Martineau. Then there was that +pathetic creature and indifferent poet, Robert Bloomfield, whose +_Farmer's Boy_ once appeared in the luxurious glories of an expensive +quarto. Finally, one recalls that two of the most popular women writers +of an earlier generation, Clara Reeve, the novelist, and Agnes +Strickland, the historian, were Suffolk women. + +But I am not concerned to give you a recapitulation of all the East +Anglian writers, whose names, as I have said, can be found in any +biographical dictionary, and the quality of whose work would rather +suggest that East Anglia, from a literary point of view, is a land of +extinct volcanoes. I am naturally rather anxious to make use of the +golden opportunity that has been afforded me to emphasize my own literary +sympathies, and to say in what I think lies the glory of East Anglia, at +least so far as the creation of books is concerned. Here I make an +interesting claim for East Anglia, that it has given us in Captain +Marryat perhaps the very greatest prose writer of the nineteenth century +who has been a delight to youth, and two of the very greatest prose +writers of all times for the inspiration of middle-age, Sir Thomas Browne +and George Borrow. It has given us in Sarah Austin an example of a +learned woman who was also a fascinating woman; it has given us again the +most remarkable letter-writers in the English language--Margaret Paston, +Horace Walpole and Edward FitzGerald. To these there were only three +serious rivals as letter-writers--William Cowper, Thomas Grey and Charles +Lamb; and the first found a final home and a last resting-place in our +midst. It has given us that remarkable novelist and entertaining +diarist, Fanny Burney. Finally, it has given us in that same William +Cowper--who rests in East Dereham Church, and for whom we claim on that +and for other reasons some share and participation in his genius--a great +and much loved poet. It has given us indeed in William Cowper and George +Crabbe the two most natural and the two most human poets in the English +literature of two centuries, only excepting the favourite poet of +Scotland--Robert Burns. It is to these of all writers that I would pin +my faith in talking of East Anglia and its literature; it is their names +that I would have you keep in your mind when you call up memories of the +literature which has most inspired our East Anglian life. + +In connexion with many writers a point of importance will occur to us. +Only occasionally has a great English author a special claim on one +particular portion of England. He has not been the lesser or the greater +for that, it has merely been an accident of his birth and of his career. +The greatest of all writers, the one of whom all Englishmen are naturally +the most proud, Shakspere, has, it is true, an abundant association with +Warwickshire, but Shakspere stands almost alone in this, as in many +things. Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Byron and Keats were born in London; +they travelled widely, they lived in many different counties or +countries, and cannot be said to have adorned any distinctively local +tradition. Shelley was born in Sussex, but a hundred cities, including +Rome, where his ashes rest, may claim some participation in his fine +spirit. Wordsworth, on the other hand, who was born in Cumberland, +certainly obtained the greater part of his inspiration from the +neighbouring county of Westmorland, where his life was passed. But when +we come to East Anglia we are face to face with a body of writers who +belong to the very soil, upon whom the particular character of the +landscape has had a permanent effect, who are not only very great +Englishmen and Englishwomen, but are great East Anglians as well. + +I have said that Captain Marryat was an East Anglian, and have we not a +right to be proud of Marryat's breezy stories of the sea? Our youth has +found such plentiful stimulus in _Peter Simple_, _Frank Mildmay_, and +_Mr. Midshipman Easy_; generations of boys have read them with delight, +generations of boys will read them. And not only boys, but men. One +recalls that Carlyle, in one of his deepest fits of depression, took +refuge in Marryat's novels with infinite advantage to his peace of mind. +Speaking of Captain Marryat and books for boys, a quite minor kind of +literature perhaps some of you may think, I must recall that an earlier +and still more famous story for children had an East Anglian origin. Did +not The Babes in the Wood come out of Norfolk? Was it not their estate +in that county that, as we learn from Percy's _Reliques_, their wicked +uncle coveted, and were not the last hours of those unfortunate children, +in this most picturesque and pathetic of stories, solaced by East Anglian +robins and their poor bodies covered by East Anglian vegetation? + +Let me pass, however, to what may be counted more serious literature. +What can one say of Sir Thomas Browne unless indeed one has an hour in +which to say it. Every page of that great writer's _Religio Medici_ and +_Urn Burial_ is quotable--full of worldly wisdom and of an inspiration +that is not of the world. Browne was born in London, and not until he +was thirty-two years of age did he settle in Norwich, where he was "much +resorted to for his skill in physic," and where he lived for forty-five +years, when the fine church of St. Peter Mancroft, received his ashes--a +church in which, let me add, with pardonable pride, my own grandfather +and grandmother were married. I am glad that Norwich is shortly to +commemorate by a fitting monument not the least great of her sons, one +who has been aptly called "the English Montaigne." {138} + +Perhaps there are those who would dispute my claim for Marryat and for +Sir Thomas Browne that they were East Anglians--both were only East +Anglians by adoption. There are even those who dispute the claim for one +whom I must count well-nigh the greatest of East Anglian men of +letters--George Borrow. Borrow, I maintain, was an East Anglian if ever +there was one, although this has been questioned by Mr. Theodore Watts- +Dunton. Now I have the greatest possible regard for Mr. Watts-Dunton. He +is distinguished alike as a critic, a poet, and a romancer. But I must +join issue with him here, and you, I know, will forgive me for taking up +your time with the matter; for if Mr. Watts-Dunton were right, one of the +chief glories would be shorn from our East Anglian traditions. He denies +in the Introduction to a new edition of _The Romany Rye_, just published, +the claim of Borrow to be an East Anglian, although Borrow himself +insisted that he was one. + + One might as well call Charlotte Bronte a Yorkshire woman as call + Borrow an East Anglian. He was no more an East Anglian than an + Irishman born in London is an Englishman. His father was a Cornishman + and his mother of French extraction. Not one drop of East Anglian + blood was in the veins of Borrow's father, and very little in the + veins of his mother. Borrow's ancestry was pure Cornish on one side, + and on the other mainly French. But such was the egotism of Borrow + that the fact of his having been born in East Anglia made him look + upon that part of the world as the very hub of the universe. + +Well, I am not prepared to question the suggestion that East Anglia is +the hub of the universe, only to question Mr. Watts-Dunton's position. +There is virtue in that qualification of his that there was "very little" +East Anglian blood in the veins of Borrow's mother, and that she was +"mainly" French. As a matter of fact she was, of course, partly East +Anglian; that is to say, she must have had two or three generations of +East Anglian blood in her, seeing that it was her great-grandfather who +settled in Norfolk from France, and he and his children and grandchildren +intermarried with the race. But I do not pin my claim for Borrow upon +that fact--the fact of three generations of his mother's family at +Dumpling Green--or even on the fact that he was born near East Dereham. +There is nothing more certain than that we are all of us influenced +greatly by our environment, and that it is this, quite as much as birth +or ancestry, that gives us what characteristics we possess. It is the +custom, for example, to call Swift an Irishman, whereas Swift came of +English parentage and lived for many of his most impressionable years in +England. Nevertheless, he may be justly claimed by the sister-island, +for during a long sojourn in that country he became permeated with the +subtle influence of the Irish race, and in many things he thought and +felt as an Irishman. It is the custom to speak of Maria Edgeworth as an +Irish novelist, yet Miss Edgeworth was born in England of English +parentage. Nevertheless, she was quite as much an Irish novelist as +Charles Lever and Samuel Lover, for all her life was spent in direct +communion with the Irish race, and her books were Irish books. It is, on +the other hand, quite unreasonable to deny that Charlotte Bronte was a +Yorkshire woman. Only once at the end of her life did she visit Ireland +for a few weeks. Her Irish father and her Cornish mother doubtless +influenced her nature in many ways, but not less certain was the +influence of those wonderful moors around Haworth, and the people among +whom she lived. Neither Ireland nor Cornwall has as much right to claim +her as Yorkshire. I am the last to disclaim the influence of what is +sometimes called "Celticism" upon English literature; upon this point I +am certain that Matthew Arnold has said almost the last word. The +Celts--not necessarily the Irish, as there are three or four races of +Celts in addition to the Irish--have in the main given English literature +its fine imaginative quality, and even where he cannot trace a Celtic +origin to an English writer we may fairly assume that there is Celtic +blood somewhere in an earlier generation. + +Nevertheless, the impressions, as I have said, derived from environment +are of the utmost vitality, and assuredly Borrow was an East Anglian, as +Sir Thomas Browne was an East Anglian. In each writer you can trace the +influence of our soil in a peculiar degree, and particularly in Borrow. +Borrow was proud of being an East Anglian, and we are proud of him. In +_Lavengro_, I venture to assert, we have the greatest example of prose +style in our modern literature, and I rejoice to see a growing Borrow +cult, a cult that is based not on an acceptance of the narrower side of +Borrow--his furious ultra-Protestantism, for example--as was the +popularity that he once enjoyed, but upon the fact that he was a +magnificent artist in words. No artist in words but is influenced by +environment. Charles Kingsley, for example, who came from quite +different surroundings, was profoundly influenced by the East Anglian fen- +country:-- + + "They have a beauty of their own, those great fens," he said, "a + beauty of the sea, of boundless expanse and freedom. Overhead the + arch of heaven spreads more ample than elsewhere, and that vastness + gives such cloud-lands, such sunrises, such sunsets, as can be seen + nowhere else within these isles." + +But I must hasten on, although I would fain tarry long over George Borrow +and his works. I have said that East Anglia is the country of great +letter writers. First, there was Margaret Paston. There is no such +contribution to a remote period of English history as that contained in +the _Paston Letters_, and I think we must associate them with the name of +a woman--Margaret Paston. Margaret's husband, John Paston; her son, Sir +John Paston; and her second son, who, strangely enough, was also a John, +and called himself "John Paston the Youngest," come frequently before us +in the correspondence, but Margaret Paston is the central figure. + +It may not be without interest to some of my hearers who are married to +recall that Margaret Paston addresses her husband not as "Dear John," or +"My dear John," as I imagine a wife of to-day would do, but as "Right +Reverend and Worshipful Husband." Nowhere is there such a vivid picture +of a bygone age as that contained in these _Paston Letters_. We who sit +quietly by the hearth in the reign of King Edward VII may read what it +meant to live by the hearth in the reign of King Edward IV. It is +curious that the most humane documents of far-off times in our history +should all come from East Anglia, not only those _Paston Letters_, +brimful of the most vital interest concerning the reigns of Henry VI and +Edward IV, but also an even earlier period--the life, or at least the +monastic life in the time of the first Richard and of King John is in a +most extraordinarily human fashion mirrored for us in that Chronicle of +St. Edmund's Bury Monastery known as the Jocelyn Chronicle, published by +the Camden Society, which Carlyle has vitalized so superbly for us in +_Past and Present_. + +But I was speaking of the great letter writers, commencing with Margaret +Paston. Who are our greatest letter writers? Undoubtedly they are +Horace Walpole, William Cowper and Edward FitzGerald. You know what a +superb picture of eighteenth century life has been presented to us in the +nine volumes of correspondence we have by Horace Walpole. {144} Walpole +was to all practical purposes an East Anglian, although he happened to be +born in London. His father, the great Sir Robert Walpole, was a notable +East Anglian, and he had the closest ties of birth and association with +East Anglia. Many of his letters were written from the family mansion of +Houghton. {145} + +Next in order comes William Cowper. I believe that more than one +literary historian has claimed Cowper as a Norfolk man. Cowper was born +in Hertfordshire; he lived for a very great deal of his life in Olney, in +Buckinghamshire, in London and in Huntingdon, but if ever there was a man +who took on the texture of East Anglian scenery and East Anglian life it +was Cowper. That beautiful river, the Ouse, which empties itself into +the Wash, was a peculiar inspiration to Cowper, and those who know the +scenery of Olney know that it has conditions exactly analogous in every +way to those of East Anglia. One of Cowper's most beautiful poems is +entitled "On Receipt of my Mother's Portrait out of Norfolk," and he +himself, as I have said, found his last resting-place on East Anglian +soil--at East Dereham. + +If there may be some doubt about Cowper, there can be none whatever about +Edward FitzGerald, the greatest letter-writer of recent times. In +mentioning the name of FitzGerald I am a little diffident. It is like +introducing "King Charles's head" into this gathering; for was he not the +author of the poem known to all of us as the _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_, +and there is no small tendency to smile to-day whenever the name of Omar +Khayyam is mentioned and to call the cult a "lunacy." It is perhaps +unfortunate that FitzGerald gave that somewhat formidable title to his +paraphrase, or translation, of the old Persian poet. It is not the fault +of those who admire that poem exceedingly that it gives them a suspicion +of affecting a scholarship that they do not in most cases possess. What +many of us admire is not Omar Khayyam the Persian, nor have we any desire +to see or to know any other translation of that poet. We simply admit to +an honest appreciation of the poem by Edward FitzGerald, the Suffolk +squire, the poem that Tennyson describes as "the one thing done divinely +well." That poem by FitzGerald will live as long as the English +language, and let it never be forgotten that it is the work of an East +Anglian, an East Anglian who, like Borrow, possessed a marked Celtic +quality, the outcome of a famous Irish ancestry, nevertheless of an East +Anglian who loved its soil, its rivers and its sea. + +Then I come to another phase of East Anglian literary traditions. It is +astonishing what a zest for learning its women have displayed; I might +give you quite a long list of distinguished women who have come out of +East Anglia. Crabbe must have had one in mind when he wrote of Arabella +in one of his _Tales_:-- + + This reasoning maid, above her sex's dread + Had dared to read, and dared to say she read, + Not the last novel, not the new born play, + Not the mere trash and scandal of the day; + But (though her young companions felt the shock) + She studied Berkeley, Bacon, Hobbes and Locke. + +The one who perhaps made herself most notorious was Harriet Martineau, +and in spite of her disagreeable egotism it is still a pleasure to read +some of her less controversial writings. Her _Feats on the Fiord_, for +example, is really a classic. But I can never quite forgive Harriet +Martineau in that she spoke contemptuously of East Anglian scenery, +scenery which in its way has charms as great as any part of Europe can +offer. No, in this roll of famous women, the two I am most inclined to +praise are Sarah Austin and Fanny Burney. Mrs. Austin was, you will +remember, one of the Taylors of Norwich, married to John Austin, the +famous jurist. She was one of the first to demonstrate that her sex +might have other gifts than a gift for writing fiction, and that it was +possible to be a good, quiet, domestic woman, and at the same time an +exceedingly learned one. Even before Carlyle she gave a vogue to the +study of German literature in this country; she wrote many books, many +articles, and made some translations, notably what is still the best +translation of von Ranke's _History of the Popes_. In the muster-roll of +East Anglian worthies let us never forget this singularly good woman, +this correspondent of all the most famous men of her day, of Guizot, of +Grote, of Gladstone, and one who also, as a letter-writer, showed that +she possessed the faculty that seems, as I have said, to be peculiar to +the soil of East Anglia. Still less must we forget Fanny Burney, who, +born in King's Lynn, lived to delight her own generation by _Evelina_ and +by the fascinating _Diary_ that gives so pleasant a picture of Dr. +Johnson and many another of her contemporaries. _Evelina_ and the +_Diary_ are two of my favourite books, but I practise self-restraint and +will say no more of them here. + +I now come to my ninth, and last, name among those East Anglian worthies +whom I feel that we have a particular right to canonize--George +Crabbe--"though Nature's sternest painter yet the best," as Byron +described him. Now it may be frankly admitted that few of us read Crabbe +to-day. He has an acknowledged place in the history of literature, but +there pretty well even well-read people are content to leave him. "What +have our literary critics been about that they have suffered such a +writer to drop into neglect and oblivion?" asks a recent Quarterly +Reviewer. He does not live as Cowper does by a few lyrics and ballads +and by incomparable letters. Scarcely a line of Crabbe survives in +current conversation. If you turn to one of those handy volumes of +reference--Dictionaries of Quotation, as they are called--from which we +who are journalists are supposed to obtain most of the literary knowledge +that we are able to display on occasion, you will scarcely find a dozen +lines of Crabbe. And yet I venture to affirm that Crabbe has a great and +permanent place in literature, and that as he has been a favourite in the +past, he will become a favourite in the future. Crabbe can never lose +his place in the history of literature, a place as the forerunner of +Wordsworth and even of Cowper, but it would be a tragedy were he to drop +out of the category of poets that are read. A dainty little edition in +eight volumes is among my most treasured possessions. I have read it not +as we read some so-called literature, from a sense of duty, but with +unqualified interest. We have had much pure realism in these latter +days; why not let us return to the most realistic of the poets. He was +beloved by all the greatest among his contemporaries. Scott and +Wordsworth were devoted to his work, and so also was Jane Austen. At a +later date Tennyson praised him. We have heard quite recently the story +of Mr. James Russell Lowell in his last illness finding comfort in +reading Scott's _Rob Roy_. Let us turn to Scott's own last illness and +see what was the book he most enjoyed, almost on his deathbed:-- + + "Read me some amusing thing," said Sir Walter, "read me a bit of + Crabbe." "I brought out the first volumes of his old favourite that I + could lay hand on," says Lockhart, "and turned to what I remembered + was one of his favourite passages in it. He listened with great + interest. Every now and then he exclaimed, "Capital, excellent, + excellent, very good." + +Cardinal Newman and Edward FitzGerald at the opposite poles, as it were, +of religious impressions, agree in a devotion to Crabbe's poetry. +Cardinal Newman speaks of _Tales of the Hall_ as "a poem whether in +conception or in execution one of the most touching in our language," and +in a footnote to his _Idea of a University_ he tells us that he had read +the poem thirty years earlier with extreme delight, "and have never lost +my love of it," and he goes on to plead that it is an absolute _classic_. + +Not to have read Crabbe, therefore, is not to know one of the most +individual in the glorious muster-roll of English poets, and Crabbe was +pre-eminently an East Anglian, born and bred in East Anglia, and taking +in a peculiar degree the whole character of his environment, as only +Shakspere, Cowper and Wordsworth among our great poets, have done. + +In conclusion, let me recapitulate that the names of Marryat, Sir Thomas +Browne, George Borrow, Margaret Paston, Horace Walpole, Sarah Austin, +Fanny Burney, Edward FitzGerald, and George Crabbe are those that I +prefer to associate with East Anglian Literature. We are well aware that +literature is but an aspect of our many claims on the gratitude of those +Englishmen who have not the good fortune to be East Anglians. We have +given to the Empire a great scholar in Porson, a great statesman in Sir +Robert Walpole, a great lawyer in Sir Edward Coke, great ecclesiastics in +Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Parker, great artists in Gainsborough, +Constable and Crome, and perhaps above all great sailors in Sir +Cloudesley Shovel and the ever memorable Lord Nelson. Personally I +admire a certain rebel, Kett the Tanner, as much as any of those I have +named. + +Of all these East Anglian worthies the praise has often been sung, but +let me be pardoned if, on an occasion like this, I have dwelt rather at +length on the less familiar association of East Anglia with letters. That +I have but touched the fringe of the subject is obvious. What might not +be said, for example, concerning Norwich as a literary centre under +Bishop Stanley--the Norwich of the Taylors and the Gurneys, possessed of +as much real intellectual life as London can boast of to-day. What, +again, might not be said of the influence upon writers from afar. Read +Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_, Mr. Swinburne's _Midsummer Holiday_, +Charles Dickens' description of Yarmouth and Goldsmith's poetical +description in his _Deserted Village_, where clearly Houghton was +intended. {153} These, and a host of other memories touch the heart of +all good East Anglians, but that East Anglians do not forget the living +in doing honour to the dead is indicated by this gathering to-night. We +are grateful to Dr. Augustus Jessopp, to Mr. Walter Rye, to Mr. Edward +Clodd, and to our guest of this evening, Mr. William Dutt, for keeping +alive the folk-lore, the literary history, the historical tradition of +that portion of the British Isles to which we feel the most profound +attachment by ties of residence or of kinship. + + + + +VI. DR. JOHNSON'S ANCESTRY + + +A paper read before the members of the Johnson Club of London at +Simpson's Restaurant in the Strand. + +There is, I believe, a definite understanding among our members that we, +the Brethren of the Johnson Club, have each and all of us read every line +about Dr. Johnson that is in print, to say nothing of his works. It is +particularly accepted that the thirteen volumes in which our late +brother, Dr. Birkbeck Hill, enshrined his own appreciation of our Great +Man, are as familiar to us all as are the Bible and the Book of Common +Prayer. For my part, with a deep sense of the responsibility that must +belong to any one who has rashly undertaken to read a paper before the +Club, I admit to having supplemented these thirteen volumes by a +reperusal of the little book entitled _Johnson Club Papers_, by Various +Hands, issued in 1899 by Brother Fisher Unwin. I feel as I reread these +addresses that there were indeed giants in those days, although my +admiration was moderated a little when I came across the statement of one +Brother that Johnson's proposal for an edition of Shakspere "came to +nothing"; and the statement of another that "Goldsmith's failings were +almost as great and as ridiculous as Boswell's;" while my bibliographical +ire was awakened by the extraordinary declaration in an article on "Dr. +Johnson's Library," that a first folio edition of Shakspere might have +realized 250 pounds in the year 1785. Still, I recognize the talent that +illuminated the Club in those closing years of the last century. Happily +for us, who love good comradeship, most of the giants of those days are +still in evidence with their polished armour and formidable spears. + +What can I possibly say that has not already been said by one or other of +the Brethren? Well, I have put together these few remarks in the hopes +that no one of you has seen two books that are in my hands, the first, +_The Reades of Blackwood Hill_, _with Some Account of Dr. Johnson's +Ancestry_, by Aleyn Lyell Reade; the other, _The Life and Letters of Dr. +Birkbeck Hill_, by his daughter Mrs. Crump. The first of these is +privately printed, although it may be bought by any one of the Brethren +for a couple of guineas. As far as I am able to learn, Brother Augustine +Birrell is the only one of the Brethren who has as yet purchased a copy. +The other book, our Brother Birkbeck Hill's biography, is to be issued +next week by Mr. Edward Arnold, who has kindly placed an early copy at my +disposal. In both these volumes there is much food for reflection for +all good Johnsonians. Dr. Johnson's ancestry, it may be, makes little +appeal to the crowd, but it will to the Brethren. There is no more +favourite subject for satire than the tendency to minute study of an +author and his antecedents. But the lover of that author knows the +fascination of the topic. He can forgive any amount of zeal. I confess +that personally I stand amazed at the variety and interest of Mr. Reade's +researches. Let me take a sample case of his method before coming to the +main issue. In the opening pages of Boswell's _Johnson_ there is some +account of Mr. Michael Johnson, the father. The most picturesque +anecdote told of Johnson Senior is that concerning a young woman of Leek +in Staffordshire, who while he served his apprenticeship there conceived +a passion for him, which he did not return. She followed him to +Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house in which he +lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. Ultimately she died of love and +was buried in the Cathedral at Lichfield, when Michael Johnson put a +stone over her grave. This pathetic romance has gone unchallenged by all +Boswell's editors, even including our prince of editors, Dr. Birkbeck +Hill. Mr. Reade, it seems to me, has completely shattered the story, +which, as all Johnsonian students know, was obtained by Boswell from Miss +Anna Seward. Mr. Reade is able to show that Michael Johnson had been +settled in Lichfield for at least eleven years before the death of +Elizabeth Blaney, that for five years she had been the much appreciated +domestic in a household in that city. Her will indicates moreover a +great affection for her mistress and for that mistress's son; she leaves +the boy a gold watch and his mother the rest of her belongings. The only +connexion that Michael Johnson would seem to have had with the woman was +that he and his brother were called in after her decease to make an +inventory of her little property. I think that these little facts about +Mistress Blaney, her five years' residence at Lichfield apparently in a +most comfortable position, her omission of Michael Johnson from her will, +and the fact that he had been in Lichfield at least six months before she +arrived, are conclusive. + +There is another picturesque fact about Michael Johnson that Mr. Reade +has brought to light. It would seem that twenty years before his +marriage to Sarah Ford, he had been on the eve of marriage to a young +woman at Derby, Mary Neyld; but the marriage did not take place, although +the marriage bond was drawn out. Mary was the daughter of Luke Neyld, a +prominent tradesman of Derby; she was twenty-three years of age at the +time and Michael twenty-nine. Even Mr. Reade's industry has not been +able to discover for us why at the very last moment the marriage was +broken off. It explains, however, why Michael Johnson married late in +life and his melancholia. The human romance that Mr. Reade has unveiled +has surely a certain interest for Johnsonians, for had Michael Johnson +brought his first love affair to a happy conclusion, we should not have +had the man described twenty years later as "possessed of a vile +melancholy," who, when his wife's tongue wagged too much, got upon his +horse and rode away. There would have been no Samuel Johnson, and there +would have been no Johnson Club--a catastrophe which the human mind finds +it hard to conceive of. Two years after the breaking off of her +engagement with Michael Johnson, I may add, Mary Neyld married one James +Warner. + +Mr. Reade also calls in question another statement of Boswell's, that +Michael Johnson was really apprenticed at Leek in Staffordshire; our only +authority for this also is the excellent Anna Seward. Further, it is +sufficiently curious that the names of two Samuel Johnsons are recorded +as being buried in one of the churches at Lichfield, one before our +Samuel came into the world, the other three years later: of these, one +died in 1654, the other in 1712. But these points, although of a certain +interest, have nothing to do with Dr. Johnson's ancestry. Now before we +left our homes this evening, each member of the Johnson Brotherhood, as +is his custom, turned up Brother Birkbeck Hill's invaluable index to see +what Johnson had to say upon the subject of ancestry. We know that the +Doctor was very keen upon the founding of a family; that when Mr. Thrale +lost his only son Johnson's sympathies went out to him in a double way, +and perhaps in the greater degree because as he said to Boswell, "Sir, +don't you know how you yourself think? Sir, he wished to propagate his +name." Johnson himself, Boswell tells us, had no pretensions to blood. +"I here may say," he said, "that I have great merit in being zealous for +subordination and the honours of birth; for I can hardly tell who was my +grandfather." Johnson further informed Mrs. Thrale that he did not +delight in talking much of his family: "There is little pleasure," he +says, "in relating the anecdotes of beggary." He constantly deprecated +his origin. According to Miss Seward, he told his wife before he married +her that he was of mean extraction; but the letter in which Miss Seward +gives her version of Johnson's courtship is worth recalling, although I +do not believe a single word of it:-- + + The rustic prettiness and artless manners of her daughter, the present + Mrs. Lucy Porter, had won Johnson's youthful heart, when she was upon + a visit at my grandfather's in Johnson's school-days. Disgusted by + his unsightly form, she had a personal aversion to him, nor could the + beautiful verses he addressed to her teach her to endure him. The + nymph at length returned to her parents at Birmingham, and was soon + forgotten. Business taking Johnson to Birmingham on the death of his + own father, and calling upon his coy mistress there, he found her + father dying. He passed all his leisure hours at Mr. Porter's, + attending his sick bed, and in a few months after his death, asked + Mrs. Johnson's consent to marry the old widow. After expressing her + surprise at a request so extraordinary--"No, Sam, my willing consent + you will never have to so preposterous a union. You are not twenty- + five, and she is turned fifty. If she had any prudence, this request + had never been made to me. Where are your means of subsistence? + Porter has died poor, in consequence of his wife's expensive habits. + You have great talents, but, as yet, have turned them into no + profitable channel." "Mother, I have not deceived Mrs. Porter: I have + told her the worst of me; that I am of mean extraction; that I have no + money, and that I have had an uncle hanged. She replied, that she + valued no one more or less for his descent; that she had no more money + than myself; and that, although she had not had a relation hanged, she + had fifty who deserved hanging." + +Now why did Dr. Johnson take this attitude about his ancestry, so +contrary to the spirit that guided him where other people's genealogical +trees were concerned? It was certainly not indifference to family ties, +because Brother Birkbeck Hill publishes many interesting letters written +by Johnson in old age, when finding that he had a certain sum of money to +bequeath, he looked around to see if there were any of his own kin +living. The number of letters the old man wrote, inquiring for this or +that kinsman, are quite pathetic. It seems to me that it was really due +to an ignorant vagueness as to his family history. During his early +years his family had passed from affluence to penury. They were of a +type very common in England, but very rare in Scotland and Ireland, that +take no interest whatever in pedigrees, and never discuss any but their +immediate relations, with whom, in the case of the Johnsons, very +friendly terms did not prevail. I think we should be astonished if we +were to go into some shops in London of sturdy prosperous tradesmen in +quite as good a position as old Michael Johnson, and were to try and draw +out one or other individual upon his ancestry. We should promptly come +against a blank wall. + +What then do we know of Johnson's father from the ordinary sources? That +he was a bookseller at Lichfield, and that he was Sheriff of that city in +the year that his son Samuel was born; that he feasted the citizens, as +Johnson tells us, in his _Annals_, with "uncommon magnificence." He is +described by Johnson as "a foolish old man," because he talked with too +fond a pride of his children and their precocious ways. He was a zealous +High Churchman and Jacobite. We are told by Boswell further, on the +authority of Mr. Hector of Birmingham, that he opened a bookstall once a +week in that city, but lost money by setting up as a maker of parchment. +"A pious and most worthy man," Mrs. Piozzi tells us of him, "but wrong- +headed, positive and affected with melancholia." "I inherited a vile +melancholy from my father," Johnson tells us, "which has made me mad all +my life." When he died in 1731 his effects were estimated at 20 pounds. +"My mother had no value for his relations," Johnson tells us. "Those we +knew were much lower than hers." Of Michael Johnson's brother, Andrew, +Johnson's uncle, we know still less. From the various Johnson books we +only cull the story mentioned in Mrs. Piozzi's _Anecdotes_. She relates +that Johnson, after telling her of the prowess of his uncle, Cornelius +Ford, at jumping, went on to say that he had another uncle, Andrew--"my +father's brother, who kept the ring at Smithfield for a whole year, and +was never thrown or conquered. Here are uncles for you, Mistress, if +that is the way to your heart." Mr. Reade has supplemented this by +showing us that not only was Andrew Johnson a skilful wrestler, but that +he was a very good bookseller. For a time he assisted his brother in the +conduct of the business at Lichfield. Later, however, he settled as a +bookseller at Birmingham, which was to be his home until his death over +thirty years later. Here he published some interesting books; the title- +pages of some of these are given by Mr. Reade, who reproduces of course +his will. He had a son named Thomas who fell on evil days. You will +find certain letters to Thomas in Birkbeck Hill's edition; Dr. Johnson +frequently helped him with money. + +Of more interest, however, than Andrew Johnson was Catherine, the one +sister of Michael and Andrew, an aunt of Samuel's, who was evidently for +some unknown reason ignored by her two brothers. Here we are not on +absolutely firm ground, but it seems to me clear that Catherine Johnson +married into a position far above her brothers. A fortnight before his +death Dr. Johnson wrote to the Rev. William Vyse, Rector of Lambeth; a +letter in which he asked him to find out "whether Charles Skrymsher"--he +misspelt it "Scrimshaw"--"of Woodseaves"--he misspelt it "Woodease"--"in +your neighbourhood, be now alive," and whether he could be found without +delay. He added that "it will be an act of great kindness to me," +Charles Skrymsher being "very nearly related." Charles Skrymsher was not +found, and Johnson told Dr. Vyse that he was disappointed in the +inquiries that he had made for his relations. This particular relation, +indeed, had been twenty-two years dead when Dr. Johnson, probably with +the desire of leaving him something in his will, made these inquiries. +His mother, Mrs. Gerald Skrymsher, was Michael Johnson's sister. One of +her daughters became the wife of Thomas Boothby. Boothby was twice +married, and his two wives were cousins, the first, Elizabeth, being the +daughter of one Sir Charles Skrymsher, the second, Hester, as I have +said, of Gerald Skrymsher, Dr. Johnson's uncle. Hence Johnson had a +cousin by marriage who was a potentate in his day, for it is told of +Thomas Boothby of Tooley Park, grand-nephew of a powerful and wealthy +baronet, that he was one of the fathers of English sport. An issue of +_The Field_ newspaper for 1875 contains an engraving of a hunting horn +then in the possession of the late Master of the Cheshire Hounds, and +upon the horn is the inscription: "Thomas Boothby, Esq., Tooley Park, +Leicester. With this horn he hunted the first pack of fox hounds then in +England fifty-five years." He died in 1752. His eldest son took the +maternal name of Skrymsher, and under the title of Thomas Boothby +Skrymsher became M.P. for Leicester, and an important person in his day. +His wife was Anne, daughter of Sir Hugh Clopton of New Place, Stratford- +on-Avon. Admirers of Mrs. Gaskell will remember the Clopton legend told +by her in Howett's _Visits to Remarkable Places_. + +I wish that I had time to follow Mr. Reade through all the ramifications +of an interesting family history, but I venture to think that there is +something pathetic in Dr. Johnson's inquiries a fortnight before his +death as to cousins of whose life story he knew nothing, whose well-known +family home of Woodseaves he--the great Lexicographer--could not spell +correctly, and of whose very name he was imperfectly informed. Yet he, +the lover of family trees and of ancestral associations, was all his life +in ignorance of these wealthy connexions and their many substantial +intermarriages. + +Before Mr. Reade it was known that Johnson's father was a manufacturer of +parchment as well as a bookseller; but it was supposed that only in his +last few years or so of life did he undertake this occupation which +ruined him. Mr. Reade shows that he had been for thirty years engaged in +this trade in parchment. Brother Birkbeck Hill quotes Croker, who hinted +that Johnson's famous definition of Excise as "a hateful tax levied upon +commodities, and adjudged not by the Common Judge of Property but by +wretches hired by those to whom Excise is paid," was inspired by +recollections of his father's constant disputes with the Excise officers. +Mr. Reade has unearthed documents concerning the crisis of this quarrel, +when Michael Johnson in 1718 was indicted "for useing ye Trade of a +Tanner." The indictment, which is here printed in full, charges him, +"one Michael Johnson, bookseller," "that he did in the third year of the +reign of our Lord George by the Grace of God now King of Great Britain, +for his own proper gain, get up, use and exercise the art, mystery or +manual occupation of a Byrseus, in English a Tanner, in which art, +mystery or manual occupation of a Tanner the said Michael Johnson was not +brought up or apprenticed for the space of seven years, an evil example +of all others offending in such like case." Michael's defence was that +he was "tanned for" and did not tan himself, he being only "a merchant in +skins tradeing to Ireland, Scotland and the furthermost parts of +England." The only known example of Michael Johnson's handwriting is +this defence. Michael was committed for trial but acquitted. It is +probable, however, that this prosecution laid the foundation of his ruin. + +But I must pass on to the other branch: the family of Dr. Johnson's +mother. Here Dr. Johnson did himself a great injustice, for he had a +genuine right to count his mother's "an old family," although the term is +in any case relative. At any rate he could carry his pedigree back to +1620. "In the morning," says Boswell, "we had talked of old families, +and the respect due to them. Johnson said-- + + "'Sir, you have a right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for + yourself. I am for supporting the principle, and I am disinterested + in doing it, as I have no such right.'" + +Nevertheless, Boswell, in this opening chapter, refers to the mother as +"Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in +Warwickshire," and Johnson's epitaph upon his mother's tomb describes her +as "of the ancient family of Ford." Thus one is considerably bewildered +in attempting to reconcile Johnson's attitude. The only one of his +family for whom he seems to have had a good word was Cornelius Harrison, +of whom, writing to Mrs. Thrale, he said that he was "perhaps the only +one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury or in character +above neglect." This Cornelius was the son of John Harrison, who had +married Johnson's aunt, Phoebe Ford. Johnson's account of Uncle John in +his _Annals_ is not flattering, but he was the son of a Rector of +Pilborough, whose father was Sir Richard Harrison, one of the gentlemen +of the King's Bedchamber, and a personality of a kind. Cornelius, the +reputable cousin, died in 1748, but his descendants seem to have been a +poor lot, whatever his ancestors may have been. Mr. Reade traces their +history with all the relentlessness of the genealogist. + +Johnson's great-grandfather was one Henry Ford, a yeoman in Birmingham. +One of his sons, Henry, Johnson's grand-uncle, was born in 1628. He +owned property at West Bromwich and elsewhere, and was a fellow of +Clifford's Inn, London. Then we come to Cornelius Ford--"Cornelius Ford, +gentleman," he is styled in his marriage settlement. Cornelius died four +months before Samuel Johnson was born. Cornelius had a sister Mary, who +married one Jesson, and their only son, I may mention incidentally, +entered at Pembroke College in 1666, sixty years before his +second-cousin, our Samuel, entered the same college. Another cousin by +marriage was a Mrs. Harriots, to whom Johnson refers in his _Annals_, and +also in his _Prayers and Meditations_. The only one of Cornelius Ford's +family referred to in the biographies is Joseph Ford, the father of the +notorious Parson Ford, Johnson's cousin, of whom he several times speaks. +Joseph was a physician of eminence who settled at Stourbridge. He +married a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hickman. He was a witness to the marriage +of his sister Sarah to Michael Johnson. There can be no doubt but that +the presence of Dr. Ford and his family at Stourbridge accounts for +Johnson being sent there to school in 1725. He stayed in the house of +his cousin Cornelius Ford, not as Boswell says his _uncle_ Cornelius, at +Pedmore, about a mile from Stourbridge. He walked in every day to the +Grammar School. A connexion of the boy, Gregory Hickman, was residing +next to the Grammar School. A kinsman of Johnson and a descendant of +Hickman, Dr. Freer, still lives in the house. I met him at Lichfield +recently, and he has sent me a photograph of the very house, which stands +to-day much as it did when Johnson visited it, and wrote at twenty-two, a +sonnet to Dorothy Hickman "playing at the Spinet." Dorothy was one of +Johnson's three early loves, with Ann Hector and Olivia Lloyd. Dorothy +married Dr. John Turtin and had an only child, Dr. Turtin, the celebrated +physician who attended Goldsmith in his last illness. + +I have not time to go through the record of all Dr. Johnson's uncles on +the maternal side, and do full justice to Mr. Reade's industry and +mastery of detail. I may, however, mention incidentally that the uncle +who was hanged, if one was, must have been one of his father's brothers, +for to the Fords that distinction does not seem to have belonged. Much +that is entertaining is related of the cousin Parson Ford, who, after +sharing with the famous Earl of Chesterfield in many of his profligacies, +received from his lordship the Rectory of South Luffenham. There is no +evidence, however, that Chesterfield ever knew that his at one time +chaplain and boon companion was cousin of the man who wrote him the most +famous of letters. + +The mother of Cornelius Ford was a Crowley, and this brings Johnson into +relationship with London city worthies, for Mrs. Ford's brother was Sir +Ambrose Crowley, Kt., Alderman, of London, the original of Addison's Jack +Anvil. One of Sir Ambrose Crowley's daughters married Humphrey Parsons, +sometime M.P. for London and twice Lord Mayor. Thus we see that during +the very years of Johnson's most painful struggle in London one of his +distant cousins or connexions was Chief Magistrate of this City. Another +connexion, Elizabeth Crowley, was married in 1724 at Westminster Abbey to +John, tenth Lord St. John of Bletsoe. "Here are ancestors for you, +Mistress," Dr. Johnson might have said to Mrs. Thrale if he had only +known--if he had had a genealogist at his elbow as well as a pushful +biographer. + +Mr. Reade prints the whole of the marriage settlement upon the union of +Johnson's mother and father. It is a very elaborate document, and +suggests the undoubted prosperity of the parties at the time. The +husband was fifty, the bride thirty-seven. Samuel was not born until +three years and three months after the marriage. The pair frequently in +early married life received assistance by convenient deaths as the +following extracts from wills indicate:-- + + _Cornelius Ford of Packwood in the Co. of Warwick_. + + I give and bequeath unto my son-in-law Michaell Johnson the sum of + five pounds, and to his wife my daughter five and twenty pounds. + + Proved May 1, 1709. + + _Jane Ford of Old Turnford_, _widow of Joseph Ford_. + + I do will and appoint that my son Cornelius Ford do and shall pay to + my brother-in-law, Mr. Michael Johnson and his wife and their + trustees, the sum of 200 pounds which is directed by his late father's + Will to be paid to me and in lieu of so much moneys which my said late + husband received in trust for my said brother Johnson and his wife. + + Proved at Worcester, October 2, 1722. + +Then "good cousin Harriotts" does not forget them:-- + + I give and bequeath to my cousin Sarah the wife of Michael Johnson the + like sum of 40 pounds for her own separate use, and one pair of my + best flaxen sheets and pillow coats, a large pewter dish and a dozen + of pewter plates, provided that her husband doth at the same time give + the like bond to my executor to permit his wife to dispose of the same + at her will and pleasure. + + Elizabeth Harriotts of Trysall in Staff., + October 23, 1726. + +But I must leave this fascinating volume. I cannot find time to tell you +all it has to say about the Porter family. Mr. Reade is as informative +when treating of the Porters, of Mrs. Johnson and her daughter Lucy, as +he is with the family trees of which I have spoken. + +I hasten on to Dr. Hill's _Life_, with which I am only concerned here at +the point where it is affected by Mr. Reade's book. The reflection +inevitably arises that it is well-nigh impossible efficiently to do work +involving research unless one has an income derived from other sources. +Your historian in proportion to the value of his work must be a rich man, +and so must the biographer. Good as Brother Birkbeck Hill's work was, it +would have been better if he had had more money. He might have had many +of these wills and other documents copied, upon the securing of which Mr. +Reade must have expended such very large sums. Dr. Hill was fully alive +to this. "If I had not some private means," he wrote to a friend in +1897, "I could never edit Johnson and Boswell; but I do not get so well +paid as a carpenter." As a matter of fact, I find that he lost exactly 3 +pounds by publishing _Dr. Johnson_: _his Friends and his Critics_. He +made 320 pounds by the first four years' sale of the "Boswell." This 320 +pounds, including American rights, made the bulk of his payments for his +many years' work, and the book has not yet gone into a second edition. I +think 2,000 were printed. There were between 40,000 and 50,000 copies of +Croker's editions sold, so that we must not be too boastful as to the +improved taste of the present age. 320 pounds is a mere bagatelle to +numbers of our present writers of utterly foolish fiction. Several of +them have been known to spend double that sum on a single motor-car. In +connexion with this matter I cannot refrain from giving one passage from +a letter of Brother Hill's:-- + + My old friend D--- lamented that the two new volumes (of my _Johnson + Miscellanies_) are so dear as to be above his reach. The net price is + a guinea. On Sunday he had eight glasses of hollands and seltzer--a + shilling each, a pint of stout and some cider, besides half a dozen + cigars or so. Two days' abstinence from cigars and liquor would have + paid for my book. + +Mrs. Crump, who writes her father's life, has expressed regret to me that +there is so little in the book concerning the Johnson Club to which +Brother Hill was so devoted. She had asked me for letters, but I felt +that all in my possession were unsuited for publication, dealing rather +freely with living persons. Brother Hill was impatient of the mere +bookmaker--the literary charlatan who wrote without reading sufficiently. +There are two pleasant glimpses of our Club in the volume; I quote one. +It was of the night that we discussed _Dr. Johnson as a Radical_:-- + + I wish that you and Lucy could have been present last night and + witnessed my scene of triumph. I was indeed most nobly welcomed. The + scribe told me with sympathetic pride that the correspondent of the + _New York Herald_ had asked leave to attend, as he wished to telegraph + my paper out to America!!! as well as the discussion. There were some + very good speeches made in the discussion that followed, especially by + a Mr. Whale, a solicitor, who spoke remarkably well and with great + knowledge of his _Boswell_. He said that he preferred to call it, not + Johnson's radical side, but his humanitarian side. Mr. Birrell, the + _Obiter Dicta_ man, also spoke very well. He is a clever fellow. He + was equally complimentary. He maintained in opposition to Mr. Whale + that radical was the right term, and in fact that radicalism and + humanitarianism were the same. Many of them said what a light the + paper had thrown on Johnson's character. One gentleman came up and + congratulated me on the very delicate way in which I had handled so + difficult a subject, and had not given offence to the Liberal + Unionists and Tories present. Edmund Gosse, by whom I sat, was most + friendly, and called the paper a wonderful _tour de force_, referring + to the way in which I had linked Johnson's sayings. He asked me to + visit him some day at Trinity College, Cambridge, and assured me of a + hearty welcome. It is no wonder that what with the supper and the + smoke I did not get to sleep till after two. Among the guests was the + great Bonner, the Australian cricketer, whose health had been drunk + with that of the other visitors, and his praise sounded at having hit + some balls over the pavilion at Lord's. With great simplicity he said + that after seeing the way in which Johnson's memory was revered, he + would much rather have been such a man than have gained his own + greatest triumphs at cricket. He did not say it jocularly at all. + +Another letter from Dr. Hill describes how he found himself at Ashbourne +in Derbyshire with the Club, or rather with a fragment of it. He wrote +from the _Green Man_ there concerning his adventures. + +I have far exceeded my time, but I would like in conclusion to say how +admirably his daughter has written this book on our Brother Birkbeck +Hill. What a pleasant picture it presents of a genuine lover of +literature. His was not an analytical mind nor was he a great critic. +His views on Dante and Newman will not be shared by any of us. But, what +is far more important than analysis or criticism, he had an entirely +lovable personality and was a most clubbable man. He was moreover the +ideal editor of Boswell. What more could be said in praise of a beloved +Brother of the Johnson Club! + + + + +VII. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF FERDINAND LASSALLE {185} + + + Ich habe die Inventur meines Lebens gemacht. + Es war gross, brav, wacker, tapfer und glanzend genug. + Eine kunftige Zeit wird mir gerecht zu warden wissen. + + --FERDINAND LASSALLE, _August_ 9, 1864. + + + +I. The Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt. + + +Ferdinand Lassalle was born at Breslau on April 11, 1825. His parents +were of Jewish race, his father a successful silk merchant. From boyhood +he was now the tyrant, now the slave of a mother whom he loved and by +whom he was adored. Heymann Lassal--his son changed the spelling during +his Paris sojourn--appears to have been irritable and tyrannical; and +there are some graphic instances in the recently published "Diary" {186} +of the differences between them, ending on one occasion in the boy +rushing to the river, where his terrified father finds him hesitating on +the brink, and becomes reconciled. A more attractive picture of the old +man is that told of his visit to his son-in-law, Friedland, who had +married Lassalle's sister. Friedland was ashamed of his Jewish origin, +and old Lassalle startled the guests at dinner by rising and frankly +stating that he was a Jew, that his daughter was a Jewess, and that her +husband was of the same race. The guests cheered, but the host never +forgave his too frank father-in-law. + +Lassalle was a student at Breslau University, and later at Berlin, where +he laid the foundation of those Hegelian studies to which he owed his +political philosophy. In 1845 he went to Paris, and there secured the +friendship of Heine, being included with George Sand in the interesting +circle around the "mattress grave" of the sick poet. + +Among Heine's letters {187} there are four addressed to Lassalle, now as +"Dear and best beloved friend," now as "Dearest brother-in-arms." "Be +assured," he says, "that I love you beyond measure. I have never before +felt so much confidence in any one." "I have found in no one," he says +again, "so much passion and clearness of intellect united in action. You +have good right to be audacious--we others only usurp this Divine right, +this heavenly privilege." And to Varnhagen von Ense he writes:-- + + My friend, Herr Lassalle, who brings you this letter, is a young man + of the most remarkable intellectual gifts. With the most thorough + erudition, with the widest learning, with the greatest penetration + that I have ever known, and with the richest gift of exposition, he + combines an energy of will and a capacity for action which astonish + me. . . . In no one have I found united so much enthusiasm and + practical intelligence. + +"In every line," says Brandes, "this letter shows the far-seeing student +of life, indeed, the prophet!" + +Lassalle is not backward in reciprocating the enthusiasm. + + "I love Heine," he declares; "he is my second self. What audacity! + what crushing eloquence! He knows how to whisper like a zephyr when + it kisses rose-blooms, how to breathe like fire when it rages and + destroys; he calls forth all that is tenderest and softest, and then + all that is fiercest and most daring. He has the command of all the + range of feeling." + +Lassalle's sympathy with Heine never lessened. It was Heine who lost +grasp of the intrinsically higher nature of his countryman and +co-religionist, and an acute difference occurred, as we shall see, when +Lassalle interfered in the affairs of the Countess von Hatzfeldt. +Introduced to the Countess by his friend Dr. Mendelssohn, in 1846, +Lassalle felt that here in concrete form was scope for all his enthusiasm +of humanity, and he determined to devote his life to championing the +cause of the oppressed lady. {188} The Countess was the wife of a +wealthy and powerful nobleman, who ill-treated her shamefully. He +imprisoned her in his castles, refused her doctors and medicine in +sickness, and carried off her children. Her own family, as powerful as +the Count, had often intervened, and the Count's repentances were many +but short-lived. In 1846 matters reached a crisis. The Count wrote to +his second son, Paul, asking him to leave his mother. The boy carried +this letter to the Countess; and Lassalle relates that, finding the lady +in tears, he persuaded her to a full disclosure of the facts. He pledged +himself to save her, and for nine years carried on the struggle, with +ultimate victory, but with considerable loss of reputation. He first +told the story to Mendelssohn and Oppenheim, two friends of great wealth, +the latter a Judge of one of the superior courts in Prussia. They agreed +to help him; for then, as always, Lassalle's persuasive powers were +irresistible. They went with him from Berlin to Dusseldorf, the Count +being in that neighbourhood. Von Hatzfeldt was at Aix-la-Chapelle, +caught in the toils of a new mistress, the Baroness Meyendorff. Lassalle +discovered that she had obtained from the Count a deed assigning to her +some property which should in the ordinary course have come to the boy +Paul. The Countess, hearing of the disaster which seemed likely to +befall her favourite son, made her way into her husband's presence, and +in the scene which followed secured a promise that the document should be +revoked--destroyed. But no sooner had she left him than the Count +returned to the Meyendorff influence, and refused to see his wife again. +Soon afterwards it was discovered that the woman had set out for Cologne. +Lassalle begged his friends Oppenheim and Mendelssohn, to follow her and, +if possible, to ascertain whether the momentous document had actually +been destroyed. They obeyed, and reached the hotel at Cologne about the +same time as the Baroness. Here they were guilty of an indiscretion, if +of nothing worse, for which Lassalle can surely in no way be blamed, but +which was used for many a year to tarnish his name. Oppenheim, on his +way upstairs, observed a servant with the luggage of the Baroness; among +other things a desk or casket of a kind commonly used to carry valuable +papers. Thinking only of the fact that it was desirable to obtain a +certain document from the brutal Count, he pounced upon the casket when +the servant's back was turned. But he had no luggage with him in which +to conceal it, and so handed it to Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn, although +fully sensible of the blunder that had been committed, could not desert +his friend, and placed the casket in his trunk. + +The whole hotel was in an uproar when the Baroness discovered her loss. +The friends fled panic-stricken in opposite directions. Suspicion +immediately fell upon Dr. Mendelssohn, because his room was seen to have +been left in confusion. He was pursued, but succeeded in escaping from a +railway carriage and fleeing to Paris, leaving his luggage in the hands +of the police. In his box some papers were found which incriminated +Oppenheim; and Oppenheim, a Judge of one of the superior courts, and the +son of a millionaire, was arrested and imprisoned for theft! + +Lassalle visited Oppenheim in prison, and extracted from him a promise of +silence as to the motive for his conduct. He then threw himself +vigorously into the struggle, both in the press and in the law courts. +Here he seems to have parted company with Heine, because, as he tells us, +"the Baroness Meyendorff was a friend of the Princess de Lieven, and the +Princess de Lieven was the mistress of Guizot, and Heine received a +pension from Guizot." + +Oppenheim was acquitted in 1846, and Mendelssohn, who was really innocent +of the actual robbery, naturally thought it safe to return to Germany. He +was, however, tried before the assize court of Cologne, and sentenced to +five years' imprisonment. Alexander von Humboldt obtained a reduction of +the sentence to one year, but on condition that Mendelssohn should leave +Europe. He went, after his release from prison, to Constantinople, and +when the Crimean war broke out joined the Turkish army, dying on the +march in 1854. + +Meanwhile Germany rang for many years with the story of the so-called +robbery, and Lassalle's name was even more associated therewith than were +those of his more culpable friends. And this was not unnatural, because +he was engaged year after year in continuous warfare with Count +Hatzfeldt. At length, in 1854, about the time that the unfortunate Dr. +Mendelssohn died in the East, he secured for the Countess complete +separation and an ample provision. + +Lassalle's friendship with this lady inevitably gave rise to scandal. But +never surely was scandal so little justified. She was twenty years his +senior, and the relation was clearly that of mother and son. In her +letters he is always "my dear child," and in his she is the confidante of +the innumerable troubles of mind and of heart of which so impressionable +a man as Ferdinand Lassalle had more than his share. + +"You are without reason and judgment where women are concerned," she +tells him, when he confides to her his passion for Helene von Donniges; +and the remark opens out a vista of confidences of which the world +happily knows but little. From the assize court of Dusseldorf, of all +places, we have a very definite glimpse of a good-looking man, likely to +be a favourite in the society of the opposite sex:-- + + "Ferdinand Lassalle," runs the official document, "aged twenty-three, + a civilian, born at Breslau, and dwelling recently at Berlin. Stands + five feet six inches in height, has brown curly hair, open forehead, + brown eyebrows, dark blue eyes, well proportioned nose and mouth, and + rounded chin." + +He was indeed a favourite in Berlin drawing-rooms, pronounced a +"Wunderkind" by Humboldt, and enthusiastically admired on all sides. But, +assuming the story of Sophie Solutzeff to be mythical, there is no +evidence that Lassalle had ever had any very serious romance in his life +until he met Helene von Donniges. + + _Es ist eine alte Geschichte_, + _Doch bleibt sie immer neu_.--HEINE. + + + +II. Helene von Donniges + + +Helene von Donniges has told us the story in fullest detail--the story of +that tragic love which was to send Lassalle to his too early death. She +was the daughter of a Bavarian diplomatist who had held appointments in +Italy, and later in Switzerland. She was betrothed as a child of twelve +to an Italian of forty years of age. At a time when, as she says, her +thoughts should have been concentrated upon her studies, they were +distracted by speculations on marriage and the marriage tie. A young +Wallachian student named Yanko Racowitza crossed her path. His +loneliness--he was far from home and friends--kindled her sympathy. Dark +and ugly, she compared him to Othello, and called him her "Moor." In +spite of some parental opposition she insisted upon plighting her troth +to him, and the Italian lover was scornfully dismissed. Then comes the +opening scene of the present story. It was in Berlin, whither Helen--we +will adopt the English spelling of the name--had travelled with her +grandmother in 1862, that she was asked at a ball the momentous question, +"Do you know Lassalle?" She had never heard his name. Her questioner +was Baron Korff, a son-in-law of Meyerbeer, who, charmed by her +originality, remarked that she and Lassalle were made for one another. +Two weeks later her curiosity was further excited, when Dr. Karl +Oldenberg let fall some similar remark as to her intellectual kinship +with the mysterious Lassalle. She asked her grandmother about him, and +was told that he was a "shameless demagogue." Then she turned to her +lover, who promised to inquire. Racowitza brought her information about +the Countess, the casket, and other "sensations"--only to excite her +curiosity the more. Finally a friend, Frau Hirsemenzel, undertook to +introduce her to the notorious Socialist. The introduction took place at +a party, and if her account is to be trusted, no romance could be more +dramatic than the actuality. They loved one another at first sight, +conversed with freedom, and he called her by an endearing name as he +offered her his arm to escort her home. + +"Somehow it did not seem at all remarkable," she says, "that a stranger +should thus call me 'Du' on first acquaintance. We seemed to fit to one +another so perfectly." + +She was in her nineteenth year, Lassalle in his thirty-ninth. The pair +did not see one another again for some months, not in fact until Helen +visited Berlin as the guest of a certain lawyer Holthoff. Here she met +Lassalle at a concert, and the friendly lawyer connived at their being +more than once together. At a ball, on one occasion, Lassalle asked her +what she would do if he were sentenced to death, and she beheld him +ascending the scaffold. + +"I should wait till your head was severed," was her answer, "in order +that you might look upon your beloved to the last, and then--I should +take poison." + +He was pleased with her reply, but declared that there was no fear--his +star was in the ascendant! And so it seemed; for although young +Racowitza even then accosted him in the ballroom, the friendly Holthoff +soon arranged an informal betrothal; and Lassalle was on the eve of a +great public triumph which seemed more likely to take him to the throne +than to the scaffold. + +To many this will seem an exaggeration. Yet hear Prince Bismarck in the +Reichstag seventeen years after Lassalle's death:-- + + He was one of the most intellectual and gifted men with whom I have + ever had intercourse, a man who was ambitious in high style, but who + was by no means Republican: he had very decided national and + monarchical sympathies, and the idea which he strove to realize was + the German Empire, and therein we had a point of contact. Lassalle + was extremely ambitious, and it was perhaps a matter of doubt to him + whether the German Empire would close with the Hohenzollern dynasty or + the Lassalle dynasty; but he was monarchical through and through. + Lassalle was an energetic and very intellectual man, to talk with whom + was very instructive. Our conversations lasted for hours, and I was + always sorry when they came to an end. {198} + +The year 1864, which was to close so tragically, opened indeed with +extraordinary promise. Lassalle left Berlin in May--Helen had gone back +to Geneva two or three months earlier--travelling by Leipzig and Cologne +through the Rhenish provinces, and holding a "glorious review" the while. + + "I have never seen anything like it," he writes to the Countess von + Hatzfeldt. "The entire population indulged in indescribable + jubilation. The impression made upon me was that such scenes must + have attended the founding of new religions." + +And it appeared possible that Heine's description of Lassalle as the +Messiah of the nineteenth century was to be realized. The Bishop of +Mayence was on his side, and the King of Prussia sympathetic. As he +passed from town to town the whole population turned out to do him +honour. Countless thousands met him at the stations: the routes were +ornamented with triumphal arches, the houses decorated with wreaths, and +flowers were thrown upon him as he passed. As the cavalcade approached +the town of Ronsdorf, for example, it was easy to see that the people +were on tip-toe with expectation. At the entrance an arch bore the +inscription:-- + + Willkommen dem Dr. Ferdinand Lassalle + Viel tausendmal im Ronsdorfer Thal! + +Under arches and garlands, smothered with flowers thrown by young work- +girls, whose fathers, husbands, brothers, cheered again and again, +Lassalle and his friends entered the town, while a vast multitude +followed in procession. It was at Ronsdorf that Lassalle made the speech +which had in it something of fateful presentiment:-- + + "I have not grasped this banner," he said, "without knowing quite + clearly that I myself may fall. The feelings which fill me at the + thought that I may be removed cannot be better expressed than in the + words of the Roman poet: + + '_Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor_!' + + or in German, '_Moge_, _wenn ich beseitigt werde_, _irgend ein Racher + und Nachfolger aus meinen Gebeinen auferstehen_!' May this great and + national movement of civilization not fall with my person, but may the + conflagration which I have kindled spread farther and farther, so long + as one of you still breathes. Promise me that, and in token raise + your right hands." + +All hands were raised in silence, and the impressive scene closed with a +storm of acclamation. + +But Lassalle was worn out, and he fled for a time from the storm and +conflict to Switzerland. Helen at Geneva heard of his sojourn at Righi- +Kaltbad, and she made an excursion thither with two or three friends, and +thus on July 25 (1864) the lovers met again. An account of their +romantic interview comes to us in Helen's own diary and in the letter +which Lassalle wrote to the Countess Hatzfeldt two days later. Helen +tells how they climbed the Kulm together, discussing by the way the +question of their marriage and the possibility of opposition. + +"What have your parents against me?" asked Lassalle; and was told that +only once had she mentioned his name before them, and that their horror +of the Jew agitator had ever since closed her mouth. So the conversation +sped. The next morning their hope of "a sunrise" was destroyed by a fog. +"How often," says Helen, "when in later years I have stood upon the +summit of the Righi and seen the day break in all its splendour, have I +recalled this foggy, damp morning, and Lassalle's disappointment!" + +As he looked upon her, so pale and trembling, he abused the climate, and +promised that he would give up politics, devote himself to science and +literature, and take her to Egypt or India. He talked to her of the +Countess, "who will think only of my happiness," and he talked of +religion. Was his Jewish faith against him in her eyes? Mahommedanism +and Judaism, it was all one to her, was the answer, but paganism by +preference! They parted, to correspond immediately, and Lassalle to +write to the astonished, and in this affair, unsympathetic Countess, of +the meeting with his beloved. With the utmost friendliness, however, he +endeavoured to keep the elder lady at a distance for a time. + +On July 20 Helen writes to him, repeating her promise to become his wife. + + You said to me yesterday: "Say but a sensible and decided 'Yes'--_et + je me charge du reste_." Good; I say "Yes"--_chargez-vous donc du + reste_. I only require that we first do all in our power to win my + parents to a friendly attitude. To me belongs, however, a painful + task. I must slay in cold blood the true heart of Yanko von + Racowitza, who has given me the purest love, the noblest devotion. + With heartless egotism I must destroy the day-dream of a noble youth. + But for your sake I will even do what is wrong. + +Meanwhile Lassalle's unhappy attempts to conciliate the Countess +continue. He writes of Helen's sympathy and dwells upon her entire +freedom from jealousy. He tells Frau von Hatzfeldt how much Helen is +longing to see his old friend. In conclusion, as though not to show +himself too blind a lover, he remarks that Helen's one failing is a total +lack of will. "When, however, we are man and wife," he adds, "then shall +I have 'will' enough for both, and she will be as clay in the hands of +the potter." The Countess continues obdurate, and in a further letter +(Aug. 2) Lassalle says:-- + + It is really a piece of extraordinary good fortune that, at the age of + thirty-nine and a half, I should be able to find a wife so beautiful, + so sympathetic, who loves me so much, and who--an indispensable + requirement--is so entirely absorbed in my personality. + +At Lassalle's request, Helen herself wrote thus to the Baroness von +Hatzfeldt:-- + + DEAR AND BELOVED COUNTESS,-- + + Armed with an introduction from my lord and master, I, his affianced + wife, come to you--unhappily only in writing--_le coeur et la main + ouverte_, and beg of you a little of that friendship which you have + given to him so abundantly. How deeply do I regret that your illness + separates us, that I cannot tell you face to face how much I love and + honour him, how ardently I long for your help and advice as to how I + can best make my beautiful and noble eagle happy. This my first + letter must necessarily seem somewhat constrained to you; for I am an + insignificant, unimportant being, who can do nothing but love and + honour him, and strive to make him happy. I would fain dance and sing + like a child, and drive away all care from him. My one desire is to + understand his great and noble nature, and in good fortune and in bad + to stand faithful and true by his side. + +Then followed a further appeal for the love and help of this friend of +Lassalle's early years. It was all in vain. Instead of a letter, Helen +received from the Countess what she called "a scrawl," and Lassalle a +long homily on his lack of judgment and foresight. Lassalle defended +himself, and so the not too pleasing correspondence went on. + +Yet these days in Berne were the happiest in the lives of Lassalle and +his betrothed. Helen was staying with a Madame Aarson, and was +constantly visited by her lover. It was agreed between them that +Lassalle should follow her to Geneva, and see her parents. But no sooner +had he entered his room at the Pension Leovet, in the neighbourhood of +the house of Herr von Donniges, than a servant handed him a letter from +Helen. It told how on her arrival she had found the whole house excited +by the betrothal of her sister Margaret to Count von Keyserling. Her +mother's delight in the engagement had tempted her (contrary to +Lassalle's express wish) to confidences, and she had told of her love for +the arch-agitator. Her mother had turned upon her with loathing, +execrated Lassalle without stint, spoken scornfully of the Countess, the +casket robbery, and kindred matters. "It is quite impossible," urged the +frantic woman, "that Count Keyserling will unite himself to a family with +a connexion of this kind." The father joined in the upbraiding, the +disowning of an undutiful daughter. One has but to remember the vulgar, +tradesman instinct, which then, as now, guides the marriage ideals of a +certain class, to take in the whole situation at a glance. + +Lassalle had hardly begun to read the letter when Helen appeared before +him, and begged him to take her away immediately--to France--anywhere! +Her father's violence, her mother's abuse, had driven her to despair. + +Lassalle was indignant with her. Why had she not obeyed him? He would +speak to her father. All would yet be well. But--she was compromised +there--at his hotel. Had she a friend in the neighbourhood? + +At this moment her maid came in to say that there was a carriage ready to +take them to the station. A train would start for Paris in a quarter of +an hour. Helen renewed her entreaty, but Lassalle remained resolute. He +would only receive her from her father. To what friend could he take +her? Helen named Madame Caroline Rognon, who beheld them with +astonishment. + +A few minutes later Frau von Donniges and her daughter Margaret entered +the house. Then followed a disagreeable scene between Lassalle and the +mother, ending, after many scornful words thrown at the ever +self-restrained lover, in Helen being carried off before his eyes--indeed, +by his wish. Lassalle had shown dignity and self-restraint, but he had +killed the girl's love--until it was too late. + +Duhring speaks of Lassalle's "inconceivable stupidity," and there is a +great temptation at this date, with all the circumstances before us, to +look at the matter with Duhring's eyes. But to one whom Heine had called +a Messiah, whom Humboldt had termed a "Wunderkind," and Bismarck had +greeted as among the greatest men of the age, it may well have seemed +flatly inconceivable that this insignificant little Swiss diplomatist +could long refuse the alliance he proposed. Yet stronger and more potent +may have been the feeling--although of this there is no positive evidence +extant--that the social movement which he had so much at heart could not +well endure a further scandal. The Hatzfeldt story had been used against +him frequently enough. An elopement--so sweetly romantic under some +circumstances--would have been the ruin of his great political +reputation. + +Lassalle speedily regretted his course of action--what man in love would +not have done so?--but his first impulse was consistent with the life of +strenuous effort for the cause he had embraced. To a romantic girl, +however, his conduct could but seem brutal and treacherous. Helen had +done more than enough. She had compromised herself irretrievably, and an +immediate marriage was imperatively demanded by the conventionalities. +She was, however, seized by a brutal father and confined to her room, +until she understood that Lassalle had left Geneva. Then the entreaties +of her family, the representation that her sister's marriage, even her +father's position, were in jeopardy, caused her to declare that she would +abandon Lassalle. + +At this point the story is conflicting. Helen herself says that she +never saw Lassalle again after he had handed her over to her mother, and +that after a long period of ill-usage and petty persecution, she was +hurried one night across the lake. Becker, however, declares that as +Lassalle and his friend Rustow were walking in Geneva a carriage passed +them on the way to the station containing Helen and another lady, and +that Helen acknowledged their salute. Anyway, it is clear that Helen +went to Bex on August 9, and that Lassalle left Geneva on the 13th. +Letter after letter was sent by Lassalle to Helen--one from Karlsruhe on +the 15th, and one from Munich on the 19th, but no answer. In Karlsruhe, +according to von Hofstetten, Lassalle wept like a child. His +correspondence with the Countess and with Colonel Rustow becomes forcible +in its demands for assistance. Writing to Rustow, he tells of a two +hours' conversation with the Bavarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baron +von Schrenk, who assures him of his sympathy, says that he cannot +understand the objections of von Donniges, and that in similar +circumstances he would be proud of the alliance, although he deprecated +the political views of Lassalle. Finally this accommodating Minister of +State--here, at least, the tragi-comedy is but too apparent--engages to +send a lawyer, Dr. Haenle, as an official commissioner to negotiate with +the obdurate father and refractory ambassador. + +Richard Wagner, the great composer, the Bishop of Mayence, and noblemen, +generals, and scholars without number were also pressed into the service, +but in vain. The treachery of intimate friends more than counterbalanced +all that could be achieved by well-meaning strangers. If Helen is to be +believed--and the charge is not denied--Lassalle's friend Holthoff, sent +to negotiate in his favour, entreated her to abandon Lassalle, and to +comply with her parents' wishes. Lassalle, he declared, was not in any +way a suitable husband, and her father had decided wisely. The poor girl +lived in a constant atmosphere of petty persecution. Her father, she was +told, might lose his post in the Bavarian service if she married this +Socialist, her brother would have absolutely no career open to him, her +sisters could not marry in their own rank of life; in fact, the whole +family were alleged to be entirely unhappy and miserable through her +stubbornness. The following letter--obviously dictated--was the not +unnatural outcome:-- + + TO HERR LASSALLE. + + SIR,-- + + I have again become reconciled to my betrothed bridegroom, Herr Yanko + von Racowitza, whose love I have regained, and I deeply repent my + earlier action. I have given notice of this to your legal + representative, Herr Holthoff, and I now declare to you of my own free + will and firm conviction, that there never can be any further question + of a marriage between us, and that I hold myself in all respects to be + released from such an engagement. I am now firmly resolved to devote + to my aforesaid betrothed bridegroom my eternal love and fidelity. + + HELENE VON DONNIGES. + +This letter came through Rustow, and Lassalle addressed the following +reply to Helen, which, however, she never received--it came in fact into +the possession of the Countess--a sufficient commentary on the duplicity +and the false friendship not only of Holthoff, but of Colonel Rustow and +the Countess Hatzfeldt in this sad affair. + + MUNICH, _Aug._ 20, 1864. + + HELEN,-- + + My heart is breaking! Rustow's letter will kill me. That you have + betrayed me seems impossible! Even now I cannot believe in such + shamelessness, in such frightful treachery. It is only for a moment + that some one has overridden your will and obliterated your true self. + It is inconceivable that this can be your real, your abiding + determination. You cannot have thrown aside all shame, all love, all + fidelity, all truth. If you did, you would dishonour and disfigure + humanity. There can be no truth left in the world if you are false, + if you are capable of descending to this depth of abandonment, of + breaking such holy oaths, of crushing my heart. Then there is nothing + more under the sun in which a man can still believe. + + Have you not filled me with a longing to possess you? Have you not + implored me to exhaust all proper measures, before carrying you away + from Wabern? Have you not by your own lips and by your letters, sworn + to me the most sacred oaths? Have you not declared to me, even in + your last letters, that you were nothing, nothing but my loving wife, + and that no power on earth should stay your resolution? And now, + after you have bound this true heart of mine to yourself so strongly, + this heart which when once it gives itself away gives itself for ever; + now, when the battle has scarcely begun, do you cast me off? Do you + betray me? Do you destroy me? If so, you succeed in doing what else + no fate can do; you will have crushed and shattered one of the hardest + of men, who could withstand unflinchingly all outward storms. No, I + can never survive such treachery. It will kill me inwardly and + outwardly. It is not possible that you are so dishonourable, so + shameless, so reckless of duty, so utterly unworthy and infamous. If + you were, you would deserve of me the most deadly hatred. You would + deserve the contempt of the world. Helen, it is not your own + resolution which you have communicated to Rustow. Some one has + fastened it upon you by a coercion of your better feelings. Listen to + me. If you abide by this resolution, you will lament it as long as + you live. + + Helen, true to my words, "_Je me charge du reste_," I shall stay here, + and shall take all possible steps to break down your father's + opposition. I have already excellent means in my hand, which will + certainly not remain unused, and if they do not succeed, I shall still + possess thousands of other means, and I will grind all hindrances to + dust if you will but remain true to me. If you remain true, there is + no limit to my strength or to my love of you, _Je me charge toujours + du reste_! The battle is hardly begun, you cowardly girl. But can it + be, that while I sit here, and have already achieved what seemed + impossible, you are betraying me, and listening to the flattering + words of another man? Helen, my fate is in your hands! But if you + destroy me by this wicked treachery, from which I cannot recover, then + may evil fall upon you, and my curse follow you to the grave! This is + the curse of a true heart, of a heart that you wantonly break, and + with which you have cruelly trifled. Yes, this curse of mine will + surely strike you. + + According to Rustow's message, you want your letters to be returned to + you. In any case, you will never receive them otherwise than from + me--after a personal interview. For I must and will speak to you + personally, and to you alone. I must and will hear my death-doom from + your own lips. It is only thus that I can believe what otherwise + seems impossible to me. + + I am continuing here to take further steps to win you, and when I have + done all that is possible, I shall come to Geneva. Helen, our + destinies are entwined! + + F. LASSALLE. {213} + +It is pitiable to realize the amount of false or imperfect friendship +which led Lassalle on to his ruin. Rustow was false, and Holthoff was +false, if it were not rather that both looked upon Lassalle's affection +for this girl, half his age, as a mad freak to be cured and forgotten. +More might have been expected from the Countess, to whom Lassalle had +given so much pure and disinterested devotion; but here again, a sense of +maternal ownership in Lassalle was sufficient to justify, in such a +woman, any means to keep him apart from this fancy of the hour. To the +Countess, however, Helen had turned for help, and had received a note +which had but enraged her, and made the breach between her and Lassalle +yet wider. In the after years, Helen published one letter and the +Countess another as the actual reply of the Countess to Helen's appeal, +and the truth will now never be known. Meanwhile Dr. Arndt, a nephew of +von Donniges, had gone to Berlin to fetch Yanko von Racowitza. Of Yanko +Helen has herself given us a pleasant picture, as the one man for whom +she really cared until the overwhelming presence of Lassalle appeared +upon the scene, as her one friend during her persecution. Absent from +Lassalle's influence, it was not strange that the delicate +Wallachian--even younger than herself and the slave of her every +whim--should have an influence in her life. Had Lassalle, however, had +yet another personal interview with her, there can scarcely be a doubt +that she would have been as he had once said, "as clay in the hands of +the potter"--but this was not to be. Lassalle came back to Geneva on +August 23, and immediately wrote an earnest letter to Herr von Donniges, +begging for an interview, and stating that he had not the least enmity +towards him for what had happened. With the fear of the Foreign Minister +at Munich before his eyes Helen's father could not well refuse again, and +the interview took place. Lassalle, according to von Donniges, demanded +that Yanko von Racowitza should be forbidden the house, while he himself +should have ready access to Helen. He further charged von Donniges with +cruelty to his daughter, and was called a liar to his face, while even +the cook was called upon the scene to give her evidence as to the +domestic ethics of this family circle. The letter of von Donniges to Dr. +Haenle was clearly meant to be shown to the Foreign Minister, and the +wily diplomatist naturally took the opportunity both to justify himself +and to vilify Lassalle. Then began a painful dispute as to whether Herr +von Donniges had ill-used his daughter; the overwhelming evidence, which +includes the testimony of that daughter, written long after her father's +death, tending to prove the truth of Lassalle's allegation. Lassalle +meanwhile found no opportunity of approaching Helen, and having every +reason to believe that she was entirely faithless, gave up the struggle. +He referred to the girl in language characteristic of a despairing and +jilted lover, and sent von Donniges a challenge, although many years +before, in a political controversy, he had declined to fight--on +principle. His seconds were to be General Becker and Colonel Rustow, and +the latter has left us a long account of the affair. + +On the appointed day, August 22, Rustow went everywhere to look for Herr +von Donniges, but the minister had fled to Berne. Rustow then saw +Lassalle at the rooms of the Countess von Hatzfeldt. Lassalle mentioned +that he had that morning had his challenge accepted by von Racowitza, +whose seconds were Count Keyserling and Dr. Arndt. Rustow insisted, both +to Lassalle and to Racowitza's friends, that von Donniges should have +priority, but was overruled; and it was agreed that the duel should be +fought that very evening. Rustow protested that he could not find +another second in so short a time--General Becker does not seem to have +been available--but at length it was arranged that General Bethlem should +be asked to fill the office, and that the duel should take place on the +following morning, August 28. There seems to have been considerable +difficulty in finding suitable pistols, and at the last moment General +Bethlem declined to be a second, and Herr von Hofstetten consented to +act. Rustow called upon Lassalle at the Victoria Hotel at five o'clock. +At half-past six the party started for Carouge, a village in the +neighbourhood of Geneva, which they reached an hour later. Lassalle was +quite cheerful, and perfectly confident that he would come unharmed out +of the conflict. The opponents faced one another and Racowitza wounded +Lassalle, who was carried by Rustow and Dr. Seiler to a coach, and thence +to the Victoria Hotel, Geneva. He suffered dreadfully both then and +afterwards, and was only relieved by a plentiful use of opium. Three +days later, on Wednesday, August 31, 1864, he died. + +Was it the chance shot of a delicate boy that killed one of the most +remarkable men of the nineteenth century, or was it a planned attack upon +one who loved the people? This last view was taken and is still taken by +many of his followers; but it is needless to say that it has no +foundation in fact. Lassalle was killed by a chance shot, and killed in +a duel which had not even the doubtful justification of hatred of his +opponent. "Count me no longer as a rival; for you I have nothing but +friendship," were the words written to Racowitza at the moment that he +challenged von Donniges, and he declared on his death-bed that he died by +his own hand. + +The revolutionists of all lands assembled around his dead body, which was +embalmed by order of the Countess. This woman talked loudly of +vengeance, called not only von Racowitza but Helen a murderer, {218} +little thinking that posterity would judge her more hardly than Helen. +She proposed to take the corpse in solemn procession through Germany; but +an order from the Prussian Government disturbed her plans, and at +Breslau, Lassalle's native town, it was allowed to rest. Lassalle is +buried in the family vault in the Jewish Cemetery, and a simple monument +bears the inscription: + + HERE RESTS WHAT IS MORTAL + OF + FERDINAND LASSALLE, + THE + THINKER AND THE FIGHTER. + +To understand the whole tragedy and to justify its great victim is to +feel something of the strain which comes to every thinker and fighter +who, like Lassalle, writes and speaks persistently to vast audiences, +often against great odds, and always with the prospect of a prison before +him. That his nerves were utterly unstrung, that he was not his real +self in those last days, is but too evident. Armed, as he claimed, with +the entire culture of his century, a maker of history if ever there was +one, he became the victim of a love drama which I suppose that Mr. +Matthew Arnold would describe as of the surgeon's apprentice order: but +which, apart from his political creed, will always endear him to men and +women who have "lived and loved." + +And what shall we say of Helen von Donniges? Her own story is surely one +of the most romantic ever written. In _My Relation to Ferdinand +Lassalle_, she tells how Yanko broke to her the news that he was going to +fight Lassalle, and how much she grieved. "Lassalle will inevitably kill +Yanko," she thought; and she pitied him, but her pity was not without +calculation. "When Yanko is dead and they bring his body here, there +will be a stir in the house," she said, "and I can then fly to Lassalle." +But the hours flew by, and finally Yanko came to tell her that he had +wounded his opponent. For the moment, and indeed until after Lassalle's +death, she hated her successful lover; but a little later his undoubted +goodness, his tenderness and patience, won her heart. They were married, +but he died within a year, of consumption. Being disowned by her +relations, Helen then settled in Berlin, and studied for the stage. She +herself relates how at Breslau on one occasion, when acting a boy's part +in one of Moser's comedies, some of Lassalle's oldest friends being +present remarked upon her likeness to Lassalle in his youth, a +resemblance on which she and Lassalle had more than once prided +themselves. At a later date Frau von Racowitza married a Russian +Socialist, S. E. Shevitch, then resident in America. M. Shevitch +returned to Russia a few years after this and lived with his wife at +Riga. Those who have seen Madame Shevitch describe her as one of the +most fascinating women they have ever met. She and her husband were very +happy in their married life. Madame Shevitch is now living in Munich. +Our great novelist and poet George Meredith has immortalized her in his +_Tragic Comedians_. + + + + +VIII. LORD ACTON'S LIST OF THE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS + + +Every one has heard of Lord Avebury's (Sir John Lubbock's) Hundred Best +Books, not every one of Lord Acton's. It is the privilege of the _Pall +Mall Magazine_ {225} to publish this latter list, the final impression as +to reading of one of the most scholarly men that England has known in our +time. The list in question is, as it were, an omitted chapter of a book +that was one of the successes of its year--_The Letters of Lord Acton to +Miss Mary Gladstone_--published by Mr. George Allen. That series of +letters made very pleasant reading. They showed Lord Acton not as a +Dryasdust, but as a very human personage indeed, with sympathies +invariably in the right place. + +Nor can his literary interests be said to have been restricted, for he +read history and biography with avidity, and probably knew more of +theology than any other layman of modern times. In imaginative +literature, however, his critical instinct was perhaps less keen. He +called Heine "a bad second to Schiller in poetry," which is absurd; and +he thought George Eliot the greatest of modern novelists. In arriving at +the latter judgment he had the excuse of personal friendship and +admiration for a woman whose splendid intellectual gifts were undeniable. + +In one letter we find Lord Acton discussing with Miss Gladstone the +eternal question of the hundred best books. Sir John Lubbock had +complained to her of the lack of a guide or supreme authority on the +choice of books. Lord Acton had replied that, "although he had something +to learn on the graver side of human knowledge," Sir John would execute +his own scheme better than almost anybody. We all know that Sir John +Lubbock attempted this at a lecture delivered at the Great Ormond Street +Working Men's College; that that lecture has been reprinted again and +again in a book entitled _The Pleasures of Life_, and that the publishers +have sold more than two hundred thousand copies--a kind of success that +might almost make some of our popular novelists turn green with envy. +Later on in the correspondence Lord Acton quoted one of the popes, who +said that "fifty books would include every good idea in the world." +"But," continued Lord Acton, "literature has doubled since then, and it +would be hard to do without a hundred." + +Lord Acton was possessed of the happy thought that he would like some of +his friends and acquaintances each to name his ideal hundred best +books--as for example Bishop Lightfoot, Dean Church, Dean Stanley, Canon +Liddon, Professor Max Muller, Mr. J. R. Lowell, Professor E. A. Freeman, +Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. John Morley, Sir Henry Maine, the Duke of Argyll, +Lord Tennyson, Cardinal Newman, Mr. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, Professor +Goldwin Smith, Mr. R. H. Hutton, Mr. Mark Pattison, and Mr. J. A. +Symonds. Strange to say, he thought there would be a surprising +agreement between these writers as to which were the hundred best books. +I am all but certain, however, that there would not have been more than +twenty books in common between rival schools of thought--the secular and +the ecclesiastical--between, let us say, Mr. John Morley and Cardinal +Newman. But it is probable that not one of these eminent men would have +furnished a list with any similarity whatever to the remainder. Each +would have written down his own hundred favourites, and herein may be +admitted is an evidence of the futility of all such attempts. The best +books are the books that have helped us most to see life in all its +complex bearings, and each individual needs a particular kind of mental +food quite unlike the diet that best stimulates his neighbour. Writing +more than a year later, Lord Acton said that he had just drawn out a list +of recommended authors for his son, as being the company he would like +him to keep; but this list is not available--it is not the one before me. +That was compiled yet another twelve months afterwards, when we find Lord +Acton sending to Miss Mary Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) his own ideal "hundred +best books." This list is now printed for the first time. Evidently +Miss Gladstone remonstrated with her friend over the character of the +list; but Lord Acton defended it as being in his judgment really the +hundred _best books_, apart from works on physical science--that it +treated of principles that every thoughtful man ought to understand, and +was calculated, in fact, to give one a clear view of the various forces +that make history. "We are not considering," he adds, "what will suit an +untutored savage or an illiterate peasant woman, who would never come to +an end of the _Imitation_." + +However, here is Lord Acton's list, which Mrs. Drew has been kind enough +to place in the hands of the Editor of the _Pall Mall Magazine_. I give +also Lord Acton's comment with which it opens, and I add in footnotes one +or two facts about each of the authors: + +* * * * * + +"In answer to the question: Which are the hundred best books in the +world? + +"Supposing any English youth, whose education is finished, who knows +common things, and is not training for a profession. + +"To perfect his mind and open windows in every direction, to raise him to +the level of his age so that he may know the (20 or 30) forces that have +made our world what it is and still reign over it, to guard him against +surprises and against the constant sources of error within, to supply him +both with the strongest stimulants and the surest guides, to give force +and fullness and clearness and sincerity and independence and elevation +and generosity and serenity to his mind, that he may know the method and +law of the process by which error is conquered and truth is won, +discerning knowledge from probability and prejudice from belief, that he +may learn to master what he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he +may understand the origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems +and the better motive of men who are wrong, to steel him against the +charm of literary beauty and talent; so that each book, thoroughly taken +in, shall be the beginning of a new life, and shall make a new man of +him--this list is submitted":-- + +1. Plato--_Laws_--Steinhart's _Introduction_. {230a} + +2. Aristotle--_Politics_--Susemihl's _Commentary_. {230b} + +3. Epictetus--_Encheiridion_--_Commentary_ of Simplicius. {230c} + +4. St. Augustine--_Letters_. {230d} + +5. St. Vincent's _Commonitorium_. {231a} + +6. Hugo of S. Victor--_De Sacramentis_. {231b} + +7. St. Bonaventura--_Breviloquium_. {231c} + +8. St. Thomas Aquinas--_Summa contra Gentiles_. {231d} + +9. Dante--_Divina Commedia_. {232a} + +10. Raymund of Sabunde--_Theologia Naturalis_. {232b} + +11. Nicholas of Cusa--_Concordantia Catholica_. {232c} + +12. Edward Reuss--_The Bible_. {232d} + +13. Pascal's Pensees--_Havet's Edition_. {233a} + +14. Malebranche, _De la Recherche de la Verite_. {233b} + +15. Baader--_Speculative Dogmatik_. {233c} + +16. Molitor--_Philosophie der Geschichte_. {233d} + +17. Astie--_Esprit de Vinet_. {233e} + +18. Punjer--_Geschichte der Religions-philosophie_. {234a} + +19. Rothe--_Theologische Ethik_. {234b} + +20. Martensen--_Die Christliche Ethik_. {234c} + +21. Oettingen--_Moralstatistik_. {234d} + +22. Hartmann--_Phanomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins_. {234e} + +23. Leibniz--_Letters_ edited by Klopp. {235a} + +24. Brandis--_Geschichte der Philosophie_. {235b} + +25. Fischer--_Franz Bacon_. {235c} + +26. Zeller--_Neuere Deutsche Philosophie_. {235d} + +27. Bartholomess--_Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophie Moderns_. +{236a} + +28. Guyon--_Morale Anglaise_. {236b} + +29. Ritschl--_Entstehung der Altkatholischen Kirche_. {236c} + +30. Loening--_Geschichte des Kirchenrechts_. {236d} + +31. Baur--_Vorlesungen uber Dogmengeschichte_. {237a} + +32. Fenelon--_Correspondence_. {237b} + +33. Newman's _Theory of Development_. {237c} + +34. Mozley's _University Sermons_. {237d} + +35. Schneckenburger--_Vergleichende Darstellung_. {238a} + +36. Hundeshagen--_Kirckenvorfassungsgeschichte_. {238b} + +37. Schweizer--_Protestantische Centraldogmen_. {238c} + +38. Gass--_Geschichte der Lutherischen Dogmatik_. {238d} + +39. Cart--_Histoire du Mouvement Religieux dans le Canton de Vaud_. +{238e} + +40. Blondel--_De la Primaute_. {239a} + +41. Le Blanc de Beaulieu--_Theses_. {239b} + +42. Thiersch.--_Vorlesungen uber Katholizismus_. {239c} + +43. Mohler--_Neue Untersuchungen_. {239d} + +44. Scherer--_Melanges de Critique Religieuse_. {240a} + +45. Hooker--_Ecclesiastical Polity_. {240b} + +46. Weingarten--_Revolutionskirchen Englands_. {240c} + +47. Kliefoth--_Acht Bucher von der Kirche_. {240d} + +48. Laurent--_Etudes de l'Histoire de l'Humanite_. {240e} + +49. Ferrari--_Revolutions de l'ltalie_. {241a} + +50. Lange--_Geschichte des Materialismus_. {241b} + +51. Guicciardini--_Ricordi Politici_. {241c} + +52. Duperron--_Ambassades_. {241d} + +53. Richelieu--_Testament Politique_. {242a} + +54. Harrington's Writings. {242b} + +55. Mignet--_Negotiations de la Succession d'Espagne_. {242c} + +56. Rousseau--_Considerations sur la Pologne_. {243a} + +57. Foncin--_Ministere de Turgot_. {243b} + +58. Burke's _Correspondence_. {243c} + +59. Las Cases--_Memorial de Ste. Helene_. {243d} + +60. Holtzendorff--_Systematische Rechtsenzyklopadie_. {244a} + +61. Jhering--_Geist des Romischen Rechts_. {244b} + +62. Geib--_Strafrecht_. {244c} + +63. Maine--_Ancient Law_. {245a} + +64. Gierke--_Genossenschaftsrecht_. {245b} + +65. Stahl--_Philosophie des Rechts_. {245c} + +66. Gentz--_Briefwechsel mit Adam Muller_. {246a} + +67. Vollgraff--_Polignosie_. {246b} + +68. Frantz--_Kritik aller Parteien_. {246c} + +69. De Maistre--_Considerations sur la France_. {246d} + +70. Donoso Cortes--_Ecrits Politiques_. {247a} + +71. Perin--_De la Richesse dans les Societes Chretiennes_. {247b} + +72. Le Play--_La Reforme Sociale_. {247c} + +73. Riehl--_Die Burgerliche Sociale_. {247d} + +74. Sismondi--_Etudes sur les Constitutions des Peuples Libres_. {248a} + +75. Rossi--_Cours du Droit Constitutionnel_. {248b} + +76. Barante--_Vie de Royer Collard_. {248c} + +77. Duvergier de Hauranne--_Histoire du Gouvernement Parlementaire_. +{249a} + +78. Madison--_Debates of the Congress of Confederation_. {249b} + +79. Hamilton--_The Federalist_. {249c} + +80. Calhoun--_Essay on Government_. {249d} + +81. Dumont--_Sophismes Anarchiques_. {250a} + +82. Quinet--_La Revolution Francaise_. {250b} + +83. Stein--_Sozialismus in Frankreich_. {250c} + +84. Lassalle--_System der Erworbenen Rechte_. {251a} + +85. Thonissen--_Le Socialisme depuis l'Antiquite_. {251b} + +86. Considerant--_Destines Sociale_. {251c} + +87. Roscher--_Nationalokonomik_. {251d} + +89. Mill--_System of Logic_. {251e} + +90. Coleridge--_Aids to Reflection_. {252a} + +91. Radowitz--_Fragmente_. {252b} + +92. Gioberti--_Pensieri_. {252c} + +93. Humboldt--_Kosmos_. {253a} + +94. De Candolle--_Histoire des Sciences et des Savants_. {253b} + +95. Darwin--_Origin of Species_. {253c} + +96. Littre--_Fragments de Philosophie_. {253d} + +97. Cournot--_Enchainements des Idees fondamentales_. {253e} + +98. _Monatschriften der wissenschaftlichen Vereine_. {254} + +This list, written in 1883 in Miss Gladstone's (Mrs. Drew's) Diary, must +always have an interest in the history of the human mind. + +But my readers will, I imagine, for the most part, agree with me that +there are others besides untutored savages and illiterate peasant women +to whom such a list is entirely impracticable. It indicates the enormous +preference which on the whole Lord Acton gave to the Literature of +Knowledge over the Literature of Power, to use De Quincey's famous +distinction. With the exception of Dante's _Divine Comedy_ there is +practically not a single book that has any title whatever to a place in +the Literature of Power, a literature which many of us think the only +thing in the world of books worth consideration. Great philosophy is +here, and high thought. Who would for a moment wish to disparage St. +Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, or Aquinas the Angelic? Plato and +Pascal, Malebranche and Fenelon, Bossuet and Machiavelli are all among +the world's immortals. Yet now and again we are bewildered by finding +the least important book of a well-known author--as for example +Rousseau's _Poland_ instead of the _Confessions_ and Coleridge's _Aids to +Reflection_ instead of the _Poems_ or the _Biographia Literaria_. Think +of an historian whose ideal of historical work was so high that he +despised all who worked only from printed documents, selecting the +_Memorial of St. Helena_ of Las Casas in preference not only to a hundred- +and-one similar compilations concerning Napoleon's exile, but in +preference to Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon. + +Sometimes Lord Acton names a theologian who is absolutely out-of-date, at +others a philosopher who is in the same case. But on the whole it is a +fascinating list as an index to what a well-trained mind thought the +noblest mental equipment for life's work. At the best, it is true, it +would represent but one half of life. But then Lord Acton recognized +this when he asked that men should be "steeled against the charm of +literary beauty and talent," and he was assuming in any case that all the +books in aesthetic literature, the best poetry and the best history had +already been read, as he undoubtedly had read them. + +"The charm of literary beauty and talent!" There is the whole question. +Nothing really matters for the average man, so far as books are +concerned, but this charm, and I am criticizing Lord Acton's list for the +average man. The student who has got beyond it need not worry himself +about classified lists. He may read his Plato, and Aristotle, his Pascal +and Newman, his Christian apologists and German theologians, as he wills; +or he may read in some other quite different direction. Guidance is +impossible to a mind at such a stage of cultivation as Lord Acton had in +view. + +Only minds at a more primitive stage of culture than this most learned +and most accomplished man seemed able to conceive of, could be bettered +by advice as to reading. Given, indeed, contact with some superior mind, +which out of its rich equipment of culture should advise as to the books +that might be most profitably read, I could imagine advice being helpful. +It would be of no value, it is true, to an untutored savage or illiterate +peasant, but to a youth fresh from school-books and much modern fiction, +to a young girl about to enter upon life in its more serious aspects, it +would be immensely serviceable. It was of such as these that Mr. Ruskin +thought when he wrote of "King's Treasures" in _Sesame and Lilies_, and +the same idea was doubtless in Sir John Lubbock's mind when he lectured +on the "Hundred Best Books." But Lord Avebury's list had its +limitations, it seems to me, for any one who has an interest in good +literature and guidance to the reading thereof. To give "Scott" as one +book and "Shakspere" as another was I suggest to shirk much +responsibility of selection. Scott is a whole library, Shakspere is yet +another. One may give "Keats" or "Shelley" because they are more limited +in quantity. Even to name novels by Charles Kingsley and Bulwer Lytton +in this select hundred was to demonstrate to men of this generation that +Lord Avebury being of an earlier one had a bias in favour of the books +that we are all outgrowing. To include Mill's _Logic_ is to ignore the +Time Spirit acting on philosophy; to include Tennyson's _Idylls_ its +action on poetry. Mill and Tennyson will always live in literature but +not I think by these books. + +But the fact is that there is no possibility of naming the hundred best +books. No one could quarrel with Lord Avebury if he had named these as +his hundred own favourites among the books of the world. Still, it might +have been _his_ hundred; it could not possibly have been any one else's +hundred because every man of education must make his own choice. No! the +naming of the hundred best books for any large, general audience is quite +impossible. All that is possible in such a connexion is to state +emphatically that there are very few books that are equally suitable to +every kind of intellect. Temperament as well as intellectual endowment +make for so much in reading. Take, for example, the _Imitation_ of +_Christ_. George Eliot, although not a Christian, found it +soul-satisfying. Thackeray, as I think a more robust intellect, found it +well nigh as mischievous as did Eugene Sue, whose anathematizations in +his novel _The Wandering Jew_ are remembered by all. Other books that +have been the outcome of piety of mind leave less room for difference of +opinion. Surely Dante's _Divine Comedy_, and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's +Progress_, make an universal appeal. That universal appeal is the point +at which alone guidance is possible. There are great books that can be +read only by the few, but surely the very greatest appeal alike to the +educated and the illiterate, to the man of rich intellectual endowment +and to the man to whom all processes of reasoning are incomprehensible. +_Hamlet_ is a wonderful test of this quality. It "holds the boards" at +the small provincial theatre, it is enacted by Mr. Crummles to an +illiterate peasantry, and it is performed by the greatest actor to the +most select city audience. It is made the subject of study by learned +commentators. It is world-embracing. + +Are there in the English language, including translations, a hundred +books that stand the test as _Hamlet_ stands it? No two men would make +the same list of books that answer to this demand of an universal appeal, +and obviously each nation must make its own list. Mine is for English +boys and girls just growing into manhood and womanhood, or for those who +have had no educational advantages in early years. I exclude living +writers, and I give the hundred in four groups. + + + +POETRY. + + +1. The Bible. {260a} + +2. _The Odyssey_, translated by Butcher and Lang. {260b} + +3. The _Iliad_, translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers. {260b} + +4. Aeschylus, translated by George Warr. {261a} + +5. Sophocles, translated by J. S. Phillimore. {261a} + +6. Euripides, translated by Gilbert Murray. {261a} + +7. Virgil, translated by Dryden. {261b} + +8. Catullus, translated by Theodore Martin. {261c} + +9. Horace, translated by Theodore Martin. {261d} + +10. Dante, translated by Cary. {262a} + +11. Shakspere, _Hamlet_. {262b} + +12. Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_. {262c} + +13. FitzGerald, _Omar Khayyam_. {263a} + +14. Goethe, _Faust_. {263b} + +15. Shelley. {263c} + +16. Byron. {263d} + +17. Wordsworth. {264a} + +18. Keats. {264b} + +19. Burns. {264c} + +20. Coleridge. {264d} + +21. Cowper. {264e} + +22. Crabbe. {265a} + +23. Tennyson. {265b} + +24. Browning. {265c} + +25. Milton. {265d} + + + +FICTION. + + +1. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_. {266a} + +2. _Don Quixote_, by Cervantes. {266b} + +3. _Pilgrim's Progress_, by Bunyan. {266c} + +4. _Robinson Crusoe_, by Defoe. {266d} + +5. _Gulliver's Travels_, by Swift. {267a} + +6. _Clarissa_, by Richardson. {267b} + +7. _Tom Jones_, by Fielding. {267c} + +8. _Rasselas_, by Johnson. {267d} + +9. _Vicar of Wakefield_, by Goldsmith. {268a} + +10. _Sentimental Journey_, by Sterne. {268b} + +11. _Nightmare Abbey_, by Peacock. {268c} + +12. _Kenilworth_, by Walter Scott. {268d} + +13. _Pere Goriot_, by Balzac. {268e} + +14. _The Three Musketeers_, by Dumas. {269a} + +15. _Vanity Fair_, by Thackeray. {269b} + +16. _Villette_, by Charlotte Bronte. {269c} + +17. _David Copperfield_, by Charles Dickens. {269d} + +18. _Barchester Towers_, by Anthony Trollope. {269e} + +19. Boccaccio's _Decameron_. {269f} + +20. _Wuthering Heights_, by Emily Bronte. {270a} + +21. _The Cloister and the Hearth_, by Charles Reade. {270b} + +22. _Les Miserables_, by Victor Hugo. {270c} + +23. _Cranford_, by Mrs. Gaskell. {270d} + +24. _Consuelo_, by George Sand. {270e} + +25. _Charles O'Malley_, by Charles Lever. {270f} + + + +MISCELLANEOUS. +HISTORY, ESSAYS, ETC. + + +1. Macaulay, _History of England_. {271a} + +2. Carlyle, _Past and Present_. {271b} + +3. Motley, _Dutch Republic_. {271c} + +4. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. {271d} + +5. Plutarch's _Lives_. {272a} + +6. Montaigne's _Essays_. {272b} + +7. Richard Steele, _Essays_. {272c} + +8. Lamb, _Essays of Elia_. {272d} + +9. De Quincey, _Opium Eater_. {272e} + +10. Hazlitt, _Essays_. {273a} + +11. Borrow, _Lavengro_. {273b} + +12. Emerson, _Representative Men_. {273c} + +13. Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_. {273d} + +14. Arnold, _Essays in Criticism_. {273e} + +15. Herodotus, _Macaulay's Translation_. {273f} + +16. Howell's _Familiar Letters_. {274a} + +17. Buckle's _History of Civilization_. {274b} + +18. Tacitus, Church and Brodribb's Translation. {274c} + +19. Mitford's _Our Village_. {274d} + +20. Green's _Short History of the English People_. {274e} + +21. Taine, _Ancient Regime_. {275a} + +22. Bourrienne, _Napoleon_. {275b} + +23. Tocqueville, _Democracy in America_. {275c} + +24. Walton, _Compleat Angler_. {275d} + +25 White, _Natural History of Selbourne_. {276a} + + + +BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. + + +1. Boswell's Johnson. {276b} + +2. Lockhart's Scott. {276c} + +3. Pepys's Diary. {276d} + +4. Walpole's Letters. {277a} + +5. The Memoirs of Count de Gramont. {277b} + +6. Gray's Letters. {277c} + +7. Southey's Nelson. {277d} + +8. Moore's Byron. {277e} + +9. Hogg's Shelley. {278a} + +10. Rousseau's Confessions. {278b} + +11. Froude's Carlyle. {278c} + +12. Rogers's Table Talk. {279a} + +13. Confessions of St. Augustine. {279b} + +14. Amiel's Journal. {279c} + +15. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. {279d} + +16. Lewes's Life of Goethe. {279e} + +17. Sime's Life of Lessing. {280a} + +18. Franklin's Autobiography. {280b} + +19. Greville's Memoirs. {280c} + +20. Forster's Life of Dickens. {280d} + +21. Madame D'Arblay's Diary. {280e} + +22. Newman's Apologia. {281a} + +23. The Paston Letters. {281b} + +24. Cellini's Autobiography. {281c} + +25. Browne's Religio Medici. {281d} + +My readers for the most part have read every one of these books. I throw +out this list as a tentative effort in the direction of suggesting a +hundred books with which to start a library. The young student will find +much to amuse, and certainly nothing here to bore him. These books will +not make him a prig, as Mr. James Payn said that Lord Avebury's list +would make him a prig. They will make the dull man less dull, the bright +man brighter. Here is good, cheerful, robust reading for boy and girl, +for man and woman. There are many sins of omission, but none of +commission. Our young friend will add to this list fast enough, but +there is nothing in it that he may not read with profit. These books, I +repeat, make an universal appeal. The learned man may enjoy them, the +unlearned may enjoy them also. They are, as _Hamlet_ is, of universal +interest. Devotion to science will not impair a taste for them, nor will +zest for abstract speculations. Not even those who are "better skilled +in grammar than in poetry" can fail to appreciate. These hundred books +will in the main be the hundred best books of many of my readers who are +quite capable of selecting for themselves. One last word of advice. Let +not the young reader buy large quantities of books at once or be beguiled +into subscribing for some cheap series which will save him the trouble of +selecting. He may buy many books from such cheap series afterwards, but +not his first hundred, I think. These should be acquired through much +saving, and purchased with great thought and deliberation. The purchase +of a book should become to the young book-lover a most solemn function. + +_Butler and Tanner_, _The Selwood Printing Works_, _Frome_, _and London_ + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{3} Richard Garnett (1835-1906) was son of the philologist of the same +name who was for a time priest-vicar of Lichfield Cathedral. He attended +the Johnson Celebration on Sept. 18, 1905, and proposed "the Immortal +Memory of Dr. Johnson." He died on the following Good Friday, April 13, +and was buried in Highgate Cemetery April 17, 1906. + +{6} Anna Seward (1747-1809). Her works were published after her +death:--_The Poetical Works of Anna Seward_. _With Extracts from her +Literary Correspondence_. Edited by Walter Scott, Esq. In three +volumes--_John Ballantyne & Co._, 1810. _Letters of Anna Seward written +between the Years_ 1784 _and_ 1807. In six volumes. Archibald Constable +& Co., 1811. "Longwinded and florid" one biographer calls her letters, +but by the aid of what Scott calls 'the laudable practice of skipping' +they are quite entertaining. + +{8} Sir Robert Thomas White-Thomson, K.C.B., wrote to me in reference to +this estimate of Miss Seward from Broomford Manor, Exbourne, North Devon, +and his letter seemed of sufficient importance from a genealogical +standpoint for me to ask his permission to make an extract from the +letter: "I have read your address in a Lichfield newspaper. Apart from +the wider and more important bearings of your words, those which had +reference to the Seward family were especially welcome to me. You will +understand this when I tell you that, with the exception of the Romney +portrait of Anna, and a few other objects left 'away' by her will, my +grandfather, Thomas White, of Lichfield Close, her cousin and residuary +legatee, became possessed of all the contents of her house. Some of the +books and engravings were sold by auction, but the remainder were taken +good care of, and passed to me on my mother's death in 1860. As thus, +'in a way' the representative of the 'Swan of Lichfield,' you can easily +see what such an appreciation of her as was yours means to me. Of course +I know her weak points, and how the pot of clay must suffer in trying to +'bump' the pot of iron in midstream, but I also know that she was no +ordinary personage in her day, when the standard of feminine culture was +low, and I have resented some things that have been written of her. Mrs. +Oliphant treats her kindly in her _Literary History of England_, and now +I have your 'appreciation' of her, for which I beg to thank you." + +{15} Once certainly in the lines "On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet":-- + + Well try'd through many a varying year, + See Levet to the grave descend, + Officious, innocent, sincere, + Of ev'ry friendless name the friend. + +{18} _Prayers and Meditations_: composed by Samuel Johnson, LL.D., and +published from his Manuscripts by George Straham, D.D., Prebendary of +Rochester and Vicar of Islington in Middlesex, 1785. Dr. Birkbeck Hill +suggests that Johnson could not have contemplated the publication of the +work in its entirety, but the world is the better for the self +revelation, notwithstanding Cowper's remark in a letter to Newton (August +27, 1785), that "the publisher of it is neither much a friend to the +cause of religion nor to the author's memory; for by the specimen of it +that has reached us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct +tendency to expose both to ridicule." + +{19} There is an edition with a brief Introduction by Augustine Birrell, +published by Elliot Stock in 1904, and another, with an Introduction by +"H. C.," was issued by H. R. Allenson in 1906. + +{31} The Rev. Angus Mackay, author of _The Brontes In Fact and Fiction_. +He was Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, when he +died, aged 54, on New Year's Day, 1907. Earlier in life he had been a +Curate at Olney. + +{34} John Newton (1725-1807) had been the captain of a slave ship before +his 'conversion.' He became Curate of Olney in 1764 and published the +famous Olney Hymns with Cowper in 1779. In 1780 Newton became the +popular Incumbent of St. Mary Woolnoth, London. + +{35} See the Globe _Cowper_, with an Introduction by the Rev. William +Benham, the Rector of St. Edmund's, Lombard Street. Canon Benham has +written many books, but he has done no better piece of work than this +fine Introduction which first appeared in 1870. + +{36} Thomas Scott (1747-1821). His commentaries first appeared in +weekly parts between 1788 and 1792, and were first issued in ten volumes, +1823-25. He was Rector of Astin Sandford in Buckinghamshire from 1801 +until his death. His _Life_ was published by his son, the Rev. John +Scott, in 1822. + +{37} Thomas Percy (1729-1811) became Vicar of Easton Maudit, +Northamptonshire, in 1753. Johnson visited him here in 1764. In 1765 +Percy published his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. He became +Bishop of Dromere in 1782. + +{38a} William Hayley (1745-1820) was counted a great poet in his day and +placed in the same rank with Dryden and Pope. He wrote _Triumphs of +Temper_ 1781, _Triumphs of Music_ 1804, and many other works; but he is +of interest here by virtue of his _Life and Letters of William Cowper_, +_Esq._, _with Remarks on Epistolary Writers_, published in 1803. + +{38b} Robert Southey (1774-1843), whose _Life and Works of Cowper_ is in +fifteen volumes, which were published by Baldwin & Cradock between the +years 1835 and 1837. The attractive form in which the works are +presented, the many fine steel engravings, and the excellent type make +this still the only way for book lovers to approach Cowper. Southey had +to suffer the competition of the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, who produced, +through Saunders & Otley, about the same time a reprint of Hayley's +biography with much of Cowper's correspondence that is not in Southey's +volumes. The whole correspondence was collected by Mr. Thomas Wright, +and published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1904. + +{38c} Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) in his _Literary Studies_. James +Russell Lowell (1819-1891) in his _Essays_. Mrs. Oliphant (1828-1897) in +her _Literary History of England_; and George Eliot (1819-1880) in her +_Essays_ (Worldliness and Other Worldliness). + +{44} It has no bearing upon the subject that the horrors of the Bastille +at the time of its fall were greatly exaggerated. + +{47} _Theology in the English Poets_, by Stopford A. Brooke. + +{56} Mr. Leslie Stephen, who became Sir Leslie Stephen, K.C.B., in 1902, +was born in 1832 and died in 1904. In addition to the article in the +_D.N.B._, this great critic has one on "Cowper and Rousseau" in his +_Hours in a Library_. + +{62} Sir John Fenn (1739-1794), the antiquary, obtained the originals of +the _Paston Letters_ from Thomas Worth, a chemist of Diss. The following +lines were first printed in Cowper's Collected Poems, by Mr. J. C. Bailey +in his admirable edition of 1906, published by the Methuens:-- + + Two omens seem propitious to my fame, + Your spouse embalms my verse, and you my name; + A name, which, all self-flattery far apart + Belongs to one who venerates in his heart + The wise and good, and therefore of the few + Known by these titles, sir, both yours and you. + +They were written to please his cousin John Johnson who was to oblige +Fenn by giving him an autograph of Cowper's. + +{66} Edward Stanley (1779-1849), the father of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley +(1815-1881), Dean of Westminster, was Bishop of Norwich from 1837 to +1849. + +{80} Borrow's step-daughter, Henrietta Clarke, married James McOubrey, +an Irish doctor. She outlived Borrow for many years, dying at Great +Yarmouth in 1904. All her literary effects, including many interesting +manuscripts, have been passed on to me by her executor, Mr. Hubert Smith, +and these will be used in my forthcoming biography of Borrow. + +{84} I ventured to ask my friend Mr. Birrell for a line to read to my +Norwich audience and he sent me the following characteristic letter dated +December 8, 1903:-- + +". . . For my part I should leave George Borrow alone, to take his own +part even as Isopel Berners learnt to take hers in the great house at +Long Melford. He has an appealing voice which no sooner falls on the ear +of the born Borrovian, than up the lucky fellow must get and follow his +master to the end of the chapter. + +"However, if you will insist upon going out into the highways and hedges +and compelling the wayfaring man--though a fool--to come in and take a +seat at the _Lavengro_ feast, nobody can stop you. + +"The great thing is to get people to read the Borrow books: there is +nothing else to be done. If, after having read them, some enthusiasts go +on to learn _Romany_ and seek to trace authorities on Gypsies and Gypsy +lore--why, let them. They may soon know more about Gypsies than Borrow +ever did--but they will never write about them as he did. + +"The essence of the matter is to enjoy Borrow's books for themselves +alone. As for Borrow's biography, it appears to me either that he has +already written it, or it is not worth writing. Anyhow, place the books +in the forefront, reprint things as often as you dare without _note or +comment_ or even _prefatory appreciation_, and you cannot but earn the +gratitude of every true Borrovian who in consequence of your efforts come +upon the Borrow books for the first time." + +{97} M. Rene Huchon, who addressed the visitors at the Crabbe +Celebration, published his _George Crabbe and his Times_: _A Critical and +Biographical Study_, through Mr. John Murray, early in the present year, +1907. + +{98} This reproach has since been removed by the appearance of the +_Complete Works of George Crabbe_ in three volumes of the Cambridge +English Classics Series, published by the Cambridge University Press, and +edited by Dr. A. W. Ward, the Master of Peterhouse. + +{100} The original letter is in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley, of +Bridport. It is reprinted from the Hanmer Correspondence in an appendix +to M. Huchon's biography. + +{106} But M. Huchon makes it clear in _George Crabbe and his Times_ that +Crabbe declined at the last moment to marry Miss Charlotte Ridout, who +seems to have been really in love with him. + +{138} This monument, a fine statue facing the house which replaces the +one in which Sir Thomas Browne lived, was unveiled in October, 1905. + +{144} For every student Cunningham's nine volumes have been superseded +since this Address was delivered by the sixteen volumes of the Letters of +Horace Walpole, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee for the Clarendon Press. + +{145} The other side of the picture may, however, be presented. Horace, +says Cunningham (Walpole's _Letters_, vol. i.), hated Norfolk, the native +country of his father, and delighted in Kent, the native country of his +mother. "He did not care for Norfolk ale, Norfolk turnips, Norfolk +dumplings and Norfolk turkeys. Its flat, sandy aguish scenery was not to +his taste." He dearly liked what he calls most happily, "the rich, blue +prospects of Kent." + +{153} Goldsmith doubtless had more than one experience in his mind when +he wrote of:-- + + Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain. + +Lissoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland, served to provide many concrete +features of the picture, but that the author drew upon his experiences of +Houghton is believed by his principal biographer, John Forster, by +Professor Masson and others, and on no other assumption than that of an +English village can the lines be explained:-- + + A time there was, ere England's griefs began, + When every rood of ground maintained its man. + +{185} Originally written to serve as an Introduction to an edition of +Mr. George Meredith's _Tragic Comedians_, of which book Lassalle is the +hero. That edition was published by Messrs. Ward Lock & Bowden, who +afterwards transferred all rights in it to Messrs. Archibald Constable & +Co., by whose courtesy the paper is included here. + +{186} Lassalle's _Tagebuch_, edited by Paul Lindau, 1891. + +{187} _Henrich Heine's sammtliche Werke_, vol. xxii., pp. 84-99. + +{188} The most concise account of the affair is contained in the story +of Sophie Solutzeff, entitled, _Eine Liebes-episode aus dem Leben +Ferdinand Lassalle's_. This booklet, which is published in German, +French, and Russian, professes to be an account of Lassalle's love for a +young Russian lady, Sophie Solutzeff, some two years before he met Helene +von Donniges. He is represented as being himself in a frenzy of passion; +the lady, however, rejecting as a lover the man she had been prepared to +worship as a teacher. There can be little doubt that the whole story is +a fabrication, in which the Countess von Hatzfeldt had a considerable +part. The Countess was rightly judged by popular opinion to have played +a discreditable role in the love passages between Lassalle and Helene; +and Helene's own account of the matter in her _Reminiscences_ was an +additional blow at the pseudo-friend who might have helped the lovers so +much. What more natural than that the Countess should be anxious to +break the force of Helene's indictment, by endorsing the popular, and +indeed accurate judgment, that Lassalle was very inflammable where women +were concerned. This she could do by depicting him, a little earlier, in +precisely similar bondage to that which he had professed to Helene. That +the Countess wrote, or assisted to write, the compilation of letters and +diaries, does not, however, destroy its value as a record of Lassalle's +struggle on her behalf. That account, if not written by Lassalle, was +written or inspired by the other great actor in the Hatzfeldt drama, and +may therefore be considered a fairly safe guide in recounting the story. +Mr. Israel Zangwill, since the above was written, has published an +article on Lassalle in his _Dreamers of the Ghetto_. He accepts Sophie +Solutzeff's story as genuine, but that is merely the credulity of an +accomplished romancer. + +{198} Debate in the German Reichstag, April 2, 1881. Quoted by W. H. +Dawson. + +{213} Becker's _Enthullungen_, 1868. + +{218} Briefe an Hans von Bulow, 1885. + +{225} Reprinted with alterations from the _Pall Mall Magazine_ of July, +1905, by kind permission of the proprietor and editor; and of Miss Mary +Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) to whom the list of books was sent in a letter. + +{230a} Plato (B.C. 427-347). Dr. Jowett has translated the _Laws_. See +_The Dialogues_ of Plato With Analysis and Introductions by Benjamin +Jowett. In Five Volumes. Vol. V. The Clarendon Press. + +{230b} Aristotle (B.C. 384-322). Dr. Jowett has translated the +_Politics_ into English. Two volumes. The Clarendon Press. + +{230c} Epictetus (born A.D. 50, died in Rome, but date unknown). His +_Encheiridion_, a collection of Maxims, was made by his pupil Arrian. The +best translation into English is that by George Long, first published in +1877. (George Bell.) + +{230d} St. Augustine (A.D. 353-430). See a translation of his _Letters_ +edited by Mary Allies, published in 1890. + +{231a} St. Vincent of Lerins--Vincentius Lirinensis. Native of Gaul. +Monk in monastery of Lerinat, opposite Cannes. Died about 450. In 434 +wrote _Commonitorium adversus profanus omnium heretiecrum novitates_. It +contains the famous threefold text of orthodoxy--"quod ubique, quod +semper, quod ad omnibus creditum est." Printed at Paris, 1663 and later. +Also in Mignes, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 50. Hallam calls the text "the +celebrated rule." It is all now remembered of St. V. by most educated +men. It is shown to be of no practical value in an able criticism by Sir +G. C. Lewis, _Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion_, 2nd ed., +1875, p. 57. Mr Gladstone reviewed this work of Lewis, _Nineteenth +Century_ March, 1877. + +{231b} Hugo of St. Victor (1097-1141), a celebrated Mystic born at Ypres +in Flanders. His collected works first appeared at Rouen in 1648. + +{231c} St. Bonaventura (A.D. 1221-1274). Born at Bagnarea, near +Orvieto, in Tuscany, became a Franciscan monk and afterwards a Professor +of Theology at Paris, where he gained the title of the "Seraphic Doctor." +Made a Cardinal by Pope Gregory X, who sent him as his Legate to the +Council at Lyons, where he died. In 1482 he was canonized. His writings +appeared at Rome in 1588-96. + +{231d} St. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274). The Angelic Doctor was born +at the castle of Rocca-Secca near Aquino, between Rome and Naples. +Entered the Dominican Order in 1243. Went to Paris in 1252 and attained +great distinction as a theologian. His _Summa Theologiae_ was followed +by his _Summa contra Gentiles_. His works were first collected in 17 +volumes in 1570. Aquinas was canonized in 1323. + +{232a} Dante (A.D. 1265-1321). The _Divina Commedia_ has been +translated into English by many scholars. The best known version is the +poetical renderings of H. F. Cary (1772-1844) and W. W. Longfellow (1807- +1882) and the prose translations (the "Inferno" only) of John Carlyle +(1801-79) and A. J. Butler in whose three volumes of the "Purgatory," +"Paradise" and "Inferno" the original Italian may be studied side by side +with the translation. + +{232b} Raymund of Sabunde, a physician of Toulouse of the fifteenth +century. He published his _Theologia naturalis_ at Strassburg in 1496. +"I found the concerts of the author to be excellent, the contexture of +his works well followed, and his project full of pietie" writes Montaigne +in telling us of his father's request that he should translate Sabunde's +_Theologia naturalis_. Florio's Translation. Book II, Ch. XII. + +{232c} Nicholas of Cusa (A.D. 1401-1464) was born at Kues on the +Moselle. His _De Concordantia Catholica_ was a treatise in favour of the +Councils of the Church and against the authority of the Pope. He was +made a Cardinal by Pope Nicholas V. + +{232d} Edward Reuss (1804-1891), a professor of Theology, who was born +at Strassburg. Published his _History of the New Testament_ in 1842 and +his _History of the Old Testament_ in 1881. _The Bible_, _a new +translation with Introduction and Commentaries_, appeared in 19 volumes +between 1874 and 1881. + +{233a} Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662). Born at Clermont-Ferrand in +Auvergne. His _Letters to a Provincial_, written in 1656-7, made his +fame by their attack on the Jesuists. His _Pensees_ appeared after his +death, in 1669, and they have reappeared in many forms, "edited" by many +schools of thought. The edition edited by Ernest Havet (1813-1889) was +published in 1852. + +{233b} Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715). Born in Paris. The works of +Descartes drew him to philosophy. The famous dictum, "Malebranche saw +all things in God," had reference to his treatise, _De la Recherche de la +Verite_, first published in 1674. + +{233c} Baader, Franz (1765-1841). A speculative philosopher and +theologian, born at Munich, who endeavoured to reconcile the tenets of +the Church of Rome with philosophy. Of his many works his _Vorlesungen +uber Spekulative Dogmatik_ is here selected. It appeared between 1828 +and 1838 in five parts. + +{233d} Molitor, Franz Joseph (1779-1860). A philosophical writer, born +near Frankfurt. His _Philosophie der Geschichte_, _oder uber Tradition_ +was published in 4 volumes between 1827 and 1853. + +{233e} Astie, Jean Frederic (1822-1894). A French Protestant +theologian, who held a Chair of Theology in New York from 1848 to 1853. +In 1856 became a Professor in Switzerland. He published his _Esprit +d'Alexandre Vinet_ at Paris in 1861. In 1882 appeared his _Le Vinet de la +legende et celui de l'histoire_. + +{234a} Punjer, Bernard (1850-1884). A theologian whose _Geschichte der +Religions-philosophie_ was much the vogue with theological students at +the time of its publication in 1880. It was reissued in 1887 in an +English translation by W. Hastie, under the title, _History of the +Christian Philosophy of Religion from the Reformation to Kant_. Punjer +also wrote _Die Religionslehre Kant's_, published at Jena in 1874. + +{234b} Rothe, Richard (1799-1867). A Protestant theologian. Was for a +time preacher to the Prussian Embassy in Rome, and afterwards in +succession Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, at Heidelberg, and at +Bonn. His _Theologische Ethik_ appeared at Wittenberg in 3 volumes +between 1845 and 1848. + +{234c} Martensen, Hans Lassen (1808-1884). A Danish theologian, born at +Fleusburg and died at Copenhagen, where he was long a Professor of +Theology. He became Bishop of Zeeland. _Die Christliche Ethik_ was one +of many works by him. He also wrote _Die Christliche Dogmatik_, _Die +Christliche Taufe_, and a _Life of Jakob Bohme_. + +{234d} Oettingen, Alexander von (1827-1905). A theologian and +statistician principally associated with Dorpat in Livonia, where he +studied from 1845 to 1849. He became Professor of Theology at its famous +University. His principal book is entitled, _Die Moralstatistik in ihrer +Bedeutung fur eine Sozialethik_. + +{234e} Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard von (1842-1906). Born in Berlin, +the son of General Robert von Hartmann, and served for some time in the +Artillery of the German Army. He has written many philosophical works. +His _Phanomenologie des sittlichlen Bewusstseins_ was published in Berlin +in 1879. + +{235a} Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716). Born at Leipzig and died +at Hanover. Visited Paris and London, and became acquainted with Boyle +and Newton. In 1676 appointed to a librarianship at Hanover. His +philosophical views are mainly derived from his letters. The edition of +the _Letters_, edited by Ouno Klopp (1822-1903), appeared at Hanover +between 1862 and 1884 in 11 volumes. + +{235b} Brandis, Christian August (1790-1867). A philosopher and +philologist, born in Hildesheim, studied in Gottingen and Kiel. +Accompanied Niebuhr as Secretary to the Embassy to Rome in 1816. In 1822 +became Professor of Philosophy in Bonn. His _Handbuch der Geschichte der +griechischromischen Philosophie_, doubtless here referred to by Lord +Acton, was published in Berlin at long intervals (1835-66) in 3 volumes. + +{235c} Fischer, Kuno (1824-1907). Born at Sandewalde in Silesia. +Deprived of his professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg by the Baden +Government in 1853 on account of charge of Pantheism, but recalled to +Heidelberg in 1872. His principal book is _Geschichte der Neuern +Philosophie_ (1852-1903). His _Franz Baco von Verulam_ appeared in 1856, +and _Francis Bacon und seine Schule_ made the 10th volume of his +_Geschichte_. + +{235d} Zeller, Eduard (1814- still living). Theologian and historian of +philosophy. Studied at Tubingen and Berlin, became Professor of Theology +at Berne, afterwards held chairs successively at Heidelberg and Berlin. +His many works include _The Philosophy of Ancient Greece_, _Platonic +Studies_ and _Zwingli's Theological System_. + +{236a} Bartholomess, Christian (1815-1856). A French philosopher, born +at Geiselbronn in Alsace. From 1853 Professor of Philosophy at +Strassburg. Died at Nuremberg. Wrote a _Life of Giordano Bruno_, and +_Philosophical History of the Prussian Academy_, _particularly under +Frederick the Great_, as well as the _Histoire critique des doctrines +religieuses de la philosophie moderne_, published in 2 volumes in 1855. + +{236b} Madame Guyon (1648-1717) was born at Montargis in France, and her +maiden name was Jeanne Marie Bouvieres de la Mothe. She married at 16 +years of age Jacques Guyon. Left a widow, she devoted herself to a +religious mysticism which raised up endless controversies during the +succeeding years. She was compelled to leave Geneva because her +doctrines were declared to be heretical. She was imprisoned in the +Bastile from 1695 to 1702. Her works are contained in 39 volumes. + +{236c} Ritschl, Albrecht (1822-1889). Professor of Theology, born in +Berlin, died in Gottingen. Became Professor of Theology in Bonn and +later in Gottingen. He wrote many books. His _Die Entstehung der +altkatholischen Kirche_ first appeared in 1850. + +{236d} Loening, Edgar (1843- still living), was born in Paris. Has held +professorial chairs at Strassburg, Dorpat, Rostock, and at Halle. His +_Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts_ first appeared in 1878. + +{237a} Baur, Ferdinand Christian (1792-1860). Born at Schmiden, near +Kannstatt. Held various theological chairs before that of Tubingen, +which he occupied from 1826 until his death. He wrote a great number of +theological works, of which his _Vorlesungen uber die christliche +Dogmengeschichte_ was published in Leipzig in 3 volumes between 1865 and +1867. + +{237b} Fenelon, Francois de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715). Born in +Perigord in France, and famous alike as a divine and as a man of letters, +his _Telemaque_ living in literature. His controversy over Madame Guyon +is well known. Louis XIV made him preceptor to his grandson, the Duke of +Burgundy, and later Archbishop of Cambrai. His _Correspondence_ was +published between 1727 and 1729 in 11 volumes. + +{237c} Newman, John Henry (1801-1890). A famous Cardinal of the Church +of Rome; born in London, educated at Trinity College, Oxford; first Vicar +of St. Mary's, Oxford; took part in the Tractarian Movement with some of +the _Tracts for the Times_. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ appeared in +1864, his _Dream of Gerontius_ in 1865. There is no _Theory of +Development_ by Newman. His _Essay on the Development of Christian +Doctrine_ appeared in 1845, and was replied to by the Rev. J. B. Mozley +in a volume bearing the title _The Theory of Development_. + +{237d} Mozley, James Bowling (1813-1878). A Church of England divine; +born at Gainsborough, educated at Oriel College, Oxford; became Vicar of +Old Shoreham, Canon of Worcester, and, in 1871, Regius Professor of +Divinity at Oxford. His _Oxford University Sermons_ appeared in 1876. + +{238a} Schneckenburger, Matthias (1804-1848). A Protestant theologian; +born at Thalheim and died in Berne, where he was for a time Professor of +Theology at the newly founded University. His _Vergleichende Darstellung +des lutherischen und reformierten Lehrbegriffs_ was published in +Stuttgart in 2 volumes in 1855. + +{238b} Hundeshagen, Karl Bernhard (1810-1872). A Protestant theologian +who held a professorship in Berne, later in Heidelberg and finally in +Bonn, where he died. His many works included one upon the Conflict +between the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and the Zwinglian Churches. His +_Beitrage zur Kirchenverfassungsgeschichte und Kirchenpolitik +insbesondere des Protestantismus_ was published at Wiesbaden in 1864 in 1 +volume. + +{238c} Schweizer, Alexander (1808-1888). A theologian and preacher who +studied in Zurich and Berlin. He wrote his _Autobiography_ which was +published in Zurich the year after his death. His book, _Die +protestantischen Centraldogmen innerhalb der reformierten Kirche_, +appeared in Zurich in 2 volumes in 1854 and 1856. + +{238d} Gass, Wilhelm (1813-1889). A Protestant theologian; born at +Breslau and died in Heidelberg, where he held a theological chair. His +best-known book is his _Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik_, +published in Berlin between 1854 and 1867 in 4 volumes, and to this Lord +Acton doubtless refers. + +{238e} Cart, Jacques Louis (1826- probably still living). A Swiss +pastor; born in Geneva; the author of many books, of which the one named +by Lord Acton is fully entitled, _Histoire du mouvement religieux et +ecclesiastique dans le canton de Vaud pendant la premiere moitie du XIXe +siecle_. It appeared between 1871 and 1880 in 6 volumes. + +{239a} Blondel, David (1590-1655). Born at Chalons-sur-Marne in France; +a learned theologian and historian who defended the Protestant position +against the Catholics. Was Professor of History at Amsterdam. His _De +la primaute de l'Eglise_ appeared in 1641. + +{239b} Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis (1614-1675). A French Protestant +theologian who enjoyed the consideration of both parties and was +approached by Turenne with a view to a reunion of the churches. His +position was sustained before the Protestant Academy at Sedan with +certain theses published under the title of _Theses Sedanenzes_ in 1683. + +{239c} Thiersch, Heinrich Wilhelm Josias (1817-1885). Born in Munich +and died in Basle; held for a time a Professorship of Theology in +Marburg, then became the principal pastor of the Irvingite Church in +Germany, preaching in many cities. He wrote many books. His +_Vorlesungen uber Katholizismus und Protestantismus_ appeared first in +1846. + +{239d} Mohler, Johann Adam (1796-1838). Born in Igersheim and died in +Munich. A Catholic theologian and Professor of Theology at Tubingen. His +_Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensatze zwischen den Katholiken und +Protestanten_ was first published in Mainz in 1834. + +{240a} Scherer, Edmond (1815-1889). A French theologian; born in Paris, +died at Versailles. Was for a time in England, then Professor of +Exegesis in Geneva. Was for many years a leader of the French Protestant +Church. His _Melanges de critique religieuse_ appeared in Paris in 1860. + +{240b} Hooker, Richard (1554-1600). Born in Exeter. In 1584 was Rector +of Drayton-Beauchamp, near Tring, and the following year became Master of +the Temple. In 1591 became Vicar of Boscombe and sub-Dean of Salisbury. +His _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ was published in 1594. In 1595 he +removed to Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, where he died. + +{240c} Weingarten, Hermann (1834-1892). Protestant ecclesiastical +historian, born in Berlin, where in 1868 he became a professor, later +held chairs successively at Marberg and Breslau. His book _Die +Revolutionskirchen Englands_ appeared in 1868. + +{240d} Kliefoth, Theodor Friedrich (1810-1895). A Lutheran theologian; +born at Kirchow in Mecklenburg, and died at Schwerin, where he was for a +time instructor to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and held +various offices in connexion with that state. He wrote many theological +works. His _Acht Bucher von der Kirche_ was published at Schwerin in 1 +volume in 1854. + +{240e} Laurent, Francois (1810-1887). Born in Luxemburg and died in +Gent, where he long held a professorship. His principal work, _Etudes +sur l'histoire de l'humanite_, _Histoire du droit des gens_ was published +in Brussels in 18 volumes between 1860 and 1870. + +{241a} Ferrari, Guiseppe (1812-1876) was born in Milan, and died in +Rome. Achieved fame as a philosophical historian. Held a chair at Turin +and afterwards at Milan. As member of the Parliament of Piedmont he was +an opponent of Cavour's policy of a United Italy. His principal book is +entitled _Histoire des revolutions de l'Italie_, _ou Guelfes et +Gibelins_, published in Paris in four volumes between 1856 and 1858. + +{241b} Lange, Friedrich Albert (1828-1875). Philosopher and economic +writer, born at Wald bei Solingen, died at Marburg. Held a professorial +chair at Zurich and later at Marburg. His most famous book, the +_Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedentung in der +Gegenwart_, first appeared in 1866. It was published in England in 1878- +81 by Trubner in three volumes. + +{241c} Guicciardini, Francesco (1483-1540), the Italian historian and +statesman, was born at Florence. Undertook in 1512 an embassy from +Florence to the Court of Ferdinand the Catholic, and learned diplomacy in +Spain. In 1515 he entered the service of Pope Leo X. His principal book +is his _History of Italy_. The _Istoria d'Italia_ appeared in Florence +in ten volumes between 1561 and 1564. His _Recordi Politici_ consists of +some 400 aphorisms on political and social topics and has been described +by an Italian critic as "Italian corruption codified and elevated to a +rule of life." + +{241d} Duperron, Jacques Davy (1556-1618), a Cardinal of the Church, +born at Saint Lo. He was a Court preacher under Henry III of France and +denounced Elizabeth of England in a funeral sermon on Mary Stuart. It is +told of him that he once demonstrated before the king the existence of +God, and being complimented upon his irrefutable arguments, replied that +he was prepared to bring equally good arguments to prove that God did not +exist. He became Bishop of Evreux in 1591. + +{242a} Richelieu, Cardinal--(Armand-Jean Du Plessis)--(1585-1642). The +famous minister of Louis XIII; born in Paris, of a noble family of +Poitou. Was made Bishop of Lucon by Henry IV at the age of twenty-two. +Became Almoner to Marie de Medici, the Regent of France. Was elected a +Cardinal in 1622. He wrote many books, including theological works, +tragedies, and his own Memoirs. The authenticity of his _Testament +politique_ was disputed by Voltaire. + +{242b} Harrington, James (1611-1677) was born at Upton, +Northamptonshire; was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He +travelled on the Continent, but was back in England at the time of the +Civil War, in which, however, he took no part. He published his _Oceana_ +in 1656. He is buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, next to the +tomb of Sir Walter Raleigh. His _Writings_ in an edition issued in 1737 +by Millar contained twenty separate treatises in addition to _Oceana_, +but concerned with that book. + +{242c} Mignet, Francois Auguste Marie (1796-1884). The historian; was +born at Aix and died in Paris. Published his _History of the French +Revolution_ in 1824. His _Negociations relatives a la succession +d'Espagne_ appeared in 4 volumes between 1836 and 1842. He also wrote a +_Life of Franklin_, a _History of Mary Stuart_, and many other works. + +{243a} Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), the famous writer, was born +in Geneva and died at Ermenonville. Much of his life story has been told +in his incomparable _Confessions_. In 1759 he published _Nouvelle +Heloise_; in 1762, _L'Emile ou de l'Education_. His _Considerations sur +la Pologne_ was written by Rousseau in 1769 in response to an application +to apply his own theories to a scheme for the renovation of the +government of Poland, in which land anarchy was then at its height. Mr. +John Morley (_Rousseau_, Vol. II) dismisses the pamphlet with a +contemptuous line. + +{243b} Foncin, Pierre (1841- still living). A French Professor of +History; born at Limoges, and has long held important official positions +in connexion with education. He has written many books, including an +_Atlas Historique_. His _Essai sur le ministere Turgot_ appeared in +1876, and obtained a prize from the French Academy. + +{243c} Burke, Edmund (1729-1797), the famous statesman, was born in +Dublin and died at Beaconsfield, Bucks, where he was buried. His +_Vindication of Natural Society_ appeared in 1756. Burke entered +Parliament for Wendover in 1765, sat for Bristol, 1774-80, and Malton, +1780-94. His _Collected Works_ first appeared in 1792-1827 in 8 volumes, +the first three of which were issued in his lifetime; his _Collected +Works and Correspondence_ was published in 8 volumes in 1852, but the +_Correspondence_ had appeared separately in 4 volumes in 1844. + +{243d} Las Cases, Emmanuel Augustine Dieudonne Marir Joseph (1766-1842). +Educated at the Military School in Paris but entered the French navy; +emigrated at the Revolution; fought at Quiberon; taught French in London; +published in 1802 his _Atlas historique et geographique_ under the +pseudonym of "Le Sage." On his return to France he came under the notice +of Napoleon, who made him a Count of the Empire and sent him upon several +important missions. During the Emperor's exile in Elba he again went to +England. He returned during the Hundred Days and accompanied Napoleon to +St. Helena. Here he recorded day by day the conversations of the great +exile. At the end of eighteen months he was exiled by Sir Hudson Lowe to +the Cape of Good Hope. He returned to France after the death of Napoleon +and became a Deputy under Louis Philippe. His _Memorial de +Sainte-Helene_, published in 1823-1824, secured a great success. + +{244a} Holtzendorff, Franz von (1829-1889), was Professor of +Jurisprudence first at Berlin and afterwards at Munich, where he died. He +wrote many books concerned with crime and its punishment, with the prison +systems of the world, etc. His _Enzyklopadie der Rechtswissenschaft in +systematischer und alphabetischer Bearbeitung_ was first published at +Leipzig in 1870 and 1871. + +{244b} Jhering, Rudolph von (1818-1892), was for a time professor at +Basle, Rostock, Kiel and Vienna. His _Geist des romischen Rechts auf den +verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwickelung_ appeared in Leipzig between +1852 and 1865, and is counted a classic in jurisprudence. + +{244c} Geib, Karl Gustav (1808-1864). An eminent criminologist. Was a +Professor of Zurich and afterwards of Tubingen, where he died. Wrote +many books, of which the most important was his _Geschichte des romischen +Kriminalprozesses bis zum Tode Justinians_ in 1842. His _Lehrbuch des +deutschen Strafrechts_ appeared in 1861 and 1862, but was never +completed. + +{245a} Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner (1822-1888). Jurist; born in +Kelso, Scotland; educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and at Pembroke +College, Cambridge; was Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge, 1847- +54. In 1862 he became a legal member of Council in India and held the +office for seven years. In 1871 he became a K.C.S.I. and had a seat on +the Indian Council. In 1877 he was elected Master of Trinity Hall, +Cambridge, and in 1887 became Whewell Professor of International Law at +Cambridge. He died at Cannes. His principal work is his _Ancient Law_: +_its Connexion with the Early History of Society and its Relation to +Modern Ideas_, first published in 1861. + +{245b} Gierke, Otto Friedrich (1841- still living), was born in Stettin; +was Professor of Law in Breslau, Heidelberg and Berlin successively. +Served in the Franco-German War of 1870. His principal work, _Das +deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht_, appeared in 3 volumes in Berlin, the +first in 1868, the third in 1881. + +{245c} Stahl, Friedrich Julius (1802-1861), was born in Munich of Jewish +parents, died in Bruckenau. Held chairs of law and jurisprudence in +Berlin and other cities, and wrote many books. His _Die Philosophie des +Rechts und geschichtlicher Ansicht_ appeared at Heidelberg in 2 volumes +in 1830 and 1837. + +{246a} Gentz, Friedrich von (1764-1832). A distinguished publicist and +statesman; born in Breslau, died at Weinhaus, near Vienna; studied +Jurisprudence in Konigsberg. One of his earliest literary efforts was a +translation of Burke's _Reflections upon the French Revolution_. Played +a very considerable part in the combination of the powers of Europe +against Napoleon in 1809-15. He was the author of many books. His +_Briefewechsel mit Adam Muller_ was published in Stuttgart in 1857--long +after his death. + +{246b} Vollgraff, Karl Friedrich (1794-1863), was for a time Professor +of Jurisprudence at Marburg, where he died. His two most important books +were: (1) _Der Systeme der praktischen Politik im Abendlande_; (2) +_Erster Versuch einer Begrundung der allgemeinen Ethnologie durch die +Anthropologie und der Staats und Rechts Philosophie durch die Ethnologie +oder Nationalitat der Volker_, published in 4 volumes in 1851 to 1855. It +is in this last volume that a section is devoted to Polignosie. + +{246c} Frantz, Konstantin (1817-1891). Distinguished publicist; born at +Halberstadt and died at Blasewitz, near Dresden, where he made his home +for many years. Was for a time German Consul in Spain. His great +doctrine laid down in his _Die Weltpolitik_, 1883, was the union of +Central Europe against the growing power of Russia and the United States +of America. His _Kritik aller Parteien_ was published in Berlin in 1862. + +{246d} Maistre, Joseph Marie Comte de (1753-1821). A distinguished +French publicist; born at Chambery; studied at the University of Turin. +Lived for some years at Lausanne, where he published in 1796 his +_Considerations sur la Revolution francaise_. + +{247a} Donoso Cortes, Jean Francois (1809-1853). A famous Spanish +publicist; born in Estremadura; played a considerable part in Spanish +affairs under Marie-Christine and Queen Isabella. Was for a time Spanish +Ambassador to Berlin, and later to France, where he died in Paris. He +wrote much upon such questions as the Catholic Church and Socialism. + +{247b} Perin, Henri Charles Xavier (1815- ), a Belgium economist, born +at Mons; became an advocate at Brussels and also Professor of Political +Economy in that city. His book _De la Richesse dans les Societes +Chretiennes_ appeared in Paris in 2 volumes in 1861. + +{247c} Le Play, Pierre Guillaume Frederic (1806-1882). Born at +Honfleur. He directed the organization of the Paris International +Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867. He wrote many books. His _La reforme +sociale en France deduite de l'observation comparee des peuples +Europeens_ was published in two volumes in 1864. + +{247d} Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich (1823-1897). A well-known author; born +at Biebrich-am-Rhein, died in Munich. He was associated with several +German newspapers, and edited from 1848 to 1851 the _Nassauische +Allgemeine Zeitung_, from 1851 to 1853 the _Augsburger Allgemeine +Zeitung_, and afterwards became a Professor of Literature at Munich. In +1885 he became the director of the Bavarian National Museum. He wrote +many books, the one referred to by Lord Acton having been published in +1851 under the title of _Die burgerliche Gesellschaft_. + +{248a} Sismondi, Jean Charles Leonard Sismonde de (1773-1842), the +distinguished historian of the Italian republics, was born at Geneva of +an Italian family originally from Pisa. He resided for a time in +England. His famous book the _Histoire des Republiques Italiennes de +Moyen-Age_ appeared between 1807 and 1818 in 16 volumes. His _Etudes sur +les Constitutions des Peuples Libres_, was one of many other books. + +{248b} Rossi, Pellegrino Luigi Odoardo (1787-1848). An Italian +publicist; born at Carrara. Keenly sympathized with the French +Revolution and served under Murat in the Hundred Days, after which he +fled to Geneva. In later years he became a nationalized Frenchman, +occupied a Chair of Constitutional Law, and finally became a peer. As +Comte Rossi he went on a special embassy to Rome. He was assassinated in +that city during the troubles of 1848. His _Traite du Droit +Constitutionnel_ appeared in 2 volumes. + +{248c} Barante, Aimable Guillaume Prosper Brugiere, baron de +(1782-1868), historian and politician, was born at Riom. He was made a +Counciller of State by Louis XVIII in 1815, and a peer of France in 1819. +He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1828. Under Louis +Philippe he became Ambassador first at Turin and afterwards at St. +Petersburg. After the revolution of 1848 he devoted himself entirely to +literature. He wrote many historical and literary studies, and +translated the works of Schiller into French. His _Vie politique de +Royer-Collard_ has several times been reprinted. + +{249a} Duvergier de Hauranne, Prosper (1798-1881), was a distinguished +French publicist, born at Rouen. He was parliamentary deputy for +Sancerre in 1831 and took part in most of the political struggles of the +following twenty years. He was exiled from France at the time of the +_Coup d'Etat_, but returned during the reign of Napoleon III. Henceforth +he devoted himself exclusively to historical studies. His _Histoire du +gouvernement parlementaire en France_, published in 1870, secured his +election to the French Academy. + +{249b} Madison, James (1751-1836). The fourth President of the United +States; born at Port Conway, Virginia. Acted with Jay and Hamilton in +the Convention which framed the Constitution and wrote with them _The +Federalist_. He had two terms of office--between 1809 and 1817--as +President. He died at Montpelier, Virginia. His _Debates of the +Congress of Confederation_ was published in Elliot's "Debates on the +State Conventions," 4 vols., Philadelphia, 1861. + +{249c} Hamilton, Alexander (1757-1804). A great American statesman, who +served in Washington's army, and after the war became eminent as a lawyer +in New York. He wrote fifty-one out of the eighty-five essays of _The +Federalist_. He was appointed Secretary of the Treasury to the United +States in 1789. He was mortally wounded in a duel by Aaron Burr in 1804. +His influence upon the American Constitution gives him a great place in +the annals of the Republic. + +{249d} Calhoun, John Campbell (1782-1850). An American statesman; born +in Abbeville County, South Carolina and studied at Yale. As a Member of +Congress he supported the war with Great Britain in 1812-15. He was +twice Vice-President of the United States. He died at Washington. A +_Disquisition on Government_ and a _Discourse on the Constitution and +Government of the United States_ were written in the last months of his +life. His _Collected Works_ appeared in 1853-4. + +{250a} Dumont, Pierre Etienne Louis (1759-1829). A great publicist; +born in Geneva, and principally known in England by his association with +Bentham, to whom he acted as an editor and interpreter. Lived much in +Paris, St. Petersburg, and, above all, in London, where he knew Fox, +Sheridan, and other famous men, and taught the children of Lord +Shelburne. Dumont's _Sophismes Anarchiques_ appears in Bentham's +_Collected Works_ as _Anarchical Fallacies_. + +{250b} Quinet, Edgar (1803-1875). French historian and philosopher; +born at Borg and died in Paris. His epic poem of _Ahasuerus_ was placed +upon the Index. Of his many books his _La Revolution Francaise_ is the +best known. It was written in Switzerland, where he was an exile during +the reign of Napoleon III. He returned to France in 1870. + +{250c} Stein, Lorenz von (1815-1890). Writer on economics, studied in +Kiel and in Jena. In 1855 he became Professor of International Law in +Vienna. He wrote books on statecraft and international law. His work +entitled _Der Sozialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreich_ +appeared in Leipzig in 1843. + +{251a} Lassalle, Ferdinand (1825-1864), the famous social democrat, was +of Jewish birth; born at Breslau. He took part in the revolution of 1848 +and received six months' imprisonment. He was wounded in a duel at +Geneva over a love affair and died two days later. His _System der +Erworbenen Rechte_ appeared in 1861. + +{251b} Thonissen, Jean Joseph (1817-1891). A distinguished jurist; born +in Belgium. He studied at Liege and in Paris; became a Professor of the +Catholic University of Louvain; afterwards became a Minister of State. Of +his many works his _Socialisme depuis l'antiquite jusqu'a la constitution +francaise de 1852_ is best known. + +{251c} Considerant, Victor (1808-1894). Born at Salins, and, after the +Revolution of 1848, entered the Chamber of Deputies. He crossed to +America to found a colony in Texas, but ruined himself by the experiment. +He returned to France in 1869. He was the author of many socialistic +treatises. + +{251d} Roscher, Wilhelm (1817-1894), economist, was born in Hanover. +Held a chair first in Gottingen and afterwards in Leipzig, where he died. +His _Geschichte der Nationalokonomik in Deutschland_ appeared in Munich +in 1874. + +{251e} Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873), the famous publicist and author, +was born in London, and educated by his father, James Mill (1773-1836). +He served in the India Office, 1823-58; he was M.P. for Westminster, 1865- +68. His works include the _Principles of Political Economy_, 1848; the +_Essay on Liberty_, 1859, and the _System of Logic_, which first appeared +in 1843. + +{252a} Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), poet and critic, was born +at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire; educated at Christ's Hospital, London, +and at Jesus College, Cambridge. In the volume of _Lyrical Ballads_ by +Wordsworth of 1798 Coleridge contributed the _Ancient Mariner_, and he +was to make his greatest reputation by this and other poems. His best +prose work was his _Biographia Literaria_ (1817). His _Aids to +Reflection_ was first published in 1825. + +{252b} Radowitz, Joseph Maria von (1797-1853). A Prussian general and +statesman; born in Blankenberg and died in Berlin. Fought in the +Napoleonic wars and was wounded at the battle of Leipzig. Afterwards +served as Ambassador to various German Courts. He wrote several +treatises bearing upon current affairs, and his _Fragments_ form Vols. IV +and V of his _Collected Works_ in 5 volumes, which were issued in Berlin +in 1852-53. + +{252c} Gioberti, Vincent (1801-1852). An Italian statesman and +philosopher; born in Turin, where he afterwards became Professor of +Theology. Was for a time Court Chaplain, but his liberal views led to +exile, and he retired first to Paris, then to Brussels. Afterwards +became famous as a neo-Catholic with his attempt to combine faith with +science and art, and urged the independence and the unity of Italy. His +_Jesuite moderne_, published in 1847, created a sensation. After some +years of home politics he was appointed by King Victor Emmanuel as +Ambassador to Paris. It is noteworthy in the light of Lord Acton's +recommendation of his _Pensieri_ that his works have been placed on the +Index. + +{253a} Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander Baron von (1769-1859), the +great naturalist, was born and died in Berlin, and studied at Frankfort- +on-the-Oder, Berlin and Gottingen; he spent five years (1799-1804) in +exploring South America, and in 1829 travelled through Central Asia. His +_Kosmos_ appeared between 1845 and 1858 in 4 volumes. + +{253b} De Candolle, Alphonse de (1806-1893). The son of the celebrated +botanist, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, and was himself a professor of +that science at Geneva. His _Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis +deux siecles_ appeared in 1873. + +{253c} Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882), the great naturalist and +discoverer of natural selection, was born at Shrewsbury, where he was +educated at the Grammar School, at Edinburgh University, and at Christ's +College, Cambridge. His most famous book, _The Origin of Species by +means of Natural Selection_, was first published in 1859. + +{253d} Littre, Maximilien Paul Emile (1801-1884), the famous +lexicographer whose _Dictionnaire de la langue francaise_ gave him a +world-wide reputation. He was born in Paris. He associated himself with +Auguste Comte and the _Positive Philosophy_, and contributed many volumes +in support of Comte's standpoint. + +{253e} Cournot, Antoine Augustin (1801-1877). Born at Gray in Savoy; +wrote many mathematical treatises. His _Traite de l'enchainement des +idees fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l'histoire_ was published +in 2 volumes. + +{254} This was a most comprehensive addition, and fully makes up for the +abrupt termination of the list of the hundred best books with two +omissions. The omission of the book numbered 88 will also have been +remarked. There are probably a hundred "Monatschriften der +Wissenschaftlichen Vereine" or magazines of scientific societies issued +in Germany. Sperling's _Zeitschriften-Adressbuch_ gives more than two +columns of these. + +{260a} The Bible can be best read in paragraph form from the Eversley +edition, published by the Macmillans, or from the Temple Bible, issued by +J. M. Dent--the latter an edition for the pocket. The translation of +1610 is literature and has made literature. The revised translation of +our own day has neither characteristic. Something can be said for the +Douay Bible in this connexion. It was published in Douay in the same +year as the Protestant version appeared--1610. Certain words from it, +such as "Threnes" for "Lamentations" as the Threnes of Jeremiah, have a +poetical quality that deserved survival. + +{260b} The Iliad may be read in a hundred verse translations of which +those by Pope and Cowper are the best known. Both these may be found in +Bohn's Libraries (G. Bell & Sons); but the prose translation for which +Mr. Lang and his friends are responsible (Macmillan) is for our +generation far and away the best introduction to Homer for the +non-Grecian. + +{261a} Under the title of "The Athenian Drama," George Allen has +published three fine volumes of the works of the Greek dramatists. + +{261b} Dryden's translation of Virgil has been followed by many others +both in prose and verse. There was one good prose version by C. Davidson +recently issued in Laurie's Classical Library. An interesting +translation of Virgil's _Georgics_ into English verse was recently made +by Lord Burghclere and published by John Murray. The young student, +however, will do well to approach Virgil through Dryden. He will find +the book in the Chandos Classics, or superbly printed in Professor +Saintsbury's edition of _Dryden's Works_, Vol. XIV. + +{261c} There have been many translations of Catullus. One, by Sir +Richard Burton, was issued by Leonard Smithers in 1894. In Bohn's +Library there is a prose translation by Walter K. Kelly. Professor +Robinson Ellis made a verse translation that has been widely praised. +Grant Allen translated the Attis in 1892. On the whole, the English +verse translation by Sir Theodore Martin made in 1861 (Blackwood & Son) +is far and away the best suited for a first acquaintance with this the +'tenderest of Roman Poets.' + +{261d} Horace has been made the subject of many translations. Perhaps +there are fifty now available. John Conington's edition of his complete +works, two volumes (Bell), is well known. The best introduction to +Horace for the young student is in Sir Theodore Martin's translation, two +volumes (Blackwood), and a volume by the same author entitled _Horace_ in +"Ancient Classics for English Readers" (Blackwood) is a charming little +book. + +{262a} Dante's _Divine Comedy_ as translated by Henry Francis Cary (1772- +1844) has been described by Mr. Ruskin as better reading than Milton's +"Paradise Lost." James Russell Lowell, with true patriotism, declared +that his countrymen Longfellow's translation (Routledge) was the best. +Something may be said for the prose translation by Dr. John Carlyle of +the _Inferno_ (Bell) and for Mr. A. J. Butler's prose translation of the +whole of the _Divine Comedy_ in three volumes (Macmillan). Other +translations which have had a great vogue are by Wright and Dean +Plumptre. The best books on Dante are those by Dr. Edward Moore +(Clarendon Press). Cary's translation can be obtained in one volume in +Bohn's Library (Bell) or in the Chandos Classics (Warne). + +{262b} I contend that while most of the poets are self-contained in a +single volume, Shakspere's plays are best enjoyed as separate entities. +Certainly each of them has a library attached to it, and it is quite +profitable to read Hamlet in Mr. Horace Howard Furness's edition +(Lippincott) with a multitude of criticisms of the play bound up with the +text of Hamlet. But Hamlet should be read first in the Temple Shakspere +(Dent) or in the Arden Shakspere (Methuen). To this last there is an +admirable introduction by Professor Dowden. + +{262c} Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ should be read in Mr. Alfred W. +Pollard's edition, which forms two volumes of the "Eversley Library" +(Macmillan). The "Tales" may be obtained in cheaper form in the +_Chaucer_ of the Aldine Poets (Bell), of which I have grateful memories, +having first read "Chaucer" in these little volumes. The enthusiast will +obtain the Complete Works of Chaucer edited for the Clarendon Press by +Professor W. W. Skeat. + +{263a} FitzGerald's _Omar Khayyam_ can be obtained in its four versions, +each of which has its merits, only from the Macmillans, who publish it in +many forms. The edition in the Golden Treasury Series may be +particularly commended. The present writer has written an introduction +to a sixpenny edition of the first version. It is published by William +Heinemann. + +{263b} Goethe's _Faust_ has been translated in many forms. Certainly +Anster's version (Sampson Low) is the most vivacious. Anna Swanwick, Sir +Theodore Martin and Bayard Taylor's translations have about equal merit. + +{263c} Shelley's _Poetical Works_ should be read in the one volume +issued in green cloth by the Macmillans, with an introduction by Edward +Dowden, or in the Oxford Poets (Henry Froude), with an introduction by H. +Buxton Forman, but perhaps the best edition is that of the Clarendon +Press with an introduction by Thomas Hutchinson. Mr. Forman's library +edition of _Shelley's Complete Works_ is the desire of all collectors. + +{263d} _Byron's Poetical Works_, edited by Ernest Coleridge, form seven +volumes of John Murray's edition of Byron's _Works_ in thirteen volumes. +There is not a good one-volume Byron. I particularly commend the three- +volume edition (George Newnes). + +{264a} Wordsworth may be read in his entirety in the sixteen volumes of +_Prose and Poetry_ edited by William Knight in the Eversley Library +(Macmillan). The same publisher issues an admirable _Wordsworth_ in one +volume, edited, with an introduction by John Morley. But the first +approach to Wordsworth's verse should be made through Matthew Arnold's +_Select Poems_ in the Golden Treasury Series (Macmillan). + +{264b} _Keats's Works_ are issued in one volume in the Oxford Poets +(Froude), and in five shilling volumes by Gowans and Gray of Glasgow. Mr. +Buxton Forman's annotations to this cheap edition exceed in value those +attached to his more expensive "Library Edition," which, however, as with +the _Shelley_, in eight volumes, is out of print. + +{264c} The four volumes of Burns, with an introduction by W. E. Henley, +are pleasant to read. They are published by Jack, of Edinburgh. The +best single-volume _Burns_ is that in the Globe Library (Macmillan), with +an introduction by Alexander Smith. + +{264d} There is no rival to the one-volume edition of _Coleridge's +Poems_, with an introduction by J. Dykes Campbell, published by +Macmillan. Mr. Dykes Campbell's biography of Coleridge should also be +read. The prose works of Coleridge are obtainable in Bohn's Library. The +fortunate book lover has many in Pickering editions. + +{264e} _Cowper's Complete Works_ are acquired for a modest sum of the +second-hand bookseller in Southey's sixteen-volume edition. The two best +one-volume issues of the _Poems_ are the Globe Library Edition with an +introduction by Canon Benham (Macmillan), and _Cowper's Complete Poems_ +with an introduction by J. C. Bailey (Methuen). The best of the letters +are contained in a volume in the Golden Treasury Series, with an +introduction by Mrs. Oliphant. _The Complete Letters of Cowper_, edited +by Thomas Wright, have been published by Hodder & Stoughton in four +volumes. + +{265a} _Crabbe's Works_, in eight volumes, with biography by his son, +may be obtained very cheaply from the second-hand book seller. With all +the merits of both _Works_ and _Life_ they have not been reprinted +satisfactorily. The only good modern edition of _Crabbe's Poems_ is in +three volumes published by the Cambridge University Press, edited by A. +W. Ward. + +{265b} The best one-volume _Tennyson_ is issued by the Macmillans, who +still hold certain copyrights. The Library Edition of _Tennyson_, with +the Biography included in the twelve volumes, is a desirable acquisition. + +{265c} Not all the sixteen volumes of the Library Edition of _Browning_ +pay for perusal. The most convenient form is that of the two-volume +edition (Smith, Elder & Co.), with notes by Augustine Birrell. + +{265d} _Milton's Poetical Works_ as annotated by David Masson +(Macmillan) make the standard library edition, and the same publishers +have given us the best one-volume _Milton_ in the Globe Library, with an +introduction by Professor Masson, Milton's one effective biographer. + +{266a} _The Arabian Nights' Entertainments_ is first introduced to us +all as a children's story-book. Tennyson has placed on record his own +early memories:-- + + "In sooth it was a goodly time, + For it was in the golden prime + Of good Haroun Alraschid." + +But the collector of the hundred best books will do well to read the +_Arabian Nights_ in the translation by Edward William Lane, edited by +Stanley Lane Poole, in 4 volumes, for George Bell & Sons. + +{266b} The most satisfactory translation of Cervantes's great romance is +that made by John Ormesby, revised and edited by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, +published by Gowans & Gray in 4 shilling volumes. + +{266c} _The Pilgrim's Progress_ is presented in a hundred forms. The +present writer first read it in a penny edition. It should be possessed +by the book-lover in a volume of the Cambridge English Classics, in which +_Grace Abounding_ and _The Pilgrim's Progress_ are given together, edited +by Dr. John Brown, and published by the Cambridge University Press. + +{266d} Schoolboys, notwithstanding Macaulay, usually know but few good +books, but every schoolboy knows Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ in one form or +another. The maker of a library will prefer it as a Volume of Defoe's +_Works_ (J. M. Dent), or as Volume VII of Defoe's _Novels and +Miscellaneous Works_ (Bell & Sons). There are many good shilling +editions of the book by itself, but Defoe should be read in many of his +works and particularly in _Moll Flanders_. + +{267a} As with _Robinson Crusoe_, _Gulliver's Travels_ can be obtained +in many cheap forms, but it is well that it should be obtained as Volume +VIII of _Swift's Prose Works_, published in Bohn's Libraries by George +Bell & Sons. There has not been a really good edition of Swift's works +since Scott's monumental book. + +{267b} _Clarissa_ should be read in nine of the twenty volumes of +Richardson's Novels, published by Chapman & Hall--a very dainty +well-printed book. "I love these large, still books," said Lord +Tennyson. + +{267c} The greatest of all novels, _Tom Jones_, is obtainable in several +Library Editions of Fielding's _Works_. A cheap well-printed form is +that of the _Works of Henry Fielding_ in 12 volumes, published by Gay & +Bird. Here _The Story of Tom Jones a Foundling_ is in 4 volumes. The +book is in 2 volumes in Bohn's Library--an excellent edition. + +{267d} Johnson's _Rasselas_ has frequently been reprinted, but there is +no edition for a book-lover at present in the bookshops. It is included +in _Classic Tales_ in a volume of Bohn's Standard Library. The wise +course is to look out for one of the earlier editions with copper plates +that are constantly to be found on second-hand bookstalls. But Johnson's +_Works_ should be bought in a fine octavo edition. + +{268a} Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ should be possessed in the +edition which Mr. Hugh Thomson has illustrated and Mr. Austin Dobson has +edited for the Macmillans. There is a good edition of Goldsmith's +_Works_ in Bohn's Library. + +{268b} Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_ is also a volume for the second- +hand bookstall, although that and the equally fine _Tristram Shandy_ may +be obtained in many pretty forms. I have two editions of Sterne's books, +but they are both fine old copies. + +{268c} There are two very good editions of Peacock's delightful +romances. _Nightmare Abbey_ forms a volume of J. M. Dent's edition in 9 +volumes, edited by Dr. Garnett; and the whole of Peacock's remarkable +stories are contained in a single volume of Newnes' "Thin Paper +Classics." + +{268d} Sir Walter Scott's novels are available in many forms equally +worthy of a good library. The best is the edition published by Jack of +Edinburgh. The Temple Library of Scott (J. M. Dent) may be commended for +those who desire pocket volumes, while Mr. Andrew Lang's Introductions +give an added value to an edition published by the Macmillans, Scott's +twenty-eight novels are indispensable to every good library, and every +reader will have his own favourite. + +{268e} Balzac's novels are obtainable in a good translation by Ellen +Marriage, edited by George Saintsbury, published in New York by the +Macmillan Company and in London by J. M. Dent. + +{269a} A translation of Dumas' novels in 48 volumes is published by +Dent. _The Three Musketeers_ is in 2 volumes. There are many cheap one +volume editions. + +{269b} Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_ is pleasantly read in the edition of +his novels published by J. M. Dent. His original publishers, Smith, +Elder & Co., issue his works in many forms. + +{269c} The best edition of Charlotte Bronte's _Villette_ is that in the +"Haworth Edition," published by Smith, Elder & Co., with an Introduction +by Mrs. Humphry Ward. + +{269d} Charles Dickens' novels, of which _David Copperfield_ is +generally pronounced to be the best, should be obtained in the "Oxford +India Paper Dickens" (Chapman & Hall and Henry Frowde). A serviceable +edition is that published by the Macmillans, with Introductions by +Charles Dickens's son, but that edition still fails of _Our Mutual +Friend_ and _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, of which the copyright is not +yet exhausted. + +{269e} Anthony Trollope's novels are being reissued, in England by John +Lane and George Bell & Sons, and in America in a most attractive form by +Dodd, Mead & Co. All three publishers have a good edition of _Barchester +Towers_, Trollope's best novel. + +{269f} Boccaccio's _Decameron_ is in my library in many forms--in 3 +volumes of the Villon Society's publications, translated by John Payne; +in 2 handsome volumes issued by Laurence & Bullen; and in the Extra +Volumes of Bohn's Library. There is a pretty edition available published +by Gibbons in 3 volumes. + +{270a} Emily Bronte's _Wuthering Heights_ forms a volume of the Haworth +Edition of the Bronte novels, published by Smith, Elder & Co. It has an +introduction by Mrs. Humphry Ward. + +{270b} Charles Reade's _Cloister and the Hearth_ is available in many +forms. The pleasantest is in 4 volumes issued by Chatto & Windus, with +an Introduction by Sir Walter Besant. There is a remarkable shilling +edition issued by Collins of Glasgow. + +{270c} Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_ may be most pleasantly read in the +10 volumes, translated by M. Jules Gray, published by J. M. Dent & Co. + +{270d} Mrs. Gaskell's _Cranford_ can be obtained in the six volume +edition of that writer's works published by Smith, Elder & Co., with +Introductions by Dr. A. W. Ward; in a volume illustrated by Hugh Thomson, +with an Introduction by Mrs. Ritchie, published by the Macmillans, or in +the World's Classics (Henry Frowde), where there is an additional chapter +entitled, "The Cage at Cranford." + +{270e} The translation of George Sand's _Consuelo_ in my library is by +Frank H. Potter, 4 volumes, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. + +{270f} Lever's _Charles O'Malley_ I have as volumes of the _Complete +Works_ published by Downey. There is a pleasant edition in Nelson's +"Pocket Library." + +{271a} Macaulay's _History of England_ is available in many attractive +forms from the original publishers, the Longmans. There is a neat thin +paper edition for the pocket in 5 volumes issued by Chatto & Windus. + +{271b} For Carlyle's _Past and Present_ I recommend the Centenary +Edition of Carlyle's _Works_, published by Chapman & Hall. There is an +annotated edition of _Sartor Resartus_ by J. A. S. Barrett (A. & C. +Black), two annotated editions of _The French-Revolution_, one by Dr. +Holland Rose (G. Bell & Sons), and an other by C. R. L. Fletcher, 3 +volumes (Methuen), and an annotated edition of _The Cromwell Letters_, +edited by S. C. Lomax, 3 volumes (Methuen). No publisher has yet +attempted an annotated edition of _Past and Present_, but Sir Ernest +Clarke's translation of _Jocelyn of Bragelond_ (Chatto & Windus) may be +commended as supplemental to Carlyle's most delightful book. + +{271c} Motley's _Works_ are available in 9 volumes of a Library Edition +published by John Murray. A cheaper issue of the _Dutch Republic_ is +that in 3 volumes of the World's Classics, to which I have contributed a +biographical introduction. + +{271d} For many years the one standard edition of _Gibbon_ was that +published by John Murray, in 8 volumes, with notes by Dean Milman and +others. It has been superseded by Professor Bury's annotated edition in +7 volumes (Methuen). + +{272a} Plutarch's _Lives_, translated by A. Stewart and George Long, +form 4 volumes of Bohn's Standard Library. There is a handy volume for +the pocket in Dent's Temple Classics in 10 volumes, translated by Sir +Thomas North. + +{272b} Montaigne's _Essays_ I have in three forms; in the Tudor +Translations (David Nutt), where there is an Introduction to the 6 +volumes of Sir Thomas North's translation by the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham; +in Dent's Temple Classics, where John Florio's translation is given in 5 +volumes. A much valued edition is that in 3 volumes, the translation by +Charles Cotton, published by Reeves & Turner in 1877. + +{272c} Steele's essays were written for the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ +side by side with those of Addison. The best edition of _The Spectator_ +is that published in 8 volumes, edited by George A. Aitken for Nimmo, and +of _The Tatler_ that published in 4 volumes, edited also by Mr. Aitken +for Duckworth & Co. + +{272d} Lamb's _Essays of Elia_ can be read in a volume of the Eversley +Library (Macmillan), edited by Canon Ainger. The standard edition of +Lamb's _Works_ is that edited by Mr. E. V. Lucas, in 7 volumes, for +Methuen. Mr. Lucas's biography of Lamb has superseded all others. + +{272e} Thomas de Quincey's _Opium Eater_ may be obtained as a volume of +Newnes's Thin Paper Classics, in the World's Classics, or in Dent's +Everyman's Library. But the _Complete Works_ of De Quincey, in 16 +volumes, edited by David Mason and published by A. & C. Black, should be +in every library. + +{273a} William Hazlitt never received the treatment he deserved until +Mr. J. M. Dent issued in 1903 his _Collected Works_, in 13 volumes, +edited by A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover. Of cheap reprints of Hazlitt I +commend _The Spirit of the Age_, _Winterslow_ and _Sketches and Essays_, +three separate volumes of the World's Classics (Frowde). + +{273b} George Borrow's _Lavengro_ should only be read in Mr. John +Murray's edition, as it there contains certain additional and valuable +matter gathered from the original manuscript by William I. Knapp. The +Library Edition of Borrow, in 6 volumes (Murray), may be particularly +commended. + +{273c} Emerson's _Complete Works_ are published by the Routledges in 4 +volumes, in which _Representative Men_ may be found in Vol. II. Some may +prefer the Eversley Library _Emerson_, which has an Introduction by John +Morley. There are many cheap editions of about equal value. + +{273d} Lander's _Imaginary Conversations_ form six volumes of the +complete _Landor_, edited by Charles G. Crump, and published in 10 +volumes by J. M. Dent. + +{273e} Matthew Arnold's _Essays in Criticism_ is published by Macmillan. +It also forms Vol. III of the Library Edition of his _Works_ in 15 +volumes. A "Second Series" has less significance. + +{273f} _The Works of Herodotus_, published by the Macmillans, translated +by George C. Macaulay, is the best edition for the general reader. Canon +Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, published by John Murray, has had a longer life, +but is now only published in an abridged form. + +{274a} James Howell's _Familiar Letters_, or _Epistolae Ho Elianae_, +should be read in the edition published in 2 volumes by David Nutt, with +an Introduction by Joseph Jacobs. + +{274b} _The History of Civilization_, by Henry Thomas Buckle, is in my +library in the original 2 volumes published by Parker in 1857. It is now +issued in 3 volumes in Longman's Silver Library, and in 3 volumes in the +World's Classics. + +{274c} _The History of Tacitus_ should be read in the translation by +Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodripp. It is published by the +Macmillans. + +{274d} _Our Village_, by Mary Russell Mitford, is a collection of essays +which in their completest form may be obtained in two volumes of Bohn's +Library (Bell). The essential essays should be possessed in the edition +published by the Macmillans--_Our Village_, by Mary Russell Mitford, with +an Introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, and one hundred illustrations +by Hugh Thomson. + +{274e} Green's _Short History of the English People_ is published by the +Macmillans in 1 volume, or illustrated in 4 volumes. The book was +enlarged, but disimproved, under the title of _A History of the English +People_, in 4 volumes, uniform with the _Conquest of England_ and the +_Making of England_ by the same author. + +{275a} Taine's _Ancient Regime_ is a good introduction to the conditions +which made the French Revolution. It forms the first volume of _Les +Origines de la France Contemporaine_, and may be read in a translation by +John Durand, published by Dalby, Isbister & Co. in 1877. + +{275b} _The Life of Napoleon_ has been written by many pens, in our own +day most competently by Dr. Holland Rose (2 vols. Bell); but a good +account of the Emperor, indispensable for some particulars and an +undoubted classic, is that by de Bourrienne, Napoleon's private +secretary, published in an English translation, in 4 volumes, by Bentley +in 1836. + +{275c} _Democracy in America_, by Alexis de Tocqueville, may be had in a +translation by Henry Reeve, published in 2 volumes by the Longmans. Read +also _A History of the United States_ by C. Benjamin Andrews, 2 volumes +(Smith, Elder), and above all the _American Commonwealth_, by James +Bryce, 2 volumes (Macmillan). + +{275d} _The Compleat Angler_ of Isaac Walton may be purchased in many +forms. I have a fine library edition edited by that prince of living +anglers, Mr. R. B. Marston, called The Lea and Dove Edition, this being +the 100th edition of the book (Sampson Low, 1888). I have also an +edition edited by George A. B. Dewar, with an Introduction by Sir Edward +Grey and Etchings by William Strang and D. Y. Cameron, 2 volumes +(Freemantle), and a 1 volume edition published by Ingram & Cooke in the +Illustrated Library. + +{276a} There are many editions of Gilbert White's _Natural History of +Selbourne_ to be commended. Three that are in my library are (1) edited +with an Introduction and Notes by L. C. Miall and W. Warde Fowler +(Methuen); (2) edited with Notes by Grant Allen, illustrated by Edmund H. +New (John Lane); (3) rearranged and classified under subjects by Charles +Mosley (Elliot Stock). + +{276b} Of _Boswell's Life of Johnson_ there are innumerable editions. +The special enthusiast will not be happy until he possesses Dr. Birkbeck +Hill's edition in 6 volumes (Clarendon Press). The most satisfactory 1 +volume edition is that published on thin paper by Henry Frowde. I have +in my library also a copy of the first edition of _Boswell_ in 2 volumes. +It was published by Henry Baldwin in 1791. + +{276c} The best edition of Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ is that published +in 10 volumes by Jack of Edinburgh. Readers should beware of +abridgments, although one of these was made by Lockhart himself. The +whole eighty-five chapters are worth reading, even in the 1 volume +edition published by A. & C. Black. + +{276d} _Pepys's Diary_ can be obtained in Bohn's Library or in Newnes' +Thin Paper Classics, but Pepys should only be read under Mr. H. B. +Wheatley's guidance. A cheap edition of his book, in 8 volumes, has +recently been published by George Bell & Sons. I have No. 2 of the large +paper edition of this book, No. 1 having gone to Pepys's own college of +Brazenose, where the Pepys cypher is preserved. + +{277a} Until recently one knew Walpole's _Letters_ only through Peter +Cunningham's edition, in 9 volumes (Bentley), and this has still +exclusive matter for the enthusiast, Cunningham's Introduction to wit; +but the Clarendon Press has now published Walpole's _Letters_, edited by +Mrs. Paget Toynbee, in 16 volumes, or in 8. Here are to be found more +letters than in any previous edition. + +{277b} _The Memoirs of Count de Gramont_, by Anthony, Count Hamilton, +can be obtained in splendid type, unannotated, in an edition published by +Arthur L. Humphreys. A well-illustrated and well-edited edition is that +published by Bickers of London and Scribner of New York, edited by Allan +Fea. + +{277c} Gray's _Letters_, with poems and life, form 4 volumes in +Macmillan's Eversley Library, edited by Edmund Gosse. + +{277d} You can obtain Southey's _Nelson_, originally written for +Murray's Pocket Library as a publisher's commission, in one well-printed +volume, with Introduction by David Hannay, published by William +Heinemann. It should, however, be supplemented in the _Life_ by Captain +Mahan (2 volumes, Sampson Low & Co.), or by Professor Laughton's _Nelson +and His Companion in Arms_ (George Allen). + +{277e} Moore's _Life and Letters of Byron_ is published by John Murray +in 6 volumes. It is best purchased second-hand in an old set. Moore's +book must be supplemented by the 6 volumes of _Correspondence_ edited by +Rowland Prothero for Mr. Murray. + +{278a} Sir George Trevelyan says in his _Early History of Charles James +Fox_ that Hogg's _Life of Shelley_ is "perhaps the most interesting book +in our language that has never been republished." The reproach has been +in some slight measure removed by a cheap reprint in small type issued by +the Routledges in 1906. The reader should, however, secure a copy of the +first edition, 2 volumes, 1857. Professor Dowden, in his _Life of +Shelley_, 1886, uses the book freely. + +{278b} "What is the best book you have ever read?" Emerson is said to +have asked George Eliot when she was about twenty-two years of age and +residing, unknown, near Coventry. "Rousseau's _Confessions_," was the +reply. "I agree with you," Emerson answered. But the book should not be +read in a translation. The completest translation is one in 2 volumes +published by Nicholls. There is a more abridged translation by Gibbons +in 4 volumes. + +{278c} _The Life of Carlyle_, by James Anthony Froude, which created so +much controversy upon its publication, is worthy of a cheap edition, +which does not, however, seem to be forthcoming. The book appeared in 4 +volumes, _The First Forty Years_ in 1882 and _Life in London_ in 1884. It +had been preceded by _Reminiscences_ in 1881. Every one should read the +_Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle_, 3 volumes, 1883. All the +9 volumes are published by the Longmans. + +{279a} Samuel Rogers' _Table Talk_ has been given us in two forms, first +as _Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers_, edited by +Alexander Dyce, 1856, and second as _Reminiscences of Samuel Rogers_, +1859. The _Recollections_ were reprinted in handsome form by H. A. +Rogers, of New Southgate, in 1887, and the material was combined in a +single volume in 1903 by G. H. Powell (R. Brimley Johnson). I have the +four books, and delight in the many good stories they contain. + +{279b} _The Confessions of St. Augustine_ may be commended in many small +and handy editions. One, with an Introduction by Alice Meynell, was +published in 1900. The most beautifully printed modern edition is that +issued by Arthur Humphreys in his Classical Series. + +{279c} Amiel's _Journal_ is a fine piece of introspection. A +translation by Mrs. Humphry Ward is published in 2 volumes by the +Macmillans. De Senancour's _Obermann_, translated by A. E. Waite +(Wellby), should be read in this connexion. + +{279d} _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_, translated by George Long, +appears as a volume of Bohn's Library, and more beautifully printed in +the Library of Arthur Humphreys. There are many other good +translations--one by John Jackson, issued in 1906 by the Clarendon Press, +has great merit. + +{279e} George Henry Lewes's _Life of Goethe_ has gone through many +editions and remains a fascinating book, although it may be supplemented +by the translation of Duntzer's _Life of Goethe_, 2 volumes, Macmillan, +and Bielschowsky's _Life of Goethe_, Vols. I and II (Putnams). + +{280a} _The Life of Lessing_, by James Sime, is not a great biography, +but it is an interesting and most profitable study of a noble man. +Lessing will be an inspiration greater almost than any other of the +moderns for those who are brought in contact with his fine personality. +The book is in 2 volumes, published by the Trubners. + +{280b} You can read Benjamin Franklin's _Autobiography_ in 1 volume +(Dent), or in his Collected Works--_Memoirs of the Life and Writings of +Benjamin Franklin_, edited by his grandson, William Temple Franklin, 6 +volumes (Colburn), 1819. There have been at least two expensive reprints +of his _Works_ of late years. + +{280c} _The Greville Memoirs_ were published in large octavo form in the +first place. Much scandal was omitted from the second edition. They are +now obtainable in 8 volumes of Longmans' Silver Library. They form an +interesting glimpse into the Court life of the later Guelphs. + +{280d} It has been complained of John Forster's _Life of Charles +Dickens_ that there is too much Forster and not enough Dickens. Yet it +is the only guide to the life-story of the greatest of the Victorian +novelists. Is most pleasant to read in the 2 volumes of the Gadshill +Edition, published by Chapman & Hall. + +{280e} _The Early Diary of Frances Burney_, afterwards Madame D'Arblay, +edited by Annie Raine Ellis, has just been reprinted in two volumes of +Bohn's Library (Bell). We owe also to Mr. Austen Dobson a fine reprint +of the later and more important _Diaries_, which he has edited in 6 +volumes for the Macmillans. + +{281a} The _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ of John Henry Newman is one of the +volumes of Cardinal Newman's _Collected Works_ issued by the Longmans. It +is the most interesting, and is perhaps the most destined to survive, of +all the books of theological controversy of the nineteenth century. + +{281b} There is practically but one edition of the _Paston Letters_, +that edited by James Gairdner, of the Public Record Office, and published +by the firm of Archibald Constable. The luxurious Library Edition issued +by Chatto & Windus in 6 volumes should be acquired if possible. + +{281c} _The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini_ is best known in the +translation of Thomas Roscoe in Bohn's Library. Mr. J. Addington +Symonds, however, made a new translation, issued in two fine volumes by +Nimmo. + +{281d} The _Religio Medici_ of Sir Thomas Browne can be obtained in many +forms, although the well-to-do collector will be satisfied only with the +edition edited by Simon Wilkin. The book is admirably edited by W. A. +Greenhill for the "Golden Treasury Series." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMMORTAL MEMORIES*** + + +******* This file should be named 21869.txt or 21869.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/8/6/21869 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/21869.zip b/21869.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cba9a5d --- /dev/null +++ b/21869.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22160fe --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #21869 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21869) |