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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. 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