SOME WRITIF; RICHARD MO^'TT^-^^ • '^IS LORD HOu^jTii T\f -rri ■^ssi BER K El TTy\. LIBRARY UNIVER5 , V OF j CALIFORNIA/ P SOME WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD HOUGHTON IN THE LAST YEAR OF HIS LIFE Some Writings and Speeches OF RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES LORD HOUGHTON IN THE LAST YEAR OF HIS LIFE WITH A NOTICE IN MEMORIAM BY George Stovin Venables, Q^C. LONDON PRIVATELY PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS 1888 9sJ2 CONTENTS. Page I ORD HOUGHTON . . . His Royal Highness Prince ^) l.;^^^^^**^!' Leopold, Duke of Albany. l(\ L?^^^r\ ^'^ Memoriam y ' — ...... J h ) Edward Cheney. In Me- moriam Henry Bright. In Memoriam .... Valedictory 77 Coleridge 85 Unveiling the Gray Memorial at Cam- bridge 91 The Wordsworth Society 105 English Critics and present American Literature. Impromptu Lines . . . 133 15 33 51 718 LORD HOUGHTON. LORD HOUGHTON. ORD HOUGHTON is deeply mourned by a few furvivors of his own gene- ration, and he is miffed and regretted in a much wider circle. None of his contemporaries had fo wide and various an acquaintance with fociety, in which he had always mixed, not only as a critical obferver, but with the heartieft enjoym.ent and fympathy. It is poffible that Sir Robert Peel may have made a mif- take in not introducing his brilliant follower to official life ; yet it is fcarcely to be regretted that he was left to make an original and con- genial career for himself. Few per- fons had a founder judgment when circumftances required that he Ihould be ferious. One of his friends, the 2 Lord Houghton. late Mr. W. E. Forfler, who feemed to have nothing in common with him, often faid that he thought no opinion on difficult political queftions fo valuable as Lord Houghton's. On fome of the moft important matters of foreign policy his effed:ive fym- pathy was cordially appreciated by the reprefentatives of more than one national caufe. His fervices to Italy earned the gratitude of Cavour, and of Vidlor Emmanuel himfelf ; and during a vilit to America, long after the clofe of the Civil War, he found himfelf welcomed almoft as a public gueft in the Northern States of the Union. Both in and out of Parlia- ment he took an active part in many focial movements. He introduced the firft Bill for the eftablifhment of re- formatories, and he was the founder and Prelident of the Newfpaper Prefs Fund. He inherited from his father, who had refufed Cabinet office at the age of twenty-three, a Lord Houghton, 3 remarkable command of language, which made him, in conjunction with other gifts, perhaps the befl after-dinner fpeaker of his time, and which charaderifed his literary com- pofitions ; but he failed as a Parlia- mentary orator through the adoption of a formal and almoft pompous manner, which was wholly foreign to his genius and his difpofition, though it might have fuited the tafte of an earlier generation. One of the moft humorous of companions, he referved for the Houfe of Com- mons a curioully artificial gravity. There were politicians enough to occupy themfelves with party con- flids. It was the bufmefs of Milnes to fludy human nature in its moft oppofite phafes at home and abroad, Mr. Difraeli,in*'Tancred,"defcribed him under the name of " Vavafour," with a friendly fatire which was fcarcely a caricature. It was literally true, though the ftatement was pro- 4 Lord Houghton, bably intended by its author as a mere exaggeration of his wide range of fympathies, that Vavafour " had ** dined with Louis Philippe, and " had received Louis Blanc at din- " ner." The catalogue of his tem- porary and permanent acquaintance- fhips would have formed an almoft exhauftive lift of the moft con- fpicuous men of adtion or of letters in Europe and America. From all he acquired the fpecial kind of know- ledge which he inftindtively valued, and wherever he was placed he gave at leaft as much as he received. Many years ago a commonplace man of the world, who only knew him flightly, and who fhared few of his taftes, remarked, as others muft have often faid or thought, " When- " ever Milnes comes into a room, " everybody is in better humour " with everybody elfe." At his own houfe he liked, as Difraeli faid of Vavafour, to colled: from time to Lord Houghton, 5 time guefts of the moft oppofite characters and opinions, as if for the purpofe of exercifing his own pecu- liar power of bringing them into pleafant intercourfe. An Archbifhop fometimes found himfelf fitting at dinner by the fide of a zealous Radical, and a Pofitivift philofopher had the opportunity of finding that an orthodox Tory could make him- felf agreeable. In general fociety, as well as in his own houfe, Lord Houghton pofl^efiled in a degree which is rarely attained the faculty of pleafant con- verfation. The extraordinary range of his focial experience furnifhed him with an inexhaufiiible fupply of anecdote, which never degenerated into goflip. Every flory which he told had a purpofe and a point, and it was always feafonable, and fre- quently illuftrative, even when it happened to be in its literal form abfolutely incredible. His copious 6 Lord Houghton, ftores of narrative were not, like thofe of fome of his competitors, his principal qualification as a talker. He was always ready to engage in the give-and-take play of converfa- tion, and he felt keen enjoyment in the exchange of wit and humour, and on fit occafions in ferious difcuf- fion. Perhaps the greateft charm of his focial intercourfe was the joyous fpirit and unfailing good humour which would have made a duller companion agreeable and popular. His gifts were cordially appreciated both by ordinary members of fociety and by remarkable perfons who might have been thought to be feparated from him by irreconcilable differences of intelled:, of character, and of temperament. Lord Hough- ton was the intimate friend and favourite afibciate of Bifhop Thirl- wall, and his cheerful paradoxes often diffipated the moral indigna- tion of Carlyle. A commentator Lord Houghton, 7 on Mr. Froude's biography com- pared, not inaccurately, the friendly contefts of the gloomy prophet and the felf-poflelTed man of the world to a combat between ihcjecutor and the retiariiis of the Roman arena. Not- withftanding an occafional burft of fuperficial irritation, Carlyle de- lighted in the audacious fophifms and witty evafions with which Lord Houghton baffled his eloquent attacks. Two humorifts as diffimilar to another as they were unlike the reft of the world could not be more equally matched. There were pro- bably fome ferious and unimagina- tive judgments to which perpetual verfatility and multiform irony failed to approve themfelves ; but candid obfervers, who felt an imperfed: fympathy with Lord Houghton, might have fatisfied themfelves that his reputation was well deferved when they faw that he was valued by his friends almoft in the propor- 8 Lord Houghton. tion of their refpe6tive opportunities of underflanding his character. Cofmopolitan faciHty often indi- cates fhallownefs of feeUng ; but Lord Houghton was the warmeft and mofl tenacious of friends. To the laft he carefully cultivated the intercourfe of his few remaining College friends, and he retained the other attachments which he had formed in the various ftages of his career. A few weeks before his death he attended, in accordance with his annual cuftom, the dinner of a Society to which he had be- longed when he was an under- graduate, as fome of the adlual members are at prefent. His intereft on fuch occafions was not merely the natural defire of a veteran to revive the affociations of his youth. He felt a real pleafure in becoming acquainted with his remote fuccef- fors after the lapfeof many academic Lord Houghton, 9 generations, and they were probably furprifed at the gaiety and frefh- nefs which were fcarcely impaired by the lapfe of more than feventy years. In all relations of life he was unaffed:edly and warmly fympa- thetic. No one could be more ex- empt from the pretenfion of aufterity, and it was not unfrequently his pleafure to aflume an attitude of even exceffive tolerance ; but, if Wordfworth was right in defining " the beft portions of a good man's " life " as confifting of " His little namelefs, unremembered a£ls " Of kindnefs and of love," Lord Houghton need not have feared comparifon with the moft pretentious philanthropifts. He never made the general demands of fociety, which he recognized more fully than others, an cxcufe for flight- ing any claim on his attention which might be juftly preferred on fpecial lo Lord Houghton. grounds, even by thofe who might be confidered as dull or obfcure. Scarcely any one in the courfe of fifty years has performed fo many acfls of perfonal kindnefs. A poor Scotch verfifier many years ago re- corded in a pofthumous memoir his gratitude to the popular and prof- perous gentleman who in addition to more important fervices was in the habit of bringing him privately deli- cacies from his own table. Many fimilar anecdotes have been repeated by objects of his beneficence, and more remain untold. His kindly notice of young afpirants to focial or literary fuccefs, where there could be no queftion of pecuniary aflift- ance, is probably ftill remembered in their maturer life. Lord Houghton's writings in profe and verfe have been juftly appreciated. He was a genuine, though not a great or ambitious, poet ; and his profe ftyle was, as has Liord Houghton, 1 1 been the cafe with many minor poets, fingularly accurate and grace- ful. His biographical writings fug- gefl a feeling of regret that he had not cultivated ftill more habitually a form of compolition in which he excelled. His " Life of Keats " was happily infpired by fympathy and admiration ; but his befl contribu- tions to biographical literature were founded on perfonal knowledge. His love for the ftudy of character, and his fkill in conveying his im- preffions to others, enabled him to profit by abundant opportunities of obfervation. In the Preface or Dedication to the " Monographs Per- " fonal and Social" he avows his pre- ference for a choice of fubjedls which needed no apology. " Although," he faid, " I am not aware that in " thefe pages the perfonality of the " writer is unduly prominent, I am " not forry to have this opportunity of 12 "Lord Houghton, ** vindicating the advantage of an in- * * timate perfonal relation between the " defcriberand the defcribed. It may " indeed, fometimes, give to the reader ** the fenfe of a double purpofe which ** damages the integrity of the work; ** but far more is gained by the " confcioufnefs of the fincerity of an ** affectionate intereft than is loft by " the exhibition of any cafual vanity, ** which is oftenbut the reflex of loyal ** admiration." He had previoufly remarked that " a truthful impreflion ** may be produced by a combination ** of general and perfonal obfervation, ** which, while it leaves the charad:ers ** in the main to fpeak for themfelves, *' aims at fomething like a literary ** unity of defign." Among the incidental advantages which Lord Houghton derived from his accomplilhments in profe and verfe was the facility which his literary tafles and purfuits afforded Lord Houghton. 13 for appreciating and encouraging others. It was a good excufe for exerting himfelf to eftablilh the reputation of a younger author, that the critic and patron belonged to the fame craft or myftery with the afpiring cHent. His generous and cordial temper, exhibited in all the relations of life, might have atoned for graver faults than the harmlefs foibles which fcarcely formed an alloy to high intelled:ual gifts and to abundant virtues. Some harmlefs eccentricities which may be readily acknowledged required rather ex- planation than excufe. Lord Houghton was a fanfaron^ not of vices, but of paradoxical fallacies, which feldom deceived himfelf. Like other genuine humorifts, he had fome mannerifms, which irri- tated and milled ftrangers and dull obfervers. One of his half-confcious peculiarities was a habit of propound- 14 Lord Houghton. ing, in a tone of earneft convi6lion, any odd paradox which had for the moment pafled acrofs his fancy. Dull hearers took his off-hand utterances for his real opinions, and refented the intelled:ual vivacity which found it impoffible to reft in commonplaces and truifms. Like Tennyfon's Ulyffes, he enjoyed all things greatly, though it may be hoped that he had no fufferings beyond the common incidents of humanity. It is certain that he drained life to the lees, and, if he could have chofen his own deftiny, he would have wifhed for the end which has been deeply lamented by his friends. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE LEOPOLD, DUKE OF ALBANY. 3ln ^emoriam. Reprinted from fol. XV, of the P/iilobtblon Society'' s Mifcellanies. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE LEOPOLD, DUKE OF ALBANY. 3|n e^emoriam. HEN the Philobiblon Society was eftablifhed by myfelf in conjundion with M. Sylvain Van de Weyer, the Minifter of Belgium, it was thought moft confonant with the international charadler we de- lired to give it that we fhould offer the Prelidency to the Due d'Aumale, then reliding at Twickenham in fumptuous and ftudious exile. His Royal Highnefs was a leading member of the French Societe des i8 H,R.H, Duke ofAlba7iy. Bibliophiles, had already brought to Orleans Houfe a portion of his wonderful library, and was con- ftrudling a receptacle for the re- mainder, which foon afterwards arrived in England. In him we found for many years a moft fympa- thetic and hofpitable head, and in his later vifits to his Englifh eftates, he feldom mifTes an opportunity of joining our gatherings. But when our Sovereign allied herfelf to a Prince of diflinguifhed culture, frefh from a German uni- verfity, it was only becoming, as a mark of loyal refped, that we fhould apply to him to become our Preli- dent, and to transfer to our valued foreign colleague the fomewhat indefinite title of Patron. Prince Albert accepted the propofal, and was duly ele(5ted to the dignity ; he received the ufual notices of our meetings, and received and acknow- In Memoriam. 1 9 ledged the volumes we ifTued from time to time, but he neither con- tributed to our mifcellanies, nor joined in any of our affemblies. It would have been natural to fo cul- tured a Prince in a German Court to have availed himfelf of fuch an opportunity of invefligating the moft interefting libraries of the metropolis, efpecially fuch as thofe of Baron Heath and Mr. Huth, which had been little feen by the public. It would befides have been within the rules of the ftricfteft etiquette for His Royal Highnefs to have accepted the hofpitalities of a French Prince connected by marriage with our Royal family, of the Belgian Family Minifter, of the Duke of Hamilton, of Lord Powys, or of other of our colleagues with whom he had a perfonal acquaintance. For myfelf I was not furprifed at this abftention, for I had heard, either directly from 20 H.R.H, Duke of Alba?ty. Baron Stockmar, or indiredtly from the Chevalier Bunfen, that foon after his marriage the Prince, at the fuggeflion of King Leopold, had made fome advances towards a more informal intimacy with fome leading men of letters, fcience, and art, which might have led to a perfonal and independent fociety of a more intellediual and aefthetic character than was fupplied by ordinary Eng- lifh high life, but that the Prince had informed the King that he found the focial furroundings too ftrong for him, and that he had to content himfelf with the intimacy of the various important political perfonages wdth whom he was brought into contact at Windfor and Balmoral. However this may be, we had not the focial and intellectual fatisfacflion of the prefence of the thoughtful and cultivated Prince Confort. In Memoriam. 21 After the domeftic and national calamity of His Royal Highnefs's death, our prelidency remained in abeyance ; for, although the Prince of Wales developed a general intereft in many intellectual directions, it was not known that he fliowed any fuch efpecial care for books as books, as would have authorifed our Society to occupy his time and attention. He was not therefore alked to oc- cupy his father's place, but any of our articles on fubjed:s likely to in- tereft His Royal Highnefs were regu- larly fent to him. He particularly thanked me for our memoir of that almofl unintelligible hillorical per- fonage his great-great-grandfather Frederick, Prince of Wales, and for the portion we were allowed to print of the amufing diary of Lady Harcourt, which we fhould have been very glad to have given in its integrity, had the family to whom it 22 H.R.H, Duke of Albany, belongs and ftill higher perfonages permitted. It was therefore to our great fatif- fadtion that we became aware that the Queen's youngeft fon fhowed a remarkable inclination towards the tafles and purfuits which our Society reprefents, and we welcomed the pro- mife of fo fuitable and fympathetic a Prefident. We heard that His Royal Highnefs's tutors were well fatisfied with his progrefs in his or- dinary ftudies, and that Mr. (now Canon) Duckworth recognized in him a decided bias towards hiftorical enquiry, which is the foundeft foundation of bibliographical know- ledge. As he grew up he became eager to colled; books, efpecially thofe of any perfonal intereft : the firft of this nature and of any im- portance that he acquired was a Horace which had belonged to Martin Luther, with marginal notes In Mejnoriam, 23 in the Reformer's handwriting, which was given him by Mr. (now Sir Theodore) Martin, who, belides Dean Stanley, was the only recog- nized man of letters with whom he came into immediate contad:. The Dean had been early attracted by the charader of the Prince's mind and his literary inclinations, and had defcribed him in a letter to a lady as a youth who in diftant times would have become a Prince- Cardinal, patron of letters, with a fplendid library, or polTibly, under a peaceful government, a Prince- Minifter. When he had begun to learn the value of books, he often lamented that with fuch a fortune as he was likely to poflefs, he did not fee how he was to acquire any of great rarity or iirfl-rate interefl, and his valued friend of many years. Sir Robert Collins, remembers the long fearch 24 H.R.H, Du ke of Albany . they made through London for any folio of Shakefpeare that might come within the Prince's means. Not being an Oxford man my- felf I can add nothing to the in- terefting monograph of Mr. F. Myers in the "Fortnightly Review" of May, 1884, in which the Prince's ftudies, habits, and relations with the choiceft fociety of the place, are amply defcribed. Efpecial reference is there made to his affecflionate and reverential intercourfe with the great mafter of letters and art, Mr. Rufkin, and thus, when I undertook this flight obituary notice I applied to Mr.Ruflcin for affiftance, but un- fortunately in vain. Heanfwered: — ** In their proper place in fpeak- ** ing of the Oxford Schools or any '* other of my attempts in education, ** I may exprefs the thanks due to " the Prince for his perfonal kind- ** nefs to me. But I do not think it ht Memoriapt. 25 " would be on my part becoming '* either to ufe his name with the " apparent view of doing honour to " myfelf, or to prefent to the Eng- " Hfh public, as if of importance to " their eftimate of him, the few '* incidents of the hours he could " fpare to me." I reprefented, but without fuccefs, to Mr. Rufkin that this memorial was of a private nature. There is no doubt that a charadier of the Prince, fomewhat after the manner of St. Simon, by Mr. Rullcin, would be a moil valuable addition to the private hiftory of the Royal Family. Prince Leopold foon began to be connefted with the foundation and organization of charitable inflitutions, both in London and in the provinces. I met him at Sheffield on the occa- fion of the eftablifhment of the Firth Inftitution, and on my expreffing my furprife that having attained the 4 26 H,R.H, Duke of Albany, requiiite age he had not been made a member of the Houfe of Lords, and my hope that he would foon take an active part in its proceedings, he faid he did not know the caufe of the delay, which I fufpedl was connected with his ftate of health, and added humoroufly, **I tell ** them, if they put it off much ** longer, I {hall fland for a Liberal " conflituency." Again, later, when I vilited him at Claremont, and told him of my intereft in the place, from the cir- cumftance that it had once belonged to my grandfather Lord Galway, and that my mother had been born there, he faid gravely, " I am very glad to **hear of anybody having been born " here. The place is haunted with " death ; there is a tragedy in every ** room." As Prelident of the Newfpaper Prefs Fund, I was glad to induce In Mefnoriam, 27 the Duke of Albany to take the chair at our anniverfary of 1883, where he fuccefsfully made his debut as Chairman. Sir R. Collins writes to me that his fpeeches were very carefully prepared, and learned by heart, but that he occafionally altered them in utterance, without damage to their ftrudture. In his Prefs-Fund fpeech he alluded to the fpecial correfpondents as ** men of " our race who one likes to know are " always prefent when hiftory is in " the making," and fpoke with much delicacy of thofe writers of fecial journalifm who, in the ftruggle of competition, and in the hafte of com- polition, may be tempted into un- candid report and the inflid-ion of needlefs pain. His lafl fpeech was delivered on the occalion of a Memorial to the late Archbifhop of Canterbury. I am glad to record a paflage of it, 28 H»R,H, Duke of Albany. which feems to me to exprefs Prince Leopold's ideal of life. After fpeak- ing of Archbifhop Tait as a high- minded dignitary and indefatigable worker, he fays, " Our Englifh hif- '* tory, which records fo many ** heroes of duty, can fcarcely point " to any purer inftance of the lingle- " mindednefs which forgets felf in *' great public objedls, or of the " confcientioufnefs which makes a " man refufe, under any prefTure of " temptation or wearinefs, to do lefs " than his utmoft, or to be lefs than " his beft." The Prince joined our Society in 1882, and twice took part in our meet- ings : once at my houfe, where he met the Due d'Aumale and fome of our leading members. After dinner I remember the enterprizing book- feller, Mr. Quaritch, faluting the greatFrenchbibliophilewith,*'Ihave " confronted your Royal Highnefs in In Memoriam, 29 " every book fale-room in Europe, " with various refults of vid:ory and " defeat." The other occafion w^as on June 23rd, 1883, at Mr. Hucks Gibbs's beautiful villa in the Regent's Park. I was in Egypt in the fpring of 1884, and was projecting a letter to Claremont to afk whether it would be agreeable to his Royal Highnefs to receive our Society there fome day in the approaching fummer, when the Eafter feftivities of the Englifh colony at Cairo were arrefted by a telegram announcing the death of the Duke of Albany, which took place on the 29th of March, after a brief fpring holiday on the Riviera, where he pafled away, to the irre- parable lofs of a wife who had known barely two years of cloudlefs married life, of an infant daughter, and of a fon yet unborn, adding one more to the forrows of our much-tried 30 H.R.H, Duke of Albany, Queen, to whom he had been a child of many cares, leaving lincere regrets with many affectionate friends, and a tender and refped:ful memory with the Englifh people. I have not infifted on the con- tinuous bad health which caft a gloom over this young life, but I am glad to fubjoin the touching lines of the late Dean Stanley, in- fpired by this reflediion, which I believe are little known. THE UNTRAVELLED TRAVELLER. By A. P. S. [Firji printed in Alar ch, 1875. Reprinted March, 1884.) **When brothers part for manhood's race," And gladly feek from year to year, From fcene to fcene, from place to place. The wonders of each opening fphere, Is there no venturous path in ftore. To undifcovered haunt or fhore, For him whom Fate forbade to roam, The untravelled traveller at home ? In Memoriam, 31 Yes, gallant youth ! What though to thee Nor Egypt's fands, nor Ruflia's fnows, Nor Grecian ifle, nor tropic fea, Nor Weftern worlds, their wealth difclofe ? Thy wanderings have been vafter far Than midnight fun or fouthern ftar ; And thou, too, haft thy trophies won, Of toils achieved, and exploits done. For thrice thy weary feet have trod The pathway to the realms of Death ; And leaning on the hand of God, With halting ftep, and panting breath, Thrice from the edge of that dead bourn, From which no travellers return, Thou haft, like him who rofe at Nain, Come back to life and light again. Each winding of that mournful way. Each inlet of that ftiadowy fhore. Thro' reftlefs night and tedious day 'Twas thine to fathom and explore, Thro' hairbreadth 'fcapes and fhocks as rude As e'er are met in fire or flood, Thou, in thy folitary ftrife, Haft borne aloft thy charmed life. Yet in this pilgrimage of ill Sweet trails and ifles of peace were thine — Dear watchful friends, ftrong gentle fkill, Confoling words of Love Divine, 32 H,R.H, Duke of Albany. A Royal mother's ceafelefs care, A nation's fympathizing prayer, The Everlafting Arms beneath That lighten'd even the load of death. Thofe long defcents, that upward climb. Shall give an inward ftrength and force, Breath'd as by Alpine heights fublime Through all thy dark and perilous courfe. Not Afric's fwamps nor Bifcay's wave Demand a heart more firm and brave, Than may for thee be borne and bred. Even on thy fick and lonely bed. And ftill as months and years roll by A world-wide profpedl fhall unfold — The realm of art, the poet's fky. The land of wifdom's pur eft gold. Thefe (halt thou traverfe, to and fro, In fearch of thefe thy heart (hall glow. And many a ftraggler fhall be led, To follow in thine onward tread. ** Haft Thou, O Father, dear and true, ** One bleffing only — none for me ? " Blefs, O my Father, blefs me too, ''Out of Thy boundlefs charity." Reft, troubled fpirit, calmly reft : He blefles, and thou ftialt be bleft ; And from thy hard-wrought happinefs Thou wilt the world around thee blefs. February, 12, 1875. EDWARD CHENEY. 31n ^emoriam* Reprinted from Vol. XV. of the Philobiblon Society'' s Mifcellanies. EDWARD CHENEY. 3[n a^cmotiam. URING the twenties and thirties of this century the brothers Cheney were very notable perfonages in the Anglo-Italian fociety of the time. I couple them thus, not only becaufe their clofe and continuous conjunc- tion gave them more focial impor- tance than each would have indi- vidually acquired, but becaufe this perfiftent and unbroken fraternity, with little difference of age, ferioufly influenced their intellectual and moral character and even their def- tiny in life. The fimilarity of dif- pofition and the certainty of fympathy 36 Edward Cheney, in adlion and thought, whether right or wrong, combined with ftrong and narrowpolitical opinions, encouraged the faftidioufnefs in general com- merce with mankind, which became their pecuhar and not mofh amiable charadieriflic, and which, if it had not been modified by a capacity for friendship and very decided individual fympathies, might have made them felfifh and even morofe in their rela- tions with the world ; this fortunate difpofition has been admirably cha- rafterized to me by a lady who lived in continual intimacy with both to the laft, '* their very friendfhips were "prejudices." It would be difficult to exaggerate the comfort and ad- vantage that each muft have derived from the limilarity of their taftes and accomplishments, and if this double life did not promote a difmclination to marriage, it certainly diminished the fenfe of the lonelinefs of bache- In Memoriam, 37 lorhood/ They were the fons of General Cheney, long eftablillied at Badger Hall in Shrop{hire, and ancef- trally connecfted with families of the moft various orthographies in feveral other counties.^ They had the ordi- nary education of Engliih gentle- men, and went — Henry, the elder, to Oriel College, Oxford, and Edward, the younger, to Sandhurft, to ftudy for the army. Henry applied himfelf to the ordinary ftudies of the place, and would, in all probability, have taken a good de- ^ While I am writing this I cannot help re- cording how ftrongly the diflblution of a fimi- lar bond of perfiftent fraternity is brought be- fore my mind by the fudden death of the diftinguifhed diplomatift, Lord Ampthill, and the defolation of his brothers the Duke of Bed- ford and Lord Arthur RulTell. ^ There is an elaborate notice of the Cheney family reprinted by Pickburn, Aylef- bury, from the reports of the Architedlural and Archaeological Society for the County of Buckingham. 38 Edward Cheney, gree had not the fudden death of his father, in 1820, and the fucceflion to the eftate, inclined him to leave the Univerlityand accompany his mother to Italy. Edward, our Philobiblon colleague, palTed from Sandhurfl into the army and bought a commiffion in a regiment ordered to the Eaft Indies. After paffing a few years of inactive fervice in India, Edward Cheney exchanged into a regiment unattached. Anyone who became acquainted with his charadier and temperament will underftand how diftafteful to him muft have been the habits of the mefs-room and the details of military life, and w^ith what delight he muft have rejoined his family in Italy. He feems, at firft, to have gone to Naples, where he found a remarkable group of his countrymen carrying out the taftes and ftudies of the Dilettanti Society, which, in the preceding generation, I?i Me^noriain, 39 had produced thofe fine works, the Ionian Antiquities and Stuart's Athens, and procured the tranfport to England of feveral of the moft in- terefting collections of ancient fculp- ture. Of thefe, at that time, the mofl prominent was Sir William Gell, who had come there originally in the houfehold of the unfortunate Caro- line of Brunfwick, and who had won the efteem of the claffical world as the iirfl delineator of the lately refuf- citated Pompeii, and as the accurate and lucid traveller who has furnifhed the materials for every fubfequent guide of Hellenic explorers. With him were Dod well, the invefligator of Pelafgic and Cyclopean Monuments, and Keppel Craven, the accomplifhed fon of the Margravine of Anfpach. This refidence at Naples is chiefly remarkable in Edward Cheney's bio- graphy as the period of the produc- tion of his only work of any length, 40 Edward Cheney, the novel of " Malvagna, or the Evil " Eye," publiihed by Bentley ,]in 1838, and which did not attrad: pubHc at- tention, nor, indeed, did it deferve to do fo. The fcene is laid in Sicily and its ultra-romanticifm of plot and dark delineations of charad:er remind the novel-reader of the Radcliffian period which had lately expired. The myftery of its Caftles recalls thofe of ** Udulfo" and ** Otranto," and the atrocities of certain, and efpecially, eccleliaftical perfonages, competes with thofe of the " Italian." Suffice to fay that the chief villain is an Archbifhop, and the main intrigue his amour with his own niece, whom, however, he defigns to marry by dif- penfation ; the otherwife vulgar con- dud of the ftory is relieved by ar- tiftic defcription of fcenery and delicate indications of Sicilian man- ners, and it is interefting to ob- ferve how the writer lofes no oppor- In Me?noriam. 41 tunlty of depreciating the popular refiftance to the Bourbon govern- ment of the day, which fupplies the chief intereft of the narrative, and the patriotic afpirations of his hero in whofe failure and fubmiffion to the Auftrian arms he rejoices, juft as in later days he would have iligmatized and ridiculed the wondrous national fpafm of that fame Sicily, which broke the bond of centuries, and initiated the independence of Italy. This novel, however, has an inci- dental literary intereft as a precurfor of that ftrange deftiny in the hiftory of letters that has given the whole field of modern Italian fidiion to Englifh and American writers. There is no native novelift that has competed with the paffion and pathos of Ouida's peafant-life in " Signa " and " Pafcarel," or with the complica- tions of national morals and manners in her *' Friendihip," and Mrs. 6 42 Edward Cheney, Minto Elliot's " Italians," with the wild imagination of Hawthorne, or the cultivated fancy of Marion Craw- ford. Still the grave figure of Man- zoni ftands in the diftance the fole reprefentative of the romance of that people that once fupplied the whole drama of Europe with its inexhauftible " novelle," and extended the Garden of Bocaccio to every fcene of delicate luxury and feftal enjoyment. About the fame time Henry Cheney appears to have written ** Roflano, a Neapolitan Story," pri- vately printed in 1871, which illuf- trates the fuperftition more power- fully, and lliows more conftrudlive talent than " Malvagna." It is, however, with Rome that the Cheneys are efpecially connedied. At that time, although the majority of the Englifh in Italy was compofed of young men taking the Grand Tour, and of families feeking the In Memoriam* 43 advantages of climate and fcenery, and the interefts of claffical afTocia- tlon ; there were, befides, certain ariftocratic famiHes who made ufe of the Cities as regular winter-reli- dences, and eftablifhed themfelves in them as a home. Of thefe the moft fecial and hofpitable at Rome was that of Lady Coventry, who occupied with her daughter. Lady Augufta, the upper apartment of the Barbarini Palace, now for fome years inhabited by the eminent American fculptor, Mr. Story. It was there I firft met Edward Cheney in 1 834 : it has to me a pathetic inte- reft, that I met him for the laft time under the roof of Lady Holland, the Lady Augufta Coventry of thofe days, after near fifty years of their unbroken companionfhip and un- diminifhed friendfhip. Befides the habitual refidents there were feveral noble families who made a certain 44 Edward Cheney, round of the Italian cities, leaving England each year about the fame period, arriving often on the fame day at the hotels awaiting them, infped:ing the vJtW. - known and familiar pidlures, and travelling on- wards in their fhut and open carriages, appropriate to all weathers, drawn by innumerable pofters, preceded by the accomplished courier, who paid every- thing and abftrad:ed what he pleafed, and followed by the commodious and now forgotten fourgon laden with books, plate, and fometimes furniture, till they reached their deftined apartment, with its bright wooden fires and redecorated walls/ Among thefe were Lord Northamp- ton and his juvenile daughter, now Lady Marian Alford, and Lord Bever- ^ Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, always travelled with two or three firft-clafs pi6tures, fometimes with his Raphael, to decorate his carriage and beguile the journey. In Memo ri am, 45 ley, afterwards 5 th Duke of Northum- berland, with both of whom the Cheneys maintained a lifelong friend- ship, and other perfons of lefs ftation, but perhaps not lefs notoriety, among whom I would for the fatisfadtion of my own recolled:ions record the widow of Sir Humphry Davy, the Mrs. Apreece of Walter Scott's Edinburgh circle, and fo generally known for her good company and Italian Malapropifm. Nor were the Cheneys lefs welcome in the great Roman houfes, whofe formality and iimplicity of entertainment rather attracted than repelled them ; indeed their chief and moft conftant com- panion was Don Michele Caetani, a man who combined the fubtle wit, gaiety, and liberty of intellect of the days of Poggio, with the firm- nefs and feverity of character that diftinguifhed the old conquerors of the world. This he exhibited 46 Edward Cheney, during all the later ftruggles of his country, and only pafled away a few years ago, as Duca di Sermoneta, amid the refpedtful regrets of the Roman people. He was twice married to Englifhwomen, and his laft wife, the niece of the late and coufin of the prefent Duke of Port- land, furvives him. It was fomewhat later that the Cheneys affed:ed the refidence of Venice, which became to Edward at leaft a homeftead of antiquity and art. There he contracted clofe and lafting intimacy with Mr. Rawdon Brown, the interpreter of the chro- nicle of Marin Sanuto and other re- cords that have thrown fo much light on dark periods of hiftory, and who has only juft palled away amid the regrets of all true antiquarians and the affec- tionate recollections of the multitude of his countrymen to whom he made Venice inftrucftive and delightful. In Mentor i am. 47 In mature life, after their return to England, the Cheneys contri- buted frequently to the ** Quarterly " Review," where their articles are recognizable both by the choice and treatment of their fubjedls. They never wrote except on matters which they underftood, and among thefe Italian Art and Hiftory are naturally prominent, as for example in the exhauftive article on Denniftoun's " Dukes of Urbino," which not only fkilfully analyfes but adds largely to the value of that remarkable work. The reader of thefe comments and criticifms can never forget that he is in the prefence of that generation of Englifhmen who regarded Italy as a mufeum created and preferved for their pleafure and edification, and which they were grateful to have fuftained for their ufe by Auftria or any other foreign power that could fupprefs the more vulgar 48 Edward Cheney, influences of local politics and the diforders that might difturb the repofe of ages and the folemnities of ancient faith. The contributions of Edward Cheney to our Mifcellanies are of confiderable value ; they include papers connected with the origin of the Bonapartes which are real ad- ditions to the earlier hiftories of the Imperial Family, and, defcendingto later times, there is a letter refpediing the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte and Mrs. Paterfon, which the prefent Prince Jerome thought fo impor- tant that he fent a fpecial meflenger to this country with a requefl to me to allow him to infped: and copy it. Our fourteenth volume alfo contains a moft interefting article by him of original documents connected with painters and their pidiures in the 1 6th century, among others the AiTump- tion of Titian, which was fortu- I?i Me7noria?n, 49 nately overlooked by the French in 1796, and thus efcaped the chances of a calamitous reftoration which befell Raffaelle's Perla and Spafimo. In referrino: to the deftru(5tion of the St. Peter Martyr which took place in July, 1867, during Edward Che- ney's refidence at Venice, and which is the more to be regretted as no adequate copy feems to exift, — he exculpates the guardian monks of any culpable defign, as was ftrongly fufpeded. To this is appended the curious examination of Paolo Vero- nefe by the Inquifition on the indeco- rum of his treatment of the "cena," in which he introduces a dog and a dwarf, a parrot, and fome Germans, which flill remain, though then and there condemned as facrilegious, and a man with a bleeding nofe who was retrenched. The brothers were both good artifts in water- colours, Henry the beft, in the 7 50 Edward Cheney, manner of De Wint ; they never exhibited except in amateur collec- tions, where they took high rank ; moft of their friends, including my- felf, pofTefs fome of thefe interefting memorials. The brothers clofed their peaceful and pleafant lives, Henry in Decem- ber, 1866, Edv^^ard in April, 1884. The lift of our Society may include profounder fcholars and men of larger views and more general fym- pathies, but no better friend or more confcientious and accompliflied Eng- lifh gentleman than Edward Cheney. HENRY BRIGHT. 3In ^emoriam. Reprinted from Fol. XF. of the Pkilobiblon Society's Mifcellanies . HENRY BRIGHT. 31n a^emoriam. ENRYBRIGHTbelonged on his father's and mother's lide to that ariftocracy of commerce and finance which is generated by individual in- duftry, probity, and enterprife in our great feaboard cities. The Brights of Briftol and the Heywoods of Liverpool are as diftind:ive in their own clafs and fociety as the Percys and Wentworths in another order. It is the habit of fuch families to give their fons the ordinary liberal education of Englifh gentlemen be- fore inducting them into the profef- fional flatus in which they are def- 54 Henry Bright, tined to continue and increafe the traditional wealth and dignity of the name. The combination of fuch purfuits with intellecflual afpirations, or even with literary taftes, is pro- bably of as frequent occurrence as, and no more than, in the other clafs in which the public School and Uni- verfity are followed by more aftive and exciting occupations. In Liverpool, indeed, at the period of Bright's youth, the traditions of the high literary pofition of William Rofcoe and of Shepherd, the bio- grapher of Poggio, had not wholly died away, and that efflorefcence of letters in the activities of commercial and profeffional life had occurred in that particular fedtion of religious thought to which his relatives had traditionally adhered, and to which they had contributed the diftin- guiflied name of Oliver Heywood. Henry Bright was fent to Rugby In Memoriam, 55 fchool in the fummer after the death of its great pedagogue ; he was placed in the fchool houfe under the imme- diate care of Dr. Tait, his accom- plifhed and amiable fucceffor, of whom Bright foon became a favourite pupil, and with whom he cemented a friendship that endured during all that eminent prelate's fuccefsful career. It was one of the chief fatisfadions of Henry B right's later years to find himfelf a frequent and welcome gueft at Lambeth Palace. Cotton, afterwards Archbiihop of Calcutta, was his private tutor. Although the fpecial ftudies of the Univerfity of Cambridge did not attrad Henry Bright, he availed himfelf to the full, during his refi- dence at Trinity College, of all the collateral advantages of univerfity life, including the Union Society, of which he became one of the officers, and where he was a graceful and 56 Henry Bright. popular fpeaker. His radiant and genial nature efpecially appreciated the happinefs of adolefcent friend- fhips, among which that of Mr. James Payn, the agreeable and abundant novelift, was one of the moft valued and permanent. After leaving Cambridge he tra- velled in America, where he became intimate with all the moft eminent names of the national literature, and in 1853 he went into his father's office, the firm of Gibbs, Bright and Co., fo prominent in the South-American trade and the eftablifhment of dired: intercourfe with Auftralia; of this houfe he fome years later became a partner. As his literary taftes developed, it was natural that thofe around him, wholly abforbed in commercial purfuits, (hould regard him as comparatively indifferent to prad:ical bufinefs ; but, as a matter of fad:, he fcrupuloufly avoided I?t Memoriam. ^y making thefe extraneous occupations any excufe for a relaxation of official duty, and the value of his literary faculties in the letter-writing branch of the office was duly appreciated. His connecftion with the (hipping intereft naturally took a philanthropic afpedt, and thus he was the founder and chief adminiftrator of that moft ufeful charity the Branch Sailor's Home at the North End, and re- mained its prefident till 1877. The terrible abufes in the mercan- tile marine between Liverpool and the United States were powerfully brought by him before the public in a letter to his friend Mr. Whitbread, under the name of " A Liverpool " Merchant," with the charadleriflic motto, " La juftice en pleine mer 1 ** vous moquez vous des gens ^ " — Scapin. It was this complicated queftion of international law which I brought before the Houfe of Com- 58 He7iry Bright, mons in 1859, when, in humble imitation of Mr. Burke's revolu- tionary dagger, I took down to the Houfe and exhibited a knuckledufter ufed by one of the incriminated cap- tains for purpofes of manflaughter or mutilation, with which Bright had fupplied me. In the abfence of the Prime Minifter, Sir George Corne- wall Lewis agreed to my motion for an Addrefs to the Crown, and in the following Seflion, informed the Houfe that he and Mr. Dallas, the Minifter of the United States, had agreed to the draft of a convention on the fubjedt. Then the American Civil War broke out, and, to ufe Mr. Henry Bright's words, " in ** the great iflues of that terrible " conflidl, it was hopelefs to urge " the duty of affording adequate " protection to a few merchant fea- " men, and of infliding adequate *' punifhment for occafional violences In Memoriam. 59 ** at fea." I believe this abufe is at prefent conliderably abated. In 1853 he publifhed a pamphlet entitled " Free blacks and flaves : would im- " mediate Abolition be a blefling ? " a queftion he decided in the negative, from the view that legiflative freedom would be nugatory as long as it remained unfandlioned by public opinion; a natural judgment enough, but controverted by the providential courfe of events. About this time he contributed to the ** Weftminfter Review " the two articles on Thomas Moore and De Quincey which he regarded as his firft ferious attempt at literary com- poiition ; he alfo wrote in " Frafer's " Magazine " under the fignature of a " Cambridge Man," and foon after became a frequent contributor to the *' Examiner " and " Pall Mall " Gazette." In the " Inquirer " he took up the more orthodox iide 6o Henry Bright. of the Unitarian creed, and wrote a poem entitled " The Church's ** Prayer," the refrain of which, *' To the Father through the Son," hardly accords with the ordinary Arian formula. His intimate rela- tions with Mr. Gafkell, the eminent Unitarian minifter of Manchefter, and his diftinguifhed wife, the novelift and biographer of Charlotte Bronte, were of a fomewhat late date, and continued to the end. He privately printed, in 1 87 1 , " Some " Account of the Glen Riddell MSS. " of Burns' Poems," which it is inte- refting to conned: with Rofcoe's indignant verfes addrelTed to Scot- land on the death of the great peafant- poet, which occurred loon after the expectation of receiving him as a gueft at Allerton Hall. As foon as his circumftances per- mitted, Mr. H. Bright had taken to himfelf a mofl fuitable partner for In Memoriam. 6i life, literally for ficknefs and health, in the filler of Mr. Yates Thompfon, the colleague of Mr. Gladftone in his unfuccefsful candidature for the county, and had begun the erection of a modeft and elegant homeftead at Afhfield, near Liverpool, which in its literary furroundings and re- ception of eminent perfonages, Eng- lilh and American, became a worthy fucceflbr of the Birchlield and Aller- ton Hall of William Rofcoe. There is no need to remind thofe who have partaken of that hofpitality of its unaffed:ed culture and grace- ful gaiety, but I gladly take advan- tage of Mr. Julian Hawthorne's recently publifhed Life of his Father to repeat his fenfe of the value of the relation between Henry Bright and the authorofthe" Scarlet Letter," who by that lingular procefs of re- paration in the United States of their fyflematic negled of men of 62 Henry Bright. letters by means of diplomatic and confular appointments, had been placed in the rough and unfuitable poft of Conful at Liverpool, and where the happy accident of the acquaintance of Henry Bright and his relatives the Heywood family may be faid to have been his only congenial aflbciation. Nathaniel Haw^thorne fhall exprefs this in his own words : " Bright was the " illumination of my dufky little " apartment as often as he made his " appearance there." " Mr. Bright "feldom ufed to fit down, but flood ** eredl on the hearth-rug ; tall, " flender, good-humoured, laughing, ** voluble ; with his Engliih eye- "glafs, his Englifh fpeech, and his " Englifh prejudices ; arguing, re- "monftrating, afferting, contradidt- "ing, — certainly one of the moft " delightful, and delightfully Englifh "Englifhmen that ever lived." In Memo ri am. 63 And Hawthorne would launch at him fuch appalling and unfparing home truths of democracy and re- publicanifm as would utterly have choked and fmothered any other fubjed of her Majefty ; but they only ferved to make Mr. Bright laugh, and declare that it was im- poffible anybody fhould ferioufly en- tertain fuch opinions. I doubt, con- tinues Mr. Julian Hawthorne, if the American Conful ever exprelTed himfelf to anyone elfe fo forcibly, explicitly, and fluently as he did to this Englifh friend ; and the confe- quence of it all was that they never could fee enough of each other. On the eve of Hawthorne's departure from England he gave his friend his laft and beft proof of his confidence, by delivering his Englilh Journals into his keeping with the accompany- ing note. ** Dear Mr. Bright, — Here are 64 Henry Bright. " thefe Journals. If unreclaimed by " myfelf, or by my heirs or afligns, ** I confent to your breaking the "feals in the year 1900, not a day *' fooner. By that time, probably, ** England will be a minor republic " under the proted:ion of the United " States. If my countrymen of "that day partake in the leaft of ** my feelings, they will treat you **generoufly. "Your friend, Nath. Hawthorne." His articles in the " Athenseum" were fo numerous and fo much ef- teemed by its editors that certain fub- je6tsfeemed to bereferved for hiscriti- cifm, and he became almoft one of the recognifed ftaffof the journal. It was rather by accident than by any natural inclination or familiar ftudy that Mr. Bright produced the book by which he is beft known, and which is, I believe, deftined to a place in the domeftic literature of In Me?]i07^ta7n, 65 this country. He often alluded to it in this fenfe, faying he took very little intereft in the fcience of botany, and much as he loved flov^ers, there vi^ere other objects of nature and art which he cared for as much or more. He had made the chance acquaintance of the editor of the ** Gardener's Chronicle," and had be- gun in 1873 to fend himfomeperfonal obfervations of his own fmall domain interfperfed with poetical alluiions. Thefe fo much attracted attention that he was induced to colled: them and print off fifty copies for private diftribution, and was further per- fuaded to publifh them in 1879, under the title of " A Year in a " Lancashire Garden." Themodefty of this fmall volume correfponds with the dimenfions of the locality it defcribes. The garden comprifes from three to four acres, and the walled portion to which the book is efpe- 9 66 HeJiry Bright. cially dedicated, about three-quarters of an acre. It was a fource of great diverfion to Mr. Bright and his family, that after the book had attained a large circulation, not only neighbours, but ftrangers from a diftance, in conliderable numbers, arrived to infped: the iniignificant area from v/hich they had derived fo much pleafure. It is only to be hoped they vi^ent away lefs dif- appointed than thofe occafional foreign vilitors to Wakefield in York- fhire who come there with enthu- liaftic enquiries about its amiable and familiar vicar. From this humble fpace, however, Henry Bright had derived as much gratification and perhaps inftrudtion as could be given by the mofh lordly pleafaunces, and it is to this very reftrid:ion that the merit and, fo to fay, influence of the work is efpecially due. The very abfence of anything like abflrufe In Memoriam. 6j botanical fcience, or any but necef- fary phrafeology, no doubt adds to its charm, and diflinguifhes it from any other book with which I am familiar. The only claffification in which I can place it, is lide by fide with Ifaac Walton and White's *' Natural Hiftory of Selborne." But what infures a lengthened exiftence to thefe pages is the combination of an almoft peafant-village limplicity, with an abundant Englifh and claffi- cal culture which feems to me with- out parallel in literature. Thus the year begins with its Chriftmas greenery, which he recommends fhould be mainly of ivy, and with the chryfanthemum, to which he attributes thefe efpecial merits : " It " comes in the (hortefi: and darkeft " days, it blows abundantly in the " fmoke of the largefl cities, and it " lalls longer than any other flower *' when cut and put in water." He 68 Henry Bright, palTes on to January the 20th, St. Agnes' Eve, that year foft and almoft warm, contrafting with that of Keats when ** The owl for all its feathers was a-cold," but confirming Tennyfon's firfl: fnowdrop lying on the bofom of the year by its appearance on the 1 8th of the month. In the early fpring he recognizes the white violet as the Leucoion of the ancients, and thus vindicates Ovid in placing to- gether the violet, the poppy, and the lily as fuffering together in a fnow florm. He takes advantage of this opportunity to controvert Lord Stan- hope's and Mr. Ruikin's identification of the Greek Ion with the iris, and to confirm the authority of Pliny as abfolute on the flower that com- pofed the Horatian wreath, and flavoured the viniim violenteufn. In the fummer pages of Rofe-lore, Mr. In Memoriam. 69 Bright does not feem to have been familiar with the exhauftive mono- graph on the rofe written by my Belgian colleague in the fecretariat of this Society, Mons. Odtave Delepierre, which would have fup- plied him with ilill more material and allufion, but contents himfelf with recording Hawthorne's — " pale " and bloody petals ftrewn over the ** Englifh battle-iields " — and giving the prize of poems on the flower to the tender morality of Waller's ** Go, *Move]y Rofe." As the year advances he writes, " The afters have been very good : " many years have pafied flnce I " found the wild after of America ** growing on the hill-fide of Con- **cord behind Hawthorne's houfe, ** and was reminded of Emerfon's " lines : — " * Chide me not, laborious band, " ' For the idle flowers I brought ; 70 Henry Bright, " ' Every after in my hand *'*Goes home loaded with a thought.'" On the cognate fubjedl of fun- dials in gardens, he adds to the mottoes that warn and the mottoes that confole one adapted from Mrs. Browning : — ^' See the fhadow of the dial " In the lot of every one, " Marks the pafling of the trial, *' Proves the prefence of the fun." I will conclude this fhort analyfis of a book which I truft my friend's pofterity will take good care is not let to fall out of popular circulation, by a fuggeftive pafTage, which feems to me at once tender and original. " I never ftay anywhere where " there is a garden, without bringing "back v/ith me fome one or more " fhrubs as a remembrance of a ** beautiful place or happy hours; *' and, when I plant them, I fallen In Memorta77t, 71 *' to them a label mentioning their ** old home, and thus I am reminded, ** now of a low houfe covered with " creepers and neftling among the " hills of Wales (Clanbrogan, Mont- "gomeryfhire); now of a magnificent " caftle with its pleafaunce in the '* north of Ireland (Lord Charle- " mont's) ; now of a great hall in "Scotland (Lord Minto's), where a ** wild glen runs down paft the " gardens to the woods ; now of an ** Englifh abbey, where the flowers " of to-day fpring up among the " ruins of a thoufand years ago **(Wenlock Abbey)." (p. 93.) " The Lancafhire Garden " was followed by an article in the " Quarterly Review," reprinted in 1 88 1 with fome additions under the title of " The Englifh Flower Gar- " den." In this he only alludes in pafling to the grand horticultural and archited:ural fhrubberies of 72 Henry Bright, Nonfuch and Cobham, and to Lord P'airfax's garden at Nun Appleton glorified by Andrew Marvel, and after giving due honour to the land- fcape gardening of Kent, Price, Knight, Gelpin, and Repton, pro- ceeds to his main objed:, the reftora- tion of the old walled Elizabethan garden, with all its varieties of familiar plants for every month, and the, if not abolition, at leaft mitiga- tion, of the monotonous bedding-out, with its bare ground till June, and its glare of flagrant colours in the hotteft feafon. This he feverely criticifes in the large tapeftried lawns, quoting how Mrs. Browning wrote of fome carpets, where " Your foot " Digs deep in velvet rofes," and adding, " This may be well " enough ; but who wants flower- -beds to look like carpets?" — But In Memoriam, 73 it is in the fmaller-villa gardens that the change is moft difaftrous. The pleafant bit of grafs, with its fpeci- men trees and fence of fcented fhrubs, is cut up, and Perdita*s hot lavender, marigold, crown imperial, and lily, on the funny fide of the gar- den wall, are banifhed to make way for red and yellow patches for the few fummer months. This book too may keep its own in our domeftic literature, although it wants the in- dividuality of its predeceflbr. In 1 88 1 the fymptoms of a pul- monary difeafe, which had already given Henry Bright's family fome alarm, became fo ferious that it was decided that he muft fpend the proxi- mate winter in a milder climate ; he thus went to the Riviera, where he found the congenial fociety of Mr. Green, the hiftorian of the Englifh people, fighting, like him- felf, gallantly for life, and in the 10 74 Henry Bright, exercife of his remarkable faculties, which endured to the very laft. .Bright furvived him, and left this fine fonnet as a memorial of thofe happy hours of companionfhip on the borders of the grave. IN MEMORIAM J. R. GREEN {Burled at Mentone, March gth, 1883). Far from the land whofe tale he loved to tell, Where never EngHfh oak its boughs may wave Above that wind-fwept confecrated grave, Ke fieeps alone. Yet may we not rebel, For in that funny South 'tis furely well. The olive fpeaks of peace the victors have When the night falleth, and the fight was brave, And the tall cyprefs ftands as fentinel. Yet his own England claims her fhareof him, For buried in the heart of many a friend Lie fond regrets and tender memories, And, when the effacing years make fuch things dim. I?t Memo ri am, j$ Men yet unborn fome thought of him will blend With thoughts of England and her people's rife.' In 1883 I had the fad fatisfadion of folacing and diverting Henry Bright's exile at Cannes in com- pany with the learned and kindly Lord Adlon, in whofe late acquain- tance he found great delight. After fome months of fevere fuffering, borne with fingular cheerfulnefs, although embittered by the ftrange and then apparently hopelefs illnefs of a charming boy with whom he returned to England in the following fpring. Before another winter came Henry Bright had pafTed away in his home amid his family and books, and had gone to his reft beneath the wreaths of his own Lancaftiire gar- den. ' It appeared in the ** Athenaeum," March 17th, 1883. VALEDICTORY. Reprinted from f^ol. XV. of the Philobiblon Society s Mifcellanies. VALEDICTORY. N the compofition of this volume I have laboured under tv70 difficulties, the decline of my own literary faculty, and the diminution of the affiftance of my colleagues, which has refulted in making it nearly altogether my own work. This was not the case with our former volumes. I contributed to them materials of a mixed character, and fuch editorial fkill as my literary habits enabled me to fupply. I believe thefe mifcel- lanies are a valuable addition to our hiftorical and bibliographical litera- ture, and I fhall be glad if they remain connected with my name and that of our Society. Neverthe- 8o ValedtEiory, lefs, the judicious conclufion of its exiftence may be as opportune as was its foundation, and I have come to the conclufion that there are no prefent materials for its profitable continuance. The occafions of a more ofl:enfible publication and wider circulation are within the reach of all our contributors, and the very privacy which at one time was an attra(5lion has afiTumed the character of a refi:ridtion. A collector may prize a rare book as much as ever, but he would rather be known as the author of a popular one. The hiftorical wealth of our great libraries is in procefs of general difi:ribution through numerous and ready chan- nels of editorial ability. Nor can I think that the profped: of our focial opportunities is more favourable. We have lately loft the young and promifing Prefident who might have fummoned us to his Royal ValediStory, 8i bowers, and we have not added to the number of noble and wealthy entertainers. We have loft the privilege of the infpeftion of Mr. Huth's fine library, and have not attracted the polTelTors of any im- portant recent colled:ions, if fuch there be. Thefe lofles may, and 1 believe do, imply a regrettable diminution of the literary energies and taftes of Englilh focial life, but if this be fo, I do not fee any fuffi- cient inherent force in our Society as at prefent conftituted, to remedy the injury, or arreft the decline. Our eftimable rival, the Roxburgh Society, is making a laudable effort of revival, to which we offer our beft hopes and congratulations. It is not without perfonal emotion that I diffociate myfelf from this good company, with which I have worked and talked for over thirty years. I would defire efpecially to II 82 ValediSiory, record three names with which I have been aflbciated as honorary- Secretaries during this period. Sylvain Van de Weyer, whofe courageous and judicious participa- tion in his country's feUcitous revo- lution and the eftabUfhment of its honeft dynafty, was duly rewarded during his lifetime, and has been commemorated by a public monu- ment after his death. He paffed a happy and honoured life in this country, beloved alike by court and fociety, and has left among us a refpedled and highly-conned:ed name. William Stirling-Maxwell, whofe works will hold their place in our literature as the refults of a lincere hiftorical fpirit, united with fine artiftic taftes and precife antiquarian accuracy, and the greater part of which, privately printed and illuf- trated at his own coft, he liberally diftributed among his perfonal friends Faledi&ory, 83 in the Society. And Matthew Higgins, the gentle giant, who, under the fobriquet of ** Jacob " Omnium," was one of the cleareft and wittiefl writers on the fubjed:s of his time. For the completion of our record, I have added to the lift of our members the names of thofe who have already paffed away ; and now I have only to offer to the furvivors the beft wiflies of this happy feafon. Solvite fenefcentem : valete, et me amate. Houghton. Fryfton Hall, Chriftmas Day, 1884. COLERIDGE. UNVEILING OF THE BUST OF S. T. COLERIDGE IN WEST- MINSTER ABBEY. ExtraSl from the '■^ 'Times" of the ^th May, 1885. ESTERD AY afternoon the ceremony of unveiling a buft of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Weftminfter Abbey was performed by Mr. Lowell, the American Ambaflador, in the prefence of a large and dif- tinguifhed gathering. Prior to the ad:ual unveiling of the buft, thofe who had received cards of admiifion aflembled in the Chapter Houfe, where Mr. Lowell delivered an ad- drefs. 88 Coleridge, The Company included Lord Chief Juflice Coleridge, Lord Aber- dare, Lord Houghton, Sir Theodore Martin, Mr. Juflice Grove, The Bifhop of Oxford, Mr. Robert Browning, &c., &c., &c. [Speech by Mr. Lowell.] Lord Houghton was then called on by the Dean of Weftminfter to fpeak, and faid : — I remember, when a ftudent at Cambridge, going with Arthur Hal- lam to call on Coleridge, who re- ceived us as Goethe or as Socrates might have received us. In the courfe of converfation, the poet allied us if either of us intended to goto America. He faid, " Go to America if you have " the opportunity. I am known ** there ; you will hear of me there. ** I am a poor poet in England, but " I am a great philofopher in Ame- ** rica." That was fifty years ago, when circumftances had brought Coleridge. 89 about what I might call identity be- tween EngHfh and American litera- ture and thought. I think that that remark indicated even at that com- paratively early period, the meta- phyfical fpirit which grew up and became dominant in the moft practi- cal of all nations, lifting their thoughts above material interefts and enabling them at once to become the moft practical and moft thoughtful nation of the world. [The remainder of Lord Hough- ton's fpeech hasnot been preferved.] Archdeacon Farrar ] Sir Francis Doyle I fpoke. Lord Coleridge ) The company then adjourned to Weftminfter Abbey, when the buft was unveiled by Mr. Lowell. It ftands in clofe proximity to the monuments to Campbell and 12 90 Coleridge, Southey, and within a few feet of Shakefpeare and Burns. The proceedings came to a con- clulion with the unveiling of the buft. THE GRAY MEMORIAL. 13 UNVEILING OF THE GRAY MEMORIAL AT CAM- BRIDGE. N the 26th of May, 1885, a diftinguifhed company met in the Hall of Pem- broke College, at the in- vitation of the Mafter and Fellows of the College, to witnefs the unveiling of a buft of the Poet Gray. This buft is the refult of a fubfcription organifed by Mr. GofTe, in co-opera- tion with Lord Houghton. The Mafter requefted Lord Houghton to perform the important duty of unveiling the buft, a tafk for which he was eminently qualified. Lord Houghton, who was re- ceived with cheers, faid : Mafter of 94 T^he Gray Memorial. Pembroke, Ladies and Gentlemen, — My firft impreflion on finding myfelf here, and with this duty before me, is one of furprife and regret that it has not been affigned to a perfon for whom it is efpecially becoming, and who to everyone here will feem its natural appropriator. It is the privi- lege of this Univerfity, and efpecially of the College in connection with which we both hold the fame aca- demic diftind:ion, to have had, and to ftill retain, as Alumnus, a poet occupying the courtly poft which Gray would have appreciated, and of whom it is no flattery to fay that his prefent fame is wider than Gray ever obtained, and whofe verfe we believe will go down the ftream of time to as far a reach as the " Elegy " itfelf. I do not know to what accidental or perfonal contingencies to attribute the abfence of Alfred Lord Tennyfon and my fubftitution in his place. I T^he Gray Memorial. 95 never attend celebrations of this nature without a vivid remembrance of what I have read in fome work of the great poet and thinker, Goethe, that the moft appropriate memorial of any man is his own image in a permanent form, which I interpret into the defire to give to fuch ceremony as this as far as poffible a perfonal application, and to make it the renewal of a treafured and long- parted friendfhip, and the recognition of a dear and familiar face, rather than even a local or national welcome, or a tribute of public honour. Such a celebration has a right to require propriety of place and time. On the prefent occafion, as to place, nothing more appropriate could be fupplied, for within thefe walls Thomas Gray palTed the larger and happier portion of his exiftence, and here he ended his days. If their ex- ternal and inner afpeds are fome- 96 The Gray Memorial, what changed, Gray, as much a man of tafte as poet, was not the man to refufe to combine aefthetic with fen- timental confiderations, or to con- demn any temperate and decorous increafe of the comforts or luxuries of daily life. In the local fenfe Gray certainly never addrelTed to Cambridge fuch loving adjurations and affed:ionate appeals as to the diftant fpires and antique towers of Eton College, and there occur in his letters certain un- civil expreffions about Cambridge which we would willingly forget. But even he could not deny that to that fpecial genius of the place — the opportunity of the formation of the friendfhips of youth — he owed not only the chief focial happinefs of his exiftence, but the only free expanfion of his fomewhat exclufive affediions. As to time, there is a fcope for lefs fatisfadory reflections. It was in The Gray MejnoriaL 97 the year 1771 that Dr. Brown, your predeceflbr, lir, in the headfhip of the Society, wrote the letter which I read laft week in the Library of the Britifh Mufeum, which contains thefe words : " Everything is now " dark and melancholy in Mr. Gray's " rooms. Not a trace of him remains " there. But the thoughts I have of " him will laft, and will be ufeful to " me the few years I can exped: to " live. He never fpoke out." I fhall allude again to thefe laft words, which Mr. Matthew Arnold has made the text of a fubtle and inftrudive criti- cifm, which I only wifti he were here in perfon to repeat to-day. I will call your attention to the date of Mr. Brown's letter, and to the fad: that for 114 years there has been in this Univerfity no vifible memorial of Thomas Gray till to-day, and that even to-day the initiative of our tri- bute is not due to either Univerfity 98 The Gray Memorial, or College, but to the accidental zeal of an excellent biographer. In later times there have taken place changes in your ftudies, difcipline, and man- ners which, if they had exifled in his time, would no doubt have largely modified his cenfures of the limita- tions of intelled: and of the cloiftered life of Cambridge. Your prefent various apprehenfions of that phyfical fcience in which he took fo deep a de- light, and of which I am enabled to pre- fent to-day to fuch members of this College as may refort to the Mafter's Lodge at a later hour an affedtionate memorial — namely, the great work of " Linnaeus," illuftrated not only in writing, but in drawing, in an emi- nent manner by Mr. Gray in his own interefting fpecimens. The great mafter of artiftic profe-writing in England, Mr. Rulkin, defired me to prefent thofe volumes for infpedion to this Society to-day with his refpedt- The Gray Memorial, 99 ful compliments. I would defire you not to forget the changes of what I may call the manners of Cambridge lince Gray's time, — the approxima- tions of focial and domeftic life, efpe- cially in relation to female fociety, — which would, I believe, not only have foftened the afperity of his judg- ments refped:ing you, but might have even fo far cheered hisftagnant fpirits, and diverted the monotony of his lonely hours, as to have relieved me from the main difficulty I have to encounter in affigning to Thomas Gray his prime and proper place in Englifh literature. This is, in fimple phrafe, the fcantinefs, or, in adverfe criticifm, the fterility of his genius. This peculiarity need not affedl our fenfe of the greatnefs or even of the wonder at the apparition which it even augments, but undoubtedly it changes the afped: of our judgment, juft as in our eflimate of greatnefs in life we have loo The Gray Memorial. a different ftandard for the hero of one magnanimous action, whatever it may be, and of the man of a con- tinuous heroic life. For this promi- nent problem of the genius of Gray every ferious critic will attempt his own folution. Mr. Matthew Arnold finds it in the words of Dr. Brown's letter, ** He never fpoke out," and adds a confirmation in the teflimony of a young Swifs gentleman of the name of Bonftetten, in whofe hila- rity of intelled: and gaiety of manner Gray, with a natural fenfe of contrail, took fpecial delight. Bonftetten re- calls in his journal that he ufed to tell him in his latter days that his life was a fealed book, and that he be- lieved he had never known v/hat love was. This may probably be true, but in thefe conjed:ures I find no fatisfadtory folution of a mental and literary phenomenon, and I would rather dired your attention to fome The Gray MemoriaL loi conliderations of a different or lefs recondite nature. In defining the character of Gray's poetry, I am fully aware of the arbitrarinefs of the dif- tindtion of fchools and orders of poetry or art as ftill more uncertain and lefs fatisfadtory than even of thofe of moral and phyfical fcience ; but when I define Gray as a poet of fen- timent, you will underftand that I diftinguifh him from the poet of paflion and the poet of imagery, and that Gray's perfed: combination of fentiment and form may juftly place him on the pedeftal he occupies, although the operations of his genius could not by their very nature be as productive as thofe that fpring from a fupernal height of imagination or a greater depth of being, or even from that kaleidofcope of verbal fancy which delights in an infinite variety and fucceflion of development. There is, too, an analogous diffe- I02 'The Gray MemoriaL rence in the effed: of fuch poetry on the eftimate of mankind. Gray cir- culated his " Elegy " in manufcript with all the timidity ofan amateur, and thus could not have awoke one morn- ing and found himfelf famous, like Byron after his fecond canto of " Childe Harold "; but none the lefs have thofe verfes, thus modeftly pro- duced, permeated the hearts of mil- lions of men and women, and, fo to fay, incorporated themfelves in the Englifh language. Lord Houghton then unveiled the buft, amid renewed cheering. Lord Houghton concluded his fpeech, which had been before inter- rupted by the exigencies of trains, by remarking that Thomas Gray did not live in the time of railways, or he would have gone up to London more often than he did, and would have complained lefs than he did of the lonelinefs of Cambridge. Continu- ing, he faid : I do not think that we The Gray Memorial. 103 {hould feparate without exprefling my own and your profound regret at the recent lofs of our friend and comrade, the great fcholar, Hugh Munro, who gave us recently a Httle volume that contains his admirable tranflation of the " Elegy," with the original reprinted in its true Tibullian form, the laft of the feries of which Dodfley's rough quarto pamphlet, in February, 1751, was the firft, and which was continued by the thin folio of " Six Poems," printed one lide of the paper to make up a volume with Bentley's graceful deligns, in 1753, and which is ftill an ornament to every choice library. Munro refts under the pyramid of Ceftius, in company with the tomb of Keats and the heart of Shelley. Had he lived, he would affuredly have been with us to-day. Lord Houghton propofed " The " health of the Mafter," and the pro- ceedings were brought to a clofe. THE WORDSWORTH SOCIETY. THE WORDSWORTH SOCIETY. HE Sixth Annual Meeting of the above Society was held at No. i, Rutland Gardens, Knightlbridge, on the afternoon of Wednefday, July 8th, Lord Houghton prefiding. Lord Houghton faid : Ladies and Gentlemen, — This is the third meeting which may (in a manner) be called reprefentative of Englifli verfe, that I have had the pleafure of addreffing this year. The iirfl was the occafion of the unveiling of the buft of Coleridge in the Chapter-Houfe at Weftminfter, a meeting which exhibited not only 15 ^ io8 T'he Wordfworth Society, deep perfonal intereft in the character of Coleridge, and in the honour he had received — the greatefl honour which an Enghfhman after death can receive — that of a prefentment of his image in the great national maufo- leum, " the Pantheon of the Weft," as Mr. Tennyfon — who himfelf one day will probably lie within thofe precincfls — has called it. That meeting, befides that recognition, was a very interefting refurredlion, fo to fpeak, of the value and extent and power of Coleridge's philofophy. And it was remarkable that every fpeaker, I think, on that occafion exprefled perfonal gratitude for the thoughts which had been imparted to him by the poet Coleridge, not only in the melody of his verfe, but in the novel fyftems of thought of which he was the author in this country. The fecond occafion on which I had the pleafure and the 'The Wordfworth Society, 109 honourof being prefent and preliding, was the inauguration of the buft of the poet Gray in the hall of Pem- broke College, Cambridge, after more than a hundred years of lilence as to his name in that Univerlity. That was a very interefting occafion, and although it originated chiefly in the intereft in Gray which had been fhown by his able biographer, Mr. GofTe, was neverthelefs fully efti- mated and underftood by the refl of the Univerlity and other reprefentative men, of whom the moll remarkable perhaps is Mr. Lowell, the American Minifter, who took fuch an intereft- ing part in your meeting laft year. I only wilh that he had tided over a little his departure from this country, and had been prefent with us here to-day. I look on this as the third meeting of that nature, and I may be permitted to fay that I think gatherings reprefentative of literary 1 1 o The Wordfworth Society, homage, and alfo of perfonal interefl in the poets in whofe works we ftill take dehght, are not only very juft in themfelves, but extremely ufeful in the caufe of literature. We in this country are not too apt to keep alive the remembrance of literary men. I do not know whether we efteem them lefs, or whether on the whole their influence is lefs than among other nations, but certainly fuch a fenfation as followed the death of Vid:or Hugo would be fcarcely poffible in this country. The very occalion of our meeting here to-day almoft precludes me from faying anything of efpecial intereft, becaufe whatever I might fay with regard to the work of Wordfworth, to have any interefl: at all, muft be of a critical character ; and although I know that this is not merely a mutual admiration society, or even an individual admiration The Wordfworth Society, 1 1 1 fociety, yet neverthelefs I do not conceive that any criticifm, with iuch livelinefs and liberty as makes criticifm at all amuling, would be fuitable at a meeting of this kind. Therefore I am driven, if I am to fay anything different from the commonplaces of admiration with which we are familiar, to fall back on what I might call any poffible perfonal connexion of my own life and mind with that of the great poet. And I am enabled — I think for- tunately — to introduce this fubjeft to you by reading the initial paffage of the delightful little book which I hold in my hand — Matthew Arnold's " Seledlions from Wordfworth." I owed moft, if not the whole, of the interefl of what I had to fay about Gray at Cambridge, to the fubtle and delightful criticifm of Matthew Arnold on Gray, in the edition of " The Britifli Poets." I will, there- 1 1 2 The Wordfworth Society, fore, if you will allow me, read to you thefe few words of Matthew Arnold as the foundation for any future remarks : — " I remember "hearing Lord Macaulay fay, after " Wordfworth's death, when fub- *' fcriptions were being colled:ed to " found a memorial of him, that ten " years earlier more money could *' have been raifed in Cambridge ** alone, to do honour to Wordfworth, " than was now raifed all through ** the country. Lord Macaulay had, ** as we know, his own heightened ** and telling way of putting things, " and we muft always make allow- "ance for it. But probably it is " true that Wordfworth has never, " either before or fmce, been fo " accepted and popular, fo eftablifhed ** in the minds of all who profefs to " care for poetry, as he was between **the years 1830 and 1840, and at " Cambridge." I happened to be a The Wordfworth Society, 1 1 3 member of Trinity College, Cam- bridge, at that time, and I am de- lighted to confirm that judgment. My recolledions of that period are fufficiently vivid to enable me to fay that I am very proud of having perfonally, in fome degree, contri- buted to that great acceptance of, and I might fay enthuliafm for Wordfworth, which was generated among the youth of Cambridge at that time. When I look back upon that time, and the, fo to fay, mental proceedings by which it was made important to the lives of all who fhared in it, I find it fomewhat diffi- cult precifely to comprehend the caufe of that enthufiafm. It was contemporaneous with a burft of interefl in the poetry of Shelley and of Keats. With regard to Keats, of whofe life I had afterwards the plea- fure of being the recorder, we were very proud of having been the means A 114 ^he Wordfworth Society. of introducing to Engliili literature the delightful poem of " Adonais." A fon of Mr. Hallam, the hiftorian, who was the Marcellus of his day, and who, if he had lived, would have been a mofl diftinguifhed name in Englifh hiftory — the Arthur Hallam of the "In Memoriam" — arrived from Italy at that time, bringing with him a copy of the " Adonais," which had been printed at Pifa under the fuperintendence of Byron . That copy we reprinted at Cambridge, and, as it were, introduced into Britifh literature. The enthuliafm for Keats is, I think, very intelligible. He is eflen- tially the poet of youth ; he is the embodiment, as it were, of youth and poetry in the richnefs of the imagination and in the abundance of melodious power. We alfo, I think, fully comprehend, now that Shelley has taken his juft place The Wordfworth Society, 115 among the poets of England, how deHghtful it was to our youthful interefts, and I may fay to our youth- ful vanity, to raife the name of Shelley from the obfcurity, and I might almoft fay even the infamy, which at that time attached to it, to the high atmofphere of pure imagi- nation in which it now exifts in the eftimate of all real lovers of Britifh literature. But there was no fuch reafon why we (hould have laboured to any limilar extent for the elevation of the name and works of Mr. Wordf- worth. The name of Wordfworth was familiar to the crowd at Cam- bridge in two ways. His brother was the Mafter of Trinity, a vene- rated and refpediable old gentleman, the author of a very dull eccleiiafti- cal biography, who had not recom- mended himfelf to the undergraduate mind by any exhibition of geniality or efpecial intereft in our purfuits, 16 ii6 The Wordfwo7'th Society, our avocations, or even our ftudies. We had at Cambridge, in the fon of that Dr. Wordfworth, by the name of Chriflopher Wordfworth, a very eminent fcholar and not unagreeable companion, but he manifefted in youth the germs of that outwardly hard, though inwardly benevolent, character, which fo much diftin- guifhed him as the learned, pious, excellent adminiftrator, the Bifhop of Lincoln. I had the pleafure of accompanying that diftinguifhed pre- late in thofe Grecian travels which are familiar to you all, and I wifh I could fhow you in my books about me here the prefentation copy of his Voyage to me, which not only con- firmed our affedionate relations, but introduced me to a new Greek word, which I do not know is familiar even to fuch Hellenifts as I fee prefent. The book is addrelTed (tmvoIoitv'o^ui e^w. I do not know whether, if any of The Wordfworth Society, iij you had been aiked to give me a Greek word for *' fellow-traveller," you could have done that — I am fure I could not. Let us look back therefore at what could have been the rationale of our faith and Interefi: in the poetry of Wordfworth. I think I alluded to our juvenile vanity in refcuing the names of Keats and Shelley from the injuftice which we thought had been done to them. Well, there was fomething of the fort, I think, in our patronage (fuch as it was) of the name of Wordfworth. When we came to read him ferioufly (as we did), we thought that the ridicule which had been thrown upon the name of Wordfworth and the publi- cation of his paftoral poems was fupremely unjuft. We could fee the caufes of it; how that the extreme familiarity of the didtion had in it fomething by no means congenial to 1 1 8 The Wordfworth Society. the literary mind of that or perhaps any other period ; not that England at that time was new to the familiar didlion, becaufe we had had it in the moft diftind: way in the poetry of Burns, where it had not only been willingly accepted, but was un- doubtedly one of the caufes of the ready acceptance of his verfe among the people of England, and ftill more of Scotland. It was not that alone, but it was, I think, that this extreme familiarity of diction wasaccompanied by fomething that looked like vul- garity of thought. The fentiments which this did:ion reprefented were of a very ordinary character, con- nected with the ordinary peafant-life of the country, and unaccompanied by any of thofe fliirring, deep, and paflionate emotions with which the common language of Burns was faturated. There was, too, a certain indelicacy of thought in the fenfe of The Wordfworth Society, 119 producing to the mind images of a very common charadier under cir- cumftances of an almoft ludicrous nature. And, looking back at this now at the diftance we do, I think I can fay that we felt this more flrongly from that one great deficiency in the faculties of Wordfworth — a total want of the fenfe of humour. No man with a fenfe of humour could have expofed himfelf to thofe oc- cafionallyjuft criticifms of the almoft comic pofitions of fome of his char- acters, verging on coarfenefs. I do not think that the lines of " Peter " Bell," which were thus cited as ex- amples of aim oft comic verfe, could have been written by any man with a ftrong fenfe of humour. He would have feen the pofition himfelf quite as ftrongly as his critics would have feen it. And at that time, whatever elfe we were, we were all humorifts. Therefore there was fomething to 120 The Word/worth Society. get over in our admiration, and I think we got over it by a procefs which, looking back, feems to me to have been almoft too good to be true. I do not think that, as a body of young men, at that time we were efpecially religious, or efpecially vir- tuous in any way, and therefore I do not think it was the height of the morality of Wordfworth which at- tradied us ; but ftill there was fome- thing that we faw (I do not know how) as to the moral elevation of that verfe, in contraft with the reign- ing poetic power of that time, namely, the verfe of Lord Byron. It was then not only fafhionable, but almoft indifpenfable, for every youth to be Byronic. Of courfe, though at Cam- bridge we had not either the energy, or perhaps the courage, to be Corfairs or Laras, yet neverthelefs we enjoyed the poetry, and efpecially the later poetry, of Lord Byron, as fomething The Wordfworth Society » 121 very cognate to our difpofitions and tempers, probably not the beft of either. But we did fee that there was fomething in the poems of Wordfworth and of Shelley which fatisfied what we knew to be our better and higher afpirations. I dare fay there may be fome per- fons prefent who have heard of an event of undergraduate Cambridge life at that time, which has the peculiarity of tiding its memory into feveral future undergraduate exif- tences, namely, the expedition from the Debating Society at Cambridge to the Debating Society of Oxford, to difcufs and imprefs upon the Univerfity opinion of Oxford the fuperiority of Shelley to Byron. That expedition was remarkable as having originated in, and having been fup- ported by, men who are ftill of living intereft in this country. I think it was originated by Sir Francis Doyle, 122 The Wordfworth Society, who afterwards became ProfefTor of Poetry at Oxford ; and it was cer- tainly fuftained by a name not un- familiar to you, the name of Mr. Gladftone, by whom we were received at the railway ftation, and conducted to our abode. You know that, ac- cording to the formula of Univerfity life at Cambridge, you cannot be out for a night without what is called an " Exeat" — a permiffion to be away — which can only be obtained from the Mafter of the College, and I was deputed to obtain this from Dr. Wordfworth, the Mafter of Trinity, and did obtain it. I have always had fome compuncflion in having done fo, becaufe I cannot think that that reverend theologian would have favourably given us the permiffion if he had known we were going to advocate the poetry of Mr. Shelley. I have always had a dim fufpicion — though probably I did The Wordfworth Society. 123 not do fo — that I fubftituted the name of Wordfworth for Shelley. Neverthelefs, I fo wrapped up in my language the definition of our object — which was mainly, as I put it, the deftrud:ion of the wicked influence of Lord Byron — as to make Dr. Wordfworth believe that what we intended to fubftitute for Byron was not Shelley, but Wordfworth. How- ever, we did go, and I have no doubt that with our laudation of Shelley we combined the laudation of Wordf- worth at the fame time in our re- prefentations to the Univerlity of Oxford. We were of courfe very much fhocked to find that the name of Shelley was utterly unknown at Oxford ; indeed, one of the fpeakers faid he did not know a line of Shelley except " My banks they are furnifhed with bees." We difcovered he thought it was Mr. Shenftone, not the poet of world- 17 124 ^/^^ Wordfworth Society , wide reputation, we had gone down there to difcufs. The expedition was interefting as a fpecimen of what I may call a very laudable literary enthufiafm, of which I fhall be very glad to fee more among the youth of this day. However thefe facfls may be, it remains true that the undergraduate youth of my time at Cambridge did take that part in, 1 will not fay rehabilitating, but en- hancing the fame and power of the poems of Wordfworth in the Uni- verfity, and in the general world of letters of which he afterwards formed part. Of courfe at that time the wealth and the power of Wordfworth were increafino^. Matthew Arnold fays : " The death of Byron feemed " to make an opening for Wordf- *•' worth. Scott, who had for fome ** time ceafed to produce poetry him- " felf, and flood before the public as " agreatnovehfl, — Scott, too genuine The Wordfworth Society, 125 ** himfelf not to feel the profound **genuinenefs of Wordfworth, and ** with an inftin6tive recognition of ** his firm hold on nature and of his " local truth, always admired him " fincerely, and praifed him gene- "roufly. The influence of Coleridge " upon young men of ability was then " powerful, and was ilill gathering ** flrength ; this influence told en- " tirely in favour of Wordfworth's ** poetry. Cambridge was a place ** where Coleridge's influence had ** great action, and where Wordf- " worth's poetry, therefore, flourifhed ** efpecially. But even amongft the " general public its sale grew large, ** the eminence of its author was ** widely recognized, and Rydal ** Mount became an objed; of pilgri- ** mage." It is very interefting to fee, in connection with Wordfworth's adoration of the beauties of Nature, that his name and fame are incor- 126 The JVordfworth Society, porated with the fceneryof the Lakes, juft as much as are the name and fame of Sir Walter Scott with the fcenery of Scotland, of which he may be faid to have been the creator. Mr. Arnold goes on to fay : ** I ** remember Wordfwcrth relating *' how one of the pilgrims, a clergy- " man, ai] z z (P7(63slO)4/6B Berkeley &7^ //'f'/M^/Z-f n