UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
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 FROM THE PORCH
 
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 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 BY 
 
 LADY RITCHIE 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 1914
 
 
 
 Printed by Ballantynk, Hanson &- Cc. 
 At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
 
 
 3 
 
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 X 
 
 H DEDICATED 
 
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 TO OUR FRIEND 
 
 RHODA BROUGHTON 
 
 October 1913 
 
 rv-NJOXcS'/
 
 I WISH to express my sincei^e thanks to those 
 Editors who have allowed me to reproduce 
 these scattered papers which have appeared 
 at long intervals in the Cornhill Magazine, 
 MacmillarCs Magazine, the Pall Mall Magazine, 
 the Contemporary Revieic, the Woman's World, 
 the Pilot, and the Sphere newspaper. 
 
 yi
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 DIVAGATIONS 
 
 A Discourse on Modern Sibyls 
 Charles Dickens as I remember Him 
 A Dream of Kensington Gardens 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 31 
 
 46 
 
 MONOGKAPHS 
 
 Sainte Jeanne Francoise db Chantal 
 Quills from the Swan of Lichfield 
 Mrs. John Taylor, of Norwich 
 L'Art d'I:tre Grandp£;re . 
 
 MORLAND AT FrESHWATER Bav . 
 
 Alfred Stevens ..... 
 
 61 
 
 84 
 135 
 
 172 
 198 
 208 
 
 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Concerning the Founding of the " Cornhill 
 
 Magazine" ....... 227 
 
 A Meeting in a Garden 237 
 
 Upstairs and Downstairs 244 
 
 In My Lady's Chamber 256 
 
 vil
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Portrait of Lady Ritchie at the Porch . Frontispiece 
 From a photograph talrn hy Mrs. Cameron at 
 Freshwater. 
 
 The Porch To face page 264
 
 DIVAGATIONS
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS ^ 
 
 It is not only to unite teachers and to improve 
 teaching that the English Association exists, but 
 also to give in some measure a personal expres- 
 sion to our love of books, to the thoughts and 
 impulses which come from their infinite combina- 
 tions. 
 
 Everything is to be found in book-lore ; not 
 only is the generous feast spread out for favoured 
 guests, but the crumbs are there falling from the 
 high tables. There is fun, there is fancy and 
 good-humour, there is companionship for the 
 solitary, comfort for the sad, knowledge of life 
 for the young, and for the elders pleasant gossip 
 and remembrance. Professor Ker has brouofht 
 Romance before us ; Professor Bradley has spoken 
 of Poetry and its uses — who that was present on 
 that last occasion when he spoke will not remember 
 
 ' The Presidential Address delivered at the Annual General 
 Meeting of the EngHsh Association, on January 10, 1913. It was 
 read by Mr. Ernest von Glehn. Copyright, 1913, by Lady Ritchie, 
 in the United States of America.
 
 4 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 it ? The foggy gloom of the streets invaded the 
 crowded, attentive room, but it was of light, and 
 lovely things, the lecturer discoursed. The wide 
 suggestions appealed to those who could follow 
 them, as well as to those among us who could 
 not always follow with full comprehension, but 
 who appreciated and breathed for the moment 
 with some deeper breath; "living," as Professor 
 Bradley said, "a section of each poet's own life" 
 in the passing realisation of his thought. It may 
 seem presumptuous indeed for a " wren with 
 little quill" to follow such discourses with mere 
 personalities, small in comparison to those larger 
 philosophies, yet a literary association is intended 
 to emphasize and give voice to the various units 
 which compose the whole, as letters are part of a 
 word, words form the sentence, and finally the 
 book of life itself is spread open. 
 
 There is no doubt but that different chapters 
 of Literature commend themselves to different 
 generations. A well-known critic, an American 
 lady, Miss Fanny Repplier, also taking a per- 
 sonal standpoint, deplores the misfortune of 
 having been herself born quite a century too late 
 for Success ! She appeals to Evelina, that work
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODEEN SIBYLS 5 
 
 admired by Johnson and Burke ; she points to 
 Hannah More, whose tragedies drew tears and 
 praise from Garrick, whose tracts reached Mos- 
 cow and made their edifying way to Iceland 
 itself. Tracts, such as Charles the Footman 
 and the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, are also 
 said to have been found by a missionary in the 
 library of the Eajah of Tanjore. " Those were 
 the days to live in," cries Miss Eepplier, " when 
 families tore the Mysteries of Udolpho to pieces 
 in their eager interest, when the astounding Miss 
 Seward dazzled the literary world ; and unfor- 
 tunates, born a hundred years too late, may look 
 back with wistful eyes upon an age which they 
 feel themselves qualified to have adorned ! " 
 
 Some time ago, borrowing a title from a well- 
 known Elizabethan collection of histories, I wrote 
 a little volume called A Book of Sibyls. It did 
 not concern classical beings, with flying robes 
 and tripods, uttering incoherent rhymes and 
 oracles at Delphi and elsewhere, but it related 
 to certain women leading notable lives in mob- 
 caps and hobble-skirts. Jane Austen, then as 
 now, was supreme among them, although some 
 sapient critics of her own time considered her
 
 6 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 " commonplace," and not to compare to the 
 Edgeworths, Barbaulds, and Opies of the day. 
 When it was first suggested that I should 
 speak to the English Association of yet another 
 generation of Sibyls nearer to my own experi- 
 ence, T could but feel, unlike Miss E-epplier, that 
 I had been fortunate indeed in the time of my 
 birth. I do not know whether others will agree 
 with a friend of mine who declares that people 
 reach their complement at from ten to twelve years 
 old, and that they never really change after that 
 time, though they may learn more and more facts. 
 As the years go by, and, alas, the hour for for- 
 getting may begin, the same observer still exists 
 throughout the different stages. Mi-s. Gaskell 
 and Mrs. Oliphant were my torch-bearers in 
 youth as afterwards. The Brontes were magi- 
 cians, flashing romance into the little Kensington 
 street in which we dwelt. George Eliot followed. 
 I do not here attempt to speak of all the great 
 masters of the craft then living, but of certain 
 women with whom I have had the privilege of 
 being in some relation. These ladies were dressed 
 not in flying draperies nor in mob-caps and 
 hobble-skirts, but in crinolines — though it seems
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS 7 
 
 almost desecration to mention the fact, or to 
 suggest that George Eliot ever wore one. They 
 put on lop-eared bonnets when they went abroad ; 
 their parasols were the size of half-crowns ; they 
 had sandalled shoes, or odd flat elastic brodequins. 
 Whatever their dress may have been in 1850, they 
 were true Sibyls nevertheless. Their voices were 
 direct and outspoken, they went straight to the 
 heart of things. When I made their acquaint- 
 ance, I myself was about twelve years old and 
 forbidden by my governess to read novels. No 
 objection was made to the works of Miss Yonge^ 
 personally unknown to me indeed, but neverthe- 
 less a sympathetic confidante and playfellow. I 
 was older before Miss Braddon wove the spells 
 which my father and Dickens both so warmly 
 praised. My father liked Lady Audley's Secret ; 
 Dickens specially cared for the story of The 
 Doctors Wife. Many other Sibyls were yet to 
 be, but in those early days they concerned me 
 not. Rhoda Broughton was in her schoolroom, 
 Emily Lawless was in her nursery, Mrs. Humphry 
 Ward in her cradle. Mary Cholmondeley and 
 Margaret Woods were not even born ; not to 
 speak of how many others besides, happily yet to
 
 8 FEOM THE POECH 
 
 be ; poets, historians, essayists, whose names will 
 come to all our minds. 
 
 My governess herself gave me Mrs. Oliphant's 
 first book as an exception to the rigid rule 
 against novel-reading, saying she heard it had 
 been written by a girl only a few years older 
 than I was. It was in Scotch, which I could 
 not understand, but it was a novel all the same. 
 As to the stern edict of limitation, fortunately 
 for me Blackioood was not a novel, but a sober- 
 looking magazine with a brown-paper cover and 
 a picture of George Buchanan, surrounded by 
 thistles ; and there it was that a few years later 
 I found the Scenes from Clerical Life, all-absorb- 
 ing, convincing, written as I imagined by one of 
 the wisest of men. I used to try to picture him 
 to myself, grave and noble, with a melancholy 
 reserved manner, rather bald — certainly a clergy- 
 man from Cambridge. It was like going to his 
 church to read of Amos and Milly Barton and 
 the people out of JaneHs Repentance and Mr. 
 GilfiVs Love Story, who seemed to fill our house 
 where such good company was already to be found. 
 There are certain Overtures, like that one to 
 the Freischiitz, which in the opening bars bring
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS 9 
 
 before us all the coming wonder of the great 
 music yet to be. In the same way, it seems now, 
 looking back, that when I wondered over the 
 first opening chapters of George Eliot's work, 
 all the suggestion of its future came flooding in. 
 I cannot think that she has ever given us any- 
 thing more beautiful than the Scenes from Clerical 
 Life, as they dawned then, complete, full of heart 
 and of knowledge — knowledge of that special 
 phase of life which was in her own experience. 
 
 The very first sentences of Amos Barton open 
 in old Shepperton Church, where George Eliot, 
 as a child herself, is waiting in her place : 
 
 " As the moment of psalmody approached, by 
 some process to me as mysterious and untraceable 
 as the opening of the flowers or the breaking-out 
 of the stars, a slate appeared in front of the gal- 
 lery, advertising in bold characters the psalm 
 about to be sung." Then follows the description 
 of its accompaniment, " the bassoon, the two key- 
 bugles, the carpenter understood to have an 
 amazing power of singing ' counter ' who formed 
 the complement of the choir regarded in Shep- 
 perton as one of distinguished attraction, occa- 
 sionally known to draw hearers from the next
 
 10 FHOM THE PORCH 
 
 parish. . . . The greater triumphs were reserved 
 for the Sundays when the slate announced an 
 Anthem . . . when the key-bugles always ran 
 away at a great pace, while the bassoon 
 every now and then boomed a flying shot after 
 them. . . ." 
 
 Better even than the account of the choir is 
 the noble sermon the author speaks in conclusion, 
 and of which this is the text : 
 
 " Blessed influence of one true loving human 
 soul on another ! Not calculable by algebra, not 
 deducible by logic, but mysterious, eflectual, 
 mighty as the hidden process by which the tiny 
 seed is quickened, and bursts forth into tall stem 
 and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled flower. 
 Ideas are often poor ghosts ; our sun-filled eyes 
 cannot discern them ; they pass athwart us in 
 thin vapour, and cannot make themselves felt. 
 But sometimes they are made fiesh ; they breathe 
 upo7i us ivith warm breath, they touch us with 
 soft responsive hands, they look at us ivith sad 
 sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones ; 
 they are clothed in a living human soul, with 
 all its conflicts, its faith and its love. Then their 
 presence is a power, then they shake us like a
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODERN SIBYLS 11 
 
 passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle 
 compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame." 
 
 Some one asked me once if I liked books or 
 people best. It is an impossible question to 
 answer. Books are people, if they are worth 
 anything at all ; just as people at times become 
 books, and are often all the better for the 
 transmigration. 
 
 I once had a talk with George Eliot. It was 
 in winter time with the snow lying on the ground. 
 She sat by the fire in a beautiful black satin 
 gown, with a green-shaded lamp on the table 
 beside her, where I saw German books lying 
 and pamphlets and ivory paper-cutters. She was 
 very quiet and noble, with two steady penetra- 
 ting eyes and a sweet voice. As I looked I felt 
 her to be a friend, not exactly a personal friend 
 but a good and benevolent impulse. I remember 
 she said " it was better in life to build one's 
 cottage in a valley so as to face the worst and 
 not to fall away ; and the worst," she continued, 
 *' was this very often, that people were living 
 with a hidden power of work and of help in them 
 which they could not apply, which they scarcely 
 estimated. We ought to respect our influence,"
 
 12 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 she said. " We know by our own experience 
 how very much others affect our lives, and we 
 must remember that we in turn must have 
 the same effect upon others." 
 
 I cannot but recall at the same time what 
 another friend once told me of George Eliot's 
 vivid suffering and susceptibility to outer in- 
 fluences, to criticism. People of an imaginative 
 nature buy their experience dearly, and perhaps 
 over-estimate the importance of the opinions 
 which disturb them. Miss Bronte suffered much 
 in the same way, and I have known similar 
 instances even among literary men. At the time 
 when I knew George Eliot her name was famous. 
 Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda had issued 
 like fertilising tides, lagging sometimes, then 
 again carrying everything along with them. 
 She had written that noble opening chapter to 
 Bomola, that " Proem," as she chooses to call 
 it, in which she stands upon the Ponte Vecchio 
 looking over Florence and evoking its past and 
 its present, and describing with so sure a touch 
 " the little children in the old city making 
 another sunlight amid the shadows of age." 
 
 I have sometimes tried to define to myself
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODEEN SIBYLS 13 
 
 the differences between the great women-writers 
 of my youth. George EHot and Mrs. Oliphant 
 seem to be Eulers in their different kingdoms 
 of fancy ; George Eliot watching her characters 
 from afar, Mrs. Oliphant in a Hke way describing, 
 but never seeming subject to, the thronging 
 companies she evokes. Mrs. Gaskell, on the 
 contrary, became the people she wrote about. 
 When she wrote of Charlotte Bronte, for instance, 
 she saw with her eyes and imbibed her impres- 
 sions. In the same way in her stories she seems 
 inspired by each character in turn, whether it is 
 Molly Gibson or her stepmother, or Miss Matty 
 and Miss Deborah, or shall we instance Philip 
 Hepburn in Sylvia's Lovers, walking along the 
 downs in the darkness, looking towards the lights 
 in the distant valley and listening to the clang 
 of the New Year bells ? 
 
 Currer Bell wrote some years before George 
 Eliot began to publish. There is an amusing 
 and indignant letter addressed to George Lewes 
 in 1850, when Currer Bell, in correspondence 
 with him, complains of a review (in the Edin- 
 burgh) he had written of her work. Some one 
 once asked Miss Yonge what she felt when the
 
 14 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 reviewers cut her up. She laughed, and said: 
 " Well, I don't cry all day long as Miss Bronte 
 does when she reads an adverse review." But 
 Miss Bronte's standard is quite different from 
 Miss Yonge's.i For her everybody struck a 
 note, and was to be reckoned with. She con- 
 cludes her letter to Lewes in these words : 
 
 " I shake hands with you, you have excellent 
 points, you can be generous. I still feel angry 
 and think I do well to be angry, but it is the 
 anger one experiences for rough play rather than 
 foul play. I am yours with a certain respect and 
 more chagrin, Currer Bell." 
 
 Endless histories of the Brontes have been 
 written of late, but the stories of Jane Eyre, of 
 Shirley, of Villette, are each in turn biographies 
 of Charlotte Bronte and of her sisters, told by 
 her with that passion which coloured everything 
 she touched. We have no need to be taught 
 
 ^ There is a pretty story told in Mrs. Romanes' Z/i/e, of Charlotte 
 Yonge being frightened by the popularity of The Heir of Redely ffe, 
 and going to consult Keble, fearing her own undue elation. 
 " Do you care for such things ? " said kind Keble ; and then he 
 quoted the concluding words of the 90th Psalm ; "Prosper Thou 
 the work of our hands upon us, O prosper Thou our handiwork."
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODEEN SIBYLS 15 
 
 to admire her. She was a Sibyl indeed with 
 oracles at her command. She flashed her inspira- 
 tions upon her readers, and all through the sad- 
 ness of her life and its surroundings one realises 
 the passionate love which pervaded it, both for 
 the people who belonged to her, and the places 
 and things to which she belonged.^ She was a 
 poet. She owned, as only poets can own, the 
 world all round about her. The freehold of the 
 fells and the moors was hers, and of the great 
 Yorkshire vault overhead ; and above all that 
 eager heart was hers, throbbing in the little 
 frail body. 
 
 "If you knew," she writes to a friend, "my 
 thoughts, the dreams that absorb me, and the 
 fiery imagination that at times eats me up, you 
 would pity and, I dare say, despise me ; but I 
 know the treasures of the Bible, I love them and 
 adore them, I can see the well of Life in all its 
 clearness, but when I stoop down to drink, the 
 pure waters fly from my lips as if I were 
 Tantalus." 
 
 * August 1913. — Some letters from Miss Bronte to M. Heger 
 recently published only confirm this view more and more. It 
 would have been more to the recipient's credit if he had answered 
 them and honourably burnt them, instead of not answering and 
 leaving them to be printed iu the Times.
 
 16 FROM THE POECH 
 
 No more spontaneous honour was ever offered 
 by one woman of genius to another, than when 
 Mrs. Gaskell wrote the life of Charlotte Bronte. 
 The opening of the book is very remarkable ; 
 the wild West Riding country is there, the 
 weather is there, the country people are made 
 to talk — how old Tabby lives in the stone Par- 
 sonage along with the Parson and his wonderful 
 children ! We see those girls growing up as 
 time goes on, growing into tiny gigantic women, 
 so timid, so strong, for whom life was so great 
 a matter, who thought the world was made for 
 them, who faced death with such calm and 
 courageous dignity. 
 
 Any one who has ever studied the work of the 
 Brontes must have realised that gift of descrip- 
 tion which was theirs. I remember once being 
 in Brussels, having lost my way, when I came to 
 a place off the high street which was strangely 
 familiar to me, a place where steps led from the 
 street to a lower level ; and there stood a fine 
 old house with closed doors and shutters, and 
 a walled garden, and summer trees overgrowing 
 the walls. Surely this had all been seen before 
 by me, and I had an odd impression of a figure
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODERN SIBYLS 17 
 
 flitting from the doorway ; then I suddenly 
 recognised the house in Villette, where Lucy 
 Snow spent that long and lonely summer time. 
 On my return to the hotel I found that I had 
 not been mistaken. Alas ! according to an 
 article published not long ago in Blackivood, the 
 Pension Heger and its inhabitants also recog- 
 nised the pictures in Villette. I can imagine 
 the interest and the dissatisfaction they must 
 have given, most especially to the mistress of 
 the estabhshment. The writer of the article, 
 an American girl who had herself been at the 
 school, describes all that M. Heger and his family 
 told her of their admiration and respect for their 
 pensionnaire, and then- dismay when they dis- 
 covered the impression they themselves had 
 made upon her. For years afterwards, by 
 Madame's decree, no English pupils were re- 
 ceived into the establishment ; and what they 
 subsequently thought of the American girl's 
 article I do not know. 
 
 As a child I can remember Charlotte Bronte 
 talking to my father with odd inquiring glances ; 
 as a girl I heard of her from her friends and 
 admirers. Only the other day a characteristic 
 
 B
 
 18 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 story was told me by Mr. Reginald Smith. 
 When his father-in-law, Mr. George Smith, 
 wished to have Miss Bronte's portrait done, he 
 applied to Mr, George Richmond, the great 
 painter, who agreed to make the attempt, but 
 who found it almost impossible to catch the 
 likeness, so utterly dull and unresponsive was 
 her expression. For a long time he tried in 
 vain to interest her and awaken any gleam of 
 life ; at last by chance he happened to mention 
 that he had seen the Duke of Wellington the 
 day before. Immediately the mask came to life, 
 the light flashed forth, and all was well. 
 
 Some years after her death I visited the shrine 
 to which such hundreds of pilgrims have climbed 
 in turn. We came from Keighley, toiling up 
 the steep hill at some hour when the women 
 were leaving their work at the mills, and the 
 echo of their wooden clogs, striking upon the 
 stones, followed us all the way. We reached 
 Haworth on the hill-top with its scattered 
 cottages and distant wolds and the grim, 
 stately church uprearing in the churchyard. 
 We stopped at the doorway of the inn, of 
 which we had read and which Branwell Bronte
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODEEN SIBYLS 19 
 
 frequented. The days of which I am speaking 
 are so long ago that the host was still alive 
 who had known the Brontes, and he described 
 how Branwell used to linger in the bar late into 
 the night, and finally be sent hurrying home 
 by a back door and a short cross-road that leads 
 to the parsonage. We, too, followed the road, 
 hoping to see the rooms in the little rectory 
 where the great visions had been evoked for all 
 the world to wonder at. The then dwellers 
 at the parsonage, naturally exasperated by an 
 unending stream of uninvited visitors, refused 
 to admit us, and, this being so, we crossed the 
 adjacent churchyard and came to the church, 
 where a pew-opener showed us the old pew and 
 the monuments, and we heard her discoursing, 
 somewhat too familiarly I thought, of those 
 whose dead memories still outshine the living 
 presences. Nay, the very creatures of their 
 imaginations still seemed more alive than many 
 of us. Who shall limit the life of visionary 
 friends, of dream children after the dreamers 
 are gone ? 
 
 Just as archaeologists trace buried cities, so 
 I have lately heard of an American critic who
 
 20 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 has, with a personally conducted party of com- 
 patriots and Norwegians interested in books and 
 education, followed the traces of Mrs. Gaskell's 
 advance and travelled from America via Norway 
 to Knutsford in Cheshire to see the actual home 
 of Miss Mattie at " Cranford," so as to be able 
 to describe it to the classes at home. 
 
 What a kind gift to the world was this 
 " Cranford," that city of refuge ! Charlotte 
 Bronte, writing to Mrs. Gaskell in 1853, says of 
 a letter : " It was as pleasant as spring showers, 
 as reviving as a friend's visit, in short, very 
 like a page of Cranford^ 
 
 Cranford is no heroic school of life, no scene 
 of passion : it is daily bread, it is merry kind- 
 ness. It proves the value of little things ; it is 
 the grain of mustard seed : it reveals the mighty 
 secret of kindness allied to gentle fun. Parson 
 Primrose would have been at home there, so 
 would Sir Roger de Coverley and Colonel 
 Newcome. There should be a proposal to give 
 the freedom of the city to certain favoured 
 heroes and heroines — we might each select them 
 for ourselves. 
 
 I have quoted elsewhere the description given
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS 21 
 
 to me by Mrs. Murray Smith, when I asked her 
 what she remembered of Mrs, Gaskell. She 
 answered : " Many have written of her, nobody 
 has ever quite expressed her as she was, nor 
 given the chartn of her presence, the interest of 
 all she said, of her vivid memory and delightful 
 companionship." 
 
 As for Charlotte Bronte, most of the later 
 happiness of her life came from Mrs. Gaskell's 
 protecting element of common sense and kindly 
 friendship. " Do we not all know that true 
 greatness is single, oblivious of self and prone 
 to unselfish unambitious attachments ? " wrote 
 the author of Cranford. Her daughter, speak- 
 ing of her long after, once exclaimed this was 
 in truth her mother — simple, forgetting her own 
 interests in trying to help others. 
 
 I have wished in this little address to recall 
 these four well-known Sibyls of my early youth 
 — George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell, Currer Bell, Mrs. 
 Oliphant. Of all these, Mrs. Oliphant's life is 
 the one most familiar to me, and with my re- 
 membrance of her I will conclude. Her presence 
 is still vivid for all who knew her, that white-
 
 22 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 haired, bright-eyed lady, sitting in her sunny 
 room at Windsor, with her dogs at her feet, 
 with flowers round about, with the happy 
 inroads of her boys and their friends, with girls 
 making the place merry and busy, and that curious 
 bodyguard of older friends, somewhat jealous 
 and intolerant of any affections of later date 
 than their own. It was good to see her among 
 them all, ever serene in attention and interest, 
 the most noteworthy mistress of the house, 
 welcoming courteously, speaking definitely and 
 to the point with her pretty racy Scotch accent 
 and soft tones. Her work was never-ceasing, 
 but it scarcely seemed to interfere with her 
 hospitable life among her associates. 
 
 I knew her abroad as well as at home. I was 
 once staying in a hotel at Grindelwald with the 
 Leslie Stephens. Mrs. Oliphant and her young 
 people were there also, and our parties joined 
 company. We used to dine together, walk 
 together ; I used to see her at her daily task, 
 steadily continuing, notwithstanding all the 
 interruptions of nature and human nature — the 
 changing Hghts on the mountains, the exclaiming 
 of youthful excursionists, the many temptations
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS 23 
 
 to leave her task. I was always struck, when 
 I saw her writing, by her concentration and the 
 perfect neatness of her arrangements — the tiny 
 inkstand of prepared ink, into which she poured 
 a few drops of water, enough for each day's 
 work, the orderly manuscript, her delicate, fine 
 pen. . , . When she had finished, she would 
 come out in the evening for a saunter along the 
 valley with Leslie Stephen and the rest of us. 
 She was one of those people whose presence is 
 even more than a pleasure, it was a stimulus ; 
 she was kindly, sympathetic, and yet answering 
 with that chord of intelligent antagonism which 
 is so suggestive and makes for such good talk. 
 
 She used to tell me a great deal of her past 
 life at that time, but with a certain reserve also, 
 and it was not until I read the Autobiography 
 published after her death that I realised what 
 her great cares had been. I could then under- 
 stand why she had been so scornful of mental 
 difficulties which seemed real enough to some 
 of us, and why she always spoke bitterly of 
 problems of thought — she who had so many 
 practical troubles to encounter. The impression 
 of that special time is very vivid still — the busy
 
 24 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 clatter of the Swiss village close at hand, the 
 great surrounding mountains, the terrace where 
 we used to sit together under the clematis in 
 full flower, and her eyes shining as she talked 
 on and on. I remember her once saying, when 
 I exclaimed at something she told me, " Tempera- 
 ment has a great deal to do with our lives, and 
 mine is a hopeful temper and has carried me on 
 through terrible trials." 
 
 Some time after our visit to Grindelwald, I 
 wrote to her to ask for a literary contribution 
 for a friend, an editor who was ill and in great 
 need of help. Mrs. Oliphant immediately sent 
 a story, a charming, long, cheerful story, which 
 (as I discovered later) had been written by her 
 son's sick-bed, and which she gave as a gift 
 with her bountiful hand at a time when she 
 hardly knew where to turn for money. What 
 friend in trouble was ever dropped or ignored 
 by her? When her helpless brother and his 
 children came appealing to her, she took them 
 all into her home. The brother died, and his 
 fine young son also' died just at the opening of 
 the career in which Mrs. Oliphant had started 
 him, but the delicate girls survived to repay 
 
 I
 
 A DISCOUESE ON MODERN SIBYLS 25 
 
 with full measure all the love they had re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant wrote near a hundred novels, 
 we are told, besides her admirable criticisms and 
 her histories, besides her reviews, and the lives 
 of Montalembert, of Irving, and of Laurence 
 Oliphant, her kinsman. Her books of travel 
 about Florence, and Venice, and the Holy Land 
 represent her holidays ; as for her mystical 
 histories, they always seem to be more like 
 herself than anything else ; for though she hated 
 mental speculation, she was a believing mystic 
 in the semblance of a dignified Scotch lady, a 
 little cold in manner and tart in speech. Yet, 
 as is the way with some, she too was strangely 
 moved at times to cast away all concealment, 
 and to pour out in writing those heart-secrets, 
 which seem spoken, not to the w^orld, but to 
 the very spirit of sympathy which is in the 
 world, when the pen runs on almost of its own 
 accord and the human spirit cries aloud from 
 the depths of silence. 
 
 I do not remember to have read anywhere 
 else a description more to the point than that 
 written by Mrs. Oliphant, towards the close of
 
 26 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 her writing, in a book which she calls The Ways 
 of Life, describing " the ebb-tide " — the sudden 
 realisation that all advance is at an end. . . . 
 "It is a very startling discovery," she says, "to 
 one who has perhaps been going with a tolerably 
 full sail, without any consciousness of weakened 
 energies or failing power, and it usually is as 
 sudden as it is strange, though probably other 
 people have already found it out and traced 
 the steps of its approach. . . . But yet the ebb 
 has its poetry too, though the colours are more 
 sombre, and the sentiment is different. The 
 flood, which in its rise seemed almost individual, 
 pervaded by something like conscious life or 
 force, becomes an abstract, relentless fate when 
 it pours back into the deep gulf of the sea of 
 forge tfulness. . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant has herself criticised her own 
 work — she might have done better, she says, 
 if she had written much less, and reached a 
 higher level. Fancy was hers indeed, intuitive 
 grasp of circumstance : only the very bountiful- 
 ness of her gift was her temptation. " Was it 
 love of mammon," she asks, " which impelled me 
 to write on, or love of my children ? " Would
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS 27 
 
 the praise of the critics have been worth the 
 daily happiness of all those who depended on her 
 toil for their gaiety and superfluity, those for 
 whom she so gladly slaved, morning, noon, and 
 late into the night ? She used to sit up at her 
 writing after every one was gone to bed, and 
 rise again on dark winter mornings to see her 
 boys off to their early school. At times she 
 was weary, but again and again she was able 
 to resume her task with renewed interest. Too 
 often she wrote by her sons' sick-beds, in appre- 
 hension and unspeakable terror. 
 
 No one has spoken more truly of her than a 
 friend who lived after her for a time in the 
 pleasant Windsor Crescent house. " It is good," 
 says Mrs. Lionel Cust, "to gather up again some 
 memories of that vivid and charming personality, 
 of that brave, indomitable spirit, of that amazing 
 agility which could rise to every emergency and 
 every crisis, which could amuse itself with the 
 smallest interests or penetrate far into the mists 
 of the unseen." 
 
 " As I saw her in the last years of her life," 
 Mrs. Cust continues, "she was old, but with the 
 dignity of a queen, and shining eyes which
 
 28 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 seemed as though they saw far into the distance. 
 She was looking towards ' the more genial land/ 
 waiting for the time when she would be with 
 those again whom she had lost here, and in that 
 steadfast hope she died." 
 
 " The one good thing I am conscious of," she 
 wrote to her friend A. K. H. B., "is the great, 
 calm, all-sustaining sense of a Divine Unseen 
 walking in the cool of the garden. . . ." 
 
 So much for the Torch-bearers of the Early 
 Victorian days ! Not very long ago people 
 spoke of the rising generation knocking at the 
 door ; it seems now as if already the rising 
 generation had ceased to knock. It has burst 
 in, leaving the doors wide open to admit the 
 draughts from outside, and the shouts and shrieks 
 and the storms of discord, as well as the more 
 harmonious echoes of natural life. 
 
 The impatient effects, the incoherent audacities 
 of the post-present taste in literature, art, and 
 music, appeal to an entirely different set of 
 feelings from those which existed in my own 
 time. 
 
 I cannot think they will ever impress our
 
 A DISCOURSE ON MODERN SIBYLS 29 
 
 children as our familiar visions have impressed 
 us, and will still impress those who are yet to 
 live. I heard of a great leader of modern ideas 
 exclaiming the other day, "We are living in 
 the present : why go on constantly dwelling on 
 the past?" But he was speaking to a young 
 woman at the time, and an old one might have 
 answered him, " Because, as you yourself have 
 sung in ' Lest we Forget,' the past holds us in 
 its noble grip and it is the present." 
 
 This paper was written far from home, at 
 Venice, in the spring of 1912, in a window of 
 the Palazzo Barbaro, that benevolent house most 
 beautiful, where so many of us have been received 
 and entertained in kindness. From its windows, 
 morning after morning, one might watch beneath 
 the pale blue heaven, a sweet advancing angel 
 brightening every instant in annunciation of the 
 day to come, divinest lights changing into sun- 
 shine, morning clouds trailing towards a distant 
 duomo, while doves were calling, and bells 
 sounding for the dawn. 
 
 Just opposite, across the Grand Canal, stands 
 another palace, also with carved balconies and
 
 30 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 ancient windows and sunlit terraces. This palace 
 belongs to a lady who, loving good English 
 and beauty of style, has chosen to bestow here 
 in London a yearly prize of a hundred pieces of 
 gold, to be won in fair combat by literary 
 aspirants, young knights of the pen, and with 
 this pleasant fact I am glad to conclude my little 
 discourse about writers. 
 
 i
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AS 1 
 REMEMBER HIM 
 
 Readers of my father's poems will remember 
 those charming lines " Mrs. Katherine's Lantern," 
 published with the other ballads. The lines are 
 so well known I need scarcely quote them again. 
 
 To K. E. 
 
 I am just from Hanway Court, 
 Where the Israelites resort, 
 And this lamp I've brought with me. 
 Madam, on its pane you'll see, 
 The initials K. and E. 
 
 Full a hundred years are gone 
 Since the little beacon shone 
 On a Venice balcony ; 
 There on summer nights it hung, 
 And the lovers came and sung 
 To their beautiful K. E. 
 
 Hush ! in the canal below 
 Don't you hear the plash of row'rs ? 
 Now they rest upon their oars 
 Underneath the lantern's glow, 
 
 31
 
 32 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 And a thrilling voice begins, 
 To the sound of mandolins, 
 Begins singing of amore 
 And delire and dolore, 
 O the ravishing tenore. 
 
 Lady, do you know the tune 1 
 Ah, we all of us have hummed it ; 
 I've an old guitar has thrummed it 
 Under many a changing moon. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Shall I try it? Do-Re-Mi- 
 
 What is this ? Ma f oi, the fact is 
 
 That my hand is out of practice, 
 
 And my poor old fiddle cracked is ; 
 
 And a man — I let the truth out — 
 
 Who's had almost every tooth out, 
 
 Cannot sing as once he sung, 
 
 When he was young as you are young. 
 
 When he was young and lutes were strung 
 
 And love lamp in the casement hung. 
 
 When K. E. asked me the other day what 
 I could remember of her own father, Charles 
 Dickens, whose centenary is being kept this 
 year, I answered that I had lived all my life 
 in his company, but I could almost count the 
 occasions of actually meeting him upon my fingers. 
 And yet, as I have said elsewhere, it is curious 
 to remember, considering how rarely we met and 
 what a long way off we lived from one another.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS 33 
 
 the important part the Dickens household seemed 
 to play in our early life. The little girls were 
 just about our own ages ; K. E. and my sister 
 were the same age ; Mary Dickens, whom my 
 father also liked to praise, paired off with me. 
 The Dickens books were no less a part of our 
 home than our father's own books. Mr. Pick- 
 wick, Little Nell, Nicholas Nickleby and the 
 glorious company to which they all belonged, 
 lived with us no less than did Becky and Dobbin 
 and Major Pendennis and the beloved inhabitants 
 of Fairoaks. 
 
 I have a letter dated Devonshire Terrace, 
 Sunday, the 9th of January 1848, which I am 
 glad to have. It concerns a criticism — most 
 probably that of the C/mstmas Carol which my 
 father so greatly admired. It is the letter of 
 one generous young man to another : 
 
 " My dear Thackeray," it says, " I need not 
 tell you that I have been delighted and cut 
 tenderly to the heart by your generous letter. 
 You would never have written it if you had 
 not known how truly and heartily I should 
 feel it. I will only say that the spirit in wliich 
 I read it was worthy of the spirit in which you
 
 34 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 wrote it, and that I believe there is nothing in 
 the world, or out of it, to which I am so sensitive 
 as the least mark of such a manly and gallant 
 regard. 
 
 " . . . I am saving up the perusal of Vanity 
 Fair until I shall have done Bomhey. Believe 
 me, my dear fellow, I am very proud of your 
 letter, and very happy in its receipt. If I were 
 to pursue the subject I should come out in a 
 style which would be full of all sorts of faults 
 but insincerity." 
 
 The first occasion of my meeting Mr. Dickens 
 was at the house of Charles Leslie, a painter for 
 whom my father had a great sympathy and affec- 
 tion, and of whom there is a charming life by 
 Tom Taylor. On December 31st, 1841, Leslie 
 writes to Washington Irving in America : " Mr. 
 Dickens tells me you urged him to become 
 acquainted with me, for which I now send you, 
 by him, my thanks, and every good wish of this 
 wishing season." And it was accordingly at 
 the Leslies' home some ten years later that my 
 sister and I first realised Mr. Dickens himself, 
 though only as a sort of brilliance in the 
 room, mysteriously dominant and formless. I
 
 CHAELES DICKENS 35 
 
 remember how everybody lighted up when he 
 entered. 
 
 In this same Life of Charles Leslie there is 
 also frequent mention of a certain Captain Mor- 
 gan, of whom Leslie says, " It was worth going 
 to America if only to make Captain Morgan's 
 acquaintance." This benevolent seaman used to 
 come and go across the Atlantic bestowing friend- 
 ship, barrels of red apples and American rocking- 
 chairs upon his sympathetic English companions, 
 all of whom he delighted to make happy : we 
 certainly came in for our share. My impression 
 is that on this particular occasion a great expedi- 
 tion to a ship in some far distant dock had been 
 organised, to which expedition we children were 
 admitted at my father's request. Captain Morgan 
 must have been on board his ship, and Mr. Dickens 
 seemed to take command of the party which 
 started from the Leslies' house. He was talking, 
 arranging everything, in spirits gaily delightful 
 — as I have said, mysteriously dominant. All 
 comes back to my mind as I think of it, and I 
 remember (after forgetting a great deal) that 
 we travelled back in a railway carriage in Mr. 
 Dickens's company late at night, dead tired,
 
 36 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 enchanted, sleepy, yet somehow carried along 
 by his kindly brilliance. 
 
 It was soon after this that we went to some 
 eventful children's parties in Devonshire Place, 
 and also later to Tavistock House, and then 
 came a year when my father was in America 
 and we were living with our grandparents on 
 one side of the Avenue des Champs Elysdes, 
 while the Dickens party was across the road in a 
 little, low, old house with many windows looking 
 out upon the flowing thoroughfare. As I look 
 in the collection of the letters of Charles Dickens, 
 published in 1879 by his daughter and his sister- 
 in-law, I find more than one letter written from 
 49 Champs Ely sees, swept away long since. 
 One is addressed to Mr. W. H. Wills, and is 
 dated October 21st, 1855 :— 
 
 " I have two floors here, entresol and first, in 
 a doll's house, and the view without, astounding 
 as you will say when you come. The house is 
 on the exposition side about half a quarter of 
 a mile above Franconi, each room has but one 
 window, but we have no fewer than 6 rooms 
 (besides the back ones), looking on the Champs 
 Elysees, with the wonderful life perpetually
 
 CHAKLES DICKENS 37 
 
 flowing up and down . . . damage for the whole, 
 700 francs a month ; but, sir, when Georgina, 
 the servants, and I were here for the first night, 
 Catherine and the rest being at Boulogne, I 
 heard Georgie restless, turned out, asked what's 
 the matter ? * Oh, it's dreadfully dirty, I can't 
 sleep for the smell of my room.' Imagine all my 
 stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak 
 by a thousand ; imagine the porter, the porter's 
 wife, the porter's wife's sister, a feeble upholsterer 
 of enormous age from round the corner, and all 
 his workmen (4 boys) summonded. Imagine the 
 partners in the proprietorship of the apartment, 
 and a martial little man with Franco-Prussian 
 beard also summonded ; imagine your inimitable 
 chief briefly explaining that dirt is not in his 
 way, and that he is driven to madness, and 
 that he devotes himself to no coat and a dirty 
 face, until the apartment is thoroughly purified. 
 Imagine co-proprietors, at first astounded, then 
 wavering, then affected, then confiding their 
 utmost private sorrows to the Inimitable, offering 
 new carpets (accepted), embraces (not accepted), 
 and really responding like French bricks. Sallow, 
 unbrushed, unshorn, awful, stalks the Inimitable 
 
 226187
 
 38 FROM THE POUCH 
 
 through the apartment until last night. Then 
 all the improvements were concluded ! You must 
 picture it as the smallest place you ever saw, 
 but as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean 
 as anything human can be, and with a moving 
 panorama always outside which is Paris in 
 itself." 
 
 My sister and I used to go there from time to 
 time ; celebrities and amusing people seemed 
 always coming up and down the narrow stairs. 
 Robert Lord Lytton I remember, Wilkie Collins, 
 and many more with whom we had little to do, 
 being at that time absorbed by our youth and 
 our lessons. 
 
 In the collected letters there is a letter to 
 Macready, dated from Folkestone on the 4th 
 October 1855 : 
 
 "My dearest Macready, — I have been 
 hammering away in that strenuous manner at 
 my book, that I have had leisure for scarcely 
 any letters but such as I have been obliged to 
 write, having a horrible temptation when I lay 
 down my book pen to run out on the breezy 
 downs, tear up the hills, slide down the same, 
 and conduct myself in a frenzied manner for
 
 CHARLES DICKENS 39 
 
 the relief that only exercise gives me. . . . Pray 
 stick to that dim notion you have of coming to 
 Paris ; how delightful it would be to see your 
 aged countenance in that capital ! It will renew 
 your youth to visit a theatre, previously dining 
 at the Trois Freres in company with the jocund 
 boy who now addresses you. Do, do stick to it." 
 One day, I specially remember, when we had 
 come to settle about a drawing class with our 
 young companion K, E. (who had already found 
 out what she liked doing), her father came into 
 the room accompanied by a dignified person — 
 too dignified we thought — who came forward 
 and made some solemn remark, such as Hamlet 
 himself might have addressed to Yorick, and 
 then stood in an attitude in the middle of the 
 room. The Paris springtime was at its height, 
 there was music outside, a horse champing in 
 the road, voices through the open window, 
 and Mr. Macready, for it was he, tragic in 
 attitude gravely awaiting an answer. Mr. 
 Dickens seemed to have instantly seized the 
 incongruity, suddenly responding with another 
 attitude, and another oration in the Hamlet 
 manner, so drolly and gravely, that Macready
 
 40 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 himself could not help smiling at the burlesque. 
 My sister and I had come to settle with K. E. 
 about a master recommended by Ary Scheffer. 
 After Mr. Dickens and Mr. Macready had driven 
 off again, all our plans were arranged satis- 
 factorily, and for a time we used to meet con- 
 stantly and to draw of mornings. The master 
 Ary Scheffer had recommended, looked not unlike 
 one of Scheffer's own designs, St. Augustine or 
 another, with a touch of Gandish. He taught 
 us to do gigantic ears and classic profiles ; he 
 was never tired of talking and of praising 
 Mr. Ary Scheffer, and also in particular one of 
 his present pupils. On one occasion we all ad- 
 journed to Ary Scheffer's actual studio to hear 
 Mr. Dickens read ; but I was wool-gathering in 
 those days ; life was too brimful of everything ; 
 I looked about at the pictures, I watched the 
 company, I admired chivalrous Ary Scheffer's 
 military strides ; I wondered to see our drawing 
 master, whom I had imagined so all-important, 
 trying in vain to get into the room through a 
 doorway (as he knew no English his presence 
 did not greatly matter), but meanwhile, alas ! 
 I carried away little of the reading itself, so
 
 CHARLES DICKENS 41 
 
 engrossed was I with the fact and the scene 
 of it all. I am interested now, when I turn 
 to the Biographic Generale, hoping to find some 
 date for these vague reminiscences, to see how 
 the great author was made welcome in Paris, and 
 credited with his well-established position, and 
 also with the mention of various ingenious books 
 I had never heard of before. The Cricket on the 
 Earth is one of them, Chuzzlevil is another, and 
 to all this the critic also adds a sententious little 
 moral : " He puts into practice the principles of 
 philanthropy inculcated in his works." 
 
 Dickens himself has written of his pleasure 
 in the recognition he met with at this time : 
 
 *' You cannot think how pleasant it is to me 
 to find myself generally known and liked here. 
 If I go into a shop to buy anything, and 
 give my card, the officiating priest or priestess 
 brightens up, and says, ' Ah, c'est I'ecrivain 
 celebre ; Monsieur porte un nom tres distingue ; 
 je suis honorr de voir M. Dickrn ; je lis un 
 des livres de Monsieur tons les jours.' " (In the 
 Moniteiir.) 
 
 Then he describes a man bringing some little 
 vases, which he unpacked, and talking enthusi-
 
 42 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 astically about Madame Tojare (lodgers), " Elle 
 est precisement comme une dame que je connais 
 
 h, Calais." 
 
 I remember Mr. Dickens, one day long after 
 those early times, when we were all in London 
 again, and our friend K. E. lay dangerously ill 
 of a fever in an old house in Sloane Street. 
 We had gone to ask for news of her. It was 
 an old house, panelled, and with a big well 
 staircase, on a landing of which we met Mr. 
 Dickens coming away from the sick-room. He 
 was standing by a window, and he stopped us 
 as we were going up. K. E. has told me since 
 then that in those miserable days his very 
 coming seemed to bring healing and peace to her 
 as she lay, and to quiet the raging fever. He 
 knew how critical it was, but he spoke quietly 
 and with good courage — that curious life-giving 
 power of his struck me then no less than always 
 before. "When she is better," he said, "we 
 must carry her off to her old home in the 
 country to recover." And then he asked us with 
 great kindness to come and to stay with him 
 at Gad's Hill, where he was living at the time.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS 43 
 
 There is one other meeting, a very memorable 
 one, which I should like to note here, even 
 though I cannot quite place it with its date 
 and its time. About eighteen months after my 
 father's death this same K. E. said suddenly 
 one day to my sister and myself, " I know you 
 will shrink from it, but I want to take you to 
 the reading of Cop2')&Tfield in St. James's Hall. 
 It is the last London reading. I have your 
 places ; I asked for them to be kept for you." 
 She was so affectionately insistent that we could 
 not help agreeing, for she spoke with the true 
 friend's voice, and looked with eyes that com- 
 pelled us. I have always been glad to think 
 that we went with her on that occasion. As 
 I have said, I had only once before heard 
 Mr. Dickens read — on that wasted occasion in 
 the Paris studio, but on this special evening 
 in London, it was for all the rest of my life 
 that I heard his voice. We sat in the front, a 
 little to the right of the platform ; the great 
 Hall was somewhat dimly lighted, considering the 
 crowds assembled there. The slight figure (so 
 he appeared to me) stood alone quietly facing 
 the long rows of people. He seemed holding
 
 44 FROM THE POUCH 
 
 the great audience in some mysterious way from 
 the empty stage. Quite immediately the story 
 began : Copperfield and Steerforth, Yarmouth 
 and the fishermen and Peggotty, and then the 
 rising storm, all was there before us. . . . It 
 was not acting, it was not music, nor harmony 
 of sound and colour, and yet I still have an 
 impression of all these things as I think of that 
 occasion. The lights shone from the fisherman's 
 home ; then after laughter terror fell, the storm 
 rose ; finally, we all were breathlessly watching 
 from the shore, and (this I remember most 
 vividly of all) a great wave seemed to fall 
 splashing on to the platform from overhead, 
 carrying away everything before it, and the 
 boat and the figure of Steerforth in his red 
 sailor's cap fighting for his life by the mast. 
 Some one called out ; was it Mr. Dickens him- 
 self who threw up his arm ? ... It was all 
 over, we were half-laughing, half-crying with 
 excitement ; being at that special time still 
 very much wrought up, remembering the past, 
 naturally our emotions took shape. 
 
 " I was determined you should hear him," 
 said our friend Kate. " Come quick before any-
 
 45 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 body else and speak to him." And before we 
 had recovered — it almost seemed as if we were 
 still in the storm on the shore — she had drawn 
 us into the room at the back of the stage, and 
 we found ourselves standing before Mr. Dickens 
 himself, alone again, the visions had vanislied, 
 and he was holding our hands with warmest, 
 kindest grasp of greeting and comfort.
 
 A DREAM OF KENSINGTON 
 GARDENS 
 
 FOR MY GRANDCHILDREN 
 
 As the writer walked across the beautiful illumi- 
 nated Kensington Gardens on a September morn- 
 ing not very long ago, she could not but contrast 
 what she remembered with what she then beheld. 
 Perhaps one of the few privileges of advancing 
 years is the power of seeing the past and the 
 present at the same time, and it may be perceiv- 
 ing each more clearly from such a contrasting 
 standard. My present was certainly a very 
 delightful one. A flood of light was pouring 
 over the gardens, a thousand children were out 
 in the sunshine — infants who could run, and those 
 who were carried still — some clustering round 
 the pond, others at their play under the trees. 
 As far as I could see were the figures of happy 
 companies. One flower-garden led to another ; 
 the gjardeners were at work in the parterres 
 belonging to the old Palace. 
 
 4G
 
 DREAM OF KENSINGTON GARDENS 47 
 
 In my youth Kensington Palace was closed 
 to the public, but to-day a straggling stream 
 of visitors went drifting from the Broad Walk 
 to those open hospitable doors beyond which 
 Queen Caroline's old panelled staircase leads 
 into her gallery ; leads from to-day into the 
 times when the charming Queen ruled from the 
 quaint old Court. There is her picture still 
 hanging from the walls of the low gallery with its 
 south windows, there is another of King George II 
 also to be seen alongside the careful oil portrait 
 representing the dignified and beautiful lady. 
 A friend of mine who was lately visiting the 
 pretty old Palace told me that, as she and her 
 husband, Sir William li. A. (shall we call him ?), 
 were standing there and looking about them, 
 a side door opened in one of the rooms, and from 
 it issued another stately and charming lady of 
 to-day — a descendant of Queen Caroline, a Prin- 
 cess whose home is also in Kensington Palace. 
 She recognised my friends, and smiled and said, 
 " I will show you what is to be seen ; I have 
 known it all my life." 
 
 We of my own generation, as children, used 
 to play round about the old Palace. No doors
 
 48 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 were opened to us, nor did gracious Princesses 
 appear to act as cicerones, but we knew the 
 doorways and the gables and the quaint corners 
 from without : the old steps and narrow passages. 
 Specially beloved by us was the beautiful Ban- 
 queting Hall, packed full of orange trees in those 
 long-ago days. There are four niches in the 
 wall outside along the terrace, and our absurd 
 delight was once to stand motionless in the niches, 
 with some faint hope that the passers-by might 
 suppose us to be real statues. When a timid 
 old country lady came up to me the other day 
 and asked me what was the fine building I was 
 looking at, and whether she might enter, I 
 was thinking with amusement of certain happy 
 moments I had passed in each successive niche 
 in turn. Which of my old friends, I wonder, 
 most potent, grey-haired signoras, will remember 
 them also ? 
 
 • • • • » , 
 
 Leigh Hunt recalls the picturesque figures in 
 hoops and patches who frequented Kensington 
 Gardens — the Court processions following the 
 first two Georges and their attendants — the 
 politicians in knee-breeches, and buckles, and
 
 DREAM OF KENSINGTON GARDENS 49 
 
 powdered queues. He loves to go back to 
 the days when, according to Horace Walpole, 
 the Session in Parliament consisted chiefly of 
 a dialogue between Pitt and Fox. He peoples 
 Kensington once more, brings back the Duchesse 
 de Mazarin in all her wonderful beauty at forty- 
 five years of age, with her black Italian hair, 
 walking along Kensington Square, and Talleyrand 
 dwelling in that corner house which till lately 
 rang with sweetest music evoked by dear muses 
 of the present. He awakens the shades of Ken- 
 sington Gore and its inhabitants — Wilkes issues 
 forth from the house which once had the Grecian 
 urn over the doorway ; Wilberforce starts re- 
 peating the Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm verse 
 by verse, as he paces the path from his home to 
 Hyde Park Corner. But the urn is gone, and 
 the ashes of the past scattered before the advance 
 of time, the din of motors, and the pandemonium 
 of progress which existed not in those days ; 
 Wilberforce himself could scarcely have finished 
 his Psalm in peace had he only lived to-day. 
 More than one generation, even nobler than that 
 of which Leigh Hunt has written, divides us 
 
 from them all, more than one generation has 
 
 P
 
 50 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 enjoyed the pleasant space and fresh air, and 
 listened in turn to the birds singing in the great 
 sylvan playground. 
 
 Browning loved the place, and used to sit 
 there of a morning under the trees. I can 
 remember my father greeting him one day, as 
 the poet advanced towards us striding along 
 the broad path that leads from the Bayswater 
 Road. Day after day gallant Sir Thomas Trou- 
 bridge, who was wounded at Alma, used to pass, 
 gaily active on his crutches. How often have 
 I seen Carlyle there walking on and on, " writing 
 his footsteps along the ways of life." One special 
 April morning, rainy and delicious, comes to my 
 mind at this minute. He nodded to us as we 
 caught him up, waited for us a minute, and 
 then, as we followed in his wake, passed on by 
 the Palace and round by the old Banqueting 
 House, soft showers falling through the sunshine 
 all the way. 
 
 One hot summer-time long ago the Tennysons 
 lived in Kensington Gore. They seemed to us 
 to make London into a country place, so asso- 
 ciated did the poet and his home appear to be 
 with Freshwater and its open downs ; their boys
 
 DREAM OF KENSINGTON GARDENS 51 
 
 used to go galloping along the Kensington High 
 Road on their ponies as if they were at home. 
 Tennyson, in his cloak and hat, took long daily 
 walks into London. It was still possible then 
 to walk, to converse as you walked, to think 
 of something besides the crossings. 
 
 It would be endless to try to enumerate the 
 names which are written on the old trees of 
 Kensington Gardens, but I should like to say 
 something of the playfellows of my youth ; of 
 the ducks in the Round Pond ; of the memory 
 of a certain grey goose, the terror of our child- 
 hood, before whom I and my contemporaries 
 used to fly when we went to feed the waterfowl. 
 There was a legend that this savage, hungry 
 goose had broken a little boy's leg, so dissatisfied 
 was he with the piece of bread which had been 
 thrown to him. Besides this ferocious bird, there 
 were others in great numbers, and among them 
 two charming little ducks, my father's special 
 favourites. They had bright eyes and coloured 
 faces and ornamental crests ; they seemed to be 
 of Chinese orip-in. 
 
 As I walked only yesterday, I had not much 
 time to spare for the ducks of to-day, though I
 
 52 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 gave them a passing friendly glance for the sake 
 of old times. I came home to resume my study 
 of Leigh Hunt's two volumes, where I read of 
 the possibilities which have been, as well as the 
 facts which are. 
 
 Among others, Voltaire had many links with 
 the Court of George II during his stay in Eng- 
 land, and Queen Caroline was one of his special 
 patrons. Leigh Hunt suggests that Watteau, as 
 well as Voltaire, must have known Kensington 
 Gardens — " Watteau, the glorifier of gardens par 
 excellence; that is to say, of well-bred groves 
 and glades, where the trimmer had been with 
 his shears, and ladies and gentlemen assembled 
 to play at shepherd and shepherdess in silk and 
 embroidery." 
 
 The age of Watteau is long over, but as I 
 enjoyed my morning's stroll, surely I seemed 
 to have seen certain fanciful, dignified figures 
 advancing, with all the graceful progression of 
 the past ; plumes waved, light scarves floated 
 in the air, charming presences seemed to meet 
 me from every point, from every century. . . . 
 Was it a waking vision or a dream ? 
 
 Before I quite wake up I cannot help quoting
 
 DREAM OF KENSINGTON GARDENS 53 
 
 a few passages from Walford's Kensington, who 
 tells us that Lady Brownlow describes meeting 
 Madame Recamier in Kensington Gardens. She 
 appeared dressed a V antique, a muslin gown cling- 
 ing to her form like the folds of drapery on a 
 statue. Her hair was in a plait at the back and 
 falling in small ringlets round her face and greasy 
 with huile antique ; a large veil thrown over her 
 head completed her attire, which not unnaturally 
 caused her to be followed and stared at. Wal- 
 ford also quotes from the Historical Becollections 
 of Thomas Smith that Mrs. Sarah Grey had a 
 pension granted to her of £18 a year, a com- 
 pensation for the death of her husband, acci- 
 dentally shot by a keeper while hunting a fox 
 in Kensington Gardens. 
 
 King William Ill's taste lay all in sternest 
 clippings and rulings, and fortifications of yew. 
 More smiling fancies followed in Queen Anne's 
 reign. 
 
 Addison has mentioned Kensington Gardens 
 — how often he must have passed by on his way 
 from Holland House to Whitehall — " I think 
 there are as many kinds of gardening as of 
 poetry," he says ; "your makers of pastures and
 
 54 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 flower-garden sare epigrammatists and sonneteers 
 in this art ; contrivers of grottos, treillages, and 
 cascades are romantic writers : ' Wise ' and 
 * Loudon ' " (the Royal gardeners) " are our heroic 
 poets, and if, as a critic, I may single out any 
 passage of their works to commend I shall take 
 notice of that part of the upper gardens at 
 Kensington which was at first nothing but a 
 gravel pit. It must have been a fine genius 
 for gardening that could have thought of form- 
 ing such an unsightly hollow into so beautiful an 
 area, and to have hit the eyes with so uncommon 
 and agreeable a scene as that which it is now 
 wrought into." 
 
 As children, we used to play in the great 
 alcove, so beautiful and dignified, which once 
 stood with its back to the Kensington Road 
 (there was also a smaller erection not far off 
 which on the whole we preferred, for the seats 
 were not so far from the ground). The alcove, 
 though we did not know it then, was built by 
 Wren of marble and brick combined, and be- 
 longed to Queen Anne's private garden, and 
 there is a legend that the French emigres used 
 it as a place where mass was sung at the time.
 
 DREAM OF KENSINGTON GARDENS 55 
 
 In those days Kensington House stood behind its 
 scrolled gates on the opposite side of the road, 
 and the Prince de Broglie was living there with 
 the Jesuit Fathers and the boys under their 
 charge. The future Charles X once came to 
 visit the Abbe Prince and the Due de Gramont 
 and the other exiled magnates. 
 
 Lalor Sheil describes Kensington House, to 
 which he was sent when he first came from 
 Ireland. It was a college established by Les 
 Peres de la Foi — so the French Jesuits settled 
 in England called themselves at that time. 
 The description, quoted by Leigh Hunt, is so 
 interesting I cannot help quoting it again : 
 
 "The Abbe de Grimaud accordingly set off 
 for Kensington House, which is situated exactly 
 opposite the avenue leading to the Palace. A 
 large iron gate, wrought into rusty flowers 
 and other fantastic forms, showed that the 
 Jesuit school had once been the residence of 
 some person of distinction" (a mistress of 
 Charles II had lived there once). " It was a 
 large, old-fjishloned house, with many remains 
 of decayed splendour ; and a beautiful walk 
 of trees ran down from the rear of the
 
 56 FROM THE POKCH 
 
 building. I saw several French boys playing, 
 and my ears were filled with the shrill vocifera- 
 tions of some hundreds of little emigrants. . . . 
 Having got this peep at the gaiety of the 
 school, I was led with my companion to a 
 chamber decorated with faded gilding, where I 
 found the head of the establishment, Monsieur 
 le Prince de Broglie. I saw in him a little, 
 slender, and gracefully constructed Abbe ; he 
 had a gentle smile, full of suavity. . . . Monsieur 
 le Prince had all the attitudes of the Court, 
 and his demeanour at once put me in mind of 
 the old regime. He welcomed my companion 
 with tenderness, and, having heard he was 
 about to return to France, the poor gentle- 
 man exclaimed, * Helas ! ' while the tears came 
 into his eyes." 
 
 Lalor Sheil recalls a curious fact " that when- 
 ever news arrived of a victory won by Bonaparte, 
 the whole school was thrown into a ferment, 
 and I cannot forget the exultation with which 
 the sons of the decapitated or the exile hailed 
 the triumph of the French arms." 
 
 " Old gentlemen, the neatness of whose attire 
 was accompanied by indications of indigence,
 
 DUEAM OF KENSINGTON GARDENS 57 
 
 used occasionally to visit Kensington House ; 
 their elasticity of back, the gracefulness of their 
 well-regulated bows, and the perpetual smile 
 upon their wrinkled and emaciated faces showed 
 they had something to do with the vieille Cour, 
 as did the embrace with which they enfolded 
 the little marquises and counts whom they 
 came to visit. I recollect upon one occasion 
 having been witness to a very remarkable scene. 
 Monsieur, as he was then, the present King 
 of France, waited one day with a very large 
 retinue upon the Prince de Broglie. The whole 
 body of the schoolboys was assembled to re- 
 ceive him, gathered in a circle at the bottom 
 of a flight of stone stairs. The future King 
 of France appeared with his cortege at the 
 top of the stairs, and the moment he was seen 
 we all exclaimed, with a shrill shout of beard- 
 less loyalty, ' Vive le Roi.' Monsieur seemed 
 greatly gratified by this spectacle, and in a 
 very gracious manner went down among the 
 boys. He asked the names of those who were 
 about him, and when he heard them, and saw 
 in the boys by whom he was encompassed the 
 descendants of some of the noblest families
 
 58 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 of France, he seemed to be sensibly affected ; 
 one or two names which were associated with 
 pecuHarly melancholy recollections made him 
 thrill. ' Helas, mon enfant ! ' he used to say 
 as some orphan was brought up to him, and 
 he would then lean down to caress the head 
 of a child whose parents had perished on the 
 scaffolds of the Revolution." 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 MONOGRAPHS
 
 SAINTE JEANNE FRANgOISE 
 DE CHANTAL 
 
 I 
 
 We are most of us used to translating our dally 
 impressions and fancies into pen-and-ink and 
 pencil jottings, and to find an incontestable 
 pleasure in so doing. But there is another 
 entertainment still more fascinating, in which 
 the result often outstrips the imagination — it is 
 the process of translating the printed para- 
 graph back again into real life. Dean Stanley 
 says somewhere, that to see the place where a 
 remarkable event has happened, is in a measure 
 to live the event itself over again ; and, in a 
 like manner, to see the places of which one has 
 been reading is a revelation — the whole book 
 comes to life, the sentences start into sound, 
 into colour and motion : the reality is there. 
 
 Some years ago, when the writer of this pre- 
 sent divagation was engaged upon a translation
 
 62 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 of some of Madame de Sevigne's letters for Mrs. 
 Oliphant's edition of Foreign Classics, she became 
 acquainted for the first time with the story of 
 that saintly grandmother whose virtues the 
 Rabutins so proudly counted among their digni- 
 ties, and whose name occurs in its place with the 
 baronesses and the heiresses of blood-royal whose 
 arms are quartered upon their ancient heraldries. 
 The story of this strange, passionate, aspiring, 
 practical woman is a very striking one. She 
 left her young son, her father, her many natural 
 ties and associations, her very sorrow and crown 
 of widow's weeds, in order to devote her remark- 
 able powers and enthusiastic piety to a religious 
 life, and to the founding of convents all about 
 France and Savoy ; before her death no fewer 
 than eighty-seven of these institutions owed their 
 existence to her energy. A book from the London 
 Library called Les Filles de Sainte Chaiital still 
 further deepened the impression made upon me 
 by the history of this saint and of her early 
 trials ; and thus it happened that, being in 
 Savoy once, scarce an hour's journey from Annecy, 
 which had been her home for so long, I found 
 myself starting on a pilgrimage to the shrine of
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 63 
 
 Ste. Chantal, travelling as pilgrims do nowa- 
 ' days, in the corner of a first - class railway 
 carriage, with a return ticket. A comfortable 
 Frenchman sat opposite to me, studying guides 
 and maps and time-tables. In my own " Murray " 
 I read of Annecy : " An industrious city on the 
 north extremity of the lake; pop., 11, GOO ; H. 
 Verdun, H. d' Angleterre " ; of a fine cheese made 
 upon the mountains: and I borrowed "Joanne" 
 from the Frenchman, which contains further 
 information. St. Francis de Sales is also buried 
 at Annecy. I tell my fellow-traveller that I 
 am going to visit the shrines of Ste. Chantal 
 and St. Francis, and, if possible, to catch the 
 steamer afterwards. He does not know much 
 about the saints ; he advises me not to miss 
 the tour du lac, to take a carriage by the hour, 
 and above all, to dine at the Hotel d' Angleterre 
 on my return. While we converse, the train 
 stops at a little roadside station, where stands 
 a sportsman with huge boots, such as I have 
 seen at the Lyceum Theatre. He has a broad 
 hat, a gun, a splendid warlike appearance ; he 
 has shot a rabbit. Then we start oft" again, 
 travelling past vineyards and villages, past rural
 
 64 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 country scenes all bounded and enclosed by swell- 
 ing hills. As the train proceeds, the scene 
 changes : a torrent is rushing down far below 
 in a shadowy defile, between rocks heaped pile 
 upon pile ; the green and golden veils of autumn 
 are falling from every ridge, and creepers, and 
 straggling ivy, and unaccustomed flowers, with 
 wild, sweet heads, are starting from the rocks, 
 also mountain - ash trees here and there, with 
 their red berries lighting up the shade. A sound 
 of dashing waters is in the air, singing an accom- 
 paniment to the wheels of the railway carriages 
 as they whirl the tourists along the heights. The 
 tourists, with their heads at the railway carriage 
 windows are peering down from their altitudes 
 into the Gorge du Fier below. Presently we leave 
 the rocks and the ravines behind us, and come 
 to Annecy in the blazing sunshine. I followed 
 my companion's advice, and took a little carriage 
 at the station. The town was basking under 
 the blue sky, with many spires and gables and 
 weathercocks round about the stately old castle. 
 A few minutes' drive across the place brought 
 me to the cool, high, marble and gilded church 
 where the two saints, St. Francis and Ste.
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL G5 
 
 Chantal lie resting from the heat of the sun 
 and from the fm-ious winter's rages. They he 
 each above a golden altar, enshrined in a crystal 
 coffin. As I come up, some schoolgirls with 
 bandboxes, a lady carrying a carpet-bag, with 
 two little boys in Scotch costume, advance and 
 put down their encumbrances, and kneeling kiss 
 a reliquary fastened to a column : it consists of 
 a pearl-set scrap of bone, which jars somehow 
 upon one's English notions. A lay sister in the 
 dress of the Yisitantines, who had been scrubbing 
 a marble step, rises and quietly draws a curtain 
 from before the crystal coffin, showing us a divine 
 vision overhead of a dark robe spread upon a 
 cushion, and a waxen hand among its folds. 
 There lie all the mortal remains of Jeanne 
 Fremyot, Baronne de Rabutin-Chantal. 
 
 It is not here in this silent marble church, 
 however, that one can most realise that energetic 
 spirit whose work is not over yet, but every- 
 where else, in the broad old streets, where the 
 women sit beneath the arches, or lean from their 
 windows alona- narrow tributaries and defiles of 
 stone, not unlike the Gorges du Fier in their 
 shadowy gloom. Everything seemed to recall
 
 66 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 the past: the stone front of the old palace of 
 the De Sales, with its carved balconies and 
 facings, the Convent of the Sisters of the Visita- 
 tion standing within view of the lake (and close 
 to it, strangely enough, the window where Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau first began to spin his web, 
 and to glare out upon the world), — all these places 
 seem still to echo with the voice and the steps 
 of the woman who travelled so long, and to so 
 much purpose. In the oldest part of the town, 
 the house is still shown, the " Maison de la 
 Galerie," in which she began her conventual 
 life ; and it was thither I told the coachman 
 to drive me before visiting the convent itself. 
 Presently the man pointed with his whip, and 
 I got out of the carriage and looked up the old 
 perpendicular street, at the tall houses piled each 
 upon each, with broad eaves casting their 
 shadows, with broken wooden galleries running 
 along their weather-stained fronts, where rags 
 were fluttering that seemed almost as old as 
 the houses. Here, indeed, was a chapter come 
 to life out of my printed book, with sounds in 
 the air and a burning sky, with the women 
 knitting at their doors, and the children starting
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 67 
 
 from every flight of steps. It was not quite 
 Italy, but almost Italy. Every one stared at 
 me as I went along. Once I stopped breathless 
 half-way up the hill, opposite a house with a 
 carving over the door, and "1G02" cut deep 
 into the stone. As I looked this ancient date 
 seemed to become the present once again. I 
 myself — the remembrance of my peaceful sub- 
 urban home, my distant family — was nowhere, 
 and, as in Hans Andersen's story of The Shoes 
 of Fortune, the past was present. Who was 
 this coming striding down the street, with heavy 
 footfalls and long flapping robes ? Was it St. 
 Francis in his well-known square cap, with 
 earnest looks and gestures, and dark eyes not 
 to be forgotten ? No ! it was only a dull priest 
 from the seminary up above, with a vacant, 
 indifferent face, who shrugged his worn and 
 greasy shoulders, pointed vaguely, and trudged 
 on without answering when I asked him which 
 was the house where Ste. Chantal had lived. 
 As he disappeared down the hill, an aged woman, 
 with a long shabby garment hanging from her 
 bent back, came slowly up, looking curiously at 
 me with a bright, inquisitive face : " Madame,
 
 68 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 madame, you are looking for the house of la 
 Mere Chantal ? This is it, this is it ; look 
 at the date over the door ! Oh ! many come, 
 and we show it to them all. Here is Marianne, 
 she will tell you the same ; we both live in the 
 street — the nuns are gone." As she spoke I won- 
 dered to what order of suffering necessity these 
 poor souls themselves belonged ; to what- wide 
 community for which no dignities of renunciation 
 and self-infliction are needed to add to the 
 austerity of its daily rule ! They hobbled into 
 the house, and beckoned for me to follow. " Not 
 upstairs," says Marianne ; "we cannot take 
 Madame upstairs, there are too many locataires 
 for that ; but Jean shall show her the place 
 where the dead body was found." And Jean, 
 a young locksmith in a big leather apron, appears 
 with a spluttering candle from out of a low, 
 arched, ground-floor room, in which he had been 
 at work. While he was unlocking a heavy door, 
 I gazed up the heavy stone staircase and round 
 and about the filthy old house, and tried to 
 imagine it in its once order and good trim, and 
 inhabited by the saint and her faithful com- 
 panions ; and then I find myself descending by
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 69 
 
 a black and gloomy staircase into a cellar below 
 the level of the street. " This is where the 
 corpse was found," says Marianne, pointing with 
 her skinny finger to a hole in the masonry. As 
 I looked from the black hole to the gloomy exit, 
 I remember my purse and my gold watch, and 
 give one wistful thought to my distant home 
 and family as I wonder whether Jean and 
 Marianne would have much difficulty in adding 
 to the attractions of this interesting burying- 
 place ; but one glance at their honest faces 
 made me ashamed of my terrors. "Have you 
 seen enough ? " says old Marianne. " Dark, 
 isn't it ? and what a hole ! eh ! " And so we 
 all file up again after the candle, which Jean 
 carefully blows out when we get to the top 
 once more. Absurd as my hunt after associations 
 had been, I seemed to come away from the old 
 street with a clearer impression in my mind of 
 the life which I was trying to realise than that 
 which any relics, even though set in pearls, 
 could conjure up. I could picture the deter- 
 mined woman, with her strong, unbending will, 
 coming hither, leaving home and all its claims 
 and living distractions, bent upon the sacrifice
 
 70 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 of all that remained of her past, with a selfish, 
 irrepressible passion to serve God and to find 
 h<zrself; that motive self, in pursuit of which 
 people are unconsciously striving all their lives 
 long. 
 
 n 
 
 The saint, nee Jeanne Fran9oise Fremyot, 
 was married at twenty to the Baron de 
 Rabutin-Chantal, one of the most accomplished 
 cavaliers of the day. We read of her as much 
 beloved, and surnamed " La Dame Parfaite." 
 She was graceful and gay, " of a generous car- 
 riage." She left her father's house at Dijon for 
 her husband's chateau at Bourbilly, whither he 
 brought her, putting everything into her keeping 
 — even his honour, says the recording nun ; for 
 his affairs were involved and complicated, and 
 the task of rectifying them was a heavy one, 
 from which the girl would have shrunk. But 
 he appealed to her for help to enable him to be 
 free to leave at the first call of duty, so as to 
 serve his country and his king. Henry IV of 
 France greatly depended upon him, and was for 
 ever summoning him to his camp and to his court.
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 71 
 
 A day came, however, when Chantal's higher 
 sense of duty compelled him to quit the King's 
 service. He had been desired to carry out that 
 which seemed to him dishonouring, and rather 
 than obey he resigned his post. In a farewell 
 poem addressed to the ladies of the court, this 
 gallant seigneur dwells upon the thought of 
 his dear wife at home, to whom he was re- 
 turning. 
 
 His time with her at Bourbilly was full of 
 peaceful happiness, but it was only too short. 
 He had spent his life in danger, but it was a 
 mere accident which caused his death when 
 shooting with a friend in the woods hard by 
 the castle. A shot miscarried. He fell mortally 
 wounded. His wife came running to him. 
 **Ah! madame," he said. "The decree of 
 heaven is that we should love and that we 
 should die" 
 
 After a while she w^ent back to her old home 
 in Dijon, where her father, President Fremyot, 
 was living with her brother the Bishop. The 
 President was a charming and gentle old man, 
 devoted to his daughter and her children, and 
 he welcomed them tenderly.
 
 72 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 Unfortunately, the other grandfather, the grim 
 Baron de Chantal, was still alive, a man of 
 seventy-five, living at the Chateau de Monthelon 
 under the domination of an evil woman, a ser- 
 vante maUresse, as she is termed by the chronic- 
 ling nun. She never left him, but with her five 
 children wasted his means, and the great gloomy 
 house was falling more and more into disorder 
 and neglect. Was it fear of her, or some prick of 
 conscience which induced the old man to write 
 to his daughter-in-law, ordering her to come 
 and live with him, bringing her children too, 
 and threatening otherwise to marry immediately 
 and disinherit them all ? Jeanne thought it her 
 duty to obey, and for seven years endured a 
 purgatory, concealing the insults she suffered, 
 and carefully shielding her children from the evil 
 around them, praying with them, and teaching 
 them, visiting the poor, inspiring and uplifting 
 all who came near her, Even the maitrease 
 servants and her children seem in a measure to 
 have fallen under her influence. 
 
 In this time of trouble Jeanne had a dream, 
 in which a holy personage was revealed to her, 
 bringing her help and inspiration. Not long
 
 SAINTE JEANNE BE CHANTAL 73 
 
 afterwards St. Francis de Sales came to preach 
 at Dijon and Madame de Chantal obtained 
 leave from her father-in-law — not without diffi- 
 culty — to go home in order to attend some of 
 these ministrations. Her biographer, Mere de 
 Chaugy, relates that at the very first meeting 
 with the saintly prelate she recognised in him 
 the vision she had seen, and she put herself 
 under his direction. 
 
 Jeanne now found in St. Francis a friend and 
 an adviser whom she could trust, who assisted 
 her in all her difficulties and cares. It was not 
 long before she took courage to pour out her 
 heart's desires to him, and to tell him her secret 
 aspirations after a life entirely given up to the 
 service of God. For years past she had been 
 meditating upon this possibility, but had not 
 liked to speak of it, and it was to this end she 
 had resolutely put aside all idea of re-marriage. 
 
 The Bishop's remarkable insight into other 
 people's hearts and experiences still impresses 
 us, as well as his unremitting and unstinting 
 efforts to help to direct and stimulate all those 
 depending upon him. St, Francis seems to have 
 been a sort of Dr. Arnold among saints, with a
 
 n FROM THE PORCH 
 
 practical genius for saving other souls as well 
 as his own, and an especial sympathy for the 
 young life around him. Little Marie- Aym^e, 
 Jeanne's eldest daughter, had a strong feeling 
 for him ; she used to hide behind a curtain, so 
 as to gaze at this great Bishop, who used to call 
 the children his petit peuple, his petit menage, 
 and who loved to be surrounded by them. It 
 was by his advice that Madame de Chantal, 
 who had been admirable but somewhat stern 
 as a mother, now relaxed her rule, and allowed 
 something of " that gaiety necessary jfor their 
 tender spirits." " Vivez toute joyeuse," the 
 Bishop used to say to her ; "be happy in God who 
 is your joy and your consolation." Little Marie- 
 Aymee was a remarkable and well-grown child. 
 Her mother had once destined her for the Life 
 Religious ; but when Marie-Aymee had reached 
 the age of eight years, it was determined, by 
 St. Francis' advice, and in consultation with 
 the two grandfathers and with the child herself, 
 that she was more fitted for the world than the 
 cloister. St. Francis was certainly in advance 
 of his time when he urged upon parents to re- 
 spect their children's wills. Little Aymee was
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 75 
 
 the delight of her aged grandfather De Chantal, 
 and of President Fremyot. She is described 
 as beautiful as an angel, daily kneeling in the 
 chapel by her mother, and praying in silent 
 orison. Very early in life her future fate was 
 decided. On one occasion, when Madame de 
 Chantal had followed the procession of the Holy 
 Sacrament through the streets of Annecy, she 
 returned, breathless with fatigue, to the Bishop's 
 palace, and Bernard de Sales, the youngest 
 brother of St. Francis, among other gentlemen, 
 advanced to help her up the steps. Madame 
 de Chantal accepted young Bernard's arm. " I 
 shall take him for my share," she said, smiling, 
 to one of the company ; and these words, being 
 repeated, seemed prophetic to Madame de Boisy, 
 the mother of the De Sales brothers. When 
 Marie - Aymde had reached the mature age of 
 twelve years, Madame de Boisy sent St. Francis to 
 ask the little girl's mother for her hand in marriage 
 for Bernard, the youngest and most cherished 
 son. Never was Madame de Chantal more 
 troubled, more perplexed, says the history ; but 
 by degrees she came to share Madame de Boisy's 
 ardent desires ; only it required all her prayers
 
 76 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 and all ^her determination to persuade the two 
 grandfathers to agree to her wishes. The Presi- 
 dent Fremyot most reluctantly consented. Writ- 
 ing to the Bishop, he says that only the strength 
 of the desire of the Baroness could have with- 
 drawn the little one from his arms, from between 
 his knees, from before his eyes. 
 
 HI 
 
 The story of the family life of the De Sales 
 is like a fairy tale. There are five brothers 
 living in their beautiful old castle among the 
 mountains of Savoy, under the loving rule of 
 their widowed mother and of St. Francis, the 
 elder son. To him, at his father's death, fell the 
 duty of dividing their fortune into five shares. 
 So the old Baron had appointed. The youngest 
 son was to take the first choice and the eldest 
 the last. The youngest and most accomplished 
 of the five brothers was Bernard, of whom an 
 enthusiastic description was written at the time. 
 "Gold was in his hair," says his biographer, 
 *' alpine snow in his complexion, azure in his 
 eyes, dignity in his presence." He was advised
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 11 
 
 to take the family home for his share, and the 
 barony of Thorens went with it. 
 
 There is a fanciful description of the chateau 
 which Richard Doyle might have depicted. 
 Courts within courts, fountains playing, towers 
 and terraces, the twenty-six guest chambers 
 decorated with pictures and carvings and 
 armorial bearings. St. Francis' description of 
 feeding the birds there is well known. " It had 
 been snowing, and the court was deeply covered," 
 he wrote. "Jean came into the centre of the 
 court and swept a little place ennmi la iieige, 
 and he flung here and there grain to feed the 
 pigeons, who came altogether to take their 
 refection with admirable peace and respect. I 
 amused myself by looking at them. You cannot 
 believe what edification these little creatures 
 gave me. They never said a single little word, 
 and those who had finished their refection first 
 flew away to wait for the others, and when these 
 had cleared the half, a quantity of little birds 
 who were watching came round about them, 
 and all the pigeons who were still eating retired 
 into a corner to leave the greater part of the 
 room to the little birds, , . , In short, I was
 
 78 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 near tears to see the charitable simplicity of 
 the pigeons and the confidence of the little birds 
 on their charity. I know not if a preacher 
 would have touched me as much." 
 
 This was the home to which Marie- Aymde was 
 welcomed by all tlie De Sales and by her special 
 protector, St. Francis. 
 
 " To see her in her home," writes Mere 
 Chaugy, "not yet fifteen years, was a marvel, 
 beautiful as a lovely day, with modesty in her 
 countenance, with noble ways, yet affable and 
 gracious to all who came to her respecting the 
 conduct of the house." 
 
 Her subsequent history is the most pathetic 
 imaginable. Married at fourteen, at sixteen she 
 was mourning her first child. And before she 
 was twenty she died, already a widoM% in her 
 mother's arms. 
 
 It was after Aymee's marriage that her mother 
 felt the time had at last come to retire in com- 
 pany with certain pious ladies from the world, 
 taking with her the two younger girls to 
 educate. It is said that when she parted from 
 her son, he passionately flung himself across 
 the threshold of the door ; she burst into tears
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 79 
 
 as she stepped across his body ; but immediately 
 turning round, she faced her desolate family with 
 a radiant face, and broke into a triumphant psalm. 
 To Marie-Aymee, who had always lived in 
 spacious homes, the sight of the house, the 
 Maison de la Galerie to which Ste. Chantal 
 first retired, was a great shock. The Convent 
 of the Yisitantines, to which Ste. Chantal 
 afterwards removed, was a pleasanter place than 
 that dark house in the mediaeval street, although 
 saints and bishops seem to have trodden it and 
 St. Francis himself lived there. The Convent 
 of the Visitation stands open to the light and 
 to the sweetness of the lake. It comes back 
 to me still with its distant view of mountains 
 and of summer farms, wliere the oxen were 
 carting the hay and the broad chestnut trees 
 spread their branches. The sun was beginning 
 to sink when I came away. The towers of the 
 castle, the gables of the old town, looked black 
 and splendid in the foreground. Some priests 
 were reading their breviaries on the steps of the 
 terrace. The nuns, in the dress of Ste. Chantal, 
 sat motionless with the lio^ht in their faces, look- 
 ing after me as I departed.
 
 80 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 They still show Ste. Chantal's room In the 
 old Convent of the Visitation at Annecy. It is 
 an old, sunny house, with massive walls, and 
 with bare lights, and a tranquil, vine-wreathed 
 garden. There was a galerie there too, which 
 fell into decay long ago, and was removed ; but 
 the place cannot be much changed since the saint 
 first came thither. There are the cross-lights 
 in her bedroom, and the tall chimney-piece 
 where the seven hearts are carved in stone, 
 and over which hangs the portrait of St. Francis. 
 " He was, for all his gentleness, a man of strong 
 and passionate temper," said the good nun very 
 reverently, as she showed me the old panel. 
 At his death, they found out what restraint he 
 had ever put upon himself: his liver was all 
 broken into little pieces, so they declared. It 
 was here that little Marie- Ay mee must have 
 come after her husband's departure for the 
 army, and where St. Francis brought her the 
 cruel news of poor Bernard's untimely death. 
 *'Helas!" said the poor Bishop, as he hurried 
 to the convent with his heavy tidings, " my own 
 affliction is charged w^ith that of our poor little 
 one, and of our Mere de Chantal." When he
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CIIANTAL 81 
 
 came to Marie-Aymde, he heard her confession, 
 
 and blessed her, speaking with encouraging 
 
 cheerfulness. " And now, my daughter," he said, 
 
 " are we not anxious to receive from the hand 
 
 of God that which it is His will to inflict upon 
 
 us ? " " Ah, yes ! " little Aymee answered, with 
 
 a deep sigh ; " but, alas ! you have come to tell 
 
 me that my husband is dead." Before many 
 
 weeks, the young wife herself and her infant 
 
 child had rejoined the husband. The wonder 
 
 is that any one survived in those days ; for we 
 
 read that immediately after the birth of the 
 
 baby, while the young mother lay in great 
 
 sufifering, all the ladies of the town came up to 
 
 visit her and to condole ; the nuns stood round 
 
 about the poor child's bedside, and listened to 
 
 her exhortations ; she made her will ; she was 
 
 received, as she lay dying, into the Order of the 
 
 Visitation, after communicating and partaking 
 
 of the last unction ; and then the pure spirit 
 
 passed away. Poor St. Francis, saint as he was, 
 
 would not meet the bereaved mother. " I know 
 
 the strength of her soul," he said, " the weakness 
 
 of my own," and he drove away across the fields. 
 
 He spoke of la Mere Chantal as a saint, but of 
 
 I'
 
 82 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 Marle-Aym(^e as though she had been an angel 
 from heaven. 
 
 As time passed, other troubles came to try the 
 courage and the devotion of la Mere Chantal. 
 Her friend St. Francis died, her son died in the 
 flower of his age, and his daughter, the saint's 
 little grand-daughter, afterwards Madame de 
 Sevigne, the " Marquise of Marquises," was left 
 an orphan. There is a strongly-marked family 
 likeness between the portraits of the two women, 
 when one compares them together — the same 
 half-humorous, half-conscious smile, the same 
 well-defined brows and full, almond-shaped eyes ; 
 but the saint's features are larger and more 
 marked, with less of delicacy and of grace than 
 Madame de Sevigne's. Though life's journey 
 was long, and grew more and more weary 
 towards the close, Ste. Chantal did not give 
 in, or cease her interest, her exhortations, her 
 exertions. She had lost all her children save 
 one, that " Francoise," the " tante de Toulonjon " 
 of whom we read in the Sevigne letters ; but her 
 adopted children were everywhere, and clamour- 
 ing for her presence, her help, her advice. She 
 feared neither famine, nor pestilence, nor fatigue ;
 
 SAINTE JEANNE DE CHANTAL 83 
 
 in the depths of the last winter of her life she 
 travelled through France. She went in a litter 
 because of her great age. There were convents 
 at Paris and at Moulin s eagerly soliciting her 
 presence, and the brave old saint started cour- 
 ageously on this long and fatiguing journey. On 
 December 3rd, 1641, on her returning journey, 
 she parted with her daughter, who had been 
 travelling with her. She wished to give herself 
 entirely to her nuns and their concerns, and also 
 to the Duchesse de Montpensier, who had been 
 awaiting her arrival at Moulins in order to enter 
 into religion. It was on December 13th, ten 
 days after her arrival at Moulins, that Ste. 
 Chantal passed away in the same great serenity 
 in which she had lived.
 
 QUILLS FROM THE SWAN OF 
 LICHFIELD 
 
 I 
 
 A DELIGHTFUL book published by Mr. Lucas, 
 entitled A Swan and Her Friends, has been 
 in our hands, and those among us who have 
 laughed and felt grateful for the fun, the 
 nonsense, the vitality, which have given so 
 much attraction to the histories of those won- 
 derful people living in wonderful times, may 
 perhaps be interested to read a few more episodes 
 from Miss Seward's grandiloquent experiences, in 
 addition to those already quoted by Mr. Lucas 
 himself. 
 
 It is a quarter of a century since a packet 
 of her letters came into the present writer's 
 possession. They had been carefully kept by 
 the friend (Mrs. Sykes) to whom they were 
 addressed, and from her they had descended to 
 her daughter and her granddaughter, from 
 whom I received them. When I first read, or
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 85 
 
 attempted to read, the correspondence, it did not 
 impress me favourably — the elegant expressions, 
 the threefold adjectives, the emphasis and the 
 illegibleness of all these emotions seemed too 
 much for my patience. I put the letters away 
 in their faded envelope and almost forgot their 
 existence ; but a quarter of a century changes 
 one's views of life — it certainly ought to enlarge 
 one's perceptions. When I looked at them again, 
 time had brought to light a vein of kindly 
 simplicity and genuine human feeling amid all 
 the redundancies of the Muse's eloquence, and 
 I had a daughter to help me to decipher the 
 verbiage. 
 
 One has heard of a lion's skin used to disguise 
 a far more useful quadruped — it is possible in the 
 same way that the swan's feathers also mantled 
 a domestic bird, whose cackling, as we know, is 
 not always to be despised. Mr. Lucas asks why 
 Anna Seward's performances, her " pontifical 
 confidence," her floridity, and her sentimentalism, 
 were so reverentially accepted in her time ? He 
 gives among other reasons in answer, that she 
 was a pioneer, writing before all women had 
 found out that they too could write. There is
 
 86 FROM THE POUCH 
 
 also the undoubted fact that Anna Seward had 
 more initiative and spirit than most other people, 
 either at Lichfield or in London itself; and what 
 we human beings seek for in life, is life, and we 
 instinctively turn to it. 
 
 No one looking at Miss Seward's portrait at 
 the beginning of the book would at first sight 
 feel any inclination to smile, or to venture to 
 think of it without awe. It is that of a serious, 
 most dignified, and majestic person, who has 
 evidently been holding high converse. We know 
 that Romney painted the picture during the 
 Muse's visit to the poet Hayley. She holds a 
 scroll in one hand ; she rests her oval cheek 
 on the other palm in a pensive attitude, more 
 common in Miss Seward's day than now, when 
 there are so many armchairs and cushions to 
 lean against. Romney also painted the ink- 
 stand and the eloquent pen, and some of those 
 vast sheets of letter-paper she loved to cover 
 with adjectives. There are two other likenesses 
 given ; one is by Kettle, whose picture of Anna 
 has a real individuality. She is holding an 
 open book — poetry no doubt. Opie's picture is 
 that of a ribbon, a head-dress, and a bouncing
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 87 
 
 demoiselle, and belongs to the time when the 
 Muse wished to be known as "Julia" among 
 the nymphs of the hour. Her biographer quotes 
 from a grateful jDoem to " Julia," by a minor 
 poet — recent protests notwithstanding, there 
 appear to have been minor poets in those days — 
 
 " And basking in her cordial beams, 
 The fostered Julia's form appears, 
 The Goddess decked her tuneful themes, 
 Soft warbling thro' revolving years." 
 
 On one occasion another admirer seems to 
 have appropriated one of "Julia's" or Anna's 
 elegies. There is an amusing passage written 
 long after by Lord Byron to Thomas More, 
 dated Ravenna, September 19, 1821 : 
 
 " With respect to what Anna Seward calls 
 ' the liberty of transcript,' when complaining 
 of Miss Matilda Muggleton, the accomplished 
 daughter of a choral vicar of Worcester Cathedral, 
 who had abused the said * liberty of transcript ' 
 by inserting in the Malvern Mercury Miss 
 Seward's Elegy on the South Pole as her ovm 
 production, with her 0W7i signature, two years 
 after having taken a copy, by permission of the 
 authoress — with regard, I say, to the 'liberty
 
 88 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 of transcript,' I by no means oppose an occa- 
 sional copy to the benevolent few, provided 
 it does not degenerate into such licentiousness 
 of verb and noun as may tend to disparage 
 my parts of speech, by the carelessness of the 
 transcribblers." 
 
 Anna Seward was seventeen at the time 
 when her sister was engaged to Mr. Porter, 
 Dr. Johnson's stepson ; but the poor young bride 
 died suddenly a few days before that one fixed 
 for her marriage. Mr. Porter, we are told, 
 would have gladly consoled himself by a union 
 with Anna, only she would not hear of it. In 
 one of her letters, published in the collected 
 correspondence, she has written a description of 
 the young man, which fully accounts for her 
 refusal. It was to endeavour to give comfort 
 to the poor mother that Dr. Seward adopted 
 Honora Sneyd, who came to live with them 
 after Sarah's death. Honora was tenderly loved 
 by Anna, with whom she studied, and in whose 
 company she must have gone into Lichfield 
 society ; we hear of Honora's charms and of 
 her admiring swains ; both Thomas Day and 
 Major Andre were among them, as well as
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 89 
 
 the irresistible Edgeworth, who finally won 
 her. 
 
 In 1773 Honora married Mr. Edgeworth, 
 apparently against everybody's wishes ; she 
 would have married Andre several years before 
 had her father consented. We have Miss 
 Seward's description of Mr. Edgeworth on his 
 wedding day, by which it will be seen that no 
 one was very cordially pleased with the con- 
 nection. A young girl in all her beauty and 
 tenderness — a gay widower, rejoicing in his first 
 wife's death, scarcely suggested romance, even 
 to the most romantic. 
 
 Among the letters which were given to me, 
 and from which I am now quoting, are several 
 concerning Mr, Edgeworth. They are addressed 
 to Mrs. Sykes at Westella, near Hull, and are 
 the first of a correspondence which lasted for 
 several years. The two friends were united by 
 many links of affection and intimacy. The 
 letters begin in a light and cheerful tone, grow- 
 ing emphatical and romantic as the friendship 
 deepens. The first must have been written in 
 the early spring of the year 1773. 
 
 '* Your ruffles and your work-bag are finished
 
 90 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 (says the Muse). I wish I could convey them 
 to you, do tell me what you think would be the 
 best way. Mr. Day is returned to England ; he 
 was in Lichfield last week, and Mr. Edgeworth 
 is delivered from his galling yoke, 'again to life 
 and light to rise.' Mrs. Edgeworth died of a 
 violent fever in London ; the sprightly widower 
 is still at Lyons, unless this event has brought 
 him over within the last fortnight." 
 
 The next epistle, dated July 27, 1773, gives 
 us further news of Mr. Edgeworth : 
 
 " Your son will tell you, my dear Mrs. Sykes, 
 why I have thus long delayed answering your 
 kind and obliging letter — and that my time 
 and thoughts were taken up by my Honora's 
 nuptials. Saturday seven-night she became a 
 bride in our choir, my father married her and her 
 own gave her away, not with the best grace in 
 the world. Mr. Sneyd and Mr. Edgeworth are 
 too diftering to like each other ; the former 
 gave Honora a thousand pounds and articles for 
 another at his death. Mr. E. has made his first 
 children independent of himself at the age of 
 twenty -one, and settled upon Honora four 
 hundred a year in case she survives him, and
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 91 
 
 six hundred till her own children receive their 
 fortunes. His estate is a clear fifteen hundred 
 pounds a year. The joy of united hearts and 
 hands, esteem, friendship and congenial talents, 
 shone in the lovely faces of the charming pair. 
 The late Mrs. Edgeworth's brother, a worthy 
 agreeable young gentleman, came down from 
 London on purpose, to the wedding, and spoke 
 most warmly in the praise of Mr. Edgeworth. — We 
 were a smart cavalcade, — and behold, Mr. Grove 
 graciously condescended to come over to accom- 
 pany his sister Honora to church. He looked a 
 little grave, but said nothing disobliging ; I was 
 bridesmaid, the knot was tied at nine o'clock, 
 we then adjourned to Mr. Sneyd's to breakfast. 
 At twelve o'clock, Mr. Edgeworth took the fair 
 sweet bride into his phaeton, and drove off 
 triumphantly. . . . Well may he triumph, for 
 he has obtained a matchless prize. They are 
 now perhaps upon the sea, if prosperous winds 
 waft gently over the happy lovers, ' And on the 
 level deep, sleek Panope and all her sisters play.' 
 But alas ! I fear their living in Ireland — Self 
 will still be predominant — She is happy, I bless 
 Heaven that she is so, but she is absent and
 
 92 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 I must mourn — that absence will perhaps be 
 long and continual, seas may for many cheerless 
 years e'en for life divide my Honora from her 
 unfortunate friend whose ardent grasp every dear 
 and precious pleasure eludes, and leaves her with- 
 out one joyous hour to bless her hopes. I had 
 a letter from Mrs. Edgeworth yesterday, dated 
 Chester, she expresses the utmost happiness." 
 
 Marriage makes new ties and interests ; it 
 also unmakes many old ones with ruthless deter- 
 mination. Honora was happy, but saddest com- 
 plications of feelings followed for Miss Seward, 
 and she and Mr. Edgeworth are known to have 
 had differences and estrangements. When at 
 last they met, some years later, we read of the 
 event in the following letter, which describes the 
 Swan's extreme sensibility in eloquent terms : 
 was there ever a more sensational meeting? 
 
 " Ah ! my dear Mrs. Sykes, you would have 
 sooth'd me with your tender pity if you had 
 seen me receive a message from our servant last 
 Monday evening. I was sitting in my drawing- 
 room with a silly coxcomb of an officer who had 
 called upon me. John opened the door and 
 said — ' Madam, Mr. and Mrs. Edgeworth are
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 93 
 
 below stairs.' — Oh my Friend ! I had not the 
 least expectation of such an event — ' Good God ! ' 
 I exclaimed, and sunk back in my chair more 
 dead than alive — I desired he would say I was 
 out — a violent flood of tears reliev'd me. The 
 macaroni was astonished, but if a thousand Fops 
 had been present I could not have concealed my 
 emotion. I did not intend to see them at all — 
 it was an hour before my aunt could prevail 
 upon me to go down, she and my mother were 
 out when they came. I will reserve a particular 
 description of this, to me — heart-rending scene 
 for the first tete-d-tete I have the pleasure to 
 share with you, since my paper will not allow 
 me to be circumstantial noiv. 
 
 " They staid only two days in Lichfield, are 
 now in London. The time of their return is 
 uncertain. I have only room to assure you of 
 the afiectionate vivacity of all our desires to 
 see you all. Our united loves attend yourself, 
 Mr. Sykes and our young friends." 
 
 Very real anxiety for Honora's health followed, 
 and one can imagine the pang with which Miss 
 Seward writes on a subsequent occasion, a year 
 or two after this agonising meeting :
 
 94 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 " Mr. Edgeworth was in Lichfield last week, 
 very sprightly and happy with a fine picture 
 of Honora by Smart, drawn here two years ago, 
 but finished lately and sent down to him only 
 Thursday. The day it came he flew over with 
 it to Lichfield to show it to us all. The exulta- 
 tion of his vanity to have possessed tlie original 
 of so beautiful a portrait absorbed all shadow 
 ■ of regret for her danger, and it was with the 
 utmost force that he drew a transient veil over 
 the sunshine of his vivacity on being asked if 
 she was not a little better. I heard of his 
 being in Lichfield with the picture before I saw 
 him, and burnt with impatience to behold the 
 semblance of a face so dear. When we met, 
 he had the cruelty to keep it some minutes in 
 his hand. (Two or three words follow which 
 are illegible.) The picture is beautiful, but my 
 disappointment was extreme, for it gives me 
 very little idea of Honora. Oh! That it had 
 been a striking likeness ! As it is, it would 
 scarcely be any object of sufiicient importance 
 to make me ask a favour of a man who has so 
 deeply injured me. In a fortnight he takes 
 Honora to Bristol. If she had gone thither last
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 95 
 
 spring, I firmly believe it would have saved her. 
 Oh, that the gay heart of this man could have 
 been persuaded to have feared in time for the 
 life of her whom he . . ." (The rest of the 
 letter is missing.) 
 
 So Honora married and died, and poor Anna 
 put up with friendships for the rest of her life, 
 one especially being paramount. After she 
 became celebrated, she was made much of and 
 her head was somewhat turned — and no wonder. 
 Dr. Darwin admired her poetry, Mr. Saville was 
 her special devotee, Mr. K. Sykes confided in 
 her sympathy, Miss Marianne came to stay — 
 and in later years Scott himself travelled many 
 miles out of his way to call upon her in Lichfield, 
 having, as we know, a turn for authoresses. 
 
 I have been shown some letters written by 
 Miss Seward in 1783, not to Mrs. Sykes but to 
 a young soldier, Mr. Hale, a friend of Major 
 Andrd's. Poor Andre was no more ; Honora, too, 
 had passed away. Miss Seward was writing her 
 celebrated monody on Major Andre at the time, 
 and she shows both feeling and discrimination 
 when she speaks of her sorrow for Andre's cruel 
 fate, and at the same time maintains the rights
 
 96 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 of those on the American side, who fought for 
 
 hberty. 
 
 These letters, which have been carefully copied 
 and noted, give a quotation from the orders of 
 the day at New York, October 18, 1783, for 
 providing mourning for Major Andre's regiment, 
 the Queen's Rangers, to be worn in memory of 
 an officer " whose superior integrity and uncom- 
 mon ability did honour to his country and to 
 human nature." 
 
 Miss Seward is warmly interested, as she 
 ever was, in this new correspondent's private 
 aifairs — his marriage — his prospects. She says 
 she would gladly accept his wife's invitation to 
 visit them, but that she has " a vestal duty to 
 perform, that of watching the vital flame of an 
 aged parent who has none but her." Only Miss 
 Seward could have thus expressed the fact of 
 her being busy at home ! 
 
 She writes as usual of her own concerns and 
 with tender love of Honora, and also describes 
 her devoted friendship for Mr. Savile, the friend 
 for whom she sacrificed so much, but Dr. John- 
 son's hopeless illness and death cannot soften 
 Miss Seward's aversion for him, and she even
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 97 
 
 writes of his " stern remains." No doubt John- 
 son also detested Miss Seward, and perhaps after 
 all a little aversion is a very rousing element in 
 life, and as a rule does no one very much harm. 
 
 The letters to her friend, Mrs. Sykes, touch 
 upon every possible subject. Neighbours, politics, 
 feelings, all are described at length ; important 
 misunderstandings as well as tender realisations 
 are dwelt upon in turn. 
 
 One of her communications begins with a 
 somewhat surprising announcement of her great 
 dislike to writing letters. (One cannot help 
 remembering the many volumes edited by Sir 
 Walter Scott. ) Anna reassures her friend's 
 diffidence, whose pen (she modestly observes) 
 is very far indeed from being inferior to her 
 own, either in readiness, vivacity or elegance. 
 
 Every week she (the Muse) has seven or eight 
 long letters to answer, and nothing could Inspirit 
 her resolutions to devote so much time to her 
 writing, but the sweet hope of hearing soon 
 again from those about whom she was so very 
 much Interested. 
 
 " You, my dear Mrs. Sykes (she exclaims, 
 somewhat touclilngly), are prosperous and 
 
 G
 
 98 FROM THE POUCH 
 
 happy, and can perpetually tell me glad tidings 
 of yourself and all that belong to you — tidings 
 that shall be able to steal the mourner from her 
 woes at least for a little time. . . . 
 
 " Whenever my prospects brighten (she con- 
 tinues), whenever cheerfulness, peace or ' hope 
 with eyes so fair,' revisit my bosom, like your 
 more amiable friend, the sweet Miss Foot, I will 
 tell you so, without considering whether or not 
 you are a letter in my debt." 
 
 Miss Seward considers that Miss Foot " has a 
 fine turn of thought," and she quotes as an 
 instance a passage where Miss Foot desired 
 Mrs. Sykes " not to look upon the present which 
 she sends her as an emblem of her affection, but 
 rather of those agreeable hours passed together, 
 resembling well the flower of the fields — as 
 sweet, as fair, as perishable ! " Is it possible 
 that the world has missed in Miss Foot a second 
 Miss Anna Seward ? 
 
 The next long and closely written page is 
 taken up by a transcription of a passage from 
 " Oscian " beginning : " The flower hangs its 
 heavy head, waving at times to the gale." There 
 is also a final allusion to Miss Foot as "a fair
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 99 
 
 enthusiast, triumphant over all the pangs of strug- 
 gling nature and sublunary disappointments." 
 Anna Seward, Muse though she is, does not rise 
 altogether above the pangs of human jealousy. 
 
 Storms were in the air, the devoted friends 
 had serious misunderstandings ; explanations, re- 
 capitulations follow, running over many pages, 
 but passionate always. 
 
 " I must regret, but I will not resent your 
 silence, my dear Mrs. Sykes, while still, though 
 late, you assure me that it does not arise from 
 a diminution of that friendship with which you 
 honour me — a blessing which I could ill spare 
 from the scanty hoard of happiness allotted to 
 me by fate ; resolved to be convinced that you 
 love me, I give you credit for the ingenious 
 jocularity of your speech." 
 
 Our poetess is not quite convinced, though 
 glad to hear that health and prosperity and 
 joy continue to diffuse their blessings on dear 
 Westella, where, as she remarks, " The olive 
 branches increase in beauty, excellence and 
 strength." Of one of the children, Joe, we read, 
 " his perception is lively, his mind ingenuous, 
 his person lovely." "May never the blight of
 
 100 FROM THE POKCH 
 
 disease, the vapours of folly, or the canker of 
 vice shed baneful influence over the children 
 of such care." Three attributes at least are 
 generally necessary to every statement. We 
 presently come to a fading page of criticism 
 concerning: Lord Chesterfield's letters : " It would 
 perhaps have been better for the youth of 
 England if they had never been written, as 
 they tend to destroy that virtuous, that romantic 
 enthusiasm of youth where benevolence is fired 
 by generous credulity, and morality preserved 
 by passionate affection." 
 
 If any occasional misunderstanding arises be- 
 tween Miss Seward and Mrs. Sykes, it is often 
 explained away by a burst of eloquence. 
 
 " So I find Mr. R. Sykes is entered at Trinity 
 College (says Miss Seward to her friend). Oh, 
 may his conduct there and through every 
 situation of life be such as shall answer the 
 anxious wishes of his solicitous and indulgent 
 parents. Believe me, you were mistaken if you 
 thought I supposed he has not indulgent parents. 
 All that I ever wished otherwise in either your 
 or Mr. Sykes's conduct towards him was too nice 
 a feeling of all his errors, and a warmth of
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD lOl 
 
 invective against them to him, wliich I knew 
 arose from an ardent desire to render him 
 faultless, but v^^hich from my own disposition I 
 feared was more likely to incense than to reclaim. 
 It is very likely that I might judge wrong, and 
 very certain that I had better have suppressed 
 my opinion than given it, but I have no power 
 of drawing a veil between my heart and those 
 that are dear to it. I must hope and believe 
 that our friend Richard has excellent qualities ; 
 gratitude perhaps may make me partial, yet I 
 confess I tremble for him — how very dangerous 
 the first steps into life for a young man of strong 
 passions ! How numerous the snares which will 
 be spread by the libertines to lure him to their 
 dissolute paths ! . . . I make no doubt that 
 Richard did very much exaggerate what you 
 said of the unreality of my regret to part from 
 you all, but it was not unreal. I never yet 
 knew hypocrisy, and I had been most ungrateful 
 if I had not felt grief to leave those w^iom I 
 felt had been so kind to me. Again, dear Mrs. 
 Sykes, you have entirely mistaken my meaning. 
 Good God ! How could you suppose that the 
 description of parental tyranny transcribed from
 
 102 FROM THE POKCH 
 
 the Rambler was in the least degree aimed at 
 you and Mr. Sykes ! You and I both love 
 argument, and you have often asserted to me 
 how all parents must necessarily study their 
 children's happiness, that where misunderstand- 
 ings existed between parents and children, the 
 fault was almost always in the children. I 
 thought this a hard and partial argument, and 
 when I met with that Rambler which made so 
 much for my side of the question, that parents 
 were often arbitrary and unreasonable, as chil- 
 dren undutiful, I could not help transcribing 
 it to show that a man of exalted sense and 
 deepest observation and long knowledge of the 
 human heart was of my opinion. . . . 
 
 " The best and purest kind of charity is 
 candour, that hopeth all things, with tender 
 sympathy and soft consideration ; when we 
 consider the hopeless state of man, the imbe- 
 cility of children, the numerous evils of riper 
 years, the unhappy force of native and violent 
 passions, the racks of disease, the wounds of 
 oppression, the insults of contumely, the mis- 
 representations of injustice, and the bitter pangs 
 of inevitable poverty, sorrow that brings in
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 103 
 
 insanity, or leads by slow steps to the grave, 
 when we reflect upon these evils which may 
 some or all be the lot of every individual, how- 
 ever gay and elate with present prosperity, 
 surely there is no virtue so necessary, so little 
 to be dispensed with, as Humanity ! IIow are 
 Mrs. Collins's spirits? Richard tells me Miss 
 Collins is well." 
 
 What a golden age must this have been for 
 Lichfield when Anna casually remarks in con- 
 clusion : 
 
 " We have had another genius among us ; he 
 stayed only a week. 
 
 " Yours faithfully and affectionately." 
 
 The various collateral items of news which 
 the writer of all these letters gives (outside the 
 description of her own feelings) are interesting 
 to the dilettante of to-day who has made any 
 acquaintance with the age in which Miss Anna 
 Seward flourished. Flourishing is the word 
 which undoubtedly describes Miss Seward in 
 1776, notwithstanding the troubles which had 
 so lately fallen upon Great Britain, and which 
 were still gathering, though as yet the shadow 
 had not reached Lichfield.
 
 104 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 " It is not our Mr. Day," the sprightly lady 
 says, " who is going to Bengal — no, no ! Catch 
 him if you can at receiving emoluments from 
 Government." Then she alludes to the York 
 mail which has been robbed, "by which Mr. 
 Sykes has lost £100, and she has missed a letter 
 from her dear, dear Mrs. Sykes." Then she 
 glances at Miss Twig's amours — rejoices " in the 
 happiness of her friends in calling together their 
 olive branches round their cheerful table ; ah, 
 long, very long, may this pleasure flourish and 
 increase ! Her mother had made up the 
 beautiful cloak, which she allows Anna to 
 wear on Sunday, not being equal to church 
 herself." 
 
 In another letter written to Mr. Sykes, the 
 husband of Mrs. Sykes, Miss Seward dwells " in 
 tender transports on the hope of seeing Mrs. 
 Sykes again, and those other kind friends, who 
 have so highly obliged her " ; she is writing 
 " with the vilest pen that ever scored," she tells 
 him, but she still continues to wield it, "though 
 night creeps on apace, and the drowsie hour 
 steals upon her. She would have written before 
 to express her gratitude, but that she had pro-
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 105 
 
 mised to work Mr. Charles Buckeridge a waistcoat 
 by the next Assembly. . . ." 
 
 II 
 
 The Bishop's Palace, where the Sewards lived 
 in Lichfield, is a beautiful old Georgian dwelling 
 on the Dean's Walk, with walled gardens and 
 stately out-dwellings ; and thither, following 
 Honora, came somewhere about the year 1776 
 little Marianne Sykes as a sort of pupil and 
 petted companion. In after-days, when Marianne 
 grew up, she married Henry Thornton, the well- 
 known philanthropist and member of Parliament, 
 who was one of the leaders of the Clapham Sect, 
 and it is her own mother's packet of letters 
 which I received from Miss Marianne Thornton, 
 the kind donor. 
 
 Meanwhile Miss Seward writes to Mrs. Sykes, 
 Marianne's mother, long pages of advice con- 
 cerning education. 
 
 *' Since you have opportunities at Hull of 
 having her instructed well in French and danc- 
 ing, I think you will scarce persuade yourselves 
 to send her further from you. You are perfectly 
 capable of giving her every other accomplishment
 
 106 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 except music, which though ornamental may 
 well be spared amidst the liberal assemblage of 
 other endowments. I have but one reason for 
 wishing Marianne to go further from home : it is 
 this — lest she should contract a Provincial tone 
 of voice ; that of Yorkshire is very peculiar, and 
 few of the genteelest people who have been 
 educated there have been free from it. There is 
 perhaps no outward grace so essential to a young 
 lady as a polished manner of speaking. . . . 
 Boarding-schools are well in this respect ; the 
 children being collected from various counties, 
 provinciality is soon confounded and destroyed 
 in the little Babel." 
 
 A correspondence follows both before and after 
 the arrival of little Marianne at the Bishop's 
 Palace. We have the description of her first 
 arrival. " At two o'clock she came, healthy, 
 plump, and blooming as the morning ; she is 
 indeed a very amiable little creature — what a 
 benevolent intention to please at an age when 
 most human beings think only of being pleased. 
 She was so kind as to show me her mamma's 
 last letter," 
 
 There was a well-known school in those days
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 107 
 
 kept by a certain Mrs. Lataffier, to whom, among 
 other young maidens, Maria Edgeworth was at 
 one time entrusted. Miss Sykes, too, had been 
 placed under her charge, and Miss Seward 
 criticises this lady in her correspondence with 
 the mother : 
 
 " If Mrs. Lataffier really sees nothing that is 
 uncommonly amiable in Marianne I am sorry for 
 her want of discernment, I am sure she has not 
 many such children ; I believe she is an able and 
 judicious governess, as governesses go, and one 
 must not expect from people more accustomed 
 to act than to reflect, the nice distinctions of 
 right and wrong, or that they should have a 
 lively sensibility of modest worth. Miss Sykes 
 has very quick comprehension, an excellent 
 memory, and I have never known a sweeter 
 temper — if there is anything I could wish in the 
 slightest degree othertvise, it is that she had 
 rather more activity ; I think tliere is a little 
 bias towards that indolence which if indulged 
 must wither all accomplishments in their bud, 
 but the excessive sweetness which adorns this 
 precious Blossom will sufficiently counteract all 
 the bad consequences of her little and only foible.
 
 108 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 You, my dear Mrs. Sykes, who are so well aware 
 of the torpid balefulness of indolence, will take 
 care that our sweet Marianne does not waste the 
 seed-time of her youth without ample provision 
 for the hereafter harvest." 
 
 Much correspondence follows in the same 
 style : 
 
 " I am sure Marianne will be a very accom- 
 plished woman, sure if she is attended to — if on 
 her return from school, the ensuing five or six 
 years are cultivated by a regular plan of studies 
 and employments, which nothing but absolute 
 necessity suffer to interrupt — this, I know, you 
 will take care of — and therefore, I dare be 
 assured that if Psyche lives and is blessed with 
 health she will not disappoint your fondest 
 wishes — Mr. Brown is quite satisfied with the 
 improvement she has made in Music since her 
 arrival here — she has a very pretty finger and 
 will certainly play well, with close and attentive 
 practice. As to her reading English, it does 
 you great credit, very feiv groum people read so 
 justly. I am not sure that it is possible for her 
 ever to read oratorically , I think her voice has 
 not sufficient power and variety, perhaps her ear
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 109 
 
 is 7iot a nice one, as yo7i observe, and then her 
 natural diffidence is against that animated spirit, 
 necessary to fine reading and speaking. This 
 was Honora's case in every respect ; she had a 
 very quick and delicate ear, but her voice wanted 
 powe7\ and she was also too diffident — yet she 
 read elegantly, though not iiathetically — so will 
 our dear girl. All the instruction on this and 
 every other subject in my ijoiver to give her, I 
 have a pleasure in giving. I hope the dear girl 
 does not think me a rigid monitress, though 
 perhaps a little too indefatigable, i.e. for that 
 tender indolence, which is often the concomitant 
 o^ gentle spirit. 
 
 " The weather has been so piercing, the ground 
 so slippy, and Psyche seemed to have so little 
 inclination to walk out, that I could not find in 
 my heart to venture her ; but that she may not 
 want exercise, I have procured a battledore and 
 shuttlecock, and she plays in the gallery half- 
 an-hour in the morning and half-an-hour after 
 dinner. Mr. Comber's ball, to which she had a 
 card of invitation and a partner procured for her, 
 was very brilliant. I never saw so much com- 
 pany in our Assembly Koom, except at the races
 
 no FROM THE PORCH 
 
 — Marianne was very much admired. This Mr. 
 Comber is a fop of fashion — an officer who was 
 quartered here last winter, took a Hking to the 
 place, and has been in the neighbourhood, chiefly 
 with Lord Donegal, all this winter. He was the 
 Being who interrupted me, when I was writing 
 to you last week. He often comes here and 
 wearies me finely — but, at the Ball, fops who 
 make lamentable companions are often excellent 
 Masters of Ceremony. 
 
 • > • • • • 
 
 " If / had daughters, I would never suffer 
 them to learn anything from Mercenaries, which 
 I could teach them myself^ for surely the task 
 is most delightful when the disposition of the 
 pupil is amiable ; few are so well qualified to 
 educate female youth, as yourself, my dear 
 Mrs. Sykes, in all things which respect the 
 cultivation of the understanding and the virtues 
 — if Hull can supply you with proper masters in 
 Music, Fj^ench, Draiving, and dancing, I would 
 never have wished you to send your Beloved 
 Child to a school, but for one reason, the danger 
 of her contracting the Provincial tone in speak- 
 ing and reading, from the servants and from her
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 111 
 
 little brothers ; if Molly Broadley had every 
 possible accomplishment, her Yorkshire dialect 
 would for ever prevent her being an elegant 
 woman — of all externals, in my opinion a polished 
 and pleasing tone of voice is the most material." 
 
 "Saturday noon, Lichfd., Jan. 4, 1777. 
 
 " Your most kind, most welcome packet, my 
 ever dear Mrs. Sykes, has imparted to Marianne 
 and to myself that pleasure, at once so tender 
 and so lively which affectionate hearts must 
 always feel when the precious proofs of being 
 belov'd and esteemed by the objects of that 
 affection, pour the sweet tide of gratitude and 
 joy upon the mind. We have this instant 
 finished our intellectual feast — Marianne is 
 returned to her Forte Piano — the traces of the 
 latent joy still play upon her countenance — 
 Saturday afternoon 1 was interrupted and robbed 
 of the hour which I had dedicated to you by 
 a Coxcomb, who has employed it in edifying- 
 orations upon running horses, the elegance of 
 gentlemen's clothes with coloured spangles, and 
 the absolute necessity of wearing shoe buckles 
 that will touch the side of the shoes on each
 
 112 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 side. We are all going out in an hour for the 
 evening — Miss Sykes and I are neither of us 
 dressed. The frank must set out for Hull early 
 in tlie morning, so I must not attempt to com- 
 ment upon your last letter, but hope to answer 
 it at full next week ! That I might be able to 
 say with Truth that Miss Sykes's letter which 
 she wrote yesterday was tvholly her oivn, I 
 have not altered one syllable — but, since it was 
 finished, I pointed out to her a method of 
 expressing the same sense, without using many 
 of her words in so frequent repetition — You have, 
 ere this, I hope, received a sad hasty scribble 
 which I dispatched for you last Sunday morning 
 — It will inform you precisely how my sweet 
 Pupil and I employ ourselves — Be assur'd her 
 mind is at present pure as when she left your 
 Guardian arms ; nor art, nor p7'ide, nor malice 
 have found the smallest harbour — But time flies 
 — I dare not trust myself with entering noiv 
 upon so very interesting a subject, therefore will 
 only plight to you my solemn promise that I 
 have and shall continue to bear constantly in 
 mind the hind of Woman which I know you wish 
 our sweet One to be, and that she shall hear, see,
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 113 
 
 and read nothing that shall have the remotest 
 tendency to counteract the stife and quiet system 
 which you have formed for her future conduct. 
 You wish her to be adorned with all those 
 accomplishments that can render her engaging 
 and lovely, ivithout endangering her peace of 
 mind. — You had rather she was gently humane 
 than passionately tender — that her address was 
 rather modest than brilliant. Ah ! I believe you 
 are perfectly right — more of this, and a thousand 
 other things hereafter. — We are all in o-ood 
 health and all attach'd to you and Mr. Sykes 
 by Friendship, Gratitude and Love. Ever your 
 A. Seward. 
 
 " P.S. — Mr. Brown comes most days to Miss 
 Sykes. He was teaching her while the Fop was 
 fatiguing me this morning. Her improvement 
 in her Music since she came here has been i-apid. 
 — Mr. Brown says if she was to be kejjt to 
 practise for six more years as mucli as she is 
 at present he would answer for her being able 
 to play remarkably well. 
 
 " But if Lichfield agrees with her (the writer 
 
 continues), if the sweet girl finds it pleasant to 
 
 be with us, if you and Mr. S. perceive that she 
 
 H
 
 114 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 does not neglect her studies while she is here, 
 my mother and I shall plead hard with you both 
 that these shall not be the last holidays that 
 we shall long for. She and I have agreed to 
 dedicate the whole morning to her music, her 
 reading, and a little work — the evening she will 
 perhaps generally be engaged in company either 
 in my mother's parties or in mine ; this after- 
 noon she went with me to Mrs. Porter's, where 
 we met Lady Smith, Miss Vyse, and a good deal 
 more company ; her Ladyship inquired much 
 after Mrs. Sykes from our young friend. To- 
 morrow she is to go with my mother and myself 
 to a large Commerce party at Lady Smith's. At 
 present she is, I hope, fast asleep." 
 
 In an undated letter which seems to belong 
 to this time. Miss Seward condoles on various 
 domestic anxieties, saying she " should have 
 thanked Mrs. Sykes amid the tenderest embraces 
 for her last most kind letter, if it had not been 
 for these anxieties." She then describes an 
 ideal curate indeed. 
 
 " My father (she says) returned out of the 
 Peak three weeks ago, after residing there during 
 six, in perfect health and very happy, having
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 115 
 
 obtained a curate who is quite a phenomenon 
 among curates — one of the most accomplished 
 and most amiable young men that was ever 
 heard of, who edifies by his virtues, who charms 
 by his oratory, and who fascinates by his 
 manners, who is a good Latin scholar, who writes 
 verses finely, who draws elegantly, who speaks 
 the modern languages fluently, who has travelled, 
 and who has refused travelUns: with Lord Balti- 
 more's son u})on a stipend of four hundred pounds 
 a year, and reserves this galaxy of virtues, 
 talents and graces to gild and enlighten the 
 barren rocks and deep valleys of your native 
 home and mine." 
 
 Dr. Seward, judging from this description, 
 must have had some of his daughter's entliusiasm 
 for his friends. One cannot help remembering 
 Coleridge's elegy upon his death: "Mr. Seward, 
 Mr. Seward, I trust you are an angel, but you 
 were an ass ! " 
 
 In 1780 poor Major Andr^ died. We know 
 how his friends at Liclifield mourned him. JMiss 
 Seward published her "Monody" in 1781. It 
 made her famous, and she wrote to her friend
 
 116 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 in melancholy satisfaction at the sympathy she 
 had met with : — 
 
 " I enclose a poetic epistle, which I received 
 from an ingenious clergyman at Shrewsbury, 
 whom I never saw nor heard of till he paid me 
 this compliment. I think his poem contained 
 some fine lines. The 11th and the 12th, the 
 16th and those four lines which allude to the 
 spear of Ithuriel are in the true spirit of poetry. 
 I send you also a very enthusiastic eulogium in 
 prose upon the ' Monody ' sent to me from 
 Courtney Melmoth. This letter does honour to 
 the heart, whatever it may do to the judgment 
 of its writer, evincing that it is wholly free from 
 that hint of envy, which Pope, with perhaps too 
 much justice, imputes to rival authors when he 
 complains that they ' Damn with faint praise.' 
 This gentleman and myself have more than 
 once been rivals for the myrtle wreath at Bath 
 Easton. He sought my correspondence some 
 time since, though we never saw each other. I 
 send you also a letter from Mr. Hawkings Brown, 
 a gentleman of considerable literary eminence, 
 and of whose praise I am not a little proud — 
 the more so as his politics are against my poem ;
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 117 
 
 so are also Courtney Melmoth's. The English 
 Chronicle and Universal Evening Post for Thurs- 
 day, March 29 (she continues), honours the 
 ' Monody ' on Major Andre with the amplest 
 praise. You will smile at the enthusiastic warmth 
 of Courtney Melmoth's encomiums, yet I think 
 their ingenuity will make you some amends for 
 partiality which is but too evident." 
 
 Further correspondence shows that Lichfield 
 was not the only scene of Miss Seward's triumphs ; 
 she travelled for relaxation, she visited London, 
 Chatsworth, Westella, Bath Easton,^ her native 
 village of Eyam, where at least she had hoped 
 for rest and retirement ; " but this was not to 
 be allowed. We entered my native walls at 
 four o'clock on Tuesday. Several of our poor 
 neighbours shed kind tears of joy to see me 
 
 ^ In Seeley's Life of Miss Biirney there is an amusing mention 
 of the assembhige at Bath Easton : " A chief topic of conversation 
 at this time in Bath was Lady Millor's vase at Bath Easton." 
 Horace Walpoie mentions this vase, and the use to whicli it was 
 put : " They hold Parnassus Fair every Thursday, give out Rhymes 
 and Themes, and all the tiux at Bath contend for the prizes. A 
 Roman vase dresseti with pink ribbons and myrtles receives the 
 poetry, which is drawn out every festival. Six judges of these 
 Olympic (rames retire and select the brightest composition." 
 Fanny Burney's own comments on the High Priestess are severe : 
 " Her habits are bustling, her air is mock-important, and her 
 manners vury inelegant."'
 
 118 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 again ; they set the bells a-ringing in compli- 
 ment to me, so I was told. 
 
 " Heavens, how little, how deplorably little, 
 retirement has it afforded me ! But however I 
 may wish for solitude, my mind, though fatigued 
 with attention to company, is perhaps much 
 more unfit to feed on thoughts that voluntary 
 move." 
 
 During her visit to London, Miss Seward tells 
 her correspondent how she was " prevented by 
 illness from accepting a number of pressing 
 invitations to all the most elegant and fashion- 
 able amusements." Her friends have written 
 to her father to request a promise of permitting 
 her to pass some weeks in London in the spring, 
 but she says, though he has consented, ''I do 
 not much indulge myself with hopes, his health 
 is so very precarious and my own so far from 
 good." 
 
 Miss Seward adds that she " would enclose 
 some of her London friends' letters if they did not 
 express such unbounded partiality for herself" 
 
 She not only describes the scenes she enjoys : 
 she dwells upon the characteristics of her com- 
 panions ; one of her friends she writes of as
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 119 
 
 "light, active, well made without being dis- 
 agreeably thin, with the air not only of a 
 gentleman, but of a man of fashion though with 
 unpowdered hair. His hair, a fine, light shining 
 brown, is long and flows carelessly down his 
 shoulders." Miss Seward does not altogether 
 approve of another habitue, Mr. Cunningham ; 
 her taste " demands some shaded features in the 
 mind, some Penserosa tints in the manner " ; also 
 *' his voice is a little nasal owing perhaps to his 
 having spoken so much French in his rambles over 
 the Continent. No news from Lichfield (she 
 continues), Charles Buckeridge is, I suppose, so 
 engrossed with the pleasure of a young growing 
 attachment as to find no leisure for the cares 
 and attentions of colder friendship." He seems 
 to have forgotten the embroidered waistcoat. 
 
 Another friend of Miss Seward is "a gentle- 
 man of great worth, some taste for the classics, 
 tender and fervent affection but without the 
 graces, tall and thin, yet awkward ; his fea- 
 tures have a sorrowful stiffness and he wears 
 a wig. Now pray do not fancy he is in love 
 with me, for if you do, you will be quite mis- 
 taken. The folks here (she continues) have
 
 120 FROM THE POKCH 
 
 married us already ; but never, never will their 
 predictions be accomplished." It is astonishing 
 to Miss Seward " that women dare venture to 
 marry unsusceptible of passionate partiality for 
 their husbands, without which that state must 
 be miserable, at best insipid, for ever excluding 
 each dearer, sweeter hope." 
 
 In a subsequent letter she alludes to the 
 engagement of Thomas Day, the author of Sand- 
 ford and Mert07i and Miss Milnes, the charming 
 heiress, who consented to share his life, his 
 cranks, his oddities, his many efforts (so ungrate- 
 fully received) for the good of humanity. 
 
 "When I was in town (says Miss Seward) I 
 found there was indubitably a love affair between 
 Miss Milnes and Mr. Day, but it was then, and 
 it is still, my opinion that he will do by her as 
 by all his former mistresses — talk her out of her 
 courage ; he refines too much and has contracted 
 an opinion from (as he thinks) experience, that 
 women are in general contemptibly unstable. 
 I lately met with two ladies who knew her 
 very well. They tell me never woman was so 
 changed, that she has broken off almost all her 
 female friendships, sees very little company, and
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 121 
 
 has lost her vivacity ; tell me if you know any- 
 thing of all this ? " 
 
 Life is certainly very full of possibilities. 
 Thomas Day was young no longer, he had never 
 yet mastered the art of dancing, nor of living 
 like anybody else. He had failed to win the 
 aftections of Honora and Elizabeth Sneyd, both 
 of whom he admired in turn. (It was, as we 
 know, to please Elizabeth he tried so hard to 
 learn dancing from a Parisian master.) The 
 orphan girls, educated wdth a view to his choosing 
 eventually between them, had settled for them- 
 selves in their own rank of life, and were hand- 
 somely portioned by him. The days seemed 
 solitary and clouding over for the good and 
 conscientious man, when he met the amiable 
 Miss Milnes, of whose genuine womanly feeling 
 there can be no doubt. We have all read of 
 their happy honeymoon upon Hampstead Heights, 
 looking across the lovely distant weald towards 
 the sunsets which Turner loved. Thomas Day's 
 kind heart would have been gladdened could 
 he have foreseen the beautiful garden city that 
 was to arise in time, following upon beautiful 
 visions.
 
 122 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 in 
 
 Happy sentiment such as Thomas Day's was 
 not for Anna Seward, but much that was happy 
 and good fell to her share. Friendship was hers, 
 fame beyond her deserts, a competence, a warm 
 and generous heart. There is one episode in 
 her life which she fully — too fully perhaps — 
 discusses with her confidante ; it is difficult not 
 to admire the courage and constancy she showed 
 to this fanciful infatuation, facing opposition 
 from every quarter, and only thinking of the 
 one person she so esteemed ; we must also sym- 
 pathise with the dismay of her father and her 
 friends, unable to dissuade her from a desperate, 
 hopeless devotion to an unfortunate gentleman, 
 who already possessed a wife — a violent woman 
 — living away from him. He was "the principal 
 singer in Lichfield Cathedral," as Mr. Lucas tells 
 us, and Miss Seward was foolish " even to the 
 extent of purchasing a house for Mr. Saville, and 
 defying that ' aged nurseling ' her father. Had 
 Miss Seward been the kind of sinner that those 
 who ostracised her afiected to think," her bio- 
 grapher continues, " she would not have been s^
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 123 
 
 free with the praises of her ' Giovanni ' in all her 
 letters, no matter to whom they were written." 
 
 Miss Seward opens out her very inmost heart 
 to Mrs. Sykes, who seems to have tried to 
 remonstrate. 
 
 "My tender, unabating and hopeless affection 
 (the Swan declares) is precisely what it was ; 
 to converse sometimes with the most amiable of 
 created beings makes up the sum total of my 
 happiness — a scanty, scanty store — the rest of 
 my days are passed in uninterrupted wishes to 
 prolong and to restore those fleeting moments, 
 surrounded as they are with danger and in- 
 quietude ; he is sincere, and faithful, and good. 
 He has lately had an offer of great emolument in 
 his profession from the Bishop of Kildare, if he 
 would go to Dublin. He has rejected it. Do 
 not chide, do not deplore this rejection, my 
 sweet Mrs. Sykes, the total separation would 
 have broken both our hearts. He is at least no 
 selfish, no summer-day friend ; favour and for- 
 tune cannot bribe him to forsake me. 
 
 "Has the translation of Petrarch's works 
 reached you yet? They are charming even in 
 the translation— how I revere, how I idolise the
 
 124 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 memory of that man — how commiserate his situa- 
 tion — passionately attached to his Laura for 
 nineteen years, and mourning over her grave till 
 the last hour of his life; spotless and amiable 
 constancy, triumphant over every opposition of 
 cruel fate ! She was married to another at the 
 time he first beheld her, and she wore the fatal 
 chain till the last moment of her existence ; she 
 died of the plague on the same day of the 
 month, as in the year on which Petrarch first 
 beheld her nineteen years before. ... I con- 
 ceived a strong and early prejudice in favour 
 of Petrarch from Lord Lyttelton's ' Monody,' 
 which I could say by heart at twelve years 
 old. Little did I then imagine that my fate 
 would be so similar to Petrarch's." 
 
 Lord Lyttelton thus apostrophises Petrarch : 
 
 " Arise, O Petrarch, from the Elysian bowers 
 
 With never fading beauties crowned, and fragrant with 
 
 ambrosial flowers, 
 Where to thy Laura thou again art joined ; arise, and hither 
 
 bring the silver lyre. 
 Tuned by thy skilful hand to the soft notes of elegant desire, 
 With which o'er many a land was spread the fame of thy 
 
 disastrous love. 
 To me resign the vocal shell," &c., <fec
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 125 
 
 The quotation ends up by calling upon rough 
 mountain oaks and desert rocks to be moved 
 to pity. 
 
 Poor Miss Seward seems in the like sad mood ; 
 she concludes by saying that " sweet Mrs. Colt- 
 man's spirits are also very much afflicted," and 
 there the page breaks off. 
 
 " I do not take your solicitations ill, but it 
 is not in my power to comply with them (she 
 writes again). The Dean did make an offer of 
 continuing to Saville the income of his place in 
 this church, if he would remove from Li cli field ; 
 but the Dean is extremely old, and he can only 
 engage for this during his life. Saville knew I 
 could not bear a total separation, and sent an 
 absolute refusal to listen to the proposal before 
 it was even made. — It is true he has offered to 
 leave Lichfield if I could make myself easy, not 
 for his own sake, for he assures me that it 
 would cost him his own life, and I am sure it 
 would cost me mine. Thei-e is no evil can 
 happen to me so heavy and insupportable as 
 the knowledge that in all human probability 
 I shall never behold him more. I have thought 
 deeply upon this subject, and can never be per-
 
 126 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 suaded that it is my duty to renounce the 
 sight of him, and those Httle transient con- 
 versations we sometimes have, or that there 
 would be any virtue in doing it, therefore I 
 could never expect the reward you mention of 
 Heaven for bringing such insupportable torture 
 upon myself; even if I believed that Providence 
 made all worthy people happy here, which that 
 it does '^iot, every day's experience evinces. 
 You ask me if I am so selfish that, being pre- 
 cluded happiness myself, I can find no comfort 
 in promoting that of others? I am not selfish, 
 but when I have totally lost the very sight of 
 him in whose dear ideal my soul only lives, 
 I should be from that moment incapable of 
 comfort or distraction. My dear, dear Honora 
 would look upon my death as the very worst 
 evil that could happen to me. She knows this 
 must be my portion if he leaves me utterly, 
 therefore she does not urge it. I love Saville 
 for his virtues ... he cannot be my husband, 
 but no law of earth or heaven forbids that he 
 should be my friend, and debars us from the 
 liberty of conversing together while that con- 
 versation is innocent. The world has no right
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 127 
 
 to suppose it otherwise ; if it will be so unjust 
 we cannot help it. Its severest censure we 
 should both look upon as a less misfortune than 
 that of seeing each other no more. Thank you 
 for endeavouring to guard my dear Mrs. Colt- 
 man's mind from receiving ill impressions of 
 me, but I am afraid your kind care has been 
 in vain. 
 
 " Adieu, my dear Mrs. Sykes, adieu ! " 
 One very melancholy page, undated, unsigned, 
 gives us a further insight into the troubles of 
 the poor Muse's life at that time, and of the 
 price she at any rate had to pay for emulating 
 Petrarch, who does not seem to have suftered 
 in the same way. 
 
 " I know there are a set of people in Lichfield 
 (she says) who endeavour to injure me by every 
 means in their power ; the natural malignity of 
 mankind furnishes them with ample means of 
 doing so ; my father's conduct in caressing these 
 people aids their mischief, and stamps some 
 colour of credit upon their thousand falsehoods, 
 I am not angry at the credulity of the indiffer- 
 ent, but in those who have professed themselves 
 my friends, and who have every reason to believe
 
 128 FROM THE POFtCH 
 
 me incapable of vileness, with whatever indis- 
 creet fervour I may attach myself, such credulity 
 
 is injurious and highly unjust. Mr. was 
 
 by no means civil to me when I was last at 
 Westella, but of absolute personal affront I had 
 no reason to complain, as you say, until we met 
 at Keddleston. . . . Resentful I am, but not 
 malicious (continues the poor soul), though few 
 have received more or deeper injuries than 
 myself ! " 
 
 Into this description of Miss Seward's feelings 
 comes a curious item of news casually alluded 
 to. "It is a week since this long letter was 
 begun," she continues; "the interval has con- 
 firmed the news of Jones's ^ depredations in Hull 
 Harbour. Breakfasting at Lady Gresley's last 
 Saturday — I saw Sir George Bromley, who con- 
 
 ' It was in 1778 that Paul Jones was making his raids upon the 
 coast of England. The following is an extract from the JFestmiiister 
 Gazette of June 18, 1909 :— 
 
 JOHN PAUL JONES'S LOG-BOOK. 
 
 New York, Thursday, — The interesting announcement comes 
 from Boston that the log-book of the Ranger, which was com- 
 manded by Captain .John Paul .Jones, has just been discovered in 
 that city. The log-book is almost entirely in the handwriting of 
 the famous privateer, and forms a most valuable addition to the 
 few relics now existing of the man who wi"ought such enormous 
 damage to British commerce during the War of Independence.
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 129 
 
 firmed the report — I hope Mr. Sykes ana you 
 have suffered no material injury." She then 
 immediately returns to her own feelings. 
 
 She is delicate, she says, of intruding upon 
 any person either her company or her letters ; 
 her books and her needles have no ears to 
 imbibe malicious reports. " I can calmly live 
 with them," she says, "if all the world should 
 fly me." Some music and a hearing-trumpet 
 were sent by Miss Seward to old Mrs. Johnson 
 of Lichfield, and had procured a " kind letter 
 of much more acknowledgment than the trifles 
 merited." But she gives a melancholy list of 
 all the people who avoid her, headed by the 
 Sneyds, "most cruel fact of all." 
 
 "It is certain that Mr. Edgeworth has ex- 
 tinguished all regard for us in the breast of his 
 wife, my tenderness for whom (she adds) was 
 one of the ^earliest habits of my mind and can 
 never, never be dissolved. When the sun is 
 set in the horizon, and the twilight but faintly 
 bears the traces of departed radiance, my imagi- 
 nation loves to trace the form of the clouds into 
 a resemblance of the plains around Westella ; 
 sometimes a line of light dividing two dark
 
 130 FROM THE POECH 
 
 clouds presents a lively picture of that river ' the 
 long lustre of whose silver line," &c. &c. 
 
 Her former admirers are naturally the most 
 severe critics concerning her feelings, and, as 
 she observes, it is " indeed very hard to have 
 Mr. Porter and a parcel of indifferent spectators' 
 opinions taken upon the state of my heart, rather 
 than my own declaration on the subject. Are 
 not people for ever imputing attachments to all 
 single people of different sexes who converse 
 
 together ? (Poor Miss Seward !) Mr. (she 
 
 says) chose to amuse himself with the enthu- 
 siastic creduHty and exalted ideas of friendship 
 which he discovered to be the leading features 
 of my disposition. . . . He does not plead any 
 falsehood or ill-treatment received from me — 
 had he any right to pass from the extreme of 
 professions of an amity which should never 
 know change to that of cruel scorn and un- 
 merited insolence upon the report of others? 
 From them he learnt that my attachment to 
 Mr. Saville was unalterable ; — that I would not 
 renounce his correspondence or society, the right 
 of possessing his friendship which had never 
 been forfeited by guilt. . . . Revengeful I have
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 131 
 
 severely found Mr. . He says he has only 
 
 traduced me to Lady Etherington, Mrs. Moses, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bourne, Mr. and Miss Wilberforce 
 and the Colhnses. Mr. Eobinson, known by the 
 name of the Vicar, accused me in pubhc com- 
 pany, and in proof of the fact mentioned that 
 I received enormous packets from Mr. Saville, 
 and had been continually writing to him while 
 I was in your family. — You see, dear Madam, 
 of how much mischief to my fame and peace 
 have been these unprovoked invectives, and 
 surely it was most ungenerous to mention as 
 a proof of criminality the long letters I invoked 
 and received." 
 
 It must have been as an amende honorable 
 for all the " severely revengeful " gossip with 
 which Lichfield had once echoed, that the Dean 
 and Chapter allowed Miss Seward — when Saville 
 died in 1803 — to put up the "hundred pound" 
 monument she tells us of to his memory — " the 
 beautiful antique urn " she describes, with 
 " the column of smoke which ascends from it, 
 emblematic of exhaling life." When she herself 
 was dying she begged to be laid beside her 
 faithful friend in the vault on the south side
 
 132 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 of Lichfield Cathedral, but this wish was dis- 
 regarded, and she rests with her parents. The 
 guide-book of those days stated that a Mr. 
 Walter Scott wrote the lines commemorating 
 her filial piety. 
 
 That same Walter Scott, in a letter to Sir 
 George Beaumont, says : "I had a letter from 
 Wordsworth the other day on an odd eno' sub- 
 ject. When we went down to the country 
 together in 1805, Miss Wordsworth thinks they 
 went with me to wait on Miss Seward at Lich- 
 field. Wordsworth contends they did not see 
 her, and I, the referee, am unable to settle the 
 point. Such is human evidence ! " But we have 
 Miss Seward writing to Carey, the translator 
 of Dante, in May 1807: "On Friday last the 
 positively great Walter Scott came like a sun- 
 beam to my dwelling," 
 
 Something remains to be said of that scene 
 where among many consolations the Swan of 
 Lichfield sung her melodious Lament. 
 
 The Cathedral stands serene and beautiful 
 on its rising ground. It is a century older 
 than Westminster Abbey itself; the quaint 
 streets lead up to the Close, and to Johnson's
 
 THE SWAN OF LICHFIELD 133 
 
 market-place, which can scarcely have changed 
 since his day. The Bishop's Palace dominates 
 the green, among beautiful lights and shades 
 and distant aspects. Near by broad waters 
 reflect the banks beyond which Stowe House 
 still stands among its cedar trees, and the 
 gardens of rose, and avenues of hollyhock, all 
 seeming to point to the threefold spires of the 
 Cathedral. The owner of Stowe House was 
 once Thomas Day, who benevolently ruled there, 
 trying his experiments in sealing-wax on 
 Sabrina's arms, and of tar water for the benefit 
 of Maria Edgeworth's eyes. Hither he brought 
 her father, Kichard Edgeworth, and urged him 
 to follow up his courtship. Hither came beauti- 
 ful Honora after her marriage ; Johnson and 
 Boswell have supped in the old arched dining- 
 hall of Stowe House ; Anna Seward herself must 
 have trod this classic ground — one can almost 
 see them all once more. 
 
 Every day one reads of meaningless appari- 
 tions and passing visions. How much more to 
 be realised and welcomed are the presentations 
 of loving kindnesses not past, of fancy and fun 
 and noble enthusiasm not over ! It was to
 
 134 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 witness no witchcraft, no raising of shadows, 
 that we all assembled at the old hall at Lich- 
 field on September 15, 1909. The Mayor and 
 Corporation, the reporters, the Bishop and 
 Chapter, the townspeople, all were there, to hear 
 of Samuel Johnson once more, and in some 
 mysterious way all were moved, responding at the 
 same moment to the generous vibration which 
 affected the orator Lord Rosebery, and his 
 charmed listeners, when he spoke to them of the 
 great man who had once dwelt in the old city, 
 and who for the moment was present again. 
 
 The Swan of Lichfield did not belong to the 
 great ; she was not of the order of Johnson 
 and his compeers ; but among all her absurdities 
 and exaggerations a true note of human feeling 
 exists in her letters and poems which will per- 
 haps affect those who may not study her works, 
 yet who cannot but recognise her warm-hearted 
 sympathies, from which Johnson and Mr. Edge- 
 worth alone were excepted.
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 
 
 [This paper was published in Macmillan's Magazine some 
 years before Mrs. Ross brought out her viost interesting history 
 of Three Generations of English Women.] 
 
 I 
 
 In the earliest years of the present century, 
 when Norwich was in its ascendant and giving 
 its intellectual supper-parties ; when the learned 
 Dr. Sayers was sitting for his likeness to Opie ; 
 when Mrs. Barbauld had retired from Palgrave 
 to the suburbs of London ; when Elizabeth 
 Gurney and her beautiful sisters, no longer 
 galloping about the country in their riding- 
 habits and red boots, were beginning their 
 married lives ; when little Harriet Martineau, 
 as a child, was wandering round Castle Hill and 
 trembling in terror at the depths below, at the 
 sound of the sticks falling with dull thuds upon 
 the feather-beds which the careful housewives 
 of Norwich were beating in their doorways — 
 in these pre-eventful times there lived in a 
 
 135
 
 136 FROM THE POECH 
 
 house, not very far from Castle Hill, a friend 
 of Mrs. Barbauld's, a quiet lady, Mrs. John 
 Taylor by name, whose home was the resort 
 of many of the most cultivated men of the day, 
 and whose delightful companionship was justly 
 prized and valued by them. People used to say 
 it was well worth a journey to Norwich to spend 
 an evening with Mrs. John Taylor. She was 
 Mackintosh's friend ; she was Mrs. Barbauld's 
 dearest friend ; in after days John Austin was 
 her son-in-law ; John Mill and Charles Austin 
 were her intimates. Her life was spent in the 
 simplest fashion. She stayed at home, she 
 darned with wool, she read philosophy and 
 poetry, she spoke her mind and she thought 
 for herself, while she stitched, and marketed, 
 and tended her children. 
 
 She was a type of a high-bred simple race of 
 women, perhaps more common in those days 
 than now. To some people seven children and 
 limited means might seem a serious obstacle to 
 high mental culture, but Mrs. Taylor and her 
 friends were of a different way of thinking ; 
 they were not ashamed of being poor, of attend- 
 ing to the details of life ; they were only ashamed
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 137 
 
 of being shabby in spirit, of mean aspirations, 
 of threadbare slovenly interests. The seven 
 children, reared in a wholesome and temperate, 
 yet liberal-minded atmosphere, went their ways 
 in after life, well prepared for the world, fully 
 portioned with those realities and impressions 
 which are beyond silver and gold. The two 
 daughters, Susan and Sarah, both married. 
 Sarah was Mrs. Austin, the translator of Ranke, 
 of the Story Without an End, which children 
 have not yet ceased to read, the mother of Lady 
 Duff Gordon, whose name is also well remembered. 
 Susan, the elder daughter, became the wife of 
 Dr. Reeve, and the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, 
 the editor of the Edinburgh Rcvieiv. It was by 
 the kindness of Mr. Henry Reeve that the writer 
 was allowed to read many of the letters from 
 Mrs. Taylor to her early friend, to her daughters, 
 to Dr. Reeve, her son-in-law, the father of Henry 
 Reeve — the faded writing flows in a still living 
 stream of interest, solicitude, affection, anxiety, 
 and exhortation, flowing on in even lines, and 
 showing so much of that mingled force, of imagi- 
 nation and precision, which goes to make up the 
 literary faculty.
 
 138 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 The letters run back to the days before Mrs. 
 Taylors marriage, and give a vivid picture of 
 a young lady's impressions of life a century ago ; 
 for it is more than a hundred years since Miss 
 Susanna Cook sat down to describe what she 
 calls a "jaunt to London," and to recapitulate 
 all the crowding interests and delights of 1776 
 for the benefit of a confidante, Miss Judith Dixon, 
 somewhat her junior in years and experience, 
 and living tranquilly far removed from the 
 metropolis in St. Andrew's Broad Street in 
 Norwich. 
 
 Miss Susanna dips her pen and traces her 
 pretty lines, and the yellow pages seem tinted 
 still by the illumination of these bygone youth- 
 ful shining mornings and evenings, and brilliant 
 anticipations and realisations, to say nothing of 
 the dazzling lamps of Vauxhall, which place 
 Miss Cook does not fail to visit. The parcel of 
 happy people (so she describes her party) con- 
 sists of the young lady herself, of a " lively 
 young divine " and his wife and three sisters ; 
 nor can Miss Susanna find too much praise 
 for the most amiable girls she ever met ; for 
 the evenings fine beyond expression ; for Vaux-
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOK, OF NOEWICH 139 
 
 hall itself, which she had always admired, but 
 which appears to her more enchanting than 
 ever. Let us hope that the young ladies, the 
 great-great-granddaughters of Miss Cook and 
 her companions, still write in the same spirit 
 and find equally balmy sights at the Earl's Court 
 Exhibitions, the White City and elsewhere, as 
 well as lively young divines to escort them. But 
 this is perhaps hoping too much, for I am told 
 the race no longer exists. Nothing, however, 
 not even a jaunt to London, is absolutely per- 
 fect, either in this age, or in the last. " Pity 
 me ! " writes the young lady, " Garrick played 
 Hamlet at Drury Lane last night, and we 
 might as well have attempted to move St. 
 Paul's as to get in. The crowd was inconceiv- 
 able." Our youthful company are only con- 
 soled at the opera by the voice of the " Siren 
 Leoni." 
 
 Susanna steadily follows up the records 
 of her sight-seeing : she visits Wedgwood's 
 classic potteries, which were then the fashion, 
 she describes the models brought over by 
 Sir William Hamilton. Her friends also take 
 her to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy
 
 140 FKOM THE PORCH 
 
 of Paintings, where the young ladies, we are told, 
 "divert the gentlemen by delivering opinions 
 with all the arrogance of connoisseurs." 
 
 Some of us may know Ramberg's delightful 
 print of an exhibition at the Royal Academy 
 some ten years later, in 1787, of which a fine 
 copy was in the studio of our own President 
 of 1886. As one looks at the picture, the cen- 
 tury rolls off, the sleeping palace awakens, the 
 ladies in their nodding plumes, the courtly gentle- 
 men, with their well-dressed legs and swords, 
 exchange greetings. We seem at home in the 
 unpretending rooms with the familiar pictures 
 on the walls (the dear little strawberry-girl is 
 hanging there among the rest) ; and we can see 
 the originals of those charming figures we all 
 know so well depicted gazing up at their own 
 portraits. Rules and regulations must have been 
 less strictly measured out then than they are now, 
 for although umbrellas did not play that important 
 part which belongs to them at present, sticks 
 and swords without number seem to have been 
 boldly introduced into the gallery, to say nothing 
 of a little dog frisking merrily in the fore- 
 ground.
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 141 
 
 The experience of each generation varies in 
 turn, with its dress and peculiarities ; ours is 
 (as yet) exempt from certain trials which are 
 feelingly alluded to by Miss Cook in her corre- 
 spondence, and of which Madame d'Arblay, Mrs. 
 Barbauld, and others also bitterly complain. 
 The elegant ladies of Sir Joshua's powdering 
 times certainly had their own trials. We find 
 the young traveller warmly congratulating her 
 friend Judith upon a marvellous escape ; where 
 other headdresses succumbed, Judith's feather 
 had remained steady in its place. Susanna has 
 seen many distresses occasioned by these fashion- 
 able embellishments ; among the sufferers she 
 mentions two ladies unfortunately sitting next 
 each other at a concert, " whose heads met and 
 becoming immediately entangled, the attempts 
 they made to extricate themselves only increased 
 the difficulty, until, finally, one of the fabrics 
 was demolished." Another tragic story is that 
 of a helle dancinsr in a cotillon who seems sud- 
 denly to have " lost the whole of a majestic 
 superstructure, which rolled backwards while 
 the company fled from the cataclysm " ; one 
 can imagine, says Miss Cook, " the falling curls
 
 142 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 and the clouds of powder, and the despair of 
 the poor victim of this vertigo." 
 
 Susanna gives another page or two to the 
 fashions: she describes what she calls "an 
 anecdote upon Lady Harriet Foley which made 
 quite a bustle." This lady appeared at Court 
 after her marriage in a suit of white lutestring 
 trimmed with large bunches of acorns, of which 
 the cups had really grown upon oak-trees. 
 The idea was immediately seized upon, the 
 fashion adopted, and the dresses for a mas- 
 querade at Carlyle House which followed were 
 whimsical and ridiculous to the highest degree. 
 It must have been on this occasion that one has 
 read of ladies appearing with whole branches 
 of oak, roughly sawn off, and balanced on their 
 powdered heads. 
 
 The same gift which stood Mrs. Taylor in 
 such good stead in later life, that power of 
 throwing herself into her surroundings, of ap- 
 preciating and enjoying the gifts of others, 
 marks her early experiences. She has a decided 
 taste for human nature. There are so many 
 different sorts of people, she says. Her artless 
 enthusiasm for the lovely Miss Linley, who
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 143 
 
 had been singing at Norwich, will not surprise 
 any of those who have lately seen the enchant- 
 ing portrait of the wife, mother, and grand- 
 mother of the Sheridans, — the saint, as Garrick 
 called her a hundred years ago, and whom one 
 might well be inclined to canonise now that 
 the necessary hundred years are past. 
 
 II 
 
 Now and again our young traveller varies 
 her correspondence with certain philosophical 
 disquisitions upon the frivolous diversions in 
 which she sees most women engaged ; the idle 
 amusements which they so ardently desire furnish 
 her with subjects of wonder and amazement. 
 Life was meant for better things, she says, and 
 not least to render ourselves in all our capacities 
 as serviceable as we possibly can. And this 
 outward grace of good-will in the creed of the 
 then inhabitants of Norfolk meant something 
 very substantial, and was represented by many 
 visible signs : kind offices, turkeys, Norfolk 
 pippins, strings of sausages, long visits cordially 
 welcomed from impecunious relatives, were all 
 a part of it.
 
 144 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 Perhaps, as these early letters flow on, the 
 sympathetical Judith may have begun to sur- 
 mise some events in prospect. There is an 
 indefinable change in the style, there are 
 allusions to the writer's happy lot, to a delight- 
 ful succession of guests and surprises. Although 
 Susanna declares that a certain serenity of 
 mind is absolutely necessary to improvement, we 
 hear of picnics, excursions, and riding parties. 
 Her enthusiastic admiration of a moonlight 
 night is productive of diversion to her friends, 
 she says, who laugh at her raptures, while she 
 rails at their want of taste. One cannot help 
 seeing the picture, as she unconsciously sketches 
 it in, the animated young horsewoman, the 
 happy young company, that friend in particular 
 who is laughing, coming along the moonlit 
 lane. Surely it is an absorbing hour of life 
 which has dawned for Miss Susanna ; and before 
 long, moonlight philosophy serenity of mind — 
 all are resolved into the important fact that 
 Mr. John Taylor, the " excellent young man 
 to whom she is so soon to be united," has 
 appeared upon the scene ! There is finally a 
 demure, dignified, yet warm-hearted letter from
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 145 
 
 the bride, Mrs. John Taylor, to her old friend 
 Judith, who is also married by this time, and 
 Judith no longer, but " my dear Mrs. Beecroft." 
 Mrs. Taylor brings the light of her own warm 
 and happy hearth into her exhortations to her 
 friend. 
 
 " The constant desire," she says, " of a wife 
 of giving pleasure to her husband, makes even 
 trifling affairs of some importance ; this affords 
 that stimulus which is so needful to keep the 
 active mind from weariness and lassitude. I 
 feel too much on your account, beloved friend, 
 to salute you with the usual forms of con- 
 gratulation ; may as much happiness be yours 
 as this life affords." 
 
 Mrs. Taylor herself and her husband only 
 "wish to tread in the peaceful paths of life." 
 Mr. Taylor was established in business at Nor- 
 wich, and here he and his Susanna settled down 
 in the year 1778 after a wedding tour to the 
 North. They settle among their friends and 
 their kinsfolk. In due time children begin to 
 figure in the closely-written pages despatched 
 to aunts and adjacent relatives, and with little 
 John and little Richard follow the usual cate-»
 
 146 FKOM THE PORCH 
 
 gories of a young mother's happy trials and 
 anxious joys. Mr, Taylor's business also flourishes. 
 They do not want for money, for their wishes are 
 moderate enough to be fulfilled. While the 
 children fill the little home and the cares 
 increase, new friends gather round. 
 
 We have most of us at one time or another 
 known the old Norse settlement, where the 
 Danish fleets once landed, before the sea rolled 
 back, leaving the old city of Norwich high and 
 dry upon its hill side, with its busy interests, 
 its pleasant homes, its lively inhabitants, whose 
 companionship seems seasoned with a certain 
 flavour of independent thought and a taste 
 of Attic salt blown in from the neighbour- 
 ing bays and shores and promontories ; and, 
 indeed, the life of a community within an hour's 
 journey from the sea is one to which certain 
 happy moods and sudden upliftings must neces- 
 sarily belong. Within easy reach of Norwich 
 stands Felbrigge, once the home of the Wind- 
 hams, the " hillside-ridge," among the woods and 
 avenues of oak, with its glorious sights of sky 
 and sea beyond ; there is also Cromer, between 
 billows of down and broad reaches of silver sand ;
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 147 
 
 still nearer at hand is Earlhani Hall, the birth- 
 place of the Gurneys — that stately old house 
 among lawns and spreading trees, where Wilber- 
 force used to rest upon a pleasant bench which 
 is still pointed out ; whither Elizabeth Fry 
 returned from time to time, and where we some- 
 times hear of Mrs. Taylor spending a summer's 
 afternoon. At Holkham, another neighljouring 
 place, Mr. Coke (as an epigrammatic historian 
 tells us) was then making poor land fertile, and in 
 return for half a million so liberally spent was 
 destined to be set upon some ten years later by 
 the furious Norwich mob. Mrs. Taylor speaks 
 of visiting at Holkham, and hopes " they 
 may enjoy themselves notwithstanding the 
 French." 
 
 She was already popular and much made of in 
 her own little world, and also visited by friends 
 from other circles. Mrs. Procter remembers her 
 own step-father, Basil Montagu, speaking with 
 ]-egard and admiration of the quiet Norwich lady. 
 Another name often occurs in her letters, that of 
 one of the most brilliant and popular men of those 
 brilliant times. Sir James Mackintosh, for whom 
 Madame de Stael and Napoleon (for once agree-
 
 148 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 ing) both expressed their admiration. Madame 
 de Stael used to go so far as to say that Sir 
 James was among EngHshmen the most interest- 
 ing man she had ever met. On one occasion 
 when he and Madame de Stael alone outstayed a 
 brilliant company at Bowood, Lord Lansdowne 
 told Mrs. Kemble that in all his life he had 
 never heard anything to approach the varied 
 charm of the dialogue of these two distinguished 
 people. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh's feeling for Mrs. Taylor 
 must have been of a different order from that 
 which the brilliant Corinne inspired. How 
 homely, how genuine, are his kind words to the 
 quiet Norwich housewife ! "I ought to be made 
 permanently better by contemplating such a 
 mind as yours," he writes ; and he dwells affec- 
 tionately upon her goodness, her fidelity in 
 friendship, that " industrious benevolence which 
 requires a vigorous understanding and a decisive 
 character." " The assize week brought us Mr. 
 Mackintosh and Basil Montagu," Mrs. Taylor 
 says in a letter to Dr. Reeve. " Mackintosh 
 spent an evening with us alone. He was brilliant, 
 instructive, sentimental— in fact, everything that
 
 MES. JOHN TAYLOK, OF NOKWICH 149 
 
 the various powers of his mind would enable him 
 to be." 
 
 In the little Norwich parlour, as in the Bowood 
 drawing-room, one can imagine Mackintosh pour- 
 ing out his delightful flood of talk, while Mrs. 
 Taylor, like the princess in the fairy tale, sits 
 listening, without time to intermit her labours. 
 It was Lucy Aiken who used to describe how 
 she would go on darning her sous' grey worsted 
 stockings while she was holding her own with 
 Brougham, or Mackintosh, or Southey — flashing 
 out epigrams at a room full of wits. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Taylors belonged to the sturdy, sensible, 
 stoical school which flourislied in the beginning 
 of the century, amid the alarms and catastrophes 
 all round about ; the great wars, the momentous 
 struggles of Napoleon's ambition, the heavings 
 of the French He volution. This quiet English 
 household was only in so far different from a 
 hundred others, that its mistress was a woman 
 possessing more strength of mind, character, and 
 perception than falls to the lot of many. 
 
 A friend who still remembers Mrs. Taylor has
 
 150 FKOM THE PORCH 
 
 described her as follows : "I used to see Mrs. 
 John Taylor at Mrs. Barbauld's, when I was a 
 mere child, so that my recollections are only of 
 her appearance and manner. She could never 
 have been tall and handsome as her two daughters 
 were ; but she had fine dark grey eyes, and 
 marked features. Her voice was deep-toned, her 
 way of speaking decided and clear." Mrs. Taylor, 
 we are told, cared little for appearances ; her 
 dress was apt to be unbecoming. 
 
 Mr. Reeve has sometimes described his grand- 
 mother in later days : actively ruling in her little 
 kingdom, full of care and hospitality and help for 
 others, occupied with every household interest ; 
 although delicate in health, yet toiling daily up 
 the hill to the great Norwich market, to cater 
 for her family, followed by a maid carrying the 
 brimming baskets. There is something which 
 reminds one of Mrs. Carlyle in the raciness and 
 originality of Susanna Taylor's mind, as well as 
 in the keen interest she gives to all the details 
 of her home, and to the necessities of the people 
 she comes across. She is happier than Jane 
 Carlyle in the good and happy children growing 
 up and around her, upon whom she can pour
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOB, OF NOKWICH 151 
 
 out all the warmth and energy of her affec- 
 tions. 
 
 Dr. Reeve seems to have been a sort of adopted 
 son of the house long before his engagement to 
 Susan the younger daughter, and to have lived 
 and grown up among all these young people, and 
 to have been very near the mother's heart. He 
 is sorely missed when the time comes for his 
 departure from among them.. 
 
 " I rather envy Mr. Frenshaw," writes Mrs. 
 Taylor, " when I see him mending pens and 
 pouring over small print : my eyes are somewhat 
 more bedimmed than usual, for they overflow 
 now and then in spite of myself Cowper says 
 in his address to his mother's picture : 
 
 * Where thou art gone, 
 Adieus and Fai'ewells are a sound unknown.' 
 
 In this odd world they seem to be the most 
 common of all words. To be sure, partings and 
 meetings give variety to our existence ; but I 
 am now grown so dull as not to want variety. 
 If I should wish for any, 1 must be contented 
 to have it all second-hand. And so, when you 
 have seen London and the Lakes and Edinburgh,
 
 152 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 all of which I know and have seen in former 
 days, you may tell me what you think of them." 
 
 " Nothing at present suits my taste so well " 
 (she says in another letter), "as Susan's Latin 
 lessons and her philosophical old master. . . . 
 When we get to Cicero's discussions on the 
 nature of the soul, or Virgil's fine descriptions, 
 my mind is filled up. Life is either a dull round 
 of eating, drinking, and sleeping, or a spark of 
 ethereal fire just kindled. 
 
 " Do not suppose I am beginning or ever will 
 begin to preach to you. We know each other's 
 opinions upon these topics, and we equally 
 despise any shackles for the human mind but 
 those which God and Nature impose upon us. 
 But if we endeavour to escape from these, we 
 certainly subject ourselves to others infinitely 
 more galling." 
 
 What a good friend she must have been for 
 a young man at his start in life — what a good 
 companion ! Her letters are full of charming 
 sense, of useful and pleasant suggestions, and 
 as one quotes at random one feels that they 
 contain a hundred things which ought still to 
 be said to the young, still to be felt by the old.
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOK, OF NOKAVTCH 153 
 
 On one occasion, after enumerating several 
 remarkable people, she names a certain Mr. 
 Wishaw. 
 
 " I would not have said so much about a 
 person you know nothing of, but for the com- 
 fortable feeling that j^^ople of the right sort are 
 alivays to he found, and also that they are some- 
 times happily thrown in our way ; nothing tends 
 more to enjoyment than to keep up a taste for 
 their company whenever and wherever it can 
 be had, instead of fancying that excellence is 
 the exclusive production of past times or distant 
 parts." 
 
 Is there not a whole philosophy of good sense 
 in all this? Mrs. Taylor was no optimist like 
 her friend Mrs. Opie ; she had no exaggerated 
 ideas of life and its possibilities ; but she fully 
 realised what was possible, and she held faithfully 
 and gratefully to the blessings within her grasp. 
 She continues very warmly attached to her 
 young correspondent. " The very feelings which 
 have produced such a friendship must perpetuate 
 it," she says ; and few people knew better than 
 she did what it was to possess warm and en- 
 thusiastic friends.
 
 154 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 So she writes on, discoursing, philosophising, 
 throwing out the suggestions of her bright and 
 practical mind as they occur to her, and we 
 cannot do better than to go on quoting the 
 passages as they occur. Here is one of her 
 sensible sententious observations. 
 
 " There is no surer way of becoming acquainted 
 with our own mind than by the effect produced 
 upon it by the conduct of others ; if we can 
 tolerate vice and folly, we may grow fond of 
 them in time. Perhaps," she continues, " you 
 can bear witness to the truth of another remark, 
 that people generally wrap themselves up in a 
 solemn kind of reserve, and particularly those 
 who have taken upon themselves the task of 
 enlightening the world. It is to be accounted 
 for from the jealousy and fear of losing a 
 reputation once acquired, by the unguarded 
 frankness of colloquial intercourse. Be it ours, 
 my dear friend, merrily to philosophise, sweetly 
 to play the fool. Strange counsel to a young 
 man in a grave university." 
 
 Through all the tumult of the early years of 
 the century the Taylors' home pursues its steady 
 life. The elder boys grow up and go out into
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 155 
 
 the world ; little Sally, the pet of the family, 
 who is to translate Ranke in after life, is be- 
 ginning to write in round-hand ; Susan is still 
 Mr. Frenshaw's pupil ; of herself Mrs. Taylor 
 writes : 
 
 " For my part I never valued life more than 
 I do at present, yet I think it would be a relief 
 to me to feel as if I could be spared ; but perhaps 
 in this I deceive myself, and one of the charms 
 of the world may be that I am still wanted in it. 
 It is a pleasant world after all, and for your 
 comfort, my dear friend, let me tell you that 
 it is not only pleasant at that delicious season 
 which we may denominate the morning of our 
 existence, — there is a chastened, a temperate 
 kind of happiness, which is perhaps to the full 
 as desirable as the more glowing sensations of 
 our early days." 
 
 She is greatly interested in the Edinburgh 
 Review, then in its earliest numbers. It was 
 first published in 1802; Jeffrey, Brougham, and 
 Sydney Smith were its founders, clothing the 
 new-born potentate in the Whig colours, blue 
 and yellow. Dr. Reeve, who had then only 
 just taken his degree at Edinburgh, contributed
 
 156 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 some articles to the first numbers. Reviews 
 have their own life and growth. This one 
 toned down with time ; but in its early days 
 it was somewhat over-vigorous and unsparing 
 In its measure. Mrs. Taylor has been reading 
 an article on the Life of Coivper, and the busy 
 lady, dispensing her loaves and fishes, still finds 
 time to review the reviewer, and to add her own 
 excellent comment to the text. She says : 
 
 " Mr. Hayley's style wants that majestic 
 simplicity with which such a character as 
 Cowper's should have been portrayed. He 
 thinks it necessary too, as Mr. Jeffrey observes, 
 to praise everybody. This is so like the misses 
 who call all their insipid acquaintance ' sweet,' 
 and ' interesting,' that it makes me rather sick. 
 A biographer is good for nothing who does not 
 give those touches, those lights and shadows 
 which identify his characters ; — on this account 
 I do not like a remark of the reviewer that Mrs. 
 Unwin's little jealousies of Lady Austen might 
 as well have been passed over in silence. If the 
 weaknesses of excellent people are to be con- 
 cealed, how shall we form an accurate impression 
 of human nature ? "
 
 MES. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 157 
 
 It would certainly be difficult to tell one person 
 from another. Again she says : 
 
 " Nothing can operate more powerfully against 
 the attainment of excellences in every species of 
 composition, than the indiscriminate praise, and 
 false tenderness, which prevent those writers 
 who are capable of higher degrees of improve- 
 ment from endeavouring sedulously to aim at 
 greater perfection, or which lead those who are 
 incapable to trouble the public at all. I have 
 been witness to such extravagant praises bestowed 
 upon inferior compositions, especially in London, 
 that I rejoice in the more hardy criticism of our 
 northern metropolis, not from a desire to depre- 
 ciate, but from a conviction that, the more 
 completely both books and characters find their 
 proper stations, the better it will be for society. 
 I think the ' E. R.' contains just but not ill- 
 natured criticism. 
 
 " If I were inclined to make an appeal for any 
 person who has fallen under the lash, it would be 
 for Robert Southey, whose experiments in poetry 
 I acknowledge to be many of them fantastic and 
 extravagant, but they are the experiments of a 
 man of genius. ... I think we ought to be
 
 158 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 thankful to literary pioneers. . . . After all that 
 can be said as an apology for the new school of 
 poets, they (themselves) must find the exact 
 boundary between simplicity and childish 
 puerility." 
 
 IV 
 
 One important element of daily life in England 
 all this time must not be overlooked, and that 
 was, !^the prevailing fear of a French invasion 
 which constantly haunted people's minds. Sir 
 George Napier, in his Memoirs, tells us that he 
 heard from Soult himself that the project was 
 in the Emperor's thoughts. 
 
 In Herbert Fisher's History of Na'poleon we 
 read of the Emperor " spending five weeks on 
 the north coast of France in the summer of 1804, 
 throwing the whole weight of his fiery energy 
 into the naval preparations, and taking a strange 
 exhilaration and excitement from the movement 
 of the sea ; of twenty millions of francs appro- 
 priated to the improvement of the roads in 
 Picardy ; and of a medal ordered to be struck 
 representing Hercules strangling a mermaid, and 
 bearing the legend, ' Descente en Angleterre, 
 frapp6 a Londres, 1804.'"
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 159 
 
 The mermaid was not unprepared. 
 
 Mrs. Taylor describes the start of the Norwich 
 volunteers : 
 
 " I begin to think people may make a joke 
 of anything if they try ; but I was never less 
 disposed to be merry than this morning, when, 
 in the midst of pouring rain, our volunteers with 
 three cheers bade farewell to their native city ; 
 Mr. Houghton, the clergyman, gave a breakfast 
 on the occasion by candle-light. Dear little 
 Mary looked on with wondering eyes at her 
 old friends transformed into soldiers. If the 
 French land in Norfolk, I shall expect prodigies 
 of valour from you. What do you think of 
 Richard in his scarlet uniform? Of all things 
 this is the last sight I should have dreamed of 
 seeing." 
 
 The French never landed in Norfolk, but an 
 event which Mrs. Taylor contemplates with far 
 less equanimity is beginning to foreshadow its 
 coming. Mr. Frenshaw's pupil is still following 
 her Greek lessons and sewing her seams, but 
 she is also growing up day by day and hour by 
 hour as maidens of fifteen are apt to do, and her 
 mother (as is the way of mothers) is among the
 
 160 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 last to realise this fact. Little Susan who leaves 
 her dressing things behind her, who has to be 
 reminded to tie up parcels securely, who but 
 yesterday was a baby, — is it possible that already 
 a woman's life and cares are awaiting her, and 
 that the young doctor is thinking of her as a 
 helpmate and companion for life ! The extra- 
 ordinary fact seems to have taken Mrs. Taylor 
 quite by surprise. Mothers and daughters of 
 our own time are in a different attitude from the 
 affectionate but Minerva-like terms on which 
 they were content to remain in the days of 
 which we are writing. I have heard it lately 
 said with truth, that the difference of feeling 
 now existing between parents and children, far 
 exceeds the natural divergence of a single 
 generation. A whole revolution of opinion and 
 impulse has come about within the last twenty 
 years, dividing even young mothers from their 
 growing daughters. It must require some 
 generosity and intellect in a parent to dis- 
 criminate between what is harmless in itself, 
 though it may absolutely jar against her own 
 instincts and prejudices, and that which borders 
 upon the common and the reckless, to use no
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 161 
 
 harsher words. Mothers and daughters in those 
 days were upon terms which we can scarcely 
 realise now. There was a decorum, a delibera- 
 tion, a stiffness in their intercourse which could 
 perhaps better be carried out before posts, 
 telegrams, and daily papers had multiplied occu- 
 pation, familiarity, and consequent haste. It 
 was Mrs. Taylor's belief, for instance, that during 
 her girls' absence from home " their moral im- 
 provement would keep pace with their intellectual, 
 thanks to the observations and discussions they 
 would receive by letter." All these grand words 
 mean nothing more, after all, than that the 
 mother is ever thinking, hoping, planning for 
 her children's well-doing and safety. 
 
 Susan is, however, to know nothing of Dr. 
 Reeve's ardent feelings ; not one word is to 
 reveal to her the romance of which the web is 
 silently weaving about her. She is only sixteen ; 
 she is to go on with her lessons, to see some- 
 thing of the world, to " practise housekeeping 
 and the culinary arts, that she may not from 
 mere inexperience make mistakes which her 
 husband would not like " ; but no glim[)se of 
 his real feeling is to be allowed to her. One
 
 162 FROM THE POECH 
 
 feels sorry for the poor lover, and yet how wise is 
 the mother's appeal to him not yet to disturb her 
 young daughter's serene and innocent mind ! 
 
 " Prove," she says, " that you can, as you 
 said to me, command your feelings. The way 
 to allow mind and body to come to perfection 
 is to suffer them to ripen by degrees. 
 
 " If you knew what harm it would do to sub- 
 stitute constrained manners for innocent frank- 
 ness, and to carry forward Susan's attention to 
 distant objects, instead of bestowing the whole 
 force of her mind upon present subjects." 
 
 And then comes a little relenting sympathy. 
 
 " When either you or I am inclined to torment 
 ourselves with fruitless wishes, let us have the 
 comfort of thinking there is always one person 
 we can sit down and open our hearts to." 
 
 The anxious mother writes page after page 
 to her would-be son-in-law, half-scolding, half- 
 soothing. Why does he want to settle in 
 London ? Why is he not satisfied with Norwich 
 and Norwich life ? 
 
 " Dr. Alderson," she says, " after reading me 
 those letters of Mrs. Opie's which completely 
 prove that the whole fraternity of authors,
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 163 
 
 artists, lecturers, and publick people get such an 
 insatiable appetite for praise, that nothing but 
 the greatest adulation can prevent their being 
 miserable, came to this sentence : ' Dr. Reeve, 
 Kke a sensible man, prefers London to Norwich.' 
 ' Is that a proof of sense,' said I, ' to reject what 
 you allow is an extraordinary chance of setthng 
 to advantage in a place, because it contains but 
 40,000 inhabitants ! ' " 
 
 Meanwhile, in 1805, Mrs. Taylor gives an 
 account of another talk with Dr. Alderson : 
 " ' What a pity it is that Dr. Reeve should not 
 settle here,' says Dr. Alderson, ' when there is 
 so fine an opening and nobody to fill up the 
 vacancy at the hospital ; but London, I sup- 
 pose.' . . . ' Yes,' said I, ' he has contracted 
 something of the disease which people acquire 
 by living there — a sort of feeling that no other 
 place is fit to live in.'" To which the kind old 
 doctor replies by reminding Mrs. Taylor that 
 he, himself, will be dead before very long, and 
 that this is an additional reason for Dr. Reeve's 
 return to Norwich. And very soon, and with 
 very good reason. Dr. Reeve seems to have made 
 up his mind, and to have given up all thought
 
 164 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 of settling away from Norwich, and, premature 
 though it may have appeared to the poor anxious 
 mother, he seems to have disclosed his feelings 
 to his future wife. 
 
 Then Susan goes to London to visit Mrs. 
 Barbauld, and improve her mind, and the en- 
 gagement is formally announced. Her mother 
 is glad she reads poetry with Mrs. Barbauld, 
 and delighted she has been to the play. Here 
 comes a gentle motherly rebuke : 
 
 " It would have been better if Reeve had not 
 accompanied you to Stoke Newington ; we must 
 not only mind our P's and Q's, but our ' R's.' You 
 know how freely I like to talk to you about 
 everything. Do not show a kind of weakness, 
 which in the end never fails to lower a woman, 
 even in the estimation of a lover ! Men may be 
 gratified first by possessing unbounded influence 
 over the mind of a woman, but they generally 
 despise her for it in the end. One of the great 
 evils in contracting engagements of this sort at 
 such an early age as yours is the full disclosure 
 of affections owing to the innocent simplicity of 
 youth, which a woman at a more advanced 
 period, from a due sense of propriety, would
 
 MRS. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 165 
 
 certainly in some measure have concealed. For 
 the future show Reeve that you, like him, can 
 bear absence when absence is necessary, and 
 that the only way to be fit for the duties of 
 life hereafter is to perform them with the utmost 
 zeal and alacrity now," 
 
 How admirable is all this, how Spartan, how 
 sensible — and how difficult to carry out ! And 
 then comes a touching little bit of sentiment on 
 Mrs. Taylor's own account : 
 
 " Your father has just reminded me that 
 to-morrow is my birthday. What a difference 
 between the beginning of life and the close ; 
 solicitude on one's own account seems quite 
 extinguished as far as relates to this world, 
 not so for one's children. Towards them it will 
 remain to the last moment ; but I will endeavour 
 to make it useful without being troublesome to 
 you." 
 
 Other admonitions follow, warnings against 
 want of attention to respectful demeanour such 
 as is never to be observed in well-bred girls ; 
 and then, very motherlike, at the end of the 
 letter : 
 
 " Now 1 have written this letter, I have a
 
 166 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 great mind to burn it, I am so unwilling to give 
 you a moment's pain, but if you take it as a 
 proof of love, and determine to profit by it, it 
 will rather give you pleasure. 
 
 " When you are absent it is a great effort to 
 think of faults. I could rather sit down and cry 
 for your company." 
 
 One letter winds up with a quotation from 
 one of the lover's epistles. He complains that 
 he has heard nothing for several weeks. And 
 here it is not possible to sympathise as much as 
 usual when the mother points out to the daughter 
 that she should not encourage her lover to expect 
 to hear more often than is convenient. 
 
 Mrs. Taylor, as other mothers have been and 
 will be again, is still perturbed by her son-in-law's 
 impatience, by his ineradicable conviction that 
 two people can live at the same expense as one. 
 Little by little, however, difficulties are removed. 
 Mr. Reeve's father promises him a good allow- 
 ance ; all is made smooth for the young couple's 
 future, and at last they are married in the 
 autumn of 1807. A house belonging to the 
 Kerrison family had been taken in Surrey Street. 
 We hear of many details ; linen and boilers, and
 
 MES. JOHN TAYLOR, OF NORWICH 167 
 
 pails, and brushes, and scouring-cloths ; a faith- 
 ful Mary is engaged, who falls ill from over- 
 scrubbing and has to be nursed. The good 
 mother is there ready to see to everything, to 
 nurse, to shop, to order, She writes full and 
 detailed accounts of everything that is in pre- 
 paration for the home. " Don't you wonder we 
 can be interested in anything," she says, " while 
 these rivers of blood are flowing on the Continent, 
 only to complete the triumph of a tyrant, and 
 to rivet the chains of poor, subjugated, unhappy 
 Europe ? But nevertheless, whatever is going 
 on round about, people happily go on being 
 interested in their own lives, and in those 
 belonging to them." 
 
 Perhaps the most charming letter in the whole 
 collection is one from Mrs. Taylor to her hus- 
 band, towards the end of their peaceful married 
 life, in which, in that still steady and exquisitely 
 finished handwriting, she treats of " the only 
 subject of deep interest to either of them," and 
 recapitulates the family history. There is some- 
 thing almost biblical in the calm outlook, in the 
 benediction at the end of this long and loving 
 life. " As the father and mother of seven
 
 168 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 children, we have reason to be thankful that 
 they are what they are, and to hope that their 
 descendants may do them as much credit, and 
 give them as much comfort . . . that John and 
 his wife are living in a handsome, commodious 
 house in a polite and pleasant neighbourhood is 
 a gratifying circumstance as far as health is 
 concerned." Mrs. Taylor is only afraid that 
 their children may not sufficiently remember that 
 this style of living is entirely dependent upon 
 the father's life and exertions. She next comes 
 to her beloved Richard, " with all his valuable 
 acquirements, his genuine humility, disinterested 
 kindness, undeviating integrity." How wise is 
 the manner of her wish to help him ! "I know 
 no other way to make ourselves tolerably easy 
 about this dear clever child of ours, than to let 
 him be the arbiter of his own destiny." She 
 feels, she writes, " that each one of them should 
 attain to that measure of independence which 
 it is in the parents' power to bestow, at what- 
 ever cost to themselves." Then of another of 
 her sons, " It would embitter my latter days if 
 I thought that there was anything standing 
 against Edward which would distress him, or
 
 MKS. JOHN TAYLOU, OF NORWICH 169 
 
 that he should owe to the favour of his brethren 
 what he is really entitled to from you ; ... it 
 is sometimes as much a parent's duty to deviate 
 from the equal distribution of property as it is 
 in general to adhere to it. What I have to 
 give goes to Sally and Deborah, because they 
 want it more than my other daughters." The 
 whole letter breathes a spirit of wisdom and 
 good sense and tender justice, and is, indeed, 
 a model of impartiality and unselfish good judg- 
 ment. The mother is ill and alone at Norwich ; 
 but she forbids the father to mention this to 
 the son with whom he is staying. " You know 
 how well I can bear being alone if I have but 
 books, which I am sure never to want." It is 
 in this same letter that Mrs. Taylor speaks of 
 occasional talks with her " eccentric lodger " 
 John Stuart Mill. 
 
 As time goes on Susanna Taylor softens and 
 responds more and more to youth. For her 
 child's child her warm heart seems to thaw the 
 formalities of her time and age. It is touching 
 to hear of the faithful remembrances of long-ago 
 games at coach -and-horses, in which grand- 
 mamma is the horse, and " darling," as she calls
 
 170 FROM THE POUCH 
 
 her little grandson, is the coachman. " But I shall 
 have no room for love to Darling Boy," she writes 
 somewhere; "he must have almost lost the idea 
 of Norwich-grandmamma." The grandchild occu- 
 pies her mind, and delights her heart ; how proud 
 she is of his cleverness and bright intellect ; she 
 tries to excuse her weakness on utilitarian prin- 
 ciples, and frames a scheme in which the grand- 
 parents are to spoil in exact proportion to the 
 parents' inflexibility. 
 
 Sally, the younger daughter, is also the 
 mother of a little daughter, much beloved by 
 " mamma," as she calls Mrs. Taylor. The pre- 
 sent writer has still before her as she writes the 
 image of Lucie, Lady DuflP Gordon, that noble 
 Spanish-looking lady of whom as Sally's baby 
 there are such pretty details. " I understand 
 all her language ;— the rubbish drawer is her 
 delight," says Mrs. Taylor, and then she adds, 
 "It is time she left me, for I am growing to be 
 too fond of Sally's child." Sally's child's child 
 now speaks to us, a fourth generation not to be 
 overlooked. 
 
 My story is slender enough. The figures come 
 and go. That of the young doctor disappears
 
 MKS. JOHN TAYLOK, OF NORWICH 171 
 
 far too early from the peaceful scene — for peace- 
 ful it was amid the storms and catastrophes of 
 the time, when the selfish ambitions of the 
 ambitious could only be atoned for by the 
 steady moderation and unselfish wisdom of the 
 honourable unknown.
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPfiRE^ 
 
 I 
 
 The great Hugo, Victor In Poesy, Victor in 
 Romance, was able to win new laurels when he 
 in his old age wrote of " L'Art d'etre Grand- 
 pere." It is a knowledge which comes naturally 
 to some, a chord struck between the happy past 
 and the golden dawn of the days to come. 
 
 I have known others who have also lived in 
 this beautiful region — an epiphany which some 
 of the wisest have joined, when they come from 
 afar with their dear and priceless gifts to bless 
 the future, as yet unrevealed. 
 
 Just about a hundred years ago a kind old 
 grandfather, away from the storms and terrors 
 that rent Europe in those troubled days, sat 
 quietly in Nassau Street,- off Portland Place, 
 writing to his little grandson. The writer was 
 
 * Copyright, 1913, by Lady Ritchie, in the United States of 
 
 America. 
 
 2 Now Suffolk Street. 
 
 172
 
 L'AKT D'ETRE GRANDPftEE 173 
 
 Major James Rennell of the Hon.E.I.C.S., one 
 of the gentlest and most unaffected of men, the 
 first great English geographer, as Sir Clements 
 Markham has called him, a man who had 
 measured space and oceans and traced unknown 
 currents, who had mapped out India and Africa, 
 whose work is still a standard of reference, and 
 whose name was then known and held, as now, 
 in highest esteem by all the savants of Europe. 
 These letters of his w^ere addressed in deli- 
 cate handwriting to "Master James Rennell 
 Rodd." They begin in 1812, and it is by the 
 permission of my old friend and connection, 
 Mrs. James Rennell Rodd, that I have been able 
 to read the correspondence. The early notes are 
 written in red ink, with plainly printed charac- 
 ters, to make them easy for the little boy. In 
 sendinof them to me Mrs. Rodd wrote as follows : 
 " My husband treasured every letter his grand- 
 father sent him ; the first began on his first 
 birthday, and until the boy could read, the little 
 notes came following each other. Major Rennell 
 lived a most simple, abstemious life in what was 
 once called Nassau Street, with his old servant 
 Mary Medley. My husband as a boy used to
 
 174 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 go and share his grandfather's afternoon coffee 
 and toast." 
 
 Major Rennell's first letter to his grandson ran 
 as follows (it is dated March 12, 1812) : 
 
 "My dear little Double Namesake, — 
 Perhaps I may be the first person who has ever 
 approached you with a written address. I shall 
 use no flattery, for it is the truth to say that 
 you are one of the most blameless characters 
 amongst us. ... I hear much of your filial 
 affection and that you give great comfort to 
 your worthy parents. ... I beg my kindest 
 regards to your good father and mother, — Your 
 most affectionate, G.-P." 
 
 After this introduction the letters run on, full 
 of interest in the little fellow's childhood, in his 
 toys and games, in his life at school, his outings 
 and amusements ; the grandfather telling him 
 also of his own doings, his walks, the quiet daily 
 round. All his life long Major Rennell had 
 lived in a world of observation as well as of 
 action, and he still notes facts and experiences 
 likely to interest the boy and to be understood 
 by him. He writes of the weather, of the
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPEEE 175 
 
 harvests, of the effects of the storms upon the 
 country ; he writes of travellers in distant places, 
 of the perils they run. He himself had been 
 a mighty traveller, always at work, always in 
 danger, but he rarely mentions the things lie 
 has accomplished or the things he still has in 
 contemplation : it was not, indeed, till after his 
 death that some of these latter bore fruit, that 
 recommendations he had made were carried out, 
 and his daughter enabled to edit and complete 
 some of his unfinished labours. 
 
 When I myself was a girl my father told me 
 that in his early married days no one was more 
 hospitable to him and to my mother than a 
 certain old lady — a cousin of his father's — living 
 in Wimpole Street, where I can also remember 
 her. This lady. Major Rennell's daughter, the 
 beautiful Jane of whom her father was so proud, 
 was the mother of little James. When my 
 sister and I were children in Kensington, Lady 
 Rodd's big carriage used to come driving up 
 Young Street. We used to be taken for drives 
 in it. I remember the grey lining, and the 
 loops swaying and the tassels, and how this 
 huge chariot used to swing and creak as it went
 
 176 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 along, while the kind old occupant talked of her 
 own youth and her Admiral and of her son and 
 of her grandchildren. On other occasions the 
 ancient lady, with the dark eyes and the black 
 old-fashioned hair, used to send for us to the 
 carriage door, and she would then produce gifts, 
 of rare make and dazzling hue, both Eastern and 
 English too, and hand them out liberally. She 
 was very fond of my father, and to the last he 
 used to take us to call upon her. 
 
 It was, as I have said, between the years 
 1812-1827 that Major James Rennell was writing 
 to his little grandson, and the boy's own grand- 
 children may now in turn look for themselves 
 at the gentle, merry messages sent from Nassau 
 Street, to the child in Cornwall, to the school- 
 boy at Temple Grove, to the more dignified 
 Etonian ; messages from the eighteenth to the 
 nineteenth century and after! 
 
 " I am glad that you liked my letter, so 
 I send you another," writes grandpapa, who 
 seems to be for the moment staying in James's 
 home, "Alicia says 'my love and a kiss.'" 
 (Nursery talk has not changed much in the 
 century which has passed since this correspond-
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPKEE 177 
 
 ence began.) Then the epistle continues: "I 
 hear that you ride on a man's saddle and that 
 you play in the garden at Uncle Tremayne's." 
 
 As we read on, grandpapa seems to have 
 returned to his own house. " I send you another 
 red letter," he says ; "I am much obliged to 
 you for all your kindness to me whilst I was 
 with you. I walked with your favourite Juno, 
 in Portland Place this morning, and we talked 
 about you." 
 
 James the Less at East Sheen received visits 
 as well as letters. 
 
 "I do not know when I have enjoyed so 
 heartfelt a sight [writes the grandfather to his 
 grandson at Dr. Pinkney's, Temple Grove, East 
 Sheen] as on the other day when we walked 
 round the lawn and saw so many fine and 
 promising young gentlemen engaged in innocent 
 play. I have thought of it and mentioned it 
 several times since, and consequently I have 
 derived much comfort and have anticipated 
 great advantages to yourself from all that 1 
 saw. ..." 
 
 Collingwood's letters to his home are not more 
 charming than the happy flow from the old 
 
 M
 
 178 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 warrior ; remembering things for little James to 
 remember. 
 
 " I hope the evening turned out fine on 
 Wednesday [he writes on August 13, 1825], 
 and that the Poney carried you pleasantly. The 
 Duke' s Park (Woburn) seems made for you and 
 your Poney, and I should myself enjoy a ride 
 of that kind. The Mansion House or Abbey 
 seemed to me to be the least interesting part 
 of the whole, but the Park, altogether, and 
 particularly the Green Lane, delighted me. 
 
 " Saturday, yesterday, was a remarkably fine 
 day, and I had some good walks. Your sisters 
 were here and drank coffee with me. They 
 sent several kisses which you may distribute. 
 To-day, at half-past eight it began to rain, and 
 I fear it will be a rainy day, but I shall watch 
 the weather. The streets are black with people 
 in mourning. I think I never saw shopping 
 business so dull, or so few gentlefolk's carriages 
 in the streets. I have read a good deal in 
 your book, but there are many mistakes which 
 you should be apprised of not to be misled — 
 Captain Brenton allows three millions and a 
 half of negro slaves in the Southern States of
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPERE 179 
 
 America — I mean the United States, where by 
 the last census there were a million and a half 
 and no more, he certainly does not read. I 
 have heard nothing more of Colonel Thackeray. 
 Pray give my kind love to papa and mamma, 
 and kind regards to Lady IngUs and the young 
 ladies. — Your affectionate, 
 
 "G.-P. J. Rennell." 
 
 " My dear James, — 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 " You were in all your glory when in the pew 
 with Mrs. Pinkney. I can remember things 
 similar to it when I was a boy. I gave your 
 kind messages to your sisters, and they send 
 you their loves in return. I suppose that you 
 know that ;Our globe (earth) is flatted a little 
 at the poles, and rises higher at the equator, and 
 although the difference be only about 35 miles, 
 yet it occasions vast changes in course of time, 
 and in the going of a clock which may keep 
 exact time here. If my clock was carried to 
 any place near the equator, it would lose two 
 minutes and a half per day. Jupiter is much 
 flatter than our earth ; one may perceive it 
 iu a large telescope.
 
 180 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 " Did you hear that Dr. Oudeney and another 
 gentleman with him exploring the interior of 
 Africa are dead ? These make twelve gentle- 
 men who have been sent to explore Africa, 
 and not one of them finally returned. Park 
 came back the first time ^ and perished in the 
 second. There are still two gentlemen alive of 
 Dr. Oudeney 's party who are pursuing their 
 inquiries. My respects to Dr. and Mrs. Pinkney, 
 and I hope you will favour me with another 
 
 letter. — Your affectionate, 
 
 "G.-P. J. Rennell." 
 
 ^ It was Major Rennell who, having first constructed the map 
 of the northern part of Africa in 1790, afterwards worked upon 
 the notes and memoranda brought back by Mungo Park. Readers 
 of Lockhart will remember Park's meetings with Walter Scott. 
 " Calling one day at Fowlsheils and not finding Park at home, 
 Scott walked in search of him along the banks of the Yarrow, 
 which in that neighbourhood passes over various ledges of rock 
 forming deep pools and eddies between them. Presently he dis- 
 covered his friend standing alone on the bank plunging one stone 
 after another into the water and watching anxiously the bubbles 
 as they rose to the surface. ' This,' said Scott, ' appears but an 
 idle amusement for one who has seen so much stirring adventure.' 
 • Not so idle perhaps as you suppose,' answered Mungo. ' This was 
 the manner in which I used to ascertain the depth of a river in 
 Africa before I ventured to cross it — judging whether the attempt 
 would be safe by the time the bubbles of air took to ascend.' At 
 this time Park's intention of a second expedition had never been 
 revealed to Scott, b>it he instantly formed the opinion that these 
 experiments on the Yarrow were connected with some such 
 purpose."
 
 L'ART DT^]TRE GRANDPERE 181 
 
 Then again : "I had a letter from your good 
 mamma two days ago ; both she and your papa 
 are very well at Rose Hill, Lord Northesk's 
 place. They had a pleasant journey, and a fine 
 walk in Farnham Park." Farnham Park is the 
 ordinary residence of the Bishop of Winchester ; 
 Dean Rennell was his domestic chaplain, and 
 lived there with Bishop Thomas. 
 
 *' The corn was all down between this and 
 Winchester. If the weather is fine next Wednes- 
 day, I propose to myself the happiness of seeing 
 you. Your sisters are all well, and Alicia and 
 Fanny send their love ; so would Wilhelmina if 
 she could speak, but though she cannot she makes 
 herself understood. I suppose she must wonder 
 why she cannot speak as well as everyone around 
 her. I shall be very happy when your papa and 
 mamma return, for that will be the signal for 
 your speedy appearance. When you come I have 
 a present for you to make to your good mamma. 
 — Your affectionate, G.-P. J. Rennell." 
 
 One can almost see the little party reunited : 
 James the Minor, the schoolboy, who must have 
 been tall for his age, the grandfather not very
 
 182 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 tall, but gracefully built, as Walckenaer describes 
 him, active and alert, with that gracious expres- 
 sive head which is recorded by the medallion 
 in the Abbey. One can picture them talking 
 as they advance : the dog Juno following in their 
 steps, as is the way with faithful dogs ; the grand- 
 father is telling the boy such facts as should 
 interest him, telling him of adventures and 
 experiences, perhaps of leopards and natural 
 history, perhaps of Captain Parry's later exploits. 
 They turn from Portland Place into Nassau 
 Street, where Major Rennell lived on for so long 
 a time, where his faithful old friends gathered 
 round him year after year, and where his 
 daughter and his son-in-law never failed to 
 visit him sometimes twice a day, as he says. 
 
 The writer can remember James, a tall, fair, 
 handsome man, very simple and unaffected, in 
 turn absorbed in his own little boy — who, it may 
 be mentioned, is now an ambassador and doing 
 credit to his parentage. 
 
 The letters, after various holiday excursions 
 into Bedfordshire and elsewhere, finally reach 
 Eton itself: 
 
 " I hope you will find great pleasure in seeing
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPEKE 183 
 
 the Montem. It must really be a fine show. 
 So many youths together form a most delightful 
 spectacle to feeling minds. I am always affected 
 when I see a procession of charity boys and girls, 
 thinking what a vast promise there is to the next 
 generation. 
 
 " I hope the watch will arrive in good health " 
 (adds the kind grandpapa). 
 
 The letters give the news of those days ; how 
 present some of it still is, and what familiar 
 names occur. Major Rennell was naturally in 
 touch with others of his kin. Every scientific 
 man of distinction came to him from abroad with 
 letters, from Humboldt and others, while over 
 here Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Hugh Inglis, Lord 
 Spencer, Sir Francis Beaufort, were his old per- 
 sonal friends, as well as all the Arctic travellers. 
 
 Apropos of Arctic exploration in 1824 he 
 writes : 
 
 " Your mamma will tell you a fine entertainment 
 Captain Parry gave on board the Hecla, and the 
 weather proved very indulgent, so that it went 
 off very well. Captain Parry and his com- 
 panions. Captain Lyon and Captain Hoppner, 
 will return to the ice very soon. Captain Frank-
 
 184 FHOM THE PORCH 
 
 lin does not go yet awhile. What terrible 
 hardships they must be prepared to encounter." 
 
 Again, later on : " The Russians have certainly 
 failed in their plan of getting possession of Con- 
 stantinople this time ; so much the better for 
 Europe. Although the Turks are sad dogs in 
 comparison with the European nations at large, 
 yet Europe would suffer by having the Russians 
 in their places. Of two evils we should always 
 choose the least." 
 
 Another letter comments upon a visit little 
 James has lately paid to Richmond Hill. 
 
 " Richmond from whose front are eyed, 
 
 Vale, spires, meandering streams and Windsor's tow'ry 
 pride." 
 
 So Major Rennell quotes from Mr. Pope. He 
 also remembers that Lord Palmerston once said 
 " it was the employment of the gentlemen who 
 lived at Richmond to drive to London and back 
 again." 
 
 In February 1826 Major Rennell is writing of 
 James's birthday : 
 
 "Years roll on [he says], and thus it comes 
 round again to your birthday, and as I have 
 no opportunity of embracing you, I can only
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPERE 185 
 
 convey to you in this way my congratulations. 
 May these anniversaries return and find you 
 as at present in the esteem of* your friends, while 
 the Almighty Ruler of all things shall vouchsafe 
 to you the possession of your faculties. 
 
 " Your birthday will be kept at Easter when 
 the Bird will fly in as usual, and summon you 
 to Dinner ; of which, I trust, I shall be able to 
 partake. You know that other great Folks keep 
 their Birthdays, not on the days on which they 
 were born, but on some other — perhaps their 
 Name Day, as is the custom on the Continent. 
 I was telling your good Papa, that in such a case, 
 yours must be kept on the 1st May, or the 25th 
 July (for those are the days of the St. Jameses 
 in the Calendar), and St. James the Less (the 
 1st May) ought to be you7^ day ; but then he has 
 St. Philip quartered on him, and you would not 
 give twopence for a half Birthday. Again, the 
 25th July is a long way off; and perhaps I 
 ought to claim that Day for myself, as that St. 
 James, the Son of Zebedee, is called St. James 
 the Major! 
 
 " I was surprised to see how Mina was grown, 
 and to feel her weight. I think Alicia and Fanny
 
 186 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 are much improved also. Mina said at Brighton 
 that she should like to see me, and then return 
 to Brighton. 
 
 " I forgot to write your Name in the Book of 
 Maps. You had better write it on the inside 
 of the Cover, as the Maps will not bear ink. I 
 shall send you two Notes to stick into the 
 Book. 
 
 " I went out with your Papa and Mamma 
 yesterday, for the first time of going out since 
 the day on which you returned to Eton, 14th 
 January. 
 
 " Believe me, my dearest James, — Your affec- 
 tionate Grandpapa, J. Rennell. 
 
 " 28th February 1826." 
 
 Again : " My dearest James, — I have re- 
 ceived your very kind letters, three in number, 
 all of which gave me much pleasure as far as 
 concerned yourself, but I confess I felt it very 
 awful in what related to your neighbours. These 
 explosive storms, I conclude, are part of the sys- 
 tem by which the purity of the atmosphere is 
 upheld. When a boy I was much alarmed at 
 lightning, but being at length compelled by duty
 
 L'AKT D'ETRE GRANDPERE 187 
 
 to face it in company with a number of others, I 
 became so accustomed to it that by degrees it 
 grew to be an amusement to observe the dift'erent 
 kiyids of lightning. Do you know that sometimes 
 lightning strikes from the ground to the clouds 
 — at others and more commonly the contrary ; 
 often from one cloud to another, but never re- 
 ciprocally. Once a mass of it passed so near to 
 me that I plainly smelt it ; it smelt like red-hot 
 iron and made a whizzing noise like a cannon 
 ball. 
 
 " The gout still plagues me so that I cannot 
 walk as usual ; what your presence may effect 
 I know not, but what I possess is at your service. 
 — Your affectionate Grandpapa, J. Rennell. 
 
 • " \st July 1826." 
 
 In 1827 he says: "I suppose you hear some- 
 thing about our Thames Tunnel. It has lately 
 lost its way and got into the River. It is, how- 
 ever, no joking concern to subscribers, who will 
 suffer a great loss ; I believe they did not leave 
 a sufficient thickness of ground between the 
 tunnel and the bottom of the River. I always 
 regarded it as a wild sort of plan. . . .
 
 188 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 "I am afraid Mr. Canning's health is on the 
 decline, the cessation of his Parliamentary Duties 
 will afford him much relief. 
 
 " I remain, my dear James, — Your very affec- 
 tionate G.-P., J. Rennell." 
 
 The shades are beginning to close in, but he 
 writes still cheerfully on the 19th of June 1827 : 
 
 "My dear James, — I have long been your 
 debtor, for want of being able to pay you. Three 
 of your very kind letters now lie before me as 
 if reproaching me for my neglecting them. The 
 truth is, that my right hand has suffered very 
 much (the left still more), and for a long time 
 it was very painful to use the finger and thumb, 
 nor have I been able to walk across the room. 
 My friends, however, do not desert me, for I 
 seldom miss having company every day, and very 
 commonly ladies. Your Papa and Mamma I 
 see every day, and sometimes more than once, 
 your sisters also . . . but I cannot return any 
 of their visits. 2Qth. — Your sister Alicia came 
 home yesterday. She is wonderfully tall, and 
 looks very well. You remember Lord Abercorn's 
 shrubbery — ' Nothing to do, hut to grow'
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPKRE 189 
 
 " I congratulate you on your accession to the 
 Fifth Form. Martin Thackeray was expatiating 
 on the subject." 
 
 II 
 
 These extracts speak for themselves, but 
 before ending this little paper it is meet to 
 dwell for a moment not only on James's grand- 
 father, but on the Major himself in his long 
 and gallant career and life of faithful work, 
 inspired by that natural genius for observation 
 which was his own. From his early youth to 
 his gentle old age, this wise and charming philo- 
 sopher never ceased to follow^ the gleam as it 
 shone for him. 
 
 Baron Walckenaer, as Secretary of the Insti- 
 tute of France, wrote a fine tribute to "Jacques 
 Rennell" (so he calls him), who for thirty years 
 had been associated as a member of the Institute. 
 
 " The hydrographical problems which young 
 llennell grasped presented special difficulties 
 [says the Baron]. In order to triumph over 
 them it was necessary to join to Knowledge 
 and to Practice, Patience, Courage, Presence of 
 Mind, none of which could be allowed to relax
 
 190 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 for a single instant during the course of the 
 operations. It is necessary in such experiments 
 as his, to consult almost simultaneously the 
 earth, the heavens and the sea, to add the 
 movements of the planets to those horizons, of 
 which the sinuosities, the heights and the aspects 
 are being measured. When the problems con- 
 cern the moving and capricious surface of the 
 waters, the level must be measured every 
 quarter of an hour ; and you have to concert 
 measures with other observers on the shore, 
 besides sounding the depths of the sea. Some 
 of these observations, wearying and often accom- 
 panied by danger, have to be repeated twenty, 
 forty times, if one wishes to avoid errors, of 
 which the slightest might occasion such serious 
 disaster. . . ." 
 
 Baron Walckenaer writes no less sympatheti- 
 cally of the end than of the beginning of this 
 fine career. " Long after the Major had been 
 obliged by the state of his health to give up all 
 society, a certain number of friends still came 
 to visit him at fixed hours, sitting with him by 
 the large table where lay spread the maps, the 
 compasses, the books necessary for the work
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPfiRE 191 
 
 upon which he was engaged. When the con- 
 versation fell upon subjects upon which he was 
 an authority, he had an art all his own of in- 
 culcating his facts with so much simplicity and 
 clearness that people seemed to remember that 
 which he was teaching them at the time." 
 
 Titles and recognition were less common in the 
 I700's than they are now, but, nevertheless, 
 respect and admiration existed then as happily 
 they do still. I happened once, when he was 
 over here not long ago, to mention Major 
 Rennell's name to Major Sykes, H.M. Consul- 
 General in Persia (well known himself for his 
 work and varied attainments), and he burst 
 out in warm and vivid praise of one whose 
 teaching, he said, he had followed all his life 
 with an ever-increasing respect. 
 
 " Undoubtedly the first great English geo- 
 grapher," says Sir Clements Markham, writing 
 of Major Rennell in the " Century Science " series. 
 
 Sir Edward Thackeray, in his Biographies of 
 the Royal Bengal Engineers, gives this story of 
 Major Rennell. He says of him : 
 
 " Among his eager fortune-seeking country- 
 men. Major Rennell stands forth as a unique
 
 192 FKOM THE PORCH 
 
 figure — a calm, disinterested man of science. 
 When the Peace of Paris in 1763 seemed to end 
 his chances in the British Navy, he received 
 an ensign's commission in the Bengal Engineers, 
 and was appointed surveyor of the Company's 
 dominions in Bengal, and during these years 
 some of his most eventful experiences befell 
 him." 
 
 Major Bennell's own account of one of his 
 experiences with the " Facqueers," as he calls 
 them, is well worth quoting at length. He was 
 reconnoitring the country on the borders of 
 Bhutan at the time. (How often little James 
 must have asked for the story which his grand- 
 father tells in a letter to a friend.) 
 
 " Suddenly we found ourselves in front of two 
 lines of ' Facqueers ' drawn up in the market- 
 place [so he writes in August 1766]. Our escort 
 found it high time to retreat, but we thought 
 it rather too late, for the enemy had drawn their 
 swords and surrounded us. One of the officers 
 escaped unhurt, the other with a slight wound 
 after fighting his way through. As for myself 
 I was so entirely surrounded that I never ex- 
 pected to escape, but having the good fortune
 
 L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPftPtE 193 
 
 to preserve my sword, I defended myself pretty 
 well in front and kept retreating backwards till 
 I had very few })ehind me when I turned and 
 fled for it. A hardy fellow followed me close, 
 but paid the price of his life ; the rest of them 
 thinking me too much wounded to run far, 
 remained in their places, but kept a continual 
 firing on me till I was out of sight. Providence 
 must have strengthened my arms while I was 
 retreating, for now I found both of them deprived 
 of their strength. Indeed, no wonder, one of 
 them was cut in three places, and the shoulder- 
 bone belonging to the other divided. One stroke 
 of a sabre had cut my right shoulder-bone 
 through, and laid me open for nearly a foot, 
 besides a large cut in the hand, which has 
 deprived me of the use of my forefinger. . . ." 
 
 For surgical aid Rennell had to be sent to 
 Dacca, three hundred miles off, in an open boat, 
 which he had to direct himself, as he lay upon 
 his face, while the natives applied onions as 
 cataplasm to the wounds. He was long given 
 up, but under the care of Dr. Russell recovered, 
 though his health was seriously shaken by the 
 loss of blood and severity of the wounds.
 
 194 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 Among many subsequent adventures, we are 
 told of him one day " marching in India at the 
 head of a detachment," and as we read in the 
 European Magazine, " he was suddenly attacked 
 by a ' tyger.' With great coolness he received 
 the animal on the point of the bayonet, which 
 he thrust down his throat and so despatched him, 
 but it appears that the bayonet was much bent." 
 
 The Major's own account of the affair makes 
 the "tyger" into a leopard — "Five of my men 
 were wounded by him, four very dangerously. 
 You see I am a lucky fellow at all times," 
 says he. 
 
 It was in the year 1772, after the fight with 
 the " Facqueers," that Major Rennell was 
 married to Miss Jane Thackeray, my father's 
 great -aunt. There is a family tradition, which 
 I may be allowed to mention, that when this 
 young lady departed from her home to stay in 
 Bengal with her youngest brother, the W. M. 
 Thackeray of those days, Mrs. Thackeray, the 
 experienced mother of sixteen, exclaimed : "If 
 there is a sensible man in all India he will find 
 out our Jenny." 
 
 Jenny and her beautiful younger sister
 
 L'AKT D'ETRE GEANDPME 105 
 
 Henrietta had started for India at the in- 
 vitation of their youngest brother, the original 
 WilHam Makepeace Thackeray, my father's 
 namesaKe and grandfather, a protege of Mr. 
 Cartier, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. 
 It was at Mr. Cartier's house that the Thackerays 
 made the acquaintance of " the sensible man," so 
 we read in the History of the Thackerays in India. 
 
 The marriage was a happy one ; but some 
 years after. Major Rennell's health having failed 
 from the hardships he had gone through, the 
 couple came back to England. Both their sons 
 died comparatively young, but the daughter 
 Jane remained to them. She married a naval 
 captain, afterwards Admiral Sir John Tremayne 
 Rodd, and, as I have said, was the mother of 
 little James, to whom the letters are addressed. 
 Old friends used to say how proud Major Bennell 
 was of his daughter's beauty and abilities, and 
 she herself has related that her father had said 
 to her : " You may always rely on your own 
 judgment if it is on a subject you understand ; 
 if not, take advice." She was thus able to edit 
 some of his unfinished writings after his death. 
 
 Mrs. Rennell died first ; Major Rennell lived
 
 196 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 on till he was over 87 in his quiet retreat with 
 the faithful old housekeeper. As we have seen, 
 his grandchildren, his old friends, his daughter 
 and his son-in-law, never left him long alone. 
 
 This is an age of pictures. There are few 
 people who do not love them. Besides the 
 actual representations of things that we see with 
 our eyes, and the images of the benefactors 
 we have actually known, there are also those 
 pictures which we paint for ourselves, memory- 
 pictures, hope-pictures, wishing-pictures, all de- 
 picted upon that mysterious atmosphere which 
 surrounds our life as it passes. It sometimes 
 happens that these visions show us men and 
 women who never knew us, who died long- 
 before we were born, and yet who are actually 
 a part of our lives and in some way still with us 
 and full of help and sympathy, and encourage- 
 ment. Major Rennell is one of these ; he had 
 a personal charm for his contemporaries, as he 
 has had for many of those who have followed. 
 His daughter, his grandson, and his grandson's 
 wife ever retained a devoted affection for his 
 memory.
 
 L'AKT D'ETRE GHANDPERE 197 
 
 "Kennell was of medium heiglit, well pro- 
 portioned, of a grave yet sweet expression of 
 countenance. The miniature painted for Lord 
 Spencer represents him sitting in his arm-chair 
 as in reflection. He was diffident and unassum- 
 ing, but ever ready to impart information." So 
 writes Sir Clements Markham in the Dictionary 
 of National Biography, that Campo Santo 
 where the honoured names of those who have 
 done well for their country are recorded. 
 
 After Major Eennell's death, when he was 
 laid to his rest in Westminster Abbey on April 6, 
 1830, the old friends who had come so faithfully, 
 and with so much regard, to the little house in 
 Nassau Street, put up a monument to his memory. 
 It is at the entrance of Poet's Corner — it depicts 
 a refined and charming head with the old- 
 fashioned collar and tie wig of the period ; I 
 can see in it some look of my old benefactress 
 as I look at it, and of one of her grandchildren. 
 The hand of that erratic sculptor. Nature, gives 
 us from time to time glimpses of those who have 
 lived, whose children and grandchildren look 
 at us still with their eyes and speak to us with 
 their voices.
 
 MORLAND AT FRESHWATER BAY 
 
 I 
 
 It is with a delightful response that one comes 
 upon Holland's well-known picture of " The 
 Stable " in the National Gallery. I was actually 
 searching for it when my admiration was arrested 
 by a vision of harmonious, tranquil life. A 
 peaceful gleam rather than a picture met my 
 gaze, and as I looked I realised that this was 
 what I was seeking. All in it is natural, in- 
 evitable, as the greatest and best must always 
 seem. 
 
 The day is ending ; the horses and the pony 
 are led home, contentedly returning from their 
 toil. The stableman stoops to collect the pro- 
 vender ; the light flows in, shaded from without 
 by the piece of irradiated sacking, and as it 
 illumines the homely things — the wheelbarrow, 
 the spade, the old lantern — these very imple- 
 ments seem also at rest. Toil is over ; the hour 
 of peace has come. 
 
 198
 
 MORLAND AT FRESHWATER BAY 199 
 
 There are other fine pictures by Morland, but 
 nothing seems quite so good as this one, which, 
 so I have been told, was bought and presented 
 to the nation by a generous benefactor. But 
 though nothing is perhaps quite equal to " The 
 Stable," one is dazzled by the wealth of the 
 stream which comes flowing from the easel of 
 this ardent workman. Sometimes one is dis- 
 appointed in his work, which seems to have been 
 alternately a torrent of realisation, of vitality, 
 and a drifting waste of fine material. 
 
 In his early youth horses were his delight ; he 
 rode in steeplechases. He was a fine musician as 
 well as a painter ; he was a gay and generous 
 companion, a happy vagrant all through life, 
 spending recklessly, giving out bountifully to 
 the end. He might have claimed a baronetcy, but 
 he refused, and said, " Better be a fine painter 
 than a fine gentleman." 
 
 George Morland was born in 1764. He was 
 the son of Henry Morland, also an artist, from 
 whom he received whatever tuition he had in 
 drawing and painting. We read how, as a boy, 
 he was made to work so hard that when he 
 reached manhood he went to the opposite
 
 200 FROM THE POUCH 
 
 extreme, and his life was wild, amusing, and 
 agreeable. He married the sister of William 
 Ward, the mezzotint engraver (who reproduced 
 so many of his pictures). Morland loved his 
 wife, but after a short time of married life, 
 grew tired of domestic monotony, quarrelled 
 with his brother-in-law, and once more returned 
 to Bohemian ways. His health broke down ; 
 he owed money, and was imprisoned for debt. 
 One of his pictures is a scene representing a 
 half-naked prisoner being relieved by two kind 
 benefactors. 
 
 Morland fled from debts and bailiffs — per- 
 haps he rather enjoyed flying from his creditors 
 — and finally came to the Isle of Wight and 
 painted many of its aspects. 
 
 There is that wonderful episode related in his 
 life when, being at breakfast at six o'clock in the 
 morning at Yarmouth in the island, preparing for 
 his day's work, a corporal and a file of soldiers 
 marched in and took him off to Newport as a 
 spy, wearily trudging him through the blazing 
 sun. Happily one of the magistrates set him 
 free, and from Yarmouth and Nev/port he seems 
 to have found his way to Freshwater Bay.
 
 MORLAND AT FRESHWATER BAY 201 
 
 Coming out of Farringford Lane, where the 
 thrushes still sing as they did in the laureate's 
 time, and the downs shine beyond the fragrant 
 hedges, you pass between them, still following 
 the road to the foot of the hill, where one or two 
 patient loiterers stand watching the passers-by ; 
 finally, you come to a little sea-terrace marked 
 by a few posts and chains. Perhaps as you look 
 about a gull sails by on tranquil extended pinions, 
 you see a few bathing-machines huddled among 
 the waste and lumber of the shore, and on the 
 opposite cliiF a long Ioav inn of only two stories 
 marked by a flagstaff. It is now called the 
 Albion. A hundred years ago a little public- 
 house, the Mermaid, stood on the self-same spot ; 
 it was a very humble Mermaid and a place of 
 meeting, so we are told, for smugglers and 
 fishermen. It is in full range of the broad sea- 
 breezes ; on stormy days the waves still come 
 from a great distance, sending sudden fountains 
 of spray against the low windows. The Stag 
 rocks are opposite ; on the other side, the fort 
 half-way up the cliff leads to High Down and 
 to its beacon wrapped in changing lights. Gulls 
 fly across the line of the cliff, countless rabbits
 
 202 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 scamper along the turf. The ancient wooden 
 beacon has been replaced by Tennyson's cross, 
 but nothing else is very different from the time 
 — a hundred years ago — when George Morland 
 looked out with his flashing dark eyes and saw 
 it all. Here in Uttle Freshwater he lived for a 
 time and worked and joined the wild revellers 
 who then frequented the humble tavern. There 
 is the story of the friend who reproached him 
 for keeping such humble company and dragged 
 him reluctantly away from the bar. But once 
 outside, Morland produced his sketch-book. 
 " Look at this," said he ; " where else could I 
 find such models?" and there were the admir- 
 able drawings of the men drinking within. 
 
 "George Morland," says Mr. Richardson, "the 
 successor of Reynolds and Romney, of Hogarth, 
 of Gainsborough, was, like Burns, absolutely 
 original, averse to seeking knowledge in any 
 academy but that of nature." 
 
 In Mr. Wedmore's Studies in English Art, 
 writing of landscape, he says: "Gainsborough 
 had discovered a mine which others would 
 more profitably work. He had set an example, 
 and others would follow it, though the result
 
 MORLAND AT FRESHWATER BAY 203 
 
 of their following would vary with their in- 
 dividual gifts. Two men who worked in part 
 durinc his later life, and in chief after its close, 
 I connect especially with Gainsborough. The 
 art of each had a new element, but the art of 
 both was the child of Gainsborough. One of 
 these men was George Morland ; the other, 
 Francis Wheatley." 
 
 To go on quoting from Mr. Wed more : "To 
 high dramatic expression Morland did not seek 
 to attain ; to subtle and fine feeling he hardly 
 pretended ; but unconcerned with the modern 
 landscapist's philosophy, or any wider vision 
 than that which lay before his own peasant as 
 he trudged home from his work, or his own 
 fisherman as he mended the nets on the beach, 
 or liis own shepherd as he paused at midday 
 to take from his wallet his meal, while the good 
 dogs barked around him — unconcerned with any 
 wider vision than that of these, Morland did 
 slowly build up for us a picture of the rougher 
 England of that day." 
 
 Many of Morland's prints and drawings are 
 still to be foimd in the island. From the 
 cottages they have gradually drifted to the halls
 
 204 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 and homes of the well-to-do. Mrs. Orchard at 
 the Freshwater Post Office has a charming col- 
 lection of Holland's sketches as well as some of 
 those of his colleagues and imitators. 
 
 Among her prints is one called " The Fern 
 Gatherers," a print after Morland, published in 
 1799, 17| by 23f. It is curious as being the 
 original of a charming duplicate in water colour 
 by Ward. The water colour has also been 
 engraved, and is called " The Fern Burners." 
 In it only a part of the first picture is repeated. 
 The figure of a gipsy is altogether omitted, and 
 the position of another slightly altered. The 
 plate of this " Fern Burners " has been de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 II 
 
 It is a long way from Freshwater Gate to 
 Queen Anne's Gate at the Westminster end 
 of St. James's Park, where in a stately old 
 mansion traces of Morland's life-work are also 
 to be found — early and fanciful studies in his 
 finished early style, so unlike his broader later 
 manner : " Idleness," the tranquil lady in white
 
 MORLAND AT FRESHWATER BAY 205 
 
 attire with her Httle dog to keep her company ; 
 " Industry," the most charming and leisurely of 
 industries, with her broad black hat so deftly 
 poised upon her elaborate locks and with pretty 
 red slippers resting on a footstool. She delicately 
 stitches at arm's length while the light falls upon 
 her sampler. In the hall of the same old house 
 the well-known children playing at soldiers are 
 to be seen, with that dear little girl in the fore- 
 ground looking on. Still more delightful are 
 those infants of the past robbing the orchard of 
 long-stolen apples. They are dressed in ancient 
 little knee-breeches and shoe-buckles. For a 
 century past the little scapegrace has come 
 scrambling from the branches, while another 
 clutches at the fallen fruit. It is all delicate, 
 natural; at the same time we may realise 
 Morland's great advance as time went on. At 
 the Victoria and Albert Museum I found one 
 picture which appealed to me, that of the fisher- 
 men hauling in a boat from the sea. I thought 
 I could recognise the very place in Freshwater 
 Bay. The waves of the sea are alive, the clouds 
 are alive, the dog is alive, even the cliffs are 
 alive in their own fashion ; only the fishermen
 
 206 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 are not alive as they haul in the boat, though 
 the craft is yielding to their pull and the wind 
 blows their hair and their clothing. 
 
 His anatomy may have failed somewhat, but 
 he could paint time, he could paint rest, he could 
 paint the essence of life, and his wayward 
 attraction, strange being that he was, adds 
 something not to be ignored to its realisation. 
 With so many selves to enjoy, with so many 
 qualities to squander, his music, his riding, his 
 love of animals, his love of children, his jovial 
 charity, his prodigal companionship, he should 
 have been a greater man. Morland as he grew 
 older took a wider view of life and nature than 
 in his youth. He must have been a lovable 
 person. His wife died of grief when she learnt 
 his death. She owed him love ; we owe to him 
 a new delight in natural things. 
 
 How often it is the thought of the others who 
 have passed before us that gives a personal soul 
 and meaning to nature itself. 
 
 Freshwater, where Morland once came, has 
 its own beloved traditions, traditions greater 
 than Morland's, and coming after him, and it 
 echoes with the footsteps which still seem to
 
 MORLAND AT FRESHWATER BAY 207 
 
 be crossing the downs and treading the lanes 
 and the meadows all around. 
 
 * A friend shows ine this cutting from The Athenmum, April 26, 
 1913 : " Engravings after Morland fetched the following prices : 
 ' The Story of Letitia,' by J. R Smith (set of six), £861 ; ' A Visit 
 to the Boarding School ' and ' A Visit to the Child at Nurse,' by 
 W. Ward (a pair), £420 ; 'Children Playing at Soldiers,' £231."
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 
 
 A SHRINE on the Westminster Embankment, 
 no less sacred to Art than those classic 
 monuments dedicated to Apollo and the Muses, 
 or that lovely temple of Venus which is still 
 standing by the flowing Tiber, is happily to 
 be seen any day by the passer-by reflected in 
 the waters of the Thames ; flights of easy steps 
 lead up to the open portals, inviting and open 
 to all. But a few days ago the votaries were 
 assembling in numbers to testify their devout 
 gratitude for the gifts of beauty and expression 
 which are to be found in the Tate Gallery, 
 and of which every day brings more and more 
 interesting examples. On this special occasion. 
 Lord Plymouth opened the proceedings by intro- 
 ducing Sir William Richmond, who made the 
 presentation of the bust of Alfred Stevens by 
 Professor Lanteri, and the fine model of mouldinsfs 
 from Holford House ; paying generous tribute 
 to To-day as well as to Yesterday, and to 
 
 20S
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 209 
 
 Stevens's " indomitable will and commanding 
 love for all forms of artistic expression." . . . 
 " Fashions were fugitive, he said, but great art 
 was eternal." . . . Among those who listened 
 to this voice, and to others which so fitly fol- 
 lowed, was the President of the " Alfred Stevens 
 Memorial Committee," M. Alphonse Legros, 
 warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by the 
 younger men, as he slowly advanced to the front 
 bearing with dignity all the weight of his 
 honoured years. It was a moment not to be 
 forgotten ; the old man entered the hall, the 
 younger generation rose to receive him, advanc- 
 ing with outstretched hands and eager response 
 to lead him to his chair. It was Legros's last 
 public appearance, and the legitimate satisfaction 
 of his long and generous desire for the recogni- 
 tion of Stevens's genius. 
 
 We cannot do better than quote a few sen- 
 tences from the introductory note to the Catalogue 
 of the Alfred Stevens's Loan Collection at the 
 Tate Gallery, opened on the 15th of November 
 1911 : 
 
 " It had long been the desire of Professor 
 
 Legros that a monument to Stevens should find 
 
 o
 
 210 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 a place in the Gallery of British Art. The 
 memorial committee was formed under his 
 presidency, and raised the funds necessary to 
 add the reproduction of the chimney-piece to 
 the memorial bust ; these now take their place 
 in what will be for the future a Stevens's room. 
 
 *' The design for the completed monument of 
 the Duke of Wellington is to be seen at the 
 South Kensington Museum, ' with the equestrian 
 statue,' as the Catalogue tells us, ' ruled out by 
 a caprice of the Dean.' " 
 
 Some work seems complete in its moment, 
 other seems to belong to that "eternal world 
 of great Art " ; and as we look at the drawings 
 and noble designs which are left to us by Alfred 
 Stevens, this man of yesterday, who died too 
 early to reap the recognition of his genius, we 
 are carried back to Michael Angelo, to Leonardo, 
 to the mighty powers of the past. Perhaps our 
 generation is in some measure better able to 
 appreciate great work than many of those which 
 immediately preceded it. It is certainly not 
 behindhand in giving Stevens his due. 
 
 When the seeding time at last comes round, 
 thoughts are scattered and carried far afield ;
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 211 
 
 names seem to be in the air. Of late the name 
 of Alfred Stevens has echoed from every side, 
 conjured out of the silence. Sculptor, painter, 
 decorator, he was an artist in the largest, 
 truest sense, a lifelong follower of truth and 
 beauty. 
 
 He was born in 1818 at Blandford Fordham, 
 in Dorsetshire. His father was a house-painter 
 who practised the collateral trades or branches 
 of decoration, sign-painting and heraldic work. 
 The elder Stevens was considered a clever man 
 by his neighbours ; some of them were still 
 alive when Mr. Stannus visited the town about 
 eighteen years ago. Alfred worked with his 
 father from the age of eleven to fifteen. Then 
 the Rector of an adjacent village, who greatly 
 admired his gifts, gave fifty pounds towards his 
 education as a painter, and it was agreed that 
 he should be sent to study in London. The 
 boy evinced a vocation for drawing animals, and 
 Sir Edwin Landseer was chosen as a suitable 
 master, but, happily for Stevens's career, Sir 
 Edwin did not take pupils under five hundred 
 pounds — a far larger sum than was forthcoming — 
 it was therefore settled that the young student
 
 212 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 should go to Italy and there prepare himself for 
 an artistic career. 
 
 A portrait of Alfred' Stevens, designed by 
 himself about this time, is very delightful. The 
 boy looks out from the page with intelligent 
 brown eyes, he wears his thick brown hair some- 
 what long ; his expression is already full of 
 character and determination, the strong per- 
 sonality impresses itself as one looks at it ; a 
 painter is always the best depictor of himself. 
 
 The author of EreivJion says somewhere : 
 " A great portrait is always more a portrait 
 of the painter than of the painted. When 
 we look at a portrait by Holbein or Rem- 
 brandt, it is of Holbein or Rembrandt we think, 
 more than of the subject of their pictures. 
 Even a portrait of Shakespeare by Holbein or 
 Rembrandt could tell us very little about Shake- 
 speare. It would, however, tell us a great deal 
 about Holbein or Rembrandt." This seems to 
 apply especially to Stevens and his work, and 
 to this boyish portrait from which one un- 
 doubtedly learns a great deal of the man-to-be. 
 
 Alfred Stevens arrived at Naples in October 
 1833 ; he had sixty pounds in his pocket, much
 
 ALFKED STEVENS 213 
 
 good advice from his friends, and special injunc- 
 tions that he was to study the works of Salvator 
 Kosa, who at that time was very much the 
 fashion ; but he rejected Salva,tor, and instead 
 of following the conventional path, he struck 
 out an entirely original one of his own devising, 
 and worked hard at it making studies from the 
 works of Giotto, and copying any of the pictures 
 of Andrea del Sarto that he found in the 
 Galleries. The excavations of Pompeii were just 
 then in full progress, and w^e find an exquisite 
 little water-colour in the Tate Gallery which is 
 described in the Catalogue as "A study of a 
 street in Pompeii, with touches of colour, show- 
 ing the source of much of Stevens's inspiration 
 in decoration,'' " A study of a purple single 
 peony, an early work," hangs above it, a lovely, 
 delicate drawing of a peony flowering, nearly a 
 hundred years ago, and not to be forgotten. In 
 the same room we find two striking oil pictures ; 
 one is the portrait of a young man, the other 
 evidently that of an artist. The smaller picture 
 represents a painter sitting in a perfectly bare 
 room or studio ; it is carpetless, paperless, the walls 
 are grey and discoloured, a black stove is the only
 
 214 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 ornament ; there is also a shabby doorway to be 
 seen, stained by time. But the emptiness is not 
 empty, the bareness is not bare, the light is 
 there shining from those walls of luminous 
 grey. One is arrested by the delicate, expres- 
 sive face. There are no adjuncts, except truth 
 indeed and life. The dress is that of the early 
 Victorian time, the high-collared coat, the black 
 neck-tie tied in a heavy bow, the hair not cropped 
 as now, but allowed to grow : it all arrests 
 you, no less than did the picturesque figures 
 who once worked (as they still do) in artistic 
 garb, who wore fur for their painter's livery, 
 broad hats like Rubens and Vandyke. It may, 
 to some of us, be a new lesson to realise that art 
 is to be found everywhere, not in beautiful 
 things only, but in plain and obvious ones, in 
 reserve as well as in superfluity. As an instance 
 of the value of the homely in a kindred art may 
 we not quote the works of Hardy and Meredith. 
 When Stevens left Naples at last it was on 
 foot, and he slowly made his way to Rome, 
 putting up at night in the wayside inns, where 
 in order to pay for his lodging and food he sold 
 pencil portraits brushed over with colour. He
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 215 
 
 led the strenuous life of a painter of old, he 
 travelled from place to place, always observing, 
 always learning and improving. Finally, he 
 came to Florence, where he stayed for three 
 years, and we are told that his aptitude for 
 anatomy was such that his teacher advised him 
 to take to surgery and to give up art. But art 
 was the breath of life to him. 
 
 His sixty pounds were long since exhausted ; 
 he kept himself by selling copies of the old 
 masters to the dealers. He entered so entirely 
 into the feeling of the original pictures that 
 when in later days he exhibited some of his 
 copies at the Royal Academy many people 
 insisted they could not be his, but must have 
 been old pictures which he had purchased on 
 the spot. 
 
 In 1839 Stevens was at Milan studying orna- 
 ment under Albertolli, and in spare moments 
 measuring the fronts of the palaces. ■ He returned 
 to Rome in 1840, where, to gain a living, he 
 became clerk of works to a builder, in whicli 
 position he was most unpopular, owing to the 
 amount of work he exacted from the men. After 
 this, he became acquainted with Thorwaldsen,
 
 216 FHOM THE PORCH 
 
 the sculptor, of whom Mr. Stannus tells us he 
 often spoke with gratitude, and declared that he 
 was the only man to whom he owed any pupilage. 
 
 In 1842, after fourteen years of unceasing 
 study, Stevens at last returned to England, 
 perhaps the most thoroughly educated artist the 
 country has ever seen. He had never worked 
 in any English school ; his entire training was 
 acquired in Italy. Then he went back to his 
 home in Dorsetshire, where he remained for a 
 year or two, unappreciated and misunderstood — 
 not an uncommon experience. 
 
 The following little story, which Mr. Stannus 
 quotes as being typical of Stevens, should belong 
 to this time. A musical friend of his was trying 
 to make an ophicleide for use in an amateur 
 band, and having finished the straight pipe, 
 could get no further. Stevens thereupon came 
 to the rescue, cut out the shapes of the brass 
 sheets in brown paper, and these plates when 
 bent and hammered up served perfectly for the 
 desired purpose. This feat became the talk of 
 the town, and Stevens was spoken of "as the 
 young man who could not only paint pictures 
 that were of no use to any one, but could also
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 217 
 
 make brass instruments which could play 
 music." 
 
 In 1845, when he was twenty-seven years of 
 age, he was appointed to a post in the Govern- 
 ment School of Design, and he writes to a 
 friend: "I was sent for the other day to Somer- 
 set House and offered a place in the School of 
 Design as Professor of everything. The place 
 is one which will at once put me in such an 
 excellent position, and is so well fitted for me, 
 that I expect to gain much credit by it. I don't 
 think I can expect too much from it. The salary 
 will make me quite independent. It interferes 
 scarcely at all with my time. ... I got this 
 place without any sort of interest, and without 
 solicitation on my own part." 
 
 We read that Stevens made himself generally 
 beloved and appreciated; his pupils were delighted 
 with him. He had a quick, piercing eye, a most 
 winning smile, and the sweetness of his voice 
 and manner had great influence over them all. 
 Stannus tells us that the young master's powerful, 
 dexterous brush-work created a sensation among 
 the students. 
 
 There is a little story of how Richard Beavis,
 
 218 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 afterwards very well known, who was working 
 under him, said on one occasion, " I sketched in 
 the ornaments, sir." To which Stevens replied, 
 " We don't sketch here, we draw." Ellis and 
 Townroe, two of his pupils at this time, after- 
 wards worked under him for the Wellington 
 Memorial. 
 
 But after two years only Stevens resigned his 
 appointment, "disgusted," he said in after days, 
 "by the meddlesome supervision of ignorant 
 Government clerks." Thus the school, losing his 
 inspiration and decorative teaching, fell back 
 into the Slough of Despond, until 1860, when 
 Stevens's good influence revived through the 
 teaching of his pupils, Sykes and others, who 
 were masters at South Kensington under the 
 enterprising management of Sir Henry Cole. 
 
 All this time Stevens had been doing a great 
 deal of book illustration, drawing pictures for 
 the Bible, for Shakespeare, and Homer. He 
 also sent in designs for Macaulay's Lays of 
 Ancient Borne, but Macaulay preferred the style 
 of Scharf. Whatever Stevens took in hand he 
 seemed to illuminate with his gift. There is no 
 end to the things which he achieved. Deys-
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 219 
 
 brook, a manor near Liverpool, belonging to 
 the Blundell family, was entirely decorated by 
 him. The lovely drawings for the work are to 
 be seen in the South Kensington Museum. He 
 also took in hand a house in Palace Gardens, 
 belonging to the Murietta family. He was so 
 rapid a worker that only a fortnight was required 
 for the Deysbrook drawings, and we are told 
 that Stevens executed them without a model. 
 It is almost bewildering to follow the many 
 impressions of his mind. Among other things, 
 military uniforms occupied his attention ; then 
 came a design for a royal railway carriage, like a 
 fairy chariot, for the King of Denmark. The 
 King was so pleased that he begged the artist 
 to come and settle in Denmark, but this offer 
 Stevens refused. 
 
 In 1848 the improvement of the Nelson Column 
 was under discussion, and Landseer's lions had 
 not then been thought of Stevens entered into 
 the scheme ; his idea was to give some refinement 
 in scale to the pedestal, by the addition of figures 
 and ornaments in bronze upon the hollow mould- 
 ing. The original beautiful plaster sketch of the 
 proposed addition is to be seen at South Kensing-
 
 220 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 ton. In 1850 every British and Irish manufac- 
 turer of any note was straining his utmost to 
 prepare a worthy show in the great Exhibition 
 which was to be held in the following year. 
 Stevens, who had been engaged as manager by 
 Messrs. Hoole & Co., seconded by his assistants, 
 Godfrey Sykes and Townroe, produced a number 
 of suggestions for homely use, such as hot-air 
 stoves, &c. The firm carried away every medal 
 in 1851, and outdistanced all competition. It 
 is no exaggeration to say that his work caused 
 a new development in bronze and iron. Stevens, 
 without previous training, appears to have 
 mastered the technical requirements from the 
 first, while the aesthetic instinct tau2:ht him to 
 design every adornment of the right kind in 
 its right place. Before his time, our bronze 
 and iron manufacturers had chiefly depended 
 on rococo ornaments produced by second-rate 
 foreigners. 
 
 On Saturday, September 13, 1856, the news- 
 papers advertised for designs for the Wellington 
 Memorial. A friend of Stevens hurried off to 
 him with the information. By Monday morning 
 he decided to compete. He was living at that
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 221 
 
 time at 7 Canning Place, Kensington, and in 
 the little back room he made the model for the 
 monument, while the front room was occupied 
 with his office drawings. The proposed position 
 of the Wellington Monument, so we are told, 
 fired his imagination. It is only now, thanks 
 to Lord Leighton's efforts, which have been con- 
 tinued to this day by those who have eyes to 
 see and influence to enforce, that the monument 
 is to be seen where it was meant to be ; and 
 will be admired, noble and complete at last, and 
 as Stevens saw it in his mind. 
 
 His fastidiousness in not parting with any 
 work until the last moment nearly caused the 
 miscarriage of the Wellington Memorial. The 
 last day for sending it in was Whit Monday, 
 and his friend Ellis spent the whole day seeking 
 high and low for a cart to convey the model 
 to Westminster Hall. At last, in the evening, 
 he found a pleasure-van returning from Hamp- 
 stead Heath, and into this the model was hoisted, 
 and after the horses had rested the van started 
 once more. Ellis accompanied it, and arrived 
 at Westminster three minutes before midnight. 
 After much persuasion, he got some workmen
 
 222 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 to help him carry it into the Hall, where it 
 arrived just as the clock struck twelve. 
 
 Stevens's name came out only sixth in the list 
 of competitors, but when the designs were tried 
 under the model of the arch in St. Paul's, where 
 they were to stand, his was found to be the only 
 one suitable. 
 
 After this great effort he went to Italy once 
 more to refresh his mind. He examined many 
 monuments and churches there, and it is said 
 on his return that, on going into his study and 
 looking at his own design, he said, " Not so bad, 
 after all." 
 
 The Catalogue of the National Gallery of 
 British Art tells the story of the fortune be- 
 queathed to him by a friend, an American, who 
 admired his genius so much that he left him all 
 he had ; but when Stevens found there were 
 relations who had counted on the money, he 
 gave it back to them, only keeping two folios in 
 which his friend had written his name. He had 
 few companions. He shunned society ; he lived 
 for his work. I have been told of people trying 
 in vain to make his acquaintance in the studio 
 at Hampstead where he lived, and absolutely 
 refused anyone admittance to his house.
 
 ALFRED STEVENS 223 
 
 Meanwhile the great monument, his utterance 
 to the world, the noble tribute to the mighty war- 
 rior, was raised with its emblems, in its strength 
 and beauty, its delicate and exquisite detail. 
 
 But there was still much to endure for a man 
 of Stevens's sensitive nature. He was harassed 
 by critics, hampered by the delay of payment 
 to enable him to complete his work. In 1875 
 he wrote to Mr. Pegler, a lifelong friend, a letter 
 which is a reply to some of those who had so 
 greatly harassed him. In less than twelve hours 
 after writing the letter he died quite suddenly. . . , 
 
 We are told that absence of material prevented 
 any official memoir being written. But a richly 
 illustrated and interesting folio volume was pub- 
 lished in 1891 by the Autotype Company, in 
 which the bare facts of the painter's life are to 
 be found, with notes by his faithful pupil, Hugh 
 Stannus. Stevens was neither given to letter- 
 writing, nor to keeping a diary. It is in the 
 mass of drawings and scribblings, and in the 
 manifold studies he left, that his history is told. 
 We see thought upon thought, impression upon 
 impression, dawning from the first incoherence 
 into completeness. Stevens cared for the beauti-
 
 224 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 ful, he scorned the material machinery of success 
 and advancement ; what he loved was Art ; he 
 worshipped at the shrine of beauty and power. 
 With St. Peter, he could say, " Silver and gold 
 have I none, but such as I have, give I thee," 
 
 A. R. AND H. R.
 
 REMINISCENCES
 
 CONCERNING THE FOUNDING OF 
 THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE " 
 
 What we call, and what our children in turn 
 will call, old days, are the days of our early youth, 
 and to the writer the old days of the Cornliill 
 Magazine convey an impression of early youth, 
 of constant sunshine mysteriously associated with 
 the dawn of the golden covers, even though it 
 was in winter that they first appeared. 
 
 Recalling those vivid times, she cannot but 
 think instinctively of the friends who also lived 
 then, of her father and her home as it was then, 
 of George Smith, the founder of the Cornhill, 
 of his far-reaching life of generous achievement, 
 of the companion of that life whose voice never 
 unheeded, whose influence always counting for 
 so much, was that of the tender wife and 
 helpmate, to whom he ever turned, and his 
 children with him. 
 
 Not many words are needed to speak of 
 the jubilee of the Cornhill in 1910. There is
 
 228 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 nothing new to say, except that which happily 
 is not new, and continues still to belong to its 
 traditions ; no less than in the days when its 
 founder, the builder of so many great enter- 
 prises, first spoke of it to the first editor. 
 Through the years which have followed, and 
 when among others Leslie Stephen was editor 
 in turn, that good tradition has not changed. 
 
 " Our magazine is written not only for men 
 and women, but for boys, girls, infants," my 
 father says. 
 
 And to add to this there is what each of us 
 may remember for ourselves. What philosophies, 
 what fine utterances have rung from the familiar 
 shrine, and what honoured voices have echoed 
 thence ! 
 
 I am told that my father demurred at first 
 to the suggestion of editing the Cornhill. Such 
 work did not lie within his scope, but then Mr 
 George Smith arranged that he himself was to 
 undertake all business transactions, and my 
 father was only to go on writing and criticising 
 and suggesting ; and so the first start of the 
 Cornhill was all gaily settled and planned. The 
 early records of the start still to be read of in
 
 THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE" 229 
 
 the old diaries, are of a cheerful character — 
 no time is lost — business questions are adjourned 
 to Greenwich, to dinners there, to gardens — 
 friendly meetings abound. . . . 
 
 I have an impression also, besides the play, 
 of very hard and continuous work during all 
 that time ; of a stream of notes and messengers 
 from Messrs. Smith & Elder ; of consultations, 
 calculations. I find an old record which states 
 that " in sixteen days " the Cornhill was planned 
 and equipped for its long journey. 
 
 My father would go to Wimbledon, where the 
 young couple Mr. and Mrs. George Smith were 
 then living. Later on it was Mr. Smith who 
 used to come and see my father, in Onslow 
 Square, driving in early, morning after morning, 
 on his way to business, carrying a certain black 
 bag full of papers and correspondence, and 
 generally arriving about breakfast-time. 
 
 On September 1, 1859, the following entry 
 occurs in Mr. George Smith's diary : 
 
 ** Went to dine at Greenwich with Thackeixuj 
 to talk about magazine^ 
 
 On January I, 18 GO (only four months later), 
 the first number of the Cornhill was published.
 
 230 FKOM THE PORCH 
 
 We read, on January 3, 1860: ''Called on 
 Thackeray on my ivay to the City ; signed agree- 
 ment respecting ' Roundabout Papers' Mr. 
 Thackeray in very good spirits at the success 
 of the Cornhill. 
 
 "January 27, 1860. — No. 2 puhlishedj — ordered 
 80,000 to he printed. Called in Bride Lane to 
 see how they were selling the second number of the 
 magazine. The demand very rapid. 
 
 "January 30, \^Q>0. — Ordered 100,000 to be 
 priyited of Cornhill Magazine. 
 
 "May 31, I860.— To Thackeray with first 
 volume of magazine." 
 
 Mr. George Smith has himself told us of how 
 the first idea of the magazine came to him. He 
 says : 
 
 " The plan flashed upon me suddenly, as did 
 most of the ideas which have in the course of 
 my life led to successful operations. The existing 
 magazines were few, and when not high-priced 
 were narrow in literary range ; and it seemed to 
 me that a shilling magazine which contained, 
 in addition to other first-class literary matter, 
 a serial novel by Thackeray, must command a 
 large sale. Thackeray's name was one to conjure
 
 THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE" 231 
 
 with, and according to the plan, as it shaped 
 itself in my mind, the public would have a serial 
 novel by Thackeray, and a good deal else worth 
 reading, for the price they had been accustomed 
 to pay for the monthly number of his novels 
 alone." 
 
 We know how successfully " the plan " worked, 
 what a remarkable and willing army of helpers 
 joined the enterprise. 
 
 Anthony Trollope, a stately herald, opened the 
 first number of the Cornhill with his delight- 
 ful history of Framley Parsonage ; my father 
 wound up with the "Roundabout Paper" called 
 " On a Lazy Idle Boy," and he describes the 
 magazine while addressing the young reader : 
 
 " Our Cornhill Magazine owners strive to 
 provide thee with facts as well as fiction," he 
 says, " and though it does not become them 
 to brag of their ordinary, at least they invite 
 thee to a table where thou shalt sit in good 
 company." 
 
 Further on he writes concerning his own 
 story, Lovel the Widower and Framley Parson- 
 age, as of " Two novels under two flags ; the 
 one that ancient ensign which has hung before
 
 232 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 the well-knowu booth of ' Vanity Fair,' the other 
 that fresh and handsome standard which has 
 lately been hoisted on ' Barchester Towers.'" 
 
 Father Front's beautiful inaugurative ode 
 appeared in the first number. It is addressed 
 to the author of Vanity Fair: 
 
 " There's corn in Egypt still 
 (Pilgrim from Cairo to Cornhill !) 
 
 Give each his fill ; 
 
 But all comers among 
 
 Treat best the young ; 
 Fill the big brothers' knapsacks from thy bins, 
 But slip the Cup of Love in Benjamin's. . . ." 
 
 And the poem concludes with a grace almost 
 sung to music : 
 
 " Courage, old Friend ! long found 
 Firm at thy task, not in fixt purpose fickle : 
 Up ! choose thy ground, 
 Put forth thy shining sickle : 
 Shun the dense underwood 
 Of Dunce or Dundei-hood : 
 But reap North, South, East, Far West, 
 The world-wide Harvest ! " 
 
 The poet of the past sang of the may be, fifty 
 years later ; Thomas Hardy, the poet of to-day, 
 has also sung in fines well worthy, of the might 
 have been; but the two songs do not clash.
 
 THE ''CORNHILL MAGAZINE" 233 
 
 The many harvests have ripened in turn. " The 
 High Crusades to lessen tears" are following 
 on the harvests ; and true teachers, wise, hope- 
 ful, and sincere, still hold their own among the 
 brawling empirics of the hour. 
 
 Many of the growing convictions of to-day 
 were first pre-echoed in those bygone pages. I 
 remember, long after my father's death, hearing 
 Leslie Stephen, who was then editor, speaking 
 with admiring warmth of some of Ruskin's later 
 writings. But when the series first appeared 
 in the Cornhill, so great an outcry was raised, 
 that the papers had to be stopped. 
 
 The names are recorded of those who used to 
 meet at the Cornhill dinners month after month 
 — honoured, familiar names of people who were 
 then at work, writing papers still read, designing 
 pictures which are not forgotten. When the 
 time came for my father to leave the editorial 
 chair, these meetings went on, and he still joined 
 the good company, only he felt a great relief 
 from the straining and recurrent cares of editor- 
 ship. It was in March 1862 he wrote to Mr. 
 Smith resigning his post. 
 
 " No one can doubt that he came to a wise
 
 234 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 decision," writes Mr. George Smith, and he goes 
 on : "I Hke to think that the tender heart 
 of this noble man of genius was not troubled 
 by editorial thorns during the remainder of 
 his life." 
 
 His life did not last very long. At my father's 
 death in 1863 my sister and I were in troubled per- 
 plexity about his various copyrights, which were all 
 in various hands and unmanageable for us, and 
 quite unrealisable. Things seemed at a dead- 
 lock, when our good friend came forward with 
 a liberal and timely offer beyond anything my 
 father had told us the copyrights were worth. 
 It was then that Messrs. Smith & Elder bought 
 up the various rights and administered the 
 whole, with results which were eventually to 
 benefit all concerned. 1 like to quote the 
 words written by Leslie Stephen, my brother- 
 in-law, which seem to me to give so vivid an 
 aspect of the founder of the Cornhill, and of 
 the Dictionary of Natioyial Biography : " A good 
 commander must, I take it, be in the first place, 
 a good man of business, and, conversely. Smith's 
 faculty for business would have gone a long way 
 to the making of a leader in war. ... A man, as
 
 THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE" 235 
 
 Johnson wisely remarks, can seldom be employed 
 more innocently than in making money, and 
 Smith as a man of business might claim the 
 benefit of that dictum. But he would not have 
 had positive claims upon public gratitude if 
 he had not combined this with loftier aims. . . . 
 It was a pleasure to work with a man so much 
 above petty considerations, and so appreciative 
 (sometimes, perhaps, beyond their merits) of men 
 whose abilities lay in a less practical direction. 
 Smith had the true chivalrous spirit which 
 makes thorough co-operation possible. Thackeray 
 would have been gratified, but not surprised, 
 could it have been revealed to him that after 
 his death his daughters would find his old ally 
 the most helpful and affectionate of friends and 
 advisers." 
 
 Now that the Cornhill has more than fulfilled 
 its vigorous fiftieth year, it is impossible for 
 those nearly connected with it not to look 
 back with pride at its faithful career. Reading 
 in the memoir by Sir Sidney Lee, in that " in 
 memoriam " from which I have quoted, and still 
 more in the remembrance of life's experience, 
 the words of the Psalmist recur to my mind —
 
 236 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 " Using no deceit in his tongue, nor doing evil 
 " to his neighbour, swearing to his neighbour and 
 " disappointing him not, though it were to his 
 " own hindrance." They seem most fitly to speak 
 of such a generous and abiding history. 
 
 I
 
 A MEETING IN A GARDEN 
 
 MAY-TIME 1903 
 
 The folloioing little paper owes its chief interest to the fact 
 that the Good Samaritans therein mentioned were Canon Barnett 
 and his wife journeying through Surrey, driving in a little 
 carriage, and calling by chance at the Hurxt on Hamhledmi 
 Green, where we 'were staying in the absence of the hostesses 
 themselves. This ivas written in May 1903, ten years ago, and 
 7fe can realise what the humane impulse and practical leader- 
 ship of these Samaritans has brought about since then. It is 
 good to recall even an hour spent in such company. 
 
 Canon Barnetfs death is one of those that must affect all 
 ivho have realised, what his generous life was; its meaning to 
 those loho lived round about him, to others who turned to him 
 with natural impulse, not personally, but with instinctive trust 
 and admiration. No one roidd ever speak as Mrs. Barnett 
 has spoken in the noble words she has quoted concerning her 
 husband. One of these texts seems written for him. " There 
 is a vision in the heart of each, of justice, mercy, toisdom, 
 tenderness to torong and pain, and knowledge of its cure." 
 
 Some one has told me of Canon Barnett at Darjeeling, reading 
 out Abt Vogler to his wife and his friends as he rested there. 
 Others of us who may not have heard him read, have listened 
 to his fine voice in the Abbey ; it still seems speaking, in his 
 influence, and his beliefs, and his teaching. In the great Abbey 
 itself, as in the cloister without, or in Whiterhapel, where the 
 struggle is so hard, or again, in the northern suburbs, where a 
 lesson has been taught and an example of happiness has been set 
 
 237
 
 238 FROM THE POECH 
 
 hy him and Ms wife, ichich will not cease lohile men suffer, while 
 poets utter, while generous lives are given to truth. 
 
 For the last three or four days, looking across 
 the village green where many white geese are 
 disporting themselves, in the company of cows 
 tranquilly browsing, we have watched Black- 
 down and Hindhead, sometimes splendid in blue 
 and purple, sometimes wound in silver mist. 
 Every hour has held its own delight. The very 
 first morning after we came the cuckoo began at 
 four o'clock calling to sluggards to arise, to look 
 out at the sight of the mountain-tops beneath the 
 morning's sovereign eye, at the wide valley with 
 its kindling lights, at the whole space of nature 
 rejoicing and vibrating in the early dawn, with 
 flights of birds and with songs of triumph. The 
 house we are staying in is full of delightful 
 things, and charming possessions of books and 
 pictures, but as yet we have not looked or 
 thought of any of them. This burst of summer 
 has been the one predominant fact in our minds, 
 and the refrain of every thrush and blackbird, 
 the meaning of every leaf and shining blade 
 seems to be an entreaty to beneficent human 
 beings to render grace for all this space and
 
 A MEETING IN A GARDEN 239 
 
 melody, and to prize it for our own joy and for 
 that of others. 
 
 While I still lived in London — was it a year 
 or a week ago — I looked at the papers and read 
 with an Englishwoman's complacency of vast 
 sums bestowed in every direction on " improve- 
 ments," decorations, demolitions ; I read of sales 
 by auction, of pictures fetching unimaginable 
 record-prices, of first editions going for hundreds, 
 china pots for thousands ; I read of magnificent 
 doings and banquets, of libraries scattered all 
 over the country by benevolent millionaires. 
 But while I read of all these excellent things I 
 did not read of provisions by magnificent donors 
 of air and light, and space and peace for those 
 who are in want of them ; nor did I read of 
 munificent thousands flowing in for the protec- 
 tion of the beauty of the open spaces which are 
 with us still. Here and there a park is opened 
 (and blessed be the givers thereof), an acre or 
 two is saved, with much trouble and appealing 
 print, from the brick-bats, a disused graveyard is 
 arranged with tasteful iron seats for the use of 
 the living. We are like the king in the fairy 
 tale, we seem more inclined to give our willing
 
 240 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 largesses to the artificial nightingales than to 
 the real ones. These latter literally, alas, go to 
 the wall. Groves are cut down, singing birds are 
 silenced, the devouring monster of greed and con- 
 fusion and disorganisation steadily demands his 
 tribute year after year. He is not of the sea, 
 but of the slum ; and knight after knight, child 
 after child, maiden after maiden fall beneath his 
 grasping clutch and poisonous breath. Is he not 
 even now crawling up along the beautiful old 
 gardens of Chelsea, doomed one by one to be 
 sacrificed. Even the Paradise of Dante was 
 arranged with regard to open spaces and in 
 circles, but in the comparatively limited areas at 
 our disposal, all seems to be left to chance, to 
 the luck of the moment, to the fancy of the 
 owner. 
 
 And this is the gist of what I write, amid that 
 wonder of beauty which is in the world, and 
 which comes home again and again to so many of 
 us as soon as we have a little time to breathe 
 and to admire. A friend to whom I exclaimed 
 yesterday as we stood together in the garden 
 listening to the choirs overhead, sympathised 
 both with my pleasure and my complaint that
 
 A MEETING IN A GARDEN 241 
 
 all this silence and inspiration had its price, 
 could be bought and sold; and that even here, 
 in this peaceful land, bricks and villas are not 
 unknown. 
 
 My companion, standing among these borders 
 of iris and fragrant pink and delicate campion, 
 handed me not a flower but a (metaphorical) 
 nettle to grasp. " Of course," he said, " every 
 owner of land very naturally objects, just as 
 you do, to seeing villas and small workmen's 
 houses rising against his horizons, and every 
 builder is only too glad to secure open spaces 
 at other people's expense ; meanwhile people 
 must have houses to live in, population increases, 
 and we are not yet quite prepared to follow 
 Herod's example. ..." Grasping my nettle, 
 it occurs to me that to this, one might reply 
 that beauty is an indefinable thing, which de- 
 pends on proportion, on suitability, on good work- 
 manship (Nature we know gives us the best 
 workmanship possible under every circumstance). 
 Houses must come, but they should be properly 
 built and in proper places, and what we want 
 in our growing towns and villages and country 
 
 places is not stagnation, nor highly advantageous 
 
 Q
 
 242 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 building speculations, but a liberal economy in 
 the distribution of habitation and space and air, 
 the same care and art as that which is given, for 
 instance, to shipbuilding or to machinery, to 
 ensure the most effectual results with the least 
 waste of space and expense ; we do not want 
 a whole country side sjDoilt by a couple of stray 
 red villas set up where some builder can make 
 most by them. Why should not this art of 
 proportionate distribution, for which I know no 
 name, be applied to the necessities of daily life ? 
 Why are there no Supreme Courts for home- 
 beauty and comfort, and economy of ugliness, 
 as well as Treasuries and Foreign Offices ? Why 
 are there not councils for the ordaining of neces- 
 sary amenities as well as for the suppression of 
 those things which have gone hopelessly wrong? 
 I know there are many societies, each wise and 
 delightful in intention, but chiefly the outcome 
 of private feeling ; what we need is a Court 
 with wisdom to will and power to decide. 
 
 A Good Samaritan and his wife came here 
 on their way not long ago and stopped for an 
 hour to rest in this green corner. To them 
 (and they are Gardeners, indeed, in the best
 
 A MEETING IN A GARDEN 243 
 
 sense of the term), I confess I owe the impulse 
 which now urges me to write this. " I find 
 the longer I live the more I care for open 
 spaces," said the wife. " In all the schemes 
 which are daily started there is hardly ever 
 room enough allowed for space ; for birds to 
 fly, for winds to blow, for children to play." 
 And then the other of these Good Samaritans, 
 who had been tying up his pony in a neigh- 
 bouring shed, now joining into our talk, said, 
 " At this very minute, I know of a beautiful 
 green place with trees marked for building 
 lots, within a twopenny fare of the heart of 
 the City. It could be bought very cheap. Any 
 very rich man could give it to some of the 
 thousand poor ones who are choking for breath 
 and peace and who might come up in the Tube 
 and enjoy themselves. ... If it is not saved 
 the chance of an open space easily reached 
 and full of pleasure and profit will be gone 
 for ever. This is what working people want 
 even more than books." 
 
 And this is what working people owe to Canon 
 and Mrs. Barnett.
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 
 
 I 
 
 Each generation is a natural postscript to that 
 which has gone before, just as one's own succeed- 
 ing decades take different views, while the story 
 of life tells on. The stairs still lead from the 
 parlour to the kitchen, the maidens still cook, 
 scrub and tidy up, and break the china, and 
 wring the cloths, and sweep away the litter of 
 each succeeding day. The present superintend- 
 ing genius of Mabys still builds her altars, lights 
 her friendly shrines ; still befriends the forlorn ; 
 still takes girls in hand, holds them up when 
 they are slipping, starts them in life over and 
 over again, nurses them in illness, makes 
 pleasures for them along the way. Mabys was 
 a young and immature personage when the 
 writer first made her acquaintance ; she is now 
 an experienced ancient dame with a most 
 enormous family to provide for — those 5851 little 
 orphans who depend upon her so greatly. 
 
 244
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 245 
 
 When Mrs. Senior was appointed by Mr. 
 Stansfeld inspector of workhouse schools, certain 
 facts became painfully apparent to her. Two- 
 thirds of the girls whose careers were traced 
 were utter failures, and she consulted with one 
 friend, among others, who gave her the result 
 of the experience she had gained in Bristol. 
 Many registers were gone into, and many state- 
 ments and facts collected. (I remember seeing 
 the kind women absorbed in their work at a big 
 table covered with papers.) Mabys was started 
 on the model of the Bristol enterprise, where the 
 scheme had been worked out under the name 
 of the Preventive Mission. This had been the 
 doing of four ladies — Miss Mary Carpenter, Miss 
 Margaret Elliot, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and 
 Miss Sarah Stephen. It proved successful, and 
 it spread all over London and was copied in 
 many other places. 
 
 Besides the central office in London, there are 
 branch offices everywhere. Each of these offices 
 means a committee and a certain proportion of 
 visitors who undertake to help and care for a 
 number of little girls who from circumstances 
 are among the most absolutely friendless and
 
 246 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 helpless members of society. Their fathers have 
 abandoned them, or are dead. Their mothers 
 are dead or mad or drunken. They have no 
 relations, or, worse still, only bad ones. They 
 have been kept alive by the State ; but the 
 State is at best more of an incubator than a 
 parent, and this association has tried to help 
 the children with some heart, and pity to spare 
 for so much childish misery. 
 
 Mabys may be long past her youth, as I have 
 said, but she is full of spirit and energy still. 
 Her votaries are to be counted by thousands. 
 A number of them poured into the great Hall 
 in Pimlico the other day, where the cakes and 
 the tables and stacks of bread and butter were 
 sorted out, and girls of every shape and size 
 were assembling round huge tea-pots in a 
 pleasant camaraderie. As each couple and 
 triplet of girls entered the hall a ministering 
 lady with a pencil and paper met them and 
 pointed out their seats. Some young servants 
 looked trim, some looked smart, others dazed, 
 others were delightful, with charming faces and 
 merry spirits. Of these many had attended 
 year after year. I was shown the doyennes of
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 247 
 
 this guild, the experienced who, being over 
 twenty years of age, are no longer eligible to 
 belong to it, but who are associated in the work 
 as " Mabys helpers," and deputed in turn to visit 
 and advise younger and less capable novices in 
 their various kitchens and pantries. After the 
 feast came music and some pretty plays, and 
 then, as happens to us all in turn, the guests 
 had to go back to their work once more and take 
 off their smart hats and ribbons, and tie on their 
 aprons and their little starched caps. 
 
 These young guests mainly come from the 
 district schools, though a certain number have 
 struggling homes of their own, from which they 
 apply to Mabys for assistance. Some are found- 
 lings, others are orphans, some have not even 
 this small privilege. In explanation of this 
 cynical sentence, let me quote from a card lately 
 received from one of the maidens, to whom the 
 secretary wrote asking for her mother's or her 
 sister's address. The card, duly dated and 
 labelled, "From Ellen C. re Alice C, April '06, 
 B. VI.," arrived at the central office, and goes 
 to the point at once : " Dear Miss,— I am very 
 pleased to tell you I don't know where neither
 
 248 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 are, if I did know I would tell you, but if we 
 knew where we both were I am afraid I should 
 not be doing as I am." 
 
 Whether Alice was ever discovered, and 
 whether Ellen continued to prosper, and whether 
 they went on doing as they did, is all noted 
 and inscribed in the admirably kept books of 
 the society, and I do realise what it must have 
 been to Ellen ill or in difficulties, and in the 
 absence of any desirable natural protector, to 
 have a "Dear Miss" to consult with. 
 
 II 
 
 The first office of the Association ever opened 
 was at Chelsea. It is a friendly little place, 
 which takes a benevolent interest in the vari- 
 ous domestic fortunes and misfortunes of the 
 neighbourhood. If you go there of a Monday 
 morning you may find a room full of customers 
 of various sizes, and an almost providential ad- 
 justment of different requirements. 
 
 " Well, you see," a stout lady was saying 
 confidentially, " I'm so much alone of evenings, 
 my husband being out with the carriage, I 
 want a girl for comp'ny as much as anything
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 249 
 
 else. I don't want no housework from her. 
 I want her to do any little odd jobs I can't 
 attend to myself, and to mind the children. 
 That was a good little girl enough you sent 
 
 me, Miss Y ; but dear me, she was always 
 
 a-crying for her mother. I let her out on 
 Mondays, and Wednesdays, and Fridays ; but 
 she wanted to go home at night as well, and 
 now she says she won't stay." 
 
 " It's her first place, ma'am," says Miss Y . 
 
 " They are apt to be home-sick at first ; but 
 here is a very good little girl who has no 
 home, poor child. Fanny, my dear, should you 
 
 like to live with Mrs. and take care of 
 
 her nice little children? You might like to 
 take her back with you now directly, ma'am, and 
 show her the place and the dear children ? " 
 
 Smiling Fanny steps forward briskly, and off 
 they go together. Then a pretty young lady, 
 fashionably dressed in a fur tippet, begins : 
 
 " That girl was no good at all. Miss Y . 
 
 Such a dance as she led me ! She came and 
 gave me a reference miles away, and ill as I 
 was I dragged myself there ; and when I got 
 to the house she herself opened the door, and
 
 250 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 said her mistress was out and was never at 
 home at all. I said at once, ' You don't want 
 to come to us, and you haven't the courage to 
 say so,' and then she shut the door in my face 
 and ran away ! The fact is, many don't like 
 houses with apartments. Our first floor is 
 vacant at present, but I hope it will soon be 
 let ; and I should be so glad to find a girl who 
 would- come at once, and who knows something 
 of cookery, though my mother always likes to 
 superintend herself in the kitchen." 
 
 " There is a young woman here who says 
 she [can cook," says the superintendent doubt- 
 fully, "but there seems to be some difficulty 
 about getting her character. Do you think we 
 had better write to your mistress for it, my 
 dear ? " 
 
 A fierce, wild beast-looking creature, who had 
 been glaring in a corner, here in answer growls, 
 " I don't know, I'm sure." 
 
 " Why did you leave ? " says the young lady. 
 
 " 'Cos she had such a wiolent temper," says the 
 girl, looking more and more ferocious. 
 
 " That is a sad thing for anybody to have," 
 said the young lady gravely.
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 251 
 
 At this moment a boy puts his head in at 
 the door. " Got any work for me ? " says he. 
 
 " No, no," cry all the girls together. " This 
 isn't for boys ; this is for females," and the 
 head disappears. 
 
 " Well, and what do you want ? " says the 
 superintendent, quite bright and interested with 
 each case as it turns up, and a spruce young 
 person, who had been listening attentively, 
 steps forward and says, looking hard at the 
 young lady in the tippet : 
 
 " I wish for a place, if you please, ma'am, 
 with a little cooking in it, where the lady 
 herself superingtends in the kitchen — a ladies' 
 house that lets apartments, if you please ; and 
 I shouldn't wish for a private house, only an 
 apartment house." At which the young mis- 
 tress, much pleased, steps forward, and a private 
 confabulation immediately begins. 
 
 While these two people are settling their 
 affairs a mysterious person in a veil enters, and 
 asks anxiously in a sort of whisper, " Have 
 you heard of anything for me. Miss? You see 
 (emphatically) it is something so very particular 
 that I require, quite out of the common."
 
 252 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 " Just so," says Miss Y . " I won't forget." 
 
 " Don't forget, and you won't mention the 
 circumstances to any one," says the other, and 
 exit mysteriously with a confidential sign. 
 
 Follows a smiling little creature, with large 
 round eyes. 
 
 " Well," said Miss Y , who is certainly 
 
 untiring in sympathy and kindness, "is it all 
 right ? Are you engaged, Polly ? " 
 
 " Please, Miss, I'm much too short," says the 
 little maiden. 
 
 As we have said, it is not only the district 
 girls who apply at these offices ; all the young 
 persons of the neighbourhood are made wel- 
 come by the recording angels (so they seem 
 to me), who remember their names, invite them 
 to take a seat on the bench, produce big 
 books with their histories, necessities, and 
 qualifications all written down, and by the 
 help of which they are more or less " suited." 
 Besides a mistress, a kitchen to scrub, if 
 they behave themselves they are also pre- 
 sented with a badge and honourable decora- 
 tion, fastened by a blue ribbon, and eventually 
 they are promoted to a red ribbon, the high
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 253 
 
 badge of honour for these young warriors. 
 And though some people may smile, it is, 
 when we come to think of it, a hardly earned 
 distinction, well deserved as any soldier's cross. 
 What a campaign for them — a daily fight with 
 the powers of darkness and ignorance, with 
 dust, with dirt, with disorder. Where should 
 we be without our little serving girls? At 
 this moment, as I write by a comfortable fire, 
 I hear the sound of a virtuous and matutinal 
 broom in the cold passages below, and I reflect 
 that these 8000 little beings on the books 
 are hard at work all over London and fight- 
 ing chaos in the foggy twilight of a winter's 
 morning. 
 
 It is a hard life at best for some of them ; 
 so hard that they break down utterly in tlie 
 struggle with temper and other tempers, with 
 inexperience, with temptations of every sort. 
 If one thinks of it one can imagine it all, and 
 the impatience, and the petty deceptions, and 
 the childish longings, almost irresistible, one 
 might think, to little waifs who have no one 
 to look to for praise if they are good, or for 
 blame if they are naughty. And yet, indeed.
 
 254 FROM THE POECH 
 
 they are not ungrateful ; they respond to any 
 word of real friendship. " I am quite frightened 
 sometimes to find how much they think of my 
 opinion," said a good friend the other day, who 
 has for some years past worked steadily for the 
 Association. " They make me quite ashamed 
 when they produce my wretched little notes 
 out of their pockets." When I asked this lady 
 about the children's comparative friendlessness, 
 she said it was very rare to find them absolutely 
 alone, but that, in truth, friends are often far 
 worse enemies than loneliness. They come and 
 grasp at their poor little earnings. They lead 
 them into mischief out of wanton wickedness, 
 and desert them in their troubles. A girl came 
 staggering into her office not long ago, so ill 
 that she could hardly stand. She had gone to 
 her sister, whom she had always helped with 
 her wages, and lain in bed two days with 
 fever, and then her sister would not let her 
 stay, and turned her into the street, though 
 she fell twice as she was dressins^. It was a 
 case of smallpox, and the poor thing was sent 
 off to the Smallpox Hospital. " I went to see 
 her there," said Miss T , speaking quite as
 
 UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS 255 
 
 a matter of course. " The poor child began 
 searching under her pillow and showed me a 
 little scrap of a note I had written her a year 
 before, which she had carried about ever since. 
 One can scarcely believe," the kind lady said, 
 " how they prize a little interest, a little 
 friendly intercourse with some one who cares 
 about what happens to them."
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 
 
 I 
 
 They were sitting by the fire one evening about 
 Easter time, two women, to whom the gloaming 
 hours made little difference, except that the lady 
 of the house poked the comfortable embers and 
 shut the French windows of the room, which had 
 been open to a twilight garden, where narcissus 
 and blue scilla were springing and fruit trees 
 were coming into blossom, and whence the echoes 
 of Cambridge clocks and chimes reached now and 
 again, borne across wide open flats. The two 
 ladies, meeting after a long interval, sat talking 
 over the time which had passed, comparing the 
 various scraps of interest, of divination of feeling, 
 which belonged in common to them both. 
 
 One of them, who had arrived that day, 
 brought with her a varied but somewhat tangled 
 tune, echoes of work, of diversion, of perplexity. 
 The home-keeping friend's light seemed to play 
 on each of these in turn, putting new meaning 
 
 256
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 257 
 
 and interpretations, to which her visitor could 
 only respond gratefully and not without admira- 
 tion. All the remembrance of things past seemed 
 to awaken that evening and to come back into 
 existence more vividly every moment as the two, 
 so familiar in long-tried affection — in agreement 
 and in divergence also — held their peaceful 
 session ; almost unconsciously counting up the 
 thens and the nows, the things they cared for 
 and those they had hoped for, and the failures, 
 as well as the facts of success they both liked to 
 dwell upon with that sort of surprise which is 
 even greater, perhaps, in success than that which 
 any sense of failure brings with it. And as they 
 recalled efforts which had succeeded, the lives 
 which to the end had ever kept to their high 
 level, counting up the treasure-trove, which 
 belongs to us all indeed, it happened that in 
 their talk they came to the mention of one 
 name among others — that of Mrs. Nassau Senior 
 — and of the Association which will ever be 
 linked with her memory. 
 
 Mrs. Senior's name will always be associated 
 with that of Mabys, of which she was indeed the 
 founder, feeling as she did the want of some such 
 
 R
 
 258 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 help for girls coming out of workhouse schools 
 and asylums, friendless and homeless, leaving 
 the shelter and limitations in which they had 
 been brought up for the world, where rules are 
 not, nor safeguards, and the results were often 
 disastrous, as they still are at times. 
 
 The old friends looked at each other with a 
 common feeling of pleasure in that one woman's 
 achievements, and in the charm of a personality 
 still present after a quarter of a century. What 
 follows is but a record of an evening's talk. 
 
 II 
 
 We could almost believe now and again as we 
 look at pictures which we have known always 
 that mysterious things have happened to them 
 since we saw them first — that new expressions 
 have come into them. Was Turner's " Evening 
 Star," for instance, as brightly scintillating as 
 now when the painter first moved away from 
 his canvas, or has the silver ocean, travelling 
 out of space, come into the picture since it was 
 first painted ? It is not so with some lives we 
 have loved and admired. The light seems to 
 come into them.
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 259 
 
 Many of us may have this impression looking 
 
 at Watts's fine portrait of Mrs. Nassau Senior, 
 
 80 famiHar to the two interlocutors quoted above. 
 
 It was once a beautiful picture and a most 
 
 charming likeness, but now it seems something 
 
 more. The painter had the spirit of divination, 
 
 and it was as if he foresaw and remembered, 
 
 too, while he stood painting at his easel. In 
 
 this particular picture he has not only given us 
 
 an actual portrait, but he has painted an abiding 
 
 presence, the history of a life. The lady kneels 
 
 to reach the flowers ; her absorbed and careful 
 
 looks are fixed upon the lilies which she is 
 
 watering ; one fair hand rests upon the marble 
 
 table, the other with rosy-tipped fingers holds 
 
 up the glass bowl brimming with water. Her 
 
 violet dress — how well it always became her — 
 
 hangs in straight folds from her waist ; her 
 
 beautiful flood of yellow hair flows in ripples. 
 
 Everything in the painting is warm in tone ; 
 
 it is all simple, yet gorgeous ; so is the ancient 
 
 Indian shawl of orange and blue and scarlet, so 
 
 is the big chair which is covered with Turkey 
 
 twill ; the green walls are only papered with 
 
 ordinary hangings ; but the various colours 
 
 R 2
 
 260 FEOM THE PORCH 
 
 vibrate round the sweet head, which is bending' 
 with exquisite concern and intentness, and which 
 is the soul of it all. A tray of hothouse flowers 
 stands waiting on the floor. There are sprays 
 of azalea and crown-imperials, and geraniums 
 and maiden-hair ferns ; but the lady has left 
 them to water the growing lilies, and the feeling 
 of peaceful ministry and the warmth of generous 
 existence, all are somehow told in the picture, as 
 it was in the life itself, which ended so long ago, 
 which is so beneficent still. 
 
 Watts himself has written of this picture, 
 of the intention he had when he created it, 
 making her, as he says, "water a flowering root 
 with so much solicitude " ; and he goes on to dwell 
 upon "the aspirations and affections which are 
 sometimes with difficulty kept alive in the crush 
 of artificial society. I love," he writes in a letter 
 to her, " to think of you cultivating these rare 
 roots. . . . No, not rare : 
 
 " ' By God's dear grace not rare ; 
 
 In many a lonely homestead blooming strong.' " 
 
 ... As I quote from Watts's letter I cannot help 
 also remembering a saying of Ruskin, in which
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 261 
 
 he, too, dwells on a woman's vocation. " A true 
 lady," Ruskin says, "should be a princess, a 
 washerwoman — yes, a washerwoman, to wash 
 with water, to cleanse, to purify wherever she 
 goes, to set disordered things in orderly array. 
 . . , This is a woman's mission." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Some of us may still remember Elm House, 
 where the Seniors lived at Wandsworth, and 
 the long, low drawing-room, with its big bow- 
 window opening to a garden full of gay parterres, 
 where lawns ran to the distant boundary, while 
 beyond again lay a far-away horizon. It was 
 not the sea that one saw spreading before one's 
 eyes, but the vast plateau of London, with its 
 drifting vapours and its ripple of housetops flow- 
 ing to meet the sky-line. The room itself was 
 pleasant, sunny, and well-worn. There were old 
 rugs spread on the stained floors (they were not 
 as yet in fashion as they are now) ; many pictures 
 were hanging on the walls ; a varied gallery, 
 good and indifterent ; among the good were one 
 or two of Watts's finest portraits, and I can also 
 remember a Madonna's head with a heavy blue
 
 262 FEOM THE POECH 
 
 veil, and in juxtaposition a Pompeian sort of 
 ballet girl, almost springing from the frame ; 
 and then, besides the pictures, there was a sense 
 of music in the air, and of flowers, and of 
 more flowers. The long piano was piled with 
 music-books. Mrs. Nassau Senior, the mistress 
 of the house, used to play her own chords and 
 accompany herself as she poured out her full 
 heart in strains beautiful and measured rather 
 than profuse. 
 
 Garcia had been Mrs. Senior's singing master, 
 and he would sometimes be present among the 
 rest. I heard him speaking of her with affec- 
 tionate admiration when he was a hundred years 
 old, in his honourable age. How clear was her 
 voice, how it rang and vibrated ! For those 
 who loved to listen to it, her " Vado ben spesso " 
 rings on still. The true notes flowed ; she did 
 not seem to make any eflbrt. She would cease 
 singing to make some old friend welcome, and 
 take to her music ap-ain as a matter of course. 
 There was no solemnity in her performance, and 
 yet J have heard Mrs. Sartoris ^ say that it was 
 
 * Mrs. Sartoris — Adelaide Kemble — has given a charming account 
 of Mrs. Senior in her Reflections of Joseph Heywood, under the name 
 of " Christian Rupert."
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 263 
 
 because of the unremitting work of years, and 
 because of Mrs. Senior's devotion to her art with 
 absolute and conscientious determination, that 
 she could use her voice as she did with tender 
 and brilliant ease. It was a good sword indeed 
 to defend the right. I heard a pretty story of 
 a room full of Whitechapel boys and girls in 
 revolt, and suddenly, when the clamour was 
 at its height, she stood up quietly and began 
 to sing, and the storm stopped and the room be- 
 came silent and attentive. Sir Theodore ]\Iartin 
 told me that he had only met Mrs. Senior once, 
 one day when she was singing an Irish ballad to 
 George Eliot at North Bank, " Far from the 
 land where her young hero sleeps," which was 
 written of Emmet. Sir Theodore said that forty 
 years after he " could hear the notes still quite 
 plainly." Some voices have this peculiar quality 
 of vibrating on and on. 
 
 Stately and charming people used to assemble 
 at Elm House. It is an old saying that people 
 of a certain stani}) attract each other. It was 
 a really remarkable assemblage of accomplished 
 and beautiful women who were in the habit of 
 coming there, that home so bare, so simple, and
 
 264 FEOM THE POECH 
 
 yet so luxurious. It was like a foreign colony. 
 The old roof held father, mother, son, the two 
 widowed grandmothers — each in her own rooms, 
 with her own attendant and the consequent 
 vibrations. There was a younger brother ^ also, 
 with his flock of motherless children. The 
 servants were like friends, not servants. 
 
 There is a letter with a date to it, February 
 1874, written by Mrs, Senior from a little cottage 
 in the Isle of Wight which Mrs. Cameron had 
 lately altered and devised, and which has be- 
 longed to the writer at intervals for years. 
 That one winter Mrs. Senior went there to stay 
 in it. Her son has let me see the letter, which 
 begins with a motherly blessing, then con- 
 tinues : 
 
 "My dear, this is the Porch, the gate of 
 Heaven. There is a sense of repose that I think 
 one must feel just after death before beginning 
 the new life. It is inconceivable how I enjoy it. 
 I do nothing for hours together. The sitting- 
 room opens into a tiny conservatory, and through 
 the open window one hears the enchanted moan 
 
 1 H. H., now gone to his rest, after making a new home in a 
 new world.
 
 rm-; roiaii
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 265 
 
 of the sea and the song of the birds. We 
 are a long way from the sea, but I hear it ; I 
 wake at six and hear the earliest pipe of half- 
 awakened birds, and I go to sleep with the sea 
 in my ears and a lovely star looking in at my 
 window. . . . We are to lunch at the Prinseps' 
 to-morrow, as I want to see Watts. He is going 
 to London to paint portraits. His house is per- 
 fectly charming. I am dying to build a house. 
 It has rained all this morning, and we could not 
 go to church ; now it seems clearing, and the 
 sun thinks of shining ... a constant thanks- 
 giving and prayer goes up from my heart as I 
 rest and am thankful." 
 
 What a grace is rest to those who work 
 without ceasing ! 
 
 There is a description of an evening at Far- 
 ringford and of the mysterious walk there — the 
 veiled stars and the dark garden with its great 
 shrubs and the great room and the poet within, 
 reading, and Lady Tennyson, like St. Monica, 
 lying on her couch. All this was but a short 
 break in the constant unending work of Jeanie 
 Senior's life, in her gallant fight with suffering. 
 During the first week of this holiday she could
 
 266 FROM THE PORCH 
 
 not forget, she could not rest, but after her three 
 weeks she writes to her son : "I feel perfectly 
 up to my work now, and have fits of longing to 
 be at Paupers again, though in general I am 
 absorbed by the delight of the beauty of every- 
 thing, and the desire to pass the remaining 
 years of my life in painting scenes in the Isle 
 of Wight! ..." 
 
 She describes a visit she paid with Mr. Watts 
 to a cottage her mother, Mrs. Hughes, eventually 
 bought : 
 
 " The garden was most sunny and warm, and 
 the view of the heath and the sea really 
 lovely. There was a high north wind, and 
 the colour of the sea light green and purple, 
 with splendid white tops to the waves. The bit 
 of heath, too, is lovely, but there is no field for 
 a cow, which would be a drawback in mother's 
 eyes." 
 
 Some other painter should have been there 
 to paint the two figures looking across the gorse 
 common at the white crests of the waves. Watts 
 with his serene and stately looks, the lady, who 
 had but such a little while to live, but who to 
 the last tried for practical beauty in life as far as
 
 IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER 267 
 
 in her lay, and happiness and deliverance from 
 evil for others. And among all her good practical 
 works the Metropolitan Association for Befriend- 
 ing Young Servants has been one to last and 
 to spread its useful harvest under the care of 
 those who have come after her. Mabys perliaps 
 sprang from the foam of those waves that day 
 as they broke upon Colwell Bay. 
 
 THE END 
 
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 at Paul's Work, Edinburgh
 
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