Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. Part 36

The Journal notes:--

_December 5th_.--Parliament met. 9th, first dinner of the Club. 24th, to Ottershaw Park for Christmas. 28th, to Farnborough--last time. 29th, Mrs.

Grote died. 31st, returned to town.

_To Mr. E. Cheney_

_December 13th_.--I brought up two volumes of the MS. Journals for you to read when you come to town. But I perceive the further you proceed the less can you publish. I dismiss all thoughts of that from my mind, and bequeath the task to posterity.

The debate in the Commons has been very dull, [Footnote: On a motion to condemn the policy of the Government in Afghanistan. It was defeated by a majority of 101 in a House of 555.] but the Government will have a very large majority. They tell me Dizzy is negotiating another little purchase of Seleucia and Scanderoon. Jerusalem is in the next lot.

I gave the 'Secret du Roi' to an Irishman to review, and the wretch has disappointed me. I am afraid it is now too late, or I would do it myself.

[Footnote: It was reviewed in the April number (1879), but neither by Reeve nor the Irishman.] Read M. de Lomenie's book, 'Les Mirabeau'--a very amiable family.

_Rutland Gate, January 4th_, 1879.--This Christmas has been marked beyond all others by the most tragical events. To me, Mrs. Grote and Lord Tweeddale are deplorable losses, and I could add a catalogue of names of less note, besides those of public interest. What irony to call it the season of mirth and gaiety!

Mrs. Grote has very kindly left Hayward l,000. I am glad of it, for it will make him more comfortable, and, I hope, less cross.

The Journal then has:--

_January 7th_.--Dined at Sir P. Sh.e.l.ley's; Spedding, Browning.

_To Mr. E. Cheney_

_January 18th_.--I fully intended to come to see you to-day, and to bring you the MS. volumes of C. C. G.; but I am very lame with rheumatism in my knee, and the weather is so infernal that I cannot use the carriage, and I am afraid to make the expedition in a cab. I must therefore defer my call till I can move better. On such a day as this one can only burrow like the rabbits.

I think the Cenci article in the new 'Ed. Rev.' will interest you.

_January 22nd_.--I send you Vols. III. and IV. of the mystic record. Pray keep it locked up.

In the 'True Tale of the Cenci,' by T. Adolphus Trollope, there was much that Mr. Cheney dissented from, and he wrote a long letter on the subject, which Reeve in due course forwarded to Trollope. This led to a reply, with which, as far as Reeve's correspondence shows, the discussion dropped. If it was continued further, it was without Reeve's a.s.sistance.

_To Mr. E. Cheney_

_January 23rd_.--I saw Lady Sh.e.l.ley to-day, and, as I told her you could not call on her, she very obligingly said she would be happy to call on you and bring you the enlarged photograph of the poet to look at. These photographs are done on porcelain. There are only three copies of them, which Lady S. has got. The negative is destroyed. ... She says the drawing is the image of Sh.e.l.ley's sister, Helen Sh.e.l.ley.

_January 31st_.--Many thanks for your prompt return of the volumes. I am glad they have amused you, and you can give evidence that they are not very wicked. I am afraid I cannot supply any more until I have been down to Foxholes, as I find I have locked up part of the MS. there; and I must now have the whole of it bound.

_February 3rd_.--I send you Trelawny's book on Sh.e.l.ley, and I also enclose an interesting letter from Mr. Trollope in answer to your remarks on the Cenci article. You will see he has taken pains with the subject. I did not mention your name to him in connexion with the remarks, but only with reference to the Philobiblon notes. He therefore does not know that you are as well acquainted with the Italians as he is.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_C. O., February 26th_.--I hope this will not arrive too late to congratulate you on having achieved in health and good spirits three-quarters of the road to our centenary. Unluckily, the last quarter is the most difficult. But _sursum corda_! When I look back and about me, I am astonished to have got so far. The great pleasure of advancing years is retrospection. One sees such groups and groups of pleasant people. The prospective eyes of youth see nothing so real or charming. I fancy I am sitting with you on a flowery bank of heather in the Highlands, about August 15th, talking of these things. There are a dozen brace of dead grouse in the bag. Donald is at the well. Don't remind me that it is February, 1 in London, the wind in the northeast.

Here the Journal records:--

_February 27th_.--My sister-in-law, Helen Blackett, died at Matfen.

_March 4th_.--Charles Newton and Sir J. Hooker elected by The Club.

_April 28th_.--I was named Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries for four years.

_From Lord Kimberley_

_35 Lowndes Square, May 3rd_.--There is a savage article in the 'Quarterly'

(by Froude, I believe), many of the statements in which arise from mere ignorance. Whatever chance of success Carnarvon's scheme of confederation had--it was in any case small--was destroyed by Froude's blundering, which was caused mainly by his knowing nothing whatever about the political history and literature of the colony. But, for all that, his article is worthy of attention. Like you, I am very apprehensive about the Zulu war; but this is too long a story for a short note. I should very much like to talk the matter over with you.

The Journal again:--

_May 15th_.--Presided at Antiquaries as V.-P.

_June 11th_.--Great party at Count Munster's for the golden wedding of Emperor Wilhelm.

_From Mr. E. Cheney_

_Audley Square, July 1st_.--I have an impression of Sh.e.l.ley's portrait, which Colnaghi has just engraved. Sir Percy wishes it not to be re-copied, and he entertains no doubt of its authenticity. He says it is extremely like a maiden aunt of his--the only survivor of the past generation of the Sh.e.l.leys. I beg your acceptance of an impression.

_To Mr. E. Cheney_

_July 1st_.--I am uncommonly obliged to you for the exquisite engraving of the drawing of Sh.e.l.ley. I shall cherish it alike in memory of him, and of a better man--yourself, and for the strange legend about it.

I am sorry to hear that ------ has taken offence at the mention of her father in the 'Greville Memoirs.' I was wholly unconscious of the offence, and indeed had forgotten that he was mentioned in them at all.... I should like, with great simplicity, to say to these eminent persons that I value the honour of being the Editor of Charles Greville's Journals infinitely more than any distinction that Queens or d.u.c.h.esses could bestow on me. But I esteem the talents and good qualities of ------ and certainly I never dreamed she was offended.

And then the Journal:--

_July 5th_.--Lady Waldegrave died. The news came while we were attending Lord Lawrence's funeral in Westminster Abbey.

_26th_.--To Foxholes. _August 16th_.--Visit to Weymouth; 18th, drove to Abbotsbury.

_August 30th_.--Tom Longman died at Farnborough--seventy-five.

_September 3rd_.--His funeral.

_5th_.--To St. Malo with Christine and Hopie; 6th, to Dinard and on to Dinan; 8th, to Guingamp; 9th, to Lannion, seeing Chateau de Tonguebec on the way; 10th, to Louannec--fine rocky coast; 11th, Morlaix--drove to St. Pol de Leon; 12th, Brest, but it rained; 13th, to Auray; 14th, expedition to Carnac; 15th, expedition to Locmaria-quer; 16th, Auray to St.

Malo; 18th, home again--a pleasant tour.

_24th_.--To Stratton, to see Lord Northbrook about article on Affghan War.

Read him the article.

_October 21st_.--Lord Northbrook at Foxholes.

_30th_.--Left Foxholes. Visit to Pember's [at Lymington], Beaulieu Abbey.

To town on November 1st.

Frequent mention has been made of M. de Circourt's letters, the writing of which occupied a great part of his time. In a short memoir, or, rather, an appreciation, which Reeve contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review' of October 1881, he wrote: 'It was his pleasure and his desire to live and die comparatively unknown. With an insatiable curiosity and love of knowledge, with an extraordinary facility in mastering languages, and a universal love of literature; with a memory so precise and so inexhaustible that it retained without effort all he had acquired, he found in the mere exercise of these singular gifts a sufficient employment for a long and not inactive life.... He possessed and enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p of an extraordinary number of men of the highest distinction, not only in France, but in all lands.

The correspondence he carried on with his friends in Germany, Italy, England, Switzerland, America, and Russia was inconceivably voluminous. To each of them he wrote in their own respective language, equally vehement and profuse in every tongue.'

The bulk of his letters to Reeve alone is truly formidable. But these, and presumably most others, were to a very great extent political or literary pamphlets, which, though not given to the press, were--there can be little doubt--intended to be circulated among a select public such as he delighted in addressing. Two of the latest of these, written very shortly before his death, are here given:--

_From M. de Circourt_