Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 8

_To F. Tennyson_.

Imo piano. No. o. Strada del Obelisco.

NASEBY. [_Oct_. 1841.]

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I am surprised you think my scanty letters are worth encouraging, especially with such long and excellent answers as that I have just got from you. It has found its way down here: and oddly enough does your Italian scenery, painted, I believe, very faithfully upon my inner eye, contrast with the British barrenness of the Field of Naseby. Yet here was fought a battle of some interest to Englishmen: and I am persuading farmers to weed well the corn that grows over those who died there. No, no; in spite of your Vesuviuses and suns.h.i.+ne, I love my poor dear brave barren ugly country. Talk of your Italians! why, they are extinguished by the Austrians because they don't blaze enough of themselves to burn the extinguisher. Only people who deserve despotism are forced to suffer it. We have at last good weather: and the harvest is just drawing to a close in this place. It is a bright brisk morning, and the loaded waggons are rolling cheerfully past my window. But since I wrote what is above a whole day has pa.s.sed: I have eaten a bread dinner: taken a lonely walk: made a sketch of Naseby (not the least like yours of Castellamare): played for an hour on an old tub of a piano: and went out in my dressing- gown to smoke a pipe with a tenant hard by. That tenant (whose name is Love, by the bye) was out with his folks in the stack yard: getting in all the corn they can, as the night looks rainy. So, disappointed of my projected 'talk about runts' and turnips, I am come back--with a good deal of animal spirits at my tongue's and fingers' ends. If I were transported now into your room at Castellamare, I would wag my tongue far beyond midnight with you. These fits of exultation are not very common with me: as (after leaving off beef) my life has become of an even grey paper character: needing no great excitement, and as pleased with Naseby as Naples. . . .

I am reading Schlegel's lectures on the History of Literature: a nice just book: as also the comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar: the latter very delightful: as also D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, a good book. When I am tired of one I take up the other: when tired of all, I take up my pipe, or sit down and recollect some of Fidelio on the pianoforte. Ah Master Tennyson, we in England have our pleasures too. As to Alfred, I have heard nothing of him since May: except that some one saw him going to a packet which he believed was going to Rotterdam. . . .

When shall you and I go to an Opera again, or hear one of Beethoven's Symphonies together? You are lost to England, I calculate: and I am given over to turnips and inanity. So runs the world away. Well, if I never see you again, I am very very glad I _have_ seen you: and got the idea of a n.o.ble fellow all ways into my head. Does this seem like humbug to you? But it is not. And that fine fellow Morton too. Pray write when you can to me: and when my stars s.h.i.+ne so happily about my head as they do at this minute, when my blood feels like champagne, I will answer you. . .

When you go to Florence, get to see a fresco portrait of Dante by Giotto: newly discovered in some chapel there. Edgeworth saw it, and has brought home a print which is (he says) a tolerable copy. It is a most awful head: Dante, when about twenty-five years old. The likeness to the common portraits of him when old is quite evident. All his great poem seems in it: like the flower in the bud. I read the last cantos of the Paradiso over and over again. I forget if you like him: but, if I understand you at all, you must. Farewell!

P.S. Just heard from Edgeworth that Alfred is in London 'busy preparing for the press'!!!

_To Bernard Barton_.

LONDON, _November_ 27/41.

DEAR BARTON,

I am afraid you were disappointed last night at finding no picture by the Shannon. {93} Mayhap you had asked Mr C[hurchyard] to come and give his judgment upon it over toasted cheese. But the truth is, the picture has just been varnished with mastick varnish, which is apt to chill with the cold at this season of the year: and so I thought it best to keep it by me till its conveyance should be safer. I hope that on Monday you will get it. But I must tell you that, besides the reason of the varnish, I have had a sneaking desire to keep the picture by me, and not to lose it from my eyes just yet. I am in love with it. I washed it myself very carefully with only sweet salad oil: perfectly innocuous as you may imagine: and that, with the new lining, and the varnis.h.i.+ng, has at least made the difference between a dirty and a clean beauty. And now, whoever it may be painted by, I p.r.o.nounce it a very beautiful picture: tender, graceful, full of repose. I sit looking at it in my room and like it more and more. All this is independent of its paternity. But if I am asked about that, I should only answer on my own judgment (not a good one in such a matter, as I have told you) that it is decidedly by Gainsborough, and in his best way of conception. My argument would be of the Johnsonian kind: if it is not by G., who the devil is it by? There are some perhaps feeble touches here and there in the tree in the centre, though not in those autumnal leaves that shoot into the sky to the right: but who painted that clump of thick solemn trees to the left of the picture:--the light of evening rising like a low fire between their boles? The cattle too in the water, how they stand! The picture must be an original of somebody's: and if not of Gainsborough's--whose? It is better painted far than the Market Cart in the National Gallery: but not better, only equal (in a sketchy way) to the beautiful evening Watering Place.

Now I have raised your expectations too high. But when you have looked at the picture some time, you will agree with me. I say all this in sober honesty, for upon my word, whether it be by Gainsborough or not, it is a kind of pang to me to part from the picture: I believe I should like it all the better for its being a little fatherless b.a.s.t.a.r.d which I have picked up in the streets, and made clean and comfortable. Yet, if your friend tells you it is by G. I shall be glad you should possess it. Any how, never part with it but to me.

I must tell you my friend Laurence still persists it is not by Gainsborough: but I have thrown him quite overboard. Oh the comfort of independent self confidence! Said Laurence also observed that Gainsborough was the Goldsmith of Painters: which is perhaps true. I should like to know if he would know an original of Goldsmith, if I read something to him. He is a nice fellow this Laurence by the way.

Our prospect of going down to Suffolk this year is much on the wane: the Doctor has desired that Lusia should remain in town. Though I should like much to see you and others, yet I am on the whole glad that my sisters should stay here, where they are likely to be better off. I shall stay with them, as I am of use. I may however run down one day to give you a look. I wish you would enquire and let me know how Mr. Jenney {96} is: he was not well when my Father was in Suffolk. Only _don't ask himself_: he hates that. And now farewell. This is a long letter: but look at it by way of notice when the picture comes to you. If it does not come on Monday don't be angry: but it probably will.

BRIGHTON, _Dec_. 29, 1841.

MY DEAR BARTON,

The account you give of my old Squire 'that he is in a poorish way' does not satisfy me: and I want you to ask Mr. Jones the surgeon, whom you know, and who used to attend on the Squire,--to ask him, I say, how that Squire is. He has been ill for the last two or three winters, and may not be worse now than before. He is one of our oldest friends: and though he and I have not very much in common, he is a part of my country of England, and involved in the very idea of the quiet fields of Suffolk.

He is the owner of old Bredfield House in which I was born--and the seeing him cross the stiles between Hasketon and Bredfield, and riding with his hounds over the lawn, is among the scenes in that novel called The Past which dwell most in my memory. What is the difference between what has been, and what never has been, _none_? At the same time this Squire, so hardy, is indignant at the idea of being ill or laid up: so one must inquire of him by some roundabout means. . . .

We had a large party here last night: Horace Smith came: like his brother James, but better looking: and said to be very agreeable. Do you [know]

that he gives a dreadful account of Mrs. Southey: that meek and Christian poetess: he says, she's a devil in temper. He told my mother so: had you heard of this? I don't believe it yet: one ought not so soon, ought one?

Goodbye.

_To W. B. Donne_.

MONDAY.

MY DEAR DONNE,

Thompson tells me you are writing a Roman History. But you have not been asked to Lecture at the Ipswich Mechanics' Inst.i.tution, as I have--'any subject except controversial Divinity, and party Politics.' In the meantime I have begun Livy: I have read one book, and can't help looking at the four thick octavos that remain--

Oh beate Sesti, Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inch.o.a.re longam. {97}

But it is very stately reading. As to old Niebuhr, it is mean to attack old legends that can't defend themselves. And what does it signify in the least if they are true or not? Whoever _actively_ believed that Romulus was suckled by a wolf? But I have found in Horace a proper motto for those lumbering Germans:

Quis Parthum paveat? quis gelidum Scythen?

Quis Germania quos horrida parturit Foetus? {98}

_To Bernard Barton_.

[GELDESTONE, _Jan_. 1842.]

MY DEAR SIR,

You tell my Father you mean to write a Poem about my invisibility--and somehow it seems strange to myself that I have been so long absent from Woodbridge. It was a toss up (as boys say--and perhaps G.o.ds) whether I should go now:--the toss has decided I should not. On the contrary I am going to see Donne at Mattishall: a visit, which having put off a fortnight ago, I am now determined to pay. But if I do not see you before I go to London, I shall a.s.suredly be down again by the latter part of February: when toasted cheese and ale shall again unite our souls. You need not however expect that I can return to such familiar intercourse as once (in former days) pa.s.sed between us. New honours in society have devolved upon me the necessity of a more dignified deportment. A letter has been sent from the Secretary of the Ipswich Mechanics' Inst.i.tution asking me to Lecture--any subject but Party Politics or Controversial Divinity. On my politely declining, another, a fuller, and a more pressing, letter was sent urging me to comply with their demand: I answered to the same effect, but with accelerated dignity. I am now awaiting the third request in confidence: if you see no symptoms of its being mooted, perhaps you will kindly propose it. I have prepared an answer. Donne is mad with envy. He consoles himself with having got a Roman History to write for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. {99} What a pity it is that only Lying Histories are readable. I am afraid Donne will stick to what is considered the Truth too much.

This is a day like May: I and the children have been scrambling up and down the sides of a pit till our legs ache.

_Jan_. 24/42.

DEAR BARTON,

You mistake. The Poacher was bought in his sh.e.l.l--for 3 pounds--did I not name that price? As you desire a packing case, I will order one to day: and I hope you will have him down on Wednesday, just when your Bank work is over, and you will be glad of such good company. One of my friends thought the picture must have been an antic.i.p.ation of Bill Sykes: put a cap and feathers on his head and you make him Iago, Richard the Third, or any other aristocratic villain. I really think the picture is a very good one of its kind: and one that you will like. {100a}

I am going to get my large Constable very lightly framed, and shall bring it down into Suffolk with me to shew you and others. I like it more and more.

. . . There is something poetical, and almost heroic, in this Expedition to the Niger--the motives lofty and Christian--the issue so disastrous.

Do you remember in A. Cunningham's Scottish Songs {100b} one called 'The Darien Song'? It begins

We will go, maidens, go, To the primrose {100c} woods and mourn, etc.

Look for it. It applies to this business. Some Scotch young folks went out to colonize Darien, and never came back.

Oh there were white hands wav'd, And many a parting hail, As their vessel stemm'd the tide, And stretch'd her snowy sail.

I remember reading this at Aldbro', and the sound of the sea hangs about it always, as upon the lips of a sh.e.l.l.

Farewell for the present. We shall soon be down amongst you.

P.S. I think Northcote drew this picture from life: and I have no doubt there is some story attached to it. The subject may have been some great malefactor. You know that painters like to draw such at times. Northcote could not have painted so well but from life.

_To F. Tennyson_.

LONDON, _February_ 6, 1842.

DEAR FREDERIC,

These fast-following letters of mine seem intended to refute a charge made against me by Morton: that I had only so much impulse of correspondence as resulted from the receipt of a friend's letter. Is it very frivolous to write all these letters, on no business whatsoever?

What I think is, that one will soon be going into the country, where one hears no music, and sees no pictures, and so one will have nothing to write about. I mean to take down a Thucydides, to feed on: like a whole Parmesan. But at present here I am in London: last night I went to see Acis and Galatea brought out, with Handel's music, and Stanfield's scenery: really the best done thing I have seen for many a year. As I sat alone (alone in spirit) in the pit, I wished for you: and now Sunday is over: I have been to church: I have dined at Portland Place: {102} and now I come home to my lodgings: light my pipe: and will whisper something over to Italy. You talk of your Naples: and that one cannot understand Theocritus without having been on those sh.o.r.es. I tell you, you can't understand Macready without coming to London and seeing his revival of Acis and Galatea. You enter Drury Lane at a quarter to seven: the pit is already nearly full: but you find a seat, and a very pleasant one. Box doors open and shut: ladies take off their shawls and seat themselves: gentlemen twist their side curls: the musicians come up from under the stage one by one: 'tis just upon seven: Macready is very punctual: Mr. T.

Cooke is in his place with his marshal's baton in his hand: he lifts it up: and off they set with old Handel's n.o.ble overture. As it is playing, the red velvet curtain (which Macready has subst.i.tuted, not wisely, for the old green one) draws apart: and you see a rich drop scene, all festooned and arabesqued with River G.o.ds, Nymphs, and their emblems; and in the centre a delightful, large, good copy of Poussin's great landscape (of which I used to have a print in my rooms) where the Cyclops is seen seated on a mountain, looking over the sea-sh.o.r.e. The overture ends, the drop scene rises, and there is the sea-sh.o.r.e, a long curling bay: the sea heaving under the moon, and breaking upon the beach, and rolling the surf down--the stage! This is really capitally done. But enough of description. The choruses were well sung, well acted, well dressed, and well grouped; and the whole thing creditable and pleasant. Do you know the music? It is of Handel's best: and as cla.s.sical as any man who wore a full-bottomed wig could write. I think Handel never gets out of his wig: that is, out of his age: his Hallelujah chorus is a chorus not of angels, but of well-fed earthly choristers, ranged tier above tier in a Gothic cathedral, with princes for audience, and their military trumpets flouris.h.i.+ng over the full volume of the organ. Handel's G.o.ds are like Homer's, and his sublime never reaches beyond the region of the clouds.