Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 4

But the Pictures--the Pictures--themselves?

Well, you know how I am sure to mismanage: but you will hardly believe, even of me, that I never saw what was most worth seeing, the Hague Gallery! But so it was: had I been by myself, I should have gone off directly (after landing at Rotterdam) to that: but Mr. Manby was with me: and he thought best to see about Rotterdam first: which was last Thursday, at whose earliest Dawn we arrived. So we tore about in an open Cab: saw nothing: the Gallery not worth a visit: and at night I was half dead with weariness. Then again on Friday I, by myself, should have started for the Hague: but as Amsterdam was also to be done, we thought best to go there (as furthest) first. So we went: tore about the town in a Cab as before: and I raced through the Museum seeing (I must say) little better than what I have seen over and over again in England. I couldn't admire the Night-watch much: Van der Helst's very good Picture seemed to me to have been cleaned: I thought the Rembrandt Burgomasters worth all the rest put together. But I certainly looked very flimsily at all.

Well, all this done, away we went to the Hague: arriving there just as the Museum closed for that day; next Day (Sat.u.r.day) it was not to be open at all (I having proposed to wait in case it should), and on Sunday only from 12 to 2. Hearing all this, in Rage and Despair I tore back to Rotterdam: and on Sat.u.r.day Morning got the Boat out of the muddy Ca.n.a.l in which she lay and tore back down the Maas, etc., so as to reach dear old Bawdsey shortly after Sunday's Sunrise. Oh, my Delight when I heard them call out 'Orford Lights!' as the Boat was plunging over the Swell.

All this is very stupid, really wrong: but you are not surprised at it in me. One reason however of my Disgust was, that we (in our Boat) were shut up (as I said) in the Ca.n.a.l, where I couldn't breathe. I begged Mr.

Manby to let me take him to an Inn: he would stick to his Ship, he said: and I didn't like to leave him. Then it was Murray who misled me about the Hague Gallery: he knew nothing about its being shut on Sat.u.r.days.

Then again we neither of us knew a word of Dutch: and I was surprised how little was known of English in return.

But I shall say no more. I think it is the last foreign Travel I shall ever undertake; unless I should go with you to see the Dresden Madonna: to which there is one less impediment now Holland is not to be gone through. . . . I am the Colour of a Lobster with Sea-faring: and my Eyes smart: so Good-Bye. Let me hear of you. Ever yours E. F. G.

Oh dear!--Rembrandt's Dissection--where and how did I miss that?

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_Aug._ 5/63.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I don't hear from you: I rather think you are deterred by those _Birds_ which I asked you to print (in my last Letter) with some Correction, etc., of your own: and which you have not found Time or Inclination to get done. But don't let anything of this sort prevent your writing to me now and then: no one can be more utterly indifferent than I am whether these Birds are printed or not: and I suppose I distinctly told you _not_ to put yourself to any Trouble. Indeed I dare say I should only be bored with the Copies when they were printed: for I don't know a Soul here who would care for the Thing if it were ten times as well done as I have done it: nor do I care for Translation or Original, myself. Oh dear, when I do look into Homer, Dante, and Virgil, AEschylus, Shakespeare, etc., those Orientals look--silly! Don't resent my saying so. _Don't_ they? I am now a good [deal] about in a new Boat I have built, and thought (as Johnson took c.o.c.ker's Arithmetic with him on travel, because he shouldn't exhaust it) so I would take Dante and Homer with me, instead of Mudie's Books, which I read through directly. I took Dante by way of slow Digestion: not having looked at him for some years: but I am glad to find I relish him as much as ever: he atones with the Sea; as you know does the Odyssey--these are the Men!

I am just returned in my Ship from Holland--where I stayed--two days!--and was so glad to rush away home after being imprisoned in a sluggish un- sweet Ca.n.a.l in Rotterdam: and after tearing about to Amsterdam, the Hague, etc., to see things which were neither new nor remarkable to me though I had never seen them before--except in Pictures, which represent to you the Places as well as if you went there, without the trouble of going. I am sure wiser men, with keener _out_sight and _in_sight would see what no Pictures could give: but this I know is always the case with me: this is my last Voyage abroad, I believe: unless I go to see Raffaelle's Madonna at Dresden, which no other Picture can represent than itself: unless Dante's Beatrice.

I don't think you ever told me if you had got, or read, Spedding's two first volumes of Bacon. My opinion is not the least altered of the Case: and (as I antic.i.p.ated) Spedding has brooded over his Egg so long he has rather addled it. Thompson told me that the very Papers he adduces to clear Bacon in Ess.e.x's Business, rather go against him: I haven't seen any Notice of the Book in any Review but Fraser: where Donne (of course) was convinced, etc., and I hear that even the wise old Spedding is _mortified_ that he has awakened so little Interest for his Hero. You know his Mortification would not be on _his own_ score. His last Letter to me (some months ago) seemed to indicate that he could scarce lift up his Pen to go on--he had as yet, he said, written nothing of volumes 3 and 4. But I suppose he _will_ in time. I say this Life of his wasted on a vain work is a Tragedy pathetic as Antigone or Iphigenia. Of Tennyson I hear but little: and I have ceased to look forward to any future Work of his. Thackeray seems dumb as a gorged Blackbird too: all growing old!

I have lost my sister Kerrich, the only one of my family I much cared for, or who much cared for me.

But (not to dwell on what cannot be helped, and to which my talking of all growing old led me) I see in last week's Athenaeum great Praise of a new Volume of Poems by Jean Ingelow. The Reviewer talks of a 'new Poet,'

etc., quite unaware that some dozen years ago the 'new Poet' published a Volume (as you may remember) with as distinct Indications of sweet, fresh, and original Genius as anything he adduces from this second Volume. I remember writing a sort of Review, when about you at Bramford, which I sent to Mitford, to try and give the Book a little move: but Mitford had just quitted the Gentleman's Magazine, and I tore up my Paper. Your Elizabeth knows (I think) all about this Lady: who, I suppose, is connected with Lincolnshire: for the Reviewer speaks of some of the Poems as relating to that Coast--Shipwrecks, etc. I was told that Tennyson was writing a sort of Lincolnshire Idyll: I will bet on Miss Ingelow now: he should never have left his old County, and gone up to be suffocated by London Adulation. He has lost that which caused the long roll of the Lincolnshire Wave to reverberate in the measure of Locksley Hall. Don't believe that I rejoice like a Dastard in what I believe to be the Decay of a Great Man: my sorrow has been so much about it that (for one reason) I have the less cared to meet him of late years, having nothing to say in sincere praise. Nor do I mean that his Decay is all owing to London, etc. He is growing old: and I don't believe much in the Fine Arts thriving on an old Tree: I can't think Milton's Paradise Lost so good as his Allegro, etc.; one feels the strain of the Pump all through: only Shakespeare--the exception to all rule--struck out Macbeth at past fifty. {47a}

By the way, there is a new--and the best--edition {47b} of _Him_ coming out: edited by two men (Fellows) of Cambridge. Just the Text, with the various readings of Folio and Quartos: scarce any notes: but suggestions of Alteration from Pope, Theobald, Coleridge, etc., and--Spedding; who (as I told him twenty years ago) should have done the work these men are doing. He also says they are well doing about _half_ what is wanted to be done. He should--for he could--have done all; and one Frontispiece Portrait would have served for Author and Editor.

Come--here is a long Letter--and (as I read it over) with more _Go_ than usually attends my old Pen now. Let it inspire you to answer: never mind _the Birds_:--which really suggests to me one of Dante's beautiful lines which made me _cry_ the other Day at Sea.

Mentre che gli occhi per la fronda verde Ficcava io cosi, come far suole Chi dietro all' uccellin la vita perde, Lo piu che Padre mi dicea, etc. {48a}

_To W. B. Donne_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_October_ 4/63.

MY DEAR DONNE,

Very rude of me not to have acknowledged your Tauchnitz {48b} before: but I have been almost living in my Ship ever since: and I supposed also that you were abroad in Norfolk. I pitied you undergoing those dreadful Oratorios: I never heard one that was not tiresome, and in part ludicrous. Such subjects are scarce fitted for Catgut. Even Magnus Handel--even Messiah. He (Handel) was a good old Pagan at heart, and (till he had to yield to the fashionable Piety of England) stuck to Opera, and Cantatas, such as Acis and Galatea, Milton's Penseroso, Alexander's Feast, etc., where he could revel and plunge and frolic without being tied down to Orthodoxy. And these are (to my mind) his really great works: these, and his Coronation Anthems, where Human Pomp is to be accompanied and ill.u.s.trated

Now for Tauchnitz; somehow, that which you sent me is not the thing: I don't like it half so well as my little Tauchnitz stereotype Sophocles of 1827. The Euripides you send bears date 1846: and is certainly not so clear to my eyes as 1827. Never mind: don't trouble yourself further: I shall light upon what I want one of these Days. It is wonderful how _The Sea_ brought up this Appet.i.te for Greek: it likes to be called [Greek text] and [Greek text] better than the wretched word '_Sea_,' I am sure: and the Greeks (especially AEschylus--after Homer) are full of Seafaring Sounds and Allusions. I think the Murmur of the AEgean (if that is their Sea) wrought itself into their Language. How is it the Islandic (which I read is our Mother Tongue) was not more Poluphloisboi-ic?

Sophocles has almost shaken my Allegiance to AEschylus. Oh, those two OEdipuses! but then that Agamemnon! Well: one shall be the Handel and 'tother the Haydn; one the Michel Angelo, and 'tother the Raffaelle, of Tragedy. As to the famous Prometheus, I think, as I always thought, it is somewhat over-rated for Sublimity; I can't see much in the far famed Conception of the Hero's Character: and I doubt (_rest wanting_).

_To S. Laurence_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.

_Jan._ 7/64.

DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I want to know about your two Portraits of Thackeray: the first one (which I think Smith and Elder have) I know by the Print: I want to know about one you last did (some two years ago?) whether you think it as good and characteristic: and also who has it. Frederic Tennyson sent me a Photograph of W. M. T. old, white, ma.s.sive, and melancholy, sitting in his Library.

I am surprized almost to find how much I am thinking of him: so little as I had seen him for the last ten years; not once for the last five. I had been told--by you, for one--that he was spoiled. I am glad therefore that I have scarce seen him since he was 'old Thackeray.' I keep reading his Newcomes of nights, and as it were hear him saying so much in it; and it seems to me as if he might be coming up my Stairs, and about to come (singing) into my Room, as in old Charlotte Street, etc., thirty years ago. {50}

_To George Crabbe_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.

_Jan._ 12/64.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . Have we exchanged a word about Thackeray since his Death? I am quite surprised to see how I sit moping about him: to be sure, I keep reading his Books. Oh, the Newcomes are fine! And now I have got hold of Pendennis, and seem to like that much more than when I first read it.

I keep hearing him say so much of it; and really think I shall hear his Step up the Stairs to this Lodging as in old Charlotte Street thirty years ago. Really, a great Figure has sunk under Earth.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.

_Jan._ 23/64.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

You see I return with your other troubles of Term time. Only when you have ten spare minutes let me know how you are, etc. . . . I have almost wondered at myself how much occupied I have been thinking of Thackeray; so little as I had seen of him for the last ten years, and my Interest in him a little gone from hearing he had become somewhat spoiled: which also some of his later writings hinted to me of themselves. But his Letters, and former works, bring me back the old Thackeray. . . . I had never read Pendennis and the Newcomes since their first appearance till this last month. They are wonderful; Fielding's seems to me coa.r.s.e work in comparison. I have indeed been thinking of little this last month but of these Books and their Author. Of his Letters to me I have only kept some Dozen, just to mark the different Epochs of our Acquaintance.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.

_Jan._ 31/64.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I have only Today got your Letter: have been walking out by myself in the Seckford Almshouse Garden till 9 p.m. in a sharp Frost--with Orion stalking over the South before me--(do you know him in India? I forget) have come in--drunk a gla.s.s of Porter; and am minded to answer you before I get to Bed. Perhaps the Porter will leave me stranded, however, before I get to the End of my Letter.

Before this reaches you--probably before I write it--you will have heard of Thackeray's sudden Death. It was told me as I was walking alone in those same Seckford Gardens on Christmas-day Night; by a Corn-merchant--one George Manby--(do you remember him?) who came on purpose to tell me--and to wish me in other respects a Happy Christmas. I have thought little else than of W. M. T. ever since--what with reading over his Books, and the few Letters I had kept of his; and thinking over our five and thirty years' Acquaintance as I sit alone by my Fire these long Nights. I had seen very little of him for these last ten years; _nothing_ for the last five; he did not care to write; and people told me he was become a little spoiled: by London praise, and some consequent Egotism. But he was a very fine Fellow. His Books are wonderful: Pendennis; Vanity Fair; and the Newcomes; to which compared Fielding's seems to me coa.r.s.e work. I don't know yet how his two daughters are left provided for; the Papers say well. He had built and furnished a fine House at 7 or 8000 pounds cost; which is as good a Property for them to let or sell as any other, I suppose; and the Copyright of his Books must also be a good Property: always supposing he had not enc.u.mbered all these by antic.i.p.ation.

I was not at all well myself for three months; but either the Doctor's Stuff, or the sharp clear weather, or both, have set me up pretty much as I was before. I have nothing to tell, as usual, of People or Places; for I have scarce stirred from this Place since my little Ship was laid up in the middle of October. Donne writes sometimes; I see an article of his about the Antonines advertised in the present Edinburgh; but that you know is out of my Line. His second son, Mowbray, is lately married to a Daughter (I don't know which) of Mrs. Salmon's; widow of a former Rector here, whom your Elizabeth will remember all about, I dare say.

This time ten years I was lodging at Oxford, reading Persian with you. I doubt I shall never do so again; I am too lazy to turn Dictionaries over now; and indeed had some while ceased to expect much to turn up from them. You are quite right, as a Scholar, to work out the Mine; but you admit that nothing is likely to come out of such Value as from the Greek, Latin, and English, which we have ready to our hands. Did I tell you how pleased I had been with Sophocles and AEschylus in my Boat this Summer?

I dare say you are quite right about my 'Birds': indeed I think I had always told you that my Version was of no _public_ use; I only wanted a few Copies for private use; and I wanted you to add a short Account, and a few Notes; in which I am shy of trusting my own Irish Accuracy. But you have plenty of better work, and _this_ is quite as well left.

Miss Ingelow's second volume isn't half so good as her first, to my thinking; more ambitious, with a tw.a.n.g of Tennyson. I can't add to the List you have sent of Elizabeth's Poems.