Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) Part 37

{134a} February 9th, 1878.

{134b} It was not in the _Fortnightly_ but in the _Nineteenth Century_.

{134c} This portrait is in my possession. FitzGerald fastened it in a copy of the 'Poems chiefly Lyrical' (1830) which he gave me bound up with the 'Poems' of 1833. He wrote underneath, 'Done in a Steamboat from Gravesend to London, Jan: 1842.'

{135a} Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus by H. A. J. Munro.

{135b} See 'Letters,' ii. 233, 235, 236, 238, 239.

{136} See 'Letters,' ii. 247.

{138a} See 'Letters,' ii. 243.

{138b} See 'Letters,' ii. 248.

{145} See 'Letters,' ii. 265.

{146} II. 166 (ed. 1826).

{149} John Purcell FitzGerald died at Boulge, May 4th, 1879.

{151a} See letter of May 5th, 1877.

{151b} In a letter to me dated May 7th, 1879, he says:--

'I see by Athenaeum that Charles Tennyson (Turner) is dead. _Now_ people will begin to talk of his beautiful Sonnets: small, but original, things, as well as beautiful. Especially after that somewhat absurd Sale of the Brothers' early Editions.'

{152} Gay, _The Beggar's Opera_, Act III, Air 57.

{153} Professor Skeat's Inaugural Lecture, in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for February 1879, pp. 304-313.

{154} Mrs. Sartoris, Mrs. Kemble's sister, died August 4, 1879. See 'Further Records,' ii. 277.

{155} Edwin Edwards, who died September 15. See 'Letters,' ii. 277.

{157} In a letter to me of September 29 1879, he says, "My object in going to London is, to see poor Mrs. Edwards, who writes me that she has much collapsed in strength (no wonder!) after the Trial she endured for near three years more or less, and, you know, a very hard light for the last year . . .

"Besides her, Mrs. Kemble, who has lately lost her Sister, and returned from Switzerland to London just at a time when most of her Friends are out of it--_she_ wants to see me, an old Friend of hers and her Family's, whom she has not seen for more than twenty years. So I do hope to do my 'pet.i.t possible' to solace both these poor Ladies at the same time."

{158} On September 11 he wrote to me, 'Ah, pleasant Dunwich Days! I should never know a better Boy than Edwards, nor a braver little Wife than her, were I to live six times as long as I am like to do.'

{160} See letter of October 4, 1875.

{161} Mrs. Leigh's son, Pierce Butler, was born on Sunday, November 2, 1879.

{162} See 'Letters,' ii. 326.

{163a} Mrs. Kemble appears to have adopted this suggestion. In her 'Records of a Girlhood,' ii. 41, she says of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 'He came repeatedly to consult with my mother about the disputed point of my dress, and gave his sanction to her decision upon it. The first dress of Belvidera [in _Venice Preserved_], I remember, was a point of nice discussion between them. . . . I was allowed (not, however, without serious demur on the part of Lawrence) to cover my head with a black hat and white feather.'

{163b} William Mason.

{166} November 10, 1879.

{168} Mrs. De Soyres died at Exeter, December 11, 1879.

{169} Played at St. James's Theatre, December 18, 1879.

{171} 'The Duke's Children.'

{173} Probably the 'Records of Later Life,' published in 1882.

{174} On 1st February 1880, FitzGerald wrote to me:--"Do you know what 'Stub Iron' is? (I do), and what 'Heel-taps' derives from, which Mrs.

Kemble asks, and I cannot tell her." This is probably the query referred to.

{175} Beginning 'As men may children at their sports behold!'--Tales of the Hall, book xxi., at the end of 'Smugglers and Poachers.'

{176} In the _Cornhill Magazine_, March 1880, 'The Story of the Merchant of Venice.'

{179} 'An Eye-witness of John Kemble,' by Sir Theodore Martin. The eye- witness is Tieck.

{180a} This letter was written on a Tuesday, and April 6 was a Tuesday in 1880. Moreover, in 1880, at Easter, Donne's house was in quarantine.

FitzGerald probably had the advanced sheets of the _Atlantic Monthly_ for May from Professor Norton as early as the beginning of April.

{180b} The _Atlantic Monthly_ for May 1880, contained an article by Mr.

G. E. Woodberry on Crabbe, 'A Neglected Poet.' See letter to Professor Norton, May 1, 1880, in 'Letters,' ii. 281.

{181a} No. 39, where FitzGerald's father and mother lived. See 'Records of a Girlhood,' iii. 28.

{181b} See 'Letters,' ii. 138.

{183a} It was Queen Catharine. When Mrs. Siddons called upon Johnson in 1783, he "particularly asked her which of Shakespeare's characters she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen Catharine, in _Henry the Eighth_, the most natural:--'I think so too, Madam, (said he;) and when ever you perform it, I will once more hobble out to the theatre myself.'"--Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (ed.

Birkbeck Hill), iv. 242.

{183b} See letters of February and December 1881.

{184a} See 'Letters,' ii. 244, 249.

{184b} On June 30, 1880, he wrote to me, 'Half her Beauty is the liquid melodiousness of her language--all unpremeditated as a Blackbird's.'

{186} See letter of May 5, 1877.

{187} In a letter to me of the same date he wrote: 'Last night when Miss Tox was just coming, like a good Soul, to ask about the ruined Dombey, we heard a Splash of Rain, and I had the Book shut up, and sat listening to the Shower by myself--till it blew over, I am sorry to say, and no more of the sort all night. But we are thankful for that small mercy.

'I am reading through my Sevigne again--welcome as the flowers of May.'

{188a} On June 9, 1879, FitzGerald wrote to me: "I was from Tuesday to Sat.u.r.day last in Norfolk with my old Bredfield Party--George, not very well: and, as he has not written to tell me he is better, I am rather anxious. You should know him; and his Country: which is still the old Country which we have lost here; small enclosures, with hedgeway timber: green gipsey drift-ways: and Crome Cottage and Farmhouse of that beautiful yellow 'Claylump' with red pantile roof'd--not the d---d Brick and Slate of these parts."

{188b} See 'Letters,' ii. 290.