Tennyson and His Friends Part 29

It speaks of many a friend, Whom I shall meet no more on Life's dark road, It warns that _here_ I must await the end And cast no look abroad.

IV

Thou ever roaring Sea!

I love thee, for that o'er thy waters come The stately ships, breasting them gloriously, That bring me news of home.

V

I cannot pray for grace-- My soul is heavy, and my sickness sore-- Wilt Thou, O G.o.d, for ever hide Thy face?

O! turn to me once more.

MADEIRA, _November 30, 1853_.

Drake's career at Eton and Cambridge really interested him, for my old friend was an ardent worshipper of the Poet in days before Tennyson's fame had become a national a.s.set. I showed with some pride "Of old sat Freedom on the heights," translated into Latin Alcaics, a version very popular with Etonians and King's men. Scholarship has made gigantic strides since it appeared; "those who know" can read and see if we overvalued it.

OF OLD SAT FREEDOM

Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights: She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, And fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal'd The fulness of her face--

Grave mother of majestic works, From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, G.o.d-like, grasps the triple forks, And, King-like, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth.

The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams, Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes!

_Idem--Latine redditum_

Olim insedebat montibus arduis Disiecta cernens sub pede fulmina Divina Libertas; superque Astra faces agitare vidit;

Et confluentes audiit undique Amnes, opertis in penetralibus Exultat, et ritu Sibyllae Mente sua latet involuta,

Sed vocis altae fragmina praepetes Venti ferebant.--Inde novalia Per culta discendens, per urbes Diva homines aditura venit,

Ut vultus aegros ante oculos virum Sensim pateret--mox parit integram Virtutem et altari marino Suppositum speculatur orbem--

Quae seu deorum more acies gerit Dextra trifurcas, seu caput induit Regina regali corona.

Expet.i.t, insequiturque verum.

Quae mille victrix experientiam Collegit annos: o Dea, sic tibi Aeterna si duret iuventus Neu lacrymis oculi madescant;

Sic enitebis, sic dabis aureos Dies alumnis, aurea somnia; Sic ore divino refelles Quae properat malesuadus error.

When distinguished visitors came to the Island, who were on terms of friendship with the Poet, I gave him warning that I should not appear on the scene and spoil their pleasure; but to this condition he would not a.s.sent, and I can recall frequent occasions when I must have been a fly in the ointment, and the Jowetts, Bradleys, and distinguished Americans would have wished me at Jericho. Once I felt entirely at my ease, for I determined to start the subject of Dr. Johnson, worshipped by me from my boyhood. I knew my Birkbeck Hill pretty well by heart, having quite recently read the six volumes of his edition of Boswell, notes and all, to a blind friend who rejoiced in hearing them. Further than that, I had made a pilgrimage to Lichfield, and by the kindness of a Mr. Lomax, who owned the relics, had examined and handled a varied a.s.sortment of goods and chattels, once undoubtedly the property of the great Samuel. The pedigree was thus accounted for by my courteous showman. After Dr. Johnson's death, Barber, his black servant, migrated from London to Lichfield, "bringing his sheaves with him"; amongst the _spolia opima_ were a huge teapot and a ma.n.u.script copy of Devotions. Fortified with the recollections of this pilgrimage, and some out-of-the-way facts told to me by the residentiary Canon, my dear old friend Bishop Abraham, I started on a two hours' walk with the Poet and Professor Jowett. It was easy to lead up to the theme of conversation--there was no difficulty whatever. I thought of Johnson's own plan of extinguishing subjects which he intended at all costs to avoid.

When Mrs. Neale asked his opinion of the conversational powers of Charles James Fox, "he talked to me one day at the Club," said he, "concerning Catiline's conspiracy, so I withdrew my attention and thought about Tom Thumb." Every moment of that afternoon walk, Dr. Johnson was our theme, and we capped one another with long quotations from Boswell. Jowett chirped, the Poet gave wonderful emphasis and point to the oracles, often pausing suddenly in his walk, and cross-examining me on my remembered version of the actual words. I noted the upshot of our talk. Lord Tennyson agreed with the Master of Balliol "that Boswell was a man of real genius, and resembled Goldsmith in many points of character."

Miss L----, Doctor Johnson's G.o.dchild, used to tell a disagreeable story about him. Tennyson said about this:

_T._ "One should not lay stress on these oddities and angularities of great men. They should never be hawked about."

_T._ "'Break, break' was made one early summer morning, in a Lincolnshire lane. 'Crossing the Bar' cost me five minutes one day last November."

_T._ "At ten years of age I wrote an epic poem of great length--it was in the 'Marmion' style. I used to rush about the fields, with a stick for a sword, and fancied myself a conqueror advancing upon an enemy's country."

_T._ "My prize poem 'Timbuctoo' was an altered version of a work I had written at home and called 'The Battle of Armageddon.' I fell out with my father, for I had no wish to compete for the prize and he insisted on my writing. To my amazement, the prize was awarded to me. I couldn't face the public recitation in the Senate House, feeling very much as Cowper felt; Merivale declaimed my poem for me in the Senate House."

_T._ "Arthur Hallam said to me in 1832: 'To-day I have seen the last English King going in State to the last English Parliament.'"

I believe that one of Tennyson's first idylls was addressed to Miss K.

Bradshaw, sister of my beloved friend Henry Bradshaw (fellow and librarian of King's College, Cambridge), whose relationship to the Judge who condemned Charles I. was rather a tender point with H. B., both at Eton and King's.

Because she bore the iron name Of him who doomed his king to die, I deemed her one of stately frame And looks to awe her stander by.

But find a maiden, tender, shy, With fair blue eyes and winning sweet, And longed to kiss her hand, and lie A thousand summers at her feet.

I pressed the Poet more than once to put on record his own interpretation of pa.s.sages in "In Memoriam" and others which needed the authority of his own explanation. "Surely you took 'four square to all the winds that blow'

from Dante's

Ben tetragono ai colpi della Ventura?"

"No, it was not in my mind." Again, I quoted his expression, "hollow shapes enclosing hearts of flame," thinking it had arisen from Beckford's _Vathek_. The answer was "No, merely spectral visions."

_T._ "Some of my poems depend on single sayings, single lines which have served me for a theme. My poem of 'The Brigand' is founded on a story told in the Autobiography of that great and gallant gentleman, Walter Scott."

_T._ "Edward FitzGerald and I used to weary of the hopelessly prosaic lines in some books of 'The Excursion,' and we had a contest, the prize for which was to be for the weakest line by mutual consent that we could either of us invent. FitzGerald declared the line was his--it really was mine--'A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.'" I wish I could have told him of Jem Stephen's commentary on "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," "That is no reason why we should lie about Heaven in our old age." Among other pa.s.sages he quotes with admiration Wordsworth's lines on the "Simplon Pa.s.s."