Two Suffolk Friends Part 5

There is no understanding FitzGerald till one fully realises that vulgar ambition had absolutely no place in his nature. Your a.s.s in the lion's skin nowadays is the a.s.s who fain would be lionised; and the modern version of the parable of the talents is too often the man who, untalented, tries to palm off Brummagem counterfeits. FitzGerald's fear was not that he would write worse than half his compeers, but that he might write as ill. "This visionary inactivity," he tells John Allen, "is better than the mischievous activity of so many I see about me." He applied Malthus's teaching to literature; he was content so long as he pleased the Tennysons, some half-dozen other friends, and himself, than whom no critic ever was more fastidious. And when one thinks of all the "great poems" that were published during his lifetime, and read and praised (more praised than read perhaps), and then forgotten, one wonders if, after all, he was so wholly wrong in that he read for profit and scribbled for amus.e.m.e.nt,--that he communed with his own heart and was still. Besides, had he not "awful examples"? There was the Suffolk parson, his contemporary, who announced at nineteen that he had read all Shakespeare and Milton, and did not see why he should not at any rate equal them. So he fell to work--his poems were a joy to FitzGerald. Then there was Bernard Barton. FitzGerald glances at his pa.s.sion for publishing, his belief that "there could not be too much poetry abroad."

And lastly there was Carlyle, half scornful of FitzGerald's "ultra modesty and innocent _far-niente_ life," his own superhuman activity regarded meanwhile by FitzGerald with a gentle half-pitying wonder, of which one catches a premonitory echo in this extract from a long letter {87} of Sir Frederick Pollock's to W. H. Thompson. It bears date 14th February 1840, two years before Carlyle and FitzGerald met:--

"Carlyle's 'Chartism' has been much read. It has fine things in it, but nothing new. He is eminently a man of one idea, but then neither he nor any one else knows exactly what that one is. So that by dint of shifting it about to and fro, and, as you observe, clothing his remarks in the safe obscurity of a foreign language, he manages to produce a great impression. Truly he is a trumpet that gives an uncertain sound, an instrument of no base metal, but played without book, whose compa.s.s is not ascertained, and continually failing from straining at too high a note. Spedding has not yet found him out; FitzGerald has, and we lamentably rejoice at our melancholy discovery.

Never was there such a waste of Faith as in that man. He is ever preaching Faith. Very well, but in what? Why, again says he, 'Faith'--that is, Faith in Faith. Objectless, purposeless, unmeaning, disappearing, and eluding all grasp when any occasion for action arises, when anything is to be done, as sufficiently appears from the miserable unpracticability of the latter chapters of the 'Chartism,'

where he comes forward to give directions for what is to be done."

FitzGerald's wide, albeit eclectic reading, is sufficiently ill.u.s.trated on every page of his published Letters. When, fourteen years before his death, his eyesight began to fail him, he employed boy-readers, one of whom read him the whole of the Tichborne trial. One summer night in 1889 I sat and smoked with this boy, a pleasant young man, in the bar-parlour of the Bull Hotel. He told me how Mr FitzGerald always gave him plenty of plum-cake, and how they used to play piquet together. Only sometimes a tame mouse would come out and sit on the table, and then not a card must be dropped. A pretty picture! In the bar-parlour sat an oldish man, who presently joined in our conversation. He had made the lead coffin for "the old Major" (FitzGerald's father), and another for Mr John; and he seemed half to resent that he had not performed the same office for Mr Edward himself, for whom, however, he once built a boat. He told me, moreover, how years before Mr FitzGerald had congratulated him on some symptoms of heart disease, had said he had it himself, and was glad of it, for "when he came to die, he didn't want to have a lot of women messing about him."

Next day I went and called on FitzGerald's old housekeeper, Mrs Howe, and her husband. She the "Fairy G.o.dmother," as FitzGerald delighted to call her, was blithe and chirpy as ever, with pleasant talk of "our gentleman": "So kind he was, not never one to make no obstacles. Such a joky gentleman he was, too. Why, once he says to me, 'Mrs Howe, I didn't know we had express trains here.' And I said, 'Whatever _do_ you mean, sir?' and he says, 'Why, look at Mrs ---'s dress there.' And, sure enough, she had a long train to it, you know." Her husband ("the King of Clubs") was eighty-four, but the same cheery, simple soul he always was.

Mr Spalding, one broiling day, saw him standing bare-headed, and peering intently for good five minutes into the pond at Little Grange. "What is it, Howe?" he asked him; and the old man presently answered, "How fond them ducks dew seem of water, _to_ be sure." Which, for some cause or other, greatly tickled FitzGerald.

I was staying in Woodbridge at the "Bull," kept whilom by "good John Grout," from whom FitzGerald procured the Scotch ale which he would set to the fire till it "just had a smile on it," and who every Christmas sent him a present of mince-pies and a jug of punch. An excellent man, and a mighty horse-dealer, better versed in horse-flesh than in literature. After a visit from Lord Tennyson, FitzGerald told Grout that Woodbridge should feel itself honoured. John had not quite understood, so presently took a chance of asking my father who that gentleman was Mr FitzGerald had been talking of. "Mr Tennyson," said my father, "the poet- laureate." "Dissay," {90} said John, warily; "anyhow he didn't fare to know much about hosses when I showed him over my stables."

From my bedroom window I could see FitzGerald's old lodgings over Berry's, where he sojourned from 1860 till 1873. The cause of his leaving them is only half told in Mr Aldis Wright's edition of the Letters (p. 365, footnote). Mr Berry, a small man, had taken to himself a second wife, a buxom widow weighing fourteen stone; and she, being very genteel, could not brook the idea of keeping a lodger. So one day--I have heard FitzGerald tell the story--came a timid rap at the door of his sitting-room, a deep "Now, Berry, be firm," and a mild "Yes, my dear;"

and Berry appeared on the threshold. Hesitatingly he explained that "Mrs Berry, you know, sir--really extremely sorry--but not been used, sir,"

&c., &c. Then from the rear, a deep "And you've got to tell him about Old Gooseberry, Berry," a deprecatory "Certainly, my love;" and poor Berry stammered forth, "And I am told, sir, that you said--you said--I had long been old Berry, but now--now you should call me Old Gooseberry."

So FitzGerald had to make up his mind at last to migrate to his own house, Little Grange, which he had bought more than nine years before, and enlarged and made a very pretty place of. "I shall never live in it, but I shall die there," he once said to a friend. Both predictions were falsified, for he did live there nearly ten years, and his death took place at Merton, in Norfolk.

{Little Grange: p91.jpg}

I wandered through the grounds of Little Grange, hardly changed except that there were now no doves. There was the "Quarterdeck" walk, and there was the Summerhouse, to which Charles Keene used to retire with his bagpipes. I can hear FitzGerald saying to my father, "Keene has a theory that we open our mouths too much; but whether he bottles up his wind to play the bagpipes, or whether he plays the bagpipes to get rid of his bottled-up wind, I do not know, and I don't suppose I ever shall know."

From Little Grange I walked two miles out to Bredfield Hall, FitzGerald's birthplace. It is a stately old Jacobean mansion, though sadly beplastered, for surely its natural colour is red-brick, like that of the outbuildings. Among these I came upon an old, old labourer, who "remembered Mr Edward well. Why, he'd often come up, he would, and sit on that there bench by the ca.n.a.l, nivver sayin' nothin'. But he took on wonnerful, that he did, if ivver they touched any of the owd trees." Not many of them are standing now, and what there are, are all "dying atop."

{The Cottage, Boulge: p93.jpg}

It is a short walk from Bredfield Hall to Bredfield church and vicarage.

Both must be a good deal altered by restoration and enlargement since the days (1834-57) of George Crabbe, the poet's son, about whom there is so much in the Letters, and of whom I have often heard tell. He went up to the great Exhibition of 1851; and, after his return, my father asked him what he thought of it. "Thought of it, my dear sir! When I entered that vast emporium of the world's commerce, I lifted up my arms and SHOUTED for amazement." From Bredfield a charming walk through the fields (trudged how many times by FitzGerald!) leads to the little one-storeyed cottage in Boulge Park, where he lived from 1838 till 1853. It probably is scarcely changed at all, with its low-pitched thatch roof forming eyebrows over the brown-shuttered windows. "Cold and draughty," says the woman who was living in it, and who showed me FitzGerald's old parlour and bedroom. The very nails were still in the walls on which he hung his big pictures. Boulge Hall, then tenantless, a large modern white-brick house, brought me soon to Boulge church, half-hidden by trees. Fitzgerald sleeps beneath its redbrick tower. His grave is marked by a flat granite monument, carved with a cross-fleury. Pity, it seemed, that no roses grew over it. {94}

Afterwards, for auld langsyne, I took a long pull down the Deben river; and next morning I visited Farlingay Hall, the farmhouse where Carlyle stayed with FitzGerald in 1855. It is not a farmhouse now, but a goodly old-fashioned mansion, red-tiled, dormer-windowed, and all covered with roses and creepers. A charming young lady showed me some of the rooms, and pointed out a fine elm-tree in the meadow, beneath which Carlyle smoked his pipe. Finally, if any one would know more of the country round Woodbridge, let him turn up an article in the 'Magazine of Art' for 1885, by Professor Sidney Colvin, on "East Suffolk Memories, Inland and Home."

{Farlingay Hall: p95.jpg}

But, besides this, I saw a good deal of Mr John Loder, third in a line of Woodbridge booksellers, who knew FitzGerald for many years, and has much to tell of him which were well worth preserving. From him I received a loan of Mr Elihu Vedder's splendid ill.u.s.trations to the 'Rubaiyat,' and a couple of presents. The first is a pencil-drawing of FitzGerald's yacht; the second, a book, "made up," like so many others, by FitzGerald, and comprising this one, three French plays, a privately printed article on Moore, and the first edition of 'A Little Dinner at Timmins's.' Then with Mr Barrett, the Ipswich bookseller, who likewise knew FitzGerald, I had two chance meetings; and last but not least, I spent a most pleasant day at Colchester with Mr Frederick Spalding, curator now of the museum there.

Sitting in his alcove, hewn out of the ma.s.sy wall of the Norman keep, he poured forth story after story of FitzGerald, and showed me his memorials of their friendship. This was a copy of Miss Edgeworth's 'Frank,' in German and English, given to FitzGerald at Edgeworthstown (_cf._ 'Letters,' p. 74); and that, FitzGerald's own school copy of Boswell's 'Johnson,' which he gave Mr Spalding, first writing on the fly-leaf--"He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were alone in his study, 'Boswell, I am almost easier with you than with anybody' (vol. v. p.

75)." Here, again, was a sc.r.a.p-book, containing, _inter alia_, a long and interesting unpublished letter from Carlyle to FitzGerald about the projected Naseby monument, and a fragment of a letter from Frederic Tennyson, criticising the Laureate's "Welcome to Alexandra." Not being a short-hand reporter or American interviewer, I am not going to try to reproduce Mr Spalding's discourse (he must do that himself some day); but a letter of his in the 'East Anglian' of 8th July 1889 I will reprint:--

The fishing Lugger built at Lowestoft was named the "Meum and Tuum,"

commonly called by the fishermen there the "Mum and Tum," much to Mr FitzGerald's amus.e.m.e.nt; and the ship alluded to by Mr Gosse was the pretty schooner of 15 tons, built by Harvey, of Wyvenhoe, and named the "Scandal," after "the main staple of Woodbridge." My friend, T.

N., the skipper, gave a different account of the origin of the name. I was standing with him on the Lowestoft Fish Market, close to which the little "Scandal" was moored, after an early dive from her deck, when Tom was addressed by one of two ladies: "Pray, my man, can you tell me who owns that very pretty yacht?" "Mr Edward FitzGerald of Woodbridge, ma'am," said Tom, touching his cap. "And can you tell us her name?" "The 'Scandal,' ma'am." "Dear me! how came he to select such a very peculiar name?" "Well, ma'am, the fact is, all the other names were taken up, so that we were forced to have either that or none." The ladies at once moved on.

Mr Spalding, further, has placed in my hands a bundle of seventy letters, written to himself by FitzGerald between 1862 and 1882. Some of them relate to mere business matters (such as the building of Little Grange), and some to private affairs; but the following extracts have a high and exceptional value, as ill.u.s.trating a feature in FitzGerald's life that is little touched on in the published Letters--his strong love of the sea and of sailors:--

"GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES, _Feb._ 5, 1862.

['Letters,' p. 284.] {98}

". . . I have been twice to old Wright, who has built a Boat of about 14 feet on speculation: and has laid down the keel of a new wherry, on speculation also. But he has as yet no Orders, and thinks his Business is like to be very slack. Indeed the _Rail_ now begins to creep over the Marsh, and even to come pretty close to the River, over which it is to cross into Beccles. But you, I think, surmise that this Rail will not hurt Wright so much as he fears it will. Poor old Boy--I found him well and hearty on Sunday; but on Sunday night and Monday he was seized with such Rheumatism (I think Rheumatic Gout) in one leg as has given him no rest or sleep since. It is, he says, 'as if somethin' was a-tearin' the Flesh off his Bones.' I showed him two of the guilty Screws which had almost let my Leaden Keel part from the wooden one: he says he had desired the Smith not to make _too_ large heads, and the Smith accordingly made them too small; and some Apprentice had, he supposes, fixed them in without further inspection. There is such honesty and cheerfulness in Wright's Saxon Eyes and Countenance when he faces such a charge as disarms all one's wrath."

"11 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT, _July_ 17, '65.

['Letters,' p. 301.]

". . . Yes, I sent Newson and Cooper home to the Shipwreck Dinner at Woodbridge, and supposing they would be maudlin on Sat.u.r.day, gave them Sunday to repent on, and so have lost the only fine Days we have yet had for sailing. To-day is a dead Calm. 'These are my Trials!' as a fine Gentleman said to Wesley, when his Servant put rather too many Coals on the Fire.

". . . Somehow, I always feel at home here,--partly that the place itself is very suited to me: I have known it these 40 years, particularly connected with my Sister Kerrich, whose Death has left a sort of sad interest shed over it. It was a mere Toss-up in 1860 whether I was to stay at Woodbridge, or come to reside here, when my residing would have been of some use to her then, and her Children now.

"Now then I am expecting my 'Merry Men' from Woodbridge, to get out my Billyboy, and get into what Sailors call _the Doldrums_, . . . "

"3 SION HILL, RAMSGATE, _August_ 25/65.

['Letters,' p. 301.]

"I got here all right and very quick from our Harbour on Monday Morng.

And here I shall be till Monday: then shall probably go with my Brother [Peter] to Dover and Calais: and so hope to be home by the middle or later part of next week. . . . To-day is going on a Regatta before the windows where I write: shall I never have done with these tiresome Regattas? And to-night the Harbour is to be _captured_ after an obstinate defence by 36-pounders in a sham fight, so we shall go deaf to Bed. We had really a famous sail from Felixtow Ferry; getting out of it at 7 A.M., and being off Broadstairs (3 miles from here) as the clock on the sh.o.r.e struck twelve. After that we were an hour getting into this very Port, because of a strong Tide against us. . . ."

"11 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT, _March_ 28, 1866.

['Letters,' p. 303.]

". . . The change has been of some use, I think, in brightening me. My long solitary habit of Life now begins to tell upon me, and I am got past the very cure which only could counteract it: Company or Society: of which I have lost the Taste too long to endure again. So, as I have made my Bed, I must lie in it--and die in it. . . ."

"LOWESTOFT, _April_ 2, '66. [Ib.]

". . . I am going to be here another week: as I think it really has freshened me up a bit. Especially going out in a Boat with my good Fletcher, though I get perished with the N.E. wind. I believe I never shall do unless in a Lodging, as I have lived these 40 years. It is too late, I doubt, to reform in a House of one's own. . . . Dove, {101} unlike Noah's Dove, brings no report of a green leaf when I ask him about the Gra.s.s seed. . . ."

"LOWESTOFT, _April_ 3, '66. [Ib.]

". . . Looking over the Tombstones of the old Churchyard this morning, I observed how very many announced the Lease of Life expired at about the same date which I entered upon last Sat.u.r.day [fifty-seven]. I know it is time to set one's House in order--when Mr Dove has done his part."

"COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT, _Friday_, _June_ 30, 1866.

['Letters,' p. 305.]

"We got here very well on Tuesday eveng. Wednesday I sent Newson and Crew over to Portsmouth, where they didn't see the one thing I sent them for, namely, Nelson's Ship, the 'Victory,' but where they bought two Pair of Trousers, which they call 'Dungaree.' Yesterday we went to Poole--a place I had long a very slight Desire to see; and which was not worth the seeing. To-day we came back here: I regretting rather we had not run further along the Coast to Weymouth and Teignmouth, where I should have seen my Friend Mansfield the Shipwright. It was a little weakness of mine, in _not_ changing orders, but, having talked of going only to Poole, I left it as it was. The weather has been only _too_ fine: the sea too calm. Here we are in front of this pretty place, with many Yachts at anchor and sailing about us: nearly all Schooners, little and great, of all which I think we are the 'Pitman' (see Moor's 'Words'). I must say I am very tired of seeing only Schooners. Newson was beaten horribly yesterday by a Ryde open Boat of about 7 or 8 tons, which stood right into the wind, but he soon afterwards completely distanced a Billy- boy, which put us in Spirits again. I am very contented (in my way) pottering about here alone, or with my Crew of two, and I believe cd bundle on for a Month in such a way. But I shall soon be home. I have thought of you To-day when your Sale is going on, at the same time as my _Sail_. Pretty Wit! . . ."

The next letter refers to an accident that befell the Scandal. She was lying at Lowestoft, in the Fishmarket basin, when a huge Continental steamer came drifting down on her. "Mr FitzGerald," so Mr Spalding tells me, "just said in his slow melodious voice, {103} 'My poor little ship will be cracked like a nutsh.e.l.l;' and he took my arm to force me ash.o.r.e.

But I refused to go unless he went too, and just then the cable held on the weather-side of the steamer towering up above us; still, our 'channel- boards,' over which the shrouds are tautened, were crushed up flat to the yacht's side, and perhaps some stanchions were injured too."

"SCANDAL, _Sept._ 19, '66. [Ib.]

". . . Mr Manby is wrong about our getting no compensation for the Damage (so far as it cd be _seen_) inflicted on us by the steamer. Whether we could _claim_ it or not, the Steamer Captain granted it: being (as Newson says) quite a Gentleman, &c. So we have had the Carpenters for two Days, who have restored the broken Stanchions, &c. What mischief the Shock may have done to the Body of the Ship remains to be proved: 'Anyhow, it can't have done her any good,' says Job's Comforter, Captn. Newson. The Steamer's Captain admitted that he had expected us to be cracked like a Walnut.

"Now, I want you to tell me of this. You know of Newson's lending _Posh_ {104} money. I have advised that, beside an I.O.U. from Posh, he should give security upon some of his Effects: Boats, Nets, or other Gear. Tell me how this should be done, if you can: the Form of Writing required: and perhaps what Interest Newson should have on his Money.

"Last night at the 'Suffolk' I was where Newson, Posh, & Co. were at their Ale: a little of which got into Newson's head: who began to touch up Posh about such an Apparatus of Rockets, Mortars, etc., for the Rescue of those two stranded Vessels, when he declares that he and one or two Felixstowe Men would have pushed off a Boat through the pauses of the Surf, and done all that was wanted. _He_ had seen, and been on, the Shipwash scores of times when the jump of the Ship pitched him on his Back, and sent the Topmast flying. So had Posh on the Home-sand here, he said; his Sand was just as bad as Tom's, he knew; and the Lowestoft Men just as good as the Felixstowe, &c. I fomented the Quarrel gently:--no _Quarrel_, or I should not: all Newson meant (which I believe is very true) there are so _many_ men here, and no _one Man to command_, that they are worse off with all their Men and Boats than at the Ferry [Bawdsey], where Newson or Percival are Spokesmen and Masters. This I have explained to Posh To-day, as he was sitting, like Abraham, in his Tent--like an Apostle, mending his nets. 'Posh, your Frill was out last night?' 'No--no--only I didn't like to hear the Lowestoft Chaps weren't as good, etc., especially before the Stranger Men from Harwich, etc.'"

"LOWESTOFT, _October_ 7, '66. [Ib.]

". . . 'Posh' went off in his new, old Lugger, {105} which I call 'The Porpoise,' on Thursday: came in yesterday with a Last and a half of Herrings: and is just put to Sea again, Sunday though it be. It is reported to be an extraordinary Herring Year, _along sh.o.r.e_: and now he goes into deeper Water. I am amused to see Newson's _devotion_ to his younger Friend: he won't leave him a moment if possible, was the first to see him come in yesterday, and has just watched him out of sight. He declined having any Bill of Sale on Posh's Goods for Money lent; old as he is (enough to distrust all Mankind)--has perfect reliance on his Honour, Industry, Skill, and Luck. This is a pretty Sight to me. I tell Newson he has at last found his Master, and become possessed of that troublesome thing: an anxious Regard for some one.