Two Suffolk Friends Part 9

{58e} So an "old sack" was thrown over her. Some such measures have from earliest times been found necessary to enable each occupant of the different _sees_ to keep his _seat_ and maintain order. In older times "Canons" were made; of late other measures have been taken--_e.g._, "An Act for the Regulation of Divine Service." The sack was then "hullt on,"--thrown on,--but roughly, not gently. This is noteworthy.

{59a} "Corn in the sieve" evidently refers to some more _palatable_ measure than the "old sack." "Give her some oats, do not give her the sack only." Perhaps the Ecclesiastical Commissioners may represent the present givers of corn.

{59b} But all in vain, whether to enable the riders to mount on the "sore back," or for prolonging her life. "She chanced for to die." _The Church disestablished_.

{59c} And lies in the highroad, a prize for all comers.

{59d} But by "dead as a nit" evidently is meant more than _disestablished_; it means also _disendowed_. Else, what of "all the dogs in the town," each craving and clamouring for his bone? It was so three hundred years ago. Each dog "_spook_ for a bone," and _got it_.

{59e} "All but the Parson's dog." The poor vicars never got back a bit of the impropriate t.i.thes; the seats of learning got comparatively little. The "dogs about town" got most. Then, in the last touching words, "the Parson's dog he went wi' none," yet still singing, "Folderol diddledol, hidum humpf."

{62} Something.

{63} Quiet.

{68} A copy of his will lies before me; it opens:--"In the name of G.o.d, Amen. I, Robinson Groome, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, mariner, being of sound mind and disposing disposition, and considering the perils and dangers of the seas and other uncertainties of this transitory world, do, for the sake of avoiding controversies after my decease, make this my Will," &c.

{69} Years before, FitzGerald and my father called together at Ufford.

The drawing-room there had been newly refurnished, and FitzGerald sat himself down on an amber satin couch. Presently a black stream was seen trickling over it. It came from a penny bottle of ink, which FitzGerald had bought in Woodbridge and put in a tail-pocket.

{70} Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald. (3 vols.

Macmillan, 1889; 2d ed. of Letters, 2 vols. 1894.) Reference may also be made to Mr Wright's article in the 'Dictionary of National Biography'; to another, of special charm and interest, by Professor Cowell, in the new edition of Chambers's Encyclopaedia; to Sir Frederick Pollock's Personal Reminiscences; to the Life of Lord Houghton; to an article by Edward Clodd in the 'English Ill.u.s.trated Magazine' (1894); to the 'Edinburgh Review' (1895); and to FitzGerald's Letters to f.a.n.n.y Kemble in 'Temple Bar' (1895).

{76} This was the hymn--its words, like the music, by my father--that is printed at the end of this volume.

{81} Reprinted in vol. ii. of the American edition of FitzGerald's Works.

{87} That letter is one item in the printed and ma.n.u.script, prose and verse, contents of four big Commonplace Books, formed by the late Master of Trinity, and given at his death by Mrs Thompson to my father. They included a good many unpublished poems by Lord Tennyson, Frederic Tennyson, Archbishop Trench, Thackeray, Sir F. Doyle, &c. My father gave up the _Tennysoniana_ to Lord Tennyson.

{90} Suffolk for "I daresay."

{94} So I wrote six years since, and now a rose tree does grow over it, a rose tree raised in Kew Gardens from hips brought by William Simpson, the veteran artist traveller, from Omar's grave at Naishapur, and planted here by my brother members of the Omar Khayyam Club on 7th October 1893 ('Concerning a Pilgrimage to the Grave of Edward FitzGerald.' By Edward Clodd Privately printed, 1894).

{98} I append throughout the page of the published letters that comes nearest in date.

{101} Mr Dove was the builder of Little Grange.

{103} His voice was unforgetable. Mr Mowbray Donne quotes in a letter this pa.s.sage from FitzGerald's published Letters: "What bothered me in London was--all the Clever People going wrong with such clever Reasons for so doing which I couldn't confute." And he adds: "How good that is.

I can hear him saying 'which I couldn't confute' with a break on his tone of voice at the end of 'couldn't.' You remember how he used to speak--like a cricket-ball, with a break on it, or like his own favourite image of the wave falling over. A Suffolk wave--that was a point."

{104} _Posh_ was the nickname of a favourite sailor, the lugger's skipper, as _Ba.s.sey_ was Newson's. _Posser_, mentioned presently, was, Mr Spalding thinks, Posh's brother, at any rate a fisherman and boatman, with whom Mr FitzGerald used to sail in Posh's absence.

{105} A second-hand boat that Posh bought at Southwold before the building of the "Meum and Tuum."

{108} This Levi it was, the proprietor of a fish-shop at Lowestoft, that used always to ask FitzGerald of the welfare of his brother John: "And how is the General, bless him?"

"How many times, Mr Levi, must I tell you my brother is no General, and never was in the army?"

"Ah, well, it is my mistake, no doubt. But anyhow, bless him."

{113} An extra large mackerel.--Sea Words and Phrases.

{121} An odd contrast all this to the calmness with which your ordinary Christian discharges (his duty and) a drunken servant, or shakes off a disreputable friend.

{122} Compare the old folk rhyme--

"A whistling woman and a crowing hen Are hateful alike to G.o.d and men."