A Letter Book

The first of these letters, with the sonnet, appears, I think, in all editions of Walton, who has apparently entered the date wrongly. The other three were copied for me from the 1670 original by Miss Elsie Hitchcock, I have slightly modernised a few spellings in them.

96

Epistolae Hoelianae or Familiar Letters (1657).

97

Indeed his correspondents are probably sometimes, if not always, imaginary: and many of the letters are only what in modern periodicals are called "middle" articles on this and that subject, headed and tailed with the usual letter-formulas.

98

Some 400 pages from and to him in the most compendious edition.

99

He thought, writing to Lord Spencer about 1690, that we have "few tolerable letters of our own country" excepting – and that only in a fashion – those of Bacon, Donne and Howell.

100

"Odorumque canum vis– as Lucretius expresses it" – perhaps requires a note. Evelyn ought to have known his Lucretius, the first book of which he translated and which he was only prevented from completing by some foolish scruples which Jeremy Taylor wisely but vainly combated. And Lucretius is fond of vis as meaning "quality" or "faculty." But Evelyn almost certainly was thinking also, more or less, of Virgil's "odora canum vis," Aen. iv. 132.

101

The second passage needs little annotation except that Wrest, in Bedfordshire, where Dorothy met her importunate lover, was the seat of Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent. There is said to be a picture there of Sir William Temple – a copy of Lely's. Wrest Park is only a few miles from Chicksands. In the first "Lady Carlisle" is Lucy Percy or Hay, a "great person" in many ways – beauty, rank, wit, influence etc. – but hardly a good one. As for "Doralise" Dorothy is quite right. She is one of the brightest features of the huge Grand Cyrus. Perhaps it may be just necessary to remind readers that "servant" constantly = "lover"; that "side" refers to the sheet of paper she is using; and that "abuse" = "deceive," not "misuse" or "vituperate."

102

As such, it has commended itself to other selectors. But duplication, though it has been sedulously avoided here, is sometimes almost inevitable.

103

I.e. the part of facilitating the operation, and disappearing in the results aimed at.

104

The likeness, however, ended with the favouritism: for Madame de Grignan, in spite of good looks and good wits, was apparently detested by everybody, except her mother, and deserved it: while nobody has anything to say against Lady Bute.

105

It is, of course, not merely business-like – the mixture of something else makes it rather fascinating. They were curiously fond of elopements in the eighteenth century, Sheridan's satire in The Rivals having ample justification. Nor was this merely due to the more severe exercise of paternal authority. For they often preferred (as the philosophical parent of the celebrated Mrs. Greville remarked when his daughter ran away with Mr. G.) to "get out of the window when there was not the slightest objection to their passing through the door."

106

Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies of Great Britain who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the Learned Languages Arts & Sciences, appeared at Oxford in 4to (1752) and 8vo (1775). It contains some sixty lives, the most noteworthy names being those of Queens Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Countess of Richmond (the "Lady Margaret"), the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Winchelsea, the two Countesses of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister" and Anne Clifford), Dame Juliana Barnes or Berners, Dryden's Anne Killigrew, Dorothy Pakington (the alleged author of The Whole Duty of Man), and "the matchless Orinda."

107

Perhaps a note should be added on "Mrs. Hopton" and "F. Turbe(r)ville." The former, born Susanna Harvey (1627-1709), was the wife of a Welsh judge, and wrote devotional works. The latter, Henry T. (d. 1678: the "F" of text is of course "Father"), was a writer of doctrinal and controversial manuals on the Roman side.

108

"St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public, importance in politics.

109

Anstey's – referred to in the Introduction.

110

By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.

111

Lord Strathmore.

112

There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or the imitation-Spectator paper in Esmond is the more wonderful of their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own name.

113

"Acuminate" = "sharpen," is a perfectly good word in itself, but perhaps does not so perfectly suit "despair," which crushes rather than pierces.

114

One would expect either "did" or "other": but the actual combination is a very likely slip of pen or press.

115

I cannot remember whether anybody has ever made a list of the books that Coleridge did not write. It would be the catalogue of a most interesting library in Utopia.

116

See Wordsworth's Triad.

117

Lamb would have enjoyed a recent newspaper paragraph which, stating that an inquest had been held on some one who, after lecturing somewhere was taken ill and expired, concluded thus: "Verdict: death from natural causes."

118

No one who has seen the Roman girl's hair at York, nearer two thousand than two hundred years old, will doubt this, though her tresses are not "yellow."

119

Clever as she was, she surely made a mistake here – unless she did it on purpose, which is quite possible. "Cadger" is of course only "beggar," and the proverb is the Scotch equivalent of ours about the "beggar on horseback," pretty frequently illustrated now-a-days.

120

The Deerbrook breakfasts refer to Miss Martineau's poor novel. (T. C.)

121

Turned. (T. C.)

122

Indeed it exemplifies Defoe's favourite proverb about "What is bred in the bone," etc. – as for instance when, while admitting Chesterfield's high position in some ways, he calls the Letters "for the most part trash." It is scarcely too much to call such criticism itself "trashy."

123

Anna Jameson (1794-1860) was a woman of letters and an art-critic at one time of immense influence through her illustrated books on "Sacred and Legendary" (as well as some other) "Art." But, as somehow or other happens not infrequently, the objects of her "affection and generosity" did not include her husband.

124

"Fitz's" remarks on Landor's judgment of "Pictures, Books and Men" are very amusing; for they have been often repeated in regard to his own on all these subjects. In fact the two, though FitzGerald was not so childish as Landor, had much in common.

125

The curious eulogy – preferring it to Oxford as being "large and busy" enough to "drown one as much" as London – is also very characteristic of FitzGerald. You can be alone in the country and in a large town – hardly in a small one.

126

Sometimes one thinks her the wisest woman who ever lived. "Nothing seems stranger than the delusions of other people when they have ceased to be our own" suggests La Rochefoucauld and comes near to Solomon; but whosoever may have anticipated or prompted her, he is not at the moment within my memory. But she is often not wise at all: and even her good wits are not always left unaffected by her bad temper. It is really amusing to read Mrs. Carlyle's rather mischievous account of Mrs. Butler (F. K.'s married name) calling and carrying a whip "to keep her hand in": and then to come on F. K.'s waspish resentment at these words, when they were published.

127

One of the pleasantest, to me, of Dickens's letters is that in which, extravagant anti-Tory as he was, he refuses to let a contributor echo the too common grudges at Lockhart (see inf. under Stevenson). But it is very short, and perhaps of no general interest.

128

Referring, I suppose, to the well-known and "inimitable" (but by no means indispensable) flourish of his signature.

129

"The comedy" is Bulwer-Lytton's Not so Bad as we Seem, acted by Dickens and other amateurs for charity at Devonshire House seventy years ago, and about to be reproduced in loco as these proofs are being revised.

130

Of this moratorium I believe I duly advised R. L. S. and I don't think he objected. There was, if I remember rightly, a further reason for it – that I was living in two places at the time and the subject was not immediately at hand.

131

Lockhart's (self-given) name in the "Chaldee MS." was "the Scorpion that delighteth to sting the faces of men."

132

Maupassant's ineffable hero and title-giver.

133

Hardly any school-boy of my or Stevenson's generation would have needed a reference to the Essay on Murder. But I am told that De Quincey has gone out of fashion, with school-boys and others.

134

We know now: also what "The Duke" said when consulted. They did not agree with Stevenson, but then they knew all the facts and he did not.

135

I should have held it myself, if the facts had been what R. L. S. thought them.

136

Which of course is Mr. Kipling's property, not mine. But he has most kindly joined in, authorising its publication, and that of the rest of the letter as far as he is concerned.