· my long life. having been asked to write my reminis cences of myself and of my family, and of...
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Au tobiograph ic Sketch
Author of
T he Concordance to Shakespeare,"
T he Girlhood of
Shakespeare’
s Heroines,
”! T he Iron Cousms,
Etc .,etc .
I count myself in noth ing else so happy,
As in a soul remembering my g ood friends
SHAKES PEARE
N ew York
My Long L ife .
HAVING been asked to write my remin is
cences of myself and of my family, and of
the persons distinguished in l i terature or
art whom I have known , I have the rather
consented because I have been blessed with
a greatly privileged and happy l ife .
I was born on the 2 2d of June , 1809, i n
the same house where my father, Vincent
Novello, was born No . 240 Oxford Street,or, as it was then cal led , Oxford Road, for
it st i ll bore some traces of a somewhat
suburban exit from that western quarter of
London . I ts vicin ity to Hyde Park and
Kens ington Gardens , i ts closeness to Edge
ware Road and Bayswater Road , i ts com
mand ing from i ts attic storey a distant
view of the Surrey Hil ls , combined to pro
duce a rural as well as urban effect to the
MYJ 'LONG LIFE .
impression upon my earl iest days . I used
to watch the waggon that j ogged past ou r
door of an evening, with its tarpaul in cover
and its lantern swinging at i ts rear, and
th inking how delightful i t would be to take
a journey into the country loll ing inside
this comfortable conveyance . The early
market-carts that rumbled by of a morn ing,
with thei r supply of fresh vegetables and
frui t, bringing a del icious ai r from the
region of meadows full of buttercups and
daisies , made me long to be out among
the lanes and fields these carts came from .
But even Hyde Park , where I was in
trusted to convoy my younger brothers
and sisters, suppl ied me with enjoyment
of those fine old elm-trees , those stretches
of grass I beheld . Such th ings as half
penny little mugs of curds and whey were
extant in those days,
- sold near to the
Park entrance , then called Cumberland
Gate , now known as the Marble Arch ;and which dainty refection seemed prop
erly rustic and appropriate . The rail ing
MY LONG LIFE . 5
adjacent to the gate was , at that period ,permitted to be strung wi th rows of printed
old- fashioned bal lads , such as Cruel Bar
bara Allen,
’ etc .
To give an idea of the then ne ighbour
hood , there was a smal l stat ionery shop in
Quebec S treet , kept by a M i ss Lavoine ,where we ch ildren bought slates and slate
pencils ; and a certain bakery in Bryan
ston Street that had a curved iron rai l ing
below i ts shop window, which tempted us
to spend some of our pocket money in
pennyworths of old-world ginge rbread
fig ure-cakes
,i n the shape of l ions , tigers ,
horses,dogs
,cocks , and hens, castles, al
phabets and other obj ects , besides sel l ing
crisp squares of ‘ parl iament ,’ crunched by
us with considerable satisfaction . A few
doors farther down Oxford Street there
was a grocer’s shop kept by a M r . Harvey,
whose snow-white hair and jet-black eyes
remain pictured in my memory, and who
used,when my mother bought tea and
sugar of h im,to make up a smal l packet
6 MY LONG LIFE .
of the caraway comfits that occupied one
of his shop windows , together with heart
shaped horehound , etc ., presenting the
aforesaid packet to us . We must have
been consc ientiously brought-up l i ttle
people ; for once , when a young man I
had never seen before was standing behind
the counter in l ieu of the master, and was
proceeding to make up the usual packet,I said to h im :
‘ Did M r. Harvey al low
you to give us those sugar-plums ? ’ He
smiled and repl ied : ‘ I am doing this for
h im . I am M r. Harvey ’s son .
’ I may
mention here another instance of ou r con
scientious bringing-up .
I went to a party of young people ,where they were playing at a round game
of cards , and they asked me to join them .
When the nursery-maid came to fetch me
home , the lady of the house offered me
some si lve r, saying : ‘ Take this seven -and
sixpence , you have won it .’ ‘ I thought
,
’
I repl ied , ‘ that we were playing with coun
ters ; I saw them on the table , ma’am . I
MY LONG LIFE . 7
d id not know we were playing for money.
I have none , and could not have paid if I
had los t . Therefore I can ’t have won,and
can ’t take that si lver. ’ When I went home
and told my mother what had happened,she
said : You did wel l to refuse the money,
and gave the right reason for doing so .
’
One of the children ’ s parties we were
invited to every year was given on the
Feast of the Holy Innocents by an old
French gentleman and his s iste r, Mr . and
M i ss Lamour. He was very kind to chil
dren,though so notoriously i rate at wh ist
that we recognised him many years afte r
at N ice by th e description a gentleman
gave of h im as the man who most lost his
temper at whist ever known . But on
those old-t ime parties of the Holy Inno
cents ’ evening, M r. Lamour used to play
the viol i n for us whi le we danced , and en
courag ed us to sing after helping round
high piles of muffi ns and crumpets, and
final ly sending each l ittle chi ld home with
a packet of cakes , and almonds and rais ins .
8 MY LONG LIFE .
Another of our urban del ights in those
days was watching, from the window of
our front-parlour soldiers ’
as they passed by from the barracks in
Portman Street to parade in Hyde Park .
F i rst came a magnificent and imperious
drum-maj or, who , notwithstanding the
importance with which he wielded his tal l
staff of office,seeming solemnly to pick his
way with i t, used to cast a smi l ing eye
toward the group of young faces that
peered admiringly over the low, green
blind at h im and his bril l ian t troop pre
ceded by its band of music .
One of the chief figures among these
was a black man , who brandished and
clashed a pai r of dazzl ing cymbals ; and
another was also a black , who upheld
a kind of orien tal standard that had
horse tails dangl ing therefrom,and j ing
l ing bel ls pendant from a central s ilver
crescent .
I do not know whether these figures
sti l l form part of the British mil i tary band ,
MY LONG LIFE . 9
but they impressively dazzle and give pic
turesqueness to my memory of it in that
epoch . They add bri l l iancy to thosemornings , and strengthen the contrast
they afford with the dimness of the pre
vions even ings , for Oxford Street was then
l ighted at n ight by oil lamps, gas l ighting
not being invented .
Opposi te to our house was Camelford
House , where Prince Leopold and Prin
cess Charlotte resided when in town , and
a pleasan t sigh t it used to be to me to
watch the Prince with the Princess beside
him— he driving his curricle , with its
gl it tering steel bar across , the prancing
horses and the outriders i n thei r green and
gold Coburg l ivery— sett ing forth to
take an ai ring round Hyde Park . Once I
saw her going to Court, the indispensable
h O O p til ted sideways to enable her to take
her seat in the carriage , and the equally
indispensable huge plume O f feathers
then required for Court costume . When
her early death threw all England into
I O MY LONG LIFE .
mourning — for no one , however poor,but had at least a scrap of crape about them
my father set to music Le igh Hunt ’s
touching verses , H is departed love to
Prince Leopold .
’
My two brothers , Alfred and Edward ,when qui te l i ttle boys , were sent to a M r.
Foothead’
s i n th e New Road , and I used
to escort them there , we three trundl ing
our hoops along Baker S tree t, after
stopping to peep through the rail ings
round the gardens of Montague House
and th ink of the legend about Mrs . Mon
tag ue’
s finding her son (whom she had
lost when straying in the streets) i n the
person of a l i ttl e sooty cl imbing boy, who
had been stolen by a master ch imney
sweep , had been unwittingly sent to the
very house where he was born , that he
m ight sweep its chimneys , but had , by
some subtlety of instinct ive sympathy,crept into one of its beds and was found
there by his own mother.
Our parents were bountiful in providing
MY LONG LIFE . I I
us with books ; plain , unornate books ,very unlike the present j uven i le volumes
,
full of h igh ly-coloured illustrat ions, O ften
scarcely read by thei r young recipients,so
lavishly are these gifts bestowed by fond
relations and friends , but fewer in num
ber, and dil igently perused over and over
again , reread and treasured by us young
Novellos . Fi rst , there was Mrs . Bar
hauld ’s Charles-Book ’
(as we used to cal l
i t) ; then came M i ss Edg eworth’
s Frank,
’
‘ Rosamond ’ and ‘ Parents ’ Assistant ’ ;Day’s ’ Sandford and Merton ’
; the wise
and cheerful ‘ Evenings at Home ’
;‘ A
Visit for a Week ’
;‘ The Juven ile Trav
el lers ’ ;‘ The 100Wonders O f the World
The Book of Trades and fEsop’
s Fables .
Often , after a hard day’s teach ing, my
father used to have h is breakfast in bed
next morn ing,when we children were
allowed to scramble up to the counterpane
and l ie around him to see what new book
he had bought for us , and listen to h is de
scription and explanation of it . Never can
12 MY LONG LIFE .
I forget the boundless joy and interest with
wh ich I heard h im tel l about the contents of
two volumes he had just brought home , as
he showed me the printed pictures i n them .
They were an early edition of ‘ Lamb ’ s
Tales from Shakespeare .
’ And what a
vast world O f new ideas and new del ights
that opened to me l— a world in which I
have ever since much dwel t, and always
with supreme pleasure and admiration .
On Sundays I knel t beside my mother in
the Portuguese Embassy ’ s Chapel , South
Street, Grosvenor Square , where my father
was organist for s ix-and-twenty years . A
central figure i n the picture that small
sanctuary has painted on my memory is
that O f my godfather, the Reverend Wil
l iam Victor Fryer, as he officiated at the al
tar, i rradiated by the l ight from the tal l wax
candles thereon , and when he stood in the
pulpit del ivering the sermon . His attitude
here was simple yet impressive, and it i s
the atti tude represented in the pencil por
t rai t of h im , drawn by Wageman , who was
MY LONG LIFE . 13
famous for h is correct l ikenesses . I have
that portrai t stil l , and it shows M r . Fryer
standing with raised hand , hold ing a cam
bric pocket-handkerch ief, h is most usual
pos i tion while preach ing. I t was from
the Reverend William Victor Fryer that I
obtained my second name , Victoria ; and
from my mother my fi rs t name , Mary.
To him my father dedicated h is first work,
Sacred Music ,’ i n two vols . and th is , with
several Masses composed by h imself, be
sides introducing Mozart ’s and Haydn ’s
Masses for the firs t t ime In England , were
performed at South Street chapel by my
father. His organ-playing attained such
renown that i t attracted numerous persons ,
even among the nobil ity, whose carriages
waited for them outside while they l ingered
to the end of the service , and after ; for it
was playful ly said that his ‘ voluntaries’
i n tended to ‘ play out ’ the congregat ion
on the contrary , kept them in , l isten ing to
the ve ry last note .
The even ing partiesi
at 240 Oxford S treet
14 MY LONG LIFE .
were marked by a j udicious economy
blended with the utmost refinement and
good taste ; the supper refection was of
the simplest, E l ia ’s ‘ Chapte r on Ears ’
eloquently recording the ‘ friendly supper
tray ’ and draught of t rue jg utheran Beer’
which succeeded to the feasts of music
provided by the host ’s playing on the
small but fine-toned chamber organ , which
occupied one end of the graceful drawing
room . This was papered with a delicately
tinted pink colour, showing to advantage
the choice water-colour paintings by Varley,
Copley, Fielding, Havel l and Cristal l that
hung around . These artists were all pe r
sonal ly known to Vincent Novello, and
were not unfrequent vis itors on these 0c
casions . The floor was covered by a plain
grey drugget, bordered by a beautifu l gar
land O f grapes and vine-leaves , designed
and worked by my mother herself. Be
s ides the guests above named , there were
often presen t Charles and Mary Lamb,Leigh Hunt
, j ohn’
Keats and ever-wel
16 MY LONG LIFE .
Wel l was I rewarded , for, as he passed
before our house , he gave a glance up at
it, and I beheld h is seraph-l ike face , with
its blue eyes, and aureoled by its golden
hai r .
An enchanting treat of those childish
years was what we called ‘ a clay in the
fields . ’ Our place of assembl ing was gen
erally some spot between Hampstead and
Highgate (no Regent’s Park or ZoOlog ical
Gardens then in existence !) and there we
met, by appointment, Leigh Hunt and his
family, the Gliddons and thei r famil ies , our
company being often enhanced in bright
ness by the advent from town of l ively
Henry Robertson and ever-young Charles
Cowden-Clarke . The picn ic part of our
entertainment was cold lamb and salad
prepared by my mother, she being an ac
knowledged adept in the dressing of th is
latte r. O ther toothsome cates supple
mented the out-of-door dinner, while more
intel l ectual food was not wanting . Leigh
Hunt once read out to us Dogbe rry ’s
MY LONG LIFE . 17
‘ Charge to the Watchmen ,’ and another
t ime gave us the two scenes,from Sheri
dan ’s ‘ Rivals ,’ between S i r Anthony and
his son . Leigh Hunt ’s reading aloud
was the perfection of sp iri ted perusal .
He possessed innate fasci nation of voice,look and manner . While he was in Horse
monger Lane Jail for the l ibel on the
Prince Regent, Mr. John Clarke , maste r of
the school at Enfield , i n accordance with
h is son Charles ’s wish , used to send by
h im fresh vegetables and fruit to Le igh
Hunt from the Enfield garden . This was
the school where John Keats was educated,
and where he learned to love poetry from
his ‘ Fri end Charles ,’ as he styles h im in
h is noble ‘ Epistl e to Charles Cowden
Clarke . ’
When Le igh Hunt left prison , my
father asked h im to s it for h is portrai t to
Wageman,—a dearly-prized portrai t that
I stil l have near me in my own room . I t
is the very best l ikeness I have ever seen
of h im ; and well do I remember h is poet
I 8 MY LONG LIFE .
face and his bent head , with its j et-black
hai r, as he ,wrote h is name beneath the
penci l drawing .
During our ch ildhood we had some
healthful changes to other ai r than that of
London . On one occasion my parents
took us , by one of the earl iest steam-vessels
that pl ied on the Thames (called a Mar
gate Hoy), for a short trip to the seaside .
As th is steamer left the London Docks,I
heard a man i n a Wherry bawl out jeer
ing ly, I say !bile up yere kettle l We
had made some way down the river when
a portion of the mach inery broke, and
there was much confusion and alarm on
deck among the passengers . My dear
mother bade me hide my head in her lap
and remai n sti ll . I did so , and she praised
me for my quiet and obedience . The
vessel managed to reach the shore ; we
disembarked ; and I remember my father
carrying the then baby in his arms while
we all walked across the fields towards
M i lton or S etting bourne, at one of which
MY LONG LIFE . 19
places , on the Kentish High Road , we had
to stay ti l l next day, when we could pro
ceed on our j ourney by the stage-coach .
We were sti l l young ch ildren when our
parents removed from 2 40 Oxford Street
to 8 Percy Street, Bedford Square ; and
soon afte r our removal th ither,my mother
resolved to take us to Boulogne-sur-M er
for a thorough ‘sea change ,
’ and i n order
that we might gain some idea of French
and French envi ronments . We travelled
by the s tage-coach to Dover (there were
no railways then), but when we arrived
there , i t was found that the wi nd did not
serve for the sail ing-packet to cross the
Channel , so we had to stay for three days
at an in n , t i l l we could embark . When we
reached ou r destination , we boarded in the
house of a very stout , good-natured woman ,
with numerous stalwart sons , fishermen
all . Halfway up the Grande Rue , leading
from the lower town to the high town ,
th ere was a school kept by a M r. Bonnefoy ,
who had a comfortable,motherly woman
20 MY LONG LIFE .
for a wife ; and she not only brought up
wel l her own ch i ldren , but took kindly care
of the schoolboys . Here my mother de
c ided to leave my eldest brother, Alfred ,for a twelvemonth , that he might learn to
speak the language ; and so thoroughly was
th is accompl ished , that he spoke it fluently,and even , he said , began to t/zz
'
né in French ,thus famil iar had i t become . When we
other chi ldren returned home, dear, kind
Mary Lamb offered to give me lessons
i n Latin , and to teach me to read verse
properly an offer eagerly accepted for me
by my father and mothe r. I used , there
fore,to trudge regularly, on appointed
mornings, to Great Russel l Street, Covent
Garden , where the Lambs then l ived ; and
one morning, when I entered the room , I
saw a lady sitting with M i ss Lamb , whom
I heard say, Oh , I am now noth ing but
a stocking-mending old woman .
’ This
lady had straight , black brows, and looked
stil l young, I thought , and had a very in
tellig ent, expressive countenance . When
MY LONG LIFE . 2 1
she went away, Miss Lamb said, That
is the excellent actress , M iss Kelly. Look
at her well , Victoria, for she is a woman to
remember having seen .
’ And , i ndeed , th is
was no other than the adm irable artiste to
whom Charles Lamb addressed h is two
sonnets the one beginn ing,
You are not Kelly of the common strain,
’
and the other, on her performance of The
Bl ind Boy,’ beginn ing,
Rare artist, who with half thy tools or noneCanst execute with ease thy curious art. ’
On a subsequent morn ing, a boy came
rush ing into the room and dashed through
the repetit ion of h is Latin lesson wi th a
rap idity that dazzled me , and fired me with
ambition to repeat my conj ugat ions in the
same bril l i ant style . When the boy was
gone— it was Haz litt’
s son , whom Mary
Lamb also taught his Latin grammar I
began trying to scamper th rough my lesson ,
but Mary Lamb wisely stopped me , and
advised me not to attempt what was not in
2 2 MY LONG LIFE.
my sober, steady way . She said, ‘ I t is
natu ral to h im , but not to you . Best be
natu ral i n al l you do , and in all you at
tempt . ’ Her read ing poetry was beauti
fully natural and unaffected ; so that her
mode of beginn ing M il ton ’s ‘ Paradise Lost ’
forme still remains on my mind’s ear. In
curious contrast wi th Mary Lamb ’s lessons
were some that were given , once upon a
time, when a certain old Scotch gentleman
was engaged to teach Lati n and arithmetic
to my brothers, Alfred and Edward, I being
al lowed to share i n the instruction rece ived
from him . This Mr . Ferguson was a
placidly pedan tic person , and when the
servant-maid knelt down near h im to lay
the fire ready for l ighting, he leaned down
and told her how she could best place the
coals ‘ so that the sulphureous particles
should soonest ignite . ’
A very pleasant incident was enjoyed by
me in a few weeks ’ sojourn I had at a
farmhouse near Tunbridge , whither my
parents sent me, they knowing the worthy
24 MY LONG LIFE .
fed pork , formed the del icious periodi
cally-appointed cates . But above all other
j oys to me was the finding, i n an out-O f
the-way corner of the farmhouse, an old
edition of ‘ Si r Charles Grandison .
’ The
book was prin ted in double columns , and
had pictures i n i t. One which particularly
i nterested me was that where S i r Hargrave
Pollixfen is carrying off M iss Byron afte r
the masquerade , beari ng her forcibly into a
chariot, mean ing to marry her against her
will . Ever after that first introduction to
the story, the book , when I became al lowed
to read it, remained a favouri te with me,and I have often been consc ious of wish ing
that its many volumes were as many more .
From Percy Street my parents removed
to an old-fash ioned house and garden on
S hacklewell Green ; and my two elder bro
thers were sent to Mr. Yule ’s academy,near at hand . Here my brother Alfred ’s
famil iari ty with French stood him in good
stead , for he not only translated with ease
and correctness the page of Recueil
MY LONG LIFE . 25
Chois i ass igned to him and to his school
fellows as thei r daily task ; but‘ the boys ’
used to get possession of Novello’
s slate ’
and copy out h is t ranslation as thei r own .
I t was while we lived at S hacklewel l that
my father and mother rece ived letters from
Le igh Hunt (who was then i n I taly), introducing the widowed Mrs . Shel ley and Mrs .
Wi l l iams , who were returning to England
after their terrible bereavement . He de
scribed Mrs . Wollstonecraft ’s daughter as‘ incl ining, l ike a wise and kind being, to
rece ive al l the consolation which the good
and kind can give her ; adding,‘ She is as
qu ie t as a mouse , and wil l drink in as much
Mozart and Paesiello as you choose to
afford her . ’ Accordingly, many were the
occas ions when del icious hours of music
and quiet , but animated and interesti ng,
talk were planned for the two beautiful
young women able and wil l ing to enjoy
such del ights ,’ and choosing not unwisely
‘ to interpose them oft. ’ To meet thus
were frequently invited my uncle,Francis
26 MY LONG LIFE .
Novello , who had a charming bass voice
(he was the bass s ing era t South Street
Chapel during the pe riod when his brother
Vincent was organist there) ; Henry Rob
ertson , as excel len t a tenor singer as he
was excel lent in l ively companionsh ip my
father’s pupil , Edward Holmes , a sterl ing
music ian and adm irable j udge of l iterature ,moreover, a great admirer of the two lady
guests, and Charles Cowden-Clarke , who
shared in al l these attainments and predi
lections , with his never-fail ing, youthful
enthusiasm . Morn ings and afternoons
witnessed numerous ‘ goings th rough ’ of
Mozart’s ‘ Cosi fan tutte ,’ Don G iovann i
,
’
Nozze di Figaro ,’ and various songs of
Paesiello , besides other choice compositions
by other composers ; and not a few even
ings were spent by these well-pleased asso
ciates in prolonged discourse on attractive
topics,til l —forgetful of the lapse of time
—the ladies declared they ‘ must go,’ and
were accompan ied back to town by ou r
gentleman guests , only too pleased to be
MY LONG LIFE . 2 7
the i r escort . I t was at th is period thatM rs . Shelley wrote my name on a copy of
her Frankenstei n ’ which I had already
devoured when given to me by my father,
but which I ardently desi red should have
the glory of her name and mine together
on its blank page . My father was her de
clared adorer, and she h is , while Edward
Holmes was equal ly unreserved in his be
witchment of her ; and they both un ited in
attributing to Charles Cowden-Clarke a de
cided enthralment by the graces of Mrs .
Will iams . Playfu l and mutual gaiety was
the resul t ; while my dear mother joined in
the j est,— even her husband ’s and Mrs .
Shelley ’s avowed interchange of fascination .
The I tal ian form of name evidently l i n
g ered musically i n M rs . Shelley ’s ear, for
she invariably addressed my father as
Vincenzo,
’ and h is brother as Francesco .
’
She gave my father a tress of her mother’s
hai r,knowing that he had always had a
great admirat ion for Mary Wollstonecraft ,although without being personal ly ac
28 MY LONG LIFE .
quainted with her . This tress Mary Shel
l ey accompanied by an affec tionate l ittl e
note to my father, i n I tal ian , which tress
and note are stil l i n my possess ion,care
fully preserved under glass, and treasured ,among othe r rel ics of the kind, in a collec
t ion of haIr I have .
We were st il l res idents at S hacklewell
Green , when my parents resolved to send
me for a time to Boulogne-sur-Mer, that I
might acqu i re the French language ; and
they confided me to the care of the friendly
and estimable Bonnefoy family . O ld Mon
sieur Bonnefoy was one of the most excel
lent of tutors , and certain ly one of the most
s imple-minded of men . The naive way in
which he allowed himself to be supposed
utterly unaware of the preparations for a
due celebration of h is birthday (which was
kept, according to continen tal custom , on
his namesake Saint ’ s day, the feast of S t.
P ierre) was quite remarkable . The boys ’
were allowed to go into the fields and
gather armfuls of Marg uerz’
tes wi thout
MY LONG LIFE . 29
Monsieur Bonnefoy noticing that h is
scholars d id not come to school at the usual
hour ; h is e n te ring the school-room with
complete ignorance of the boy mounted on
a chai r behind the door, ready to drop a
daisy crown on his master’s head,and
wholly unprepared for th e shout of ap
p lause that was to burst from the assembled
concourse of scholars when the coronation
feat was accomplished , formed a tri umph
of utter unconsci ousness . He had , on
ordinary occasions, what he considered an
ingenious contrivance for obtain ing atten
tion when he addressed the boys , by
twitch ing a string, attached to a ball , that
l ifted a moveable cover, beneath which
appeared the word ‘ S z'
lem e and though
I bel ieve i t rarely obtained the desired
object more effectual ly than a similar
sound of bell-jangl ing performed in the
French House of Parl iamen t (which I
once witnessed when in Paris), yet Monsieur
Bonnefoy seemed perfectly satisfied with
the effect he produced i n h is school room .
30 MY LONG LIFE .
I t was between the morning and afternoon
hours of school that my kind old master
gave me h is daily lesson in French , and
very pleasant he made these lessons, giv
ing me dictation from small entertain ing
anecdotes and short stories , contained i n a
book he chose for the purpose,besides
imparting the drier instruction of grammar,
spell ing, etc . , etc . My parents had thought
ful ly taken a season ticket of admission to
the theatre for Monsieu r Bonnefoy and for
me , as one of the very best means of my
gaining famil iarity with colloqu ial French
so my old maste r and I used to trudge to
gether, very will ingly, to the playhouse
whenever there was performance there .
Thus I had the advantage of an introduc
tion to Beaumarchais ’ Mariage de Figaro,
’
and to some of Mol l e re ’s fine comedies ,besides other lighter and shorter dramatic
piec es . There was an actor of the name
of Duhez , who played admirably the part
of Alceste i n Moliere ’s M i santhrope ,’ and
whose look and manner sti l l remain visible
32 MY LONG LIFE .
shown , amused scorn at the Engl ishman’s
astronomical ignorance by looking for the
ris ing moon in the wrong quarter of the
heavens . From our walks round the ram
parts of the h igh town , we passed by a cer
tain bookseller’s shop , kept by a friend of
Monsieur Bonnefoy’
s ; and he never failed
to stop and have a chat with th is friend ,who was a l ively, laughing man , and who
used to show us any new works that he
had added to his store . My days at Bou
log ne were passed most pleasantly and
profitably as regarded my parents ’ views
in sending me there , My heal th was
strengthened , and my appetite was more
vigorous than I have eve r experienced it
elsewhere . Early every morn ing I accom
pan ied Madame Bonnefoy to the market
place , which occupied a broad space in
front of the Ca i/zéa’m le. I t formed a
brill iant and an imated scene,the peasant
women with thei r many-coloured costumes ,the fishwomen with their baskets slung at
thei r backs,their h igh white caps , long
MY LONG LIFE . 33
gold earrings (some mere dangl ing pen
dants , others formed l ike acorns), their
short pett icoats and wooden shoes al l
these people chattering and scream l ng i n
broad f a l‘
ais at the very top of the i r voices .
Am idst them Madame Bonnefoy good
humouredlymade her way, steadily making
her purchases for the day ’s consumption ,pil ing into a large basket, carried by one
of the ever ready j ei mes fiZ/es , at hand for
that purpose . Eggs bought by the quar
ter-hundred at a time , butter i n gigantic
pats of the size and shape of a p ine-apple ,fresh vegetables and meat for the poi -au
feu, set on to seethe and stew as soon as
we went back to the house . Madame
Bonnefoy was a super-excell ent cook , and
she devoted her cul inary skil l to the well
being of her household . At stated periods
she made enormous loaves of pa in d’e
mén e, huge sl ices of which , buttered
with unsparing hand,I used to dispose of
with marvellous gusto . During the fore
noon I studied my lessons ready for my
34 MY LONG LIFE .
mid-day tu ition from Monsieu r Bonnefoy
and i n the even ing came the theatre , or the
walk and talk on the ramparts with him .
On my return to England , i t was agreed
that I should begin my intended pro
fession that of a governess ; and an
engagement was soon found for me in the
family of a gentleman and lady named
Purcell , four of whose children I was to
teach . The ‘ four ’ proved really to be
five , for the youngest was oftener sent to
the school room than kept in the nurse ry.
However,nothing could be kinder to me
than the lady of the house . I was taken
down , l ate one even ing, i n thei r chariot to
thei r country residence at Cranford , and it
was a curious experience to find myself
seated in the dark, with perfect strangers
beside me , and be ing driven to a spot I
had neve r seen . But when I saw i t next
morn ing I found i t a most attract ive cot
tag e on ié. I ts ground -floor rooms were
fitted up in the tastefullest style , one with
a trell ised papering of honeysuckles , in
MY LONG LIFE . 35
terspersed with mirrors let into the wall ;another with roses , chandel iers , girandoles ,and so on , that took my girl ish fancy im
mensely. Before see ing th is pretty in
terior I had been into the garden,fo r I
was always an early riser ; and , moreover,I wanted a quiet hour to make mysel f
acquainted with my new surroundings,and
also to look over the lessons I should
have to give my young pupils during the
day . Even thus immediately I experi
enced the kindness of my lady-employer ;for when she learned that I had asked
whether I might eat an appl e that I found
fal len on the grass , she gave me leave to
take an apple from the tree whenever I
fel t incl ined to eat one before breakfast .
So young was I , that I was no more than
two years older than my eldest pupil , and
I soon became popular with her and her
brothers when they found that, after
lessons were over, I used to tel l them stor
ies and even made a small theatre for them ,
with books stuck up for s ide-scenes , and
36 MY LONG LIFE .
paper dolls for the actors and actresses .
One of these pape r performers became sogreat a favourite with the ch ildren that
they called her ‘ Norah ’
(she generally
represented some faithful nurse or equal ly
estimable character), and invariably gave
her a round of applause when she made
her appearance . The fame of these theat
rical entertai nments reach ing the ears of
the children ’s mamma, she condescended
to be presen t at one of them , and gave her
hearty approval . One of my chief anx
ieties while I was a governess was lest my
pianoforte teaching and playing should
not fulfil the exp ectation of my employers ;for whenever I was requested to come up
to the drawing-room and play a duet
with e i ther of my pupils,the second one
always executed her part with unusual
carelessness , i nfin itely less wel l than she
played at other times . I remember espe
cial ly one evening when I suffered an
agony of nervousness while playing with
M iss Cel ia an arrangement for four hands
MY LONG LIFE . 37
of the fine overture to Weber’ s Freischutz ’
( which overture , by-the-bye,had the um
precedented compl iment of being in
variably encored at the theatre th is
first season of the opera ’s being brought
out i n London ), for we both played so
miserably that I pictured to myself the
company in the drawing-room saying
Can this be Vincent Novello ’s daug hter P
On the approach of winter,the family
returned to town and occupied thei r house
in Montague Square . Th is was a great
pleasure to me , for I was nearer home
and I could have news of my dear ones
often . My father and mother indulged
me with frequent letters , though at that
time the postage of a letter from even so
near a place as S hacklewell to London
was actually th ree-pence ! But what trea
ures of parental tenderness and , fond en
courag ement those letters were . One of
them from my father and one from my
mother I have st i ll , I’m grateful to say .
These letters used to be brought into the
38 MY LONG LIFE .
school-room for me by Joe , a black ser
vant,who had been a devotedly-attached
attendant upon M rs . Purcel l when she was
a young ch ild i n the West Indies , and she
had brought h im with her to Europe , where
she retained h im in her service as footman .
He was an excellen t fellow, sweet-natured
and kindly. When he entered the school
room with a lette r in his hand , his wh ite
teeth would gleam through his grinning
lips , his eyes would sparkle with gladness
knowing that he brought me happiness
in this missive from my parents . I t was
Joe whom his mistress sent to attend
me when she wished that I should go to
the even ing services of Compl ine and
Tenebrae at South Street Chapel , as well
as accompanying the ch ildren to Mass
and Vespers there ; and I remember how
odd it seemed to me to be followed in
the street by a footman .
But besides my letters from home came
another great and unexpected joy to me,
i n the shape of visits now and then from
40 MY LONG LIFE .
(As luscious creams are ting ed with bitterness)For Hope, sweet Hope unconscious of alloyFor peaceful thoughts, kind face
’
s,loving hearts,
That suck out all the po ison from d istress,
For all these g ifts I offer gratitude and joy
The books he brought to Montague
Square reminded me of two that he had
given , some years before, to my sister
Cecil ia and to me, when we were l ittle
girls , and had each hemmed s ix s ilk
pocket-handkerch iefs for h im . The book
he gave to Cecil ia was Mary Lamb ’s
Mrs . Leicester ’s School ,’ and the one he
gave to me was Charles Lamb’s ‘ Adven
tures of Ulysses . ’ I t bears on i ts blank
page the words , ‘ Victoria Novello , from
her sincere friend , Charles Cowden-Clarke ,2 2d of February, This , h is first
gift to me , i s on the l ibrary shelf opposite
to me as I write .
I ought to have mentioned that an
exceptionally proud gratification was mine
when I earned my first five -pound note
(my salary was twenty pounds a year),and I lay with the precious morsel of
MY LONG LIFE . 4 1
paper all night under my pillow. Next
morn ing I was k i ndly al lowed a hol iday ,when I asked leave to go and take the
note to my mother myself.
I t gives me pleasure to record another
and very special i nstance of my lady
employer ’s amiable consideration for me .
Once she gave a grand ball at her house ,and she presented me with a sprigged
musl in frock , and dressed my hai r with
her own hands , i n order that her young
governess might appear pretti ly in the
dancing-room .
When spring came around , a super
lative treat was planned for me by Charles
Cowden-Clarke,who asked my mother
and me to meet at h is modest London
lodging,that we might go with h im to
Covent Garden Theatre and hear the
new opera of ‘ Oberon ,’ which had been
composed expressly for the then manager
there,Charles Kemble , i n consequence of
the marked success of the previous O pera,
Der Freischiitz . Permission was (with
4 2 MY LONG LIFE .
the usual indulgence I met with from Mrs .
Purcell) granted me to accept th is invita
tion , and a most memorab le event i t
proved to be . The meeting with my
beloved mother, the reception by our
sprightly host, the del ic ious April sunsh ine
pouring through the green Venetian bl inds,the fine engraving popped on the table
for our inspection , began the harmonious
entertainment most harmoniously. While
he and I l ingered near each other, looking
together at the picture (i t was a print from
Raphael ’s School of Athens the young
gi rl ’s heart learnt i ts own secret— that it
had given itself entirely to him who was
by her side . Then came the del ight of
witnessing the first night ’s pe rformance
of Carl Maria Weber’s enchanting fairy
opera, the composer himself appearing in
the orchestra and conducting the music .
Fi rst-rate singers , first-rate instrumental
ists , first-rate painters ( for Roberts and
Stanfield contributed some of the fine,poetic scenes) combined to make that
MY LONG LIFE . 43
first n ight of Oberon ’ a never-to-be
forgotten occasion .
As the season advanced , my health gave
way so visibly that my parents resolved to
withdraw me from my situat ion , where the
noise and fatigue inevitable upon the daily
presence of five young children had pro
duced overwhelming headaches and almost
total loss of appeti te . Thei r mamma was
kind and atten tive to me i n a most un
wonted degree of personal care from a lady
in her posi t ion to a young girl i n mine.
She generally came into the room where
I and my pupils took our early dinner,
and more than once ordered someth ing for
me that she thought might tempt me to eat,always accompanying the meal by a special
glass of wine to give me strength . But
when all failed to restore me , and I was to
leave her employment, she put the cl imax
to her amiable conduct by tel l ing me that if
ever I resumed governess-sh ip she hoped I
wou ld let her know, in order that she might
have an opportunityo f re-engaging me .
44 MY LONG LIFE .
Sea air having been recommended for
me,my father and mother took me , one
of my brothers and one of my siste rs , to
a pretty spot called L i ttl e Bohem ia, not
far from Hastings, where we spent many
weeks , taking early plunges in the sea of
a morning, long walks during the day ,and pleasant talks i n the even ing . My
brother Alfred was fond of being read to ,the refore I usually had a book in my hand
as we wandered th rough the pleasant neigh
bourhood, and read to h im many an amus
ing or i nte resting narrative . Hollinton
Wood , O ld Roar, etc .
, etc ., were the scenes
of our rambles , and much we enjoyed
them in thei r rural beauty. That summer
there was a very s ingular bl ight, or rather
two blights . One was a visitation of the
minutest black insects , who settled on ou r
necks , shoulders, arms , faces ,— in short,whenever the skin was uncovered and al
lowed them to settle upon it . The other
blight was inimical to the first bl ight, being
no other than myriads of ladybi rds , who
MY LONG LIFE . 45
devoured the black insects and swarmed
to such an exten t on all the vegetation
around that every twig of the hedges
looked l ike branches of reddest coral .
By the time we returned to S hacklewell,I was wonderful ly improved i n health
,so
much had I benefited by my summer at
the seaside and by the exercise in the
open ai r which I had been able to take.
L ife was very bright to me . Charles Cow
den-Clarke came oftener and oftener down
from town to see us , and when he could
not come , he would send a lette r to Bruns
wick Square, where my father taught on
Tuesdays and Fridays at Miss Campbell ’s
school for twenty-seven years . Happy the
girl whose letters from and to the man
she prefers are conveyed by he r own father .
Our mutual sympathy became more and
more confirmed,until on the I st of
November that year ( 1826) we were
affianced to each other. I , being so young,only seventeen , he had first wri tten to
my parents,asking the ir approval of h is
46 MY LONG LIFE .
su it and thei r consent to h is mak ing
known to me his wish that I should be
come his wife , knowing how truly I should
be glad he took this course of appeal ing
to them first . They , esteeming and loving
him as they did , were rejoiced to learn
this prospect of happiness for thei r
daughter,and gave h im thei r cordial
consent.
The first walk in London that my
Charles and I took togethe r afte r this
event, we went to Leiceste r Square , where
dwel t a pleasant old j eweller, M r. Chandler,who knew us Novellos well , his acquaint
ance with our family dating from the time
when he had had friendly intercourse wi th
my maternal grandfather ; and eve r since,
whatever trinket-purchasing or tri nket
mending was needed , M r. Chandle r was
appl ied to . Now, I was taken thither in
order to choose an engagement ring, and
I remember old M r. Chandler’s roguish
smile and remark when he perceived that
I tried i t on the thi rd finger of my left
48 MY LONG LIFE .
‘
thereof, should continue to reside with
them afte r our marriage . !Meanwhi le, they
removed from S hacklewell to No . 2 2
Bedford S treet , Covent Garden , and i t
was here that I made my fi rst attempt in
l iterary production . My only confidant
was my sister Cec il ia . I wrote one short
paper, entitled My Arm Chair,’ s igned
merely M . H .
’ These in itials I mean t to
represen t Mary Howard ,’ because my
father had , i n h is j uven ile days , enacted the
part of S ir John Falstaff as Mr. Howard at
some private theatricals . I sent my pape r
to the office where Hone ’s ‘ Table Book ’
was published , and to my great joy, and
to that of my sister-confidant, my paper was
promptly accepted , making its appearance
in an early subsequent number of that in
teresting periodical . To figure i n the same
volumes where clear and honoured Charles
Lamb was contributing h is selections from‘ The Garrick Plays ’ was in i tself a greatly
to-be-prized d ist inction,but my happiest
triumph was when I showed the paper to
MY LONG LIFE . 49
my Charles , tel l ing him i t was written by
a girl of seventeen , and watched his look
of pleased surprise when I told him wko
that gi rl was . I may here mention that
th i s contribution of mine to Hone ’s Table
Book was followed by five others , respec
tively entitled ,‘ My Desk,
’ ‘ My Home,’
‘ My Pocket-Book ,’ ‘ Inn Yards ,
’ and a
paper on the ‘
A ssigwa i s’ i n currency at
th e t ime of the French Republic of 1 792 .
The paper was headed by a printed fac
sim i le of an A ssigna i di a’ix sous ,
’ from
one that had been given to me by my kind
old tutor, M onsieur Bonnefoy .
A very del ightful vis i t to the West of
England was the one I made that summer
to Mrs. John Clarke (who , after the loss of
her husband,had gone to l ive at Frome ,
i n Somersetsh i re,with her unmarried
youngest daughter) i n o rder that I might
make the acquaintance of my future
mother- in-l aw. Her married daughter,M rs . Towers, resided at some miles distant
from her,at Standerwick . I t was to M rs .
50 MY LONG LIFE .
Towers that Charles Lamb addressed the
following pleasan t sonnet,wri tten in her
album
Lady Unknown, who crav’
st from me, Un
known,
The trifle of a ve rse these leaves to g rac e ,How shal l I find fit m atte r ? w i th what faceA ddress a face th at ne ’ e r to me was shown ?
Thy looks , tones , g estures , manne rs and whatnot,
Conj e ctu r ing , I wande r in the dark .
I know t h ee on ly s iste r to Char les Clarke !But at that nam e my cold Mu s e wax es hot,And swears that thou art s u ch a one as he ;
Warm , laughte r-loving , wi th a touch ofmadness,Wi ld , g le e -p rovok ing , pou r ing oil of g ladnessFrom frank h eart wi t hout g u i l e . And if thou beThe p u re re v e rse of th is
,and I m istake ,
D emure one , I wi l l l ike th ee for h is sake .
’
S HE was the authoress of three books
for young people , ‘ The Children’ s Fi reside ,
’
The Young Wanderer’s Cave ,’ and ‘ The
Adventures of Tom Starboard,’ and in
Leigh Hunt ’s ‘ L i terary Examiner ’ for
December l gth , 182 3, appeared her cleve r‘ Stanzas to a Fly that had survived the
Winter of
MY LONG LIFE . 51
My reception by Charles ’s mother was
al l that I could have hoped of affectionate
cordial i ty . I t was evident that she ‘ took
to me ’
(as the phrase is) at once . She
had a way of putting her hand upon my
knee caressingly, when I sat by her s ide
and she talked to me,— a token of l iking
that Charles told me he had never seen
her give , excepting to one young lady
whom she had known , and was very fond
of, i n the old Enfield t imes . Curiously
enough , she more than once inadver
tently called me by that young lady’s name
instead of my own , as if I somehow re
minded her oi the gi rl she had so much
loved .
At fi rst , when even ing came , Mrs .
Clarke used to leave her youngest daugh
ter i n one parlour to receive the visi t of a
neighbouring gentleman to whom E l iza
was engaged,while Charles and I were
left in the other parlour, with the idea that
the two couples of lovers might l ike to be
sole company for each other ; but very
52 MY LONG LIFE .
soon Charles and I went upstai rs to fetch
down his mother, as we told her we could
not afford to lose so many hours of her
society, now that we had come on purpose
to be as much with her as poss ible . But
she made us go out of morn ings to enjoy
rambles i n the picturesque vic in i ty ; one of
our frequent resorts being the lovely park
of O rchard Leigh . Here i t was so peace
ful , and we were so much to ourselves, that
the cows used to come up and look at us
as strange beings who had wandered there
they knew not how,and who were too
quietly occupied with each other to need
being any further noticed .
One of the very earl iest excursions
planned for us by Charles’ s mother was a
drive over to S tanderwick . On our way
thither we passed through the Marquis
of Bath ’s beautiful estate , Long Leat .
I t so chanced that while the carriage ran
by the side of a broad sheet of water there ,
we had a rare and interesting sight . A
pair of swans rose from the lake and took
MY LONG LIFE . 53
fl ight to a short distance , affording the
seldom-seen view of swans in the ai r.
On reaching the dwell ing of the Towers
family , M rs . Towers entered the room with
her youngest ch ild i n her arms,beaming
with smiles at our advent . She and herbrother were warmly attached to each other
,
and the friendship she at once formed with
his chosen future wife never ceased as long
as she l ived . In consequence of our hav
ing to return early to Frome , lunch was
prompt ly laid on the table , and I recollect
observing the tasteful mode i n which i t
was arranged,with the exquisite effect of
colouring produced by a large bowl of
snowy curds and whey in contrast with a
ruby-hued heap of gooseberry j am near i t
i n the centre of the hospitable board . M rs .
Towers was as famous fo r her home-made
jams and other dulcet preparations as for
her books and verses.
This visi t to Charles ’s mother made me
regret more than ever, as I had often
regretted before,that I had never known
54 MY LONG LIFE .
his father. He had reti red from the school
at Enfield , and had gone to reside at
Ramsgate before any meeting of our re
spective famil ies had taken place ; but
Charles always averred that he knew his
father and I would have sympath ised with
each other intensely , and would have be
come fast friends . He was a man of nobly
l iberal opinions, of refined taste i n l itera
ture, was as gentle-hearted as he was wise ,and as wise as he was gentle-hearted . In
his youth he had been articled to a lawyer
at Northampton , and ran the risk of hav
ing to hang a man , i n consequence of being
deputed to fulfi l the sheriff ’s office, because
of the absence from town of the regularly
appointed execution er The whole n igh t
was spent in an agony of mind by John
Clarke while endeavouring to find a sub
stitute for the task so inexpressibly repug
nant to h im therefore , next morn ing,when he had succeeded , he resolved there
and then to leave a situation that had sub
jected h im to so horrible a chance , and at
56 MY LONG LIFE .
as Hampstead , Caen Wood , Muswell Hill ,and Fre iern Barnet ; to l isten to his con
fidential talk after breakfast , i n h is flowered
morn ing-gown , when he would discuss with
me his then l iterary projects i n a style
which showed he felt he had near h im one
who could thoroughly understand and ap
preciate his avowed views, —al l formed abewitching combination that rendered this
vis i t indeed a memorable one to me . He
was then ful l of a project for writ i ng a book
to be called Fabulous Zo'
ology,’ which was
to treat of dragons , griffi ns , cockatrices,bas i l isks , etc ., etc . He was also busy with
translations from French epigrammatic
poets , and he would murmur some happily
turned l ine in the English rendering he
contemplated from Clement Murot or other
sim ilar author. He had l ikewise a fancy
for producing a volume of fai ry tales , one
of which was to be entitled M other Fowl,
’
as a kind of punn ing name for a heroine,
reminding the reader of ‘ Mother Goose,’
only in th is respect, because Mother
MY LONG LIFE . 57
Fowl ’ was to have been conspicuous for
fou/est dirty ways of misch ief, besides
being grimiest of the grimy herself .
Having confessed to a touch of romance
in my disposi t ion , I may here give an addi
tional proof of i ts l ikel ihood , by owning
that while Leigh Hunt was in I taly I had
indulged girl ish visions of the deligh t i t
wou ld be to me if I cou ld gain a large for
tune , carry i t thither myself, and lay i t at
h is feet . Again , when he returned thence
to England , and I chanced to hear h im sing
one of Tom Moore ’s I rish melodies (‘ Rich
and rare were the gems she I was
so excited by the sound of h is vo ice after
that lapse of time, that I found the tears
silently streaming down my cheeks .
Another vis it , but of a very different
k i nd , that year, was paid by my Charles
and me together . He took me to see
Will iam Hone , who was then detained , by
temporary money difficulties , ‘ with in the
rules ’ of the King ’s Bench Prison . So
dingy and smoky were the reg ions th rough
58 MY LONG LIFE .
which we had to pass ere we arrived there,
that a morsel of smut found i ts way to my
face and stuck thereon during the first
portion of our interview with M r. Hone .
When Charles pe rceived the black intruder,he quickly pu ffed it off, and went on with
his conversation . A day or two after
wards , when Hone again saw Charles , he
said to h im :‘ You are engaged to M iss
Novello , are you not ?’ ‘What makes you
think so ?’ was the reply .
‘ I saw you
famil iarly blow a smut off the young lady’s
face , to which familiari ty she made no ob
j ection therefore, I naturally guessed you
were engaged to each other. ’ Hone ’s‘ Table Book had succeeded to his ‘ Every
Day Book ’
; and i t was to th is last-named
publ ication that Charles Lamb paid the
gracefully-worded compliment in the con
cluding stanza of h is l i nes to Hone
Dan Phoebus loves your book trust me,friend
HoneThe t itle only errs, he bid me say
For while such art,wit, read ing there are shown ,
He swears,’ t is not a work of every day.
’
MY LONG LIFE . 59
A similarly witty and elegant compl i
ment was paid to his friend,Leigh Hunt
,
by Charles Lamb , i n these l ines that
ended some he addressed to h im at the
time when each Wednesday brought out
that del ightful periodical cal led ‘ The
Indicator
I would not lightly bruise old Priscian’
s headO rwrong the rules of grammar understood
But,with the leave of Prisc ian be it said,
The I ndicative is your P otentia l Mood .
Wit,poet
,proseman
, partyman, translator,Hunt
,your best title yet is
To this periodical my mother was god
mother. There had been some difficulty
in finding a name for it ; and she not
only suggested the one ultimately adopted,but she suppl ied the following passage
which fo rmed the heading of each number
There is a bi rd in the interior of Africa
whose habits would rather seem to belong
to the interior of Fairyland ; but they have
been well authenticated . I t i ndicates to
honey-hunters where the nests of wild bees
are to be found . I t calls them with a
60 MY LONG LIFE .
chee rful cry, which they answer, and on
finding i tself recognised , fl ies and hovers
over a hollow tree contain ing the honey .
While they are occupied in collecting
it, the bi rd goes a l ittle distance , where
he obse rves all that passes and the hunters,
when they have helped themselves,take
care to leave him his po rt ion of the food .
This is cal led the Cucu lus I ndicator of
Linnmus , othe rwise the moroc , bee-cuckoo ,or honey-bi rd .
Then he arriving round about doth flieAnd takes survey with busie, envious eye ;Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.
”
SPENSER.
’
I cannot forbear quoting the conclud
i ng droll paragraph of a short article that
appeared in the fi rst number of the Indi
cator ’ on the ‘ D IFFICULTY O F FINDING A
NAME FO R A WO RK O F TH IS KIND .
’ Leigh
Hunt is describi ng a company of his
friends helping him by suggesting titles‘ Some of the names had a meaning i n
thei r absurdity, such as! The Adviser, or
MY LONG LIFE . 61
Helps for Composing The Cheap
Reflector, or Every Man his Own Looking
Glass ” ; The Reta i le r, or E very Man
h is Own O ther Man ’s Wit ” ;! Nonsense
,
to be conti nued . O thers were laughable
by the mere force of contrast, as The Croc
odile, or Pleasing Companion ! Chaos,
or the Agreeable M i scel lany ! The
Fugitive Guide The Footsoldier, or
Flowers of Wit ” ;! Bigotry , or the Cheer
ful Instructor ! The Pol ite Repository
of Abuse B lood , being a Collection
of E igh t Essays .” O thers were sheer
ludicrousness and extravagance, as! The
Pleasing Ancesto r ” ;! The S ilent Re
marker The Tart ! The Leg of
Beef, by a Layman The Ingen ious
Hatband ! The Boots of Bliss ” ;! The
Occasional Diner ! The Toothache! Recol lections of a very Unpleasant
Nature ”
;! Thoughts on a H ill of Con
s iderable Eminence”
;! M editations on a
Pleasi ng Idea ”
;! Materials for Drink
ing ”
; The Knocke r, No .
! The
62 MY LONG LIFE .
Hippopotamus at Cards The Arabian
N ights on Horseback ,” with an infin ite
number of other mortal murders of com
mon sense , which rose to ! push us
from ou r stools , and wh ich none but the
wise or good-natured would ever think of
laugh ing at . ’
In the next year to that of wh ich I have
been writing,my parents removed from
Bedford Street to No . 66 Great Queen
Street, L incoln’s Inn Fields ; and Charles
became urgent with them to let me fix a
day for our marriage . I t took place with
a quiet simpl ic i ty that particularly pleased
us both . My dear father and mother
were the only persons with us when , early
i n the morning of sth July, 1828, we drove
to Bloomsbury Church . Two milkmaids
chanced to be standing near as we went
up the steps, and I heard one of them say‘ That ’s the bride .
’ A neat white satin
cottage bonnet and a wh ite musl in dress
both the work of my own hands were all
64 MY LONG LIFE .
the bride to present to her young brothers
and sisters . This pleasant meal and pres
entation being over, and the wedding
dress exchanged for a th icker musl in and
plainer cottage bonnet of straw, we pre
pared to leave the dear home to which we
were soon to return . My mother’s sweet,penetrat ing voice fol lowed us forth
,utter
ing the few but tender words, ‘ Take care
of her, Charley.
’ Be it here noted , that as
soon as Charles became one of the family
he was invariably called by that boyish
form of h is name, proving how ever-young
was his nature to the last hour of h is ex
istence. He had dec ided upon making h is
native Enfield our honeymoon quarters,
therefore we took our way to th e Bel l
Inn in Holborn , whence the Edmonton
stage-coach started . On our way thi therhe laughingly told me of a man who had
said to h is new-made wife an hour after
thei r espousals , Hitherto , madam , I have
been your slave , now you are mine .
’ When
we reached Edmonton we alighted from the
MY LONG LIFE . 65
coach , and crossed the sti l e beyond which
were the fields that l ie between that place
and Enfield . Brill iant was the July sun,
blue the sky, whereon dainty l i ttl e white
cloudlets appeared l ike tufts of swandown,
scarcely moved by the l ight summer air.
We lingered , leaning on the wooden rail ing
that surmounted the min iature bridge over
the rivulet, where Keats used to watch the
m innows staying thei r wavy bodies ’gainst
the s treams ,’ and on along the ‘ footpath ’
which h is ‘ friend Charles ’ had ‘ changed
for the grassy plain ,’ when , on parting
at nigh t,between thei r respect ive homes ,
Keats says ,‘ I no more could hear your
footsteps touch the gravelly floor. ’ The
very words with which the young poet
concluded th is , his ‘ Epistle to Charles
Cowden-Clarke ,’ seemed then and there
to be fulfi l l i ng, for he goes on to say, In
those stil l moments I have wish ’
d you j oys
that well you know to honour,’ and the
‘ j oys ’ of that day certainly crowned with
real i ty the affectionate aspi ration . Farther
66 MY LONG LIFE .
on we went, entering the meadow ski rted
by the row of sapling oaks planted by
Charles ’s father, the bag of acorns for the
purpose being carried by the l i ttle son ,unti l we came to the wall belonging to the
end of the schoolhouse garden,behind
which wall was an arbour where Charles
used to read to Keats Spenser ’s exquis ite‘ Epithalamion ,
’ and where they talked
poetry together, the elder of the two in
troducing the younger to the divine art,and ‘ first taught him al l the sweets of
song,’ finally lending him Spenser ’s Faerie
Q ueene,’ to Keats ’s infinite rapture . We
took up our abode at a rural hostel ry called
The Greyhound ,’ kept by a comfortable
old man and h is daughter,named Powell .
This hostel ry possessed a pleasant s itting
room overlooking ‘ the green ’ and its
spreading oak tree , and as pleasant a
sleep ing-room , with its window screened
by a vine trained across i t,casting a
verdant , softened l ight wi thin . I t was to
the period of our soj ourn here that Charles
MY LONG LIFE . 67
Lamb referred in a letter he afterwards
wrote to Charles , saying, —‘When you
lurked at ! The Greyhound . Benedicks
are close , but how I so total ly missed you
at that t ime, going for my morning cup of
ale duly, is a mystery .
’
T was steal i ng a
match before one ’s face i n earnest . But
certainly we had not a dream of your pro
p inquity. I promise you the wedding
was ve ry pleasant news to me,i ndeed .
’
Enchanting were the dai ly long walks
we took , and enchanted ground seemed
the lovely Engl ish rural lanes and meadows
we passed through , visi ting al l the most
notable points around that vicinity so
dearly associated as i t was to us . Often
did we turn at once into the roadway
where the charming O ld schoolhouse stood
(i t was under a stranger’s mastership now),
and look up at i ts cu rious front of rich
red brick, moulded into designs represent
ing garlands of flowers and pomegranates,together with heads of Cherubim , over two
niches i n the cent re of the building, which ,
68 MY LONG LIFE .
on one of its bricks , bore the figures 1 7 1 7.
This frontage was , i ndeed , esteemed so
curious and interesting as a specimen of
bygone Engl ish domestic architecture,that
when , subsequently, the schoolhouse was
bought for a railway station the company
kept the fron t careful ly, and i t was pre
served in th e exhibit ion buildings of the
Kensington M useum , where I had the
pleasure of seeing it when I vis ited
England many years afterwards .
Between the ‘ two niches j ust mentioned,
there was a window of a room in which , dur
ing some childish i llness , Charles had been
put to sleep apart from the other boys , and
the l i ttl e fel low— th inking th is a cap ital
opportunity— had crept out on to the lead
flat over the entrance door, that he might
properly and closely inspect the pome
granate,garlands , and Cherubim , which
he had heard extol led by his elders .
Opposi te to the schoolhouse was a bend
of the New River, in neighbouring portions
of which winding stream Charles and his
MY LONG LIFE . 69
schoolfel lows had enjoyed many a luxurious
pl unge , and , after bath ing, had disdained
to use towels , but dried themselves by
scampers over the grassy fields close to
its shores . Farther on , beyond the school
house, the road led beneath a small wooded
accl ivity, but large enough to have allowed
Charles , when a young lad , to imagine i t
a forest peopled with dragons , l ions , l adies ,knights , dwarfs , and giants , while he gazed
at th is spot from a window which com
manded a Vi ew of it . The road terminated
at a place cal led Ponder’s End , but as i t
possessed no particular in terest we gener
ally made this the return ing point .
O ther days we took the exactly opposite
d irection,going past the house where
Richard Warburton Lytton (grandfather
of Lytton Bulwer, afterwards Lord Lytton )resided . He had been very kind to Charles
when quite a young boy, lending h im books
and talking p leasantly to him while tak
ing exercise on what was then called a
chamber-horse .’
70 MY LONG LIFE .
Proceeding farther, we came to a house
with a garden , that had a pond abutting
on the road . In this pond were some
beautifu l water-l i l ies in full bloom,and
we always used to stop and look at them ;for i t so chanced that they were the fi rst
I had ever seen . Then we came to a
sti le, giving entrance to a series of del i
cious green fields , which were exchanged
for a path through a small wood,then
more fields , unti l we reached Winchmore
Hill . The exceeding beauty of this dis
trict had been charmingly described by
Charles, in a short paper cal led ‘Walks
round London ,’
NO . 1 , which appeared in
Leigh Hunt’s ‘ L i terary Pocket Book,’ or
Compan ion for the Lovers of Nature and
Art,
’ i n the year 1820.
Sometimes we wandered as far as Theo
bald ’s Park and White-Webb ’s Wood ,t radit ionally said to be the place where
the conspi rators i n James the Fi rst ’s reign
used to meet . My remembrance of i t i s
that of a qu iet, umbrageous spot, delight
72 MY LONG LIFE .
domicile might be situated . For twenty
years we enjoyed that privilege of l iving
with them ,— a privi lege as del ightful as
rare .
E re quite settl ing down , Charles Lamb
invited us to spend a week with h im and
his siste r (who were then l iving at Chase
side , Enfield), to make amends for ou r
having ‘ l urked at ! The
when he ‘ had not a dream of our propin
quity.
’ How ful ly and delightful ly that
visi t enabled us to behold h im in his in
dividuality of whimsical humour as well
as h is thoroughly tender and kind natu re I
His lifelong devotion to his s ister had
been practical ly proved ; but his mingled
pl ayfulness of treatment and manner
towards her were once indicated in his
once saying to us , with h is arch smile , I
always call my siste r Marie when we are
alone together, Mary when we are with
friends , and Mol l before the servants.’
He was as fond of long walks as we
were , and had equal admiration for Enfield
MY LONG LIFE . 73
and its envi rons as we had . He showed
us the very spot where a dog had been
pertinacious in following him , and whom
he sought to get rid of by tiring 25m
had given up the contest of perseverance ,and had dropped down under a hedge
dead beat . He took us to Cheshunt and
to Northam , with the hope of finding a
famous old giant oak-tree we had sever
al ly heard was to be seen at one or other
of these places ; but the search was vain
in both cases . The disappointment was
small,but the pleasure of the walks infi
n ite . On one especial occasion , when
Fanny Kelly chanced to come down from
London to see the Lambs at Chases ide
when we were there, a walk was proposed
which took us past a picturesque ford,at
a l i ttle distance from a wayside waggon
i nn . Beside this country inn were pleasant
shady seats , and Lamb proposed we should
tarry awhile and rest . Nei ther Fanny
Kelly nor we two decl in ing the pro
posal , but glad to please him,and glad to
74 MY LONG LIFE .
have the pleasure of sitting there with
him and his sister, and the del ightfu l
actress , we loi tered , le isurely sipping our
draughts of malt , i n a companionship
most pleasant to me to remember. By
the-bye , I may record that I won Charles
Lamb ’s increase of esteem (on some occa
sion when I was speaking of my father ’s
having made me at rare times acquainted
with that ‘ Lutheran Beer,’ porter, alluded
to i n E l ia’s ‘ Chapter on Ears ’) by saying
that I preferred Barclay Perkins’
s
brewage to Whitbread 's , or any other
brewers that I had ever tasted . He was
fond of testing people ’s capacity for under
standing his mode of i ndulging in odd,bluntish speeches
,but which contained a
certain quaint evidence of famil iar l iking.
Once , when we were returning from a walk,and Mary Lamb took the opportunity of
call ing i n to make some purchases she
needed at a village l inen -draper’s shop near
Winchmore Hill , her brother, standing by
with us,addressed the mistress of the shop
MY LONG LIFE . 75
in a tone of pretended sympathy,say
ing : ‘ I hear that trade ’
s fal l ing off,Mrs .
Udall , how’s this ? ’ The stout , cherry
woman only smiled and answered good
humouredly, for i t was eviden t that she
was acquainted with Charles Lamb ’s whim
s ical way,he being famil iarly known at the
shops where his sis te r dealt.
Another t ime , during this vis i t to
the Lambs , he had given h is arm to me ,and left my husband to escort M i ss Lamb ,who walked at rather more slow a pace
than her brother, while we were going to
spend the even ing at the house of a
somewhat prim lady school-mistress . On
entering the room , Charles Lamb intro
duced me to th is rather formal hostess
with the words ,‘ Mrs . I ’ve brough t
you the wife of the man who mortally
hates your husband ,’ and when the lady
repl ied by a pol i te inqui ry afte r M iss
Lamb,hop ing she was qui te well , Charles
Lamb said ,‘ She has a terrible fi t of
tooth-ache th is even ing, so Mr . Cowden
76 MY LONG LIFE .
Clarke remained to keep her company .
’
Soon after th is , the two appearing, Lambwent on to say,
‘ Mrs . Cowden-Clarke has
been tel l i ng me, as we came along, that
she hopes that you have Sprats for supper. ’
The lady ’s puzzled look , contrasted by
the smi l ing calmness with which we
stood by l istening to h im , were precisely
the effects that amused Lamb to produce .
I have heard h im say that he never stam
mered when he told a l ie . This was
i n h umorous reference to the sl ight hes i
tation in h is speech which he often had
when talking .
O n the last evening of this del ightful
visi t, Charles Lamb (who was fond of
wh ist and had asked us whether we were
good hands at the game, we disclaiming
any such excel lence ; th is had brought his
rejoinder of ‘ Oh , then , I’l l not ask you
to play ; I hate playing with bad players’
)said, ‘ Let ’s have a game of whist , j ust
to see what you are l ike ; and at the
end of the trial he burst out with ,‘ If
MY LONG LIFE . 77
I h ad known you could play as wel l
as this,we would have had whist every
evening.
’
He was the cordialest of hosts,
playful , gen ial , hospitably promotive of
p leasureable th ings, walks , cheerful meals ,and the very best of talk . I t had been
said of h im that he always said the best
thing of the evening, when even the finest
spiri ts of the t ime met together . His
hospital i ty, while we were visiting him
that memorable week , the incidents of
wh ich I have been recording, was charac
teristical ly manifested one day, i n h is
own pecul iarly whimsical way, by his
starting up from dinner, hasten ing to
the front garden gate, and open ing it
for a donkey that he saw standing there ,and looking, as Lamb said , as if i t wanted
to come in and munch some of the grass
growing so plentifully behind the rail
ing.
When we returned home to enter upon
our intended course of l ife , my Charles at
78 MY LONG LIFE .
once made h imself truly one of the family ,taking a brotherly interest ‘ i n Alfred ’s
preparations for soon beginn ing business
as a music-sel ler ; i n Edward’
s attendance
at M r . Sass ’s School of Design,having
shown decided talent for d rawing, and
possess i ng an arden t desi re for becoming
an artist ; i n Clara’s al ready man ifest
vocal abi l i ty (she was but th ree years old
when she startled her parents by singing
correctly the tune of ‘ D i tanti pa lpiti,’
which she had merely heard played on a
barrel-organ i n the street ; and I often
afterwards used to see my father call her
to the piano,with her dol l i n her arms
,to
sing some song of Handel ’s or Mozart ’s
that he had taught her, while still a mere
child ) ; and in the lessons of the two
youngest girls , which lessons Charles gave
them himself. The two children used to
l ie down on the carpet, one on each s ide of
his chair, with the ir slates and thei r books
before them , while he continued his own
writing, until h is l ittle pupils should be
80 MY LONG LIFE .
practised . Mutual esteem and pass ionate
attachment made poverty. (or perhaps I
should say very small means) seem scarcely
an evil , but , on the contrary, someth ing to
be cheerful ly and will ingly borne , being
borne together and for the sake of each
other. Moreover, we had the blessing of
generously kind parents , who let us con
tribute our share of the household expenses
at such convenient periods as best suited
our earned rece ipts . These were added
to by Charles’s acceptance of a thoroughly
uncongenial post as edi tor of, and write r
in,a periodical entitled The Repertory of
Patent Inventions . ’ But he and we al l
took refuge from the dryness of the task
by making it the subj ect of constant
laughter and jest in our fam i ly ci rcle .
Not one of us read i t ; not one of us cared
even to look at i t, save on a single occasion ,when Charles , having indulged h imself by
writing a rather facetious article on some
heavy newly-i nvented manufacture , was
rebuked by a communication from a per
MY LONG LIFE . 81
son sign ing h imself Fairy (of al l names
i n the world !) for writing so agony on such
a weighti ly important theme ! To recur to
the pleasanter subject of the theatrical
notices Charles had to write , and the
theatre-goings they involved fo r us both .
We had before then had the good fortune
to see the ve ry best act ing ; that of Edmund
Kean , Dowton , Munden , L iston , the elder
Mathews,M iss Kelly, Mrs . Davenport, etc .
The fi rst named I had seen in h is rarely
performed part of L ane, i n a play called
Riches,
’ and also as S ir Gites O verreaen
in M assinger’
s ‘ A New Way to pay O ld
Debts . ’ As L ane I remember his entrance
while supposed to be desperately poor,
his head bent,h is whole frame stooping,
his clothes of the meanest , and bearing
beneath his arms and dependent from his
hands various bundles he had been ordered
to carry. Of h is S ir Giles O verreaen I
chiefly remember the death -scene . Kean
lay prostrate near to the footl ights , his
face and figure clearly visible to the6
82 MY LONG LIFE .
aud ience, and fearful ly true to the ebbing
of l ife was the picture theypresented . In‘ O thello
,
’ a striking point was the mode
i n wh ich he clung to the s ideo scene when
uttering th e words,Not a jot, not a jot,
’
i n Act i i i . , scene 3, as if t rying to steady
h imself against the heart-blow he was
rece iving. Towards the latter port ion of
h is career, Kean most frequently played
S ky/lock, and grand was his playing
throughout . But a superb piece of action
and voice was h is , as he del ivered the
Speech , concluding with th e words The
villany you teach me , I will execute ; and
i t shall go hard , but I will bette r the
instruction .
’ He seemed positively to
writhe from head to foot as he poured
forth his anguished recapitulation of h is
own and his nation ’s wrongs , of h is deadly
hatred of the wrongers , and of h is as
deadly determination to have his revenge
upon them . Dowton’
s great part of D r.
Cantwel l i n ‘ The Hypocri te ’
(Cibber’
s
translated version of Mol iere ’s Tartuffe
MY LONG LIFE . 83
was impressed upon my memory,if on ly
by the tone of h is voice —subdued,would
be-meek while Cantwel l is sustain ing
the appearance of prone devotion , and the
insolent loudness of the tone , when , the
mask thrown off, he proclaims h imself
master of the house and al l i ts inmates .
In the fi rst place he calls to S i r John
Lambert’s Secretary, softly and mildly,‘ Charles !’ i n utter contrast wi th the
mode in which he roughly and peremptorily calls out to him , i n the latter case ,° S eyward !
’ The two so remarkably dif
fering tones sti ll seem to reach my ears
as I write .
Munden could be impressive in grave
characte rs as well as great in ultra-comic
power,celebrated by Charles Lamb in his
E l i a paper, en ti tled ‘ On the Acting of
Munden .
’ Besides see ing him in old
Cockletop and in Crack the Cobbler,’
I witnessed his admirable performance of
old B arnton i n the ‘ Road to Ruin ,’ a
perfect gentleman in bearing and conduct,
84 MY LONG LIFE .
a sorrowful father grieved by his son’s
indiscretions . His very commencement
in the open ing scene Past two o ’clock
and Harry not yet retu rned ’ —rings
touch ingly even now upon my hearing,accompanied as the words were by the
sad and anxious look upon his face wh ile
drawing the watch from its fob . L iston ,the in imitable , also could be excellent in
pathetic parts , although so famed for his
surpassing comic performances . He , too ,had been written of by Charles Lamb
,
who , i n one instance , wrote what he
named ‘ The Biographical Memoir of M r.
L i ston ’- absurdly ficti tious but cer
tainly most humorous . The character I
saw h im play , where he had one scene of
profound pathos , was Russet, in Colman’s
play of The Jealous Wife The father’s
agony, when he fears that his daughter
has been carried off by a l iberti ne young
man , amoun ted to the tragic in its storm
of mingled rage and grief . Few witness
ing h is.
power of serious act ing in that
MY LONG LIFE . 85
scene could bel ieve that a man who so
often made them burst in to roars of laugh
ter was one and the same individual . I
heard that L iston once laid a wager with
Kean (who had said that noth ing could
disturb his seriousness while on the stage)that he could succeed in making h im
laugh eve n there . Once , when Kean was
playing Rot/a , a procession of veiled Vir
gins of th e Sun had to enter and pass
before h im . The fi rst vi rgin , as she
passed , suddenly raised her veil , con
fronted Kean with the irresis t ible visage
of L is ton , and the wager was won , for
Kean went off i nto an incontrollable fi t of
laughter. We used not infrequen tly to
meet M r . and M rs . L iston at the Lambs’
apartments while they l ived in Russel l
Street,Covent Garden ; and I once heard
Mrs . L iston sing. I t was in a small
operatic afterpiece . She had a very sweet
voice,a fai r complexion , and a dumpl ing
figure,which caused some wag to say she
looked l ike a fi l let of veal upon castors .
86 MY LONG LIFE .
Another of our early dramatic treats
had been seeing the elder Mathews in his
celebrated ‘ Entertainments,’ i n which he
not only represented one , but often several
different personages . There was a scene ,where two burglars were supposed to be
steal ing into a house wi th intention to rob .
So quickly were the changes of garment
effected , whil e passing behind a screen , or
darting swiftly and noiselessly off and on
the side scenes , so amazingly wel l altered
were the manner, voice, and look of the
two thieves, that it was scarcely possible
to bel ieve them to be the same individual .
A scene in another of these ‘ Entertain
ments ’ was a London street at n ight,where a watchman ’s box occupied the
centre of the stage . M athews,as an old
watchman,entered , and after a grumbl ing
speech went into h is box to have a cosy
nap . Then , successively, came along the
front of the stage some of the actors most
popular i n that day, supposed to be re
turn ing home after the n ight ’s perform
88 MY LONG LIFE .
other houses we had the gratification of
witness ing many ‘ Fi rst N ights ’ of peculiar
i nterest . Charles ’s engagement to write
the theatrical notices of course afforded
pecul iar opportuni ty fo r this prIVileg e .
Thus we were presen t when several of
Douglas Jerrold ’s plays came out, - his‘ Housekeeper,
’ ‘ Nel l Gwynne ,’ ‘ The
Prisoner of War,’ ‘ Time Works Won
ders ,’ etc .
,— and we had the pleasure of
seeing the author h imself i n the principal
character of his ‘ Painter of Ghent,
’ when
he played i t for the fi rs t few n ights . We
saw L iston ’ s first appearance i n Poole ’s
Paul Pry,’ at once making a prodigious
‘ h it. ’ At the O lympic we were among
the audience when Madame Vestris ap
peared as‘ Orpheus ,
’ clad i n the smallest
amount of c loth ing I had ever tnen seen
worn upon the stage . Her figure was per
fection . She looked like an exquisite
Greek statue In a shop window in O x
ford Street there used to be seen a san
dal of Madame Vestris ’s , her foot being
MY LONG LIFE . 9
renowned for its small s ize and great
beauty.
Our even ings at the theatres brought us
frequently i nto companionsh ip with that
super-excel len t crit ic,Will iam Hazl itt
,
who was l ikewise occupied i n writi ng the
atrical notices , — those for the ‘ Times ”
newspaper. I t was always a treat to si t
bes ide him,when he talked del ightfully ;
and once , on going to his own lodging, he
showed us a copy he had made of Titian ’s
Ippol i to dei Medic i ,’ and conversed finely
upon Titian ’s gen ius . Haz litt’
s gift i n
painting was remarkable . A portrai t he
took of h is old nurse ,— a mere head ,the upper part of the face in strong
shadow from an over-pending black silk
bonnet edged with black lace, while the
wrinkled cheeks,the l ines about the mouth ,
with the touches of actual and reflected
l ight , were given with such vigour and
truth , as wel l might recal l the style of the
renowned Flemish master, and actually
d id cause a good j udge of the art to say
90 MY LONG LIFE .
to Hazl i tt ,— ‘ Where did you get that
Rembrandt ? ’
At the theatre we frequently beheld
Godwin , with his eyes fixed upon the stage ,his arms folded across h is chest, while h is
gl isten ing bald head which somebody
had said was enti rely without the organ of
veneration — made h im conspicuous even
at a distance ; and similarly beheld was
Horace Smith , whose profi le bore a re
markable l ikeness to that of Socrates (as
known to us th rough tradit ional del i nea
tion), and whose Rej ected Addresses ’
were so admi ringly and risibly known
to us .
When the first ann iversary of our wed
ding came round , Charles and I i ndulged
ourselves with accepti ng his sister’s invi
tation to spend a fortnight ’s visi t to her
and her family at Standerwick . A pleas
ant and even memorable time it was to us.
The house stood near to a wooded spot,
where we could hear a certain kind of
thrush , called a storm -cock , sing the whole
MY LONG LIFE . 91
day long, with a perseverance nat ive to
him , perched on the top of a h igh tree .
M r. and Mrs . Towers,del ightfully hospi
table and intent upon making our stay in
every way del ightful to us,taking us
charming walks to see al l the most pic
turesque spots around them,and fur
mish ing the most in teresting topics of
conversation , versed as they both were in
l i terature ; while M r. Towers was an enthu
s iastic lover of mus ic,no mean performer
on the pianoforte h imsel f, besides being
ski lful and practical i n chemistry . I t was
at thei r breakfast-table one morn ing that
regret was expressed with regard to there
being no concordance to Shakespeare in
existence . Eagerly,as is my nature , I
immediately resolved that I would under
take this work,and , accordingly, when
after breakfast a walk was proposed over
to Warminste r,I took with me a volume
of Shakespeare,a penci l and paper, and
jotted down my plan,beginning with the
fi rst l ine of my intended book . During
92 MY LONG LIFE .
our walk we chanced to pas s an enclosure
where some sea-gulls were kept and were
screaming loudly. I have never heard
that sound since but I have associated
it with that day of commencing my sixteen
years’ work .
Besides h is theatrical and fine art
notices , Charles busied h imself with writ
ing some books he had in hand . One
was a tasteful boy ’s book , called ‘ Adam
the Gardener ’ ; another was h is beauti
fully-rendered Tales from Chaucer,’ and
a thi rd named Nyren’
s Cricketer ’s Gu ide,’
which was the resul t of putting into read
able form the recol lections of a vigorous
old friend who had been a famous cricketer
in h is youth and early manhood,and who
,
i n his advanced age , used to come and
communicate his cricketing experiences
to Charles with chuckl ing pride and com
placent remin iscence .
I t was in th is same year of 1829 that
my father and mother took a j ourney to
Germany for the purpose of conveying to
MY LONG LIFE. 93
Mozart’s s iste r, Madame Sonnenberg (who
was then out of h eal th and in poor ci r
cums tances), a sum of money which had
been subscribed by some musical admirers
of her brother’s gen ius . My father had
been the originator of this subscription,
and undertook all i ts contingent expenses
h imself ; therefore , i t was with pleased
zeal that he went on th is expedition to
Salzburg. He kept a d iary during its
progress , and records with enthusiasm its
inc idents . Extracts from th is diary are
given in my L ife and Labours of Vincent
Novello .
’
Ere the close of the year, M adame
Sonnenberg died,and Vincent Novel lo
crowned his tribute of respect to her by
getting Up a performance of her i l l ustrious
brother’s ‘ Requiem,
’ with organ accom
panied by few but cho ice instruments and
voices . I t so chanced that the in terest
ing performance was the one which ter
m inated the renowned series that had
rendered South Street Chapel so attractive
94 MY LONG LIFE .
to musical hearers ; for soon after i t was
closed,and the Portuguese Embassy no
longer had services there .
I t was on thei r way back from Germany
that my parents achieved the accompl ish
ment of thei r desi re to place thei r daugh
ter Clara in the Academy of S inging for
church music at Paris,where Monsieur
Choron was head-master of the establ ish
ment . My father cal led upon him and
obtained leave for Clara to enter herself
as candidate at the approaching election
which was to take place , a vacancy for a
pupil then presenting itself. My mother,
with her usual energetic decis ion and
prompt activity, immediately set out to
fetch Clara in time for the day of t rial .
On the eve , one of those who were to be
her j udges chancing to hear her rehears
ing, thought it must be a gi rl of at least
fifteen to whom he listened,so fine was her
style , so round and full was her tone.
Her father had taught her so well,and
had so accustomed her to execute Handel ’s
96 MY LONG LIFE .
graciousness and her domestic l ife s ince
has been a very happy one .
About this period my father removed
from Great Q ueen Street to No . 67 Frith
Street,where h is son Alfred was to begin
business as a music-sel le r. Very modest
was the shop-front , merely a couple of
parlour windows and a glass door display
ing a few ti tle-pages bearing composers ’
names of sterl ing merit, with Vincen t
Novello ’s as editor ; but th is simple begin
n ing led to an eminent result , that of a
sacred-music warehouse universal ly deal t
with by the musical world . I t affords a
striking example of the success that attends
genuine love of art and zeal i n promoting
the di ffusion of i ts means for cultivation
on the part of h im who edited , together
with industry,punctual i ty
,and regularity
on the part of the young publisher, aided
as they were by the practical counsel and
moral encouragement of her who devoted
herself to the chief aims of her husband
and son , indeed , of al l her children . On
MY LONG LIFE . 97
the evening of th e 1sth February, 1830,
my Charles and I were at the Lyceum
Theatre , where a French company were
giving performances . We saw Potier,a
celebrated comedian , play in Le Chiffon
n ier,’ and Le Cu isin ier de Buffon .
’ A few
hours afte r we left the theatre i t was burnt
to the ground . My brothers,Alfred and
Edward , awakened by the glare in the
sky, j umped out of th ei r beds and ran off
to see the conflag ration . When they re
counted at breakfast-time What had hap
pened during the n ight, i t may be imagined
how fervent was our grati tude at having
escaped so great a peri l .
Not long after that event my husband
and I spent a wonderful hour wi th Cole
ridge . Charles had been requested by his
acquaintance , Mr. Edmund Reade , to take
a message for him to the venerable poet,
respecti ng a poem lately written by Mr.
Reade,called Cain .
’ Rejoiced were we to
have th is occasion for a visi t to Coleridge,
who then resided at Highgate , in M r. Col
98 MY LONG LIFE .
man ’s house , and who had formerly been
known to Charles at Ramsgate , through
Charles Lamb ’s i ntroduction . When I
was introduced to h im as Vincent Novello’s
eldes t daughter, Coleridge was struck by
my father ’s name , knowing it to be that
of a musician , and forthwith plunged into
a fervid and eloquent praise of music,branching into explanation of an idea he
had , that the creation of the universe must
have been accompanied by a grand pre
vail ing harmony of spheral music .
In that same spring we saw Fanny
Kemble play P ortia i n ‘ The Merchant of
Venice ’ for her fi rst benefit. We had
been i n the house the previous autumn
when she made her diont on the stage in
the character o f f7n1iet ; he r mother, Mrs .
Charles Kemble , reappearing, for that
n ight only, as L ady Capulet,Mrs . Daven
port acting the nurse, and Charles Kemble,Mercutio. The enthusiasm of the public
was naturally great, for i t was known that
the young déontante had chosen the dra
I oo MY LONG LIFE .
his Faulconérzdg e, h is Ca ss ia, were al l
perfect, and we had the‘
p leasure of seeing
h im in al l these characte rs . As Ca ss io, I
remember my father saying that, i n scene
2 , act i i i . of‘ O thel lo, ’ Charles Kemble
looked l ike a drunken man trying to ap
pear sober,i nstead of a sober man trying
to look drunk, as many actors do . As
Fantoonérzdg e he seemed the embodiment
of Engl ish chival ry, while i n the scene with
his mother,Lady Faulconbridge
,his manly
tenderness , h is fi l ial coaxing way of speak
ing and putting his arm round her as he
thanks her for having made Richard Cmur
de L ion his father, was something to be
grateful for having wi tnessed . No one
but El l i ston could compete with Charles
Kemble for h is supremely winning mode
of enacting a wooer . We saw Fannv
Kemble many t imes and in her best parts ,thinking so wel l of her acting that we
found it strange when , years afterwards ,we read her sl ighting mention of herself as
a performer. Certainly her yuan i n Sher
MY LONG LIFE .
idan Knowles ’s play of The Hunchback’
was a piece of nobly-conceived and exe
outed impersonation , while the way in
which she looked and acted the queen
mother i n her own play of ‘ Francis the
F irs t was qui te admirable . That a young
girl of fifteen should have written that
strong play was i n itself a patent proof of
her innate strength and talent with keen
percept ion of dramatic fi tness . The second
ann iversary of our wedding day was spent
del ightful ly at Cambridge . My father had
been asked by the authorities of the Fi tz
will iam Museum there to examine the large
col lection of musical manuscripts i n thei r
l ibrary ; and he accord ingly visited Cam
bridge many times at his own expense for
that purpose . On this occas ion he made
his visi t a family hol iday,taking with h im
h is wife , his son Edward , my Charles , and
me . Much of his t ime was spent i n mak
ing copies of some of these MSS ., chiefly
those by masters of the ancient I tal ian
school,such as Buononcin i , Clari , Caris
MY‘
LONG LIFE .
simi , Leo , Mart ini , Palestri na, Stradel la,etc ., and some of these
‘MS S . were subse
quently printed and publ ished by him
under the name of ‘ The Fi tzwi l l iam
Music .
’
My brother Edward had made such
good use of h is studies under M r. Sass ,
and had worked so dil igently at home,practis ing in O i ls as well as i n water
colours , that he made use of h is vis i t to
Cambridge by taking copies of some of
the fine pictu res i n the F i tzwill iam Mu
seum . His beautiful copy of Rembrandt ’s
Dutch O fficer ’
(l ife size) and of Annibale
Caracc i’
s‘ St . Roch and the Angel ’ were
the resul t of his painting there , and are
sti l l among our preserved t reasures that
we owe to h im in the picture-gallery of
our present I tal ian home . Edward ’s
steady perseverance and industry more
or less characterising al l my father’s chil
dren , and inherited from him —existed in
a remarkable degree in our young artist.
He was scarcely ever without a paint
104 MY LONG LIFE .
ment of Christ,’ Raphael ’s ‘ Head of a
Friend ,’ Vandyke ’s ‘ Head of the Young
Duke of Buckingham ,
’ etc ., etc . All these
paintings , amounting to more than a hun
dred , by one who was sti l l i n h is youth , for
we lost h im a few months e re he attained
his twenty-th i rd bi rthday.
While we were at Cambridge we were
introduced to some of i ts Fel lows, and
we enjoyed many del icious wanderings in
the gardens belonging to the diffe rent
colleges . At that of Pembroke , Charles
took his hat o ff beneath the tree said
to have been planted by M i lton . At S t.
John ’s, we stood and gazed many times,admi ring the beautiful arch i tecture of its
chapel , and l ingered l isten ing to the‘ murmur of i nnumerable bees ’ above ou r
heads among the tal l l ime-trees of the
noble avenue . In these gardens we had
a rather amusing inc iden t . We had taken
a basket contain ing some almond cakes
to crunch whil e we sat to rest, but when
we quitted the gardens we had forgotten
MY LONG LIFE . 105
our intention and left the basket and its
contents on one of the seats . One of the
Fel lows, finding th is supply of goodies ,
disposed of them on the spot, but hear
ing afterwards who were the ir owners
and that we were leaving Cambridge,he
sent us a basket of similar cakes, i nscribed
with the words , Viaticum for the journey .
’
He was a very agreeable gentleman , and
for some time after kept up the acquaint
ance he had made with us at Cambridge .
During our stay in that noble place of
learning , I was so fortunate as to hear
a Greek oration del ivered by one of the
students there . The sonorous beauty of
the language gratified my ear with a
last ing recol lect ion of i ts rich sound .
My husband availed h imself of the advan
tage gained from this vis it, by wri ting
two let ters on the Fi tzwil l iam Museum
at Cambridge for the ‘ Atlas ’ newspaper,and in the autumn of that year, Leigh
Hunt ’s ‘ Tatler ’ having been started ,Charles was engaged to write several of
106 MY LONG LIFE .
its theatrical and operatic notices , when
i ts editor was occasionally otherwise em
ployed i n l i terary work . We were sti l l
l iving in Frith S treet, when a few weeks
of anxiety came to me . My husband was
not quite well , and grew so weak that
when we went for change of ai r to our
dear old Enfield, he— so stout a walker
and so swift a runner— had to take my
arm once as we slowly ascended Windmil l
H ill together Enfield ai r not effecting
the cure we had hoped , we returned to
town ; and there my mother prescribed
a daily mutton-chop and a glass of port
wine at noon . The mutton-chop I took
pleasure and pride in cooking myself, and
I th ink I may venture to affirm that neve r
was mutton-chop bette r broiled . Certai n
i t is that th is strengthening reg ime brough t
the much-desired cure. We con tinued to
practise the strict economy we had early
agreed to observe ; and , among other
savi ngs of expense,I made al l the clothes
I wore, as well as my husband’s dress
108 MY LONG LIFE .
out my father’s own canon 4 i n 2 ,
‘ G ive
thanks to God ,’ being sung as a grace
after dinner ; and no first of May was
al lowed to pass without my husband ’s
song, ‘ O ld May Morn ing,’ set to music
by my father, bei ng invariably sung by us
to h im . We had not yet left Frith S treet
when a most memorable musical even ing
took place there . I t was just after Mal i
bran ’s marriage with De Beriot, and they
both came to a party at our house . De
Beriot played in a string quartette by
Haydn , h is tone be ing one of the love
l iest I ever heard on the viol in , not ex
cepting that of Paganini , who certainly
was a marvellous executant. Then Mal i
bran gave , in generously lavish succession,Mozart ’s ‘ Non p iiI di fiorI , with Will
man ’s obl igato accompan imen t on the
Corno di bassette ; a‘ Sancta Maria
’
of
her host’s composit ion (which she sang at
sight with consummate effect and expres
sion) ; a tenderly graceful ai r,‘ Ah , rien
n ’est doux comme la voix qui d i t je
MY LONG LIFE . 19 9
t’aime ,’ and lastly a spiri ted mariners ’ song
,
with a sailorly burden , ch iming with thei r
rope hauling . In these two latte r she
accompanied herself ; and when she had
concluded , amid a rave of admiri ng plau
dits from all present, she ran up to one
of the heartiest among the applauding
guests , Fel ix Mendelssohn , and said , i n
her own winning, playfully imperious
manner (which a touch of foreign speech
and accent made only the more fascinat
i ng), Now, Mr. Mendelssohn , I never
do nothing for noth ing ; you must play
for me now I have sung for you .
’ He,
‘ noth ing loath ,’ le t her lead h im to the
pianoforte,where he dashed into a won
derfully impulsive extempore , - masterly,musician-l ike, ful l of gusto . In th is mar
vellons improvisation he in troduced the
several pieces Mal ibran had j ust sung,working them with admirable skil l one
after the other, and finally in combina
tion , the four subj ects blended together
in elaborate counter-point . When Mendels
I I O MY ' LONG LIFE .
sohn had finished playing, my father
turned to a friend near h im and said ,‘ He has done some things that seem
to me to be impossible, even after I have
heard them done .
given of the effec t Mendelssohn had pro
A strong proof was
duced upon the musical soul of the host
of the even ing by his writing, the very
next morning , the canon j ust alluded to,which the composer enti tled ‘ A Thanks
giving after Enj oyment . ’ The visit Men
delssohn was then paying to England was
the fi rst season of a German operatic com
pany’
s performance i n London , at the
I tal ian Opera House , in the Haymarket ;and the morn ing after i t had given Beet
hoven ’s ‘ F idel io,’ with Haitz inger as F lor
estan , and Schroeder Devrient as L eonora ,
Mendelssohn cal led upon my father,and
sitt ing near the pianoforte,turned every
few minutes to the instrument , playing
favouri te ‘ bits ’ from the opera of over
nigh t . My father was so enchanted with
this young mus ician ’s gen ius , that one
1 12 MY LONG LIFE .
panionable and easy in manner . Once
he and I had a quiet . talk together,he
lean ing on the back of a chai r and ask
ing news of the London Philharmonic
Society, while, on another morn ing, he
invited us (my mother and Clara , with
whom I was at that t ime in D iisseldorf
for a hol iday on the Rhine ) to go with
h im to the publ ic gardens and taste some
Ma itra nk, as we had not already made
acquaintance with that famous Rhenish
beverage . He was much amused at our
saying it was ‘ nice , i nnocent stuff ,’ and
warned us not to imagine it ‘ too
innocent . ’
Another del ightful musician who,whil e
he was i n London , came to see my
father, was Hummel . He , l ike Mendels
sohn , was great i n improvisation . So
symmetrical , correct, and mature in con
struction was i t , that , as my father’s musical
friend , Charles Stokes , observed , ‘ You
migh t count the time to every bar he
played whil e improvising .
’
MY LONG LIFE . 1 13
Early in 1834 my father removed from
Frith Street to 69 Dean S treet, his son
Alfred ’s music-sell ing bus iness havi ng so
much increased as to requi re larger prem
ises . I t was the year of the Westminste r
Abbey festival . My father was engaged
to preside at the organ , and his daughter
Clara,M iss Stephens , and other vocal ists
were the singers on this notable occasion .
I remember heari ng M i ss Stephens saying,
j ust before she entered the choir to s ing
I know that my Redeemer l iveth,
’ Any
young girl I knew, however great her ex
cellence i n singing m ight be , I would
never advise to enter the profess ion if she
suffered from nervousness . I have never
got over that which I feel when I have to
s ing before the publ ic .
’ She had then
been an establ ished favouri te for years ,and was especial ly famed for s inging
bal lads exquisi tely . Her ‘ Auld Robin
Gray was noted for i ts pathos and beauty .
The remark she made at the abbey was
el icited by Clara’s enviable calmness and.8
1 14 MY LONG LIFE .
abs ence of anyth ing l ike trepidation whi le
s inging the lovely air al lotted to her,
How beautiful are the feet . ’ That qu iet
truthfulness, that pure, firm,si lvery voice
precisely su ited the devout words . And
as regards Clara’s subsequent s inging o f
the very song M iss S tephens had then to
s ing, i t was remarkable for the pious
fervour of i ts pou ring forth . Clara said
that she always felt, while s inging I know
that my Redeemer l iveth ,’ that she was
perfo rm ing an act of faith . When she was
at the Court of Berl in , some years after
wards , his Prussian Majesty always asked
her to repeat to him that part icular song
each time she wen t to the palace .
I t was wh ile we were l iving at Dean
Street that my sister Cec i l ia ’s marriage
took place . She had already made a
good musical career ; for she— l ike us allhad begun early an active entrance upon
i ndustrial l ife She had sung in various
musical pieces at London theatres, and
had pleased greatly as an opera-singer
1 16 MY LONG LIFE .
the shafts of his ridicule might tell to
good purpose rather than harm . This
was the origin of many of the sharp th ings
he said against woman for instance,such
as those he wrote i n ‘ The Man made of
Money,’ ‘ Mrs . Caudle ’s Lectu res ,
’ etc .
He reserved to h imself the right to snub
the M rs . Jerichos and the Mrs . Caudles
among the sex , to rebuke thei r shrewish
use of tongue , thei r hen-peckings , thei r
unworthy wheedling and meannesses ; but
he had faith i n the innate worth of woman
hood , and its superiori ty to such base
nesses , where i t trusts its own honest nature
and disdains resorting to such degrading
tricks of hectoring or coaxing . Of
woman ’s generous unselfishness and quiet
heroi sm Jerrold had full perception , as we
had many opportunities of notic ing, i n
some of the s ide remarks he occasionally
let fal l in conversation with us .
As a token of his bel ief that he was
enti rely understood and appreciated by my
Charles and me , I may mention that when
MY LONG LIFE . 1 17
he brought h is Mrs . Caudle ’s Lectures as
a presentation copy to me , he had written
in its blank page, ‘ Presented with great
timidity, but equal regard, to Mrs . Cowden
Clarke , by Douglas J errold .
’ His promptitude as wel l as stinging power in retort
is well known ; the words that exc ited h is
reprisals had scarcely issued from the
mouth of h im who spoke them , when out
sprang Jerrold ’s reply. To the man who
said , ‘ Ah , Lamartine and I row in the
same boat,’ the answer,
‘ Not with the
same sen/l , though ,’ was g iven without a
second ’s pause .
Many a charmingly witty lette r did we
receive from Douglas Jerrold ; many a
delightful hour of talk did we enjoy with
him ; and he became a clear and admired
friend of ours .‘ Poor and content is rich and rich
enough,
’ truly andwisely says our belovedShakespeare ; certain i t is that my husband
and I verified to the utmost these words .
We were happ iest of the happy, not only
1 18 MY LONG LIFE.
while practising strictest economy, but
i n avail ing ourselves of every l ite rary
or artistic means for gaining addition to
our scanty income. One of these means
presented itself i n an engagement to sing
in the services of Somers Town chapel ,where my brother Alfred sang bass and
led the choi r. This engagement was the
means of our hearing Cardinal Wiseman
preach a beautiful and learned sermon
upon altar pieces, one of them having
been a recent donation to that chape l .
His learning— great as i t was— alwaysseemed to be ready stored at h is command,but never al lowed to be brought ou t os!
tentatious ly. We had the great pleas
ure of hearing h im del iver a lecture at the
Marylebone Institution , on the influence
of words at various epochs of ‘ c ivi l isat ion
i n the world .
’ He showed how far supe
rior, i n impressive effect, were such simple
words as graveyard ,’ God ’s acre,
’ to the
more classically- derived names, ‘necrop
ol is ,’ or cemetery ; or such an expression
120 MY LONG LIFE .
i ts author’s decease ; but the preface states
that the Card inal would have desi red ‘ i t
should be given to the people of England
as the last work he undertook for the ir
sake?
Another source of gain ing increase of
pelf arose out of Charles ’s gift i n reading
aloud unti ringly, together with h is possess
ing a speaking voice so full , so flexible ,so varied in express ion and intonation ,that it was pecul iarly fitted for address ing
a large audience. These natural advan
tages suggested to me the idea that he
would succeed capital ly as a lecturer ; and
on tel l ing him this , we talked the matter
over together (according to his wonted
habit of consulting h is wife on all proj ects),and he not only adopted the idea , but set
to work at once in selecting subj ects from
among his favourite poetic authors,and in
forming plans for obtaining engagements
to del iver h is lectures when written . The
complete success that crowned this under
taking cannot be better man ifested than
MY LONG LIFE .
by quot ing from what h is friend , th e en
thusiastic Shakespearian , M r. Sam Tim
mins , wrote when requested to give a
record of Charles Cowden-Clarke ’s career
as lecturer. The following is the passage
to which I al lude : ‘ He began the great
work of h is l ife the publ ic lectures on
Shakespeare and other dramatists and
poets which made his name throughout
Great Britain , and secu red h im crowded
and del ighted audiences . His lecturing
career commenced at a period when me
chanics ’ insti tutions were waning in in
terest, and a demand was growing for
lectures of a more l i terary and attractive
character than merely scientific lectures ,even with many experiments and demon
strations , could supply . The lecture-room
was j ust beginn ing to be the school -house
of the middle classes , whose education had
been imperfect,but who had acquired the
des ire to learn more . Such a demand
Cowden-Clarke was especially qual ified to
supply,and his lectures soon became the
12 2 MY LONG LIFE .
great attraction at Atheneum,and In
stitute ,” and Lecture-hall ,
” all through the
land . His lectures were real ly ! lectures ,”
read from MS . most carefully prepared
and splendidly and clearly written in the
old style ! round hand ” which Lamb ad
mired . They were not, however, merely! read , but every word was given wi th
such earnestness and force that every
hearer caught the enthus iasm of the
lecturer, and was led to go home and
read more .
As a lecturer, Cowden-Clarke had very
special qualifications . He had a pleasant,cheerful , ruddy face , a charm ing humour
of expression , a clear, pleasant vo ice, and
a heartiness and drollness of manner which
won the audience as soon as he appeared .
His were careful essays , the resu l t of long
and patient study, ful l of acute and subtle
cri tic ism , and always th rowing new l ights
on the subject in hand . The expectat ions
of h is audience were aroused , and they
were never disappoi nted . His good taste
124 MY LONG LIFE .
the full force of h is del ineations came out
i n his representation of comic characte rs
from Shakespeare and Mol iere especial ly.
He was not a mere rhetorician , elocution
ist, or actor . He neve r attempted to per
sonate the characters , but only to read
with such interest and power as to real ise
the very ! form and fashion of each . He
was, i n fact, as dramatically successful as a! reader ” of the highest class as Dickens
when reading his own stories ; and Cow
den-Clarke ’ s range was wider and his char
acters more varied .
’
Charles ’s first-del ivered lectu re (‘ On
Chaucer ’
) was at Royston in 1835, and he
at once ach ieved success ; receiving such
unanimous plaudits and testimonies of ad
m iration not only from his audience , but
from several residents in the town , who ,hearing the impress ion he had produced ,invited him to their houses and became
permanent friends . This was the case in
many places where he subsequently lec
tured ; men of distinguished talent and
MY LONG LIFE . 25
eminence forming l ifelong friendsh ips wi th
h im . At first, when h e lectured at pro
vincial i nstitutions , he took me with h im ;but finding this naturally diminished our
profits , we agreed to forego th is pleasure
by l imiting i t to my accompanying h im to
the rai lway stat ion when he left, and meet
ing h im there when he retu rned home .
Our daily interchange of letters made the
best compensation for absence from each
other ; and he never fai led in sending me
one— sometimes two— daily. His hand
writing was a nobly clear one . He pre
ferred reading his lectures from his own
MS . even to reading them from print,when some of them , in afte r years , ap
peared in book form . When he was in
London he kept brother Alfred ’s ledgers
and day-books posted up , and he made
fai r copies of almost everyth ing that he or
I wrote for publ icat ion . In order to en
sure perfectly effective del ivery when lec
turing,he invariably rehearsed the lecture
to be given i n the even ing by reading it
126 MY LONG LIFE .
aloud that same morning . When he was
i n town , he read it to me ; when away
from town , he read it aloud to h imself, so
unsparing of pains was he in everyth ing
he undertook . While thus engaged in
his lecturing and book-keeping, Charles
stil l maintained h is other writi ng in l i ter
ary work. He wrote The Musician about
Town ’ and a lovely tale called ‘ Gentle
ness 18 Power, or the story of Caranza
and Aborz uf,’ for the Analyst M agazine . ’
He was almost an exceptional husband in
his generous mode of making the mascu
l ine prerogative of complete marital sway
cede to his idea of the right and happiness
of conj ugal equal i ty . He brought every
guinea he earned to me to take care of,
and whenever I consulted him on any
needful purchase, his answer always was :
I t i s as much your money as mine , do
what you th ink well with i t ; buy what
you th ink proper, and what we can best
afford .
’ After some time of our l iving in
Dean Street, my father removed to Bays
1 28 MY LONG LIFE .
morning before I went up to town with
my siste r, who wished me to joi n those of
her pupils who had counter-tenor voices .
Sabilla’s artistic career was a congenial
one . She was a favourite concert-singer
for some years ; she made her deont on
the stage in Rossini ’s S a Gaz z aladra’
;
she sang h is ‘ Semi ramide ’ and other
prima -donna parts i n Dubl in ; she was an
admirable teacher of vocal isation , and wrote
an excellent treatise on Voice and Vocal
Art . ’ My father had the del ight of seeing
his ch ildren succeed in all the profess ional
careers they themselves had respectively
chosen , and our life at Bayswate r was a
very cheerful and interesting one . We
had for neighbours there two that were
espec ial ly productive of pleasure to us .
Mrs . Loudon and her daughter Agnes
occupied one house in Porcheste r Ter
race , while the Reverend Mr. Tag art and
his family resided at another i n the same
road , which was close to Craven Hill , so
close, that a hood and shawl over my dress
MY LONG LIFE . 1 29
sufficed me for going to visi t at either
house . At M rs . Loudon ’s we met the
Landseers, Edwin and Charles Martin,
the painter of ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast,
’ etc . ;
his clever-headed and amiable daughte r,
M iss Martin ; Joseph Bonomi and his
wife, who was another daughte r of Martin
Owen Jones ; Noel Humphreys ; Samuel
Lover, author of that sprightly novel ,‘ Rory O
’
More’
; Will iam J erdan and
others. Of Edwin Landseer we heard
the amus ing incident of h is having been
at the Engl ish Court when th e King of
Portugal was on a visi t to our Queen , and
the celebrated painter of an imals being
presented to him , his Portuguese Maj esty
graciously said : ‘ I am very glad to see
you , M r. Landseer, for I am very fond of
beasts .
’ We also heard of Edwin Land
seer’s wonderful feat when some one was
talking of being able to write or draw
with the left hand , and he remarked : ‘ I
th ink I can not only draw with my left
hand , but I can draw with both hands at9
130 MY LONG LIFE .
3once . Whereupon he took up two pen
cils and actual ly drew a horse with one
hand and a dog with the other, at the
same time .
At the Reverend M r . Tag art’
s house
we met serene-spiri ted Emerson and
other noted Americans ; and one morn
ing M rs . Tag art sen t round a message
tell ing me that, if Charles and I would
go and lunch with her, she expected
M rs. Gaskell to come and see her then ,knowing how glad we should be to meet
the authoress of Mary Barton ’
( a book
that Charles Dickens had written h is
thanks for, and admiration of, to M rs .
Gaskel l herself). I t was j ust l ike Mrs .
Tag art’
s thoughtful kindness to send us
this welcome invi tation . The lady guest
proved to be a remarkably quie t-mannered
woman thoroughly unaffected , thoroughly
attractive ; so modest that she blushed
l ike a gi rl when we hazarded some ex
pression of our ardent admiration of
So ful l of enthusiasmher Mary Barton .
132 MY LONG LIFE .
brother Alfred truly O bserved , If we had
no engagements to give up , we should be
as badly off as to be without any .
’
Ac
cording ly, he gave up some of h is ,and my siste r S abilla some of hers ;but thoroughly we enjoyed ou r trip with
our dear parents . From Ramsgate to Os
tend,th rough Germany, by the Rhine, to
Switzerland , by the Lake of Lucerne to
that of Como , on to M i lan , Verona, and
Venice , where we spent an enchanting
few days ere we took our way back to
England . We had brought with us the
the four green -bound books in which my
fathe r had collected and arranged for us
two hundred and five of the cho icest com
positions , such as Mozart’s ‘ Ave Verum ,
’
Leonard Leo ’s ‘ Kyrie eleison ,’ Wilbye
’
s
Flora gave me,’
Linley’
s Let me careless ,’
etc ., etc . These unaccompanied concerted
pieces my father entitl ed ‘ Music for the
open ai r,’ and they enabled us to give
h im the enjoyment of h is favourite
gratification whenever he and we spent
MY LONG LIFE . 133
a day in the fields or took a journey. In
Venice they were special ly welcome com
panions , for they accompanied us when
ever we were in our gondola, gl iding
about see ing the most remarkable spots
i n that uniquely beautiful c ity of the sea ;and then , on reach ing the most ret ired
and quiet of the lagoons , indulging in a
family quartett . When our gondol ier,Antonio , perceived th is , he generally chose
one of the less-frequented water streets ,and we once overheard h im say to one
of h is fellow-gondol iers , —‘ My Engl ish
people often sing, I can tel l you , and
well , too !’ On our return home we
found that M rs . London was getting up,for pe rformance at her house , Sheridan
’s
play of the ‘ The Rivals . ’ Her daughter
was to play Lydia L ang n isn, while A l
fred, S abilla, and I had been
‘ cast ’ for
three of the characters, nay, four, for
my brother was to double the parts of
the Coaenman and David, while S ahilla
was to play L ucy, and I was to enact
134 MY LONG LIFE .
Mrs . Ma laprop. O ther friends of M rs .
Loudon sustained the rest of the char
acters , and the performance, which took
place the 10th November, 184 7, was com
p letely successful , so successful , indeed ,that i t had to be repeated next even ing,and again on the 1 2 th of the ensuing
January, 1848.
These private theatricals led to one of
the most pecul iarly brigh t episodes of my
l ife . At a party at Mrs . Tag art’
s house I
was introduced by Leigh Hunt to Charles
Dickens , with whom we had been for some
time acquainted through his del ightful
books , and he had been always spoken of
in our family circle as dear Dickens ’ or
darl ing Dickens therefore it may easily
be conceived how pleased and proud I felt
to be thus personal ly made known to h im.
He and I fel l at once in to l ivel ies t con
versation ; and j ust before he was taking
leave, he said , I hear you have been play
ing Mrs . Ma laprop lately.
’ I answered ,Yes ; and I hear you are going to get up
136 MY LONG LIFE .
Although I am naturally shy, I have
never fel t shy when acting ; but i t must he
confessed that ‘ rehearsal ’ was somewhat
of a heart-beating affai r to me , as I had to
meet and speak before such a group of
distinguished men as John Forster, editor
of the ‘ Examiner ’
; Mark Lemon , editor
of ‘ Punch John Leech , i ts in imitable
il lustrator ; the admirable artistes , Augus
tus Egg and Frank Stone , all of whom
were fel low-actors i n Charles Dickens ’s
Amateur Company . But he , as manager,presenting me to them with his usual grace
and kindl iness, together with my own fi rm
resolve to speak out clearly, j ust as if I
were at performance instead of rehearsal ,
helped me capitally through this first and
most formidable evening . On the night
when ‘ The Merry Wives ’ was first per
formed at the Haymarket Theatre ( 15th
of May, I fel t not a shadow of that
stage fright, although I had to make my
entrance before a select London audience .
As I stood at the side scene with Augustus
MY LONG LIFE . 137
Egg (who played simple Ma ster S lender’
s
man-servant), wait ing to go on together,he asked me whether I felt nervous . Not
in the least ,’
I repl ied .
‘ What I feel is3j oyful excitement
,not alarm . Augustus
Egg’s artist eye remarked the appropriate
ness of my costume , and added , I t l ooks
not so new as those made by the theatrical
robe-makers , but as if it had been worn
in the streets of Windsor day by day. I
answered , Well i t may, for I made it
myself, and with material al ready part of
my own wear. ’ I had had the advantage
of Colonel Hamil ton ’s obl iging suggestions
and sketches , as well as hints I took from
Kenny Meadow ’s picture of D ame Qu icklyi n the I l lustrated Shakespeare ,
’ publ ished
by Lyas in 1843 .
The performance of The Merry Wives ’
at the Haymarket Theatre was followed by
that of Ben Jonson ’s ‘ Every Man in H is
Humour,’ and Kenny ’s farce of Love, Law
and Physic ,’ on the next even ing but one
( 1 7th May, In the former I played
138 MY LONG LIFE .
Tik, Cob’s wife ; and in the latter, Mrs .
H illary ; and for both these characters I
made my own dresses . In one of her
concluding scenes,when Mrs . H il lary pre
tends to be a rich Spanish lady , and tries
to obtain a proposal of marriage from
L ukin Log , I made a sparkl ing addition
to the velvet dress I donned , by ornament
i ng i t with a set of stage-diamond buttons,
which had belonged to El l iston , had been
bought by my sister Cecil ia, and was
kindly lent by her to me for th is purpose,
Besides these large buttons , farthe r effect
was produced by a bri l l iant t iara of the
same stage-gems , with which I fastened
the high Spanish comb and vei l I wore ;and M ark Lemon , who enacted L uéin
Log admirably , used to make a point of
kiss ing his hand to these diamonds , show
ing what was his ch ief attraction in wooing
this supposed heiress to mil l ions . Charles
Dickens, supreme as manager, super—ex
cellent as actor, and ardently enthusiast ic
in h is enjoyment of exercis ing his skil l i n
MY LONG LIFE .
expressed h is pain at its cessation . Genial ,kind , most sympathetic , and fascinating was
h is companionship, and very precious to
me was his friendship.
In the autumn of that year my dear
mother’s heal th became so del icate that
our medical adviser counsel led her re
moval to a warmer cl imate ; and she chose
N ice (then I tal ian) for the proposed pur
pose . My siste r S abilla gave up al l her
pursu i ts in England and accompanied her
abroad ; and they took up thei r abode in a
pleasant set of apartments in a house that
had a garden stretch ing down to the sea
shore , and was so truly southern that i t
had rose hedges taller than the heigh t of
a man , besides having abundance of
orange-t rees skirting its paths . The next
year,Alfred
,Charles , and I (with my father,
who remained at N ice) took a j ourney, to
spend some weeks with my mother and
S ahilla, during the long vacation , when my
brother could be best spared from his bus
iness , and a del ightful time we had .
MY LONG LIFE . 14 1
On our return to Bayswater we three
began what we cal led our ‘
trihominate’
homestead ; and we tried to make it as
chee rful and happy as we could , lessened
as it now was by the absence of our dear
ones . Weekly in terchange of long , closely
written l etters between my mother and me
kept us mentally together, i n thei r m in ute
details of what took place daily at each
home We were interested i n her im
proved health and dai ly drives i n the N ice
pictu resque environs or walks i n the N ice
garden ; while she followed all our dis
posals of time in England . They were
mostly thus : My dear men-folk wen t up
to the Dean S treet music warehouse every
morning after breakfast ; I attended to ou r
household arrangements , and worked away
at my writi ng (‘ The Gi rlhood of Shake
speare ’s Heroines ,’ etc .) during the day,
and then had the j oy of walking to meet
my men—folk on thei r way home to d in
ner, generally tak i ng the path which led
th rough Kensington Gardens and Hyde
142 MY LONG LIFE .
Park as our l ine for meeting. We resolved
to take advantage of the long vacation
each year for a journey to N ice , when I
used to take the MSS . of those books I
had in hand with me , that I migh t have
the pleasure of reading them to my mother,
and consul ting with her as to her opinion
and j udgment respecting them . In her
drives and walks She always made me her
compan ion unti l the t ime arrived for our
return to England . On one of these N ice
visits of ours we saw Clara fo r the first time
after She was married to Count Gig lincci
on the 2 2 November (St Cec il ia’s day),
1843, as they had always since th ei r mar
riag e dwelt i n h is patrimonial mansion at
Fermo on the shores O f the Adriatic . But
at th is j uncture they had come to N ice for
a change , and were contemplati ng Clara’s
resumption of her art is t ic caree r. We
also then made acquaintance with her four
children two sons and two daughters
who , I must say, were the most adorable
human cherubs I ever beheld . My readers
144 MY LONG LIFE .
S ahilla, and the young Gig linccis were
dwell i ng there . These latter became our
chief source of brightness , and producer of
the cheerfulness we strove earnestly to
maintain . The boys Giovann i and M ario ,had been placed by their parents i n col
lege , while the two l ittle girls , Porzia and
Valeria, were establ ished (under the care
of a worthy couple , friends of the Count)i n a house near to ours , Ma ison Quag lia .
Charles made it a pleasure to give
Clara’s l i ttle gi rls lessons i n writ ing, and
in correct reading of, as wel l as learn ing
by heart,Engl ish verse ; while to see him
with one of them on his knee , repeating
her Gay ’s Fables ,’ fondl ing h is silver hai r
,
and call ing h im her ‘ dearest boy,’ fi l led
my heart with happy feel ing . Invariably
these lessons were at a table on which
stood a case O f Engl ish barley-sugar, im
ported expressly, and from it Porzia and
Valeria were permitted to help themselves
at the conclusion of thei r so-called ‘ tasks,’
these being rather play work than task
MY LONG LIFE . 145
work . From then to the present time
these two darl i ngs have been as dear to
me as if they were my own children .
Time passed smoothly on during our
res idence at N ice . Charles and I steadily
pursued our l i terary work , he bringing out
h is Riches of Chaucer,’ and his ‘ Carm ina
M i n ime , besides editing the text o f
N ichol ’s ‘ L ibrary Edition of the Bri tish
Poets,
’ while I was engaged by the M essrs .
Appleton of New York to wri te ‘World
noted Women ,’ and to edi t thei r edi tion
of Shakespeare . This last work was the
source of pecul iar pride and gratification
to my husband and me , i nasmuch as i t
made me the first (and as yet, only) woman
editor of ou r great poet . We took daily
walks toge ther, and more than once got
up before dawn to see the sun rise , and
Charles continued a favourite practice of
h is i n reading a bit from some favourite
author to me before we al l met at our fi rst
meal .
Although h is publ ic del ivery of lecturesI O
146 MY LONG LIFE .
had ceased on his leaving England , yet my
husband frequently read one of them to our
friends in our N ice parlour, and he never
rel i nquished a time-honoured custom he
had of reading one to us while we stoned
rais ins , blanched almonds , cut candied
fruit, etc. , for the Christmas pudding,which we continued to make yearly in
honour of dear old England .
Count G igl iucc i and his wife , our Clara,used to fl i t over to N ice whenever they
could get away from her renewed engage
ments , i n order to see thei r ch i ldren ; and
this brought us del ightful music , as wel l
as was the cause of a great treat, when
Tamburin i came one afternoon to our
house and sang with Clara several del i
c ions operatic duets . He kept wonderfully
young and alert , and was very gay and
bright in society . He laughed playfully, I
recol lect, at my having taken part i n a
M endelssohn trio , wherein Clara and her
daughter, Porzia, sang the two soprano
parts , my counter-tenor being correct , but
148 MY LONG LIFE .
manner,which he sent to us some years
afterwards . A friend of‘
his— who also
became one of ours— was l ikewise at N ice
when he was there . This was M rs . John
Farrar, authoress of‘ Advice to Young
Ladies ’ and ‘ Recollect ions of Seventy
Years . She was most energetical ly k ind
and serviceable to sufferers during the
American war between North and South,
and as clever as she was good .
An illustrious vis itor gratified us by
staying at our house for a few days,— no
other than Richard Cobden , who had been
known to my brother Alfred in England
at the time of the ‘ Anti-Corn Law League . ’
Easy, familiarly at home with us , he used
to read his Engl ish newspapers aloud to
us or chat with us as if he had been one
of our family ci rcle for years, and when
on one Christmas Eve we made our tradi
tional plum-pudding (Mrs . Cobden help
ing us to prepare its ingredients ), he kept
up entertaining conversation the while .
Next day, when the pudding was to
MY LONG LIFE. 149
be eaten , and he with my brother and
sister were engaged to discuss its merits
at a neighbouring friend ’s house,Cobden
looked up at Charles and me (who were
standing on the terrace steps remain ing
at home to keep house ) and expressed
h is hearty regre t that we should not be
of the party to enjoy th is truly British‘ consecrated cate .
’
When N ice came under French ru le ,we found many of its ways so much
changed that we resolved to leave i t for an
I tal ian residence, and fixing upon Genova
as a proved excel lent cl imate, Alfred took
Charles and me with him to see if we
could find a su itable house there . We
went over one (very near to that we have
Si nce dwelt i n for more than th irty years)which was so curious that a description of
i t, and our journey to and from Genova
on that occasion , was written by me in a
paper entitled The Cornice Road in Rain
( though altered by the editor of the‘ Atlantic Month ly Magazine ’ to , I th ink,
156 MY LONG LIFE .
the less individually appropriate name of
‘ An I tal ian because my kind
friend,James T. Fields , had requested me
to contribute an article to that magazine .
Before that year ( 1860) was ended ,Alfred and S abilla went again to Genova
to renew his search for a domicile that we
should al l l ike ; and when he returned
home to N ice he told us that he had
bought the house and garden then call ed
Pallazzo Massone , and subsequently named
Villa Novello . On the eleventh of the
fol lowing Apri l , Alfred and S abil la took
possession of h is new purchase , but Charles
and I remained at N ice with my father
unti l our vil la should be put i n order for
his reception , as there were many alte r
ations needed to angl icise it and make it
more comfortable to l ive in . Alas ! that
reception was destined never to be . Dur
ing the spring and summer my dear father
was better than he had been for some time
before . He read my preface to ‘World
noted Women ,’ and the one to my Ameri
152 MY LONG LIFE .
My brother Alfred fetched my Charles
and me to Genova from N ice , where my
siste r S abilla, with her usual unselfish
activity in helping us , stayed to take the
trouble of col lecting our most-prized
belongings , pictures,books, etc . , etc . , and
causing them to be safely conveyed to ou r
new abode . Being perched on a prom
ontorial cl i ff, more than a hundred feet
above the sea,th is villa commands a mag
nificent view of the harbour and bay of
Genova,beyond which trends the coast
of the Riviera for sixty miles , half-way to
N ice, affording sight of gorgeous sunsets ,often increased in beauty by the crescent
moon and visit ing planets . The expanse
of skyand sea , the grandeur of this western
view, cannot be taken from us but , other
wise, we have been the victim— as we
were at Craven Hil l— of so-called ‘ im
provements .
’ When we fi rst came here
there was a small grove of cypress-trees ,marking the spot where lay the remains
of numerous persons who died from a
MY LONG LIFE . 153
vis itat ion of cholera one season long be
fore . In th is small grove was annually
sung a di rge for the repose of the souls
of those who lay beneath , by some priests
from the neighbouring church of San
G iacomo,at early dawn , and the sound of
thei r solemn chaunting rose softly and
soothingly to our ears as we lay and l is
tened in the coming on of morning l ight.
Then came a time when a decree from
high quarters swept away the peacefu l
cypresses,and substituted a battery of
heavy guns,with what Leigh Hunt calls
‘ the foul cannon ’s ever-gaping mouth ,’
turned seaward . On the eastern side of
our cl iff-demesne there were three min ia
ture cemeteries , one dedicated to the
Swiss Protestants,one to the Hebrews , and
one to the members of the Greek Church ,
all three united amicably,side by side ,
by a wooded enclosure of cypresses and
one graceful cedar-tree . Through this
cluster came goldenly the glories o f sun
rise , and amid th is shade more than one
154 MY LONG LIFE .
blackbi rd and thrush buil t thei r nest, and
in the springtime a faithful n ightingale
(Will iam Morris ’s ‘ brown bird ’
) would
l inger there for a day or two on its way
to the closer shel te r of the Pegl i Woods ;and every Apri l a pai r of hoopoes would
visi t us from Africa, abide a fortn ight or
th ree weeks , famil iarly pecking about the
green slope immediately beneath our win
dows,and only taking refuge with slow
fl ight, plunging into the th icke t of cy
presses when startled by chance from its
grassy meal of insects . The dark verdure
of these cemetery trees was enl ivened , on
our s ide of the enclosure wall , by a lush
overgrowth of roses, bignonias , westaria,etc . , while up some of the slender holes
and boughs clambered the snowy Sprays
of the rincas , and in autumn the gorgeous
crimson of the Vi rgin ia creeper richly
draped them . The lovel iness of these
three cemeteries was ruthlessly snatched
away from us by the intrusion of a new
road,
’ that cut through our croquet
156 MY LONG LIFE .
But to return to the period when we
first l ived here . My earl iest piece of writ
i ng, i n our new house ,was one I had much
at heart . I t was The L ife and Labours
of Vincen t Novello,
’ for I earnestly wished
there should exist a record of the immense
amount of musical work which his indefat
ig able i ndustry and devotion to music had
ach ieved , together with the very numerous
publications wh ich he had brought out to
supply the world of music with del ight,and to advance the knowledge and prac
tice of th is enchanting art . My health
had not been strong since h is loss,and
it was deemed advisable that I should
have change of ai r and scene accordingly,
S ahilla, Charles , and I i ndulged ourselves
with an excursion to see the Correggio
pictures at Parma, and the Caracc i pic
tures at Bologna . Alfred remained at
home to superintend the masons employed
about the house, and to look to the ar
rangement of our garden,which had been
l ittle better than a cabbage-ground before
MY LONG LIFE . 157
our advent . To give an idea of the task
he had in hand , he proj ected , and after
some considerable time effected , the mak
ing of a piece of road , by way of a carriage
drive,between the entrance gate and our
house door. He had to build up a sup
porting wal l against the earth of ou r west
walk ; he pul led down some ramshackle
out-houses that formed part of the old
edifice , and substituted a terrace , paved
with Pompe ian ti les , beneath our western
windows , preserving opposite to them the
only tree we found here , a gracefu l bay
laurel,wh ich Alfred kindly cal led my tree
,
and subsequently trained up its bole , and
among its central branches , a cl imb ing
red rose . Beyond the bay-laurel tree a
g rass plot , or moderate-sized lawn , with
a small fountain , backed by a sculptured
group of boys at play,surrounded by
variegated canes , a group of magnol ias,a Cedrus deodara, a eucalyptus , and a
well ingtonia, both of these t rees not
taller than an umbrella when he fi rst
158 MY LONG LIFE .
had them planted , but now giants of fifty
feet high .
In that same year we took a short
spring fl ight to a neighbouring bathing
place called Acqua Santa, and in the sum
mer a longer fl ight to Turin , Paris , and
London , where we saw again many dear
old Engl ish friends , heard the Handel
festival in the Crystal Palace,and were
present at two of Charles Dickens ’s ‘ read
ings . ’ One was the ‘ Christmas Carol,
’
and the ‘ Trial from P ickwick ,’ the other
was from ‘ N icholas N ickleby ,’ Boots at
the Holly Inn ,’ and Mrs . Gamp .
’
In the autumn I saw for the fi rst time
I taly ’s grand tragic actress , Ristori , espe
c ially great , I thought, i n Ginditta’ and
in ‘ E l isabetta, Regina d’
Ing h ilterra.
’ We
had already made del ighted acquaintance
with two of the most excellen t comic actors,Tosell i and Pieri . Tosell i we had first
seen in N ice, where he played many cap
ital characters i n the Piedmontese dialect .
His style was exqu isitely pecul iar in hu
160 MY LONG LIFE .
with whitewash by former occupants ( l ),but was restored by an I tal ian artist whom
Alfred employed for the purpose .
The next year, 1863, i s ch iefly memo
rable to me from its being the one in which
we were requested by M essrs . Cassell 8:
Company to edi t the i r annotated edition
of Shakespeare , and we began the work
on the I st of September . I t was rather
an anxious task, as we had to ‘ work to
time ,’ for the edition was originally brought
out i n weekly numbers ; but we never failed
once in regular pre-supply of the requis ite
matter for the printers . Beside his j o int
editing with me , Charles made a fai r copy
of the 33 Notes,’ ‘ Shakespeare Pre
face,
’ etc . , which we wrote for th is work, as
well as of the one which followed i t ; for
immediately upon its completion , we began
a book that we had long contemplated ,The Shakespeare Key .
’ We finished
our annotated edition on the 16th March ,
1868, and began our‘ Shakespeare Key ’
two days after,on the 18th March, 1868,
MY LONG LIFE . 161
finish ing the latter on the 1 7th June , 1872 .
These n ine years of steady, hard work
were not without the i r rel ief of pleasant
recreations . We had the pleasure of see
ing many friends , both those who resided
in I taly and those who were merely pass
ing through Genova on the ir way to or
from Rome , Florence , etc . I kept a visi
tors ’ book where in to note these latte r,i ts pages having three columns : one for
the name of the visitor, one for the name
of th e introducer, one for the date of the
visit here . Besides see ing friends , we had
much del ightful music . My sis ter S abilla
got up some charm ing ‘ M attin ate ’
; for
wh ich she prepared the programme with
the greatest care , selecti ng the most choice
compositions of the best maste rs , and
engaging the best ava i lable artists here
for their due performance . W ith these
were several of our friends , musical ly ac
compl ished, and She always provided‘ supplements ’ from her own family
,i n
case of unforeseen disappointments fromI I
162 MY LONG LIFE .
those whose names had been previously
announced to sing or play. Thus,some
t imes, my father’s unaccompanied selec
tions i n the green book were given ; at
other t imes , S ahilla herself sang an aria,
or Alfred a favourite bass song. Besides
these home concerts (which took place in
our picture gal lery here), S abilla wrote
and got up some musical charades , sung
and acted by ourse lves and a few friends ,which were a decided success . A special
musical t reat was enjoyed by us during
that n ine—year interval , for in 1864 I had
the del ight o f hearing for the first t ime ,and several times after, Gounod
’s immortal
opera of Faust ,’ given at the Carlo Fel ice
Theatre here . But at the close of that
interval of dilig ent,’literary l abour we gave
ourselves a complete hol iday , going to
Turin on the 1 7th July, 1872 , not return
ing home unti l the 2d of September .
While we were at the then capital of I taly
we took the opportunity of goi ng through
the then lately completed tunnel of the
164 MY LONG LIFE .
Reale, La Crocetta, Rivol i , Moncal ieri , and
frequently by the spacious Piazza L ’
Armi,
beyond which was a road that had , at one of
its turn ings , a particularly graceful statute
of a nymph at a fountain . The museum ,
picture galle ry , and the King’s Garden were
frequent haunts of ours ; we were taken by
one of its distinguished authorities , Signor
Lumbroso, to the Bibl ioteca del Re ; and
we were so fortunate as to hear Mozart ’s
charming opera, Cosi fau tutte ,’ very well
performed at the Zerbino Theatre .
During the next few years we were not
whol ly idlers in the way of l iterary work .
Charles wrote an article on ‘ The O ld
Schoolhouse at Enfield for the ‘ St . James ’s
Magazine ,’ and we wrote together our
Recollections of Writers ,’ which fi rst
appeared serial ly in successive numbers of
the Gentleman ’s M agazine,’ and sub
sequently was publ ished in book form ;while I amused myself with writing verses ,feel ing encouraged to do so by the honour
I had had some years before of Charles
MY LONG LIFE . 165
Dickens giving insertion in h is All the
Year Round ’ to two of my verse-stories ,‘ The Yule Log and M i nn ie ’s Musings ,
’
besides six sonnets on ‘ Godsends ,’ and a
few stanzas entitled ‘ Time ’s Heal ing .
’
In 1873 I wrote‘ The Trust,
’ and ‘ The
Remittance,
’ prin ted in England that year,and in America in 1874 .
Having been requested to contribute to
a charitable scheme in Rome, we wrote
our ‘ Idyl of London Streets ,’ and sonnet
on The Course of Time,’ to be prin ted
i n Rome as a bookl et for that purpose ,and it appeared in 1875.
On the 15th of December , 1876, my
Charles ’s e ighty-ninth bi rthday was cele
brated by our family c i rcle with even more
than usual brigh tness , bright as his own
ever-young nature . Verses from h is wife,
l etters from friends at a d istance, presence
of friends l iving near, smiles from relatives
around him , a huge cake l ighted by wax
tapers (eight green for the decades , n ine
white for the years), and, to crown all ,
166 MY LONG LIFE .
favouri te pieces from the green -bound
music books sung to h imby h is nephewsand nieces , made the day a supremely
happy one . On the 19th of February ,1877, we took ou r last walk together on
the terrace , resting between whiles beneath
the bay-laure l tree , and looking up grate
ful ly at the clear, blue I tal ian sky.
On the 13th of March , 1877, the Spring
sun sh ining on h is bed , I received his last
smile , and watched beside him t i l l he drew
his last breath . The marbl e that marked
his grave had inscribed on one of its sides
h is chosen crest— an oak-branch ; his
chosen motto P laciduni sub likertate
quietem ; his name and the date of h is
bi rth and death ; on the reverse side was
inscribed his own characteristically trust
ful , cheerful-spiri ted
H IC JACET .
Let not a bell be toll ’d, or tear be shedWhen I am dead ;
Let no n ight-dog , with dreary howl,O r ghastly shriek of boding owl
168 MY LONG LIFE .
l ife . A private chapel formed part of the
edifice ; and once , when Clara took me
down to the basement portion of the house,
I saw a highly-ornate sedan chair, which
used to convey ancestral countesses G ig
lincci to the church or to the opera ,— for
there was a spacious opera-house and a
stately cathedral . The cathedral is on the
summit of the h il l on which Fermo is
si tuate , and it is a very fine and large
cathedral for so small a town as Fermo .
Along the upper range of rooms above
al luded to , th ere runs a long and wide
corridor, at one end of which is a colossal
window, commanding a noble view of the
Apennines , i ncluding the mountain known
as the ‘ Gran sesso d ’ I tal ia .
’ The front
of the house faces towards the champaign ,stretch ing down the hil l ’s descent un til i t
reaches the Adriatic Sea, dotted by fish ing
vessels with thei r variously coloured sails .
Anyth ing more hospitably affectionate
and sol ic itously careful to soothe my
thoughts than the reception I met with
MY LONG LIFE . 169
from my dear ones in th is pictu resque
spot cannot be imagined . My sister
Clara,when I had rested a day after my
journey,asked me if I would l ike her to
s ing to me . With joy I accepted , and we
adjourned at once downstairs to the music
room,cal led ‘ the red drawing-room .
’
Clara bade me choose the song I should
best l ike to hear her s ing firs t, and I chose
her Westminster Abbey festival song‘ How beautiful are . the fee t,
’ i ts angel ic
promise bringing balm to the soul . She
generously went on to the recitat ives in‘ The Messiah ,
’ and then sang Mozart ’s
lovely Deh vien i e non tardur,’ her voice
,
j ust i ts own unrival led beauty of tone,pure
in style , potent i n appeal to the heart .
After that firs t even ing of musical bl iss
I had many more , for Clara sang to me ,accompanied by her daughter Porzia
,who
,
with her sister Valeria,gave me many
del icious treats of favouri te vocal and
pianoforte duets . I never heard Clara
say,‘ Shal l we go down into the red
170 MY LONG LIFE .
drawing-room ? ’ but a th ri ll of j oy ran
through me , and were’
I to enumerate
al l the enchanting th ings she sang for me ,or that her two daughters sang and
played fo r me , the reader would envy me
the time I spent so del ightful ly at Fermo .
One afternoon ’s music I must recur
to , for the sake of the picture i t gave
me . One of the Gig l incci cous ins , Conte
Geppino V inci , brought h is viol in , and
accompan ied Clara i n Spohr’s song‘When
th is scene of trouble closes ,’ and Gug liel
mi ’s ‘ Gratias ag imus ,’ Porzia playing the
pianoforte accompan iment . The l i ttle
baby Vinci having been brought and laid
upon a cushion at her father’s feet, she
looked up at him , l isten ing to the music
and cooing soft approval the enti re group
thus affording a regale for eye as wel l
as ear. Another very southern pictu re
was enjoyed by me there . One forenoon
Clara cal led to me to come into the cor
ridor, that I might see one of thei r peasant
girls , who had brought her (according
172 MY LONG LIFE .
take a journey together to Coblentz , where
l ived a celebrated ocul ist, whom I could
consul t. I answered ‘Why not ? ’ and
thus summarily was th is j ourney agreed
upon ; so summari ly, too , was i t put into
practice , that we set forth a day or two
afte r, taking the route by the Mont Cen is
Pass,to Basle , where , as we sat at tea
and supper,I told S ahilla that I al ready
fel t the beneficial influence of the Northern
ai r,i ts freshness , i ts i nvigorating qual i ty,
for I ate with better appeti te than I had
done for months past . On arriving at
Coblentz we took up our abode at pleas
ant Pension Ernen . I t was close to our
ocul ist ’s house ; i t was on the road from
the town , i ts garden abutted on the de
l ightful A n lag en by the side of the river
Rhine , an A nlag en special ly patron ised by
the Empress Augusta, who contributed
funds to i ts proper and tasteful keeping
up , and who visited i t often . I t was
shaded by trees , i t had a Restaura tion ,
where people drank coffee and ate cakes,
MY LONG LIFE . 173
and was here and there adorned by
sculptured figures and groups of vases .
We frequently walked there , and many
times made i t our way to entering the
town . Once , while s itting quietly on one
of the numerous seats placed in recesses
the re , we had the pleasure of seeing a
woodpecker make its way up the bole of
a tree , and actually ‘ tapp ing ’ the bark
as he proceeded cl ingingly towards its
branches .
Our hostess,Fraule in E rnen was admir
ably fitted for he r vocation , careful of
the comfort and well-be ing of her boarders ,— almost all of them patients of our oc
ulist. At the very Teuton ic early dinner
hour of two o ’clock, we found at the tabl e
several pleasant, chatty people , among
whom was M r . Henley, the artist, h is seat
be ing next m ine. He courteously ad
dressed me , and told me many entertaining
anecdotes of the persons who had been h is
s itters for thei r portrai ts,royal person
ages and others . Among them he men
174 MY LONG LIFE .
tioned Nathaniel Hawthorne , saying he
was so sensitive a sitter‘
that the most
timid young girl did not su rpass h im in
shyness . On our visi t to the famous ocu
l ist he pronounced that my eyes requ ired
daily dropping into them a certain remedy,
therefore daily we visited h im . We found
him a l ively, almost boyish-mannered man ,but kindly and skilful . As a specimen
of the former characteristic, once , on my
happen ing to say that I had never heard
the famous song Die Wacht am Rhein,
’
th at created such un iversal enthusiasm at
the time of the Ge rman war he (havingbeen in one of i ts campaigns) Immediately
sang the song for me at full voice,and
flourish ing the camel-hai r penci l he was
using for applying the remedy to my eyes ,with outstretched arm on high . As a
specimen of h is kindliness of nature , when
I chanced to speak of the lovely, tender
scene of young P rince Arthur pleading for
his eyes to be spared from burning by
Hubert, in Shakespeare’s play of ‘ King
176 MY LONG LIFE .
the house stood, the back with a wide
door opening on a stai rcase that l ed
divergingly to the garden at the rear of
the house,and this door was kept wide
open all the time we dined , so that it
seemed as though we were dining in an
arbour . I n the room was a cuckoo-clock
that ch imed its fluting notes while we ate
our dainty dinner, which included Rhine
salmon and roast ven ison . After dinner
we took coffee in the music-room , and as
we passed into it , we crossed through a
smaller one,where hung an interesting
water-colour sketch by Fel ix h imself, a
view of that very village of Horchheim
(where we then were visit ing), as seen
from its music-room window . M i ss Thor
mann— an accompl ished amateu r pianist- played several of Fel ix’s ‘ L ieder,
’ one
or two of Schumann ’s compositions , and
a l i ttle-known Beethoven Sonata. Men
t ion having been made by M adame Men
delssohn and M iss Thormann of a concert
to be given at Ems by ‘ a wonderful young
MY LONG LIFE . 177
Spanish viol i n ist,’ —Pablo di S arasate,
S ahilla i nvi ted both ladies to go over
with her to Ems and hear the concert ,but as Madame Mendelssohn decl ined
making the exertion , M iss Thormann
only accepted .
O f course we took many a del igh tfu l
walk and drive to the various enchanting
spots on the banks of the Rhine with in
easily accessible d is tances, among others
to a vi llage on the oppos ite side of the
river ( the road to which passed near to the
fortress of Ehrenbrei tste in) called Ahren
berg, where we found a pretty l i ttle church ,its interior fi tted up with tastefu l cande
labra in the form of l il ies and l eaves in
thei r natural colours, and some grotto
work . Another excursion was a drive to
Giilz on the river Mosel , where we crossed
the ferry in our carriage,and returned by
the opposite side to Coblen tz . When we
went to take leave of Madame Rosa
Mendelssohn , we saw Fel ix ’s younger
daughter and her five ch ildren . One of12
178 MY LONG LIFE .
them , a l i t tl e baby, had its fingers placed
by S ahilla on the p ianoforte as if playing,
as she said that Fel ix’s grandchi ld ought
early to accustom i ts hands to that position.
We left Coblentz on the 3oth September,took similar route back, and arrived in
Genova on the 4th October . We had
much home-music, and I heard Patti
when she sang in the ‘ Barbiere di S ivigl ia ’ here in that year ; and on March 1 1th
,
1878, S abilla and I went for a change to
Rome . Of the grandeur there I saw but
l i ttl e i n comparison with that we were
compel led to leave unseen , for a gentle
man who was asked in what t ime Rome
could be thoroughly vis i ted , said ,‘ I
can ’ t say, for I have l ived in Rome only
forty years . ’ But we enjoyed many of its
noblest picture-galleries . We , of course,did not fai l to make a pilgrimage to clear
John Keats ’s tomb , neighboured by that of
glorious Shel ley ’s heart, and we took more
than one drive out in to the picturesque
Campagna .
180 MY LONG LIFE .
on many occasions of these receptions .
We also made the acquaintance of M iss
Brewster, a descendant of the Brewste r
who had been one of the patriots that
sailed in the ‘ Mayflower,’ when the Ship
left England and arrived at the Plymouth
Rock in America . She showed us a tea
set that had been fac-similed from the one
used aboard that renowned vessel . While
we were in Rome we enj oyed some special
music . A concert given by Signor S g am
bati , the most exquisi te of I tal ian pianists.
Another concert given for a charitable
purpose, wherein a lady (born a Russian
princess , but married to a German pro
fessor) played on the pianoforte i n mas
terlystyle , and on wh ich occasion , Madame
Ristori recited ( I may say, acted) the
sleeping-scene of Lady Macbeth , sup
ported by a lady and gentleman who rep
resented the waiting—gentlewoman andthe doctor. To show how careful real ly
great artistes are, I may mention that
Ristori asked my s iste r Clara to hear her
MY LONG LIFE . 181
rec ite and rehearse this scene before she
performed it at the concert .
An early and memorable vis i t Sabilla
and I paid to Joseph Severn , the generous.
hearted artist who gave up h is then
engagements to accompany his friend ,
John Keats , to I taly, when the young poet
was i n a decl i ne that ended in h is death .
We found Severn h imself on a Sick-bed ,arranged in his stud io, and opposite to
h im , the portrait he was pain ting from
memory, when taken ill , of Keats , sti ll so
dear to h im . He spoke to us cheeri ly,and with interest, of al l that most engaged
the thoughts of us th ree .
On our retu rn home to Genova from
Rome , we resumed our usual l ife of home
music and home occupations ; but i n J une ,having rece ived an invitation , from our
kind friends , M r . and M rs. L i ttl eton , to
vis i t them , we left for England . During
my stay there I superintended the bring
ing out of our Recollections of Writers,
’
then in course of print ing in book-form .
182 MY LONG LIFE .
We visited our favourite Engl ish picture
collections , - the choice one at the Dul
wich Gallery ; the ever-beautiful National
Gallery, where we found some fine addi
tions , such as the Turner collection , etc . ,and at the Aquarium we saw gathered
togethe r some of George Cruikshank ’s
admi rable il lustrations ; though I own I
regretted not seeing among them those
he made for my Kit Barn ’s Adventures . ’
We paid a visi t to Lady Shelley, who was
then at her town-house on the Chelsea
Embankment. She i nvited us to go and
see he r at Boscombe , where she and Si r
Percy h ad collected most interesting rel ics
of h is i llustrious father ; but, unfortunately,we were unable to accept the invi tation .
On our wayback from England we visi ted
the Paris Exh ibition of that year, and
spent a fortnight at Aix-les-Bains , where
we heard a fine instrumental concert given
by the orchestra from the Regio Teatro
at Turin , and were taken by a friend into
the Gambl ing Room,in which we saw two
184 MY LONG LIFE .
hung floating from uppe r windows and
reached to ground floors ; while troops of
visitors from all parts flocked through the
thoroughfares i n hol iday travel l ing trim .
On the evening of 1 7th July, when the
first of the three days ’ concerts took place ,a large company was assembled in the‘ Aula Academica,
’ where the executants
were al ready stationed i n the i r places on
the platform , and ‘ ready-tuned .
’ The
very first chord of Mozart ’s finest over
ture served wel l to announce the suprem
acy of the famed Vienna O rchestra . Herr
Hans Richter presided as conductor ; and
a more excellent one i t has never been
my good fortune to hear though I have
heard M ichael Costa, Chelard ,and Fel ix
Mendelssohn themselves . Beethoven ’s
Seventh Symphony, with its subl imely
poetical slow movement and exquis itely
playfu l Scherzo , closed the even ing’s musi
cal feast . The day ’s enjoyment harmon
ised wel l with the even ing’s entertainment ;for a town of choicer lovel iness in situation
MY LONG LIFE . I 85
and scenery is rarely to be seen . Placed
on the banks of a rapid stream , the River
Salbach , surrounded by green heights and
distant mountains , well-wooded slopes on
which picturesque castles and lordly man
sions are perched , shores along which
brightly and variously- coloured houses
range in the neatness and grace of adorn
ment that characterises German dwell ings ,— th is spot forms an endless success ion of
pictures and charming landscapes , besides
affording scope for enchanting drives amid
lanes and woodlands . As a final touch ,which would have rejoiced the heart of
Walter Scott h imself, who knew,none
better, that good fare crowns befitting lythe enjoyment of Nature ’s romantic scenery
and refined art pleasure , - the eating i n
Salzburg was of the best ; trout that would
have had Isaac Walton ’s cordial com
mendation , chickens del icate and ‘ tender
as morning dew,
’ with Alpine butter and
fresh cream , made each day’s repast a
feast worthy of the ‘ Mus ikfest ’ at n ight .
186 MY LONG LIFE .
On the morning of 18th July there was an
open-ai r entertainment on the Kapuziner
berg, consisting of a four-part song for
men ’s vo ices,an address del ivered by Herr
Baumeister, a celebrated actor who had a
grand Speaking voice , with fervour of deliv
ery and excellen t enunciation . The touch
ing words he poured forth , i n powerful
tones , were so sonorous that they reached
the oppos i te h il ls , which echoed back the
praises of our divi ne M oz art with th ril l ing
effect.
On reach ing the poin t of the Capucin
Hill , where a small summer-house stands,I found an eager crowd assembled , some
in the ful l blaze of the sunshine , under
parasols and umbrel las , some seeking
scraps of shade skirting the enclosure ,some clustering beneath the adjoining
trees , and a fortunate few on a rickety
wooden bench under the eaves of a wood
cutter’s cottage near the spot . Some of
the Fest ival Committee gentlemen came
to my sister Sabilla and myself, asking us
188 MY LONG LIFE .
town that Mozart beheld when he raised
his eyes from his MS . ; strange to s it i n
the chai r he occupied , l i sten ing to the
strains he composed ; strange to be in the
very place where, fifty years before , my
own father had come to vis i t the b irth
place of h is favouri te composer, and the
spot which had witnessed the birth of
some of that composer ’s finest composi
t ions . Wi th reverential hum i l i ty we com
pl ied with the committee ’s request, and
placed in the Mozart album our photo
graphs and the following inscriptions
I pray you let us satisfy our eyes (and ears)With the memorials and th ings of fameThat do renown th is city.
’
SHAKESPEARE’S ‘Twelfth N ight,’ Act I II . Scene 3 .
Mary Victoria Cowden—Clarke (60m
N ovel/o). Salzburg, J uly, 1879.
IMPROMPTU ACROSTIC.
S alzburg , for ever will thy name recallA p leasant mem’
ry to mymind ; when allB ut as a dream of beauty shall appearI llumined by art’s g low, remote but clear ;
MY LONG LIFE . 189
L ov’d Moz art seems to tread thy busy streets,
L ost though he be to mortal ken , he meetsA t ev’ry moment my adm iring eyes .
N ot like the empty visions that ariseO ut of the
'
mistypast . N0, Moz art livesV ividlypresent, while h is music g ivesE ternal rapture, ever freshly born ,L ovelyas Spring , as rad iant as the mom .
L ong as art love shall exist, Moz art’s name
0’
er all shall triumph in the rolls of fame .Salzburg , July 1 8th , 1879.
Schumann ’s two glorious composit ions ,the ‘ Andante and Variationem ,
’ and
Quintette completed the intense satisfac
tion afforded to us by this truly del ightful
Salzburger Musikfest. ’
From Salzburg we went to Vienna,
where our fi rst del ight was hearing an
evening service in the glorious cathedral .
The lovely Goth ic interior, the blaze of
silver (with gold rays from the centre ) of
the rich altar-piece , the kneel ing priests
i n white and gold vestments , the warm
colouring of the stained-glass windows,
with the general low light of the arched
s tone wal ls j ust reveal ing the many
196 MY LONG LIFE .
ant ique monuments that abound there,al l
thoroughly enchanted me . An early visi t
we of course paid to the Belvedere Gallery,contain ing whole rooms ful l of Rubens
,
that make one wonder how a man ’s l ife
could suffice to cover so much canvas with
so much magnificent painting, and with
such noble poetry of his imagination ,besides being an ambassador. A room
ful l of Velasquez , with portraits of ch ildren
deliciously true to aristocratic nature, a pic
ture of M uri llo ’s a boy St . John with a
lamb exquisite . A lovely l ittl e low long
picture by Domenico Feti (a painter I
had never heard of before ), the Death of
Leander, and the Despair of Hero , charm
ing ly poetical i n idea and treatment ; i n
short,room after room of beauties and
riches innumerable . Another small gallery,consisting but of th ree rooms , at the
Sch'
onbrunn Palace kept us l ingering by a
canaletto — quite astounding for truth to
nature , and open -air effect, with perfect
perspective , - of a house and grass -plot
192 MY LONG LIFE .
square i n front of the palace to hear a fine
mil itary band playing i n one of its angles ;and on the fi rst occas ion of our doing
th is , were so struck with the beauty of the
performance , i ts admirably breathed out
pianos , i ts perfect crescendos , and precision
of tog et/zerkooa’
, that I could not res ist the
temptation to applaud ; and , catch ing the
bandmaster ’s eye , I clapped my hands
obviously . He , with brisk mil itary
prompti tude , raised his hand to his helmet,saluted and smiled , with a l ittle sudden
bow, as our carriage passed on rapidly .
One even ing, soon after ou r arrival , we
went to the Sommertheater i n the Grosse
Garten , where was performed a piece en
t itled ‘ Die Kinder des Capi tan Grant,
’
which entertained me beyond words , as a
perfect reminder of my old Coburg and
Surrey theatre times . A captain and his
boy son left to perish on a desert island
by a treacherous mate and crew, a bottle
(contain ing news of thei r condition) mi
raculous lyreaching their friends in a castle
MY LONG LIFE . 193
i n Glasgow. The said friends , with thei r
comic servant and the two other children
of Capta in Grant (a boy and a girl) sett ing
o ff i n a yacht to save their esteemed Cap
tai n Grant. Thei r various adventures on
reaching South America ; Mexican guides ,false and fai thless , lead ing them where a
volcano bursts, and its lava interrupts their
path ; a mysterious Patagon ian chief (who
expresses h imself in fluent H ock D eutsck),friendly and protective , and who dies from
having heroical ly sucked the poison from
a snake-bite in the gi rl ch ild ’s leg ; attacks
of wild Indians , shouts , pistol-shots i nnu
merable (in fact, from what I could make
out, pistol-shots were invariably introduced
when extra exc itemen t and in terest and
row were needed ) ; more wanderings ; a
dance of ballet-girls and men with lanterns
in a Mexican temple fest ivity ; a sudden
remorse and reform of the ‘ t reacherous
mate,
’ who turns up at the most unexpected
moment , and offers to conduct the search
party to the exact spot where he aban13
94 MY LONG LIFE .
doned Captain Grant and his son ; a
change of scene to a desolate part of the
desert island , with Captain Grant and his
son at the last extremity of starvation and
cold , an iceberg having closed them in
from the open sea and thei r last hope of
rescue ; an affecting scene ( really prettily
done )of the father half resolving to shorten
the sufferings of h is exhausted and sleeping
son by stabbing him with the kn ife he
still has ; his last appeal to Heaven with
the boy kneel ing beside h im,- when the
mid-scene of iceberg draws away, and the
yacht is seen approach ing in ful l sail .
God save the Queen is played , the party
of friends rush on , and the curtain fal ls
amid general meeting and happiness .
The very next day a quite different
series of theatrical en tertainments com
menced for us . The opening of the Hof
theater for that season was announced to
take place i n the evening, the performance
being ‘ Die Wiederspenstig e .
’ I heard
th is titl e with ind ifference, but what was
196 MY LONG LIFE .
as P etruckio, E llmeureich as Ka tkarina .
His acting was enti rely to my taste ;giving the assumed harshness of dictator!
sh ip with (i n sol i loquy) the real l iking that
Petruch io has for h is chosen wife . His
speaking voice equalled that of Salvin i
for beauty and richness of tone . Ellmeu
reich was charming, and proved to be
equally so in characters she subsequently
played , of h igh tragic , or genteel comedyimpersonation . We became such inveter
ate playgoers that, during the more than
two months of ou r stay i n Dresden , we
scarcely missed a s ingle evening of per
formance . But besides our theatre music,
we enjoyed many a magnificent mass of
Mozart and other composers at the Hof
kirche ; and several admirably sung
motetts , etc ., by well-trained boy singers
at the Lutheran Vesper Service i n the
Kreuzkirche . The precision and perfectly
in tune singing of those boys in unaccom
panied pieces by Bach , Mendelssohn , and
other composers , was a del ight to hear.
MY LONG LIFE . 197
One even ing we went to hear a concert
of Hungarians (announced in the pro
gramme as ‘ Z igeuner-Kapelle Farkas
More aus Budapest ’) which was an
extraordinarily i nterest ing thing to hear .
National , pecul iar, very wild , th ree of the
pieces were cal led ‘ Czardas,’ and were
especial ly curious . Rapid and eccentric
in the extreme ; and in two of them a
young viol i n ist of the party executed what
seemed to be an impetuous improvised re
citative movement , accompan ied by merely
two viol ins , a viola (extraordinari ly large
in size) and V ioloncel lo ; while at its close ,the whole orchestra (i ncluding double bass ,clarinet , oboe , and a very large zithern ,admirably played) j o ined in l ike a choral
conclusion .
On leaving Dresden we made Eger
our first halting-place , i n order to make
a pilgrimage to the house where Wal len
stein was murdered ; because we had seen
Schiller’s ‘Wallenstein magnificently got
up at the Dresden Hoftheate r . We
198 MY LONG LIFE .
found the spot ( the Rathhaus) where the
murder took place , grim and quaint
enough to be quite in keeping with
its tradition ; an old half-Goth ic portal
giving entrance to a dingy old court
yard,round wh ich were stuck various
carved stones and rude images of old
German warriors and monumental re
cords of the i r doings ; a balustraded
gal le ry of dark wood running round the
courtyard interior of the first floor, l ike
our old English inn yards . On the
left side , beneath the huge portal , was
an entrance door s tanding open , where
at once ascends the antique sta i r-case
so well represented in the scene of ‘Wal
lenstein’
s Tod ’ at the Hoftheater. The
artistic scene-painter there must have
gone h imself to Eger and taken a sketch
of the actual spot, and then enlarged i t
for stage representation , —the effect was
so true, and yet so picturesquely im
proved .
We made a short stay at Mun ich that
200 MY LONG LIFE .
encounter, we found sunshine, blue sky,and charming transit through lovely
green Tyrol .
In 1880 our villa was honoured by a
visi t from the Kronprinzessin of Ger
many, then staying at Pegl i . Her Royal
Highness was graciously interested by
a portrai t of ou r sister Clara, painted by
Magnus of Berl in , who had given les
sons in pain ting to Her Royal Highness ,- herself a proficient i n that art .
Having been so gratified by our Ger
man tour of 1879, we resolved to go thi ther
the very next year ; so , after paying a
del igh tful visi t to friends at Stressa, on
the Lago Maggiore , we went up to Nu
remberg, where we saw Albert Diirer’
s
studio , preserved j ust i n the state i t was
when he worked there ; and an exhibition
of Kranach ’s antique paintings, where the
custodian was an old woman with a head
precisely l ike one of Kranach ’s epoch , so
queer and antiquated was i t .
At Bamberg we visited an admirable
MY LONG LIFE . 201
lady pian ist, a friend of ours years be
fore in England , who played to us again
with quite her former excel lence . She
was pecul iarly great i n Beethoven’s Sona
tas , all of which She knew by heart . We
made some stay at Cassel ; making our
fi rst vis i t to the pictu re-gallery there,
which is rich in Rembrandts . Our drives
were frequen t and del ightful . One , from
Wilhelmsthal to Wilhelmshohe th rough
magnificent woods , remains vividly in
my memory ; for, on approach ing th e
former-named palace , as we drove up
the avenue lead ing thereto , we saw a
large party of gentlemen picnicking under
the trees who , when they saw us
approach ing,made animated signs to the
coachman to hal t . Then one of the
gentlemen flew to the s ide of the carriage ,bearing in h is hand a superb-sized foam
ing tankard , wh ich he presented to us
ladies,and from which each of us ladies
in turn drank from , I exclaiming, L eke
li ock D eutsckland / The gentleman smiled
202 MY LONG LIFE .
and looked del ighted ( i ndeed , he and his
whole party seemed in exuberant spi rits,but went through the ceremony in the
highest good taste and pol iteness), and
then he handed the tankard up to the
coachman , who quaffed it off with abun
dant rel i sh . As we drove away, the band
which was with the party sounded a
flourish of trumpets i n honour of us .
Altogether we though t it a pretty, charac
teristic , and most German i nc ident.
One morn ing early, while we were at
Cassel , what should greet our del ighted
ears before we were up, but a charming
serenade given by the mil itary band to
thei r general , who lived next door to us !
Fi rst a magnificent Chorale— simple in
i ts strai n , but full of the most enchant
ing chords— breathed out entrancinglywith the most exqu isite precision of tune,the most perfect tog etkerkood in be
ginn ing and ending phrases ; the most
true and intense feel ing for due expression
in sentiment ; next was p layed a brisk
64 MY LONG LIFE .
perce ived that i t was when a train of
ecclesiastics and robed bishops entered
the presence . O tto Devrient was one of
that famous family of Devrients who for
years had been first- rate actors and
actresses . I had seen Madame Schroeder
Devrient during the fi rst performance
of the German company in London ; had
seen Emile Devrient play Fa ust at the
St James ’s Theatre there ; and I had seen
a younger Devrient play S eba stian i n
Shakespeare ’s ‘ Twelfth N igh t ’ i n Dres
den . Yearnings of remembrance of th is
last named ci ty seized us , and we left
Berl in for ‘ Del ightful Dresden .
’ On ar
rival we found finer weather to add to our
exhilaration at finding ourselves again in
ou r favouri te Saxon capi tal . The season
at the Hoftheate r had just commenced,and
we at once plunged i nto the old enjoy
ment of theatre-going every evening ;punctual attendance at the Hofki rche for
H igh Mass , and at the Kreuzkirche ves
per service , where the boy choir was so
MY LONG LIFE . 2 65
excel lent,etc . , etc . A few changes had
taken place there since our previous vis i t .
E llmeureich was married , but sti l l re
mained on the stage . A del ic ious bari
tone , Degele , was s inging in various parts
with excellent effect ; while the act ing of
Dettmer as Macduff i n Shakespeare ’s
Macbeth ,’ deserves spec ial record . I can
never forget h im in the grand scene of the
fourth act, when news is brought to h im of
his wife and children being put to death
by the tyrant. I t was the truest and most
affecti ng express ion of manly anguish I
ever beheld . His fine flexible voice , with
its power of breaking when express ing
strong emotion , aided him to perfection ,and his gestures were profoundly indica
tive of mental torture , without a tinge
of exaggeration . Dettmer had the curi
ous gift of being able to turn pa le (a gift
I have heard was possessed by the French
actor Talma), and at the passage where
Malcolm says : ‘ Ne ’er pull your hat
upon your brows ; give sorrow words,’
206 MY LONG LIFE .
when the hat was removed Dettmer’s
face was deathly white .
To give an idea of Ellmeureich ’
s varied
power in acting , I may mention that her
Viola i n Shakespeare’s ‘ Twelfth N ight ’
was bewitch ingly playful ; while her imper
sonation of Goethe ’s Gretcken i n the first
part of ‘ Faust ’ was profoundly moving .
Pure , i nnocen t, winningly childlike , happy
at fi rst ; broken , despairing, lost at last .
Her madness, while Faust weeps with re
morse at her feet , was perfectly haunting,and real ly affected S ahilla and me for a
long t ime after .
A very interesting day was spent by us,
when we went to visi t the ‘ Saxon Switze r
land .
’ We were favoured by fine weather ;we drove by the left banks of the River
E lbe , crossed the ferry at Piln itz , pro
ceeded by a gentle rise all the way through
picturesque villages and amid fine views.
We passed the day on the fine cl iff cal led
the Bastei ,’ wandering about among its
rocky summits,conveniently made acces
208 MY LONG LIFE .
of the national colours with garlands of oak
leaves on thei r heads The sight of these
fal l ing i n , two by two , and forming a long
line round the statue in the centre,and
extending towards the th roned and crim
son-l aid stand prepared for the King and
Queen of Saxony and thei r Court, was
extremely beautiful ; the more so, as most
of these fai r girl ish heads had magnificent
tresses of hai r fall ing from thei r green
wreaths on to thei r shoulders and down
thei r backs .
Precisely as the clock struck eleven , the
royal carriages drove up , and as the Court
party alighted and took thei r places be
neath the canopy, the whole assembly
cheered,waved hats and handkerch iefs
,
while the bands struck up ‘ God save the
Queen’
(the German national ai r being
the same as ou rs ) . Then the chorus of
young ladies and of students (also wearing
Chaplets on thei r heads) sang Handel’s
grand ‘ Halleluj ah Chorus ’ with fine ef
feet ; a speech was del ivered to the King
MY LONG LIFE . 269
by a Dresden magnate ; Wagner’s stately
and effect ive Kaiser Marsch was played
by the un i ted bands ; and at a signal , the
tal l draperies around th e cen tral statue
were rapidly lowered , and the German ia
was displayed to view amid un iversal
cheering and waving of hats and handker
ch iefs . Lastly , the King and Queen and
Court party stepped down from thei r dais,
and walked round the central space amid
more cheering and waving, and closely
examined the statue and the green wreaths
which the young ladies had placed upon
the steps at its base After th is , the
royal ties stepped into their carriage-and
four, driving off amid acclamations .
We had made acquaintance with three
amiable American ladies , a mother and
two daughters ; the mother almost as
fresh-complexioned and young-looking as
her daughters . One of the daughters was
taking lessons i n pianoforte playing,the
other in singing . These two young ladies
flew into our room one afte rnoon with a14
2 10 MY LONG LIFE .
couple of white rosebuds in the i r hand,
which they presented to S ahilla and me
in token of the pleasure they had j ust
had in read ing my two verse stories,
‘ The Trust ’ and The Remittance. ’ The
young lady who was then studying singing
was no other than M iss Agnes Hunting
ton , who subsequently made so success
ful an operatic career in London and in
America.
We wi tnessed i n the Grosse Garten an
interesting celebration of the A lbertverein
Fest. ’ In the large space near the lake,a
kind of tent-temple had been erected for
the royalties ; and immediately on the
verge of the sheet of water, seats had been
arranged for the Court party. In the mid
dle of the lake a large flat stage , placed
across and upon several firmly-moored
barges, was visible to the thousands who
stood on the banks , forming a variegated
edge on the green sward around the water .
On the moored stage,acrobats , slack-rope
dancers,etc ., etc .
,displayed thei r feats ,
2 12 MY LONG LIFE .
were present . The King and Queen
laughed hearti ly,and came in quite s im
ple fashion to that smal l barn of a theatre ,seeming thoroughly to enjoy themselves .
We were close to them , and coiI ld see
the Q ueen’s sweet and amiable face com
p letelywell . We were told that she took
Special i nterest in the particular charity
for wh ich th is ‘ Gartenfest ’ was got up
each year ; so that she made a point of
enjoying its gaiet ies with her people .
We took our leave of Del ightful Dres
den and its unrival led Hoftheater with a
p iece called ‘ Prinz Friedrich von Hom
burg,’ i n which my admirable Dettmer
played to perfect ion , and Ellmeureich was
her usual graceful and fascinating self .
In one of its scenes , Dettmer had occas ion
to introduce most appropriately his singu
lar power of turn ing pa le i n a moment of
intense emotion , so that I was more than
ever convinced of h is possess ing this gift ,and also more than ever charmed with his
full and touching voice .
MY LONG LIFE . 2 13
The next year, 1881 , was marked by
qu i te differen t, though quite as interesting,experiences . S abilla and I were i nvi ted
by our friends , M r. and Mrs . L i ttl eton,to
vis i t them again ; but as the i r house i n
Sydenham was undergoing complete res
toration, they were staying i n London
for the first portion of our return to Eng
land . This afforded an opportunity for us
to hear some charming recitals of Rubin
stei n , who was giving a series in the S t.
James ’s Hal l . This was an especial treat
for me. I,who had heard all the most
celebrated pian ists for years at the Phil
harmonic Society (of which my father
was one of the original instigators and
first members , and had taken me regularly
to hear its concerts , ever since I was quite
a young girl ), John Cramer, Thalberg,D
’
Oh ler, Pauer, etc ., etc . , fel t extreme eager
ness to hear Rubinstein , of whom I had
often heard,but whom I had never heard
play . What especial ly charmed me in h is
playing that season was the extremely
2 14 MY LONG LIFE.
appropriate and characteristic style in
which he played the respective composi
t ions of each composer he selected for
performance at his several reci tals . I felt,
so to say, as if he played Mozart , Mozar
tian ly ; Beethoven , Beethovenish ly ; Weber,Weberish ly, and so on , while h is own
compositions he del ivered with a spirit and
effect that appeared to me to be pecul iarly
su ited to them . I particularly admired h is
own manner ; no breaking the t ime , no
exaggerated tricks .
One day M r. L i ttleton went with me
to the South Kens ington Museum , and
helped me to find the facade of the dear old
school-house at Enfield , which had been
placed in what were called The Exh ibi
t ion Buildings,
’ and was beautiful ly pre
served ; the pomegranate garlands and the
cherub heads being quite complete .
On my bi rthday a del ightful surprise
had been prepared for me . My kind
friend M r. L it tleton had had printed for
me my verse volume of ‘ Honey from the
2 16 MY LONG LIFE .
apartment cal led ‘ Mrs . Cowden ’s room ,
’
where my friends amiably placed a portrait
of Shakespeare over the mantelpiece , and
where I could write at pe rfect leisure , for
I was then finish ing my story of ‘ Uncle
Peep and I ,’ which I had begun at the
commencement of the year i n compl iance
with a request made by Mrs . Huntington
that I would write a book for American
children , having written so much that
the ir elders enjoyed . By dint of working
all n ight by gaslight, and of perpetual
hammering and knocking all day,every
thing was ready for the garden party,which went off brill iantly ; hosts of i nvited
friends , a Hungarian band on the lawn ,and a part song (sung by amateur ladies
and gentlemen ) especial ly composed for
the occasion , called‘ Congratulatory Ode
to commemorate the restoration and re
opening of Westwood House,Sydenham,
on the 9th J uly,The three performances of Mark
Lemon ’s pleasant farce ‘ Domestic Econ
MY LONG LIFE . 2 17
omy’
( i n wh ich M r . Augustus L i tt leton
played the husband who stays at home to
make the pudding, and S abilla th e wife
who goes out to hoe potatoes ), and Sheri
dan ’s comedy of ‘ The Rivals ’ ( i n which
M r. Alfred L i ttleton played Capta in
A ksolute, and I Mrs . lV/a lafirop ), took
place on the 25th ,26th , 2 7th July . The
first and thi rd of these performances were
for friends,while the second performance
(by the kind thoughtfulness of M r . L i ttle
ton and his sons ) was given for the
entertai nmen t of the household servants
and all the workpeople who had been
employed in the restoration of Westwood
House (amounting to nearly One
of these workmen was heard to say of Mrs .
M a laprop ,
‘ That is n ’t real ly an old woman ,
it ’
s a young woman!got up old .
’ I thought
this a very genuine and gratifying testi
mony to my being able to act well at
seventy-two years of age . I may mention,
as a characteristic trai t of my liking for
preserving matters that possess a charm of
2 18 MY LONG LIFE .
sympathetic remembrance for me , that I
then played Mrs . Ma laprop i n the same
carefully-kept costume (made by mysel f
from an exquisi tely painted china s ilk given
to me by an enthusiastic lady who heard
I was going to act in ornamented
with the same stage diamonds , and that I
used the same fan,the same pink three
cornered note for Capta in A dsolute’
s inter
cepted one to Lydia L ang uisk, and the
same large lette r with a huge seal for that
which S ir A nt/tony writes (both brought
out ofMrs . Ma laprop’
s pocket i n the scene
where she causes Capta in A ésolute to read
from his the words ,‘ The old weather
beaten she-dragon who guards you And
I possess the same dress,now that I am
writing this at eighty-six years old . So
much for innate individuality of disposi
tion ! One of the interesting visits we
paid was to S ir Henry Bessemer and his
lady, who invited us to dine at thei r charm
ing house on Denmark Hill . He had
laid out i ts grounds and the interio r of the
2 20 MY LONG LIFE .
Magazine ,’
I wrote ,‘ Leigh Hunt ; a De
scriptive Sketch ,’ and to please a fancy I
had for attempting a story which should
be quite comprehens ible and interesting,yet containing not one single name, I
wrote ‘ A Story without a Name ,’ which
was publ ished in The Girl ’s Own
Paper . ’
1882 began pleasantly with a visi t
from our friend , M r. L i ttleton , who, after
that, made i t an annual one for several
succeeding years , spending some weeks
in this more gen ial cl imate during the win
ter season . He invited us to Westwood
again , that we might hear Gounod’s grand
work , The Redemption ,’ which was to be
performed at the Birm ingham Festival
that August . Accordingly,i n J une , we
went to England , where we were i n good
time for rehearsals of an amateur per
formance that was to take place in July .
The entertainment consisted of Shake !
speare ’s As you L ike I t,
’ i n which S abilla
acted A udrey preceded by a prologue
MY LONG LIFE . 2 2 1
wh ich I had been asked to write and de
l iver myself. I made it i n the form of a
d ialogue between Mrs . Ma laprop and Mrs .
Cowden , so that i t afforded scope for
n umerous Malapropisms that decidedly
amused the audience .
That August, having an i nvi tation from
ou r dear and many-year friend , Alexander
I reland,to visit h im and his family at
Bowden , near Manchester, I travelled up
and spent a pleasant few days there .
They gave a large party of notabi l it i es
there one even ing to meet me , which
honour somewhat abashed my shyness,
but which I fel t grateful for as a proof of
my friend ’s goodness .
On the 2 3d August we went to hear
the rehearsal of ‘ The Redemption ,’ con
ducted by the glorious composer himself.
At its conclusion , Gounod mustered
sufficient Engl ish to address the orchestra
with these kindly, courteous words
Gentlemen , I could rather have bel ieved
to have been a second performance than
2 2 2 MY LONG LIFE .
a first rehearsal , so correctly have you
played .
’
On the 25th we travelled down to Bi r
ming ham ,and on the 2 6th we heard the
first rehearsal of ‘ The Redemption ,’ pre
vions to which we sat near to Gounod , to
whom we were introduced , and he intro
duced to us his daughter Jeanne .
I said ,‘ A k, la Dodo/incite ? and he
answered ,‘ O u i , la Dodel inette,
’ for it was to
her that he had dedicated his charming
lullaby thus named , and which he saw that
we knew .
The next evening Gounod was invi ted
to dine with us by M r. L it tleton , and as
S abilla and I could speak French , he ,much to my delight , was seated near to
us .
He took me in to d inner, and he and I
being next each other I could enjoy his
brigh t conversat ion to perfection . M r .
L i ttleton told him that he had already
made arrangement for ten different per
formances , at various provi ncial towns,
2 24 MY LONG LIFE .
saying N on,papa , in te trompes ,’ because he
had made some sl ight variation in the open
ing passage . The idea of tell ing my
adored Gounod that he tripped i n music
seemed to me beyond measure strange
and droll .
The morn ing when Gounod came to
cal l upon us to take leave , he had left h is
hat on the table , and I , on his departing,took it to him saying, ‘
f7e su is fdc/zée de
vous présenter votre ckap eau , M .
He promptly replied , 7c crois que vous ne
me mettriez pa s a la f orte, n’
est-cc pas .
’
He was altogether fascinating to me
personally as wel l as composerly.
I met several d istinguished gentlemen
at that Birmingham Festival , two of whom ,
Professo r Mahaffy and M r. Edward Broad
field , were drawn th ither by the superla
tive treat of music we then had , and who
occupied seats near to ours during i ts per
formance .
One morn ing I had the pleasure of
hearing Mr. Barnby try over the ‘ Sanctus
MY LONG LIFE . 2 25
i n Gounod ’s j ust- composed MS . Mass ,and I heard that Gounod had said , i n h is
finely imaginative way, ‘ When I com
posed that Sanctus I seemed to see the
assembled multitude kneel ing in devout
con templation of the holy mystery .
’
From Birm ingham we returned to
Westwood , and thence we left for the
Continent, on the l oth of September,
taking our way back by Coblentz to
Mun ich .
After taking tickets there for the Bren
ner Pass,we heard that there was talk of
interruption on the railway l ine , and that
we should not be able to get beyond
Botzen . Inundat ion was h inted at,but
spoken of as insign ifican t .
When we reached S terz ig , some gentle
men and lad ies came kindly with um
brellas , asking us whether we would not
halt there , but hearing that the hotel was
a quarter of a mile off, and seeing there
was a heavy rain pouring down,we
thought the risk of taking severe colds
2 26 MY LONG LIFE .
seemed worse than proceeding, so we
asked the guard whether he was going on
to Brixen . He said Yes , but added that
telegrams had been rece ived to say that
no more accommodat ion of any kind was
to be had there . Nevertheless , we , know
ing that there were more houses at Brixen
than we cou ld See at S terz ig , resolved to‘ stick to our sh ip ,
’ as we told the guard ,and proceed with h im to Brixen .
On arrival there , S abilla saw an omnibus
wait ing, and we made fo r i t, but were told
by its driver that i t was engaged by some
H errsckaft. We repl ied that we would
ask them to permit us to share i t with
them , and we jumped in .
The driver, finding that h is expected
H errsckaf t did not appear, drove us into
Brixen , tel l ing us he knew of a house
there, kept by people who might be per
suaded to let us lodge with them .
In a narrow, arcaded street he drove up
to the prem ises of a prosperous wax-candle
maker and soap-boile r, and , after a parley
2 28 MY LONG LIFE .
clamber on to a chair and place a l ight
beneath a picture of the M adonna, while
often we used to hear, before ret i ring for
the n ight, the L i tany being chanted by
youthful voices in a chamber above .
Of th is energetic maiden her mother
told us a characteristic anecdote, that
when the hospi tal at Brixen had been
struck by l ightn ing and burnt, her daugh
ter had carried down some of the patients
pick-a-back , which other maidens would
not do , so her courage was known i n al l
Brixen . This daughter, ‘ Lotte ,’ gave us
sad news of cottages washed away, fields
destroyed , etc ., and the cruel rain con
tinned to carry sorrow and desolation
with i t . At the post-office were stacks of
post parcels awaiting possibil ity of transi t,
wh ile the letters were carried on men ’s
backs over the high mountains, and the
poor fel lows were working day and
night .
An odd, old-world custom was stil l re
tained i n Brixen , which is represented in
MY LONG LIFE . 2 29
M endelssohn ’s opera ‘ Son and Stranger,’
as well as i n Wagner’s
and which had a curiously-m i ngled effect
of impl ied peri l and assurance of proteo
t ion from danger. A watchman with h is
dog passed the house where we were stay
ing, every hour between ten p . m . and
three o ’clock a . m ., announcing the hour
and exhorting to prayer i n a quaint call .
Th is— while the inundations went on ,and the dull , continuous downpour of
rain accompanied the sound of the watch
man ’s voice— was most impressive , but
when the weather somewhat cleared , I
used to l isten to the hourly announcement
and exhortation with revived hope and trust.
The walks we were then able to take were
very in teresting, and on the whole our eu
forced month ’s stay at Brixen had been
productive of good . The pure fresh air,i ts k indly people , its in teresting cathedral
and environs , had improved our health
and gratified our taste . The hospi table
Kirchbaumers were kindly courteous to
2 30 MY LONG LIFE .
the very last momen t, coming up to the
station with us, seeing us off with tears in
thei r eyes . F i nding that return,by the
remainder of the Brenner Pass,to I taly
was sti l l impracticable , we retraced our
way, and wen t back th rough Munich,
Karlsruhe , and round by the Mont Cenis
Pass to Genova .
In the au tumn of that year an enor
mously large comet was visible from our
house here . I got up several times at
four o ’clock in the morning to see i t
thoroughly. I t extended along the eas t
ern quarter of the heavens , fiery-red and
portentous i n magnitude , making one
think of M i l ton ’s words,
L ike a comet
buru ’d , that fires the length of Oph iuchus
huge in the arctic sky .
’
The next year,1883, I was asked to con
tribute to the ‘ St. N icholas Magazine,’ a
periodical for chi ldren , and I sent for in
sertion my j uven ile drama called Puck’s
Pranks and Mrs . Meynel l requesting me
to send her a paper on ancient cookery
232 MY LONG LIFE .
the railway l ine al l along . We made a
longish stay at Carlsruhe , seeing i t
properly for the fi rs t time . I ts mixture
of ducal court refinement , with the sim
p licity of a country town , impressed me
so fasci natingly that I wrote fou r sonnets ,comparing i t with my favouri te Enfield
and Dulwich for pecul iar charm .
When 1885began , and M r. L i ttl eton as
usual came to see us i n January, he invited
us to go and visit h im and M rs . L ittleton
i n the summer, and go with them to hear
Gounod ’s Mors et Vita ’ at the Birmingham Fest ival in August. There was also
to be an amateur performance at West
wood of Ross Neil ’s charming play of‘ The King and the Angel ,
’ i ts subject
being the one g iven i n prose by Leigh
Hunt , cal led King Robert of S icily ,’ i n
verse by Longfel low under the same ti tle,and by William Morri s , entitled ‘ The
Proud King .
’ So tempting a proposal
was, of course , accepted by S ahilla and me ;and on the 18th July the prom ised per
MY LONG LIFE . 2 33
formance took place most bril l ian tly . I
found that Ross Neil has introduced a
beautiful ly dramatic and true-to -nature
incident,by making a woman one of the
means of e ffecting the transformed king ’s
reform . She is a princess , betrothed to
the king, t reated by him , during his
haughty, overbearing fi rst self, with neglect
and indifference , but who , by gentle and
tenderly considerate behaviour to h im in
his period of transformation to a wretched
outcast,aids in awakening him to a sense
of his previous misconduct . The Birm ingham Fest ival ’s fi rst introduction to the
publ ic of Gounod ’s grandly devout Mors
et Vita ’ was an immense treat to me ,though I sadly missed the presence of its
great composer, who was unable to come
over to England . I tried to content myself with thinking of all he had said and.
looked when I had met h im during the
performance of The Redemption ,’ three
years before . During th is retu rn to Bir
ming ham I was taken by my dear, kind ,
234 MY LONG LIFE .
long-esteemed friend , M r . Sam Timmins ,to see the Shakespeare L ibrary, and it was
pleasant to me to see almost every other
person that passed touch his hat to him as
we walked there together. The bui lding
for the l ibrary was noble in i tself, but the
collection of treasures within was mag nifi
cent , and the order preserved— both in
the accommodation of readers and in the
arrangement of books was perfectly
admi rable . Of course , the room especially
ded icated to the Shakespeare L ibrary was
the chief point of i nterest to my guide and
to me , and he had one of the curators, with
the keys of the bookcases , to open for my
inspect ion some of the rarest and choicest
volumes preserved there . Then he took
me into the chief reading-room , where
there was a bust of h imself, and told me of
George Dawson (who for some time was
bel ieved to have been the originator of the
idea of th is l ibrary) having del ivered a
speech on the very spot where we stood ,to the effect that i t was M r. Timmins who,
2 36 MY LONG LIFE .
gratification , came next to that of no less
a personage than Russel l Lowel l . I may
here be permitted to mention that I have
ever fel t grateful for the l iberal way in
which distinguished Shakespearians have
treated me with a cordial fra ternity as one
of thei r brotherhood . In America, as well
as England , this has been the case . Even
now,as I write , comes a letter from M r.
Timmins , dated February 2 2d , 1896,
giving me an account of the intended
celebration of Shakespeare ’s bi rthday on
the 2 3d of April . As long ago as when
the Reverend N . J . Halpin wrote h is
Dramatic Un ities of Shakespeare ,’ pub
lished i n 1849, he sent me his book and
corresponded with me ; Dr. Ingleby did
the same , and nowadays Frederick Haines,one of the trustees of the Shakespeare
birthplace, at Stratford-ou-Avon , writes me
del ightful letters , while Richard Savage,i ts l ibrari an , sends me dried flowers from
the garden there. From America I have
received such continued courtesies and
MY LONG LIFE . 2 37
kindnesses that I have felt as if we had ,i n Shakespeare ’s words ,
‘ shook hands as
over a vast, and embraced , as i t were, from
the ends of opposed winds . ’ Dr. Horace
Howard Furness sends me each volume of
h is magnificent ‘ Variorum Edition of
Shakespeare ’
as i t is success ively pub
l ished ; Dr. W . J . Rolfe has sent me his‘ Friendly Edition of Shakespeare ’ with
generous hand , call i ng me its godmother
because I gave it that name ; Professor
H iram Corson has presented me with the
books he has written on that and other
poetical subjects , bes ides paying me a vis i t
here when he came to Europe ; and M r.
George H . Calvert sent me h is ‘ Shakes
peare ; a Biographic and z’Esthetic Study,
’
and also several works he wrote on various
themes . F rom charming Cel ia Thaxter
we had a visi t one Christmas , when she
gaily helped us stone raisins , etc ., for ou r
Christmas pudding, and told us ghost
stories , and proved herself the exact
be ing that dear M r. James T . F ields de
MY LONG LIFE .
scribes her in one of the many del ightful
letters he wrote , tell ing me that he always
called her the laughing girl ,’ and when he
sent me her poetical prose book , Among
the Isles of Shoals On taking leave of
us that Christmas she gave me a dainty
volume of her ‘ Poems ,’ many pages of which
she adorned by sketches , i n natural colours,of flowers , weeds, etc ., dashed across the
page . Mrs . James F ield we l ikewise saw
more than once on occas ions when she
was in Europe . Her books of poems ,‘ Under the O l ives ,
’ and her ‘ S inging
Shepherd ,’ were her kind gifts to me .
M iss Sarah O rne Jewett, her a ttached
friend , always accompan ied her when she
came to see us , and from her I have
received several of her vivid l i terary
pictures of American l ife. Similar amen i
t ies of correspondence and presents of
her clever works I have had from M i ss
Imogen Guiney ; so that from American
ladies— and several others unmentioned
here— I have rece ived abundant and
240 MY LONG LIFE .
thought ; between each act trumpets
sounded the call from the opera of ‘ LO
heng rin ,
’ and the audience were able to
enjoy a refection at the Restauration out
side the theatre , no one but those who
had been present there being al lowed to
take seats at each meal . The music was
admirably given ; th e players in the or
chestra , stationed out of sight, took thei r
places , ready-tuned ; and the vocal artistes
were all excellen t. Besides ‘ Parsifal,
’ the
Tristan and Isolde was performed ; but
I must own that I was so much affected
by a sense of weariness , after l istening
to Parsifal ’ and subsequently to the first
act of Tristan and Isolde,
’ that I pre
sented my ticket to our obl iging host
ess , who was an enthusiastic Wagnerite .
I am a warm admirer of Wagner in
his poetical treatment of ‘ Der fl ieg ende
Holliinder’ and ‘ Tannhauser,
’ the fi rst
of which the composer has been said to
denounce as‘ too melod ious
,
’ but which I
find beaut iful ly and appropriately weird ;
MY LONG LIFE .
wh ile the imaginative charm h e has
imparted throughout the Venus-haunted
knight ’s career i n ‘ Tannh'
auser ’ is , to
me , completely bewitch ing .
From Bayreuth we took fl ight to ou r‘ Del ightful Dresden ,
’ which we found
attractive as ever, though we deeply re
g retted the loss of our admirable actor,Dettmer, and of the as admirable bari tone ,
Degele,who had both died in the interim .
However, very soon after our revisi ts to
the Hoftheater, we learned to appreciate
the versati le talent of an actor named
Klein , who impersonated , with equal
veri ty, P res iden t la Roguette (a real man
l iving in Louis X IV .
’
S time , and said to
have been the prototype of Mol iere ’s ‘ Tar
tuffe the cruel and implacable Duke of
Alva ; a l ively Spanish page ; a self-made
rich merchant, with white hai r ; and a
middle-aged major, stil l youthfu l enough
in manner to be irresist ibl e to young
lad ies . In all and each of these char
acters Klein was wonderfully true to
n a tu re
242 MY LONG LIFE .
One even ing after our arrival , wh ile we
were seated i n our usual places in the
stalls,a pencil led note was brought to us
by the stal l-keeper, on which was wri tten‘ Look up to the box on the right of the
royal one, and you will see some friends
who love you .
’ They proved to be the
three ladies Huntington , whom we had
known before i n Dresden in 1880 ; and
when we met on the grand stai rcase ,afte r the performance , they spoke most
earnestly and affect ionately to us . Our
stay in Dresden was as enti rely agreeable
as our visi ts the re had always been on
previous occasions ; and we returned to
Genova by Zurich and the St . Gothard
Pass.
The editor of ‘ The Gi rl ’s Own Paper ’
having requested me to send him a
contribution , I wrote ‘ Shakespeare as
the G i rl ’s Friend ,’ which was printed in
the number for 4 th J une 1887. Later on,
my ‘ Story Without a Name,
’ and my‘ Benemilda ; or the Path of Duty
’ also
244 MY LONG LIFE .
in household superintendence, and in
acquiring practical experience , still wear
ing thei r neat l ittle white aprons with
bibs , and then seat themselves at the
pianoforte to take part, with one of thei r
parents, in some duet by a favou ri te com
poser . I t seems to me that th is wise
comb ination of domestici ty and skil l i n
music forms a perfect femin ine education ,as wise as i t i s productive of pleasure .
And i t was our gratification to witness
more than one instance of th is j udic ious
bringing up young lad ies, rendering them
abl e to’
become thoroughly competent
mistresses of a house when they marry , as
well as artistical ly accompl ished compau
ions to their husbands .
In our summer journey , the following
year, we were accompan ied by our n iece
Porz ia, whom we invi ted to enjoy the
cooler ai r of Tyrol and Germany . Very
soon after our arrival at Innsbriick, S a
bil la made the welcome discovery that a
peasan t play was to be given at the Som
MY LONG LIFE . 245
mertheater not far off, in the afternoon
so we al l th ree drove there , and found a
smal l neat theatre , buil t of boards , in a
Restauration Garten , and where we took
our tickets for the best places (l ike the
stalls) at a franc each . All the perform
ers were amateurs , mostly peasants , and
the fi rs t actress the wife Of a shoemaker !
She was perfectly charming ; and the rest
were more than respectable . The piece
was of the high romantic style , and con
sisted of a mediaeval story pertain ing to
a certai n castle near to Innsbriick. I t
was cal led ‘ The Tournamen t of Kron
ste in ,’ and most of the characters figured
in antique armour, while the widow
countess-hero ine wore picturesque mediae
val costumes . She looked l ike an old
master portrait,was refined in her voice ,
her look,her movements
,and was alto
gether thoroughly unconventional and
interesting .
One day, O pposite to us at takle d’
kote,
we saw two ladies take the i r seats ve ry
246 MY LONG LIFE .
quie tly, one of them wearing a simple
white frock, and looking so girl ish , that
S abilla whispered to me , Though that
young lady looks so unpretending and
quiet, she seems to me to be accustomed to
On speaking to her,be a somebody .
”
afte r dinner,we found that she was no other
than the superlative pian iste , Fanny Davies,
and she said , ‘ I had already recognised
you , for you had been pointed out to me at
the Birmingham Festival as Vincen t No
vello ’s daughters . She became del ight
ful ly famil iar and friendly wi th us, and
generously offered to play to us . The
obl iging maste r of the hotel len t us his
own parlour, which had a better piano
forte in i t than the one in the reading.
room ; and many an evening’s superb treat
of music by the best composers did
Fanny Davies give us . Ever afte r, she
has been called by me ‘ my Charmer ’ ;and numerous have been the charm ing
feasts she has given us,when meeting
her i n Germany, or when She favoured
248 MY LONG LIFE.
and soon came moving on in double fi le
a long array of soldiers bearing coloured
lanterns and playing a brigh t march .
Then they drew up at the angle of the
two streets on which our hotel abutted,
and began with an appeal ing fanfare of
t rumpets . Then followed two grave
pieces l ike chorales sounding forth
majestical ly and full-toned . Then fol
lowed a quick , brisk movement , upon
which the entire vast crowd burst forth
with loud and enthusi astic H oe/i s while
the General issimo presented himself at the
window and saluted the crowd . The
whole th ing was a sight and sound never
to be forgotten , and I thought myself
fortunate to have had so many opportun i
ties of enjoying German summers and
del ightful I tal ian home-winte r-residence,
enhanced by Engl ish comforts and dear,ever-loved Engl ish ties .
We made some stay at Carlsruhe on our
return journey, and were charmed with that
del ightful lyric artiste , Mailhae, who acts
MY LONG LIFE. 2 49
as finely as she s ings . As Reiz a. in
Weber's opera of ‘ Oberon ,’
she was ex
qu isite, especial ly in the last aria ; so
descript ive of utter grief and despai r, she
was content to remain perfectly motion
less , with one arm drooping at her side,
and the other l istlessly lying across her
person , while her head incl ined gently
down , giving completely the effect of com
p lete woe-begone sense of loss . In othe r
characters she is quite as dramatical ly
natu ral . As Catherine the Shrew ( i n
G'
otz ’s opera taken from Shakespeare ’s‘ Taming of the Shrew’
) she was admi
rable ; and in the gay l ittle Tyrolese after
piece she enacted a rustic maiden , making
her easy, active , playful and pouting al l i n
turn , with bewitch ing effect.
The year 1889 opened brill iantly for us .
Miss Fanny Davies and M iss Grist paid us
a flying visi t here in Genova,when ‘ my
Charmer ’ played us , i n her wonted gener
ous and perfect style, Mendelssohn , Chopin ,Rubinste in
,etc .
,and in the even ing the
256 MY LONG LIFE .
ladies enjoyed a performance at the
Marionette Theatre , to wh ich S abilla in
vited them as an I tal ian curios ity of enter
tainment. We made a change in our
summer excurs ion that year, th inking we
would try if a less distant one might prove
equally effectual as a refuge from too per
petual residence by the seaside . Accord
ing ly, we went to a beautiful spot on the
north side of one of the Turinese H il ls,
called San Genesio . Magnificent view
towards the Val d’Aosta, finely-wooded
environment, and a spacious , well-buil t
hotel promised wel l . Delic ious wande r
ings in the woods, with occasional luxu
rious rests on commodiously-placed seats
under the trees , made our days pass pleas
antly, and during our stay I had the exceptional delight of seeing many a sunrise ,besides behold ing an ecl ipse of the moon
from its commencement to its close . A
rural touch about some of the ways of the
house brought us acquainted with a fl ight
of pigeons,three of them being spec ial
252 MY LONG LIFE .
gave me what Dr. Johnson cal ls ‘ good
talk.
’
Some time afterwards a gentleman darted
out of a room on the opposi te s ide of the
corridor to ours , and said , I th ink one of
you ladies is Mrs. Cowden-Clarke . ’ S ahilla
pointed to me , whereupon he began ,‘ I
want to speak a word wi th you,
’ and then
proceeded to tel l me that he was M r.
Armstrong, that h is father was the Ameri
can publ ishe r who wished to bring out a
new and complete ed ition of my G i rlhood
of Shakespeare ’s Heroines . This project
was , to my great joy, ultimately carried
out,and more than forty years after the
first edition had been printed i n London ,this new and complete one was simultane
ously publ ished by Mess rs . Armstrong of
New York and Messrs. Hutchinson of
Paternoster Square , London . I may here
take occasion to say that all my experience
of publ ishers has been most agreeable .
Contrary to the prej udiced opinion some
times expressed , that authors and pub
MY LONG LIFE . 253
lishers are often antagonistic in the i r trans
actions , I have i nvariably met wi th courtesy
and k indl iness . Ever since an i nterview
I once had with Lord Byron ’s John
Murray, another that I had with Mr. Col
burn , I have been treated with considera
tion,and even wi th amiabil i ty. I cannot
forget,for in stance , that when I wrote to
Messrs. Longman Company, request ing
them to give me a particular article I
wanted from an expensive book they were
bringing out,saying that I could not then
afford to purchase the whole work,and
ment ioning that my father had in former
years taught M i ss Longman to play the
organ,the reply I received was not only
couched in most obliging terms , but was
accompan ied by the gift I had requested .
I may also mention the behaviour of
Messrs . M anning Mason when they
had printed my ‘ Concordance to Shakes
peare,
’ and I went to thei r establ ishment
in Ivy Lane i n order to Sign my name
to each copy, all was prepared for me
254 MY LONG LIFE.
with utmost regard to my convenienceduring the long day I spent there from
early morning to late evening, l i sten ing
to each hour that boomed from the hell
of S t. Pau l’s cathedral . I must not omit
to record that from American publ ishers
I have l ikewise received tokens of marked
regard . Messrs . Munroe, M essrs . Roberts
of Boston,M r. J . P . Putnam
,and Messrs .
Appleton of New York,have each and all
shown me much that proves the courtesy
of publishers to authors . My dear Mr .
James Fields was noted for h is goodness
to authors, and to him I not only am
indebted for numerous del ightful letters,
but also for treasured gifts of h is own
poems and essays , his charming‘
Yester
days with Authors ,’ and his ‘ Lette r to
Leigh Hunt i n E lysium,
’
written in a
style remarkably ak in to the playful spirit
of Leigh Hunt’ s own manner.
From Lucerne we went to Lugano and
stayed at the HOtel du Parc, which I re
membered had been so rapturously de
256 MY LONG LIFE .
At Easte r, i n the fol lowing year, we
had another melodious flying vis it from‘my Charmer,
’
Fanny Davies, but when
the summer came we ourselves flew from
I talian heat to seek change i nto coole r
inland air ; and having so much enjoyed
our autumnal experience at Lugano, we
thought we would try whether we could
find freshness there . Our reception was
pleasant, the same congenial apartment
overlooking the garden , but , alas ! no band
in the Moresco alcove , the season not
being the one when the players resorted
there . However, we were not without
music , for a n ightingale saluted us on
arrival , caroll ing in ‘ full-th roated ease ’
among the trees of the hotel garden, one
end of which overlooks the lake . As a
farther regale to our music -loving ears,one day, as we were pacing up and down
one of the long corridors, we heard the
sounds of a pianoforte, and , on inquiry,l earned that i t was the daughter of the
house practis i ng . The playing was so
MY LONG LIFE . 257
good, and the pieces, played so excel len t ,that we asked whether i t would be con
s idered i ndiscreet were we to beg admis
sion to l isten . The reply from the mother
of the young lady was most courteous,
and when we knocked at the door of the
room next day, we were received with
fascinating sweetness of manner,and were
played to for at least an hour, with charm
ing l iberal i ty, pieces by Chopin , Schumann ,etc ., etc . We were indulged with several
of these artist ic treats by th is accompl ished
young lady player, who was as s imple
mannered and girl i sh-gay as she was
skil led in music ; for when S abilla gave
her a copy of her ‘ Bluebeard ’ books , she
skipped abou t the room with j oy . Eng
l ish , as well as French and I tal ian , were
known to her, besides Ge rman , so that she
could enj oy the perusal perfectly. We ,of course, took some drives along the
finely-kept, steep roads around Lugano,
but notwithstanding its many attractions ,i ts persevering heat made us feel that we
17
258 MY LONG LIFE .
shou ld do well to remove into h igher and
cooler air ; therefore, we took leave of the
obliging proprietors of the HOtel du Parc
and their charming daughter with heartiest
feel ings of grati tude . The courtesy of
the proprietor took final cl imax in the
mode wherewith he arranged our depar
ture , for we found await ing us at the door
his own carriage and pai r to convey us to
the station , while he h imself issued from
his cloistral court-yard and presented us a
choice bouquet each , from h is daughter,with her best remembrances . He was
interested when he found we were going
to Baden-Baden , as he himself was a
native of that place , and he stood for some
minutes tel l ing us of the Grand Duke and
Duchess of Baden,and of the Duchess of
Mech linburg-Strel itz, who had given h im
a diamond ring which he showed us, and
said how gracious they had been to him
when they stayed at h is hotel . In thank
ing h im for al l h is courtesies to us , we
told h im that i t seemed as if he took us
260 MY LONG LIFE .
I once saw at the Exhibition of O ld
Masters in London Then , at sunrise , my
scene was l ighted up bril liantly, and lasted
thus for a short interval , til l , later on ,though the sky clouded over, i t still
afforded me an exqu isite picture.
On arriving at Baden-Baden , we almost
immediately found our health and spiri ts
improve from the change to the green at
mosphere that has always seemed to me
to dist inguish that picturesque spot . Its
early hours , i ts orderly way of providing
for the comfort and convenience of visitors ,i ts artistic resources , i ts friendly hosp itali
ties combine to make it a special ly health
ful as wel l as agreeable sojourn to us , and
I owe i t most grateful regard . On arrival,
we heard that Dom Pedro , the Emperor of
Brazil , was again there . We had had
gracious notice from him when he had
been in Baden-Baden at the time our n iece
Valeria was with us in 1887, and His Im
perial H ighness was as gracious as ever
towards us , while our curtseys were deeper
MY LONG LIFE . 261
than ever, since i n the interim he had lost
h is throne . One day we had the oppor
tunity of hearing a discourse from the
celebrated rel igious reformer, Pere Hya
cinthe, in the Engl ish Church at Baden
Baden . His d iscourse was ch iefly con
cern ing his ardent desi re to see peace and
goodwill and mutual forbearance between
al l churches and forms of rel igious wor
sh ip . His manner was earnest , and, at
the beginning, t ranqu il , but rose into ve
hemence and urgency as he proceeded .
His French was , of course , perfect, h is
enunciation was clear, his voice effect ive .
He was ve ry eloquent, inasmuch as he was
never for a moment at a loss for pertinen t
expressions and tel l ing phrases . He had
a way of l apsing occas ionally into quite
famil iar manner and utterance, then rising
into more emphatic and florid appeal . He
dwelt with hearty congratulation on the
present possibil i ty of speaking out freelyon matters of bel ief and form of worsh ip,in contrast wi th the former suppression of
262 MY LONG LIFE .
opin ion and oppression of l iberal ideas .
We had resolved to walk back, so we
s trolled leisu rely along the ever-lovely
Lich tenthaler Allee , ti ll we reached the
milk establishment where the cows assem
ble at five o’clock in the afternoon , afiord
ing del icious drink to dozens of ch ild ren
and invalids . The extreme heat made a
frothed-up tankard of the l i ly-wh i te bev
e rage very welcome to us . A S the water
of the spring near to us had a bitter tas te,and we were stil l th i rsty that evening,wh ich was overpoweringly hot , our ever
will ing maid,Pasquina, ran out to fetch
us some from a picturesque fount near
the Trinkhalle, that water being famed
for i ts purity . The fitting -up of th is
pretty l i ttle spring is most tasteful . I t
issues from a rock overgrown with green
cl imbers , amid which a tube , in the form
of a serpent (the emblem of health), seems
to be sl iding down the rock, and affords
a perpetually gush ing stream of this clear
spring water.
264 MY LONG LIFE .
that we were requested to take seats in the
hal l until the rehearsal was over. While
we stayed there , who should come in but
Clara Schumann (who had j ust arrived in
Baden -Baden), and she remained also
quietly in the hall , wkisp ering to us , and
leaving her hand in mine as she talked
cordially to me . I remember fee l ing
curiously th ri l led as I stood clasp ing the
hand that had been clear to Robert Schu
mann , and had so ably interpreted h is
compositions . When we entered the
music - room we had the treat of hearing
Herr Rosenhain’
s concerto , arranged for
two pianofortes , played by himself and
Fanny Davies in admirable style ; then
followed some of Schuman n ’s songs,sung
by an amateur gentleman with a charming
tenor voice , and in a style so refined , so
disti nct an enunciation of words , so touch
ing in expression,that we compl imented
h im afterwards . He took our praises
with evident gratification , but said that
he owned to being rather nervous while
MY LONG LIFE . 265
s inging the Schumann songs , as he did
not feel quite sure whether Madame Schu
mann might approve the manner in wh ich
he sang them . Herr Rosenhain had a
very agreeable mode of i ntroducing cer
tain of h is guests to each other ; and
among others that morn ing he presented
to S abilla a gentleman who remembered
being at the Bonn Fest ival when she sang
there, and recollected Spoh r there , as wel l
as the incident of L iszt ’s lending his gil t
chairs for our Queen and Prince Albert ,when they unexpectedly arrived there , as
L iszt always travelled with his own splen
did furn iture. That Same morning Herr
Rosenhain introduced us to an extremely
interesting personage a sweet-faced ,sweet-mannered young lady, who smiled
and curtseyed to us— no other than
charming Cecile Mendelssohn , grand
daughter of Fel ix , and namesake of h is
pretty wife . She became one of the most
del ightful ly constant friends we made in
Baden -Baden , and felt an immediate in
266 MY LONG LIFE .
terest i n our having known her illustrious
grandfather when he was j ust about the
age of her own when we met her . She
has since married , and stil l retains her
renowned name , as she wedded her cousin ,Herr Otto Mendelssoh n Bartholdy .
Altogether our stay in Baden-Baden
that year was one of the most productive
of enjoyment we ever had there . 189 1
being the year appoi n ted fo r another
Mozart Musikfest in Salzburg, we resolved
to go th ither again that summer. The
effect of h is own superb Requiem be ing
performed in the cathedral where he had
so often worshipped, was to me ineffably
imposing . The fine Viennese orchestra
and several famed artistes played and sang,accompanied by the organ , while, as I
l i s tened , I beheld a bri ll iant ray of sun
l ight stream through the stained-glass
window opposi te to me , seeming as though
the spi ri t of the divi nely inspired composer
himself were present . From Salzburg we
went up to Del ightful Dresden ,’ as it had
268 MY LONG LIFE .
by my dear mother while I was a ch ild ,for the sake of showing how i n old age the
same characteristic exists . A volume of
farces,which has i ts table of contents
marked by her with a pencil led cross
against those pieces she forbade me to
read has caused me never to peruse those
part icular farces . Coarseness has ever
been my abhorrence ; for wel l does Shelley
say in his noble Defence of Poetry ,’
Obscenity is blasphemy against the divine
beauty in l ife and S i r John Lubbock, i n
h is charming book , ‘ The Pleasures of
L ife ,’ says ,— ‘ The soul is dyed by its
thoughts ; we cannot keep our minds pure
if we al low them to be sull ied by detai led
accounts of crime and sin .
’
Therefore, I allow myself to revel i n my
beloved poets, and some very favouri te
novels , etc . , on my shelves, th inking I may
as wel l i ndu lge my now less-strong eyesight
with looking only into preferred books,espec ially if they have the advantage of
being printed i n clearly legible type.
MY LONG LIFE . 269
My sister S abilla l augh ingly says I
might have taken for the motto of th is
book the words on the sun -dial i n fron t of
our I tal ian dwell ing here, Engl ished thus‘ I denote only the hours of sunsh ine . ’
But I am thankful for the ‘ rose-coloured
spectacles ’
I am said to wear, and I can
not do better than conclude with l ines that
truly show my
O LD AGE PHILOSOPHY.
In lieu of vain regret for days long flown,I ’m thankful for the j oys that I have knownWhen conscious that I now see less
,hear less
,
And walk less well, I th ink of happinessBestowed on me in fullest, dearest measure,And hug to inmost heart the God-sent treasure .
O h, Memory that still is granted meFor dearest
,truest blisses
,ecstasy
O f love and intellectual discourse,For faculties alert and body ’s forceFor power to enj oy Life
’s cho icest g iftsFor energy to ponder theme that l iftsThe soul in lofty speculat ion onH igh mysteries that youth delights to con,But Age has learnt with calmness to acceptUnquestioned, as beyond our ken inept ;Forread iness of pen, that then expressed
270 MY LONG LIFE .
With ease the thoughts that yearned to be confessedIn words for sympathy desired, and foundAs soon as wished, from one whose wisdom soundAnd tender eagerness to lend h is aidWere ever generously
, promptly lai dA t my behoof. Though years have now bereftMe of these blessings man ifold
,those left
I ’m deeply grateful for and more than all,For memories that former j oys recall,Dear memories
,on wh ich I dwell and live
,
Renew my sense of youth,relume
,revive
My inner fire of heart, my warmth of trust,My feeling that our Heavenly Father mustBe bounteous and ben ign
,as He hath shown
H imself to be to me and to my ownBeloved one , who made me happy wifeThroughout our earthly perfect married life.
272 INDEX.
Cowden-Clarke , Mary, birthof, 3 ; early impress ions ,4 ; conscientious training,6 ; pleasures of early life,7 ; generos ity of parents,1 1 ; early books read by,1 1 ; early rel igious l ife,13 youthful enthusiasmfor distingu ished people,15; studies with MaryLamb, 20 ; goes to Boulogne
-sur-Mer,28
,instruc
tion from M r . Bonnefoy,
29 ; return to England , 34becomes a governess , 34 ;letters from home , 37 ; firstearn ings
,40 ; health breaksdown
, 43 recovery of, 44 ;engagement to CharlesCowden-Clarke , 45; selects engagement-ring, 47 ;first l iterary effort, 48;
vis it to West of England,49 ; affectionate receptionby Charles ’ s mother , 51 ;vis it to Leigh Hunt , 55;vis it to Wil liam Hone, 57 ;marriage
, 62 ; vis it toCharles Lamb
, 72 ; firstwedding anniversary , 90 ;meeting with Coleridge
,
97 ; second wedding anniversary, 101 ; vis it toCambridge, 10 1 ;
! Concordance to Shakespeare,”and later writings , 13 1 ;
j ourney to I taly, 13 1 ;
letter from Charles Dickens
,135; experiences as
an amateur actress, 134 ;
death ofmother , 143 ; res idence at Nice
,145; only
woman editor of Shakespeare, 145; res idence atGenova, 149 ; death of father, 151 ; ! Life and Labours of Vincent Novello,” 156 ; edits annotateded i tion of Shakespeare
,
160 ; death of husband ,166 ; vi si t to Clara, 167 ;trip to Coblentz , 1 72 ; visi tto Paris Exh ibi tion
,182 ;
vis it to S alzburg, 183 ;
again plays Mrs . Malaprop
,2 15; return home,
2 19 ; vis it to Manchester,2 2 1 ; visi t to the Continent
,2 25; later l iterary
work , 230,24 2 , 252 ; re
cognit ion by other authors ,2 36 ; pleasant relationswith publ ishers , 252 ; laterl ife, 267.
Cowper, Edward, 55.
Cramer , John, 2 13 .
Craven Hill Cottage, 12 7.
Cris tal!, 14 .
Cru ikshank,George
,182 .
DAVENPORT, MRS ., 81 .
D avies, Fanny, 246, 249,
Dawson, George , 234.
De B eriot, 108.
Degele, 24 1 .
Dettmer , 2 12 , 24 1.
Devrient, Emi le, 204 .
INDEX.
Devrient, O tto, 204 .
Devrient, S chroeder, 1 10.
Devrient, Madame S chroeder
,204 .
Dickens,Charles, 130 ; letter
to Mrs . Cowden—Clarke,135.
DOhler, 2 13 .
Dom Pedro , 260 .
Dowton, 81 ac ting of, 82 .
Dulcken, Dr . , 251 .
EGG, AUGUSTUS, 136.
E llmeureich , 196, 206, 2 12 .
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 130.
Enfield , school at, 1 7.
Ernen , Fraiilein ,173 .
Every Day Book,
” the, 58.
! Exam iner,” the, 79.
FARRAR,MRS . JOHN
,148.
Ferguson, Mr.
,2 2 .
Feti,Domen ico, 190 .
Fielding, 14 .
Fields,James T . ,
150, 237,254 .
Fields , Mrs . James T .,238.
Fitzwi ll iam Mus i c, the, 102 .
Foothead, Mr., 10 .
Forster, John , 136.
Fryer, Rev . W illiam Vi ctor,
273
Gigl iucci,G iovann i , 144 .
Gig lincci, Mario , 144 .
Gigliucci , Porz ia, 144 .
Gigl iucci,Valeria, 144 .
! Girl ’s O wn Paper,” the ,
Godwin, 90.
Gounod,Charles, 2 2 1 , 2 22 ,
Gounod, Jeanne, 2 2 2 .
Grant,Captain, 193 .
Gris t,M i ss
,249, 263 .
Guiney,M iss Imogen, 238.
HAINES,FREDERICK, 236.
Haitz ing er, 1 10 .
Halpin,Rev . N . J .,
236.
Ham ilton,Colonel , 137 .
Harvey,Mr. , 5.
Havell,14 .
Hawthorne, Nathan iel , 174 .
Hazl itt,Wi lliam , 89; gift in
painting, 89.
Henley,Mr.
,173 .
H i c jacet, 166.
Holmes,Edward, 26.
Hone,Wi lliam , 57 ; Lamb’s
l ines to, 58.
Hummel,1 1 2 ; great in im
provisation, 1 1 2 .
Humph reys,Noel
,1 29.
godfather of Mary Cow Hunt,Leig h , touch ing verses
den-Clarke , 1 2 ; Wageman ’s portrai t of, 13 .
Furness, Dr . Horace Howard
,237.
GASKELL, MRS ., 130.
G igliucci, Count, 142 .
of, 10 ; perfection in reading aloud, 17 ; imprisonment of, 17 ; Wag eman
’s
portrai t of, 17 ; the idealpoet, 55; Lamb
’s tributeto, 59.
Huntmg ton, Agnes , 2 10.
18
” 4
Hyacinthe, Pere , 261 .
Hymn to God , 39.
! INDICATOR,” the , 59 ; difficulty in finding a namefor, 60 .
I reland, Alexander, 2 2 1 .
I ngleby, Doctor, 236.
I nternat ional Exh ibition atMun ich , 199.
JERDAN, WILLIAM, 129.
Jerrold, Douglas , plays of,88 ; characteristics of, 1 15.
Jewett, Sarah O rne, 238.
Jones,O wen, 129.
KEAN, EDMUND, 81 ; wonderful act ing of, 82 .
Keats,John , 14, tomb of,
178.
Kelly,M iss , the actress,
2 1 visit to Charles Lamb ,73°
Kemble,Charles, 4 1 , 98
acting of, 99 .
Kemble , Mrs . Charles , 98.
Kemble , Fanny, 98.
Kens ington Museum , 68.
Klein , 24 1 .
Knowles , Sheridan, 101 .
LAMB,CHARLES
,I 4 ; son
net to Mrs . Towers , 50 ;l ines to Hone, 58; tributeto Leigh Hunt
, 59 ; p ecu
liar characteristics of, 74 ;
a cordial host, 77.
INDEX.
Lamb, Mary, 14 ; teacher ofMary Cowden—Clarke
,20.
Lamour, Mr . and M is s, 7.
Landseer, Charles, 1 29.
Landseer, Edwin, 1 29.
Lavoine, M iss, 5.
Leech , John, 136.
Lemon, Mark, 136, 2 16.
Leopold,Prince
, 9.
Liston,81 ; first appearance
of, 88.
Li ston,Mrs .
,85.
Li terary Pocket Book,
”
the, 70.
Li ttleton, Alfred, 2 15, 2 17,251 .
Littleton,Henry
,143, 181 ,
2 13 , 2 20, 2 2 2 , 232 .
Lober, 2 1 I .Long Leat, 52 .
Loudon, M rs ., 128, 133.
Lover,S amuel
,129.
Lowell, James Russel l, 236.
Lubbock , S ir John , 267.
Lytton , RichardWarburton,69.
MAHAFFY, PROFESSOR, 224.Mailhac
,248.
Mal ibran,108.
Marble Arch, th e , 4 .
Margaret , Queen , 179.
Marsh, George Perkins, 179.
Martin,1 29.
Martin,M is s, 1 29.
Mathews , 81 acting of, 86.
Meadow, Kenny, 137.
Mechl inburg-S trel itz
,Duch
ess of, 258.
276 INDEX.
Rolfe, Dr. W. J .,237.
Rosenhain,Herr
,263, 264,
265.
Rubinste in,2 13.
ST. N ICHOLAS MAGAZ INE,the, 230.
S t . P ierre, the feas t of, 28.
S arasate, Pablo di , 177.Sass
, Mr., 78.
Savage,Richard , 236.
Saxony, King of, 208.
S chumann, Clara, 264 .
Schumann, Robert, 264.
Serle, Mr., 1 15.
Severn, Joseph, 181 .
Sgambati,S ignor
,180.
Shakespeariana,
”2 39.
Shelley, Mary, 25, 182 .
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 15.
Sm ith , Horace, 90.
Sonnenberg, Madame, s isterof Mozart, 93 death of,
93S tephens, M iss, 1 13.
Stokes , Charles , 1 12 .
S tone, Frank, 136.
Sullen,Mrs .
, 99.
! TABLE BOOK,
” the, 58.
Tagart, Rev. Mr.,1 28. YULE
,MR., 24 .
Tamburin i,Tatler,” the, 105.
Thalberg,2 13 .
Thaxter, Celia, 237.
Thormann,M iss, 175, 176.
T immins, Sam,12 1 , 234,
235, 236
Tosell i, 158.
Towers,Mrs . , 49 ; Lamb ad
dresses S onnets to, 50 ;books written by, 50.
UGBRO O K PARK, 1 19.
VARLEY, 14 .
Vestris,Madame
,88.
V il la Novello, 150 .
Vinci,Conte Geppino, 170.
WAGEMAN, portrai t of Rev.
Wi ll iam V ictor Fryer, 13portrait of Le igh Hunt, 17.
Weber, Carl Maria, 42 .
Westminster Abbey Fes tival
,the
, 1 13.
Wi ll iams , Mrs . , 25.
Wiseman, Cardinal, 1 18;great learn ing of
,1 18.
Wollstonecraft, Mary , 25.
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