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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 .

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 .

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 ,

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.