LATER LETTERS OF EDWARD LEAR

Demy Svo, cloth, 15s. net. LETTERS OF EDWARD LEAR

(Author of " The Book of Nonsense ")

to Chichester Fortescue, Lord Carlingford, and Frances, Countess Waldegrave (1848 to 1864). Edited by Lady Strachey (of Sutton Court). With a Photogravure Frontispiece, 3 Coloured Plates, and many other Illustrations.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN

•* ~>

9.

r?i) T FTTFRS i^n i i i-J

HI S3 ILLUSTlt

•

I

I

LATER LETTERS

OF

EDWARD LEAR

AUTHOR OF "THE BOOK OF NONSENSE"

TO

CHICHESTER FORTESCUE (LORD CARLINGFORD)

FRANCES COUNTESS WALDEGRAVE

AND OTHERS

EDITED BY

LADY STRACHEY

OF BUTTON COURT

\ °/ :

WITH 83 ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN

ADELPHI TERRACE

1911

He

till

rights reserved.)

EDITOR'S NOTE

IN November, 1907, I published the first book of Lear letters to my aunt and uncle, of which this volume is a continuation. The public both here and in America received that volume in the most kindly spirit, and caused me to decide to carry out the suggestion I originally held out, that a second volume might be forthcoming if the approval of the public was assured. This volume has, I fear, been much delayed, and I would ask forgiveness from the many who were looking for it, for the long lapse which has occurred between the publication of the two volumes. After the publication of the first volume my eyes broke down for a time, and caused the imperative and necessary rest which has resulted in over three years elapsing before this second volume has been finally accomplished. I think this explanation is due to the many lovers of the delightful letters of the first

5

Later Letters of Edward Lear

volume, and I feel any annoyance on their part at my seeming negligence to their feel- ings will be now condoned.

I think I may truly say that the following volume is in no way inferior to the first — in fact, my American publisher considers it almost better — and I feel I may in any case hope that the kind public will take it as much to their heart as they did the former one.

I have in many ways gained various sidelights about Mr. Lear not known to me before, gleaned from the letters called forth by the first volume from friends and persons who had known him, and who had been deeply interested by those early letters. Among them I may mention Mr. Hubert Congreve, a close friend of Lear's San Remo days, who has most kindly written for me the delightful Preface to this book, a vivid personal remembrance of his old friend and would-be master in art.

Also Madame Philipp, whose first husband was the well-known Dr. Hassall of San Remo, both great personal friends of Mr. Lear, and the latter also his medical adviser for several years and till his death. I have ended this book with a touching letter to

6

Editor's Note

myself from Madame Philipp of Lear's last days and death, and also have added a short quotation from a letter from Guiseppe Orsini, Lear's faithful servant, sent by Sir Franklin Lushington to my uncle after Lear's death. These words from eye wit- nesses close down the life of a most remark- able and lovable man, which otherwise would have been left unknown ; when " the sudden ceasing of that ceaseless hand," stilled the friendship that only the coming of death could have stayed from writing himself to his beloved friends.

Besides these I have also kindly had lent to me the miniatures of " Sister Anne " so like her brother minus the spectacles, show- ing the lovable elder sister and mother combined she was to her brother through life.

" Sister Mary " also who died at sea on her return to England (see p. 187, vol. i.).

Mrs. Allen, who is the possessor of these portraits, was a niece, or rather cousin, of "poor Mary's unpleasant husband," as Mr. Lear calls him in his early letters, and she and her husband, the Rev. F. A. Allen, write me the following interesting history of Mr. Boswell and his Lear wife, and thereby rather verify Mr. Lear's epithet from the

7

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Lear point of view. Mr. Allen, in 1908, wrote : " My wife as a girl in a country Parsonage (Fareham), was a great com- panion of old Mr. Boswell, an eminent amateur naturalist and microscopist, who married Mary Lear. When over sixty, they both migrated to New Zealand, and lived in a hut in the bush. I am afraid that the hardships endured killed her, for she died on the voyage home (see p. 187, vol. i.). We have still a little model in New Zealand grasses, etc., of the hut in which they lived. The old gentleman lived on a small annuity which he purchased at Fare- ham (Hants), at Torquay, where he died and was buried, and left no descendants. He was much respected everywhere and was quite a shining light in Natural History Societies, &c. He had some patent process which died with him, for the manufacture of slides for the microscope, and supplied some of the dealers. He was a most in- teresting well-informed man. My wife belonged to his side of his family and was his executor, but he had not much to leave. She called him uncle, but I think he was a sort of cousin. We have one or two letters of Edward Lear written to his sister

8

MARY LEAR, WIFE OF RICHARD BOSWELL.

(From miniature, by kind permission of Mrs. filial.

Editor's Note

before she left. They are amusing and are illustrated in his peculiar style. My wife has three Lear miniatures.

" I. Of the excellent old sister Ann who brought up the others (see Introduction, vol. i., p. xvii) — a good portrait.

" II. Of Mrs. Boswell (not so good).

"III. Containing silhouettes (in black) of Edward Lear as a lad or young man, and a sister (the ninth and youngest sister).

" If you ever bring out another volume of letters she might perhaps lend them for re- production.

"P.S. — My wife's maiden name was Smith, daughter of the Rev. F. Smith, late Vicar of Holy Trinity, Fareham, Hants."

On Jan. 19, 1911, Mr. Allen again writes: " My wife is the owner of the three pictures, and will be glad to lend them. They came into our family this way, and a note might be made of it. My wife's mother (nde Payne) had an uncle, Mr. Richard Shuter Boswell, who married Miss Mary Lear, and took her out to New Zealand in 1856 or 1858. In 1863 he returned to England, living first at Fare- ham, Hants, and then at Torquay, where he died in 1876, aged 80, and is buried in the cemetery there.

9

Later Letters of Edward Lear

" P.S. — My wife remembers that Mrs. Boswell and Mr. B. went out to N. Zealand with the Streets (nephew — perhaps he was not married then) and that Mrs. B. died and was buried at sea on her way home. The B.'s were too old to rough it in the Bush, and he was blamed for taking her out." From Mrs. Allen, Jan. 26, 1911 : " I am glad that the pictures of the Lear family should be of use to you in your kind undertaking of gathering Edward Lear's letters together. I was much interested in his first volume, and we shall indeed value the second. You are also quite welcome to mention any- thing about Uncle Richard and Aunt Mary Boswell. I was quite a small child when they went to New Zealand in 757. I believe they visited my father and mother at Fareham before they left England : Aunt Mary died on the voyage back, I think in 1 86 1 Uncle Richard coming to us at Fare- ham on his reaching England. While at Fareham he made and gave to us, a little model of the hut he built himself in the bush, which he had cleared. I have it now. He died at Torquay in /y6. I enclose the two letters of Ed. Lear we have as I thought you might be amused to read them."

(I give these here.) 10

Editor's Note

16. UPPER SEYMOUR ST.,

PORTMAN Sg.,

1 6. July.

MY DEAR MARY, — I hope to come and see you on the 24th at Leatherhead, and to find you very well and lively. I believe you and Mr. Boswell have done the best thing you can, in making this plan of joining Sarah.

Now I want you to take something from your shabby old brother as a recollection, — but I don't know what to fix on for you — $£ is the big sum I propose that you should expend on something quite as a keepsake — a kettle, a candlestick, a looking glass — an angora cat — a barrel of wine, or whatever you like best. But I also want to add 2o£ to your fund which you are to live on : — no large sum is Twenty Pounds — but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. — This however I do not know how to bring to you, — in notes ? or should it be paid into any bank here ? or do you take all your fortune with you in a pipkin, gold and silver all wrapped up in a handkerchief?

Just send me a line when you receive this — and tell me how I shall manage — if I should bring down all the 2$£ in a lump to you on Friday or not — or how.

Perhaps you will buy a small cow to ride on in New Zealand. I imagine that you and Sarah will institute ox races in New Zealand.

Please let me hear from you soon and believe me

Yours affectionately

EDWARD LEAR.

ii

Later Letters of Edward Lear

16. UPPER SEYMOUR STREET

PORTMAN SQUARE

ii. Aug. 1857

DEAR MARY, — Ann will have written to you that I have sold my picture — so that I am, for once out of debt, and have nearly one hundred pounds to begin life with.

But this good luck has much deranged my plans, and I am over head and ears in business in con- sequence of being obliged to send off my picture at once to Derbyshire and it will not be at all possible for me to come to see you again before you leave England.

You and Richard must therefore take my best

wishes in writing, and remember that I shall always hope to hear of you through Ann. Tell Sarah, with my love to her and to all, that I did begin to write to her and intended to have written a long letter, but I really have not had a minute since I saw you — and indeed my writing days are very much finished and done for.

Now, my dear Mary, Good-bye. When you write to Ann, mention any little thing that you may want. I may or may not be able to send it you — but you know what pleasure it will always be to do so if I can.

12

Editor's Note

My love to Richard, — and best wishes for a good voyage for you and for happiness on your arrival.

Your affectionate

EDWARD LEAR.

Please look well to the ox on which I am to run races against you or yours when I come. And do not be too anxious to climb up all the tallest trees ; because you aint used to it.

The portraits of Anne and Mary are included in this volume, and will also add interest to the preceding one, where more mention is made of Lear's sisters.

The silhouette of Lear himself is extra- ordinarily good, accentuating with his hair the fine high forehead and very cone-shaped top to his head, which in later years, though quite devoid of hair, still gave the striking egg-like appearance. In this early portrait, which is so characteristic, one sees the coming man, the promised aggressiveness to be fulfilled into the positive, when in later life he did not fancy people or they happened to be Germans !

Again, I should like to make mention of the wonderful Sarah Street (Lear) and her daughter-in-law Sophie, mentioned at p. 153, vol. i., 1859. " Sarah is on her way home, and her leaving the Warepa seems to me, a sort of signal of break-up in her family, added to

Later Letters of Edward Lear

by my nephew's wifes illness, one of increasing incurability it appears to me, and which I suppose has very much altered their views and plans." Since that paragraph was printed I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mrs. Michell, of Cambridge (jtde Gillies), and granddaughter of the said Sophie. She tells me that her grandmother recovered and is still alive in New Zealand, a beautiful old lady now aged eighty-six, quite as wonderful a woman as Sarah, and a far more attractive one. She is loved by young and old around her home, and is still the life and soul of everything that takes place. She was a Miss Dabbinett of Curry Rivel.

Mrs. Michell last month, when I specially went to Cambridge to see her, was just start- ing on a holiday with her beautiful little son of five, for a three months' stay with her people in New Zealand. Sarah's son, C. H. Street, married Miss Dabbinett, and their only daughter married a Mr. Gillies, whose death and that of C. H. Street within a very short time of each other, Lear grieves about, at page 356, in this volume.

Mrs. Gillies was left with nine children, seven of whom are alive, and Mrs. Michell is one of the two daughters among these. But the

14

Editor's Note

Streets had all along prospered, and they have a beautiful home " Kohanga," at Parnell, Auckland.

They possess vast stores of Lear's drawings and diaries, most of them given to them as executor by Sir Franklin Lushington, and letters also from all the sisters, as well as mementos belonging to the latter. Mrs. Michell had not time to show me the pearls belonging to Sarah, a carved rosewood table which came down through Aunt Anne, and some old china left by Aunt Ellinor (Newsom). But she showed me some exquisite little draw- ings given her by her mother as a wedding gift one evidently a study for Lady Waldegrave's (now belonging to Mr. Fortescue Urquhart, at Oxford) beautiful Villa Petraja, and a highly finished set of four drawings in black and white, one special one of mountains with deep shadows, a perfect gem of black and white values.

Again, I have to thank Lord Northbrook for his kindness in lending me the beautiful water-colour sketches done in India by Lear when there by his father's invitation, which are included in this book.

To Mr. Congreve my thanks are also due for his interesting sketches in sepia of Ceriana and Tenda.

15

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Also, to Canon Church for the two ex- quisite sketches done during the tour Mr. Lear and he took together and of which mention is made in the beginning of the first volume.

To my sister-in-law, Mrs. Shaw, for the loan of the water colour of " Becky," the Robinson parrot, showing another side of Lear's work.

To Mrs. Charles Roundell, for her permitting the reproductions of her very fine examples, "The Pinewoods of Ravenna," and " Cenc, Island of Gozo, Malta."

To the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, for allowing a reproduction of the great oil painting of Bassae, subscribed for by friends (see p. 155, vol. i.) in 1859.

To Lord Tennyson, for allowing his sonnet on the Villa Tennyson to be included ; and to Lord Avebury, for his permission to print his Lear letter on " Insects " (see Appendix).

CONSTANCE STRACHEY. SUTTON COURT, Feb., 1911.

16

PREFACE

evening in the early autumn of 1869, when quite a small boy, I ran down the steep path which led up to our house at San Remo to meet my father ; I found him accompanied by a tall, heavily- built gentleman, with a large curly beard and wearing well-made but unusually loosely fitting clothes, and what at the time struck me most of all, very large, round spectacles. He at once asked me if I knew who he was, and without waiting for a reply pro- ceeded to tell me a long, nonsense name, compounded of all the languages he knew, and with which he was always quite pat. This completed my discomfiture, and made me feel very awkward and self-conscious. My new acquaintance seemed to perceive this at once, and, laying his hand on my shoulder, said, " I am also the Old Derry Down Derry, who loves to see little folks merry, and I hope we shall be good friends." This

17 B

Later Letters of Edward Lear

was said with a wonderful charm of manner and voice, and accompanied with such a genial, yet quizzical smile, as to put me at my ease at once. This was my first meeting with Edward Lear, who from that day to his death was my dearest and best friend of the older generation, and who for nineteen years stood in almost a paternal relation to me.

His letters contained in this volume, and those already published by Lady Strachey, tell a portion of his life's story, and reveal his versatile, eccentric genius and character. But to those who first make his acquaint- ance in this volume some account of the man as he was to those who knew him inti- mately, and loved him truly, may be of interest and assistance. At the time of our first meeting he was fifty-seven, having been born, I believe, at Highgate, on May 12, 1812. He was the youngest of a large family of Danish extraction, the spelling of his name having been altered by his grandfather to suit English pronunciation, as he says in a letter written December 31, 1882, " My own (name) as I think you know is really L0R, but my Danish Grandfather picked off the two dots and pulled out the diagonal line and made the word Lear (the two dots and the

18

Preface

line and the O representing the sound — ea). If he threw away the line and the dots only he would be called Mr. Lor, which he didn't like."

Soon after our first meeting he bought a plot of land on the hill-side adjoining my father's property at San Remo, and at once began the building of the Villa Emily, which later on was the cause of so much trouble and sorrow to him. He soon became very intimate with us, and was a constant visitor at our house, dropping in often at our mid- day meal, when he would sit, generally with- out taking anything beyond a glass of his favourite Marsala, and talk in the most delightful and interesting way of his garden, his travels, people he had met, birds, botany, music, and on general topics interspersed with humour, which was never long absent, and (I am sorry to say) with puns also : he was as inveterate a punster as Charles Lamb ! After his day's work was over he would fre- quently stroll in again for an evening walk and chat, occasionally staying till quite late, and delighting us all by singing his " Tenny- son Songs," set to music by himself, which he sang with great feeling and expression, and with what must have been at one time a

19

Later Letters of Edward Lear

fine tenor voice. He accompanied himself on the piano with spread chords, of which he was very fond. He generally finished up with some humorous songs, sung with great spirit, our favourite being "The Cork Leg."

He was always full of interest in our doings, and a week seldom passed without his bringing us a nonsense poem or a funny drawing of some event in our lives, or of some plant which had flowered in our gardens.

Unfortunately all these treasures perished, along with many others, in that not very safe deposit — a boy's pocket. Occasionally we were invited to dine with him, when he always sent a nonsense menu. One of these I still have, written shortly after the arrival of his favourite cat, Foss. It reads : —

Potage .... .... Potage au Petit Puss.

(Pour Poisson) .... Queues de chat, a 1'Aiguille.

ist Entr'ee .... Orielles de Chat, frites a la Kil-

kenny. Pattes du Chat — aux chataignes.

2nd Entree .... Cotelettes de petit chat (sauce

doigts de pied de Martyr — Tomata Sauce.)

Roti Gros Chat Noir.

Pour Legume .... De Terre — sans pommes. Pe- tite pierres cuites a 1'eau chaude. 20

Preface

Gibier .... .... Croquet aux balles.

Canards de Malta.

Sauce au poivre, Sauce au sel. Patisserie .... Pate* de vers de soie au sucre,

Breadcrumbs a 1'Oliver Crom- well (all of a crumble). Boudin de Milles Mouches. Compot de Mouches Noires.

As a matter of fact, we always had soup, mutton, pilaf, and a plain pudding, his faithful old Suliot servant, Giorgio Cocali, usually known as George, not being strong as a cook. Next day we generally received an extract which he professed he had copied from the Court Journal of the day, enumerating the large number of distinguished people who had dined with the " Author of the Book of Non- sense," though the description, cleverly varied, all applied to three individuals.

His usual description of himself was the " Author of the Book of Nonsense," occasionally "A Nartist Cove named Lear," and I have always believed that in his heart of hearts, he was prouder of his " Book of Nonsense" than of his paintings. I remem- ber, when the " Second Book of Nonsense" was published, the delight a favourable review

21

Later Letters of Edward Lear

would cause him ; he beamed as he read it out to me ; and how he chafed under an unfavourable notice. Yet criticisms of his pictures he always took unconcernedly, and would frequently laugh over them. I often heard him repeat the story of a brother artist who came to see his paintings, and asked, "What sort of tree do you call that, Lear?" "An olive; perhaps you have never seen one," was Lear's reply. " No, and don't want to if they are like that," was the retort. But I never knew him repeat any story telling against his Non- sense, and Ruskin's praise was very dear to him.

He was very fond of having me in to look at his sketches, and my interest in them led to his giving me and my brother lessons in drawing. Writing to me in February, 1883, he says, " Funnily enough, on looking yesterday at an old diary, 1871, I found this 'entry/ 'Gave the two young Congreves their first lesson in drawing ; they are the nicest little coves possible.' ' He always had a very weak spot in his heart for children and young folk. These lessons were some of the most delightful experiences of my young days, as they were

22

Preface

accompanied with running comments on art, drawing, nature, scenery, and his travels mixed up with directions for our work, and led to his setting his heart on my taking up art as a profession, and on my living with him later on. He always dreaded a lonely old age, and unfortunately he had to endure a very lonely one.

For some years prior to 1877 I was fre- quently with him in his studio, and we also went sketching expeditions together, Lear plodding slowly along, old George following behind, laden with lunch and drawing materials. When we came to a good subject, Lear would sit down, and taking his block from George, would lift his spectacles, and gaze for several minutes at the scene through a monocular glass he always carried ; then, laying down the glass, and adjusting his spectacles, he would put on paper the view before us, mountain range, villages and foreground, with a rapidity and accuracy that inspired me with awestruck admiration. Whatever may be the final verdict on his 1 Topographies " (as he called his works in oil or water colour), no one can deny the great cleverness and power of his artist's sketches. They were always done in pencil

23

Later Letters of Edward Lear

on the ground, and then inked in in sepia and brush washed with colour in the winter evenings. He was an indefatigable worker, and at his death left over 10,000 large card- board sheets of sketches. Writing in 1883, when he was seventy-one, he gives the follow- ing account of his day's work :

" In general I live in a mucilaginous monotony of submarine solitude. My life goes thus, and I cannot say I find the days long. I rise partly at five or six and read till seven, when Mitri brings a cup of coffee. Then comes whole rising — tub etc. — and arrangement of studio palettes etc. — letters to read — till 8-30, when I get a big cup of cocoa, one egg and a tiece of poast. Work till near twelve, when lunch and Barolo. Sometimes half an hour's sleep, but more frequently work again till 4 or 3-30. Then hear my two Suliots lessons and walk in the garden till six, and on the terrace till 6-15. Visit to the kitchen for 15 minutes, then Dinner — two objects only — soup and meat ; only latterly Nicola has taken to make lovely boiled rice puddings. After dinner 'pen out' drawings till 8-15. Next have a cup of tea — brought to my room by the lad Dimitri, who says the Lord's prayer and exit. After some more reading, I get to sleep before ten mostly. There is accounts — research once a week, the accounts being kept with perfect clearness and accuracy by Nicola, usually averaging £i-^/-for myself weekly. As for work, the big Athos keeps progressing by phitz ; and so does the big Ravenna, and Esa, and

24

Preface

Moonlight on still waters, and Gwalior and Argos — which last I have been at all this week past, and which I fancy will be one of the best works of Mr. Lear's fancy (though perhaps you may say, "Ah Goose! perhaps it isn't.") But it is getting too cold to work upstairs in that big room, so I mean now to overhaul the 4 water-colour drawings which are already far advanced. Also I go on irregularly at the ^ [Alfred Tennyson] illustrations — vainly hitherto seeking a method of doing them by which I can eventually multiply my 200 designs by photo- graph or autograph, or sneezigraph or any other graph. In addition to all this, I am at present frequently occupied in cutting, measuring, squaring, and mounting on coloured paper, all the sketches I did this autumn — all very bad, though correct and not uninteresting. Perugia, Abetone, the Pineta of Pisa, etc. — with — above all, three very long ones taken from the new Bellavista at M. G. [Monte Generoso] just before dear old George died. I hope some day yet to make a long Water Colour Drawing from them. There, my chicken ! don't go for to say I ain't industrious at 72 !

To spend an evening looking through a set of his sketches and listening to his remarks upon them and all that had hap- pened to him while they were being made, was a most interesting and instructive experience, and left the impression that I had actually seen the original places them-

25

Later Letters of Edward Lear

selves. One evening at dinner I sat next a lady who had just come from Malta. I knew Lear's sketches of Malta by heart, so we got along famously. At last she said, " I see you know Malta much better than I do ; I have only been there for three months." " I have never been there at all ; I have only seen Mr. Lear's sketches," I replied.

In the early seventies, Lear went on a sketching tour in India, at the invitation of his friend, Lord Northbrook, then Viceroy and while he was away from home I hac charge of his house and garden. During his absence he wrote me regularly twice a month long letters, full of varied interest and vivic descriptions of the scenery, plant life, birds and people he met. Just before his return the Villa Emily was broken into, and though I could never find that anything was actually stolen, the thieves made a sad mess in their search for valuables, and Lear never forgot or forgave it. From that day if anything were not forthcoming it was stolen when th< robbery took place. The damage the thieves did was as useful as in the case of Caleb Balderstone ! Lear brought back with him wonderful collection of sketches and a quan- tity of seeds of Indian flowers, and his

26

Preface

interest in acclimatising these last was very great, and his delight at his success with the ipomasas unbounded. In October, 1882, after he had moved them to his new garden at the Villa Tennyson, he writes : " The Indian Ipomaeas — of four sorts — have been a wonder to see."

Soon after his return from India, in the early spring of 1877, his old servant George's health began to fail, and it was decided that he was to go back for a change to Corfti. Lear, with his usual kindness, decided on taking him back himself. So one day late in February Lear, George, and his son and myself set off for the Ionian Isles. As we started Lear thrust a bundle of bank-notes into my hand without even counting them, all money transactions being, as he said, "An nabbomination to this child." We stopped for a day at Bologna, where Lear threw off the melancholy which had hung heavily on him throughout the journey ; and we spent a busy day in visiting scenes with which he was familiar. His interest in the Etruscan remains, and the delight with which he pointed out all that there was of beauty and interest in the wonderful old town, and in

its galleries and museums, was almost boyish.

27

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Early next morning, at 2 a.m., we started on the long railway journey to Brindisi in bitterly cold weather, and Lear, who could never stand a long railway journey, became a prey to deep despondency, and I had a hard task to cheer him up and dispel his gloomy forebodings. However, at Brindisi we found deep snow and a strong gale blowing, and I shall never forget the night we spent there. It was cold and wretched in the extreme, and Lear was thoroughly dejected ; and though a fowl we had for dinner — roasted, boiled, and then browned over, and which collapsed on being touched — roused him to make some jokes about the effects of snow on hens, all his fun vanished when we got into beds with a single thin blanket each in a room with the fine snow drifting in through the badly fitting windows, and he spent the night tossing about and moaning, thoroughly upset by the long journey and his anxiety about his old servant. Next day the gale had increased in force, and I became very anxious about my old friend's state, so I encouraged his disinclination to face the sea voyage, for I knew that he was a bad sailor. Finally it was decided that George

and his son should go on to Corffi by them-

28

Preface

selves, and that we should go to Naples and Rome. So after seeing George off we started for Naples, which we reached early next morning in warm and brilliant sunshine, and Lear at once began to revive. At the station I had to leave him for a few miuutes to look after our luggage. I found him again out- side the station, surrounded by a crowd of outporters, all struggling to get hold of his bag, Lear hitting out right and left and shouting " Via, via, pellandroni," the scamps all enjoying the, to them, good fun. The scene was so irresistibly funny that I was helpless with laughter, and before I could intervene my old friend had tumbled into the wrong 'bus, out of which nothing would move him, and so we were driven off to an hotel at which we had had no intention of staying, Lear, on the way there, giving me a long lecture on the care I must take while we were in Naples, as the Neapolitans were the greatest scoundrels he had ever met ! We spent two days at Naples, visiting Baiae, Pompeii, &c., Lear pointing out every object, each point of view, and dwelling on the his- torical or other associations with eager interest in my unrestrained delight at all we saw. We then went on to Rome, and the week

29

Later Letters of Edward Lear

we were there was one of the fullest and happiest we ever spent together. No one knew his Rome better than Lear, and in a week he had shown me more of the wonders and beauties of the old city and its surround- ings than most people see in three months. We spent a Sunday at Tivoli, where the changed conditions due to the union with Italy struck him very much. "Why! last time I was here," he said, as we strolled up the main street of the old town, " I saw two men stabbed, and had to fly for fear of being dragged in as a witness, and that, my boy, was .almost as bad as being a criminal!" And then he told me how, in a neigh- bouring village, where he spent some weeks sketching, he was robbed of all his money by his landlady, who, on his expostulating at the enormities of her bill, put her back against the door and said, "When I catch larks I don't let them go without plucking them." We met in the evening in our hotel an old lady who greatly attracted Lear, and they had a long conversation on poetry and music; after dinner she mentioned Tennyson's song, "Home they brought her warrior dead." Lear at once went to the piano and sang his own setting of the words in a voice hollow

30

Preface

with age, but with great style and deep feeling and accompanied with his favourite open chords, and he brought tears into the old lady's eyes. " Why ! " she exclaimed, " that is the setting I referred to ; do please tell me whose it is." " It is mine," replied Lear, and seeing the old lady's evident pleasure he sat down again and sang several of the Tennyson songs he had set to music, and the room filled with attentive listeners. As soon as he became aware of their presence he got up, and with an abrupt " Good-night " retired. A sudden change of feeling and manner to casual acquaintances was one of his characteristics, and I remember many funny instances of this feature of his character.

The only cloud that ever came over our friendship was in 1877 when I decided that I had no real vocation for art. This was a great disappointment to my old friend, and for some months we scarcely saw each other. Just before I left San Remo, he be- came reconciled to my plans and entered fully into them, and up to a year before his death continued to write me letters full of affectionate interest in my life, and of accounts of his garden and of his old friends who had been to see him.

31

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Shortly after my departure began the trouble which saddened and embittered his remaining years and led to his selling the Villa Emily and building the Villa Tennyson, in a position in which it was impossible that he could again have his view over land and sea ruined. The result of building a large hotel in front of his old house is best described in his own words, written on the i6th of November, 1879:

It is not yet settled whether I go out to New Zealand, and certainly a good deal of new zeal and energy will be necessary on my part if I do resolve to go. If I can succeed in getting other land, I shall buy and rebuild, for Lords Northbrook and Derby have, in the kindest way possible, put me in to a position to do so. But as yet it seems impos- sible to get such land as would suit, for I would not live on the East side of Sanremo, nor could I afford to live far from the town at all. . . . ! only intend to go to ^2000, or at most, ^2500, and if I cannot see my way to that by Easter, I intend to give up all and go to Auckland. It is quite useless for me to try and live on in this house, having been used to blue sea, and moreover being blinded every time I look up— so that I never now can walk on my terrace, nor do I go into my garden at all. As for the painting light, Gastaldi made me a window in the room looking West, but I cannot work in it for want of space ;

32

Preface

and now he has made me another on the East side of my Studio — which may or may not do — but is sure to make the room cold. Your idea of the skylight might be carried out by some artists, but I am not able to work with a light from above, nor can I within four walls, and no outer view. Thank you my dear boy, Hubert, for wishing to keep me in a place which has been a happy home for nine years, none the less so from your own excellent qualities having aided to made it so : — but you will see from what I have written that my remaining here is very doubtful.

He shortly after built the Villa Tennyson, and though he never really got over the irritation caused by his having to leave his old house, he became keenly interested in his new garden and was able to get a great deal of pleasure out of it. Writing in September, 1881, he says:

The garden has made a progress I did not at all look for, and the upper terrace might be three years instead of three months old. Ipomceas of four sorts, Tecomas of two, with many other flowers are splendid. The Mandarin oranges have suffered naturally, and if they survive must con- tinue to do so until the Myoperum trees have grown up as a shelter from the sea-wind : — but these same trees have already grown two feet since they were planted in June, and the Eucalyptuses three.

33 c

Later Letters of Edward Lear

All the remaining letters I have are tinged with deep melancholy, and show that his health was gradually failing. In a fit of depression he writes on the 28th of Sep- tember, 1 88 1 :

I am about to make a new arrangement at the end of 1881, i.e., to correspond only with those I have been in the habit of writing to since 1850 — 32 years. This space includes Lushington and Tennyson, Husey Hunts and Holman Hunts, Unwins, Clives and Lyttletons, Barings, Fortescue, H. Seymour, Lord Somers, Francillons, Wilkie Collins, my sister and nephew and some others, and many of them disappear gradually by death, being mostly of my own age or nearly so. This change — absolutely necessary to my sight, will 1 ' disfranchise " all writers since 1850 — some four score or more — and among them I am sorry your name occurs, but it cannot be helped.

He did not, I am glad to say, carry out this threat, and continued to write regularly up to 1886, letters full of interest and kindly advice, always enlivened with his quaint humour.

That's enough about your 2nd letter, and before I begin on that of June 6th, I'll have a " baruffa," as George calls it, with you. Your writing gets

34

Preface

worse and worse and worse and worse, many

words are wholly illegible, for you do not join or form your letters, but write .^e^e-ec*- like

that, so that any word may be Caterpillar, or Con- volvulus, or Crabapple, or Cucumber. By the time you are a head Engineer no one will be able to make out a single word of your Cacography.

A prophecy which, I am afraid, has been very nearly realised! In the spring of 1880 Lear came to England for his last visit and private exhibition of his drawings. I was in London at the time and we spent many happy evenings together ; one especially dwells in my memory. I had just finished my exam, at King's College, and he carried me off to dine with him at the Zoological Gardens. "You are just beginning the battle of life," he said, "and we will spend the evening where I began it." It was a beautiful evening in July and we dined in the open and sat under the trees till the gardens closed, he telling me all the story of his boyhood and early struggles, and of his meeting with Lord Derby in those gardens, and the outcome of that meeting — the now famous book, " The Knowsley Mena- gerie." I never spent a more enjoyable

35

Later Letters of Edward Lear

evening with him, and Lear, when at his best, was the most inspiring and delightful of companions. He was then absolutely natural, and we were like youths together, despite the forty and more years that lay between us. Later in the summer I joined him at Mendrisio, and spent a very happy week with him. We walked up to the Monte Generoso, Lear plodding along with his heavy step at a pace of about two miles an hour, and frequently pulling up to admire the view and to exclaim, " O mi ! ain't it fine ! " or to tell me some story. From Monte Generoso we went on to Varese and spent a day visit- ing the Sacro Monte di Varese, with Miss Mundella, a daughter of the then Vice- President of Committee for Education, and it was very beautiful to see the old man's care and gallantry in looking after his fair companion. A week later at San Remo I saw him for the last time and had a very sad parting with my dear old friend, who com- pletely broke down. His last letter was written to me on December 26th, 1886:

Many thanks for your's of the 22nd, and for your good wishes, though they come when I am miserable enough. It is true the fierce rheumatism has gone, . . . but I am wholly feeble, and only now

36

Preface

begin to use my right limb. In the midst of this Luigi goes away — he finds the work more than he can do — which I don't wonder at. I had at first decided to take a room up at the Royal Hotel, but Hassall, wisely, I think, says I could not have the same attention there, and must anyhow have a per- sonal attendant and a cook. These have now to be sought for — all which is a misery — considering how fixed and comfortable I was. Luigi's three years service have shown him to be a most excellent, handy, and trustworthy fellow, and I regret his

going. As for C , cook, he is nothing particular,

only very lazy, and I think, dirty. To-day my cough is better, but I am in a very delicate condition.

He died at the Villa Tennyson on the 2gth of January, 1888, and with him passed away, not a great painter, but a man of versatile and original genius, with great gifts, one of the most interesting, affectionate, and lovable characters it has been my good fortune to know and to love. He was a real personality.

HUBERT CONGREVE.

MOORE, December ) 1910.

37

CONTENTS

PAGE

NOTE . . . . . .5

PREFACE . . . . . , .17

CHAPTER I ENGLAND, NICE, MALTA, EGYPT, CANNES . . -45

CHAPTER II CORSICA, ENGLAND, AND CANNES . . . .103

CHAPTER III SAN REMO . . . . . . . 115

CHAPTER IV SAN REMO (continued) . . . . .151

CHAPTER V INDIA, ENGLAND, AND SAN REMO . . . .165

CHAPTER VI

SAN REMO, AND ENGLAND . . . . .199

39

Later Letters of Edward Lear

CHAPTER VII

PAGE

SAN REMO AND SWITZERLAND . . . . .214

CHAPTER VIII

SWITZERLAND AND SAN REMO . , ,266

CHAPTER IX SAN REMO AND NORTHERN ITALY . . . .290

APPENDIX—

A. ORANGE-BLOSSOM . . . . 363

B. LETTERS FROM LEAR TO MRS. HASSALL . . 364

C. LETTER FROM LEAR TO LORD AVEBURY . . 366

D. COMPLETE LIST OF CONTEMPLATED ILLUSTRATIONS TO

POEMS BY LORD TENNYSON . . . 368

E. PICTURES EXHIBITED BY LEAR AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY 379

F. SUBSCRIBERS TO HIS "TEMPLE OF BASS^E," AT THE

FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE . . 380

G. SUBSCRIBERS' LIST OF MEMBERS TO "ARGOS" BY

LEAR PRESENTED TO TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 382

INDEX ....... 383

40

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF PLATES BENARES, INDIA (Coloured Reproduction) . . Frontispiece

From a water colour drawing, by kind permission of the Earl of Northbrook.

FACING PAGE

MARY LEAR, WIFE OF RICHARD BOSWELL . . 8

From a miniature, by kind permission of Mrs. Allen.

ANN LEAR, LEAR'S ELDEST SISTER, WHO BROUGHT HIM UP 48

From a miniature, by kind permission of Mrs. Allen.

MONACO, FROM TURBIA . . . . .52

From " Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson, illustrated by Edward Lear, 1889," by kind permission of Lord Tennyson.

CENC, ISLE OF Gozo, MALTA . . . , -72

From an oil painting, by kind permission of Mrs. Charles Roundell.

EDWARD LEAR IN 1867 ..... 82

Taken in Alexandria.

CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, LORD CARLINGFORD (ABOUT 1874) . 82

From a photograph by Bassano.

TENDA, ITALY . . . . . .116

From a sepia drawing, by kind permission of Hubert Congreve, Esq.

THE PINE- WOODS OF RAVENNA . . . .122

From an oil painting, by kind permission of Mrs. Charles Roundell.

VILLA EMILY ...... 136

From a photograph.

THE GARDEN OF VILLA TENNYSON . . . .136

From a photograph.

TRICHINOPOLY, INDIA . . . . .176

From a water colour drawing, by kind permission of the Earl of Northbrook.

MARBLE ROCKS, NERBUDDA . . . . .180

From a water colour drawing, by kind permission of the Earl of Northbrook.

MRS. RUXTON IN HER PONY-CART AT RED HOUSE, ARDEE 1 86 From a photograph.

41

Later Letters of Edward Lear

FACING PAGE

EDWARD LEAR AS A YOUNG MAN AND HIS YOUNGEST SISTER 188

From silliouelies, by kind permission of Mrs. Allen.

MOUNT SORACTE, CAMPAGNA DI ROMA . . . 200

From "Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson, illustrated by Edward Lear, 1889," by kind permission of Lord Tennyson.

BETWEEN CALCIS AND CASTELLA, EUBGEA (Coloured Re- production) . . . . . .222

From a water colour drawing, by bind permission of the Rev. Canon Church.

CERIANA, ITALY . . . . . .226

From a sepia drawing, by kind permission of Hubert Congreve, Esq.

GIUSEPPE, THE BANDY-LEGGED GARDENER, IN 1881 . . 232

From a photograph.

EDWARD LEAR IN 1881 ..... 232

From a photograph.

GIORGIO COCALI IN 1881 . . . . .232

From a photograph.

FRANCES, COUNTESS WALDEGRAVE . . . 240

From her sitting-room window at Strawberry Hill.

FRANCES, COUNTESS WALDEGRAVE .... 240

Taken at Strawberry Hill about 18-71.

"BECKY," SIR SPENCER AND LADY ROBINSON'S PARROT 256

By kind permission of Mrs. W. H. C. Shaw.

CASTELLA, EUBCEA. . . . . .270

From a water colour drawing, by kind permission of the Rev. Canon Church.

BASS.E ........ 306

From an oil Museum, Cam

From an oil painting, by kind permission of the Director of the Fitzwilliam bridge.

CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, LORD CARLINGFORD . . 344

From a photograph by Bassano (about 1883).

Foss's TOMBSTONE IN THE GARDEN OF VILLA TENNYSON 356 THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH OF LEAR, 1887 . . . 360

Taken at Villa Tennyson.

TOMBSTONE OF GIORGIO COCALI, AT MENDRISIO . . 362

GRAVES OF LEAR AND NICOLA COCALI, AT SAN REMO . 362

42

List of Illustrations

LIST OF THE MORE IMPORTANT SKETCHES REPRODUCED IN THE TEXT

PAGE

LEAR REVEALING HIMSELF TO RAILWAY PASSENGER . -79

LEAR WITH HIS TWO FRIENDS IN PARADISE . . IO6

LEAR UNDER HIS OWN OLIVE-TREE . . . .132

"THE FORTESCUE". . . . . ,135

LEAR A-WATERING OF HIS OWN FLOWERS . . .136

LEAR AND HIS DOMESTIC HEN-BIRD . . .142

LEAR RIDING AN ELEPHANT . . . . .167

THE AHKROND OF SWAT . . . . 1 68

LEAR RIDING A PORPOISE . . . . .184

FOSS THE CAT ...... 213

LEAR FEEDING TWO LORDS . . . . .230

THE PHOCA PRIVATA . . . . .260

LORD CARLINGFORD RESIGNS THE PHOCA PRIVATA . .281

LEAR AND THE PHOCA . . . . .298

ON HAIRDRESSING . . . . . • 3X3

A DINNER-PARTY IN MILAN . . . . 316

LEAR ON HIS WAY TO DINE WITH LORD CARLINGFORD . 346

LEAR RIDING THE PHOCA ..... 347

LEAR, MISS CAMPBELL OF CORSICA .... 348

43

1

Later Letters of Edward Lear

CHAPTER I October 19, 1864, to February 24, 1868.

ENGLAND, NICE, MALTA, EGYPT, CANNES.

Lear to Fortescue.

CADLAND.1 SOUTHAMPTON.

19 Oct. 1864.

YOURS of Oct. 1 6th has just come, and tho' it is one of eight, wanting a reply, I will write a line at once. You have mistaken the nature of my last in a measure, tho' it is very probable I wrote curtly, for (as in the present instance) I feel that not to write immediately is to defer to an indefinite period when I should possibly have still less time or capacity to write well. Nevertheless the term "stern and stiff" is to a certain degree justly applied, and moreover may very likely be

1 The residence of Andrew Drummond, grandson of Lord Strathallan. His wife was a daughter of the Duke of Rutland.

45

Later Letters of Edward Lear

more so year by year : the mistake is in supposing the style is so to you more than to others, which is not the fact. Every year — especially in London — makes me less able to write as formerly — both because as I grow older I find myself altered in several ways, and because every year brings fresh sets of acquaintances all requiring a portion of time. You may however always feel certain that any letters such as my last are the result of heaps of small botherations which can by no means be par- ticularized any more than the midges which bring on a fever by their bites can be identified or described : and that in no case have they been occasioned by any feeling towards yourself in any way. How should it be otherwise ? You would find, if you could see my journal, for years past the very contrary. No friend could have helped another more, and not only in earlier days but later, for Lady W.1 through you has had many more pictures of me than she needed to have done qua ornament : so that I have often had to thank you both for personal help. And, regarding the future, I have a perfect conviction that you would help me in any mode I asked if it were possible. But for all this, you must make up your minds never again — except by chance or fits of irregular elasticity, to find in me the descriptive or merry flow of chronic correspondence I used to be able to indulge in. As we grow older, and life changes around us and within us, we ourselves must shew some signs of change — unless we are fools, or

1 Frances, Countess Waldegrave, married Chichester For- tescue (Lord Carlingford) in 1863, and died in 1879.

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

vegetables, or philosophers to a greater degree than I am or can be.

Your letter makes me almost think that it is better to write scarcely at all rather than that which is unsatisfactory. Meanwhile, avoid imagining motives which do not exist, tho' their appearance may : and be sure that anyone who has known you a tenth part as well as I have must be certain of your being as absolutely true and kind in heart as a man can be. Which I shouldn't say, if I didn't feel from your writing that I ought to do.

I have been at my sister's l since I wrote, and then ... I decided on going to see Mrs. Tennyson at Freshwater — the first time for three years, since they were so kindly a refuge when my sister Ann died. I was with them nearly 4 days : but I found all that quiet part of the Island fast spoiling, and how they can stay there I can't imagine. Not only is there an enormous monster Hotel growing up in sight 2 — but a tracing of the foundations of 300 houses —a vast new road — and finally a proposed railway —cutting thro' John Simeon and A.T.s grounds from end to end. 3 Add to this, Pattledom 4 has taken entire possession of the place — Camerons and Princeps building everywhere : Watts in a cottage (not Mrs. W.) and Guests, Schreibers, Pollocks, and myriads more buzzing everywhere. However,

1 Ellen Newsom, a widow, who lived at Leatherhead.

2 Stark's Hotel.

3 The proposal to carry the railway farther westward to Totland Bay lapsed.

* Countess Somers, nee Virginia Pattle, was a cousin of the Prinseps, Camerons, &c.

47

Later Letters of Edward Lear

by being (thank God) personally as uncivil as I could to most callers, I saw a good deal of my friends and the Lushingtons. The account of the visit to Osborne l was very interesting : and among other matters, I faintly hope I may have done some good as to choice of poem-subjects, — for I maintain that the higher the class of topic, the better for readers, provided that equal technical power is dis- played. . . . On my way back, I came here for a night, a place I have been asked to for years past — very splendid — but having met some old folks who said " probably you will not come to us for we have no great house to receive you in." I am at present disgustably inclined.

Presently I return to 15 Stratford Place, and if I can shall clear out in the end of next week. . . . I shall not much longer speculate and rush about violently : as I shall probably go and live at Ega, which is on the Amazon above Para. This house is abunjantly full, of Manners — Drummonds, Per- cevals — Spencer Walpoles — etc : etc : etc : etc : and I wish there had been only Edgar and sweet Mrs. E. D.2 Goodbye. My kind regards to the other half of you. . . .

PAVILION HOTEL, FOLKESTONE,

3 Novr. 1864.

Finding part of this envelope written and stick- stamped, I shall send it on principle, as one should eat all that is in a dish if the food "won't keep."

1 Tennyson's visit.

2 Edgar Drummond, son of Andrew Drummond, married a sister of Lord Muncaster.

ANN LEAR, LEAR'S ELDEST SISTER, WHO BROUGHT HIM UP.

(From a miniature, by kind permission of Mrs. Allen.)

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

The sea is in appearance decently respectable, and I hope I may get across calmly : the passage is, however, always a terror and disgust to me, wherein I fully sympathise with my Lady.

I have had sent me here a sermon by Colenso — published at Longman's, and called, " Abraham's Sacrifice " ! ! — very remarkable and good. I The ravening fanatics who persecute this man are highly devil-inspired. Will there now be a new edition of the Bible, the filthy, savage, or burlesque-upon-the- Deity passages left out? Shall you set it on foot any the more than that Lord Derby is advertising an edition of blank- verse Homer ? If you do, you can call it

THE NEW

ANTIBEASTLY ANTIBRUTAL ANTIBOSH BIBLE by the

Rt. Hon. Chichester S. Fortescue. I will take ten copies.

M. E. LEAR.

VILLA CANAPA.

61. PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS. Nice.

France, which, *I3 Nov. 7.30 a.m.

Is the writer's address for the next five months he supposes, and which he hopes you will write to.

1 Colenso, appointed ist Bishop of Natal in 1853, was deposed from his see by his Metropolitan Bishop Gray of Capetown in 1864, after the condemnation of his book, " The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined."

* See p. 50.

49 D

Later Letters of Edward Lear

You see by the date,* that I am up early, and I think that this hour on Sunday — or up till noon, will be my chief or only writing time. Not to begin at the beginning, I will first thank you for the fun I get out of a book I saw on your table at Carlton Gardens, —the " Competition Wallah."1 I bought it at a hazard, with one or two more books, and now find it very useful. It is delightfully written, and the writer must be a " clayver fellow " : moreover, concerning Oxford Dons, Convocations, and Bishops, etc, our ideas are as one. — I got down to Folkestone after great effort, on Wednesday the 2nd. — and on Thurs- day the 3d, crossed — with a good passage, — arriving at Paris by night. On the 4th. excepting a visit to Adml. and Mrs. Robinson,2 — I was at the galleries all day, and at 8. p.m. set off by rail to Nice, reaching it exactly at 8 p.m. on the 5th., just 24 hours by rail— a journey on end I will not try again, as there is no time to eat or drink, much less for repose or sleep. I went to a bad little Hotel, partly because I knew no other by name, partly because I was there last year, and had told George 3 to come and meet me there : — he however had not appeared, wh. I did not wonder at, as he had to fit various incongruous steamers on his way from Corfu. Sunday the 6th. I looked at heaps of lodgings : — such — for size and

* See p. 49.

1 " Letters of a Competition Wallah," 1864, by Sir George Otto Trevelyan, nephew of Macaulay.

* See p. 205.

3 Giorgio Cocali, Lear's faithful Suliote servant, who had been with him in Corfu from the time he first stayed there in 1856.

50

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

position, — as I had at Corfu cost 6000, 5000. 4000 francs — being furnished — (and most hideously.) Do you know Nice? — It reminds me a good deal of St. Leonards, only that the houses are more detached, and in many instances stand in gardens. The Promenade des Anglais is altogether a long row of lodgings — with a really good broad walk above the shingly beach. The sea is rather deadly stupid, as there is no opposite coast, nor islands, nor ships, nor nothing, and the landskip is bebounded by, west the headlands of Antibes, and east, by the Castle Hill and Villa Franca point — pretty enough. Near the Castle Hill is the old town — divided from the New by the torrent Paillon cum bridgibus : — and radiating from this as a centre Northward easterly or westerly are growing streets, and villas of all descriptions, all at the mouth of the Paillon valley as it were. On Sunday I learned somewhat of the place from Lady Duncan, — and on Monday 7th. I again looked at lodgings — among these at many villas, some of which had good north light for work, and were moderate in price — but with one servant and far from the daily shops of life, they were impracticable. Other houses had red white or yellow walls opposite — reflecting sun : some had only the sea look-out — blinding to behold : others were noisy — or too small, — or what not. So I resolved to go next day to Mentone and see what I could make of that — Jncordingly on Tuesday the 8th. off I set in a carriage — and certainly I had no idea the Cornice was so magnificent in scenery ; Eza and Monaco are wondrously picturesque, and Mentone very pretty — ; but it is too shut in and befizzled a place

Later Letters of Edward Lear

for me : you have to walk thro' the long only and narrow street of the town wherever you go — unless you have a carriage, or could hire a big villa. I was, however, very glad to see the place, and moreover found a lot of Corfu friends there, besides Ld and Ly Strangford,1 with whom I sate, and they came back in " my carriage " part of the way. (They came here yesterday, and I shall see them to-day : George, to whom Lord S. was talking, hardly believes him to be English, so remarkably well does he speak Greek.) I got back late to Nice on the 7th. and the first thing I saw on Wednesday the 8th when I opened my shutters at 7 a.m. — was Giorgio the Suliote smoking a cigar on a post opposite. Of course we went directly to see places, and finally fixed on this — in which we are as settled as if we had been here 10 years. It is a small set of rooms, on the all but ground floor — (raised by a few steps,) on the west side of a detached house in a garden- facing the sea. Madame Comtesse Colleredo has the first floor, and the other half at the ground floor entrance similar to mine. Above lives a Germing gent and lady. Below my rooms are George's kitchen, wood cellar, etc, etc — but I must go to bkft 8.30 a.m, To rezoom : after a good break- fast— and reading more of Trevelyan's book,2 which is the most delightfully healthy toned, instructive, witty, and altogether excellent perduction I have met with for many a day. Here is a plan of my

1 Lord Strangford, 8th Viscount, a most accomplished Orientalist, President of the Asiatic Society, married, 1862, Emily Anne, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Beaufort, K.C.B.

a See p. 50.

52

K

•2 1

*. I

_on "S

Q **

III

s *%

X § 1

Q W) ~

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

rooms. A is my parlour, where I feed, and write, and work at night B the bedroom. C. entrance lobby from I. I stairs and hall. (J. goes up to Mdme Colleredo, and K. is her ground floor wing.) D is my study — north light, and as far as yet known — quiet. E. used as a lumberroom. F. George's room. So you see the arrangement is good. But what do you think I pay ? 2000 fr. — i.e. £80. This was the very least I could get any- thing for at all suitable, and if I am able by reson of

their suitableness to work in these rooms, then they will have been wisely taken — for London Winter life is for ever impossible on all accounts. Meantime the Suliot, who always sets to work at once, gives me my breakfast and dinner quite perfectly and without bother, which is a great blessing to me. Yesterday a sole, a dish of thrushes and bacon, and stewed apples : — the day before soup and a piece of roast lamb and beans : — these are the kind of meals he provides — always well cooked, — and I never have a single thing to think of except going over the accounts weekly,

53

Later Letters of Edward Lear

which he keeps quite well now that he has learned to read and write. His accounts of Corfu are by no means bad, tho', as he says, the English are greatly regretted. The Greek soldiers are kept in good order, — and the story of the Archbp. having been mobbed is untrue. I have already cut out an immense lot of work for winter and spring : — I wish to do no less than enough drawings to fill up all the great room of 15 Stratford Place, and to enable me to do this, I mean to refuse seeing most people, — for already I hear of many who, idle themselves, would gladly make me so. If I hate anything, it is a race of idlers. Perhaps I may dine out on Sundays, and one other day, but my evenings in general will go in hard penning-out work, if I can get lamps to suit me. In a few days — if the weather is as lovely as now, I shall go out in a carriage to Eza for 2 or 3 days and return at night. Afterwards, G. and I shall go to Mentone and Monaco for a week : — and later I hope to walk all the way to Genoa and partly back, getting good views of the whole Cornice road. G. will cook and take a cold dinner on the daily outing occasions — and as this house is full of people, I can leave it safely as I like or not. I will let you know what progress I make. Beside Lady Duncan — (who is too far to see often,) and the Strangfords, (who go to-morrow), there are Reillys and Bathursts, and Hankey's, and Cortazzi, and Saltmarshes, and Smithbarrys, and many more, whom I shall chiefly avoid or adopt as things turn out. Royal and Imperial folk abound, and no one notices them nor they nobody. Only they say the Russians have spies abunjiant everywhere, which, as there was a tame

54

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

Pole at one Hotel I was at, and a Russ at another, don't seem unlikely.

I am going to Church this morning — more because I don't like systematically shewing a determination to ignore all outward forms than for any other cause : but as it is probable I shall be disgusted, possibly I shall not go again. As the clergy go on now, they seem in a fair way of having — as the Irish gentleman said — only the four Fs for their admirers, Fanatics, Farisees, Faymales and Fools.

I shan't write much more. This year I seem to have done a good deal don't you think? Paint- ings finished — Hy. Bruce's Cephalonia, Jameson's Florence, Sir W. James' Campagna, and Fair- bairn's Janina. All Crete visited and 220 drawings made. Some 220 drawings penned and coloured, besides those of Cephalonia, Ithaca, Zante, and Cerigo penned and coloured also. Arranged and moved downstairs in Stratford Place. Bothered about1 Nephew's death, and W. Nevill's2 failure. Helped Nephew's family ^40 — sick friend £10 — one godson ^5 — t'other's mother ditto, and other explosive charities : — and after all have nearly if not quite enough to get through the winter with, and hope besides to add some 50 or 60 Cornice drawings to my collection. Ajoo, ajoo. My very kind regards to My Lady : — I wish you could both see the sun- beams and sea here — also the flowers and the flies.

1 In America.

2 One of his " ten original friends.' '

55

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Certainly up to 10 or 12 — even this front room, (where I am writing,) seems perfect.

Yours affectionately,

EDWARD LEAR

i. P.M. Just come from Church — in a rage : collec- tion for " pastor's aid society " —and foolish sermon to wit. Saw heaps of people I knew, out of the 500 English there, Jacob Omnium, I Lyons, Deakins, Ly Vaux ; — won't go again for 4 months.

Goodbye

EL

61, PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS, NICE.

January 2nd 1865.

I wrote a line from Genoa on the 23rd, and next day I set out on my return hither, where I arrived on the evening of the 3ist, having divided my walk into 6 days of 16 miles — one of 14, and one of 20. Thus ... I have " done " the Riviera di Ponente as well as Crete, and also ... I have paid £10 to the London poor, which I omitted before to notice. I have brought back 144 drawings great and small, and can work the Corniche road pretty thoroughly, as having walked both ways I know it tolerably well. A more interesting piece of Italy I have never seen, — 130 miles of narrow coast full of cultivation, vil- lages— vines — vegetables — vaccination and vot not.

1 Jacob Omnium was the name assumed in the Times by Matthew J. Higgins. For an account of his attack on the old Palace Court of Justice, which made a great stir, one cannot do better than read Thackeray's " Ballad of Policeman X, called " Jacob Homnium's Hoss."

56

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

And a more delightfully civil intelligent and indus- trious population does not I think exist. I have talked with many of all classes — workmen, engineers, Deputies of Parliament, &c. &c. &c. &c. and have always more and more admired Italian character. Some of their remarx on the religious crisis of their country are very striking. " I am afraid," said a fierce Protestant Exeterhalliste, "that you Italians are leaving your belief in your Roman faith, and are most of you believing in nothing at all." — "You think then" was the reply — "that God is nothing?

The Pope says — believe in me or go to H , you

Calvinists say the same : — but our nation is beginning to think that the Almighty is greater than priests of either sort. ..."

I have just got the ist number of the new National Review, what I see being first-rate, and highly con- cordacious with my own feelins.

61, PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS, NICE.

24 February 1865.

. . . Concerning the ink of which you complain, this place is so wonderfully dry that nothing can be kept moist. I never was in so dry a place in all my life. When the little children cry, they cry dust and not tears. There is some water in the sea, but not much : — all the wetnurses cease to be so imme- diately on arriving : — Dryden is the only book read : — the neighbourhood abounds with Dryads and Ham- merdryads : and weterinary surgeons are quite un- known. It is a queer place, — Brighton and Belgravia and Baden by the Mediterranean : odious to me in all respects but its magnificent winter climate, and

57

Later Letters of Edward Lear

were I possessor of a villa, I could live delightedly : but to have one's only chance of exercise in a crowded promenade of swells — one year is enough of that. Among the very nice swells are Lord and Lady Fitz- william1 — something uncommon for simplicity and good breeding. I have sold several small ^5 draw- ings to them. . . .

My London life requires some arrangement and study beforehand . . . and I regret that Holman Hunt will not be in England to advise me, for by long experience I have been aware that none but an artist can enter thoroughly into these matters :— all those who have a sufficient regular income can only see things from their own point of view, as is but natural.

I hear from Baring2 and Sir Henry Storks 3 also: and from the Curcumelly.4 The former are not in love with Malta, the latter report well of Corfu. Lady Wolff is at Florence, Sir H. D.5 at Constan- tinople. I could not say half enough of the Riviera people : — that journey, now that the small disagree- ables of travel fade into distance, is one of delightful

1 The 5th Earl, married Lady Francis Harriet Douglas, daughter of the i7th Earl of Morton.

2 Evelyn Baring, the present Lord Cromer, was aide-de-camp to Sir Henry Storks in Corfu during part of the time that Lear was resident there.

3 At this date Governor of Malta. Had been Lord High , Commissioner of the Ionian Isles from 1859 to its cession in 1863. Afterwards Governor of Jamaica.

4 Sir Demetrius and Lady Curcumelli, friends in Corfu.

s Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who had been Secretary to Sir Henry Storks in Corfu, held many Foreign Office appoint- ments, and was eventually Ambassador to Spain in 1892.

58

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

memories to me : and I could wish to publish two little volumes — Crete and the Corniche, as to my 1864 doings. ... I have been reading Sir C. Na- pier's life : a grand and wonderful book. The expres- sions, however, used towards Lord Howick, Earl Ripon, and Sir James Hogg cannot be called strictly suave and pleasant. His niece writes me a charming letter to-day. . . . The other day I met a parson here (at Lord Fitzwilliam's). After dinner — talking of great statesmen, and Ld. F. saying that Sir G. C. Lewis1 was one of the very first men of our time, said the priest, "it is to be feared however that at one time of his life his mind was inclined to be rather sceptical, and that he even had some doubts as to the authenticity of some portions of the revealed writings : but I hope this was not so at the close of his days."

I went over to Cannes t'other day to see Lady Duncan : and as many as seven sets of people I saw only by chance. One — a most intimate lot, Harford- cum-Bunsen — and I have to go there again. Two Westbury Bethells have been here — to my delight, who with them walked and drove about thro' all the livelong day. Holman Hunt I expect.

What majestic deaths you have been having in England ! The Duke of Northumberland2 was a really fine man ! How strange that aged Lord Bever- ley should live to be Duke : — and I suppose my old

1 Sir George Cornewall Lewis held various Government posts. Was Editor of the Edinburgh Review 1852-1855. Died in 1863.

2 The 4th Duke.

59

Later Letters of Edward Lear

friends of Guyscliffe will be Lord and Lady Charles Percy — will they not ?

Cardinal Wiseman1 too gone — and his place not easy to fill up. Manning2 report says — is to succeed him, but there is a wide difference twixt the two. Englishmen are made Cardinals by the Papal Govern- ment for one of three reasons I imagine : great wealth —great family position or leadership or influence, and great talents without either. Acton 3 may be an example of the first — York4 and Weld of the seconds and Wiseman distinctly of the third. Manning always seemed to me a very vain and babbly en- thusiast— but they may give him the hat, because as a preacher he has immense influence with women, and

1 Appointed by the Pope Archbishop of Westminster and Cardinal. The religious excitement caused thereby led to the passing of the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Act

2 The eloquent preacher and High Churchman who joined the Church of Rome in 1851, succeeded Wiseman as Arch- bishop of Westminster and became a Cardinal in 1875.

3 Charles Januarius Edward Acton, 1803-1847, 2nd son of Sir John Francis Acton, Commander-in-Chief of the land and sea forces of the kingdom of Naples. Charles Acton entered the college of the Accademia Ecclesiastica in Rome, and was after- wards one of Leo XII.'s prelates. In 1842 he was made cardinal priest, and was the only witness and interpreter of the historic interview between Gregory XVI. and Nicholas I. of Russia in 1845.

4 The Duke of York, son of the Old Pretender, born at Rome, 1725, took orders after the failure of the '45 rising and in 1747 received a Cardinal's hat. He died, the last of the Stuarts, in 1807.

5 Thomas Weld of Lul worth Castle, born 1773, married Lucy, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Clifford. Upon the decease of his wife he took Holy Orders and eventually became Cardinal, 1829. He was the first Englishman to have a seat in the Conclave since Clement IX., and died 1837. His grandfather founded Stonyhurst.

60

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

may turn thousands of silly female swells to the true faith.

15, STRATFORD PLACE, W.

21 April 1865

. . . Unpacking and arranging has been a long and hardish work, and now there is the fitting, framing, finishing of the Drawings I have brought over, which are wonderful in number even for your humble ser- vant. . . . All this speculation — the large rooms etc : is costly — but may succeed if the gallery induces people to come who may buy the big pictures. . . .

I wrote to you before I left Nice — some time back. I can't say I left that place with regret, in spite of

the Suliot's homily who Said, "jue KaKoQaivtrai va

a(f)L(ra) — SIOTI fV avS|OW7roc (sic) irptirei va c'^p, V ™> KaXbv TOTTOV, TTOV 6 Osoc $sv rov cWjiie Kavlv KO.KOV etc «£ jwijvce." x I

staid a week at Cannes, and that I was absolutely de- lighted with. It is difficult to conceive of two places so different, yet so close together. I was latterly to have shewn my drawings to the Empress of R[ussia] but the poor young grand Duke's illness put that aside.2 I wonder what good such secrecy about Royal folk tends to. It is more than 5 months that I knew the fatal disease the Czarewitch has suffered from — though no one publicly spoke of anything but rheuma- tism. It is or was lumbar abscess — and disease of the spine.

1 " I don't like leaving, for a man should count among the good things of life any place where God has done him no harm for six months."

2 Nicolas Alexandrovitch, eldest son of Alexander II., died at Nice on April 24th, of cerebral meningitis. He was 21 years of age and betrothed to Princess Dagmar of Denmark, afterwards wife of Alexander III.

61

Later Letters of Edward Lear

I have seen but few people here. T. S. Cocks tells me of old Mr. Wynne's death. Charles and John, Mrs. Godley and all his children were there — and to the last, tho' of so great an age — 87 — he was perfectly clearheaded. About 5 minutes before he died he said, " Doctor, how long do you think it will be before I am in the presence of the Lord ? "-— " A very short time " was the reply. After which, in a few minutes he said " Now/' and died. . . . Holman Hunt has painted a most remarkable picture, Mrs. T. Fairbairn and five children. Its only fault is that some day all the figures will certainly come to life and walk out of the canvass — leaving only the landscape : such reality is there. You will see it at the Hunt gallery.

Dear old Dr. Lushington is very failing.1 Alfred Tennyson has lost his mother and her sister 2 (88 and 87) in a few days, and Mrs. A. T. writes me that he is much depressed and nowise himself.

The Lord Chancellor case 3 you may suppose in- terests me, but I imagine, subtract Tory antipathy- Low Church fanaticism — High Church persecution — Law Reform victim's indignation, and 2 (at least) cases of extreme personal virulence — and little enough will be left to make a fuss about.

1 Dr. Lushington was the Head Master of the Admiralty Court.

2 Alfred Tennyson's mother was a daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche.

3 The transactions in which the Lord Chancellor (Lord Westbury) was alleged to have exercised his office in a manner detrimental to the public service. The Case of Mr. Leonard Edmunds and the Case of the Leeds Court of Bankruptcy.

A vote of Censure was passed, and the Lord Chancellor resigned. He was succeeded by Lord Cranworth.

62

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

Please read J. Stuart Mill's letter in the Morning's Times I : I'm so glad I can't do a rule of three sum— and so can't have a vote. But what do you say to M. Thiers and his speech 2? It is brutal and odious, and confounds me. The American news is indeed stupendous, and sets one thinking.3

P.S. You see our friend T. B. Potter is returned for Rochdale.4 A friend of his and mine says " Let us hope he will not open his mouth in the House : so he may be useful."

You ought one day to see the whole of my outdoor work of 12 months: — 200 sketches in Crete — 145 in the Corniche — and 125 at Nice, Antibes and Cannes. ... I sent George Kokali away at Marseilles.

Lear to Lady Waldegrave.

HOTEL DANIELI. Nov. 24/1865. VENICE.

MY DEAR LADY WALDEGRAVE, — I have just seen the Leader in the Times of Monday — the 2Oth. which con- gratulates Chichester on his becoming Irish Secre- tary 5 ; — being of an undiplomatic and demonstrative

1 Giving his political opinions in view of his candidature as Member for Westminster, Lear alludes to the following para- graph : u I would open the suffrage to all grown persons, both men and women, who can read, write, and perform a sum in the rule of three. . . ."

2 Spoken on April 13, 1865, in defence of the recent Encyclical and against the destruction of the Papal Government and the establishment of the unity of Italy.

3 American news of General Lee's retreat from Richmond and General Sheridan's report of the capture of six Generals and several thousand confederate prisoners. In consequence General Lee's surrender was hourly expected.

4 In a bye-election due to Cobden's death.

s The Leader (November 20, 1865) also pointed out that the

63

Later Letters of Edward Lear

nature in matters that give me pleasure, I threw the paper up into the air and jumped aloft myself — ending by taking a small fried whiting out of the plate before me and waving it round my foolish head triumphantly till the tail came off and the body and head flew bounce over to the other side of the table d'hote room. Then only did I perceive that I was not alone, but that a party was at breakfast in a recess. Happily for me they were not English, and when I made an apology saying I had suddenly seen some good news of a friend of mine — these amiable Italians said — " Bravis- simo Signore ! ci rallegriamo anche noi ! se avessimo anche noi piccoli pesce li butteremmo di qua e la per la camera in simpatia con voi ! " l — so we ended by all screaming with laughter.

I am truly glad — but, as the Times says — CF's place will be no sinecure ; and he has come to it in days when it is not unlikely that many remarkable events relative to Ireland will come to pass, and in his hands may well eventuate both to his honour and the good of the Irish people. I wonder immensely if you and he will go at once to Ireland. Pray write to me at Malta. ... My love to C.S.P.F.2 and

believe me, . . .

Yours sincerely,

EDWARD LEAR.

Ministry increased its strength by preferring younger statesmen to important posts.

1 " Hurrah, Signore, we also are delighted. If we had only got some little fish, too, we would throw them all about the room in sympathy with you."

2 Fortescue's names were, besides Chichester, Samuel Parkin- son, names he disliked ; consequently, Lear loved occasionally to tease him with them.

64

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

Lear to Fortescue.

HOTEL DANIELI. VENEZIA.

Nov. 28. 1865.

MY DEAR 4OSCUE, — You will I hope have learned, before this reaches you, that I have already known about the Irish Secretaryship from the papers : and I sent a note enclosed in one to T. Cooper — to be left for My Lady. None the less thanks however for the letter which has just reached me — date — Dudbrook 1 7th. — In every way I am glad the matter is settled, and I have been reading with glee all that has been said of you in the papers. Unluckily, my Observer of the 1 9th. (which was likely to contain something about you — ) was either never sent or has never turned up, — but I have read articles on your appointment in the Times, Daily Neivs etc : — all pleasant. The Standard delighted me by saying, " Mr. C.F. is reputed by his own intimate friends to have talents which have never been discovered by any other persons." And one friend writes, "your friend C.F. has been justly pro- moted to a place he is well able to fill, in spite of

B s frequent predictions that he would shortly be

ruined as a public man and sink into a permanent state of dilettante-ism." On the contrary I see in this new post the largest opening for you that anyone could suggest or wish — more so, to my thinking than if you had gone into the Cabinet as D[uchy] [of] [Lancaster] or Colonial Secretary. I hope Baring I will get a lift

1 Thomas George Baring, M.P. for Penryn and Falmouth, 1857-1866, held various appointments. Secretary to Admiralty, 1866 ; succeeded his father as second Baron Northbrook in 1866 ; Under Secretary for War, 1868-1872 ; succeeded Lord Mayo as Governor-General of India, 1872-1876 ; was created

65 E

Later Letters of Edward Lear

too. Milady will have told you what a Nass I made of myself when I suddenly read your Appointment. . . . Thank her very kindly about the Tor di Schiavi.1 It is a delight to me that you and she will have it. I will write to Dickenson to fetch it away from Stratford Place, and she will order it to be sent as she pleases. The lovely tin, pleace say, may be paid into Messrs. Drummond him's Bank — Charing Cross — to my account. Long may you both enjoy the picture. Thikphoggs have set in here, and one can see

nothing.

• • • * • « •

Since I began this I see your Fenians are still troublesome. I long to hear about the Phaynix house, and I daresay Milady will kindly write to me in the winter : for I don't expect you to write again. I daresay you never heard me speak of Dr. Barry 2 — the Army Inspector of Hospitals at Corfu. He was old then — ranking as a General, and having gone thro' all wars since 1800. He is just dead, and has been found to be a Woman. — A mad world my masters.

Yrs. affe.

ED. LEAR.

an Earl in 1876. One of Lear's best and most generous friends and patrons.

1 " Tor di Schiavi Campagna di Roma," painted in 1862, was purchased by Lady Waldegrave.

2 James Barry, 1795-1865, Inspector General of the Army Medical Department, said to have been the granddaughter of a Scotch Earl, entered the Army as hospital assistant attired as a man, July 5, 1813. She was described as "the most skilful of physicians and the most wayward of men, in appearance a beardless lad, a certain effeminacy in his manner which he was always striving to overcome." She died in London in July, 1855. The motive of her disguise was supposed to be love for an Army Surgeon.

66

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

9. VIA TORRI. SLIEMA.

MALTA.

23. Janry 1866.

MY DEAR LADY WALDEGRAVE, — I have often wished to write — but could not do so — nor can I well now. I often too have thought of you and C.S.P.F. at your new abode — of which he gives a nice account : I fear he will have a good deal of bother yet awhile — but he is certainly the best man to meet it, and it will prepare him for higher duties bye and bye. — I have been miserable here — at Sir Henry Storks and Barings J absence first, and then of dear good Strahans2 : — John Peel 3 is the only one I have left to whom there seems to be any tie, — [though nothing can exceed the kindness of the General (Ridley) — the Bishop, and everybody else. Yet you know I am not gregarious but social, and the social life was what I wanted. Then again, the ONLY place vacant and fit for painting was this vast house 3 miles off — except across the water, a mode of journey I hate — and so one is pretty isolated, and had not my good servant George come I don't know how I could have got on. I was obliged however to take a Maltese boy besides, for the house and journey ings were too much for one.

I wish I had heart or spirit to write you a long letter : but much prevents this : the propinquity of the

' See p. 58.

2 J . Strahan, Aide-de-Camp to Sir Henry Storks in Corfu and in Malta, afterwards Governor of Tasmania, the Windward Isles, &c.

3 Major Peel, 4th son of Lt.-Gen. the Right Hon. J. Peel, had served throughout the Crimean War, and been appointed Assistant Military Secretary at Malta in 1864.

Later Letters of Edward Lear

noisy sea, and the high wind depress me abundantly, — my sister — the widow I — is very unwell, and were she to get worse I should come to England : John Gibson 2 of Rome — a very old acquaintance — is I think dying — and his death will greatly affect my oldest friend there — Henry Williams : — these things and Mr. Edwards not paying me, with flies and a pain in my toe all affect me at once. Bother. The only good thing is that your picture really looks very promising — whereas last week I nearly cut it into slices. My love to C.F. I don't write to him as he must be so busy, and it is all one.

Believe me, Dear Lady Waldegrave, Yours sincerely

EDWARD LEAR.

Lear to Lady Waldegrave

9. VIA TORRI. SLIEMA. MALTA.

13. Feby. 1866.

Your last very kind letter, (with C.S.P.F's endorse- ment) ought to be better answered than it will be; for, as you conjecture, I am not in good spirits — and in fact altogether in a crooked frame of mind. Nor without reason, as in some respects I never passed a less pleasant winter, spite of the set off of Paradise weather, no cold and all sun — and of having nothing to complain of so far as life made easy by good food and servants, goes. But on the other hand, the loss of Sir Henry, and of my two intimate friends Baring and Strahan has been a shocking one — for though by

1 See p. 47.

2 The sculptor, who revived the use of colour in statuary. Died in Rome 1866.

68

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

nature hating crowds and hustle and gaiety, yet some

social sympathy is necessary and one don't get any

except from John Peel, and the General I with

whom I dine once a fortnight. But the former is a

sad invalid, and the latter's dinners are, tho' good,

uninteresting to me, who know nothing of the small

talk of the place and its gossip : — and the going

across to Valetta and return put me out of my way a

good deal. The Anglo- Maltese intelligence does not

seem ever to have heard that Artists require particular

light, aspect, quiet, etc : and because I cannot have

some three or four hundred visitors lounging in my

rooms — I am dubbed a mystery and a savage : — tho'

the very same people can understand that they could

not go to a Lawyer's or Physician's rooms to take

up his hours gratis. Were I to ask a Military Cove,

if this climate on account of its dryness required him

always to pour water down his gun before firing it, or

a Naval one if he weighed anchor before he sailed or

a week afterwards, I should be laughed at as a fool ;

yet many not much less silly questions are asked me.

No creature has as yet asked for even a £$ drawing,

nor have I sold even one of my few remaining Corfu

books. My rooms though spacious are painted, one

blue — one orange — one green — so that my sight is

getting really injured as to colour, just as if a musical

composer should have to work in the midst of hundreds

of out of tune instruments. My sister Ellen is very

unwell, and most anxious about the ship my New

Zealand sister2 sailed in. There are also very dis-

1 General Ridley.

2 His sister, Sarah Street, married and settled with a large family at Dunedin in New Zealand.

69

Later Letters of Edward Lear

agreeable reports about the Atrato, the ship J. Strahan went to Jamaica in. From Rome, every week has brought sadder letters and Gibson's near death was the subject of the last. And Mr. Edwards, for whom I painted the Jerusalem, from July to November, and for whom I made it so large a picture on account of auld lang-syne, has never paid for it, and as I have been at very great expense here, it is most fortunate for me that I have happened this last year to be a little beforehand — and that you bought my Tor di Schiavi. That's enough I think to account for non-liveliness : . . .

To many people however Malta ought to be a charming winter residence : for there is every variety of luxury, animal, mineral and vegetable — a Bishop and daughter, pease and artichokes, works in marble and fillagree, redmullet, an Archdeacon, Mandarin Oranges, Admirals and Generals, Marsala Wine lod. a bottle — religious processions, poodles, geraniums, balls, bacon, baboons, books and what not. The chief person here after the Govr. General, and top Admiral, is Lady Hamilton Chichester. Mr. Hook- ham Frere, who married her aunt, Lady Erroll left her a fine house and gardens and I suppose she is a "power in the State" as she is now a R.C. and I fancy is influential. (She was a Wallscourt Blake.) After Ash Wednesday, I am going to be at home for 3 days — to Adml. and Ldy Smart, Adml. Yelverton, Sir V. and Ldy Houlton and a heap more : I wish they were all in Japan or Madagascar, except Admiral Y. O ! that's enough about myself which I wish I was a seagull and could fly off to Jaffa at once. — I am delighted at your account of your and C's life : and

70

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

everyone seems to like you both there, which I looked for. Nevertheless, C. must have had a great deal of anxiety, for it is not to be supposed — seeing what is known publicly about the F[enians] I — that he has not many more rocks and breakers to think of. Some red-hot Ulster Protestants here, which their noble family is all Orange, give me a good idea of the sectarian good sense he must have to deal with. I trust however that all will come tolerably straight —

(tho' such speeches as Mr. Dillon's 2 don't tend to quiet me,) and if so, that then C.S.P.F's time will come for doing something really important for Ireland The Parliament will be most interesting this year. . . .

1 This month saw the second Fenian rising (the first was in September, 1865) ; but it was speedily suppressed by the sus- pension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. Fortescue went into office at a particularly critical time in Irish affairs.

2 John Blake Dillon, a leader of the Young Ireland party, an exile from 1848 to 1855, and member for County Tipperary from 1865 till his death in 1866.

71

Later Letters of Edward Lear

What a busy life you must both lead, you and C.F ! and it seems to me that you are exactly the right " t'other half" of the position — because C's nature wants as you say self-confidence, and that you are able to give him. Yet the finer the mind, the more (generally speaking) is such accompanied by the critical disposition : and he who foregoes self-criticism must sooner or later get into a groove, and stand still — if he don't fall down. Do not let him give up any horse or walking exercise, because he is never well without that. ... At present however, I have no more energy than a shrimp who has swallowed a Norfolk Dumpling. Goodbye.

SLIEMA. MALTA.

March 9. 1866

If you have any leisure, which I don't very well see how you can, I hope you will write a line to me before I leave this island. Every fresh batch of newspapers keeps me in not a little anxiety on C. F.'s and your account : nor does the Irish cloudy sky appear to get brighter. Even without the help of Earl R's and Sir G. Grey's speeches, one can see that there is much more than outsiders know, — and now that Chichester has to go through his election again, by the disgust- ing dodgery of the Tories, it is a fresh lot of trouble for you both. I hope he keeps well in health through these odious times : when they are over, I trust his reward will come, in being able to do something really good for Ireland.

... I have hardly ever known any place more melancholy than the vast Valetta Palace — wanting the life of Sir Henry Storks, Baring and Strahan.

72

si

si § I

8 *

0

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

The two latter write often from Jamaica: Strahan's last to me was very funny, and they certainly all seem in their normal state of high spirits. Crowds of swells have been to me, but only one young R. A. officer has bought or thought of buying a drawing : so that £10 and £12 from sale of Ionian books, as all my winter gains, made Mr. Edwards' pay welcome enough. . . .

Father Ignatius l — dressed as a mucilaginous monk —is come to stay here, and walks about like a mediaeval donkey.

VALETTA. MALTA.

3oth March, 1866.

I was so glad to get your long letter of the i7th on my return from Gozo. It was very kind of you to write, as I was in an orfle fidgett about you and C. I hope now to know by the papers that his election for Louth is well over. I wish he instead of Sir Some- body Gray were going to bring in the Irish Prot : Church do away with Bill, as I wish he had all the credit. . . .2

I was very glad to hear you think well of the stability of Lord R's govt. and greatly hope it will last. I wish I could hear C. S. P. F. "speak a speech," and perhaps when I come back I'll have a

1 Father Ignatius was the name assumed by Joseph Leycester Lyne ; he received Anglican orders in 1860, and in 1862 revived the " ancient rule of St. Benedict" in the Church of England. He settled eventually at Llanthony Abbey in Monmouthshire.

1 The abolition of the Irish Church Establishment was finally decreed in 1869.

73

Later Letters of Edward Lear

try. I am glad of Miss Money's engagement I : any- how nobody can say you are not everything that is kind to all about you, and when you are pleased it is a pleasure to those who know you. . . . The Palestine trip must be given up this year. The cholera is so likely to re-appear all about there that to risk 40 days' lazaretto with nasty people would be madness. . . . There is another little reason for not going to Pales- tine, viz. the white glare of this place is hurting my eyes, and an additional two months of hot sunwork I fear to encounter.

My kind love to

P.S. I've made 2 riddles. What saint should be the

patron of Malta ? Saint Sea-bastian.

And why are the kisses of mermaids pleasant at breakfast ?

a. Because they are a kind of Water CAresses.

HOTEL DELLA TRINACRIA. MESSINA.

13. April. 1866.

Just before I left Malta, I was glad to see that

1 Miss Ida Money, daughter of General and Lady Laura Money, of Crownpoint, consequently niece by marriage to Lady Waldegrave, who was taking her out in society, became engaged in Dublin to Major, the Hon. Edmund Boyle, brother of the Earl of Cork, Aide-de-Camp to Lord Kimberley Lord Lieu- tenant of Ireland, and afterwards Gentleman Usher to Earl Spencer.

74

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

CSPF was re-returned for Louth and to London, for I read in some paper or other that you and he were at Strawberry. So my anxieties on the score of Fenian assassination are over.1 It is also a pleasure to perceive that the whole of the big bother is being finished up, unless indeed Canada gives fresh trouble.2

I left Malta on the loth in a fuliginous flea-full Steamer, and got here on the Evening of the nth — when I chose to leave the crowded boat and wait for M elver's large steamer, the Palestine, which should arrive to-morrow and go on direct to Corfu, Ancona, and Trieste, so that I hope to be at the latter place before the 2Oth. Then I purpose visiting as much as I can of Dalmatia — beginning with Pola, and ending if possible with Montenegro : — all which being "done" I wish to be back by the ist week in June. But until I get to Trieste, the capital or base of operations, I cannot very well see my way. Up to the evening of the Qth I had almost given up this trip altogether, as the reports of Austro-Italo war were getting very unpleasant, and were war to break out, all the Adriatic would be shut up. . . .

This place is vastly dirty. Dirtyissimo. But it is

interesting to me in many ways — and looking at

Reggio and the Calabrian hills, I cannot realize that

i it is just 19 years since I was there with poor John

Proby.3 There is a great deal of discontent here

1 See p. 71.

2 The Fenians of America did carry out their threatened " invasion " of Canada, and occupied Fort Erie, but the United States enforced the neutrality of their frontier.

3 John, Lord Proby, eldest son of the Earl of Carysfort, was

75

Later Letters of Edward Lear

and in many parts of Italy : the taxes and the con- scription being a sore which worries the lower class, and is used as a worry by the Bourbonites and priests. The last affair at Barletta is much felt — if not much talked of. When will it please God to knock religion on the head, and substitute charity, love, and common sense ? I fear me poor dear Italy has a great many hard trials before her yet ; and as strongly do I hope she will get over them, and put her foot on those who

call her Atheist — they themselves being if not Atheist — haters of God and man.

I was sorry in some respex to leave Malta. It is impossible to say how constantly kind dear good General Ridley has been to me. The V. Houltons

were also so: ditto Lady H. C. but I don't

worship her, which she is wiolent and spiteful, although hospitable.

one of Lear's earliest friends. of 35-

He died in 1858, at the age

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

Did I tell you of my visit to Oudesh, vulgarly called Gozo? It was a most pleasant one, and with the aid of Giorgio I drew every bit of it, walking fifteen or twenty miles a day. Its Coast scenery may truly be called pomskizillious and gromphibberous, being as no words can describe its magnificence. I have also drawn all Malta — more because 1 happened to be there, and some work had to be done, than for any good it is likely to do me. My whole winter gains — twenty-five pounds, — must remain a melanchollical reminiscence of the rocky island and its swell com- munity.

It will be curious to see poor Corfti again : and I will write from Trieste, where I have dim hopes of finding a letter from you.

15, STRATFORD PLACE. OXFORD ST.

May 30. /66.

I am working awfully hard to complete my un- finished drawings, so as to open my Gallery next week if possible.

I dined yesterday at Lord Westbury's.1 Ld. W. seems to be much more inclined to re-settle in Eng- land, and in various ways there is much that gives me satisfaction. I am to dine there again on Friday. He said to me — " when you see Lady Waldegrave, give her my kindest remembrances — and say that I have not left a piece of pasteboard at her door, because that is a form by which " — (so I understood him) " the amount of esteem in which one person holds another cannot be accurately measured."

I hope you are not all a-going to split and go out

1 Lord Chancellor, 1861.

Later Letters of Edward Lear

about this Redistribution of seats.1 On Sunday Mrs. M. endeavoured to draw from me if I knew or didn't know anything about what you told me of C. S. P. F. —whereat I collapsed into a vacuum of ignorance. My love to said See Ess Pee Eff.

To Lady Waldegrave.

15, STRATFORD PLACE OXFORD ST.

W.

17 October 1866.

MY DEAR LADY WALDEGRAVE, — It is orfle cold here, and I don't know what to do. I think I shall go to Jibberolter, passing through Spain, and doing Portigle later. After all one isn't a potato — to remain always in one place.

A few days ago in a railway as I went to my sister's a gentleman explained to two ladies, (whose children had my "Book of Nonsense,") that thousands of families were grateful to the author (which in silence I agreed to) who was not generally known — but was really Lord Derby : and now came a showing forth, which cleared up at once to my mind why that statement has already appeared in several papers. Edward Earl of Derby (said the Gentleman) did not choose to publish the book openly, but dedicated it as you see to his relations, and now if you will transpose the letters LEAR you will read simply EDWARD EARL.— Says I, joining spontanious in the conversation — " That is quite a mistake : I have . :on to know that Edward Lear

1 Disraeli's proposals to frame a Reform Bill "by way of resolutions," which he had to abandon.

78

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

the painter and author wrote and illustrated the whole book." " And I," says the Gentleman, says he — "have good reason to know Sir, that you are wholly mistaken. There is no such a person as Edward Lear." " But," says I, there is — and I am the man — and I wrote the book ! " Whereon all the party burst out laughing and evidently thought me mad or telling fibs. So I took off my hat and

showed it all round, with Edward Lear and the address in large letters — also one of my cards, and a marked handkerchief : on which amazement devoured those benighted individuals and I left them to gnash their teeth in trouble and tumult.

Believe me, Dear Lady Waldegrave, Yours sincerely,

EDWARD LEAR 79

Later Letters of Edward Lear

GRAND HOTEL DU LOUVRE.

MARSEILLE. ii. December. 1866.

I am glad to have received a letter from you jusl before starting, and to know that you and the Mimbei are well, and have been so happy. I am off to- morrow by the P. & O. steamer — the Pera — to Alexandria, having just heard that Sir H. J. Storks may be a week longer before he comes, and if a i week why not 2 weeks ? or 3 ? So I can't dawdle any more, and I wish now that I had gone on last I week by the Poonah. As it was I went to Hyeres, i and St. Tropez, both of which were bosh. I have j made up my mind to go in for a Nile and Palestine move : as I may have no better opportunity because, | in spite of Lords' Stratford and Strangford's nursing, • the sick man I will be more of an invalid before long I guess — and his dominions will not be good for travelling Topographers. My objects on the Nile are, (excepting only to draw Denderah on the lower river,) wholly above Philae — as I never saw Nubia, and particularly wish to get drawings ol Ipsambul, and Ibreem. If I can't manage this shall make for Jerusalem earlier than I should g( to the second cataract. In Palestine, a certai view of Jerusalem, a tour to Galilee, Nazareth (for a picture for R. M. Milnes,2) Carmel — Tiberias — Tyre — Sidon — Banias — and if possible Palmyra.

1 Lord Strangford was at that time at Constantinople. Lore Stratford had had extraordinary influence as ambassador ai Constantinople, 1842-1858. The "sick man/' of course, ii Turkey.

2 Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, the poet.

80

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

The length and breadth of this tour will however depend on many circumstances.

I have never been so utterly weary of 6 months as of these last : never seeing anything but the dreadful brick houses — and latterly suffering from ?/ cold, smoke — darkness — ach ! horror! - -verily II England may be a blessed place for the wealthy, but an accursed dwelling place for those who have known liberty and have seen God's daylight daily in other countries. By degrees, however, (if I don't leave it by the sudden collapse of mortality) I hope to quit it altogether, even if I turn Mussulman and settle at Timbuctoo.

CAIRO. March 9. 1867.

I wish I could write you a long letter, but I want to thank you and C.F. for your help before the Mail goes, and there is scanty time and much to do. I came back from having safely performed the first half of my journey — viz — the Nile and Nubia, yesterday, and found your very kind letter, as well as one from Messrs. Drummond, informing me of the payment of One Hundred Pounds which you have so kindly lent me. Conjointly with your aid, assistance also came to me, in more or less degree, from Lord Houghton, Mrs. Clive, B. Husey-Hunt, T. Fairbairn, John E. Cross, F. Lushington and W. Langton. I am a queer beast to have so many friends. I am so pleased the Venice1 is so much

1 A companion picture to the "Tor di Schiavi " painted in 1862 for Lady Waldegrave. They both hang at Chewton Priory and are the property of the present Earl Waldegrave.

81 F

Later Letters of Edward Lear

liked, but it is quite fit and right that CSPF should like it less than your portrait : so long as it ranks next I am well content. I should like to see Rich- mond's drawing of C.1 I hope he won't make him clerical and holy and soft, he being neither. What an awfully cold winter you seem to have had ! and in other respects not a pleasing one, particularly as regards Fenianism. I hear just now that Lord Cranbourne, General Peel and Lord Carnarvon have left the Government 2 — will it break up and cease, or join Gladstone, or what next ? I should like to have read C's letter, 3 but I get no sight of papers now, as directly they are devoured, off they go and no old ones exist. The Consul General here, Colonel Stanton, R.E.4 and Mrs, S. are very good-natured, but I am not — after rising as I do at 5.30 and writing all day — up to going into " SOCIETY " at 9 or 10. In a few days I go to Memphis for a day or two — to wind up my Egyptian work, and then I hope to start across what is called the short desert — for Gaza, Askalon, and Ashdod : and if I chance to find a nosering of Delilah with Samson's hair set in it, won't I pick it up ? Then, after a time

1 I never heard of this picture. I do not think it ever took shape, or is confounded by Mr. Lear with a drawing by Watts.

2 Lear refers to the split in the ministry on the Reform and Borough Franchise.

3 C. F.'s letter of the 4th of February to the Times, in which he advocated the passing of a Land Bill, and condemned Lord Dufferin for seeming to wish " to let well or ill alone."

4 Sir Ed. Stanton, K.C.M.G., General (retired), entered the Royal Engineers, 1844. Consul-General at Warsaw, 1860. Agent and Consul-General in Egypt, 1865. Charge d' Affaires, at Munich, 1876.

82

w ^

II

Q W

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

and times and half a time at Jerusalem, I trust to go to Nazareth, on the score of M. Milnes' picture. The Sea of Galilee, the City on a hill which cannot be id, the site of the cursed cursive concurrent pigs, Endor with or without a witch, and other places are to be visited : if possible, Gilead and Gerarh, and if possibler, Palmyra. Also Canobeen and other Lebanon places, so that from Berut I may come back by Carmel and on to Jaffa, and Alexandria, arid thence by Italy to England early in July. I hope then that I shall have done with all this part of Asiatic topography, and that I shall be able to pro- juice two worx — one on Egypt — t'other on Palestine. Nubia delighted me, it isn't a bit like Egypt, except that there's a river in both. Sad, stern,! uncompromising landscape, dark ashy purple lines of hills, piles of granite rocks, fringes of palm, and ever and anon astonishing ruins of oldest temples : above all wonderful Abou Simbel, which took my breath away. The second cataract also is very interesting, and at Philae and Denderah I got new subjects besides scores and scores of little atomy illustrations all the way up and down the riverj An " American " or Montreal cousin was with me above Luxor, but he was a fearful bore ; of whom it is only necessary to say that he whistled all day aloud, and that he was " disappointed " in Abou Simbel. You can't imagine the extent of the American element in travel here ! They are as twenty-five to one English. They go about in dozens and scores — one dragoman to so many — and are a fearful race mostly. One lot of sixteen, with whom was an acquaintance of my own, came up by

83

Later Letters of Edward Lear

steamer, but outvoted my friend, who desired to see the Temple of Abydos because " it was Sunday, and it was wrong to break the Sabbath and inspect a heathen church." Whereon the Parson who was one of the party preached three times that day, and Mr. my friend shut himself up in a rage. Would it be believed, the same lot, Parson and all, went on arriving at Assouan — on a Sunday evening — to see some of those poor women whose dances cannot be described, and who only dance them by threats and offers of large sums of money? As all outer adornment of the person — except noserings and necklaces, are dispensed with on these occasions, the swallowing of camels and straining at gnats is finely illustrated. At Luxor I frequently saw Lady Duff Gordon, but on my return she had broken a blood vessel, and is now reported very ill indeed. She is doubtless a complete enthusiast, but very clever and agreeable. I heard there of the death of my poor friend Holman Hunt's wife I at Florence, and I find very affecting letters from her sister. Poor Daddy 2 is still at Florence where some friends take charge of his motherless boy. Meanwhile it is getting very hot here, and the flies are becoming most odious and unscrupulous. As a whole this Shepherd's Hotel (or Zech's as it is called now,) is more like a pigstye mixed with a beargarden or a horribly noisy railway station than anything that I

1 Miss Waugh.

2 Lear was greatly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and considered Holman Hunt his artistic father. Hence the nick- name u Daddy/' though Holman Hunt was many years his junior.

•

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

can compare it to. To add to my difficulty in writing I have miserable toothache and Neuralgia, so I must stop.

My kindest regards to you and the Mimber. P.S. As I passed Philse going up — just at sunset — the very same effect of the Due D'Aumale's l picture was over it.

Lear to Fortescue.

15, STRATFORD PLACE, OXFORD ST.

9 August, 1867.

MY DEAR EXCELSCUE, — (N.B. — XL is 40). I was so sorry not to have been at home when you came, as scissors and grasshoppers only know when we may meet again : you certainly do all you can to see me, but the conditions of life are against your so doing.

I had gone to my sister's 2 — the first and only time since I returned — and the fourth time only that I have left London — the other three being to B. Husey Hunt, to Alfred Tennyson, and to Strawberry. I cannot recall two months of my life more wearying and distressing — shut up literally all the day, day after day — (the only means of getting even a chance of a livelihood ;) with nothing but brick walls and cursed cats to look at outside, with a climate, — the first month bitter winter cold and the second perpetual darkness and pouring rain : and with neuralgia usually as well — or more strictly speaking — as bad.

Were it possible to avoid doing so I would gladly never come to England again — so disgusted am I

1 A picture Lear had painted for the Duke.

2 His sister, Elinor Newsom, the widow.

85

Later Letters of Edward Lear

with all therein and thereof at present. Very happily for me, my queer natural elasticity of temperament does not at all lead me to the morbids — " suicide " or what not, — but on the contrary to Abercrombical I reflexions on life in general. Sometimes I make considerable progress in my new Book of Nonsense— (which I hope will help me to Nazareth — I mean Nazareth in Syria,) and sometimes I consider as to the wit of taking my Cedars out of its frame and putting round it a border of rose coloured velvet, embellished with a fringe of yellow worsted with black spots, to protypify the possible proximate propinquity of predatorial panthers — and then selling the whole for floorcloth by auction.

By the bye, the original Abercromby 2 book fell up two days ago — as I was by degrees moving all my books upstairs. Also five volumes of Byron, the fifth of which you stole, or rather borrowed and never returned. I don't want it however a bit, for I've got a better edition : and some day I will pitch the remain- ing five vols out of window as you get into a Nansen Cab, just as you drive off.

On Thursday I dined at the Viscountess Strangford — which the party was very agreeable : " Foffy " Cur- cumelli 3 also. And — speaking of visits, yesterday Lady Franklin 4 passed an hour here, looking at every one of my drawings with the Zeal of a Girl of 25.

1 " Abercrombical" was a favourite adjective of Lear's, and I think he must have been referring to the writings of Dr. John Abercrombie, the well-known philosophical and metaphysical writer, who died in 1844.

2 Probably " The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings."

3 See p. 58. 4 Wife of the celebrated Arctic explorer.

86

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

My sister showed me some beautiful drawings of " Sister Sarah " I — just sent from N.Z. — flowers — and a large panoramic view — she is a wonderful old lady -at 73 !

I shall write to you before the Ortum begins, from Stratton. . . .

As for me, I stay at Stratton and Selbourne till I come back to town to finish two small copies of the Seeders : and then comes the moving upstairs — or into the Pamteggnikon — as yet I don't know which.

What nation talks the greatest nonsense ?

The Boshmen !

And where are the greatest number of Pawn- brokers' shops ?

Among the Pawnee Indians.

0 child ! climb up a high tree at Chewton 2 and compose a pamphlet on the follies of the world in general, and more par- ticularly of your very misbegot- ten and affectionate friend,

Aug. icth.

1 read this over to-day, and tho' it is very absurd shall send it. Adieu !

LEWES. 24. Novbr. 1867.

Life, my child, is a bore. ... I didn't write a note to you about your Toe 3 as I had wished to do, in which I meant to have recommended you to study the book of 70bit, and to drink a glass of Tokay, but not too much for fear you should go down into 70phet, 1 The wonderful Sarah Street of the first volume.

Chewton Priory, Lady Waldegrave's Somerset home. 3 A broken chilblain.

87

Later Letters of Edward Lear

and there be burned like Tow : you should also have been told to eat Tbmatas, by way of soothing your Zbmartyrdom, and in a word I should have /totally punned the matter bare and out and out. In the meantime don't be careless about your foot, as toes are not to be trifled with.

I go early to-morrow by Hastings to Folkestone— to cross on Tuesday : and by Thursday hope to be at Cannes. . . .

P.S. W. Neville came to me. My sister I found sadly deaf ; but tho' alone she has three servants who have been about her thirty odd years.

P. P.S. Holman Hunt has been painting a large picture from Keats' pome of Isabella.

VILLA MONTARET,

No. 6. RUE ST. HONORE,

CANNES. ALPES MARITIMES. Dec. 26. 1867.

I don't like not to send New Year's good wishes to you and My Lady, so I shall write a note if never so short ; all the more that up to now I have had no heart to write, but this morning has begun with a run of good luck that both you and Lady W. will be glad to hear of.

" The Cedars " are at last sold — not by any means for the sum I wished, nor even for a third, but still they will be well placed, and thoroughly appreciated, and I shall get £6 a year out of the critters for the rest of my life, if I can contrive to put the money into the three per cents. Louisa, Lady Ashburton,1 is the

1 The friend of Carlyle. She was the youngest daughter of the Rt. Hon. James Stewart Mackenzie, nephew of the Earl of

88

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

purchaser, and they will go to Melchet Court, Rom- sey for their fewcherome. Then Dr. Montague Butler of Harrow r has just been here — and Mrs. Butler is going to have one of my £12 drawings : and indeed it was high time, for I was getting into a mess, and had no heart to write to anybody.

I had to take very expensive rooms here — sun- aspect for health — light to work, and position etc. for swells to come to, were all necessary, and I have hitherto been in despair that no one out of over fifty people who have called have as yet bought anything. Let us hope the luck is turned.

About two thousand English are here, and among other amusing facts no — less than twenty-five Eton boys came out in one batch for their holidays last week !

Interruptions from people — Mrs. Butler2 has two small 7 pounders instead of one large 12. (She is a niece of Lady Hislop.) So I can't go on with this letter ; I must stop, as the watch said when a beetle got into his wheels.

Lady Strachey's brother 3 is near here : he and Mrs. Symonds are a gain.

Galloway. She married the 2nd Baron Ashburton, who died in 1864. This picture, I believe, was afterwards burnt.

1 Dr. Montague Butler, formerly head master of Harrow 1859- 1885, Dean of Gloucester 1886, Master of Trinity College, Cam- bridge, married as his second wife 1888, Miss Agneta Ramsay, Senior Classic of the year.

3 Georgina Isabella, granddaughter of the Rt. Hon. Hugh Elliot, Minister at the Court of Frederick the Great.

3 John Addington Symonds, the well-known writer. Elected a Fellow of Magdalen 1862 ; published numerous works

Later Letters of Edward Lear

To Lady Waldegrave.

VILLA MONTARET,

6. RUE ST. HONORE.

Cannes. ALPES MARITIMES.

January 9. 1868.

A happy New Year to you and the Mimber ! Just as I was going to bed last night the preliminary pusillanimous peripatetic postman brought me CSTRPQF's letter— date the 4th, which I beg you will thank him for — for it was exceedingly welcome. The weather has been so beeeeeestly cold here, and these lodgings are so venomously odious in some respects, that I get perfectly cross and require to be soothed by letters now and then. I am very glad you and C have had that Growling Eclogue I I wrote from Lady Strachey : I enclose another bit of fun, for some child or other — (I wrote it for Lady Strachey's niece, little Janet Symonds :) if Lady S. has a small enough creature not to scorn it, perhaps you will give it to her for its use, and anyhow I hope she has been thanked for her letter to Lady Suffolk. (The original poem of the Growl, had a line — altered afterwards thus — " nearly — run over by the Lady Mary Peerfy" — stood — " all but, run over by the Lady Emma Talbot" — which was fact — but I sup- pressed it as too personal.2) While I am in a lucid interval before breakfast, I will tell you what I think of doing. For in the first place it seems to me that

" Renaissance in Italy," also sketches of travel, monographs, and translations. He died at Rome in 1893.

1 Interlocutors — Mr. Lear and Mr. and Mrs. Symonds — to be found in Warne's " Nonsense Songs and Stories/' by Edward Lear. Qth and revised edition, 1894.

2 This poem I cannot trace.

90

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

luck has turned, inasmuch as Dr. Butler of Harrow, Mr. Buxton, and more especially Sir Richard Glass have all bought drawings : and as I know that Lord Mt. Edgecumbe is coming, and also Lord Henry Scott — and I hope many more — I think there cannot be much doubt that Cannes will be the best winter place I can select.

. . . . At present I am not drawing at all nor paint- ing— but writing : the rough copy of my Cretan journals is done, and nearly that of the Nile 1854 : the Nubia of 1867 will follow, and I mean to get all three ready for publication with illustrations, if possible next summer, whether in parts or volumes I can't yet say. By degrees I want to topographize and topo- graphize all the journey ings of my life, so that I shall have been of some use after all to my fellow critters besides leaving the drawings and pictures which they may sell when I'm dead. This plan of a winter home here, I don't think I could carry out easily, for I have no head for bother, if I hadn't my old servant Giorgio, who cooks, markets, and keeps the house clean so systematically that I have no trouble whatever : though neither he nor his master at all like the cold weather here, which in three large cold rooms is horrid. (Just now I said to this man, "Why Giorgio, there is ten minutes difference between my watch and the hall clock since Sunday ! which is wrong of the two ? is my watch ten minutes too slow or the clock ten minutes too fast ? " " Your watch is all right Sir " said he grimly " because he very warm in your pocket : clock stand out in the cold hall, he go faster to warm himself.") . . .

Meanwhile the mass of English here is quite

Later Letters of Edward Lear

curious, and every bit of ground near the place seems to be for sale at great prices. But so scattered and detached are the villas and hotels, and so dirty are the roads, that very few people see much of others, unless they keep carriages. The Symonds are pretty near me, but I am sorry to say he is not nearly as well as he was, and has to be kept so quiet that I shall hardly see him now I — which is a great loss — as a more charming and good fellow I never met, besides so full of knowledge and learning. A friend of his, one Mr. Sedgwick — a fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, dines with me to-day, but I can't ask poor John Symonds. (We are to have soup, and a curried fowl, a roast lamb and stewed pears : and one gets divine Marsala cheap.) By way of what a Scotch friend calls " femmel society," William and Mrs. W. Sandbach are next door : she is Dutch and was one of the Queen of Holland's ladies,2 (The Queen stays with them sometimes in England), very intelligent and kindly. Lady Grey 3 (Honble.) and Miss Des Voeux are near : Lady Glass, Mrs. (Suther- land) Scott and others are all near on this side : the other side I don't affect, it is such a brutal road full of carriages : but there are the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord and Lady H. Scott, Lord Mt. Edgcumbe, Elcho,

1 Mr. Symonds' health had been very delicate from lung trouble for many years, but later on he discovered and estab- lished himself permanently at Davos, where he led an active life till his death, and where all his later books were written.

2 Maid of Honor to Queen Sophia of the Netherlands, was before her marriage Mademoiselle Sara de Capellen.

3 Wife of the Hon. Sir George Grey, G.C.B., Governor and later Premier of New Zealand. She was Charlotte, only daughter of Sir Charles Des Voeux, ist Baronet.

92

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

Brougham, Lady Hough ton, Bradford, Limerick, Dalhousie, and crowds more. There too is the Parsonic home and then the Church, where I go sometimes, but you can't get out when once you are in for the crowd, and when you do get out you are smashed instantly by the carriages. Cannes is a place literally with no amusements : people who come must live, just as you and CF do now at Chewton, abso- lutely to themselves in a country life, or make excur- sions to the really beautiful places about when the weather permits. I know no place where there are such walks close to the town : and the Esterel range is what you can look at all day with delight. Only for the last week it has been atrocious weather, rain and cold : the hills are covered with snow, and the sun don't shine. Nevertheless there is no fog of any sort ; and with all this cold, I have no Neuralgia which amazes me. . . .

Give my love to Chichester and thank him for his letter : tell him I will set his I verses to music, and publish them dedicated to him. I hope Lord Cler- mont2 is better. How distressing all these wretched matters in England and Ireland are !

Do you not wish, since the Holy Father is so determined an enemy of Italy, and so outrageously opposite in conduct to the rules of Him whom he professes to represent, that someone in the Italian Parliament might venture to propose an entire separa- tion religiously, by creating a Pontiff in Milan or Florence, abolishing celibacy, in fact making a

1 I greatly regret I have not found these.

2 Lord Clermont was the elder brother of Fortescue. He had married a daughter of the Marquis of Ormond.

93

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Henry VIII reform, only not Calvinistic? Could

not such a member point out that Russia, as well as England, Holland, Prussia, are all exe- crated by the blasphemous violence of those monstrous Popes, and yet not- withstanding are the most flourishing of peoples and lands ? Would not a torrent of ridicule thrown on insolent and uncharitable pretension do some

good ? Ask Count Maffei l : I am miserable at times

about Italy, but always hope on.

Meanwhile I shall have tired your ize : so I will

conclude.

Lady Waldegrave to Lear.

CHEWTON PRIORY, BATH. Feb. 10. /68.

We were delighted to hear that you had not only sold your fine Cedars, but found an appreciative public at Cannes. Your idea of taking a permanent Studio there sounds jolly and likely to be prosperous. I quite understand your horror of the fogs and fogies of London in winter, and with you a natural, neutral, Indian ink spirits climate must have an immense effect upon your well or ill-being.

We are groaning at having to leave this dear place to-morrow for hateful London. We have been immensely happy here in spite of all sorts of little worries, broken chilblains, Mendip mists, East winds, weak eyes, . . . etc., etc.

1 Secretary to the Italian Legation in London. 94

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

. . . We hear that Lord Derby will be obliged to resign as his health is completely broken.1 Lord Stanley is expected to take his place. His speech at Bristol has done him great harm in Ireland and no good here.2

Lord Carlingford to Lear.

7, CARLTON GARDENS, Feb. 22.

My Lady handed me this document the day before we left Chewton, with a command that I should finish it forthwith and despatch it to Cannes. I was full of Steward's accounts, gardener's accounts, etc, etc, put it into my box, and there it has remained until this present writing. We were very sorry to leave Chewton, where we passed some very quiet and especially happy months. But " noblesse oblige," or rather the duties of a politician oblige. Mrs. Gladstone wrote just at the same time : " My husband has been so happy here" (Hawarden), "he feels like a schoolboy going back to school." I wish by the way he wouldn't write devout, fanciful, un- critical articles on " Ecce Homo " in " Good Words."3 I have seen a good deal of him and of Lord Russell about Irish affairs. The letter of Lord Russell to me 4 has caused much interest, especially his resig-

1 Lord Derby resigned the Premiership in Disraeli's favour during the year. He died in 1869.

3 Lord Stanley was Foreign Secretary at this time.

3 Mr. Gladstone's article in " Good Words " on " Ecce Homo " (Sir] . R. Seeley's book, which appeared anonymously in 1865) did not give his opinion on the book, but his ideas on irrelevant theo- logical matters, having no reference to the view taken in the book of the relation of Christ to Christianity.

* "A Letter to the Rt. Hon. C. Fortescue."

95

Later Letters of Edward Lear

nation, in very handsome terms, of the leadership to Gladstone.

Lord Derby was thought to be dying, but has rallied. Stanley told me yesterday that he was "going on as well as possible." But it is fully believed that at Easter, if not sooner, he will hand over the Prime Ministership to Dizzy ! Stanley supports Dizzy — and the Squires acquiesce, in con- sequence of his triumphs of last year.1 I am glad to see that Colenso is vanquishing his enemies at Natal in the Law Courts, having gained a complete victory over Dean Green.2 The Bishop of London behaved very well about the intended rival Bishop, and repulsed that ill-conditioned bigot, Bishop Gray. 3 . . .

Lear to Fortescue.

VILLA MONTARET. 6, ROOSENT ONNORAY.

2%th Febbirowerry 1868 Ritten at night.

I "remained confounded" — as my servant George says when he is surprised — "rimasto confuso" — by getting a letter from you and my lady at once just now from the peripatetic postman, whom in the street near my new lodgings I met. (The said Postman greets me always with great enthusiasm and respect ; since after a week had passed without his bringing letters — I said to him : " Savez vous

1 The passing of the Reform Bill of 1867.

2 Colenso had appealed to the Court of Chancery and the Master of the Rolls had given judgment in his favour ; in con- sequence his salary was restored to him.

3 Bishop of Cape Town from 1847, in 1863 he had pronounced Colenso's deposition.

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

pourquoi il n'y a pas de lettres ? C'est parcequ' en Angleterre il fait si froid qu'on ne peut plus tenir la plume en main ! " — " C'est done terrible ^a, Monsieur ! " — said he, and now as a burst of letters have turned up, he says — " Voyez done Monsieur, le froid commence a passer ! Dieu ! comme il a du faire froid la bas ! " l) For, — to return to the first line, — I have intended to write to you ever so long a time past ; but at night I can't do so easily, and the days are so broken up and be- bothered : So, as Pistol says — u things must be as they may " — I was reading only yesterday of a dinner at 7 Carlton Gardens 2 : I always fancy Gold- win Smith must be a very angular cornery man : but perhaps I am wrong. The Grenfells 3 are by no means at Nice, but on the contrary here. Mr. Grenfell's brother is in a hopeless state of illness — so that in one respect their visit is a sad one : and in others they evidently enjoy it greatly. Mrs. Henry Grenfell is To KCU IjuH a sort of A No. i woman multiplied by 10 or 20, by which I mean she seems to be a woman combining good sense and good taste with a perfectly feminine nature and manner :

1 " Do you know why there are no letters ? It is because it is too cold in England to hold a pen in one's hand." " That is indeed terrible, Sir ! "... " See, Sir, the cold is beginning to go ! Goodness ! how cold it must have been out there ! "

2 Lady Waldegrave's town house, and Goldwin Smith was probably at this dinner as he was a friend of Fortescue's, a contemporary of his at Oxford.

3 Henry Riversdale Grenfell, a Governor of the Bank of England, was one of Fortescue's greatest friends. Mrs. Gren- fell was a Miss Adeane.

4 In my opinion.

97 G

Later Letters of Edward Lear

one might have added good education and more goods. She is also though not handsome, quite nice looking and perfectly ladylike : and by what I hear from others, has acted as a regular mother to her younger sisters. Altogether it is plain to me that Henry G. has secured a prize, and this I am glad of thoroughly, as I have always liked him so much. He and I are going somewhere or other next Sunday, and after that I suppose they will "draw to the cold and bitter north," which I shall be sorry for. . . .

To look over your letter ... a more interesting period for politicians can hardly be than this, and if Dizzy should become Premier, I fancy that the Liberal — our side — will gain in the end : for it is impossible now that he can ever do any real Tory- ism : quite the contrary.1 Grenfell tells me that some friends of his write that another said : — " What ! Disraeli, a Jew — Premier ? " — and that the respondent aptly answered : " Well, wasn't St. Paul a Jew before he was a Xtian?" For my own part if Judaizing all England would do us any good — why not ? I am glad of what you say of Colenso : I didn't know his cause was so prospering. You should hear Lady Duff Gordon (junior) speak of Bishop Gray.

I think I have answered most topicks and tooth- picks of your letter, and shall now go on in a mean- dering mashpotato manner, male and female after his kind, like an obese gander as I am. . . . The con- ventional swell Sunday here is awful! The last sermon on " the Lord God made them coats of skins

1 Disraeli was appointed Lord Derby's successor in February, 1868.

98

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

of beasts " — anyhow made it necessary to use one's reason. I wish Lord Lansdowne's speech about " too much church and too many priests and too little humanity " was printed widely : here as Hy. G. says — "the hills are covered with parsons," — and women and fine ladies walk miles to morning sacraments and daily prayers : but their dress and the narrowness of their mental perceptions is what most strikes thinking men who see much of them. If a tenth part of what the Saturday Reviewers write about women is true I — a " national calamity " is on the increase : and the priesthood as a class are responsible for removing half of their hearers out of the pale of reason into that of vanity, bigotry and living death. So, my dear boy, you see, I go, by way of not being completely uncon- ventional, to church often, bitter as the hideous talk is : on the other hand I think — is one sex doomed to be the prey of the priests and to deteriorate accordingly ? will nobody help these long-trained chignon-befooled lambs? — and — q.e.d. — therefore I go out for all the Sunday at times — not being able to bear respect- able foolery and superstitious iniquity more than in a certain quantity at once.

You ax about my plans : they are still at a scroo- bious dubious doubtfulness. If the Duchess of Buccleuch, Lord Dalhousie, or Mr. Jackson the millionaire come to sweep off ^300 of my drawings, I should go off to finish my Palestine, because that kind of life is more difficult as one has to look at it and undertake it fifty sixcally or fifty sevenically.

1 Three articles on Women in three successive Saturday Reviews, " Mistress and Maid/' " ^Esthetic Women/' and " The Theology of the Teapot."

99

Later Letters of Edward Lear

But if they — the above-named potentates — don't come and buy, I must sneak back to England in May or June, perhaps only running over to Corsica for a Cornhill paper or separately illustrated bit of journal, which I am much inclined to set my wits to — as — Athos — or a portion of Nile — to Philistine country, etc., etc. — thus gradually oozing out all my intel- lectual topographic bowels as a silkworm doth its caterpillary silk. . . .

(Abruptious interpolation). Will you tell me if you know much or any of M. Prosper Merimee's writings ? I He lives here in winter and came to my rooms two

weeks ago. He speaks English well, which is a comfort to me who hate speaking French. The rooms I have taken (and I am glad you and my Lady think I have done well in so doing) are on the third floor of a new house, looking directly to the harbour and Esterels— a line of hills, the termina- tion of which is absolutely Grecian, as to decision of form and beauty — and this is much for me to say.

1 His more important works embrace novels and short stories, archseological and historical dissertations, and travels. "Colomba" (a story of Corsican vendetta) was his best known work. At the time Lear writes, his life was clouded by ill- health and melancholy. He died at Cannes in 1870.

100

England, Nice, Malta, Egypt, Cannes

A is the sea. B the beautiful end of the hills. C the promontory of Teoule. D the pier of Cannes. E the town. F the arbour.

By all the Devils in or out of Hell ! four hundred and seventy-three cats at least are all at once making a ninfernal row in the garden close to my window. Therefore, being mentally decompoged, I shall write no more. Adding only a portrait of myself going on stilts (which mode of progress, as practised here, I mean to learn) and another drawing illustrative of what really occurred here some weeks ago. All these beastly rooms where I am open to an open court on the street, and my servant said : " Better you lock the doors, master, all the people come in." But I didn't mind what he said. And lo ! when sponging myself in my tub — bounce ! the door opened and one of the old market women with fowls and eggs rushed in. In dismay at my Garden of Eden state, she shrieked, let the fowls and eggs fall and ran off, and I until help

101

Later Letters of Edward Lear

came, was all open to the passing world. Please give my kindest regards to my lady. I will write to her in a morning when I can write more tolerably than, as I do now, at night. Remember me to Lord and Lady Clermont : I hope he is better.

1 02

CHAPTER II May, 1868, to January, 1870

CORSICA, ENGLAND, AND CANNES

To Lady Waldegrave.

WlLLER MONTARET.

6. ROO SCENTONNORAY.

Kan. ALPES MARITIMES.

Feby. 28. 1868. France.

AJACCIO, CORSICA,

May 6. 1868.

I HAVE left the above absurd address on this paper, to show you that I had an intention, never carried out, of writing to you before I left Cannes, which I did at the first week in April. . . .

During the time I have been here I have seen the south part of the island pretty thoroughly : the inland mountain scenery is of the most magnificent character, but the coast or edges are not remarkable. The great pine forest of Bavella is I think one of the most wonderfully beautiful sights nature can produce. The extraordinary covering of verdure on all but the tops of granite mountains make Corsica delightful : such Ilex trees and Chestnuts are rarely

103

Later Letters of Edward Lear

seen, and where they are not, a blaze of colour from wild flowers charms the foolish traveller into fits. The people are unlike what I expected, having read of " revenge," etc ; they have the intelligence of Italians but not their vivacity : shrewd as Scotch, but slow and lazy and quiet generally. It must be added that a more thoroughly kindly and obliging set of people, so far as I have gone, cannot easily be found. . . .

I should tell you the people nearly all dress in black, which makes a glumy appierance : the food is good generally, but partickly trout and lobsters : and the wine is delightful, and some well known Landscape Painters drink no end of it. ...

The last day of twenty on my return here, a vile little disgusting driver of the carriage I had hired, took a fit of cursing as he was wont to do at times, and of beating his poor horses on the head. In this instance as they backed towards the precipice and the coachman continued to beat, the result was hideous to see, for carriage and horses and driver all went over into the ravine — a ghastly sight I can't get rid of. The carriage was broken to bits ; one horse killed ; the little beast of a driver not so badly hurt as he ought to have been. It took a day to fish up the ruins, and this . . . has rather disgusted me with Corsican carriage drives and drivers.

Lear to Fortes cue. 15, STRATFORD PLACE. OXFORD ST.

22 AugUSt. l868.

Concerning the parchments or papers, you did not leave anywhere, as far as I can perceive. ... I hope

104

Corsica, England, and Cannes

the papers were not important : perhaps an agreement signed by you and W.E.G. (compared to whom, a speaker at the Crystal Palace Protestant meeting says : Judas Iscariot was a gentleman) to deliver over Ireland bodily to the Pope of Rome on the Liberal party coming in. ...

There is a possibility of my having to go into Devonshire to see a very old companion, who writes " there seems now little else for me to do but to die." If I do this — i.e. — not die, but go to Torquay, I shall pass Bath and possibly might get a peep at you. Shall I knot rejoice when this place is off my hands ? Many of my books I shall send off to Cannes, but at present, as you may suppose, I am very dimbe- misted-cloudybesquashed as to plans. Nevertheless, they go on slowly forming like the walls of Troy or , some place as riz to slow music.

Every marriage of people I care about rather seems \<$& to leave one on the bleak shore alone — naturally. You V* however — since you were " made a Bishop," as the Blueposts waiter said— have made no difference, ex- cepting in so far as the inevitable staccamento * occasioned by the exigencies of active and private life compel you.

Lear to Fortescue.

10. DUCHESS STREET. PORTLAND PLACE.

Aug. 1 6. 1869.

I was surprised to find your card, and wonder how you get time even to think of calling. Never bother yourself to do so, aimable as is the fact,

1 Severing. 105

Later Letters of Edward Lear

for, happily, I can "put myself in other peoples' places " very thoroughly, and I know how impossible it is to do as one did when one's occupations and thoughts were otherwise than as years go on they needs must be. My life here is truely odious- shocking : of my twenty-eight days in England, the first seven went in bustle, looking for a lodging, and roughing out a plan for publication.1 Of the next twenty-one — twelve have gone in neccessary visits, to you and Lady W., my sister, Poor W. Nevill, the Hollands, and Mrs. Hunt. The remaining time has gone utterly in hard writing,

often over one hundred notes in the day, besides arranging the subscription list at post time, and also getting to see various old obscure remote friends in suburbs etc. So that rest is there none. When shall we fold our wings, and list to what the inner spirit says — there is no joy but calm? Never in this world I fear — for I shall never get a large northlight studio to paint in. Perhaps in the next eggzi stens you and I and My lady may be able to sit for placid hours under a lotus tree a \ eating of ice creams and pelican pie, with our feet

1 Of his Corsican Journal. 106

Corsica, England, and Cannes

in a hazure coloured stream and with the birds and beasts of Paradise a sporting around us.

I can't help laughing at my'position'at fifty-seven ! And considering how the Corfu, Florence, Petra, etc, etc, etc, are seen by thousands, and not one commission coming from that fact, how plainly is it visible that the wise public only give commis- sions for pictures through the Press that tell the sheep to leap where others leap ! . . .

And are you to be made a pier? as the papers say you are.

And hoping that such fact may come to pass, Forgive the maunderings of a d — d old Ass.

To Lady Waldegrave.

ASHTEAD PARK. EPSOM.

August 19. 1869.

I have no whole sheet of paper to answer your note, which came to me yesterday before I left 10 Duchess St, but as there is a peaceful half-hour just now available I shall not put off writing to you, but rather use this piece in peacefulness as a pis-aller. I came here for two nights and return to misery to-morrow: ever since 1834 I have always been used to come to Mrs. Greville Howard's,1 who all that time has been a very unvarying good friend : she is now more than eighty-four but is as bright

1 Mrs. Greville Howard was Mary Howard of Castle Rising in Norfolk and Ashtead in Surrey. She was the great grand- daughter of the nth Earl of Suffolk. Her mother married Richard Bagot, who took the name of Howard. She herself married, in 1807, Col. the Hon. Fulke Greville Upton who assumed the name of Howard.

107

Later Letters of Edward Lear

and amiable as ever, and surrounded by people of her own family, Howards, Bagots and Chesters, Herveys, Lanes and Legges. Far less a Tory by nature than by education, (just as dear old Mrs. Ruxton * was a Calvinist by education and not naturally?) she is one of the finest specimens of the Grand English Lady of the olden time I have known. Meanwhile the park is much as it used to be thirty years ago, so that I shall go and walk among the deer as I did then ; and so my one day of idleness will go by without much growling on my part. Nor does looking at places I knew so well, and shall shortly cease to see, bring much regret : as I grow older, I as it were prohibit regrets of all sorts, for they only do harm to the present and thereby to the future. By degrees one is coming to look on the whole of life past as a dream, and one of no very great importance either if one is not in a position to affect the lives of others particularly. After which maundering, I will stop, or perhaps you may double up this paper and throw it away to the destructive Billy.2 Thank you very much for your invitation, which I should enjoy accepting, but I do not perceive the smallest possibility of so doing. This Corsica 3 must be published, and to do that various tortures must be endured : . . .

You and CFPQ will be glad to hear that three hundred and fifty-two copies of my beastly bothering

1 Fortescue's old Aunt who brought him up. See vol. i. p. 52.

2 Lady Waldegrave's bull-terrier.

3 "Journal in Corsica."

108

Corsica, England, and Cannes

book are subscribed for (though the Goal of a thousand is as yet a long way off,) and doubtless when I get back to Duchess St. to-morrow there will be a good many more. 10 Duchess St. has the merit of facing the North and of being pretty light, and also this, that it is very tolerably quiet : having said which nothing more is to be said. If I were Dante and writing a new Inferno, I would J make whole vistas of London lodgings part of my I series of Hell punishments. The Count de Paris I \ wrote me such a pretty note in subscribing to my work : that young man must have naturally " good conditions " as Bunyan says, for whatever he does is so nicely and gracefully cut out. Various other people too have written very nicely, which consoles me for much disgust. My love to the Mimber, whose likeness I bought yesterday in "Vanity Fair. "2 . . .

You and CF will, if the papers are well-informed, go and live in Ireland as Vice Kg and Q. and I shall probably go to Darjeeling or Para where for the few remaining years of life I shall silently sub- sist on Parrot Pudding and Lizard lozenges in chubby contentment.

1 Grandson of Louis Phillippe. The Orlean's Princes lived in different mansions at and round Twickenham and Richmond, and were great friends of Lady Waldegrave and Fortescue. Lear had met the Comte de Paris at Strawberry Hill.

2 Cartoon by " Ape " (Pelegrini), August 14, 1869.

109

Later Letters of Edward Lear

To Fortescue.

MAISON GUICHARD. CANNES.

Jany. I. 1870.

Jan. 2<d. 8. A.M. Here goes for a scribble which you or My Lady can divide or put by or extinguish as the case may be. If ever there was a propitious day for letterwriting it is this, for it is frightfully cold and black and rains hard, so, all the more that my throat is somewhat better for keeping indoors, I shall not move out all day. Would that I knew anything about the Book — i.e. — Corsica. I can't hear of anyone getting it, and don't know what Bush l is about. Two copies have reached me by Book Post, one I got from M. Merime'e, who seems greatly pleased with it. I am glad to know you are hopeful about Irish affairs : certainly they are very sad, but I cannot see why some are so unjust as to place all the onus of the evil on a Liberal Government, as if Ireland had always been cheerful and comfortable cum Toryism. I was sure My Lady would feel the Duchess D'A[umale]s death as you say she does 2 : and one is sorry for the poor Duke. . . .

My health altogether is not very nice just now, but then I am 58 next May, and never thought I should live so long. My floor, or flat here is very unsatisfactory in some points i.e. being in a house with three other floors full of people, noises abound : 2nd I have no good painting room : 3rd

1 Lear's publisher. .

2 She was a devoted friend of Lady Waldegrave's, and lived at Orleans House, Twickenham.

no

Corsica, England, and Cannes

my bedroom is cold : 4th the chimneys smoke. . . . Could I get any suitable house here for ^3000 it appears to me that such a step would be a wise one, for as that sum, all I have, produces only £go a year, I should gain by the move, ... As for distance from " patronage " — that seems a matter of indifference — for only £12 was expended on this child by strangers last year, and I forsee no

greater luck this year, (The Princess and

came, but of course thought the honour

sufficient, nor indeed did I expect them to give commissions.) When such wealthy people as Lord Dalhousie and others set their faces against art, all the sheep foolies go with them ; and thus I repeat, it don't seem to matter much whether one is near or far from visitors. Certainly the non-possession of taste, or the fashion of taste is very distinctly shown in such places as Cannes, Brighton, etc., versus Rome, where, as it is the fashion to buy art, everybody buys it. ...

How do you like the last Idylls ? J . . .

I doubt, under any circumstances, my coming to England next summer : life has been of late simply disgusting to me there, and I have seen only glimpses of those I most care for. After all, it is perhaps the best plan to run about continually like an Ant, and die simultaneous some day or other.

Meanwhile in some matters I am really perfectly well off; qud food and service, for instance, Giorgio Kokali though not getting younger, is as good and attentive as ever, and like a clock for regularity.

1 The first four Idylls appeared in 1859, the others in 1870- 1872 and 1885.

in

Later Letters of Edward Lear

His three sons, by way of presents, have sent me three most beautiful sponges, worth £2 apiece in Piccadilly. I wish I could give you and My Lady a Pilaf and soup for luncheon, for I can and do ask ladies sometimes, and we manage things very neatly. My sister Newsom at Leatherhead is well for her age — going on seventy-one. Sarah, in Dunedin, at seventy-six, thrives as usual, and rows her two great-grandchildren about in a boat ! Sometimes I think I will go out there, but on the whole they are too fussy and noisy and religious in those colonial places.

I shall leave off now, for which you may be " truly thankful." And I shall look out and heap together all the nonsense I can for my new book which is to be entitled —

Learical Lyrics

and Puffles of Prose,

&c., &c.

Pray write to me and say how you and My Lady like the books : if they are not come write ferociously to Bush, whose name at present makes me foam. The beastly aristocratic idiots who come here, and think they are doing me a service by taking up my time! one day one of them condescendingly said "you may sit down — we do not wish you to stand." Shall I build a house or not ? There is a queer little orange garden for ^1000, if only one could ensure that no building could be placed opposite. Why do topographical artists and Chief Secretaries for Ireland have false teeth? Because they choose.

112

Corsica, England, and Cannes

Give my kindest remembrances to My Lady, and wish her and yourself many happy new years.

O pumpkins ! O periwinkles !

O pobblesquattles ! how him rain !

Lear to Lady Waldegrave.

MAISON GUICHARD. CANNES.

10 Feby. 1870.

I hope — for all you say — that you will feel no less interest than ever in the " Party " — or Liberal side : for if there be not union there is nothing, and without you there would be a disgusting vacuum not to be filled up. I can well understand the disadvantages and disagreeables of the Chief Secretaryship, but who could take the place as CF does? For even granted another with exactly the same capacity, few could have the interior combination of being an Irishman, and not only that, but one who has lived among and studied the people and the circumstances of the country, and who has a real interest in its welfare.

Bye the bye you will surely see that he will have much more credit than you forebode at present,1 and later I trust to see him in Lord Granville's 2 place, Colonies or some other post he would like. So in spite of certain of Mr. G's qualities I hope you will go on flourishing and more rejoicefully.

Poor Duke D'Aumale ! Is it better, I wonder,

J In December, 1870, Mr. Fortescue was made President of the Board of Trade.

3 Lord Granville was at this time Secretary for the Colonies.

113 H

Later Letters of Edward Lear

as ^ says, " to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?" I don't know. I think, as I can't help being alone it is perhaps best to be altogether, jelly fish -fashion caring for nobody.

The Baillie Cochranes is come, which I'm pleased at. Drummond Wolff is a coming. And to-day, says somebody, Lord Ebury and Co., are coming to this child's studio.

114

CHAPTER III July, 1870, to May, 1872

SAN REMO

IT is hardly necessary to point out that Lear had always an extreme difficulty in making up his mind about his movements. He was for ever drawing up elaborate plans for the future which seldom saw completion. But as he grew older and less inclined for travel, the necessity for having some fixed residence began to press insistently. At last, in the spring of 1870, he decided to build a house, as he found it impossible to get rooms or rent a villa in any convenient situation on the Riviera coast with a suitable studio. For this purpose he proposed to draw upon part of his small invested capital of .£3,000, and he bought a piece of land near San Remo, and set the builders to work. The new house, which was not finally ready until the March of the follow- ing year, was christened Villa Emily, after a

Later Letters of Edward Lear

New Zealand grand-niece.1 It was the painter's home for many years.

To Lady Waldegrave.

MESSRS. ASQUASCIATI ITALIA | SAN REMO.

July 6. 1870.

I wish you and C. to know that on June 22 I finally left Cannes, and the pigeon shooting swell community thereof — for San Remo — all my things coming in a Van — Vanity of Vanity — I may indeed say a Carry- van — by way of Nice to San Remo where, as above, is now my future address. My Pantechnicon things, (C.F's table and all 2) are to come out by sea. I have taken lodgings, see address above, for six months, for though I hope to paint in my new room in December I don't get in till March to sleep. The house is already fast rising, and the roof is to be on by end of July.

(I am writing this from Certosa del Pesio, a Moun- tain Pension twenty-four hours above S. Remo, to which I can run down when wanted — a place near Cuneo, (Turin) to which I have come for a week or two to be out of the great heat by the sea-shore, to complete my child's-nonsense-book for Xmas, and to write letters, and a fair copy of two Egyptian journals, 1854 and 1867, for future publication.)

I now mean, at least from October, to do as I said to C.F., try all I can for public exhibition and sale

Emily Gillies, granddaughter of Sarah Street. See p. 135.

116

-

San Remo

thereby. One of two pictures I sent to the R.A.1 (" And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven ! ") was sold at once, the other, the ^"150 forest, with three more will go to Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, and if not sold there must be at Christie's bye and bye. As I wrote to C., private patronage must end in the natural course of things, but eating and drink- ing and clothing go on disagreeably continually ; yet in striking out this new path (the old one was worn out, for I only got ^30 from the rich Cannes public this last winter) I may well say that no one ever had more or better friends than I , you My Lady, and the steady ^oscue among the first and best.

Poor John Simeon ! 2 I know C. has felt his death.

C. must have had no end of worry and work about that land bill,3 but I have not seen papers for a fort- night as I have been a- walking over the Col di Tenda, which produced so to speak a Tenda-ness in my feet and it will be Tenda one if I can get a shoe on which keeps me on Tendahooks.

For all I write cheerfully I am as savage and black as 90000 bears. There is nobody in this place (an Ex-Carthusian convent with 200 rooms,) whom I know : and they feed at the beastliest hours — 10 and 5.

If you see Delane, Pigott,4 or the Editor of the

1 See Appendix, " List of Lear's Exhibits at the Royal Academy," p. 379.

3 Sir John Simeon, 3rd Bart., M.P., a mutual friend and a patron of Lear's.

3 The Irish Land Bill introduced by Mr. Gladstone in Feb- ruary, received the Royal Assent in August.

< Delane, Editor of the " Times'' ; Pigott, Editor of the "Daily News."

117

Later Letters of Edward Lear

Saturday, my compliments and they are brutes and thieves to take my Corsica and write no notice of it. Is it yet too late ? On the contrary the Daily Tele- graph, Athenceum, Pall Mall, Illustrated News, Post, etc., will doubtless be rewarded in heaven, when the above three are in torchers.

My love to the Mimber. Please, when that bill is done, have a tendency to consumption, and come out to San Remo for the winter 1 My friend Con- greve, next me, has a charming villa to let.

The following letter is chiefly interesting as a typical example of the orderly and minute character of Lear's correspondence : —

To Fortescue.

CERTOSA DEL PESIO. CUNEO.

TURIN. 315*. July. 1870.

1. Time of getting I was delighted to get your

his letter. letter, date i4th, which came to

2. Bfkt at S. Hill, me on Saturday 23rd. Since

3. CF's and J. when I having jotted down scraps

Simeon's paint- of memoranda to aid me in writ- ings of mine ing to you when I had a Nopper- also my Lady's, tunity,

4. F. L and the To-day being Sunday, which I Essex house. show my respect for my wearing

5. Lord Derby and a coat with tails and by writing request. letters instead of Egyptian jour-

6. War. nal, I can seize the memoranda

7. Ld. Clermont's accordingly. But as I have been letter. writing all day, I am unequal

118

San Remo

8. George Kokali.

9. Lord Granville.

10. I. Secretary- ship.

11. Ireland.

12. Valaorites.

13. Egyptian Jour- nal.

14. Child's Book.

15. Certosa life.

1 6. Scenery.

17. Topographic life.

1 8. Pictures.

19. Piedmontese.

20. Counts and

Markisses.

21. Visit to Turin.

22. Things sent

for.

23. Flies.

24. Lord Henley.

25. C. Simeon.

26. C. Roundell.

27. Heart disease.

28. Sisters.

29. Congreves.

30. Milady.

to the task of " composition," and I shall accordingly put down all the notes, and comment upon them just as they come, without any order at all. Here goes :

(i) Your letter came about noon, just as (2) you must have been 'holding ' the breakfast at Strawberry l : I should like to have been there.

(3) Poor John Simeon ! All you say of him is true. I wrote to Lady S. to-day. He and you have been two of my friends who have done me always justice as to my working conscientiously, and who have always appreciated my work. I should like by degrees to get a set of photo- graphs of all my pictures. My Lady is another who has been just the same to me : I was reckoning only a few days ago that she has as many as eight of my works : you three or four also.

(4) My friend Lushington2 has very kindly got me a com-

1 The breakfast club to which Carlingford belonged.

3 Franklin Lushington, at this time magistrate at the Thames Police Court, was one of the two Justices in Corfu when Lear first went to live there. He was one of the painter's most intimate friends, and an executor after his death.

119

Later Letters of Edward Lear

31. Lord Derby, plete certificate of London resi-

marriage and dence countersigned by Italian

letter. Consul, a necessary form for get-

32. Corsica. ting furniture duty free. He,

33. Reviews. F. Lushington, being now P.

34. Lord E. B. Magistrate in the East of London,

35. Holman Hunt, has taken a house in the East

county of Essex.

(5) You will think this next an odd bit, but I had an uncontrollable desire to paint one more picture for Knowsley, so I wrote to Lord Derby that I wished to do so if he would let me — knowing how fond of my works he has always been, and that from a child he knew me. But directly after I wrote the letter I got some papers where in the very first I saw his Marriage ! l and in the next the announcement that it was to take place. So I set down the letter which must have arrived on the day after his marriage, as gone to limbo.

(6) The War is a bore.2 But if F. wants to devour others, I can't but recollect that P. did devour some of Denmark and other places : so I don't see that one is worse than t'other. (7) I have half written a letter to Lord Clermont, as I have done to everyone who has pictures of mine, about some photographs : not knowing where he may be I addressed the letter to Carlton Gardens, please let it be forwarded. (8) My good servant Giorgio who hurt his foot badly on the Col di Tenda, and had to stay here some time, has gone back to Corfu. I heard from him yesterday —

1 Lord Derby married Mary Catherine, daughter of the 5th Earl De La Warr, and widow of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury.

2 Franco- Prussian.

120

San Remo

all safe. But I miss him here considerably, having to do many things for myself I now can't well manage. He returns to me in October early.

(9, 10, n) I had not known of Lord Cn's l death when I last wrote, but next day or so I did, and wondered who would fill Lord G's place,2 who I grasped would succeed him. But I cannot wonder at your not being moved at present from the Irish Secre- taryship, for who on earth could replace you ? I do not see how you can be staccato from Irish affairs for some time, and the next step would naturally I fancy be Lord Lieutenant, because it would with a Peerage be the just reward of so much work, and to one who is so identified with the island. You could have done the colonies well I believe — (G.B. will I think be radiant at Lord K.3 being there instead of you,) but the nonpossibility of filling up the Irish office at this time could not I think be got over. So you see / don't look on the matter as a slight, but quite the particular contrairy reverse. Why was old Lord H.4 put in again ? I suppose some one must have been and there wasn't much choice.

(12) I see Valaorites is Capo in Greece. I do hope the Greek affair won't be dropped. Valaorites was always thought a good man by people one thought good and worthy of credit. (13) My only employ here is writing : and I have already written out the

1 Lord Clarendon died June 27, 1870.

* Lord Granville succeeded Lord Clarendon as Foreign Secretary.

3 Lord Kimberley succeeded Lord Granville as Colonial Secretary.

« Lord Halifax.

121

Later Letters of Edward Lear

first part — (1854) of my Egyptian journals : I believe you would like them, as they are photographically minute and truthful. But it will be long before I publish them. (14) I have also finished (up here) my new Xmas book.1 9 songs — no ' 'old persons " and other rubbish and fun. All have gone to England to be lithographed.

(15) I live the queerest solitary life here, in com- pany of seventy people. They are, many of them, very nice but their hours don't suit me, and I HATE LIFE unless I WORK ALWAYS. I rise at 5, coffee at 6, write till 10. Breakfast at Table d'hote. Walk till 11.30, write till 6, walk till 8, dine alone, and bed at 10 or 9.30. (16) The scenery here is of most remark- ably English character as to greenness, but of course the Halps is bigger ; I never saw such magnificent trees, such immense slopes of meadows, and such big hills combined together ; the Certosa Monastery itself is a beast to look at. (17) I should certainly like, as I grow old, (if I do at all) to work out and complete my topographic life, publish all my journals illustrated, and illustrations of all my pictures : for after all if a man does anything all his life and is not a dawdler, what he does must be worth something, even if only as a lesson of perseverance. I should also like to see a little more of other places yet, but that must be as it may as the little boy said when they told him he mustn't swallow the mustard pot and sugar tongs. || (18) I am going to do a big 2e, Cataract for next year's Academy, and a big something else for the International, if this war don't spoil all.||

1 " More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc.," Pub- lished 1872.

122

San Remo

(19, 20) The Piedmontese are really charming people, so simple and kindly. Only I wish they weren't all counts. Who ever heard before of an omnibus stuffed quite full of counts, (8) and 2 Mar- quises ?|| (21) I went to Turin on the i7th but can't remember why I put that down, as there was nothing to say about it.|| (22) All my old Stratford Place things are now on their way out by sea.|| (23) There are two sorts here, fireflies which are delightful and splendid — common flies, which are brutal and oath- producing. || (24) So the agreeable Clara Jekyll has become Lady Henley.1 I met him once at Strawberry Hill. She has written me a very nice letter.

(25) If you see Cornwall Simeon, remember me to him. (26) Do you know Charles Roundell,2 Sir R. Palmer's cousin ? Secretary to Lord Spencer ? he is a great friend of mine, and has four of my pictures. (27) I must tell you that I have been at one time, extremely ill this summer. It is as well that you should know that I am told that I have the same complaint of heart as my father died of quite suddenly. I have had advice about it, and they say I may live any time if I don't run suddenly, or go quickly upstairs : but that if I do I am pretty sure to drop morto. I ran up a little rocky bit near the Tenda, and thought I shouldn't run any more, and the palpitations were so bad that I had to tell Giorgio all about it, as I did not think I should have lived that day through. ... 28. My Sister Ellen at 71 is

1 Married Lord Henley as his second wife, June 30, 1870, a daughter of J. H. S. Jekyll, Esq.

2 Charles Roundell, M.A., D.L., M.P. for Grantham and the Skipton Division of Yorkshire.

123

Later Letters of Edward Lear

vastly well. The New Zealander at 77 quite robust, and talks of coming over for a trip to see me — vi& Panama! 29. My friend Congreve,1 formerly a master at Rugby, and for years past settled at San Remo, is in great affliction, as Mrs. C. is dying. His non return to San Remo is a most serious thing for me — but I can't think of my own bother, as his is so much greater. He takes pupils, and has four villas there, which I wish to goodness were let to friends of mine for ^200, ^120, £120 and ^72, all furnished. 30. Are you and Milady going back to Ireland — and not to Chewton at all after Parliament ceases to sit? Give my kindest regards to her. I wish you would both have the rheumatism for a month, and come to the Corniche. Mind if ever you do, you go to Bogges Hotel de Londres — close to MY PROPERTY. 31. Behold, to my utter sur- prise, a letter has come from Lord Derby ! — nothing more friendly and kindly could have been written, and with a commission for ;£ioo to paint a Cornl for him ! I am extremely pleased for many reasons. So I begin my San Remo life with the same Knowsley patronage I began life with at eighteen years of age. I had some strong and particular reasons for making the request I did, and to no one else could I have made it, or would I have made it.|| 32. You will be glad to hear that Bush's accounts of the Corsica have come in, and that, though there are still over 300 copies on sale, I have now no more money to

1 Afterwards English Consul at San Remo. Father of the writer of the Preface to this book, and brother of Richard Congreve, the comtist, who resigned his fellowship at Wadham College, Oxford, on account of his opinions.

124

San Remo

pay, but on the contrary ^130 to receive : this is not however profit, because my payments of the woodcuts were not made by Bush, but by myself. All truly religious and right-minded people should buy the Corsica for 305. for wedding and Christmas gifts. || 33. I wonder if after the Parliamentary business is over, and newspapers slack, if the Times and the Daily News and Saturday Reiew could yet put an article on my Corsica in their kollems.|] 34. If you see Lord E B who has never paid his sub- scription, tell him he is a brute. If I had chosen, I could have written far otherwise than I did about the Duffer.1 1| 35. Holman Hunt writes from Jerusalem : he is getting more and more religious : you and I should say — superstitious : but don't repeat this.

There, that's enough and more than enough. If you can't read this, nor Milady either, cut it across diagonally and read it zigzag by the light of 482 lucifer matches.

Vot a letter !

Fortescue to Lear.

CHEWTON PRIORY, BATH.

Oct. 19. 1870.

Here goes for a letter too long delayed. The last time I saw your writing or heard of you was three weeks ago, when we went to London for a Cabinet, and H. Grenfell showed me a letter of yours, inquiring after poor Northbrook. I have not heard

1 " The Duffer " was the nickname by which the 3rd Marquis of Ailesbury's son was generally known. He died before his father, and his son succeeded as 4th Marquis.

125

Later Letters of Edward Lear

of him lately, but he wrote me soon after the catas- trophe I that he was almost heartbroken. What an awful affair it was, making itself felt by all, even in the midst of war, at a time when we have supped so full of horrors.

I can tell you nothing of the prospects of peace. Public opinion and feeling has turned very much against the Germans, on account of their demand of territory. You may see a striking letter on the subject from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice in yester- day's Pall Mall. As far as " tu quoque " and " serve you right "argument goes, France has nothing to say for herself, but the transfer of human beings from one owner to another is not to be settled by such arguments. The Duke of Cambridge visited the Empress the other day — and found her looking sixty, very low and subdued. The Republicans seem to have little hold on France — so I suppose the Orleans family will have a turn. Their position is very painful and perplexing, eager as they are to take part in the perils and sufferings of their country, but restrained by the wishes of the existing Government, and the fear of causing divisions.2

An anecdote of Dizzy. H.G. met him at dinner the other day. — He was oracular and sententious about the war, after the manner of Lothair,3 (who was there also) — he said — the war was caused by the French possessing two new machines — the chassepot

1 Lord Northbrook's second son Arthur was in the Navy, and was lost at sea on board H.M.S. Captain, 1870.

3 The Due de Chatres did fight under an assumed name, Captain Robert, and was, I believe, decorated.

3 The Marquis of Bute.

126

San Remo

and the mitrailleuse, in which they trusted, but they couldn't find a man.

The domestic event is the betrothal of the Princess Louise and Lord Lome — popular, I think, with the country, but not with the Upper Ten Thousand.

As to our history — we have been here since the middle of September, we stay until the ist — (we hope) — go then to London for a few Cabinets, and then to the Phaynix for the winter, not a delightful prospect, particularly to my Lady.

Things look well in Ireland, so far, and we may hope for a quiet winter, unlike the last. I am full of Irish education — but am not sure yet whether room will be found for it next Session. It is a most difficult subject, beset with theories and follies and bigotries. . . .

Fortescue to Lear.

C. S. LODGE.

Dec. 30. 1870.

... Be it known to you— though not yet known the world in general — that I am almost certain to bid farewell to this house and this office for ever, as Mr. Gladstone has offered me the Presidentship of the Board of Trade, and I have accepted it, if it be convenient to the Government. I have had great difficulty in making up my mind about thisr and I leave the Irish Government with very mixed feelings, one of which is regret. However it is promotion, though not what I wished for. I have done a great deal of work here — my best advisers advise me to take it. I leave this place at a time of great success,

127

Later Letters of Edward Lear

— and in short, I hope I have done right. But all changes depress me. My successor here is not yet settled. These changes will be badly received by the Press. Stansfeld is their candidate for the Board of Trade, and expects it himself. The Govern- ment is decidedly less strong than it was a year ago. And what darkness and difficulties surround the future ! This country is wonderfully improved. But the Priests call upon the Government to restore the Pope!

Lear to Lady Waldegrave

SAN REMO. ITALIA.

January the twenty tooth. 1871.

Says the imm, — " If thou tarry till thou'rt better, thou wilt never come at all " — and if I wait till I can find a good time for leisure and sperrits and intellect, I shall never send any letter to you. I did begin one, before I wrote last to C.S.P.F., but it was so stupid, and so bewildered by reason of its being by continued interruptiums up-be-cut, that I tore it to pieces. And now I commence another sheet — perhaps to be still more objectionable: — but anyhow I'll go at it Slap- Dash and finish it, as Billy would finish a bone by scrunching it alto- gether from beginning to end. I wonder if Billy drags a hearth broom about as he used to do. . . .

The Villa Lord Russell had here last year is let to some Dutch people. (At once you perceive that the arrangement of this epistle will be wholly un- connected and inconsequential) I wish the Earl and Lady R. had returned here, tho' not to that

128

San Remo

side of San Remo. Lord Russell was right, and borne out by all facts connected with this place, in writing as he did to the Times (or some paper) about the people here. A better disposed and nicer lot of people than the San Remesi have I not seen. . . . We have few great folks here this year. The Archbishop I soon went away — worried off by the ladies of his family. And Ld. Shaftesbury who came a week ago goes on also to Mentone. So that there is only one footman to be seen, and he belongs to " Puxley." Does C. know Puxley, I wonder? He is man of Cork, and apparently very rich : but never before I saw him did I know what a real bitter Orange- Lowchurch- Irish-Tory was. At first when he outragiously abused those I like, I got angry, but now I shout with laughter — he is so grisly a fool. One of the nice people here is Ughtred Shuttleworth,2 Sir J. Kay's son, and M.P. for Hastings, on our side. I am sorry he is going : albeit he takes three drawings from me to England. One is for F. W. Gibbs3 as a present to H.R.H. P[rincess] Louise on her marriage, — the other two for A. M. Drummond. These £12 drawings are helps I am grateful for. So I was for kind Chi- chester's letter and offer of help : but please tell him that I am still hoping to skriggle on without borrowing for the present : for Sir F. Goldsmid 4

1 Archbishop Tail of Canterbury.

2 Ughtred Kay Shuttleworth, M.P. for Hastings 1869-1880 ; Under Secretary for India 1886 ; Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster 1886; ist Baron Shuttleworth, of Gawthorpe (1902).

3 Fredrick W. Gibbs, Q.C., C.B., tutor to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales 1852-1858.

* Sir Francis Goldsmid, Bart. The first Jew called to the

129 I

Later Letters of Edward Lear

(thanks to H. G. Bruce for that friend) has just bought one of my Corsican forests for ^100, and F. Lushington has given me a commission for two £25 pictures. So I may tide over, if all goes well. . . .

A few days ago a friend here told me that his mother was obliged by her mother, to destroy a large box of letters written to her brother or husband, one ffarington I think, — all those letters were from Horace Walpole. Did you ever hear that? My friend is one Mr. Clay-Keeton of Rainhill, and his grandmother was a ffarington. Apropos of letters, C.F. has, I daresay, heard me tell how I have ever regretted that in a conscientious fit I destroyed some eight and ten years of journals, written while at Knowsley. Virtue is its own reward : for now, looking over my sisters * letters, I find I copied out all those journals daily and sent them to her, — which she, dying, left to me ! My descriptions of persons at Knowsley choke me with laughing. Lord Wilton2 for one, and indeed half the great people of England who in so many years came there. Apropos of years — a lady here tells me that a new Army chaplain at Bombay, who put Hs wrongly, began a sermon thus — " Here's a go ! " — (meaning to say "Years ago"): whereat the audience burst into a laugh, and the service was chopped up instantaneous. . . .

English Bar, and the first Jewish Q.C. and Bencher. President of the Senate of University College, London.

1 His eldest sister Ann, to whom he wrote constantly till her death.

2 Lord Wilton, the second Earl, second son of the first Marquess of Westminster.

130

San Remo

I will describe my house and garden at some other thyme. At present I am putting up fences all round — planting beans — making blinds and cutting carpets, — and now I must buy some cypresses. You see, all these things come at once, and resemble the house that Jack built : If I don't make a large cistern I can't get water: if I get no water I can't have beans and potatoes : if I don't make a fence the beans will be trodden down : and all must be done before the hot weather comes on. . . .

As for C. I should gladly know how he likes the new Bfpard] of T[rade] place and its labour. He is so conscientious that he will needs master his new work, but I, who am ignorant of these things, do not know if it will be greater or less labour than the Irish Secretaryship. In some sense, I am glad both for him and you, that the change has been made : and I truly hope it will answer in all ways, to both of you and to the Public. . . .

I vow I have eaten up the whole bone ! and the letter — such as it is — is done.

April 24. 1871. Which shall I write to ? Both at once ? Very well,

.Lady Walde, then here goes. My dear j grave C. S. I I have

* P. 4oscue. ' just got your letters, left in my new post box in my new front door, over the old plate that used to be in 15 Stratford Place. ... I took the letter out into " my garden" and read it under one of my own olive trees, (vide illustration No. i). . . . Yes — I did see — C. asks — that brutal manifesto about the

Later Letters of Edward Lear

D d' A[umale]. r Poor people, they must be suffering keenly through all these horrors. But, alas, — where are they to end ? And what a state of rottenness does the past year show to have been the condition of France ! ! I declare at times, I almost fear it can never be one nation again, but will go on and dwindle away as Poland did.

I wonder if you will ever come abroad, and some-

times wish the Government might change, that you might have a holiday. I am quite unlikely to come to England: who can tell when I shall do so if ever ? All January, February, and up to March 25, I passed in lodgings, going however daily to my villa and getting it ready by degrees. Three days short of a year from the time I purchased the ground, (March 28, 1870), I moved in my last bit of furniture, and, thanks

1 Preventing him from serving in the Franco-Prussian War. He was, however, elected to the Assembly.

132

San Remo

to the excellent arrangement and care of my good old servant Giorgio, I have since then been living as comfortably as if I had been here 20 years. Only I never before had such a painting room — 32 feet by 20 — with a light I can work by at all hours, and a clear view south over the sea. Below it is a room of the same size, which I now use as a gallery, and am " at home " in once a week — Wednesday : though as Enoch Arden said in the troppicle Zone " Still no sail, no sail," and only one £12 drawing has been

bought, (that one bye the bye by a great friend of the D. Urquharts I — Monteith of Carstairs). (He brought me a letter from E. Lushington.) One picture ^30 has also been bought, but ^42 is my extent of income for the year. I am now hard at work on Lord Derby's Corfu. But I have sent five small oil finished paintings, 30 pounders, to Foord and Dickin- son 2 for the chance of their being exhibited, of which as yet I know nothing. To prove to you both that

1 David Urquhart had married Fortescue's sister. a In Wardour Street.

133

Later Letters of Edward Lear

I am not yet become a vegetable, I may add that I sent three drawings, (Lord Shaftesbury took them,) to try to get into the Old Watercolour Society, but they elected six new members, me not. It was all but a despair of getting things to England, but a Mr. Eaton most kindly took my pictures, vide illustration No. 2.

Add to these undertakings, I am actually going in for carrying out my twenty years old plan of the Landscape illustrations of A. Tennyson, in number 1 12 I1 of course only by degrees. "Moonlight on still waters between walls " etc, is already far ad- vanced. Tomohrit, Athos, also begun. (C.S.P.F. has one of the designs — " Morn broadens.") What delights me here is the utter quiet: twittery birds alone break the silence, as I now sit, in my library, writing at C's " Fortescue " 2 or writing-table. . . .

Giorgio goes to town half a mile off, twice or three times a week, and besides his other work takes to gardening of his own account. He finds he can manage all the indoor work, but I have a gardener as well, for io/- a week for the rougher labour, drawing water, boot cleaning etc., and digging. I should have told you I am also preparing a book on the whole of the Riviera coast, so that you see I am not idle. My neighbour, below my villa, is Lady K. Shuttleworth 3 : above, Walter Congreve, of

1 The contemplated list of 200 is reproduced at the end of the book (p. 368).

3 Original drawing to Fortescue on receiving his gift of a writing-table when in Stratford Place several years before.

3 Janet, only child and heiress of the late Robert Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe Hall, by Janet his wife, eldest daughter of Sir John Marjoribanks, Bart. Died September, 1872.

134

San Remo

135

Later Letters of Edward Lear

whom and of whose two boys I see a great deal. And yesterday his brother Richard, and a sister arrived. R. Congreve was, with Arthur Clough, Arnold's favourite pupil. He is a man of great ability, but a Comtist and I fancy an out and out republican, tho' I am not sure of this. Letters are my principal delight, for tho' I like flowers and a garden, I don't like working in it.

Lear to Fortescue.

VILLA EMILY. SAN REMO.

13 Sept. 1871.

I'm pretty well again just now — but very much aged of late : internal accident tells as I grow older. Moreover I got unwell at Botzen — Bellzebubbotzen-

136

VILLA EMILY.

THE GARDEN OF VILLA TENNYSON.

San Remo

hofe, as I called it on account of its horrid row of bells and bustle, — and have only been restored to comparatively decent comfort since I came back here to my native 'ome and hair. The spring here was absolutely lovely, and my new house and garden very nice and amusing. But as my good old man Giorgio had to go home for August, and as I didn't care to educate another servant for six weeks ... I set off to Genoa . . . and thence went straight to the Italian capital. ... I stayed at Frascati, with Duke and Duchess Sermoneta, and afterwards with Prince and Princess Teano (she is Ld. Derby's cousin Ada Wilbraham, and about the handsomest woman I have seen for a long time), and saw no end of various people both in Rome and in a tour I made by Bologna and Padua all through the Belluno province. Two things are difficult to realise : — the immense progress Italy has made — the Emilian and Naples provinces are actually metamorphosed — and secondly, the intense and ever increasing hatred of the people to the priest class. Even I have more than once tried to moderate the horror expressed by Italians. "Surely," I said to some parties, — "you might make exceptions ; you should at least allow that numbers of priests are individually excellent men." " True " — said the most cautious and least violent of the persons in company — " true : but will you point out one of these men, even the most guiltless and good, who must not, if his bishop orders him so to do, preach war and bloodshed and hatred to his flock ? " I could say nothing — knowing,^as well I do, how earnestly the P[apal] P[arty] hope for F[rance's] intervention. Anything to save their caste and power. The whole

Later Letters of Edward Lear

people too, barring the women, seem to have become aware of the absurdity of their priests' pretensions. Why have any more Papal benedictions? is commonly said, since everyone of those blessed by the Pope,— Maximilian, Nap. 3, Isabella, Francis,1 &c. &c. have come to grief? I could tell you scores of anecdotes of the gulfs of hatred between the classes — a feeling however that happily is only shown by the less educated — and, to the honour of Italians be it said- very rarely allowed to take the form of open injury or even insult. . . .

O you Landscape painter, I hear you say- swallow your d d inkstand, but don't go on

writing politics. So I go on to say I went all about for six weeks, and then came back here, where at this moment I am in a very unsettled condition, as the oyster said when they poured melted butter all over his back. For I am expecting F. Lushington (Thames Police Court) here to make a little tour : and before that happens, I go over to Cannes — where Bellenden Kerr is dying — to see poor Mrs. K. And Giorgio being away, I am only working in my wilier, but eating and sleeping in a Notel. I stayed a few days too at San Romolo — above here — where my friend Congreve has built a cottage. Congreve is a vast blessing to me : he is a pupil of Arnold's, and brother of the (Orthodox) Vicar of Tooting, and to the (Unorthodox) Apostle of Posi-

1 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, the younger brother of Francis Joseph I. accepted the crown of Mexico in 1863, and was betrayed and shot there in May, 1867.

Isabella II., ex-Queen of Spain, married her cousin Francisco de Assisi, and was expelled to France in 1868.

Francis, husband of Isabella.

138

San Remo

tivism, Dr. R. C.1 He himself was Under Master of Rugby under Tait, and at one time gazetted as second master at Marlborough School, — but his wife's health failed, then his own, and then the eldest of his three sons ; so he had to give up English life, and, coming here, first the son and then the wife died — leaving him with two little boys. Then he re-married in two years, and now, only last October, the second wife has died. . . . With all that memory of suffering to bear up against, and much ill health besides — he is one of the most hardworking men for others I have met with, and whenever he dies it will be a dreary day for San Remo. You may suppose the comfort it is to me to have my next neighbour a scholar and such a man to boot as Walter Congreve. . . .

Meanwhile, if you come here directly, I can give you 3 figs, and 2 bunches of grapes : but if later, I can only offer you 4 small potatoes, some olives, 5 tomatoes, and a lot of castor oil berries. These, if mashed up with some crickets who have sponge- taneously come to life in my cellar, may make a novel, if not nice or nutritious Jam or Jelley. Talking of bosh, I have done another whole book of it: it is to be called "MORE NONSENSE" and Bush brings it out at Xmas : it will have a portrait of me outside. I should have liked to dedicate it to you, but I thought it was not dignified enough for a Cabinet M. so shall wait till my Riviera book comes out for that. Besides all this, (for that Riviera book also progresses) and besider and besider still, I go on at intervals with

1 See p. 124. 139

Later Letters of Edward Lear

my Tennyson Illustration Landscapes — 112 in number. (Don't laugh!) not that I'm such a fool as to suppose that I can ever live to finish them, (seven more years at farthest I think will conclude this child), but I believe it wiser to create and go on with new objects of interest as the course of nature washes and sweeps the old ones away.

Your Irish island seems in a pleasing state. Humph. . . . How is Mrs. Hy. Bruce? He don't seem popular anyhow I — tho' I don't say that he is by that proved to be incapable. I may add, however, that a man who don't know you, wrote to me "the only one of all the Ministers who has not got into some mess or other, and who does what he has to do quietly and well, is C. Fortescue." I could wish, however, that what you have to do were more to your taste ; perhaps its not being so may do you good, my dear, — as was said to the little boy who would'nt take physic quietly. . . . Give my kind remembrances to My Lady. Mind, if ever you, either or both, come by here, (whenever this Ministry tumbles) and don't let me know, I will never speak to you again