English Lands Letters and Kings 1

English Lands Letters and Kings 1

English Lands Letters and Kings: The Later Georges to Victoria

Author: Donald Grant Mitchell

 

_FORECAST._

The printers ask if there is to be prefatory matter.

 

There shall be no excuses, nor any defensive explanations: and I shall

only give here such forecast of this little book as may serve as a

reminder, and appetizer, for the kindly acquaintances I meet once more;

and further serve as an illustrative _menu_, for the benefit of those

newer and more critical friends who browse tentatively at the tables of

the booksellers.

 

This volume--the fourth in its series of English Lands and Letters--opens

upon that always delightful country of hills and waters, which is known as

the Lake District of England;--where we found Wordsworth, stalking over

the fells--and where we now find the maker of those heavy poems of

_Thalaba_ and _Madoc_, and of the charming little biography of Nelson.

There, too, we find that strange creature, De Quincey, full of a tumult of

thoughts and language--out of which comes ever and anon some penetrating

utterance, whose barb of words fixes it in the mind, and makes it rankle.

Professor Wilson is his fellow, among the hills by Elleray--as strenuous,

and weightier with his great bulk of Scottish manhood; the _Isle of Palms_

is forgotten; but not “Christopher in his Shooting Jacket”--stained, and

bespattered with Highland libations.

 

A Londoner we encounter--Crabb Robinson, full of gossip and

conventionalities; and also that cautious, yet sometimes impassioned

Scottish bard who sang of _Hohenlinden_, and of _Gertrude of Wyoming_.

Next, we have asked readers to share our regalement, in wandering along

the Tweed banks, and in rekindling the memories of the verse, the home,

and the chivalric stories of the benign master of Abbotsford, for

whom--whatever newer literary fashions may now claim allegiance and

whatever historic _quid-nuncs_ may say in derogation--I think there are

great multitudes who will keep a warm place in their hearts and easily

pardon a kindred warmth in our words.

 

After Dryburgh, and its pall, we have in these pages found our way to

Edinboro’, and have sketched the beginners, and the beginnings of that

great northern quarterly, which so long dominated the realm of British

book-craft, and which rallied to its ranks such men as Jeffrey and the

witty Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh and the pervasive and petulant

Brougham--full of power and of pyrotechnics. These great names and their

quarterly organ call up comparison with that other, southern and

distinctive Quarterly of Albemarle Street, which was dressed for literary

battle by writers like Gifford, Croker, Southey, and Lockhart.

 

The Prince Regent puts in an appearance in startling waistcoats and

finery--vibrating between Windsor and London; so does the bluff

Sailor-King William IV. Next, Walter Savage Landor leads the drifting

paragraphs of our story--a great, strong man; master of classicism, and

master of language; now tender, and now virulent; never quite master of

himself.

 

Of Leigh Hunt, and of his graceful, light-weighted, gossipy literary

utterance, there is indulgent mention, with some delightful passages of

verse foregathered from his many books. Of Thomas Moore, too, there is

respectful and grateful--if not over-exultant--talk; yet in these swift

days there be few who are tempted to tarry long in the “rosy bowers by

Bendemeer.”

 

From Moore and the brilliant fopperies of “The First Gentleman of Europe,”

we slip to the disorderly, but pungent and vivid essays of Hazlitt--to the

orderly and stately historic labors of Hallam, closing up our chapter with

the gay company who used to frequent the brilliant salon of the Lady

Blessington--first in Seamore Place, and later at Gore House. There we

find Bulwer, Disraeli (in his flamboyant youth-time), the elegant Count

d’Orsay, and others of that train-band.

 

Following quickly upon these, we have asked our readers to fare with us

along the old and vivid memories of Newstead Abbey--to track the

master-poet of his time, through his early days of romance and

marriage--through his journeyings athwart Europe, from the orange groves

of Lisbon to the olives of Thessaly--from his friendship with Shelley, and

life at Meillerie with its loud joys and stains--through his wild revels

of Venice--his masterly verse-making--his quietudes of Ravenna (where the

Guiccioli shone)--through his passionate zeal for Greece, and his last

days at Missolonghi, with one brief glimpse of his final resting-place,

beside his passionate Gordon mother, under the grim, old tower of

Hucknall-Torkard. So long indeed do we dwell upon this Byronic episode, as

to make of it the virtual _pièce de résistance_ in the literary _menu_ of

these pages.

 

After the brusque and noisy King William there trails royally into view

that Sovereign Victoria, over whose blanched head--in these very June days

in which I write--the bells are all ringing a joyous Jubilee for her

sixtieth year of reign. But to our eye, and to these pages, she comes as a

girl in her teens--modest, yet resolute and calm; and among her advisers

we see the suave and courtly Melbourne; and among those who make

parliamentary battle, in the Queen’s young years, that famed historian

who has pictured the lives of her kinsfolk--William and Mary--in a way

which will make them familiar in the ages to come.

 

We have a glimpse, too, of the jolly Captain Marryat cracking his

for’castle jokes, and of the somewhat tedious, though kindly, G. P. R.

James, lifting his chivalric notes about men-at-arms and knightly

adventures--a belated hunter in the fields of ancient feudal gramarye.

 

And with this pennant of the old times of tourney flung to the sharp winds

of these days, and shivering in the rude blasts--where anarchic threats

lurk and murmur--we close our preface, and bid our readers all welcome to

the spread of--what our old friend Dugald Dalgetty would call--the

_Vivers_.

 

D. G. M.

 

EDGEWOOD, June 24, 1897.

 

 

 

 

_CONTENTS._

 

 

PAGE

 

CHAPTER I.

 

THE LAKE COUNTRY, 2

 

ROBERT SOUTHEY, 5

 

HIS EARLY LIFE, 11

 

GRETA HALL, 15

 

THE DOCTOR AND LAST SHADOWS, 20

 

CRABB ROBINSON, 24

 

THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 28

 

MARRIAGE AND OTHER FLIGHTS, 34

 

CHAPTER II.

 

CHRISTOPHER NORTH, 40

 

WILSON IN SCOTLAND, 45

 

THOMAS CAMPBELL, 52

 

A MINSTREL OF THE BORDER, 59

 

THE WAVERLEY DISPENSATION, 65

 

GLINTS OF ROYALTY, 77

 

CHAPTER III.

 

A START IN LIFE, 83

 

HENRY BROUGHAM, 87

 

FRANCIS JEFFREY, 92

 

SYDNEY SMITH, 96

 

A HIGHLANDER, 103

 

REST AT CANNES, 107

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

GIFFORD AND HIS QUARTERLY, 113

 

A PRINCE REGENT, 118

 

A SCHOLAR AND POET, 125

 

LANDOR IN ITALY, 132

 

LANDOR’S DOMESTICITIES, 136

 

FINAL EXILE AND DEATH, 138

 

PROSE OF LEIGH HUNT, 142

 

HUNT’S VERSE, 147

 

AN IRISH POET, 152

 

LALLA ROOKH, 157

 

CHAPTER V.

 

THE “FIRST GENTLEMAN,” 165

 

HAZLITT AND HALLAM, 168

 

QUEEN OF A SALON, 173

 

YOUNG BULWER AND DISRAELI, 178

 

THE POET OF NEWSTEAD, 187

 

EARLY VERSE AND MARRIAGE, 193

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

LORD BYRON A HUSBAND, 201

 

A STAY IN LONDON, 206

 

EXILE, 212

 

SHELLEY AND GODWIN, 216

 

BYRON IN ITALY, 223

 

SHELLEY AGAIN, 225

 

JOHN KEATS, 229

 

BURIED IN ROME, 233