My Life as an Author Part 10

Among the most notable prose pieces (though it is of little use to refer my readers to a book hopelessly out of print) there may be selected my panacea for Ireland, to wit, a Royal Residence there to evoke the loyalty of a warm-hearted people,--I called my fable "The Unsunned Corner:" I mean to quote some of it in a future political page of this book. Also other papers, as "Bits of Ribbon," suggesting as just and wise the more profuse distribution of honours,--in particular recommending an Alfred or an Albert Order. Also, many of my Rifle ballads,--whereof, more anon. And "The Over-sharpened Axe"--applicable to modern Boardschool Educationals: and Colonel Jade's matrimonial tirades, all real life: and "The Grumbling Gimlet," a fable on Content, &c. &c. With plenty more notabilia--which those who have the book can turn to if they will.

I could fill many pages with the critiques _pro_ and _con_ this queer book has provoked, but it is useless now that the world has let it die.

CHAPTER XVII.

STEPHAN LANGTON--ALFRED.

I wrote "Stephan Langton, a Story of the Time of King John," because, 1st, I had little to do in the country; 2dly, I wished to give some special literary lift to Albury and its neighbourhood, more particularly as my story had a geographical connection with Surrey; 3dly, I had the run of Mr. Drummond's library, and consulted there some 300 volumes for my novel: so it was not an idle work though a rapid one; 4thly, I wanted to show that though in a Popish age England's heart, and especially Langton's, was Protestant, quite a precursor of Luther. As this book is extant, at Lasham's, Guildford, I refer my readers to it. One curious matter is that my ideal scenes have taken such hold upon my neighbourhood that streams of tourists come constantly through Albury to visit "The Silent Pool" and other sites of scenes invented by me, and have thereby enriched our village inn and the flymen, as well as given to us a new sort of fame. The book, so cheap in the Guildford edition, was originally published by Hurst & Blackett in 2 vols., ill.u.s.trated by Cousins: that edition is very scarce now.

The tragedy at the "Silent Pool" and the _Auto-da-fe_ are perhaps the most dramatic scenes in the book,--as the Robin Hood gathering in Combe Valley is the most picturesque.

I quote a few particulars from one of my diaries. "This book tended to clear my brain of sundry fancies and pictures, as only the writing of another book could do _that_. Its seed is truly recorded in the first chapter as to the two stone coffins still in the chancel of St.

Martha's. I began the book on November 26, 1857, and finished it in exactly eight weeks, on January 21, 1858, reading for the work included.

In two months more it was printed by Hurst & Blackett. I intended it for one full volume, but the publishers preferred to issue it in two scant ones; it has since been reproduced by Lasham, Guildford, in one vol., at one-and-sixpence; it was 14s. I consulted and partially read for it (as I wanted accurate pictures of John's reign in England) the histories of Tyrrell, Hollingshed, Hume, Poole, Markland, Thomson's Magna Charta, James's Philip Augustus, Milman's Latin Christianity, Hallam's Middle Ages, Maimbourg's Lives of the Popes, Ranke's Life of Innocent III., Maitland on the Dark Ages, Ritson's Life of Robin Hood, Salmon's, Bray's, and Brayley's Surrey, Tupper's and Duncan's Guernsey, besides the British and National and other Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries as required. It was a work of hard and quick and fervid labour, not an idle piece of mere brain-spinning, and it may be depended on for archaeological accuracy in every detail. More than thirty localities in our beautiful county Surrey are painted in the book; of other parts of England twelve; of France and Italy twelve; there are more than twenty historical characters honestly (as I judge) depicted; and some fifteen ideal ones fairly enough invented as accessories: I preferred Stephan to the commoner Stephen, for etymological and archaeological reasons: it is clearly nearer the Greek, and is spelt so in ancient records."

King Alfred's own Poems.

One of the rarest of the books I have written (if any bibliomaniac of some future age desires to collect them) must always be "King Alfred's Poems, now first turned into English metres;" for the little volume was privately printed by Dr. Allen Giles, the edition being only of 250 copies, which soon vanished, a few of them bearing Hall & Virtue's name on a new t.i.tle, and being dated 1850,--the majority hailing from the private press aforesaid. I constructed it purposely for the "Jubilee Edition of the Works of King Alfred," learning as well as I could (by the help of Dr. Bosworth's Dictionary and a Grammar) in a few weeks a little Anglo-Saxon,--and I confess considerably a.s.sisted by Mr. Fox's prose translation of Boethius. There are thirty-one poems in all, some being of Alfred's own, but the major part rendered by the wise king out of Latin into the language of his own people to help their teaching. I turned it into English verse in thirty-one different metres, each being as nearly as I could manage in the rhythm of the original: there were no rhymes in those days; alliteration was the only sort of jingle: in the judgment of Mr. Fox and some other Anglo-Saxon critics my version was fairly close, and for the poetical part of my own production at least nothing is of the slipshod order of half rhymes or alternate prose and verse--too common, especially in our hymnology--but honest double rhyming throughout. Without transcribing the little volume I could not give a true idea of it: but here shall come three or four samples:--

"Lo, I sang cheerily In my bright days,-- But now all wearily Chaunt I my lays,-- Sorrowing tearfully, Saddest of men, Can I sing cheerfully As I could then?" &c. &c.

Here is a verse of another:--

"O Thou that art Maker of heaven and earth, Who steerest the stars, and hast given them birth, For ever thou reignest upon Thy high throne, And turnest all swiftly the heavenly zone," &c.

Yet another:--

"What is a man the better, A man of worldly mould, Though he be gainful getter Of richest gems and gold, With every kind well filled Of goods in ripe array, And though for him be tilled A thousand fields a day?" &c.

Again:--

"I have wings like a bird, and more swiftly can fly Far over this earth to the roof of the sky, And now must I feather thy fancies, O mind, To leave the mid earth and its earthlings behind," &c.

And for a last word:--

"Thus quoth Alfred--'If thou growest old And hast no pleasure, spite of weal and gold, And goest weak,--then thank thy Lord for this, That He hath sent thee hitherto much bliss, For life and light and pleasures past away; And say thou, Come and welcome, come what may.'"

These are little bits taken casually: to each of the poems I have added suitable comment in prose. Mr. Bohn in his well-known series has added my verse to Mr. Fox's prose Boethius.

The Anglo-Saxon preface to that volume commences thus: "Alfred, King, was the translator of this book: and from book-Latin turned it into Old English, as it is now done. Awhile he put word for word; awhile sense for sense. He learned this book, and translated it for his own people, and turned it into song, as it is now done." His Old English song, that is, Anglo-Saxon alliteration, is all now modernised in this curious little book of English metres. It was well praised by many critics; but at present is out of the market. When I am "translated" myself, all these old works of mine will rise again in a voluminous complete edition.

"The Alfred Jubilee," on that great king's thousandth year, 1848, is one of the exploits of my literary life, undertaken and accomplished by Mr.

Evelyn, the brothers Brereton, Dr. Giles, and myself in the year 1848, chiefly at Wantage, where Alfred was born. We arranged meetings and banquets in several places, notably Liverpool, where Mr. Bramwell Moore, the mayor, gave a great feast in commemoration, a medal was struck, the Jubilee edition of King Alfred's works was at least begun at Dr. Giles's private printing-press, whilst at Wantage itself 20,000 people collected from all parts for old English games, speeches, appropriate songs, such as "To-day is the day of a thousand years" from my pen, collections for a local school and college as a lasting memorial, and--to please the commonalty--a gorgeous procession and an ox roasted whole, with gilded horns and ribbons,--the huge carcase turned like a hare on a gigantic spit by help of a steam-engine before a furnace of two tons of blazing coal; and that ox was consumed after a most barbaric Abyssinian fas.h.i.+on in the open air. My Anglo-Saxon Magazine came out strong on the occasion,--but it is obsolete now; and I care not to use up s.p.a.ce in reprinting patriotic indignation: for let me state that, considered as a national commemoration of the Great King, the chief founder of our liberties, this Wantage jubilee was all but a failure; the British lion slumbered, and it was flogging a dead horse to try to wake him up; very few of the magnates responded to our appeal: but we did our best, nevertheless, as independent Englishmen, and locally achieved a fair success.

If I went into the whole story with anecdotical detail, I should weary my reader: let me only reproduce my song at the grand Liverpool banquet, by way of ending cheerily.

_The Day of a Thousand Years._

"To-day is the day of a thousand years!

Bless it, O brothers, with heart-thrilling cheers!

Alfred for ever!--to-day was He born, Day-star of England, to herald her morn, That, everywhere breaking and brightening soon, Sheds on us now the full suns.h.i.+ne of noon, And fills us with blessing in Church and in State, Children of Alfred, the Good and the Great!

_Chorus_--Hail to his Jubilee Day, The Day of a thousand years.

"Anglo-Saxons!--in love are we met, To honour a Name we can never forget!

Father, and Founder, and King of a race That reigns and rejoices in every place,-- Root of a tree that o'ershadows the earth, First of a Family blest from his birth, Blest in this stem of their strength and their state, Alfred the Wise, and the Good, and the Great!

_Chorus_,--Hail to his Jubilee Day, The Day of a thousand years!

"Children of Alfred, from every clime Your glory shall live to the deathday of Time!

Hereafter in bliss still ever expand O'er measureless realms of the Heavenly Land!

For you, like him, serve G.o.d and your Race, And gratefully look on the birthday of Grace: Then honour to Alfred! with heart-stirring cheers!

To-day is the Day of a thousand years!

_Chorus_,--Hail to his Jubilee Day, The Day of a thousand years!"

This song was set to excellent music, and went well, especially in the chorus. Several Americans were of our company, in particular, Richmond, a literary friend of mine. At the dinner I had to make a princ.i.p.al speech, and my cousin Gaspard of the Artillery (now General) answered for the Army.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SHAKESPEARE COMMEMORATION.

On the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon I contributed an ode, to be found in my extant book of poems. Among the notabilia of the feastings and celebration, I remember how Lord Houghton raised a great laugh by his pretended indignation when the glee singers greeted the guests at dinner as "Ye spotted snakes with double tongue!"--Doubtless it was a Shakespearean old English piece of music,--but stupidly enough selected for a complimentary greeting. My ode was well received, but I'll say no more of that, as it can speak for itself. Lord Leigh made us all very welcome at his splendid Palladian mansion, and there I met Lord Carlisle, then Viceroy of Ireland, who kindly told me that as he had known my father, and knew me, and my son was then in Ireland (he was a captain in the 29th Regiment), he would put him on his staff, as a third generation of the name. I am not sure if this happened, for my son soon was sent elsewhere; and he has long since gone to the Better Land. But Lord Carlisle's kindness was all the same. At the ball I remember Lord Carlisle's diamonds hanging like a string of gla.s.s chandelier drops at his b.u.t.ton-hole with a Shakespeare favour, and jingling perilously for chippings as he danced: for size those half-dozen Koh-i-noors must be--foolishly--invaluable.

At Stratford Church, either then or some while after, I strangely was the means of saving Shakespeare's own baptismal font from destruction, as thus: the church had been "restored,"--_i.e._, all its best patina was polished away; and among the "improvements," I noticed a brand new font. "Where is the old one?" "O sir, the mason who supplied the new one took it away." So I called and found this font--quite sacred in Shakespearean eyes as where their idol had been christened--lying broken in a corner of the yard. Then off I went to the rector, I think it was a Mr. Granville, expostulating; and (to make the matter short) with some difficulty I got the font mended and put back again, as it certainly never should have been removed. I have since been to Stratford, and find that they use the new font, and have put the old one in a corner of the nave.

An odd thing happened to me in the church, where at the vestry I had just signed my name as other visitors did. An American, utterly unknown to me as I to him, came eagerly up to me as I was inspecting that unsatisfactory bust and inscription about Shakespeare, and said, "Come and see what I've found,--Martin Tupper's autograph,--he must be somewhere near, for he has just signed: do tell, is he here?" I rather thought he might be. "I've wished to see him ever since I was a small boy. Do you know him, sir?" Well, yes, a little. "Show him to me, sir, won't you? I'd give ten dollars for his autograph." After a word or two more, my good nature gave him the precious signature without the dollars,--and I shan't easily forget his frantic joy, showing the doc.u.ment to all around him, whilst I escaped.

Besides a Pindaric Ode to Shakespeare, to be found in my Miscellaneous Poems, wherein many of his characters are touched upon, I wrote the following sonnet, now out of print:--

_The Stratford Jubilee._

"Went not thy spirit gladly with us then, Most genial Shakespeare!--wast thou not with us Who throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus, A few among thy subject fellow-men?

Yea,--let me truly think it; for thy heart (Though now long since the free-made citizen Of brighter cities where we trust thou art) Was one, in its great whole and every part, With human sympathies: we seem to die, But verily live; we grow, improve, expand, When Death transplants us to that Happier Land; Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh, Cordial with Man, and grateful to High Heaven For all our love to thy dear memory given."

CHAPTER XIX.