Literary Life of the Rev. William HarnessAlfred Guy K. L'Estrange Markup and editing by David Hill Radcliffe Completed July 2009 WiHarne.1871 Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities Virginia Tech
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
License
Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
Literary Life of the Rev. William HarnessL'Estrange, A. G. K. (Alfred Guy Kingan), 1832-1915LondonMacmillan and Co.1878
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.
NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at
http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on
2009-02-26BibliographyBook HistoryCollectionCriticismDramaEphemeraFictionHumorLawLettersLife WritingHistoryManuscriptNonfictionPeriodicalPoliticsReference WorksPoetryReligionReviewTranslationTravel THE LITERARY LIFE OF THE REV. WILLIAM HARNESS. VICAR OF ALL SAINTS, KNIGHTSBR1DGE, AND PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL’S. BY THE REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE. IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MABLBOROUGH STREET. 1871. The Right of Translation is reserved.
PREFACE.
This sketch of the long and laborious life of my esteemed friend is the only
return which it is in my power to make for the many favours he conferred upon me. From what I
knew of his character, I feel sure that the tribute would not have been unacceptable to him. Some
record, also, appeared due to the public, for his life, unobtrusive as it was, presented many a
useful lesson of generosity, cheerfulness, and moderation. His wide sympathies extended to all
classes of society; he took an interest in their joys and sorrows, their toils and relaxations.
Such kindly feelings gained for him the affections of rich and poor, and made him a successful
advocate of those Christian principles which he lived and laboured to inculcate.
A. G. L’ESTRANGE. LONDON: October, 1871.
CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD.—EARLY FRIENDSHIP WITH MARY RUSSELL
MITFORD.—SCHOOL DAYS AT HARROW.—BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH LORD
BYRON.—INTERRUPTION AND RENEWAL, OF THEIR INTIMACY.—VISIT TO
NEWSTEAD.—LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE.—REFINING INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE AND
SOCIETY.—LETTER FROM DR. BLAND1
CHAPTER II.
MR. HARNESS ENTERS THE MINISTRY.—HIS HAPPINESS IN A COUNTRY
PARISH.—DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN LORD AND LADY
BYRON.—BYRON’S ECCENTRICITY.—INJURIOUS
CHARACTER OF HIS LATER WORKS.—MR. HARNESS APPOINTED BOYLE LECTURER
19
CHAPTER III.
SHAKESPEARE.—RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.—THE ELIZABETHAN
AGE.—MR. HARNESS VISITS STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.—EDITS
SHAKESPEARE.—HIS CHARACTER OF THE POET.—CONTEMPORARY STANDARD
OF MORALITY.—EARLY THEATRES.—CRITIQUE ON “THE
TEMPEST.” THE KEMBLES IN AMERICA 40
CHAPTER IV.
CHARADES BY MR. HARNESS AND MISS
MITFORD.—MAGAZINE ARTICLES.—EDITION OF MASSINGER
COMMENCED.—DRAMATIC POEMS.—MEMORIALS OF CATHERINE FANSHAWE75
CHAPTER V.
PARISH DUTIES.—SUCCESS IN THE PULPIT.—STYLE AND
DELIVERY.—ATTACHMENT TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.—CAUSES OF RITUALISM.—UNIMPORTANT
DISTINCTIONS.—DUTIES OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.—OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS.—SKETCH
OF OLD ENGLISH PATRIARCHAL LIFE—PSALMODY 106
CHAPTER VI.
ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.—FRIENDSHIPS WITH REMARKABLE
MEN.—KINDNESS OF LORD
LANSDOWNE.—CRABBE.—SCOTT.—COLERIDGE.—JOANNA
BAILLIE.—MISS MARTINEAU132
POLITICS.—BENEFITS OF SETTLED GOVERNMENT TO RICH AND POOR.—POLITICAL
ALLUSIONS UNSUITABLE IN THE PULPIT.—NECESSARY EXCEPTIONS.—CONDUCT OF THE GOVERNMENT
IN INDIA.—ABSENCE OF RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE IN THE COUNCILS OF THE NATION.—STATE
AID.—REFINEMENT NOT NECESSARILY CONDUCIVE TO MORALITY.—OBJECTIONS TO UNSECTARIAN
EDUCATION 181
CHAPTER IX. THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT—VISITING ASSOCIATION.—EVIL
RESULTS OF INJUDICIOUS CHARITY 205
CHAPTER X.
BUILDING OF ALL SAINTS’, KNIGHTSBRIDGE.—CONTINUED FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN
MR. HARNESS AND MISS MITFORD.—TOKEN OF
ESTEEM.—HER LAST LETTERS AND DEATH.—COMMENCEMENT OF THE “LIFE Of MARY
RUSSELL MITFORD.”—DIFFICULTIES.—PROGRESS OF THE
WORK.—INTIMACY WITH MR. DYCE237
CHAPTER XI.
LETTERS FROM MR. HARNESS, FOR 1866, DURING THE PREPARATION
OF “THE LIFE OF MARY RUSSELL MITFORD” 254
CHAPTER XII.
CONTINUATION OF LETTERS FROM MR. HARNESS FOR
1867-68-69.—OUR LAST INTERVIEW.—HIS SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED DEATH 287
THE LITERARY LIFEOFTHE REV. WILLIAM HARNESS. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD.—EARLY FRIENDSHIP WITH MARY RUSSELL
MITFORD.—SCHOOL DAYS AT HARROW.—BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH LORD
BYRON.—INTERRUPTION AND RENEWAL OF THEIR INTIMACY.—VISIT TO
NEWSTEAD.—LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE.—REFINING INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE AND
SOCIETY.—LETTER FROM DR. BLAND.
William Harness was born on the
14th of March, 1790. In date he was thus highly privileged, for he was contemporary with those
remarkable men who rendered the earlier decades of this century the brightest in English
literature. His birthplace was near the village of Wickham,* on the verge of Bere Forest—a
tract which, like many others in South Hampshire, was then rich in sylvan luxuriance, and retains
even to the present day some lingering vestiges of its ancient beauty. Here Dr.
* Where William of
“Wykeham” was born.
Harness,* his father, lived until the year 1796, when on
the breaking out of the war he accompanied Lord Hood to the
Mediterranean as Physician to the Fleet.
One of William Harness’s earliest
friends—born at Alresford, in the same woodland district—was Mary Russell Mitford. Their families had long been connected:
Dr. Harness gave away Miss
Russell, who became Miss Mitford’s mother; and it was
here that the future authoress passed those happy days—and her earliest years were her
happiest—to which she reverted with such fond remembrance in after-life. Here, in the
spacious library, lined with her grandfather Russell’s books, or in the old-fashioned garden, among the stocks and
hollyhocks, she and little William would chase away the summer hours, until the time when the
carriage arrived, which was to carry her playmate back to Wickham. A picture taken when she was
about six years old enables us to form some idea of her at this time. It represents her with her
hair cut short across her forehead, and flowing down at the back in long glossy ringlets, while
in her
* From some observations he had made in the West Indies, he conjectured
that the use of lemons would greatly improve the sanitary condition of the Navy. The
discovery has since been generally adopted, and proved an inestimable benefit to our
seamen. The family of Harness is said to bo ancient, and the name to
have been originally “Harneis.”
face there is a sedateness and gravity beyond her
years, such as we might expect to find in a young lady devoted to study, and celebrated for early
feats of memory. William Harness, on the other hand—by two years the
younger—was full of joyous and exuberant spirits, with a bright beaming countenance, a rosy
complexion, and a profusion of dark hair which curled and clustered on his open brow.
On Dr. Harness receiving an appointment at
Lisbon, his family left Wickham. A voyage to Portugal in those days was something approaching to
an adventure. Vessels bound for that coast started from Falmouth or Mount’s Bay,* and as
they were entirely dependent upon canvas, the day of their departure was as uncertain as that of
their arrival. They had a tedious voyage, with baffling winds; and little William Harness long remembered “The noise and racket Of that odious Lisbon packet,” which Byron so heartily anathematized a few years
afterwards. But all the sickness and suffering were forgotten and fully compensated when they
steered into the broad Tagus with flowing sails, and the
* As in Milton’s
time:—
“Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks to Nomancos and Bayona’s hold.” view of the city, rising in terrace above
terrace, amid gardens and orange groves, broke upon their longing sight like some vision of a
brighter world.
Soon after his father’s return to England, William Harness was sent to Harrow, where he was placed under the care of the
celebrated Dr. Bland. On his entering the school, he
became acquainted with Lord Byron in a manner which was
certainly most creditable to the latter. It will be best to give Mr.
Harness’s own account of this circumstance:
“My acquaintance with Lord Byron began
very early in life, on my first going to school at Harrow. I was then just twelve years old. I
was lame from an early accident, and pale and thin in consequence of a severe fever, from
which, though perfectly recovered in other respects, I still continued weak. This dilapidated
condition of mine—perhaps my lameness more than anything else—seems to have
touched Byron’s sympathies. He saw me a stranger in a crowd; the
very person likely to tempt the oppression of a bully, as I was utterly incapable of resisting
it; and, in all the kindness of his generous nature, he took me under his charge. The first
words he ever spoke to me, as far as I can recollect them, were, “If any fellow
bullies you, tell me; and I’ll thrash him if I can.” His protection was not
long needed; I was soon strong
again, and able to maintain my own; but, as long as his help was wanted, he never failed to
render it. In this manner our friendship began when we were both boys, he the elder of the
two; and it continued, without the slightest interruption, till he left Harrow for
Cambridge.
“After this there was a temporary cessation of intercourse. We wrote to
each other on his first leaving school; but the letters, as is wont to be the case, became
gradually less and less communicative and frequent, till they eventually ceased altogether.
The correspondence seemed to have come to a conclusion by common consent, till an unexpected
occasion of its renewal occurred on the appearance of his first collection of poems, the
‘Hours of Idleness.’* This volume
contained
* The critiques on which called forth “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” Byron seems always to have had an unfortunate and
irresistible love of satire. Mr. Dyce (in
Rogers’ Table Talk) makes the following reference:
“At the house of the Rev. W. Harness,
I remember hearing Moore remark that he
thought the natural bent of Byron’s genius
was to satirical and burlesque poetry. On this Mr. Harness
observed: ‘When Byron was at Harrow, he one day, seeing a
young acquaintance at a short distance who was a violent admirer of Bonaparte, roared out “‘Bold Robert Speer was
Bony’s bad precursor, Bob was a bloody dog, but Bonaparte a worser.’ Moore immediately wrote the lines down with the intention of
inserting them in his ‘Life of
Byron,’ which he was then preparing; but they do not appear in
it.”
an early essay of his satirical powers against
the head-master of his late school; and very soon after its publication I received a letter
from Byron—short, cold, and cutting—reproaching me with a
breach of friendship, because I had, as he was informed, traduced his poetry in an English
exercise, for the sake of conciliating the favour of Dr.
Butler. The only answer I returned to the letter was to send him the rough copy
of my theme. It was on the Evils of Idleness. After a world of puerilities and commonplaces,
it concluded by warning mankind in general, and the boys of Harrow in particular, if they
would avoid the vice and its evils, to cultivate some accomplishment, that each might have an
occupation of interest to engage his leisure, and be able to spend his ‘Hours of Idleness’ as profitably as our late popular
school-fellow. The return of post brought me a letter from Byron, begging
pardon for the unworthiness he had attributed to me, and acknowledging that he had been
misinformed. Thus our correspondence was renewed: and it was never again interrupted till
after his separation from Lady Byron and final departure
from his country.”
Lord Byron thus refers to their early acquaintance at school:
“I was then just fourteen. You were almost the first of my Harrow
friends—certainly the first in my esteem, if not in date . . . . How well I recollect the present of your first flights! There is another
circumstance you do not know; the first lines I ever attempted at
Harrow were addressed to you.”
Such was the commencement of this remarkable friendship. The two boys must have
been very dissimilar in disposition as they became such different men. Byron alludes to their difference in conduct when at school; but their characters
were not then formed. Moreover, they had several bonds of sympathy; both were fond of poetry and
romance; both had warm and affectionate dispositions; both were devoted to study; and both
were—lame. When William Harness was little more than
an infant, he was playing with and clinging about some curious carving on the posts of an old
oaken bedstead which were tied together and lying against the wall. By some unfortunate movement
he caused the heavy mass to fall, and it came down with crushing weight upon his foot. He never
entirely recovered this accident, and ho always felt a slight pain in walking; but such was his
spirit and perseverance that in after-life he became a good pedestrian.
After the explanation to which Mr. Harness
alludes and Byron’s letter of apology, they again became
friends. “Our intercourse,” writes Mr. Harness, “was
renewed and continued from that time till his
going abroad. Whatever faults Lord Byron might have had towards others,
to myself he was always uniformly affectionate. I have many slights and neglects towards him
to reproach myself with; but, on his part, I cannot call to mind, during the whole course of
our intimacy, a single instance of caprice or unkindness.”
Before leaving England for Greece, in 1809, Byron made a most gratifying request of his friend:—
“I am going abroad, if possible, in the Spring, and before I
depart I am collecting the pictures of my most intimate school-fellows. I have already a
few, and shall want yours, or my cabinet will be incomplete. I have employed one of the
best miniature painters of the day to take them—of course at my own expense, as I
never allow my acquaintances to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine.
To mention this may seem indelicate; but when I tell you a friend of ours first refused
to sit, under the idea that he was to disburse on the occasion, you will see that it is
necessary to state these preliminaries to prevent the recurrence of any similar mistake.
I shall see you in time, and will carry you to the limner. It will be a tax on your
patience for a week, but pray excuse it, as it is possible the resemblance may be the
sole trace I shall be able to pre-serve of
our past friendship and present acquaintance. Just now it seems foolish enough; but in a
few years, when some of us are dead, and others are separated by inevitable
circumstances, it will be a kind of satisfaction to retain, in these images of the
living, the idea of our former selves, and to contemplate, in the resemblance of the
dead, all that remains of judgment, feeling, and a host of passions.
“But all this will be dull enough for you, and so good night;
and to end my chapter, or rather my homily,
“Believe me, “My dear Harness, “Yours most affectionately, “Byron.”
The following letter from school is interesting from its date, and as showing the
early intimacy between William Harness and Miss Mitford:
“Harrow, 31st July, 1808. “My dear Doctor Mitford,
“I was impudent enough to invite myself to your house, and you
were kind enough to say that I should be welcome; it was afterwards settled I should
come to the Races. I am too selfish to let such an opportunity slip, and fully intend to
bore you for some time at Grasely. I hope
Mrs. Mitford will not turn me out. Will you
then, my dear Sir, let me know when the Races are, and when I shall be least troublesome
to you; for as soon as you appoint I shall come down and harass Miss Mitford to death! My father and grandmother send their love and compliments to Mrs. and
Miss Mitford and yourself. I shall keep all my civil things till
we meet.
“Believe me, “Yours sincerely, “W. Harness.”
Mr. Harness observed on this occasion that the
Mitfords’ mode of living was greatly altered. Dr. Mitford’s extravagance had almost consumed the golden
gift which the Fairies had showered upon his little daughter. A change was visible in the
household; the magnificent butler had disappeared; and the young Harrow boy by no means admired
the shabby equipage in which they were to exhibit themselves on the race-course.
From Harrow, William Harness proceeded to
Christ College, Cambridge, and while there he found time not only for classical and scientific
study, but also for the perusal of the light and ornamental literature of the day. Those were,
indeed, some of his happiest hours, when, full of the enthusiasm of youth, and surrounded by kindred
spirits—many of whom were destined hereafter to write their names on the roll of
fame—he read aloud the works of some popular author, and listened to the criticism which
its sentiments elicited. Mr. Harness was an excellent reader; his voice was
soft and his emphasis correct; and, as he was always ready to oblige, his services in this
respect were constantly put in requisition. His strength was fortunately equal to the task, and
he sometimes read aloud as much as three volumes in a single day.
After Byron’s return from Greece, we find
the following proof of his faithful remembrance in one of his letters to his friend: “I
have not changed in all my ramblings: Harrow, and of course yourself, never left me, and the ‘Dulces reminisciter Argos’ attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the mind of the fallen
Argive. Our intimacy commenced before we began to date at all, and it rests with you to
continue it till the tour which must number it and me with the things that were.”
Shortly before Mr. Harness took his degree,
he received an invitation to Newstead; and his stay there must have been one of unusual interest
and pleasure: this is the account which he gives of
his visit.
“When Byron returned, with the MS. of
the first two cantos of ‘Childe
Harold’ in his portmanteau, I paid him a visit at Newstead. It was
winter—dark, dreary weather—the snow upon the ground; and a straggling, gloomy,
depressing, partially-inhabited place the Abbey was. Those rooms, however, which had been
fitted up for residence were so comfortably appointed, glowing with crimson hangings, and
cheerful with capacious fires, that one soon lost the melancholy feeling of being domiciled in
the wing of an extensive ruin. Many tales are related or fabled of the orgies which, in the
Poet’s early youth, had made clamorous these ancient halls of the
Byrons. I can only say that nothing in the shape of riot or excess
occurred when I was there. The only other visitor was Dr.
Hodgson, the translator of Juvenal,* and
nothing could be more quiet and regular than the course of our days.
Byron was retouching, as the sheets passed through the press, the
stanzas of ‘Childe Harold.’ Hodgson
was at work in getting out the ensuing number of the ‘Monthly Review,’ of which he was principal editor. I was
reading for my degree. When we met, our general talk was of poets and poetry—of who
could or who could not write; but it
* Afterwards Provost of Eton.
occasionally rose into very serious discussions
on religion. Byron, from his early education in Scotland, had been taught
to identify the principles of Christianity with the extreme dogmas of Calvinism. His mind had
thus imbibed a most miserable prejudice, which appeared to be the only obstacle to his hearty
acceptance of the Gospel. Of this error we were most anxious to disabuse him. The chief weight
of the argument rested with Hodgson, who was older, a good deal, than
myself. I cannot even now—at a distance of more than fifty years—recall those
conversations without a deep feeling of admiration for the judicious zeal and affectionate
earnestness (often speaking with tears in his eyes) which Dr. Hodgson
evinced in his advocacy of the truth. The only difference, except perhaps in the subjects
talked about, between our life at Newstead Abbey and that of the quiet country families around
us, was the hours we kept. It was, as I have said, winter, and the days were cold; and, as
nothing tempted us to rise early, we got up late. This flung the routine of the day rather
backward, and we did not go early to bed. My visit to Newstead lasted about three weeks, when
I returned to Cambridge to take my degree.”
Notwithstanding the many valuable friendships which Mr. Harness formed at Cambridge, it was un-fortunate for him, with regard to his success, that he had not
chosen the sister University. He had no taste whatever for mathematics, and he found that at
Cambridge they were everything. The Graces were kept at a decorous distance by interminable lines
of squares and triangles, and no tuneful reeds then grew beside the Cam, except a few
which—raised at Eton—had been transplanted to the Royal Nursery of Kings. The lovers
of literature, though happy in one another, found themselves in a barren and delightless country;
and Byron, with characteristic boldness, spoke of his Alma
Mater as nothing short of a “harsh beldam.” Mr. Harness was one
of these exiles from Parnassus. He shared Miss
Mitford’s distaste for the dry formulas and inevitable deductions of science,
but loved the study of nature and of human life in its ever-varying phases and colours. If there
was anything which attracted him more than Poetry, it was Art, and he arrived at so considerable
a proficiency in Painting that many hoped he would make it his profession, and predicted for him
a successful career. But he was animated by a still higher and nobler ambition—that of
elevating not only the taste but the moral feelings of men, and of endeavouring to raise the
human mind to the investigation of something still brighter than even the physical creation. He
desired to “go on unto
perfection.” Poetry and Art should be but the handmaids of religion, to bear us with
angels’ wings to higher and more spiritual truths. Speaking of the influence of refined and
ornamental literature, he observes:
“To represent Christianity to the imagination as a blight that withers
all the flowers which the hand of a bountiful Providence has so liberally scattered around us,
is to disturb the harmony which subsists between the word and the works of the Creator. The
exclusive system—following up the principle of separating its disciples from everything
which interests the generality of men—prescribes an absolute rejection of what it
designates as worldly literature. This system, if strictly followed, would effect the
annihilation of all the Arts and Sciences which refine our nature, which raise the level of
the intellect and cultivate the taste, and which fit the understanding for the profitable
reception of better things.
“Again, the highest perfection to which we can attain, is the perfect
cultivation of all and each of our faculties, as well intellectual as moral. Those faculties
are cultivated by exercise, and as each is called into action by some different pursuit or
study, it is by giving a certain moderate degree of variety to our studies and pursuits that
all can receive that portion of exercise which is essential for their cultivation. Now, there is no Art or Science which
does not bring intellectual profit to the man who has mastered it. There is no species of
literature (except, of course, such as are of an infidel or immoral tendency) which may not
conduce to the cultivation of some talent which the Almighty has implanted within us, and thus
assist us, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in making greater reaches towards that
perfection which is set before us as the ultimate object of our pursuit.
“There is one objection—a very serious one—to the rigid,
ascetic, pharisaic system in this respect. Such overstrained austerity always prepares the way
for the grossest depravity. Count Struensee, in his
Confessions, mentions the strictness with which he was brought up
in his youth as the principal cause of his subsequent vices. Our whole nation, indeed,
afforded a most striking demonstration of the evils consequent on too severe and puritanical a
discipline, when, after the formal rigours of the Commonwealth, the people suddenly flung off
the mask, and abandoned themselves to those excesses which followed the
Restoration.”
It is a pleasing testimony to find that Dr.
Bland, who had been Mr. Harness’s
tutor at Harrow, continued afterwards to be his personal friend, and frequently corresponded with
him on literary sub-jects. It would appear from
the following letter, that the Doctor had some taste for more modern poetry than that of his
celebrated “Greek Anthology:”
“Kenilworth, 22nd March, 1821. “My dear Harness,
“My work has been nominally
published for two weeks and two days; really, I don’t believe it is published yet.
How helpless am I, at this distance from head-quarters! Can you—will
you—assist me in ascertaining whether it was advertised in the ‘Chronicle,’ ‘Courier,’ ‘Times’ and ‘Herald?’ Do me this favour by calling at the Royal Institution and looking
over the files of the newspapers’; and again, in writing to me on this subject,
just say whether you think the work published, in the sense of palam factum. As for writing tales, God knows, my dear
friend, I feel but too far—too much inclined to indulge in this idle, heedless
passion. I dream of cascades and that is βάθος
ύλης so sweet, so inspiring, and so profitless, unless
the dream be painted by more able brushes. No; should this work succeed, should the
soothing breath of ‘Well done!’ speak comfort to my almost frozen heart, my
vocation is irrevocably fixed, and the year rolls not away, provided I have health,
unproductive of something more genial
than ‘Lord St. George.’ This latter,
however, is but a too faithful picture of a country Barony; it is exact. If it fails, it
fails for want of spirit, variety, wit, gravity, the intangible essence—in short,
the graces necessary to verse. Who has read it? Do you know, and can you report any
opinions? I mean, faithfully report them—ay, in all their asperities! Let me hear
from you, my dear Harness; and will you enclose
for me the lines of Lord Byron to which you allude on the subject of Lord C——? I have never seen them, and think
they might do me good.
“Most affectionately yours, R. Bland.”
CHAPTER II. MR. HARNESS ENTERS THE MINISTRY.—HIS HAPPINESS IN A COUNTRY PARISH.
DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN LORD AND LADY
BYRON.—BYRON’s ECCENTRICITY. INJURIOUS CHARACTER
OF HIS LATER WORKS.—MR. HARNESS APPOINTED BOYLE LECTURER.
Mr. Harness did not enter the ministry with any view to
worldly advantage. He was not ignorant of the fact that the labourer in the vineyard is but
seldom a partaker of its fruit. So thoroughly did he understand the prospects of a clergyman in
the Church of England, that he said he should have hesitated to follow his inclinations had he
not had some expectations of independent means.* But no prudential obstacle interposing, and
having the full sanction of his parents, he was ordained to the curacy of Kilmeston near
Alresford, shortly after his graduating at Cambridge. Such a change, from a brilliant
intellectual society to a retired curacy,
* His grandmother, however, took a different view, and told him that a
curate required a very small income. “He should keep a horse,” she said,
“and his horse should keep him.”
where his books were his only companions and his country
walks his only relaxation, would have been to some insufferably depressing; but to him, on the
contrary, those tranquil days seemed some of the happiest of his life; and he was more than
content to remain, “The world forgetting, by the world forgot.” He afterwards removed to Dorking; but it was only upon the urgent remonstrances of his
father, who was unwilling to see his talents thus obscured, that he consented to leave his sphere
of quiet usefulness, and enter upon the arduous labours of a London cure.
Meanwhile, Mr. Harness’s friendly
intercourse with Lord Byron was not interrupted, though
carried on under some disadvantages. The Poet was prevented from dedicating “Childe Harold” to him, “for fear it should injure him
in his profession.” And it is evident that in some of his letters Mr.
Harness reproved him for his thoughtlessness and dissipation.
“You censure my life, Harness,” Byron writes in reply.
“When I compare myself with these men, my elders and my betters, I really begin to
conceive myself a monument of prudence—a walking statue—without feeling or
failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence over them in
profligacy!”
“From this time,” writes Mr. Harness,
“our paths lay much asunder. Byron returned to
London. His poem was published. The success was instantaneous; and he ‘awoke one morning
and found himself famous.’ I was in orders, and living an almost solitary life in a
country curacy; but we kept up a rather rapid interchange of letters. He sent me his poems as
they now appeared in rather quick succession; and during my few weeks’ holidays in
London we saw one another very often of a morning at each other’s rooms, and not
unfrequently again in society of an evening. So far, and for these few years, all that I saw
or heard of his career was bright and prosperous: kindness and poetry at home, smiles and
adulation abroad. But then came his marriage; and then the rupture with his wife; and then his
final departure from England. He became a victim of that revolution of popular feeling which
is ever incident to the spoilt children of society, when envy and malice obtain a temporary
ascendancy, and succeed in knocking down and trampling any idol of the day beneath their feet,
who may be wanting in the moral courage required to face and out-brave them.
Such was not the spirit that animated Byron. He could not
bear to look on the altered countenances of his acquaintances. To his susceptible temperament
and generous feelings, the reproach of having
ill-used a woman must have been poignant in the extreme. It was repulsive to his chivalrous
character as a gentleman; it belied all he had written of the devoted fervour of his
attachments; and rather than meet the frowns and sneers which awaited him in the world, as
many a less sensitive man might have done, he turned his back on them and fled. He would have
drawn himself up, and crossed his arms and curled his lip, and looked disdainfully on any
amount of clamorous hostility; but he stole away from the ignominy of being silently cut. His
whole course of conduct, at this crisis of his life, was an inconsiderate mistake. He should
have remained to learn what the accusations against him really were; to expose the
exaggerations, if not the falsehoods, of the grounds they rested on; or, at all events, to
have quietly abided the time when the London world should have become wearied of repeating its
vapid scandals, and returned to its senses respecting him. That change of feeling did
come—and not long after his departure from England—but he was at a distance, and
could not be persuaded to return to take advantage of it.
Of the matrimonial quarrel I personally know nothing; nor, with the exception of Dr. Lushington, do I believe that there is anybody living who
has any certain knowledge about the matter. The marriage
was never one of reasonable promise. The bridegroom and the bride were ill-assorted. They were
two only children, and two spoilt children. I was acquainted with Lady
Byron as Miss Milbanke. The parties of Lady Milbanke, her mother, were frequent and agreeable, and
composed of that mixture of fashion, literature, science, and art, than which there is no
better society. The daughter was not without a certain amount of prettiness or cleverness; but
her manner was stiff and formal, and gave one the idea of her being self-willed and
self-opinionated. She was almost the only young, pretty, well-dressed girl we ever saw who
carried no cheerfulness along with her. I seem to see her now, moving slowly along her
mother’s drawing-rooms, talking to scientific men and literary women, without a tone of
emotion in her voice or the faintest glimpse of a smile upon her countenance. A lady who had
been on intimate terms with her from their mutual childhood once said to me, “If
Lady Byron has a heart, it is deeper seated and harder to get at
than anybody else’s heart whom I have ever known.” And though several of my
friends whose regard it was no slight honour to have gained—as Mrs. Siddons, Joanna
Baillie, Maria Edgeworth, and others of
less account,—were never heard to speak of Lady Byron except in
terms of admiration and attach-ment, it is
certain that the impression which she produced on the majority of her acquaintance was
unfavourable: they looked upon her as a reserved and frigid sort of being whom one would
rather cross the room to avoid than be brought into conversation with unnecessarily. Such a
person, whatever quality might have at first attracted him—(could it have been her
coldness?)—was not likely to acquire or retain any very powerful hold upon
Byron. At the beginning of their married life, when first they
returned to London society together, one seldom saw two young persons who appeared to be more
devoted to one another than they were. At parties, he would be seen hanging over the back of
her chair, scarcely talking to anybody else, eagerly introducing his friends to her, and, if
they did not go away together, himself handing her to her carriage. This outward show of
tenderness, so far as my memory serves me, was observed and admired as exemplary, till after
the birth of their daughter. From that time the world began to drop its voice into a tone of
compassion when speaking of Lady Byron, and to whisper tales of the
misery she was suffering—poor thing—on account of the unkindness of her
husband.
The first instances of his ill-usage which were heard, were so insignificant as to be beneath
recording. “The poor lady had never had a com-fortable meal since their marriage.” “Her husband had no fixed hour for
breakfast, and was always too late for dinner.” “At his express desire, she had
invited two elderly ladies* to meet them in her opera-box. Nothing could be more courteous
than his manner to them, while they remained; but no sooner had they gone than he began to
annoy his wife by venting his ill-humour, in a strain of bitterest satire, against the dress
and manners of her friends.” There were some relations of Lady
Byron whom, after repeated refusals, he had reluctantly consented to dine with.
When the day arrived he insisted on her going alone, alleging his being unwell as an excuse
for his absence. It was summer time. Forty years ago people not only dined earlier than they
do now, but by daylight; and after the assembled party were seated at table, he amused himself
by driving backwards and forwards opposite the dining-room windows.†
There was a multitude of such nonsensical stories as these, which one began to hear soon after
Ada’s birth; and I believe I have told the
worst of them. No doubt, as the things occurred, they must have been vexatious enough, but
they do not
* Mrs. Joanna Baillie and her
sister.
† The above gossip all came to me from different friends of
Lady Byron.
amount to grievous wrongs. They were faults of
temper, not moral delinquencies; a thousand of them would not constitute an injury. Nor does
one know to what extent they may have been provoked. They would, in all probability, have
ceased, had they been gently borne with—and perhaps were only repeated because the
culprit was amused by witnessing their effects. At all events they were no more than a
sensible woman, who had either a proper feeling for her husband’s reputation, or a due
consideration of her own position, would have readily endured; and a really good wife would
never have allowed herself to talk about them. And yet it was by Lady
Byron’s friends, and as coming immediately from her, that I used to hear
them. The complaints, at first so trifling, gradually acquired a more serious character.
“Poor Lady Byron was afraid of her life.” “Her husband
slept with loaded pistols by his bedside, and a dagger under his pillow.” Then there
came rumours of cruelty—no one knew of what kind, or how severe. Nothing was definitely
stated. But it was on all hands allowed to be “very bad—very bad indeed.”
And as there was nothing to be known, everybody imagined what they pleased.
But whatever Lord Byron’s treatment of his wife may
have been, it could not have been all evil. Any injuries she suffered must have occurred during moody and angry fits of temper. They could
not have been habitual or frequent. His conduct was not of such a description as to have
utterly extinguished whatever love she might have felt at her marriage, or to have left any
sense of terror or aversion behind it. This is evident from facts. Years after they had met
for the last time, Lady Byron went with Mrs. Jameson, from whom I repeat the circumstance, to see
Thorwaldsen’s statue of her husband, which was
at Sir Richard Westmacott’s studio. After looking
at it in silence for a few moments, the tears came into her eyes, and she said to her
companion, “It is very beautiful, but not so beautiful as my dearByron.” However interrupted by changes of
caprice or irritability, the general course of her husband’s conduct must have been
gentle and tender, or it never would, after so long a cessation of intercourse, have left such
kindly impressions behind it. I have, indeed, reason to believe that these feelings of
affectionate remembrance lingered in the heart of Lady Byron to the last.
Not a fortnight before her death, I dined in company with an old lady who was at the time on a
visit to her. On this lady’s returning home, and mentioning whom she had met,
Lady Byron evinced great curiosity to learn what subjects we had
talked about, and what I had heard of them, “because I had been such a friend of her husband’s.” This instance
of fond remembrance, after an interval of more than forty years, in a woman of no very
sensitive nature—a woman of more intellect than feeling—conveys to my mind no
slight argument in defence of Byron’s conduct as a husband. His
wife, though unrelenting, manifestly regretted his loss. May not some touch of remorse for the
exile to which she had dismissed him—for the fame over which she had cast a
cloud—for the energies which she had diverted from their course of useful action in the
Senate,* to be wasted in no honourable idleness abroad—and for the so early death to
which her unwife-like conduct doomed him, have mingled its bitterness with the pain of that
regret?
But what do I know of Byron? The ill I will speak of
presently. Personally, I know nothing but good of him. Of what he became in his foreign
banishment, when removed from all his natural ties and hereditary duties, I, personally, am
ignorant. In all probability he deteriorated; he would have been more than human if he had
not. But when I was in the habit of familiarly seeing him, he was kindness itself. At a time
when Coleridge was in great embarrassment, Rogers, when calling on Byron, chanced to
mention it. He immediately
* He had made some good speeches in the House.
went to his writing-desk, and
brought back a cheque for a hundred pounds, and insisted on its being forwarded to
Coleridge. “I did not like taking it,” said
Rogers, who told me the story, “for I knew that he was in
want of it himself.” His servants he treated with a gentle consideration for
their feelings which I have seldom witnessed in any other, and they were devoted to him. At
Newstead there was an old man who had been butler to
his mother, and I have seen Byron, as the old man waited behind his chair
at dinner, pour out a glass of wine and pass it to him when he thought we were too much
engaged in conversation to observe what he was doing. The transaction was a thing of custom;
and both parties seemed to flatter themselves that it was clandestinely effected. A hideous
old woman, who had been brought in to nurse him when
he was unwell at one of his lodgings, and whom few would have cared to retain about them
longer than her services were required, was carried with him, in improved attire, to his
chambers in the Albany, and was seen, after his marriage, gorgeous in black silk at his house
in Piccadilly. She had done him a service, and he could not forget it. Of his attachment to
his friends, no one can read Moore’s
life and entertain a doubt. He required a great deal from them—not more,
perhaps, than he, from the abundance of his
love, freely and fully gave—but more than they had to return. The ardour of his nature
must have been in a normal state of disappointment. He imagined higher qualities in them than
they possessed, and must very often have found his expectations sadly balked by the dulness of
talk, the perversity of taste, or the want of enthusiasm, which he encountered on a better or
rather longer acquaintance. But, notwithstanding, I have never yet heard anybody complain that
Byron had once appeared to entertain a regard for him, and had
afterwards capriciously cast him off.
Now, after these good and great qualities, I revert to the evil of Byron’s character and conduct. And here, if he were bad, were there no
extenuations, derived from the peculiarities of his position and education, to be pleaded for
him? Was he not better, instead of worse, than most young men have proved who were similarly
circumstanced? He had virtually never known a father’s love, or a mother’s
tenderness. He was from early childhood wholly cut off from those motives to virtue, and those
restraints from vice, which, amid a band of brothers and sisters, grow up around us with the
family affections. Home is the only school in which right principles and generous feelings
find a genial soil and attain a natural growth. Without a home the boy sees nothing, knows
nothing, considers nothing, and feels for
nothing but himself; and a home Byron never had. The domestic charities
and their ameliorating influences were only known to him by name. He was from boyhood his own
master; and would it have been strange, if, with strong passions, an untutored will, fervent
imagination, and no one with authority to control him, he was sometimes led astray? But during
the time he was in London society, what young men were there, with the same liberty to range
at will as he, who were less absorbed by its dissipations? Who among them abstracted so much
time from the fascinations of the world as he, to study as he studied, and to write as he
wrote? I have little doubt, though I don’t know it, that in the season of his
unparalleled success he was not likely to have been more rigid in his conduct than his
companions were in their principles. But it is at least extraordinary that, while thus courted
and admired, if his life was as licentious as some have represented, the only scandal which
disturbed the decorum of society, and with which Byron’s name is
connected, did not originate in any action of his, but in the insane and unrequited passion of
a woman.
Byron had one pre-eminent fault—a fault which must be
considered as deeply criminal by every one who does not, as I do, believe it to have resulted
from monomania. He had a morbid love of a bad
reputation. There was hardly an offence of which he would not, with perfect indifference,
accuse himself. An old schoolfellow, who met him on the Continent, told me that he would
continually write paragraphs against himself in the foreign journals, and delight in their
republication by the English newspapers as in the success of a practical joke. When anybody
has related anything discreditable of Byron, assuring me that it must be
true, for he had heard it from himself, I have always felt that he could not have spoken with
authority, and that, in all probability, the tale was a pure invention. If I could remember,
and were willing to repeat, the various misdoings which I have from time to time heard him
attribute to himself, I could fill a volume. But I never believed them. I very soon became
aware of this strange idiosyncrasy. It puzzled me to account for it; but there it was—a
sort of diseased and distorted vanity. The same eccentric spirit would induce him to report
things which were false with regard to his family, which anybody else would have concealed
though true. He told mo more than once that his father was insane and killed himself. I shall
never forget the manner in which he first told me this. While washing his hands, and singing a
gay Neapolitan air, he stopped, looked round at me, and said, “There always was a madness in the family.” Then after
continuing his wasting and his song, as if speaking of a matter of the slightest indifference,
“My father cut his throat.” The contrast between the tenor of the
subject and the levity of the expression was fearfully painful: it was like a stanza of
“Don Juan.” In this instance, I
had no doubt that the fact was as he related it, but in speaking of it only a few years since
to an old lady* in whom I had perfect confidence, she
assured me that it was not so; that Mr. Byron, who was
her cousin, had been extremely wild, but was quite sane and had died quietly in his bed. What
Byron’s reasons could have been for thus calumniating, not only
himself, but the blood that was flowing in his veins, who can divine? But, for some reason or
other, it seemed to be his determined purpose to keep himself unknown to the great body of his
fellow-creatures—to present himself to their view in moral masquerade, and to identity
himself in their imaginations with Childe Harold and the
Corsair, between which characters and his own—as
God and education had made it—the most microscopic inspection would fail to discern a
single point of resemblance.
Except this love of an ill-name—this tendency to malign himself—this hypocrisy
reversed, I have no personal knowledge whatever of any evil act or
* Mrs. Villiers, Lord Clarendon’s mother.
evil disposition of Lord
Byron’s. I once said this to a gentleman* who was well acquainted with
Lord Byron’s London life. He expressed himself astonished at
what I said. “Well,” I replied, “do you know any harm of him but what he
told you himself?” “Oh, yes, a hundred things!” “I don’t want
you to tell me a hundred things, I shall be content with one.” Here the conversation was
interrupted. We were at dinner—there was a large party, and the subject was again
renewed at table. But afterwards in the drawing-room, Mr.
Drury came up to me and said, “I have been thinking of what you were
saying at dinner. I do not know any harm of Byron but what he has told me of
himself.”
Mr. Harness’s testimony to the good points in
Byron’s character is especially valuable as it comes
from one who was not in the least blinded by the brilliancy of his genius. So delicately
sensitive, indeed, was Mr. Harness’s nature, that he always, as he
confessed, felt Byron’s poetry to be a little too “strong”
for him. He attributed a large part of Byron’s reckless conduct in
after-life to the misfortune of his ill-assorted marriage. “It was brought
about,” he observed, “by well-meaning friends, who knew that
Byron wanted money and thought they were consulting his best
interests.” He formed the alliance, as is often the case, be-
* The Rev. Henry
Drury.
cause other people liked it; but they did not take into
consideration how many elements are required to constitute the happiness of sensient human
beings. Lady Byron was a person entirely deficient in tact and
reflection, and made no allowances for the usual eccentricities of genius. In some periods of our
history she might have aspired to a real crown of martyrdom, for she was a Puritan in creed, and
an unflinching advocate of her own views. Miss Mitford
justly asks, “Why did she marry Byron? His character was well
known, and he was not a deceiver!” Possibly she hoped to make an illustrious convert
of him, or thought that she might at once share his celebrity and restrain his follies. If so,
she greatly overrated her influence, and ignored the perversity of human nature.
Byron had a childish weakness for dramatic effect and excitement, and it
was his habit to amuse himself at times by indulging in fantastical rhapsodies, full of tragic
extravagance. Harness knew these occasions, and merely lapsed into silence,
and when the poet found that no one was horrified or delighted, he very soon came to the end of
his performance, But Lady Byron was too conscientious, or too severe, to
allow the fire thus to die out. She took seriously every word he uttered, weighed it in her
precise balance, and could not avoid expressing her condemnation of his principles and her
abhorrence of his language. This fanned the
flame, increased his irritation, or added zest to his amusement. Whatever crime she accused him
of he was not only ready to admit, but even to trump by the confession of some greater enormity.
Few of us have sufficient taste and delicacy for the office of a censor, or sufficient humility
to profit by rebuke; but in the present case the difficulties were unusually great.
“There can be no doubt,” observed Mr. Harness, “that
Byron was a little ‘maddish.’” He was afflicted
with a more than usual share of that eccentricity which so often turns aside the keen edge of
genius; but he was amiable and might have been led, though he would not be driven.
Mr. Harness had no communication with Byron during the latter years of his life. He nevertheless always
continued to take a kindly view of the character of his old school-fellow and college friend, and
endeavoured to make every allowance for his conduct; but at the same time we must not suppose
that he permitted any personal feeling to interfere with his sense of right, or to prevent his
denouncing the principles advocated in his friend’s later writings. We have already noticed
his disapproval of Byron’s conduct, and as it became more marked, he
spoke in stronger language. Their intimacy then ceased, and Byron recklessly
abandoned himself to those dissipations which ended in his early death. In 1822, Mr. Harness was
appointed Boyle Lecturer by the University of Cambridge; and his duty was “to be ready to
satisfy such real scruples as any may have concerning matters of religion, and to answer such new
objections and difficulties as may be started.” Lord Byron’s
works were then at the height of their popularity; and as some of them seemed to be exercising a
very pernicious influence, Mr. Harness selected for special consideration
the poem* in which an attempt was made to represent God as responsible for the origin of Sin.
“By a fiction of no ordinary power,” he observes, “the
rebellious son of a rebellious father is disclosed to the imagination as upon the borders of
Paradise, and within the shadowy regions of the dead, holding personal communion with the
spiritual enemy of man. Each is represented as advocating the cause of his impiety to the
partial judgment of his companion in iniquity. Miserable they are; but still they are arrogant
and stern, remorseless and unsubdued by misery. For them adversity has no sweet or hallowed
uses. While they make mutual confession of the wretchedness their sin has caused them, they
appear to glory in it, as if ennobled by its magnitude and exalted by its presumption. To
their licentious apprehensions all excellence appears corrupted and reversed. They
* “Cain.”
call good evil, and evil they call good.
Pride is virtue, and rebellion duty. Lucifer is the
friend, and Jehovah is the enemy of man; and while they reciprocate the
arguments of a bewildering sophistry, the benevolence of the Deity is arraigned, as if He
rejoiced in the affliction of His creatures, first conferred an efficacy on the temptation and
then delighted to exact the penalties of transgression.”
Byron had attempted to justify himself by asserting that he
had expressed no sentiments worse than those which were to be found in Milton; but even were this the case (Mr. Harness observed), there would be a peculiar danger in reproducing them in a
specious form, and in times when faith was already obscured: “The danger is heightened
by the peculiar character of the times. Had the allegations of these malignant spirits been
preferred in an age of more general and fervent piety, there had been little peril in their
publication. They had only awakened in the breast of the reader a more entire abhorrence of
the beings by whom they were entertained and uttered. It was thus in the days of
Milton. Every taunt of Satan was
then opposed by the popular spirit of devotion, and armed against his cause the deepest and
the holiest affections of the heart. But the spirit of those times has past. Zeal has yielded
to indifference, and faith to scepticism. We have become so impatient of the re-straint of Christianity, and so
indulgent to every argument that endows our inclinations with an apology for sin, that few and
transient are the feelings of religious gratitude which are offended by the impieties of
Cain or Lucifer,
and their appeal against the dispensations of Almighty Providence is calmly heard and
favourably deliberated; for, in the skilful extenuation of their guilt, we appear to listen to
the arguments that soothe us with the justification of our own. There is also a danger in the
manner with which these antiquated cavils are revived and recommended. United with the
dramatic interest and the seductions of poetry, they obtain a wider circulation. They gain an
introduction to the studies of the young; they pass into the hands of that wide class of
readers, who only find in literature another variety of dissipation, and who, after having
eagerly received the contagion of demoralizing doubts, would indolently cast aside the cold
metaphysical essay that conveyed their refutation.”
Byron’s friendship for Mr.
Harness, who even during their intimacy did not scruple to reprove and oppose his
principles, was perhaps the most pleasing episode in his private career; and his accusers should
know that, during the whole of their correspondence, he never penned a single line to his friend
which might not have been addressed to the most delicate woman.
CHAPTER III. SHAKESPEARE.—RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.—THE ELIZABETHAN
AGE.—MR. HARNESS VISITS STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.—EDITS
SHAKESPEARE.—HIS CHARACTER OF THE POET.—CONTEMPORARY STANDARD
OF MORALITY.—EARLY THEATRES.—CRITIQUE ON “THE
TEMPEST.”—THE KEMBLES IN AMERICA.
If any gifted men have been insensible to the beauties of Shakespeare, Mr. Harness
was not among their number. On the contrary, he was a devoted student of the writings of the
great dramatist, and ever found that the deeper that mine was worked, the richer was the ore
which was brought to light. In such feelings of admiration he coincided with the views of some of
the most eminent and learned divines, especially with those of Dr.
Sortin and Bishop Warburton.*
“Shakespeare,” writes Mr. Harness,
“was not only habitually conversant with the chronicles of his country, but had also
deeply imbibed the Scriptures.”
History teaches that theatrical representations originally partook of a
ceremonial character. They
* He edited Shakespeare’s works.
were performed in honour of
Dionysus, the great symbolic deity of Earth, Heaven, and Hell, before he
received, in degenerate days, the unworthy name and attributes of Bacchus.
The plays of Æschylus, the father of Tragedy, are so
full of sublime and spiritual conceptions, that, notwithstanding the dim light in which his
creations move, they convey high instruction and admonition; indeed, were it not for the glory of
his poetry, he might incur the imputation of being distastefully moralizing and transcendental.
In the same way, we find that Comedy arose from a joyous festival at harvest, or rather at
vintage-home, in which the grape-gatherers acknowledged the bounty of the Giver of all good with
mystic dances, thanksgivings, and sacrifices; and ignorant and misguided as those worshippers
were, no one can read the literature of their times without feeling convinced that their piety,
though false in direction, was in many respects of a genuine and religious character.
Notwithstanding a long obscuration in the latter age of Greece and Rome, the
drama never entirely lost its instructive and ethical character; and we find the Latin church
availing itself of it in the early part of the Middle Ages, for the representation of the most
solemn scenes in our Saviour’s sufferings.
Those who have studied the transformations of religion, or, as I should better
say, the steps by which false systems have changed into the true, will admit that ancient customs
have been very often retained, although their signification has been entirely altered.* The cause
of the revival in this case may have been the general recognition of the influence of dramatic
action and impersonation; but we may safely affirm that had the uses of the stage been polluted,
it would never have been brought into connection with the Christian Church.
Our modern plays long retained a religious character, and even in later years
were used as a vehicle for moral instruction. In tracing the rise and progress of the English
Drama, we cannot do better than quote Mr. Harness’s
own words:—
“It is impossible for any art to have attained a more rapid growth than
was attained by the art of dramatic writing in this country. The people had indeed been long
accustomed to a species of exhibition called ‘miracles’ or
‘mysteries,’ founded
* Many instances of adaptation will probably occur to the reader. In
the Early Church, we find a great attempt made to encumber Christianity with Jewish
ceremonies. The Romanists adopted those of the surrounding Pagans. A remarkable
continuance of the sanctity of a locality is traceable at Le Puy; in the floor of the
cathedral lies the table-stone of a druidical dolmen; in the walls are fragments of a
Roman Temple; it is now Roman Catholic, and, we roust hope, will some day be Protestant.
on sacred subjects, and performed by the
ministers of religion themselves on the holy festivals in or near the churches, and designed
to instruct the ignorant in the leading facts of sacred history.* From the occasional
introduction of allegorical characters, such as Faith, Death, Hope, or Sin into these
religious dramas, representations of another kind, called ‘moralities,’ had by
degrees arisen, of which the plots were more artificial, regular, and connected, and which
were entirely formed of such personifications. But the first rough draught of a regular
tragedy and comedy that appeared, Lord Sackville’s
‘Gorboduc,’ and Still’s ‘Gammer
Gurton’s Needle,’ were not produced till within the latter half of the
sixteenth century, and but little more than twenty years previous to
Shakespeare’s arrival in the metropolis.
“About that time the attention of the public began to be more generally
directed to the stage, and it throve admirably beneath the cheerful beams of popularity. The
theatrical performances which
* Mr. Harness here adds a note
to the effect that the most ancient collection of this kind—the Chester
mysteries—were not written by Ralph Higden, as supposed by
Warton, Malone and others; but by an earlier Ecclesiastic of Chester, named
Randall, and that they were first enacted between 1268 and 1276.
In the Harl. MSS., we read: “Exhibited at Chester in 1327, at the expense of the
Trading Companies of the City: The ‘Fall of
Lucifer,’ by the Tanners; ‘Abraham, Melchisedeck,
and Lot,’ by the Barbers; the ‘Puri-
had, in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, been exhibited on temporary stages, erected in such
halls or apartments as the actors could procure, or more generally in the yards of the great
inns, while the spectators surveyed them from the windows and galleries, began to be
established in more convenient and permanent situations. About the year 1569 a regular
play-house under the appropriate name of ‘The Theatre’ was built. It is supposed
to have stood somewhere in Blackfriars; and three years after the commencement of this
establishment (yielding to her inclination for the amusement of the theatre, and disregarding
the remonstrances of the Puritans,) the Queen granted a license and authority to the servants
of the Earl of Leicester‘to use, exercise, and occupie the arte and facultie of playinge commedies,
tragodies, interludes, stage-playes, as well for the recreation of our lovinge subjects as
for our own solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them, throughoute our
realm of England.’ From this time the number of theatres increased with the
ripening taste and the increasing demands of the people. Various noble-
fication,’ by the Blacksmiths; the
‘Temptation,’ by the Butchers; ‘The Last Supper,’ by the Bakers; the ‘Descent into Hell,’ by the Cooks; the ‘Resurrection,’ by the Skinners; the ‘Ascension,” by the Tailors,’ &c.” We know
not at how early a date these plays were acted in the Latin Church. They were continued
in Cornwall after they had lost the support of the clergy.
men led their respective companies of
performers, who were associated as their servants, and acted under their protection; and
during the period of Shakespeare’s theatrical
career, not less than seven principal play-houses were open in the metropolis.”
Mr. Harness yielded to few in his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. He was wont to say that his plays contained almost
everything. In his early years, inspired with youthful ardour, he made a pilgrimage to the
birthplace of the great poet, and although he started with the intention of staying there only
four days, he ended by remaining five weeks. He was charmed with the place, and spent his time
most enjoyably in exploring the beauties of the country, and in visiting the spots hallowed by
the dramatist’s memory. He told me that at the close of one long summer day, after
returning from a walk to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, he
took out his volume of Shakespeare, which was his constant companion, and
opening it at “King John,” became
completely absorbed in the tragic story. Time flew by rapidly and unheeded, until warned by his
waning lamp, he started up and found that it was past midnight. He went to the window; the stars
were shining brightly in the clear sky and shedding their thin light over the old gabled houses
and lofty elm trees; the night was breezeless, and all was shrouded in silence. Suddenly the church clock struck one. The
deep booming reverberated through the stillness as though it would awake the spirits of the past;
the hour and the scene were alike inspired. Mr. Harness thought how
“that great man” might have listened to the same solemn stroke, and recalled the
lines:—
“The midnight bell Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth Sound ‘one’ unto the drowsy race of night.”*
Mr. Harness found the inscription on Shakespeare’s monument in a very imperfect condition. He
had it restored at his own expense. Above the epitaph by Ben
Jonson is the line:— “Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,” the false quantity in which offended Mr. Harness’s classical ear,
and he proposed to substitute “Sophoclem” for “Socratem.” The mistake
might have been due to some ignorant copyist; and the genius of Shakespeare
seemed as much allied to that of the great tragedian as to that of the philosopher. He much
regretted that the original colouring of the bust had not been allowed to remain.
His Edition of
Shakespeare was published by Mr. Harness
immediately after his appointment to St.
* Act iii.; Scene 3.
Pancras. It had been prepared when he was
residing at Hampstead, and had no parochial cure, but only Sunday duty in London. He did not
confine himself in his undertaking to merely adding notes to the text of the Poet; but also
prefixed a Life, which occupied the first volume.* This biography was remarkable for its
scrupulous impartiality; no such record being in his opinion instructive or valuable, which was
not absolutely faithful in all its details, and which did not chronicle the frailties as well as
the virtues of its subject. Miss Mitford, in praising the
work, says, “I am quite delighted with your edition of Shakespeare.
It must do. The ‘Life’ is like the portrait affixed to it; the old beloved,
well-known features which we all have by heart, but inspired with a fresh spirit.”
She objects, however, to his over-sensitiveness and anxiety to notice all the invidious
allegations made against his author’s fame. But Mr. Harness thought it
unworthy of the character
* Mr. Harness’sEdition of Shakespeare was published in
1825, in 8 vols. octavo; a second edition, with plates, appeared in 1830; and a third, with
40 plates by Heath, in 1833. In the latter year also
he published an edition in Imperial 4to, one volume, with 100 of Boydell’s plates; and a one volume edition in Royal
octavo was published in 1836, and again in 1840 and 1842; the last reprint being for the
American market. The edition of 1840 is still sometimes to be met with; its only
illustration is a very fine engraving of the Chandos portrait.
of the great poet to allow him to gain
anything by concealment; and speaking of his early days at Stratford, and of the probability that
he assisted his father in the unpoetical trade of a butcher, he emphatically rejects
“that absurd spirit of refinement which is only too common among the writers of
biography, as well as history, and which induces them to conceal or misrepresent every
occurrence which is at all of a humiliating nature, and does not accord with those false and
effeminate notions so generally entertained respecting the dignity of that peculiar class of
composition.” He, at the same time, blades the severity with which
Shakespeare’s early vagaries were punished by Sir Thomas
Lucy. “Every contemporary,” he says, “who has spoken of our
author, has been lavish in the praise of his temper and disposition. ‘The gentle
Shakespeare’ seems to have been his distinguishing appellation.
No slight portion of our enthusiasm for his writings may be traced to the fair picture which
they present of the author’s character. We love the tenderness of heart, the candour and
openness and singleness of mind, the largeness of sentiment, the liberality of opinion, which
the whole tenor of his works proves him to have possessed. His faults seem to have been the
transient aberrations of a thoughtless moment, which reflection never failed to correct; the
ebullition of high spirits might mislead him; but the principles and the affections never swerved
from what was right. Against such a person, the extreme severity of the magistrate should not
have been exerted. But the powerful enemy of Shakespeare was not to be
appeased; the heart of the Puritan or the game-preserver is very rarely formed of
‘penetrable stuff.’ Our author fled from the inflexible persecutions of his
opponent to seek shelter in the metropolis; and he found friends and wealth and fame where he
had only hoped for an asylum. Sir Thomas Lucy remained to enjoy the
triumph of his victory, and he yet survives, in the character of Justice Shallow, as the laughing-stock of posterity.”*
“Shakespeare’s first
employment in connexion with the theatre in London presents us with a characteristic picture
of the times. He was to receive the horses of those who rode to the performance, and was to
hold them until the end of the performance. He became, we are told, such a favourite in this
office that every one, when he alighted, called out, ‘Will
Shakespeare!’ and he soon was in such demand that he hired young men
* (Note by Mr. Harness.)
“There can be no doubt that Justice
Shallow was designed as the representative of the Knight. If the
traditional authority of this fact were not quite satisfactory, the description of
his coat of arms in the first scene of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ which is, with
very slight deviation, that of the Lucys, would be sufficient to
direct us to the original of the portrait.”
to assist him, who would present
themselves, saying, ‘I am Shakespeare’s boy, Sir!’ That
the above anecdote was really communicated by Pope,” adds Mr. Harness, “there is no room to
doubt.”
“But however inferior,” he continues, “was the
situation which Shakespeare first occupied, his talents
were not long buried in obscurity. He rapidly rose to the first station in the theatre, and by
the power of his genius raised our national dramatic poetry, then in its infancy, to the
highest state of perfection which it is perhaps capable of reaching.”
Speaking of the characters played by Shakespeare, Mr. Harness draws the
following conclusions:—“It would appear that the class of characters to which the
histrionic exertions of Shakespeare were confined was that of elderly
persons—parts rather of declamation than of passion. With a countenance which, if any of
his pictures is a genuine resemblance of him, we may adduce that one as our authority for
esteeming capable of every variety of expression; with a knowledge of the art which rendered
him fit to be the teacher of the first actors of his day, and to instruct Joseph Taylor in the character of ‘Hamlet,’ and John
Lowine in that of ‘King Henry the Eighth;’ with
such admirable qualifications for pre-eminence, we must infer that nothing but some personal
defect could have reduced him to limit the
exercise of his powers, and even in youth assume the slow and deliberate motion which is the
characteristic of old age. In his minor poems we perhaps trace the origin of this direction of
his talents. It appears from two places in his Sonnets that he was
lamed by some accident. In the 37th Sonnet he writes:— ‘So I made lame by Fortune’s dearest
spite.’ And in the 89th he again alludes to his infirmity, and says, ‘Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt.’
This imperfection would necessarily have rendered him unfit to appear as the
representative of any characters of youthful ardour, in which rapidity of movement or violence
of exertion was demanded, and would oblige him to apply his powers to such parts as were
compatible with his measured and impeded action. Malone
has most inefficiently attempted to explain away the palpable meaning of the above lines, and
adds, ‘If Shakespeare was in truth lame, he had it not in his
power to halt occasionally for this or any other purpose, the defect
must have been fixed and permanent.’ Not so! Surely many an infirmity of the kind
may be skilfully concealed, or only become visible in the moments of hurried movement. Either
Sir Walter Scott or Lord
Byron might, without any impro-priety, have written the verses in question; they
would have been applicable to either of them. Indeed the lameness of Lord
Byron was exactly such as Shakespeare’s might have
been; and I remember, as a boy, that he selected those speeches for declamation which would
not constrain him to the use of such exertions as might obtrude the defect of his person into
notice.”
These observations are interesting when we remember the writer’s
experience in his own infirmity.
Mr. Harness was accustomed to say that all that Shakespeare wrote was good, but that many passages were
attributed to him which were not authentic. He explains his views on the corruptions of the text
in the following words:
“If Shakespeare still appears to
us the first of poets, it is in spite of every possible disadvantage to which his own sublime
contempt of applause had exposed his fame, from the ignorance, the avarice, or the
officiousness of his early editors. To these causes it is to be ascribed that the writings of
Shakespeare have come down to us in a state more imperfect than those
of any other author of his time, and requiring every exertion of critical skill to illustrate
and amend them. That so little should be known with certainty of the history of his life was
the natural consequence of the events which immediately followed his dissolution. It is true that the age in which he
flourished was little curious about the lives of literary men; but our ignorance must not
wholly bo attributed to the want of curiosity in the immediate successors of the poet. The
public mind soon became violently agitated in the conflict of opposite opinions. Every
individual was called upon to take his stand as the partisan of a religious or political
faction. Each was too intimately occupied with his personal interest to find leisure for so
peaceful a pursuit as tracing the biography of a poet. If this was the case during the time of
civil commotion, under the Puritanical dynasty of Cromwell the stage was totally destroyed; and the life of a dramatic author,
however eminent his merits, would not only have been considered as a subject undeserving of
inquiry, but only worthy of contempt and abomination. The genius of
Shakespeare was dear to Milton
and to Dryden; to a few lofty minds and gifted spirits;
but it was dead to the multitude of his countrymen, who, in their foolish bigotry, would have
considered their very houses polluted if they had contained a copy of his works.
“After the Restoration these severe restrictions were relaxed; and, as
is universally the case, the counter-action was correspondent to the action. The nation
suddenly exchanged the rigid austerity of Puritanism for the extreme of pro-fligacy and licentiousness. When the Drama was revived, it
existed no longer to inculcate such lessons of morality as were enforced by the contrition of
Macbeth, the purity of Isabel, or the suffering constancy of Imogen; but to teach modesty to blush at its own innocence, to corrupt the
heart by pictures of debauchery, and to exalt a gay selfishness and daring sensuality above
all that is noble in principle and honourable in action. At this period Shakespeare was forgotten. He wrote not for such profligate
times. His sentiments would have been met by no correspondent feelings in the breasts of such
audiences as were then collected within the walls of the Metropolitan theatres, composed of
men who came to hear their vices flattered, and of women masked, ashamed to show their faces
at representations which they were sufficiently abandoned to delight in. The jesting, lying,
bold intriguing rake, whom Shakespeare had rendered contemptible in
Lucio, and hateful in Iachimo, was the very character that the dramatists of Charles’s time were painting after the model of the Court favourites, and
representing in false colours as a deserving object of approbation. French taste and French
morals had banished our author from the stage, and his name had faded from the memory of the
people. Tate, in his altered play of “King Lear,” mentions the original, in his
dedication, as an obscure piece. The author of
the “Tatler,” in quoting some lines of
“Macbeth,” cites them from the
disfigured alteration of D’Avenant. The works of
Shakespeare were only read by those whom the desire of literary
plunder induced to pry into the volumes of antiquated authors, with the hope of discovering
some neglected jewels that might be clandestinely transferred to enrich their own poverty of
invention; and so little were the productions of the most gifted poet that ever ventured to
embark on the varying waters of the imagination known to the generality of his countrymen,
that Otway stole the character of the Nurse, and all
the love-scenes of “Romeo and
Juliet,” and published them as his own without the slightest acknowledgment of
the obligation or any apprehension of detection. A better taste returned; but when, nearly a
century after the death of Shakespeare, Rowe undertook to superintend an edition of his Plays, and to collect the
memoirs of his life, the race had passed away from whom any certain recollections of the great
national poet might have been gathered, and nothing better was to be obtained than the slight
notes of Aubrey, the scattered hints of Oldys, the loose intimations which had escaped from
D’Avenant, and the vague reports which Betterton had gleaned in his pilgrimage to
Stratford.”
The following sketch by Mr. Harness of
the manner in which the performances of the theatre were conducted, affords an interesting
picture of the times: he was always fond of characteristic details:
“The ‘Globe’ and the playhouse in ‘Blackfriars’
were the property of the company to which Shakespeare
was himself attached, and by whom all his productions were exhibited. The ‘Globe’
appears to have been a wooden building, of a considerable size, hexagonal without and circular
within; it was thatched in part, but a large portion of the roof was open to the weather. This
was the company’s Summer theatre, and the plays were acted by daylight. At the
‘Blackfriars,’ on the contrary, which was the Winter theatre, the top was entirely
closed, and the performances were exhibited by candlelight. In every other respect the economy
and usages of the houses appear to have been the same, and to have resembled those of every
other contemporary theatre.
“With respect to the interior arrangements there were very few points
of difference between our modern theatres and those of the days of Shakespeare. The terms of admission indeed were considerably cheaper; to the
boxes the entrance was a shilling; to the pit and galleries only sixpence; sixpence also was
the price paid for stools upon the stage; and these
seats, as we learn from Dekker’s ‘Gull’s Hornbook,’ were peculiarly
affected by the wits and critics of the time. The conduct of the audience was less restrained
by the sense of public decorum, and smoking tobacco, playing at cards, eating and drinking,
were generally prevalent among them. The hour of performance also was earlier; the play
beginning at first at one, and afterwards at three o’clock in the afternoon. During the
time of representation a flag was unfurled at the top of the theatre, and the floor of the
stage (as was the case with every floor at the time from the cottage to the palace) was strewn
with rushes. But in other respects, the ancient theatres seem to have been very nearly similar
to those of modern times; they had their pit, where the inferior class of spectators, the
‘groundlings,’ vented their clamorous censure or approbation; they had their
boxes, to which the right of exclusive admission was hired by the night for the more wealthy
and refined portion of the audience; and there were again the galleries or scaffolds above the
boxes, for those who were content to purchase inferior accommodation at a cheaper rate.
“On the stage, the arrangements appear to have been nearly the same as at present; the
curtain divided the audience from the actors, which at the third sounding—not indeed of
the bell, but of the trumpet—was withdrawn for
the commencement of the performance. With regard to the use of scenery, it is scarcely
possible, from the very circumstances of the case, that such a contrivance should have escaped
our ancestors. All the materials were ready to their hands; they had not to invent for
themselves, but to adapt an old invention to their purposes, and at a time when every better
apartment was adorned with tapestry; when even the rooms of the commonest taverns were hung
with painted cloths; while all the essentials of scenery were continually before their eyes,
we can hardly believe our forefathers to have been so deficient in ingenuity as never to have
conceived the design of converting the common ornaments of their walls into the decorations of
their theatres. Mr. Gifford, who adheres to Malone’s opinion, says, ‘A table, with a pen and
ink thrust in, signified that the stage was a counting-house; if these were withdrawn and two
stools put in their places, it was then a tavern;’ and this might be satisfactory as
long as the business of the play was supposed to be passing within doors; but when it was
removed to the open air, such meagre devices would no longer be sufficient to guide the
imagination of the audience, and some new method must have been adopted to indicate the place
of action. After giving the subject considerable attention, I cannot help thinking that
Steevens was right in rejecting the evidence of
Malone, and concluding that the spectators were, as at the present
day, assisted in following the progress of the story by means of painted and moveable
scenery.”*
It must be remembered that, in the days in which Mr.
Harness wrote, the legitimate drama had not yet been superseded by extravagant and
ephemeral representations. A charge of pedantry might have been brought against the stage with
more justice than one of frivolity. The theatres, of which there were but two, were not places
for idleness and dissipation, but for study and intellectual enjoyment. There were then no
stalls; nor did the pit offer that cheap rate of accommodation which has tempted managers to
introduce performances of a broad and tawdry character. Moreover, the lovers of Shakespeare could then have their taste gratified to an extent
which has since been impossible. The works of the great dramatist were rightly represented by the
combined talent of the Kemble family. Under them, the stage became a source
of high moral, as well as artistic, instruction. Never, since the days of classic Attica had the
drama
* This opinion is confirmed by the ancient stage directions. In the
folio Shakespeare, of 1623, we read ‘Enter Brutus, in his orchard;’
‘Enter Timon, in the
woods;’ ‘Enter Timon, from his cave.’
struck so deeply the finer chords of the human
heart; and the well-read volume was as frequent in the pit as was the white handkerchief in the
gilded tiers. So jealous at this time were the audience of the fame of the great dramatist, that
I have been told that the omission of a single line, or even of a word, would call forth an
immediate expression of disapproval. The proud sovereign of this assemblage of high-born women
and scholarly men was no less a person than Mrs. Siddons,
who seems to have enjoyed a celebrity verging upon adoration. At her appearance enthusiastic
applause rang through the crowded house. None who had not seen her could ever realize the
impression she made. As she walked the stage like one of Nature’s queens, all could
understand the dignity of motion implied in Virgil’s
expression:
“Incessu patuit dea.”
Campbell speaks of “her lofty beauty, her graceful
walk and gesture.” And when we add to this the charm of her flexible and expressive voice,
we cannot be suprised at the admiration she awakened. Few who saw her ever forgot her. Crabbe Robinson used to say that he prided himself on three
things; he had been intimate with Göthe, he had made
a walking tour with Wordsworth, and he had seen Mrs. Siddons. Mr. Harness
could not be less deeply impressed by one who so
eloquently interpreted his favourite oracle; and as might have been expected, he regarded her
performance from a critical point of view. “Her high judgment watched over her
qualifications.” “It was not merely her appearance that gave her such
power,” observed Mr. Harness, “she owed much to her
persevering industry. She admitted to me one day, in reply to a question, that, although it
might sound egotistical for her to say it, she did not think that there would be again such an
impersonation of Calista* as her own, taking into
consideration the voice, the use of the stage, and above all the laborious study.”
On a later occasion, when he was referring to the excellence of her intonation, she observed that
over-exertion in large theatres had injured her power of expression, which was much greater in
her earlier days. The perfection at which she had arrived in her art, and the skill with which
she equalled Nature, may be estimated from a reply made to Mr. Harness by a
well-known critic, when he observed that Mrs. Siddons had played her part
with spirit on the previous night. “Yes,” returned his friend, “but I never
before saw her so much like an actress.”
Mr. Harness related the following anecdote in which the
conduct of the great actress was very
* A part in “The Fair
Penitent” for which she was celebrated.
characteristic. He was dining at Lord Lonsdale’s, and among the company were Mrs.
Siddons and Mr. and Miss Edgeworth.
Mr. Edgeworth, who was sitting next to Mrs.
Siddons, Sam Rogers being on the other side
of her, observed after dinner, “Madam, I think I saw you perform Millamont thirty-five years ago.” “Pardon me, sir.” “Oh!
then it was forty years ago; I distinctly recollect it.” “You will excuse me, sir, I
never played Millamont.” “Oh, yes, ma’am, I
recollect.” “I think,” she replied, turning to Mr. Rogers,
“it is time for me to change my place,” and she rose with her own peculiar dignity.*
The enthusiasm for the stage which prevailed at that day can scarcely be
understood at present. As there were no numbered seats in the pit, those who entered first took
the best places. The performance commenced at six o’clock, and as early as two in the
afternoon the play-goers began to collect outside the theatre. Two old gentlemen in Mr. Harness’s recollection were especially conspicuous from
always posting themselves early against the doors. As they had to wait several hours, and found
the time hang heavily, they adopted the good idea of bringing a portable chess-
* This incident is said, by Crabbe
Robinson, to have occurred at Mr.
Sotheby’s; but there was some confusion in his mind on the subject. It
was related to him by Mr. Harness.
board with them. Thus they whiled away the time in
alternate checkmates until the clock struck the magic hour, when they put up their board, folded
their arms, and made ready for the rush to secure the front seats.
Mr. Harness objected much to the over-inquisitive spirit
which some critics have evinced in the study of Shakespeare. In a review in the Quarterly of “Hunter on the ‘Tempest,’” in which he blames the writer for his
persistent endeavours to define the localities mentioned in that play; he writes as
follows:—
“The island was called into existence by a far more potent magician
than even Prospero; and ‘like the baseless fabric of
a vision ‘melted’ into thin air,’ leaving ‘no rack behind,’ with
a deep and solemn sound of funeral music, on the 23rd April, 1616, the day when that mighty
master died. After the departure of Prospero and Miranda, it was never visited again by any human creature. The
unearthly inhabitants possessed it altogether till the hour of its dissolution. They were then
variously dispersed. Caliban, clinging to one of the
largest logs which Ferdinand had so industriously piled
up, but which had never been ‘burnt,’ was floated on it in safety to the coast of
Algiers. Ariel, with all his subtle company, the
‘elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,’ clapping their tiny hands, and singing ‘Where the bee sucks’
in sweetest melody and fullest chorus, flitter away delighted to meet the spirit of the great
magician from whose fancy they had derived their life and being, and to pour forth their
gratulations around him as he ascended on his upward way to regions more bright and pure and
ethereal than any to which they even ‘in their pride of flight’ could venture to
aspire. Since that happy hour they have all dwelt in harmony together in one of the fairest
and most secluded valleys of ‘Araby the Blest.’ We know the spot; but for worlds
we would not be wicked enough to deliver them over in their merry ignorance to the tender
mercies of the commentators. Were we to let fall the slightest hint of the position of their
melodious home, we are well aware that Mr. Hunter or
Mr. Rodd, or both those gentlemen together, would
start off to Rotherhithe to-morrow morning, would hire a steamer and go paddling away in a
cloud of thick black smoke in pursuit of them; and having reached the spot, they would,
without the least sense of compunction, gather tho sweetest blossoms that Ariel ever sucked his honey from and crush them between the
leaves of their hortus siccus; they would hunt down the innocent spirits
themselves; they would scare them with unearthly sounds; they would catch them with bird-limed
twigs and butterfly nets, run pins through
their delicate bodies, fix them to the bottoms of glazed boxes, and bear them away in triumph
to be deposited as curiosities among the natural history shelves of the British
Museum.”
Macready lost, as he said, £2,000 a year owing to an
article written by Mr. Harness in the Quarterly. So much weight had his critiques
with the public of the day.
The following letters are interesting as giving an account of the Kembles’
visit to America:—
To the Rev. William Harness.
“Boston, Sunday, May 5th, 1833.
“Do not imagine that I have any intention of letting you
forget me, my dear Mr. Harness, or that I mean to
delegate to newspapers, and such like unsatisfactory channels of information, the task
of keeping my recollection alive with you. I certainly have suffered a tolerably long
interval to escape since the writing of my first epistle; but that it did not follow
from thence that I never meant to write to you again, this is
proof. If I were to ask you all the questions I should like answered with regard to
things in general, and particularly in my poor dear little country, I might fill my
letter with one huge note of interrogation, and leave you to answer all that is
‘being, doing and suffering’ in England; but I rather think some account of ourselves might be more
satisfactory to you; and so, according to your noble and poetical friend, ‘Here goes!’ (By-the-by, his Life by Moore is a terrible pity; why
couldn’t his works be left to speak for him? They are his best record after all.)
“We are all in excellent health, except that my father is lame and cross, D—— sleepy and
cross, and I purely cross, and nothing else. With regard to my father’s lameness,
he caught it—or, rather, it caught him—by the calf of the leg, in the act of
springing off the stage after me, in Benedick.
‘Tis an accident of no great importance—a sprain or fracture of one or two
of the smaller fibres in the leg, which makes him go a little haltingly just now, but is
not likely to inconvenience him long. As for all the other ailments, that is the
crossness, ‘tis owing to a bitter bleak east wind, which is the only air that
blows in Boston, and keeps us all in a state of misanthropy and universal
dissatisfaction. Perhaps, under these circumstances, I had better have deferred writing
to you; but, had I waited till the wind changed its quarter, I must have waited till we
returned to New York; for Boston is the abiding place of the east wind.
“Our houses, wherever we go, are very fine; our business most
successful. The people and places vie with each other in kindness and civility to us;
and as for me, I am so praised, so admired, so courted, and so flattered, that I am thrown into the
depths of humility, sometimes, when I come to consider my own unworthiness; and only
fear that at last I shall acquire such an idea of my own excellence, importance, and
admirableness that I shall come to the conviction that ‘the world is mine
oyster.’ Seriously, I am sometimes perplexed at the universal kindness and almost
affection that is expressed towards me, when I cannot help feeling that Indeed I have
done nothing really to deserve it. However, thank God for it! And as for the desert, why
perhaps it is with me as with the man who said he did not know whether he could play on
the fiddle or not, for he’d never tried.
“Boston is a Yankee town, which I daresay is as much as you
know about it; but, Sir, ‘tis moreover the wealthiest town in the Union;
‘tis, Sir, the most belles-letterish and blue town in the Union; ‘tis, Sir,
the most aristocratic town in the Union, and decidedly bears the greatest resemblance to
an English town of any I have seen. The country round it, too, is more like a bit of the
old land than anything I have yet seen; and, though some of the wild romantic scenery
round Philadelphia enchanted me very much, the white clean cottages, the blossoming
apple-trees and flowering garden-plots of the villages round this place have recalled
England more vividly, and given me more pleasure than anything I have yet seen. The society is a little
stiff; they have, unfortunately, a reputation in this good town for superior intellect,
and are proportionately starched and stupid. However, to have known Webster, and even Audubon, is in itself something; and though Channing has been obliged by ill-health to leave Boston for the South, I
trust yet to have the privilege of knowing him—who, I think, reflects more honour
on his native city than all its other superiorities put together.
“We act every night here but Saturday. I grumble dreadfully at
this hard work—not because it tires me, but because I am idle and like two
holidays in a week. However, when I consider that every night lost is a large sum of
money lost (for our profits are very great) I am willing to give up my laziness, so long
as the work is not too much either for my father or myself. I take an amazing quantity
of exercise on horseback; ‘tis meat and drink and sleep to me, and affords me,
moreover, the best opportunity of seeing the country, which one never does well in a
carriage; and ‘tis quite entertaining to see how, before I have been a fortnight
in a place, all the women are getting into riding-skirts and up upon horses. I have
received ever so many thanks for the improved health of the ladies here who, since my
arrival, are all horseback-mad; and I
truly think a good shaking does a woman good in every way.
“I have acted several new parts since I have been in this new
world; Katherine, the Shrew, which I do pretty well, Bizarre, which I also
do pretty well, but particularly the dancing—Violante in ‘The
Wonder,’ which I do worse than anything that can be seen, and Mary Copp in ‘Charles the Second,’ which I do very fairly
well, leaving out the singing. Bianca seems to be my
favourite part with the public, in tragedy, and Julia in the ‘Hunchback,’ in comedy. I hear Knowles has written another play with a magnificent woman’s part.
Of course we shall have it out here before long; I am curious to see it.
“I have seen Washington
Irving several times since I have been in this country. He is idolized
here, and talks of settling himself in some little sunny nook on the Hudson—that
broadest, brightest river in the world. He is very delightful, a most happy, cheerful,
benevolent, simple person. His absence of seventeen years from this country has produced
changes in it which seem to fill him with amazement and admiration. And, indeed,
‘tis a most marvellous country! It stands unparalleled under every aspect in which
it can be considered, and presents one of the most interesting and extraordinary
subjects of contemplation that the eye of a politician, or the more extensive gaze of a philosopher, can scan. A land peopled,
as this has been, by the overflowings of all other lands; to the south colonized by the
adventurous but thrifty younger branches of noble families of England, and in great
measure also by men whose vices and crimes, as well as their utter poverty, drove them
to find shelter away from the society whose laws they had outraged; to the north, again,
this new world owing its first civilized inhabitants to the purest and loftiest spirit
of Freedom—the holiest and most steadfast spirit of Religion (emanating from
England, too); and all having received their first dawn of civilization from bodies of
men differing from each other in object, in religious faith, in country and lineage: a
whole continent thus strangely reclaimed from utter savageness, and in the process of a
century and a half becoming, from a desolate and utter wilderness, a great political
existence, taking a firm and honourable station among the powers of the world. A land
abounding in cultivation, civilization, populous towns, full of wealth, of business, of
trade, of importance; vast ports receiving the flags of every nation under Heaven; to
see huge ocean steamboats carrying hundreds of people to and fro every hour along the
Hudson, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, whose waters, a hundred years ago, were never
visited but by the Indian canoe; to see
forests felled, and towns arising, railways and canals traversing and connecting what
were wild tracts of interminable wood and waste; to see life, and all its wonderful arts
and sciences, reclaiming these vast solitudes to the uses of man and the purposes of
civilized existence: this mighty operation which is at this instant going on under our
very eyes makes this country one of great interest, of admiration, of anxious
observation to all the world. ‘Tis a marvellous country indeed!
“Bless my soul, I didn’t mean to be cross* to you,
because that’s an infliction! Don’t you wish that you and I wrote better
hands? Pray, dear Mr. Harness, if you have time
to spare, write to me again; it pleases me to hear from England, and it pleases me to
hear from you.
“For I am very truly, and with great regard, “Yours, “Fanny Kemble.”
To the Rev. W. Harness.
“New York, 24th April, 1834. “My dear friend,
“When I left England I promised I would write to you, and I am
ashamed that I have so long neglected to redeem my promise; but I rely upon your
good-nature to excuse me, although I confess
* The last page of the letter is crossed.
I hardly deserve forgiveness. Fanny, I know, has already told you all that we have
seen and done; so that you have not been left in ignorance of our proceedings by my sin
of omission. Pray, which are considered more deadly by Divines, sins of omission, or
sins of commission? You will not have time to answer me on this point before we meet;
therefore, I must seek for information from my friends of the cloth in this
hemisphere—Dr. Wainwright or Dr. Channing: both learned men and pious Christians.
Wainwright, with whom I am better acquainted than I am with
Channing, seems to me more of a man of the world; ho mixes with
general society, and is a well-bred, liberal clergyman, an Episcopalian, and likely to
become the next Bishop of Boston. Channing, you know, is a
Unitarian, a mild, engaging person in discourse, an eloquent and impressive preacher in
the pulpit. Wainwright is a good preacher, too; he has much more
physical power than Channing, but in my opinion is far his inferior
in point of intellect.
“So much for the leaders in your profession. For those in
mine, you are almost as well acquainted with their merits as I am. Mr. Booth, as well as Mr.
Hamblin, you must have seen in England; and Mr. Forrest you will probably see, for report says he is to visit London.
He is in person of Herculean proportions, fitter, in appear-ance, for a drayman or a porter than an actor. I have
seen him but in two parts, Pierre, which he acted
indifferently well; the other, Oroloosa, an Indian;
in the representation of which characters he has acquired his reputation. There was an
American of the name of Scott, whom I preferred, in the same
tragedy; but he is thought by his countrymen very inferior to
Forrest. There are two favourite actresses, too, not very
distinguished for talent. Miss Vincent and Miss Clifton: the latter is a very tall but beautiful
girl.
“We hope to find you and your dear sister at home when we
reach London. We did intend to sail from New York on the 16th of June, but for the
advantages of a superior ship and a more agreeable captain, we have been induced to
postpone our departure until the 24th of June: so pray look out for the arrival of the
‘United States’ commanded by Captain
Holdritch. How happy Fanny’s
friends will be to see her once more before she is married, won’t they? The
legitimate drama will have another chance, I hope, of resuscitation; and we shall both
at least take leave of the British stage in a manner worthy of the house of
Kemble!
“God bless you! give my affectionate regard to your dear
sister; and believe me, my very dear friend, unalterably yours,
“C. Kemble.
“Fanny has told you
of the irreparable loss we have sustained by the death of her aunt. May all our
deaths be as peaceful and as happy!”
Mr. Harness took little interest in the drama of the
present day. Low comedy and scenic effects were his aversion; and he was wont to say that acting
was now a debased art. He still knew a few of the elder members of the histrionic profession, and
especially Charles Kean, for whom he had a great personal
regard. He remarked how much he had done to raise the social character of the stage, and was
deeply affected when he was sent for to attend his friend in his last hours. He had an equal
esteem for Mrs. Kean. Referring to her kindness and
good-nature, he said that she took great interest in the little children who came to act in the
pantomimes, and that she used to teach them their Catechism between the pieces, thus endeavouring
to compensate for their loss of regular instruction. Mr. Harness’s
schools, like many others in London, suffered much from the withdrawal of little pupils in the
Winter. On first entering his schools at Knightsbridge, after the Christmas holidays, he inquired
why the attendance was so small? “Because, Sir,” replied the teacher, “so many
of the children are gone to be angels!”
CHAPTER IV. CHARADES BY MR. HARNESS AND MISS
MITFORD.—MAGAZINE ARTICLES.—EDITION OF MASSINGER
COMMENCED.—DRAMATIC POEMS.—MEMORIALS OF CATHERINE FANSHAWE.
During Mr. Harness’s residence at
Hampstead, in what may be termed the holiday period of his life, he occasionally indulged his
fancy in the composition of short poems, such as were then in fashion and were considered to add
grace and sentiment to the routine of correspondence. In his intercourse with his friends he also
found another way of contributing to the entertainment and sociability of those around him. Many
of his young lady acquaintances were proficient in acting charades, and found much pleasure in
such exercises of ingenuity. As he was known to be a man of taste, he was soon called upon to use
his skill for their benefit, and he accordingly planned a somewhat more elaborate performance
than they had hitherto tried, by the introduction of a little dramatic scene and dialogue to
represent each word. The attempt was successful, and
Mr. Harness’s charades met with considerable approbation.
Miss Mitford was one of those who were most pleased with
his idea, and as she was then writing for the magazines, requested permission to publish some of
his charades in Blackwoods.
This was granted; for, although Mr. Harness wished to keep
them for the use of his own friends, he was unwilling to lose any opportunity of affording
pecuniary assistance to his early companion. They accordingly appeared in the year 1826;
Miss Mitford adopting Mr. Harness’s plans, and
developing them with her own facility of expression. “I enclose my charades,” she
writes to him, “which, in all but their faults, might more properly be called yours.”
In a letter written at this time, Mr. Harness thus alludes to them, and
gives some interesting details about his interview with Deville the phrenologist:—
“My dear Miss Mitford,
“Send me the charades, and I will forward them to Blackwood. I have not a doubt of their doing
your opera at Covent Garden, if Charles find it likely to
succeed—which, from the nature of the story, must, I should think, be the case. I
really think Deville was right about my head; and
right, in fact, even when he appeared to be wrong in his description. For instance, he
said that I should be offended by glaring colours, which is not the case. I have the eyes of colours, but am extremely annoyed by colours that
don’t harmonize, though I am rather fond of strong colours. I forget whether, in
my hurry of writing to you, I told you of his extraordinary exposition of the character
of my friend Newman’s little boy. The child went with me; and
Deville having told me the propensities of the child’s
character, said, ‘There is one thing very remarkable in this boy’s head; I
never saw any English child with the perceptive organs so strongly marked. In general,
the English have strong reflection, and the Foreigners strong perception; but in this
boy there is an exact and beautiful equality subsisting between the two.’ His
mother is, as you know, a Portuguese. This was an admirable hit.
By-the-by, would it not be better to reserve your charades for your
novel? They would take as new, and, at the present time, novelty of incident is the very
thing that novels want.
“With kindest remembrances to Dr. and Mrs. Mitford.
Best love, Yours ever most faithfully, William Harness.”
One of these charades formed a complete little drama of the time of the
Commonwealth. The word was “Match-lock,” and the
persons a Puritan’s daughter, a Cavalier, and the irritable old Puritan himself. The last
of the series published was composed entirely by Miss
Mitford. It was on “Blackwood,” and gave an exquisite specimen of the
authoress’s poetic talent, and of her power in describing sylvan scenery.
In the following year (1827) Mr. Harness
published in Blackwood’s Magazine a little story, possessing interest as advocating that cheerful view of life which was so
congenial to his temperament. The hero of the tale commences in the following joyous mood:—
“I was alone; my heart beat lightly; my pulse was quickened by the
exercise of the morning; my blood flowed freely through my veins as meeting with no checks or
impediments to its current, and my spirits were elated by a multitude of happy remembrances
and of brilliant hopes.” Everything seemed to him delightful; even the fire at which
he sat. “‘What capital coals these are’ (he breaks forth), ‘there is
nothing in the world so cheering—so enlivening—as a good hot, blazing sea-coal
fire.’ I broke a large lump into fragments with the poker as I spoke. ‘It’s
all mighty fine,’ I continued, ‘for us travellers to harangue the ignorant on the
beauty of foreign cities, of their buildings without dust, and their skies without a cloud;
but for my own part, I like to see a dark, thick, heavy
atmosphere hanging over a town. It forewarns the traveller of his approach to the habitations,
the business, and the comforts of his civilized fellow-creatures. It gives an air of grandeur
and importance and mystery to the scene. It conciliates our respect: we know that there must
be some fire where there is so much smoke.’ I confirmed my argument in favour of our
metropolitan obscurity by another stroke of the poker against the largest fragment of the
broken coal; and then, letting fall my weapon and turning my back to the fire, I exclaimed,
‘Certainly—there’s no kind of furniture like books; nothing else can afford
one an equal air of comfort and habituality. Such a resource too! A man never feels alone in a
library. He lives surrounded by companions who stand ever obedient to his call, coinciding
with every caprice of temper, and harmonizing with every turn and disposition of the mind.
Yes! I love my books; they are my friends—my counsellors—my companions! Yes! I
have a real personal attachment, a very tender regard for my books!’”
Those who knew Mr. Harness’s cheerful
temperament, and remember how well the walls of his rooms were lined with the works of great men,
may easily imagine that he was here speaking his own sentiments. The story, which is named
“Reverses,” proceeds to narrate that the joyous bachelor has just sold his
estates for £80,000, and is about to be married to the most lovely and accomplished of
woman-kind. After a delicious dream about white favours and bridal festivities, he is awakened
next morning by his valet, who is the bearer of the overwhelming intelligence that his solicitor,
into whose hands the £80,000 had just been paid, had absconded during the night. Our
jubilant hero is in a moment prostrated. He betakes himself to his solicitor’s partner, but
finds him only full of his own misfortunes. He calls upon his old schoolfellow, Fraser, but finds he has left town, and the servant intimates that
his friend went off in haste on hearing of the disaster. Luttrell—such was our hero’s name—returns to his lodgings in the
lowest despondency. Everything seemed lost; but still, as he pondered over his misfortunes, one
bright image presented itself to him. “My fortune is gone,” he exclaimed;
“my friend has deserted me; but Maria! thou,
dearest, still remainest true to me! I’ll tranquillize my mind with the sweet counsel of
your daily letter, and then proceed to deliberate and act for myself.” To his dismay, no
letter arrived! Maria, then, had deserted him in his
distress, and had been unable to bear so severe a test! His misery was now at its height; but
as he strode about his room he caught the eye of his Newfound-land dog fixed wistfully and tenderly upon him. “Yes, Neptune,” he cried, “everything on earth has forsaken me, except
you—you, alone, my good and faithful dog are constant to me in my hours of
affliction.”
He now began to take a misanthropic view of life, and in his fever of excitement
thanked Heaven for the calamity which had befallen him, as it had shown him the true character of
those he had unwisely trusted. He meditated suicide, and actually left his home with a pistol in
his pocket. Having been accustomed to row on the river he went down to his boat, as he thought he
should thus escape from observing eyes. His dog alone accompanied him, and he pulled rapidly past
Chelsea. Ceasing to row, and beginning again to declaim against the depravity of the world, he at
length so much irritated his canine friend, who was lying in the bottom of the boat, that the dog
growled. “Right! right!” he exclaimed. “My very dog turns against me!” In
his desperation he seized the animal and attempted to fling him into the water: he lost his
balance in the attempt, and being unable to swim would have been inevitably drowned but for the
assistance of his belied companion. Thus preserved from a watery grave, and somewhat sobered by
the cold immersion, he began, when seated on the bank, to take a more moderate view of the world
in general. The noble act of his dog, whom he intended to
shoot, caused him to feel humbled and self-condemned. He made his way home in a different mood
from that in which he had started, and on his arrival found a note from his Maria, explaining why she had not written on the previous day, and
saying that, although their income would be greatly diminished, there would, she was sure, be no
diminution of their united happiness. Soon afterwards, a knock came at the door. It was no other
than Fraser, whose sudden disappearance was owing to his
having started in pursuit of his friend’s absconding attorney. He had overtaken him,
horsewhipped him, and recovered the money. The tale ends in the same genial tone with which it
commenced, and Luttrell exclaims enthusiastically.
“The world’s a good world—the women are all true, the friends are all
faithful, and the dogs are all attached and staunch; and if any individual is induced at any
moment to hold an opposite opinion, depend upon it that unhappy man is deluded by false
appearances, and that a little inquiry would convince him of his mistake.”
Speaking of this story, Miss Mitford
remarks, “How capital ‘Reverses’ was! I don’t know when I have been so delighted with
anything. The tone of fashion, and the little air of laughing at fashion even whilst adopting
it, were admirable, and you and your books are
done to the life; only you should not have thought of shooting the Newfoundland. But the
conclusion makes amends for all, and is so like your own real manner that I should have known
it for yours anywhere.”
Mr. Harness entirely sympathised with Miss Mitford in her warm feelings towards her friends, and indeed
towards mankind in general, but did not follow her in her devotion to animals. He was wont to say
that we should not bestow upon the lower creation what was rightly due to the higher; and for
this reason he objected to Byron’s epitaph on his dog,
saying that it was an unfair aspersion on mankind, and that we received from our friends fully as
much regard as our own conduct towards them deserved.
The success which attended Mr.
Harness’s edition of Shakespeare, and the knowledge he possessed of the beauties of our earlier literature,
induced Mr. Murray to propose that he should publish a
family edition of the works of the elder dramatists. The merits of these writings had been long
obscured, if not ignored, owing to the coarse expressions which occasionally disfigure their
pages, and which were due to the rude vocabulary of that unrefined age. The fault was not, as
Mr. Harness observes, properly attributable to the writers themselves,
who merely adopted the ordinary phraseology: “The old English dramatists, the friends and contemporaries of
Shakespeare, have contributed one of the most
valuable portions to the poetic literature of our country. But, abounding as they do in wit
and fancy, in force and copiousness of expression, in truth and variety of character, in rapid
change of incident, in striking and interesting situations, and above all in justice and
elevation of sentiment, their works are totally unknown to the generality of readers, and are
only found in the hands of the adventurous few who have deviated from the beaten paths of
study to explore for themselves less familiar and exhausted tracts of literary amusement. The
neglect of these authors, in an age so favourable to works of imagination as the present, can
only be ascribed to that occasional coarseness of language which intermixes with and pollutes
the breath of their most exquisite scenes. For what may be termed the licentiousness of the
stage, for immorality of principle, for that offence which was transplanted from France to
England with the Court of Charles the Second, our old
dramatists do not require the aid of any apologist. They are innocent of attempting to
confound the notion of right and wrong, or of seeking to influence the bad passions of our
nature against the first great principles of morals. These were the corruptions of a later and
more vicious age.”
Mr. Harness never completed the work which he commenced.
The duties of his large London parish now fully occupied his time; and although the remuneration
was some object to him, he finally relinquished the undertaking, after the publication of the
four first volumes of “Massinger’s
Plays.”
To the love of more serious study Mr.
Harness united an artist’s appreciation of the beauty of form and colour.
When he closed his heavy tomes of learned theology and left their subdued light, he opened the
more sunny pages of the Book of Nature and walked abroad by streams and mountain sides, with a
heart full of fresh and joyous impulses. No one enjoyed his short holiday ramble more thoroughly
than he; and whether he strolled along the banks of the legendary Loire, or through the intricate
windings of some antique Dutch town, or, nearer home, explored the mountain regions of Wales or
Cumberland, he always brought back some interesting sketches as remembrances of his summer
excursion.
On one occasion, during his earlier London duty, he returned with an unusually
rich collection from Holland, and in 1837 he composed a dramatic poem, the scenes of which were
laid in Antwerp. The story was one of love; a silken and slightly-woven tissue, little valued or
elaborated by its author. It contained, nevertheless,
some fine sentiments and graceful descriptions; as where, for instance, the happy old age of
Kessel, a rich burgher of Antwerp is thus pictured:
Steinhault. Whose eye more bright, whose spirit in
more gay. Whose step more firm, whose heart more warm, than Kessel’s? With you a green and vigorous old age Throws off the burden of its many years, Disdaining Time’s slight malice. Eighty winters, As shadows on some noble monument, Have fall’n and passed and done you no disservice! Kessel. Mark me, my friend, my course of life has
been Most highly favoured, a serene repose, Free from disturbing passions; a sweet calm Of kindness and prosperity and honour; A holiday voyage along a sunny stream; A summer’s day, of which the moonlight eve Wears the noon’s brightness, though the sun has set. In this tranquillity the lamp of being Burns with a steady and unvarying flame, And none observes how wastes the oil within. I—I alone—perceive the weakening force Of life’s high energies—I only feel The sense of my decline. Let all things rest Prosperous and bright around me as they are, And some years longer may old Kessel live To welcome at his board the friends he loves: But peace is now essential to existence; I have no strength for conflict. Should affliction Lay its hard hand upon me, I well know The spirit’s gone which might have struggled with it, And sorrow’s touch would be the stroke of death.
Some of the lines, interpreted by late events, seem almost prophetic:*
“Show me the city, howe’er rich and feared, Secure in men and arms, fenced up to heaven, And in her massive walls impregnable, Which holy wedlock holds in slight respect; And I, a sure interpreter of fate, Judging the future by the past, will tell “Where the foe lurks in subtle ambushment, That shall her deep foundations undermine, O’erclimb her lofty bulwarks, drain her wealth, Quench in enervating licentiousness The valour of her sons, to bondage lead them, And on the barren plain or sounding shore Leave her the ruined haunt of savage creatures!”
Further on the same subject is again touched upon:
“Of a fair tree the elder poets speak Which—while it stands entire—bears lovely blossoms, And fruit according; but, if haply thence A branch, a bud, a leaf be broken off, The whole plant withering dies: and even such— So beautiful of growth, so frail of being— Is marriage happiness. Its mutual trust In the faith of each to each, firm and entire, It is the sovereign gift of all the bounties Heaven hath awarded man. But once impair,
* Speaking of France, Mr. Harness
said that he did not enjoy Paris, as it seemed to be the city of the idle. “The
French,” he added, referring to their civil commotions—“don’t know
what they want, and will never be satisfied till they get it.”
E’en in the least degree, that confidence Which is its vital principle, and straight Earth’s fairest flower perishes away, Never to bloom again.”
Mr. Harness read this poem to Lady Dacre, an intimate friend, and one of the literary authorities of the day. He
probably preferred submitting it to a lady, as she would be a better judge in social matters.
Lady Dacre desired to have the MS. for her private perusal, and having
succeeded in deciphering the author’s enigmatical handwriting, sent him the following
critique on the work.
“The Hoo, Nov. 8, 1832. “Dear Mr. Harness,
“If I had not known you had another copy of ‘The Wife of Antwerp,’ I should have been in a great fidget
about keeping this so long. I always meant to send it to London by Mrs. Ellice, and her departure is fixed for next
Tuesday. At her house then (57, Park Street, Grosvenor Square) you will find it; and she
bids me say she will be delighted to see you, and that you must
call for it, and that she will not send it to you. I studied the
play and made myself mistress of the handwriting, and read it off like print to our
party, who were all exceedingly pleased and interested by it. Have you made any
alterations since you read it here? It is much too good to be laid aside in disgust, as you seem half
inclined to do. And yet I think you might improve it, in what I consider the mere
drudgery of the business. You have poetry, passion, situation, and strong interest; only
look to the dove-tailing, the accounting for things as they take
place. You are quite right in avoiding divided affections in a woman who is to interest
(her own sex at least), but any degree of timidity or female softness may be admissible
in a very young girl. * * *
“These are merely loose suggestions for your better judgment.
If they set you thinking your own thoughts (for they must be your own for you to express
them effectively), I have done all I wished. We have so many heroines with grand
characters and high sentiments, why not give interest to what is most weakly feminine? *
* * Now, think away, and if anything should occur that may improve the mere management
of the incidents of the play, don’t be idle. If you should be so kind as to write
to say you have received the MS., and forgive all my nonsense, pray say a word of
Mr. Kemble and others in the New World.
“Yours truly, “B. Dacre.
“Pray excuse this incoherent scrawl; I am in company, and
talking to several others as well as to you; and
never could bring myself to write a letter over again in my life.”
Mr. Harness had not sufficient confidence or ambition to
be induced to publish upon such uncertain commendation. He determined to commit the poem to the
flames, but, in the act of destruction, his hand was fortunately arrested by his old friend,
Mr. Dyce. This discriminating gentleman, familiarly
versed in the beauties of the elder poets, saw much to admire in this composition, and at his
request Mr. Harness had it printed for private circulation, and, as in duty
bound, dedicated it to its preserver. Its title was changed to that of “Welcome and Farewell;” and it was reviewed in the “Quarterly,” where long extracts from it were given. The article terminated with
the words:—
“Thus closes this very pleasing specimen—not indeed of the highest
kind of drama—it is not tragedy, which ‘in her gorgeous pall comes sweeping
by’—but of a simple and affecting household story thrown with great skill into a
dramatic form. And we cannot conclude without remarking that which ought hardly to be, but
unhappily, in the present state of our imaginative literature, is a distinctive excellence,
the pure and healthful moral tone which prevails throughout the poem. There is nothing of the cold and elaborate propriety of a writer wishing to create
a favourable impression of his own character, and seizing every opportunity of inculcating
trite and obvious truth; but the genuine and spontaneous impulse of a good and pure heart,
speaking in every sentiment, and tempering every expression.”
Miss Mitford in the following letter speaks of her
friend’s production with her characteristic enthusiasm:—
“Three Mile Cross, November 4th, 1839. “My dear Friend,
“Let me thank you most sincerely and heartily for the thrice
beautiful play. I have read it with
equal pride and pleasure—a triumphant pleasure in such an evidence of the sweet
and gentle power of my oldest and, I might almost say, my kindest friend. It breathes
the spirit of the old dramatists from first to last, especially of Heywood, whose ‘Woman killed with Kindness’ is forcibly
recalled; but by that sort of resemblance which springs from a congeniality of talent,
and makes one say, ‘Heywood might have written this, although
there is much more of the letter of poetry, more finished and beautiful passages, than
can be found in any single play of the ‘Prose
Shakespeare.’ I do not know when I have read a drama which
bore such evi-dence of the
author’s mind, so good, so pure, so indulgent, so gentlemanly. Lady Dacre told me that it was full of beauty; but I did
not expect so much poetry, and I feel sincerely grateful to Mr. Dyce (whom I always liked very heartily on his own account) for
rescuing this charming play from the flames. When I said that I had not for a long time
seen a drama so full of the author, I fibbed unconsciously, for it is into plays that
authors do put their very selves. The character of Kessel is very beautiful and original, and the high-minded Albert, and poor, poor Margaret, have made me cry more than I can tell. At all events, I rejoice
to have it printed. It fixes you in the same high position poetically that you have
always occupied socially and professionally. It is a thing for your friends to be proud
of, in every sense of the word. If the tableaux go on, I shall come to you for a
dramatic scene. Has that book been sent yet? You will be very much pleased with
Miss Barrett’sballad, in spite of a little want of clearness, and with
Mr. Proctor’s spirited poem. In short,
it is the only book bearing my name of which I was ever proud; but if we go on, I shall
be still prouder next year to have you added to my list of poets and friends. What a
thing it is, by mere self-postponement and sympathy in the claims of others, to have
hidden such a gift! It is just like what your sister does, who—cleverer and better than
half her acquaintances—always speaks of herself as nobody.
“God bless you! A thousand thanks for all your kindness.
“Ever most faithfully yours, “M. R. Mitford.”
On a later occasion, during an excursion in Wales in 1843, Mr. Harness composed a play, which on his return he printed and
dedicated to Lord Lansdowne. This poem, although in a
dramatic form, more resembles a Bucolic or Georgic, and is principally remarkable for the
picturesque country sketches with which it abounds. Mr.
Harness does not seem to claim for it any niche in the Temple of Thalia, when he
merely refers to it as “Scenes written last
Autumn during some solitary walks at the Lakes and in North Wales.” The dialogue
commences in a harvest field when the work of the sickle is being suspended, owing to a
contention between two young reapers—George and
Walter. The immediate cause of the dissension is that
George has been taunting Walter with his unknown parentage; but the true origin of the mischief is as
usual—a woman. George has known and been devoted to his
cousin Mary from childhood; and he thus touchingly records
their intimacy:—
“When first my father Purchased the farm hard by, she was an infant. And I a boy not more than ten years old; Yet then I loved her. When sent here, As oft I was, on errands from my home, ‘Twas my delight to see that, as I entered, She would spring forth and spread her little arms And laugh aloud, and try to come to me, Even from her mother’s lap. As she grew up, And ‘gan to walk alone, she’d take my hand, And stroll for hours about the fields arid lanes, Gathering the wild rose and the eglantine, As I bent down the branches to her reach. In all my boyhood’s light and stirring hours, There was no spot i’ th’ green, nor chase a-field— Though well I loved them—gave me half the joy I found in idling with that soft-eyed child. And when with feigned reluctance I forbore, She, with her pretty wiles and promised kisses, Would woo me still to be her playfellow. Then afterwards, in all her school-day troubles, To me she ran to hide her bursting tears; In all her school-day triumphs, first to me Would run to show the prize she had obtained; Nor did she wish for any living thing— Kitten, or bird, or squirrel from the wood, To cast her girlish care and fondness on, But Cousin George must seek it. And, till Walter Began to train his slight and delicate limbs To our field labours, and to haunt the farm With his soft voice and gently flowing speech, His rhymes of love, to suit old scraps of tunes, His tales of distant lauds and former times, Conn’d from the Vicar’s book, her kindness never Knew shadow of abatement or caprice.
But Walter, conscious of the untoward
circum-stances of his birth, has never
dared to confess his love, although Mary, who loves George only as a brother, evidently favours him. Changing the scene,
we have some rapid and telling repartee between Sir Charles
Tracy and p his wife, because he will not allow her to
frequent the gay Court of Charles the Second. Lady Ellinor exhibits all the predilections and prejudices of a lady
of fashion, and her worldly wisdom is a foil for Sir
Charles’s unambitious contentment. Sir
Charles remarks that the poor enjoy many blessings unknown to the rich, and in the
following passage we observe some of Mr. Harness’s own sentiments:—
Lady Ellinor. Does your philosophy contemplate,
then, In its next transformation, to reduce Our state to the condition you admire And test their happiness? Sir Charles. ‘Twere all in vain. The simple bliss enjoyed by simple people, Once forfeited, can never be reclaimed. Learning, refinement, arts, inducing wants Foreign to nature, opening a wider scope For objects vague, for wishes infinite, For aspirations after viewless things, Teach us to scorn the blessings at our feet, And long for some vast, undefined delights, Which, if existent, never can be reached. Knowledge, a doubtful acquisition, shedding Its light upon our souls, like Psyche’s lamp, Expels the good best suited to their nature, And yields no reparation for its loss.
Walter is really their son, who is supposed to be dead. The
discovery, and the meeting between him and Lady
Ellinor’s son is drawn with great power and delicacy. She disapproves his
engagement to Mary, a yeoman’s daughter, and wishes him
to become the head of an abbey in France. He replies that his faith precludes him from such
fulfilment.
Lady Ellinor. Deem you, then, The church your glorious forefathers all died in, And millions of your fellow-Christians live, Is, as the shallow Puritan asserts, A second Babylon—an Antichrist? So young, a bigot! Walter. I am not ignorant She still maintains the faith, but so obscured By the accumulated superstitions gathered In the dark lapse of former centuries, That truth lies hid beneath the crust of error, Like a fair statue negligently kept, Till overgrowing moss and envious lichens Mar and conceal its beauty. I have never Reproached her with hard epithets; but must Avoid all falsehood, and adhere to Truth!
Further on, in the high sentiments expressed by Sir
Charles, we trace the author’s free and natural turn of mind; and in the
commendation of a retired country life we are reminded of his predilections:
Sir Charles. Oh, Ellinor, there’s a nobility— Decked with no orders, by no titles marked— Which far, in its essential excellence, Transcends the paltry dignity conferred By th’ herald’s blazoned scroll and doubtful lore. Lady Ellinor. And resides where? Sir Charles. Among our neighbours round. Lady Ellinor. Indeed! so near at hand! Sir Charles. For centuries The families of these our villagers, The honest son the honest sire succeeding, In the same lowly tenements have dwelt, And spent their lives in tilling the same fields. Lady Ellinor. A novel patent of nobility! Sir Charles. Age after age their line has been
prolonged From times beyond the date of history. Lady Ellinor. A dull and spiritless herd unknown
to fame, Because they lacked the virtues that aspire! Sir Charles. Rather, unknown to fame because their
souls, By vice unstained, from selfish passion free, In humble occupations found content And in the home-affections placed their joys! I hold that honour honourably won, * * * * Titles and coronets, renown and station, Afford the purest stimulants to action, Which men, untouched by heavenward desires. Can raise their hopes or bend their efforts to. Bat glittering orders and proud appellations Are but as stigmas when the unworthy wear them; And to degenerate from a father’s greatness, To soil the badge of honour with foul acts, To shame by vice the rank by virtue won, To have the state which speaks a gentleman, Yet want the generous, humble, kindly spirit Imported in the name—stamps a reproach On the base scion of a noble stock, Which sinks him so much lower than the people, As were the heights above them whence he fell!
The engagement between Walter and Mary, though much against Lady
Ellinor’s wishes, is finally agreed to, and Sir
Charles assigns the young couple a residence at “Aber by the sea,” hard
by
the Menai’s sparkling straits, Where, with its satellite isle, fair Anglesea Rests on a plain of waters, which beyond Blend with the distant sky; while to the east, Huge Penmaenmawr, and mountains further still, That girdle in old Conway’s quiet bay, Bask in the full light of the setting sun; And Bangor’s hallowed towers and solemn woods Rise in deep shade toward the glowing West.
There is a healthy tone in this poem; free and wide as are the views it
advocates, it never tends to unsettle the mind, but teaches a wholesome lesson of contentment and
moderation.
During the holiday excursion to the Lakes of Cumberland, in which the above
“scenes” were written, Mr. Harness visited Southey and Wordsworth, with whom he had
become previously acquainted. Southey he described to me as a man of middle
height, with keen eyes and a large nose. His library presented a strange appearance, being full
of books which his daughter had bound in stamped cotton and inscribed with their names in marking
ink. “He lived too much alone,” Mr. Harness
observed, “but in his state of softening of the brain was unfit to marry.”
Wordsworth lived nearer Ambleside. Mr. Harness liked
his old-fashioned residence. It had been a farm-house, added to, and in the dining-room the
kitchen-range and oven remained.
One of the undertakings of Mr.
Harness’s later years was the preparation, for private circulation, of the
Memorials of Miss Catherine Fanshawe.
This lady had been one of his most intimate friends, and had even proposed to make him her heir,
but he refused the offer, averring that he could not endure the thought that he should in any way
benefit by her death. He was often wont to say that he could not understand the desire which some
persons evinced to obtain legacies; for, as he well observed, it was impossible to receive one
without incurring the loss of a friend more valuable than any money thus acquired. Miss Fanshawe accordingly only made him the bequest of her
etchings and manuscripts, which he gladly accepted. From these Mr. Harness
compiled a small volume of “Memorials,” to rescue her
memory from the oblivion which threatened it. Those who have only heard of her in connection with
the riddle on the letter H, have little idea of the range of her
endowments or the elegance of her taste. Mr. Harness speaks with affectionate remembrance of
“her varied accomplishments, her acute perception of the beautiful, her playful
fancy, her charming conversation, her gentle and retiring manners, her lively sympathy with
the sorrows and the joys of others, and, above all, her simple piety;” and he
observes that she was a cherished member of that society, not very extended, but intimately
united by a common love of literature, art, and science, which existed in London at the close of
the last and the opening of the present centuries, and which, perhaps, “taken for all in
all, has never been surpassed.”
Miss Fanshawe’s poems and sketches evince a
considerable appreciation of humour. One of the latter, representing an evening party some eighty
years since, with two politicians gesticulating before the fire-place, surrounded by a languid
knot of fops and dandies, while the ladies are left to themselves, dosing and yawning behind
their fans at the other end of the room, might, but for the quaintness of costume, remind us of
many similar festivities at the present day. But Miss Fanshawe’s great
success lay in her delineation of children, of whose varying moods and expressions of countenance
she seems to have possessed an admirable perception. Many charming groups of them are here
photographed from her sketches.
The celebrated riddle by which
Miss Fanshawe is best known arose, Mr. Harness said, from an accidental conversation at the Deep
Dene. Mr. Hope was at the time entertaining with his usual
liberality a number of eminent and literary friends, and in the course of the evening some
remarks turned the conversation upon the letter H, and the unworthy treatment it received in the
centre of metropolitan civilization. The party retired soon afterwards, but the subject of
discussion had touched Miss Fanshawe’s ingenious fancy, and while
others slept her mind was busily employed. Next morning at breakfast she brought down the poem
and read it to the delighted and astonished guests:—
“’Twas whispered* in heaven, ’twas muttered in hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell; On the confines of earth ‘twas permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed. ’Twill be found in the sphere when ’tis riven asunder, Be seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder. ’Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath, Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death; Presides o’er his happiness, honour and health; Is the prop of his house and the end of his wealth. In the heaps of the miser ’tis hoarded with care, But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir. It begins every hope, every wish it must bound, With the husbandman toils, with the monarch in crowned.
* Mr. Harness said that the
original commenced: “Twas in Heaven pronounced.”
Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam, But woe to the wretch that expels it from home! In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found, Nor e’en in the whirlpool of passion be drowned. ’Twill not soften the heart; but, though deaf be the ear, It will make it acutely and instantly hear. Yet in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower; Ah! breathe on it softly—it dies in an hour.”
These lines thus first introduced were soon well-known and admired throughout the
country, and from their style and curious felicity were attributed to Byron, the popular poet of the age. They afterwards crept into some foreign
editions of his works, and are even at the present day often ascribed to him.
One of the odes in this volume records the lecture delivered by Sydney Smith on “The
Sublime,” and the gay dresses and toilettes of his fair audience. There is much wit
and elegance in the poem, which is after the
manner of Gray; but it was only suggested by Miss Fanshawe, and written by Miss
Berry. (Mr. Harness often met this lady in
society; she received the sobriquet of Blackberry from her dark eyes, and to distinguish her from
her sister, who received the uncomplimentary title of Goose-berry).
The following specimen of Miss Fanshawe’s humorous talent was much admired
by one of the late Prime Ministers:
SPEECH OF THE MEMBER FOR OLDHAM. Mr. Cobbett asked leave to bring in very soon A Bill to abolish the sun and the moon. The Honourable Member proceeded to state Some arguments used in a former debate. The heavenly bodies, like those upon earth, Had, he said, been corrupt from the day of their birth; With reckless profusion expending the light. One after another, by day and by night. And what classes enjoyed it? The upper alone, Upon such they had always exclusively shone: But when had they ever emitted a spark For the people who toil underground, in the dark— The people of England, the minors and borers, Of earth’s hidden treasures the skilful explorers? But their minds were enlightening; they learn every hour That discussion is knowledge, and knowledge is power. Long humbled and crushed, like a giant they rise, And sweep off the cobwebs that darken the skies; To sunshine and moonshine their duties assign, And claim equal rights for the mountain and mine. Turn to other departments. High time to inquire What abuses exist in air, water, and fire. Why keep up volcanoes? that idle display! That pageant was all very well in its day; But the reign of utility now has commenced, And wisdom with such exhibitions dispensed. When so many were starving with cold, it was cruel To make such a waste of good fire and fuel. As for Nature, how little experience had taught her Appeared in the administration of water. Was so noble a capital duly employed? Or was it by few (if by any) enjoyed? Poured on marshes and fens which were better without, While pasture and arable perished for drought; When flagrant injustice so often occurs Abler hands must be wanted and younger than hers; Not to speak of old Ocean’s insatiable needs, Or of seas so ill-ploughed they bear nothing but weeds. At some future day he perhaps should be able To lay the details of their cost on the table. At present, no longer the House to detain, He’d confine his remarks to the subject of rain. Was it wanted? A more economical plan, More equably working, more useful to man, In this age of improvement might surely be found, By which all would be sprinkled, and none would be drowned. He would boldly appeal to the nation’s good sense, Not to sanction this useless, enormous expense. If the wind did but shift, if a cloud did but lower, What millions of rain-drops were spent in a shower? Let them burst through the shackles of wind and of weather, Do away with the office of rain altogether; Let the whole be remodelled on principles new, And consolidate half the old funds into dew. * * * * He hoped that the House a few minutes would spare While he offered some brief observations on air. Not the sun nor the moon, nor earth, water, or fire, Nor Tories themselves when with Whigs they conspire, Were half so unjust, so despotic, so blind, So deaf to the cries and the claims of mankind, As air and his wicked prime minister, wind. Goes forth the despoiler, consuming the rations Designed for the lungs of unborn generations! What a waste of the elements made in a storm! And all this comes on in the teeth of Reform! Hail, lightning, and thunder, in volleys and peals! The tropics are trembling, the universe reels; Come whirlwind and hurricane, tempest, tornadoes, Woe! woe! to Antigua, Jamaica, Barbadoes! Plantations uprooted, and sugar dissolved; Rum, coffee, and spice in ruin involved; And while the Caribbees were ruined and rifled, Not a breeze reached Guiana, and England was stifled! Rate all that exists at its practical worth— ‘Twas a system of humbug from heaven to earth! These abuses must cease—they had lasted too long; Was there anything right? Was not everything wrong? The crown was too costly, the Church was a curse; Old Parliaments bad, Beformed Parliaments worse; All revenues ill-managed, all wants ill-provided; Equality, liberty, justice derided! But the people of England no more would endure Any remedy short of a Radical cure. Instructed, united, a nation of Sages Would look with contempt on the wisdom of ages; Provide for the world a more just legislature, And impose an agrarian law upon Nature.
In speaking of Cobbett’s private
life, Mr. Harness observed that he was somewhat tyrannical
in his own house, and not, as Sir H. Bulwer states,
“under petticoat government.”
CHAPTER V. PARISH DUTIES.—SUCCESS IN THE PULPIT.—STYLE AND
DELIVERY.—ATTACHMENT TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.—CAUSES OF RITUALISM. UNIMPORTANT
DISTINCTIONS.—DUTIES OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.—OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS.—SKETCH
OF OLD ENGLISH PATRIARCHAL LIFE—PSALMODY.
The most conspicuous period in Mr.
Harness’s career commenced on his removal to London. He was at this time
private chaplain to the Dowager Countess Delaware, and became
successively morning Preacher at Trinity Chapel, Conduit Street, and Minister and Evening
Lecturer at St. Ann’s, Soho; appointments which proved how much his talent as a preacher
was esteemed. A note casually jotted down on the back of one of his sermon cases, in
commiseration of some country visitors, bears incidental testimony that even at this early stage
he commanded the confidence of the most eminent clergymen in the
metropolis:—“Sept. 7, 1823: I preached to-day at St. George’s, St.
Pancras, and the Magdalen, and was heard at each place by the same party from the country, who
went to St. George’s to hear the Dean of
Carlisle, to St. Pancras to hear Moore, and to the Magdalen to hear Pitman! Poor creatures! they were ignorant that the great
preachers are away in September!” In 1825, Mr. Harness was
appointed Minister of Regent Square Chapel, St. Pancras, an important and arduous post, which he
occupied for twenty years. His success in the pulpit was the principal cause of his being
selected for it; and during his time the chapel was densely crowded, not only by parishioners,
but by members of other congregations. A large increase took place in the pew-rents, but
unfortunately he did not profit by it, for his stipend was limited to £400 a year, the
surplus being appropriated to the support of other places of worship. He was obliged, out of that
sum, to provide two curates, and to contribute to the charitable relief of a population of 20,000
souls; so that, taken on the whole, he found his clerical remuneration less than when ho was only
a curate on £60 a year.
Mr. Harness was, from this time, enrolled among the most
able and popular preachers of the day. He had continually invitations to preach at neighbouring
churches, and young clergymen attended to take notes of his sermons, many of which were
afterwards printed at the express desire of the congregation.*
* In a letter to Mr. Harness, dated
1832, I find the following request, somewhat characteristic of the times:—“A
friend of mine in a distant part of the country has been appointed by the bishop of his
His teaching was characterized by learning and moderation. “Our
Religion,” he often observed, “is the Religion of common sense;” and he
never was intentionally sensational, or attempted anything approaching to declamation. But he had
a constant advantage in a soft, expressive voice and correct ear. At the commencement of a
discourse he was occasionally somewhat too rapid in his delivery, owing to his being a victim to
that nervousness from which so many eloquent men have suffered; and he was wont to say that at
any time throughout his whole career he felt, on entering the pulpit, as though he might have
been “stricken down by a feather.” But as he proceeded he became deliberate and
powerful, and his consistent life and conversation gave weight to the nobleness of his
sentiments. There was something in his manner which showed that he felt and practised what he
taught—an excellence without which no preaching can be effectual. Sometimes, when speaking
of the pain inflicted on sensitive natures by broken faith or false calumny, he was unable to
diocese to preach before the judges at the approaching assizes. He is apprehensive of
not doing justice to the occasion, and desires me to endeavour to procure him the
assistance of some gentleman of known ability. The advantageous terms in which I have
heard my friend Miss Aikin speak of you has
induced me to take the liberty of asking whether you would be disposed to give my friend
the assistance of your pen.”
restrain himself, and betrayed visible emotion. In those days
the impulses of the heart appear to have been stronger or under less control than they are at
present, and it not unfrequently occurred that the congregation were so deeply affected that they
openly gave way to their feelings. Miss Mitford mentions
an occasion on which Mrs. Siddons was moved to tears
during one of Mr. Harness’s discourses.
The views he entertained with regard to doctrine were characterized by a just
veneration for the past. He had a high esteem for the piety and learning of the primitive
fathers, diligently studied their commentaries, and frequently enriched his discourses with
extracts from their writings. Speaking of these men, and of the reverence due to the great creeds
of which they were the authors or first expositors, “I differ,” he observes,
“from the Romanists; and why? Because they have added no less than thirteen articles
to the creed which from the time of the apostles to the Council of Trent (a space of no less
than fifteen hundred years) was the faith of the Church. I also differ from the Dissenters;
and why? Because, with the exception of the first article, which declares the existence of
‘God the Father Almighty,’ there is no article of the Creed which is not impugned
by some of them. Those persons,” he continues, “do appear to me to exhibit a most
insane ambition, a most capricious love of
licence, a most child-like impatience of intellectual guidance, who would wilfully put aside
that traditional teaching of the Church which instructs them in what sense the Holy Scriptures
were read and understood by the immediate disciples of the apostles, and by the early bishops,
for the sake of obtaining the dangerous privilege of wandering abroad, without a guide, in the
immeasurable field of theological speculation, and putting themselves in possession of the
liberty of judging wrong. I thank God that His merciful and ever-careful Providence has not
entrusted the weak and fallible powers of my understanding with so perilous an
enfranchisement.”
And again:—“As I stand within the venerable shade of some old
abbey—of Netley or of Kirkstall, of Fountains or of Tintern—and as I mark the
devastation which has befallen it, I lament the ruin of so much beauty and magnificence. I
feel as indignant as any can at the impiety of the barbarous and sacrilegious men by whose
command, or by whose hands, a temple so worthy the service of the Almighty has been despoiled
and desecrated. But the moral which such scenes suggest to me is very different from that
which the Romanist and men of his inclining would impress upon our minds. I see in them the
traces of the Divine judgment on the offending church of our ancestors; and I derive from them most pregnant admonitions for the
church of our own age. God’s word assures me that so extensive a destruction would never
have been permitted to waste the houses of God throughout the land, if in them His name had
been honoured with a pure and simple worship, as in the days of old, and if they had never
been perverted to idolatrous and superstitious uses. ‘The wicked are the sword of the
Lord;’ and that sword would never have been allowed to cut so deeply, or to range so
widely, if it had not been called into action by the iniquities of the Church.”
Whilst Mr. Harness strongly denounced and
reprobated the conduct of those churches which had fallen away from the early Apostolic faith, he
bore noble testimony to the purity of the Church of England, of which he was always a staunch and
consistent supporter. He speaks as follows of the age of the Reformation, and of the great men by
whom the foundations of our church were laid:
“In acquiring the knowledge necessary for the accomplishment of this wise
and holy scheme of Reformation, Cranmer and his friends
applied for instruction to every quarter from which instruction might be gained. They not only
carefully weighed every intimation of the New Testament, but they consulted the writings of
the Early Fathers. They not only looked for information to the Epistles of the Apostles, but they inquired into the primitive
constitution of the churches to which those epistles were addressed. In thus acting, they
pursued the course which Melancthon had most earnestly
advocated.” * * * “Our church became what it is in the very brightest era of the
English intellect. At a time when strong, energetic, manly good sense was the characteristic
of the English people; when the sound mind delighted to entertain the thought of vast and
arduous enterprises, and the sound body felt itself capable of achieving them; when Bacon, by the vigour of his understanding, set philosophy free
from the region of misty speculations within which she had been for centuries confined, and
brought her into contact with realities; when Shakespeare invested the maxims of a moral wisdom which can never perish with
the beauties of a poetry which can never be surpassed; when our island was fruitful of such
men and her people were capable of appreciating their worth, our National Church received her
present form and government, her liturgy, her offices, her homilies, and her articles; and
every document which interprets her mind bears the stamp of the masculine intellect of the
period during which her restoration was gradually perfected. The peculiar characteristic of
the Church of England is derived from that sound common sense which characterized the age of
her spiritual revival, and by which all
her great authorities are distinguished.
In a letter to Mr. Culling, a Dissenter, he thus combats
certain objections made to the endowments of the Church of England:
“Kensington Gore, Dec. 1st, 1848. “My dear Sir,
“What a strange thing human nature is! and how very strange that
two persons who, I sincerely believe, both look for the truth of things, and nothing
else, should come to such opposite conclusions as you and I! Why should not the Bishops
have carriages and horses, as well as any Christian gentleman of the same income? And
why should deep learning, like that of the Bishop of Lincoln, or Lichfield, or
Peterborough, or Ely, or of the late and present Archbishops of Canterbury, be denied a
rate of income in the Church which it would have commanded at the Bar or in Medicine? I
cannot see any reason. And I can see many strong reasons why it should be so rewarded,
particularly the reason of old Bishop Jewel,
which is (I forget the exact words), ‘that men who dedicate themselves to the
Ministry don’t require such inducements, but they are wanting to induce parents to
educate their sons for the Ministry.’ Christianity has nothing to do, according to
my views of the Gospel, with the
possession of the riches and distinctions of life; but it has to do with the humility,
the self-denial, and the grateful temper with which they are held; and I must say that,
in my somewhat extended range of intercourse with society, I have oftener met those
dispositions among the few residents of palaces, whom it has been
my good fortune to be acquainted with, than among the many whom I
have daily intercourse with in my own and humbler walks of life. I must think that every
class of society, from the highest to the lowest, ought to have the Ministers of the
Gospel circulating in habits of intimacy among them; and those of the highest class must
be possessed of incomes suitable to the station of the persons whom they have to live
among, or they would (till the world is very different in its moral condition from what
it is) very soon find themselves excluded from the sphere of their usefulness, in which
they are so useful. Voluntary poverty was one of the inventions of Popery, adopted from
the Jewish sect of the Essenes; but it never was a part of the Christian religion.
Neither is the example of our Blessed Lord to be servilely copied in its actions, but in
its principles. In submission to the Divine Will, He did His duty in going about the
Holy Land for three years, out of thirty-three, ‘doing good;’ and it is the duty of every ordinary
Christian who would evince an
equal submission to the Divine Will, to copy those retired and laborious thirty years of
his Saviour’s life which were spent in the home of His parents in Nazareth. A
Bishop in his palace, if a Christian, shows us how a Christian nobleman ought to live;
as a rector or a curate, if God’s grace be with him, may set an example for
humbler disciples of our Lord to follow.
“As to the sale of livings; those only are sold which are private property, and generally the private property of laymen.
And whatever notional objections may lie against the practice, I can see none in theory
or in expediency; but just the reverse. If a young man, who has spent several thousands
of pounds on his education, purchases a living of £180 a year (like that mentioned,
in your advertisement), from which he will not derive perhaps above £8 per cent per
annum on the purchase money, it is a guarantee that he has an independent income, and
that a gentleman is going to reside in, and take the duty of, a remote agricultural
parish, who will be employing, and spending money among the population, as well as
attending to their spiritual instruction. As a dissenter, you have no notion of the
immense amount of private property which is thus brought into the Church and scattered
over the country by persons who love their profession and are careless of its
emoluments. I had, the day before
yesterday, a gentleman with me who relinquished a practice at the Bar which was
producing him between £1,500 and £2,000 a year, to take orders, and go to live on a small cure of £30 a
year which he had possessed himself of in Oxfordshire. I don’t like
speaking of myself; but, this year, I have disbursed on the schools, the clothing fund,
and the sick poor of our district (I confine my relief entirely to the sick) more than
three times the amount of my stipend as Minister of the District, which (including
Easter offerings) is about £40. All that my experience and reading teach me of the
Church and its Ministers is that there is no form of Christianity so pure and apostolic
in its doctrines and discipline; and that, in spite of some weak and some wicked members
of the flock, I know no such learned, accomplished, and self-denying men out of the
Ministry as I am acquainted with in it. And, remember, they make no fuss about it!
“I am ashamed to have bored you with this long letter; but, as
the French philosopher says, ‘I have not time to write a short one;’ and I
did not like you to remain unanswered.
“We shall, clearly, never agree on these Church matters; but
there is one matter on which we are perfectly agreed: Mrs.
Barbauld’s prose is, I think, much better than her poetry. But she
lived in a good age of prose writers, and at the end of a good, but not the best, sort of verse writers; and while in the
latter, as a clever artist, she was not inferior to many, in the former she was superior
to most of her contemporaries.
“Believe me to be, my dear Sir, “Yours very faithfully, “W. Harness.”
The views which Mr. Harness entertained on
Church subjects were essentially moderate and unassuming. Many passages in his sermons showed
that he had no sympathy with Ritualism, or that “morbid delicacy of sense which requires
that the sight may rest on graceful forms and emblazoned ornament and an ever-changing
picture.” “Nothing histrionic,” he observes, “can be consistent
with the spirit of our services.” But he nevertheless desired to assuage the
bitterness of party spirit, was willing to grant a certain latitude to those with whom he
differed, and considered that the unhappy contests in our Church were generally about unimportant
or obscure matters. He longed to see unity among Christians, and exhorted to forbearance and
brotherly love.
“If there be any to whom the magnificence of architecture and the charms
of music afford valuable assistance to devotion, is it fair that we whose imaginations are
pleased by a more simple worship, should
interfere with those whose imaginations are differently affected, so long as the same
liturgical services are retained, and no ceremonies are admitted which might afford an opening
for the insidious introduction of false doctrine? If a man change his habitual attendance at
some well-regulated cathedral service for the service of a small village church, where the
prayers are only moderately well read, the sermon is not unsuited to the place, and no other
music is heard than the psalmody of the rustic congregation, he will find his devotional
feeling unusually elevated, and will conceive that such an humble and simple worship is most
in harmony with the humble and simple character of the Gospel. But, on the other hand, if a
man who has been all his life accustomed to that village service be introduced to the
solemnities of a cathedral, a similar vividness of the devotional sentiment will be awakened
by the novelty, and he will confess that the Creator, in such a noble worship, is honoured as
He ought to be by His creatures. Both are good; both are salutary.”
“How really trivial are the questions about which differences are raised!
With what astonishment and pity do you read of the disputes which agitated the controversial
leaders of early times; the unintelligible subtilties of their theology; their presumptuous
attempt to subject the essence of the
Godhead to the analysis of human metaphysics! Reviewing such discussions, calmly and from a
distance, we comprehend how useless and how vain they were. But they appear as the emanations
of wisdom itself in comparison with those of our own days. Their arguments (however
presumptuously entered on or mystically treated) were almost always connected with the most
important article of Revelation—the Divinity of the Messiah’s nature. But what are
the miserable grounds on which we (in an age of great religious light, and in opposition to
our Lord’s command) are idle enough to quarrel? Why, we cannot agree whether the same
prayers shall be read or intoned; whether the sermon shall be delivered in the clerical or the
academic dress; whether the Minister shall stand in front or at the side of the Lord’s
table! And for matters so frivolous as these (which have no reference to piety—which
concern the antiquary rather than the Christian) we do not scruple to range ourselves on one
side or the other, with all the bitter animosities of the partisan.”
Mr. Harness was in every sense a minister of peace.
Exhortations to mutual forbearance and consideration-formed a leading characteristic in his
teaching. He inculcated this duty not only with reference to political and religious questions,
but also to those smaller and apparently unimportant
matters which occur in ordinary every-day life. In this exhortation he had more immediately in
view the prevention of family dissensions. He said that he ceased to be astonished at the
disruption of domestic ties, when he considered the rude and overbearing manner which relations
too often assumed towards each other—a manner which no stranger would for a moment
tolerate.
He frequently warned parents of their responsibility with regard to the education
of their children, and of the influence which example and precept exercise upon the young.
“You may in words,” he observed, “teach your children that they ought to
believe and obey the Gospel; but unless you yourselves practice what you teach, the lesson is
in vain. You sow the good seed with one hand, and the seed of tares with the other. But the
weed is cast more strongly, and received on a more congenial soil, and it strikes root and
grows up and thrives and fructifies, while the good seed only rests upon the surface and dries
up and perishes away.” In continuing the subject, he observes that a child is
instructed by its parent, that Heaven is the only object worthy of pursuit, and that he should
exert all his energies to attain it; but how is this excellent truth enforced upon the young?
“Does the parent, as the child grows up, direct him to follow the example of pious
and self-sacrificing men? Does he enlarge upon the
wisdom of those who, regardless of all earthly interests, have pressed on, like Christian,
possessed of but one idea, ‘Life—Life—Eternal Life?’ No! Is not the
hero he sets before his son the ‘successful’ man of the world, who, without any
reference to a future state, has striven most successfully in this; who has pushed all his
little advantages to the utmost; who has toiled and toiled, and spared and spared, until he
has at length outstripped his competitors in the race for this world’s honours and
emoluments? By teaching the great principles of religious truth to your child, and not living
in correspondence with the principles you inculcate, you do a far worse thing than teach those
principles in vain; you altogether destroy the influence of religious impressions upon the
heart of your child. While you speak to him of the rewards of an everlasting life, you induce
him by your conduct to suppose that those rewards are matters of very insignificant
consideration.”
And not only did he inculcate mutual confidence and consideration upon those who
were members of the same family, but also upon all who lived under the same roof. “He
who has known the worth of an honest and abiding servant, knows that no price can be adequate
to that servant’s value, and that there is more of grateful affection mingled with the
esteem which is borne towards that humble
member of his family than is commonly extended towards any being in whose veins the blood of
kindred does not flow. But that amicable bond is the effect of confidence, and the slightest
act of fraud, or falsehood, or duplicity will sever it at once and for ever. Confidence is of
slow growth, but rapid in decay. Like a bird of timid nature, if once disturbed, she will
abandon the nest, and return to it no more. Like that tree of which the poet speaks, if only a
leaf be broken off, the whole plant will wither away. And from the moment that confidence is
lost, the feelings of mutual kindness which should subsist between those who rule and those
who serve in the same house, are exchanged for suspicion of wrong on the one hand, and the
fear of detection on the other.”
Mr. Harness had a great affection for tried and faithful
servants; so much so that he erected a stained glass window in his church to the memory of his
aged nurse. He loved to recall the times when servants and masters lived together as members of
the same family, with mutual respect and common interests; and in a passage in which he deplores
the change which has now taken place, he sketches a pleasing picture of their former confidential
relations:—“Worldly circumstances used not to sever classes. A little more than
fifty years ago, when Crabbe the poet resided for some time in the house of
Mr. Tovell, a gentleman of considerable landed
property in Suffolk, he found the drawing- and dining-rooms only opened on state occasions,
and the family generally living with the domestics in the old-fashioned kitchen; where, while
the master of the house read his book or his newspaper by the capacious fire-side, the lady
sat at a little round table superintending the work, and working with the maids. In this
manner kindly feelings were naturally produced; civilization was diffused by intercourse; and
the science of house management acquired by the servant at the hall was carried with her on
her marriage to make the comfort of her husband’s cottage. In houses of a higher rank,
there were always some domestics who had lived long enough in the family to be considered as a
part of it; who held a confidential place in the regard of the lord or lady; and who formed a
connecting link between them and the menials—every one of whom, perhaps, was born on the
estate; while a knowledge of the merits or demerits, the weal or woe, of all was maintained by
the superintendence of that most important but now obsolete member of every large
establishment, the chaplain. This tie of friendly care on the one hand, and of attached
dependence on the other, has been gradually loosened. Instead of it, there has grown up,
be-tween master and servant, a cold,
unsympathising, incommunicable distance—an obstinate, impenetrable reserve—which
exists in no other country, which every really Christian heart feels it painful to keep up,
and which no one of ordinary good-nature could think of maintaining towards a dog or a cat
that he happened to come as frequently in contact with. By such a state of things both parties
are losers; the master and the mistress, perhaps, the most. It may be taken as a rule without
exception that the members of a family cannot live long in a state of indifference towards
each other. If they are not united by feelings of regard, they will be severed by feelings of
enmity. If the master takes no care to attach his domestics by words and acts of kindness,
they very soon begin to look upon him with an evil eye, to lose all concern for his interests;
and if they abstain from defrauding him themselves, they rejoice in the success of the cheat
by which he is defrauded. It is only latterly that all the links of good feeling between the
higher and lower members of the same household have been broken asunder. They used to be bound
together by a joint interest in the younger branches of the family. Some years ago, there
still remained the old footman, or the grey-headed groom, or the trusty nursemaid to whom the
children could be safely given in charge—who loved the children, and were loved by them in turn. But now, these are exploded. What
is wanted is the restoration of an humbler, kindlier, freer manner of intercourse between
manufacturers and their men, farmers and their labourers, masters of families and their
domestic servants. I hardly know a more disgusting piece of hypocrisy than that which I see at
the present day so constantly exhibited, when some arrogant woman of fashion, who treats her
country neighbour with supercilious incivility, her less exclusive relatives with the coldest
indifference, and her domestics with a most withering stiffness, passes by all the legitimate
objects of her kindness, and goes out of her way to lavish her factitious sympathy and
capricious interest on the unknown inmates of some garret or cellar of a London
alley.”
In another passage, he deprecates the tendency of the present day to estimate
intellectual abilities above private virtues:—“Every age has its peculiar species
of idolatry, and intellect is the idol of our own. Discoveries in science, success in art,
reputation in literature, power as a public speaker, are the first objects of popular
admiration. To attain some such triumph is the great aim of our ambition. And if a man be thus
intellectually distinguished, that is quite sufficient. The actions of his life (unless
flagrantly scandalous), or the qualities of his character (unless socially offensive), are allowed to pass as venial, or become
altogether lost sight of in the glory of his intellectual celebrity. Now, that exaggerated
value of talent would be reasonable enough if the whole world were an exhibition room—if
our life were a show—and if we drew our chief happiness from the applause of popular
assemblies. But as such is not the case, as the feats of science and the dexterities of art do
little more than amuse us for the moment, and as the general well-being of existence never can
depend on the cheers of a multitude, but on the character of the few with whom we have
intercourse from hour to hour in our daily business and concerns, it appears self-evident that
the sterling moral virtues (which promote our permanent happiness), and not the showy
intellectual accomplishments (which merely serve for our occasional entertainment), are the
qualities which deserve to be held dearest in the estimation of mankind.”
In ordering the performance of Divine Service, it was Mr. Harness’s care that it should be conducted with simplicity and
decorum—in the “old way” to which he had been accustomed when young. Several
persons endeavoured, on various occasions, to introduce into his church emblematic devices and a
more effective ritual; but he systematically resisted such attempts. Novelties in religion were,
in his opinion, self-condemned. In one respect he carried out this opinion to a point where it seemed to partake of prejudice: he
would allow no hymns to be sung in his church, nor any psalms but those of David. He expresses
his views on this subject in a passage in which he thus beautifully alludes to the composer of
these songs of Zion:—
“David is introduced to us as a shepherd lad having
charge over the few sheep of his father. His only occupation during the long solitary day was
to keep his flock together, to prevent their wandering, and to defend them against harm. This
light employ, though not devoid of its cares and dangers, abounds in leisure. He devotes his
companionless and unoccupied hours to familiarizing his hand with the rude harp of his
country; and so perfect a mastery does he attain over it, that when music is required to
soothe the passion-troubled mind of his sovereign, none other can be found whose skill is to
be compared with that of David, the shepherd lad from the mountains of Bethlehem. And to what
themes does he make the melodies of that harp subservient! Its notes are tuned, its strings
are touched, to the highest of all arguments—the praises of Jehovah. As he passes his
lonely hours with his flock; as he leads them to their pasture grounds at morning and at
evening; as he reposes with them in the shade during the sultry hours of mid-day; as he keeps
watch over them by night beneath the starry canopy
of Heaven, his soul, awakened to a pious sense of gratitude by the beauty and the grandeur of
the scenes around him, finds expression for the ardour of its emotions in hymns of adoration
and thanksgiving to the Creator. From that age to our own the hymns of that shepherd youth
have been accepted among the Psalms of the Church. They have, for well nigh three thousand
years, been reverenced as supplying the most appropriate terms in which the children of God,
from generation to generation, could pour forth their offerings of gratitude and praise before
the throne of their Heavenly Father. As hymns, reflecting the various changes of religious
feeling, they have never been equalled. Even in our metrical translation (hurried and careless
as it is) every man of educated taste will feel how immeasurably superior the Psalms of David
are to all those devotional compositions of modern times, which, with their trifling conceits,
their sentimental prettinesses, their affected unction, and their insidious heresy, have, in
so many congregations, been allowed to supersede them.”
Some minor reasons for his objection to the introduction of other psalms
were—that it rendered the Prayer Book insufficient for the service, and that it
necessitated the selection of one of those Hymn Books, none of which he considered alto- gether satisfactory. One of his
churchwardens, who was aware of his peculiar views, asked him one day, twittingly, whether he
would not adopt “Hymns Ancient and Modern?” “I would as soon read
‘Paradise Lost’ for the
first lesson,” was his terse reply.
Nevertheless, on some Church questions Mr.
Harness was in advance of his age—especially with regard to the revision of
the Bible. Writing in the Edinburgh
Review he notices
“the mischief that has ben inflicted on the sense of the inspired writings by the mode of
breaking them up into chapter and verse;” and, speaking further of the translation, he
observes that the phrase of the Hebrew language is retained to a most confusing extent. He cites
such instances as the following, “the covenant of salt,” meaning “a friendly
contract.” “They are crushed in the gate,” for “they are found guilty in
a Court of Justice.” “The colour of the lips,” for “praises and
thanksgivings,” “I have given you cleanness of teeth,” meaning “extreme
scarcity.” “Such are,” he observes, the sort of Hebraisms of which Selden says, “what gear do the common people make of
them?” He also objects to the combination of all the books of Scripture into one volume,
rendering it either small in type or inconvenient in size. “If a man would fain take his
evening walk into the fields, with the Prophecies of
Isaiah as his companion, it is no light grievance to him that he must
either forego his inclination, or carry along with him at the same time the Law of Moses and the
History of the Jews, the Psalms of David and the Proverbs of
Solomon.”
One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with Mr. Harness’s cure in St. Pancras was, that he was brought
into close proximity with the celebrated Edward Irving,
who was then attracting many followers. The Scotch church was on the opposite side of Regent
Square, and the performances which took place in it were so distasteful to Mr.
Harness, and led astray so many weak brethren, that—although with great
reluctance, for he disliked polemical discussions—he preached a sermon (afterwards published) in which he pointed out the
utter groundlessness of Mr. Irving’s pretensions.
He showed how different were the unintelligible rhapsodies of the Irvingites from
that Divine gift of foreign languages which was so necessary for Gospel missionaries in the early
centuries. “There is nothing,” he observes, “so frugal as Providence. What!
persons inspired to speak languages unknown to others and unintelligible to themselves! As a
blessing, a gift, a grace, an illumination from the Almighty to His saints, there is nothing
parallel to this to be met with in the whole range of the Scriptures; and, as a punishment, a blindness, and a curse upon his
enemies, it surpasses even the malediction against the people of Babel.” In a letter
to a friend, in which he reiterates his commendation of the sober, steady teaching of the Church
of England, Mr. Harness observes, “Edward Irving told me several times that he could not
understand why he met with no such true Christians as in the orthodox
Church of England. He used the word ‘orthodox’ in the sense of anti-Calvinistic.
And even when we were standing talking in Regent Square, on one side of which his church
stood, and mine on the other, he said, pointing first to his own, and then to mine, ‘I
don’t know how it is I have no such humble, quiet Christians here as you contrive to
assemble about you there!’ That cannot be a bad system which works such
effects.”
The influence which Mr. Irving exerted, not
only over a large section of the laity, but also over some of the clergy, is thus casually
alluded to in a postscript to a letter from Dr. Milman to
Mr. Harness:—“Can you send me a good,
steady, humble-minded curate? I have just parted with one after three months, who will be a
follower of Irving in three more—the acting of the Strand Theatre with
the reasoning faculties of St. Luke’s; d’ailleurs, a good kind of young man.”
CHAPTER VI. ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.—FRIENDSHIPS WITH REMARKABLE
MEN.—KINDNESS OF LORD
LANSDOWNE.—CRABBE.—SCOTT.—COLERIDGE.—JOANNA
BAILLIE.—MISS MARTINEAU.
Asceticism, as we have already observed, formed no part of Mr. Harness’s creed; he took no misanthropic view of the
world: on the contrary, he loved society and its humanizing influences. Naturally of a genial
disposition, he found himself everywhere welcomed by those who appreciated his talents and his
gentle and retiring manners. A certain amount of social intercourse he considered indispensably
necessary for the maintenance of a duly-balanced mind; and he believed that some of the writings
of our eminent literary men would have been more generally valuable, had their authors not too
much secluded themselves from the outer world. He did not consider it to be the duty of a
Christian to avoid the society of his fellow-men, even though he might disapprove of their
conduct. “If the practice of withdrawing ourselves from the more promiscuous society of
our fellow-creatures, under the hope of
attaining greater facilities of salvation, has a natural tendency to foster our spiritual
pride and destroy our charity, there is nothing which will more readily conduce to humble that
pride and rectify our views—to instruct us in the virtues we have overlooked in others
and the defects we have neglected in ourselves—than such a degree of impartial
intercourse with all classes of men as a Christian (without any compromise of principle or
sacrifice of duty) may holily entertain. There is not perhaps a single individual of our race
but may prove to be our superior in some moral or intellectual quality; and there is
consequently no individual of our race from whom we may not derive an experimental lesson in
humility. As there is no man so righteous as to be wholly free from evil, neither is there any
man so depraved as to be wholly destitute of good . . . . If there be many lessons of heavenly
import which the worldly man may receive from the disciple of the Gospel, there are also
admonitions on very material points of duty for which the disciple of the Gospel may in return
be indebted to him.”
Mr. Harness obeyed the Apostle’s injunction
“to use the world as not abusing it.” He was not a man to lose the instruction or
refreshment which social intercourse affords; and it was one of the happiest features in his
character that, notwith-standing the
laborious duty of a London parish, which made him daily conversant with all that was destitute
and depressing, his mind still remained vigorous and elastic, and equal to taking an interest in
the brighter paths of life. Especially was he attracted to the study of human nature, and of the
varying phases of our emotions; and the insight thus obtained gave additional success to his
persuasive exhortations in the pulpit. Not only was he adapted to benefit by social intercourse,
but also to shine in it; indeed the sowing and reaping are in this case closely connected.
“From the first,” writes Miss Mitford,
“he took rank as one of the best conversationalists of the day.” And in a later
letter she says, “He is one of the finest preachers in London, but still better known as
the friend of all that has been eminent for the last forty years, having lived in the closest
intimacy with every person who combined high talent with fair character. It is to the honour
of the highest part of the aristocracy, the Lord
Lansdownes and Lord Derbys, that he has
invitations to dinner amongst them every day through the season, and very many to stay on
visits at large country-houses. Certainly he is the most charming person that ever trod the
earth, and as good as he is charming.”
The pleasure derived by others from his information gave him the means of
increasing his store of knowledge, and he thus
enjoyed opportunities such, as seldom fall to the lot of any one individual. He had also gifts
which enabled him to turn these opportunities to account. Ordinary persons would never have
remarked the distinctive character of their friends’ conversation; fewer would have noted
particularly any of their observations; and fewer still would have remembered them in
after-years, and been able to retail them in nearly their original words. But a man in whom
memory and observation co-exist in such a high degree of excellence as to be equal to the task,
is eminently qualified to be the social historian of his times. Had Mr. Harness committed to writing all the remarkable conversations in which he took
part, we should have possessed such a history; but unfortunately he kept no record of them, and
only accidentally quoted words and made allusions to them in his occasional intercourse with his
friends. Broken flowers thus casually dropt can scarcely be formed into a closely woven wreath;
but it would still be culpable to leave them to perish by the wayside, and preserve none of their
sweet fragrance as an offering for future years.
“A society which, taken for all in all, has never been
surpassed!” Such are the words in which Mr.
Harness describes the social circle in which he lived. The limits of
“society” were then more defined than
they are at present; and within those limits there was greater freedom and intimacy. Confidence
was not restricted by the presence of those heterogeneous elements which disjoint the intercourse
of the present day. The small aristocracy which then existed was one exclusively of birth, formed
of men who had received a liberal education, and who had time which they were able to devote to
the cultivation of elegant accomplishments. Hence arose the elaborate dandyism, the polished
manners, the classical taste of the age when men “played and lost, and wooed and won, Like gentlemen and scholars,” and which, notwithstanding its pedantry, leaves pleasant recollections of bygone days.
Literature had of late shown signs of life. ‘Romans’ and
‘Grecians’ walked the London Parks; even Grub Street had produced some butterflies;
and gentlemen had begun to apostrophize their mistresses, and ladies their lap-dogs, in odes
which displayed a certain improvement in wit and sentiment. But now the talismanic names of
Scott, Byron, and
Wordsworth were to raise the belles-lettres to a position they had never occupied before, and to rivet the attention
of a world not yet dazzled by the barbaric splendours of wealth. Literature became the fashion.
The great autocrats of society, appearing as the Mæcenates of the day, did not disdain to
shine in the reflected lustre of their satellites,
and to raise the nobility of rank by associating it with that of nature. The most conspicuous
among these patrons was Lord Lansdowne, who was unwearied in
his kindness and liberality to men of genius. Mr. Harness
was not only indebted to this nobleman for many acts of hospitality, but also for a very
substantial benefit conferred upon him shortly before he left St. Pancras. The office of Clerical
Registrar to the Privy Council happened to fall vacant, and Lord Lansdowne
immediately designed to offer it to his literary friend. He was himself too generous a man to be
influenced by party prejudice, but he thought it necessary, for the satisfaction of his
colleagues, to inquire of Dr. Milman whether their friend
had ever published anything calculated to kindle political animosity. The Dean was able to give
the fullest assurances on the point, for he well knew that Mr. Harness had
always to the utmost in his power avoided every sort of polemical discussion. On receiving this
intelligence, Lord Lansdowne wrote to make the offer, which was highly
valued by its recipient, both as a proof of friendship and esteem, and as a material addition to
his somewhat limited income.
Although it would be impossible to collect from memory one half of the brilliant
fragments which made Mr. Harness’s conversation so
delightful, or to reset them in their original
mosaic, I have yet been tempted to undertake a certain amount of restoration; and, imperfect as
such a work must be, I hope I may succeed in giving some idea of the variety and beauty of the
store from whence these small specimens are derived.
Mr. Harness’s recollections formed an interesting
link between several generations of literary men. As a child he had known Joseph Warton, whose brother, the celebrated poet, had been acquainted with Pope; who, in turn, could remember to have seen Racine walking in his red stockings in Paris. Sir
George Beaumont told him that when at Rome he had spoken to the donkey-man who had
accompanied Claude and Gaspar
Poussin on their sketching excursion to Tivoli. In his youth he remembered
Dr. Parr—his snappish wit, and the long pipe he
smoked after dinner; the latter causing him especial astonishment, as smoking was then rare and
unfashionable. He might also have known Paley, but his
information about him was probably derived from some of the tutors at Christ’s College, to
which the great apologist had himself belonged. Mr. Harness had several
little anecdotes illustrative of Paley’s homely manners and rough
humour. At the first visitation he attended, after his preferment to the archdeaconry, he dined
in company with a large assemblage of clergymen, all of whom were eager to hear his observations. He remained silent, to their great disappointment, until the
second course was served. At length the great man spoke; every ear was strained. What was his
oracular utterance? “I don’t think these puddens are much
good unless the seeds are taken out of the raisins!” At another banquet, shortly
after his preferment, he found himself exposed to an unpleasant draught of air. “Shut
that window behind me,” he called out to one of the waiters, “and open one lower
down, behind one of the curates!”
Later than these was Crabbe, the poet, who
after publishing “The Library,”
“The Village,” and other
poems, disappeared from public sight in a country living for two and twenty years, and was
generally supposed to be dead, until he revived again in the “Register” in 1807, and re-entered London literary
circles in 1813. Mr. Harness greatly admired his poems;
perhaps he appreciated them the more because they referred so much to country parish life. He
particularly noticed the beauty of a little story in the “Tales,” where an heiress is prevented by a rich aunt from
marrying a man of inferior position. She by degrees forgets him, and becomes entirely engrossed
with the accumulation of money. Her lover, on the other hand, becomes poorer, and is at last an
inmate of an alms-house. He reminds her of her promise, which she disowns.
“He shares a parish-gift; at church he sees The pious Dinah dropped upon her knees; Thence, as she walks the streets with stately air, As chance directs, oft meet the parted pair; When he, with thickest coat of badgeman’s blue, Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue; When his thin locks of gray approach her braid, A costly purchase made in beauty’s aid; When his frank air, and his unstudied pace, Are seen with her soft manner, air, and grace, It might some wonder in a stranger move, How these together could have talked of love.”
Crabbe visited Edinburgh in 1822, when the festivities in
honour of the arrival of George the Fourth drew together such
a brilliant assemblage of rank and talent. Scott was too much
engaged to do the honours for all his distinguished friends, and assigned some of them to
Lockhart, who, to afford mutual gratification,
introduced Crabbe to Brewster. Next
day, to his consternation, Crabbe observed, “That Dr.
Brewster seems an agreeable man—what is he?” and
Brewster, on meeting Lockhart, inquired,
“By-the-way, who was that old clergyman you brought to see me? Did you say his name was
Crabbe?”
In the opening article of the “Quarterly,” for January, 1868, a review appeared of the “Life of Scott,” written by Dean Milman, and towards the end of it was the following
reference:—“Proofs of the veneration in which all classes held him greeted Scott wherever he went. Twice on the occasion of the
Coronation of George the Fourth this was shown in a
remarkable way. The Rev. Mr. Harness, the accomplished
friend of Mrs. Siddons and Lord
Byron, describes that, while he was standing in Westminster Hall, a spectator of
the Coronation Feast, he observed Sir Walter trying, but in vain, to make
his way through a crowd to a seat which had been reserved for him. ‘There’s
Sir Walter Scott,’ said Mr. Harness;
‘let’s make way for him.’ There was no need for more; the throng pressed
itself back so as to make a lane for Scott, and he passed through without
the slightest inconvenience.” Milman was writing from
memory, and Mr. Harness told me that the facts were not quite accurately
given in this account. Scott had been in Lord Willoughby’s box, but
had left it, and on returning found it full of ladies. He was accordingly left without a seat,
and while looking hopelessly about was seen by Harness from the balcony, who
immediately beckoned to him; and all the people, when they heard who he was, compressed
themselves to make room for him. He said, however, that they were very anxious to know whether he
was quite sure that he wasSir Walter Scott?
Few persons who heard him speak could have doubted Scott’s nationality; it could not have been said with justice that
Scott— “hung On the soft phrase of Southern tongue.” His accent, on the contrary, was so broad that Mr.
Harness said he sometimes could not understand him without difficulty. One day when
they had been talking of “Lucia di
Lammermuir,” which had lately appeared, he changed the subject by observing,
“Weel! I think we’ve a’most had enow of that chiel.”
Literature, according to Scott’s account, was much better paid then
than it is at present; for on a friend asking him to subscribe to assist a poor author, he
refused to comply, asserting that he knew no one worthy of the name—except Coleridge—who was not making from £500 to £12,000
a-year.
Mr. Harness used occasionally to visit Coleridge when the latter was staying with Mr. Gillman, the apothecary-doctor, at Highgate. The poet
originally went there to recover his health, which he had broken down by over-indulgence in
opium. He placed himself there under a sort of voluntary restraint, and strict orders were given
by Mr. Gillman that no drugs of any kind were to be allowed him.
Coleridge, missing the stimulant to which he had been long accustomed,
pined and languished under the restriction; he abandoned his pen and sank into utter despondency.
One day a large roll of papers came to the poet from the publisher, and on Mr.
Gillman’s visiting him in the evening he found him an altered man; Coleridge was himself again, full of
animation and energy, and busily employed in writing an article for the forthcoming Review. The change was so sudden and remarkable that the Doctor’s
suspicions were aroused. He instituted inquiries and found that a roll of opium had, at the
Poet’s entreaty, been enclosed in the packet which had arrived that morning from the
publisher.
Eminent literary men have often been remarkable for the fertility of their
conversation, and their powers in this respect have not unfrequently been used without due
restraint and discrimination. Coleridge was no exception
to this rule; he would continue to talk on in an unbroken flow, and connect his arguments and
observations so adroitly that until you had left him you could not detect their fallacy.*
Mr. Harness called on him one day with Milman, on their return from paying a visit to Joanna Baillie. The poet seemed unusually inspired, and rambled
on, raising his hands and his head in the manner which Charles
Mathews so cleverly caricatured; and asserting, among other
* Wordsworth and Rogers called on him one forenoon in Pall Mall. He talked
uninterruptedly for two hours, during which time Wordsworth listened
with profound attention. On leaving, Rogers said to
Wordsworth, “Well! I could not make head or tail of
Coleridge’s oration: did you understand it?”
“Not a syllable,” replied Wordsworth. Sometimes,
however, his conversation was admirable.
strange theories, that Shakespeare was a man of too pure a mind to be able to depict a really worthless
character. “All his villains,” he said, “were bad upon good principles; even
Caliban had something good in him.”
Coleridge, in his old age, became a characteristic feature in Highgate.
He was the terror and amusement of all the little children who bowled their hoops along the
poplar avenue. Notwithstanding his fondness for them—he called them
‘Kingdom-of-Heaven-ites’—his Cyclopean figure and learned language caused them
indescribable alarm. Sometimes he would lay his hand on the shoulders of one of them and walk
along discoursing metaphysics to the trembling captive, while the rest fled for refuge and peeped
out with laughing faces from behind the trees. “I never,” he exclaimed one day to
the baker’s boy—“I never knew a man good because he was religious, but I
have known one religious because he was good.”
We can scarcely mention Coleridge without
being reminded of his friend and schoolfellow Charles Lamb.
On reading the life of this author, lately published by Barry
Cornwall, Mr. Harness observed that it must
surprise every one how such a clever man as Lamb could have said so few good
things. He was chief jester to the “Morning
Post,” and though it by no means follows—he was a man of undoubted wit. Mr. Harness remembered
many bright bits of fun which from time to time sparkled in his conversation. On one occasion, an
old lady was pouring into his ear a tirade, more remarkable for length than substance, when,
observing that the Essayist was fast lapsing into a state of oblivion, she aroused him by
remarking in a loud voice, “I’m afraid, Mr. Lamb, you are
deriving no benefit from my observations!” “Well, Madam!” he
replied, recollecting himself, “I cannot say that I am; but perhaps the lady on the
other side of me is, for they go in at one ear and out of the other.”
At another time, when making a journey in a stage-coach, after they had halted
for dinner, a passenger presented himself, requesting accommodation. “Are you full
inside?” asked the guard at the window. “I can’t answer for the other
gentlemen,” replied Lamb, “but that pudding
has done for me.”
Elliston, the actor, a self-educated man, was playing
cribbage one evening with Lamb, and on drawing out his
first card, exclaimed, “When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of
war.” “Yes,” replied Lamb, “and when
you meet Greek, you don’t understand it.”
The name of Lamb reminds us of the
Burneys. Madame d’Arblay has
written the following on the fly-leaf of a presentation
copy of her father’s life:—“To the Rev. William
Harness, to whose active good offices the immediate publication of this work is
indebted.”
Joanna Baillie, the authoress, was a great friend of
Mr. Harness, who was a warm admirer of her genius. The
following letter seems to be written in acknowledgment of the receipt of a copy of some of his
published sermons. Mr. Harness, as I have before remarked, always took a
genial view of the world, and of mankind in general, and never allowed the depravity of a certain
portion of our nature to conceal the lustre of its more generous impulses.
“My dear Mr. Harness,
“I am very much obliged to you for your friendly present, and
beg you will accept my best thanks. I have read your excellent sermons on the
‘Image of God’* with
much satisfaction, and hope they will find many readers who will agree with you as
heartily as I do. You have made out your argument clearly, both from reason and
Scripture, and I hope it will have a good effect on some of the gloomy Calvinists of
these days, who seem so intent upon establishing eternal damnation as the decreed
portion of the greater part of mankind, and are anxious
* Four sermons delivered by Mr. Harness at Cambridge when
Select Preacher.
to cast a kindred gloom over every young person
with whom they have influence.
“Was the subject given you by the University of Cambridge, or
was it your own choosing? A more useful one could not have been taken up at the present
time.
“I hope you and Miss
Harness are well, and offer my sister’s kind regards to you both,
joined with those of your faithful friend.
“J. Baillie.”
Among authoresses, Joanna Baillie ranked
next to Miss Austen in Mr.
Harness’s estimation. The latter was his greater favourite, and he was never
tired of reading and re-reading her novels. Loving quiet and domestic scenes, rather than the
more exciting episodes of life, he preferred the simple story of “Persuasion,” to those more stirring narratives upon
which the fame of the authoress was founded. Miss Austen was very
inadequately remunerated for her earlier productions; “Sense and Sensibility,” her best, bringing her only
£150, and she often remarked to Mr. Harness that she could not
understand why at first she received so little, although afterwards she was so amply paid.
Miss Mitford, in one of her letters, spoke somewhat
disparagingly of Miss Austen. “Mamma says that she was the
prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers”;* and this so offended Mr.
Harness’s jealous admiration of his favourite, that he took exception to it,
and added the note: “Every other account of Jane Austen, from
whatever quarter, represents her as handsome, graceful, amiable, and shy.”
The following letter comes from the hand of another celebrated authoress:—
“Tynemouth, June 3rd, [ ] “Dear Mr. Harness,
“My friend Mrs. Reid has
just arrived; and she brings me the very agreeable news that your sermons are coming to me from yourself. I had seen the
advertisement, with a sort of envious feeling of those in whose way that book would
come; and I am not a little pleased at the prospect of having it, and from your hand.
“A parcel will soon be coming to me from Mrs. Reid’s (6, Grenville Street, Brunswick
Square), and I shall be much obliged if you will either have the book left there, or
tell her servants to which of my publishers to send for the parcel.
“Some months ago, when publishing ‘The Hour and the Man,’ I ordered a copy to be
sent to you. I did this, not with any idea that you would not
* Miss Mitford’s
letter of April 3rd, 1815, to Sir William
Elford. See Vol I., at pages 305-6 of her Life.
discover and feel the artistical faults of
the book, or with any hope that you, who have never known negroes in any but a degraded
state, could believe them to be what I have represented; but because I remember your
saying that it must be the most delightful thing in the world to spend a summer in the
country, in the exclusive society of one’s own personages. It is true, you
doubtless took for granted two very important things which I had not—health, and
the power of going out of doors; but still I found your words so far true as to be moved
to send you the book; and I hope you received it.
“You will have heard (so many common friends as we have) that I
am not better, nor expecting to be so. Your experience among the sick will prevent your
being surprised, perhaps, at what has surprised me—that I have never once felt the
slightest and most transient desire to be well. The divine repose of life in two rooms (especially with a fine sea-view); the simplification of duty
to one rather prone to be tender-conscienced; and the perpetual feast of the heart
administered by the kindness of friends, are good things, in the midst of which bodily
troubles are lost and forgotten on review, if not from moment to moment. Into another
part of the matter, Pascal had insight:
‘Quand on se porte bien, on ne comprend pas comment on pourrait faire si
l’on était malade; et quand on l’est, on prend médecine gaie-ment: le mal y résout. On n’a plus
les passions et les désirs des divertissements et des promenades, que la santé
donnait, et qui sont incompatibles avec les nécessités de la maladie. La
nature donne alors des passions et des désirs conformes à l’état
pràsent. Ce ne sont que les craintes que nous nous donnons nous-mêmes, et non
pas la nature, qui nous troublent; parce-qu’elles joignent à
l’état ou nous sommes les passions de l’état où nous ne
sommes pas.’
“I should not have thought he had known enough of health to
write the above. On the whole, his deficiencies seem to be those which arise from want
of knowledge of a healthy state, and of sympathy with those who are well.
“Pray remember me kindly to Miss
Harness, and believe me, very truly yours.
“Harriet Martineau.”
CHAPTER VII. ANECDOTES
CONTINUED.—SHERIDAN.—ROGERS.—MRS.
GORE.—AMERICAN FRIENDS.—THEODORE
HOOK.—LYDIA WHITE.—VISIT TO
IRELAND.—REMARKABLE DREAM.—MISCELLANEOUS REFERENCES.—CHRISTMAS STORIES.
Among the distinguished persons with whom Mr.
Harness was acquainted, he not unfrequently met the celebrated Sheridan. He was present at some of the sumptuous entertainments
with which the Dramatist regaled his friends, and remarked that, although his guests denounced
his extravagance, they never refused his invitations. Sheridan was not
devoid of that vanity which so often accompanies talent. On one occasion, at a Theatrical Fund
Dinner, he made a very high-flown speech, in which he spoke of himself as being “descended
from the loins of kings!” “That is quite true,” said Dr.
Spry, who was sitting next to Harness; “the last time I
saw his father,* he was the King of Denmark.”
* He was an actor.
Sheridan’s solicitor found his client’s
wife one day walking up and down her drawing-room,
apparently in a frantic state of mind. He inquired the cause of such violent perturbation. She
only replied, “that her husband was a villain.” On the man of business further
interrogating her as to what had so suddenly awakened her to a sense of that fact, she at length
answered, with some hesitation, “Why, I have discovered that all the love-letters he sent
me were the very same as those which he sent to his first
wife!”
The poet Rogers was a more intimate
friend. He was one of those few instances in which talent is found united with wealth and
energetic labour. In his literary work he was most persevering; so much so that he spent no less
than seventeen years in writing and revising “The Pleasures of Memory.” The hasty slip-shod style
of the present day was not to his taste. Rogers, like Byron and his compeers, aimed at producing finished pieces; and
though they sometimes thus confined their eagle-flight, they at least avoided an ignominious fall
to the ground. But Rogers was not only a wealthy banker and rural poet; he
had also a keen sense of humour, and there was something in the deadness of his countenance and
the dryness of his manner which seemed to give additional point to his sarcasms. Mr. Harness said that many of his most telling hits seemed to have little force, when related under different
circumstances. Some, however, the reader will, as I imagine, be able to understand without any
oral interpretation. Rogers’ dwelling was “a cabinet of
Art,” and he kept a model bachelor’s household; his servants consisting of three men
and one woman. When one of the former, who had been a long time in his service, died, a
kind-hearted friend called to condole with him on the loss he had sustained.
“Well!” exclaimed Rogers, after listening for some time to
his expressions of sympathy, “I don’t know that I feel his loss so very much,
after all. For the first seven years he was an obliging servant; for the second seven years an
agreeable companion; but for the last seven he was a tyrannical master.”*
Speaking of France brought him to the following story, to which he gave
considerable effect:—“An Englishman and a Frenchman had to fight a duel. That they
might have the better chance of missing one another, they were to fight in a dark room. The
Englishman fired up the chimney, and, by Jove! he brought down the
* The poet seems to have been somewhat unfortunate in his servants.
On one occasion when in the country, his favourite groom, with whom he used to drive
every day, gave notice to leave. Rogers asked him
why he was going, and what he had to complain of? “Nothing,” replied
the man; “but you are so dull in the buggy.”
Frenchman! When I tell this story in Paris,”
observed Rogers, “I put the Englishman up the
chimney!”
Mr. Harness had many other little interesting scraps about
Rogers. The Poet greatly disliked writing letters of
condolence, and when he had that melancholy duty to perform, he generally copied one of Cowper’s. Lord
Lansdowne once spoke to him in congratulatory terms about the marriage of a common
friend. “I do not think it so desirable,” observed
Rogers. “No!” replied Lord Lansdowne,
“why not? His friends approve of it!” “Happy man!”
returned Rogers, “to satisfy all the world. His friends are
pleased, and his enemies are delighted!”
Moore was a friend of Rogers, and also of Mr. Harness; but I
seldom heard the latter speak of him, except with reference to Byron, and to his having asked for information and letters which might be of use
in the “Life” he was compiling.
Speaking of Moore’s taste for biography, and the number of Memoirs he had composed,
Rogers one day cynically observed, “Why, it is not safe to die
while Moore’s alive!”
The following letter from Mrs. Charles Gore
is interesting in connection with this subject:—
“Hamble Cliff, Friday. “Dear Mr. Harness,
“Thanks a thousand times. Pray make no further inquiries about
the books. You have told me all I want to know, in the names of the publishers. I had
previously fancied that Hope’s ‘Essays’ were suppressed, and I remember giving £10 for
a suppressed ‘English Bard.’
Apropos to the latter work, having been here quite alone
lately (even my daughter away, on a visit) I have been reading over Byron’sMemoirs, and it made one melancholy to think that, of
the galaxy therein glorified, only two were left—then the ‘old boys’
of the party: i.e., Rogers and Moore. While moralizing over the fact, I suddenly
started up with ‘No! by Jove—there is William
Harness (and younger than ever).’ I afterwards recollected the
Guiccioli (then a bride), and another
William, best forgotten. Five and thirty years have certainly
passed over you more lightly than over the rest.
“I am sorry I cannot persuade you to come and listen to the
melancholy autumnal song of the robins and the screaming of the gulls. They would afford
you texts without end; and I have a bit of sea-shore all to myself, with a pleasant seat
beside it, where you might go and talk to the waves like little Dombey or King Canute—whose
chair, by the way, was set up hard by the seat in question—for we are close to Netley. Again, many thanks for your letter,
and believe me,
“Faithfully yours, “C. F. Gore.”
Among the American friends of this literary coterie, Washington Irving may be mentioned, though he was scarcely to be called an
American, inasmuch as his father was an Englishman, and his mother a Scotchwoman. He was often in
this country, as his brother was a merchant in Liverpool; and when he visited London, he usually
breakfasted with Mr. Harness, and dined with Rogers.
Alluding to the vanity and self-appreciation of young America, not unnatural in a rising nation,
Mr. Harness told me that a friend of his spoke in the following manner of
a play he had lately written:—“I wrote a tragedy last winter—and a very good
one it was; and my father said he wished to read it, and I allowed him; and he said it was a
very good one. And he said he should like to go over it with me, word for word, and line for
line; and we went over it word for word, and line for line; and he said he should like to show
it to Washington Irving, and so he did; and he thought it was very good,
and he said he should like to go over it with me word for word and line for line. And so we
did, and it was beautiful to
observe the difference between that old man and me!”
In noticing the peculiar phraseology which has grown up in America, Mr. Harness said that, one day at dinner, Daniel Webster, in referring to Devonshire, in which he had been
travelling, described its scenery in the concise words, “Clever country.” Shortly
afterwards he asked Mr. Harness whether he had heard Sydney Smith preach. He replied in the affirmative.
“Handsome preacher,” remarked Webster. Mr.
Harness observed that the epithets might have been advantageously transposed.
Among Mr. Harness’s friends and correspondents was Miss Sedgwick, the American authoress. It is said that she
alludes to him in the following passage, though only an initial is given. (She came late to
Loftus Lowndes’ dinner party, thinking the
invitation was for eight instead of seven.) “To my dismay,” she writes, “and in
spite of my protestations, Mrs. —— insisted on re-beginning at the alpha of the
dinner; the guests had reached the omega. The soup was brought back. H.
averred that it was most fortunate for him; he had been kept talking, and had not eaten half a
dinner; so he started fresh with me and went bonâ fide through,
covering me with his aegis as I ran my gauntlet through the courses. The
age of chivalry is not past. Match this deed of courtesy, if you can, from the lives of the preux chevaliers, taken from their sun-rising to their
sun-setting!”
At Mrs. Siddons’ receptions,
Mr. Harness became acquainted with Theodore Hook, who was then in general request in fashionable and
literary society. He was an accomplished musician, and almost as remarkable for his improvisatore talent as for his brilliance in repartee. Wherever he
happened to be present, he was looked upon as the wag of the party, and his love of merriment
sometimes caused him to indulge in pleasantries which, though sufficiently harmless in
themselves, verged too closely upon the limits of propriety. One evening, Mr.
Harness, who shared the prejudices then entertained about waltzing, observed to
Theodore that he was glad to hear that he disapproved of the new dance.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” returned his friend,
“’tis a mere matter of feeling.”
When Theodore was travelling along the
south coast, he arrived in the course of his journey at Dover, and alighting at the Ship Hotel,
changed his boots, ordered a slight dinner, and went out for a stroll through the town. Returning
at the appointed time, he was surprised to find the whole establishment in confusion. A crowd had
collected outside the door—the master of the house was standing at the foot of the stairs
with two candles in his hands, and on Theodore’s entrance, he walked
backwards before him, and conducted him into the
principal saloon, where all the waiters were standing, and a magnificent repast had been
provided. The wit was much amused at the dignity to which he had been promoted; but, being an
easy-going fellow, made no scruples, and sitting down, did full justice to what was set before
him. Next day he signified his intention of departing, and ordered a coach; when, to his
astonishment, a carriage-and-four drove up to convey him to his destination. He inquired, with
some apprehension, what he was to pay for all this grandeur, and was no less astonished than
gratified on receiving the answer, “Nothing whatever, your Royal Highness.” He was
never more thoroughly mystified; but the next night, on taking off his boots, which he had bought
ready made just before he went to Dover, he found “H.S.H. the Prince of Orange” written inside them. They had been originally made for the
Prince, who was then in England, sueing for the hand of Princess
Charlotte, and notice had been given that all his expenses while in the country
should be set down to the charge of the Government.
Among those most celebrated for their hospitalities during Mr. Harness’s earlier residence in London, was Miss Lydia White. She kept a ‘menagerie,’ and was
herself not the least remarkable specimen it contained. Brave in paint and plaster— a wonderful work of art—she underwent all the labour
necessary to produce the grand effect, not from any vanity or affectation, but from motives of
pure benevolence. “Were I,” she observed, “to present myself, as I naturally
am, without any of these artificial adornments, instead of being a source of pleasure, and
perhaps amusement, to my friends, I should plunge them into the profoundest
melancholy.” This considerate lady was not only fond of clever conversation, but
sometimes herself joined in the tournament of wit. Mr. Harness remembered
many sallies of playful nonsense which he had heard from her; one of those he preserved was the
following:—On the return of Charles X. to Paris,
Talma was engaged to play ‘Sylla;’ but he looked so much like Napoleon, that he was ordered to put on a curly wig. “Why,” said
Lydia, “were he to do that, we should hardly know Scylla from Charybdis.”
On another occasion, at one of her small and most agreeable dinners in Park
Street, the company (most of them, except the hostess, being Whigs) were discussing, in rather a
querulous strain, the desperate prospects of their party. “Yes,” said Sydney Smith, “we are in a deplorable condition; we must do
something to help ourselves; I think we had better sacrifice a Tory Virgin.” This was
partially addressed to Lydia White, who at once catching and applying the allusion to Iphigenia, answered, “Well, I believe there is nothing the Whigs would
not do to raise the wind!”
Among Mr. Harness’s more intimate
friends, the name of Henry Hope should not be omitted. This
celebrated millionaire, the author of “Anastasius,” and the unfortunate hero in the picture of “Beauty and the
Beast,” was unremitting in his kindness and hospitality towards the young clergyman. He
frequently invited him to stay at the Deep Dene, and here Mr. Harness found
himself surrounded by all the talent and wealth of England. The tone of the conversation
sometimes amused him much; as when Rothschild observed to
Hope that a man must be a “a poor scoundrel who could not afford
to lose two millions;” or replied to a nobleman who said he must be a supremely
happy man, “I happy! when only this morning I received a letter from a man to say that,
if I did not send him £500, he would blow out my brains!”* Mr.
Hope had a tutor for his sons at the Deep Dene. One day, when Mr.
Harness was staying there, he found this gentleman pacing up and down the room in
the most distressing agitation of mind. “Is there any-
* The demands made upon the great are certainly most extraordinary. I
remember the late Archbishop Sumner telling me that
a man wrote to him to send him immediately £500, as it would save him from “some
unpleasant complications.” It was to be directed tn X. T. Z., Post Office, Bristol.
thing the matter?” inquired Mr.
Harness, anxiously. “The matter!” he replied, “I should think
there was! Three of the worst things that can possibly happen to a man: I’m in
love—I’m in debt—and I’ve doubts about the doctrine of the
Trinity!”
Mr. Hope died in 1831. The night after his death Mr. Harness dreamed that he saw Lord
Beresford’s country residence in an unusual state of commotion. He woke up
with the impression that some death or other great calamity had happened there; and though he
afterwards thought lightly of the matter, he determined, as he was going in that direction, to
call at Lord Beresford’s in Duchess Street, on his way home. On
arriving there, he found the blinds down, and the house shut up; and upon inquiring, the
gate-porter told him that Mr. Thomas Hope had died the day before at
Bedgebury Park. Mr. Harness had not known that his friend was either ill or
in England. Mr. Hope left Mr. Harness his literary
executor.
The friendship which had subsisted between Mr.
Harness and the father was continued with the son, and he was a frequent guest at the Deep Dene, and at Castle Blaney, in
Ireland, after it had been purchased by Mr. Hope. During these visits he
sometimes extended his journey, and spoke admiringly, and with an artist’s taste, of the
beauty of the country, and of the violet eyes and dark hair which in some places characterized the peasantry. He generally crossed by Holyhead,
but on one occasion he took the longer sea-passage by Bristol, and on the voyage made
acquaintance with a Roman Catholic Priest. He said that this Irish ecclesiastic seemed one of the
most finished gentlemen he had ever met with, and he thought himself highly fortunate when, on
landing, he offered to accompany him and show the lions of the good city of Cork. They walked
through the town arm-in-arm, Mr. Harness and the Priest, the latter treading
the streets with a majestic step and lofty mien, which approached almost to sublimity when the
people bowed down before him, counted their beads and besought his blessing. At length, having
made the round of the town, and visited Father Mathew’s statue, and
the principal buildings, “And now, sir,” said the Priest, “perhaps you would
like to see ‘the Beggars’ Market;’ and, indeed, I have a little business to do
there myself.” Mr. Harness assented, and he led the way to a place
where there seemed to be every sort of thing which nobody could possibly want. Rusty hinges,
broken keys, and old coffins formed a considerable part of the miscellaneous collection. The
Priest’s business was, it appeared, to buy some second-hand soda-water bottles, which he
intended to fill with ‘cherry-bounce.’ He presently found out an old woman who had
such articles for sale, and he accordingly
began to bargain with her for them. But, good Heavens! what a transformation! His elegant manners
and lofty bearing disappeared as if by magic; his voice became loud and menacing, his countenance
dark and ferocious. His gesticulations as he continued became still more alarming, and the
vileness and profanity of his language quite took his companion’s breath away. When by
these means he had accomplished his end—the cheapening of a dozen bottles from tenpence to
sevenpence—he resumed his wonted tranquillity; and, thrusting his arm through that of
Mr. Harness, walked away as majestically as if nothing had occurred.
Alluding to the strange coincidence above mentioned, in the case of Mr. Hope’s death, and to other remarkable dreams, Mr. Harness related that a lady friend of his, when about to
return with her husband from India, prayed him to reconsider his determination, as she had
dreamed that she was drowned, and that, as she was dying, she saw a white cloud passing over her.
He laughed at her fears, and represented to her how absurd it would appear to their friends to
say they had determined to remain in India because she had had the nightmare on the eve of their
departure. They accordingly sailed as they had arranged and reached Alexandria in safety.
“What do you think of your dream now?” inquired her husband. “We are not yet in London,” she replied
doubtfully. They soon arrived safely in Paris. “We are not far from London now,” he
observed jocosely. “But we are not yet there,” she persisted. They crossed to Dover,
and were proceeding by rail to town, when the well-known accident occurred to the train at
Staplehurst; the carriages were overturned into the water; the lady was drowned, and the white
steam of the engine was blown across her like a cloud.
It was through Miss Mitford’s
introduction that Mr. Harness became intimate with
Serjeant Talfourd. He had been a Reading boy—a
pupil of Dr. Valpy’s—and the authoress felt an
admiration for his talents even greater than that she entertained for everything else of worth
which emanated from her “Belford
Regis.” He was one of those many protégés for whom she predicted a
successful career; and when, in after-years, her prophecy had proved true, she often stayed on a
visit at his house in London. One of these occasions was shortly after the production and
favourable reception of the Serjeant’s well-known play of “Ion.” Miss Mitford was also herself at
the zenith of her fame. “Rienzi”
had run for fifty nights at Drury Lane; and the attention she received, and the crowds of
visitors she attracted, kindled a flame of jealousy in the breast of the rival author. Some complaints of his unreasonable conduct towards her
may be found in her letters at this period. It was, perhaps, natural that a man who had just
written a successful play should feel a little proud of his bantling; but the Serjeant seems, in
this respect, to have altogether exceeded the bounds of moderation. One morning at breakfast,
during Miss Mitford’s visit, he opened a newspaper and came upon a
review depreciating his beloved play. This brought matters to a crisis. He loudly inveighed
against the injustice of the critic; and on Miss Mitford’s
endeavouring to pacify him, by remarking that it was really not so severe, and that she should
not have felt so much had the strictures been made on her “Rienzi,” “Your ‘Rienzi,’
indeed!” replied the Serjeant contemptuously; “I dare say not! That is very
different!” I have even heard it stated that the dissension on this subject became
so unpleasant that Miss Mitford packed up her boxes one morning and drove
away to Mr. Harness’s. The Serjeant may, perhaps, be
pardoned, for his affection for “Ion” was deep and
constant. On one occasion, when Dickens was calling on
Rogers at Broadstairs, he observed, “We shall
have Talfourd here to-night.” “Shall we?”
returned the Poet; “I am rejoiced to hear it. I hope he will come and dine; but how do
you know he is coming?” “Because ‘Ion’ is to be acted at Margate, and
he is never absent from any of its representations.”
There was as much careless freedom in Talfourd’s household as in that of most men of genius. Goldsmith himself could not have desired a more entire absence of
conventionality. One day, when Mr. Harness was dining at
their house in company with several judges, the Serjeant and Mrs.
Talfourd sat throughout dinner each with a cat in their lap. On another occasion,
Mrs. Talfourd requested him to carve a chicken which was placed before
him. He essayed to comply, but on his making the attempt the bird spun round and shot off the
dish. Mr. Harness, who was a little timid in society, was much perturbed by
this misadventure; but on examining the cause of it, he found that he had been given a fork with
only one prong! “Will you be so good as to cut that tart before you,” said the
hostess to another guest. “Certainly, if you desire it,” was the reply; “but
perhaps you are not aware that it has not been in the oven?”
Dickens was a very kind friend to Mr. Harness; he regarded him as one of the literary men of the
past, and occasionally asked his opinion, and sent him little presents, which were of course very
gratifying. Mr. Harness thoroughly appreciated the great
novelist and his works, and was supremely happy whenever he could persuade
‘Charles’ to be a guest at
his table. When Dickens was giving Readings in his later years, he told
Mr. Harness that he would always have a chair placed for him close to the
platform; but Mr. Harness never accepted the kind offer, although he
attended all his Recitations; and on those appointed nights it was impossible to persuade him to
accept any invitation. Notes frequently passed between them, but they were short and unimportant,
though always neatly worded. The following will serve as a specimen:—
“My dear Harness,
“Will Miss Harness and
you come and dine with us, at the Star and Garter at Richmond, on Monday the 26th at a
quarter past six? Besides ourselves there will be only A.
Townshend and a young bride, a friend of ours, who from being a quiet
clergyman’s daughter in the Isle of Wight has suddenly expanded (like a girl in a
Fairy Tale) into fifty thousand a year and a castle,
“Affectionately yours always, “Charles Dickens.”
Dickens was too fully engaged to write long letters, even
had he not been a man of too active a character to spend his time in that way. Mr. Harness, alluding to his industry and talent, remarks that
“when Hume complained that his speeches were not faithfully reported in the ‘Times,’ the Editor put on Dickens, who was
then a reporter, and the dissatisfied member very soon cried, “Peccavi.”
The name of Dickens brings us to that of
his great contemporary, Thackeray; with regard to whom
Mr. Harness appeared to entertain some prejudice. He
thought his Bohemianism and the general tone of his writings exercised an injurious influence on
the rising generation. His first personal experience of the novelist was certainly not calculated
to remove this impression. Thackeray invited him to dinner, and
Mr. Harness accepted with delight, promising himself a rich intellectual
feast at the house of a man of such literary reputation. He was gratified in one respect, for
when he arrived he found learning and talent most ably represented. The party at dinner was
large, and while the ladies remained the conversation wandered softly among flowers and wine and
airy compliments. At length the movement came—the flutter of fans and silks—and the
gay cortége of youth and beauty made its way to the upper world. The
light element had now passed away; the hour had arrived; and Mr. Harness
looked forward to such a discussion as should surpass the days of yore. Now was the time for
sharp repartee and for the settling of accounts between rival wits—for the cut and thrust
and skilful parry. He settled himself in his chair,
prepared to take his part if necessary, and kept his eyes and ears open, so as not to lose a
single word or gesture. “Do you smoke?” inquired the host. “Smoke?”
Mr. Harness had “never been guilty of such an offence against
social morality. In his day, tars and bargemen were the only smokers—except Dr. Parr—and he retained all the old prejudices against such
an imitation of chimney-pots. He would as soon have thought of going to carouse at a public-house
as of smoking in the dining-room after dinner. “Smoke, Sir? I do not.” But his firm
refusal had no effect whatever on the epicurean company by which he was surrounded. Cigars and
tobacco were placed upon the table; punch and negus followed; and the observations which were
made during the rest of the sitting consisted only of such instructive remarks as “Pass the
box,” and “Fill up!”
Another literary man, whom Mr. Harness
constantly met, but who has derived most of his renown from his Diary, was Crabb Robinson. Mr. H. said that he was one of the few men who,
having worked to obtain a competence for literary leisure, did actually, when the time arrived,
retire from public life and remunerative employment. Crabb Robinson often
mentions his friend in an incidental way in his Diary. In one place we read, “The first time I dined with
Harness was in 1839, and I met Babbage. He has written some elegant poems. He was, and is a man of
taste—of High Church principles, and liberal in spirit. Among our common friends were
John L. Kenyon and Miss
Burdett Coutts.” He made a mistake in calling Mr. Harness a High
Churchman, for he always wished to keep things in the “old way,” to which he
had been accustomed in his youth. He said that Crabb Robinson was a great
talker, but often drifted about from one subject to another in a most disconnected manner.
Many eminent men might be enumerated among Mr.
Harness’s clerical friends and acquaintances. He often spoke with admiration
of Dr. Phillpotts, the celebrated nonagenarian Bishop of
Exeter. The Bishop was remarkable, not only for erudition, but for that social tact and elegance
which rarely accompanies it. One day his lawyers were dining with him, and he wished his wife to
retire from the table early, that he might discuss with them his course of action in one of those
unfortunate suits in which he was so constantly involved. The lady, however, found the legal
gentlemen agreeable, and notwithstanding repeated nods, and winks, and hints from her lord,
remained immoveable in her place. At length she understood his meaning, and rose hurriedly to
depart. “What! so soon, my love?” demanded the Bishop, blandly, as he opened the door for her with an
obsequious bow.
Lady Morley told Dr. Phillpotts she
was going to leave Torquay sooner than she had intended. The Bishop inquired what cause was to
deprive them of the pleasure of her company. “I am going for advice about my
eyes,” she replied; “they give me constant pain.” “Well,
Madam,” he returned, “it is perhaps only fair that eyes which have done so much
execution, should in turn suffer something themselves.”
Dr. Milman, who was for a long period Vicar of Reading,
before he became Dean of St. Paul’s, was one of Mr.
Harness’s and Miss Mitford’s
earliest friends. Speaking of his celebrated poem, Mr. Harness observed that
one day he found Mr. Murray in an unusual state of
disquietude and indignation. “Would you believe it,” demanded the publisher,
“Milman has written to ask me for an additional sum for the
second edition of the ‘Fall of
Jerusalem?’ Why, it was I who made that poem.” “You?”
repeated Mr. Harness, in much astonishment; for although Mr.
Murray was an excellent man of business, he could never have been accused of being
in the least degree poetical—“you made the ‘Fall of
Jerusalem?’” “Yes,” maintained the publisher, stoutly.
“I should like to know what that poem would have been if I had not brought it out in an octavo form?” Mr.
Murray sent the MS. of “Philip
van Artevelde” to Milman and Harness
for their opinions as to its prospects of success. Both, strange to say, were unfavourable to it.
Mr. Harness said he never knew a book look so different in print from
what it did in manuscript. There was to the last much sympathy and intercourse between these
remarkable brother-clergymen. Mr. Harness said that the unfortunate weakness
of the spine from which his friend suffered, was inherited; but that when young, he was an
athletic man, a good oarsman and cricketer.
Dr. Selwyn, the late Bishop of New Zealand, mentioned to
Mr. Harness that on asking an old Maori what he thought
of the English colonists, the reply was, “Well, first come the little flies, and then
the big flies. We are the little flies, and you are the big ones who are to succeed
us.” He said the natives were an intelligent but idle race.
On our conversation turning one day upon the fact that clergymen generally were
destined to witness but small results from their labours, Mr.
Harness remarked that allusion had been made to the same subject previously when he
was visiting a prison chaplain. Mr. Harness asked him whether his ministry
had been attended with success. “With very little, I grieve to say,” was the
reply. “A short time since I thought I had brought to a better state of mind a man who had attempted to murder a woman and had
been condemned to death. He showed great signs of contrition after the sentence was passed
upon him, and I thought I could observe the dawnings of grace upon his soul. I gave him a
Bible, and he was most assiduous in the study of it, frequently quoting passages from it which
he said convinced him of the heinousness of his offence. The man gave altogether such a
promise of reformation, and of a change of heart and life, that I exerted myself to the
utmost, and obtained for him such a commutation of his sentence as would enable him soon to
begin the world again, and as I hoped with a happier result. I called to inform him of my
success. His gratitude knew no bounds; he said I was his preserver, his deliverer. ‘And
here,’ he added, as he grasped my hand in parting, ‘here is your Bible. I may as
well return it to you, for I hope that I shall never want it
again.’”
The following humourous allusions occurred in Mr.
Harness’s conversations with me, and although they are trifling in their
nature, may not form an unpleasant conclusion to this chapter.
A country Rector, coming up to preach at Oxford in his turn, complained to
Dr. Routh, the venerable Principal of Maudlin, that the
remuneration was very inadequate, considering the travelling expenses, and the labour necessary
for the composi-tion of the discourse.
“How much did they give you?” inquired Dr. Routh.
“Only five pounds,” was the reply. “Only five pounds?”
repeated the Doctor. “Why, I would not have preached that sermon for fifty.”
When Lawrence (the Doctor) received so
many black balls at the Athenæum, every one said, “Think of the Clergy being so
ill-natured!” It was found that only two blackballs came from clergymen, and eleven from
doctors!
At a dinner party a somewhat dull couple, who affected literature, informed
their friend that they were going to visit the city of Minerva. Mr.
Harness, who happened to be sitting next to the humorous Jekyll, heard him mutter to himself, “To the
Greeks—foolishness.”
The Bishop of Derry was disputing with a Roman Catholic Priest about Purgatory.
“Well, my Lord,” replied the Priest in conclusion, “you may go further
and fare worse.”
Jones, the tailor, was asked by a customer who thought much of his cut, to
go down and have some shooting with him in the country. Among the party was the Duke of
Northumberland. “Well, Mr. Jones,” observed his
Grace, “I’m glad to see that you are becoming a sportsman. What sort of gun do you
shoot with?” “Oh, with a double-breasted one, your Grace,”
was the reply.
Speaking of Brummell, Mr. Harness remarked that many of the dandies of his time were
men of wit, and not mere clothes-horses. He remembered a party standing to admire a sunset where
the orb of day was departing in a golden glory. “Does it very well, doesn’t
he?” observed Brummell. On another occasion
Brummell was walking with a friend past the newly erected bronze statue
in Hanover Square. “Well,” said his friend, “I never thought Pitt had been so tall a man.” “Nor so
green a one,” added Brummell. Belvoir Castle was at that time
very famous for its hospitalities. So large was the number of invitations that people used to
come and go almost without the knowledge of the Duke. When one set had left, another succeeded as
a matter of course, without waiting for any formal invitation. Brummell was
among those who enjoyed these privileges. On one occasion a friend went down to Belvoir, and as
usual applied for an apartment. “There are none vacant,” replied the
housekeeper. “None vacant!” returned the dismayed visitor; “how can
that be! I know that Mr. Brummell came up to town
yesterday.” “Yes, Sir,” replied the lady, “but he took the key along with him.”
Speaking of Mr. Lowe’s speeches,
Mr. Harness remarked that nothing so chastened the
taste as the study of the classics; not even that of Shakespeare. He also observed that humour
was in the mind, and had nothing to do with the animal spirits. Charles Mathews, Liston, and
Leach were all given to despondency. The story about the Doctor
recommending Grimaldi to go and hear himself really
referred to an actor in Italy.
Having consorted with so many of the most brilliant wits for half a century,
Mr. Harness had heard so many racy sayings, that it was
difficult to produce any jeu d’esprit which seemed to him really
original. On one occasion (when he had been dining in company with the Bishop of Oxford and Mr.
Gladstone) I inquired how he enjoyed his privilege, and what was the character of
the intellectual banquet? “Well,” he replied, “after dinner the
gentlemen began to relate anecdotes, and to say the truth I don’t think I ever heard so
many stale ‘Joe Millers’ in my
life.”
One December, when I was about to leave for the country, he told me the
following stories with which I might amuse my friends round the Christmas hearth. They are
interesting as being supported by a stronger amount of evidence than such accounts usually
possess.
On one occasion, in the time of our grandfathers, a hundred and fifty years ago,
the mansion of Lord Townshend at Rainham, was so full, that the rooms in
ordinary use were not sufficient to accommodate the guests. To solve this difficulty, it was proposed to place one of the visitors in a
chamber which was generally supposed to be haunted by a white female figure. It was late at night
when Lord Townshend conducted his friend to his apartment, and the
consternation of both may be imagined when, on opening the door, they perceived something white
and tall, like a female in a long robe, gliding across, and disappearing through a panel
opposite. Next day Lord Townshend examined the wainscoting, and observing a
slight peculiarity in the panel, ordered it to be removed. Behind it a kind of niche was
discovered, containing a human skeleton. It was now learnt, from some of the oldest inhabitants
in the neighbourhood, that the white apparition had formerly been considered to be connected with
a Lady Townshend about whose death there had been something dark and
mysterious. Lord Townshend ordered the coffin, in which she was supposed to have been buried, to
be brought up from the vault, and a strange confirmation was given to the ancient rumour, when,
on its being opened, it was found to be empty.
Lord Glenelg’s father told Mr. Harness that once when his son was staying at a country house, and the party
were assembled at the breakfast table, he observed from the window a lady—who was to have
left that morning—crossing the lawn. On making inquiries, it was found that the lady in question had left the
house, and it subsequently transpired that an accident had occurred in which she had lost her
life, at the very time when she appeared to be passing before the windows.
Dr. Baring, when Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, rented
for a short period a house which had belonged to Sir J. Paul, the
grandfather of the present Baronet. Miss —— was soon afterwards staying with him as a
visitor. One night, on putting out her candle and lying down in bed, she beheld, to her
astonishment and alarm, a little old man sitting in the arm-chair, warming his hands over the
fire. Her first impulse was to call for help; but she restrained herself, and, the figure
continuing motionless, she at length fell asleep. In the morning she related what she had seen,
and from the description she gave of the old gentleman, one of the party at once recognized him
as the deceased baronet to whom the house had previously belonged.
A vessel was sailing in the Atlantic, when the mate, on looking into the
captain’s cabin, saw a stranger sitting at the writing-desk. A sentence was afterwards
found written there: “Steer to the north-west.” The captain supposed it must
have been written by one of the crew, but none of their handwritings in the least resembled that
found in the cabin. After some consultation,
the captain changed his course and stood for the north-west. When they had sailed a considerable
distance, they came in sight of an ice-bound vessel. “There” cried the mate, as
soon as they went aboard her, “there is the man I saw writing in the cabin!”
He was one of the sailors, and had been asleep at the time stated.
CHAPTER VIII. POLITICS.—BENEFITS OF SETTLED GOVERNMENT TO RICH AND POOR.—POLITICAL
ALLUSIONS UNSUITABLE IN THE PULPIT.—NECESSARY EXCEPTIONS.—CONDUCT OF THE GOVERNMENT
IN INDIA.—ABSENCE OF RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE IN THE COUNCILS OF THE NATION.—STATE
AID.—REFINEMENT NOT NECESSARILY CONDUCIVE TO MORALITY.—OBJECTIONS TO UNSECTARIAN
EDUCATION.
It will be unnecessary to inform the reader who has perused the foregoing
chapters that Mr. Harness was, in every sense, a clergyman
of the old school. He took a pride in being so, and as he advanced in life his character became
more marked in this respect. It must be remembered that he had lived in times widely different
from the present, and had known the day when he incurred the charge of affectation for not
powdering his hair like his brother clergymen. He was then regarded as somewhat in advance of his
age; but he still retained a great suspicion of novelties, and was doubtful whether changes would
be found generally advantageous. His deportment was in every respect in unison with his
sentiments. No one could be in his company without
observing the neatness of his attire, the precision of his language, and the studious politeness
of his manner. He was an admirable specimen of the past age, and deplored the careless dress, the
‘fast’ conversation, and the broad opinions of the rising generation. “There
seems to be some truth,” he would say, “in what I have heard among my
contemporaries, that there are no gentlemen like the old gentlemen.” In politics,
Mr. Harness belonged to the old ‘Church and King’
school—a staunch conservative; but if not professedly ‘liberal’ in principle he
was always practically generous; and that he held enlightened views may be inferred from the
following passages:—
“The Gospel naturally directs to equal rule and liberal government. It
opposes a permanent resistance to every species of tyranny and injustice; it operates with a
steady, even, and continued agency for the amelioration of the condition of mankind. It is the
good seed which the Lord has sown; and it will inevitably arise in majesty and spread its
protecting branches over us, if, with faith in the wisdom and devout reliance on the
Providence of God, we will allow it to grow up and flourish beneath the genial influence of
Heaven, and not destroy the promise of its blossoms by endeavours to anticipate the
fruit.”
“Savage and barbarous life is not an unmixed evil; civil and orderly life is not an unmixed good. And it
most unfortunately happens that the evils of civil and orderly life always seem to bear, with
the full oppression of their weight, on that most numerous class among whom its good is least
immediately perceptible. The benefits which result from the existence of an established
government, and from the due subordination of the different classes of society, are very
distinctly seen by those who enjoy (under such a state of things) the security of their
property, and the possession of all the luxuries and comforts which such security affords. But
the wisdom of such a system is by no means so self-evident to the humbler and poorer many. The
meditative mind, indeed, may trace its kindly influence from the heart to the extremities of
society, and discover that, as there is no part uncherished by the support which it diffuses,
neither is there any part (however abject or remote) that would not be injured by its
abolition. This is a truth—but it is an obscure truth. The good which the poor and
labouring class derive from the institutions of civil life approaches them by such circuitous
and complicated channels that none but an educated eye can follow it through all its windings,
and track it upwards to its source. Doubtless, the poor would be sufferers from the miseries
of anarchy; doubtless, they have a vital interest in the security of govern-ment and the inviolability of the laws; but the
portion of that general benefit which descends to them appears so small, in comparison with
that which is afforded their superiors, and sheds so cold a comfort around their destitute and
narrow homes, that they may well be pardoned if they sometimes fail to perceive in what manner
their welfare can be connected with the orderly and tranquil subsistence of institutions which
secure to their masters the enjoyment of ease, wealth, and power, and seem to leave nothing
for them but an unwelcome residue of indigence, labour, and privations.”
“Exactly in proportion as property is secure, civilization advances:
exactly in proportion as property is insecure, civilization declines.
‘Righteousness,’ says Solomon, ‘exalteth a
nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” As governments are oppressive, as
laws are partially administered, as the dealings between man and man become more mingled with
falsehood or attainted by fraud, as rapine and violence are allowed to escape
unpunished—the fair fruits of art and science, of sound learning and liberal opinion, of
gentle manners and mild affections, perish gradually away, and give place to all the evil
progeny which are engendered of malignant passions, narrow-minded bigotry, and all-grasping
selfishness.”
Mr. Harness very seldom touched upon politics in his public ministry; he wished to remove as far
as possible all party feeling from the worship of God. Alluding to his conduct in this respect,
he observes: “I have purposely avoided all allusion to subjects of a mere temporal
nature. The passing interests of the day—the dissensions of politicians—the
occurrences which engage and disturb society, have found no reverberating echoes here. My
desire has been that when we were met together for our brief Sabbath hour, that hour should be
one of calm and peace, shedding over the soul the purifying rest of Sabbath feelings; an hour
snatched from the ordinary cares, thoughts, and business of the world, and saved from the
turmoil of those factions and feuds, competitions and enmities, which tumultuously rage
without the wall of this ‘house of prayer,’ like the angry waves of the deluge
about the Ark. On the same principle, we have never perplexed ourselves, here, with the
disputes of the religious parties of the day. Without ever shrinking from the full and
distinct avowal of my own views, which, I trust, are alike supported by the authority of
Scripture and the Church, I have abstained from disturbing your minds with the discussion of
the views of those who differ from us. I have studiously avoided stimulating your animosities
against any class of your brother Christians, either by denunciations of the Roman Catholics,
or attacks on the Calvinists, or anathemas
against the Tractarians. I have shunned such topics, because they tend to produce malignity,
and not charity; because the preaching against others is virtually an exalting of ourselves,
and I know whom it is the Lord delighteth to abase; because every error of opinion among the
disciples of the Gospel is combined with a certain degree of truth derived from the Gospel,
and it requires far greater nicety of discrimination than the brief and hasty notices of the
pulpit will allow to escape the danger of treading down the wheat of truth, while attempting
to eradicate the tares of error; and because every year I live, my conviction becomes stronger
that ‘piety never begins till controversy ends.’ My only object has been to
concentrate your attention on the great essential doctrines of Christianity, and so to bring
them to bear on your consciences as to secure their practical influence on your duty towards
God and man. Apart from all exciting arguments—all declamatory appeals to the
passions—all startling paradoxes which are gradually resolved by the alchemy of rhetoric
into axiomatic truths—all subtle theological disquisitions—and all ingenious and
novel but very questionable interpretations of Scripture, I have been content to tread the
level ground offered by the common themes of pastoral instruction, without regarding the
imputation of being considered common-place; for I have always felt that my office here is not to teach divinity, as a
science, to the learned few, but religion to the ignorant many, as presenting the highest
objects of human hopes, and the noblest and purest motives of human conduct.”
But there were occasions on which he deemed it culpable that a Minister of the
Gospel should hold his peace. Under such pressure he felt it his duty to express his opinion in
firm and uncompromising terms, and boldly condemned the temporizing policy of expediency.
“Either the information flowing in upon us day by day, and from
different quarters, must be subject to a strange perversion, or there are delinquencies
attaching to the Indian Government and to the English sojourners in India, which alone may be
accounted as sufficient to invite the wrath of the Almighty against them; delinquencies, not
only of such a description as could never have occurred, had the great body of our countrymen
in the East been duly sensible of the responsibility of their position as Christian men among
heathen people, but such as were sure, according to those ordinary counsels of Divine
Providence which are revealed to us in the Bible, to expose and lay them bare to the wrath of
God. I refer to no mere temporal transactions; I ignore all allusion to their civil
oppressions—their heavy exactions—their deadly opium trade—their grasping avarice—their questionable
annexations; I speak simply of their conduct as members of the Church of Christ, and with
reference to the Gospel of Christ. Has their influence been righteously employed for the
diminution of Heathenism among the people? Has it not been employed in a contrary direction?
And has not Idolatry of the grossest description been sustained, in decided opposition to
God’s commandments, by the fostering smiles and cheering patronage of the authorities?
It is one thing to abstain from attacking a false religion with violence, and another to pay
homage to it; but unless the information of competent authorities deceives us, we have, by our
conduct, been inducing the belief that religious error and religious truth are matters of
indifference—that Idolatry is no vain thing—and that we, who are worshippers of
Jehovah, may, at any time, and with impunity, be allowed to mingle our
devotions with the votaries of Baal and
Moloch.”
Again, with reference to our Home legislation, he observes:—
“Look to the great councils of the nation! What is the operation of
faith there? Where do you find among the members who form them the pure, the righteous, the
holy principles of the Gospel referred to, with the view of discovering what God’s Word
really does direct, that that Word
may be taken as their guide, and strictly followed out in their acts of legislation? No. It is
cited as if they believed in it; a courteous obeisance of respect is made to it in passing;
but passed by it is; and while they acknowledge its divine authority with their lips, they
repudiate its divine authority by their practice. I would cite, in proof of this statement,
the bent of modern legislation to relax the restraints which our Christian forefathers have
placed upon the passions, as evinced in the Divorce Bill, and in the repeated attempts to
authorize a man’s marriage with his wife’s sister. In the first of these bills,
the legislation is directly opposed to God’s Word; in the second, it is, to say the
least, but little accordant with the spirit of God’s law. Christian faith, if it really
and influentially possessed the hearts of our legislators, would direct them to an opposite
course. It would prompt them to strengthen, and not to weaken, the marriage tie—to
extend, and not to contract, the circle of pure affections about the hearth.”
Directing his views by the light of God’s Word alone, he alternately
reprobated the irreligious conduct both of rulers and people. Some good remarks on the
fluctuations of public opinion are contained in the following passage:
“If it were allowed us to form our notions of the Divine Government from what we see going on in the
world around us, we might be led to believe that any course of conduct, however vicious, if
followed by the majority of a nation, must necessarily pass unpunished. As far as this world
is concerned we know that all things are ultimately governed by opinion—that the opinion
which governs is the opinion of the many—that the opinion of the many, like every other
earthly thing, is liable to incessant mutation—that if, in one age, Religion and Virtue
be sustained by the suffrages of the people, in another, ungodliness and vice may, under the
same powerful auspices, become ascendant—and that when evil, sanctioned by the
sentiments and habits of the multitude, thus stands omnipotent in the support of public
opinion, any human monarch who might attempt to restrain it by laws or subject it to
penalties, would as much exert himself in vain as if he tried to control the violence of the
winds or to regulate the rush and swell of the ocean.
“But is such the case with the Government of God? Is His authority
liable to be controlled or swayed by any such external influences? Can the fluctuations of
human opinion affect the measures of His dominion? No. The most mighty Lord of Heaven and
Earth holds in His own wisdom the certain invariable principles of moral good and evil. And, in accordance with those principles, the reward and
punishment of His justice will inevitably be determined. All other things may change; God is
immutable.”
From a due appreciation of the weakness and instability of human nature,
Mr. Harness considered it of importance that the Church
should be supported by the State:*
“Although State aid was necessary, in the dark days of barbarism, it
is presumed that no such help is required in our present times of light and
civilization—that Christianity may now be safely left to find its level without the
superintending care of Government—and that, as with every other essentials to the
welfare of human life, the want would create the demand, and the demand would secure the
supply. Nothing can be more erroneous than such a supposition. It is founded on a fallacy
altogether. There is not only no analogy between the cases; but, as Dr. Chalmers admirably demonstrated in his evidence before the
Irish Committee, there is the most direct opposition between them. With regard
* In late years, speaking of the Bill for the Disestablishment of
the Irish Church, he observed how great were the disadvantages of the Voluntary system.
A clergyman under it must preach what the people wish to hear. “A Dissenting
congregation,” he added, “lately dismissed their minister, on the ground
that no man could make a living if he acted on the principles which he
advocated!”
to all other things that are necessary to our
happiness, the demand increases in proportion to the want, and consequently the supply may be
safely entrusted to the operation of ordinary causes, without requiring the interference of
the legislator to stimulate or assist their action; but with Religion, on the contrary, the
demand always diminishes in proportion to the want, and the greater the state of spiritual
destitution, the greater need there is for the interposition of some extraordinary means to
induce the apprehension of it.”
On the subject of Education, Mr. Harness
did not take such wide views as are in favour at the present day. He was entirely opposed to
those visionary theorists who think that all classes should receive instruction in the higher
branches of literature and science. “People,” he said “should be educated
according to their station;” and reading, writing, and arithmetic were all that he
considered necessary for the National Schools, with the exception of religious training, and such
instruction in industrial work as might be of use to the children in after-life. “I
cannot help thinking that such instruction is sufficient. I cannot perceive the wisdom of
attempting to teach more. It is certainly just and right—kind to the individual and
advantageous to the public—that every man endowed with extraordinary talents, such as
Sir Richard Arkwright or Professor
Lee, should, however humble his condition, be afforded the educational means of
raising himself above it. To effect this, if he be imbued with sound Christian principles as
his guide, reading and writing—the ability of collecting the ideas of others and
imparting his own—are quite enough; while, with regard to the great mass of the
population, which must always consist of persons endowed with ordinary talents, it is a
subject of grave doubt whether a wider range of instruction should be provided for them by
public or charitable sources. Education above a man’s condition, implies wants above his
wages; and when those wants exist without the natural capacity which may be required to raise
his condition to their level, they only too frequently become the origin of a painful but
ineffective hankering after something better—a restless impatience of labour—an
undefined sense of injury, and a resentful feeling of envy against all persons of a superior
position.
“But crime, misery, and drunkenness are on the increase; and it is
presumed that ignorance lies at the root of all this evil. Ignorance of what? If it be said,
virtual ignorance of the faith, then we are agreed. That sort of ignorance does lie at the
root of all this evil. But if it be asserted that the moral mischief follows as the
consequence of ignorance of secular knowledge, the proposition is refuted by the facts which are, day by day, taking place
before our eyes. Are the fraudulent offences, of which we have lately witnessed such
oft-recurring and ingenious instances, to be attributed to ignorance in secular knowledge?
Does the licentiousness by which so many fair-looking streets of the Metropolis are rendered
disreputable, emanate from ignorance in secular knowledge? There is undoubtedly a class of
violent crimes and an immense amount of misery which ensue from drunkenness; and that may be a
reason why the drunkard should be rigorously punished; but I have yet to learn that the great
mass of drunkards have become the degraded things they are, on account of their being less
well-informed than others of their own rank. On the contrary, as far as my own experience of
the class will enable me to judge, they would appear to be chiefly composed of persons who are
somewhat better educated than the poor generally are—who have a taste for the
conversation, the music, the gaming, the politics, the conviviality of the tavern—who
from the force of such allurements have been led to neglect their business, till they were
alike bankrupt of capital and character—and who, having once given way to dissolute
habits, have gravitated from lower and lower, to the lowest depths of wretchedness, under the
depressing weight of their vices.”
“But it has been assumed that all such characters must of necessity be
ignorant, and that if they had possessed some branch of knowledge to occupy their minds, they
would never have fallen into such a state of degradation. ‘Impart to them,’ it is
said, ‘the rudiments of Science and Art in childhood, and provide for them the means of
intellectual amusement in their manhood, and they will be drawn away by such attractions from
the present haunts of their drunkenness and gaming and impurity.’ Will they? Do we find
this to be the case among the dissolute of our own station? Are they only lost in sin because
they have not an ear for music or an eye for colour? Are they only fraudulent and licentious
because they have not been so deeply imbued with secular learning as their compeers? Is it a
property of our nature to extinguish the stronger excitement by the weaker? No; depend upon
it, the scientific lecture, the reading-room, will avail nothing in effecting the reformation
of that vicious portion of society for whom their attractions are prepared.”
Mr. Harness thought that the advantages to be derived from
intellectual endowments were erroneously estimated. “Nothing,” he says, “is
so common as to hear persons dilate in society on the humanizing influences of painting and
statuary, of music and poetry, and recommend the encourage-ment of a taste for these things as a means of elevating and refining the public mind, But
by what intelligible process is this effected? In what manner do they act upon each other? It
is possible—and I think it is so—that persons born with that peculiar temperament
which is called genius, and by which they are rendered easily impressible by works of Art,
appear to be distinguished above their fellows by a rare tenderness and instinctive delicacy
of nature. It is a perilous gift to them. Their sensibility to pain is more than an equivalent
to their susceptibility of pleasure; and we may fairly doubt whether the few by whom it is
possessed ought to be allowed more than a very limited indulgence of their taste for the
things that they delight in. Its gratification only serves to soften a character which
requires to be annealed—to excite feelings which ought to be repressed—to
encourage visions of happiness which can never be realized—to cherish affections which
never can be reciprocated—and to prepare the heart for the reception of sorrows which
can never be consoled. How far it may, or may not, be desirable, in this hard, struggling,
working-day world of ours, to have that kind of character more generally diffused among us, I
leave for others to decide. I am quite sure that it cannot be good to induce an affectation of its qualities; and I am equally sure that their reality
will never be created by any attempt of ours to
cultivate an exotic taste for the productions of Art in the minds of the people. Such things
do not modify the national character; the national character modifies them. This is seen by
the differences by which the different schools of Art are distinguished. The Dutch or the
Italian masters took their models from the objects before their eyes; and both one and the
other seem to have left their countrymen pretty much what they had found them. Indeed, to
suppose that the higher moral sensibilities of genius can be engendered in souls of a coarser
nature by imparting to them a critical appreciation of pictures and statues, and music and
poetry, involves, to my mind, as gross a metaphysical absurdity as if we should expect to
awaken a grateful sense of melody in the deaf by teaching them harmonies—or to impart a
feeling for the beauties of nature in the blind by making them acquainted with the rules of
perspective. Pleasure in works of art, all men take; because, perhaps, we are of an imitative
nature, and are intuitively pleased by witnessing efforts of successful imitation. But the
pleasure will only be produced by such efforts as accord with the state of our character and
the habits of our lives.”
“Many horrors were perpetrated in the most enlightened period of the
Heathen world. The progress of the arts and sciences did nothing for religion. It enabled the idolater to erect more splendid temples,
to carve larger and finer statues, to overlay them curiously with ivory, to invent more
ornamental rites, to weave more graceful dances, and to breathe more refined and complicated
harmonies around the shrines of his visionary deities; but it did no more. This was all that
the March of Intellect, in classic times, ever effected for national religion.”
The advocates of unsectarian education found no favour with Mr. Harness. He did not believe that, even if such a system could
be practically carried out, it would really tend to the benefit of the community.
“Secular instruction,” he writes, “worketh, with other things, for good
when it is combined with Religion; but separated from Religion, it is a mere accident whether
it have a good, or an evil, or any influence at all on the formation of moral character. Yet,
as I have said, an opinion is gaining ground among, a certain class of philanthropists, that,
as Religion cannot be taught, on account of our sectarian differences, the Government should
produce some measure for the establishment of common schools in which—Religion being
excluded—the teaching might be confined to such secular matters as we are all perfectly
agreed upon. Now, this scheme, if it is ever brought to bear, must prove injurious to
Christian faith. Such a measure—what-ever may be the preamble of the Bill—would have the effect of placing the knowledge of
God’s Word and Law in a secondary position. The multitude would infer that what the
State refrained from teaching must needs be of very inferior consequence to that which it
undertakes to teach; and the result would be a gradual diminution and final loss of reverence
for the Gospel.
“Nothing can sound more innocent than the proposition of assembling
the children of all denominations in a common school-room, to be taught literature and
science. But the common school-room involves a common school-master; and of what religion is
that master to be? Is he to be of no religion? or of no particular religion? or of what
religion? I know not how the Vicar of Leeds* may feel
upon the matter; but, for myself, no amount of literary or scientific attainments would induce
me to entrust any child in whom I was interested, during six hours a day for six days in the
week, within the contagious sphere of the principles of a master who either held extreme
Calvinistic views or who denied the divinity of our Lord. Others would act the same—and
properly too, if they felt the same—towards a master who maintained the doctrines of the
Roman or of the English Churches. But we are told that a man is
* Dr. Hook had
published a letter on the subject.
not to teach Religion! Why, he can’t help
teaching it! If he have any religious opinions they will inevitably evince themselves; and if
he be of no religion, it will have an influence on his instructions.
“Why, ever since the first dawn of the Reformation, the characters who
occupy the principal places in our annals bear a different hue to every class of religionists
among us. According to the bias of one sect, the chief promoters of the Reformation are
regarded either as ministers of Satan or of God. Anne
Bullen is either an incestuous adultress, the wily instigator of the ruin of
‘Wolsey and the murder of Sir Thomas More; or she is the loveliest and the gayest, the
most artless and the most innocent of victims! Queen Mary the
First is either a patriot queen, acting justly and firmly, but not more severely
than the spirit of her age allowed, in opposition to the attacks of a band of rebellious
fanatics; or she is a benighted and unrelenting bigot, rejoicing in the persecution and
polluted with the blood of the Saints! Now, these contradictory historical opinions are
inseparably amalgamated. To every High Churchman, Charles the
First is the last, and not the least revered, of Anglican Martyrs; to the whole
body of Dissenters, he is the most subtle and impracticable of hypocrites.”
Again, he remarks: “If schools of such an un-sanctified description as some desire to see, be raised and
continued, it is to be apprehended that ‘when the Son of Man cometh’ He will not
‘find faith on the earth.’ Such a fearful consequence may be inferred from an
experiment of nineteen years which has been tried in the United States of America. There, they
have a general education on this plan. They have tried the effect of such common schools for
worldly literature and art and science, but without religion; and I will cite a few passages
from a considerable number of authorities at my command, which will enable you to form some
notion of its results. The opinions I am about to adduce were all delivered by citizens of the
United States, not by clergymen who might be suspected of taking a prejudiced view of the
question, but by laymen to whom no such suspicion can attach.
“‘The persons,’ says one, ‘who, in former
years were zealous in maturing our common school system have begun to open their eyes. They
stand aghast at their own work, fearing that, instead of cherishing a lamb, they have been
training up a wolf.’ ‘I know,’ says another,
‘thirteen young men who came from one school, and every one of them has rushed
headlong to destruction.’ ‘I do not affirm,’ says another,
‘that education causes crime; I only affirm that the two are co-existing facts,
and that the system of common school education
is attended with an increase of crime, because it is the education of only one side of
human nature, and that not the controlling side. Man’s moral and religious nature
constitutes his other and better but undeveloped self.’ ‘The common school
system,’ says another, ‘is proving a disastrous failure. From its first
establishment to the present time it has been injurious to the character of the rising
generation. The patrons of the system forgot that educated mind, without religion, is
educated vice; and that mind can only be stimulated to seek its improvement by something
higher, deeper, and more earnest than itself. Now they are reminded of it by the failure of
the experiment.’”
“My plan,” continues Mr.
Harness, “a plan which has been floating in my mind for years and been
often discussed among my friends, is simply this. The Government, insisting on its right, as
rulers of a Christian nation, to see the people abundantly provided with the facilities of
education and religious worship, should institute a permanent rate on all dwelling-houses,
payable by the landlord, for building educational and religious edifices in populous places,
and for supplying them with efficient ministers and masters. On paying the rate, the ratepayer
should intimate whether his quota should contribute to the fund of the Church of England, the Roman Catholics, or the
Dissenters.” Mr. Harness had observed in
his own parishes the happy results of religious education, not only upon the children, bub also
upon their parents. He alludes to them as follows:—
“‘Truly do I thank my God,’ said a mother, whose children
had been educated at one of the National Schools, ‘truly do I thank my God for the
instruction which my children have received.’ And hear her reason! Before her children
were admitted to the school, she and her husband never attended any place of worship and were
almost ignorant of God. After the elder daughter had been there some time, she said to her
mother, ‘Mother, you never go either to church or chapel; why do you not go?’ She
was so struck with this, and at her being taught in this manner by her child that from that
time she has constantly attended Divine Service; and the united examples of the mother and the
children have not been lost upon the father.
“Another instance is yet more strong. It relates to a father—a
loose, disorderly, profligate kind of man, who spent much of his time and money in low
excesses, and had reduced his wife and child to a state of the most abject and starving
poverty. One Sunday afternoon, the intoxicated father had been swearing much, when his child
told him that, from what she had learnt at school,
she knew such conduct to be extremely wicked. The father made no reply at the time; but on the
Monday morning his wife was surprised to see him go out and procure food for his family; and
so strong was the influence of his child’s reproof, that he has been from that hour a
reformed and altered being—a sober, quiet, and industrious man, a good husband, and a
good father.”
CHAPTER IX. THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT—VISITING ASSOCIATION.—EVIL RESULTS OF
INJUDICIOUS CHARITY.
In 1844 Mr. Harness, under the name of
“Presbyter Catholicus,” wrote a pamphlet which attracted considerable attention. It was called forth by a proposal on
the part of the Bishop of London to establish a
“Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association.” Mr. Harness was
strongly opposed to such a measure. He considered that charitable relief could be more
advantageously bestowed in private, to those with whose wants and characters we are personally
acquainted, than by the means of the agency of any public society. “The private
course,” he remarks, “is safest for ourselves, without desiring to derogate from
the praise of those who extend themselves beyond the bounds of their ordinary duties to set on
foot schemes of distant charity, and who are led by an ardent zeal for the welfare of their
race to divert the streams of their benevolence into channels far wider and more remote than those in which they would naturally
flow. I cannot help observing that there are very few who venture, without danger, to emulate
their conduct. Before a man devotes his time, his faculties, and his fortune to the benefit of
strangers, he ought to occupy a situation absolutely free from the responsibility of all the
claims of relatives, friends, and neighbours.
“Public charities,” he observes, “create the necessity
they relieve, but do not relieve all the necessity they create;” and he strongly
objects to money being distributed in that way, except under the careful supervision of a
responsible and well qualified Government officer. This opinion he corroborates by facts, in the
following terms:
“Pray, my Lord, allow me to call your attention for a moment to the
consequences which, from the natural course of things, might have been expected, and which in
fact have, to a certain degree, followed the institution of this society.
“In the midst of the mildest Winter we ever happen to remember, when the
poor at the north of London were perhaps better off than they had been for years; during a
Christmas which, it is said, witnessed the dressing of more meat dinners in St. Giles’s
than its cellars and its garrets had for a long time rejoiced in the savour of; at this
moment—when such a measure was perfectly uncalled-for by any extraordinary emergency—there appeared a public
announcement in all the newspapers of a new association for promoting the Relief of the
Destitution in the Metropolis. These very advertisements were pregnant with immediate evil. No
sooner had they made it known over the kingdom that such a scheme of ill-judging philanthropy,
supported by Royal patronage, and managed by Patrician Directors, was in agitation, than
multitudes of the labouring classes who were not so well off as might be desired in the
country, begged their way to London, to participate in the distribution of the funds. The sum
already collected appeared to be immense. New subscribers were daily adding to its amount.
What it might eventually become, none could calculate; far less could any calculate, or even
think of calculating, what would be the numbers likely to apply to it for succour, or what the
infinitesimal portion of relief which would fall to the lot of each, when the advertised
thousands were subjected to the process of reduction and division to answer the demands of its
claimants. At once London was looked upon as the El Dorado of the
indigent; and thither every adventurous pauper within a practicable distance bent his way. The
march of intellect had disabused them of the idle notions which existed in the days of
Whittington; they no longer believed that the
Metropolis was paved with gold, and that there any
man might fill his purse by picking up the stones; but they believed, and they had high,
royal, noble, episcopal authority for believing, that there no one, except a madman or an
idiot, need ever be in want, and that all might fill their bellies by applying to the stores
of ‘The Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association.” If there was distress
before—as there was, and always will be—the announcement of this institution
doubled and trebled it. There was not sufficient work in London to occupy all the hands which
were stretching out their fingers for employment; and thousands of additional hands were
summoned,* as if by a stirring reveillé, to join the scramble, and
increase the difficulty of obtaining any odd job that might happen to occur. At the outset, a
great injury was thus done to the labouring poor of London. A multitude of strangers was
introduced to compete with them for employment. But this was not all. These emigrants from the
country came, with their wants and appli-
* “This circumstance is alluded to, but very tenderly, in the
last Report of the Mendicity Society: ‘The managers are of opinion, that the
great facility now afforded the idle and profligate to obtain food and shelter has
greatly diminished their anxiety to seek for employment; and that very many have been
drawn to London who would never have ventured to come there, without the security now
afforded to them against the evils to which improvidence would formerly have exposed
them.’—Report for 1844.”
cations, to drain those charitable supplies of
coal and bread, of flannels and blankets, of soup and potatoes, which rightfully belonged to
our resident mendicants, and which they had calculated upon as part of their Winter resources.
When we consider the loss thus incurred by our own poor, and add to it all the wretchedness
which must have been suffered, both on their journey and after their arrival, by those deluded
persons who flocked to London on seeing the advertisement of the “Metropolitan Relief
Association,” we can have no doubt but that for the £20,000 worth of good which its
directors promised to do, according to their widely promulgated subscription list, they must
have inflicted at least double that amount of misery; and this, probably, before their plans
were sufficiently matured to have enabled them to disburse a farthing for its relief. So
impossible is public charity! So indispensable is it that in alms-giving the left hand should
not know what the right doeth.’”
Mr. Harness proceeds to trace the probable course of the
movement in a particular parish:—“Let us look at the working of the scheme. The
Rev. Mr. A., Incumbent of B., is anxious to show his respect for his diocesan, by acting in
correspondence with your Lordship’s views. He is also not unwilling to possess himself
of a portion of the funds, which he finds are at the disposal of the General Committee, and
which he thinks may be very well expended on
some of his more indigent parishioners. Stimulated by this compound motive, he summons a
certain number of his more steady churchgoers and frequent communicants to meet him in his
school-room; reads Mr. ——’s circular to them; lays before them as much as he
can collect of the scheme proposed; states his intention of adopting it in his own parish; and
requests the favour of their co-operation as visitors. Now, who are these visitors to be? The
noblemen and gentlemen of the General Committee do not seem to have contemplated any
difficulty on this score. Every obstacle is evaporated before the glowing heat of their
enthusiasm, like clouds before the sun. Speak to them of visitors; and—it matters not
where the parish, or what the population—their active fancy instantly conjures up a
group of Christian ladies and self-denying Christian gentlemen, with knowledge equal to their
zeal, and zeal proportioned to their knowledge, with plenty of time at their disposal, and
willingness (at a hint from their pastor) to spend it all in the service of the poor; with
humility which can meet every man on terms of equality as a brother; with gentleness which can
never offend; with charity which can sympathize with every description of distress; with a
quick insight into character which intuitively distinguishes the true from the false—the
sufferer from the impostor; and with a nice
tact and judgment which, apprehending at a glance the nature of the ill to be relieved, never
allow them to be mistaken as to the best mode of administering the relief required.
“Such are the qualities necessary to form a good visitor of the
poor—who is to go, a stranger among strangers, to deal with affliction in all its
variety of forms, and with imposture in all its Protean transformations. Can the General
Committee really suppose that the characters fitted for such an office are readily to be met
with? or that, when met with, they will require no discipline and education to prepare them
for its duties? Talk of the imaginative powers of the lover, the lunatic, or the poet! Why,
such persons are not half so ‘compact of imagination’ as the staid members of this
new Joint Stock Charity Association! A very few days since, one of its zealous supporters told
your Lordship’s correspondent that ‘nothing was easier to be met with than men and
women calculated to act as district visitors, for the only qualities required were sincere religious principles and sound common sense!’ Nothing
more! The two rarest qualities in the world to be found—apart; and, of course, still
more rare to be met with—in union! But supposing the Parish of B. should be most highly
blest, and be peculiarly rich in individuals of this happy religious and mental constitution; they are precisely the
individuals whom the Rev. Mr. A. will, on establishing his Visiting Society, endeavour in vain
to press into his service. The man of sincere religious principles and sound common sense is,
of all others, the least ready to take such charges upon himself. He has his own business to
attend to; he has his duty to fulfil in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call
him; he is alive to all its weighty responsibilities; he does not do all he ought, and
heartily desires to do more; he knows that in taking upon himself the charge of families with
which he has no connexion, but the very loose ties of the same parochial tenancy, he thrusts
himself into the responsibilities of those relations or friends, neighbours or employers, who
are morally and religiously bound to render them what assistance may be required; and he
conscientiously objects to undertake such offices, and thus to violate the Apostle’s
precepts by ‘stretching himself beyond his measure.’
“But when these, the most valuable members of his congregation, have
drifted off from him, where is the Rev. Mr. A. to look for his coadjutors? He may command the
services of the morbid pietist—of the restless fanatic—of the idler who is weary
of himself—and of the prying, curious, chattering busy-body who wants to know how
everybody lives and to settle everybody’s
affairs according to her rule. Mr. Timmins has retired
from business; he has always finished his newspaper by twelve; and, between that and his
luncheon at one, he will have no objection to see a few poor families in his neighbourhood.
Miss Yeddenly and her sister, Miss Laura, who have nothing in the world to do from breakfast to
dinner—after they have watered the geraniums, cleaned the canary birds, and fed the
cat—will be only too happy to undertake any charge to oblige the Rector. Miss Groves has a kind of penchant for the
red-haired curate; and, though her mother (who is rather blind and very rheumatic) wishes her
to remain at home and read Ellen
Middleton to her, she is altogether at the disposal of her spiritual guide.
Mrs. Gilks, a widow of small independence and
questionable gentility, is delighted to accept an avocation which promises to bring her into
familiar contact with the more aristocratic portion of her neighbours. Mr.
Docket, the little solicitor, hopes to obtain the advantages of being advertised
all over the parish as ‘the Honorary Secretary’ of the charity, and volunteers the
services of his wife and daughter; while Mr. Grills, the butcher,
Mr. Allum, the baker, Mr.
Crib, the grocer, Mr. Slate, the coal-merchant, Mr.
Serge, the draper, and Mr. Spriggett, of the
potato warehouse, are all ardent in the cause—partly with a view of pleasing their excellent customer the Rector; partly on
account of the beadle-like consequence to be derived from the office; and, partly, from a
consideration of the amount to which their visits among the poor may be remunerated by tickets
for articles on their respective shops.
“This is the class of persons, my Lord, on whom will devolve the most
delicate charge that can be entrusted to the despatch of man—the charge of administering
comfort to the desponding, the suffering, and the broken-hearted. At first, for a month or so,
the Rev. Mr. A. may persuade a few more able hands to assist him in getting his scheme out of
dock and setting it afloat. But these will one by one desert him, and eventually leave it to
be worked by the sort of people I have described. At all events, from July to November, when
every body is out of town, into such hands it must inevitably fall.
“But, however, after a little time, ‘The B. Visiting and Relief
Society’ is formed. The President, the Treasurer, the Secretary, the Committee, are
appointed; the number of visitors is complete; the grant from the great central fund has been
paid, and is increased by a numerous list of annual subscriptions. The parish is divided into
districts, and a certain number of ladies and gentlemen appointed as superintendents to
each.
“You set up an office for the distribution of unearned food and fuel!
Immediately, all the idle and improvident, the drunken and the dissolute, will flock to the
scramble; and these will be followed, in rapidly increasing numbers, by others whom the
display of the gifts bestowed upon the first applicants will tempt away from their daily
labour, to try the chance of winning for themselves a share of those fruits of idleness which
are, at first, so sweet in flavour, but which leave so bitter an after-taste.
“I cannot refrain from citing, on this subject, some cases described by
Mr. Brushfield.* This gentleman was one of the parish officers of
Christ Church, Spitalfields. He states: ‘My general mode of investigation was, not to
make inquiries elsewhere, but to visit the residences of those persons whom I
suspected—which, by the way, was most of the paupers—first on the Saturday, and
next on the Sunday. On Saturday they expected me, and I had, generally, some cause to doubt
the appearance of their dwellings on that day. In general, those who wanted to impose upon
us over-coloured the picture; and certainly the pictures they drew were often very
appalling. One Saturday, accompanied by one of the churchwardens, I visited ten places. The
scenes of distress were
* In the same Parliamentary Paper, p. 279.
quite frightful. There were two cases
which seemed to be cases of extreme misery. In one house a man named
Bagg, who had a wooden leg, was found sitting as if sunk in
despair. He said he had no work, and had no food that day, nor since the evening before.
His wife was afflicted with a bad leg; she was in bed, and stated that she had not been
able to get out of bed for six weeks. The room was in a miserable plight, dirty and
wretched. I looked into the cupboard, and found no provisions there. The appearance of the
place was such that the churchwarden could not forbear giving the man some pecuniary relief
at once. The other case was that of a man named Anster, who had for
some time before been chargeable to the parish as an out-pauper. The appearance of his room
was most deplorable. There was no trace of any kind of food; and the children were ragged,
dirty, squalid, and wretched. I desired the wife to tell her husband to apply to me for
relief in the evening; when, as I was fully convinced of the necessity by the misery I
witnessed, it had been my intention to give them some assistance. In the evening, the
husband and wife called together. I expressed my regret that they should be obliged to come
to the parish, and asked if the husband had any prospect of obtaining work? He declared
that he had neither work, nor any prospect of getting any at present. I judged by his appearance that he had been drinking, and
said, ‘Well, call upon me on Monday morning, and I will see what I can do for
you.’ They expressed themselves very much obliged to me, and went away apparently
quite pleased; though, according to their representation, they were absolutely in a state
of starvation.
“‘On the Sunday morning’ (continues Mr.
Brushfield), ‘I renewed my visits. The first case I went to was that of
this man, Anster. It was about nine o’clock in the morning when
I called. I opened the door, and then knocked, when I found they were in bed. I saw the
wife jump out of bed, and run in great haste to fling a cloth over a table which was
standing in the middle of the room; but, in her haste to get away, and in her confusion,
she pulled the covering off, and exposed to my view a large piece of beef, a piece of
mutton, and parcels of tea, sugar, bread, butter, &c. The man called from the bed,
‘D—n them, never mind them; you know they belong to your father.’ I
told them that was enough, and immediately left the place. They never afterwards applied for
relief.
“‘When I visited the house of
Bagg’ (continues Mr. Brushfield),
‘I found Mrs. Bagg out of bed and at breakfast; she had her
tea, and he had his coffee. I saw a neck of mutton on one shelf, and two loaves on another shelf of the cupboard, which was empty the
day before. I went into his workshop—he was a silk-dresser—and found it full of
work. The man swore horribly; and I left the place. I do not know that he ever asked for
assistance again.’
“But,” resumes Mr.
Harness, “I will take the very fairest view of the working of the B.
Society, I will imagine the impossible case, that no imposition shall be practised on the
visitors—or, at all events, that the plans of the Rev. Mr. A.—— and his
Committee have been so well arranged as to crush it in the bud. The parish is split into such
small and manageable portions that every visitor has only a very few houses under his
superintendence. These he will call at from time to time; and, by personally making himself
acquainted with the circumstances and wants of each family, will not only anticipate the
necessity of any application for assistance, but preclude the possibility of fraud. Now,
admirable as this scheme may appear to many, I beg leave to state, from my intimate knowledge
of the best class of the labouring poor, that, though they may not exhibit any incivility to
the strange lady or gentleman who thus—impertinently and without invitation—forces
her or his way into their apartments, they feel, as they will very often express themselves,
quite as much hurt by such an indecent outrage on the
sacred privacy of their home as that lady or gentleman visitor would feel if any poor person
were to obtrude himself, uncalled for, into the boudoir of the one or the library of the
other. When your correspondent, my Lord, once asked an old Scotchwoman ‘why she
always locked her door against the visiting lady?’ her answer was,
‘She’s an idle, chattering body; and I’d rather want her coals than be
fashed wi’ her questions!’
“The English population will be fallen low, indeed, when the industrious
classes are so degraded as to have lost all sense of the reverence which is due to their own
hearths, and not to feel the republican part of their national character rise indignantly
against the arrogance which considers a better coat and a fuller purse as affording any one
who may choose to enter upon the office a sufficient warrant for breaking in, at all times,
however inconvenient, upon their families and interfering with their concerns. ‘Poverty
has naturally a proud spirit: pauperism a base one—now servile, now
insolent.’*
“But I will return to the Rev. Mr. A——, and the B. Visiting
Society. It is now ready for business; the season for its operation has commenced. Work is
slack; the snow is on the ground; and
* Walker’s “Original,” page 195.
there is a considerable degree of distress
among the inhabitants of the poorer districts. The visitor sets out upon his round, to do his
best towards discovering where it presses most severely, and to apply, as judiciously as he
can, the funds entrusted to him for its relief. I will put no imaginary case: I will only
describe such circumstances as I have known to exist, and are fresh in my recollection. He
comes to a house inhabited entirely by labouring people—a family in each room. On the
first floor, in one apartment, he finds a man, his wife, and two children. They have every
comfort about them. The husband is a shoe-maker; the wife helps at the binding; the eldest
child is sent to school at two-pence a week; the other is too young to leave the mother. At
present, their whole earnings do not exceed ten shillings a week; but they had saved some
money in the summer, and they hope to be in receipt of better wages in the spring. In the
other apartment, lives a man with his wife and one child. He is also a shoe-maker. His room is
filthy, offensive in smell, and destitute of any furniture, except his bench, a black
tea-kettle, two or three articles of damaged earthenware, and a lump of dirty shavings, which,
with some old horse-cloths, are bundled up in a corner of the room by day, and spread out at
night to serve the family as a bed. The circumstances of this man, as to the amount of his weekly earnings, are precisely those of
his neighbour in the next room; though in one sense he is better off, as he has only one child
to feed, and no schooling to pay for. But he earns only ten shillings a week. This must supply
him, his wife and child, with lodging, clothing, food, and firing. In the Spring, Summer, and
Autumn, he had higher wages; but then he owed a large bill at the shop, and had spent the
rest; so that, now, he is really in a state of poverty, having borrowed whenever he could find
any neighbour to lend—run in debt wherever he could get credit—and pawned every
article of dress or furniture on which a penny could be raised. “Here, then, are two
cases, in which the visitor is called upon take an active part; they may be considered as fair
representatives of nearly all the cases which he will meet with in the course of his
perambulations. How is the visitor to deal with them? Will he not give to either? Then he may
as well fling his Journal, and his relief tickets, and all the apparatus of a district-visitor
into the fire; for he will very rarely meet with any necessity greater than that of the family
I have last described. The distress, it is true, has been brought on by imprudence and vice;
but if he refuses help to all the misery which originates in such causes, he will find very
few claimants on his benevolence.
“Will he, then, assist this case? If he does, he will confer on the
dissolute and imprudent that which his prudent and virtuous neighbour in the adjoining room is
unable to purchase. The Visitor’s ticket for bread and coals renders this unworthy
fellow’s income for the week far better than that of the industrious, independent,
high-minded man who is bravely struggling against his difficulties on the other side of the
partition which divides their rooms; and alms, so given, operate, to all intents and purposes,
as a premium on vice and a great discouragement to virtue.
“I cannot, my Lord, help thinking that the experience of Mr.
J. K. Barker might be very advantageously taken as a guide to the District
Visitor on such an occasion. This gentleman had been most kindly active in the administration
of the parochial affairs of Hambledon. He says:* ‘There were two labourers who were
reported to me as extremely industrious men, maintaining large families. Neither of them
had ever applied for parish relief. I thought it advisable that they should receive some
mark of public approbation; and we gave them one pound apiece from the parish. Very shortly
after this, they both became applicants for relief, and have continued so ever since. I am
not aware that any other cause existed for this change in the con-
* “Administration of the Poor Laws,”
page 85.
duct of the two men, except the
above-mentioned gratuity.’
“Nothing can permanently better the condition of the working classes but
an increase of prudence.” The Visiting Society has a direct tendency to destroy the
exercise of this virtue. In addressing the labouring classes, it takes the care of themselves
out of their own hands. Were the father of a family to say, ‘If, my lads, you are in any
difficulty about paying your bills at Christmas, never mind, come to me, I’ll settle
them for you,’ does not your Lordship think he would very soon find his lads always in
difficulty about their Christmas bills, and that he would have more presented than he could
conveniently pay? The case is precisely the same with Relief Societies. The effect which they
have upon the poor population of a parish cannot be better illustrated than by an anecdote
related by Thomas Walker, the late excellent Police
Magistrate: ‘The founder of Guy’s Hospital left to the Trustees a fund to be
distributed to such of his relations as should, from time to time, fall into distress. The
fund, at length, became insufficient to meet the applications; and the Trustees, thinking it
hard to refuse any claimants, trenched upon the funds of the Hospital; the consequence of
which was that no Guy was ever known to prosper. So that if any individual
* Walker’s “Original,” page 251.
could be wicked enough to wish the ruin of his
posterity for ever, his surest means would be to leave his property in trust, to be
distributed ‘to them only in distress.’
“Just so is it with all these public charities for the poor. Like
Guy’s fund, they set before the eyes of the labouring classes an inducement to distress;
and those classes will never prosper till such ill-judging friends as the ‘Metropolitan
District Visiting and Relief Association’ can be persuaded to withdraw their pernicious
protection from them. All these newly-invented benevolent Institutions, which are formed to
help the poor through every difficulty of life, are framed in direct opposition to the
counsels of Providence; for all those difficulties were designed by the Almighty as a part of
a wise but severe discipline, to compel us to look beyond the present and provide for the
future, by suffering from the idleness or imprudence of the past.
“Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence and to interfere
with the government of the world, we had need to be very circumspect, lest we do more harm
than good. In New England, they once thought blackbirds useless and
mischievous to the corn; and they made efforts to destroy them. The consequence was the
blackbirds were diminished; but a kind of worm which devoured their grass, and which the
black-birds used to feed on, increased
prodigiously. Then, finding their loss in grass much greater than their saving in corn, they
wished again for the blackbirds.’* Nothing can be more apt than this illustration. The
corn represents the cardinal virtues—the blackbirds the ordinary exigencies of human life—the efforts to destroy them
public charities—and the worms, which
multiplied in proportion as the blackbirds were destroyed, are the vices, sloth, intemperance,
and carelessness of the future.”
With reference to giving relief in kind instead of money, Mr. Harness adds: “A poor person will always make a
shilling purchase twice as much again as a rich one will do for him. As one out of many cases
which I could cite in proof of this, I will extract from the Journal of a Clergyman (who,
by-the-by, is a London Curate of eighteen years’ standing, and identifies himself in all
my views) what was done by one of his poor with the small sum of sixpence farthing:
1lb. of meat 2½ ½lb of flour 1¼ —— Carried forward 3¾
* A letter of Franklin’s, preserved in
“The Diary of a Lover of
Literature.” See Gentleman’s Magazine, New
Series, Vol. I., page 12.
Brought forward 3¾ 71bs. of coals 1¼ Carrots ½ Potatoes ½ Turnips ¼
The meat was the trimmings of tongues, excellent beef and no bone; the fat was used
as suet to convert the flour into dumplings. The articles were all, except the meat, bought of
the small dealers who alone will give themselves the trouble of selling such small quantities.
‘I never’, says my friend, ‘wish to taste better soup than this made. It
dined the widow and her son, a lad of fifteen, for two days; and gave him a supper
besides.’ Yet we are told the poor can’t manage their own affairs! They must be
relieved with tickets, not with money! What could any visiting lady or gentleman have done
with such a pittance?
“Besides, under this system of truck charity, how do we know that the
visitor will always have the discretion to adjust properly the sort of relief which is
required by the nature of the necessity? As an example of the egregious blunders committed in
this way, we must give another extract from the Journal of our clerical friend: ‘Went
to see Mrs. Cole. The
visiting gentleman from Chapel was in the room. This scene occurred. The visitor asked the
poor woman, who was very ill, “Are you married?”
“Yes.”—“Husband in work?” “No.”—“How
many children have you?” “Six.”—“What provisions have you in
the house?” “Only the loaf from the parish.”—“Husband out of
work, wife ill in bed, six children, very little provisions.” This he said aloud
while writing in a book; then giving a scrap of paper to Mrs. Cole, he
added “Here’s an order for six yards of flannel,” and walked out of the
room.’
“Again (I copy the words of the journal): ‘There is no creature
in the world so hard-hearted as the woman who makes charity her business. This
morning’s scene has annoyed and grieved me very much. I called on poor Mrs.
Smart. She cannot have more than a day or two to live. The poor creature was,
as usual, on the three chairs placed together, which form her only bed; but sitting up, and
in a state of frightful nervous agitation. Her hands were clasped and pressed tight against
her breast. She was rocking herself backward and forward as violently as her weakness would
allow, and repeating with continually increased rapidity of utterance, till the words
became confounded and were scarcely distinguishable, “Oh! Lord! take away my heart of
stone, and give me a heart of
flesh!” Beside her, stood a tall, stout, bolt-upright woman, securely defended
against the Winter’s cold by an impenetrable mass of shawls and furs, with a face
rubicund and shining, and looking as if Providence had placed an ample supply of the
treasures of this life at her disposal, of which she availed herself in three ample meals a
day, with a pint of porter at each.
“On my entering the room, the Visitor noticed me with that air of formal
and supercilious distance which party-spirited ladies are apt to exhibit towards those of the
clergy whom they condemn as not sufficiently spiritual in their views. Pointing to the dying
creature, she said: “A sad sight, Sir! A miserable end! No hope, I fear, here?”
“Why, what has happened? There was none of this excitement when I left this
morning.” “The heart of stone! The heart of stone! No answer to her prayers! No
fruit of the Spirit! No joy!” “Oh! Madam! why do you pass so severe a sentence on
our poor sister?” “Can you consider this anything but a state of reprobation?
Where is the heart of flesh? Where is the joy?” “Joy!
Madam!” “What! do you mean to assert, Sir, that joy is not
an indispensable fruit of the Spirit?” “This is really no place or time for
religious controversy; when you have finished
your visit, I will return to Mrs. Smart.” “I have done Sir! I
am going; pray don’t let me drive you away.” And doubling her boa over her double
chin, without deigning to look at the poor creature whom she had condemned to everlasting
perdition, she stalked out of the room.
“As soon as the visiting lady left us, I sat down on a box beside poor,
ignorant, inoffensive Mrs. Smart, and did my best to tranquillize her. I
first induced her to stop the quick, anxious, hysterical repetition of the words which had
been put into her mouth. When I had succeeded in this, and she became composed, I explained
the nature both of “a heart of stone” and “a heart of flesh.” I showed
her that the one signified a state of mind which was insensible to all religious impressions;
the other, a state of mind which was open to such impressions. I, by my questions, led her
back, through a calm course of self-examination on these important subjects, to the hopeful
reliance on God’s mercy through Christ, which she had enjoyed in my previous visits; and
then, after reading some prayers from the Visitation Service, I took my leave of her for
to-day’.”
Mr. Harness proceeds to suggest that, instead of lay-readers being employed, the number of the educated
clergy should be increased. “My experience teaches me that the individuals on whom the
office of lay-reader* is apt to fall, are the last, even among persons inadequately
instructed, to whom it could be safely confided.
“By far the most creditable specimen of this class whom I have known
employed in that part of London where I reside, was an Irishman, and not wanting in those
gifts of fluency and quickness which are common to his nation. By trade he was a journeyman
house-painter; but he had a spirit which disdained the fustian jacket and the paper cap. He
cast about for some less humble and more lucrative mode of life; and, after absenting himself
for a few weeks, he returned among us, in a full suit of mourning, and sent circulars round
the neighbourhood to inform all those who were willing to trust their teeth in his hands, that
he was practising as a ‘surgeon-dentist.’ This business he did not pursue for a
much longer period than he had devoted to acquiring the knowledge of it.
“Not meeting with the success he had anticipated
* He proposed as a substitute to admit to Holy Orders men
“who had retired from their profession or business, and desired to dedicate
the remainder of their days to the service of God and the succour of His
creatures.”
in this profession, he resumed the red pipkin and the
paint brush, and did jobs, as his printed cards assured us, ‘on the most moderate
terms and his own account.’ But Art proving as little productive to him as
Science, he again appeared in his black habiliments, and was seen perambulating the streets of
the next parish as the lay-reader, or, as he designated himself, the ‘acting
minister,’ under the auspices of one of the Societies who have undertaken the supply of
cheap religion to the poor. What has lately become of him I know not. The last time I saw him,
he talked very seriously of offering himself, unordained as he was, to supply the vacant
chaplaincy of one of the prisons. I know no harm of the man except his fickleness of purpose;
but whether an individual in whose bonnet the bee buzzes so incessantly is exactly fitted for
the very serious office of inculcating the truths of the Gospel beside the hearths of the
afflicted or by the pillows of the dying, will, I believe, be doubted by everyone who does not
consider fluency and excitability as better qualifications for a religious teacher than calm
piety and enlightened judgment.”
The pamphlet from which the above extracts are taken was a development of an
article which Mr. Harness had sent to Mr. Lockhart for insertion in the Quarterly Review.Mr. Lockhart declined it in the following terms:—
“My dear Harness,
“I have read your MS. It is exceedingly able—most
effective—most capital, in short; and I have no doubt you are right in the main.
“I don’t doubt, however, that good
has been and is daily done by the sort of Societies you are attacking, and I could not
publish the article without several interpolations.
“But I couldn’t, were it one chrysolite, accept it for
this number. I told you truly—I am full. I publish this month, and no article ever
has much chance unless it comes to hand at a much earlier stage of my operations.
“I am sorry indeed, but can’t help this. I see you are in
a hurry, and no wonder; for really much of it is as good as anything Sydney Smith ever wrote.
“Yours ever, “H. L.”
On receiving the above letter, Mr. Harness
published a considerable part of this article in the Times; and it was so well received that the editor wrote to him
requesting further communications on the subject.
The year after this pamphlet appeared, Mr.
Harness left St. Pancras. More than one reason induced him to seek a change. Twenty
years of unremitting labour in a metropolitan district, which had meanwhile increased from 16,000
to 23,000, had rendered him less capable of bodily exertion; and an accident which had befallen
him on a summer excursion, made his parochial duties more laborious to him. Notwithstanding his
lameness from infancy—which always caused him more or less pain in
walking—Mr. Harness was an active pedestrian, sometimes
accomplishing as much as thirty miles in one day; and when on a tour in Wales, about ten years
before this date, as he was descending a hill with a heavy knapsack on his back, his knee
suddenly gave way, and he found that he had fractured the knee-pan. After this accident, he was
always in danger of falling; he required the assistance of a stick; and the mounting steep and
narrow stair-cases became a matter of difficulty, if not of danger, to him. To these reasons for
resigning his London cure, we should add that he always loved the country, and now became
unusually weary of his long confinement to town.
In a letter to Miss Mitford, written at
this time, he thus expresses his feelings:—
“I wish I could get to Reading to visit you; but alas I my every hour is fettered with occupations. Oh,
country! country! country! Do you know the old play in which a lad, who had been a beggar, but
became civilized and domesticated in the house of a county magistrate, grows wild for liberty
every Spring, and flies from his quiet comfortable home to live at random in the fields, and
under the shade of trees? I’m just like that man. The sun never shines upon a green twig
in the Square* but I pine for the beauties and the calm of the country.”
Mr. Harness thought that now, in his fifty-fourth year, he
might very suitably retire and accept a less onerous sphere of usefulness. He was never an
ambitious man, and rather avoided than courted public commendation. But he loved those among whom
he had laboured during the Spring and Summer-tide of his life, and was deeply touched at the
concern they manifested on his departure; and in his farewell address he confessed that he should
not even then have negotiated for an exchange, had he not been suffering from “some
unaccountable languor and depression of spirits.” It was then too late for him to alter his
determination; but his parishioners, in memory of his long and faithful ministry among them,
subscribed for a
* Mecklenburgh Square. He then lived in Heathcote Street, just out of
the Square.
handsome testimonial,* which was publicly
presented to him by Mr. Serjeant Talfourd.
The change proved truly unfortunate. Although Mr.
Harness had constantly moved in what is called “the world” (it was his
pride to say that he associated with all classes, from the highest to the lowest), there never
was a man less imbued with its maxims, or less animated by its spirit. Generous and unsuspicious
to a fault, he attributed to others the high motives by which he was himself actuated. As a
consequence he was, therefore, generally unfortunate in business transactions; even to such an
extent that his income would have been considerably diminished, had it not been from time to time
unexpectedly supplemented by legacies from friends and strangers. In the present instance,
without instituting the necessary inquiries, he accepted a retired living, in place of his London
incumbency; and when he came to take possession of his rural retreat, he found to his cost that
justice had now deserted not only the town, but also the country. The church and parsonage had
been allowed to fall completely out of repair; and as he would have been personally liable for
dilapidations, he finally resolved to adopt the advice of a friend and not to enter into
possession.
Having thus lost his position, he was obliged to
* A massive silver candelebrum.
seek some other duty, and he became Minister of
Brompton Chapel. Here he remained for three years, when, at the suggestion of his old friend,
Dean Milman, he commenced to collect funds and make
arrangements for the building of All Saints, Knightsbridge.
CHAPTER X. BUILDING OF ALL SAINTS’, KNIGHTSBRIDGE.—CONTINUED FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN
MR. HARNESS AND MISS MITFORD.—TOKEN OF
ESTEEM.—HER LAST LETTERS AND DEATH.—COMMENCEMENT OF THE “LIFE OF MARY
RUSSELL MITFORD.”—DIFFICULTIES.—PROGRESS OF THE
WORK.—INTIMACY WITH MR. DYCE.
Mr. Harness’s longing for the country was to a
certain extent gratified by his position at Knightsbridge. When he first resided in Hyde Park
Terrace, the neighbourhood bordering on Rotten Row was laid out in large gardens shaded by
luxuriant trees, and melodious with the songs of the linnet and nightingale. His own house, while
it faced the Park, commanded from the back a wide view over the country as far as Epsom and the
Surrey hills. At first, the intention was to build the church just inside the railings of Hyde
Park, and a piece of ground had been assigned for the purpose; but the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests afterwards withdrew their grant, and Mr. Harness was obliged to
content himself with a site somewhat further removed from the Kensington Road than was desir-able. The money collected for the building
amounted to £10,500; £1,100 of which was contributed by Mr.
Harness, and a considerable portion of the remainder by his personal friends.
Mr. Harness was fond of classic designs, and the Italian style of
architecture was selected for the church, a bell-tower, or campanile, being afterwards added to
it.* The Minister’s income was almost entirely dependent upon the pew-rents; and although
the gross revenue exceeded £1,100 per annum, Mr. Harness scarcely
received £400 out of it; partly owing to the liberal manner in which all those in his
employment were remunerated. He was always unwilling to tax his congregation, and persistently
refused to allow charity sermons to be preached for any but local objects. At the same time, he
never called for any assistance towards defraying the cost of repairs or other outgoings
connected with the edifice, which amounted to a very considerable sum.
The incidental notices which have occurred in the foregoing chapters are sufficient
to indicate the affectionate friendship which throughout life existed between Mr.
Harness and Miss Mitford. They were bound
together not only by early associations, but by a mutual geniality of temperament, and a sympathy
in
* In 1860, at a cost of £1,400, to which Mr. Harness contributed £500.
each other’s tastes and pursuits. Both were ardent
lovers of literature, especially of the more social branches of it, and both fully appreciated
the powerful influence obtained by the Drama. Miss Mitford had an especial
predilection for this kind of composition. “If I have any talent,” she writes,
“it is for the Drama;” and we can imagine the relief with which she must have
flown from the cold cynicism of her father to the kindly encouragement of her early friend, who
bade her continue in the path she loved. Nor can we assert that his support was ill-judged, when
we read the many noble and touching passages which adorn “Rienzi,” and recollect the success it achieved—a
success which would have distinguished its author had she never etched a single episode of
village life. There may perhaps have been also a kinder motive for Mr.
Harness’s encouragement; for the theatre then offered better hopes of
pecuniary remuneration than any other field of literature.
The affectionate regard which Miss Mitford
felt towards her early friend is well shown by the following gratifying offer:
“I have only one moment in which to offer a peti-tion to you. I have a little trumpery
volume called ‘Country
Stories,’ about to be published by Saunders and Otley. Will you
permit me to give these Tales some little value in my own eyes by inscribing them (of
course in a few true and simple words) to you, my old and most kind friend? I would not
dedicate a play to you, for fear of causing you injury in your profession; but I do not
think that this slight testimony of a very sincere affection could do you harm in that
way; for even those who do not allow novels in their house, sanction my little books.
“Ever affectionately yours, “M. R. Mitford.”
The dedication was as follows:—
To THE REV. WILLIAM HARNESS, Whose old hereditary friendshipHas been the pride and pleasureOf her happiest hours,Her consolation in the sorrows,andHer support in the difficulties of life,This little volumeIs most respectfully and affectionatelyInscribed byTHE AUTHOR.
But although there was such a congeniality in literary taste between Mr.
Harness and Miss Mitford, they were at issue
on a more important subject. Miss Mitford’s views on Religion were
decidedly ‘broad,’ although they would have appeared narrow in comparison with some
of the present day. Mr. Harness, as we have seen, was a man of sound
doctrine and faithfully attached to the Church of England, and his friend’s views caused
some dissatisfaction to his orthodox mind. He desired to bring her round to more correct
opinions, and apparently wrote to her on the subject; for we find her, in a letter, tenderly
requesting him not to press arguments upon her which could not alter her convictions, and
deprecating the discussion of anything -which might create a distance between two such early
friends. After this, Mr. Harness forbore making any further allusions to
such matters; but it is satisfactory to know that Miss Mitford remained a
member of the Church in which she had been educated.
If there was any person beyond the pale of Mr.
Harness’s Christian forbearance, that individual was Dr. Mitford. The reckless manner in which he squandered the
family property, and his selfishness even to the last, when he became entirely dependent on his
daughter’s incessant toil, often continued by night as well as by day, would have estranged the affections of any but one,
“Whose kind heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find.”
The history of Dr. Mitford’s
extravagance and folly have been written by Mr. Harness
himself. Like other men of his stamp, the Doctor seems to have been in turn the impostor and the
dupe. Mr. Harness disliked not only his morals, but also his manners, his
self-sufficiency and loud talk, and could scarcely understand the amount of filial infatuation
which led Miss Mitford to speak of his
“modesty” and “excellence.”
Notwithstanding Miss Mitford’s slavery
at the pen, the Doctor died considerably in debt; and although her poverty was great, she
retained such a filial regard for his memory, that she boldly
announces:—“Everybody shall be paid, if I sell the gown off my back, or pledge
my little pension.” In these difficulties a suggestion was made, by those who knew
her wide popularity, that a subscription should be set on foot to raise a sum to meet these
liabilities. The response to the appeal thus made by Mr.
Harness and other friends was more liberal than could have been expected. The
following is a letter from Mrs. Opie on this
subject:—
“I thought I should see thy name on poor dear Miss Mitford’s Committee. What a sad tale she has
to tell! How she has been tried! And what a daughter she has been to a most unworthy
father! I know no one like her in self-sacrifice and patient endurance. Surely, under
such circumstances, the creditors will take less than their due, and wait for the rest
till she can pay it. So few persons like to subscribe to pay debts, that this debt of
£800 or £900 will hang, I fear, like a millstone over the subscription. But I
forget—this debt paid, she may, perhaps, by the labours of her pen, support
herself without help. And I do hope the Queen will
double her pension.
“In the meanwhile, I am begging for her. I intend to raise
£20, and to get more if I can. I shall ask a sovereign from eighteen
persons—I have in hand seven already—and then send the £20 up to some
one, or pay it into Gurney’s bank, to be
remitted to her bankers. In such a case, and in many cases, begging is a Christian duty.
She has written to me and sent me the papers to distribute.
“I think she would have gained more by an appeal to the public in the papers, with a list of subscribers;
but she and you and her agents know best what to do. I shall be very sorry if I do not
raise £20 or more. How I wish it were as easy for me to serve thy nephew!
“Believe me, “Much thine, “Amelia Opie.”
The sum collected was not only sufficient to cover all the outstanding
liabilities, but also to add something to the authoress’s narrow income.
During the last two years of her life Miss
Mitford’s health rapidly declined. Mr.
Harness frequently visited her at this time; and in a letter to a friend shortly
before her death she speaks with her old enthusiasm of her early friend:—
“By the way, this most dear friend of mine has been here for ten
days—came for one—found himself a lodging, and has stayed ever since, and will
stay ten days longer. Did you ever hear of him? . . . . He has every grace and
accomplishment—person (even at sixty odd), voice, manner, talent, literature, and, more
than all, the sweetest of natures. His father gave away my mother. We were close friends in
childhood, and have re-mained such ever since.
And now he leaves the Deep-dene, with all its beauty of scenery and society, to come to me, a
poor sick old woman, just because I am sick, and old, and poor; and because we have loved each
other like brother and sister all our lives. How I wish you were here to hear him read
Shakespeare, and to listen to conversation that
leaves his reading far behind!”
In a note written to himself about this time, and in contemplation of her own
approaching dissolution, she observes:—
“You are left, dear friend, to be the one green oak of the forest, after
the meaner trees have fallen around you. May God long preserve you to the many still left to
grow up under your shade!”
One of the last letters written by Miss
Mitford to Mr. Harness, and marked
“immediate,” contained directions with regard to the publication of her life and
correspondence. With characteristic thoughtfulness, she avoids preferring any formal request that
might inconvenience her friend or involve him in a laborious and unprofitable undertaking. She
does not even express any opinion as to the value of her literary remains, but rather implies a
doubt whether any one would think them worth publishing. Finally, however, she gives a list of persons in possession of her correspondence,
and observes that no one knew the course of her life better than himself. From the tenor of this
letter it is evident that she wished Mr. Harness to write some biographical
notice of her; and some conversations which had passed between them confirmed him in this
opinion.
Soon after his friend’s death, Mr.
Harness commenced the task of looking through her letters, but he found the work
much more arduous than he had anticipated. Although her habits were in every respect frugal, her
favourite economy seemed to be in paper. Her letters were scribbled on innumerable small
scraps—sometimes on printed circulars—sometimes across engravings—and half a
dozen of these would form one epistle, and had in course of time become confused and interchanged
in their envelopes. When we add to this that towards the end of her life Miss Mitford’s handwriting became almost microscopic, it
can easily be understood that the arrangement of these Sibylline leaves was no short or easy
undertaking. Mr. Harness worked hard at it, out of affection for his lost
friend, but at last he felt that, from failing health, he must either abandon his design or call
in to his assistance some person who had more time and energy to devote to its prosecution. Under these circumstances, he applied to
Mr. Henry Chorley, a man of well-known literary skill,
and one of Miss Mitford’s most intimate friends.
In the meanwhile a difficulty arose from a most unexpected quarter. A year before
Miss Mitford’s death, she made her will, and left
her servants K. and Sam her residuary legatees. It is
possible that at that time she thought nothing about her letters, or any life which might be
written of her, and felt satisfied that at all events she was leaving everything in the safe
custody of her executors.
No literary person would ever dream of committing their private correspondence to
the hands of half-educated servants, or indeed to those of any one in whose judgment and ability
they had not the fullest confidence. Something seems to have occurred to her mind on this subject
at the very last, and, being ignorant of law, she thought a letter to Mr. Harness, her executor, would be in every way a sufficient safeguard.* Towards
the end of her life, she became very much dependent on her maid, and probably in one of those
ebullitions of generosity for which she was remarkable, left her all her little property. On
account of the objections raised, Mr. Chorley refused
* The Sweetmans afterwards filed
a bill in chancery against Mr. Bentley and myself.
It was dismissed without costs.
to proceed with the work, unless an
arrangement could be made with the Sweetmans. They, on
their part, put in exorbitant claims, and Mr. Chorley withdrew, observing
that the work would barely remunerate the Editor. The undertaking was then relinquished,
apparently for ever.
Mr. Harness always considered the demands of the Sweetmans to be merely vexatious, as he knew well the wishes of
his life-long friend and the entire confidence she placed in him. He was also fully convinced
that her servants had no legal claim whatever on any portion of her literary correspondence.
We thus entered upon the work with a flowing sail, and spent two years not
unpleasantly in deciphering and arranging the multifarious materials, so as to form an agreeable
and continuous narrative of the life of the popular authoress. One great difficulty we
encountered spoke favourably for the promise of the book. We had such a redundance of good
matter, of clever criticism and graceful description, that we found it very difficult to compress
it into anything like readable proportions.
During the following years I was much with Mr.
Harness. Our work was principally carried on in his little study—a room well
lined with books and adorned with sketches, several of them by Miss Fanshawe. His residence was in every way a charming bijou—a combination of ornament and comfort; and as in his dress he
exhibited the most scrupulous neatness and precision, so his household arrangements bespoke taste
without extravagance. In his furniture he studied colour and form, and would point out to an
intimate friend the little effects which he had produced by certain ingenious dispositions. At
the head of the staircase leading to the drawing-room, stood a large mirror reflecting persons
entering the room. The apartment itself was in good keeping with the character of its owner. The
walls were covered with cases of brightly bound volumes alternating with mirrors draped like the
windows. Beside the mantel-piece stood a model of Shakespeare’s monument and his bust.
During this period, no one was a more frequent visitor in Mr. Harness’s study than the well-known Shakespearian
critic, Mr. Dyce. He was a tall thin man, with keen eyes
and a strong Scotch accent. They had been literary friends through life; and now, as
septuagenarians, they were fond of talking over by-gone days, and sometimes indulging in a little
old-fashioned badinage. “My rheumatism,” Mr.
Dyce would observe, “has become more troublesome of late.”
“Very probably,” returned Mr. Harness jocosely;
“what is the good of such an old fellow as
you?” (Dyce was eight years the younger.) “Don’t
insult me,” the other replied, with well-affected indignation.
The conversation during these visits frequently turned upon Miss Mitford and her writings, or upon the edition of Shakespeare which Mr. Dyce
had then in preparation. With regard to the latter work, Mr.
Harness, while fully acknowledging the learning and research of his friend, thought
that he had scarcely sufficient enterprise for the task, and was somewhat slow in admitting
judicious emendations. He had, for instance, left unconnected a corrupt and unintelligible
passage in the ‘Tempest.’*
“A solemn air, and the best comforter To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains, Now useless boiled within thy skull!”
Mr. Harness observed that in Shakespeare’s time the c and s were formed almost alike, and were frequently
interchanged; also that the passive “boiled” is inelegant and inapplicable to the
brains, whereas the active “boil” would give a good idea of violent mental commotion.
In many passages Mr. Dyce did adopt his friend’s
views. But he mentions the epitaph on Shakespeare’s
wife without noticing his suggestion that the widow
* Act v., Scene 1.
married again. Mr.
Harness, when investigating that point, laid the evidence before an actuary, who
replied that “it would be as difficult to disprove the fact of Mrs.
Shakespeare having become Mrs. James as that George the Third is now on the throne.”
The following extract from a letter received about this time from Mr. Halliwell, bears interesting and valuable testimony to
Mr. Harness’s critical proficiency:—
“I am constantly reminded of you by your excellent edition of Shakespeare, your own explanatory notes to
which are, in my opinion (excuse my presumption, but I am always at it, and therefore ought to
be able to judge), the best, next to Dr.
Johnson’s, ever made. I most earnestly wish you would publish another
edition with more of them.”
On the last occasion on which we walked in the South Kensington Museum, Mr.
Harness met his old friend, Mr. Longman. They began to
talk of bygone times, and Mr. Longman said he remembered his old enthusiasm
for Shakespeare, and asked whether he retained it.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Harness, “I
do. There never was such another man, and there never will be.”
The Life of Mary Russell
Mitford, commenced in 1866, was three years in progress. In the Autumn of 1868 it
appeared to be ready, and we offered it to several leading publishers, who all declined it upon
different grounds. Even Mr. Bentley, who at first
entertained the proposal, afterwards withdrew on receiving an adverse critique. He at the same
time observed that if the work were reduced to half its dimensions he might still entertain it.
Mr. Harness undertook the abridgment, and, but for my
strenuous opposition, would have curtailed his own introductory notices, and omitted the first
letter, which is characteristic and interesting from its date. In a few months he resigned his
undertaking; he was feeling the weakness inseparable from advanced age; and the careful reduction
of six volumes to three required no slight amount of reading and attention. He accordingly placed
the further revision of the work entirely in my hands.
Since Mr. Harness’s age had become
remarkable, it had been his custom to celebrate his birthday by giving a little party to his
immediate friends and relations, and they in turn marked the anniversary by congratulations and
other tokens of regard. In this year I was obliged, as it happened, to leave London on the day
before this interesting occasion; but in passing I left a bouquet at his house. Next morning, I received an envelope containing the
following lines:—
“Sweet are your flowers; for tho’ this sunless Spring With perfume slight their beauty rare enhances, A sweeter fragrance to my hearth they bring, As breathing a kind friend’s remembrances. “Yours ever, “W. H.”
Mr. Harness was always fond of flowers. When the Hon. William Cowper was in office, he suggested to him the
establishment of a flower-market in Trafalgar Square. His reply was that he thought it already
sufficiently ornamental.
CHAPTER XI. LETTERS FROM MR. HARNESS, FOR 1866, DURING THE PREPARATION OF
“THE LIFE OF MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.”
Mr. Harness’s opinion, that changes are not
productive of unmixed good, proved true with regard to the Penny Postage, which effectually
destroyed the art of letter-writing. Formerly, people were accustomed to send a letter from one
county of England to another, such as they would now despatch to India or the Colonies. It was
written upon large square sheets of paper, was carefully and leisurely composed, and filled up to
the “way-bits” with a pleasant farrago of solid information and amusing gossip. The
whole was finally secured and preserved from prying eyes, by an enormous seal, exhibiting all the
weapons and animals that had ever made the family bearings formidable.
Neither in their cost nor in their contents had letters then been reduced to the
penny stamp. They had even some little title to epistolary dignity, and letter-writing was
regarded as no unimportant branch of literature.
Mr. Harness, among those of his day, was not deficient
in this elegant and social accomplishment, and he never altogether condescended to the rapid
business style of the present time, but continued to the last to write at some little length,
recording the thoughts passing through his mind and the incidents which occurred in his everyday
life.
The following letters were written during the preparation of the Life of Miss Mitford, and are interesting from
their references to it, and to some events of the time.
“Your MS. arrived duly and in safety on Saturday; but I was so
occupied all the day that I had not a moment to spare even to write a line to you. I
went out early to take a glimpse of the Horticultural Garden Show, and paid half-a-crown
to see it in a gradual state of demolition: all that was best already gone, and the rest
in a state of removal. The ‘pitcher tree’ (do you know it?) was the only
thing curious that I had not seen a good specimen of before. That is eminently curious.
But the con-clusion which I drew from
what remained is, that the gardeners are by force of art cultivating away all the beauty
of flowers, as the music-masters are practising and straining their pupils out of all
the charm of singing. A rose on its natural stem is a beautiful flower; but what can be
the beauty of a large red-cabbage sort of thing growing like this (a sketch) at the top
of a stiff” twig? An azalea is a beautiful thing blooming here and there amid
green leaves in its own natural manner; but what is there in a pyramid (another sketch),
all flowers and no leaves, superior to the same sort of thing made of pink, yellow, or
white silver paper?
“After walking till I was tired, and abusing what remained of
the Exhibition, because there was so little left to look at, I went to a shop in the
Haymarket, next door to the theatre, to see a very beautiful landscape which had been
sent over from America. It is a large view of a scene in the Rocky Mountains, and is
well nigh the finest landscape I have ever seen. I wish you had been with me! It is by a
man named Reinstadt. He’s a German, living and educated in
America; and if he can paint more as good pictures as this is, he is the first
landscape-painter of our time. My hand is swollen, but free from pain, and I still have
no power of voice. So voice. So altogether,
I’m in a bad case, and am going to take advice. Write to me, and remember that I
am always,
“Affectionately yours, “W. H.
“Have you read ‘the Spanish Gipsy’—a poem by the author
of ‘Adam Bede?’ If you
have not, do! It is really very good; and considering that it is a nineteenth century
production, almost intelligible throughout. I have read nothing so like English for
many a day.”
“Privy Council Office, “June 5, 1866. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I’m sorry to hear that your friend is so unwell, and
more sorry to hear that he has so great a fool for his doctor as to be allowed to keep
his bed, or even his room, for influenza. Bed is always the worst place anybody can be
in, except for the purposes of bodily rest. My father used to say (and he was the
cleverest physician I ever knew), that, ‘if it was a good place to cure you of
a cold, it was also the place to ensure your catching another.’ It weakens
a man, body, mind, and nerves; and it’s my belief that those are healthiest,
wisest, and most energetic, who contrive to keep out of it the most. Nothing but the necessity of sleep from fatigue, or the
incapacity of sitting or standing from sickness, can be an excuse for lying in bed. It
is not one person in a thousand who keeps his window open, and fairly ventilates the
chamber he sleeps in . . . I forget what the occasion of this tirade on bed-keeping was;
but, at all events, those are my opinions, and I could fill half-a-dozen sheets of paper
in further explication of them if I had time to write, or you cared to read them.
“I’ve been very ill. I’m better, and am come down
to the office to-day; but I’m as weak as water, and every exertion of mind, even
the writing this letter to you (‘an office I delight
in,’—Shakespeare), seems to
puzzle my brain. I was quite well last Friday. I dined at Captain Boyle’s, and went afterwards to Miss Coutts’ party to meet the Duchess of
Cambridge, the Princess Mary and her
intended, and to hear Grisi and Mario sing.
Enjoyed myself very much, staid till past one, and went home to bed perfectly well. But
oh! in the middle of the night I awoke so ill! . . . At present I’m on my way to
recovery; but I mayn’t go this evening to hear ‘David Copperfield,’ as I should like to
do, and Bence Jones, who never arrived till
Sunday, has forbidden my dining out for some days to come.
“Now, this is more than enough about myself—but is the
Teck that is to marry the Princess Mary a Prince or a Grand Duke? I
forget—however it does not signify which he is for the purpose of this letter:
I’ll call him Prince. He is really very good-looking, he has—a wonderful
thing in a German—good prominent features and white teeth, bright, expressive dark
eyes, pleasant smile, graceful bearing, neat, straight, slim figure, and is rather tall;
but he looks quite a boy. He may look younger than he is; but, making all due allowance
for that (in the present instance) inconvenient advantage, he can’t bo above two
and twenty. She looks charmed with him, and herself, and her situation. But, as she
stood near him—or rather he near her—in the ample bloom of her person and
her crinoline, she seemed completely to eclipse him. He has a deficiency, a
craniological deficiency; his head wants back to it. This, to me, is unpleasant, it
argues want of power. A man may be a very good monk without it in a cloister, and become
a very bright saint without it in Paradise; but in this world of strife and struggle I
should be afraid lest he would succumb before the slightest opposition, and be unable to
maintain his own opinion.
“When well, I get on with the MSS. How you love polysyllabic words! For instance,
I write ‘The Doctor used to tell his friends that he should
settle the money on his daughter.’ You write ‘inform.’ Why, my dear
boy, the old brute never informed his friends of anything. To
‘inform’ implies some kind of seriousness and solemnity in relating a
matter—which the Doctor never had. All that his friends ever knew of him or of his
affairs—or whatever, false or true, that he intended them to believe about
them—came out carelessly from him in his loose, disjointed talk.
“God bless you! Write to me fully about what you are doing.
“Yours ever, “William Harness.”
“P.S.—I must preach at St. Paul’s on Sunday; and
soon after that I shall arrange for a few days country by the sea, or on high land.
Where shall you be?”
“Privy Council Office, “June 14, 1866. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I was so glad to receive your kind note, and to be assured by
your autograph that you had not quite forgotten the exertions I had to undergo last
Sunday. Considering that I’m not well, and have not preached these three months,
and that the weather was very hot, I got through my work more easily than I expected. I was called at seven, breakfasted at
eight, started for the cathedral at a quarter before nine, and arrived at its door at
half-past nine. So that my primary fear of not being in time was happily dissipated. The
cathedral felt very cold, which was a good thing for me, as I had not the lassitude of
heat, as well as the weakness of indisposition and the infirmities of old age, to fight
against. So that, althogether, I did much better than I expected to do. Sultry as the
day was, St. Paul’s was so much the reverse, that on coming out I was quite glad
to find myself in the blaze of the sun again. I was too tired afterwards to go up to
Holly Lodge, as Miss Coutts wished me to do; but
went quietly home, as soon as I had paid a little visit to the Deanery to look at
Milman’s picture by Watts. It is very good indeed, like the work of an old
master, and bearing a strong resemblance to the Dean, with the exception that the
drooping of his left eye is strikingly exaggerated.
“I am not well; I am weak from my illness; and in spite of the
iron which Bence Jones is giving me, I
don’t feel stronger. I mean to see him again tomorrow. But the season is against
me. I had a dinner at home last Friday, which I could not put off; and, though I have
excused myself from dining out ever since, I have Charles
Dickens and some other people to dinner to-day, who have been invited since the first of the month, and whom I must
enjoy—as I shall—the pleasure of receiving; though I fearfully anticipate
the fatigue of it. I have a notion of going to Margate on Monday for a day or two. There
is a fine jetty to walk on into the midst of the sea. The air is excellent. It is the
haunt of cockneys, of whom I don’t know one; so that I may fairly hope to enjoy
there a very comfortable and salubrious retirement with my Shakespeare as sole companion: unless you would join me there on Monday
evening!
“Believe me to be yours, “Ever affectionately, “W. Harness.”
“Where did you find the authority for saying that Miss Mitford was bridesmaid at Lady Charles Aynesley’s wedding? She certainly
never was in the North till the year 1806; and I take it for granted that in the North
the marriage of a Northumberland heiress must have taken place.
“London at this present moment is very full, and appears to be
very gay; but, except at dinners, I see mightily little of its gaiety. Strange to say,
the only extreme bit of dissipation I have been tempted into, did me considerable good. For several weeks I had been
feeling as old as the hills and as weak as water; but Miss
Coutts asked me to dine in Stratton Street on Thursday ‘quite
quietly, nobody to be there but the party staying in the house’—so I
went. After dinner, as the ladies were leaving the room, she said, ‘Now you
must not be angry; we are going to take you to the Opera. You may sit quite quiet,
and go away when you like; and we don’t think it will do you any
harm.’ So I went. The heat was intense: I was in a vapour bath with all my
clothes on, from half-past eight till half-past eleven. It was a sultry thunderstorm
outside the walls of the theatre, and a fiery furnace of gas and human beings within. I
was all the time in such an overpowering heat that every inch of my coat was as wet as
if I had been in a shower-bath.
“Well, I thought it would be the death of a poor wretch in my
exhausted condition! Not a bit of it. I came home—went to bed—slept all
night—and woke the next morning, for the first time this month, refreshed and
unfatigued, and longing to sing while I was shaving myself. What an odd composition a
human being is! The very thing which has set me to rights and made me feel myself, is
the very thing that any doctor would have advised me against, and which I myself on premeditation should have shrunk
from!
I shall not leave town till after the eighth. I think then of going
to the Deepdene to Mrs. Hope for a few
days—thence to the sea, and remaining away a fortnight. I never went to
Broadstairs! It was so cold, I could not make up my mind to leave
home. If one was to sit shivering in-doors, I thought I had better execute the
performance in my own study than in the coffee-room of a sea-side hotel. Let me hear
from you.
“And believe me to be, “Yours ever, “W. Harness.”
“‘Rienzi’ did come out on the 9th of October, 1828. It was my mistake
in looking for it in November instead of October, in my old diary; but ‘Otto’ was written in 1827. The first copy of the MS. was in my hands on the 26th of
November, 1828, and the arrangement with Forrest in 1837 or 38 was merely for the reviewing of the play to suit
him. What day do you dine here? Any day except Monday.”
“Holly Lodge, Highgate, London, W. “Till the 21st of July,
1866. “16th, to-day. “My dear L’Estrange,
“Your letter arrived and found me here on Saturday, but I have
not had any time to answer it till this morning (half-past six a.m.) in my bedroom. I
had thought, from not hearing of you, that you and the vessel must have gone on a voyage
of discovery, and that your next letter would be from some island in which you were
illuminating the dark minds of the savages. I would not allow myself to imagine for a
moment that you had disappeared from the face of the ocean by a catastrophe so sudden as
that of the ‘Amazon.’ But how come you not to have
got my letter? I wrote a big packet ever so long ago, of which I forget the details, but
the gist of it was that I thought Miss
Mitford’s letters, in the year 1810, were becoming sufficiently
interesting to be published consecutively, with an occasional note here and there, and
with certain omissions. I have done up to 1810, and want back the MSS. of 1811, which
you have, that, with the help of your papers, I may set them in order in accordance with
this plan.
“My disgust of the old father increases with every letter I read. He’s a detestable old
humbug. I wish we could get some letters from
the relations in Northumberland! There was an old Mary Mitford (the
sister, I think, of Lady Charles Aynesley), with
whom our Miss Mitford used to correspond; but I
believe she died first. It is not at all unlikely but she may have preserved her
cousin’s letters, and equally likely that her executors have burnt them. Do you
happen to know any of those people or their connexions?
“I have not done as much as I ought, because I have not been
well; I have been uncommonly relaxed by the heat, and I have been visiting. The doctor
said that unless I went to the sea I should not recover my strength; so I went to Battle
and staid with Crake, who drove me down to the
sea, or up to the heights, where I could either see or smell the sea, every day from
five till eight, when we dined; and all the rest of the day I sat in the garden under
the shade of the house, and inhaled that mitigated saline air which to me is far more
agreeable than the sea itself, for it is health and cheerfulness without any association
with the terror of being drowned, or the loathsome feeling of seasickness.
“I stay here till Saturday. On Monday, the 23rd, I go to the
Milmans; on Thursday, the 26th, I go to
Southsea; on Saturday, the 28th, I get home
again. But Brace goes for his holiday in August, and Majendie for his marriage in September; so (as any wise
man would) I am catching all the country air I can in the intervals allowed me for mine.
Take care of yourself. Don’t get drowned.
“And believe me to be “Yours ever affectionately, “William Harness.”
“I have been very idle; for, first, I went to stay a week at
Crake’s; then I staid the best part of a
fortnight at Holly Lodge; then I went to the Dean of St.
Paul’s for all the working days of the week, from Sunday to Sunday,
who has taken up his Summer residence at a very pretty place near Bagshot, a village
which now stands in the midst of cultivated land and flowery hedgerows, but which I was
wont to pass through, on the top of the Portsmouth coach, as a sort of lodge in the
wilderness, surrounded by a desolate extent of heath. What changes we live to see! And
to-day I am going for a fortnight to the Osbornes, (Sutgrave House,
Cirencester, Gloucestershire), intending, if weather suit, to take a look at Tintern Abbey and the Wizard Cliff
before I return, which must be the 18th, for Brace goes off for his
holiday of three weeks on Monday, the 13th; and as soon as he returns Majendie is off for five Sundays on his marriage tour.
So a deductive mind like yours will easily discover that I’m tied to town during
all the latter part of this month, the whole of September, and the first two weeks of
October. In that time I intend to work hard at the letters. I think that they, with a
very few notes and a few short passages of explanation, will tell the story of an
interesting literary life.
I have done, and had copied, subject to your approval, everything to
the end of 1810, and should like to have the letters which are in your hands, to go on
with the work after my return from the Osbornes. We must print
them, for she evidently took great pains with them; but how much inferior Miss Mitford’s letters to Sir William Elford are to those which she dashed off to
her father and mother! There is a great deal of life and spirit in her ordinary style,
when she lets her words drop from her pen without any premeditation, at the prompting of
her emotions; but in the elaborated letters there is hardly any merit but high, cold
polish, and all freshness of thought is lost in care about the expression. I think we
shall have to shorten our commencement; so many
long letters remain to be read and copied, and the letters improve as she grows older.
“You seem to have had a most delightful voyage. I wish I had
been with you, but am very glad that you did not buy the house that you looked at on the
banks of the Blackwater! What would you have done there? Besides, if you ever take up
your abode in Ireland, it must be on your own property, where there are duties to fulfil
which are sufficient to give an interest and business to life the moment a man sets his
heart earnestly to the discharge of them. I must now end my letter as it is necessary
for me to prepare for leaving home. But let me hear of you, and tell me when you are
likely to be in town again. I shall send this to Clifton, as there is no guessing where
you and your yacht (I hope the word is spelt right), may be; and with the kindest
regards from my sister and cousin,
“Believe me to be, “Yours ever affectionately, “William Harness.”
“Privy Council Office, “Sept. 1, 1866. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I feel quite ashamed of having so long delayed acknowledging
the receipt of your parcel with, the letters. I have intended to do it every morning
since they arrived; but I have had so much to do here, that by post-time I have felt
that unpleasant feeling in my old brain which warned me that I had done enough, and that
it would be useless, if not wrong, for me to keep my head over paper, with a pen in my
hand, any longer.
“This is the sole impediment to my being as good and regular a
correspondent as I should wist to be. I’m getting very old, and my pericranium
very weak . . . I doubt if I shall be able to do the parish work. My stay in town will
be protracted to the middle of October. I’m then invited to Clumber; but I have
not answered the Duchess to say whether I will go or not; for—whether it’s
age or this continued damp, I know not—I really feel too weak and inapt for
society to have any inclination for leaving home. Your friend Mrs. D—— has a
little girl: she is doing very well, but was rather suffering from the weather when I
called to inquire after her yesterday. But I had the good luck to find her father at home and get some
conversation with him, which was very much in the manner of a Greek Tragedy—not
those parts in which the dialogue is kept briskly up in alternate lines, but those in
which the great gun fires off a volley of several pages, and the attendant chorus
exclaims Όιμοι, while he recovers his breath for another
explosion.
“In London, with nothing to do, I have been reading Baker’s‘Journey in
Search of the Albert (Nyanza) Lake,’ and ‘the Source of the
Nile.’ It has interested me a good deal; not but that I think him a most
bumptious and self-laudatory individual, who quite as often disgusts me with his conceit
as he excites my wonder by his spirit of enterprise and powers of endurance. As for his
wife, who accompanied him in his troubles among savages—dragged through mud and
broiling through deserts—she must have been something far stronger in mind and
body than the ordinary members of her sex. It is defrauding the curiosity of the public
not to lead her about the country as a show.
“On Majendie’s
return I shall go to the sea, certainly, to get up strength, and be home by the
beginning of December to shut myself up comfortably for the Winter. I hear that, when
old Mitford was engaged to his wife, she had a
set of shirts made for him, lest it
should be said that ‘she had married a man without a shirt to his back!’ Of
course the story is not true; but it expressed what folk thought of his deplorable
poverty and the impossibility of his making that settlement on her, for which my father
was trustee, out of funds of his own, as Miss
Mitford suggests.
“I was very glad to see your handwriting this morning. You
don’t know what it is to be alone in London. Everybody is away; and, strange to
say, though at the Athenæum there are several men wandering about, they are all
military-looking men, with moustache and martial swagger, who belong to the United
Service Club over the way, and are disputing over newspapers and dozing in our
arm-chairs while their own house is repairing. All the Athenæum men are either on
long vacation, or sketching on the Continent, or doing something sportsmanlike in
Scotland. I am really pining to get away; but of course I can’t think of moving
till Majendie is fairly returned, which will not be before the 18th. or
20th. of next month! When I do get away I go first to some friends in Hampshire, then to
Crake for sea-air and strength, then to the
Archdales, then to Clumber, and then home.
This round will, I think, occupy me till the first week in December, when I hope to come
back to London and to find you here.
“I have got on wonderfully well, I think, with our letters.
They seem to make a regular record of Miss
Mitford’s life and opinions—to me much more interesting than
most letters. She often repeats herself, and some of her ‘dearest loves’ and
overflowing affection to that humbug, her father, must be slightly mitigated; its
exuberance must be a little repressed.
“My sister is
wonderfully well, and desires her kindest regards to you.
“If Lady Belcher could
procure Miss Mitford’s letters to Miss Goldsmid we should be very much obliged to her.
Miss Goldsmid is a very clever and learned lady, and
Miss M.’s letters to
her would be on good topics and in the writer’s best style.
“Miss Mitford’s
connection with the Mitfords of Mitford Castle was (as I always
understood) this: Dr. Mitford’s father was
first cousin to the father of the Bertram Mitford
who was head of the family; and when she went to the North she stayed with Lady Charles Aynesley. Lady Charles
and her sister stood in the same relation to him as Dr. Mitford, as
the children of brothers. Miss Mitford was another generation
removed.
“I think we shall have a charming book; but we must go through
all the letters and complete it before we talk to any publisher about it; for my views
respecting the plan of publication change as I see more and more what it is we have to
publish. My present view is that the book should be called ‘Life and Opinions of M. R. M., as given in her Letters, with Notes by the
Editors.’ I like all the letters I have read, except parts of the
letters to Sir W. Elford, which (except when she
forgets whom she is writing to and is herself again) are in conventional English and
almost vulgar in their endeavour to be something particularly good. If I send you off a
lot of letters without date, should you have time to read them
over and exercise your skill in trying to
ascertain when they were written.
“You can have no idea of the utter dreariness and solitude
which we have been experiencing since the end of July in this ‘Deserted
Village.’ Till yesterday and to-day we have had nothing but rain and mist, with
evenings so cold that one was obliged to have a blazing fire—not, as usual at that
season of the year, for cheerfulness-sake, but for actual warmth and comfort. Adieu,
with kindest regards from my sister and cousin, and my best compliments to Mr. and
Mrs. L’Estrange.
“Believe me to be, “My dear Guy, “Your affectionate friend, “W. Harness.”
“Of an evening I’m re-reading the first volume of
Froude’s History, to prepare my
memory for the enjoyment of the four last. Adieu!”
“The Deanery, Battle, Sussex. “Nov. 2, 1866. “My dear L’Estrange,
“Your letter I found here, after my sojourn with my old
friends at my first curacy in Hampshire: and I write, almost at the first pause I have
had since my arrival at Crake’s, to tell
you how much obliged I am for your
thinking of me and sending me the Shakespeare
photograph. It is from the Chandos picture, which the late Lord
Ellesmere purchased at the sale of the late Duke of Buckingham’s effects at Stowe, and of which a print is
hanging up opposite my drawing-room door in town. You would not imagine the photo as a
copy from the same original, because it is so much darker.
“The letters improve as I get on. Even those to Sir W Elford get easier and better, as she became less
upon punctilio and more familiar with him; in fact, as—with all her asserted
deference—she felt herself more and more his superior in intellect and
information. When we meet in town we will get on swimmingly, as I have no longer any
sermons to prepare: I have given up preaching altogether. The first thing to be done is
to arrange in chronological order all the letters to Mrs.
Browning, that they may come into their fitting places; for I find, to my
surprise, that Miss Mitford was acquainted with
Miss Barrett as early as 1814.
“I shall stay here, in all probability, till the end of the
month, and then go home, light my fire, and pack myself up in my study for the rest of
the year, and till the end of Winter.
“I’ll tell Dyce to
send his Shakespeare to the Museum at Stratford; but it is not yet finished.* There is one
volume (if not a second) yet to come. With best regards,
“Believe me to be, “Yours ever affectionately, “W. Harness.
“Have you heard that they expect Fenian disturbances in
Ireland? I hope it is not true.”
* I had mentioned to Mr. Harness
that Mr. Dyce’s Edition was not in the
Shakespearian Museum.
CHAPTER XII. CONTINUATION OF LETTERS FROM MR. HARNESS FOR
1867-68-69.—OUR LAST INTERVIEW.—HIS SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED DEATH.
The allusions in the preceding and following letters show that Mr. Harness’s health became uncertain during the last few
years of his life. Nevertheless, his spirits were so good, and his temperament was so cheerful,
that except on some unfavourable days it was difficult to realize that he had reached an advanced
age. He no longer occupied his pulpit, as his voice had become weak; but to the last he was never
absent from church, and always took some part in the service.
“I have not been able to write to you, for the letters take up
as much work of my hand as I am able to do . . . Longman has all the MS. of our two first volumes. He fears there is more than the public will care for,
but says he will look it over and let me hear. He seemed pleased with the offer of the
book. I’m doing now 1831; and am more than half through it. The letters to
Miss Jephson are very uninteresting to any but
the ladies themselves—particularly as their friend Mr.
Cathcart* failed at Covent Garden, and afterwards at the Haymarket. He was
not quite so bad as her other protégé, Mr. Fitzharris, who failed in ‘Othello’ at Covent Garden: but he was a
miserable actor, who, in spite of a good deal of genius and passion, was perfectly
incompetent for any but a very subordinate place at a London theatre—such as
London theatres were forty years ago. I shall be very glad to see you again.
“Believe me to be, “Ever yours, “William Harness.”
* Owing to Miss
Mitford’s partiality for Cathcart, Charles Kemble
gave him a trial at Covent Garden; but after he had been acting for three nights,
he refused to continue unless he received an engagement for the whole season.
Miss Mitford requested Mr.
Mitford’s, as the prototype of a scoundrel
in one of Bulwer’s novels, was named Wainewright. He wrote charming articles on art under the
signature of ‘Janus.’ He was a friend of Barry
Cornwall (Procter) Macready, Talfourd, and all that
clique of artists and authors. Charles Lamb was
very fond of him, and used to call him the ‘light-hearted.’ He was born to
some inheritance, which he soon spent, and subsequently replenished his finances by
murder. The first person he is supposed to have poisoned was his uncle, the proprietor of the Monthly Review, whom I knew, but
whose name I can’t recall, nor shall I—till I don’t want it. They say
that, first and last, he assisted at least eleven friends and admirers out of their
miseries in this world; and, entirely free from any apparent depression of spirits,
concluded his eventful and cheerful life as a very successful portrait-painter at Botany
Bay. Ask me about him on Monday, and I may be able to tell you more of his story. A real
account of the man and his character, such as Charles Lamb, or
Procter, or Macready might have written,
would present one of the most extraordinary psycho-
Harness to use his influence with Kemble on his behalf. “I cannot give an
engagement,” was the manager’s reply; “Cathcart does well enough as Jaffier to my Pierre; but how would that
little fellow look in a breeches part!”
logical phenomena that ever was witnessed among
mankind.
“Yours, “W. H.”
“Privy Council Office, “July 4, 1867. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I won’t tell you how often I complained of your
silence! But your letter, when it appeared yesterday at dinner-time, appeased me; and I
am at this moment writing, in my usual most complacent state of mind towards that
intrepid seaman, the Rev. A. G. L’Estrange.
I have done nothing about the book, except read and arrange letters. All my
considerations by day, with the MSS. before me, and by night, as I think about them,
have led me to this conclusion, that we must finish the book as fast as we can; read the
first part over for condensation; and then publish the whole together.
“I am very well at present, and trust that I may remain so;
but at seventy-eight (I was going to write eighty-seven) who, without infinite
presumption, can depend on life or its faculties for a moment beyond the present? I
shall, if Providence permit, leave town as early in the month as I can, after getting in
my pew-rents and paying my house-rent and
taxes—the latter movement being contingent on the first.
“I have not done much since you removed from the metropolis,
except dining out twice, giving a dinner on the anniversary of my niece’s
wedding-day,* going twice to garden-parties at Holly Lodge, and seeing ‘Dora’ at the Olympic. This latter piece of dissipation took
place on Monday last. I had heard the play so praised, that I was determined to see it;
and so, taking two stall tickets, I asked Mr. Smith to be so good
as to go with me and take care of me, which he most kindly did; and, after being bored
with a preliminary farce, I poured out my fullest approbation in tears to ‘Dora,’ from the end of the first act till the green curtain
dropped upon the last. I dine out to-day at the Dean of
Armagh’s.
“When I leave town I shall go to Scottowe, and remain there
till I return home. I wish I did not turn sea-sick at the thought of a yacht, or I would
follow my letter, and take a sail with you.
“My sister’s kind regards.
“Yours affectionately, “W. Harness.”
* “And a very pleasant party, though you would not stay for it.”
“Privy Council Office, “July 24, 1867. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I have had a note from Bentley soliciting the publication of our book. I have told him that as
soon as it is finished he shall hear of it, and be referred to; but that we can’t
bind ourselves to publish with anybody till we know what terms may be offered us. I have
been very much better these last few days, notwithstanding that I’ve been working
like a horse. The letters of 1836 took me a long time, for several hours a day. Those
for 1837 will be in Makeham’s* hands by the end of the week.
“So your little friend, Miss
Orpen, (is not that the name of Lady
Chatterton’s niece?) is married at last. She seems to be charmed
with her condition, and I had a note from her, signed ‘R. D.
Ferrers,’ which reached me the day after the announcement of the
marriage appeared in the newspapers. She is living at Finchden, which is Lady
Chatterton’s place, and which as she describes it (an old house of
black and white timber, with seven antique and carved gables to it) must be in excellent
keeping with its inhabitants. It seems that they are
* Mr. Harness’s
amanuensis for five-and-twenty years.
all going to live together, aunt and niece with
their respective husbands, at the black and white house with its seven gables.
“Lady Chatterton has
written a play—a tragedy—called ‘Oswald of Deria,’ which is to be bound in white
in honour of Mrs. Ferrers’ marriage; and it is hoped that it will eventually be
acted in the large drawing-room of Finchden, which has been re-constructed and enlarged
by Lady Chatterton expressly for private theatricals. I am to have
a copy of the play.
“We have had marvellous doings here with foreign visitors!
Miss Coutts’s luncheon to the Belgians
was magnificent! A beautiful thing to see the troops defiling before her and marching
through the grounds to the banqueting tents—2,400 of them (men, not tents), and
all finding their places and eating their dinners with the greatest goût, appetite, and decorum. They had a splendid repast,
with grapes, pines, peaches, &c.; and one hundred and fifty-four dozens of champagne
were dismissed before the dinner was over. The day—at least so much of it as was
wanted for Holly Lodge—was just what one would wish. It was fair, with occasional
gleams of bright sunshine, but never too hot. Archdale talked a good deal to the Belgians, and they all ex-pressed themselves in terms of wondering delight
at the entertainment they had received. The Sultan says that ‘in Paris he saw
what civilization was—in England he saw what it was that produced
it.’
“Good-bye! God bless you! I can’t write long together.
It fatigues my eyes; and so, with Mary’s
love, believe me to be, my dear L’Estrange,
“I don’t believe you ever received a long letter which I
wrote to you from London and directed to Finisterre, for you ought to have had it some
days before the date of your last, which is written from some place that I never heard
of before, and am not quite sure that I read correctly.
“We have moved from London at last to Scottowe with the
Archdales, arriving all together last
Wednesday. We left rain behind us and arrived in rain; but the fine weather set in on
our arrival, and the glass is now at ‘fair,’ the sky clear, the wind in the east (which in Norfolk is an
especial favourite), and the sun as hot and scorching as any human being could possibly
desire.
“I had rather a dread of taking so long a journey at one heat;
so I started on the Tuesday, slept at Ely, and proceeded to Norwich by a mid-day train
the next day, in time to meet and accompany my sister and the Archdales to this
place. I was perfectly delighted with Ely. I did not go to the Cathedral on the Tuesday
evening, for I only arrived at my hotel (the ‘Lamb,’ a most comfortable
house), in time for a late dinner; but I was up early the next morning, and spent
several hours in the magnificent building. The restorations are not quite finished, but
all that has been done is wonderfully well done, and though the funds do not come in so
rapidly and liberally as at first they did, they are still progressing with the work.
Nothing can be better than the taste and skill with which Styleman L’Estrange painted the ceiling, and the piece which he
died before completing, and left Gambier Parry to
do, is so well done that no eye could distinguish where the one left off and the other
began. The duty was very well performed; but I hated the intoning till the Dean took it
up at the Lord’s Prayer in the
Litany, and finished the service. I then saw, or rather heard, that intoning might be
made very agreeable, and that there is as much difference between the intoning of one
man and another as between one man’s reading and another’s. I intend, if
well enough, to go to Ely in late Autumn for a couple of nights—Saturday and
Sunday nights—and have a full treat of the service. If you are good, I’ll
ask you to go with me.
“I have just been reading a novel called ‘Sprung up like a Flower.’ It’s all about a decayed
family of L’Estranges, very clever and very heart-breaking.
“It is my intention to stay here till September 30, making, if
well enough, a short episodical visit to Clumber; and after my return we must work. I
have almost finished the letters of 1838. I shan’t write any more, for I know
you’ll never get the letter. But whether you do or not,
“Believe me to be, “Yours affectionately, “W. Harness.”
“The New Inn, Maudesley, Norwich, “Oct. 9, 1867. “My dear L’Estrange,
“Your letter reached me, viâ
London, yesterday morning; and I’m very sorry to hear so sad an account of your
mother’s health. Nobody ought to be ill at Malvern, where everybody goes to be
made well; and where, if report be true, everybody feels himself better. I’m glad
to find that your account of Mrs. Simmonds (i.e.
Harris), is not so bad as I had fancied. She is a good old soul,
but I have always had a terror of the husband as a religious humbug.
“The story of the dog is not quite exactly the fact. The dog
was mine—given me as a puppy by Henry Hope.
It was a clever, cunning, fawning, unamiable dog; and, as Mrs.
Harris liked it, when she married I let her have it. Its beauty, in its
youth, was so great that Prince Albert wanted to
purchase it, and the man who rode up to my servant to negotiate the transaction offered
£50 for her. But the last glimpse I had at ‘Fairy’ was through a photographic representation of her from Guernsey, in
which all the beauty and grace seemed gone, and she looked like a drowned dog that had
swollen a week in the water.
“I am come to a dead stop with the letters; there are only two or three dreadfully dull
ones, for 1846 and ‘47. Some of the best, to Miss
Barrett, are not there—particularly one on the ill effects of scenery in dramatic representations, which is excellent, and
almost original in its notions.
“Memo: I have not the originals of the letters which are
copied; and (as I never look at the copies, from having been so worried by the mistakes
in writing the names of people) those letters are virtually absent. So that I have
really nothing to go on upon but Mrs Jenning’s MS. We must
have all the letters to Miss Barrett which we can
fairly print, and make our abridgments in the beginning of the book: we can cut out
plenty there.
“I’m better, but I feel that my principal ailment is old
age. My sister desires her kindest regards and
best thanks to Mrs. L’Estrange.
“Yours ever, “W. Harness.”
“The New Inn, Mundesley, Norwich, “Oct. 21, 1867. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I can’t write more than a few lines, to tell you of my
whereabouts, for my eyes are dim with working ever since breakfast at Miss Gold-smid’s letters. I have begun at the end, at poor Miss
Mitford’s death, and am working back. I have done all the long MS.
of Mrs. Jennings.
“There was a great deal to be cut out—things told in
other letters, and some things actionable as calumny—viz.: ‘the account of
the raffle for Southey’s copyrights.’
The dissensions of that family were very painful and very incomprehensible. In London,
everybody was of Mrs. S.’s faction: at
Keswick, everybody was of the children’s faction. I suppose, as in all family
quarrels, everybody was a little right, and as much wrong as they could be.
“We hope to leave this and begin our return home on Monday. On
getting home, I shall write to my acquaintance Appleton, the New York publisher, and negotiate with him for the
publication of the book in America, as well as in England. It seems to me that Miss Mitford’s reputation there was greater than
with us. There is a means of securing copyright in both quarters of the globe, but we
must inquire what those means are.
“Believe me to be, “Yours ever, “W. Harness.”
“Privy Council Office, “March 18, 1868. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I am sorry to hear that the tranquillity of your mind has
been discomposed by a landstorm about your yacht; as, from your father and mother
having recovered themselves a little, there was a brighter promise of enjoying your
visit to Clifton than your friends had anticipated for you. But what has happened? What
is the delinquency of the captain? I’m quite nervous to hear.
“Last Saturday was my birthday: I entered my 79th year amid
the congratulations and cheers of my friends, who seemed to eat a very merry dinner on
the occasion, at which I was too deaf to hear a word that was spoken. Indeed, I have
caught a cold, and have a wheezing on my chest, which, with my deafness, renders me a
most useless and extremely stupid individual.
“I have just been calling on Milman. He has been most seriously ill, but is a good deal better. He saw
me, and told me rather an amusing anecdote. An Irish farmer, who had been corrupted by
reading some liberal books, refused to pay his priest’s dues. ‘No, he
wouldn’t; the Priest might turn him into mice, if he could, and said he would do;
but he denied his power, and would not give him a six-pence.’ The farmer remained contumacious and victorious.
But still, triumphant infidel as he was, when night drew on, and they were preparing for
bed, he said to his wife, ‘Biddy, don’t you think we had better lock up the
cats?’
“Good-bye! I can’t write long.
“Believe me to be, “Yours ever affectionately, “W. Harness.”
“Privy Council Office, “March 23, 1868. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I am a good deal better, but feel oppressed in my chest, and
don’t expect to be altogether right and sprightly, as a youth in his seventy-ninth
year ought to be, till the sun has had time enough to air the wind, and these occasional
sharp fits of Winter have finally disappeared. However, I have been doing some work here
(i. e. Council Office,) to-day; and I did some Miss
Mitford before I left home this morning.
“In one of Mrs.
Hoare’s letters there is, in very fair writing, the word
‘fritillaries,’—a plant, a wild plant; do you know anything about such
a creature?
“The far-seeing world, who know what the Devil intends to do
next, are all prophesying a ‘No-Popery’ cry. If it arise, the effects in Ireland and England will be terrible.
In England, the sufferers will be the Ritualists; in Ireland, it will in all probability
provoke a civil war.
“A story: ‘Oh! Pat; and what do ye think will be your
feelings at the Day of Judgment, when you meet Mrs.
Mahoney, and the pig you stole from her, face to face?’ ‘Does
your Reverence think the pig will be there?’ ‘Ay, indeed will he; and what
will ye say then?’ ‘I shall say, your Reverence, “Mrs. Mahoney, dear, here’s the pig that I borrowed of
ye, and I’m mighty glad to have this opportunity of restoring him!’”
“We must shorten the early part of Miss Mitford’s life to bring it into proportion with the latter
part. This can easily be done by leaving out some of the poetry, and cutting shorter her
letters to Sir W. Elford; or rather abridging
those epistles into letters.
“I have nothing more to say.
“Believe me to be, “My dear Guy, “Yours ever, “W. Harness.”
“Riddle:—I give you £100, and you are to give me
one hundred animals. The cows cost £5, the pigs £1, and the hens one
shilling each. How many of each kind
will you send me in return for my cheque? I must have one hundred animals for my
money.”
“Privy Council Office “June 22, 1868. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I have been all last week at Holly Lodge, doing the only
thing that I was capable of, in such intense and continuous heat—sitting out of
doors in the shade, with my mouth a-jar to catch the little air that was moving, and
ready for talk with anybody that happened to pass by. I did not return till Saturday
morning; and, I suppose, I shall soon go back again. I certainly shall, if the weather
be as it has been. Yesterday (a sad breach of the Sabbath, but really the day excused
it) I gave way to a kind solicitation of Mrs.
Disney, and drove out with her from four to six to see if any air could be
found on Barnes Common and Putney Heath; for there was none to speak of—a mere
sufficiency for the sustenance of a gasping existence—to be had in London. We
succeeded in our exertions, and finding a breeze under the shade of a tree on the Barnes
road, we stopped the carriage, and sat nearly an hour in the placid enjoyment of it.
“I have done nothing with Miss
Mitford, nor till the weather is
cooler shall I attempt it. I have not strength to untie the parcel. To reduce the Life to one volume, is re-writing the
book and making a Biography of my friend—which I never intended, and now have not
the strength to undertake. It would have been, at first, less trouble than the assorting
her letters and making them tell her story. I am glad to hear your mother is so much
better; keep her out of doors and amused.
“Believe me to be, “Yours ever, “William Harness.
“I went to hear the ‘Messiah’ the other night. The music, of course, charmed me; but I
had heard it all better sung, with more heart and feeling, in the olden times, in the
Hanover Square Rooms. At Exeter Hall the voices are strained, and with all their
straining are lost in space.”
“Privy Council Office, “Oct. 2. 1868.
“Thank you, my dear L’Estrange, for your kind note of this morning. I was, and am, a
good deal affected by poor Milman’s death.
We had been friends ever since 1802; and the death of one whom I have known so long, and
who was so near my own age, seems like the pulling up the young roots of one’s life from the ground. I
was at his funeral, which was very solemn and very affecting to those who were as much
attached to him as myself.
“I should be off a-tree-planting, were I in your place, at
once, that the job may be finished and yourself in England before the election rows
begin in Ireland.
“Yours, “W.
Harness.”
“Privy Council Office, “Feb. 18, 1869. “My dear L’Estrange,
“I was very glad to get your letter, for I began to wonder
what could have become of you. I was not quite sure but you might have been blown off
the cliff.
“Ever since you left town, as the weather has been growing
damper and damper, I have been growing deafer and deafer! Now, it is really very
painful, this absence of the sense of hearing when I’m in company. It renders me a
bore to my companions, and a burden to myself. I trust, however, that, as the days
clear, and the ground dries, and the sun brightens, it may partly disappear.
“Yesterday, and I believe to-day, there is a pair of artificial second-hand legs on exhibition at an auction-room in Bond Street. It is not
said whether they are on sale or not. But the exhibition of them is very disgusting to
my mind. They were the legs worn by Sir Thomas
Trowbridge, and more respect was due to them as having been worn by that
excellent man and distinguished soldier.
“I’m reading a novel written by Mrs. Coventry’s grandmother, which I read (almost
the first full-grown book I ever did read) in the year my sister
was born, 1811. I have never seen it since. ‘The Beggar Girl;’ there are eight volumes of
it. I have almost read the first volume, and seem to have a dream-like remembrance of
what is to come. It’s different from novels of the present day, and contains some
occasional bad English; but it’s very clever. She was a great beauty, as well as
an authoress—a Mrs. Bennett—and also
the mother of old Mrs. Scott Waring, who died
last year at the age of 102, and whom, I dare say, you may remember to have seen at
church.
“Believe me to be, “Yours ever, “William Harness.”
“Kensington Gore, “Feb. 27, 1869.
“Many thanks, my dear L’Estrange. for your present, with which my brother and I opened
our dinner yesterday. They are excellent and most acceptable.
“I enter my eightieth year to-morrow fortnight! All my
romance about convent life is put to flight for ever; and I am told, by those who have
seen the nuns, that their ugliness is past belief. I think it would be an excellent
thing—as very many Roman Catholics do—that it would be a great reform of
their ecclesiastical system, if the clergy were allowed to marry, i.e., if no vow of celibacy were enforced on ordination; but I must condemn the
man who first voluntarily takes the vow, and then considers himself justified in
breaking it.
“I don’t understand about zoophytes; you must teach me.
I was very much shocked to hear of poor Delawarr’s death. He was an excellent and charming person.
Considering that he always looked delicate and consumptive in early life, it was a
marvel that he lived to be so old. He and I were, great friends once; but I never could
be at the trouble of keeping up noble friendships, unless the coronet did two-thirds of
the business.
“I believe there was no actual quarrel with Byron. It was simply a case of incompatibility. The
ardour of B. was more than D. could adequately meet. But I must be off to read the Chief
Justice’s charge anent the nuns; and I have very little time to do it in, as I
must go and see poor Dyce, who is very ill indeed.
Mrs. Disney is dead. The Dean is in deep grief.
“I came here to my brother’s last Thursday, directly
after marrying two young people who had asked me to perform the service, and for whose
sake I remained the beginning of the week in town. They seemed very happy on the
occasion; and I felt myself supremely happy in getting the ceremony over, and being able
to escape into the country.
“I am already better—more alive—for the change of air. It really is a delightful thing, having nothing to do. The cottage is so small that my servant is
always hitting his head against the doors, and says the rooms were only made for little
people; but it is a great pleasure to move
about from one room to the other, and then to sit awhile in the little hall with the
door between the two, and enjoy the fresh air of the Hampshire hills, brisk from the
sea, and unadulterated by any metropolitan mixtures.
“I shall be away from town, and in all probability here, till the 18th of September, when the church will again be
opened. It closes on Monday for painting and repairing, and the congregation assembles
in the large room at Kent House, which Mr. Henry has been so good as to lend me for the
occasion.
“I have had nothing to tell, and therefore have not written.
Day follows day, each like the other in every thing, I am happy to say; as I certainly
am a great deal better and less deaf every day that I am content to remain in this quiet
home. I have not for these five years felt so free from all uneasiness or agedness as I
am feeling at present. Thank God!
“This is our life: breakfast at nine, luncheon at one, tea at five, dinner at seven, coffee
at nine, bed at half-past ten. Every meal exact to time, except tea at five; that
varies, as Arthur drives Coe and me out in a
basket-carriage after luncheon, and we very often don’t get back from our
excursion so soon; indeed sometimes we are so late as not to have any tea at all.
“You now know the whole course of my life; and when you have
heard that between whiles I play with the dog, or doze over Crabb Robinson’s “Journal,” I don’t think you have any more to hear of the present
doings of W. H.
“I have just had a letter from Miss Skerrett; it is, strange to say, legible. She
claims the fulfilment of a promise that, should any of Miss
Mitford’s letters to her be printed, proofs of the MS. should be
shown to her, and not published without her consent. I have written to assure her that
her wish shall be complied with; but, as far as I recollect, no letters to her are
given.
“I don’t know whither to send this. I must try Dover.
My sister is gone to Norfolk, on her way to
Lincolnshire, and I think of following her in about a fortnight. How the time does fly
when one is happy and in good air!
“I hasten to answer your question as well as I can.
‘The Revenge’ is a
very popular tragedy, by Young (Edward, I think),
and the principal character is Zanga. The
‘Bellario’ you want I can’t
tell. There are at least fifty Bellarios in the old
English Drama; but I can’t guess, from the slight hint you give me, which this
alluded to by Miss Mitford may be, unless it be
the young lady in disguise who is the heroine in ‘Philaster,’ a celebrated play of Beaumont and Fletcher’s. George Darnley
wrote two plays, very good, on English history, about thirty years ago. I have them
both, but can’t remember the names of them. He was a very studious literary
person, and well nigh stone-deaf. I could help you, if I could see the text in full and
had my books at hand; but here, except scientific books, we have nothing but
‘Crabb Robinson’s
Life’ and a few novels.
“About ‘Clarissa’s’
work I can’t make a guess. I suppose it has some reference to Mademoiselle D’Arblay’s novel. You must not
forget to put a note on Hugh Pearson when you
insert his letters from Miss Mitford. He is a
very able and accomplished man, and from the time of being appointed Rector of Sonning, which happened when he was
quite young in orders, a kindred taste for literature attracted him to the companionship
of Miss Mitford, to whom he eventually became a most invaluable
friend. If you look his name out in Crockford’sClerical Guide, you will find the dates of his preferment.
“If you go to Sandwich again, do try to get me some seeds or
cuttings of the Trumpet tree. I shall be here till the 28th, if I don’t leave on
Friday. Adieu! I’m going to Basingstoke for letters.
“Yours ever affectionately, “W. H.”
The last time I saw Mr. Harness was about
a fortnight before his death. I was passing through London, and, hearing that he was at home,
determined to call upon him on my way. He was in his little study, looking as happy and genial as
ever, and our conversation turned on the passing events of the day, and especially on the
scandalous imputations which Mrs. Stowe had recently
brought against Lord Byron. He said that he had heard the
charge long before—that it arose out of the publication of Manfred; but was as untrue as it was revolting. He reiterated
what he had before said of Byron’s love of romancing and of exaggerat-ing his dissipations, and that he was encouraged in such rhapsodies by
the serious interpretation his wife put upon them. His wilful conduct in this respect had greatly
tarnished his memory.
As I was taking my leave, I referred to the forthcoming Life of Mary Russell Mitford, and speaking about the payment
to be made by Bentley, inquired whether he would not
receive a portion of it. In reply, he generously said that he would not; that I had been much
occupied in the preparation of the work, and all he wished to be taken out of the money was
£20 to be given to the Sweetmans. I was much
surprised at the nature of this request; but I knew that he had a great affection for old
servants—he had (as already mentioned) put up a stained window in All Saints’ Church
in memory of his nurse—and I merely inquired whether I should give them more, as I was
ready to comply in every way with his wishes. To this he replied ‘No; twenty pounds;’
and as he offered no explanation I remained for a long time in ignorance of his motive.*
When our conversation was ended, I wished Mr.
Harness farewell, little thinking our parting
* In Miss Mitford’s last
letter to Mr. Harness, she requested him to give
them a part of the profits.
was to be for ever! We were in fact looking forward to
the pleasure of an early meeting, and to the arrival of an especially interesting anniversary,
when he should accomplish his 80th year.
The last letter I received from him was the following:—
“London, “Nov. 6, 1869. “My dear L’Estrange,
“Nothing has happened since I came back, except the arrival
of Mr. Archdale in town, who has been driven from
Norfolk by the bitterness of the cold. I was very happy at Sherborne. I like living in a
school; it is so regular in the hours, and the meals are so ample and plain and good. To
be sure I felt very much as if I was a pupil, and subject to the laws of the school,
from which, when I transgressed them by appearing too late at breakfast or dinner, I was
only absolved from the punishment by some illogical and partial exception.
“My pen won’t write, and when that is the case, my mind
is always suggesting false words to my ink.
“When shall you be back? I am told to go to the sea for a few
days, and intend being with Crake at Battle from Monday till Saturday. I hope
the sea-air will carry away my cough before it gets fixed for the Winter. I’m very
old; and at that age in which keeping alive seems to be the sole object of living.
“I have heard nothing of Miss
Mitford nor of Miss Austen; the
life of the latter I’m looking for with great anxiety. In the meantime, I’ve
been spending my evenings on the dullest of books, with clever things in it—Noblesse oblige.
“When do you come back. I’m off to dine with my niece.
“Yours ever affectionately, “W. Harness.”
Among those to whom Mr. Harness was most
warmly attached was Mr. Crake, who had been for twelve
years his curate at Knightsbridge. Their intimacy continued after the latter had become Dean of
Battle; and Mr. Harness knew that he was always welcome at the Deanery, and
frequently accepted his friend’s hospitality. It was a pleasant and easy change for him
from the cares and toils of London; and the freedom from conventionality which he there enjoyed
was as grateful to him as the fresh sea-breezes were invigorating. Even the old Deanery itself
possessed an attraction for him, with its
battlements, its wide hearths and panelled walls.
On the occasion of which we are about to speak, there would seem to have been
almost a fatality in his visit. The day before his departure, a note arrived from Mr.
Tysley, in Prince’s Gardens, inviting him to dine on the following Thursday.
Mr. Harness, however, was a man who seldom altered his
plans; he felt a longing for country air, and wrote to the Dean that he could always make himself
happy with his books, in however lonely a position.
He therefore started to pay the fatal visit on the day he originally named; he
seemed remarkably well when he arrived, and spent the greater part of Tuesday and Wednesday
sitting in his arm-chair, with his favourite Shakespeare
in his hand—the changing play of his countenance, as he read, showing he was still alive to
his old enthusiasm. On Thursday, he walked for a considerable time up and down the garden, and
returning to the house by some new stairs, remarked to the Dean, “When you are an old man,
you’ll repent having placed those stairs there!”
Later in the day some friends called, and a lady observed that he seemed in
unusually good spirits, and that, but for his slight deafness, no one would have thought him an
old man. He talked with ani-mation, and seemed to take
as much interest as ever in the affairs of life, although he observed, somewhat sadly, that he
had survived all his contemporary friends. They left at six o’clock, and, the Dean having
by this time started to keep an engagement in St. Leonards, Mr.
Harness was left quite alone. At half-past six his servant came to the study to
inform him that it was time to prepare for dinner, when, to his consternation, he found the room
vacant; and almost at the same time the butler, who was going across the hall, was horrified at
finding Mr. Harness’s body lying head-foremost at the bottom of the
stone stairs. He saw at once that he was dead; his head was lying in a pool of blood; but his
expression was so peaceful and benign, the man said, that, although he knew he was dead, he could
almost have imagined he was asleep.
It seems probable that Mr. Harness left
the study when the light was uncertain, just before the lamps were lit, and in the dusk did not
observe the staircase. On examination, it was found that the skull was severely fractured.
A fortnight after our separation in London, one calm autumnal day at the end of
the long summer, when the yellow leaves were dropping silently from the trees—I was sitting
at the window of my study at Clifton, reading the first copy of Miss
Mitford’sLife, which had just been forwarded by the
publisher. I was musing over and reviewing the results of our three years’ labour, with
those mingled feelings which seem to attend the completion of all literary enterprises. Suddenly,
I heard the sharp knock of the postman at the door, and in a few minutes the servant entered the
room with a letter. I broke the seal. I had observed the deep black border, but never could have
conceived the crushing intelligence it conveyed. The words were as follows:—
“The Deanery, Battle, “Nov. 12, [1869.] “My dear L’Estrange,
“Our poor dear old friend Harness is no more. He fell down a flight of stone steps at the Deanery
last night, and was instantly killed.
“Poor Miss Harness and
Miss Archdale have been here, but have returned home. The
funeral takes place here on Monday afternoon.
“I will not attempt to tell my sorrow.
“Yours ever, “E. N. Crake.”
The blow was so sudden and severe that for some moments I could not comprehend
the intelligence. Dead! One whom I had so intimately known, and had seen a few days before in the enjoyment of the
fullest health and vigour! I could not realize the fact; it seemed overwhelming.
Mr. Harness was never married; but I have heard that there
was some romance and disappointment in his early life. In speaking of celibacy, he was wont to
say, “There is always some story connected with it.” He felt less than others
his isolated position, inasmuch as he had a sister to whom he was devotedly attached, and who
superintended his household. I never saw his usual buoyancy of spirits desert him but when she
was unwell; then, he was an altered man, and seemed equally unable to attend either to business
or pleasure. They had a rule, which to some may appear strange—Neither of them was, on
ordinary occasions, to make inquiries after the other’s health. Mr.
Harness thought the expression of such solicitude had an injurious effect, and led
people to imagine themselves suffering from ailments.
His health, even in old age, was remarkably good, and his faculties were to the
last in a wonderful state of preservation. His hair, though changed in colour, was as thick as
ever, and clustered in curls as in his early youth; his complexion was clear and fresh; his teeth
beautifully white and perfect; and he could see so well as to
be able to read the newspaper without glasses. He still, to the last, retained remnants of that
beauty which Sir Thomas Lawrence had admired in his
childhood. Old age had no Winter for his genial nature. Indeed, he used to say that the older we
grow the happier we become. In one of his sermons, written after he had passed his seventh
decade, he observes, “There is one time when the age of even threescore years and ten
seems by no means great; and that is, when you have reached it yourself.”
It was remarkable, in connection with his fate, that he never dreaded an
unexpected death, but always said he should prefer it to a lingering illness. He objected to the
prayer in the Litany on this subject, and said he wished the proposed word
“unprepared” had been substituted for “sudden.” In this desire,
therefore, as in his life, he seems to have been blessed; for he died without a struggle, and, as
far as could be ascertained, without any suffering.
It is almost surprising, when we consider the infirmity (lameness) with which he
was afflicted through life, and his constant danger of falling, that he ever reached the span of
an octogenarian. On several occasions he met with severe falls; on one especially, when, in
company with the Dean of Battle, they had been attending a visitation
charge at St. Paul’s. They had stood for five hours, and on leaving the Cathedral by the
south entrance, Mr. Harness’s knee gave way at the
top of the flight of steps, and he fell head-foremost to the bottom. The Dean thought he must
have been killed on the spot; but, as he said, he seemed to have fallen “like a
child;” and such was Mr. Harness’s spirit and unwillingness to
disappoint his friends, that he would not put off a dinner engagement which he had made for that
evening.
Mr. Harness was buried at Battle, where he died. His
simple funeral was attended by his brother and nephew and by two or three attached friends.
Shortly afterwards, a committee was formed with the view of raising a subscription to commemorate
his labours and his virtues; and it is worthy of record, as marking the respect in which he was
held by those who differed from his views, that although he consistently opposed the claims of
Rome, one of the earliest contributors to the fund was a Roman Catholic.
After much consideration as to what would be the most suitable kind of memorial,
it was determined that a prize bearing his name should be founded at Cambridge for the study of Shakespearian Literature, and that a brass tablet should be
placed in the centre aisle of All Saints’ Church, Knightsbridge, “As a record of
his generous actions and faithful ministry, by his friends and grateful
parishioners.”
THE END. LONDON:Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.