My Friends and Acquaintance
R. Plumer Ward VII
![]()
R. PLUMER WARD.
VII.
ANONYMOUS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE AUTHOR OF “TREMAINE” AND “DE VERE.”
I now recur to the commencement of my literary intercourse with
the author of “Tremaine,”
which, for more than a year and a half, remained anonymous on both sides—a fact which makes
it needful that I say a few words in explanation of the origin and nature of the early
portion of the following correspondence.
Up to the period of his composing the work entitled “Tremaine, or the Man of Refinement,” Mr. Ward’s whole life, after leaving college, had
been one uninterrupted scene of active business, first as a practising barrister, and
afterwards as a Member of Parliament and of a great political party; so that, ![]()
![]()
although he retained all the elegant scholarship and classic tastes he
had acquired at Christ’s Church, Oxford, under his accomplished and beloved master,
Dr. Cyril Jackson, he had found few or no
occasions for practice in English composition.* Moreover, his miscellaneous English reading
had been chiefly confined to the school of Anne and her
immediate successor; and he was fully aware of the great changes which English style had
undergone since the establishment of the two great Quarterly Reviews: and though he did not
admit those changes to be in all cases improvements, he fully recognised the general
progress which the mere “complement extern” of our literature had made during
the first quarter of the present century.
Under these circumstances, and addressing, as he chose avowedly to do in the
case of “Tremaine,” the popular taste of the day, he wished to obtain for that work, during
its
* The treatise on “The Law of Nations,” and the two or three
political pamphlets which he wrote at a very early period of his political career,
can scarcely be regarded as contradicting the above remark. |
![]()
![]()
![]()
passage through the press, the benefit of such suggestions in regard to
mere style and composition, as might seem called for in the judgment of some professional writer, whose practice, in connexion with the critical
literature of the day, might be supposed to have given him those facilities in handling the
mere mechanism of composition which nothing but long practice can
impart.
The result, in one word, was that the MS. of “Tremaine” was proposed to be placed in my hands;
and (after a delighted perusal of the first volume) I accepted the task of its revisal,
under the express stipulation, on my part, that no proposed change or suggestion of mine,
however slight or minute, should be carried into effect without the distinct sanction and
approval of the author or his editor—for such the anonymous party communicating with the
publisher was at first supposed to be.
Of course, the last thing to be expected from the honest and uncompromising
fulfilment of a task like this, was the state of things which has at once enabled and
impelled me to place before the world these ![]()
![]()
Recollections, and the
correspondence which alone gives them any value. In fact, the frank good temper and
generous candour with which the anonymous author of “Tremaine” received and replied to the suggestions of his anonymous
adviser and critic (Heaven save the mark!) were among the most characteristic features of
his healthy and finely-balanced mind; and, as might naturally be expected, they led, in the
case in question, to my not seldom taking the liberty of throwing out hints and making
suggestions which the merely clerical character of my task would not
have warranted, in the absence of the marked encouragement thus afforded me, still less in
the presence of my strong sense of the immeasurable inferiority of the critic to the
criticised, in every quality of mind, both natural and acquired—with the sole and
insignificant exception of that mere mechanical facility of hand (so to speak) which long
practice may give to any hand, and the absence of it must withhold from all.
So true, indeed, is this, that by the time I had reached the middle of the
work I found (but I here was really no occasion for further ![]()
![]()
revision as
to mere style; and I suggested as much, but was overruled: and in all his subsequent works,
except the “Pictures of Human
Life” (which was published when I was residing abroad), Mr. Plumer Ward, I believe, stipulated with his publisher,
as part of the arrangement between them, that the MS. should pass through my hands.
I have felt no little difficulty in persuading myself formally to refer to
circumstances which have compelled me not only to speak of myself, but to place myself in
the light of a critic on the writings of a man towards whom, from the first moment that I
knew him through the medium of his first work (as above alluded to), till the melancholy
close of our intimacy by his death, I was accustomed to feel, and to look up to, with a
respectful admiration that was only prevented from mounting into reverence by the frank
cordiality and almost child-like simplicity of his personal bearing among his friends and
associates. But when I recollect that Mr. Ward
himself was in the habit of alluding, among his friends, and especially when I was present,
to what he was pleased to call “my ![]()
![]()
share” of “Tremaine” and “De Vere,” and that many of his most
valuable and interesting letters would be either unintelligible, or would lead to erroneous
conclusions, in the absence of some such explanation as that which I have now afforded, I
feel that it would have been an unmeaning affectation to ignore circumstances which have
formed the most gratifying feature of a literary life, which, however humble, has included
not a few of a similar character, and none of an opposite one.
Cyril Jackson (1746-1819)
Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, when he succeeded William
Markham as dean in 1783.
Robert Plumer Ward (1765-1846)
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and the Inner Temple; he was Tory MP for Cockermouth
(1802-06) and Haslemere (1807-23) and the author of three novels.
Robert Plumer Ward (1765-1846)
Tremaine: or, the Man of Refinement. 3 vols (London: H. Colburn, 1825). The first “silver fork” novel.
