Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

CHAPTER XXIII VISITS TO ENGLAND 1899

I visited England again in 1899. I did not go to the Continent or Scotland. My wife consulted a very eminent London physician for an infirmity of the heart. He told her to go to the Isle of Wight; remain there a few weeks; then to go to Boscombe; stay a few weeks there; then to Malvern Hills, and thence to a high place in Yorkshire, which, I believe, is nearly, if not quite, the highest inhabited spot in England. This treatment was eminently advantageous. But to comply with the doctor's direction took all the time we had at our command before going home.

We had a charming and delightful time in the Isle of Wight. We stayed at a queer little Inn, known as the "Crab and Lobster," kept by Miss Cass, with the aid of her sister and niece. We made excursions about the island. I saw two graves side by side which had a good deal of romance about them. One was the grave of a woman. The stone said that she had died at the age of one hundred and seven. By its side was the grave of her husband, to whom she had been married at the age of eighteen, and who had died just after the marriage. So she had been a widow eighty-nine years, and then the couple, separated in their early youth, had come together again in the grave.

We found a singular instance of what Americans think so astonishing in England, the want of knowledge by the people of the locality with which they were familiar in life, of persons whose names have a world-wide reputation. In a churchyard at Bonchurch, about a mile from our Inn at Ventnor, is the grave of John Stirling—the friend of Emerson—of whom Carlyle wrote a memoir. Sterling is the author of some beautiful hymns and other poems, including what I think is the most splendid and spirited ballad in English literature, "Alfred the Harper." Yet the sexton who exhibited the church and the churchyard did not seem to know anything about him, and the booksellers near by never had heard of him. The sexton showed, with great pride, the grave of Isaac Williams, author of the "Shadow of the Cross" and some other rather tame religious poetry. He was a devout and good man, and seemed to be a feeble imitator of Keble. I dare say, the sexton first heard of Sterling and saw his grave when we showed it to him.

The scenery about Boscombe and the matchless views of the Channel are a perpetual delight, especially the sight, on a clear day, of the Needles.

We did not find it necessary to obey the doctor's advice to go to Yorkshire. After leaving Boscombe, I spent the rest of my vacation at Malvern Hills, some eight or nine miles north of Worcester, and some twenty miles from Gloucester.

The chief delight of that summer—a delight that dwells freshly in my memory to-day, and which will never be forgotten while my memory endures—was a journey through the Forest of Dean, in a carriage, in company with my friend—alas, that I must say my late friend!—John Bellows, of Gloucester. He was, I suppose, of all men alive, best qualified to be a companion and teacher of such a journey. He has written and published for the American Antiquarian Society an account of our journey— a most delightful essay, which I insert in the appendix. He tells the story much better than I could tell it. My readers will do well to read it, even if they skip some chapters of this book for the purpose. I am proud and happy in this way to associate my name with that of this most admirable gentleman.

I visited Gloucester. I found the houses still standing where my ancestors dwelt, and the old tomb in the Church of St. Mary de Crypt, with the word Hoare cut in the pavement in the chancel.

My ancestors were Puritans. They took an active part in the resistance to Charles I., and many traces are preserved of their activity in the civic annals of Gloucester. Two of my name were Sheriffs in those days. There were two other Sheriffs whose wives were sisters of my direct ancestors. Charles Hoar, my direct ancestor, married one of the Clifford family, the descendant of the brother of Fair Rosamond, and their arms are found on a tomb, and also on a window in the old church at Frampton-on-Severn, eight miles from Gloucester, where the Cliffords are buried. The spot where fair Rosamond was born, still, I believe, belongs to the Clifford family.

I got such material as I could for studying the history of the military operations which preceded the siege and capture of Worcester and the escape of Charles II. Several of the old houses where he was concealed are shown, as also one in Worcester from which he made his escape out of the window when Worcester was stormed, just as Cromwell's soldiers were entering at the door.

Shakespeare used to pass through Gloucester on his way to London. Some of his celebrated scenes are in Gloucestershire. The tradition is that Shakespeare's company acted in the yard of the New Inn, at Gloucester, an ancient hostelry still standing, a few rods only from the Raven Tavern, which belonged to my ancestors, and is mentioned in one of their wills still extant. I have no doubt my kindred of that time saw Shakespeare, and saw him act, unless they had already learned the Puritanism which came to them, if not before, in a later generation.

I purchased, some years ago, some twenty ancient Gloucestershire deeds, of various dates, but all between 1100 and 1400. One of them was witnessed by John le Hore. It was of lands at Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire. I have in my possession a will of Thomas Hore of Bristol, dated 1466, in which he mentions his wife Joanna, and his daughters Joanna and Margery, and his sons Thomas and John. These names—Thomas, John, Joanna and Margery—are the names of members of the family who dwelt in the city of Gloucester in later generations. So I have little doubt that Thomas was of the same race, although there is a link in the pedigree, between his death and 1560 or 1570 which I cannot supply. This Thomas bequeaths land at Wotton-under-Edge, so I conjecture that John also was of the same race. A large old black oak chest bound with iron, bequeathed by Thomas to Bristol in 1466, is still in the possession of the city.

I was very much gratified that the people of the old City of Gloucester were glad to recognize the tie of kindred which I, myself, feel so strongly. I received a handsome box, containing a beautifully bound copy of an account of the City from the Traders' Association of the City of Gloucester. This account of the matter appears in the Echo, a local paper of July 4, 1899.

GLOUCESTER CITY. GLOUCESTER TRADERS' ASSOCIATION. INTERESTING PRESENTATION

On Monday evening a largely attended public meeting was held in the Guildhall under the auspices of the Gloucester Traders' Association for the purpose of hearing addresses on "The municipal electricity supply." Mr. D. Jones (president) occupied the chair, and there were also present on the platform the Mayor (Mr. H. R. J. Braine), City High Sheriff (Mr. A. V. Hatton), Councillors Holborook, Poole and several members of the association.

The Chairman said that in his position as president of the association it was his pleasurable duty to present a copy of their guide to Mr. G. F. Hoar, the distinguished member of the United States Government, who had always taken a great interest in their historic City.—The presentation consisted of a handsomely carved box made by Messrs. Matthews and Co. from pieces of historic English oak supplied by Mr. H. Y. J. Taylor. On the outside of the cover are engraved the City arms, and a brass plate explaining the presentation. A beautifully printed copy of the well-known guide, bound in red morocco, has been placed within, and on the inside of the cover there is the following illuminated address:

"To the Hon. G. F. Hoar, of Worcester, Mass., Senator of the United States of America. Sir,—The members of the Traders' Association, Gloucester, England, ask your acceptance of a bound copy of their guide to this ancient and historic City, together with this box made from part of a rafter taken from the room in which Bishop Hooper was lodged the night before his burning, and from oak formerly in old All Saints' Church, as souvenirs of the regard which the association entertains for you and its recognition of your ardent affection for the City of Gloucester, the honored place of the nativity of the progenitor of your family, Charles Hoar, who was elder Sheriff in 1634; and may these sincere expressions also be typical of the sterling friendship existing between Great Britain and America."

"Senator Hoar had been unable to attend the meeting, and the presentation was entrusted to the American Vice-Consul, Mr. E. H. Palin, to forward to him. Remarking on the presentation, the Mayor expressed his regret that Mr. Hoar had been unable to accept the high and important position of American Ambassador which had been offered to him. Addresses on the installation of the electric light were then given by Mr. Hammond, M.I.C.E., and Mr. Spencer Hawes."

I was invited by the Corporation of the City to visit them in the fall and receive the freedom of the City, which was to be bestowed at the same time on Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. But I had arranged to return to the United States before the time fixed for the ceremonial. So I was deprived of that great pleasure and honor.

I had a great longing to hear the nightingale. I find in an old memorandum that I heard the nightingale in Warwickshire in 1860, somewhere about the twentieth of May. But the occurrence, and the song of the bird, have wholly faded from my memory. When I was abroad in 1892 and '96 I hoped to hear the song. But I was too late. Mrs. Warre, wife of the Rector of Bemerton, George Herbert's Parsonage, told me that the nightingales were abundant in her own garden close to the Avon, but that they did not sing after the beginning of the nesting session which, according to a note to White's "History of Selborne," lasts from the beginning of May to the early part of June. Waller says:

Thus the wise nightingale that leaves her home,
Pursuing constantly the cheerful spring,
To foreign groves does her old music bring.

There are some counties in England where the bird is not found. It is abundant in Warwickshire, Gloucester and the Isle of Wight. It is not found in Scotland, Derbyshire or Yorkshire or Devon or Cornwall. Attempts to introduce it in those places have failed. The reason is said to be that its insect food does not exist there.

I utterly failed to hear the nightingale, although I was very close upon his track. On the night of the fifth of June at Freshwater, close to Tennyson's home, we were taken by a driver, between eleven and twelve at night, to two copses in one of which he said he had heard the nightingale the night before; and at the other they had been heard by somebody, from whom he got the information, within a very few days. But the silence was unbroken, notwithstanding our patience and the standing reward I had offered to anybody who would find one that I could hear. Two different nights shortly afterward, I was driven out several miles past groves where the bird was said to be heard frequently. Nothing came of it. May 29, at Gloucester, I rode with my friend, H. Y. J. Taylor, Esq., an accomplished antiquary, out into the country. We passed a hillside where he said he had heard the nightingale about eleven o'clock in the daytime the week before. Shakespeare says:

The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be
No better a musician than the wren.

But the nightingale does sometimes sing by day. Mr. Taylor says that on the morning he spoke of the whole field seemed to be full of singing birds. There were larks and finches and linnets and thrushes, and I think other birds whose name I do not remember. But when the nightingale set up his song every other bird stopped. They seemed as much spellbound by the singing as he was, and Philomel had the field to himself till the song was over. It was as if Jenny Lind had come into a country church when the rustic choir of boys and girls were performing.

The nightingale will sometimes sing out of season if his mate be killed, or if the nest with the eggs therein be destroyed.

He is not a shy bird. He comes out into the highway and will fly in and out of the hedges, sometimes following a traveller. And the note of one bird will, in the singing season, provoke the others, so that a dozen or twenty will sometimes be heard rivalling one another at night, making it impossible for the occupants of the farmhouses to sleep.

The superstition is well known that if a new-married man hear the cuckoo before he hear the nightingale in the spring, his married peace will be invaded by some stranger within the year. But if the nightingale be heard first he will be happy in his love. It is said that the young married swains in the country take great pains to hear the nightingale first. We all remember Milton's sonnet:

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray
Warbl'est at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the Lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May,
They liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow Cuckoo's bill
Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will
Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom in some Grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief; yet hadst no reason why,
Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

I had a funny bit of evidence that this superstition is not entirely forgotten. A very beautiful young lady called upon us in London just as we were departing for the Isle of Wight. I told her of my great longing to hear the nightingale, and that I hoped to get a chance. She said that she had just come from one of her husband's country estates; that she had not seen a nightingale or heard one this year, although they were very abundant there. She said she had seen a cuckoo, which came about the same time. I suppose she observed a look of amusement on my countenance, for she added quick as lightning, "But he didn't speak."

I made this year a delightful visit to Cambridge University. I was the guest of Dr. Butler, the Master of Trinity, and his accomplished wife, who had, before her marriage, beaten the young men of Cambridge in all of the examinations. Dr. Butler spoke very kindly of William Everett, with whom he had been contemporary at Cambridge. He told me that Edward Everett, when he received his degree at Oxford, was treated with great incivility by the throng of undergraduates, not because he was an American, but because he was a Unitarian. I told this story afterwards to Mr. Charles Francis Adams. He confirmed it, and said that his father had refused the degree because he did not wish to expose himself to a like incivility.

I dined in the old hall of Trinity, and met many very eminent scholars. I saw across the room Mr. Myers, the author of the delightful essays, but did not have an opportunity to speak to him. I was introduced, among other gentlemen, to Aldus Wright, Vice or Deputy Master, eminent for his varied scholarship, and to Mr. Frazer, who had just published his admirable edition of Pausanias.

A great many years ago I heard a story from Richard H. Dana, illustrating the cautious and conservative fashions of Englishmen. He told me that when the Judges went to Cambridge for the Assizes they always lodged in the House of the Master of Trinity, which was a royal foundation, the claim being, that as they represented the King, they lodged there as of right. On the other hand the College claims that they are there as the guests of the College, and indebted to its hospitality solely for their lodging. When the Judges approach Cambridge, the Master of Trinity goes out to meet them, and expresses the hope that they will make their home at the College during their stay; to which the Judges reply that "They are coming." The Head of the College conducts them to the door. When it is reached, each party bows and invites the other to go in. They go in, and the Judges stay until the Assize is over. This ceremony has gone on for four hundred years, and it never yet has been settled whether the Judges have a right in the Master's house, or only are there as guests and by courtesy. I suppose that in the United States both sides would fight that question until it was settled somehow. Each would say: "I am very willing to have the other there. But I want to know whether he has any right there." I asked about the truth of this story. Dr. Butler said it was true and seemed, if I understood him aright, to think the Judges' claim was a good one. Mr. Wright, the Deputy Master, to whom I also put the question, spoke of it with rather less respect.