Life of Frederick Marryat

by David Hannay

Next year Marryat was off in haste to the Continent. “Not one day was our departure postponed; with post horses and postillions, we posted, post haste, to Brussels.” As is too commonly the case, Mrs. Ross Church has nothing to say as to the cause of this flight—and we are left to conclude that it was due to that desire to economize with dignity which has driven so many Englishmen to the same voluntary exile. At Brussels or at Spa he went on working for the Metropolitan. He cannot have edited it, but he sent in his “Diary on the Continent,” and he wrote, in this year, “The Pirate” and “The Three Cutters,” in which, for the first time, he had the advantage of being illustrated by Clarkson Stanfield. With the Metropolitan his connection was coming to an end. In 1836 he returned to England, to get rid of his proprietary interest in it to Saunders and Otley, and to part with those publishers in a friendly manner—but to part decisively, on the ground that they would hear nothing of an advance for fresh work. The New Monthly was now his resource—at the increased rate of twenty guineas a sheet. To 1836 belong “Snarley Yow” and “The Pasha of Many Tales,”—and also the beginning of that “Life of Lord Napier” which was never to be finished. In 1837 he had begun to feel the need of a change, the desire to break fresh ground, and in April, leaving his family at Lausanne, he started for the United States.

His life during these two years of foreign residence may probably be fairly well realized by the reader who will give himself the pleasure to remember some parts of Thackeray and many parts of Lever. The Marryats must have formed part of that English colony on the Continent at the head of which marched the Marquess of Steyne, while Captain Rook and the Honourable Mr. Deuceace brought up the rear. It was a society much more merry than wise, and it is to be feared more easy than honest. Its members lived abroad to escape something—perhaps it was only restraint, perhaps it was the heavy bills of English tradesmen not yet reclaimed from the evil ways of long credit and high prices, sometimes it was the sheriff’s-officer. Now and then it was only the English winter. That was the most wholesome reason; but it was the least commonly genuine, and the most frequently assumed. In all that curious expatriated world there was something of the Cave of Adullam. It was often only the more pleasant on that account. Acquaintances matured quickly; among people who were all more or less fugitives, few questions were asked; even Captain Rook and Mr. Deuceace were received without too much inquiry by people who neither imitated nor liked all their ways. Now we are less strict at home, and by a natural reaction more circumspect abroad. Besides railways keep people rolling, and have greatly broken up the old English colonies. Still even now there is a continental English society, less Bohemian than the old, but still somewhat free and easy, addicted as it were to living in its shirt sleeves, very pleasant to see, and to go through, but not at all good to be lived in for the moral man. During the thirties this Cave of Adullam was in full swing, crowded with refugees—not for political causes—with veterans of the old war intent on making pension and half-pay go as far as possible, and with pleasure-seeking people ready for any amusement (the cheaper the better), and not too exacting as to the moral qualities or social position of those with whom they were prepared to amuse themselves.

Marryat with his abundant spirits, his faculty for story-telling, and his sufficient command of money, would naturally fall on his feet in this rather gypsy world. He spoke French fluently, and his wife, as the daughter of an English consul in Russia, would be at home in continental society. Once more it must be confessed that the details are wanting. Mrs. Ross Church says, that “to this hour” (she wrote in 1872) “many anecdotes are related of him by the older residents at Brussels.” Sadly few of them seem to have been collected, for Mrs. Ross Church can only muster two—neither, it must be confessed, very brilliant nor very honourable. According to the first, Marryat was asked to dinner to meet a company of celebrities and friends of his own, in hopes that he would talk. He held his tongue, and when asked whether he had been silent because he was bored, answered, “Why did you imagine I was going to let out any of my jokes for those fellows to put in their next books? No, that is not my plan. When I find myself in such company as that, I open my ears and hold my tongue, glean all I can, and give them nothing in return.” The story needs a good deal of explaining before the point of it becomes obvious; and unluckily the circumstances, which could alone explain it, are wanting. The fun, if there was any, was supplied (we must suppose) by the character of the person it was said to—and who was he? The other story contains a repartee—an awful repartee—a thing to be put in a collection of witticisms with the comment that “so and so smiled, but never forgave the jest.” It is about the bridge of somebody’s nose, and is not greatly inferior to the recorded jokes of Douglas Jerrold.

There is little to be gleaned out of such reminiscences as these, which hardly reach the dignity of “dead nettles”: neither do we gather much from a surviving letter to Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx about a debt of frs. 1250, owed to Marryat by R——, a hopeless debt. “I consider that if I have no better chance of heaven than of R——’s 1250 francs, I am in a bad way. Both he and Z—— are evidently a couple of rogues. The only chance of obtaining the money from R—— is by telling him that I am coming to Paris as soon as I can, and that I shall expose him by publishing the whole affair, his letters, &c.; and, moreover that you strongly suspect that it is my intention, independent of exposure, to break every bone in his body on my arrival. He holds himself as a gentleman, being the son of some post-captain, and will not like that message, and may perhaps pay the money rather than incur the risk.” Here obviously was a very pretty quarrel; but who was R——, and had he a case, and who was Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx, and did any assault follow? Who knows? and indeed who cares? The rest of the letter is full of scandal about capital letters and dashes. The sight of it only make one remember how much entirely unimportant trash contrives to survive in this world.

All the scraps of knowledge about Marryat which have escaped destruction are not so unpleasant, though they are nearly as obscure, as that letter to Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx. It is recorded that he gave parties and Christmas trees, that he looked after children well, and was a neat hand at packing a portmanteau,—qualities which must have made him the most tolerable of husbands and fathers on his travels. He was at all times tender-hearted with children, as befitted an author who ended by writing almost wholly for them; and would quiet his own by telling them stories, when the rattling of carriages and diligences had made them fractious. A letter to his mother survives from these years which is worth quoting—not because it gives much information about his own life, but because it is kindly, and gives a very different picture of Marryat to that afforded by the threats against R——, and the vapid scandal written to the gentleman with the handsome French name.

“Spa, June 9, 1835.

“My Dearest Mother,—It is dreadfully hot, and we are all gasping for breath. Kate is very unwell. She cannot walk now, and is obliged to go out in the carriage. Children thrive. As for me, I am teaching myself German, and writing a little now and then ‘The Diary of a Blasé:’ one part has appeared in the Metropolitan—very good magazine stuff. I have a fractional part of the gout in my middle right finger. Is it possible to make V—— a member of the Horticultural? He is very anxious, and he deserves it; the personal knowledge is the only difficulty; but I know him, and I am part of you, and therefore you know him. Will that syllogism do? We are as quiet here as if we were out of the world, and I like it. I wanted quiet to recover me. Since I have been here I have discovered what I fancy will be new in England—a variety of carnation, with short stalks—the stalks are so short that the flowers do not rise above the leaves of the plant, and you have no idea how pretty they are; they are all in a bush (? blush). There are two varieties here, belonging to a man, but he will not part with them. He says they are very scarce, and only to be had at Vervier, a town eight miles off. They are celebrated for flowers at Liége, but a flower-woman from Liége, to whom I showed them, said she had never seen them there; so I presume the man was correct. Have you heard of them? By-the-by, you should ask V—— to send for some Ghent roses—they are extremely beautiful. I did give most positive orders that Fred should not go out unless with Mr. B—— or one of the masters. He remained three days in Paris, having escaped from the gentleman who had charge of him, and cannot, or will not, account for where he was, or what he did. He did not go to his school until his money was gone. He is at a dangerous age now, and must be kept close. Write me or Kate a long letter, telling us all the news. I intend to come home in October, or thereabouts; but I must arrange according to Kate’s manœuvres. If she goes her time of course I must be with her, and then she will winter here, I have no doubt, as we cannot travel in winter with babies, nor indeed do I wish to; as travelling costs a great deal of money—and I have none to spare.

“God bless you, mamma. This is a famous place for your complaint, if it comes on again. The cures are miraculous. Love to Ellen. She sha’n’t come German over me when we meet. I don’t think I ever should have learnt it, only G—— gave himself such airs about it.”

The letter is not a masterpiece, but it is good-natured and wholesome. The “Fred,” who had been playing truant so enviably in Paris, was afterwards the Lieutenant Frederick Marryat who perished in the wreck of the Avenger.