The ‘Hewel’ being evidently the Woodpecker, who, by tapping the Trees, etc., does the work of one who measures and gauges Timber; here, rightly or wrongly, called ‘Holtseltster.’ ‘Holt’ one knows: but what is ‘seltster’? I do not find either this word or ‘Hewel’ in Bailey or Halliwell. But ‘Hewel’ may be a form of ‘Yaffil,’ which I read in some Paper that Tennyson had used for the Woodpecker in his Last Tournament. [133]
This reminded me that Tennyson once said to me, some thirty years ago, or more, in talking of Marvell’s ‘Coy Mistress,’ where it breaks in—
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near, etc.
‘That strikes me as Sublime, I can hardly tell why. Of course, this partly depends on its place in the Poem.
Apropos of the Woodpecker, a Clergyman near here was telling our Bookseller Loder, that, in one of his Parishioners’ Cottages, he observed a dried Woodpecker hung up to the Ceiling indoors; and was told that it always pointed with its Bill to the Quarter whence the Wind blew.
To Miss Anna Biddell.
Woodbridge. Feb. 22, [1872].
. . . I have lost the Boy who read to me so long and so profitably: and now have another; a much better Scholar, but not half so agreeable or amusing a Reader as his Predecessor. We go through Tichborne without missing a Syllable, and, when Tichborne is not long enough, we take to Lothair! which has entertained me well. So far as I know of the matter, his pictures of the manners of English High Life are good: Lothair himself I do not care for, nor for the more romantic parts, Theodora, etc. Altogether the Book is like a pleasant Magic Lantern: when it is over, I shall forget it: and shall want to return to what I do not forget, some of Thackeray’s monumental Figures of ‘pauvre et triste Humanité,’
as old Napoleon called it: Humanity in its Depths, not in its superficial Appearances.
To W. F. Pollock.