[119b] Gillies’ Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. See Letters, ii. 197, 199.
[120a] An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876.
[120b] Mr. Wade, author of The Jew of Aragon, which failed. Mrs. Kemble says (Atlantic Monthly, December 1876, p. 707):—
“I was perfectly miserable when the curtain fell, and the poor young author, as pale as a ghost, came forward to meet my father at the side scene, and bravely holding out his hand to him said, ‘Never mind, Mr. Kemble, I’ll do better another time.’”
[120c] Francisco Javier Elio, a Spanish General, was executed in 1822 for his seventies against the liberals dining the reactionary period 1814-1820.
[122a] Atlantic Monthly, February 1877, p. 222.
[122b] Holbrook, near Ipswich. That she had also some of the family humour is evident from what she wrote to Mr. Crabbe of her brother’s early life. ‘As regards spiritual advantages out of the house he had none; for our Pastor was one of the old sort, with a jolly red nose caused by good cheer. He used to lay his Hat and Whip on the Communion Table and gabble over the service, running down the Pulpit Stairs not to lose the opportunity of being invited to a good dinner at the Hall.’ It was with reference to his sister’s husband that FitzGerald in conversation with Tennyson used the expression ‘A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.’
‘Why, Fitz,’ said Tennyson, ‘that’s a verse, and a very bad one too.’ And they would afterwards humorously contend for the authorship of the worst line in the English language.
[123] Atlantic Monthly, February 1877, pp. 210, 211, and pp. 220, 221.
[124a] See note to Letter of Dec. 29th 1875.