Parker had, long before his death, desired that the first eleven verses of the Sermon on the Mount should be read at his funeral. Whether he intended that they should form the only service was not known; but Desor and Appleton arranged that so it should be, and that they should be read by Rev. W. Cunningham, an American Unitarian clergyman who was fortunately at the time living near us on Bellosguardo, and who was a man of much feeling and dignity of aspect. The funeral took place on Sunday, the 13th May, at the beautiful old Campo Santo Inglese, outside the walls of Florence, which contains the dust of Mrs. Browning, of Arthur Hugh Clough, and many others dear to English memories. It was the first funeral I had ever attended. The coffin when I arrived, was already lying in the mortuary chapel. My companions placed a wreath of laurels on it, and I added a large bunch of the lily-of-the-valley which he had loved. Then eight Italian pall-bearers took up the coffin and carried it on a side-walk to the grave. When it had been lowered with some difficulty to the last resting-place, my notes say:—
“Dr. Appleton then handed a Bible to Mr. Cunningham. I was standing close to him and heard his voice falter. He read like a man who felt all the holy words he said, and those sacred Blessings came with unspeakable rest to my heart. Then Desor, who had been pale as death, threw in one handful of clay.... The burial ground is exquisitely lovely, a very wilderness of flowers and perfume. Only a few cypresses give it grandeur, not gloom. All Florence was decorated with flags in honour of the anniversary of Piedmontese Constitution. We said to one another: ‘It is a festival for us also—the solemn feast of an Ascension.’”
Of course I visited this grave when I returned to Florence several years afterwards. The cypresses had grown large and dark and somewhat shadowed it. I had the violets, &c., renewed upon it more than once, but I heard later that it had become somewhat dilapidated, and I was glad to join a subscription got up by an American gentleman to erect a new tombstone. I hope it has been done, as he would have desired, with simplicity. I shall never see that grave again.
Two or three years later I edited all the twelve vols. of Parker’s Works for Messrs. Trübner, and wrote a somewhat lengthy Preface for them; afterwards reprinted as a separate pamphlet entitled the Religious Demands of the Age. Three Biographies of Parker have appeared; the shortest, published in England by Rev. Peter Dean, being in my opinion the best. The letters which I received from Parker in the years before I saw him are all printed by my permission in Mr. Weiss’ Life, and therefore will not be reproduced here.
That venerable old man, Rev. John J. Tayler, writing to me a few years later, summed up Parker’s character I think as justly as did Mr. Jowett in calling him a “religious Titan.”
“I read lately with much pleasure your Preface to the forthcoming edition of Theodore Parker’s works. I agree cordially with your estimate of his character. His virtues were of the highest type of the hero and the martyr. His faults, such as they were, were such as are incident to every ardent and earnest soul fighting against wickedness and hypocrisy; faults which colder and more worldly natures easily avoid, faults which he shared with some of the best and noblest of our race—a Milton, a Luther, and a Paul. When freedom and justice have achieved some conquests yet to come, his memory will be cherished with deeper reverence and affection than it is, except by a small number, now.
“I remain, dear Miss Cobbe, very truly yours,
“J. J. Tayler.”
At the time of Parker’s death I was sharing the apartment of my clever and charming friend, Isa Blagden, in Villa Brichieri on Bellosguardo. It was a delightful house with a small podere off the road, and with a broad balcony (accommodating any number of chairs) opening from the airy drawing-room, and commanding a splendid view of Florence backed by Fiesole and the Apennines. On the balcony, and in our drawing-rooms, assembled regularly every week and often on other occasions, an interesting and varied company. We were both of us poor, but in those days poverty in Florence permitted us to rent 14 well-furnished rooms in a charming villa, and to keep a maid and a man-servant. The latter bought our meals every morning in Florence, cooked and served them; being always clean and respectably dressed. He swept our floors and he opened our doors and announced our company and served our ices and tea with uniform quietness and success. A treasure, indeed, was good old Ansano! Also we were able to engage an open carriage with a pair of horses to do our shopping and pay our visits in Florence as often as we needed. And what does the reader think it cost us to live like this, fire and candles and food for four included? In those halcyon days under the old régime, it was precisely £20 a month! We divided everything exactly and it never exceeded £10 apiece.
Among our most frequent visitors was Mr. Browning. Mrs. Browning was never able to drive so far, but her warm friendship for Miss Blagden was heartily shared by her husband and we saw a great deal of him. Always full of spirits, full of interest in everything from politics to hedge-flowers, cordial and utterly unaffected, he was at all times a charming member of society; but I confess that in those days I had no adequate sense of his greatness as a poet. I could not read his poetry, though he had not then written his most difficult pieces, and his conversation was so playful and light that it never occurred to me that I was wasting precious time chatting frivolously with him when I might have been gaining high thoughts and instruction. There was always a ripple of laughter round the sofa where he used to seat himself, generally beside some lady of the company, towards whom, in his eagerness, he would push nearer and nearer till she frequently rose to avoid falling off at the end! When we drove out in parties he would discuss every tree and weed, and get excited about the difference between eglantine and eglatere (if there be any), and between either of them and honeysuckle. He and Isa were always wrangling in an affectionate way over some book or music; (he was a fine performer himself on the piano), and one night when I had left Villa Brichieri and was living at Villa Niccolini at least half-a-mile off, the air, being in some singular condition of sonority, carried their voices between the walls of the two villas so clearly across to me that I actually heard some of the words of their quarrel, and closed my window lest I should be an eavesdropper. I believe it was about Spirit-rapping they were fighting, for which, and the professors of the art, Browning had a horror. I have seen him stamping on the floor in a frenzy of rage at the way some believers and mediums were deceiving Mrs. Browning.