It gave me great pleasure as a Guernseyman to have been chiefly accessory to a duplicate in bronze of the Good Prince's statue by Durham being set up at the Pierhead of St. Peter's Port. Interest was exerted by me to get royal permission for a new cast from the original, Government giving the metal of old cannons; a collection from house to house was made throughout the island, granite to any extent was on the spot, meetings were held, and I had the pleasure to see Durham's grand work inaugurated there, and to find him welcomed by all the "Sixties"—ay, and the "Forties" too—with the hospitality for which Sarnia was in those days proverbial.
In this brief record of my literary life, I ought not to ignore sundry true and constant book-friends known to me only by correspondence, and that in some cases through many years. I cannot touch them all, and shrink even from mentioning one or two, for fear of seeming to omit others; but I will endeavour to do my best and wisest in the matter.
Foremost, then, among those unseen favourers of your author is the Baroness Stanislas von Barnekow, of Engelholme, in Sweden; with whom during fifteen years I have interchanged certainly fifty letters, if not more, hers at least being full of the utmost kindliness, cleverness, and (for a foreigner) even truly poetic eloquence. This tribute to her talents and warm feelings is only a debt of gratitude. She it was who voluntarily translated into Swedish my two first series of "Proverbial Philosophy," and many of my lyrics in "Cithara;" and naturally I was willing to answer her in kind (for the Baroness is an excellent and well-known poetess in her own land), but, as unfortunately the Swedish tongue is not among my few accomplishments, I was glad to turn to a diligent and authorial eldest daughter of mine, who learnt the language for me, and responded to our unseen friend with many of her poems rendered into English verse, as she had similarly favoured mine in Swedish. My said daughter afterwards improved upon the idea by several more like translations, since published in book-form, as some from the Sagas, and in particular many original poems of much merit from the pen of King Oscar and Princess Eugenie, which greatly pleased them, as their photographs and autographs testified; the Baroness's brother, Count Von Wrede, who is the King's Chamberlain, having kindly given facilities. I trust that my old "friend unseen," Stanislas, will not be displeased by this proof that I remember with appreciation her many expressions of esteem for my unworthiness.
Next, I do not know that I have mentioned the late learned Norman poet, George Métivier, as having long ago translated my "Proverbial Philosophy" into French; he died at a great age, I think past ninety, and was highly honoured by his native Guernsey, through life and death; I remember him with much gratitude for his labour of love in respect of my book. Through many years also I have corresponded with another Norman poet, John Sullivan, whose very clever French poems I have often versified into English for him, and he has returned the compliment by sending translated fly-leaves of mine over the Gallic world.
Let one more in this authorial category be the excellent and learned Canon R. C. Jenkins, whom I have known from his childhood, and who in these latter years has routed out for me, chiefly out of Zedler's "Genealogical Encyclopædia," the heraldry and ancestry of my own Thuringian pedigree; the Canon being one of our keenest antiquaries in that line, and having German at his fingers' ends. He comes, as I do, from old Lutheran stock, and is full both of prose and poetry of a high class. My best regards to him and his.
The Rev. Wm. Barnes, of Dorset dialect fame, is another memory; as also in years past the late Chevalier de Chatelain, a relative of my Norwood friend, Victor de Pontigny, a well-known musical authority.
No doubt I have corresponded with most of the literary men of my day, from Tennyson to—well, I will not sound a bathos, but I do not publish private notes without permission, and in fact there would be no end of such printed amenities of literature battledored and shuttlecocked from one to another. I may, however, mention as a good habit of mine (is it not a good one?) that, whenever I like a book, I take leave to thank its author, and have usually received, en révanche, warm letters of their gratitude from many, especially if young ones. Surely it is proper in a veteran so to encourage a juvenile or even a mature brother, should he seem to deserve it. As also, be it known, that sometimes I have taken up the pen faithfully and honestly to rebuke: in these realistic and atheistic days there are some modern writers, both of prose and poetry, older or younger, who have reason to thank me for timely expostulations,—if they have attended to my friendly strictures.