It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days I had wooed my cousin.
Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited Haweis, the eloquent preacher of St. James's, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque old-fashioned house that was Rossetti's, and when I called there last Mr. Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when touched, gave out melodious thunder. This giant-gift had been sent to him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the matter of campanology. And this word "musical" reminds me of Mr. Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great Tennyson at Farringford, and remember him showing me the tree overhanging his garden fence, which "Yankees" climb to have a look at him. Browning also, tantum vidi, I met at Moxon's, a grandly rugged poet; contrasted with the Laureate he seems to me as Wagner is to Mendelssohn. Mortimer Collins has given us "a happy day" at Albury, coming in à pied poudre on one of his dusty walks through Surrey, as recorded in his book; how he enjoyed his tumbler of cool claret and the ramble with my son through the Albury woods as a most genial Bohemian! Dickens I have met several times, and he gave me good hints on my first American visit; a man full of impulsive kindliness and sincerely one's friend. His son Charles also I have occasionally met, the worthy successor to his illustrious father: I may here state that many of the articles and poems in Household Words are from the pen of my youngest daughter. Richard Owen, too, now worthily K.C.B., our most famous comparative anatomist, I am privileged to number among my true friends; he was one of those who stood sponsor to me when I was to receive a civil service pension. Also I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, Godwin Austen, the geologist; and I have met Pengelly, with whom I searched Kent's Cavern; and Dr. Bowerbank, the great authority as to sponges, and my then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, Stephen Mackenzie, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital. Matthew Arnold also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and Shirley Brooks, Albert Smith, and Mark Lemon, once a chief of Punch, who acted Falstaff without padding; and the genial John Tenniel, our most exquisite limner in outline; the venerable Thomas Cooper also, now in his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old friend from boyhood, Owen Blayney Cole, must not be forgotten; year after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry. Edmund Yates, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from Punch: he adjured me "not to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his face with his hands. "What's the matter, friend?" "I wrote all these," added he, in earnest penitence, "and I vow faithfully I'll never do it again!" "Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,—it sells my books, besides—'I'se Maw-worm,—I likes to be despised!'" "Well, its very good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again:" and the good fellow never did—so have I lost my most telling advertisement. I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late Frank Smedley,—a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences as a brother author. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed—from his invalid chair—"the dances and delights" he could not take part in; and one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just come from a wedding-breakfast,—"rehearsing, rehearsing," he laughingly shouted. Poor fellow,—the victim of an accident in infancy, he lived strapped and banded with steel springs,—but as a gracious compensation Heaven gave him a seeming unconsciousness of his helpless condition, and added the happy mind to make the best of this world while looking forward to a better. And let me not neglect to record, however slightly, a few more recent authorial friendships much valued by me among my Norwood neighbours. I will begin with J. G. Wood, perhaps our best naturalist, especially in matters entomological. Never were there more humorous no less than instructive lectures than his, illustrated admirably as they are by his own graphic chalk-sketches on the spot: and if any one wishes to be convinced that animals have souls, let him read the said Rev. J. G. Wood's "Man and Beast." Next will I mention Dr. Cuthbert Collingwood, famous as a naturalist and voyager among the China seas, a poet also, well proved by his "Vision of Creation," and a thoughtful writer on religion and metaphysics. There is Dr. Zerffi, too, whose varied orations on history and other topics have filled our Crystal Palace with his advanced wisdom for fifteen years. There is Birch the sculptor, author of the "Godiva" and "The Last Call," exhibited here, and well appreciated by me as another Durham,—really a metempsychosis of character. Among literary ladies here I may mention as my friends Madame Zerffi, Miss Mary Hooper, and Miss Ellen Barlee,—all noted in their several departments, the first as an eloquent lecturer like her husband, the second known by her domestic essays, and the third for religious writings. I will add as casually encountered by me hereabouts George MacDonald, whose magnificent presence in the pulpit is as memorable as his conversation at the dinner-table, and the interest of his books; and Lord Ronald Gower, creator of that finest group of modern statuary "the Apotheosis of Shakespeare," exhibited at the Crystal Palace, where, as well, as by correspondence, I have had with him much pleasant intercourse.
And here may come a brief memory I wrote lately of Colonel Fred. Burnaby for an American editor.
"I am asked to give a short note of personal reminiscence about my lately departed friend, Colonel Fred. Burnaby, with whom I was intimate for three years before his death. Every one has read his popular life, and heard of his many exploits; how alone in mid-air he navigated a balloon across the Channel; how he accomplished, in spite of State telegrams to the contrary, his adventurous and patriotic ride to Khiva in dead winter and defying perils of all sorts; how he stood six feet four in his stockings (with another foot to be added to that magnificent specimen of manhood when in jack-boots and in his plumed helmet); how he was strong enough to bind a kitchen poker round his neck, to crack cobnuts in his fingers, and to carry a pair of Shetland ponies upstairs under his arms,—how also the genial giant, quite the Arac of Tennyson's Princess, was the gentlest and kindest and least dangerous of knights-errant (unless, indeed, his just wrath was aroused by anything mean or insolent, when doubtless he could be terrible), and how he was the idolised of men, especially his own brother giants of the Royal Regiment of Blues, and naturally was also the adored of women wherever he showed himself. This Admirable Crichton had every social accomplishment, but as he was also gifted with a knowledge of many tongues, even to Turkish and Arabic, beyond the more familiar French, German, Italian, and Spanish, of course he must dare all sorts of perilous travel, if only to prove that he was no carpet-knight, no mere 'gold stick' at court, or silver-casqued statue at the Horse Guards. So he fearlessly risked his life in all ways on every possible occasion which the War Office routine gave him on holiday.
"Khiva and Kars, and of late at last the fatal Mahdi war, had fascinations for him of danger which his thirst for active service (too much refused to him as obliged officially to be a stay-at-home) had not power to resist; and we all know how gallantly, if indeed too rashly, he fought and fell on what his Viking blood loved best as a deathbed, the field of battle. For he came of an old Teutonic family, and on his mother's side was also a direct descendant, as he told me himself, of our heroic and gigantic King Edward III., whom he is said greatly to have resembled, as the portrait at Windsor Castle proves. We were talking about ancestry and the anecdote came out naturally enough.
"In politics a strong Conservative, he, with characteristic antagonism, chose radical Birmingham for his coveted seat in Parliament, but alas! he has not lived to hazard the election. He was a neat, fluent, and epigrammatic speaker, as potent with his tongue as with his sword; and as for the pen (albeit his handwriting must have puzzled compositors), the myriads of readers who have enjoyed his stirring books in print, can testify how brilliant and eloquent he was for the matter of authorship. He told me of a new novel—of the satirico-political sort—which he had written for the press, but as yet we hear nothing definite of its publication.
"My own personal acquaintance with the familiar 'Fred. Burnaby' was confined to several hospitable dinner-parties at the house of his relative, Lady W——, my near neighbour and friend at Norwood, about which I might anecdotise to any extent; but I never allow myself to record private conversation nor to reveal domesticities. All such are sacred in my memory, and on principle I despise the modern mischief-maker whose reminiscences are practically reminuisances. On a certain public occasion, however, Burnaby stood by me, to my great pleasure and advantage, and let me record his kindness thus. When I gave my lecture on Flying at the Royal Aquarium, he most appropriately took the chair, and made some excellent remarks. Altogether, let my testimony, however brief, however inadequate, to the merits of Fred. Burnaby be this: I lost in his too sudden death a friend, as I had hoped, for many years to come, and my regrets are for him as one of the noblest of mankind. Let me add a word further, as the worthy witnessing of one, quite a kindred spirit, whose acquaintance I made some long time back, and look for great things from his energy and enterprise, and multifarious talents,—Charles Marvin, then the famous Eastern Pioneer, who in his book on Asia, says: "Yes, our Burnabys, our Bakers, our MacGregors, our Gordons—these are the real pillars of the Empire. These are the men who confer provinces upon England, who risk their lives to guard them. When the world is a little older, and the working man's vote is worth more than the statesman's opinion, then the splendid achievements of such men will be more generously appreciated: and the warm English feeling expended to-day on torpid, stupid, unpatriotic party politicians will be directed towards heroes whose steady undaunted patriotism, in face of public indifference and bureaucratic disdain, conveys a moral as grand as their careers."
A Dining-out Anecdote.
As I have before said, not having been much given to society, nor therefore a professional parasite of Amphitryon (though sometimes tempted to his side as "a lion," but more often vainly, for I always refused if I could), I have an instructive anecdote to give about a celebrated conversationist, whom I will not name nor indicate even by initials. One evening I found myself compelled to accompany him to a great man's banquet—nota bene, it was after I had well recovered speech—and so I found myself at his chambers perhaps ten minutes too soon. He called to me from his dressing-room, bidding me to amuse myself till he was ready. Now, on the study table were laid several books, open, with weights to keep them so: and I glanced from one to another to while away the time. Then up came his brougham, and off we went. At dinner my "diner-out" started a topic, whereof innocently enough I remembered instantly a suitable epigram. Not long after another subject gave me occasion to tell a witty story, which somehow came to me at the moment. My "friend" asked me with a keen glance where I had read it, and at once I recollected those open books and understood the position, resolving mischievously to outflank the manæuverer. Accordingly, at each opportunity, with seeming innocence, I "wiped his eye," as they say at a battue, and certainly reaped the anecdotic "kudos" Mr. So-and-so had cunningly contrived and hoped to achieve for himself. I confess it was vicious of me, but who could help taking the benefit of such a chance? Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than in this.