Do you know that I am up in the market, and that my articles are thought No. 1, Letter A,—clear grit? I am fed by those who usually feed lions, and curious people are asked to meet me. This is not unamusing. I have seen “Sam Slick” (Haliburton); Scrope, who wrote that charming book on Deer Stalking; Jones of the Alhambra, Marryat, etc., and I do not know who. Murray feeds well, and his claret is particular; “Bulls” £36 15s.; so my papers rise in value. Lockhart’s Ballads are to be republished, and I rather think that I am to edit them. All this looks like turning author. Who would have thought it? and to have a character for most profound reading and research! Dii boni!
I met a friend of yours yesterday at Lockhart’s—Mr. Best: we had a pleasant dinner; Scrope and Lord Selkirk, great shooters and fishers, whose healthy exploits gave a game flavour to the blue men around them. If I remained here, neither head, nor legs, nor entrañas could do their work. It is all very well now and then. But oh rus! quando te aspiciam? Not but what, if I had £5000 a year, I would spend three months in this metropolis to rub off rust, keep up acquaintances, and hear the news up to Saturday night.
Six weeks later he was still engaged on his task. He writes from Heavitree, April 2nd, 1839:—
I have been occupied, since my return to these myrtle bowers, in a review on Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella. I ought to have done it long ago; but I deferred and deferred. Mañana, mañana! I find it a tougher job than I had expected, and almost think that I have undertaken a task for which I am unfit. However, stultorum numerus est infinitus, and I presume on people knowing less than myself. It will be a mighty dull, learned, and historical affair.
I am not very well, as I cannot sleep. I never can when I write, and believe you are right to hunt and fish, the original délassement of a gentleman.
At last Ferdinand and Isabella was finished and published. The article deals more with the subject than with the book. It is, however, important from the new lights which it throws upon the period, drawn from the writer’s intimate knowledge, not only of the history, but of the country and the people. Some trace of effort appears in the unusual elaboration. But another article which was printed in the same number of the Quarterly was in Ford’s most characteristic vein. This was a review of Oliver Twist. In a letter dated April 29th, 1839, he had asked Addington’s opinion of Dickens’ style, and given his own view. “I am inclined to think it,” he says, “the reaction from the Silver Fork school and the Rosa Matildas, ‘car le dégoût du beau amène le goût du singulier.’” He also regarded the book as a product and a sign of democratic times. Both the literary and political theories are developed in the Quarterly, where he describes “Boz” as “a lively half-bred colt of great promise, bone and action,—sire, ‘Constantine the Great,’—dam, ‘Reform.’”
“Constantine the Great” is Constantine Henry Phipps, first Marquis of Normanby, and the most distinguished of the “prattling scribbling Phippses.” His kid-glove novels and romances, founded on actual occurrences in society, tickled the curiosity of the public. Newspapers still further pandered to the same taste; “Perry and Stewart led the way by chronicling and posting the dinners, wooings, and marriages of high life.” But a diet of water gruel palled, and the patient “clamoured for beef and stout.” Sickened of the “smooth confectionery style,” “disgusted with die-away divorcées and effeminate man-milliners,” the public fled in despair to “rude, rough, human, ‘Dusty-Bob’ nature.” Such was Ford’s explanation of the appearance of Oliver Twist. As a Tory, and an Irish mortgagee, he was no doubt pleased to treat the author of Matilda, and Yes or No as one of these “Catilines in politics and literature” who had helped forward “a depraved taste” and “the degradation of the higher classes, whether monarchical, clerical, or aristocratical.” Not only had Lord Normanby changed sides and deserted the Tories for the Liberals, but, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1835-39), his attempt to conciliate O’Connell, his patronage of the Catholic Party, and his leniency towards political crime, had, in the opinion of his opponents, endangered the very existence of law and order. Politics apart, the review shows a keen appreciation of the genius and faults of Dickens. It concludes with a just tribute to the haunting power of George Cruikshank, for whom Ford demands admission to the rank of a Royal Academician: “We are really surprised that such judges as Wilkie, Landseer, Leslie, Allan, etc., have not ere now insisted on breaking through all puny laws, and giving this man of undoubted genius a diploma.”
The last months of the year were spent in preparations for a tour abroad. Addington and his wife were also going, and were to meet the Fords at Rome.
Many thanks (writes Ford, August 4th, 1839) for all your valuable hints. I rather incline to cross over from Weymouth to Cherbourg, or, if not so, from Southampton to Jersey and St. Malo. As I intend to go through the south, it will be autant de gagné sur la belle France. I take it we shall have bad inns between St. Malo and Toulouse. No hay atajo sin trabajo [no convenience without inconvenience]. We shall follow your steps with due respect, and, I hope, meet in the Eternal City.
I progress greatly in design, and am washing in skies which are heavier than lead. I reckon on your portable library and beg to tell you that I take Shakespeare, Burton’s Rome, and Conder’s Italy, which will always be á la disposicion de V.E. y de mi Señora la Esposa de V.E. (C.P.B.)