His Friends.—The Multitude of Mourners.—His London Acquaintances.—Tennyson, Cornwall, Browning, Carlyle.—German Popularity.—Auerbach.—Humboldt.—French Authors.—Early American Friends.—Stoddard, Willis, Kane, Bryant, Halleck, Powers, Greeley, Mrs. Kirkland, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, Dana, Alcott, Aldrich, Whipple, Curtis, Fields, Boker, Chandler.—Relatives.
Seldom has the death of a single individual wounded the hearts of so many personal friends. Men have attained to greater renown, and have been, perhaps, as extensively known by their writings and their fame; but rare, indeed, can be found in history the name of one who had so many intimate companions. The number of those who claimed the right to be his friends is beyond computation, at this time,—within a few weeks after his death,—but it includes many of the most noted men of the world.
Alfred Tennyson, the poet-laureate of England, was an acquaintance and correspondent of Mr. Taylor’s, their first meeting being at Mr. Tennyson’s house, Farringford, on the Isle of Wight.
William Makepeace Thackeray was one of Mr. Taylor’s warmest literary friends, from the time when they met at a dinner of the Century Club, in New York, in 1856, until Mr. Thackeray’s death, in 1863. The friendship was kept alive by Mr. Thackeray’s daughters, who first met Mr. Taylor in London, in 1858, and who at that time most hospitably entertained him, together with his brother and sisters.
Robert Browning often invited Mr. Taylor to join his select company in London, their acquaintance having begun in 1851; and Barry Cornwall (Bryan Waller Procter), treated Mr. Taylor with the greatest kindness and hospitality, writing frequently, until he died, in 1874, to inquire after Mr. Taylor’s progress in the translation of “Faust.”
Thomas Carlyle and John Bright were numbered among his correspondents, although it so happened that he met them but seldom.
Among the leaders of English literature whose friendship he enjoyed, there is a very large circle of literary and scientific men who knew Mr. Taylor through their frequent meetings on social and formal occasions, and who were well acquainted with Mr. Taylor’s books. From many of these there came the expressions of great grief, when the fact of Mr. Taylor’s death was announced in London.
In Germany he was quite as well known as their native poets of his time, and he secured the respect and love of nearly every distinguished literary man and woman in that Empire. One of the sweetest friendships of his life was with that most fascinating descriptive writer, Berthold Auerbach, whose “Villa on the Rhine” was given to the American public in 1869, by Mr. Taylor. These two authors were like twin brothers in their authorship, and some of Auerbach’s letters, descriptive of European scenes and people, could be inserted in Mr. Taylor’s books, verbatim, and the interpolation be scarcely detected. Their regard for each other equalled their gifts, and one of the sincerest mourners at the funeral of Mr. Taylor, was that gifted scholar, Berthold Auerbach.
Mr. Taylor’s first acquaintance with Alexander von Humboldt, was in 1856, when Mr. Taylor called upon the great naturalist at his home in Berlin. The reading of Humboldt’s works had been of great benefit to Mr. Taylor, as a correspondent, and he so informed the Professor, at which he seemed much pleased. Humboldt took great pains to secure all of Mr. Taylor’s letters, as they appeared from time to time in the “Tribune,” and most warmly praised him for the remarkable manner in which he pictured the scenes he visited. The acquaintance was frequently renewed, and when Humboldt died, in 1859, Mr. Taylor is said to have been numbered among the mourning friends, by those in charge of the funeral, although he was in the United States at the time. For years the public in America was led to believe that Humboldt ridiculed Mr. Taylor’s writings, although what could have been the motive of the one who originated the falsehood it is hard to conjecture.
With the French authors he did not have a very extended personal acquaintance, although he had met many of them, and frequently exchanged books with Victor Hugo and Guillaume Lejean.