I.
I have been invited to write about my late friend and colleague Francis Hindes Groome, who died on the 24th ult., and was buried among his forefathers at Monk Soham in Suffolk. I find the task extremely difficult. Though he died at fifty, he, with the single exception of Borrow, had lived more than any other friend of mine, and perhaps suffered more. Indeed, his was one of the most remarkable and romantic literary lives that, since Borrow’s, have been lived in my time.
The son of an Archdeacon of Suffolk, he was born in 1851 at Monk Soham Rectory, where, I believe, his father and his grandfather were born, and where they certainly lived; for—as has been recorded in one of the invaluable registry books of my friend Mr. F. A. Crisp—he belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Suffolk. He was sent early to Ipswich School, where he was a very popular boy, but never
strong and never fond of athletic exercises. His early taste for literature is shown by the fact that with his boy friend Henry Elliot Maiden he originated a school magazine called the Elizabethan. Like many an organ originated in the outer world, the Elizabethan failed because it would not, or could not, bring itself into harmony with the public taste. The boys wanted news of cricket and other games: Groome and his assistant editor gave them literature as far as it was in their power to do so.
The Ipswich School was a very good one for those who got into the sixth, as Groome did. The head master, Dr. Holden, was a very fine scholar; and it is no wonder that Groome throughout his life showed a considerable knowledge of and interest in classical literature. That he had a real insight into the structure of Latin verse is seen by a rendering of Tennyson’s ‘Tithonus,’ which Mr. Maiden has been so very good as to show me—a rendering for which he got a prize. In 1869 he got prizes for classical literature, Latin prose, Latin elegiacs, and Latin hexameters. But if Dr. Holden exercised much influence over Groome’s taste, the assistant master, Mr. Sanderson, certainly exercised more, for Mr. Sanderson was an enthusiastic student of Romany. The influence of the assistant master was soon seen after Groome went up to Oxford. He was ploughed for his
“Smalls,” and, remaining up for part of the “Long,” he went one night to a fair at Oxford at which many gipsies were present—an incident which forms an important part of his gipsy story ‘Kriegspiel.’ Groome at once struck up an acquaintance with the gipsies at the fair. It occurred also that Mr. Sanderson, after Groome had left Ipswich School, used to go and stay at Monk Soham Rectory every summer for fishing; and this tended to focus Groome’s interest in Romany matters. At Göttingen, where he afterwards went, he found himself in a kind of Romany atmosphere, for, owing perhaps to Benfey’s having been a Göttingen man, Romany matters were still somewhat rife there in certain sets.
The period from his leaving Göttingen to his appearance in Edinburgh in 1876 as a working literary man of amazing activity, intelligence, and knowledge is the period that he spent among the gipsies. And it is this very period of wild adventure and romance that it is impossible for me to dwell upon here. But on some future occasion I hope to write something about his adventures as a Romany Rye. His first work was on the ‘Globe Encyclopædia,’ edited by Dr. John Ross. Even at that time he was very delicate and subject to long wearisome periods of illness. During his work on the ‘Globe’ he fell seriously ill in the middle of the letter S. Things were going
very badly with him; but they would have gone much worse had it not been for the affection and generosity of his friend and colleague Prof. H. A. Webster, who, in order to get the work out in time, sat up night after night in Groome’s room, writing articles on Sterne, Voltaire, and other subjects.
Webster’s kindness, and afterwards the kindness of Dr. Patrick, endeared Edinburgh and Scotland to the “Tarno Rye.” As Webster was at that time on the staff of ‘The Encyclopædia Britannica,’ I think, but I do not know, that it was through him that Groome got the commission to write his article ‘Gypsies’ in that stupendous work. I do not know whether it is the most important, but I do know that it is one of the most thorough and conscientious articles in the entire encyclopædia. This was followed by his being engaged by Messrs. Jack to edit the ‘Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland,’ a splendid work, which on its completion was made the subject of a long and elaborate article in The Athenæum—an article which was a great means of directing attention to him, as he always declared. Anyhow, people now began to inquire about Groome. In 1880 he brought out ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ which I shall describe further on. In 1885 he was chosen to join the staff of Messrs. W. & R. Chambers. It is curious to think of the “Tarno Rye,” perhaps the most variously equipped