T. “When the Prince Regent explored the field of Waterloo with the Duke himself as guide, the Duke’s horse plunged and threw his rider. The Prince remarked, ‘I can now say what nobody else in the world can, that I saw the Duke of Wellington overthrown on the Field of Waterloo.’ His Grace was not over pleased with the observation.”
T. “Keats would have become one of the very greatest of all poets, had he lived. At the time of his death there was apparently no sign of exhaustion or having written himself out; his keen poetical instinct was in full process of development at the time. Each new effort was a steady advance on that which had gone before. With all Shelley’s splendid imagery and colour, I find a sort of tenuity in his poetry.”
T. “‘Locksley Hall’ is thought by many to be an autobiographical sketch; it’s nothing of the sort—not a word of my history in it. Read FitzGerald’s Euphranor and let me know what you think of it.”
One day we talked of Winchester and the rather meagre list of great men educated there. I rejoiced in the college boasting of an alumnus in Lord Seaton, the famous leader of the 52nd Regiment at Waterloo. “I remember,” T. said, “addressing a coachman by whose side I was sitting as we drove in a coach through that place, and I asked him, ‘What sort of a place is Winchester?’ Answer: ‘Debauched, sir, debauched, like all other Cathedral cities.’”
T. “I am inclined to agree with Swinburne’s view of Mary Queen of Scots; she was brought up in a Court that studied the works of Brantôme.”