Probably the best thing about my attempt is the place from whence it comes, viz. Rydal, where I am now staying for a short holiday. Yours sincerely, C. W., Bp. Why tell how frank, with balance nicely held, The quest of gain abhorred, but Modesty Rydal, 28 July, 1885. The answer was dated Deanery, Ely, 1 August, 1885: Your letter reached me at Dawlish, whence we returned yesterday. I am glad to have elicited such a poetical spark from you. I don't think I ever saw a specimen of your English verse before, even though strained through the Latin, which I fancy is more congenial to both of us. My old friend Statius has many bits that are well worth remembering and not easily forgotten, though he did his best to make himself generally unreadable. The lines which have been laid before you take my fancy, particularly from the circumstances of his father's deat being so exactly the same as my own father's, by a sudden fit at 65. I also flatter myself that the charming character so charm ingly given was the same in both. I cannot give up rhyme in attempting to represent its sentiment in English-which seem: more suitable to Pope than to Milton. The concise and rathe crabbed antitheses of the original must be preserved, even at some sacrifice of the exact meaning of the words. I once urged Sir T. Martin to do for Statius, or portions of him, what he ha done for Horace and Catullus, but he said the style was toc hard for him, too epigrammatic and suggestive, and so no doubt it is. Pope did the first book of the Thebaid in his own way (as a youth). I must look at it again. I set my young ladies the task of rendering my prose translation of the Latin, and they set some of their young friends to work also-Elizabeth Wordsworth among them. I am not quite satisfied with any of their attempts, though they show much of the freedom and facility of verse-making for which the young ladies of the present day are deservedly famous. You shall have a copy of my poor old man's effort, for which I may plead Th. Martin's excuse also. The thing is too hard. You are certainly very exact in the meaning, and not less graceful in language; but, as I hinted, I think you wander away too far from the style and sentiments of the passage. You are too Wordsworthian. [The following is the version enclosed.] His spirit ever frank yet grave and plain, C. M. The classical reader will not be surprised when he is told that quite a controversy was once raised between these two eminent scholars as to the correctness of the form 'cæligenus' (heaven-born), which the Bishop asserted ought to have been 'cæligena.' It ended by the following post-card. On the top Merivale wrote, sticking to his method of formation as both ancient and revived in the Silver' age: En pro vitigeno juvenilis carminis œstro Ely, 8 December, 1882. C. M. Y Below the Bishop replied by suggesting that in leaving the Latin of the Golden or Augustan age the Dean was likely to fall below the Silver into the Iron period. At tua, posthabito linguæ meliore metallo, Ne senio fiat ferrea musa, cave! St. Andrews. · C. W., Bishop, 11 December, 1882. Rev. W. Tuckwell's Tongues in Trees.' Kilrymont, St. Andrews: 1 January, 1892. What a gem of a book! One of my daughters has fallen in love with it, and carried it off. In turning over the pages I felt drawn to it in many ways. How can I sufficiently thank the author and kind giver? For many weeks and months I have been sadly troubled with constant and painful eczema—and am now worse- -otherwise I should have written sooner, and should write more than I can do now. So you must kindly excuse me. Heartily wishing you all the blessings of the season, and a happy New Year-and many more to come 'Multos felices, ultimum felicissimum.' The following is to a Scottish newspaper (name unknown), and written just two months before his death: 6 Lord Tennyson's Prize Poem, 1829. St. Andrews, 7 October, 1892. Sir, In your interesting obituary notice of Lord Tennyson you mention that his Cambridge prize poem on Timbuctoo, ' while not without faults, was not devoid of poetic promise,' and that the promise was recognised by a favourable notice in the Athenæum but you do not mention that the poem was in blank verse-a thing quite unheard of up to that time; so that the examiners deserved great credit for breaking through the tradition of rhyme, out of regard to the extraordinary merit of young Alfred Tennyson's composition. It was under these circumstances that I gave my opinion of the poem, when an undergraduate at Oxford, in writing to my brother Christopher, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and then an undergraduate at Cambridge, 4 September, 1829, as follows: 'What do you think of Tennyson's prize poem? (Timbuctoo.) If such an exercise had been sent up at Oxford, the author would have had a better chance of being rusticated-with the view of his passing a few months in a lunatic asylum-than of obtaining the prize. It is certainly a wonderful production; and if it had come out with Lord Byron's name it would have been thought as fine as anything he ever wrote.'—I am, &c., CHARLES WORDSWORTH, Bishop of St. Andrews. I have already chronicled certain points of renewed contact in later life with Mr. Gladstone; but there was not much intercourse, and no thorough healing of old disagreement. Yet there is no doubt that he prized the following letter, of which an old Wykehamist and college friend, Sir J. E. Eardley-Wilmot, sent him a copy. It was dated December 1887: My dear Sir,—It is extremely kind on your part to send me your Florilegium,' and I shall examine it with pleasure. In your dedication you have placed it under high protection. I at least admired very warmly the scholarship of Bishop Charles Wordsworth, altho' I partook but little of its higher qualities. Believe me, faithfully yours, W. E. GLADSTONE. This refers to the Mentoni Florilegium,' ed. 2, published by Stanford, London, in that year, with a dedication Viro eruditissimo et Latinæ poeseos egregie studioso Carolo Wordsworth,' &c. The postscript, in black edges, gives the history of the writer's sojourn on the Riviera in words that too many an Englishman can echo. There are many musical lines and much good sense and sentiment, sometimes strong and sometimes gentle, in the other poems. Spem mihi fallacem nimiùm, Mentone, dedisti; Ardebat vitæ lumine tæda brevi; Gaudia cum subitâ caligine vana recedunt; Mortua ploratur quæ mihi vita fuit. As specimens of the long-continued intercourse with another friend-Bishop T. L. Claughton-I may give the following, which he amended for him: Inscription on a bookcase given to Rev. G. D. Boyle, on his becoming Dean of Salisbury, by his old curates. Viro admodum Reverendo Georgio Boyle, Decano Sarisburiensi, Presbyteri qui sub ipso Duce atque auspice amicissimo Dum Vicarii Kidderminsteriensis munere fungebatur animarum curæ concorditer inserviebant Hoc librorum armarium Amoris ac benevolentiæ quantulumcunque indicium He constantly remembered his old friend's birthday (6 November), and in 1882 sent him the following epigram congratulating him on the successful operation for cataract which was performed on that day. Fortunate dies duplici dignissime cretâ : Qui dederas lucem, restituisque datam ! [O happy day! I mark thee doubly white: That gav'st my friend, and giv'st him back, the light.] Claughton replied, from the Convocation House, April 1883, enclosing a suggested emendation of the Bishop (Durnford) of Chichester's, an older man than my uncle, and a delightful old-fashioned scholar. Chichester thinks your couplet insufficient, and suggests: 'Fortunata dies; lucem quæ prima dedisti Infanti, amissam restituisque seni.' ['O happy day! which gav'st my friend the light Rougher, but he thinks more complete. |