Folklore

ISSN: 0015-587X (Print) 1469-8315 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfol20

In Memoriam. Charles Godfrey Leland. Born at , August 15, 1834. Died at Florence, March 20, 1903.

F. York Powell

To cite this article: F. York Powell (1903) In Memoriam. Charles Godfrey Leland. Born at Philadelphia, August 15, 1834. Died at Florence, March 20, 1903., Folklore, 14:2, 162-164, DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1903.9719349

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1903.9719349

Published online: 06 Feb 2012.

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Download by: [University of California, San Diego] Date: 29 June 2016, At: 12:53 In Memo via m.

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. BORN AT PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST 15, 1834. DIED AT FLORENCE, MARCH SO, 1903.

AMERICAN born, but living and dying in Europe, a graduate of Princeton, a student of , of , and of , a barrister, an educationalist, a traveller, a volunteer soldier both in the States and in Europe, a skilled handicraftsman, a fair designer, and an excellent companion, Charles Godfrey Leland would have been a man of mark even had he not been also one of the first humorous poets of his time and country, and a devoted explorer in the enchanted fields of linguistic and folklore. His extraordinary aptness for strange tongues, and his easy and complete comprehension of the structure and thought-mode of these, are proved by his Pidgeon-English Sing-Song, his Gypsy verse, and the inimitable and delightful Breitmann ballads, as well as by his discovery of Shelta and his translation of Algonquin legends and Romagnese spell-songs. He had in his folklore studies his own way of going to work. He possessed the necessary gift of being able to collect, for his persuasive tongue, fine presence, and quiet revelation of immense and well-remembered stores of facts and legends, opened to him paths firmly closed to others. He could and did make careful and exact notes, but when he put his results before the public he liked to give them the seal of his own personality and to allow his fancy to play about the stories and poems he was publishing, so that those who were not able quickly to distinguish what was folklore and what was Leland were shocked, and grumbled (much to his astonishment and even disgust) and belittled his real achievements. He thought clearly, and many of his " guesses " have been or are being con­ firmed. He was a strong advocate for progress of the right kind both in learning and in life, and would fain have instituted many useful reforms. He was full of life and energy and observation, Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 12:53 29 June 2016 a big handsome man of engaging manners, to whom the young and the simple were magnetically drawn. His treasury of Obituary. 163

anecdote was rich and varied, and his memory exact and trust worthy. He lived a full life. He wrote much and easily. His translations of Heine are among the most felicitous that have appeared in any tongue, and his version of Scheffel excellent. He has told part of his own life-story in his pleasant " Memoirs." The wide range of his acquaintance (for he knew the chief English men of letters, politics, and science as well as he knew the chief English gypsies) gave him a wonderful experience of human life and a quiet and convincing philosophy. People liked to talk to him as well as to hear his talk, and he was a good listener as well as a good talker. His best verse was as good as Lowell's, his best prose a great deal better, both in substance and expression. To have created Breitmann and Ping-Wing is to have impressed his contemporaries as few of his countrymen have done. He possessed the linguistic gifts of Palmer, but with finer literary instinct. He had something of Burton in his delight in natural human beings other than to the ordinary frock-coated, tall- hatted, and tight-waisted, high-heeled European types, and he had something of Schuchardt's warm instinct for the " tongues of transition" and the "life of transition" between indigenous and imported civilisation. The broken Greek of the Gospels would have interested him more than the choice Attic of Sophokles, a true folklorist in this, that the untouched byways were his favourite paths. He was too comprehensive in mind to become, like Lowell, a distinguished satirist; he saw too much of both sides to admit that there was no good at all in the adversary. He fought in the Civil War, and he spoke the truth fearlessly in politics, but these were duties, and his pleasure lay in the obser­ vation of humanity. Easy of access (but never permitting himself to be bored) and delighting in good fellowship, few of the really distinguished figures of his day but were pleased to number

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 12:53 29 June 2016 Leland among the friends they would gladly welcome. ilis views on education I have not to do with here, but I may spend a line in recording my belief in the soundness of their tendency, and to notice that the opinion of experts both here and on the Continent is in their favour. Leland is gone, Breitmann is left to us, an historic figure, the successor of Plautus, swaggering mercenary, of Shakespere's pedantic Fluellen, of Scott's shrewd Dalgetty, with an individuality M 2 164 Obituary.

and humour as distinct as theirs; a curious product of his age. To create a living personality is the accepted test of the master of fiction, he has amply satisfied it. But Leland was not only a maker, he was a man of science, an observer, a recorder, and as time goes on it is probable that much of his work, personal as it is, will be none the less valued. He is always stimulating, he leaves definitely on his reader's mind the impression facts have made on his, he is not neglectful of small things. The followers of folklore are proud to have numbered him among their little band of pilgrims bound, like Piers Plowman, to seek incessantly and without pretence the far-off shrine of Truth. F. YORK POWELL.

GASTON PARIS.

AUGUST QTH, 1839—MARCH 5TH, 1903.

WHEN in early March the death of M. Gaston Paris was telegraphed from Cannes, such a thrill of sorrow and regret went through the world of learning as, it is safe to say, could hardly have been caused by the loss of any other scholar. Sorrow for the beloved and revered master, the friend, in the truest sense of the word, of every one of his pupils—nay, of every student, however modest, if only he worked with diligence and love of truth in any one of the many fields of study in which Gaston Paris was easily master; regret for all that has died with him—the immense wealth of knowledge, the devotion to his studies as of a saint to his Deity, the power of bringing out what was best in other workers, the capacity for so organising and directing research, that without forfeiting one jot of its strictly scientific character, it might enter into and fertilise general culture.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 12:53 29 June 2016 M. Gaston Paris was one of the earliest members of the Folk­ lore Society (his name appears in our first list); and throughout the whole of his career as a scholar, from his earliest published (and not yet superseded) history of the Charlemagne Cycle (1865) down to his latest contributions to Romania and the Journal des Savants, he was an indefatigable worker in one of the most im­ portant and fascinating branches of our study—the romantic and legendary literature of the Middle Ages. It was his life work to