TWO LOVERS OF LITEEATURE AND ART. CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE. BY MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS.

|HARLES and Mary Cowden nent by his distinguished musical talent, and Clarke belong among the ap- although they had not much money, they preciators and disseminators were comfortable and happy. " Out of the of the best things in litera­ limited means of a young professor," Mrs. ture. They may not be placed Cowden Clarke wrote in later years, "my among the great originators, mother contrived to make for her husband but they were born with reverent souls and and children a neat and even elegant home, keen artistic understanding. Perhaps a true also a superior circle of friends, and many appreciation of contemporary genius, and a advantages only to be obtained through the reverence which makes the lesser things of influence of a wife and mother. ... No the world subservient to the higher, are expense was spared in the education of the almost as valuable as creative power itself. children; both father and mother agreed in Surely it is faith in the existence of such this." natures which serves to quicken the artist Victoria Novello enjoyed the exceptional to his work. Emerson used to say that his privilege of going to Miss Mary Lamb to own particular audience was a very small one, repeat her Latin grammar, and to listen to but it was of a quality to be trusted to dis­ Miss Lamb's reading of poetry. " The echo seminate his thought among thousands whom of that gentle voice," she wrote, "vibrates he could not himself reach. true and unbroken in the heart where the Mary Victoria Novello was one of the low-breathed sound first awoke response." figures who may justly be called a flower of The son of William Hazlitt also came to literature and art. She was not a great Mary Lamb on a like errand. He was a writer, she was not a great musician, she lively, rapid boy, and was once allowed to was not a great actor; but her character recite his grammar while Victoria waited. was so imbued with the spirit of art that her His brilliant method fired her ambition, and life was drawn from these fountains. This when her turn came, she began to scour was her charm. There was no sentimental- through her verbs in the same fashion. ism in her attitude. She was ready for hard "What are you about, little Vicky?" Miss work, and early accustomed herself to labor Lamb asked, laughing. " I see we are trying joyfully: first, that she might help to support to be as quick as William; but let us each those who were dear to her, and, second, that keep to our own natural ways, and then we whatever she did at all might be done well shall be sure to do our best." and bear the artist stamp. When we recall " The way in which books were made high the natural joyousness of her nature, we must treats in the Novello family," continued Mrs. recall also how her gaiety was tempered by Clarke, "furnishes a pleasant and salutary ardent love for her parents and her husband, example for other young fathers and mothers and how for sixteen years she labored con­ rearing a family on slender pecuniary re­ tinually upon what must often have become sources. Often, when late overnight profes­ weary work enough—that monument to in­ sional avocations made early rising an impos­ dustry, "The Complete Concordance to sibility to Vincent Novello, he would have Shakspere." his young ones on the bed while he ate the She was born in the month of June, 1809, breakfast his wife brought him, and showed and was the eldest of eleven children. Her them some delightful volume he had pur­ home in London was the same to which her chased as a present for them." Nor was the Italian grandfather came with his English theater omitted as a grand source of educa­ wife years before. Vincent Novello, her tion as well as pleasure. Mrs. Cowden Clarke father, was not long in making himself promi- remembered well the glorious occasions when 122

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED TWO LOVERS OF LITERATURE AND ART, 123 Mr. Novello took his little girl to the play: and again: once when she came riding home, doubtless I have long time been my fancy feeding half asleep, on her father's shoulder, and With hopes that you one day would think the once, a night of " joyful surprise, when, com­ reading ing home after a long day's school-teaching, Of my rough verses not an hour misspent. he bade his little daughter get Shakspere's Cowden Clarke was gifted with a calm play of ' Much Ado about Nothing,' and read nature and one fitted to bear with gentle­ him the opening scenes while he ate his din­ ness the buffeting fortunes of a long life. ner (which she had prepared, laying the cloth He modestly says of himself and of his wife: for papa, as mama was up-stairs with the " To the fact of our having had preeminently new baby); and then, as a reward for his good and enlightened parents is perhaps daughter's good housewifery, telling her to chiefly attributable the privileges we have put on her bonnet, and he would take her to enjoyed. . . . Both John Clarke, the school­ Covent Garden Theater to see Charles master, and Vincent Novello, the musician, Kemble play Benedick." with their admirable wives, liberal-minded Surely a child educated by continual op­ and intelligent beyond most of their time portunities to enjoy music, books, and the and calling, delighted in the society of clever best acting may well have been different people, and cultivated those relations for from others; yet when we reflect that such their children." His earliest school-days pleasures are within the reach of many who were guided and stimulated in the right do not feed upon them and many who are not direction, not only with regard to reading nourished from these fountains, it is quite and study, but in the choice of congenial worth while to pause and see how rich this companions. " John Keats," he writes," was child became, though poor in this world's one of the little fellows who had not wholly goods, and how wholesomely her nature emerged from the child's costume upon being developed itself. placed under my father's care. ... He From the first the eldest child was accus­ once told me, smiling, that one of his guar­ tomed to bear her share of the family bur­ dians, being informed what books I lent him to dens. She was hardly done with her own read, declared if he had fifty children he would studies when she took a place as governess, not send them to that school." These books, which she held until her parents decided it appeared, were Burnet's " History of His that the care of five children was too great Own Time " and Leigh Hunt's " Examiner." for her to bear at her still tender age. In It is easy to see that the two boys " took considering her character one is reminded to each other " in spite of some disparity of of what our American wit, Tom Appleton, age, and Cowden Clarke's quick discernment once said after some months of travel in the of the inspired child showed that his own company of an interesting Frenchwoman— nature was already unfolding a power of dis­ that she was the only person he had ever crimination unusual in the ordinary school­ heard of who could live upon sunsets. There boy. His friendship with Keats was not was something like this in the whole Novello interrupted when, a few years later, both family; a plain house, plain food, and labo­ went to London to pursue their several rious days were no pain to them if they could callings. " He was not long," writes Cowden take care of one another and enjoy true plea­ Clarke, "in discovering my abode." Mr. sures in one another's society. Alsager, it seems, lent them a copy of Charles Cowden Clarke was a teacher by Homer, and they were soon at work. nature, one of the most enviable endowments Clarke first met Leigh Hunt at an evening a human creature can receive. He was his party, and was greatly attracted to him. father's chief assistant in the school at En­ Shortly after came the news that he had field from a very early age, and there he been thrown into Horsemonger Lane Jail remained until he came up to London to for a libel on the prince regent. Charles's follow his desire for a literary life. father gave him permission to visit the prison Keats's love for Cowden Clarke from the and carry Leigh Hunt, weekly, fresh flowers, time they found each other out in the school- fruit, and vegetables from the Enfield garden. house at Enfield will keep the name and During these visits he made the acquain­ memory of the poet's friend green so long tance of Thomas Moore and other interest­ as poetry endures. Charles was already a* ing men, and subsequently, probably through confirmed reader of good books. It was to Leigh Hunt, of Vincent Novello. "This him Keats wrote: was the opening of the proudest and happiest You first taught me all the sweets of song; period of my existence," he once wrote.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 124 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. Imagine what it must have been to a young Leigh Hunt had already been some time man of keen social instincts and tastes like in Italy when there came the sudden and his own to have those wonderful evenings of terrible news of Shelley's death. Shortly sacred music thrown open to him, when Vin­ after, Mary Shelley and Jane Williams, beau­ cent Novello played the organ at the Portu­ tiful in their young widowhood, returned to guese Chapel and introduced into England London, bringing a letter from Leigh Hunt for the first time the masses of Haydn and recommending them to Mrs. Novello's spe­ Mozart; life must have seemed suddenly cial care. The Novellos had taken a large, glorified, and the world a new place to his old-fashioned house and garden on Shackle- receptive mind. Then followed the " exquisite well Green, and it was here they made the evenings at Vincent Novello's own house, travelers welcome, " wooing them by gentle where Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Keats, and the degrees into peacefuller and hopefuller mood Lambs were invited guests." It was on one of mind after their storm of bereavement. of these occasions that Victoria, full of One of the first objects of that period was girlish enthusiasm, crept behind the sofa to cheer and enliven the two ladies during and laid her little soft cheek upon Leigh the evening hours." There were voices Hunt's resting hand, which, she says, was enough in that musical circle to perform slender and white—a true poet's hand. " the various madrigals or Mozartean operas Then followed suppers "at the alternate that were most frequently performed by dwellings of the Novellos, the Hunts, and the them." There were also animated discus­ Lambs, who had mutually agreed that bread sions "of poetry, of rare old books, and of and cheese, with celery and Ella's immor­ last new books, besides graver arguments." talized ' Lutheran beer,' were to be the sole Of all those musical evenings, the one cates provided." There were also meetings referred to in a note appended by Vincent at the theater when "Munden, Dowton, Novello to his composition called " Thanks­ Liston, Bannister, Elliston, and Fanny Kelly giving after Enjoyment" was perhaps the were on the stage, and picnic repasts to­ most memorable. "It was soon after Mali- gether by appointment in the fields that then bran's marriage with De Beriot, and they lay spread in green breadth and luxuriance both came to this party at the Novellos' between the west end of Oxford street and house. De Beriot played in a string-quar­ the western slope of Hampstead Hill." To tet of Haydn, while his wife sang many crown- the pleasure of one of these days in times with wonderful feeling and spirit. the fields, Leigh Hunt read to the assembled Mendelssohn, who was present, was deeply group, "growing and grown up," the Dog­ moved and excited, and yielded readily to berry scenes from "Much Ado about No­ Malibran's entreaty when, with her pretty thing," till the place rang with laughter. foreign accent, she said:' Now, Mr. Mendels­ At last a city friend found for Cowden sohn, I never do nothing for nothing; you ClarTje a small clerkship in the office of must play for me now I have sung for you.' works, Guildhall, " until he should get some­ He went at once to the piano, and in his thing better; but nothing better ever came improvisation introduced the several pieces to him in the way of ofiicial employment," Malibran had sung, one after another, and his wife afterward wrote, "and he never finally in combination, the four subjects became a rich man, though he also never blended together in elaborate counterpoint." became other than a most cheerful, con­ Vincent Novello said afterward to a friend: tented, nay, happy man." " He has done some things that seem to me Cowden Clarke went to live for a while at impossible, even after I have heard them Ramsgate about this time, and hearing that done." Charles Lamb and his sister were at Mar­ It was about this period that Cowden gate, went over to see them. " It seems," he Clarke was engaged on the "Atlas" news­ writes, "as if it were but yesterday that I paper to write the articles on fine arts, noted Lamb's eager way of telling me about and Leigh Hunt, having returned to Eng­ an extraordinarily large whale that had been land, also engaged him to contribute to his captured there, of its having created a lively "Tatler" and "London Journal." He soon interest in the place, of its having been con­ wrote his "Tales from Chaucer" and con­ veyed away in a strong cart, on which it lay, tinued to produce other and less known a huge mass of colossal height; when he iDooks. added, with one of his sudden, droll, penetrat­ He now felt that the moment when he ing glances,' The eye has just gone past our could ask for the woman of his choice had window.'" arrived, although she was still very young.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED TWO LOVERS OF LITERATURE AND ART. 125 Keats had already died, leaving a gap never hostelry, called the Greyhound, boasting to be filled in the loving heart of his friend. two pretty rooms, the couple housed happily In Cowden Clarke's " Recollections of John for some weeks, lingering among the nooks Keats," a most delightful record of the poet, most associated with John Keats " and other containing hints and pictures to be found points of interest to the lovers. "So little nowhere else, he says: "I had been absent changed was Charles in boyish looks that he for some weeks from London, and had not was often saluted by the villagers with the heard of the dangerous state of Keats's exclamation, 'Ah, Master Charley, glad to health, only that he and Severn were going see you again!'" to Italy; it was therefore an unprepared-for Charles Lamb wrote to Clarke a little shock which brought me news of his death later: "The autumn leaves drop gold, and in Rome." Enfield is beautifuller, to a common eye, Mary was married when she was only nine­ than when you lurked at the Greyhound. teen years old, and came home with her hus­ Benedicks are close, but how I so totally band to live in her father's house. For a missed you at that time, going for my morn­ family of different quality of character this ing cup of ale duly, is a mystery. 'T was marriage might have seemed a hardship; but stealing a march before one's face in ear­ not so with the Novellos. We hear occa­ nest. But certainly we had not a dream of sionally of rare persons to whom poverty is your appropinquity. I instantly prepared an no insuperable burden, to whom the sweet­ epithalamium, in the form of a sonata, which ness of life is rendered only more sweet by I was sending to Novello to compose; but sacrifice and honest exertion; but more fre­ Mary forbid it me, as too light for the occa­ quently, alas! with finely endowed natures, sion. ... I promise you the wedding was we find either the scars of battle, or penuri­ very pleasant news to me indeed." ous thought, or increasing loss of power of Cowden Clarke's new occupations in Lon­ self-dependence. These pecuniary straits, don did not prove very lucrative, and his however, did not continue many years with wife relates a touching anecdote of her Charles and Mary Clarke. They were young, mother, during these early years of married strong, and exceptionally happy in each life, which gives an idea of the cheerful other's society. They were accustomed to household and of the happy relations between work, and determined never to allow their its members. Mrs. Novello was very ill, and energy to flag. Hence the story of these it was thought she might not recover. One early years is as valuable as it is beautiful. day she called Charles and Mary to her bed­ What could be better than the account of side, "bade them bring her the little red their wedding and the honeymoon? account-book in which memoranda were kept "Her father and mother were the only of the modest sums paid to the parent fund persons who went early one bright summer for board and lodging, telling them that morning, July 5, 1828, with their daughter their father and she had agreed to cancel to St. George's Church, Bloomsbury, where whatever arrears of debt might there be she married the man of her heart, whom entered, and they would henceforth 'start they also entirely loved and esteemed. A afresh.'" This was only one more proof of couple of milkmaids were sole observers of their parents' confidence in Cowden Clarke's the small wedding-party that went up the character, which was indeed of the finest flight of steps, whispering,' That's the bride,' quality. He proved from the first altogether as the young girl, in a simple white-satin worthy of the trust reposed in him. cottage bonnet and a white-muslin frock, There is a homely incident which possesses both made by her own hands, passed near." all the charm of spontaneousness and goes Quietly they walked home again after the to corroborate what has been suggested of marriage ceremony, when, having enjoyed a his influence over children. A little girl, a breakfast prepared by her brothers and sis­ near relative of his wife, had been sitting by ters, with gifts from the bride on each plate, his side one day, cuddling close and gazing and " the wedding-dress having been ex­ at him without a word. Her steadfast look changed for a less noticeable straw bonnet at last attracted him. "Well, what do you and plainer white frock," they walked away want, you blessed little creature?" he said. to take the stage-coach for Edmonton. " At "Oh, nothing," she answered; "I am only Edmonton they left the coach and took their doating up at you, Clarkey." way across the fields between there and " Every guinea Charles gained he brought Enfield, Charles making his native village to his wife. He confided to her from first the scene of his honeymoon. At a modest to last the entire management of whatever

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 126 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. money they earned. No hour in the twenty- work: "It is now more than half a century four was spent away from her whom he liked ago, when, on the 15th of July, 1829, sitting at to have always with him. The mornings were the breakfast-table of some friends in pleas­ spent at their writing-table, where, on either ant Somersetshire,regret was expressed that side of his chair, as quiet as mice, his wife's there existed no concordance to Shakspere, two youngest sisters, then mere children, whose works formed the Bible of the intel­ with slates, maps, and books piled up around lectual world. Eager in everything, I re­ them, were preparing lessons for him, as he solved there and then that /would write this undertook to teach the little girls. . . . desired concordance; and that very after­ The afternoons were generally dedicated to noon, while joining my friends in their walk a walk in the open air, and the evenings through the fields, I took a volume of the often brought visits to the theater, where poet and a pencil with me, and jotted down William Hazlitt soon became one of their the first lines of my book under B: companions." Boatswain, have care. Before the first decade of their married life was ended Charles embraced a sugges­ (Tempest, I, i.)" tion from his wife that he should become a Many tributes were showered upon her lecturer upon literature. He was admirably when the book was at last published; but fitted for the task, with an untiring power nothing expressed more truly the wide recog­ of reading aloud, and a fine, full, flexible nition of her benefaction to the world than voice, not to speak of his knowledge and love the handsome chair sent from America, pre­ of his chosen subjects and his inherited sented by " several ladies and gentlemen of power of teaching. Altogether the scheme the United States." Among other " honored was a great success. He became immedi­ names engraved upon it," wrote Mrs. Clarke ately popular. " His lectures were carefully in one of her letters, "are those of Austin written essays, the result of long and patient Allibone, William Cullen Bryant, Charlotte study, full of acute and subtle criticism, and Cushman, Washington Irving, H. W. Long­ always throwing new lights on the subject fellow, George Ticknor, R. Grant White, in hand. ... He lectured on Shakspere, and Daniel Webster." Some kind friend —his fools, his clowns, his kings,—on special preserved the very gold coin which was the characters or plays, and every library soon form in which Daniel Webster's contribu­ found an increased demand for Shakspere's tion was given, and sent it to the author. works." There were thirty different lectures, She always kept it among her treasures. written out and delivered many times. Those Webster once said of Mrs. Clarke's concor­ on Moliere were also very popular; and in addi­ dance, " She has treasured up every word of tion to his lectures his pen was daily occupied Shakspere as if he were her lover and she in other directions. For more than twenty were his." years he continued this incessant labor, ap­ One of the most engrossing labors and parently without any sense of overwork, and pleasures of Mary Cowden Clarke's life was with increasing pleasure at the independence her association with Dickens's Amateur he thereby achieved. Company of Players. He was eagerly look­ Meanwhile, one year after their marriage, ing for some one to enact Mistress Quickly, in Mary set herself to the great task of making Shakspere's "Merry Wives," when, to his a Shakspere concordance, which was a con­ great satisfaction, Mrs. Clarke offered her stant labor during sixteen years. But the assistance. The prime object in view was work was not without its reward in the doing, to endow a perpetual curatorship for the and it has held its place unchallenged in the house in which Shakspere was born. Her gratitude of all readers for nearly fifty years. own story (with Dickens's letters of that The year 1845 was made memorable in the period) gives a wonderfully graphic picture, lives of husband and wife by the completion not only of the scenes they passed through, and publication of the book. Mrs. Clarke but of the persons concerned.-^ has written regarding the inception of this After more than twenty years of such 1 Curiously enough, when Charles Dickens was last in must have been done by Leslie, but in the following this country Mr. Fields found in a shop window in New letter from Mrs. Clarke she expresses some doubt on York a water-color drawing of Mary Cowden Clarke as the subject as to which of the many artists connected Mistress Quickly, done in the year 1848, when the play with their corps drew this particular sketch. She says: was produced. Here is the " black-velvet cap, lined with " You speak of a colored sketch of me in Dame Quickly, scarlet silk, to which I added a pinner and lappet of old and ask if it could have been by Leslie. The only pic­ point-lace, ... so as to give an idea of the ship-tire ture I know of the kind is one in water-colors by Wil­ mentioned hj Fahtaff." Dickens thought the drawing liam Havell, which he took of me after my return to

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED TWO LOVERS OF LITERATURE AND ART. 127 incessant occupation, death having taken in the inhabitants of the Villa Novello. They their beloved parents and others nearest to never grew old to each other. them, it was agreed by the remaining mem­ As the years passed, Mrs. Cowden Clarke bers of the Novello family to return to Italy, would describe in her letters the particulars the land of their progenitors, to live. There of their life in Genoa and the continuance was a year of farewells, which were not easy and progress of their literary work. She to affectionate natures like theirs; but after says in 1875: " We have been idly busy re­ the change was once made there were no ceiving a newly married nephew and his regrets. bride, who, after a moon of honey in the Of their Italian home Cowden Clarke wrote valley of the Engadine, came down to stay once to Mr. Fields: "My brother, Alfred with us in Genoa, and who sing to us duets Novello, has converted one of the old Geno­ by Gounod and Lassen and songs by Gounod ese palaces into a comfortable modern man­ and Schumann, while we have the joy of sion, wherein my wife and I have a snug bringing them acquainted with ' Christabel,' nook, comprising a library and rooms that 'The Ancient Mariner,' 'Tintern Abbey,' overlook on one side the blue Mediterranean 'Laodamia,' 'Story of Rimini,' 'Abou ben and the harbor of Genoa, on the other the Adhem,'' Abraham and the Fire-worshiper,' fair green hills, I might say mountains, that etc., for the first time in their lives. Fancy lead away toward Tuscany. In the aforesaid the enchantment I am in at reading aloud library we two work along at our favorite these beloved old poetical favorites to young, labor." fresh hearers, who fully appreciate the The musical career of Mary Clarke's sister, beauty they hear as novelty. The audience Clara Novello, one of England's most famous employ their fingers, while listening, by singers, and her subsequent marriage in making lint for the hospital here, which Italy to Count Gigliucci, continued Mrs. occupation serves our men-folk to savor the Clarke's affiliation with the great world, which pleasure we women-folk taste from needle­ otherwise might have been more slenderly work during reading aloud. Sometimes our maintained after the retirement of the family nephew takes the place of reader by giving to Genoa. Especially might this have been us a comedy or two of Scribe and a few the case during the later years of her long clever Italian pieces, one of which (' II Par- life, when, on the contrary, the companion­ latore eterno') I always used to wish to ship and musical tastes of her nieces were a translate for Charles Dickens to act—he continual and sufficient happiness. would have done it to perfection!" The old Genoese palace, with its frescos Surely few domestic pictures could be and the garden with roses and laurel looking prettier: the youthful lovers listening to out over the Mediterranean, would some­ Coleridge, Keats, and Leigh Hunt for the times have been but a silent abode except first time from the mouth of the silver-haired for the joyful enlivenment of these young old lady in her diaphanous cap, while she visitors. It is delightful to look at the photo­ unfolded their beauties in her own persua­ graphs of the family in theatrical costume sive manner, and the lint-pickers sat around. after the play of "Bluebeard's Widow," Her appreciation of American writers was written by "my sister Sabilla," as Mrs. also delightfully hearty. Her letters are full Clarke wrote, which had been performed at of messages to Bryant, Longfellow, Whit- the villa, and to remember the days and tier, Holmes, Celia Thaxter," the young poet nights of music in the room with long win­ Aldrich," and other favorites. She entered dows overlooking the bay. Yet, though the upon new correspondence with her young presence of the young is always renewing, friends Sarah Jewett and Imogen Guiney there was an unfailing youth and good cheer with the zest of a girl.^ Craven Hill Cottage from the Amateur Expedition in took the sketch you mention of Dame Quickly, because 1848, and which has always been (and is still) in our I recollect that he praised the costume worn in the own possession. He may have made a duplicate, but I character, for the artistic reason that it looked 'toned never heard of his having done so. The artists belong­ down,' and not too new, as those of the rest of the per­ ing to our company were John Leech, Frank Stone, formers did. My having made my own dress for that Topham, George Cruikshank, and Augustus Egg, and and all the characters I played, using material which possibly they or some one witnessing those perform­ had already served me in other forms, occasioned this ances may have taken sketches of some of the per­ desirable effect, so that the costume in question looked formers." (Dickens was usually very accurate, and spoke as though its wearer had often pottered about in it confidently of the sketch as being by Leslie, but I do through Windsor streets." not remember what foundation he had for the state­ 1 In any mention of Mrs. Clarke's friends the names ment. It is, however, an interesting memento of that of Mr. and Mrs. Horace Howard Furness must not be period.) "It is far from improbable that Augustus Egg omitted. Her deep appreciation and understanding of

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 128 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. In 1876 Mrs. Clarke says of her husband's at it save in such passages as the following, health: " I have excellent reason for agree­ where she is speaking of Longfellow's sonnet ing With Touchstone in averring that' so-so' on "Holidays": is not good; 'it'is but so-so.' However, I 'm " Please tell him," she says, " that it pro­ grateful that it's no worse, but only so-so." cured me (a night or two after its perusal) In March, 1877, Charles Cowden Clarke ' a dream' far more lovely than I can tell, died, " the spring sunshine falling on his bed and far more intense in beautiful revealment as he lay with eyes closed, and a tranquil ex­ of the immortality of love than I can recount, pression on his whole countenance." He had even to you two and to him. It seemed a reached the great age of ninety years, being direct vouchsafement from Heaven in con­ nearly twenty years older than his wife. firmation of the venerable poet's words, and Nevertheless, the book of "Memorial Son­ sent for my special consolation." nets " dedicated to him, which she published She was enabled to live up to a jocose a few years later, might have been dedicated passage in one of her own letters, where she to a young lover. They are most touching in says: " How well are your words,' What non­ their simple record of affection. When Cow­ sense it is to feel old!' and ' I am sometimes den Clarke was nearly seventy years old, he afflicted to hear young fellows of seventy or wrote to a sister, speaking of his wife: " My eighty call themselves old,' verified by the soul seems daily more and more knit with energy and activity of those fine boys Moltke hers; . . . and I do not conceive how there and the King of Prussia, and some others one can be a happier being in existence than could name! Really it seems to me that your loving brother Charles." nowadays it is the elderlies of under twenty Two years after his death Mrs. Clarke was and thirty who are the blase effetes, while persuaded to see Rome for the first time. it is the stripling octogenarians who are full She says: "You may be sure that as I en­ of life and vigor and faith in good." tered it I found myself thinking of Corio- We have already referred to Mrs. Clarke's lanus's ' noble wish': vitality and power of enjoyment. When she The honor'd gods was seventy-nine years old she speaks in one Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice of her letters to Miss Guiney of a summer Supply'd with worthy men! plant love among us! she and her sister passed in Germany: "At Throng our large temples with the shows of peace, Dresden we enjoyed sixteen operas and And not our streets with war!" twenty dramas (among which were Shak­ She describes her deep interest in the spere's 'Midsummer-Night's Dream' with scenes around her, and says laughingly, as Mendelssohn's music, Goethe's 'Egmont' she could only remain a fortnight, she was with Beethoven's music, and Byron's ' Man­ reminded of Dick Swiveller's telling the fred ' with Schumann's music, and superbly marchioness that " beer ain't to be tasted in poetic scenery), going on foot every evening a sip." She found time, however, to see to the excellent Hoftheater in the glow of Mr. Severn, Keats's friend, who was lying the setting sun, and returning in time to go on his death-bed. " Opposite the foot of his to rest before ten o'clock; so that I, who love bed," she writes, "hung a portrait of dear early hours, can revel in theater-going when John Keats, which he had painted from in Germany." memory rather more than a year ago. It Mrs. Clarke was eighty-two years old when was animated, bright, and a good likeness, I saw her for the last time at the hospitable especially of the eyes and mouth." When gates of the Villa Novello. Snow had fallen she came away she says: "He gave me his that morning in Genoa; nevertheless, the thin, trembling hand, which I put against dark-red roses twining themselves around a my cheek, as I bade him farewell on taking splendid laurel-tree by the long dining-room leave." window were not in the least discouraged, Mrs. Clarke's letters did not cease to come nor the Marechal Niel roses in the garden. with their accustomed punctuality and sym­ A fortnight earlier we had left the bleak pathy so long as she could hold a pen. She shores of New England, and the change seldom dwelt upon her own grief, or hinted was wonderful. The brilliant afternoon sun poured into the drawing-room, making the their work brought them into close sympathy and affec­ tion. Mrs. Furness, as it were, crowned Mrs. Clarice's little show of winter evanescent indeed. work by her " Concordance to Shakspere's Poems," while All the modest treasures of the Novellos' Mr. Furness's great and scholarly work in editing the London home were transported to this de­ Variorum Edition of the plays, of which ten volumes have already appeared, could find no more true under­ lightful spot chosen by Alfred Novello for standing than she gave to his labor. their future residence. The villa had been

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED TWO LOVERS OF LITERATURE AND ART. 129 degraded into a leather-dresser's establish­ ous stores of relics perhaps in the world is ment when he first saw it; but, standing as that of the locks of hair preserved by Mrs. it did within a short drive or comfortable Clarke. These treasures have all been walk from Genoa, with fertile vineyard and mounted by her own hand between pieces grounds sloping down and washed by the of glass, with autographs and suitable in­ Mediterranean, with a view of the mountains scriptions added by way of explanation. I

DRAWN BY FRANCIS DAY, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH LENT BY MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS. MARY COWDEN CLAEKE, AUGUST, 1881. also, he at once saw the opportunity, by dint asked how Mary Shelley looked, for I was of careful restoration and planting, of mak­ surprised to see that her curls were almost ing it one of the loveliest spots in Italy. Here as fair in color as those of Shelley. " I wrote we saw a sketch in water-colors by Sir about her for a magazine a year or two ago," Thomas Lawrence of Mrs. Siddons, which she said, "and described her as she was; but seemed to bring her nearer " in her habit as the critics said I was always seeing every­ she lived " than the more effective portraits thing through rose-colored spectacles. I was painted for the public by which she is gener­ only trying to tell people how the lady looked ally known. Here also one of the most curi- who had attracted the poet's love. For all VoL. LVIII.-17.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 130 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. when my mother said: ' Run to the window, Victoria, and see the poet Shelley, who has - Xf^'. iift;- - just been making a visit to your father.' I ran eagerly and put my head out, when, for .^p-VJ-r.. some unexplained reason, just as he was put­ ting on his hat, he turned and looked up at ^Wi'i- the window where I was, and smiled at me. ' 'few.; I cannot forget it; indeed, I seldom forget anything," the old lady added. Here, too, stands the famous chair to which we have already referred, presented to Mrs. Clarke by her American friends after the completion of the concordance. It is handsomely carved, and partly made of wood cut from Shakspere's famous mulberry-tree in New Place. The rich brocade with which it was originally covered was worn out many years ago, but it has been recovered with needlework most precious in Mary Clarke's eyes, done by her famous sister, the great singer Clara Novello. Mrs. Cowden Clarke's reminiscences were extraordinary because they were accurate DRAW I N, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY SCrUTTO & CO., GENOA. and as if engraved on her memory. In look­ CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE, MAY, 1873. ing at the portrait of Mrs. Siddons she was that, she was beautiful, with her well-shaped, led to recall the first appearance of Fanny golden-haired head, almost always a little Kemble as Julwt, which she watched from bent and drooping; her marble-white shoul­ a stage-box with the profound interest of a ders and arms statuesquely visible in the loving friend. Mr. and Mrs. Kemble played perfectly plain black-velvet dress, which the with their daughter, the latter taking the custom of that time allowed to be cut low; part of Lady Capulet. "I saw her as she . . . herthoughtful, earnest eyes; her short stood at the wings, biting her lips, her eyes upper lip and intellectually curved mouth, fixed upon her child, while the tears streamed with a certain close-compressed and decisive down her cheeks." " The green baize of the expression while she listened, and a relaxa­ floor came up and struck me in the face," tion into fuller redness and mobility when said Fanny Kemble afterward, describing speaking; her exquisitely formed hands, too— the agitation which almost overpowered her. I can see them all again in my memory." There " Fanny Kemble," said Mrs. Clarke, " showed were also in this extraordi­ nary collection a curl from the head of Mozart, given to Vincent Novello by his widow, and the hair of •.'' Beethoven,besides a strand ^ ' from Shelley's curling locks, Mary Wollstone- \ imm craft's, Leigh Hunt's,Maz- ^,^. zini's, Garibaldi's, Mary Somerville's, Florence Nightingale's, Malibran's, n a: and others'. ^^^^ ,^, w-:- " Did you ever see Shel- ^W- "•m '%• ley?" I asked. "Only __, .^'Js^'«.-. a... k'M fj^'- •My^- once," she replied, " when ^ '•-V'' ••'; I was a child of eleven, -'' - . •'S^-s.l,. •; just before he went to „, j _ Italy. He had called to ''*^.' see my father, and was about leaving the house (•()\M)l;^ ci..\UKi; \\.\s i!oii\.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED TWO LOVERS OF LITERATURE AND ART. 131 true originality in the rendering of her part. hymn played by soldiers who guard the forts Where she is seen watching for the nurse, beneath the garden walls." the young Juliet stood at one side of the When the news of Mrs. Cowden Clarke's stage, half kneeling in a chair and gazing death was recorded in the London " Athenae­ eagerly, with her back to the audience. In um " the writer added that " one of the last those days such a thing had never been links was severed between those who knew seen. She was very beautiful in the part, Keats and Shelley and the present genera-

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\ WATER-COLOR DRAWING LENT BY MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS. MARY COWDEN CLARKE AS MISTRESS QUICKLY IN "THE MERRY WIVES OP WINDSOR," AS PERFORMED BY DICKENS'S AMATEUR COMPANY IN 1848. "SURELY, I THINK YOD HAVE CHARMS, LA." and beautifully dressed, but it was easy to tion. Her cheerful optimism and her kind see that she was laboring under great ex­ heart made her conversation most charming citement." to listen to, and the vivacity she retained at The loveliness of the old villa yearly in­ her advanced age was surprising. Her ac­ creased, in spite of some dreaded encroach­ tivity, mental and bodily, was great." ments. We find a little description of the Mary Cowden Clarke died January 12, garden written by a friend in those later 1897, at eighty-eight years of age. It was a years. He speaks of "the sunny terrace long sunsetting, but there is also a long commanding the blue bay, where the African afterglow for such lives as hers and her hoopoe yearly alights early in September," husband's; not because they possessed in of its fountains and runnels of fresh water, themselves what is called genius, but for the " enticing the nightingale to make her abode tender reverence which was in them for all among the eucalyptus- and palm-trees," and best things, and for the light which these the "sound at evening of the Garibaldian things shed upon their own lives.

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HALF-TONH PLATE ENGRAVED BY ROBERT VARLEY. '"WE 'EE LOST!' HE SHRIEKED, AND PELL ALL STUMBLING TO THE DECK."

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