THE REMINISCENCES OF ALEXANDER DYCE ALEXANDER DYCE FROM AN ENGRAVING BY C. H. JEENS. REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM. THE Reminiscences OF Alexander Dyce EDITED, WITH A BIOGRAPHY BY RICHARD J. SCHRADER OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1972 by the Ohio State University Press All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-157716 Standard Book Number 8142-0160-1 Manufactured in the United States of America FOR MY PARENTS CONTENTS FOREWORD x i ALEXANDER DYCE 3 EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES 2 9 THE REMINISCENCES 3 3 PREFACE TO CHAPTER I 35 CHAPTER ONE : Early Years 39 SCOTLAND. % MARY ANN PATON. J SIR DAVID OCHTERLONY. % MRS. SMOLLETT. $ STRAW BERRY-HILL J LORD WALDEGRAVE. % CUMNOR PLACE (FROM MY DIARY). PREFACE TO CHAPTER II 5 1 CHAPTER TWO: The Stage 55 PART I : MAJOR CHARACTERS 5 5 EDMUND KEAN AND HIS WIFE. { CHARLES KEAN. % JOH N KEMBLE. $ MRS. CHARLES KEMBLE (MISS DE CAMP), t MRS. SIDDONS. PART 2 : MINOR CHARACTERS 9 9 GIOVANNI B. BELZONI. % MRS. MARY ANN DAVENPORT) WILLIAM FARREN, &C. $ MRS. GIBBS. % MRS. DOROTHY Vlll CONTENT S JORDAN. | JAMES KENNEY AND HIS LAST DRAMATIC PRODUCTION, t JOHN HENDERSON'S AND CHARLES MACKLIN'S SHYLOCK ; GEORGE F. COOKE'S RICHARD THE THIRD, SIR PERTINAX MACSYCOPHANT, AND SIR ARCHY MACSARCASM; MACKLIN AND D [ . ] . % MADEMOISELLE MARS. % CHARLES MATHEWS THE ELDER. $ JOSEPH S. MUNDEN. % MRS. PIOZZI AND CONWAY THE ACTOR. { MRS. ELIZABETH POPE (MISS YOUNG) J HOLCROFT'S "FOLLIES OF A DAY OR TH E MARRIAGE OF FIGARO" ; CHARLES BONNOR. J MISS JANE POPE, T GEORGE RAYMOND. PREFACE TO CHAPTER III 12J CHAPTER THREE: The Clerisy 131 THOMAS TAYLOR, THE PLATONIST. $ EDMUND HENRY BARKER. % BISHOP JAMES H. MONK'S "LIFE OF BENTLEY" J MY EDITION OF BENTLEY's "WORKS," &C. J EDWARD IRVING AND THE UNKNOWN TONGUES. $ WILLIAM JONES OF NAYLAND. $ GEORGE BURGES. J RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT. % DR. SAMUEL PARR. J RICHARD PORSON. $ JOSEPH RITSON. $ DR. JOH N SHAW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE. J GEORGE STEEVENS. $ A FRENCHMAN'S IDEA OF TRANSLATION. } LOST TO SHAME. X LORD TEIGNMOUTH'S "LIF E OF SIR WILLIAM JONES." PREFACE TO CHAPTER IV 175 CHAPTER FOUR: The Arts 177 PART I : THE LAKE POETS 177 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. % WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. J SOUTHEY. PART 2 : OTHER ROMANTICS 190 LORD AND LADY BYRON, &C. J THOMAS CAMPBELL. % BENJAMIN HAYDON ; LEIGH HUNT. { CHARLES LAMB AND HIS SISTER; A POEM BY LAMB. J MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS. $ MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. { THOMAS MOORE. CONTENT S IX PART 3 : THE ROGERS CIRCLE 2OO, SAMUEL ROGERS. % I. HENRY LUTTRELL. J 2. THE REVEREND JOHN MITFORD. { 3 . HENRY CRABB ROBINSON. % 4 . DR. ALEXANDER HENDERSON AND LORD GLENELG. PART 4 I MISCELLANY 23O HENRY MACKENZIE. % MRS. ANNA BARBAULD. % THOMAS HOPE ON PATRONAGE OF PAINTING IN ENGLAND; BRITTON. % MRS. JOHN HUNTER. % ROBERT OWEN OF LANARK. % CHARLES R. MATURIN. % JAMES NORTHCOTE. $ SHERIDAN'S "PIZARRO" ; HIS EPIGRAM J HIS DINNER. $ CHARLES C. COLTON, AUTHOR OF "LACON." LEAVES AND PORTIONS OF LEAVES OMITTED FROM THIS EDITION 25 1 INDEX 255 Illustrations FRONTISPIECE : Portrait of Alexander Dyce from an engraving by C. H. Jeens. FACING PAGE 18: Folio 213' in the Dyce manuscript. FOREWORD The Reverend Alexander Dyce's "Reminiscences" are contained in a generally unrevised manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington (pressmark D.26.E.9); they are here edited by per­ mission of the Museum. Internal evidence suggests that Dyce wrote most of the essays between 1867 and his death in May 1869. A more specific description of the manuscript may be found in the section "Editorial Principles." The "Reminiscences" (so styled on the covering leaf, not in Dyce's hand) were presented to the Museum in 1905 by Warwick Elwin, who found them among the papers of his father, the Reverend Whitwell Elwin, editor of the Quarterly Review. The manuscript probably came into the senior Elwin's possession through John Forster, who was one of Dyce's executors and who used a very small portion of the memoirs for a biographical "Sketch" of Dyce in 1875. From then until this book was in the last stages of preparation, no one seems to have taken ad­ vantage of the manuscript. Recently, however, Professor S. Schoenbaum has made reference to it in Shakespeare's Lives (Oxford, 1970) and has published some of its more striking passages in the TLS, 22 January 1971, pp. 101-2. Regrettably, Dyce forebore discussing those of his contemporaries Xll FOREWORD still living in 1869. But these jottings of an eminent scholar neverthe­ less provide a close view of some of the most interesting literary and theatrical figures in his lifetime. Occasionally he is content to rehearse biographical data well known even then, but most often he focuses upon his personal encounters with his subjects. Some anecdotes have become known through other sources, but comparison will frequently show that Dyce offers something original nonetheless, and his reputa­ tion for veracity and accuracy lends credence to many an otherwise dubious tale. When he speaks from firsthand information, the result can be remarkable, as in his description of Thomas Taylor's later years. His broad survey of the stage reveals an expertise arising from con­ siderable love for a field that also provided the chief occupation of his scholarly life. The record of his fellow scholars is extremely entertain­ ing, chiefly because so many of his subjects stand just this side of lunacy. The last chapter deals primarily with literary artists and con­ tains new material on authors ranging from Wordsworth to Mrs. Barbauld. Dyce has not been altogether forgotten in the last one hundred years. Scholars still value many of his editions, and they have mined both his Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers (especially for Taylor and Wordsworth) and the manuscript notes scattered throughout his library, which re­ mains intact at the Victoria and Albert. But no one has written an adequate biography of him. I have had to settle for a patchwork ac­ count, drawn mostly from the printed records of his contemporaries. The research for this biography involved as much hard labor as biblio­ graphical ingenuity, for Dyce seems to have known everyone; and though most of his acquaintances mention him, they seldom do so at length. My labor has had the instructive result of showing the kinds of sources one must consult in order to piece together the activities of important ancillary figures like Dyce. But if he is ever to be included in a comprehensive study of Victorian scholars, his many unprinted let- ters—to Egerton Brydges and William Carew Hazlitt, for instance— and the possible allusions in the unpublished writings of Carlyle and Crabb Robinson, all must be located and considered. The Museum has eight volumes of Dyce's scrapbooks, which contain, in addition to clippings and other scholarly memorabilia, numerous letters from his FOREWORD Xlll legion of acquaintances. Most of the letters seem related to questions of editing and to other literary matters, and they would be useful chiefly to someone investigating in detail his scholarly life. Such was not my intention; as a result, I have let pass, among other things, the interest­ ing problems connected with John Payne Collier and the Shakespeare forgeries. (On this subject one should consult the wealth of new material in Professor Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives.) My biography, though the fullest to date, is not the last word. I am very happy to acknowledge my great debt to the two men who have watched over this project from the beginning. The advice and ex­ ample of Professor Richard D. Altick have not only sustained my work but have prevented the lapses that result from warbling one's footnotes wild. However, the flaws that remain must be set down solely to my own deficiencies. I am grateful to Mr. John P. Harthan, Keeper of the Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, for calling my attention to the manuscript's existence, for securing the xerographic copy on which this edition is based, for numerous points of information, and for pa­ tience. The cooperation of the Library's staff, and notably of Mr. A. P. Burton, the Assistant Keeper, was splendid. I have also to thank my colleagues, Professors Dudley Johnson, Alan Downer (now deceased), and Joseph Donohue, for reading and com­ menting on various sections of the book; the Ohio State University Libraries for permission to quote from Dyce's letter to Collier; my ed­ itor, Mr. Robert S. Demorest, for his care with the typescript; and Mr. D. R. MacDonald for criticism better than he knew. R. J. S. Princeton, NJ. March 1971 THE REMINISCENCES OF ALEXANDER DYCE ALEXANDER DYCE RE WE TO HAVE no fuller biography of my old friend Dyce than the sketch which Mr. John Forster prefixed to the catalogue of A his library, now in the South Kensington Museum?" So queried James Crossley in 1877,1 two years after the sketch had appeared and eight years after his friend's death.2 Crossley found that biographies by Forster, then recently deceased, failed in general to tell "the whole truth" about their subjects.3 The charge was seconded shortly thereafter by another of Alexander Dyce's friends, John Bulloch.4 Indeed, Forster has not given a full portrait in what remains the only substantial biog­ raphy of Dyce. Even though he drew largely from the manuscript edited below, he makes several factual errors and is especially deficient in recounting Dyce's numerous friendships. The biography points up Dyce's great achievements in scholarship and serves as a testament of Forster's affection, but, lacking so much of Dyce's social and other extrascholarly activity, it fails to convey properly his genuine stature.