Edward FitzGerald also wrote about "The Holy Grail": MY DEAR OLD ALFRED, WOODBRIDGE, Jan. 1870. I bought your vol. [the "Holy Grail"] at Lowestoft; and, when I returned home here for Xmas, found a copy from your new publisher. As he sent it I suppose at your orders, I write about it what I might say to you were we together over a pipe, instead of so far asunder. The whole myth of Arthur's Round Table Dynasty in Britain presents itself before me with a sort of cloudy, Stonehenge grandeur. I am not sure if the old knights' adventures do not tell upon me better, touched in some lyrical way (like your own "Lady of Shalott") than when elaborated into epic form. I never could care for Spenser, Tasso, or even Ariosto, whose epic has a ballad ring about it. But then I never could care much for the old prose Romances either, except Don Quixote. So, as this was always the case with me, I suppose my brain is wanting in this bit of its dissected map. Anyhow, Alfred, while I feel how pure, noble and holy your work is, and whole phrases, lines and sentences of it will abide with me, and, I am sure, with men after me, I read on till the "Lincolnshire Farmer" drew tears to my eyes. I was got back to the substantial rough-spun Nature I knew; and the old brute, invested by you with the solemn humour of Humanity, like Shakespeare's Shallow, became a more pathetic phenomenon than the knights who revisit the world in your other verse. There! I can't help it, and have made a clean breast; and you need only laugh at one more of "old Fitz's crotchets," which I daresay you 1870 MISS THACKERAY anticipated. To compare X- to my own "paltry Poet," is, I say, to compare an old Jew's Curiosity Shop with the Phidian Marbles. They talk of " metaphysical depth and subtlety," pray is there none in "The Palace of Art,” “The Vision of Sin" (which last touches on the limit of disgust without ever falling in), "Locksley Hall" also, with some little passion, I think! only that all these being clear to the bottom, as well as beautiful, do not seem to cockney eyes so deep as muddy waters? I suppose you are at Farringford with your boys for the holidays. Let me wish you all a Happy New Year, and believe me your faithful old crotchety Retainer, E. F. G. P.S. I also think I shall one day send you my little piece of knightlihood (Euphranor), of which Cowell told me you liked parts, and from which (in consequence) I have cut out what seems to me the most disagreeable part, leaving much behind, together with what still seems to me pretty. I had not looked at it for 15 years till Cowell told me what you said; and that made me cut out, and insert some pages. January 25th. The Ritchies and Annie Thackeray dined with us. My father said to them: "I don't find it difficult to believe in the Infinity of Worlds." Then, after trying to make us all realize the rate at which the earth whirls through space, and that every two days the solar system has rushed one million miles towards a certain point in the constellation of Hercules, and that light takes millions of years to travel from some of the stars, the light of which has not yet reached us, and other astronomical sublimities he observed, "From the starry spheres to think of the airs given themselves by county families in ball-rooms! One lady I remember early in the century in Lincolnshire, drawing herself up on hearing that the daughters of a neighbouring family were taking lessons in drawing and singing, and saying, 'My daughters don't learn drawing."" He continued: "Miss Austen understood the smallness of life to perfection. She was a great artist, equal in her small sphere to Shakespeare. I think Persuasion and Mansfield Park are my favourites. There is a saying that if God made the country, and man the town, the devil made the little country town. There is nothing equal to the smallness of a small town." After a magnificent recitation of "Lycidas" came the unexpected outburst, "I don't suppose one blessed German can appreciate the glory of the verse as I can," and on hearing that one of the party had not read through Paradise Lost he called out, "Shameless daughter of your age." The indifference to religion of the age was touched on, and X- began to uphold Shelley's views for the regeneration of mankind. A. T. Shelley had not common-sense! X-. Well, but had Christ common-sense? Christ had more common-sense than you or I, Madam. A. T. 1870 MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL My mother's journal.-Death of Sir John Simeon, March 1st. Aldworth. Hallam read the 4th Eneid with A.; they study Virgil together daily. We were interested by an article of Froude's on Government and the Governed. He received from a stranger, Mr. John White of Cowes, a melancholy letter, and a present of a cartload of wood-old oak from one of the broken up men-ofwar. A. wrote to him. DEAR SIR, FARRINGFORD, March 8th, 1870. Your present has rather amazed me, though not unpleasantly so I accept it with thanks, and I will sit by the "blue light" gratefully, and hope for you that your light may be no longer "low," and if you ever come my way I shall be glad to see you. Yours faithfully, A. TENNYSON. May 23rd. The terrible blow of Sir John Simeon's death (at Friburg) fell on us just as we were starting for Aldworth. May 31st. A. went to Swainston for the funeral. [He wrote "In the Garden at Swainston smoking one of Sir John's pipes in the Swainston garden.] "All dreadfully sad and trying, and seeming all the sadder, for the sun shone and the roses bloomed profusely." 2 1 First published in the Cabinet Edition of the Collected Poems, 1874. 2 Letter from my father. A. very sad, his loss haunted him. Sir John was a brother to us. A. wrote to Lady Simeon : ALDWORTH, June 27th, 1870. MY DEAR LADY SIMEON, Of course nothing could be more grateful to me than some memorial of my much-loved and ever honoured friend, the only man on earth, I verily believe, to whom I could, and have more than once opened my whole heart; and he also has given me in many a conversation at Farringford in my little attic his utter confidence. I knew none like him for tenderness and generosity, not to mention his other noble qualities, and he was the very Prince of Courtesy; but I need not tell you this; anything, little book, or whatever you will choose, send me or bring when you come; and do pray come on the 4th July, and we will be all alone; and Louie can come, when she will, and you can spare her. Believe me, always affectionately yours, This June A. was asked to become President of the Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution. His letter to Mr. Walter Jones ran as follows: SIR, June 1870. First let me thank the Committee and yourself for the honour you have desired to |