reminiscence, with occasional diversions to more recent interests. Among the latter, Carlyle told me that he had known Edward FitzGerald well, though he had not heard of his translation of Omar Khayyám till I mentioned it to him. "A modest, shy, studious man, of much character, much loved by Thackeray and others. I used to see him often, but he never said to me anything of this book of his that you think so well of. The Battle o' Naseby was fought on ground that belongs to his father, and a famous monument was erected with a very abundant inscription to point out the site of it; but years ago Dr. Arnold 1 and I went down to study the locality, but we could make nothin' of it with all the help we could get from plans and narratives. And then Edward FitzGerald took to investigatin' the matter, and at length, some mile or two away from the monument, he found a ridge that he opened, and there lay the bones of the dead, just as they'd been buried near the field where they fell, not two hundred, I think, in all, killed in that battle that decided the fate of King and England, and broke Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers. And then having found so much, he was able to make out the exact field o' battle, and he and I have been arrangin' to put a stone there, o' the Cyclopean sort, a mere block of hewn granite, with as little writin' as possible on it, to mark the spot, memorable to all England even to

this day."

We parted at the corner of Piccadilly; Carlyle to take 1 A letter of Carlyle's about his visit to Naseby with Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby is to be found in Froude's Carlyle, vol. i, 254. See also Letters of Edward FitzGerald, edited by W. Aldis Wright.

an omnibus to Chelsea, I a walk home by bright moonlight across the Park. Among other things he had given me an account of "poor little Allingham's" life and struggles.

LONDON, Wednesday, December 11, 1872.

Went with my old college friend Henry Chauncey 1 to see Cesnola's collection of antiquities from Cyprus, which has been bought for the New York Museum of Fine Arts, and is soon to be sent to America. A great part of it is indeed already packed. It is an extraordinary and interesting collection, of great value in the illustration it affords of both ancient history and art, and as supplying the link that has been wanting between the art of Egypt and Asia Minor and that of Greece. It comes mainly from the temple at Golgos, a famous shrine, according to Herodotus, in the days of the Trojan War.

General Cesnola was superintending the packing, a good specimen of the Italian Americanized; a man with a real preference of reputation to money, of great energy, and of a cheerful disposition. Dr. Birch and Mr. Newton 2 of the British Museum are tearing their hair, at having allowed the collection to slip through their fingers. They had no idea of American competition. And Mr. Gladstone sheds tears that such precious illustrations of Homer should leave English shores. And it is, indeed, almost a pity that it should

1 Graduated at Harvard, 1844, two years before Norton.

2 Samuel Birch, keeper of Oriental antiquities at the British Museum. (Sir) Charles Thomas Newton, keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum.

go to America, where it can not, for a long time, be of as much service as it would be here. It is an admirable foundation, however, for a great collection of works of ancient art; and if the Communists again get the upper hand in Paris and hold it, we may be able to buy out the Louvre!

Friday, December 13, 1872.

Ruskin and Carlyle came to lunch with us, - both in their sweetest and best moods. Their talk was extremely characteristic, and full of interest. I am struck more and more with the depth of Carlyle's sympathies, and the delicacy and keenness of his sensibility. The essential quality of his talk and Ruskin's alike is not so much in the words of it as in the manner and expression. If repeated, if even reported word for word, it is likely to produce a different effect from that which it made when first spoken, owing to the loss of the incommunicable look, the evanescent air, the qualifying and inimitable tone. Each was delightful with the other, and each so perfectly at ease, so entirely free from self-consciousness of any disagreeable sort, so devoid of arrogance or disposition to produce false effect, each also was so full of humour and of thought, that the talk was of the best ever heard. It ran on Frederick Barbarossa, Walt Whitman, the penalties of life in London, shopping and its horrors, Rousseau, old wives in Scotland, magazines, Pedro Garcia, Don Quixote, "a book," said Carlyle, "I hold among the very best ever written, the one book that Spain has produced." "Yes," said Ruskin, “as you

think of but one author in Spain, so for me there is but one painter."

After lunch we had a Punch and Judy show before my study windows. I had engaged it for Ruskin's sake, for he is fond of it and of seeing the children's amusement at the performance. Carlyle smoked a pipe by the fireside, and after Punch went off, we had more talk, and at sunset Ruskin took Carlyle home in his carriage.

Carlyle brought me a copy of "Sartor Resartus."

Writing a few days later about this luncheon party, with its Punch and Judy finale for the benefit of Ruskin, Norton said of Carlyle:

-

"Nothing could have been sweeter than his ways with the children, it was the sweetness of a real sympathy for them. Sally was standing by the door as he went away, looking very bright and pretty, and he said, 'Tell me your name, little dear, once more,' and then he kissed her, and said in the tenderest way, 'Poor little woman! dear little woman. May all good be yours.' I don't think she will forget him. ...

66

Carlyle and Ruskin were with us for more than two hours, and the talk was characteristic and interesting.... It would be rare to find two such masters in expression so entirely simple, unpretending, undemanding, and so completely at ease, brightening the most serious topics with the liveliest humour, and taking the most genial pleasure in each other's company.

"How can Ruskin [said Carlyle one day] justify his

devotion to Art? Art does nothin' in these days, and is good for nothin'; and of all topics of human concern there's not one in which there's more hypocrisy and vain speakin'.... The pictures in our days have seldom any scrap of help or meanin' for any human soul, - mere products of emptiness and idleness, works o' the devil some o' them, but most o' them rather deservin' to be consigned without delay to the limbo dei bambini.'

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""T is easy to find fault with Ruskin for his petulance and unreason and such other sins as they charge on him; but he's very much to be excused, and there's little or nothing in him that needs to be forgiven."1

Journal

Friday, December 20, 1872.

Had some talk at the Athenæum with Shaw-Lefevre, and Mat Arnold. - Poor fellow, he has suffered much, of late, from the loss of children, and looks troubled and worn. His wife is broken by calamity, and they propose to spend this winter (he having got a long vacation) in Italy. I afterwards went to the Deanery at Westminster, and saw the Dean and Lady Augusta.2 The Dean was very pleasant as usual, and in excellent spirits regarding the commotion about him at Oxford last week. No trouble of the sort, he said, could have brought him less annoyance and more satisfaction.

1 See "Recollections of Carlyle," by C. E. Norton, New Princeton Review, July, 1886.

2 It will be remembered that as a young man in Paris, Norton had seen Lady Augusta Bruce frequently. The acquaintance had been renewed in 1868, when Lady Augusta had for five years been the wife of Dean Stanley.