The Diary Extracts 17 June 1877 - 8 January 1879
17 June 1877 – Grosvenor
(Westminster) gave me the very satisfactory news at breakfast this
morning that he would purchase my statue of M.A. at the Academy. He
gives me £1000 for it and I ceded him my Crucifixion by Murillo, for
which he generously says he will let me have “more later”.
W. McGill[?] who did up my house for
me at Windsor has committed suicide. I trust I am not one of the
causes, but I did owe him money – poor fellow.
30 June – William Harcourt had
arranged that the Millais and I should go to Cambridge this Sunday,
but at the last moment Millais found that his wife had [illegible]
him to go somewhere else and that was end to that arrangement and I
have heard nothing of it since that time.
5 July – To Windsor by the morning
train with Alexander Wedderburn, a jolly scotch fellow, a grandson of
Sir David Dundas, whose acquaintance I made 2 or 3 years ago in
Ruskin’s works at Oxford.
6 July – The Florentine artist
Costa sent by Leighton to see the Bridgewater House gallery.
9 July – Joined Gustave Doré and
his friend and boon companion Canon Harford at Paddington, and with
them to Windsor by the 10.30 train. Luckily a fine sunny day and G.D.
seemed quite happy to visit my little house, where he lunched. I also
got Holmes [?] to join us from the castle . We drove to Virginia
Water and walked round to the Wheatsheaf Inn. G.D. much struck by the
ruins and he made a slight sketch of them. Called at the castle after
lunch and were received by Prince Leopold, who was curious to meet
the great artist, but seemed somewhat embarrassed as to what he
should say to him. Back with G.D. and Harford to town…
11 July – To Connaught St to see
Leslie Ward, Edward Ward’s oldest son, the “Spy” of Vanity
Fair. A sitting, as he intends putting me into the paper. The statue
of the Old Guard is to occupy the background of the caricature. I am
standing with my hands on my haunches. I am seen in profile, glass in
the eye and with the hair all over the place.
14 July – Dined with Doré at the
[illegible] Hotel – Harford the only other guest. The dinner very
bad, and G.D. can hardly be called a pleasant or agreeable host, so
“nil admirari” of every and all other artists, dead or living. He
played on his violin, but I was tired and bored and got away early.
16 July – Doré had expressed a
wish to see Cliveden, and I arranged to go this day there with him
and Harford, notwithstanding the day was a very miserable Scotch one,
a drizzle relieved by a mist. However we went in spite of the
weather, beginning our sightseeing at Burnham Beeches, where poor
Harford strained his knee in escalading a ditch. G.D. thought the
place fit for a subject to illustrate his Ariosto. We arrived at
Cliveden in time for lunch…… In spite of the miserable weather I
walked all over the chalk walks on the [illegible] with Doré. We
dined early and returned to town by 11 o’clock, Doré sleeping
nearly all the way.
17 July – Called on Canon Harford
at Westminster. Never did I see such confusion as his rooms are in –
like Dickens’s “Old Curiosity Shop”. Clerical confusion of the
most rampant kind, old carvings, photographs and stained glass,
prints, casts, and armour, all higgledy-piggledy in the small rooms,
and an impossible study up a stairs of sham gothic with griffins on
every landing.
23 July – G. Doré accompanied by
Harford came to Cliveden at 12. He wished to see Stoke Poges, so I
drove over with them to that place, having lunch at Stoke Park with
Mr Colinson. It was unfortunately a misty, dreary and wet day, but we
saw all the points of interest besides the Park, the church and the
churchyard. G.D. has some intention of illustrating the “Elegy”,
and hence his wish to see this “classic site”. I had shown him
the Eton Playing Fields on our way to Windsor and Stoke. He has asked
me to translate the “Elegy” into French for him, not an easy
task, but I shall attempt it.
3 Aug. – Saw Mr Eaton at the R.
Academy regarding the removal of my statue.
14 Aug. – [Something about
Madrassi coming from Paris to finish the Marie Antoinette at
Grosvenor House]
16 Aug. – To Victoria Station to
meet Luca Madrassi at 6, arriving from Paris. His first journey here.
The hansom cabs seemed…..to surprise him.
17 Aug. – At last I have appeared
in Vanity Fair. A clever caricature, very like I believe and with a
clever background consisting of my “Grenadier”. The letter-press
is very pretty. My first sight of this was on returning to Victoria
Station from the Crystal Palace to which place I had ‘ciceroned’
Madrassi. [the rest hardly legible]
18 Aug. – A long but hot day. Left
early with Madrassi to town and took him to see the gallery at
Bridgewater House. Brucciani Gallery (where we got some clay to make
sketch of a new idea of mine – to wit a bust of Shakespeare crowned
by Tragedy and Comedy) and to the Doré Gallery and Madame Tussaud’s
exhibition. The last always makes me rather sick.
19 Aug. – With Madrassi to
Cliveden. Madrassi charmed with beauty of Cliveden.
20 Aug. – Up to town with Madrassi
at 11 – almost insufferably hot, but I was determined to show him
as much as one could. So we [illegible] at St Paul’s, Westminster
Abbey and the National Gallery. Lunched….. at the Grosvenor Gallery
& looked in at the never swept and bare Academy, where my two
statues are all alone in their glory. Called on Mr Harford at the
Deanery, Westminster & returned to Windsor at 7.
21 Aug. – Up by the 10.30 with
Madrassi. Holmes, Henri and Drayson were with us in the same
carriage. Showed Madrassi Grosvenor House. Much struck by its
splendour and the place which the marble statue of M.A. will occupy
there. Also took him to the South Kensington Museum and had lunch
there. The rest of the day was spent in the Academy, where he began
removing the “tenon” [?] at the back of the neck of the aforesaid
statue, but could not complete this in one day. We had been delayed
by an ineffectual attempt made by M. Luca to phot [sic] the
statue which wasted much of the morning.
22 Aug. – Madrassi completed the
removal of the “tenon”. The statue is to be cast tomorrow by
Brucciani in the R. Academy & after that removed and placed for
many long years to come, I trust, at Grosvenor House. Madrassi’s
work here and visit is now completed and he returns to Paris
tomorrow. Dined here at the Grosvenor Hotel this evening, where he
sleeps tonight and leaves early tomorrow [illegible passage, ending
“ a reduced statuette after the Grenadier great success”]
24 Aug. Looked in at Elkingtons,
where the Old Guard has been placed, and looks, although I says it as
shouldn’t, superb, and infinitely better than it was in the R.
Academy.
29 Aug. – [visits Sir Charles
Dilke and is shown his collection]
31 Aug. – M.A. moved to Grosvenor
House.
1 Sept. – I saw M.A. at
[illegible] for the first time. I went down on my knees on the
parquet and thanked Haven that it should at length be there in that
[illegible, possibly “glowing”] room safe and sound. At present
it is only on a temporary pedestal, but I hope it will ere long be on
a permanent one. I did not [illegible] to say that I felt it was
worthy of being in the same house as the “Tragic Muse”!!!!
5 Sept. – [Death of Thiers –
R.G. says he is thankful to have met that “illustrious Mons.” Two
years before]
Sept. – [Mason completing a
pedestal in his dining room at Windsor for the plaster “Od Guard”]
17 Oct. – To Paris – Hôtel du
Louvre.
20 Oct. – Called at the studio at
4 rue Candolle, but found Madrassi away. He works all day now for
Gustave Doré, but I saw him in the evening. He did not go near the
studio till after midnight. The large sketch of Shakespeare crowned
by Tragedy and Comedy is very [illegible] & he has had 2 charming
little reductions made of the statue of the Queen and one of the
Grenadier.
22 Oct. – Called on the clever
artist Rajon (51 rue des Belles Feuilles, ave. d’Eylau) whose
etchjings are I think about the best of any living artist. I found
him a charming little man,…… about 36. Called on G. Doré, but he
was out. Madrassi was at work in his studio on the huge Bacchanalian
Vase, which I do not care for. Madrassi dined with me at Foyots and
we passed the rest of the evening in our studio, and had tea with the
Le Bouviers, she a good little creature only just recovering from a
very serious illness.
23 Oct. – Passed the rest of the
evening over the Shakespeare group in the studio.
24 Oct. – [account of the
execution of Antoine-Joseph Albert, who I have transcribed as
d’Albret. Albert, according to a French website was guillotined on
the 25th, but this may simply be an error resulting from
its being reported in the papers for the day following.]
26 Oct. – [ quotes a letter from
the Duke of Westminster, saying how good the M.A. looked in Grosvenor
House. “When Dalou (the statue of a mother and child) goes to
Eaton, as I dare say she will, the other will reign alone without a
rival”, and Constance adds in a PS, “I feel very proud of her in
the gallery”]
29 Oct. – Walked to the rue Bayard
to Doré’s studio. We breakfasted at Le Doyen, in a kind of
conservatory restaurant close to the Palais d’Industrie [sic].
G.D. would enlarge upon his domestic troubles, his dislike to his
nephews [?] and his determination not to leave them his pictures, the
ill health of his mother, and the question whether he had better not
marry, and if so whether an English woman or a French. I advised the
latter. After breakfast we looked in at the Panorama of Paris
besieged, as we had been told that Philippoteau who painted it was
showing it. He is a bright….. but little man of about 50, a kind of
frenchified [illegible]. Doré thinks of having a colossal figure of
[illegible] designed by him placed on the Trocadero to light up all
Paris!!! Passed all evening in the studio after dining with Luca
Madrassi at Foyots.
30 Oct. – Came to the conclusion
this evening of having the Shakespeare group made life-size. The
little group but 3ft high will be wondrously enlarged and I hope to
have them done DV (god-willing) in time for next year’s Academy.
31 Oct. – I bought a little bronze
statuette by Sanson at Goupils of a youth dancing about 8 inches high
and of the most beautiful chocolate brown. This was my greatest
extravagance. My last evening in Paris probably till December, when I
hope to return to continue my group of Shakespeare, with which I am
already quite satisfied.
3 Nov. – Went to Watts’s studio,
where Janey Campbell had been sitting for her portrait, now some
three years in hand. W. showed me his equestrian statue designed for
Eaton. Very fine conception but lacking in good execution.
30 Nov. – To Paris.
7 Dec. – More content with my
Shakespeare today than I have been yet. It really is not bad if the
Tragedy has a look of his idoliser which I arrived at. I shall have a
metal laurel wreath made for the enlarged one which goes to the
Academy I hope.
20 Dec. – To see Irving in Hamlet.
It was interesting to see his version after so recently having seen
that of Salvini and I definitely prefer the Englishman’s.
24 Dec. – [Shown round the Minton
showrooms in Stoke by Mr Minton Campbell – the exhibits for next
year’s Paris exhibition. “many beautiful things”, “superb
vases painted by Musil”]
[Introduction to the 1878 diary
describing furnishings of Gower Lodge where he arrived on the 9th
after staying over the New Year at Eaton Hall. “Another change
since I was last here has been the removal of the Old Guard, that I
had placed but a few months ago in front of the house. Here economy
was a mistake, as I think it generally is, for the poor old warrior,
who instead of being in bronze as he looked, and was painted, began
to peel away, large portions sloughing off him, although he was not
metal, and only plaster, they had warranted from Paris that he would
endure any temperature or climate 8 years, but the result has proved
[illegible], and, after affording I dare say some curiosity and
amusement to the good people of Windsor, he has returned to Paris in
a bad condition, but I trust to reappear, like a Phoenix, and as a
giant refreshed with wine, for, regardless of expense, I have
commissioned Madrassi to have him cast, or rather bathed, in an acid
which will form a metal coating & have all the effect of an
elaborately cast figure, a process admirably adapted for out of doors
statues, and called ‘Galvano-isme’, although works turned out in
this way lack the finish of a bronze that has been first cast and
then ‘chiselled’ by hand”.]
10 Jan. – Dinner at No.5 Cavendish
Sq. – host Clayton (fashionable Indies doctor). Sat next to Count
Gleichen, the d’Orsay of the day as far as his sculpture, poor
stuff, goes. He is heavy, dull and flat, singularly like portraits of
Francis the 1st. A Mr Roffe who made the drawing for the
engraving in the Art Journal, called to show me one he had made of my
statue of Marie Antoinette.
15 Jan. – Grace, my sister-in-law,
has written from [illegible] asking me to go with her brother Anthony
Abdy, to look at a bust Boehm is now at work on of poor Sir Thomas
Abdy, and accordingly we went together down the Fulham Road, and
finding Boehm, the most amiable of men, and certainly the cleverest
of sculptors living. In his studio, we were shown a most admirable
likeness of poor Sir T.. Boehm had only a mask from the face and a
few photos to go by, but, had Sir T. sat for it, could not have been
more successful. It is always a pleasure to go to Boehm’s studio,
or rather studios, he has 4 or 5, so full they are of admirable
works, by himself and others.
8 Feb. – [Visit to Carlyle] – We
found the grand old man seated [illegible] in the stone coloured
dressing gown that Boehm has immortalised. I had brought him the
enlarged statuette in silvered bronze of Marie Antoinette. This was
an old bronze I had made him last year, and he seemed much pleased
with it, patting and [illegible] it, & placing it on his
chimneypiece.
13 Feb. – [Visited Carlyle, who
told him Tennyson had admired M.A. Then on to visit Tennyson at 14
Eaton Sq, where “We only stayed a few moments, but they invited me
to come again, and dine there I must, some day next week”]
16 Feb. – To Brighton with Archie
Campbell and 2 of his friends, a Mr Addington, an ex-classical [or
clerical], and a Mr Watts (no relation of the painter), a most
insignificant looking, scrubby little man, but well informed on art
matters, writes notices and critiques in the Athenaeum and is
acquainted with Swinburne, Rossetti, and all that aesthetic lot. They
stayed at the Albion Hotel for three nights.
18 Feb. – Travelled up to London
with Millais’s eldest son, Everett – not a memorable youth as to
looks or conversation, but he told me of what his father is engaged
on. This made me determined to call on him.
20 Feb. – Down to 28 Abercorn
Place, St John’s Wood to see my friend J. O’Connor’s new house,
and he took me to see Long’s studio close by - he is engaged on two
other Egyptian subjects – and looked into Calderon’s studio, who
was out, and also a Mr Gregory, a rising young portrait painter with
a terrific impediment in his speech.
21 Feb. – I called on Millais on
my walk eastward. Found him at work in his studio, 3 new pictures
nearly all completed, a Scotch landscape, a scene out of the Bride of
Lammermuir & the third & infinitely best, the two Princes in
the Tower, which he said he thought one of his best pictures, though
he is rather apt to say that of his latest painted work.
23 Feb. – [Evening passed with
Tennyson – very illegible, but talk of literature, and Gower told
Tennyson how he had been stood up by Doré at a breakfast invitation
in Paris. Gower tells also of his letter of introduction to Victor
Hugo. “Tennyson doubts whether he is as great in Tragedy as
Molière”, Tennyson giving as an example of Molière excelling in
this genre, the play Georges Dandin. This visit is described in
Gower’s Records and Reminscences, p. 287]
24 Feb. – To Paris.
25 Feb. – [Visit to Hugo. Told to
come back in the evening. Later talked about Lord Ellesmere’s
translation of Hernani, which Hugo claimed had been published. Gower
stated he thought this unlikely. “I tried to get him on the
Revolution and Marie Antoinette, but he soon plunged into the future
of Europe. His idea is that at no very future time, the 3 countries
of France, Italy & Spain will proclaim themselves Les États Unis
de l’Ouest ….. (this had been behind his speech at Ledru Rollin’s
grave the day before) …. He thinks our constitutional monarchy the
best next to a Republic. He wishes to have parliamentary government
and not even a President. There is undoubtedly great charm about the
man, and it is a sad thing he has thrown himself so madly into the
revolutionary spirit, but I am assured he does so from not selfish,
but from patriotic motives”]
26 Feb – [Victor Hugo’s
birthday. R.G. left a card] On which I wrote my congratulations for
so remarkable an anniversary, and a few lines from Julius Caesar,
which I confess I found in my Shakespeare calendar for the occasion.
“He reads much, he is a great observer, & he looks quite
through the deeds of men”. I wonder if the illustrious one saw
them. I had hoped to pass the evening at the studio in the Boulevard
de Montparnasse, but on going there found it shut up and Madrassi
away.
27 Feb. – I went off to the new
studio Luca has taken for us 49 Boulevard Montparnasse, close to the
Orleans Station, an infinitely superior one to the other, with 2
capital high rooms. Here has already been carried the monument to
Shakespeare, some 10ft high, after the little one now in plaster, and
here too is the little statuette in clay of Gladstone as the
woodcutter, which I hope to show in this year’s exhibition.
Madrassi took me to see the reductions in bronze of the Old Guard and
Queen statues being made by Meissner, no.4 rue de Saintonge, these
for the Great Exhibition here and I hope for the shop windows and
admiration of the public………. We looked in at Doré’s studio,
where that hideous wine-jar encrusted with cupids and bacchants is in
progress.
28 Feb. – Worked away on
Gladstone’s statuette all the afternoon. There is a notice on my
proposed statue, or rather “Suggestions for a Monument to
Shakespeare” in this week’s Whitehall Review.
29 Feb. – Had promised to call on
Doré and found him hard at work on his huge picture of Pharaoh.
These huge pictures are always much the same, the same figures
[illegible]. Then I lost no time in getting to my studio, where I
remained till late. We lighted the gas, and having placed the cast of
the Queen statue in the centre of the room, had a splendid effect,
the white figure standing out in splendid relief with the
blood-coloured walls making a most striking background. I left (with
a Victor Hugoish note of my own composition) a photo of my Old Guard
on the poet of the Rue de Clichy, telling him in it that his
description (in Les Misérables I think) had inspired me. In fact it
is although a much [illegible] the most spirit stirring account of
the end of the Old Guard, be that apocryphal or not.
3 March – [A Sunday] Took Madrassi
and the Le Bouviers to the music-hall, Dubinette, rue de la Gaieté.
4 March – Called on Mr Cunliffe
Owen, head of the English department of the forthcoming Exhibition.
He is ‘très bien installé’ in the Avenue de Suffren, in a smart
building facing one side of probably the most hideous erection that
the ingenuity of man ever devised, viz the Exhibition itself. To
compare it to the ugliest railway stations would be to flatter it. It
passes all conception in its bad taste, but perhaps the inside has
redeeming features. These Mr C.O. has offered to show me. I did not
stay for more than a few moments, knowing that the Prince of Wales
was just then expected. I had called to know whether I could send one
or both of my statues, the Grenadier and the Queen, and this Mr C.O.
has referred to the Committee of Selection in London. Another time I
shall hope to see something of the building.
7 March –[Took a Mons. De Thiac to
see the Marie Antoinette] He was genuinely delighted with it and most
anxious it should be exhibited at the International Exhibition, when
he thinks it will have as much success as the Vela statue of Napoleon
the first’s ‘Ultimi Giorni’ had in that of ’67.But I told him
that I did not expect to be able to exhibit more than one statue &
that that of the Grenadier would be that one.
9 March – [Gower spent the day
with his American friend Henry at the studio, going on to a play in
the evening. He did not arrive back at the Hôtel du Louvre until 2
in the morning, where he found a letter from Harry, “that perhaps
will have much more influence in my life”. It read “When you get
this, I shall be far, far away on the breezy ocean, steaming away to
a far far off land. It is much better so I think, especially for my
family, though it is a hard and bitter pill to swallow”. “My
first feeling was a bitter self-reproach that when I saw him last I
had not got him to promise to write and tell me his destination –
now I had no clue. My second was that ‘coûte que coûte’ I
should follow and find him.”]
10 March – To 2 Prince’s Gate.
Harry’s father [was, crossed out] utterly refused to tell me where
he had gone, and all my prayers were in vain. I left the house half
maddened, sick at head and heart.
11 March – [Gower heard via a
friend of H’s that he had left for Australia]
31 March – [New York] To the
Central Park, one of if not the prettiest park I have ever seen,
reminding me both of Regent’s Park and the Bois de Boulogne. It was
filled with swarms of people. We stopped to get out and have a good
look at a really fine statue of Shakespeare by an American artist,
Ward.
[A pathetic press-cutting
interleaved – “Nium Nium – R.G. requests H.S. to communicate
his present address. R.G at Post Office, Sydney”]
23 Oct. – Eaton
Hall. Me voila enfin de retour – ou peut-on être mieux qu’au
sein de la famille. Indeed.
29 Oct. – Set off for Paris with
Frank Miles.
30 Oct. – Called on G. Doré,
where I found Luca Madrassi at work. To the studio.
31 Oct. – From 10.00 till 1.00 at
the Exhibition with Frank Miles. A most interesting
collection………altogether I think the most enjoyable of all the
Exhibitions I have seen since the first of ’51. The statue of the
Queen [illegible] is admirably placed thanks to the pains taken by my
old legitimist friend, Mons. De Thiac [illegible] I also found the
reduced bronzes on Meissner’s stall [illegible], but they have sold
a very limited quantity. I hear one at least of the Old Guard has
been sent to America. I was pleased to hear this. I dined with
Madrassi at a restaurant near our studio, and spent the evening at
work, roughing out a small bust of H. Montague [?]from the photos |I
brought from New York, and making a sketch for the statuette of
Dizzy, that I hope to see in next year’s Academy (how hope
continues to egg one on to fresh absurdities and to fresh
disappointments) as a pendant to that of Gladstone.
[Long passage about somebody’s
wife being compromised by an arrangement to visit Doré’s studio
with Gower. This appears to be related in some way to a report in the
Echoes section of the Whitehall Review about Gower having been
arrested in Paris the previous Autumn for an offence against public
morals. His release, it was stated, had been effected by an
application to the British Ambassador. The denial of the ambassador,
Lord Lyons, was subsequently published in the Echoes, that any such
event had occurred. A cutting interleaved in the diary here reveals
that it had something to do with a woman.]
[General recapitulation about the
days spent with Frank Miles at the Louvre and the Exhibition. “We
breakfasted with Doré, a dreary affair as it always is, D. being
more rabid than ever against everybody, especially the jurors of the
Exhibition, who, he says, wish to drive him mad, by not having given
him the gold medal I suppose. This was on Friday, 1 Nov. F. Miles
won’t speak a word of French & G. Doré’s English is, well,
let us say, not fluent. The breakfast was at that pleasant restaurant
near the Exhibition……. And we fed in a kind of shrubbery under
glass, but I was glad when the thing was at an end. Generally I have
been with Frank Miles in the afternoon to the Exhibition. [Something
about a visit to Meissner’s stall , and a “little Cupid in bronze
argenté by L. Madrassi” and a “tazza of black silver
niellé”]
7 Nov. - Every day I have passed at
the studio, and the “bustette” of Mont. Is all but finished. I
think it like, and think it will be liked by his friends in New York.
The [illegible, possibly Hamlet] statuette is not yet begun, only a
little rough sketch of it in clay now exists. I showed them to Frank
Miles (yesterday, the 6th) and he praised them, F. Miles
is off today for England. I can’t say I will miss him, as he has
been rather a weight on me, although he is an amiable youth, and has
seemed quite concerned at all the troubles I have had and am now
going through.
8 Nov. – Last visit to the
Exhibition. The things were being rapidly packed up. [He had a
rendez-vous by Marie Antoinette with Alfred Hagger]. Most of the
people who stopped to look at first exclaim, “Tien voila Charlotte
Corday”. The popular prints ever since the Revolutionary times,
which invariably place a mob cap and fichu shawl on C. Corday, has
made that costume much more indelibly connected by the public with
her than with the Queen, and Delaroche’s false – false as to
likeness and dress – picture of the Queen leaving the Revolutionary
Tribunal, has helped this not a little.
[Something about a letter from
America from Michael Tyner[?], “the youth who wanted to come to
England as my secretary”. “I have written what I hope is a kind
but firm letter” discouraging him]
The bust of Montagu is cast in
plaster and looks well, and a little sketch for the Shakespeare
Monument, for it will be a monument if it ever reaches completion, is
begun, introducing the figures of Hamlet, Falstaff, Henry V &
Lady Macbeth round the pedestal. The Le Bouviers were at the studio
last night, so little work was done, especially as we [illegible] a
royal [illegible] in draperies with the masks of Vitellius and the
Venus of Milo on our faces which produced a drôle d’effet.
12 Nov. – Left Paris.
16 Nov. – To Brucciani’s where
Montague’s bust has arrived in good condition from Paris, and will
be moulded and the cast sent to New York.
21 Nov. – Whitehall Review
retracted the story of the arrest of “a well known young Englishman
of rank, who frequently resides in Paris, where he follows the
avocation of a sculptor”.
25 Nov. – [Gower advised by Sir
William Harcourt and others to prosecute the Man of the World.]
2 Dec. – A couple of days ago I
asked Lady Ely if I might send the photos of my Shakespeare Monument
to be inspected by the Queen. The demand was graciously accorded and
yesterday they were returned from the castle with a note fom Lady Ely
to say that H.M. had thought them “very pretty” – pretty begad!
2 – 4 Dec. – What the late G.H.
Lucas writes to Mrs Greville about my Shakespeare group. The letter
written from The Privy, North Park (or North Road) Regents Park, and
dated 18 Nov. (12 days before his death there) – “The group has
striking variety. The face of Comedy is full of spirit and fire, and
her action has a daring vivacity, but tragedy is a feeble
aristocratic person with no possibilities of terror or pathos. The
‘motives’ of her drapery are however fine. Shakespeare looks as
silly as one might expect under such circumstances”. I have copied
this extract from his letter to Mrs Greville, which she has asked me,
since his death, to return to her, “for”, she adds, “it is the
last that he can ever send me”.
11 Dec. – [What looks like a very
interesting interview with Sir Henry James at the Temple, about the
libel case against the Man of the World, in which “Sir Henry asked
me several pointed questions as to my reasons for going to find Harry
against his father’s wish, as he put it, but I think he was fully
satisfied by my answer”.]
13 Dec. – Up again to town and to
Chislehurst to the Empress, and to bestow on H.I.M. the smallest size
bronze reduction of the statue of M. Antoinette………… She was
as charming and as gracious to me as ever, asking much about my
voyage, and apparently really interested in what she heard. When I
told her how little I cared for politics, she said with a laugh she
could well understand that. The Prince Imperial was there all the
time, quite English in ways, and talks with hardly any accent. The
Empress too spoke at times in English, not badly, but she translated
literally from French into English. She said she thought
Michelangelo’s Moses by far the greatest of his creations, and
spoke with great admiration of Carpeau [sic]. The Prince told
me he was coming to Xmas at Trentham, which I did not know before.
Chislehurst, or rather Campden House, looked externally most
picturesque, its red and yellow colour, being all built of that
material, contrasting most effectively with the snow, or rather hoar
frost covered trees, and made one wish to have O’Connor on the spot
to paint it. The Empress seemed pleased with my present, and I got
her to sign her name in the 1st volume of La Comtesse de
Charmy, which, in an unbound state, she had given me on my last visit
to Chislehurst, but since then I have had it bound. I returned to
town at 2.30.
14 Dec. – [Gower heard from
Drayson at Brighton Station the news of Princess Alice’s death at
Darmstadt].
16 Dec. – On leaving Brucciani’s
shop ….. at 3 this afternoon I see on a hoarding in large letters
the announcement that such an evening paper has the “Alleged libel
against Lord R. Gower, and on another “Libel against a Nobleman”,
before even the recent death of the Princess, or any news from the
troops in Afghanistan. Such is the avidity of the British public for
anything that is or belongs to scandal.
[Gower so moved by the Prince of
Wales’s letter to his sister about Princess Alice’s death, that
he wrote him a letter of condolence, delivered it himself, and “wrote
my name in H.R.H’s book, an act that if anybody had told me three
days ago I might do, I would have called him ‘fool’ for his
pains”.]
19 Dec. – To Trentham. [Visiting
were the Northwicks, editors of the Morning Post. The Prince Imperial
was their protégé and as they were supposed to have vast influence,
and to have given the King of Spain his crown, Gower thinks they
might succeed in making the Prince Emperor – “ceux qui vivrons,
verrons”.]
[transcript of a letter from Canon
Harford, dated Dec. 17th, from Dean’s Yard : “Dear
Lord Ronald, I hope that you are not feeling depressed in having so
grandly brought an action against the malicious scoundrel whom many
of us would like to see flogged around London daily for a week, after
going through 24 hours of the pillory. It is the duty of everybody to
endeavour to cheer you up at present in every way, for these things
are horribly taxing….. but you know well, I feel sure, that all the
English public are admiring you and thanking you for what you have
done in taking one of these blackguards by the neck, and that good
men on all sides will spring up to render you…….. etc.” Gower
had also read a supportive column in the American Register, and had
received a letter from the correspondent, Howard Paul, asking to see
the Marie Antoinette at some time during the next month. He was
London correspondent for a number of American newspapers.]
27 Dec. – This morning my brothers
drove him [the Prince Imperial] to the show rooms at Mintons, where
Minton Campbell received him. He and Sabine Greville made several
purchases.
[Interleaved, a clever piece
contributed by Gower to Vanity Fair, on the public lamentation over
Princess Alice’s death. He received thanks for this from Francis
Knollys on behalf of the Prince of Wales]
[Thoughts for the end of the year
conclude with – “Doré said to me when I was last in Paris, ‘La
vie est une chose bien triste quand la jeunesse est passé’, and my
youth is now pretty well ‘passé’.
1879 – This year 1879 began
for me not altogether pleasantly, for there is still a possibility,
but not a probability, that the action for libel I have brought
against a newspaper called the Man of the World may develop into a
trial. Should ever this be the case I have nothing to fear, but of
course I cannot conceal from myself that it would be a very
unpleasant circumstance.
[After this is decided] I shall be
free to go to Paris, where I am longing to return, to finish the
statuette of Ld. Beaconsfield and continue my ‘magnum opus’, the
Monument to Shakespeare.
Ended 1878 at Eaton Hall, but
returned to London on the 2nd, once again to see Irving
playing Hamlet at the Lyceum. I cannot say I think Irving improving,
but altogether it is a fine piece of acting. The rest of the company
was painfully bad.. Called at Downing Street to hear if Ld.
Beaconsfield was in town, and was informed that he was in Hughenden
(I wish to see him before returning to Paris, where I have a
statuette of him commenced, which I hope to form a pendant to that of
Gladstone).
3 Jan. – I looked in at
Brucciani’s where the Old Guard and the statuette of Gladstone are
being cast. [transcript of a letter from Disraeli from Hughenden,
Jan. 5th, saying he is prepared to sit when convenient to
Gower]
7 Jan. – [Note from Disraeli’s
secretary to say he was confined to bed.]
8 Jan. - [account of the movement
of the Old Guard. How, after RA exh. of 1877 it went to Elkington’s
shop in Regent Street, “where I had some faint hope of its finding
a purchaser, and where it has remained till just the other day, when
I got Brucciani to make a couple of plaster casts of it & then
send it down here, where in front of the house I have placed a
pedestal (occupied until it fell into pieces and a cast done in
Paris…….has remained outside the house for 2 or three months),
and now I hope it will remain in front of my house as long as I live,
or live in it. Two of Brucciani’s men brought it down from London &
I got them, while here, to ‘bronze’, i.e. paint in bronze colour
the frieze of my drawing room door, which is cast from the outer
portions of Ghiberti’s gates in Florence, and which (now that it is
bronzed) looks, as Michelangelo said of the original ‘worthy to be
the Gates of Paradise’]
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