I liked Mrs. Jameson, and have
always considered her one of the best of our living authoresses. She generally writes upon
subjects she well understands, and her various books about art and artists are likely to
last. But Mrs. Jameson, though very fond of admiration, had never much
personal beauty. At a soirée, she went and sat near my friend
George Lillie Craik, who was turning over a
portfolio of drawings and engravings. Except in one particular, I should not rank
Craik among my absent-minded friends. He was distrait only in omnibuses, and in finding his way. He
could seldom get from his cottage at Old Brompton to ours at Friern Barnet without
committing some blunder or other. Generally, at our dinner hour, he would find himself at
Tottenham, or Edmonton, or Enfield, or Ponder’s End, or some other place five or six
miles off, and with no cross-country conveyance. He had to change buses at the Angel at
Islington; he usually got into the wrong one, fell a-thinking or talking, and took no
notice of the road he was travelling. But in all other matters, Craik,
for a Lowland Scotsman, was a smart, brisk, ready-witted fellow. He must have seen
Mrs. Jameson scores of times, and must have known her freckled
complexion, and the ardent colour of her hair. They came upon a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mrs. Jameson
waxed eloquent on the beauty of the poor Queen. “I believe,” said
Craik, in his. quiet way, “it is now
| 112 | MRS. JAMESON | [CHAP. XI |
When this authoress wrote her dismal book about Italy, entitled, “Diary of an Ennuyée,” she was a spinster, living as governess with an English family at Rome, and she was quite desperately in love with Beau Cradock, Lord Howden; who, at that time, was as handsome as the Antinous, and as graceful as the Belvedere Apollo. Poor Cradock, who was never much of a coxcomb, admired her for her vivacity, talent, and eloquence; but he could hardly go farther, and so the demoiselle was sadder than Corinne.
Jameson, who became her husband years after this hopeless amour, had been a schoolfellow with poor dear Hartley Coleridge, who always spoke of him as a good fellow, and as a man of real original genius, who might have done a good deal in literature if he had tried. The common rule, that a very clever husband and a very clever wife seldom agree or live happily together, found no exception in this case. He obtained some Government appointment out in Canada; she remained at home, to write books, and to take care of her old father, a miniature painter by profession, whose sight had failed him. And nobly did she discharge her filial duty, and hard did she work that her father might know no want and miss no comfort. For this, even if her books should be forgotten, let her name be honoured, and let her be enshrined with Southey and other heroes in domestic life.
I think it was about the year 1840 that I was told she had gone out to
Canada, to be reconciled to her
| CHAP. XI] | THE MISSES PORTER | 113 |
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