In the spring of this year I noticed in the catalogue of Mr. Frank Woore, antiquarian bookseller, of St. Peter’s Street, Derby, two quarto manuscript volumes containing the reminiscences of Charles MacFarlane. The name of the writer was not known to me; but as the manuscript made mention of the names of Shelley, Keats, and Hartley Coleridge, with those of others who will not soon be forgotten, I obtained, by the kindness of Mr. Woore, a sight of the two volumes, and found their contents even more interesting than I had anticipated. Mr. Woore informed me that he had bought them at a country sale, among a number of old ledgers and account books, and that they would probably have been sold as waste paper and destroyed had he not noticed the interesting character of the contents.
My task has been to arrange them, and to correct, to the best of my power, the errors of the amanuenses employed by the author, where their work had not had the benefit of his revision.
I have omitted only a few entries of minor interest, and a few allusions to families which still have living representatives, when I considered that MacFarlane’s outspoken remarks might possibly give them pain. I will now give such few particulars of MacFarlane’s life as I have been able to gather, referring the reader to the “Dictionary of National Biography” for further information.
Charles MacFarlane, author and traveller, was born on
the 18th December, 1799, and died a “Poor
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On a printed leaflet prefixed to his anecdotes, dated “Charterhouse, August, 1857,” he records thirty books written and published by him between the years 1820 and 1857, besides a large number of articles contributed to magazines (cf. Appendix).
Between 1844 and 1846 he wrote three novels or “Historical Tales,” the best of which, “The Camp of Refuge, or the Last of the Saxons,” found considerable favour, and may have given Kingsley the idea for his well-known novel, “Hereward the Wake.”
MacFarlane arrived in Italy in January, 1816, and lived at Naples till the year 1827, when he visited Sicily, Malta, Greece, and Turkey, the result being his “Constantinople in 1828,” published in 1829. In the spring of that year he arrived in London. The autumn and winter of the same year he spent at Brighton, with the object of restoring his health, which had suffered from malarial fever, contracted during his travels. At Brighton he made the acquaintance of his life-long friend, William Stewart Rose, “a man to my heart of hearts,” of whom, and of his friend the Rev. Charles Townsend, he gives such an engaging description.
Soon after this he must have married, for his eldest son Charles was born at Edinburgh on the 4th July, 1832. He lived at Friern Barnet from 1832 to 1846, when he again visited Italy and Turkey with his eldest son, the result being two books, “A Glance at Revolutionized Italy in 1848,” and “Turkey and its Destiny” (2 vols., 1850).
On his return to England he settled at Burgate, Canterbury, till his admission
to the Charterhouse, on the nomination of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in June, 1857. Towards
the end of his life, MacFarlane seems to have fallen on
evil times. His health gave way, and the satisfactory income which he had derived
| INTRODUCTION | ix |
It may have been about this time, as recorded in his reminiscences, that he made an application to the Foreign Office for a consulship abroad. He writes: “I had been making application for a consular appointment in Italy or somewhere else in the Mediterranean, and was feeling a pang in sickness of ‘hope deferred,’ when Lord —— suggested to me that I should have a better chance for some appointment in the Colonies or in the Colonial Office, as that was much more promising than the Foreign Office. I wrote instantly to Rose, who took a warm interest for me, and who had still some little (and little it was) political or parliamentary or ministerial interest. In reply he said: ‘Lord —— is quite right: the Colonial Department is very promising; it promised me a berth for a young friend ten years ago, and it keeps promising still.’”
I am indebted to the Rev. Gerald S. Davies, Master of the Charterhouse, for the information that MacFarlane, at the time of his admission, had five children living: two sons, Charles and Victor, and three daughters, Arabella, Blanche, and Marion.
Charles entered the East Indian Army in 1851, nominated
to a cadetship by Sir James W. Hogg, M.P., at the
recommendation of the Countess of Jersey. He had a
distinguished career, serving in the Burmese War of 1852-53, and during the Mutinies of
1857-58. He was present at the final assault and capture of Delhi, and commanded his regiment
(1st European Regiment) after Colonel Gerrard had been mortally wounded.
He was also present at the final siege and capture of Lucknow, under Lord Clyde, in March, 1858. He obtained his captaincy in January, 1863, and
became Major in January, 1871. He obtained two years’ leave to Europe in
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His younger brother Victor was born in 1838, and at the age of eighteen he enlisted in London as a private in the East India Company’s 2nd Bengal Regiment. He served in the siege and capture of Delhi, where he was wounded in the thigh. He was afterwards promoted to the rank of sergeant, and died on the 5th June, 1859, thus surviving his father only six months.
J. R. Planché, who died in 1880, described MacFarlane as “a most amusing companion and a warm friend,” and I think that those who peruse this book will not be inclined to dispute his judgment. We learn from his Memoirs that he was a little man, proud of his Highland descent, a sturdy Conservative, Churchman, and Anti-Republican. Living, as he did, during his “hot youth” in Naples, where he seems to have experienced much kindness and cordiality in Court circles, he was blinded to the defects of the Bourbon rule, and he did not believe that the Revolutionists had men able enough to overturn it and to erect on its ruins a stabler and better form of government.
The happiest years of his life were spent in Italy. He writes in his
entertaining book, “The Lives and Exploits of
Banditti and Robbers in all Parts of the World” (1st edition, 1831), in one
chapter of which he describes his own capture by brigands when travelling with his friend the
Prince of Ischitella. “And now good-night to Italian
brigands, and once more farewell to Italy!—a country where my brightest days have been
passed, for I can never hope to retrace the pleasant period of life between seventeen years
and twenty-seven; a country for which I may assert a heart-warm admiration, knowing it and
living in it so long as I have done, without, I trust, incurring the suspicion of
sentimentalism or
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“‘Un
sasso
Che distingua le mie dalle infinite Ossa che in terra e in mar semina
morte,’ |
I have not been able to find any portrait of MacFarlane. Is it possible that the “handsome sort of album,” in which his friend Brockedon the artist had drawn his “effigies,” is still in existence?
Many of those who peruse the following pages will no doubt first turn to what MacFarlane writes of Shelley, Keats, and Hartley Coleridge.
What a life-like sketch he draws of the wayward and lovable Hartley, as he walked on that fine day of late autumn from
Grasmere to Bowness, kicking before him the drifts of sere fallen leaves which impeded his
progress, and stopping now and then to stamp his little feet when he wished to emphasize some
point in the flow of his discourse! My aim is, however, only to introduce to readers an author
who, I fear, is now almost forgotten, though most of his works are still worthy of perusal.
Should those who dip into these desultory pages find in them some distraction from sad thoughts
in these stern times, some solace for a few hours in these memories of years which now seem so
far away, my task in preparing them for publication will not have been undertaken in vain.
J. F. TATTERSALL.
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