My Friends and Acquaintance
R. Plumer Ward XX
Robert Plumer Ward to Peter George Patmore, 30 March 1841
“Okeover, March 30, 1841.
“Dear Patmore,—I cannot
help writing to say that I have finished ‘Cecil,’ and am greatly amused with its
ineffable wit and impertinence. I feel your criticism in every line of
it—‘flashy, and crammed too full of cleverness to be good for
much, except to kill time.’ As I suppose Lord Howden* meant no more, it would not be fair to criticise
it.
“As to its moral, it is entirely of the Bulwer school, savouring much of Pelham,
* For some weeks after the publication of
“Cecil,” its authorship (since avowed by Mrs. Gore) was attributed to Lord Howden. |
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and the new plan of holding up one’s fathers and
mothers to ridicule. Nevertheless, the epigrammatic turns and descriptions make
it very pleasant; and the pathetic parts (though Emily
Barnet is a failure) give promise of much power. As a proof of
it, the gipsy gave me a sad nightmare. * * *
“By a puff in the ‘Observer’ I see the Baron de Clifford is out.
“Should you see any review, good, bad, or indifferent,
in any other papers, morning, evening, weekly, or monthly, I will beg you to
send them, and I will reimburse expenses directly. I suppose there can hardly
be one in the ‘New
Monthly.’ If there is, will you send it?
“I would gladly spare you this trouble, but I know not
how to describe what I want to a common newsman, who can obey a matter of fact,
but hardly a discretionary order, which a conditional one would be.
“If you have any more boudoir gossip, I shall be glad
of it, being so much out of the world; but I own it is not fair to ask it,
absorbed as you are. A reason why I should say adieu.
John Hobart Caradoc, second baron Howden (1799-1873)
Son of the first baron (d. 1839); he was aide-de-camp to Wellington in France (1815-18),
had an affair with Emily Cowper, was envoy to Egypt (1827), MP for Dundalk (1830), minister
to Brazil (1847-50), and minister to Madrid (1850-58). Charles Macfarlane described him as
“one of the most handsome and elegant men in Europe,” Sydney Smith as “a
beauty.”
Catherine Grace Frances Gore [née Moody] (1799-1861)
English novelist, the daughter of Charles Moody; she married Charles Arthur Gore in 1823
and wrote a series of best-selling ‘silver-fork’ fictions.
Peter George Patmore [Tims] (1786-1855)
English writer and friend of Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt; an early contributor to
Blackwood's, he was John Scott's second in the fatal duel, editor of
the
Court Journal, and father of the poet Coventry Patmore.
New Monthly Magazine. (1814-1884). Founded in reaction to the radically-inclined
Monthly Magazine,
the
New Monthly was managed under the proprietorship of Henry
Colburn from 1814 to 1845. It was edited by Thomas Campbell and Cyrus Redding from
1821-1830.
