| 282 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
Before commencing the strictly chronological arrangement that I propose to observe throughout the remainder of this correspondence, relating to the literary life of Mr. Plumer Ward, it may be well to put down such other of my recollections of his personal and intellectual character, and his habits of thought and feeling, as may seem to point at and illustrate his published writings.
For those who looked at Mr. Plumer
Ward as the author of “Tremaine” and “De
Vere” (and few who knew him could help doing this after the publication of
those works), there was something remarkably characteristic in his personal appearance,
deportment, tone of voice, &c., at the time I have just referred to. Though
considerably advanced in life (he was, I think, sixty-three
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 283 |
As the present seems a fitting place to introduce all that I have to say further on this part of my subject, it must be understood that what follows applies, not merely to my first impressions, received on the occasion just alluded to, but generally to the whole of my intercourse with Mr. Plumer Ward, from the date of my first correspondence with him, in 1825, up to within a few days of his death, in 1846.
In Mr. Plumer Ward’s personal appearance and
demeanour the dignity and gravity of age were so sweetly and happily blended with the
freshness of youth, and the warmth and vivacity of boyhood—I might almost
| 284 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
I have never seen so thoroughly happy a temperament—a man of such truly
“blest condition;” and this, whether the mood of his mind happened to be grave
or gay; whether he was discussing the political changes of the time (so little palatable to
his old high Tory habits, principles, and associations) with some retired statesman of his
own standing, or the revolutions of fashion with some court beauty or oracle of the new
era; whether soberly and sagely discussing and enjoying the poetry of Shakspeare and Milton (the two gods of his literary idolatry), or laughing good-naturedly
at what he deemed the new-fangled theories and fantastical practices of Wordsworth or Tennyson, neither of whom I could ever persuade him to read with sufficient
care and attention to lay the grounds of a fair critical opinion, much less of a personal
feeling. It was the same, I found, with Byron and
Moore. He had read
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 285 |
Perhaps this determination may be regarded as one of the many happy results
of that strong and clear good sense which was the marking and guiding feature of Mr. Plumer Ward’s singularly varied intellect, which
included a greater number and amount of what are usually deemed incompatible qualities than
any I have ever met with, either in life or in books—all of them being held in due order
and subjection by that admirable “common sense” just alluded to. With the
world-wisdom of a sage of the olden time he united the enthusiasm of a youthful poet; to
the mental grasp and moral ken of a recluse philosopher he added the
| 286 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
The result of all this was, that there has rarely been a man so singularly fitted to please in society, and who did please so many different classes and grades of persons; none who ever displeased so few: for even those (and there are such) who were disposed to disparage, or at least to underrate, his writings, were invariably fascinated by his social converse.
The reason seems to have been that Plumer
Ward was “all things to all men,” and to all women too,
without for an instant compromising his own self-respect, or departing from the natural
bent of his temper and tone of mind. So many-sided was his intellect, and so perfect the
reflective power of
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 287 |
It is, perhaps, still more to the purpose of these pages to observe, that I have never seen so singular and marked a correspondence between a writer and his works, as in the case of Plumer Ward; not in a general sense (which in this case would be no sense at all), but in reference to the particular and marking personal features of his various productions. In this respect no man ever wrote more directly and distinctly from himself. And yet no man was ever less of an egotist, or had less of intellectual vanity, in the disparaging sense of those phrases.
So true is this latter fact, that the almost incredulous wonder he felt and
expressed at the admiration his works excited in those who duly appreciated them, sometimes
assumed the appearance of an affectation of humility and modesty; whereas so real was his
diffidence as to his own powers and their results, that it has, even in my own case,
| 288 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
But I am in some degree departing from my design of pointing out the personal correspondence existing between Plumer Ward and the chief individual portraits that his writings have impressed upon their readers.
There was something in the face of Plumer Ward
singularly indicative of those two leading but rarely combined features of his writings,
the union of which distinguishes them from all others of their class, namely, the
astonishing shrewdness and sagacity of their views and delineations of our common nature,
as influenced and modified by the existing condition of society; and those contrasting
views and delineations of that same
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 289 |
As these Recollections are specially addressed to those who are intimately acquainted with Plumer Ward’s writings, it would be superfluous to do more than allude in passing to such characters as Tremaine, De Vere, and De Clifford, on the one hand; and such as Herbert and Harclai, or Manners and Flowerdale, on the other.
And this remarkable contrast was depicted in the face of the writer, in a way that was almost startling. Its effect was increased, too, by the singular physical resemblance which the upper part of his face bore to that of Sir Walter Scott; a resemblance which (probably on account of its marked discrepancy with the lower part of the face) was rarely noticed by casual observers, but when once seen or pointed out, could never again be overlooked or forgotten.
With the almost preternatural shrewdness and penetration of the brows and
eyes, however, the resemblance of Plumer Ward to
Walter Scott ended. The steadfast firmness
| 290 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
Pursuing this point a step further, it may be difficult to imagine beforehand how the cold and world-wearied, the fastidious and aristocratic, the proud and sensitive “Tremaine,” and the cordial, warm-souled, hearty, happy, headlong, hail-fellow-well-met Jack Careless, could have been, as it were, personally suggested and shadowed forth to the mind by one and the same living individual. Yet such was undoubtedly the case—so much so, that, with those who intimately knew the writer, and had looked at the characters in question with something more than a mere circulating-library ken, it was impossible not to feel that they were self-derived.
It was the same with the stately and
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 291 |
On the other hand, in his daily intercourse with his neighbour tenants, or
their wives and daughters, Mr. Ward was a very
Sir Roger de Coverley in simplicity and bonhommie; and I never remember to have heard him describe the
enjoyment of anything with half so much gusto as he did that of a “bacon and
cabbage” dinner (all he could get) at a little public-house in a rural village near
town (Walthamstow, I think), where he had gone alone to look at the house
| 292 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
This point might be pursued, with more or less of personal application, through a large number of the chief individual portraits which occur in Plumer Ward’s works. But I will close the speculation (such it will be deemed by some) by observing, that at least he himself would not have wholly repudiated the impeachment; on the contrary, he sometimes gave the clue to it, both in his conversation and his letters;—and it may be interesting to note here that the character in particular between which and his own he was the least unwilling that a resemblance should be discerned was that of Manners, in “De Clifford,” as the following extracts from two different letters will show. They were written to me at the time that “De Clifford”
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 293 |
Speaking of his being left alone for the day on account of his family having gone “to leave all our duties with the Queen Dowager” (who was visiting in the neighbourhood of his then residence, Okeover-Hall, Staffordshire), he continues:—
“Thank Heaven, I myself have done with etiquette, and have reached
that happy time when I have a legitimate right (which you have only usurped) to sit all the
morning, and even to pace my garden, en robe de
chambre. In short (except that I am far happier in a wife with whom
I am absolutely every hour more and more in love, even in the admiring sense of the phrase), there is a certain Mr. Manners in the MS., between whom and myself I request and desire
you will discover a considerable affinity. This I tell you, for your comfort, against
the time when you shall be near seventy-six. It is really certain that, much
| 294 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
* Okeover Hall. † During the minority of the young heir, Mr. Charles Okeover, son of Mrs. Plumer Ward by her first husband. |
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 295 |
“Prejudice and illusion, you will say. To which I reply—how much happier, in a thousand instances, than reality! In short, ever since I could read, I have felt that I would rather be Sir Roger de Coverley than Cæsar; and here, at least, I am more like him than at Gilston.”
Again, in the postscript to a subsequent letter, he says:—
“I am quite glad that I did not send off this before to-day’s letters came in, as it gives me an opportunity of adding my thanks (how due!) for all the kind and gratifying things you say about points and persons,* as to which I had some little anxiety. That you should speak of Manners and Lady Hungerford as you do, is, I assure you, not only most pleasant, but most encouraging, when, from my own doubts of the execution, I wanted encouragement. Lady A—— (an excellent judge, being herself one of the most sensible and best bred women in
* In “De Clifford,” then passing through the press. |
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