My Friends and Acquaintance
R. Plumer Ward IX
Robert Plumer Ward to Peter George Patmore, 17 February 1827
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“Notwithstanding the very handsome letter you have sent
me from your able friend, I will confine this as much as possible to business,
especially as, with the usual obstinacy of a strong first opinion, the more I
think of the subject the more I am confirmed in it, and have framed my final
alteration accordingly. At the same time I am really quite sorry not to have
your friend’s opinion with me, as it shakes my confidence in my own,
though it does not convince my judgment.
“What I have done is this (for as to this ![]()
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point I entirely agree with your friend)—I have
annihilated Beauclerk, the nephew, but not the uncle, who must be still the
supposed author, who meets De Vere in the
way he does. Without this I must lose perhaps one of the most interesting and
forcible parts of the work—certainly that which creates the whole expectation
and interest to be found in the outset, which, much as I fear I prefer
‘Tremaine’
upon the whole, beats all the introductory part of ‘Tremaine’ twenty to one. However, Mr. Beauclerk himself is made to retire hors de page at about the 116th page of
the first volume, and never appears again; so that everything then proceeds
from a beginning to an end, without the least interruption or division of
interest; and unity (which I so entirely agree with your friend in admiring) is
quite preserved. It will then stand thus: Beauclerk brings you acquainted with De Vere, his mother, and two quondam mentors, and lays the
foundation of an interest about them all, in certain scenes and conversations,
which last through one hundred and sixteen pages, and no more; and he then
says—Having ![]()
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thus excited your curiosity about De Vere’s life, I will tell you its story,
from his boyish days till the most interesting part of it is over. But in doing
this, observe, I have nothing more to say of myself in it, because, previous to
my knowing him, I of course had no share in it; and during the few months after
our first meeting, which complete the story I mean to relate, I was absent from
him. Henceforward, therefore, I am only his biographer, and you will hear no
more of me in person.
“This, then, is all that Beauclerk has to do with it. He then begins with the childhood
of De Vere, and pursues his career through
various vicissitudes of ambition and love, till both are crowned: and this ends
the book.
“With unfeigned deference, therefore, but yet with
confidence, I ask your friend in what is this objectionable? or, if the earlier
part of De Vere’s life (I mean that
previous to the meeting between him and Beauclerk) consumed ten volumes instead of three, or composed
the whole story one had to relate, how is the interest divided, or the plan
mischievous to it? What numbers of books are ![]()
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there wherein
a man, at the zenith of his prosperity, writes his own life up to the moment of
his telling the story. And what does Beauclerk do more than this by De
Vere, after he has thoroughly introduced him to his readers? For
you will please to observe, that Beauclerk
is not writing in the first days of his acquaintance
with De Vere, but in his old age, and in
the way of reminiscence, long after all that composes the story is over.
“Having thus, I trust, satisfactorily explained myself,
I cannot but again thank your friend for all the kind things he is pleased to
say of the execution of the work, distinct from its plan, which very, very much
encourages me. And as to the plan itself, I would adopt his suggestions if I
could; but I think he will see that I could not make Beauclerk meet De Vere
except in the precise time he did; certainly, not a few months before, as he
proposes, for that would have been in the midst of the interest created by
Lord Mowbray’s death, when he
would have been more in the way; and, if you go farther back, De Vere was abroad.
“In short, it would delight me to have ![]()
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your friend’s support as to the plan, if I could;
but if I cannot, except against my own doctrines and decided judgment, his
evident candour will excuse my pursuing the latter. I, however, quite agree
with him in the general fault of all heroes and heroines, that they are
paragons beyond their years; and certainly De
Vere and Constance, from
their matured judgments, ought to be near ten years older than they are. It is
a fault, however, which, as he himself says, is necessary to all similar works,
in order to combine mental with bodily perfection.”
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Robert Plumer Ward (1765-1846)
Tremaine: or, the Man of Refinement. 3 vols (London: H. Colburn, 1825). The first “silver fork” novel.
