Martin Farquhar Tupper - My Life as an Author

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"He felt in isolation
'_Civis Romanus sum_,'
And trusted his great nation
Right sure that help would come:
Could he have dreamt that British power
Which placed him at his post,
In peril's long-expected hour
Would leave him to be lost?

"He lives alone for others,--
Himself he scorns to save,
And ev'n with savage brothers
Will share their bloody grave!
Woe! woe to us! should England's glory,
To our rulers' blame,
Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story,
England! in thy shame."

This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for
England's Christian hero ever since.

* * * * *

When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national
heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:--

_The Good Earl._

"Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead;
He lives! Ascended from that dying bed,
Clad in an incense-cloud of human love,
His happy spirit met the blest above;
And as his feet entered the golden door,
With him flew in loud blessings of the poor;
While in a thrilling chorus from below--
Millions of children, saved by him from woe,
With their sweet voices joined the seraphim
Who thronged in raptured haste to welcome him!

"For God had given him grace, and place, and power
To bless the destitute from hour to hour;
And from a child to fourscore years and four,
All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor,
O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child!
O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild!
O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame!
Ye know your friend--by myriads bless his name!
We need not utter it--The Good, The Great,
These are his titles in that Blest Estate."

I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose.
Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the Shoeblack Brigade about
Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far
he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my
astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his
mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper. I never said who
wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him
happy with some pears.

Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an
Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till
now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our
highest:--

_In Memoriam J.B._

"Simple, pious, honest man,
Child of heaven while son of earth,
We would praise, for praise we can,
Thy good service, thy great worth;
Through long years of prosperous place
In the sunshine of the Crown,
With man's favour and God's grace
Humbly, bravely, walked John Brown.

"Faithful to the Blameless Prince,
Faithful to the Widowed Queen,
Loved,--as oft before and since
Truth and zeal have ever been,--
His no pedigree of pride,
His no name of old renown,
Yet in honour lived and died
Nature's nobleman, John Brown."

Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a
dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:--

_Dear Brother Dan's Latest Whisper._

"'Life unto life!' This was the whispered word
That from my dying brother's lips I heard
Faintly and feebly uttered, in the strife
Of Nature's agony,--'Life--unto--life!'
Yea, brother! for thou livest; death is dead,
And life rejoiceth unto life instead;
No sins, no cares, no sorrows, and no pains,--
But deep delights, unutterable gains,
Now are thy portion in that higher sphere,
The heritage of God's own children here
Who loved their Lord awhile on earth, and now
Live to Him evermore in love--as thou!"

And in this connection I will print here a psychological poem of mine,
not to be found in any other of my books:--

_Memory._

I.

"When the soul passes Eternity's portal,
In that Hereafter of Being Elsewhere,
When this poor earthworm becomes an Immortal,
Risen to Life Incorruptible There;
If in some semblance of spirit and feature,
Still to be recognised one and the same,
Not in its entity quite a new creature,
But as a growth of the world whence it came,--

II.

"Oh, what a river of gladness or sadness
Then must gush out from quick memory's well,
Infinite ecstasy, uttermost madness,
As the quick conscience greets Heaven--or Hell!
Whilst he reviews old scenes and past travels,
Grained in himself and engraved on his soul,
As the knit robe of his timework unravels
And his whole life is unmeshed to its goal.

III.

"Yea, for within him, far more than without him,
Works ever following, evil or good,
Happiness, misery, circling about him,
Plant a man's foot in the soil where he stood:
If he was sensual, sordid, and cruel,
Sensual, cruel, and base let him be,
If he have guarded his soul as a jewel,
Holy and happy and blessed be he!

IV.

"For that the seeds both of Hell and of Heaven
Darnel or wheat-corn, crowd memory's mart,
And though all sin be repented, forgiven,
Yet recollections must live in the heart:
Still resurrected each moment's each action
Comes up for conscience to judge it again,
Joy unto peace or remorse to distraction,
Growing to infinite pleasure or pain.

V.

"Thy many sins were the ruin of others,
Though the chief sinner's own guilt may be waived:
What! shall the doom of those sisters and brothers
Not be a sorrow to thee that art saved?
Can utter selfishness be God's Nirwana,
Blest--with our brethren of blessing bereft?
Must not His Heaven seem poorer and vainer,
Where one is taken and others are left?

VI.

"Oh, there is hope in His mercy for ever--
Yea, for the worst, after ages of woe,
Till on this side of the uttermost Never,
Even the devils His mercy may know!
Punished and purified, Justice and Reason
Well would rejoice if the Judge on His throne
Grant His salvation to all in full season,
Ruling, in bliss, all His works as His own.

VII.

"Every creature, redeemed and recovered
Through the One sacrifice offered for all,
Where sin and death so fatally hovered,
Mercy triumphant in full o'er the fall!
Thus shall old memories harmonise sweetly
With the grand heavenly anthem above,
As this sad life that was shattered so fleetly,
Then is made whole in the Infinite Love."

It may count as one of my heresies in an orthodox theological sense, but
I certainly cling to the great idea of Eternal Hope; and, after any
amount of retributive punishment for purifying the "lost" soul, I look
for ultimate salvation to all God's creatures. This short and partial
trial-scene of ours is not enough to make an end with: we begin here and
progress for ever elsewhere. Evil must die out, and good must survive
alone for ever.

CHAPTER XXII.

PROTESTANT BALLADS.

Among my many fly-leaves, scattered by thousands from time to time in
handbills or in newspapers all over the world, those in which I have
praised Protestantism and denounced the dishonesty of our ecclesiastic
traitors have earned me the highest meed both of glory and shame from
partisan opponents. Ever since in my boyhood, under the ministerial
teaching of my rector, the celebrated Hugh M'Neile, at Albury for many
years, I closed with the Evangelical religion of the good old Low Church
type, I have by my life and writings excited against me the theological
hatred of High Church, and Broad Church, and No Church, and especially
of the Romanizers amongst our Established clergy. Sundry religious
newspapers and other periodicals, whose names I will not blazon by
recording, have systematically attacked and slandered me from early
manhood to this hour, and have diligently kept up my notoriety or fame
(it was stupid enough of them from their point of view) by quips and
cranks, as well as by more serious onslaughts, about which I am very
pachydermatous, albeit there are pasted down in my archive-books all the
paragraphs that have reached me. But, even as in hydraulics, the harder
you screw the greater the force, so with my combative nature, the more I
am attacked the more obstinately I resist. Hence the multitude and
variety of my polemical lucubrations,--mostly of a fragmentary character
as Sibylline leaves: some, however, appear in my "Ballads and Poems"
(among them a famous "Down with foreign priestcraft," circulated by
thousands in the Midlands by an unknown enthusiast),--and Ridgeway of
Piccadilly has published in pamphlet form my "Fifty Protestant Ballads
and Directorium," which originally appeared in the _Daily News_, and
_The Rock_: I have certainly written as many more, and among these one
which I will here reproduce as now very scarce, and lately of some
national importance: seeing that it was sent by my friend Admiral
Bedford Pim to every member of the two Houses of Legislature on the
Bradlaugh occasion, and was stated to have turned the tide of battle in
that celebrated case.

_"So Help Me, God!"_

"'So help me, God!' my heart at every turn
Of life's wide wilderness implores Thee still
To give all good, to rescue from all ill,
And grant me grace Thy presence to discern.

"'So help me, God!' I would not move a yard
Without my hand in Thine to be my guide,
Thy love to bless, Thy bounty to provide,
Thy fostering wing spread over me to guard.

"'So help me, God!' the motto of my life,
In every varied phase of chance and change,
So that nought happens here of sad or strange
But 'peace' is written on each frown of strife.

"For Thou dost help the man that honoureth Thee!
Ay, and Thy Christian-Israel of this land
That hitherto hath recognised Thy hand,
How blest above the nations still are we!

"Yet now our Senate schemes to spurn aside
(On false pretence of liberal brotherhood)
The Heavenly Father of our earthly good,
Because one atheist hath his God denied!

"What, shall this wrong be done? Must all of us
Groan under coming judgment for the sin
Of welcoming avowed blasphemers in
To vote with rulers who misgovern thus?

"So help us, God! it shall not: England's might
Stands in religion practised and profest;
For so alone by blessing is she blest,
Christian and Protestant in life and light."

To gratify an eminent friend who wished not to exclude Jews and
Mahometans from an open profession of godliness as they viewed the
question, I altered, in subsequent reprints, the last line, "Christian
and Protestant in life and light," to "Loving and fearing God in faith
and light:" though personally my sturdy Orangeism inclined to the
original. I will in this place give a remarkable extract in a letter to
me from Gladstone, to whom my faithfulness had appealed, exhorting him,
as I often have done, to be on the right side: we know how he quoted
Lucretius on the wrong: against which I wrote a strong protest in the
_Times_. I like not to show private letters,--but this is manifestly a
public one. He says: ... "I thank you for your note, and I can assure
you that I believe the promoters of the Affirmation Bill to be already
on the side you wish me to take, and its opponents to be engaged in
doing (unwittingly) serious injury to religious belief." It is strange
to see how much intellectual subtlety combined with interested
partisanship can be self-deceived, even in a man who believes himself
and is thought by others thoroughly conscientious.

Amongst other of my recent notorious ballads of the polemic sort, I
ought to name a famous couple--"The Nun's Appeal," and "Open the
Convents"--which were written at the request of Lord Alfred Churchill,
and given to Edith O'Gorman, the Escaped Nun (otherwise the excellent
and eloquent Mrs. Auffray), to aid her Protestant Lectures everywhere:
she has circulated them over the three kingdoms, and is now doing the
like in Australia and New Zealand.

In reply to some excellent members of the Romish Church, who have
publicly accused me of maligning holy women and sacred retreats, my
obvious answer is that I contend against the evil side both of nunneries
and monkeries, whilst I may fairly admit some good to be found in both.
My real protest is for liberty both to mind and body, and against
coercion of any kind, material or spiritual. Given perfect freedom, I
would not meddle with any one's honest convictions: "to a nunnery go" if
thou wilt; only let the resolve be revocable, not a doom for ever.

CHAPTER XXIII.

PLAYS.

One of my latest publications is that of my "Trilogy of Plays," with
twelve dramatic scenes,--issued by Allen & Co., of Waterloo Place. The
first of the three, "Alfred," was put upon the stage at Manchester by
that ill-starred genius, Walter Montgomery, who was bringing it out also
at the Haymarket, a very short time before his lamentable death. He was
fond of the play and splendidly impersonated the hero-king, in the
opening scene having trained his own white horse to gallop riderless
across the stage when Alfred was supposed to have been defeated by the
Danes. The vision in act ii. scene i. was thrillingly effective; and the
whole five acts went very well from beginning to end, the audience being
preternaturally quiet,--which disconcerted me until my theatrical mentor
praised the silence of that vast crowd, as the best possible sign of
success: they were held enthralled as one man till the end came, and
then came thunder. Not thinking of what was expected of me in the way of
thanks for the ovation their concluding cheers assailed me with, I got
out of the theatre as quick as I could, and was half way to my hotel
when two or three excited supers rushed after me with a "Good God, Mr.
Tupper, come back, come back, or the place will be torn down!" so of
course I hurried to the front--to encounter a tumult of applause;
although I must have looked rather ridiculous too, crossing the stage in
my American cloak and brandishing an umbrella! However, no one but
myself seemed to notice the incongruity, and as I had humbly obeyed the
people's will, they generously condoned my first transgression. I ought
to record that my heroine Bertha was charmingly acted by Miss Henrietta
Hodgson, now Mrs. Labouchere, who will quite recollect her early triumph
in Martin Tupper's first play. My best compliments and kindly
remembrance I here venture to offer to her.

The second play, "Raleigh," is very differently constructed; for whereas
the time of action in "Alfred" was three days,--that of "Raleigh" was
sixty years: in fact with the former I dramatised a single conquest,
with the latter the varied battles of a long life. I have several times
read all my plays before audiences at my readings, and know the points
that tell. In "Raleigh" the introduction of Shakespeare, the cloak
incident, the trial scene, Elizabeth's death, and the terrible climax of
the noble victim's execution on the stage, seemed chiefly to interest
and excite the audience.

I wrote "Washington" principally to please my many friends in America,
whither I was going for a second time; but it rather damped me to find,
when at Philadelphia during its Grand Exhibition, and was giving
"Readings out of my own Works" through the Star Company, that my
_entrepreneur_ stoutly objected to my proposal to read this new play of
mine, with the remark,--"No, sir, our people are tired of George
Washington,--he's quite played out: give us anything else of yours you
like." As he was my financial provider, and paid well, of course I had
to acquiesce.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the play was the account of my
discovery of Washington's heraldry: here is part of the passage; the
whole being too long to quote: one asks "Coat-of-arms?--what was this
coat-of-arms?" and Franklin answers,--

"I'll tell you, friends,
I've searched it out and known it for myself,
When late in England there, at Herald's College
And found the Washingtons of Wessyngton
In county Durham and of Sulgrave Manor,
County Northampton, bore upon their shield
Three stars atop, two stripes across the field
Gules--that is red--on white, and for the crest
An eagle's head upspringing to the light,
It's motto, Latin, "Issue proveth acts."
The architraves at Sulgrave testify,
And sundry painted windows in the hall
At Wessyngton, this was their family coat.
They took it to their new Virginian home:
And at Mount Vernon I myself have noted
An old cast-iron scutcheoned chimney-back
Charged with that heraldry."

In my first American Journal will be found more about this discovery of
mine--in 1851--then quite new even to Americans. Here in London, Mr.
Tuffley of Chelsea and Northampton has popularised the original
coat-of-arms with a view to ornamental jewellery for our Transatlantic
cousins.

Among my twelve dramatic scenes, the most appropriate to mention in this
volume of personalia, are the two which detail certain perilous matters
affecting the lives of two ancient ancestors, the one on my mother's
side, the other on my father's. The latter records the historic incident
whereby John Tupper saved the Channel Islands for William and Mary
(receiving from them a gold collar and medal, now in our heraldry) and
enabling Admiral Russell to win his naval victory at La Hogue. The
former shows how nearly an Arthur Devis at Preston paid the penalty of
death owing to his strange resemblance to Charles Edward the Young
Pretender, for whom the savage Government of the time offered a reward
of L30,000 to any one who could catch him alive or dead. My mother's
ancestor was thus very nearly murdered in 1745 for his good looks, as a
life-sized portrait at Albury, and an ivory miniature here at Norwood,
help to prove. If any wish to know more about these matters, I dare say
that Messrs. Allen aforesaid have _one_ copy left: if not, consult
Mudie, that virtuous philanthropist who benefits the reading public at
the cost of the private author.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANTIQUARIANA.

My most literary antiquarianism was an article I wrote for the
_Quarterly Review_ on Coins, accepted by Lockhart and inserted in one of
the Nos. for 1843; he protested that "I could not be the Proverbial
Philosopher, as my looks were too like David's,--it must be my
father."--No, I replied, it is my father's son. However, when he read
and approved my Coin article, he began to be convinced. I give here his
letter to me on his acceptance:--

"Sir,--I am at present terribly overburdened with MSS.,
and know not whether I can send a proof of your paper for some
weeks; but I like it much, and it shall be put into type as soon as
I can manage. I assure you I am greatly pleased, and sincerely your
obliged

"J.G. Lockhart.

"Sussex Place, _February 16, 1843_."

I expostulated with him as to divers omissions for space' sake, and for
some unauthorised alterations; but editors are nothing if not
autocratic, as we all know. My article (I find it noted) was written on
the numismatic works of Cardwell and of Akerman, and took me ten days in
its composition, I tried Lockhart with a second article on "Ancient
Gems," but it failed to please. I never had an interview with him but
once, and then he seemed to me brusque and cynical at first, warming a
little afterwards. I have written also on Druidism; and the mystery of
Easter Island, which I take to be the remains of a submerged Pacific
continent, with its deified statues on the top of an extinct volcano.
And I have flung my pen into many other _melees_ of discussion both old
and new; for it may be stated as a feature in my literary life that I
have had, one after another, all the ologies on my brain, and have
personally made small collections of minerals, fossils, insects, and the
like: special hobbies having been agates picked up in my rambles on
every beach from Yarmouth to Sidmouth, and coins at Roman stations
wherever I found them; besides a host of numismatic treasures bought at
Sotheby's auction-room, but long since sold again, as well as sundry
Egyptian and other antiquities. In particular, the Roman discoveries at
Farley Heath in the neighbourhood of Albury were mainly due to my
juvenile antiquarianism, when as a student along with Harold Browne (now
Bishop of Winchester) we used to search for coins there, and found one
happy day a Gallienus: all which I recorded years after in a now scarce
booklet, "Farley Heath, and its Roman Remains," published, with
illustrations, by Andrews, Guildford. Ultimately the finds of coin (from
Nero to Honorius), some being rare and finely patinated, as well as
several small bronzes, and old British money, were given by Mr. Drummond
(who as lord of the manor employed labourers in the search for many
months) to the British Museum, where they fill a niche near the
prehistoric room.

Some of our finds were very curious, _e.g._, we were digging in the
black mould of the burnt huts round the wall-foundations (all above
ground of said hectagonal wall having since been ruthlessly utilised by
parochial economists in making a road across the heath), and found
amongst other spoil a little green bronze ring,--which I placed on the
finger of our guest of the day, Mrs. Barclay of Bury Hill: oddly enough
it had six angles exactly like one of gold she wore as her
wedding-guard. Again; we had picked up some pieces of pottery decorated
with human finger-tips,--just as modern cooks do with pie-crust; a son
of mine said, perhaps we shall find a dog's foot on some tile,--and just
as he said it, up came from the spade precisely what he was guessing at,
the large footprint of dog or wolf stamped fifteen centuries ago on the
unbaked clay. Again; I was leaving for an hour a labourer in whose
industry and honesty I had not the fullest faith. So in order to employ
him in my absence, I set him to dig up an old thorn bush and told him to
give me when I returned the piece of money he would find under it. To my
concealed but his own manifest astonishment, he gave me when I came back
a worn large brass of Nero, saying with a scared face, "However could
you tell it was there, sir?" I looked wise, and said nothing.

Among the rarest copper coins was one of Carausius (our English Carew),
with two heads on it symbolling the ambition of our native usurper to
assert empire over East as well as West, and among more treasure-trove
was a unique gold coin of Veric,--the Bericus of Tacitus; as also the
rare contents of a subterranean potter's oven, preserved to our day, and
yielding several whole vases. Mr. Akerman of numismatic fame told me
that out of Rome itself he did not know a richer site for old-world
curiosities than Farley; in the course of years we found more than 1200
coins, besides Samian ware, and plenty of common pottery, as well as
bronze ornaments, enamelled fibulae, weapons of war, household
implements, &c., both of the old British and the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon,
and more recent periods; Farley having been a praetorian station on the
Ikenild highway. This is quite a relevant episode of my literary
antiquariana. As also is another respecting "My Mummy Wheat," a record
of which found its way into print and made a stir many years ago. It
grew from seeds given to me by Mr. Pettigrew out of an Amenti vase taken
from a mummy pit by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, and very carefully
resuscitated by myself in garden-pots filled with well-sifted mould at
Albury; it proved to be a new and prolific species of the semi-bearded
Talavera kind, and a longest ear of 8-1/2 inches in length (engraved in
an agricultural journal) was sent by me to Prince Albert, then a zealous
British farmer.

Here I will add a very interesting letter to me on the subject from
Faraday, the original being pasted among my autographs. It will be seen
that he excuses having published my letter to him, and refuses to be
called Doctor:--

"Royal Institution, _June 11, 1842_.

"My dear Sir,--Your note was a very pleasant event in my
day of yesterday, and I thank you heartily for it, and rejoice with
you at the success of the crop. It so happened that yesterday
evening was the last of our meetings, and I had to speak in the
lecture-room. The subject was Lithotint: but I placed the one ear
in the library under a glass case, and after my first subject was
over read the principal part of your letter--all that related to
the wheat: and the information was received with great interest by
about 700 persons. Our President, Lord Prudhoe, was in the chair,
and greatly desirous of knowing the age of the wheat. You know he
is learned in Egyptian matters, and was anxious about the label or
inscription accompanying the corn. I hope I have not done wrong,
but I rather fear your letter will be published, or at least the
wheat part, for a gentleman asked me whether he might copy it, and
I instantly gave him leave, but found that he was connected with
the press, the _Literary Gazette_. I hope you will not object since
without thought on my part the matter has gone thus far. The news
is so good and valuable that I do not wonder at the desire to have
it,--Ever your obliged servant,

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