The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-04 00:00:00

THE LATE RICHARD FORD.

There arc few persons connected with letters and
arts, or the social-life of London, who will hear
without concern of the death of Richard. Ford. He
died on the Ist of the month, in the 62d year of his
age, at his house at Heavitree, near Exeter. His
various tastes and accomplishments, his large and
keen sympathies, genial nature, and social position
had brought him into contact and acquaintance-
ship with men of all pursuits ; and when he made
an acquaintance he seldom failed also to make a
friend.

His father, Sir Richard Ford, descended from an
ancient Sussex family, was in 1789 M.P. for East
Grinstead, and afterwards for many years chief
police magistrate of London. Richard, the eldest
son, was born in Sloane-street in 1796. Educated
at Winchester, he graduated at Trinity College, Ox-
ford, and was called to the bar in Lincoln's-inn.
Although he was for awhile the pupil of Mr. Pem-
berton Leigh, whose high legal ability has lately
raised him to the peerage, Mr. Ford did not pursue
the profession of the law.
The opening of the continent at the downfall of
Napoleon I. and prospects of hereditary affluence
enabled him to indulge in foreign travel, which
extended over several years and the greater
part of Europe. He began very early to de-
velop his tastes for the fine arts, and to lay
the foundation of his choice library, and his
rich collection of drawings and engravings. In
1830 he visited. Spain, where he passed several
years, wintering in the south, and spending the
summer in rambles over the provinces of the Penin-
sula—lands, at that time, rarely trodden by the
tourist. A long residence in the Alhambra of
Granada, and his winters at Seville, enabled him to
digest the information acquired during his wander-
ings by vega and. sierra, and fixed the direction of
those studies whioh were to employhis future leisure
and adorn the literature of this country. On his re-
turn to England, after an absence of about three
' years, he settled in Devonshire, at Heavitree, near
Exeter, where he builthimscif a charming residence,
and surrounded it with gardens and terraces, which
he adorned with graceful Moorish buildings, and
planted with pines and cypresses from historic
groves by the Xcnil and Ouadalquivir. He also
became a regular contributor to the Quarterly Re-
clew, then under the editorship of his friend, Mr.
Lockhart; and his articles, generally upon subjects
connected with the life, literature, and art of Spain,
were soon eagerly looked for by the readers of that
periodical, and became important aids to its value
and popularity. We believe his first contribution
was the learned yet lively paper in No. CXVI., in
1836, on the unpromising subject of Devonshire cob
walls, which he connected with.the ancient tapia of
Arabic architecture, a paper which immediately
commanded public attention, and was the forerunner
of a lono• list of brilliant essays, which was termi-
nated by review of " Tom Brown's School Days,"
in No. CCIV., in 1857. In 1837 he published his first
independent work, " As Historical Inquiry into the
Unchangeable Character of a War in Spain," Bvo.,
London (Murray) pp. iv., 76, a pamphlet full of
varied lore and powerful argument, not unmingled
with caustic sarcasm, in reply to one called " The
Policy of England towards Spain," published in de-
fence of the policy of Lord Palmerston, and under
the noble Lord's patronage. A year or two after-
wards Mr. Ford went to Italy and passed the winter
of 1839-40 in Rome, where he added largely to his
already rich artistic collection, especially to the
cabinet of Majolica. The greater part of this cabinet
he afterwards disposed of at Christie and Manson's,
and some of the Bernal
sale gems of the celebrated
were
the
Ii
pi
eked
up,
at the moderate prices of
that day, by that unwearied and successful collec-
tor. Soon after his return to England Mr. Ford
entered upon the work upon which his literary re-
putation mainly rests, the Handbook fir Spain.
His friend Mr. Murray had. some years before in-
augurated a new era m guide-book literature by
the publication of that admirable handbook for
North Germany which remains a model for books
of its class. He now invited Mr. Ford to take
Spain in hand, and Mr. Ford accepted the invita-
tion. Like many other great works, this book,
perhaps, might never have been written had its
author accurately estimated the magnitude of the
task and distinctly foreseen the amount of deep re-
search and patient labour which lay between the
promise and the performance. Those of Mr. Ford's
friends who were admitted to the " den " at Heavi-
tree, the garden house embowered in myrtle and
ivy, where the work was accomplished, will well
remember the long deal shelves laden with parch-
ment-clad folios and quartos, the inky deal table,
the crammed pigeon-holes, and the piles of manu-
script which encumbered the chairs and the floor,
and the kindly, lively author in his black jacket of
Spanish sheepskin, doing the honours of his book-
rarities,- pouring forth his huthorous complaints of
the slavery to which he had unwittingly condemed
himself—complaints diversified with Spanish pro-
verb and English jest; and they will remember
these things with a sigh that they are to see that
bright eye and hear that pleasant voice no more.
In the summer of 1845, however, the two goodly
volumes, of upwards of 800 pages, were laid on the
counter in Albemarle•street, headed by a slight but
very graceful notice in the. Quarterly from the pen
of Mr. Lockhart. Two thousand copies of a book,
humble in title, unattractive in outward form, and
considerable in price (305.), were sold within the
year ; and the work, which the-public bought with
eagerness, the reviewers praised with enthusiasm.
So great a literary achievement had never before
been performed under so unpretending an ap-
pellation ; and the Handbook for Spain took its
place among the best books of travel, humour, and
history, social, literary, political, and. artistic, in
the English language. A second edition—reduced
to one volume, and, in the opinion of most of Mr.
Ford's readers, far too sternly abridged—appeared
in 1847, and also met with a large sale. The book
went for a third time to the study at Heavitree,
and was almost rewritten by the laborious and
fastidious author. The third edition, which happily
resumed the original dimensions, was published in
1855, and for many years to come will serve, as for
thirteen years it has served, as the faithful and
way-beguiling guide of the British traveller and
the rich quarry of the more ambitious British
writer on Spain.
Mr. Ford's Gatherings from Spain, two small
volumes of charming sketches and essays, were
published in 1848. The notices of the pictorial
illustrations of the Campaigns of the Duke of Wel-
lington, painted by Mr. Telbin, and exhibited. in
Regent-street in 1853, were also among the lighter
and not the least graceful productions of Mr. Ford's
pen,
and proofs of his ready kindness and. unflag-
ging enthusiasm for the eosas de Espana, the
things of the land which he called " well-beloved
Sp am."
In politics Mr. Ford held. the opinions which may
be supposed to have been held by a contributor to
the Quarterly during the Croker ascendancy in that
journal, and during the- Conse.TatiTe reaction after