588

St. Paul's.

DECEMBER 30, 1899.

THE REAL FLORENCE MARRYAT. BY HER DAUGHTER.

The fierce light that beats upon thrones is often not a kindly light. Human nature is not kindly, as a rule—and in excuse for its often erroneous judgments must be pleaded the fact that it has only outward circumstances on which to form them. The real man or woman whose inner self is his or her real self is unknown to it. It becomes, therefore, not only a labour of love, but a duty to those to whom the privilege of intimacy has been given, to lift the veil and admit the outside world into the sanctuary of the human heart, on the altar of which God's Judgment-seat is raised.

I know no woman of her time, the circumstances of whose life laid her more open to misrepresentation, than my mother, Florence Marryat.

The earlier part of her life was spent at Langham Cottage, in Norfolk. Her father was then alive. Under an indulgent paternal rule she lived the free and happy life of a girl blessed with health and spirits, and surrounded by luxury. Later, her life became considerably restricted. Her father died, and her mother, reduced to a narrow income, retired with her four unmarried daughters to a small house at Southsea.

Florence was, at that time, engaged to a young subaltern, who had been a frequent visitor at her grandmother's (Mrs. Joseph Marryat) house, at Wimbledon, and when, a year or two later, it was arranged that she should go out to India to be

married to him, she naturally looked upon the prospect as one of emancipation from the muffin worries, tabby gatherings, and woolwork, which formed the only distractions of the life at Southsea.

MISS MARRYAT'S PET DOG.

She was too young to realise the responsibility of entering into a life-long engagement with a man who was more or less a stranger to her. The sad sequel to that marriage is well known. There were undoubtedly faults on both sides, but the chief one lay in the fact of

the utter unsuitability of character of the parties concerned.

A woman of intellect and artistic tastes is not well mated to a man who is in sympathy with none of these attributes, though himself, doubtless, possessing qualities equally excellent of another class.

After seven years in India, my mother returned home with three small children—herself an invalid, more or less. I can remember myself that in those days jam was a treat and a new frock an occasion—boiled eggs for breakfast on Sundays gave a festal nature to the day, and a tea-party or a pantomime was a red letter in life's calendar.

It was in the effort to escape from this very narrow existence that Florence Marryat first attempted to write. Her first book was successful, and that fact opened a vista which made life possible to her. From that time she lived more completely in her work than in anything else. Though the years that followed were full of ill-health and anxiety—due to the birth of five more children and the increasing pecuniary worry attendant on the education and upbringing of eight—she never relaxed her labours, scarcely for a day.

I always remember her as sad—unsatisfied—with the yearning of a nature seeking completion. This, I think, she might have found in the Roman Catholic religion, which she professed after a year's sojourn in Brussels. The emotional character of that faith was peculiarly adapted to a temperament like hers, which felt the necessity of an actual outpouring of its sins, and derived comfort from an absorption which took tangible form. This comfort was denied her. Her husband's unyielding opposition finally forced her to give way, and left her without anchor on a sea of doubt and darkness. *Après cela—le deluge*—of domestic life and happiness.

Circumstances were her enemy, but her most formidable lay in herself. She possessed faults which, in the main, were virtues, but inconvenient in a nineteenth-century world, which disregards most commandments but the one of its own making—"Thou shall not be found out."

A great and often indiscreet honesty was one of her chief characteristics; add to this a temper quick to resent, though equally quick to forgive, and we have the foundation of a temperament calculated to offend society and upset its code.

She did offend against that code, whose law is not charity, and she paid the penalty. As long as work enabled her to keep her sorrows at bay she lived proud, defiant, and indomitable; when the power of work failed, they overcame her, and she died—of a broken heart.

One of the newspapers spoke of her as one of the busiest women of her time, and no truer remark was ever made. Her capacity for work was marvellous; under all conditions, both physical and mental, she seemed able to maintain it. Speaking of her, one friend wrote so truly: "She had worked so well and for so many years so pluckily, and almost to the last with such marvellous energy, that no one could avoid the feeling that she was to be greatly honoured. She had shown how, in spite of trouble, age, and ill-health, one woman can set an example to many men."

I have known her myself, only in the spring of last year, when suffering from a bad leg and an abscess in the jaw—the latter causing excruciating pain in the ear and head—to sit at her typewriter day after day, and never, in spite of the fact, to allow her morning's work to be shortened by one hour.

Lying on an Indian cane chair, in order that her leg might be in a horizontal position, with her face bandaged, her appearance was calculated to amuse until one realised the pathos of the brave woman's heart, working against the terrible odds of pain and physical disability.

When we were touring together last autumn, she often found herself in rooms where only a minimum of comfort was possible, but she never allowed her work to suffer. After breakfast she would go into her bedroom, where there was seldom a fire, and, putting a cape round her shoulders, would sit down to her typewriter and produce

A CARICATURE OF FLORENCE MARRYAT AS A GIRL.

By Captain Marryat

DECEMBER 30, 1899.

St. Paul's.

589

LANGHAM COTTAGE, WHERE FLORENCE MARRYAT SPENT HER YOUTH.

the ordinary amount of literary matter, undeterred by the cold and often the additional discomfort of a ricketty table.

To enumerate the list of her works would be mere repetition—it has been too often given. In addition to her books there are her lectures, dramas, and innumerable articles, poems, and miscellaneous productions. This is the part of her life's work which is recognised and bears tangible form—the other, less tangible part, was no less considerable.

It is not easy to combine the domestic life of a woman with the working life of a man, and yet this she contrived to do. She found time, in spite of the more serious calls upon it, to write to all her friends and to answer all their letters. The address of a dressmaker, the character of a cook, the recipe for a pudding, no demands were too trivial to be satisfied, and generally by return of post. She never neglected in any detail her cats, dogs, and birds, her flowers and ferns. She generally trimmed her own bonnets—very badly, I admit—and could always make time to dress a doll for a child, or arrange any artistic drapery for her own house. Her mind or her fingers were always at work. Sixteen letters seemed to be little more than a recreation to her, and almost every evening she wou'd sit at the piano, singing old songs and learning new ones with the ardour of a student.

Her small garden was a great delight to her—not unfrequently she was seen dragging a large garden roller over its narrow paths. Every fern and flower bore some significance, and was often named after the donor. "Captain Marryat," was a rose tree with neither bud, leaf, nor blossom, yet always carefully tended. During her last illness, my mother would constantly ask her very devoted servant, "Has Captain Marryat been watered?" "Are there any buds on Mrs. Campbell?" "Has Dr. Horace been re-potted?" and so on—showing to the last how alive to her was all the vegetable kingdom.

In one corner of this said miniature garden in Abercorn Place was the grave of her much-loved dog, Jane Whistler, a small black Scotch terrier, of great fidelity and much intelligence. She came into my mother's possession as a puppy, and remained with her for the eleven years she lived, and when her faithful little companion was dying, Florence Marryat prayed every day that she might not suffer. The tiny enclosure, planted with daisies and forget-me-nots, was marked by a small headstone bearing the inscription: "Jane Whistler" and the date of birth and death. Underneath them were

these words: "Not one o' them shall fall without my Father." On my mother's coffin was a small wreath of ivy from Jane Whistler's grave.

Her literary work satisfied the needs of her brain—the rest the more clamorous needs of her heart. She filled up the void created by the enforced absence of her children with her love for, and care of, all things young—was it kitten, puppy, or plant. Hot tempered and impatient of opposition or disobedience, I have never known her lose her temper with an animal. Her walks abroad were always a cause of more or less anxiety to her family, as she not unfrequently returned with a stray cat or kitten to add to her menagerie.

In her last illness she said one day how much she longed for some young life about her—"if it were only a pair of doves," she added. To the last her recognition of her dogs was more complete than that of her friends—and in addressing them she unconsciously returned to the caressing manner in which she always spoke to them.

This was my mother's womanly side, and no side could have been more womanly, more tender. She needed love, and she inspired it. Perhaps her great need of love was one of the drawbacks of her life. It is disassociable from the artistic temperament, and it is often a pitfall. She saw the ideal in so many, who eventually disappointed her; she was too apt to believe people to be what she herself wished them to be, and to suffer all the more keenly when she realised their fallibility. She was too prone to trust them before she had proved them, and still more prone to express her real opinion when she had formed it. So she made many enemies.

Yet she was generous-minded to a fault. Her power of forgiveness had no limit, rancour was a word with no meaning to her.

To quote an incident illustrative of this—she and one of her sisters had not been on good terms for years. Women of a like temperament, they did not spare one another in invective and abuse during their period of estrangement—and my mother's name suffered considerably. Not long ago they happened to meet in the waiting room at a London physician's. The sight of her sister, bringing possibly with it memories of youth and the ties of association and blood, obliterated all else for the moment.

"Augusta," she said.

"Florence," was the answer, and they kissed.

From that moment all was forgotten save their love and their sisterhood—a sponge was passed over the slate of their mutual

DECEMBER 30, 1899.

St. Paul's.

591

injuries. A few months later my mother tended that sister in her dying hour, which preceded her own by only a few months.

The other side of her character was essentially masculine. I have always felt that femininity was too narrow a platform for her, and that nature originally designed her for a man. Her indomitable will and courage, her high temper and inpatience of all restraint and conventionality, were attributes inherited from the old sea captain, her father. Also from him came her liberal tendencies and her contempt for all aristocracy but the aristocracy of brains. Her drawing-room was most often filled with the struggling and the needy: women whose boots were doubtful, and men whose coats were more so. And this was not due to a native preference for neediness, but rather to her intense sympathy with those who were battling unsuccessfully in that most cruel of all battlefields—the world we live in.

With her servants she was often severe. Her overworked brain made her irritable and impatient of stupidity. She expected from them the same amount of common sense and logical reasoning which she herself possessed. She inveighed very strongly against the Board School system of education, and its deteriorating effect upon domestic servants, and wrote several convincing articles upon the subject. In spite of the fact, however, that they received no quarter at her hands, she inspired affection in them all. At the time of her death, I was touched by the number of letters I received from servants who had been in her service years ago, and many of whom she had sent away in a fit of temper, who wrote to express their sorrow, and to ask to be allowed to attend her funeral.

It was so easy to forgive my mother's faults—so difficult to forget her generous nature and her many acts of womanly tenderness.

Her adherence to the cause of spiritualism is well known, and was, I am convinced, entirely sincere. I do not wish to discuss here the grounds on which she accepted her belief. Whether logical or otherwise, I never attempted to shake her in it, since it was the cause of much happiness to herself. The world, invisible, was very near to her, and her imagination brought her in constant communion with those whom she loved and had lost. She used to say:—

"I should be no more afraid of dying than of stepping into an omnibus which was going to take me to some other part of the town."

Unhappily, her unconscious state during the last few weeks of her illness gave one no opportunity of finding out whether her belief brought her the comfort she anticipated at the end.

That end was brought on by overwork there is no doubt.

It was pitiful to see the wreck of the brilliant woman whose splendid vitality removed her from all trace of age or infirmity—the powerlessness of the hands that had recorded a life of such untiring zeal and work—the utter breakdown of the busy brain—reduced to the gentle submission of a little child!

My mother has left no record behind her of the greatness of her mental capacity; there is no evidence at all of the intellectual power which was undoubtedly hers, but which was cramped and stultified by circumstances.

The work she did was no criterion. It was produced against the overwhelming odds of ill-health, want of time, want of money, and all the other wants that tend to swamp the genius of the world.

Her ambition would be that her most imperishable monument should be raised in the hearts of those who knew and loved her. When I think of her, words from the "Ancient Mariner" occur to me—

"He liveth best who loveth best, all things both great and small."

And again—

"Much shall be forgiven her because she loved much."

## MISS IRENE PENSO.

Miss Irene Penso, whose portrait appears on this page, made a most successful first appearance at the Royal Academy Students' Orchestral Concert on Thursday, December 14th, at the Queen's Hall. This young violinist, who is only fifteen years of age, is a pupil of M. Émile Sauret. During her first year at the Academy she gained the bronze medal for sight singing and solo violin, and this year she carried off the silver medals for violin, and sight singing and reading, besides the Hill's prize, consisting of a violin, bow and case. Vieuxtemps' Fourth Violin Concerto was chosen for Miss Penso's solo on Thursday, and the rendering was a very remarkable one from such a young student, who played entirely from memory. Miss Penso has complete command of her instrument, and her touch is very powerful, whilst the quality of tone is rich and clear. It is evident that the young violinist has a brilliant future before her,

## A Book of the Moment.

BY A. G. P. SYKES.

"FAMOUS Trials of the Century," by Mr. J. B. Atlay, M.A. (Grant Richards), forms an admirable companion volume to Mr. Stephen's "State Trials," which appeared some months ago. Mr. Atlay informs us in his preface that the "State Trials" break off short in the year 1820, and, although a committee of highly distinguished jurists was appointed to continue them, the result has been far from satisfactory.

The Tichborne trial occupies so much space that Mr. Atlay asks for indulgence. "I am only too sadly conscious that it is out of drawing, but the curious fact remains that, though a most interesting and accurate version of the case is to be found in French, there has been, to the best of my knowledge, no attempt made in this country to give any coherent and continuous account of the most romantic and extraordinary episode in our legal history."

Other famous trials are those of "Weare and Thurtell," "The King against Burke and M'Dougal," "The Queen against Courvoisier," "A Miscarriage of Justice" (the case of William Henry Barber, solicitor, who was the victim of Fletcher and Sanders in the Anne Slack case), "The Queen against Madeleine Smith," the case of Constance Kent, and "The Queen against Dr. Pritchard."

The book is illustrated with portraits, and we have no hesitation in pronouncing it of very great interest. Reference to the Weare and Thurtell case is made by us—the murder took place on October 24th, 1823—for the sake of mentioning the fact that Thurtell, who murdered Weare, because the latter had cheated him of £300, had been an intimate acquaintance of George Borrow, the author of "La Vengro" and "Romany Rye." He was sentenced to death, and met his end with the greatest fortitude.

Nothing more ghastly than the Burke and Hare murders could possibly be conceived. The case came on in the latter part of 1828, previous to Warburton's Act of four years later. The horrible practice of ransacking graves for disinterring the newly buried dead was then rampant. On such agents as these surgeons and lecturers had to depend, prices ruled high, and few questions were asked. Wherever a school of medicine existed, the need arose, especially in Edinburgh, where criminals were fewer, and anatomical students

MISS IRENE PENSO.
Photograph by Mendelssohn,

St. Paul's.

DECEMBER 30, 1899.

COLENSO BRIDGE ACROSS THE TUGELA.
On the way to Ladysmith.~

more numerous, than in the southern capital. It 'must suffice here
to say that Burke and Hare were proved to be guilty of the most
abominable murders, but Hare had to be acquitted because of his
disclosures as King's evidence.

On January 28th, 1829, Burke was executed at Edinburgh, after having confessed to sixteen murders in the course of a few months, perpetrated with Hare, Brogan, and female accomplices. The crimes had been suggested by the liberal price given by Dr. Knox for the body of an old pensioner who died a natural death in Hare's house. No questions were asked when the bodies were taken to Knox's dissecting rooms, and they were told that any other body would be received every time. Suffocation was the means adopted after the victims had been stupefied with drink, and they were invariably drawn from the poorest classes of society.

Nothing more sensational than the Tichborne case could be
imagined. There are people living who still believe, or affect to
believe, in the ridiculous stories told by Arthur Orton, and his
death, in the April of last year, stirred up a little of the old ground.
Very little, however. It was considered by those who remembered
the case to be an extremely Quixotic act on the part of the present
baronet to permit the title of Sir Roger Tichborne to be placed on
the coffin of Orton. Those who doubted declared it was a confes-
sion of weakness, and said that the Claimant had certainly been
done out of his rights !

The mother of the lost baronet was the natural daughter of Mr. Henry Seymour, of Knoyle, in Wiltshire. She belonged, on the maternal side, to the distinguished French house of Bourbon Conti, and she lived on affectionate terms with her father and half-brothers and sisters. She was a spoilt beauty, of selfish disposition, and narrow and ill-regulated mind, detesting everything English, and determined that her sons should be brought up in France as French-men. Roger was born in Paris, and lived there from 1829 to 1845. He was very badly brought up, and his education was entrusted to tutors, who were not well chosen. His mother's wish was law then, and he was, to all intents and purposes, a French boy. The language was always spoken in his home. In 1845, his father seized the opportunity given by the funeral of his brother, Sir Henry Joseph Tichborne, to take Roger to England. Without his wife's knowledge, he placed him at the Jesuit Seminary at Stonyhurst, and for three years the boy had good companionship, fair education, and was quite happy. In 1849 he entered the army, and served until 1852.

In the March of 1853 he left Havre for Valparaiso, and was never
seen again in Europe.

He had formed a warm attachment for his cousin, Miss Kate Doughty, but the engagement was never really acknowledged, Sir Edward and Lady Doughty being averse to the match, owing to the stories of dissipation that were current about young Roger. There is no doubt that he felt the refusal and dismissal very keenly. On April 20th, 1854, a year from the time of his departure, he set sail on the Bella, an English ship, from Rio, bound for Kingston. Four days afterwards her long-boat was found bottom upwards, and articles of wreckage belonging to the ship, which had evidently gone down. Months passed, no news was heard, and in 1855 Roger Tichborne's will was proved—he had made it before leaving England.

In 1862, his father, Sir James Tichborne died, and was succeeded
by his son Alfred, who married a niece of Lady Doughty. He died
in February, 1866, and his son, the present baronet, Sir Henry
Doughty Tichborne, was born a few months after his death.

The Dowager Lady Tichborne had never believed that her eldest
son was dead. Despite her husband's remonstrances, she encouraged
tramping sailors on the chance of their having some news, she
advertised continuously after her husband's death, and, in fact,
paved the way for an impostor to come and pretend as Orton did.

He arrived in London on Christmas Day, 1866. On June the
27th, 1867, bills were filed in Chancery against the trustees
of the estates, Sir Piers Mostyn and others, and the seven years'
war was commenced. The case was actually called on
May 10th, 1871. The trial created the most profound sensation,
and from one end of the country to the other agitations arose
between those who believed in the claimant and those who did not.
On July 7th it was adjourned to November 7th; the Court sat until
December 20th, when the case was closed, some ninety additional
witnesses having been examined. The Attorney-General, Sir John
Coleridge, made an exhaustive speech, in which he proved Orton to
be nothing less than an impudent impostor.

Orton was sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. The
cost to the Tichborne family alone was £91,677 12s. 2d, inde-
pendent, of course, of the trial at Bar, which cost the taxpayers a
pretty sum. Orton was released in 1884. He tried his luck again,
but fruitlessly, and, after being employed at minor music-halls, he
fell down to a public-house and then a tobacconist's shop. He
died in poverty, reduced in size, but enormous, nevertheless, weigh-
ing eighteen stone.