Side by side with his hobby of natural history went his love of sport: it was impossible for him to separate the one from the other. Fishing was his chief delight; he pursued it with equal keenness in the chalk streams of Hampshire, in the salmon rivers of Ireland, in the desolate tarns on the Welsh mountains. In the visitors" book of the inn at Pen-y-gwryd, Tom Hughes, Tom Taylor, and he left alternate quatrains of doggerel to celebrate their stay, written _currente calamo_, as the spirit prompted them. This is Charles Kingsley"s first quatrain:
I came to Pen-y-gwryd in frantic hopes of slaying Grilse, salmon, three-pound red-fleshed trout and what else there"s no saying: But bitter cold and lashing rain and black nor"-eastern skies, sir, Drove me from fish to botany, a sadder man and wiser.
Each had his disappointment through the weather, which each expressed in verse; but it took more than bad weather to damp the spirits of three such ardent open-air enthusiasts. Hunting was another favourite sport, though he rarely indulged himself in this luxury, and only when he could do so without much expense. But whenever a friend gave him a mount, Kingsley was ready to follow the Berkshire hounds, and with his knowledge of the country he was able to hold his own with the best.
Let us try to imagine him then as he walked about the lanes and commons of Eversley in middle life, a spare upright figure, above the middle height, with alert step, informal but not slovenly in dress, with no white tie or special mark of his profession. His head was one to attract notice anywhere with the grand hawk-like nose, firm mouth, and flashing eye. The deep lines furrowed between the brows gave his face an almost stern expression which his cheery conversation soon belied. He might be carrying a fishing-rod or a bottle of medicine for a sick parishioner, or sometimes both: his faithful Dandie Dinmont would be in attendance and perhaps one of his children walking at his side. His walk would be swift and eager, with his eye wandering restlessly around to observe all that he pa.s.sed: "it seemed as if no bird or beast or insect, scarcely a cloud in the sky, pa.s.sed by him unnoticed, unwelcomed." So too with humanity--in breadth of sympathy he resembled "the Shirra", who became known to every wayfarer between Teviot and Tweed. Gipsy boy, farm-hand, old grandmother, each would be sure of a greeting and a few words of talk when they met the Rector on his rounds. In society he might at times be too impetuous or insistent, when questions were stirred in which he was deeply interested. Tennyson tells us how he "walked hard up and down the study for hours, smoking furiously and affirming that tobacco was the only thing that kept his nerves quiet". Green compares him to a restless animal, and Stopford Brooke speaks of his quick-rushing walk, his keen face like a sword, and his body thinned out to a lath, and complains that he "often screams when he ought to speak".
But this excitability was soothed by the country, and in his own parish he was at his best. He would never have been so beloved by his parishioners, if they had not found him willing to listen as well as to advise and to instruct.
His first venture into public life met with less general favour. The year 1848 saw many upheavals in Europe. On the Continent thrones tottered and fell, republics started up for a moment and faded away. In England it was the year of the Chartist riots, and political and social problems gave plenty of matter for thought. Monster meetings were held in London, which were not free from disorder. The wealthier cla.s.ses and the Government were alarmed, troops were brought up to London and the Duke of Wellington put in command. Events seemed to point to outbreaks of violence and the starting of a cla.s.s-war. Frederick Denison Maurice, whom above all men living Kingsley revered, was the leader of a group of men who were greatly stirred by the movement. They saw that more than political reform and political charters were needed; and, while full of sympathy for the working cla.s.ses, they were not minded to say smooth things and prophesy Utopias in which they had no belief. Filled with the desire to help his fellow-men, indignant at abuses which he had seen with his own eyes, Kingsley came at once to their side. He went to London to see for himself, attended meetings, wrote pamphlets, and seemed to be promoting agitation. The tone in which he wrote can best be seen by a few words from the pamphlet addressed to the "Workmen of England", which was posted up in London. "The Charter is not bad, if the men who use it are not bad. But will the Charter make you free? Will it free you from slavery to ten-pound bribes? Slavery to gin and beer?
Slavery to every spouter who flatters your self-conceit and stirs up bitterness and headlong rage in you? That I guess is real slavery, to be a slave to one"s own stomach, one"s pocket, one"s own temper." This is hardly the tone of the agitator as known to us to-day. With his friends Kingsley brought out a periodical, _Politics for the People_, in which he wrote in the same tone. "My only quarrel with the Charter is that it does not go far enough in reform.... I think you have fallen into the same mistake as the rich of whom you complain, I mean the mistake of fancying that legislative reform is social reform, or that men"s hearts can be changed by Act of Parliament." He did not limit himself to denouncing such errors. He encouraged the working man to educate himself and to find rational pleasures in life, contributing papers on the National Gallery and bringing out the human interest of the pictures.
"Parson Lot", the _nom de guerre_ which Kingsley adopted, became widely known for warm-hearted exhortations, for practical and sagacious counsels.
Two years later he published _Alton Locke_, describing the life of a young tailor whose mind and whose fortunes are profoundly influenced by the Chartist movement. From a literary point of view it is far from being his best work; and the critics agreed to belittle it at the time and to pa.s.s it over with apology at his death. But it received a warm welcome from others. While it roused the imagination of many young men and set them thinking, the veteran Carlyle could speak of "the s.n.a.t.c.hes of excellent poetical description, occasional sunbursts of n.o.ble insight, everywhere a certain wild intensity which holds the reader fast as by a spell".
Should any one ask why a rector of a country parish mixed himself up in London agitation, many answers could be given. His help was sought by Maurice, who worked among the London poor. Many of the questions at issue affected also the agricultural labourer. Only one who was giving his life to serve the poor could effectively expose the mistakes of their champions. The upper cla.s.ses, squires and merchants and politicians, had shut their eyes and missed their chances. So when the ship is on fire, no one blames the chaplain or the ship"s doctor for lending a hand with the buckets.[32]
[Note 32: See Preface by T. Hughes prefixed to later editions of _Alton Locke_.]
That his efforts in London met with success can be seen from many sources besides the popularity of _Alton Locke_. He wrote a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Cheap Clothes and Nasty", denouncing the sweaters" shops and supporting the co-operative movement, which was beginning to arise out of the ashes of Chartism. Of this pamphlet a friend told him that he saw three copies on the table in the Guards" Club, and that he heard that captains in the Guards were going to the co-operative shop in Castle Street and buying coats there. A success of a different kind and one more valued by Kingsley himself was the conversion of Thomas Cooper, the popular writer in Socialist magazines, who preached atheistical doctrines weekly to many thousand working men. Kingsley found him to be sincerely honest, spent infinite time in writing him friendly letters, discussing their differences of opinion, and some years later had the joy of inducing him to become an active preacher of the Gospel. But most of the well-to-do people, including the clergy, were prejudiced against Kingsley by his Radical views. On one occasion he had to face a painful scene in a London church, when the vicar who had invited him to preach rose after the sermon and formally protested against the views to which his congregation had been listening. Bishop Blomfield at first sided with the vicar; but in the end he did full justice to the sincerity and charity of Kingsley"s views and sanctioned his continuing to preach in the Diocese.
It was his literary successes which helped most to break down the prejudice existing against him in society. _Hypatia_, published in 1853, had a mixed reception; but _Westward Ho!_ appearing two years later, was universally popular. His eloquence in the pulpit was becoming known to a wider circle, largely owing to officers who came over from Aldershot and Sandhurst to hear him; and early in 1859 he was asked to preach before the Queen and Prince Consort. His appointment as chaplain to the Queen followed before the year was out; and this made a great difference in his position and prospects. What he valued equally was the hearty friendship which he formed with the Prince Consort. They had the same tastes, the same interests, the same serious outlook on life. A year later came a still higher distinction when Kingsley was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. His history lectures, it is generally agreed, are not of permanent value as a contribution to the knowledge of the subject. With his parish work and other interests he had no time for profound study. But his eloquence and descriptive powers were such as to attract a large cla.s.s of students, and many can still read with pleasure his lectures on _The Roman and the Teuton_, in which he was fired by the moral lessons involved in the decay of the Roman empire and the coming of the vigorous young northern races. Apart from his lectures he had made his mark in Cambridge by the friendly relations which he established with many of the undergraduates and the personal influence which he exercised. But he knew better than any one else his shortcomings as an historian, the preparation of his lectures gave him great anxiety and labour, and in 1869 he resigned the office.
The next honour which fell to him was a canonry at Chester, and in 1873, less than two years before his death, he exchanged it for a stall at Westminster. These historic cities with their old buildings and a.s.sociations attracted him very strongly: preaching in the Abbey was even dangerously exciting to a man of his temperament. But while he gave his services generously during his months of office, as at Chester in founding a Natural History Society, he never deserted his old work and his old parish. Eversley continued to be his home, and during the greater part of each year to engross his thoughts.
Literature, science, and sport were, as we have seen, the three interests which absorbed his leisure hours. A fourth, partaking in some measure of all three, was travel, a hobby which the strenuous pursuit of duty rarely permitted him to indulge. Ill-health or a complete breakdown sometimes sent him away perforce, and it is to this that he chiefly owed his knowledge of other climes. He has left us some fascinating pictures of the south of France, the rocks of Biarritz, the terrace at Pau, the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and the golden arches of the Pont du Gard; but the voyages that thrilled him most were those that he took to America, when he sailed the Spanish main in the track of Drake and Raleigh and Richard Grenville. The first journey in 1870 was to the West Indies; the second and longer one took him to New York and Quebec, and across the continent to the Yosemite and San Francisco. This was in 1874, the last year of his life, and he was received everywhere with the utmost respect and goodwill. His name was now famous on both sides of the Atlantic, and the voice of opposition was stilled. The public had changed its att.i.tude to him, but he himself was unchanged. He had the same readiness to gather up new knowledge, and to get into friendly touch with every kind of man, the same reluctance to talk about himself.
Only the yearning towards the unseen was growing stronger. The poet Whittier, who met him at Boston, found him unwilling to talk about his own books or even about the new cities which he was visiting, but longing for counsel from his brother poet on the high themes of a future life and the final destiny of the human race.
While he was in California he was taken ill with pleurisy; and when he came back to England he had so serious a relapse in the autumn that he could hardly perform his duties at Westminster. He had never wished for long life, his strength was exhausted, the ardent soul had worn out its sheath. A dangerous illness of his wife"s, threatening to leave him solitary, hastened the end. For her sake he fought a while against the pneumonia which set in, but the effort was in vain, and on January 23, in his own room at Eversley, he met his death contented and serene.
Twenty years before he had said, "G.o.d forgive me if I am wrong, but I look forward to it with an intense and reverent curiosity".
These words of his sum up some of his most marked characteristics. Of his "curiosity" there is no need to say more: all his life he was pursuing eager researches into rocks, flowers, animals, and his fellow-men. "Intensity" has been picked out by many of his friends as the word which, more than any other, expresses the peculiar quality of his nature. This does not mean a weak excitability. His letters to J. S.
Mill on the women-suffrage movement show that this hysterical element, which was often to be found in the women supporting it, was what most he feared. He himself defines it well--"my blessed habit of intensity. I go at what I am about as if there was nothing else in the world for the time being." This quality, which many great men put into their work, Kingsley put both into his work and into his play-time. Critics will say that he paid for it: it is easy to quote the familiar line: "Neque semper arc.u.m tendit Apollo." But Horace is not the poet to whom Charles Kingsley would go for counsel: he would only say that he got full value in both, and that he never regretted the bargain.
But it would be no less true to say that "Reverence" is the key-note of his character. This fact was impressed on all who saw him take the services in his parish church, and it was an exaltation of reverence which uplifted his congregation and stamped itself on their memories. It is seen, too, in his political views. The Radical Parson, the upholder of Chartism, was in many ways a strong Tory. He had a great belief in the land-owning cla.s.ses, and an admiration for what remained of the Feudal System. He believed that the old relation between squire and villagers, if each did his duty, worked far better than the modern pretence of Equality and Independence. Like Disraeli, like Ruskin, and like many other men of high imagination, he distrusted the Manchester School and the policy that in the labour market each cla.s.s should be left to fend for itself. Radical as he was, he defended the House of Lords and the hereditary system. So, too, in Church questions, though he was an anti-Tractarian, he had a great reverence for the Athanasian Creed and in general was a High Churchman. He had none of the fads which we a.s.sociate with the Radical party. Total abstinence he condemned as a rigid rule, though there was no man more severe in his att.i.tude to drunkenness. He believed that G.o.d"s gifts were for man"s enjoyment, and he set his face against asceticism. He trained his own body to vigorous manhood and he had remarkable self-control; and he wished to help each man to do this for himself and not to be driven to it by what he considered a false system. Logically it may be easy to find contradictions in the views which he expressed at different times; but his life shows an essential unity in aim and practice.
It has been the fashion to label Charles Kingsley and his teaching with the nickname of "Muscular Christianity", a name which he detested and disclaimed. It implied that he and his school were of the full-blooded robust order of men, who had no sympathy for weakness, and no message for those who could not follow the same strenuous course as themselves.
As a fact Kingsley had his full share of bodily illnesses and suffered at all times from a highly-wrought nervous organization; when pain to others was involved, he was as tender and sympathetic as a woman. He was a born fighter, too reckless in attack, as we see in his famous dispute with Cardinal Newman about the honesty of the Tractarians. But he was not bitter or resentful. He owned himself that in this case he had met a better logician than himself: later he expressed his admiration for Newman"s poem, "The Dream of Gerontius", and in his letters he praises the tone in which the Tractarians write--"a solemn and gentle earnestness which is most beautiful and which I wish I may ever attain".
The point which Matthew Arnold singles out in estimating his character is the width of his sympathies. "I think", he says, "he was the most generous man I have ever known, the most forward to praise what he thought good, the most willing to admire, the most incapable of being made ill-natured or even indifferent by having to support ill-natured attacks himself. Among men of letters I know nothing so rare as this."
To the gibe about "Muscular Christianity" Kingsley had his own answer.
He said that with his tastes and gifts he had a special power of appealing to the wild rough natures which were more at home in the country than the town, who were too self-forgetful, and too heedless of the need for culture and for making use of their opportunities. Jacob, the man of intellect, had many spiritual guides, and the poor outcast, Esau, was too often overlooked. As he said, "The one idea of my life was to tell Esau that he has a birthright as well as Jacob". When he was laid to his rest in Eversley churchyard, there were many mourners who represented the cultured cla.s.ses of the day; but what gave its special character to the occasion was the presence of keepers and poachers, of gipsies, country rustics, and huntsmen, the Esaus of the Hampshire village, which was the fit resting-place for one who above all was the ideal of a parish priest.
GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
1817-1904
1817. Born in London, February 23.
1827. Begins to frequent the studio of William Behnes.
1835. Enters Royal Academy Schools.
1837. Working in his own studio. "Wounded Heron" and two portraits in Royal Academy exhibition.
1842. Success in Parliament House compet.i.tion: "Caractacus" cartoon.
1843-7. Living with Lord and Lady Holland at Florence.
1847. Success in second compet.i.tion: "Alfred" cartoon.
1848. Early allegorical pictures.
1850. Friendship with the Prinseps. Little Holland House.
1851. National series of portraits begun.
1852. Begins Lincoln"s Inn Hall fresco: finished 1859.
1856. With Sir Charles Newton to Halicarna.s.sus.
1865. Correspondence with Charles Rickards of Manchester.
1867. Elected A.R.A. and R.A. in same year. Portraits. Carlyle. W.
Morris.
1872. New home at Freshwater, Isle of Wight. "The Briary."
Little Holland House sold.
1877. Grosvenor Gallery opened. 1881. Watts exhibition there (200 pictures).
1882. D.C.L., Oxford; LL.D., Cambridge.
1886. November; marries Miss Fraser Tytler. Winter in Egypt.
1890. New home at Limnerslease, Compton.
1895. National Portrait Gallery opened.
1896. New Gallery exhibition (155 pictures).
1897. Gift of pictures to new Tate Gallery.
1902. Order of Merit.
1904. Death at Compton, July 1.
GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
ARTIST
The great age of British art was past before Queen Victoria began her long and memorable reign. Reynolds and Gainsborough had died in the last years of the eighteenth century, Romney and Hoppner in the first decade of the nineteenth; Lawrence, the last of the Georgian portrait-painters, did not live beyond 1830. Of the landscapists Crome died in 1821 and Constable in 1837. Turner, the one survivor of the Giants, had done three-quarters of his work before 1837 and can hardly be reckoned as a Victorian worthy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
From a painting by himself in the National Portrait Gallery]
In the reign of Queen Victoria many thousands of trivial anecdotic pictures were bought and sold, were reproduced in Art Annuals and Christmas Numbers and won the favour of rich amateurs and provincial aldermen--so much so that Victorian art has been a favourite target for the shafts of critics formed in the school of Whistler and the later Impressionists. But however just some of their strictures may be, it is foolish to condemn an age wholesale or to shut our eyes to the great achievements of those artists who, rising above the general level, dignified the calling of the painter just when the painters were most rare. These men formed no single movement progressing in a uniform direction. The study of pure landscape is best seen in the water-colour draughtsmen, Cotman, c.o.x, and de Wint; of landscape as a setting for the life of the people, in Fred Walker and George Mason. Among figure-painters the "Pre-Raphaelites", Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Millais, with their forerunner Madox Brown, are the first to win attention by their earnestness, their romantic imagination, and their intense feeling for beauty: in these qualities Burne-Jones carried on their work and retained the allegiance of a cultured few to the very end of the century. Two solitary figures are more difficult to cla.s.s, Alfred Stevens and Watts. Each learnt fruitful lessons from prolonged study of the great art of the past; yet each preserves a marked originality in his work. More than any other artists of their age they realized the unity of art and the dependence of one branch upon another. Painting should go hand in hand with sculpture, and both minister to architecture. So the world might hope once more to see public buildings n.o.bly planned and no less n.o.bly decorated, as in the past it saw the completion of the Parthenon and the churches of mediaeval Italy. It was unfortunate that they received so little encouragement from the public, and that their example had so narrow an influence. St. Paul"s can show its Wellington monument, Lincoln"s Inn its fresco; but year after year subject-pictures continued to be painted on an ambitious scale, which after a few months" exhibition on the walls of Burlington House pa.s.sed to their tomb in provincial museums, or reappeared as ghosts in the sale-room only to fetch a derisory price and to ill.u.s.trate the fickle vagaries in the public taste.
In the early life of George Frederick Watts, who was born in a quiet street in West Marylebone, there are few incidents to narrate, there is little brightness to enliven the tale. His father, a maker of musical instruments, was poor; his mother died early; his home-life was overshadowed by his own ill-health and the uncertain moods of other members of the family. His education was casual and consisted mostly of reading books under the guidance of his father, who had little solid learning, but refined tastes and an inventive disposition. In his Sundays at home, where the Sabbatarian rule limited his reading, he became familiar with the stories of the Old Testament; he discovered for himself the Waverley Novels and Pope"s translation of the _Iliad_; and he began from early years to use his pencil with the eager and persistent enthusiasm which marks the artist born.
For a rich artistic nature it was a starved life, but he made the most of such chances as came in his way. He was barely ten years old when he found his way to the studio of a sculptor named William Behnes, a man of Hanoverian extraction, an indifferent sculptor but possessed of a real talent for drawing; and from his more intellectual brother, Charles Behnes, he learnt to widen his interest in literature. In this halting and irregular process of education he received help, some years later, from another friend of foreign birth, Nicholas Wanostrocht, a Belgian, who under the a.s.sumed name of "Felix" became a leading authority on the game of cricket. Wanostrocht was a cultivated man of very wide tastes, and it was largely through his encouragement that Watts gave to the study of the French and Italian languages, and to music, what little time he could spare from his professional work. London was to render him greater services than this. Thanks to his visits to the British Museum, he had, while still in his teens, come under a mightier spell. Though few Englishmen had yet learnt to value their treasures, the Elgin Marbles had been resting there for twenty years. But now, two years before Queen Victoria"s accession, there might be seen, standing rapt in admiration before the works of Phidias, a boy of slender figure with high forehead, delicately moulded features, and disordered hair, one who, as we can see from the earliest portrait which Mrs. Watts has preserved in her biography, had something of the unearthly beauty of the young Sh.e.l.ley. He was physically frail, marked off from ordinary men by a grace that won its way quickly to the hearts of all who were susceptible to spiritual charm. Untaught though he was, he had the eye to see for himself the grandeur of these relics of Greece, and throughout his life they remained one of the guiding influences in his development, one of the standards which he set up before himself, though all too conscious that he could not hope to reach that height. We see their influence in his treatment of drapery, of horses, of the human figure, in his idealization of types, in the flowing lines of his compositions, and in the grouping of his ma.s.ses. Compared to the hours which he spent in the British Museum, the lessons in the Royal Academy schools seem unimportant. He attended cla.s.ses there for some months in 1835, but the teaching was poor and its results disappointing. William Hilton, R.A., who then occupied the post of Keeper, gave him some kind words of encouragement, but in general he came and went unnoticed, and he soon returned to his solitary self-training in his own studio. If we know little of his teaching in art, we know still less of his personal life during the time when he was laying the foundations of his success by study and self-discipline. Early rising was an art which he acquired early, and maintained throughout life; long after he felt the spur of necessity, even after the age of 80, he could rise at four when there was work to be done; and, living as he did on the simplest diet, he often achieved his best results at an hour when other men were still finishing their slumbers. His shyness and sensitiveness, combined with precarious health and weak physique, would seem to equip him but poorly in the struggle for life; but his steady persistence, his high conception of duty, his faith in his art, joined to that power which he had of winning friends among the n.o.blest men and women of his day, were to carry him triumphantly through to the end.
The career of Watts as a public man began in 1843 when he had reached the age of 26. The British Government, not often guilty of fostering art or literature, may claim at least the credit for having drawn him out of his seclusion at the very moment when his genius was ripening to bear fruit. In 1834 the Palace of Westminster, so long the home of the Houses of Parliament, had been burnt to the ground. The present buildings were begun by Sir Charles Barry in 1840, and, with a view to decorating them with wall-paintings, the Board of Works wisely offered prizes for cartoons, hoping thereby to attract the best talent of the country. In June 1843 they had to judge between 140 designs by various compet.i.tors, and to award prizes varying in value from 300 to 100. Of the three first prizes one fell to Watts, hitherto unknown beyond the narrow circle of his friends, for a design displaying "Caractacus led in triumph through the streets of Rome". This cartoon, however, was not employed for its original purpose: it fell into the hands of an enterprising, if inartistic, dealer, who cut it up and sold such fragments as he judged to be of value in the state of the picture market at the time. What was far more important was the encouragement given to the artist by such a success at a critical time of his life, and the opportunity which the money furnished him to travel abroad and enrich his experiences before his style was formed. He had long wished to visit Italy; and, after spending a few weeks in France, he made his leisurely way (at a pace incredible to us to-day) to Florence and its picture galleries. On the steamer between Ma.r.s.eilles and Leghorn he was fortunate in making friends with a Colonel Ellice and his wife, and a few weeks later they introduced him to Lord Holland, the British Minister at Florence.
The story goes that Watts went to be the guest of Lord and Lady Holland for four days and remained there for four years--a story which is a tribute to the discernment of the latter and not a satire upon Watts, who was the last man in the world to take advantage of hospitality or to thrust himself into other people"s houses. No doubt it is not to be taken too literally, but at least it is so far true that he very quickly became intimate with his host and hostess and found a home where he could pursue his art under ideal conditions. The value and the danger of patronage have been often discussed. Democracy may provide a discipline for artists and men of letters which is often salutary in testing the sincerity of their devotion to art and literature; but, in such a stern school, men of genius may easily founder and miss their way.
However that may be, Watts found just the haven which was needed for a nature like his. So far he had known but little appreciation, and had lived with few who were his peers. Now he was cheered by the favour of men and women who had known the best and whose favour was well worth the winning. But he kept his independence of spirit. He lived in a palace, but his diet was as sparing as that of a hermit. He feasted his eyes on the great works of the Renaissance, but he preserved his originality, and continued to work, with fervour and enhanced enthusiasm, on the lines which he had already marked out for himself. He did not copy with the hand, but he drank in new lessons with the eyes and dreamed new dreams with the spirit.
The Hollands had two houses, one in the centre of the city, the other, the Villa Medicea di Careggi, lying on the edge of the hills some two or three miles to the north. This latter had been a favourite residence of the first Cosimo; here Lorenzo had died, turning his face to the wall, unshriven by Savonarola; and here Watts decorated an open _loggia_ in fresco, to bear witness to its latest connexion with the patronage of Art. Between the two houses he pa.s.sed laborious but tranquil days, studying, planning, training his hand to mastery, but enjoying in his leisure all that such a home could give him of varied entertainment.