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Chapter XVII
‘THE LIFE POETIC’

I have been allowed to enrich this volume with photographs of ‘The Pines’ and of some of the exquisite works of art therein. But it is unfortunate for me that I am not allowed to touch upon what are the most important relations of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s life – important though so many of them are. I mean his intimacy with the poet whose name is now beyond doubt far above any other name in the contemporary world of letters. I do not sympathize with the hyper-sensitiveness of eminent men with regard to privacy. The inner chamber of what Rossetti calls the ‘House of Life’ should be kept sacred. But Rossetti’s own case shows how impossible it is in these days to keep those recesses inviolable. The fierce light that beats upon men of genius grows fiercer and fiercer every day, and it cannot be quenched. This was one of my arguments when I first answered Mr. Watts-Dunton’s own objection to the appearance of this monograph. The times have changed since he was a young man. Then publicity was shunned like a plague by poets and by painters. If such men wish the light to be true as well as fierce, they must allow their friends to illuminate their ‘House of Life’ by the lamp of truth. If Rossetti during his lifetime had allowed one of his friends who knew the secrets of his ‘House of Life’ to write about him, we might have been spared those canards about him and the wife he loved which were rife shortly after his death. Byron’s reluctance to take payment for his poetry was not a more belated relic of an old quixotism than is this dying passion for privacy. Publicity may be an evil, but it is an inevitable evil, and great men must not let the wasps and the gadflies monopolize its uses. It may be a reminiscence of an older and a nobler social temper, the temper under the influence of which Rossetti in 1870 said that he felt abashed because a paragraph had appeared in the ‘Athenæum’ announcing the fact that a book from him was forthcoming. But that temper has gone by for ever. We live now in very different times. Scores upon scores of unauthorized and absolutely false paragraphs about eminent men are published, especially about these two friends who have lived their poetic life together for more than a quarter of a century. Only the other day I saw in a newspaper an offensive descriptive caricature of Mr. Swinburne, of his dress, etc. It is interesting to recall the fact that mendacious journalism was the cause of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s very first contribution to the ‘Athenæum,’ before he wrote any reviews at all. At that time the offenders seem to have been chiefly Americans. The article was not a review, but a letter signed ‘Z,’ entitled ‘The Art of Interviewing,’ and it appeared in the ‘Athenæum,’ of March 11, 1876. As it shows the great Swinburne myth in the making, I will reproduce this merry little skit: —

“‘Alas! there is none of us without his skeleton-closet,’ said a great writer to one who was congratulating him upon having reached the goal for which he had, from the first, set out. ‘My skeleton bears the dreadful name of “American Interviewer.” Pity me!’ ‘Is he an American with a diary in his pocket?’ was the terrified question always put by another man of genius, whenever you proposed introducing a stranger to him. But this was in those ingenuous Parker-Willisian days when the ‘Interviewer’ merely invented the dialogue – not the entire dramatic action – not the interview itself. Primitive times! since when the ‘Interviewer’ has developed indeed! His dramatic inspiration now is trammelled by none of those foolish and arbitrary conditions which – whether his scene of action was at the ‘Blue Posts’ with Thackeray, or in the North with Scottish lords – vexed and bounded the noble soul of the great patriarch of the tribe. Uncribbed, uncabined, unconfined, the ‘Interviewer’ now invents, not merely the dialogue, but the ‘situation,’ the place, the time – the interview itself. Every dramatist has his favourite character – Sophocles had his; Shakspeare had his; Schiller had his; the ‘Interviewer’ has his. Mr. Swinburne has, for the last two or three years, been – for some reason which it might not be difficult to explain – the ‘Interviewer’s’ special favourite. Moreover, the accounts of the interviews with him are always livelier than any others, inasmuch as they are accompanied by brilliant fancy-sketches of his personal appearance – sketches which, if they should not gratify him exactly, would at least astonish him; and it is surely something to be even astonished in these days. Some time ago, for instance, an American lady journalist, connected with a ‘Western newspaper,’ made her appearance in London, and expressed many ‘great desires,’ the greatest of all her ‘desires’ being to know the author of ‘Atalanta,’ or, if she could not know him, at least to ‘see him.’

The Fates, however, were not kind to the lady. The author of ‘Atalanta’ had quitted London. She did not see him, therefore – not with her bodily eyes could she see him. Yet this did not at all prevent her from ‘interviewing’ him. Why should it? The ‘soul hath eyes and ears’ as well as the body – especially if the soul is an American soul, with a mission to ‘interview.’ There soon appeared in the lady’s Western newspaper a graphic account of one of the most interesting interviews with this poet that has ever yet been recorded. Mr. Swinburne – though at the time in Scotland – ‘called’ upon the lady at her rooms in London; but, notwithstanding this unexampled feat of courtesy, he seems to have found no favour in the lady’s eyes. She ‘misliked him for his complexion.’ Evidently it was nothing but good-breeding that prevented her from telling the bard, on the spot, that he was physically an unlovely bard. His manners, too, were but so-so; and the Western lady was shocked and disgusted, as well she might be. In the midst of his conversation, for example, he called out frantically for ‘pen and ink.’ He had become suddenly and painfully ‘afflated.’ When furnished with pen and ink he began furiously writing a poem, beating the table with his left hand and stamping the floor with both feet as he did so. Then, without saying a word, he put on his hat and rushed from the room like a madman! This account was copied into other newspapers and into the magazines. It is, in fact, a piece of genuine history now, and will form valuable material for some future biographer of the poet. The stubborn shapelessness of facts has always distressed the artistically-minded historian. But let the American ‘Interviewer’ go on developing thus, and we may look for History’s becoming far more artistic and symmetrical in future. The above is but one out of many instances of the art of interviewing.”

It is all very well to say that irresponsible statements of this kind are not in the true sense of the word believed by readers; they create an atmosphere of false mist which destroys altogether the picture of the poet’s life which one would like to preserve. And I really think that it would have been better if I or some one else among the friends of the poets had been allowed to write more freely about the beautiful and intellectual life at ‘The Pines.’ But I am forbidden to do this, as the following passage in a letter which I have received from Mr. Watts-Dunton will show:

“I cannot have anything about our life at ‘The Pines’ put into print, but I will grant you permission to give a few reproductions of the interesting works of art here, for many of them may have a legitimate interest for the public on account of their historic value, as having come to me from the magician of art, Rossetti. And I assure you that this is a concession which I have denied to very many applicants, both among friends and others.”

Mr. Watts-Dunton’s allusion to the Rossetti mementoes requires a word of explanation. Rossetti, it seems, was very fond of surprising his friends by unexpected tokens of generosity. I have heard Mr. Watts-Dunton say that during the week when he was moving into ‘The Pines,’ he spent as usual Wednesday night at 16 Cheyne Walk, and he and Rossetti sat talking into the small hours. Next morning after breakfast he strolled across to Whistler’s house to have a talk with the ever-interesting painter, and this resulted in his getting home two hours later than usual. On reaching the new house he saw a waggon standing in front of it. He did not understand this, for the furniture from the previous residence had been all removed. He went up to the waggon, and was surprised to find it full of furniture of a choice kind. But there was no need for him to give much time to an examination of the furniture, for he found he was familiar with every piece of it. It had come straight from Rossetti’s house, having been secretly packed and sent off by Dunn on the previous day. Some of the choicest things at ‘The Pines’ came in this way. Not a word had Rossetti said about this generous little trick on the night before. The superb Chinese cabinet, a photograph of which appears in this book, belonged to Rossetti. It seems that on a certain occasion Frederick Sandys, or some one else, told Rossetti that the clever but ne’er-do-well artist, George Chapman, had bought of a sea-captain, trading in Chinese waters, a wonderful piece of lacquer work of the finest period – before the Manchu pig-tail time. The captain had bought it of a Frenchman who had aided in looting the Imperial Palace. Rossetti, of course, could not rest until he had seen it, and when he had seen it, he could not rest until he had bought it of Chapman; and it was taken across to 16 Cheyne Walk, where it was greatly admired. The captain had barbarously mutilated it at the top in order to make it fit in his cabin, and it remained in that condition for some years. Afterwards Rossetti gave it to Mr. Watts-Dunton, who got it restored and made up by the wonderful amateur carver, the late Mr. T. Keynes, who did the carving on the painted cabinet also photographed for this book. There is a long and interesting story in connection with this piece of Chinese lacquer, but I have no room to tell it here.

All I am allowed to say about the relations between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Mr. Swinburne is that the friendship began in 1872, that it soon developed into the closest intimacy, not only with the poet himself, but with all his family. In 1879 the two friends became house-mates at ‘The Pines,’ Putney Hill, and since then they have never been separated, for Mr. Watts-Dunton’s visits to the Continent, notably those with the late Dr. Hake recorded in ‘The New Day,’ took place just before this time. The two poets thenceforth lived together, worked together; saw their common friends together, and travelled together. In 1882, after the death of Rossetti they went to the Channel Islands, staying at St. Peter’s Port, Guernsey, for some little time, and then at Petit Bot Bay. Their swims in this beautiful bay Mr. Watts-Dunton commemorated in two of the opening sonnets of ‘The Coming of Love’: —

NATURE’S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

(A MORNING SWIM OFF GUERNSEY WITH A FRIEND)

 
As if the Spring’s fresh groves should change and shake
To dark green woods of Orient terebinth,
Then break to bloom of England’s hyacinth,
So ’neath us change the waves, rising to take
Each kiss of colour from each cloud and flake
Round many a rocky hall and labyrinth,
Where sea-wrought column, arch, and granite plinth,
Show how the sea’s fine rage dares make and break.
Young with the youth the sea’s embrace can lend,
Our glowing limbs, with sun and brine empearled,
Seem born anew, and in your eyes, dear friend,
Rare pictures shine, like fairy flags unfurled,
Of child-land, where the roofs of rainbows bend
Over the magic wonders of the world
 

THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE’S FRAGRANCY

(THE TIRING-ROOM IN THE ROCKS)

 
These are the ‘Coloured Caves’ the sea-maid built;
Her walls are stained beyond that lonely fern,
For she must fly at every tide’s return,
And all her sea-tints round the walls are spilt.
Outside behold the bay, each headland gilt
With morning’s gold; far off the foam-wreaths burn
Like fiery snakes, while here the sweet waves yearn
Up sand more soft than Avon’s sacred silt.
And smell the sea! no breath of wood or field,
From lips of may or rose or eglantine,
Comes with the language of a breath benign,
Shuts the dark room where glimmers Fate revealed,
Calms the vext spirit, balms a sorrow unhealed,
Like scent of sea-weed rich of morn and brine.
 

The two friends afterwards went to Sark. A curious incident occurred during their stay in the island. The two poet-swimmers received a bravado challenge from ‘Orion’ Horne, who was also a famous swimmer, to swim with him round the whole island of Sark! I need hardly say that the absurd challenge was not accepted.

During the cruise Mr. Swinburne conceived and afterwards wrote some glorious poetry. In the same year the two friends went to Paris, as I have already mentioned, to assist at the Jubilee of ‘Le Roi s’Amuse.’ Since then their love of the English coasts and the waters which wash them, seems to have kept them in England. For two consecutive years they went to Sidestrand, on the Norfolk coast, for bathing. It was there that Mr. Swinburne wrote some of his East Anglian poems, and it was there that Mr. Watts-Dunton conceived the East coast parts of ‘Aylwin.’ It was during one of these visits that Mr. Swinburne first made the acquaintance of Grant Allen, who had long been an intimate friend of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s. The two, indeed, were drawn together by the fact that they both enjoyed science as much as they enjoyed literature. It was a very interesting meeting, as Grant Allen had long been one of Swinburne’s most ardent admirers, and his social charm, his intellectual sweep and brilliance, made a great impression on the poet. Since then their visits to the sea have been confined to parts of the English Channel, such as Eastbourne, where they were near neighbours of Rossetti’s friends, Lord and Lady Mount Temple, between whom and Mr. Watts-Dunton there had been an affectionate intimacy for many years – but more notably Lancing, whither they went for three consecutive years. For several years they stayed during their holiday with Lady Mary Gordon, an aunt of Mr. Swinburne’s, at ‘The Orchard,’ Niton Bay, Isle of Wight. During the hot summer of 1904 they were lucky enough to escape to Cromer, where the temperature was something like twenty degrees lower than that of London. A curious incident occurred during this visit to Cromer. One day Mr. Watts-Dunton took a walk with another friend to ‘Poppy-land,’ where he and Mr. Swinburne had previously stayed, in order to see there again the landslips which he has so vividly described in ‘Aylwin.’ While they were walking from ‘Poppyland’ to the old ruined churchyard called ‘The Garden of Sleep,’ they sat down for some time in the shade of an empty hut near the cliff. Coming back Mr. Watts-Dunton said that the cliff there was very dangerous, and ought to be fenced off, as the fatal land-springs were beginning to show their work. Two or three weeks after this a portion of the cliff at that point, weighing many thousands of tons, fell into the sea, and the hut with it.

A friendship so affectionate and so long as the friendship between these two poets is perhaps without a parallel in literature. It has been frequently and beautifully commemorated. When Mr. Swinburne’s noble poem, ‘By the North Sea,’ was published, it was prefaced by this sonnet: —

TO WALTER THEODORE WATTS

‘WE ARE WHAT SUNS AND WINDS AND WATERS MAKE US.’

Landor.

 
Sea, wind, and sun, with light and sound and breath
The spirit of man fulfilling – these create
That joy wherewith man’s life grown passionate
Gains heart to hear and sense to read and faith
To know the secret word our Mother saith
In silence, and to see, though doubt wax great,
Death as the shadow cast by life on fate,
Passing, whose shade we call the shadow of death.
 
 
Brother, to whom our Mother, as to me,
Is dearer than all dreams of days undone,
This song I give you of the sovereign three
That are, as life and sleep and death are, one:
A song the sea-wind gave me from the sea,
Where nought of man’s endures before the sun.
 

1882 was a memorable year in the life of Mr. Watts-Dunton. The two most important volumes of poetry published in that year were dedicated to him. Rossetti’s ‘Ballads and Sonnets,’ the book which contains the chief work of his life, bore the following inscription: —

TO

THEODORE WATTS

THE FRIEND WHOM MY VERSE WON FOR ME,

THESE FEW MORE PAGES

ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

A few weeks later Mr. Swinburne’s ‘Tristram of Lyonesse,’ the volume which contains what I regard as his ripest and richest poetry, was thus inscribed: —

TO MY BEST FRIEND

THEODORE WATTS

I DEDICATE IN THIS BOOK

THE BEST I HAVE TO GIVE HIM

 
Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,
And all our wide glad wastes aflower around,
That twice have made keen April’s clarion sound
Since here we first together saw and heard
Spring’s light reverberate and reiterate word
Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned
Here with the best one thing it ever found,
As of my soul’s best birthdays dawns the third.
 
 
There is a friend that as the wise man saith
Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me
Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife
This truth more sure than all things else but death,
This pearl most perfect found in all the sea
That washes toward your feet these waifs of life.
 

The Pines,

April, 1882.

But the finest of all these words of affection are perhaps those opening the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the magnificent Collected Edition of Mr. Swinburne’s poems issued by Messrs. Chatto and Windus in 1904: —

‘To my best and dearest friend I dedicate the first collected edition of my poems, and to him I address what I have to say on the occasion.’

Once also Mr. Watts-Dunton dedicated verses of his own to Mr. Swinburne, to wit, in 1897, when he published that impassioned lyric in praise of a nobler and larger Imperialism, the ‘Jubilee Greeting at Spithead to the Men of Greater Britain’: —

“TO OUR GREAT CONTEMPORARY WRITER OF

PATRIOTIC POETRY,

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

You and I are old enough to remember the time when, in the world of letters at least, patriotism was not so fashionable as it is now – when, indeed, love of England suggested Philistinism rather than ‘sweetness and light.’ Other people, such as Frenchmen, Italians, Irishmen, Hungarians, Poles, might give voice to a passionate love of the land of their birth, but not Englishmen. It was very curious, as I thought then, and as I think now. And at that period love of the Colonies was, if possible, even more out of fashion than was love of England; and this temper was not confined to the ‘cultured’ class. It pervaded society and had an immense influence upon politics. On one side the Manchester school, religiously hoping that if the Colonies could be insulted so effectually that they must needs (unless they abandoned all self-respect) ‘set up for themselves,’ the same enormous spurt would be given to British trade which occurred after the birth of the United States, bade the Colonies ‘cut the painter.’ On the other hand the old Tories and Whigs, with a few noble exceptions, having never really abandoned the old traditions respecting the unimportance of all matters outside the parochial circle of European diplomacy, scarcely knew where the Colonies were situated on the map.

There was, however, in these islands one person who saw as clearly then as all see now the infinite importance of the expansion of England to the true progress of mankind – the Great Lady whose praises in this regard I have presumed to sing in the opening stanza of these verses.

I may be wrong, but I, who am, as you know, no courtier, believe from the bottom of my heart that without the influence of the Queen this expansion would have been seriously delayed. Directly and indirectly her influence must needs be enormous, and, as regards this matter, it has always been exercised – energetically and even eagerly exercised – in one way. This being my view, I have for years been urging more than one friend clothed with an authority such as I do not possess to bring the subject prominently before the people of England at a time when England’s expansion is a phrase in everybody’s mouth. I have not succeeded. Let this be my apology for undertaking the task myself and for inscribing to you, as well as to the men of Greater Britain, these lines.”

I feel that it is a great privilege to be able to present to my readers beautiful photogravures and photographs of interiors and pictures and works of art at ‘The Pines.’ Many of the pictures and other works of art at ‘The Pines’ are mementoes of a most interesting kind.

Among these is the superb portrait of Madox Brown, at this moment hanging in the Bradford Exhibition. Madox Brown painted it for the owner. An interesting story is connected with it. One day, not long after Mr. Watts-Dunton had become intimate with Madox Brown, the artist told him he specially wanted his boy Nolly to read to him a story that he had been writing, and asked him to meet the boy at dinner.

‘Nolly been writing a story!’ exclaimed Mr. Watts-Dunton.

‘I understand your smile,’ said Madox Brown; ‘but you will find it better than you think.’

At this time Oliver Madox Brown seemed a loose-limbed hobbledehoy, young enough to be at school. After dinner Oliver began to read the opening chapters of the story in a not very impressive way, and Mr. Watts-Dunton suggested that he should take it home and read it at his leisure. This was agreed to. Pressure of affairs prevented him from taking it up for some time. At last he did take it up, but he had scarcely read a dozen pages when he was called away, and he asked a member of his family to gather up the pages from the sofa and put them into an escritoire. On his return home at a very late hour he found the lady intently reading the manuscript, and she declared that she could not go to bed till she had finished it.

On the next day Mr. Watts-Dunton again took up the manuscript, and was held spellbound by it. It was a story of passion, of intense love, and intense hate, told with a crude power that was irresistible.

Mr. Watts-Dunton knew Smith Williams (the reader of Smith, Elder & Co.), whose name is associated with ‘Jane Eyre.’ He showed it to Williams, who was greatly struck by it, but pointed out that it terminated in a violent scene which the novel-reading public of that time would not like, and asked for a concluding scene less daring. The ending was modified, and the story, when it appeared, attracted very great attention. Madox Brown was so grateful to Mr. Watts-Dunton for his services in the matter that he insisted on expressing his gratitude in some tangible form. Miss Lucy Madox Brown (afterwards Mrs. W. M. Rossetti) was consulted, and at once suggested a portrait of the painter, painted by himself. This was done, and the result was the masterpiece which has been so often exhibited. From that moment Oliver Madox Brown took his place in the literary world of his time. The mention of Oliver Madox Brown will remind the older generation of his friendship with Philip Bourke Marston, the blind poet, one of the most pathetic chapters in literary annals.

Although Rossetti never fulfilled his intention of illustrating what he called ‘Watts’s magnificent star sonnet,’ he began what would have been a superb picture illustrating Mr. Watts-Dunton’s sonnet, ‘The Spirit of the Rainbow.’ He finished a large charcoal drawing of it, which is thus described by Mr. William Sharp in his book, ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti: a Record and a Study’: —

“It represents a female figure standing in a gauzy circle composed of a rainbow, and on the frame is written the following sonnet (the poem in question by Mr. Watts-Dunton):

THE WOOD-HAUNTER’S DREAM

 
The wild things loved me, but a wood-sprite said:
‘Though meads are sweet when flowers at morn uncurl,
And woods are sweet with nightingale and merle,
Where are the dreams that flush’d thy childish bed?
The Spirit of the Rainbow thou would’st wed!’
I rose, I found her – found a rain-drenched girl
Whose eyes of azure and limbs like roseate pearl
Coloured the rain above her golden head.
 
 
But when I stood by that sweet vision’s side
I saw no more the Rainbow’s lovely stains;
To her by whom the glowing heavens were dyed
The sun showed naught but dripping woods and plains:
‘God gives the world the Rainbow, her the rains,’
The wood-sprite laugh’d, ‘Our seeker finds a bride!’
 

Rossetti meant to have completed the design with the ‘woods and plains’ seen in perspective through the arch; and the composition has an additional and special interest because it is the artist’s only successful attempt at the wholly nude – the ‘Spirit’ being extremely graceful in poise and outline.

I am able to give a reproduction of another of Rossetti’s beautiful studies which has never been published, but which has been very much talked about. Many who have seen it at ‘The Pines’ agree with the late Lord de Tabley that Rossetti in this crayon created the loveliest of all his female faces. It is thus described by Mr. William Sharp: “The drawing, which, for the sake of a name, I will call ‘Forced Music,’ represents a nude half-figure of a girl playing on a mediæval stringed instrument elaborately ornamented. The face is of a type unlike that of any other of the artist’s subjects, and extraordinarily beautiful.”

I should explain that the background and the ragged garb of the girl in the version of the picture here reproduced, are by Dunn. These two exquisite drawings were made from the same girl, who never sat for any other pictures. Her face has been described as being unlike that of any other of Rossetti’s models and yet combining the charm of them all.

I am strictly prohibited by the subject of this study from giving any personal description of him. For my part I do not sympathize with this extreme sensitiveness and dislike to having one’s personal characteristics described in print. What is there so dreadful or so sacred in mere print? The feeling upon this subject is a reminiscence, I think, of archaic times, when between conversation and printed matter there was ‘a great gulf fixed.’ Both Mr. Watts-Dunton and his friend Mr. Swinburne must be aware that as soon as they have left any gathering of friends or strangers, remarks – delicate enough, no doubt – are made about them, as they are made about every other person who is talked about in ever so small a degree. Not so very long ago I remained in a room after Mr. Watts-Dunton had left it. Straightway there were the freest remarks about him, not in the least unkind, but free. Some did not expect to see so dark a man; some expected to see him much darker than they found him to be; some recalled the fact that Miss Corkran, in her reminiscences, described his dark-brown eyes as ‘green’ – through a printer’s error, no doubt. Some then began to contrast his appearance with that of his absent friend, Mr. Swinburne – and so on, and so on. Now, what is the difference between being thus discussed in print and in conversation? Merely that the printed report reaches a wider – a little wider – audience. That is all. I do not think it is an unfair evasion of his prohibition to reproduce one of the verbal snap-shots of him that have appeared in the papers. Some energetic gentleman – possibly some one living in the neighbourhood – took the following ‘Kodak’ of him. It appeared in ‘M.A.P.’ and it is really as good a thumb-nail portrait of him as could be painted. In years to come, when he and I and the ‘Kodaker’ are dead, it may be found more interesting, perhaps, than anything I have written about him: —

“Every, or nearly every, morning, as the first glimmer of dawn lightens the sky, there appears on Wimbledon Common a man, whose skin has been tanned by sun and wind to the rich brown of the gypsies he loves so well; his forehead is round, and fairly high; his brown eyes and the brow above them give his expression a piercing appearance. For the rest, his voice is firm and resonant, and his brown hair and thick moustache are partially shot with grey. But he looks not a day over forty-five. Generally he carries a book. Often, however, he turns from it to watch the birds and the rabbits. For – it will be news to lie-abeds of the district – Wimbledon Common is lively with rabbits, revelling in the freshness of the dawn, rabbits which ere the rush for the morning train begins, will all have vanished until the moon rises again. To him, morning, although he has seen more sunrises than most men, still makes an ever fresh and glorious pageant. This usually solitary figure is that of Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, and to his habit of early rising the famous poet, novelist, and critic ascribes his remarkable health and vigour.”

The holidays of the two poets have not been confined to their visits to the sea-side. One place of retreat used to be the residence of the late Benjamin Jowett, at Balliol, when the men were down, or one of his country places, such as Boar’s Hill.

I have frequently heard Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Watts-Dunton talk about the famous Master of Balliol. I have heard Mr. Swinburne recall the great admiration which Jowett used to express for Mr. Watts-Dunton’s intellectual powers and various accomplishments. There was no one, I have heard Mr. Swinburne say, whom Jowett held in greater esteem. That air of the college don, which has been described by certain of Jowett’s friends, left the Master entirely when he was talking to Mr. Watts-Dunton.

Among the pleasant incidents in Mr. Watts-Dunton’s life were these visits with Mr. Swinburne to Jowett’s house, where he had the opportunity of meeting some of the most prominent men of the time. He has described the Balliol dinner parties, but I have no room here to do more than allude to them. I must, however, quote his famous pen portrait of Jowett which appeared in the ‘Athenæum’ of December 22, 1894.