Edmund Gosse

“ He kept the Lent and Easter terms of 1859 at Balliol, and when the Austrian war broke out in May, he spoke at the Union, 'reading excitedly but ineffectively a long tirade against Napoleon and in favour of Orsini and Mazzini' (Lord Sheffield) . He began to be looked upon as 'dangerous,' and Jowett, who was much interested in him, expressed an extreme dread that the college might send him down and so 'make Balliol as ridiculous as University had made itself about Shelley.' At this time Swinburne had become what he continued to be for the rest of his life, a high tory republican. ”

“ Ruskin welcomed it as 'the grandest thing ever done by a youth — though he is a Demoniac youth' (E. T. Cook's Life of Ruskin) . In consequence of its popularity, the earlier tragedy of 'Chastelard' was now brought forward and published in December of the same year. This also was warmly received by the critics, but there were murmurs heard as to its supposed sensuality. This was the beginning of the outcry against Swinburne's literary morals, and even 'Atalanta' was now searched for evidences of atheism and indelicacy. ”

“ Immediately on his arrival at Eton he had attacked the poetry of Wordsworth. In September 1849 he was taken by his parents to visit that poet in the Lakes; Wordsworth, who was very gracious, said in parting that he did not think that Algernon 'would forget' him, whereupon the little boy burst into tears (Miss Sewell's Autobiography) . Earlier in the same year Lady Jane had taken her son to visit Rogers in London; and on this old man also the child made a strong impression. ”

“ In July and August of this year Swinburne stayed with Jowett in the little hotel at the foot of Loch Tummel. Here he made the acquaintance of Browning, who was writing 'Hohenstiel-Schwangau.' Browning was staying near by, and often joined the party. Swinburne, much recovered in health, was in delightful spirits; like Jowett, he was ardently on the side of France. In September he went off for a prolonged walking-tour through the highlands of Scotland, and returned in splendid condition. The life of London, however, was always bad for him, and in October he was seriously ill again ”

“ She continued to live at Stanmore, corresponding with a very wide circle of persons interested in natural history, but seldom quitting the bounds of her own estate. She died there on 5 May 1906, and was buried in the church-yard of Stanmore. Mrs. Brightwen was an artless writer; but she had boundless patience, great perseverance and humour, and a sort of natural magic in dealing with wild creatures. Her books are store- houses of personal notes, in which nothing is borrowed from other authors, or accepted on any other authority than that of her own eyes. ”

“ The death of her husband in 1883 roused her from her lethargy and suffering, and though she was liable to violent attacks of pain until the end of her life, they interfered no longer with her intellectual activity. ”

“ Rossetti believed that it would be good for Swinburne to be living in the household of friends who would look after him without seeming to control him, since life in London lodgings was proving rather disastrous. Swinburne's extremely nervous organisation laid him open to great dangers, and he was peculiarly unfitted for dissipation. ”

“ Miss Otté was one of the most learned women of her time, especially in philology and physical science, but she never acquired ease in literary expression. She lived wholly in the pursuit of knowledge, even in extreme old age, when rendered inactive and tortured by neuralgia. ”

“ As a magician of verbal melody he impressed his early contemporaries to the neglect of his merit as a thinker, but posterity will regard him as a philosopher who gave melodious utterance to ideas of high originality and value. ”

“ Two volumes of reprinted matter belong to this year, 1876: in prose 'Essays and Studies,' in verse 'Songs of Two Nations'; and a pseudonymous pamphlet, attacking Buchanan, entitled 'The Devil's Due.' Most of 1876 was spent at Holmwood, with brief and often untoward visits to London. In July he was poisoned by lilies with which a too enthusiastic hostess had filled his bedroom, and he did not completely recover until November. ”

“ The sea-bathing was beneficial, but on his return to London Swinburne's illnesses, fostered by his own obstinate imprudence, visibly increased in severity; in April 1869 he complained of 'ill-health hardly intermittent through weeks and months.' From the end of July to September he spent some weeks at Vichy with Richard Burton, Leighton, and Mrs. Sartoris. He went to Holmwood for the winter and composed 'Diræ' in December. ”

“ In the Easter term Swinburne took a second in moderations, and won the Taylorian' scholarship for French and Italian. He now accompanied his parents to France for a long visit. The attempt of Orsini, in January 1858, to murder Napoleon III had found an enthusiastic admirer in Algernon, who decorated his rooms at Oxford with Orsini's portrait, and proved an embarrassing fellow-traveller in Paris to his parents. ”

“ This side of his genius, exemplified by such poems as 'Hertha' and 'Tiresias,' was that which showed most evidence of development, yet his masterpieces in this kind also were mainly written before he was thirty-five. No complete collection of Swinburne's works has appeared, but his poems were published in six volumes in 1904, and his tragedies in five in 1905-6. The authentic portraits of Swinburne are not very numerous. D. G. Rossetti made a pencil drawing in 1860, and in 1862 a water-colour painting, an excellent portrait, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge ”

“ OTTÉ, ELISE (1818–1903) , scholar and historian, was born at Copenhagen on 30 September 1818, of a Danish father and an English mother. In 1820 her parents went to Santa Cruz, in the Danish West Indies, where her father died. Her mother returned to Copenhagen, where she met the English philologist, Benjamin Thorpe [q. v.] , while he was studying Anglo-Saxon under Rask in Denmark, and married him. Elise accompanied her mother and step-father to England. ”

“ He cultivated few friends except those who immediately interested him poetically and politically. But he was a member of the club called the Old Mortality, in which he was associated with Nichol, Dicey, Luke (who was drowned in 1861) , T. H. Green, Caird, and Pater, besides Mr. Bryce and Mr. Bywater.
Jowett thought it well that Swinburne should leave Oxford for a while at the end of Easter term, 1859, and sent him to read modern history with William Stubbs [q. v. Suppl. II] at Navestock. ”

“ This winter was spent at Holmwood, whence in February 1875 Swinburne issued his introduction to the reprint of Wells's 'Joseph and his Brethren.' From early in June until late in October he was out of London — at Holmwood; visiting Jowett at West Malvern, where he sketched the first outline of 'Erechtheus'; and in apartments, Middle Cliff, Wangford, near Southwold, in Suffolk. His monograph on 'Auguste Vacquerie,' in French, was published in Paris in November 1875 ”

“ He was prepared for Oxford, in a desultory way, by John Wilkinson, perpetual curate of Cambo in Northumberland, who said that he 'was too clever and would never study.' He now spent a few weeks in Germany with his uncle. General the Hon. Thomas Ashburnham. On 24 Jan. 1856 Swinburne matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, and he kept terms regularly through the years 1856. 1857, and 1858. After the first year his high-church proclivities fell from him and he became a nihilist in religion and a republican. He had portraits of Mazzini in his rooms, and declaimed verses to them (Lord Sheffield) ”

“ Elder retired from business; in 1855 Miss Elder married George Brightwen (1820–1883) , who was then in the banking firm of Messrs. Overend & Gurney, but left it before the smash in 1867, to start for himself in the discount business, where he made a considerable fortune. They settled in Stanmore, where Mrs. Brightwen resided for the remainder of her life. Her health had been always uncertain, and in 1872 her nervous system broke down completely. For ten years she was almost wholly excluded from books, from nature, and from her friends. ”

“ His parents were high-church and he was brought up as 'a quasi-catholic' He recollected in after years the enthusiasm with which he welcomed the process of confirmation, and his 'ecstasies of adoration when receiving the Sacrament.' He early developed a love for climbing, riding, and swimming, and never cared, through life, for any other sports. ”

“ A. G. C. Liddell, the lives of D. G. Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Richard Burton, Whistler, John Churton Collins, and Ruskin. R. H. Shepherd's Bibliography of Swinburne (1887) possesses little value. Swinburne left behind him a considerable number of short MSS., principally in verse. The prose tales have been recorded above, and certain of the verse; his posthumous poems, none of which have yet been published, also include a series of fine Northumbrian ballads. ”

“ T. W. Jackson; a large pastel, taken in old age (Jan. 1900) , by R. Ponsonby Staples, is in the possession of Mr. Edmund Gosse. A full-length portrait in water-colour was painted by A. Pellegrini ('Ape') for reproduction in 'Vanity Fair’ in the summer of 1874; this drawing, which belonged to Lord Redesdale, was given by him to Mr. Gosse. Although avowedly a caricature, this is in many ways the best surviving record of Swinburne's general aspect and attitude. ”

“ To these must be added the valuable notes on The Boyhood of Algernon Swinburne, published in the Contemporary Review for April 1910 by another cousin, JMrs. Disney Leith. The Life of Jowett has some notes, unfortunately very slight, of the Master of Balhol's lifelong salutary influence over the poet, who had been and never ceased to be his pupil, and something is guardedly reported in the Life of Lord Houghton. Mr. ”