REAL PEOPLE IN FICTION

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12593, 8 September 1906, Page 7

REAL PEOPLE IN FICTION

(From "T.P.'s Weekly.") Some two or three weeks ago I referred to an interesting paper in the first number of the Africin Magazine/ by Mr Charles H.. Crane, on that ever-popular subject, "Real People in Fiction." The segpnd number is an equally strong one, and Mr Crane's contribution contains additional information, beginning ■with "Sludge the Medium." This pcK-on was no other than the notorious Homo, who obtained such a great influence ever Mrs Barrett Browning. "CROSSING THE BAR." Pas-sing.on to Tennyson, we are informed that ho was obliged to tell even I quite sensible people that the "broad- \ llfimmed hawker of holy things" was j not the gFeat John Bright, and that the pilot in ''Crossing the Bar" was neither his own son Lionel nor his \ friend Arthur Hallam. Apropos of I '"Crossing tho Bar," the late Lord J Chief Justice Bowen once found i himself called upon to adjudicate in a f-.hipping Wvse in the Admiralty Division of tho High Court. Bowon knew nothing.At all about Admiralty, Law, and after ascertaining tho procedure of a Court with which he was utterly unfamiliar, he addresfcod counsel in his. private room, concluding, with a sigh, "Very veil, then. I will hear jou, Mr So-and-So, and then you, Mr Such-and-iSueh. and then I ehalJ I direct tho jury, and 'may there bo no moaning at the bar when I put out to sea.' " Incidentally, it was Lord Bowen who, when the Judges assembled to draft their address of loyalty on tho occasion of the late Queen's jubilee, and it was proposed to lead off with ''Conscious as v:c aro of our own shortcomings,'' suggested the amendment. '"Conscious s>.s we aro of each other's shortcomings,' , THE " LOiST LEADER." Returning to Browning again, we are asked to believe once and for nil, on the authority of the poet himself, that his famous ''Lost Leador" was Wordsworth, and that he subsequently regretted the pnrtfltit. Sir Leonard Courtenay, in allusron to this poem, cf Lord Milncr as a politically "lost mind," to which .Sir Edward Giey's retort was that if that statesn'en's mind was lost, he would bo a very fortunate person who happened to find it. As a matter of fact, Browning's actual words, were "lost soul." Among the who's who of many far more important books the writer touches on that of Samuel Warren's 'Ten Thoueand a Year," because it contains a portrait of Lord Chancellor Brougham under the disguiee of "Councillor Quicksilver." It was Brougham who gave, to an unusually affected speaker in the House of Lords, crying "My Lords, I ask myself tho question, I—• ah—put to myself the enquiry ," the awkward repartee, "Then a d d stupid answer you'll get." "THE NEW REPUBLIC." One of the most brilliant books that ever dealt almost .solely with real people was Mr Malleoli's "The New Republic," in which the late Doctor Jowett of Baliol figured as Dr. Jenkinson, the Broad Churchman, who, on being asked whether he could subscribo the Articlee of Religion, answered. "Give mc a pen." Mr Storks, who ie great on the physical basis of life, and the imaginative basis of God, was quickly as the late Professor Huxley, while Professor TJymclall was repreeented by Stdokton. Lady Violet Gresham represented "Violet Fane," the pseudonym of Lady Currie, tho wife of our late Ambassador at Rome, whose recent deaith. was so deplored. In the' 6ame book Matthew Arnold is initroduoed to us as Mr Luke, while Walter Pater is almost caricatured ac Mr Rcee. Many other characters in this brilliant book are taken literally from life. On the other hand, it is not for a moment to be imagined that everybody who seems real m printer's ink has his or her counterpart in flesh and blood. TrolLqpo was once asked by the wife of a dignitary of the Church, as to the real identities of the people figuring in "Barcheetor Towers." He replied, to her amazement, that at the time tho book was written no single cathedral clergyman was among his acquaintances. MISCELLANEOUS IDENTIFICATIONS. Among miscellameoiMS identifications considerable interest attaches to the fallowing litst: — Corporal Farmer, a V.C.. stall living in London, ie tli© hero of James Grant's story, "Violet Jernvyn." Beetle, in '"Stalk}' and C 0.," is said to b<2 none other than Mr Kipling himself. The Clare family in Mr Hardy's "Tese"' was drawn from .that of the Rev. H. Moule, vicar of Fordi'ngton, a.nd the "brilliant brother at Cambridge" who is mentioned is the present Bishop of Durham. The original of "Sherlock Holmes" is Dr. Joseph Bell, tho celebrated surgeon of Edinburgh University; and "Lord Linlithgow" in Mr Morley Roberts's story is understood to be Lord R-ose-bery. * Some of the most wildJy improbable stories in the world have been founded on reality. For example, Edgar Allan Pop's "'l'lie Mystery of Marie Roget" is founded on the mystery attached to tlK> death ct a Xow York girl iiam«l Mary Rogers. She was found dead in her room- with tho door locked on the inside, the only access to the room being a. window at an immense height above the ground. It was afterwards found that a chimpanzee had ascended ;i stack-pipe, and the jnyetery was solved. MARK TWAINS CHARACTERS. Naturally enough, the characters of Mark Twain have been zealously tracked. Col. Sellers is stated to be a well-known Southern politician named Colonel Price, who was at one time a representative of Georgia in Congress, "iiuck. Finn" is supposed to be the great humourist himself, while Tom Sawyer, now seventy-five years old, is the 'proprietor of a saloon in. San Francieoo. As for Mr Verey, the veteran courier, whose savoir fa ire was so highly commended in 'The Tramp Abroad," he still lives, or did, we are assured, until quite recently, in London. The writer in "Iho South African Magazine" concludes with a tribute to Mrs Humphry Ward's "The Marriage of William A&he," of which he (>ays: "The story sh© has produced is ii." every true sense perfectly original; the pictures of William Ashe and Lady Tranmoro, of Lady Kitty and Geoffrey Clitfe. are not the real Lord Melbourne and his mother, the real Lady Caroline Lamb and the real Lord Byiron—they are interesting studies.''