The Splendid Egotist.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17447, 6 July 1928, Page 10

The Splendid Egotist.

(< Baron Corvo” and His Amazing Career.

; A'recent Press allusion to that strange being 'who styled himself tho Baron Corvo, whilst it stirred the mraicues of Isom©, must have left most readers curiand questioning, says an English writer.*' And their curiosity will not have been satisfied by. the Dictionary of National Biography, which has nothing at all to,say about Frederick William Serafmo Ajilstin Lewis Mary Rolfe. V et in all the Dictionary there is not a life-story more remarkable in its way than this man s, wjfoj bom in London on July 2nd, 1860, died in Venice, utterly destitute, on October 23rd, 1913. Many Inventions. Little appears to be known of his early history, but in the ’eighties he was a schoolmaster, first at Saffron Walden and afterwards (1884-86) at Grantham Giammar School. ' In October, 1887, he entered Oisebtt Colege in order to qualify for the Rdman Catholic priesthood, and during the year which he spent there painted a picture of the translation of St. William of Norwich, introducing a hundred and llfty representations of himself in different vestments. From Oscott he went to the Scottish College in Borne, where they put up with his unorthodox doings for as long as they could before expelling him. From now on he was the incorrigible vagabond, frankly living by his wits and “spoiling the Egyptians.” He began by adopting the Duchess Cesarini-Sforza as his “grandmother,” and she sunportod him until her patience gave out. Then, bestowing upon himself the title of Frederick Baron Corvo, he settled at Christchurch, Hants, graciously accepting the bounty of the G. Whites, who received him as the grandson of the Duchess. This could not last, however, and presently he was roving again, taking tutorfillips and dropping them, or-being sent about bis business, living riotously when he could and starving when he must. He appeals to tho Bishop of Aberdeen to finance a scheme for ocean photography, (suggesting that Catholic relief funds ohbuld he appropriated for the purpose, and the -wise Bishop answers, “May our Lbrd help you out of all your difficulties, fqjy I have no faith in submarine photography.” Vain also we re similar appeals to Mr Astor, and to Lord Charles Beresford, to whom the bold Baron propounded a scheme for photographing tho hull of H. Victoria at tho bottom of the Mediterranean, whilst to the Queen herself ho offered a photograph of tho Nativity, to bo taken from living models under magnesium flares! • Stony-Hearted Aberdeen. ; (Deviously he makes his way to Aberdeen, where he points pictures of medip.oval saints and offers them to tho Municipality as “the work of an artist who has settled in Aberdeen because of its exquisite suitability for his work.” In the end the most he could obtain from the Scots waa a job in a photographic works at 12s 6dt a week, a wage which prompted him to apply for a, certificate pf insanity in order

that he might get board and lodging f ree in the asylum. He always insisted that it was tho high and proper function of a philistine community to supply the wants of the artist.

Besuming his itinerant life, he filled many roles, including that of secretary to a Labour leader (whoso party he characteristically savaged later in one of his books). The one part he never ceased to play was that of an Ishmael, with the consequence that he was often in such a lamentable plight as to feel compelled to daub his features with paint and walk abroad only in the dark. Stead's Julia. In “The Wide World Magazine” for November, 1898, there appeared a fantastic story of “How I Was Buried Alive.” This was our Baron’s ingenious way of avenging his expulsion from the Scottish College, whose brotherhood were obliquely charged with attempted fratricide! The story was angrily refuted, but tho noise of it was drowned in tho greater noise of tho do Rougemont affair. Before this he had been introduced to W. T. Stead, with a view to employment on tho “Review of Reviews.” Stead took a pennv from, the Baron and pased it to Julia, his celebrated medium, who immediately cried : “He is a blackguard ; he has a, hole in his head!” Whereupon W. T. chased and held his visitor, felt for tho hiflo, and found it! Tho interview was abruptly closed.

Corvo first became known as a writer with the six “Stories. Toto Told Me,” contributed to the“ Yellow Book,” and reprinted in 1897 as one of tho “Bodley Head Booklets”—“the most amazing, fantastical, whimsical, bizarre, erratic, and hare-brained of books,” James Douglas wrote of it. A colection of thirty- two stories, including the earlier six, appeared in 1991 under the title “Tn His Own Image,” tho title-page glorified with a coat of arms, unhallowed by tho Collego of Heralds, complete with motto, in Greek, “All will bo well” (of this book a new edition was published in 1924 with a biographical and critical Introduction by Mr Shane Leslie). There followed “Chronicles of tho Honso of Borgia,” 1901; “Hadrian the Seventh,” 1904, etc., etc. A Fascinating Personality. His main characters are so many projections of himself. Most of all is this true of his astonishing masterpiece, “Hadrian tho Seventh,” in which he raises himself by stages to the Papal throne, to be tho first English Pontiff since Hadrian the Fourth ! The book is brilliant, and of a bewildering audacity. The author “can write,” quoth tho “Daily Mail,” “but he hath a devil” (and Mr Shane Leslie is illuminating when he says that friendship with Corvo “was a minor experiment in demonology”). Tho man was a. fascinating personality, courtly in his manner, an accomplished scholar, but he did inspire strange fears and repulsions in those with whom he came in contact. He had wit and humour of a sardonic kind, knew how to amuse, and never failed to exasperate. 3e died in. Venice, .alone a&d Buddeniy,

Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, is the largest private residence in England. The main building alone covers three acres. ❖ * v Human nails grow at tho rate of about an inch and a-half a year. A man aged seventy has grown nearly Oft. of nail on each fLpger—9oft, altogather. --r ’