THE LETTERS OF LORD DE TABLEY

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 October 1975, Page 17

THE LETTERS OF LORD DE TABLEY

J. R. Tye

The name of John Byrne Leicester Warren, third Baron De Tabley (1835-95), ceased to have any popular significance during the Second World War, yet his verse found a place in anthologies as late as 1939, when W. B. Yeats included a selection in the Oxford Book of English Verse, and found no room for Oscar Wilde. In his day, however, De Tabley’s ancestry gave him an immediate claim to attention, for he was descended from William the Conqueror, and he was, along with Byron, the noblest of the poets of the nineteenth century with a succession to a hereditary seat in the House of Lords. He included among his friends George Eliot, G. LI. Lewes, Gladstone, Theodore Watts-Dunton and Edmund Gosse; he had a reputation as an authority on federal Greek coinage, on bookplates—his volume on bookplates is still a standard text —and on the flora of Cheshire; and he was ranked second by Swinburne among the candidates for the Poet Laureateship after the death of Tennyson in 1892. Some years ago the Turnbull Library acquired a collection of his letters to the London publishers, Elkin Matthews and John Lane, principally the latter, covering two periods, the first, 31 July 1892 to 22 May 1893; the second, 11 May to 6 September 1895; that is, until shortly before his death.

Their interest is threefold: they provide a revealing picture of a complex personality during the last four years of his life; they illustrate the alternating moods of pleasure and despair in a gifted but minor poet who at last found publishers to give him an appreciative public such as he had never enjoyed before; and they demonstrate the vagaries of fortune which attend the papers of a publisher when his literary effects are dispersed.

To appreciate the poignancy of the full range of the letters we need to see them in the context of the obituaries of November-December 1895, by Edmund Gosse, Theodore Watts-Dunton and Sir Grant Duff. All pay tribute to De Tabley’s breadth of interest in numismatics, botany, rare books and bookplates—and to his Keatsian command of the glittering phrase; and all regret the intense and morbid sensitivity which inhibited his public and private relationships. De Tabley was born in 1835, the eldest son of the second baron and of Catherina Barbara, daughter of the Count de Sails. Gosse, with an eye for picturesque detail, had heard that he was baptized in water brought from the Jordan by his godfather, and that soil from the Holy Land was scattered on his coffin in the churchyard of Little Peover, near his ancestral home, Tabley House. His childhood was unconventional: the first twelve or so years were spent with his mother in Southern Europe, where his taste in the fine arts was encouraged by his godfather, Robert Curzon. After Eton and Oxford

De Tabley was attached to the suite of Lord Stratford De Redcliffe on a mission to Turkey: there his interest in numismatics was stimulated by the increasing excavation of ancient sites in Asia Minor, and the opportunity to barter for coins.

Returning to Britain in 1860, for the next fifteen years he divided his time between literary pursuits in London, politics, and country activities such as service in the local, Cheshire, yeomanry. His intellectual life can be charted by a series of publications—poems, novels, and closet drama—none of which gained him more than passing notice. A clear indication of temperament is his use of pseudonyms, and it was not until 1870 that he had the courage to acknowledge a volume of verse, followed by a second, in 1873, his last for twenty years. His friends witnessed a progressive melancholy which overtook him during the seventies, when he gained the reputation of a recluse, with but ‘two intimate friends. The first he has not seen for five years, the second for six.’ In 1887, however, he inherited the impoverished family estate, a challenge which brought him once more into the world of men, while in 1891, with the publication of a selection of his verse in A. H. Miles’s Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, his literary ambition was revived. This is the point at which the Turnbull collection begins. John Lane and his older partner Elkin Matthews had already made a name through publishing volumes of verse by the younger poets of the nineties, and no doubt received favourable advice on an older one from Edmund Gosse, whose friendship with De Tabley dated from 1875. From that point on, the publication of two volumes of verse and a possible third formed a major interest in De Tabley’s private thoughts.

It is here that we become aware that the Turnbull collection is a broken series. In spite of the spate of self-doubt, pleasure and spleen poured out to John Lane, sometimes daily, even twice daily, there are gaps, and to fill these we need access to at least two other collections, one in the Walpole material in the Bodleian Library, the other in the Berg collection in the New York Public Library, while additional information can be gleaned from archives at Tabley House, administered by the Chester archivists. The Bodleian Library has kindly provided xeroxes of the Walpole collection on a reciprocal basis; the Berg collection is only available in xerox for research purposes and I am grateful for the use of them for the purpose of this article.

The first series of Turnbull letters is made up of a sequence of 17 letters (31 July-28 September 1892) which require the addition of 3 (15 August, 6, 10 September 1892) from the Bodleian; there is then the Bodleian sequence with 8 letters (4 October-3 November) to which must be added 2 (17 October, 2 November) from the Turnbull; the Turnbull series is then apparently complete, with 26 letters until 20

December, after which the Bodleian supplies four (21 (2), 22, 27 December). At this point the Berg series of letters (1 January-20 May, 1893), continues the correspondence, to which must be added one from the Turnbull (22 May). All the letters from 31 July 1892-22 May 1893 concern the First Series of Poems Dramatic and Lyrical. The remaining 28 letters in the Turnbull collection date from 11 May 1894 until 6 September 1895, and take up the story, incomplete by the previous standards, of the publication of Poems Dramatic and Lyrical, Second Series, 1895; and of De Tabley’s attempts to get together enough new verse to make a third volume, a project obviously cut short by his death. It remained for his sister Eleanor to publish his remaining verse, not without unpleasantness with John Lane, under the title Orpheus in Thrace and Other Poems (1901) through Smith, Elder of London, and Sherrat and Hughes of Manchester.

Poems Dramatic and Lyrical (1893), By John Leicester Warren, Lord De Tabley, with illustrations by C. S. Ricketts, went through at least three ‘editions’, of which 1352 copies were printed, a comparatively large number for a volume of verse. John Lane chose Ricketts as the designer of the binding and the illustrations, and ensured a production which would strike the age, and add lustre to the Bodley Head. Superficially it was outstanding, to be ranked with Symond’s In the Key of Blue, Wilde’s Sphinx and John Gray’s Silverpoints in the revival of fine printing in the nineties. The Turnbull possesses two first editions, one the special guinea version, in cream cloth and gold, printed on Japanese paper, the other the ordinary edition of green cloth and gold. The letters relate the vicissitudes of its contents, and open up the personality of its author. It should be remembered that De Tabley writes from Chelsea, Ryde and Bournemouth to a Lane who may be in London, Devonshire, Oxford, Leeds and other places. That they were delivered, and quickly, is a tribute to the Victorian postal service.

As the obituaries indicate, De Tabley was the most modest of men. On 12 July 1892, Lane invites De Tabley to meet two of his ‘most promising’ young poets, Richard Le Gallienne and William Watson, while agreeing to an edition not exceeding 500 copies. De Tabley would like to meet them, but gout will prevent him; later they meet, and Le Gallienne is deputed to ‘read’ the poems and make a selection from published and unpublished work. Characteristically, De Tabley ‘discovers’ fifty pages of ‘quite new finished lyrics’ which he had forgotten, and a further fifty of unfinished lyrics ‘exactly the same as the morning when I put up my shutters’ after a ‘sudden calamity’ some years before. Le Gallienne clearly had the right approach with the poet, for his early comments are well received, and De Tabley encloses a £2O cheque for his pains. Ironically, the cheque crosses a further commentary

on the new material from Le Gallienne whose notes are so able that they convince De Tabley that none of the poems will do for publication: he has ‘a miserable toothache today’, the publication of the book seems every day ‘more doubtful and problematical’; it would be ‘better to draw back now . . . than to saddle you and your partner with a manifest failure’. Lane, however, was nothing if not tactful, and on 26 September De Tabley finds further material, this time out of his ‘dust bin’. By 7 October, paper size has been decided, corrected proofs have been returned to Lane. By the 11th, however, Tennyson is dead, and De

Tabley suggests postponement until Easter, for the reading public will be absorbed by his obsequies: adding pathetically, that only ‘When the nightingale begins to be forgotten, the sparrows may chirp again’. At this stage more physical problems arise: the increased size of page means that the present supplies of verse are insufficient, and more must be supplied; Ricketts has chosen to illustrate ‘The Two Old Kings’, a poem excluded by Le Gallienne, and it would be difficult to ‘hitch in’ a suitable line from any other poem to suit the illustration. A title for the book will be difficult; ‘Poems’, he reflects bashfully, would be too reminiscent of Tennyson’s first volume. And he reluctantly accepts Poems Dramatic and Lyrical; but how are they to describe the motif of the cover? Rose-petals? Perhaps a dew drop or two on the petals might be helpful. In an earlier enthusiasm for Ricketts’s designs, De

Tabley had asked him to include a book plate among the illustrations, and greatly did De Tabley misjudge his man. On 4 November he has just seen Ricketts’s design, which is ‘lovely’, ‘though I don’t quite make out what the figure—apparently a male figure, represents, or what he is holding. Also, though not to accentuate it for a high art design, I think it is rather so for a private Book plate, and if Mr Ricketts sees his way to softening or rendering more vague certain details, I think it would give the captious critic and my private friends less chance of calling out.’ On 7 November De Tabley is less tentative, and his eye has ranged further. In artistic circles a completely nude male figure on the book plate and on the book cover may pass without comment, but the idea had been to make the publication of the poems coincide with the Christmas illustrated book season. ‘Now I put it to your good sense

whether this figure of praise [the small figure on the cover] will render the book suitable for a drawing room table’, and De Tabley suggests consultation with competent persons of both sexes. In aggrieved tones he complains that he has given way in the matter of title, has altered numberless lines, and sacrificed several poems: ‘ls it a good thing for a writer to be so kept in order?’ His health is so uncertain, it is doubtful if he will succeed in getting to London for a discussion. Lane’s response to this and a further letter is to wire an assurance that both will be

altered, and a temporarily mollified but profoundly distrustful De Tabley insists on examining the designs of the other plates before the engraving is done. [Lane himself had similar problems with Beardsley’s designs.] Misunderstandings with Ricketts continue; De Tabley has to write a new poem, a very competent sonnet, to match Ricketts’s illustration of ‘The Two Old Kings’, although he completely approves of the two other illustrations he has seen. Another blow was in store for him, however.

Ricketts had decided to illustrate an earlier poem on the Prodigal Son, which Le Gallienne had also cut out, and De Tabley has to supply yet another sonnet in its place; and with a burst of spleen, he threatens to use his whole legal rights to prevent the publication of the book plate with the male figure unaltered. From 6 December De Tabley becomes almost frenetic. The book-plate has been resubmitted, and thereafter he prefers to have nothing to do with Ricketts directly; he has taken a month to put one patch of colour over a certain part of the figure,

which remains ‘unhealthy, morbid and generally . . . unpleasant’. It must be left out altogether. His friend Franks suggests ‘an Apollo if Ricketts still clings to the wholly inappropriate idea of a male figure, [but it is] perfectly useless making any such suggestion, however, to a man so self-opiniated’. He then finds that Ricketts has illustrated too many poems in the latter part of the book, with a manifest lack of balance; it is evident that the book cannot be out for Christmas, and to take up Lane’s suggestion of Walter Crane as illustrator would defer publication indefinitely, though he would prefer a Crane frontispiece. As late as 10 December he did not know that Ricketts had as yet done

no frontispiece. Not surprisingly Lane himself had retired to bed, the burden falling on Matthews, who agrees to the exclusion of the obnoxious book-plate. With a flicker of optimism, De Tabley now grasps at the possibility of publication by Christmas, only to fall victim to the printer’s failure to send him the last sixteen pages of proofs, so that he cannot leave Bournemouth; ‘ever since the middle of August this unfortunate book has occasioned me endless trouble and vexation’. The last six Turnbull letters dealing with the crisis are tempered by De Tabley’s humane concern for Lane’s health, and that of William Watson, for whom he would willingly promote a subscription. Yet Watson’s illness is ominous, for his absence as critic for the Spectator, means that Hutton, the editor, ‘is sure to be on the lookout with a view to smashing me’.

In fact, as one learns from the Bodleian and Berg collections, Lane sustained his client through a series of variations on the previous themes until Poems Dramatic and Lyrical appeared on 28 March, on which De Tabley comments, ‘lt will be a failure, assuredly. All the surroundings and antecedents guarantee that.’ To his surprise and

gratification, however, by 4 April a second ‘edition’ is in prospect, and some time later a third, both, more properly, reprints. De Tabley himself is against a third edition with Ricketts’s plates but would be glad to bring out a perfectly plain one. A third Ricketts edition did appear, however, to De Tabley’s lasting satisfaction. The critics were almost unanimous in their praise.

The Turnbull correspondence resumes a year later, on 17 May, 1894, when the sales are well established, and De Tabley, with typical diffidence, agrees to accept a royalty cheque only on the assurance that the book has proved profitable to Lane. Thence onwards the tone of the correspondence becomes more incisive; the subject is mainly the material to go into the second series of poems, of which no prepublication copy is to go to the Atheneum: ‘the paper who [sic] has called me a wholesale copiest [sic] I intend to resent’. Again, De Tabley’s apprehensions are aroused; ‘anything of mine is sure to be

severely attacked in England’, he writes, and all the leading papers are now hostile; Lane will probably be undertaking a failure unless the American market can be exploited. Nevertheless, he is writing rapidly, with 100 pages ready, and more material ‘unearthed’. After a failure of confidence in the light of Le Gallienne’s comments on his verse—Be is at one stage convinced that it would be better to give up the idea of publishing the new poems—Lane administers reassurance and at the same time safeguards his own interests by requiring De Tabley to allocate the sole rights of publication to him, a request to which De Tabley agrees with typical graciousness, provided that Lane does not lose money. Lane deserves full marks for the shepherding of his temperamental poet into accepting the final title and the familiar binding, yet as late as 29 December De Tabley queries whether it would

not be better to drop the volume altogether, ‘pulping all the copies’, and himself paying the printer’s bill. By 23 March 1895, however, the approaching publication is noted in The Times, and De Tabley’s persecution complex sharpens; Robert Bridges, a potential critic, in a letter to De Tabley had written mainly about himself, not about the complimentary copy of the first volume, ‘so blind is he in his own selfopinion that he wonders why that blessed “Nero” of his has neither been noticed nor much sold’; Edmund Gosse, another potential critic ‘seems to be extremely angry with me’; the Atheneum hasn’t given him a single line, while Lionel Johnson, ‘a mere boy’, has been reviewed at full length. Lane’s attempt to bolster his morale by asking for his portrait is at first resisted; it would surely be in bad taste for him to agree to allow his portrait to join the others of Lane’s poets, under present circumstances; by 11 June, however, the charm works, and he relents sufficiently to send a photograph to Lane as a ‘private remembrance’.

The critical reception of the Second Series was not, in fact, as cordial as that of the first. Theodore Watts, his long-standing friend, had gone so far as to associate him with ‘the greater poets’ among his contemporaries, but this, according to De Tabley, had little effect on sales, compared with Hutton’s article in the Spectator : ‘He has always been most malevolent to me ... [a] thoroughly insincere man surrounded by a very bad set of flatterers’. It is as well that the correspondence ends, not on a note of rancour, but of fertility. Writing from the Isle of Wight in early September, De Tabley mentions a further 100 pages in preparation for another book of verse, none of it likely to be ready before November, the month of his death.

For a full record of De Tabley’s thoughts and feelings during this Indian summer of poetic activity it would be interesting to complete the triangle of reciprocal communication, of John Lane to De Tabley and to Le Gallienne, who was constantly in touch with both of them, and the correspondence of Le Gallienne to De Tabley and Lane. ‘A veritable stack’ of De Tabley’s correspondence with Le Gallienne was in the latter’s possession in 1926, when The Romantic ’9os was first published, and Le Gallienne’s letters to Lane may have been sold at the auction of Lane’s library in 1928. In the descriptive list of correspondence held at Tabley House there seems no record of Lane’s or Le Gallienne’s letters to the poet. What is abundantly evident, however, is the extreme tact with which Lane must have treated his aristocratic client, never intransigent, never discourteous, yet with a faith in the quality of the verse and in the commercial success of the enterprise; and as far as Le Gallienne is concerned, De Tabley’s references are affectionate and generous, with the warmth of a shy and elderly man whose reserve has been overcome by the appreciative criticism of a younger poet.

It is a pity that the posthumous volume of verse, Orpheus in Thrace and Other Poems, 1901, could not be published under the conditions of eventual harmony which prevailed for the two series of Poems Dramatic and Lyrical. From surviving correspondence with De Tabley’s sister and her agents, it is obvious that Lane was reluctant to surrender his rights in the verse already published, and he was clearly annoyed at the choice of a different publisher. It is best to leave De Tabley in terms of Le Gallienne’s description of him at their first meeting:

I shall never forget the impression his wistful reserved figure, as of a king in exile, made upon me . . . There was something ‘hierarchical’ [hieratic?], too, about his noble head, with its longish rippled grey hair, and there was a curious mixture of gentleness and sympathy, with something almost of fierceness, in his melancholy but allobservant blue eyes. He was scarcely sixty, but he looked

more like eighty as he sat there, with a detached, brokenspirited look, as of a fallen Saturn. And to leave De Tabley’s verse, perhaps, with the final stanza of ‘A Song of Dust’: A song of dust for waning years, A solemn song in sackcloth clad: Whose chords are wet with poignant tears, And it’s pale singer’s lips are sad.

The provenance of the Turnbull collection of De Tabley’s letters is easily established in a letter from Mr John Schroder, from whom they were acquired. He in his turn bought them ‘out of curiosity’ presumably from Catalogue 165 of Dulau & Co., booksellers, of New Bond St., who were offering other items from John Lane’s library under the general title, Books from the Library of John Lane and other Books of the Eighteen-Nineties, 1929. It would be interesting to know whether other letters in the same catalogue had been treated with the same care, for the Turnbull’s collection is contained in a box in the full Ricketts binding of Poems Dramatic and Lyrical. The provenance of the Berg letters is traceable as far as G. F. Sims, bookseller, of Reading, from whom they were bought in 1964, while the Bodleian letters were part of the Walpole bequest to that library in 1941. There seems to be little reason for the separation of the Turnbull and Bodleian letters, which interlock, although the commencement of the Berg series with 1 January 1893 is hardly random. It is difficult to believe however that there was no correspondence between Lane and De Tabley from 22 May 1893 until 11 May 1894, when the second group of Turnbull letters begin, and it would be reassuring to know of their whereabouts. And where are Le Gallienne’s letters to Lane? There can hardly have been a more painstaking partnership between author, reader and publisher, and the complete sequence would surely provide a classic in publishing history.

NOTES 1 The letters in the Berg and Bodleian collections were used in a description of the publishing of Poems Dramatic and Lyrical by J. G. Nelson in The Early Nineties, the book which first called my attention to the complementary nature of the Turnbull letters. 2 De Tabley’s embarrassment at the prospect of providing subjects for ‘high art’ seems to have been the subject of graphic comment by Ricketts. Study of the figure at the top right of the cover suggests that its offensive male characteristics have been covered by a third wing, while the neck is decorated by what seems to me a clerical collar.