AN UNPUBLISHED SONNET BY GEORGE MEREDITH

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20168, 21 February 1931, Page 13

AN UNPUBLISHED SONNET BY GEORGE MEREDITH

[The following unpublished sonnet # and tho explanatory Material were communicated to the "Nineteenth Century 1 ' by Professor A. Kobzul, of Strasbourg University.] To P. A. Labouchere, Esquire. Oft have X looked on France with envy vain, Not of her vines, nor of her sunny land, Nor of her glory; but of that bright band, • The Wits by whom huge Dulness has been slain; ... Who seem'd another Saturn in his reign, And with his Titans dared a mortal hand To find his headpiece vulnerably plann'd:— Transfix'd is ho by arrows of the braml Of these keen archers, Molidre and Montaigne To me are dearest: for these two combine i Wisdom and laughter: these I am full fain ' To call most precious countrymen oi mine: • They bridge the Channel waters once again, ; And add a proof that Genius is divine. GEORGE MEREDITH. The Old House, Mickleham, Friday 29th [December?] 1865. These lines are found in the collection of autographs bequeathed by the addressee to the Municipal Library of his native town, Nantes. They are written in blue ink on a sheet of white note-papdr embossed "Vellum" in the top left-hand corner (watermark: "Johnson First Choice"). Pierre-Antoine Laboucliero (18071873) was the son of a shipowner of Nantes. Tho family—a numerous tribe of convinced Protestants—had scattered in various parts of Europe , when persecutions were rife in France, and there was from the very beginning an international atmosphere about tho career of Pierre-Antonie. His mother was a Norwegian. v He was educated with an elder brother partly in Germany and partly in Efagland. He was little more than a boy when he went to America in 1827, as secretary to Mr Joshua Bates, tho director of the great banking firm of Hope, and later tho founder of the fine Public Library of Boston, Mass. Business, however, had small attractions for him. Residence in Antwerp and Rome, and an acquaintance with the serai-romantic painter, Paul Delaroche, finally drew him to the brush; his pictures were many, and by no moans unsuccessful at the exhibitions, where almor' year after year, from 1843 to 1869, they could be seen. Most of them had for their subjects scenes illustrating Protestant life and history. Labouchere had marriedmost happily —in 1839:- he could afford to travel a good deal; his tastes remained of a varied and dilettante kind. After taking some small part in the events of 1848, ho lived, under Napoleon m.> a retired and studious life in his. country seat at Jouy en Josas, near Versailles; there the war of 1870 saddened his last years, and "there he died.

Pierre-Antoine Labouchere was first cousin to Henry Labouchere,. Lord Taunton. His interest in English history and. literature is abundantly attested by the largo number of communications which, in the latter period of his life, ho sent over his initials to "Notes and Queries":. fpr these the famous English ''periodidal was grateful enough, -and when their faithful eorrei spondent died a notice of two pages, written by. his son, was published by the editors (May 17th, 1873, pp. 353-400). From this notice, and from other accounts in Haag's "La France i Protestante'' (1849-1857) .and in Hoofer's "Nouvelle Biographic GenI ernle" (1861) the facts adduced above, i and others, may easily be derived. [ As to M. Labouchere's definite relations with Meredith; research is perhaps i more difficult. I hope, more will some | day or other be known. The gift of A I sonnet must have been'accompanied by some interchange of letters'between the poet and the French painter. But. the family connexion of Geo'rge . Meiredlth and Pierre-Antoine Labouchere is quite sufficient to explain their acquaintance, if not their friendship. M. -Labouchere was the father of Emilie and Mine Labouchere, who respectively married Edouard and Justin Vulliamy, both being brothers of Meredith's Second wife. Students of Meredith will remember that the three Vtilllamy brothers owned spinning mills at Notiancourt, in Norniatidy, where the novelist spent many a,happy hdur, aid that Justin Vulliamy was chosen by him in 1882 to be, conjointly with John Morley, executor of his will. Any lengthy commentary of the Bonnet would be superfluous:' its style tipcaks for itself; indeed, there is an obVioiis air of kinship between this p&an on the victory of ths Wits over Dulness and the encouragement given two years , later to Johtt Morley in another perhaps- it is specially appropriate 'to quote in thifl period of the worlds history:

.. . whether Earth's gteat. offspring, by decree, Must rot if they abjure rapacity, Not argument but effort shall decide. They number maity heads in that hard flock: Trim swordsmen they push forth; yet try thjr steel.. Thou, fighting for poor humankind, wilt feel The strength of Boland in thy wrist to ■■■ . hew A chasm sheer into the barrier rock And bring the army of the faithful through. Even tho slightly rhetorical flourish at the end of our sonnet is not uncharacteristic of Meredith's vein, wheh he Wanted tb do homage at the shrine of great writers: one might compare the conclusion of his poem on Milton. And, of course, that MoliSre and Montaigne fehould .stand here in the forefront of Meredith's galjery of representative Frenchmen of genius, is quite in accordance with his firmly established custom: the same names head - tho list given as late as 1899. Altogether a French reader may be allowed to rejoice that such, a magnificent eulogy „of the essential spirit of his country havo found its permanent resting-place in France.

The free City of Hamburg commemorated the vtenth anniversary of the Weimar Constitution by the establishment, of a Lessing prize to the value of- 15,000 marks, to ' be awarded every three years to the writer or'scholar who has distinguished* himself iii oho of the fields in which Lessing himself was successful, and' Useful; fflie eonltaitteei agreed ttot to consider writers eligible who had received other distinguished prizes, such as Gerhart Hauntmanti ; ' .and their choice fell on the Heidelberg\ critic, Friedt-iilh Gundolf; 1 who had written important 1 Works oji Goethe; - Kleist, and Shakespeare, and ha 9 made a- net? translation of Bhal:c6{teare'& plays.

"I cannot understand why people who know how to read want to go to the theatre," says Lord Bdavcrbrook, He believes there are many poepla in ■ the West End of London trho do not understand the yeaning of the words they xuad. * , i ' - ** *7 "■ * *' t' S ' J ' ,* I L* „ **} > % •""*