DOMETT IN ENGLAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 752, 11 December 1953, Page 12

DOMETT IN ENGLAND

THE DIARY OF ALFRED DOMETT, 18721885, edited by E. A. Horsman; Oxford University Press, English price 25/-.

(Reviewed by

R. M.

Burdon

came to live in Nelson in 1842. He played a distinguished part in the Colony’s public life for many years, was Premier from August, 1862, to October, 1863, and returned in 1872 to spend the remaining 25 years of his life in England. It is this period, or at least the greater part of it, that is covered by the diary. Domett worked for many years on an immensely long epic poem-Ranolf and Amohia-and after its publication at his own expense in 1872 he moved in literary circles, enjoying the reputation of being the original of Browning’s "Waring," although he himself professed complete ignorance as to the origin of this assumption. "Who first gave currency to the idea of identifying the imaginary ‘Waring’ with myself, I have not the slightest notion." One of the first things he did on retufning to England was to look up Browning and renew an acquaintance of 30 years’ standing, and many of the most entertaining entries in the diary relate to the Browning household. Domett’s life at this stage was not eventful, and the chronicle of its progress is apt to be tedious at times. The funny stories he includes do more to demonstrate the changing fashions‘ in humour than to provide amusement, and several long letters written by other people might well have been omitted, but his pen portraits are always both carefully drawn and striking. "Saw Genera] Grant at the Alexandra Palace. .. (He) looks just past middle age (50 or so), with reddish face-a rounded square; small nose, eyes half-closed or blinking, shortish brown hair, smooth and parted at one side of his head, slight beard partly grey; an expression of shyness or mauvaise honte; looking rather embarrassed apparently at being in 1811, Alfred Domett

made the object of so much attention and so conspicuous. The back of his head massiveears about the middle in a side view of it. Certainly no one, from his mere appearance, would pick him out of a crowd as a remarkable man." On his own admission Domett had "always taken the greatest interest in al] such information about the great men of past days," and he believed that his own careful reporting would earn the gratitude of posterity. Towards the end of his life, after staying with Tennyson at Ald# worth, he wrote down in this diary an account of the visit and his impression of his famous host at great length and with much attention to detail, so that "if anyone should hereafter ask, what was Tennyson like, or what was a visit to him like, in the latter part of the

19th Century and of his own life, here is a small contribution to a satisfactory and reliable answer."