Immortal Memories

sion of a dinner to Mr. William Dutt, author of "H

night tells us that it is "Norfolk, Suffolk and portions of Essex, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire." Dr. Knapp, the biographer of Borrow, says that it is Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire; personally I am content with that classification, because, although I was born in London, I claim, apart from schoolboy days at Downham Market, a pretty lengthy ancestry from Norwich on one side-which is indisputably East Anglia-and from Welney, near Wisbeach, on another side, and Welney and Wisbeach are, I affirm, just a

that we have produced two poet-laureates-John Skelton, of Diss, the author of Colyn Cloute, and Thomas Shadwell, of Broomhill, the playwright-the latter perhaps not entirely a subject for pride; two very rough and ready political philosophers, Thomas Paine, born at Thetford, and William Godwin, born at Wisbeach; a very popular novelist in Bulwer Lytton, and a very popular theologian in Dr. Samuel Clarke; as also the famous b

nineteenth century who has been a delight to youth, and two of the very greatest prose writers of all times for the inspiration of middle-age, Sir Thomas Browne and George Borrow. It has given us in Sarah Austin an example of a learned woman who was also a fascinating woman; it has given us again the most remarkable letter-writers in the English language-Margaret Paston, Horace Walpole and Edward FitzGerald. To these there were only three serious rivals as letter-writers-William Cowper, Thomas Grey and Charles Lamb; and the first found a final home and a last resting-place in our midst. It has given us that remarkable novelist and entertaining diarist, Fanny Burney

kshire, but Shakspere stands almost alone in this, as in many things. Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Byron and Keats were born in London; they travelled widely, they lived in many different counties or countries, and cannot be said to have adorned any distinctively local tradition. Shelley was born in Sussex, but a hundred cities, including Rome, where his ashes rest, may claim some participation in his fine spirit. Wordsworth, on the othe

lls that Carlyle, in one of his deepest fits of depression, took refuge in Marryat's novels with infinite advantage to his peace of mind. Speaking of Captain Marryat and books for boys, a quite minor kind of literature perhaps some of you may think, I must recall that an earlier and still more famous story for children had an East Anglian origin. Did

n that is not of the world. Browne was born in London, and not until he was thirty-two years of age did he settle in Norwich, where he was "much resorted to for his skill in physic," and where he lived for forty-five years, when the fine church of St. Peter Mancroft, received

n, was an East Anglian if ever there was one, although this has been questioned by Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton. Now I have the greatest possible regard for Mr. Watts-Dunton. He is distinguished alike as a critic, a poet, and a romancer. But I must join issue with him here, and you, I know, will forgive me for taking

and his mother of French extraction. Not one drop of East Anglian blood was in the veins of Borrow's father, and very little in the veins of his mother. Borrow's ancestry was pure Cornish on one si

hat it is this, quite as much as birth or ancestry, that gives us what characteristics we possess. It is the custom, for example, to call Swift an Irishman, whereas Swift came of English parentage and lived for many of his most impressionable years in England. Nevertheless, he may be justly claimed by the sister-island, for during a long sojourn in that country he became permeated with the subtle influence of the Irish race, and in many things he thought and felt as an Irishman. It is the custom to speak of Maria Edgeworth as an Irish novelist, yet Miss Edgeworth was born in England of English parentage. Nevertheless, she was quite as much an Irish novelist as Charles Lever and Samuel Lover, for all her life was spent in direct communion with the Irish race, and her books were Irish books. It is, on the other hand, quite unreasonable to deny that Charlotte Bront? was

of being an East Anglian, and we are proud of him. In Lavengro, I venture to assert, we have the greatest example of prose style in our modern literature, and I rejoice to see a growing Borrow cult, a cult that is based not on an acceptance of the narrower side of Borrow-his furious ultra-Protestantism,

anse and freedom. Overhead the arch of heaven spreads more ample than elsewhere, and that vastness g

ntribution to a remote period of English history as that contained in the Paston Letters, and I think we must associate them with the name of a woman-Margaret Paston. Margaret's husband, John Paston; her son, Si

uietly by the hearth in the reign of King Edward VII may read what it meant to live by the hearth in the reign of King Edward IV. It is curious that the most humane documents of far-off times in our history should all come from East Anglia, not only those Paston Letters, brimful of the most vital interest concerning the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV, bu

ure of eighteenth century life has been presented to us in the nine volumes of correspondence we have by Horace Walpole. [144] Walpole was to all practical purposes an East Anglian, although he happened to be born in Lon

er there was a man who took on the texture of East Anglian scenery and East Anglian life it was Cowper. That beautiful river, the Ouse, which empties itself into the Wash, was a peculiar inspiration to Cowper, and those who know the scenery of Olney know that it has

lt a "lunacy." It is perhaps unfortunate that FitzGerald gave that somewhat formidable title to his paraphrase, or translation, of the old Persian poet. It is not the fault of those who admire that poem exceedingly that it gives them a suspicion of affecting a scholarship that they do not in most cases possess. What many of us admire is not Omar Khayyám the Persian, nor have we any desire to see or to know any other translation of that poet. We simply admit to an

arning its women have displayed; I might give you quite a long list of distinguished women who have co

maid, above h

ad, and dared t

ovel, not the

rash and scand

young companions

keley, Bacon, H

orwich, married to John Austin, the famous jurist. She was one of the first to demonstrate that her sex might have other gifts than a gift for writing fiction, and that it was possible to be a good, quiet, domestic woman, and at the same time an exceedingly learned one. Even before Carlyle she gave a vogue to the study of German literature in this country; she wrote many books, many articles, and made some translations, notably what is still the best translation of von Ranke's History of the Popes. In the muster-roll of East Anglian worthies let us never forget this singularly good wo

conversation. If you turn to one of those handy volumes of reference-Dictionaries of Quotation, as they are called-from which we who are journalists are supposed to obtain most of the literary knowledge that we are able to display on occasion, you will scarcely find a dozen lines of Crabbe. And yet I venture to affirm that Crabbe has a great and permanent place in literature, and that as he has been a favourite in the past, he will become a favourite in the future. Crabbe can never lose his place in the history of literature, a place as the forerunner of Wordsworth and even of Cowper, but it would be a tragedy were he to drop out of the category of poets that are read. A dainty little e

favourite that I could lay hand on," says Lockhart, "and turned to what I remembered was one of his favourite passag

Tales of the Hall as "a poem whether in conception or in execution one of the most touching in our language," and in a footnote to his Idea of a University he tell

h poets, and Crabbe was pre-eminently an East Anglian, born and bred in East Anglia, and taking in a peculiar degre

literature is but an aspect of our many claims on the gratitude of those Englishmen who have not the good fortune to be East Anglians. We have given to the Empire a great scholar in Porson, a great statesman in Sir Robert Walpole, a great lawyer in Sir Edward Coke, great ecclesiastic

h real intellectual life as London can boast of to-day. What, again, might not be said of the influence upon writers from afar. Read Kingsley's Hereward the Wake, Mr. Swinburne's Midsummer Holiday, Charles Dickens' description of Yarmouth and Goldsmith's poetical description in his Deserted Village, where clearly Houghton was intended. [153] These, and a host of other memories touch the heart of all good East Anglians, but that Eas