Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Watts-Dunton, Walter Theodore
WATTS-DUNTON, WALTER THEODORE (1832–1914), critic, novelist, and poet, was born 12 October 1832, the eldest child of John King Watts, solicitor, of St. Ives, Huntingdonshire, well known for his scientific attainments. He added to his surname that of his mother, Susannah Dunton, in 1896. At school in Cambridge he devoted himself to literature, science, and life in the open air. His meeting with George Borrow in 1872 emphasized his early delight in gipsy lore, of which another friend, Francis Hindes Groome [q.v.], was a master. Becoming a solicitor, he practised for a while in London, where his gifts as a friend, talker, and man of business, facilitated his intercourse with the ‘pre-Raphaelite group’ of poets. ‘Watts the worldling,’ as J. M. Whistler called him, was a familiar figure in London literary gatherings, such as those of John Westland Marston [q.v.]. He gave up his profession on taking to literary criticism, writing first for the Examiner under William Minto [q.v.] in 1874, and two years later for the Athenæum, where for the rest of the century he enjoyed a great anonymous reputation. He proved a steady friend to D. G. Rossetti in his declining years, and when, in 1879, A. C. Swinburne's reckless life was making his health hopeless, he took him to ‘The Pines’, his house in Putney. Henceforth, Swinburne, a child in many ways, was the centre of his world. He managed Swinburne's affairs, and stamped the macabre element out of his life and writing. The two lived together till Swinburne's death (1909), and the devoted and tactful control of Watts-Dunton prolonged Swinburne's life, though it involved a certain loss of his independence in material life and critical judgement. Watts-Dunton married in 1905 Clara, youngest daughter of Gustave A. Reich, of East India Avenue, E.C., but this did not change the quiet, ordered life at The Pines, where he died 6 June 1914. He had no children.
In the Athenæum Watts-Dunton printed from time to time scenes in verse, in which Rhona Boswell, a gipsy girl, was prominent, and the publication of these, with additions, as The Coming of Love, and Other Poems made a stir in 1897. On the whole the large and adventurous design of the verses did not ‘command an art equal to its purpose’. He made a great success in 1898 with Aylwin, a novel kept back for many years, and originally called The Renascence of Wonder. This phrase was later announced as the very pith of his critical doctrines, a protest against materialism and pessimism. Aylwin, dealing partly with the same characters as The Coming of Love, revealed a gift for romance and scenery, some admirable gipsies, especially the girl, Sinfi Lovell, and some clever sketches after famous prototypes, such as Rossetti. It also heralded that tide of mysticism which has since become a feature of the twentieth century. Although striking in plot and detail, the book has flat passages which show that the author, a good judge of style, was not a great stylist. The same criticism applies to Watts-Dunton's Athenæum articles, which he himself described as ‘too formless to have other than an ephemeral life’. Not lacking in good things and in generalizations of value, they are clogged with wise saws and ancient instances. They are clear-sighted, and were very widely admired; but their profundity has been exaggerated. Watts-Dunton was one of the first to applaud the verse of George Meredith, and many young authors owed much to his judicious encouragement. His best critical work is his essay on Poetry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition, 1885). His tributes to literary friends, reprinted as Old Familiar Faces (1916), are notable though discursive. His agreeable reminiscences of George Borrow may be read in his editions of Lavengro(1893) and The Romany Rye (1900). Here he dwells on Borrow's refusal to ‘figure in the literary arena’. He always protested against the jealousies and personalities of modern literary life. He lived for his friends, read endlessly, put off, polished, and altered his own compositions. The variety of his interests dissipated his energies. He had great kindliness, a good sense of fun, but little humour, and throughout his long life remained a boy in his eagerness for the latest discovery in letters or science.
Aylwin is Watts-Dunton's best imaginative work. His posthumous novel, Vesprie Towers (1916), and his collections of verses, other than The Coming of Love, are not likely to last. Of his sonnets, ‘The Octopus of the Golden Islands’ is a typical example, too close-packed with thought to read naturally. His verse in general lacks the flow and final mastery essential to great poetry. The phrasing and occasionally the rhymes have a factitious appearance. But he was a real romantic in spite of his scientific leanings, and his thoughts went beyond his achievement.
[Thomas St. E. Hake and A. Compton-Rickett, Life and Letters of T. Watts-Dunton, 1916; James Douglas, Theodore Watts-Dunton, Poet, Critic, Novelist, 1904; Clara Watts-Dunton, The Home Life of Swinburne, 1922; personal knowledge.]