244
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. SEPT. 26, iocs.
Whately says, " Every one with a Bible should
possess a copy."
It may not be uninteresting to note briefly how this present copy came into my hands. At the death of Mr. Callcott, when his collection was dispersed by auction, this little book was added to the library of the late Mr. Perkins ; and when that library was sold by Christie Mauson it was purchased by the late Charles Reade, the famous novelist.
Extremes meet ! Charles Reade, author of ' Never Too Late to Mend,' ' The Cloister and the Hearth,' and a score of other well-known works, was one of the best and truest of men, whose heart was sound, whose affections were strong, and whose reverence for all that is noble and good in human nature cannot be doubted. At the time of his decease, some six or seven years ago, he was engaged upon a series of religious essays, ' Biblical Characters,' which came as a surprise to the reading world, in- asmuch as he had never been credited with deep religious feeling.
I Knew Charles Reade well, and for ten years was in weekly, almost daily communion with him, as we worked several literary matters in concert, when he was residing at No. 19, Albert Gate, S.W. It is not too much to affirm that, while one side of his character was antagonistic to his critics and involved him in many literary disputes, the other (his domestic side) was truly beautiful and lovely. I had the rare privilege of being admitted to his home, and saw him as a man. Perhaps there has never been greater love than existed between him and his wife, Mrs. Laura Seymour, formerly the celebrated actress and contemporary of Mrs Glover, with whom she played in many a famous drama, notably * The Flowers of the Forest.' She retained her histrionic name to the last.
In his lifetime Charles Reade had a noble mauso- leum constructed at B romp ton, and at her death he laid her therein, with a tender and gentle inscription on the tablet. How lie sorrowed for that dear wife / know, and within a very short space Charles Keade was borne to the resting-place of his beloved " Laura " (he never called her bvanv other name), and there they sleep in peace. The storm that wrecks the winter sky ^ No more disturbs their sweet repose Than summer evening's latest si^h That shuts the rose.
>Y any
A few years before the death of my dear friend
I was sitting with him in his xanctum sanctorum
when our conversation turned upon theology'
After a time he rose and took from a shelf this
little book, and, having unostentatiously wrapped
it in a leaf of the Ilhutrattd London News [for the
last thing he ever thought of was to make a parade
of anything), gave it to me; and subsequently he
told me how he had become possessed of it as T
have previously said.
These homely and characteristic facts I s i mn l v here set down, thinking that every contribution 1 to
Charles Reade) may not be deemed
115, London Road, Southwards'./' PEA(JOCK -
The extract which follows is from the
Manchester City New* of 12 September It
occurs in a lengthy review of ' Charles Keade
as I Knew Him,' by John Colemau The
concluding lines sufficiently account for the
fact that Keade never married :
"Charles Reade's father and mother were squire and lady of the manor-house at Ipsden, seventeen miles from Oxford, famous for its dinner table and its old port and madeira. Their influence obtained for young Reade a 'demyship' at Magdalen College, worth about 601. a year. He was intended for a fellowship and a bishopric to follow, but cricket and boating and fiddling and dancing left no time for work, and the glamour of the stage overcame the budding bishop in his first vacation. So it happened that, \vhen a fellowship fell vacant, Reade was wholly unprepared to contest it. and there was only a month in which to cram for the exam. How- ever, he determined to go in for it, worked hard with his coaches, and burnt the midnight oil to some purpose. On the fateful morning, walking across the quad in agony, with his face swollen to twice its size with neuralgia, Reade met Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke), his coach.
' ' Well, young shaver,' said he, ' how about the Thirty-nine Articles ? '
'I ' Can't get at 'em I remember only six.'
The odds are that 's more than any of 'em do, so keep a good heart, and the chances are you '11 pull through. Go, my boy, "go where glory waits you," and good luck to you ! '
" Reade was lucky enough to be asked one of the six Articles he knew ; he carne out of the exam, as successfully as Cardinal Newman, took his B. A., and won his fellowship and a permanent income for life rising from 2301. to 600/. a year, subject to perpetual celibacy. This was in 1835, before Reade was twenty-one."
JAS. CLEGG.
Rochdale.
[Reade's relations to Mrs. Seymour are a matter of history. The fact (we believe it such) that he retained till his death his fellowship disposes of all notion of marriage.]
GENIUS : ITS MANIFESTATIONS. It was Buffon who said that genius was patience, or an unusual aptitude for application, a high intelligence being supposed as the first con- dition. And this does not differ much from Horaces definition, ' Ars Poetica,' 11. 409-12. The above saying of Buffon is often attributed to Carlyle, who may have repeated but did not originate it. We should remember that the word genius signifies what is innate ; but it requires intense cultivation to develope the innate power ; and the man of genius will follow his bent, to the exclusion often of other and more profitable pursuits, and this is one reason why he is frequently unsuc- cessful during his life. That, notwithstanding the absorbing passion planted in him by nature, he should follow an arduous pro- ession, wholly contrary to his natural bent, and should be completely successful not only m developing his genius, but also in obtaining . ^ g k e r fc * h ?r?u OUr of his Profession, is not be l?l Belief That a Lord Chancellor should 'e great in philosophy and science does not
