The year 1831 was rendered memorable to the Howitts, not only by their first literary success, but also by an unexpected visit from their poetical idol, Mr. Wordsworth. The poet, his wife and daughter, were on their way home from London when Mrs. Wordsworth was suddenly taken ill, and was unable to proceed farther than Nottingham. Her husband, in great perplexity, came to ask advice of the Howitts, who insisted that the invalid should be removed to their house, where she remained for ten days before she was able to continue her journey. Wordsworth himself was only able to stay one night, but in that short time he made a very favourable impression upon his host and hostess.

'He is worthy of being the author of _The Excursion_, _Ruth_, and those sweet poems so full of human sympathy,' writes Mary. 'He is a kind man, full of strong feeling and sound judgment. My greatest delight was that he seemed so pleased with William's conversation.

They seemed quite in their element, pouring out their eloquent sentiments on the future prospects of society, and on all subjects connected with poetry and the interests of man. Nor are we less pleased with Mrs. Wordsworth and her lovely daughter, Dora. They are the most grateful people; everything that we do for them is right, and the very best it can be.'

During the next two or three years Mary produced a volume of dramatic sketches, called _The Seven Temptations_, which she always regarded as her best and most original work, but which was d.a.m.ned by the critics and neglected by the public; a little book of natural history for children; and a novel in three volumes, called _Wood Leighton_, which seems to have had some success. _The Seven Temptations_, it must be owned, is a rather lugubrious production, probably inspired by Joanna Baillie's _Plays on the Pa.s.sions_.

The scene of _Wood Leighton_ is laid at Uttoxeter, and the book is not so much a connected tale as a series of sketches descriptive of scenes and characters in and about the author's early home. It is evident that Mrs. Botham and Sister Anna looked somewhat disapprovingly upon so much literary work for the mistress of a household, since we find Mary writing in eager defence of her chosen calling.

'I want to make thee, and more particularly dear mother, see,' she explains, 'that I am not out of my line of duty in devoting myself so much to literary occupation. Just lately things were sadly against us.

Dear William could not sleep at night, and the days were dark and gloomy. Altogether, I was at my wits' end. I turned over in my mind what I could do next, for till William's _Rural Life_ was finished we had nothing available. Then I bethought myself of all those little verses and prose tales that for years I had written for the juvenile Annuals. It seemed probable I might turn them to some account. In about a week I had nearly all the poetry copied; and then who should come to Nottingham but John Darton [a Quaker publisher]. He fell into the idea immediately, took what I had copied up to London with him, and I am to have a hundred and fifty guineas for them. Have I not reason to feel that in thus writing I was fulfilling a duty?'

In 1833 William Hewitt's _History of Priestcraft_ appeared, a work which was publicly denounced at the Friends' yearly meeting, all good Quakers being cautioned not to read it. William hitherto had lived in great retirement at Nottingham, but he was now claimed by the Radical and Nonconformist members of the community as their spokesman and champion. In January, 1834, he and Joseph Gilbert (husband of Ann Gilbert of _Original Poems_ fame) were deputed to present to the Prime Minister, Lord Grey, a pet.i.tion from Nottingham for the disestablishment of the Church of England. The Premier regretted that he could not give his support to such a sweeping measure, which would embarra.s.s the Ministry, alarm both Houses of Parliament, and startle the nation. He declared his intention of standing by the Church to the best of his ability, believing it to be the sacred duty of Government to maintain an establishment of religion. To which st.u.r.dy William Howitt replied that to establish one sect in preference to another was to establish a party and not a religion.

Civic duties, together with the excitements of local politics, proved a sad hindrance to literary work, and in 1836 the Howitts, who had long been yearning for a wider intellectual sphere, decided to give up the chemist's business, and settle in the neighbourhood of London.

Their friends, the Alaric Watts's, who were living at Thames Ditton, found them a pretty little house at Esher, where they would be able to enjoy the woods and heaths of rural Surrey, and yet be within easy reach of publishers and editors in town. Before settling down in their new home, the Howitts made a three months' tour in the north, with a view to gathering materials for William's book on _Rural England_. They explored the Yorkshire dales, stayed with the Wordsworths at Rydal, and made a pilgrimage to the haunts of their favourite, Thomas Bewick, in Northumberland. Crossing the Border they paid a delightful visit to Edinburgh, where they were made much of by the three literary cliques of the city, the Blackwood and Wilson set, the Tait set, and the Chambers set.

'Immediately after our arrival,' relates Mary, 'a public dinner was given to Campbell the poet, at which the committee requested my husband's attendance, and that he would take a share in the proceedings of the evening by proposing as a toast, "Wordsworth, Southey, and Moore." This was our first introduction to Professor Wilson (Christopher North) and his family. I sat in the gallery with Mrs. Wilson and her daughters, one of whom was engaged to Professor Ferrier. We could not but remark the wonderful difference, not only in the outer man, but in the whole character of mind and manner, between Professor Wilson and Campbell--the one so hearty, outspoken, and joyous, the other so petty and trivial.'

Robert Chambers const.i.tuted himself the Hewitts' cicerone in Edinburgh, showing them every place of interest, and presenting them to every person of note, including Mrs. Maclehose (the Clarinda of Burns), and William Miller, the Quaker artist and engraver, as intense a nature-worshipper as themselves. From Edinburgh they went to Glasgow, where they took ship for the Western Isles. Their adventures at Staffa and Iona, their voyage up the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l, and the remainder of their experiences on this tour, were afterwards described by William Howitt in his _Visits to Remarkable Places_.

PART II

In September, 1836, the Howitts took possession of their Surrey home, West End Cottage, an old-fashioned dwelling, with a large garden, an orchard, a meadow by the river Mole, and the right of boating and fishing to the extent of seven miles. The new life opened with good prospects of literary and journalistic employment, William Howitt's political writings having already attracted attention from several persons of power and influence in the newspaper world. On December 3 of this year, Mary wrote to inform her sister that, 'In consequence of an article that William wrote on Dymond's _Christian Morality_, Joseph Hume, the member for Middles.e.x, wrote to him, and has opened a most promising connection for him with a new Radical newspaper, _The Const.i.tutional_. O'Connell seems determined to make him the editor of the _Dublin Review_, and wrote him a most kind letter, which has naturally promoted his interest with the party. I cannot but see the hand of Providence in our leaving Nottingham. All has turned out admirably.'

Unfortunately for these sanguine antic.i.p.ations, the newspaper connections on which the Howitts depended for a livelihood, now that the despised chemist's business had been given up, proved but hollow supports. O'Connell had overlooked the trifling fact that a Quaker editor was hardly fitted to conduct a journal that was emphatically and polemically Catholic; and though he considered that William Howitt was admirably adapted to deal with literary and political topics, he was obliged to withdraw his offer of the editorship. A more crushing disappointment arose out of the engagement on _The Const.i.tutional_.

Mr. Howitt, according to his wife, did more for the paper than any other member of the staff. 'He worked and wrote like any slave,'

she tells her sister. 'In the end, after a series of the most hara.s.sing and vexatious conduct on the part of the newspaper company, he was swindled out of every farthing. Oh, it was a most mortifying and humiliating thing to see men professing liberal and honest principles act so badly. A month ago, when in the very depths of discouragement and low spirits, I set about a little volume for Darton, to be called _Birds and Flowers_, and have pretty nearly finished it. William, in the mean time, has finished his _Rural Life_, and sold the first edition to Longman's.'

The manager of the unlucky paper was Major Carmichael Smith, who, when matters grew desperate, sent for his step-son, Thackeray, then acting as Paris correspondent for a London daily. 'Just as I was going out of the office one day,' writes William, 'I met on the stairs a tall, thin young man, in a dark blue coat, and with a nose that seemed to have had a blow that had flattened the bridge. I turned back, and had some conversation with him, being anxious to know how he proposed to carry on a paper which was without any funds, and already deeply in debt. He did not seem to know any more than I did. I thought to myself that his step-father had not done him much service in taking him from a profitable post for the vain business of endeavouring to buoy up a desperate speculation. How much longer _The Const.i.tutional_ struggled on, I know not. That was the first time I ever saw or heard of William Makepeace Thackeray.'

The Howitts were somewhat consoled for their journalistic losses by the triumphant success of _Rural Life in England_. The reading public which, during the previous century, had swallowed mock pastorals, made in Fleet Street, with perfect serenity, was now, thanks to the slowly-working influence of Wordsworth and the other Lake poets, prepared for a renaissance of nature and simplicity in prose. Miss Mitford's exquisite work had given them a distaste for the 'jewelled turf,' the 'silver streams,' and 'smiling valleys' which const.i.tuted the rustic stock-in-trade of the average novelist; and they eagerly welcomed a book that treated with accuracy and observation of the real country. William Howitt's straightforward, undistinguished style was acceptable enough in an age when even men of genius seem to have written fine prose without knowing it, and tripped up not infrequently over the subtleties of English grammar. His lack of imagination and humour was more than atoned for, in the uncritical eyes of the 'thirties,' by the easy loquacity of his rural gossip, and the varied information with which he crammed his pages. The Nature of those days was a simple, transparent creature, with but small resemblance to the lady of moods, mystery, and pa.s.sion who is so overworked in our modern literature. No one dreamt of going into hysterics over the veining of a leaf, or penning a rhapsody on the outline of a rain-cloud; nor could it yet be said that, 'if everybody must needs blab of the favours that have been done him by roadside, and river-brink, and woodland walk, as if to kiss and tell were no longer treachery, it will soon be a positive refreshment to meet a man who is as superbly indifferent to Nature as she is to him.' [Footnote: Lowell]

The Howitts took great delight in the pleasant Surrey country, so different from the dreary scenery around Nottingham, and Mary's letters contain many descriptions of the woods and commons and shady lanes through which the family made long expeditions in a little carriage drawn by Peg, their venerable pony. Driving one day to Hook, they met Charles d.i.c.kens, then best known as 'Boz,' in one of his long tramps, with Harrison Ainsworth as his companion. When d.i.c.kens's next work, _Master Humphrey's Clock_, appeared, the Howitts were amused to see that their stout and wilful Peg had not escaped the novelist's keen eye, but had been pressed into service for Mr.

Garland's chaise.

On another occasion, in July 1841, William, while driving with a friend, was attacked by two handsome, dark-eyed girls, dressed in gipsy costume, who ran one on each side of the carriage, begging that the kind gentleman would give them sixpence, as they were poor strangers who had taken nothing all day. Mr. Howitt, who had made a special study of the gipsy tribe, perceived in an instant that these were only sham Romanys. He paid no attention to their pleading, but observed that he hoped they would enjoy their frolic, and only wished that he were as rich as they. Subsequently, he discovered that the mock-gipsies, who had been unable to coax a sixpence out of him, were none other than the beautiful Sheridan sisters, the d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset, and Mrs. Blackwood (afterwards Lady Dufferin), whose husband had lately taken Bookham Lodge.

During the four years spent at Esher, Mary seems to have been too much occupied with the cares of a young family to use her pen to much purpose. She produced little, except a volume of _Hymns and Fireside Verses_, but she frequently a.s.sisted her husband in his work.

William, industrious as ever, published, besides a large number of newspaper articles, his _Boys' Country Book_, the best work of the kind ever written, according to the _Quarterly Review_; and his _History of Colonisation and Christianity_, in which he took a rapid survey of the behaviour of the Christian nations of Europe to the inhabitants of the countries they conquered in all parts of the world. It was the reading of this book that led Mr. Joseph Pease to establish the British India Society, which issued, in a separate form, the portion of the work that related to India. Mr. Howitt next set to work upon another topographical volume, his _Visits to Remarkable Places_, in which he turned to good account the materials collected in his pedestrian rambles about the country.

In 1840 the question of education for the elder children became urgent, and the Howitts, who had heard much of the advantages of a residence in Germany from their friends, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Jameson, and Henry Chorley, decided to give up their cottage at Esher, and spend two or three years at Heidelberg. Letters of introduction from Mrs. Jameson gave them the _entree_ into German society, which they found more to their taste than that of their native land. 'For the sake of our children,' writes Mary, 'we sought German acquaintances, we read German, we followed German customs. The life seemed to me easier, the customs simpler and less expensive than in England. There was not the same feverish thirst after wealth as with us; there was more calm appreciation of nature, of music, of social enjoyment.' In their home on the Neckar, the Howitts, most adaptable of couples, found new pleasures and new amus.e.m.e.nts with each season of the year. In the spring and summer they explored the surrounding country, wandered through the deep valleys and woods, where the gra.s.s was purple with bilberries, visited quaint, half-timbered homesteads, standing in the midst of ancient orchards, or followed the swift-flowing streams, on whose banks the peasant girls in their picturesque costumes were washing and drying linen. In the autumn the whole family turned out on the first day of the vintage, and worked like their neighbours. 'It was like something Arcadian,' wrote Mary when recalling the scene. 'The tubs and baskets piled up with enormous cl.u.s.ters, the men and women carrying them away on their heads to the place where they were being crushed; the laughter, the merriment, the feasting, the firing--for they make as much noise as they can--all was delightful, to say nothing of the masquerading and dancing in the evening, which we saw, though we did not take part in it.' In the winter the strangers were introduced to the Christmas Tree, which had not yet become a British inst.i.tution: while with the first snow came the joys of sleighing, when wheel-barrows, tubs, baskets, everything that could be put on runners, were turned into sledges, and the boys were in their glory.

During the three years that were spent at Heidelberg, William Howitt wrote his _Student Life in Germany_, _German Experiences_, and _Rural and Domestic Life in Germany_, works which contain a great deal of more or less valuable information about the country and the people, presented in a homely, unpretentious style. Mary was no less industrious, having struck a new literary vein, the success of which was far to surpa.s.s her modest antic.i.p.ations. 'I have been very busy,' she writes in 1842, 'translating the first volume of a charming work by Frederica Bremer, a Swedish writer; and if any publisher will give me encouragement to go on with it, I will soon complete the work.

It is one of a series of stories of everyday life in Sweden--a beautiful book, full of the n.o.blest moral lessons for every man and woman.' In the summer of 1841 the Howitts, accompanied by their elder daughter, Anna, made a long tour through Germany and Austria, in the course of which they collected materials for fresh works, and visited the celebrities, literary and artistic, of the various cities that lay in their route. At Stuttgart they called on Gustav Schwab, the poet, and visited Dannecker's studio; at Tubingen they made the acquaintance of Uhland, and at Munich that of Kaulbach, then at the height of his fame. By way of Vienna and Prague they travelled to Dresden, where, through the good offices of Mrs. Jameson, they were received by Moritz Retzsch, whose _Outlines_ they had long admired. At Berlin they made friends with Tieck, on whom the king had bestowed a pension and a house at Potsdam; while at Weimar they were entertained by Frau von Goethe, whose son, Wolfgang, had been one of their earliest acquaintances at Heidelberg. This interesting tour is described at length in the _Rural and Domestic Life of Germany_.

Another year was spent at Heidelberg, but the difficulties of arranging the business details of their work at such a distance from publishers and editors, brought the industrious couple back to London in the spring of 1843. 'On our return to England,' writes Mary, 'I was full of energy and hope. Glowing with aspiration, and in enjoyment of great domestic happiness, I was antic.i.p.ating a busy, perhaps overburdened, but, nevertheless, congenial life. It was to be one of darkness, perplexity, discouragement.' The Howitts had scarcely entered into possession of a new house that they had taken at Clapton, when news came from Heidelberg, where the elder children had been left at school, that their second son, Claude, had developed alarming symptoms of disease in the knee-joint. It was known that he had been slightly injured in play a few weeks before, but no danger had been antic.i.p.ated. Mr. Howitt at once set out for Heidelberg, and returned with the invalid, on whose case Liston was consulted. The great surgeon counselled amputation, but to this the parents refused their consent, except as a last resource. Various less heroic modes of treatment were tried, but poor Claude faded away, and died in March, 1844, aged only ten years and a half. This was the heaviest trial that the husband and wife had yet experienced, for Claude had been a boy of brilliant promise, whom they regarded as the flower of their flock.

Only a few months before his accident his mother had written in the pride of her heart: 'Claude is the naughtiest of all the children, and yet the most gifted. He learns anything at a glance. Claude is born to be fortunate; he is one that will make the family distinguished in the next generation. He has an extraordinary faculty for telling stories, either of his own invention or of what he reads.'

A lesser cause of trouble and anxiety arose out of the translation of Miss Bremer's novels. 'When we first translated _The Neighbours_,'

writes Mary, 'there was not a house in London that would undertake its publication. We published it and the other Bremer novels at our own risk, but such became the rage for them that our translations were seized by a publisher, altered, and reissued as new ones.'

The success of these books was said to be greater than that of any series since the first appearance of the Waverley novels. Cheap editions were multiplied in the United States, and even the boys who hawked the books about the streets were to be seen deep in _The Home_ or _The H. Family_. In a letter to her sister written about this time, Mary expatiates on the annoyance and loss caused by these piracies. 'It is very mortifying,' she observes, 'because no one knew of these Swedish novels till we introduced them. It obliges us to hurry in all we do, and we must work almost day and night to get ours out in order that we may have some little chance.... We have embarked a great deal of money in the publication, and the interference of the upstart London publisher is most annoying. Mlle. Bremer, however, has written a new novel, and sends it to us before publication. We began its translation this week, and hope to be able to publish it about the time it will appear in Sweden and Germany.'

In addition to her translating work, Mrs. Howitt was engaged at this time upon a series of little books, called _Tales for the People and their Children_, which had been commissioned by a cheap publisher.

These stories, each of which ill.u.s.trated a domestic virtue, were punctually paid for: and though they were never advertised, they pa.s.sed swiftly through innumerable editions, and have been popular with a certain public down to quite recent times. Perhaps the most attractive is the _Autobiography of a Child_, in which Mary told the story of her own early days in her pretty, simple style, with the many little quaint touches that gave all her juvenile stories an atmosphere of truth and reality. Her quick sympathy with young people, and her knowledge of what most appealed to the childish mind, was probably due to her vivid remembrance of her own youthful days, and to her affectionate study of the 'little ways' of her own children. Many are the original traits and sayings that she reports to her sister, more especially those of her youngest boy, Charlton, who had inherited his parents' naturalistic tastes in a p.r.o.nounced form, and preferred the Quakers' meeting-house to any other church or chapel, because there was a dog-kennel on the premises!

About a year after her return to England, Mrs. Howitt turned her attention to Danish literature, finding that, with her knowledge of Swedish and German, the language presented few difficulties. In 1845 she translated Hans Andersen's _Impromsatore_, greatly to the satisfaction of the author, who begged that she would continue to translate his works, till he was as well known and loved in England as he was on the Continent. Appreciation, fame, and joy, declared the complacent poet, followed his footsteps wherever he went, and his whole life was full of sunshine, like a beautiful fairy-tale. Mary translated his _Only a Fiddler_; _O. T., or Life in Denmark_; _The True Story of My Life_; and several of the _Wonderful Stories for Children_. The _Improvisatore_ was the only one that went into a second edition, the other works scarcely paying the cost of publication. Hans Andersen, however, being a.s.sured that Mrs.

Howitt was making a fortune of the translations, came to England in 1847 to arrange for a share of the profits. Though disappointed in his hope of gain, he begged Mrs. Howitt to translate the whole of his fairy-tales, which had just been brought out in a beautifully-ill.u.s.trated German edition. Much to her after regret, she was then too much engrossed by other work to be able to accede to his proposal. The relations between Hans Andersen and his translator were marred, we are told, by the extreme sensitiveness and egoism of the Dane. Mrs. Howitt narrates, as an example of his childish vanity, the following little incident which occurred during his visit to England in the summer of 1847:--

'We had taken him, as a pleasant rural experience, to the annual hay-making at Hillside, Highgate, thus introducing him to an English home, full of poetry and art, sincerity, and affection. The ladies of Hillside--Miss Mary and Margaret Gillies, the one an embodiment of peace and an admirable writer, whose talent, like the violet, kept in the shade; the other, the warm-hearted painter--made him welcome....

Immediately after our arrival, the a.s.sembled children, loving his delightful fairy-tales, cl.u.s.tered round him in the hay-field, and watched him make them a pretty device of flowers; then, feeling somehow that the stiff, silent foreigner was not kindred to themselves, stole off to an American, Henry Clarke Wright, whose admirable little book, _A Kiss for a Blow_, some of them knew.

He, without any suggestion of condescension or difference of age, entered heart and soul into their glee, laughed, shouted, and played with them, thus unconsciously evincing the gift which had made him earlier the exclusive pastor of six hundred children in Boston. Soon poor Andersen, perceiving himself neglected, complained of headache, and insisted on going indoors, whither Mary Gillies and I, both anxious to efface any disagreeable impression, accompanied him; but he remained irritable and out of sorts.'

It was in 1845 or 1846 that the Howitts made the acquaintance of Tennyson, whose poetry they had long admired. 'The retiring and meditative young poet, Alfred Tennyson, visited us,' relates Mary, 'and cheered our seclusion by the recitation of his exquisite poetry.

He spent a Sunday night at our house, when we sat talking together till three in the morning. All the next day he remained with us in constant converse. We seemed to have known him for years. So in fact we had, for his poetry was himself. He hailed all attempts at heralding a grander, more liberal state of public opinion, and consequently sweeter, n.o.bler modes of living. He wished that we Englanders could dress up our affections in more poetical costume; real warmth of heart would gain rather than lose by it. As it was, our manners were as cold as the walls of our churches.' Another new friend was gained through William Howitt's book, _Visits to Remarkable Places_. When the work was announced as 'in preparation,' the author received a letter, signed E. C. Gaskell, drawing his attention to a beautiful old house, Clopton Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. The letter described in such admirable style the writer's visit to the house as a schoolgirl, that William wrote to suggest that she ought to use her pen for the public benefit. This timely encouragement led to the production of _Mary Barton_, the first volume of which was sent in ma.n.u.script for Mr. Howitt's verdict. A few months later Mrs.

Gaskell came as a guest to the little house at Clopton, bringing with her the completed work.

In 1846 William Howitt took part in a new journalistic venture, his wife, as usual, sharing his labours and anxieties. He became first contributor, and afterwards editor and part-proprietor of the _People's Journal_, a cheap weekly, through the medium of which he hoped to improve the moral and intellectual condition of the working cla.s.ses. 'The bearing of its contents,' wrote Mary, in answer to some adverse criticism of the new paper, 'is love to G.o.d and man.

There is no attempt to set the poor against the rich, but, on the contrary, to induce them to be careful, prudent, sober and independent; above all, to be satisfied to be workers, and to regard labour as a privilege rather than as a penalty, which is quite our view of the matter.' The combination of business and philanthropy seldom answers, and the Howitts, despite the excellence of their intentions, were unlucky in their newspaper speculations. At the end of a few months it was discovered that the manager of the _People's Journal_ kept no books, and that the affairs of the paper were in hopeless confusion. William Howitt, finding himself responsible for the losses on the venture, tried to cure the evil by a hair of the dog that had bitten him. He withdrew from the _People's Journal_, and, with Samuel Smiles as his a.s.sistant, started a rival paper on the same lines, called _Howitts Journal_. But, as Ebenezer Elliott, the shrewd old Quaker, remarked, apropos of the apathy of the working-cla.s.s public: 'Men engaged in a death struggle for bread will pay for amus.e.m.e.nt when they will not for instruction. They woo laughter to unscare them, that they may forget their perils, their wrongs, and their oppressors. If you were able and willing to fill the journal with fun, it would pay.' The failure of his paper spelt ruin to its promoter; his copyrights, as well as those of his wife, were sacrificed, and he was obliged to begin the world anew.

The Howitts seem to have kept up their spirits bravely under this reverse, and never for a moment relaxed in their untiring industry.

They moved into a small house in Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, and looked around them for new subjects upon which to exercise their well-worn pens. Mary hoped to get employment from the Religious Tract Society, which had invited her to send in a specimen story, but she feared that her work would hardly be considered sufficiently orthodox, though she had introduced one of the 'death-bed scenes,' which were then in so much request. As she antic.i.p.ated, the story was returned as quite unsuitable, and thereupon she writes to her sister in some depression: 'Times are so bad that publishers will not speculate in books; and when I have finished the work I am now engaged on, I have nothing else certain to go on with.' However, writers so popular with the public as the Howitts were not likely to be left long without employment. Mary seems to have been the greater favourite of the two, and the vogue of her volume of collected _Poems and Ballads_, which appeared in 1847, strikes the modern reader with amazement. Some idea of the estimation in which she was then held is proved by Allan Cunningham's dictum that 'Mary Howitt has shown herself mistress of every string of the minstrel's lyre, save that which sounds of broil and bloodshed. There is more of the old ballad simplicity in her composition than can be found in the strains of any living poet besides.' Another critic compared Mrs. Hewitt's ballads to those of Lord Macaulay, while Mrs. Alaric Watts, in her capacity of Annual editor, wrote to a.s.sure her old friend and contributor that, 'In thy simplest poetry there are sometimes turns so exquisite as to bring the tears to my eyes. Thou hast as much poetry in thee as would set up half-a-dozen writers.' The one dissentient voice among admiring contemporaries is that of Miss Mitford, who writes in 1852: 'I am for my sins so fidgety respecting style that I have the bad habit of expecting a book that pretends to be written in our language to be English; therefore I cannot read Miss Strickland, or the Howitts, or Carlyle, or Emerson, or the serious parts of d.i.c.kens.' It must be owned that the Howitts are condemned in fairly good company.

The work of both husband and wife suffered from the inevitable defects of self-education, and also from the narrowness and seclusion of their early lives. Mary possessed more imagination and a lighter touch than her husband, but her attempts at adult fiction were hampered by her ignorance of the world, while her technique, both in prose and verse, left something to be desired. It is evident that the publishers and editors of the period were less critical than Miss Mitford, for, in 1848, we find that Mrs. Howitt was invited to write the opening volume of Bradshaw's series of Railway novels, while in February 1850, came a request from Charles d.i.c.kens for contributions to _Household Words_. 'You may have seen,' he writes, 'the first dim announcements of the new, cheap literary journal I am about to start. Frankly, I want to say to you that if you would write for it, you would delight me, and I should consider myself very fortunate indeed in enlisting your services.... I hope any connection with the enterprise would be satisfactory and agreeable to you in all respects, as I should most earnestly endeavour to make it. If I wrote a book I could say no more than I mean to suggest to you in these few lines.

All that I leave unsaid, I leave to your generous understanding.'

The Howitts were keenly interested in the gradual awakening of the long-dormant, artistic instincts of the nation, the first signs of which became faintly visible about the end of the forties. 'Down to that time,' observes Mary, 'the taste of the English people had been for what appealed to the mind rather than to the eye, and the general public were almost wholly uneducated in art. By 1849 the improvement due to the exertions of the Prince Consort, the Society of Arts, and other powers began to be felt; while a wonderful impulse to human taste and ingenuity was being given in the preparation of exhibits for the World's Fair.' The gentle Quakeress who, in her youth, had modelled Wedgwood figures in paper pulp, and clapped her clear-starching to the rhythm of _Lalla Rookh_, was, in middle life, one of the staunchest supporters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, and that at a time when the President of the Royal Academy had announced his intention of hanging no more of their 'outrageous productions.' Through their friend, Edward La Trobe Bateman, the Howitts had been introduced into the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and familiarised with the then new and startling idea that artistic principles might be carried out in furniture and house-decoration.

Less than three-quarters of a century before, Mary's father had been sternly rebuked by her grandfather for painting a series of lines in black and grey above the parlour fireplace to represent a cornice.

This primitive attempt at decoration was regarded as a sinful indulgence of the l.u.s.t of the eye! With the simple charity that was characteristic of them, William and Mary saw only the best side of their new friends, the shadows of Bohemian life being entirely hidden from them. 'Earnest and severe in their principles of art,' observes Mrs. Howitt naively, 'the young reformers indulged in much jocundity when the day's work was done. They were wont to meet at ten, cut jokes, talk slang, smoke, read poetry, and discuss art till three A.M.'

The couple had by this time renounced their membership of the Society of Friends, but they had not joined any other religious sect, though they seem to have been attracted by Unitarian doctrines. 'Mere creeds,' wrote Mary to her sister, 'matter nothing to me. I could go one Sunday to the Church of England, another to a Catholic chapel, a third to the Unitarian, and so on; and in each of them find my heart warmed with Christian love to my fellow-creatures, and lifted up with grat.i.tude and praise to G.o.d.' For many years the house in Avenue Road was, we are told, a meeting-place for all that was best and brightest in the world of modern thought and art. William Howitt was always ready to lend an attentive and unbia.s.sed ear to the newest theory, or even the newest fad, while Mary possessed in the fullest degree the gift of companionableness, and her inexhaustible sympathy drew from others an instant confidence. Her arduous literary labours never impaired her vigorous powers of mind or body, and she often wrote till late into the night without appearing to suffer in either health or spirits. She is described as a careful and energetic housewife; indeed, her husband was accustomed to say that he would challenge any woman who never wrote a line, to match his own good woman in the management of a large household.

In 1851 came the first tidings of the discovery of gold in Australia, and nothing was talked of but this new Eldorado and the wonderful inducements held out to emigrants. William Howitt, who felt that he needed a change from brain-work, suddenly resolved on a trip with his two sons to this new world, where he would see his youngest brother, Dr. G.o.dfrey Howitt, who had settled at Melbourne. He was also anxious to ascertain what openings in the country there might be for his boys, both of whom had active, outdoor tastes, which there seemed little chance of their being able to gratify in England. In June, 1852, the three male members of the family, accompanied by La Trobe Bateman, sailed for Australia, while Mary and her two daughters, the elder of whom had just returned from a year in Kaulbach's studio at Munich, moved into a cottage called the Hermitage, at Highgate, which belonged to Mr. Bateman, and had formerly been occupied by Rossetti. Here they lived quietly for upwards of two years, working at their literary or artistic occupations, and seeing a few intimate friends. Mary kept her husband posted up in the events that were taking place in England, and we learn from her letters what were the chief topics of town talk in the early fifties.

'Now, I must think over what news there is,' she writes in April, 1853. 'In the political world, the proposed new scheme of Property and Income Tax, which would make everybody pay something; and the proposal for paying off a portion of the National Debt with Australian gold. In the literary world, the International Copyright, which some expect will be in force in three months. In society in general, the strange circ.u.mstantial rumour of the Queen's death, which, being set afloat on Easter Monday, when no business was doing, was not the offspring of the money market. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, who were here the other day, spoke of it, saying truly that for the moment it seemed to paralyse the very heart of England.... [May 4th.] The great talk now is Mrs. Beecher Stowe and spirit-rapping, both of which have arrived in England. The universality of the latter phenomena renders it a curious study. A feeling seems pervading all cla.s.ses and all sects that the world stands on the brink of some great spiritual revelation.

It meets one in books, in newspapers, on the lips of members of the Church of England, Unitarians, and even Freethinkers. Poor old Robert Owen, the philanthropist, has been converted, and made a confession of faith in public. One cannot but respect a man who, in his old age, has the boldness to declare himself as having been blinded and mistaken through life.'

In December, 1854, William Howitt returned from his travels without any gold in his pockets, but with the materials for his _History of Discovery in Australia and New Zealand._ Thanks to what he used to call his four great doctors, Temperance, Exercise, Good Air, and Good Hours, he had displayed wonderful powers of activity and endurance during his exploration of some almost untracked regions of the new world. At sixty years of age he had marched twenty miles a day under a blazing sun for weeks at a time, worked at digging gold for twelve hours a day, waded through rivers, slept under trees, baked his own bread, washed his own clothes, and now returned in the pink of condition, with his pa.s.sion for wandering only intensified by his three years of an adventurous life. The family experiences were diversified thenceforward by frequent change of scene, for William was always ready and willing to start off at a moment's notice to the mountains, the seaside, or the Continent. But whether the Howitts were at home or abroad, they continued their making of many books, so that it becomes difficult for the biographer to keep pace with their literary output. Together or separately they produced a _History of Scandinavian Literature, The Homes and Haunts of the Poets, a Popular History of England_, which was published in weekly parts, a _Year-Book of the Country_, a _Popular History of the United States_, a _History of the Supernatural_, the _Northern Heights of London_, and an abridged edition of _Sir Charles Grandison_, besides several tales for young people, and contributions to magazines and newspapers.

Even increasing age had no power to narrow their point of view, or to blunt their sympathy with every movement that seemed to make for the relief of the oppressed, the welfare of the nation, or the advancement of the human race. Just as in youth they had championed the cause of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation and of political Reform, so in later years we find them advocating the Repeal of the Corn Laws, taking part in the Anti-Slavery agitation, working for improvement in the laws that affected women and children, and supporting the Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A more debatable subject--that of spiritualism--was investigated by them in a friendly but impartial spirit. 'In the spring of 1856, 'writes Mrs. Howitt, 'we had become acquainted with several most ardent and honest spirit mediums. It seemed right to my husband and myself to try and understand the nature of these phenomena in which our new acquaintance so firmly believed.

In the month of April I was invited to attend a _seance_ at Professor de Morgan's, and was much astonished and affected by communications purporting to come to me from my dear son Claude. With constant prayer for enlightenment and guidance, we experimented at home. The teachings that seemed given us from the spirit-world were often akin to those of the gospel; at other times they were more obviously emanations of evil. I felt thankful for the a.s.surance thus gained of an invisible world, but resolved to neglect none of my common duties for spiritualism.' Among the Hewitts' fellow-converts were Robert Chambers, Robert Owen, the Carter Halls and the Alaric Watts's; while Sir David Brewster and Lord Brougham were earnest inquirers into these forms of psychical phenomena.

In 1865 William Howitt was granted a pension by Government, and a year later the couple moved from Highgate to a cottage called the Orchard, near their former residence at Esher. Of their four surviving children, only Margaret, the youngest, was left at home. Anna, already the author of a very interesting book, _An Art Student at Munich_, had, as her mother observes, taken her place among the successful artists and writers of her day, 'when, in the spring of 1856, a severe private censure of one of her oil-paintings by a king among critics so crushed her sensitive nature, as to make her yield to her bias for the supernatural, and withdraw from the arena of the fine arts.' In 1857 Anna became the wife of Alfred Watts, the son of her parents' old friends, Alaric and Zillah Watts. The two boys, Alfred and Charlton, born explorers and naturalists, both settled in Australia. Alfred, early in the sixties, had explored the district of Lake Torrens, a land of parched deserts, dry-water-courses, and soda-springs, whose waters effervesced tartaric acid; and had opened up for the Victorian Government the mountainous district of Gippsland, with the famous gold-field of the Crooked River. In 1861 he had been employed to head the relief-party that went in search of the discoverer, Robert O'Hara Burke, and his companions, and a year later he brought back the remains of the ill-fated explorers to Melbourne for public burial. Later in life he was successfully employed in various Government enterprises, and published, in collaboration with a friend, a learned work on the aborigines of Australia.

Charlton Howitt, the younger son, after five years' uncongenial work in a London office, emigrated to Australia in 1860. His quality was quickly recognised by the Provincial Government, which, in 1862, appointed him to command an expedition to examine the rivers in the province of Canterbury, with a view to ascertaining whether they contained gold. So admirably was the work accomplished that, on his return to Christchurch, he was intrusted with the task of opening up communications between the Canterbury plains and the newly-discovered gold and coal district on the west coast. 'This duty was faithfully performed, under constant hardships and discouragement,' relates his mother. 'But a few miles of road remained to be cut, when, at the end of June, 1863, after personally rescuing other pioneers and wanderers from drowning and starvation in that watery, inhospitable forest region, Charlton, with two of his men, went down in the deep waters of Lake Brunner; a fatal accident which deprived the Government of a valued servant, and saddened the hearts of all who knew him.'

After four peaceful years at Esher, the _Wanderl.u.s.t_, that gipsy spirit, which not even the burden of years could tame, took possession of William and Mary once more, and they suddenly decided that they must see Italy before they died. In May, 1870, they let the Orchard, and, aged seventy-seven and seventy-one respectively, set out on their last long flight into the world. The summer was spent on the Lake of Lucerne, where the old-world couple came across that modern of the moderns, Richard Wagner, and his family. By way of the Italian Lakes and Venice they travelled, in leisurely fashion, to Rome, where they celebrated their golden wedding in April, 1871. The Eternal City threw its glamour around these ancient pilgrims, who found both life and climate exactly suited to the needs of old age. 'I prized in Rome,'