Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/29

 us. iv. JULY s, 1911. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

records, " My father grew to know Thackeray well, and would call him a lovable man " ; and he gives a characteristic anecdote of him. The two friends had been dining together, and Tennyson had said : " I love Catullus for his perfection in form and for his tender- ness ; he is tenderest of Roman poets." Thackeray answered : " I do not rate him highly ; I could do better myself." The next morning Tennyson received an apology from his friend, who " woke at two o'clock, and in a sort of terror at a certain speech I had made about Catullus. When I have dined, sometimes I believe myself to be equal to the greatest painters and poets. That delusion goes off, arid then I know what a small fiddle mine is, and what small tunes I play on it. It was very generous of you to give me an opportunity of recalling a silly speech ; but at the time I thought I was making a perfectly simple and satisfactory observation."

Tennyson said of this letter: "It was impossible to have written in a more generous spirit. No one but a noble- hearted man could have written such a letter." On Thackeray's appointment to The Corrihill we find him at once writing to " My dear old Alfred."

It is sad that the same unbroken friend- ship cannot be recorded of his distinguished brother novelist Dickens, though it was Dickens' s loyalty to another friend which caused the terrible breach. Pleasant, indeed, is it to remember that they were reconciled before the final parting. Lady Priestley, from whose most interesting work I have already quoted, received the following account of the reconciliation from her oldest friend Sir Theodore Martin, who was an eye- witness (pp. 712) :

" Late in the autumn of the year in which Thackeray died (1863) I was standing talking to him in the hall of the Athena3um, when Dickens came out of the room where he had been reading the morning papers, and, passing close to us with- out making any sign of recognition, crossed the hall to the stairs that led up to the library. Suddenly Thackeray broke away from me, and overtook Dickens just as he had reached the foot of the staircase. Dickens turned to him, and I saw Thackeray speak, and presently hold out his hand to Dickens. They shook hands, a few words were exchanged, and immediately Thackeray returned to me, saying : ' I am glad I have done this. I said,' he continued, ' " It is time this foolish estrangement should cease, and that we should be to each other as we used to be. Come, shake hands ! " Dickens, he said, seemed at first rather taken aback, but he held out his hand, and some friendly words were exchanged. ' I loved the man,' said Thackeray, ' and could not resist this impulse.' "

A few weeks after, Dickens was standing by the open grave of the friend from whom he had been so long estranged.

The large-hearted Thackeray truly carried out in his own life the words he had written, to his friend Synge so far back as 1852 :

BEHOLD LOVE IS THE CROWN AND COM- PLETION OF ALL EARTHLY GOOD.

I hope I may be pardoned for adding that the 18th of this month has for myself a special significance, for it is the cen- tenary of my father's birth as well as of Thackeray's. JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

(To be concluded.] J

THE MILITARY CANAL AT SANDGATE. (See 10 S. xii. 228, 334, 377.)

THE following occurs in Fortescue's ' History of the Army,' vol. v. p. 233 :

" One costly work may, however, perhaps be- ascribed to the French General [Dumouriez],. namely, the military canal from Hythe to Sand- gate. This was made in order to isolate the- Romney marshes, where, according to Dumouriez, an invading force could otherwise have secured all the cattle and horses which fed on the marshes."

A foot-note adds :

" But it appears from a letter from the Com- mander-in-Chief to the Duke of Richmond that the canal, with its ultimate extension to Cliff End in Sussex, was suggested by Sir David Dundas ,. H.O. Internal Defence, Duke of Richmond to C.-in-C., 13 Nov., C.-in-C to Duke of Richmond* 19 Nov., 1806."

The Kentish Gazette, 11 Sept., 1804, states :

" On Thursday last Mr. Pitt, accompanied by Generals Twiss and Moore, met the Lords and Bailiffs of the Level of Romney Marsh, at New- hall near Dymchurch, to consider of the best mode of inundating the Marsh in case of invasion, when it was determined that, on the appearance of the enemy on the coast, the sluices should be opened, to admit the sea so as to fill the dykes, which might be accomplished in one tide, and in case of actual invasion remain open another tide, which would be sufficient to inundate the whole' level. The wall of course would not be injured, as the space of 24 hours will be fully sufficient for the intended effect."

In The Kentish Gazette, 19 Oct., 1804, the. Royal Military Canal scheme was ventilated, viz., a canal between Shorncliff Battery and the Rother near Rye.

On 26 October there is a report of a special meeting of the Surveyor, Lords, Baylif, and Jurats convened and holden at Newhall, Dymchurch, on Wednesday, the 24th, when it was resolved :

"1. It is the opinion of this meeting that the proposed canal will not be injurious to the lands