Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/518

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. DEC. 27, 1902.

lady residing in Paris with two nieces." No more precise information is offered. This description seems, however, somewhat in- appropriate for a lady who, if the letters are authentic, was not only on terms of the closest intimacy with Merimee, if only for a short period of their forty years' friendship, but was also a widow, though she was a wife for no more than a year. After she came into her own fortune she continued to move, too, in the highest society in France, England, and Russia. She mentions casually being present at a ball at the Duke of Sutherland's at Staf- ford House, where Lord Shrewsbury, with whom she was walking, introduced her to Disraeli. She had also met Gladstone, and was a friend of Prince Gortschakoff's. Am I right in assuming that her letters to Merimee were written in English? Is the mystery of the "Inconnue" still one of the unsolved problems of the world 1 G. S. FORBES.

Madras.

ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM. (9 th S. x. 427.)

I MAY perhaps be permitted to invite the attention of the REV. J. B. McGovERN to my notes on the privately printed volume of 1 Poems ' by A. H. Hallam, 1830 (8 th S. iii. 52 ; v. 65 9 th S. viii. 111). In 1834 a volume of Hallam's ' Remains ' was privately issued by his father, with the imprint on the title-page of "W. Nicol, 51, Pall Mall"- and in 1853 this volume was reprinted with a new preface and a memoir of the younger brother, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam. Neither of these volumes was " published " in the ordinary sense of the word, though Murray, who was the elder Hallam's publisher, may have arranged for their passage through the press. The first " published " edition was issued by Murray in 1862,* and MR. McGovERN may be able to pick up a copy of this for a few shillings, as it is by no means an uncommon book. It is a reprint of the 1853 volume, and the poems contained in it are identical with those con- tained in Mr. Le Gallienne's edition of 1893.1

It is well known that Hallam, at the time of his death, was engaged to Tennyson's


 * My copy is dated 1863.

f Mr. Le Gallienne has substituted an introduc- tion of his own for Mr. Hallam's preface, and has omitted the prose essays at the end, with the exception of the review of Tennyson's ' Lyrical Poems,' originally published in the Englishman's Magazine, 1831, which he has reprinted in full.

sister Emily, but at an earlier date he seems to have been much attached to a young lady whom probably he met in Italy. Some of the poems in the volume of 1830 were inspired by this lady, but none was reprinted in the issue of 1834, probably from a wish on the part of the elder Hallam to spare pain to the Tennyson family. The following lines, which have never been reprinted since the year 1830, may be quoted in this connexion :

I knew not that I loved. I called her friend ; And if at times reflection bade me view

How frail with one so beauteous, and so young

Were friendship's bonds, too vivid was the hue Of that sweet vision, that around me hung,

For me to seek another guiding star.

By her I shaped my course ; and still among Troubles, and emulations, and the jar

Of the heart's chords, strained by the busy press

Of trivialities, 1 fixed on her My steadfast gaze, as pilot in distress

Eyes with delight the lodestar, strong to save

And yet he hopes not, dreams not to possess.

From other poems in the book it would seem that the lady married and went to India.

A sonnet addressed to Tennyson, which has never been republished, I believe, may be compared with the one which opens the third chapter of Lord Tennyson's ' Memoir ' of his father :

Oh, last in time, but worthy to be first Of friends in rank, had not the father of good, On my early spring one perfect gem bestowed, A friend, with whom to share the best, and worst.

Him will I shut close to my heart for aye. There 's not a fibre quivers there, but is His own, his heritage for woe, or bliss. Thou wouldst not have me such a charge betray.

Surely, if I be knit in brotherhood Bo tender to that chief of all my love, With thee I shall not loyalty eschew.

And well I ween not time, with ill, or good, Shall thine affection e'er from mine remove, Thou yearner for all fair things, and all true.

Mr. Gladstone was probably the last survivor of those who could have told us the name of him who held the first place in Hallam's heart (compare 9 th S. viii. 111).

In Mr. Hallam's edition of his son's ' Remains' there are printed at the end some prose pieces, of which one or two had previously been separately issued. One of these I take to be the declamation which Wordsworth listened to, and of which Monck- ton Milues wrote : " It was splendid to see the poet Wordsworth's face kindle as Hallam proceeded with it." The tract is, I think, even rarer than the ' Poems '- of 1830, as I know of four or five copies of the latter, and I have never seen or heard of any other copy of the ' Oration ' than my own. The follow- ing is a copy of the title-page :