Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic. Douglas James
till several months after his death. It was, however, not by Archæology, but by his geological and geographical writings that he made his reputation. And it was these which brought him into contact with Murchison, Livingstone, Lyell, Whewell, and Darwin, and also with the geographers, some of whom, such as Du Chaillu, Findlay, Dr. Norton Shaw, visited him at the Red House on the Market Hill, now occupied by Mr. Matton. In the sketches of the life of Dr. Latham it is mentioned that the famous ethnologist was a frequent visitor to Mr. Watts at St. Ives. Since his death there have been frequent references to him as a man of ‘encyclopædic general knowledge.’
He was of an exceedingly retiring disposition, and few men in St. Ives have been more liked or more generally respected. His great delight seemed to be roaming about in meadows and lanes observing the changes of the vegetation and the bird and insect life in which our neighbourhood is as rich as Selborne itself. On such occasions the present writer has often met him and had many interesting conversations with him upon subjects connected with natural science.”
With regard to the family of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s mother, the Duntons, although in the seventeenth century a branch of the family lived in Huntingdonshire, some of them being clergymen there for several generations, they are entirely East Anglian; and some very romantic chapters in the history of the family have been touched upon by Dr. Jessopp in his charming essay, ‘Ups and Downs of an Old Nunnery.’ This essay was based upon a paper, communicated by Miss Mary Bateson to the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society, and treating of the Register of Crab House Nunnery. In 1896 Walter Theodore Watts added his mother’s to his father’s name, by a deed in Chancery.
I could not give a more pregnant instance of the difference in temperament between a father and a son than by repeating a story about Mr. Watts-Dunton which Rossetti (who was rich in anecdotes of his friend) used to tell. When the future poet and critic was a boy in jackets pursuing his studies at the Cambridge school, he found in the school library a copy of Wells’s ‘Stories after Nature,’ and read them with great avidity. Shortly afterwards, when he had left school and was reading all sorts of things, and also cultivating on the sly a small family of Gryengroes encamped in the neighbourhood, he was amazed to find, in a number of the ‘Illuminated Magazine,’ a periodical which his father, on account of Douglas Jerrold, had taken in from the first, one of the ‘Stories after Nature’ reprinted with an illustration by the designer and engraver Linton. He said to his father, ‘Why, I have read this story before!’ ‘That is quite impossible,’ said his father, ‘quite impossible that you should have before read a new story in a new number of a magazine.’ ‘I have read it before; I know all about it,’ said the boy. ‘As I do not think you untruthful,’ said the father, ‘I think I can explain your hallucination about this matter.’ ‘Do, father,’ said the son. ‘Well,’ said the father, ‘I do not know whether or not you are a poet. But I do know that you are a dreamer of dreams. You have told me before extraordinary stories to the effect that when you see a landscape that is new to you, it seems to you that you have seen it before.’ ‘Yes, father, that often occurs.’ ‘Well, the reason for that is this, as you will understand when you come to know a little more about physiology. The brain is divided into two hemispheres, exactly answering to each other, and they act so simultaneously that they work like one brain; but it often happens that when dreamers like you see things or read things, one of the hemispheres has lapsed into a kind of drowsiness, and the other one sees the object for itself; but in a second or two the lazy hemisphere wakes up and thinks it has seen the picture before.’ The explanation seemed convincing, and yet it could not convince the boy.
The very next month the magazine gave another of the stories, and the father said, ‘Well, Walter, have you read this before?’ ‘Yes,’ said the boy falteringly, ‘unless, of course, it is all done by the double brain, father.’ And so it went on from month to month. When the boy had grown into a man and came to meet Rossetti, one of the very first of the literary subjects discussed between them was that of Charles Wells’s ‘Joseph and His Brethren’ and ‘Stories after Nature.’ Rossetti was agreeably surprised that although his new friend knew nothing of ‘Joseph and His Brethren,’ he was very familiar with the ‘Stories after Nature.’ ‘Well,’ said Mr. Watts-Dunton, ‘they appeared in the “Illuminated Magazine.”’ ‘Who should have thought,’ said Rossetti, ‘that the “Illuminated Magazine” in its moribund days, when Linton took it up, should have got down to St. Ives. Its circulation, I think, was only a few hundreds. Among Linton’s manœuvres for keeping the magazine alive was to reprint and illustrate Charles Wells’s “Stories after Nature” without telling the public that they had previously appeared in book form.’ ‘They did then appear in book form first?’ said Mr. Watts-Dunton. ‘Yes, but there can’t have been over a hundred or two sold,’ said Rossetti. ‘I discovered it at the British Museum.’ ‘I read it at Cambridge in my school library,’ said Mr. Watts-Dunton. It was the startled look on Rossetti’s face which caused Mr. Watts-Dunton to tell him the story about his father and the ‘Illuminated Magazine.’
It was a necessity that a boy so reared should feel the impulse to express himself in literature rather early. But it will be new to many, and especially to the editor of the ‘Athenæum,’ that as a mere child he contributed to its pages. When he was a boy he read the ‘Athenæum,’ which his father took in regularly. One day he caught a correspondent of the ‘Athenæum’ – no less a person than John P. Collier – tripping on a point of Shakespearean scholarship, being able to do so by chance. He had stumbled on the matter in question while reading one of his father’s books. He wrote to the editor in his childish round hand, stigmatizing the blunder with youthful scorn. In due time the correction was noted in the Literary Gossip of the journal. Soon after, his father had occasion to consult the book, and finding a pencil mark opposite the passage, he said, ‘Walter, have you been marking this book?’ ‘Yes, father.’ ‘But you know I object?’ ‘Yes, father, but I was interested in the point.’ ‘Why,’ said his father, ‘somebody has been writing about this very passage to the “Athenæum.”’ ‘Yes, father,’ replied the boy, red and ungrammatical with proud confusion, ‘it was me.’ ‘You!’ cried his astonished father, ‘you!’ And thus the matter was explained. Mr. Watts-Dunton confesses that he was never tired of thumbing that, his first contribution to the ‘Athenæum.’
Whatever may have been the influence of his father upon Mr. Watts-Dunton, it was not, I think, nearly so great as that of his uncle, James Orlando Watts. His father may have made him scientific: his uncle seems to have made him philosophical with a dash of mysticism. As I have already pointed out, Mr. Hake has identified this uncle as the prototype of Philip Aylwin, the father of the hero. The importance of this character in ‘Aylwin’ is shown by the fact that, if we analyze the story, we find that the character of Philip is its motive power. After his death, everything that occurs is brought about by his doctrines and his dreams, his fantasies and his whims. This effect of making a man dominate from his grave the entire course of the life of his descendants seems to be unique in imaginative literature; and yet, although the fingers of some critics (notably Mr. Coulson Kernahan) burn close to the subject, there they leave it. What Mr. Watts-Dunton calls ‘the tragic mischief’ of the drama is not brought about by any villain, but by the vagaries and mystical speculations of a dead man, the author of ‘The Veiled Queen.’ There were few things in which James Orlando Watts did not take an interest. He was a deep student of the drama, Greek, English, Spanish, and German. And it is a singular fact that this dreamy man was a lover of the acted drama. One of his stories in connection with acting is this. A party of strolling players who went to St. Ives got permission to act for a period in a vast stone-built barn, called Priory Barn, and sometimes Cromwell’s Barn. Mr. J. O. Watts went to see them, and on returning home after the performance said, ‘I have seen a little actor who is a real genius. He reminds me of what I have read about Edmund Kean’s acting. I shall go and see him every night. And he went. The actor’s name was Robson. When, afterwards, Mr. Watts went to reside in London, he learnt that an actor named Robson was acting in one of the second-rate theatres called the Grecian Saloon. He went to the theatre and found, as he expected, that it was the same actor who had so impressed him down at St. Ives. From that time he followed Robson to whatsoever theatre in London he went, and afterward became a well-known figure among the playgoers of the Olympic. He always contended that Robson was the only histrionic genius of his time.