Forty Years of 'Spy'. Leslie Ward
with Kate Terry in the Duke's Motto took London by storm. He had a marked foreign accent that did not interfere in the least with the clear elocution that he owed to Bellew's instruction. Fechter was born in London and educated in France as a sculptor, but his inclinations tended towards the stage; he made his début at the Salle Molière, and achieved success as Duval in La Dame aux Camellias. After acting in Italy, Germany, and France, he came to England and won his laurels upon our stage. In conversation he was brilliant, and in appearance gave one the impression of strength both physically and mentally; I think his face is to this day more deeply impressed upon my mind than that of any other actor I remember excepting Irving. My father painted his portrait in the costume he wore in Hamlet and many years after my mother presented the picture to Henry Irving; but she still has the dress which Fechter gave her when leaving England. Charles Dickens thought highly of him, as the following letter will show.
My dear Ward,
I have the greatest interest in Fechter (on whom I called; by the way, I hope he knows), and I should have been heartily glad to meet him again. But—one word in such a case is as good, or bad, as a thousand....
I am engaged on Tuesday beyond the possibilities of backing out or putting off.
With kind regards to Mrs. Ward, in which my daughter and Miss Hogarth join,
Irving (when comparatively unknown to the London public) I first saw in Lost in London, and not long afterwards when he played "Macbeth," I could not resist caricaturing him.
Sothern I remember, of course, in "Lord Dundreary;" and Lytton, his son, also a successful actor in comparatively late years, and a playfellow of my brother Russell.
W. S. Gilbert came often to our Sunday "evenings" at Kent Villa. Years after, I recollect a story he told in the Club against himself. He was at the Derby, and crossing over from the stand, he got amongst the crowd who hustled and jostled him without the slightest regard for his comfort. He remonstrated with them, and receiving a good deal of impertinence in consequence, he lost his temper. When he at length emerged from the crush, he discovered his watch, a unique repeater and gold chain worth about two hundred pounds, had disappeared. The five minutes' talk proved to be one of the most expensive he had ever indulged in.
Although my father was interested in all sorts and conditions of men, historians, as I have remarked before, possessed a supreme attraction for him, and he sought the society of such men, as they in their turn sought his, whenever opportunity presented itself. William Hepworth Dixon, the historian, became friendly with my father shortly after our arrival at Kent Villa, and in the company of Douglas Jerrold was frequently at our house.
Mr. Dixon wrote a series of papers in the Daily News on the "Literature of the Lower Orders," which were precursors of Henry Mayhew's inquiries into the conditions of the London poor. He took a great interest in the lower classes and was instrumental in obtaining a free entry for the public to the Tower of London. Afterwards he became chief editor of the Athenæum. As a traveller he visited Italy, Spain, Hungary—all Europe, in fact, as well as Canada and the United States, where he went to Salt Lake City and wrote a history of the Mormons. He finally met with a riding accident in Cyprus which made him more or less of an invalid afterwards. His extraordinary reluctance to enter a church is one of the idiosyncrasies that returns to me; this must have puzzled my father, who was a very religious man and a constant church-goer.
Lord Stanhope (formerly Lord Mahon) was another historian, and an intimate friend of my father's. When the first Peel Ministry was formed in 1834, Lord Mahon appeared as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and during the last year of the Peel Ministry he held the office of Secretary to the Board of Control and supported the repeal of the Corn Laws. He subsequently pursued a somewhat wavering course, voted with the Protectionists against the change in the Navigation Laws, and lost his seat for Hertford at the general election of 1852. Afterwards his lordship devoted most of his life to historical research and wrote among other works "A History of the War of the Succession in Spain." His portrait is amongst the many my father painted of men distinguished in their studies; Bulwer, Thackeray, Lord Macaulay, Hallam, Dickens, Collins, were also subjects for his brush.
Sir Charles Dilke (the Dilkes were then proprietors of the Athenæum) once came to dine with us, and was mortally offended because a foreign ambassador was given precedence, as is etiquette as well as politeness to a stranger amongst us. He took my sister down, and sulked and grumbled to her all dinner time, venting on our high-backed antique chairs his annoyance at what he imagined to be a serious slight to his dignity and position.
I went with my father to Charles Dickens' last reading. He was an amateur actor of high repute, and his rendering of the famous novels was exceedingly dramatic. Wilkie Collins once wrote a play, called The Lighthouse, for some private theatricals in which Dickens acted. My father designed the invitation card, and the original drawing was sold at the Dickens' sale at Christie's, where it fetched a high price. At the last party given by Miss Dickens before he died, I was introduced to the great author, and curiously enough, he said, "I am so pleased to make your acquaintance, and I hope this will not be your last visit." That evening Joachim gave us an exhibition of his incomparable art. Lord Houghton, who was as absent-minded in his way as his brother-in-law, Lord Crewe, was one of the guests. He fell asleep during Joachim's recital, and snored. As the exquisite chords from the violin rose on the air, Lord Houghton's snores sounded loudly in opposition, sometimes drowning a delicate passage, and at others lost in a passionate rush of melody from the player, who must have needed all his composure to prevent him waking the slumbering lord.
About that time I made several slight caricatures of Dickens, which have been not only exhibited, but published.
CHAPTER IV
WORK AND PLAY
School-days ended.—A trip to Paris.—Versailles and the Morgue.—I enter the office of Sydney Smirke, R.A.—Montague Williams and Christchurch.—A squall.—Frith as arbitrator.—I nearly lose my life.—William Virtue to the rescue.—The Honourable Mr. Butler Johnson Munro.—I visit Knebworth.—Lord Lytton.—Spiritualism.—My first picture in the Royal Academy.—A Scotch holiday with my friend Richard Dunlop.—Patrick Adam.—Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lewis.—Mr. George Fox.—Sir William Jaffray.—Mr. William Cobbett.—Adventures on and off a horse.—Peter Graham.—Cruikshank.—Mr. Phené Spiers.—Johnstone Forbes-Robertson and Irving.—Fred Walker.—Arthur Sullivan.—Sir Henry de Bathe.—Sir Spencer Ponsonby.—Du Maurier.—Arthur Cecil.—Sir Francis Burnand.—The Bennett Benefit.
After leaving school, I took a trip with some schoolfellows to Paris. Our visit was not remarkably adventurous. I remember my interest in the outside seats on the trains, our nearly being frozen to death while indulging in the novelty of a journey to Versailles, and my excitement when I thought I had discovered Shakespeare in the Morgue, although second thoughts led me to the conclusion I was a little late in the day.
My great ambition at this period of my life was to be able to study drawing and painting, but my father was inexorable in his decision, and I entered the office of Sydney Smirke, R.A., to learn architecture.
Mr. Smirke was one of three talented brothers (the sons of the very distinguished artist, Robert Smirke, R.A.), Sir Edward Smirke, the City Solicitor, and Sir Robert Smirke, R.A., who achieved fame as an architect and designed Covent Garden Theatre among buildings of note. It is probable (I was told at the time) that Mr. Sydney Smirke would have received a knighthood, had he not opposed Queen Victoria's desire at that time that all Art Exhibitions should be restricted to the neighbourhood of South Kensington. He had then decided with the Committee who commissioned him upon the present site of Burlington House for the Royal Academy, which was to be built to his design. Among his best-known works are the Carlton and Conservative Club houses, the Reading Room, and the Roman and Assyrian Galleries at the British Museum.
While I was in Mr. Smirke's office, I longed more than ever to be an artist, for the purely mechanical part of the profession did not appeal to me in the least, neither did the prospect of an architect's