Edward FitzGerald and Posh
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James Blyth >> Edward FitzGerald and Posh
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7 EDWARD FITZGERALD AND "POSH"
"HERRING MERCHANTS"
INCLUDE A NUMBER OF LETTERS
FROM EDWARD FITZGERALD TO JOSEPH FLETCHER
OR "POSH," NOT HITHERTO PUBLISHED
BY
JAMES BLYTH
WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN LONG
NORRIS STREET, HAYMARKET
MCMVIII
_Copyright by John Long, 1908_
_All Rights Reserved_
TO
W. ALDIS WRIGHT, ESQ., M.A.
VICE-MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
I DEDICATE THIS SKETCH
WITH MOST SINCERE THANKS FOR HIS
INVALUABLE ASSISTANCE IN CONNECTION THEREWITH
AND FOR HIS PERMISSION TO PRINT
THE LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD
WHICH ARE NOW PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME
JAS. BLYTH
_March_, 1908
{"Posh" Fletcher in 1870. Taken for Edward FitzGerald: p0.jpg}
PREFACE
There can be no better foreword to this little sketch of one of the
phases of Edward FitzGerald's life than the following letter, written to
Thomas Carlyle in 1870, which was generously placed at my disposal by Dr.
Aldis Wright while I was giving the sketch its final revision for the
press. The portrait referred to in the letter is no doubt that
reproduced as the photograph of 1870.
"DEAR CARLYLE,
"Your 'Heroes' put me up to sending you one of mine--neither Prince,
Poet, or Man of Letters, but Captain of a Lowestoft Lugger, and
endowed with all the Qualities of Soul and Body to make him Leader of
many more men than he has under him. Being unused to sitting for his
portrait, he looks a little sheepish--and the Man is a Lamb with Wife,
Children, and dumber Animals. But when the proper time
comes--abroad--at sea or on shore--then it is quite another matter.
And I know no one of sounder sense, and grander Manners, in whatever
Company. But I shall not say any more; for I should only set you
against him; and you will see all without my telling you and not be
bored. So least said soonest mended, and I make my bow once more and
remain your
"Humble Reader,
"E. FG."
Too much has been made by certain writers, with more credulity than
discretion, of some personal characteristics of a great-hearted man. My
purpose in tendering this sketch to the lovers of FitzGerald is to show
that in many ways he has been calumniated. The man who could write the
letters to his humble friend, which are here printed; the man who could
show such consistent tenderness and delicacy of spirit to his fisherman
partner, and could permit the enthusiasm of his affection to blind him to
the truth, was no sulky misanthrope; but a man whose heart, whose
intensely human heart, was so great as to preponderate over his
magnificent intellect. Edward FitzGerald was a great poet, and a great
philosopher. He was a still greater man.
Therefore, my readers, if, during the perusal of these few letters, you
"in your . . . errand reach the spot"--whether it be at Woodbridge,
Lowestoft, or in that supper-room in town "Where he made one"--". . .
turn down an empty glass" to his memory.
For there is no _Saki_ to do it, either here or with the houris.
JAMES BLYTH
INTRODUCTION
Towards the end of the summer of 1906 I received a letter from Mr. F. A.
Mumby, of the _Daily Graphic_, asking me if I knew if Joseph Fletcher,
the "Posh" of the "FitzGerald" letters, was still alive. All about me
were veterans of eighty, ay, and ninety! hale and garrulous as any
longshoreman needs be. But it had never occurred to me before that
possibly the man who was Edward FitzGerald's "Image of the Mould that Man
was originally cast in," the east coast fisherman for whom the great
translator considered no praise to be too high, might be within easy
reach.
My first discovery was that to most of the good people of Lowestoft the
name of the man who had honoured the town by his preference was unknown.
A solicitor in good practice, a man who is by way of being an author
himself, asked me (when I named FitzGerald to him) if I meant that
FitzGerald who had, he believed, made a lot of money out of salt! A
schoolmaster had never heard of either FitzGerald or Omar.
It was plain that the educated classes of Lowestoft could help me in my
search but little. So I went down to the harbour basins and the fish
wharves, and asked of "Posh" and his "governor."
Not a jolly boatman of middle age in the harbour but knew of both. "D'ye
mean Joe Fletcher, master?" said one of them. "What--old Posh? Why yes!
Alive an' kickin', and go a shrimpin' when the weather serve. He live up
in Chapel Street. Number tew. He lodge theer."
So up I went to Chapel Street, one of those streets in the old North Town
of Lowestoft which have seen better days. A wizened, bent, white-haired
old lady answered my knock, after a preliminary inspection from a third-
floor window of my appearance. This, I learnt afterwards, was old Mrs.
Capps, with whom Posh had lodged since the death of his wife, fourteen
years previously.
"You'll find him down at the new basin," said the old lady. "He's mostly
there this time o' day."
But there was no Posh at the new basin. Half a dozen weather-beaten
shrimpers (in their brown jumpers, and with the fringe of hair running
beneath the chin from ear to ear--that hirsute ornament so dear to East
Anglian fishermen) were lounging about the wharf, or mending the small-
meshed trawl-nets wherein they draw what spoil they may from the depleted
roads.
All were grizzled, most were over seventy if wrinkled skin and white hair
may be taken as signs of age. And all knew Posh, and (oh! shame to the
"educated classes!") all remembered Edward FitzGerald. The poet, the
lovable, cultured gentleman they knew nothing of. Had they known of his
incomparable paraphrase of the Persian poet, of his scholarship, his
intimacy with Thackeray, Tennyson, Carlyle, the famous Thompson, Master
of Trinity, they would have recked nothing at all. But they remembered
FitzGerald, who has been called by their superiors an eccentric, miserly
hermit. They remembered him, I say, as a man whose heart was in the
right place, as a man who never turned a deaf ear to a tale of trouble.
"Ah!" said one of them. "He was a _good_ gennleman, was old Fitz." (They
all spoke of him as "old Fitz." They thought of him as a "mate"--as one
who knew the sea and her moods, and would put up with her vagaries even
as they must do. His shade in their memories was the shade of a friend,
and a friend whom they respected and loved.) "That was a good day for
Posh when he come acrost him. Posh! I reckon you'll find him at Bill
Harrison's if he bain't on the market."
"Posh" was no fancy name of the poet's for Joseph Fletcher, but the
actual proper cognomen by which the man has been known on the coast since
he was a lad. Most east coast fishermen have a nickname which supersedes
their registered name, and "Posh" (or now "old Posh") was Joseph
Fletcher's.
Bill Harrison's is a cosy little beerhouse in the lower North Town. It
is called Bill Harrison's because Bill Harrison was once its landlord.
Poor Bill has left house and life for years. But the house is still
"Bill Harrison's."
Here I found Posh. At that time, little more than a year ago, I wrote of
him as "a hale, stoutly-built man of over the middle height, his round,
ruddy, clean-shaven face encircled by the fringe of iron-grey whiskers
running round from ear to ear beneath the chin. His broad shoulders were
held square, his back straight, his head poised firm and alert on a
splendid column of neck."
Alas! The description would fit Posh but poorly now.
"Yes," said he. "I was Mr. FitzGerald's partner. But I can't stop to
mardle along o' ye now. I'll meet ye when an' where ye like."
I made an appointment with him, which he failed to keep. Then another.
Then another, and another. I lay wait for him in likely places. I
stalked him. I caught stray glimpses of him in various haunts. But he
always evaded me.
I think old Mrs. Capps got tired of leaning her head out of the third-
floor window of No. 2 Chapel Street, and seeing me waiting patiently on
the doorstep expectant of Posh.
At length I cornered him (from information received) fairly and squarely
at the Magdala House, a beerhouse in Duke's Head Street, two minutes'
walk from his lodgings.
I got him on his legs and took him down Rant Score to Bill Harrison's.
"Now look here," said I. "What's the matter? You've made appointment
after appointment, and kept none of them. Why don't you wish to see me?"
Posh shuffled his feet on, the sanded bricks. He drank from the measure
of "mild beer" (twopenny), for which he will call in preference to any
other liquid.
"Tha'ss like this here, master," said he. "I ha' had enow o' folks a
comin' here an' pickin' my brains and runnin' off wi' my letters and
never givin' me so much as a sixpence."
"Oho!" I thought. "That's where the rub is."
I gave him a trifling guarantee of good faith, and his face brightened
up. Gradually I overcame his reserve, and gradually I persuaded him that
I did not seek to rob him of anything. I'm a bit of a sailor myself, and
I think a little talk of winds, shoals, seas, and landmarks did more than
the trifling guarantee of good faith to establish friendly relations with
the old fellow.
But he made no secret of his grievance, and I tell the tale as he told
it, without vouching for its accuracy, but confident that he believed
that he was telling me the truth. And, if he was, the man referred to in
his story, the man who robbed him to all intents and purposes, is hereby
invited to do something to purge his offence by coming forward and
"behaving like a gennleman"--upon which I will answer for it that all
will be forgiven and forgotten by Posh.
"Ye see, master," said Posh, "that was a Mr. Earle" (I don't know if that
is the correct way of spelling the name, because Posh is no great
authority on spelling; but that's how he pronounced it) "come here,
that'll be six or seven year ago, and he axed me about the guv'nor, and
for me to show him any letters I had. He took a score or so away wi'm,
and he took my phootoo and I told him a sight o' things, thinkin' he was
a gennleman. Well, he axed me round to Marine Parade, where he was a
stayin' with his lady, and he give me one drink o' whisky. And that's
all I see of him. He was off with the letters and all, and never gave me
a farden for what he had or what he l'arnt off o' me. I heerd arterwards
as the letters was sold by auction for thutty pound. I see it in the
paper. If he'd ha' sent me five pound I'd ha' been content. But he
niver give me nothin' but that one drink. And ye see, master, _I didn't
know as yew worn't one o' the same breed_!"
I have endeavoured to trace these letters, and to identify this Mr.
Earle. Mr. Clement Shorter has been kind enough to do his best to help
me. No record can be found. And to clinch matters, Dr. Aldis Wright
(whom I cannot thank enough for all his kindness to me in connection with
this volume) tells me that he has never been able to find out where the
letters are or who has them. One thing is certain: the person who took
advantage of Posh's ignorance will not be able to publish his ill-gotten
gains in England so long as any copyright exists in the letters. For no
letter of FitzGerald's can be published without the consent of Dr. Aldis
Wright, and he is not the man to permit capital to be made out of sharp
practice with his consent. I have heard rumours of certain letters to
Posh being published in America, with a photograph of Posh and Posh's
"shud." They may have been published under the impression that they were
properly in the possession of the person holding them. I know nothing of
that, nor of what letters they are, nor who published them, nor when and
where they were issued. But I do know what Posh has told me, and if the
volume (if there is one) was published in America by one innocent of
trickery, here is his chance to come forward and explain.
I was glad to see that Posh no longer numbered me among "that breed." But
I was no longer surprised at the difficulty I had experienced in getting
to close quarters with the man. From that time on he was the
plain-speaking, independent, humorous, rough man that he is naturally. He
has his faults. FitzGerald indicates one in several of his letters. He
is inclined to that East Anglian characteristic akin to Boer "slimness,"
and it is easy enough to understand that the breach between him and his
"guv'nor" was inevitable. The marvel is that the partnership lasted as
long as it did, and that that refined, honourable gentleman (and I doubt
if any one was ever quite so perfect a gentleman as Edward FitzGerald)
was as infatuated with the breezy stalwart comeliness of the man as his
letters prove him to have been.
As all students of FitzGerald's letters know, the association between
FitzGerald and Posh ended in a separation that was very nearly a quarrel,
if a man like FitzGerald can be said to quarrel with a man like Posh. But
Posh never says a word against his old guv'nor's generosity and kindness
of heart. He puts his point of view with emphasis, but always maintains
that had it not been for other "interfarin' parties" there would never
have been any unpleasantness between him and the great man who loved him
so well, and whom, I believe in all sincerity, he still loves as a kind,
upright, and noble-hearted gentleman.
And as Posh's years draw to a close (he was born in June, 1838) I think
his thoughts must often hark back to the days when he was all in all to
his guv'nor. For evil times have come on the old fellow. He is no
longer the hale, stalwart man I first saw at Bill Harrison's.
A little before the Christmas of 1906 he was laid up with a severe cold.
But he was getting over that well, when, one Sunday, a broken man, almost
decrepit, came stumbling to my cottage door.
"The pore old lady ha' gorn," he said. "She ha' gorn fust arter all.
Pore old dare. She had a strook the night afore last, and was dead afore
mornin'."
Into the circumstances of his old landlady's death, of the action of her
legal personal representatives, I will not go here. It suffices to say
that Posh and the other lodgers in the house were given two days to
"clear out" and that I discovered that the old fellow had been sleeping
in his shed on the beach for two nights, without a roof which he could
call his home. Thanks to certain readers of the _Daily Graphic_ and to
the members of the Omar Khayyam Club, I had a fund in hand for Posh's
benefit, and immediately put a stop to his homelessness. Indeed, he knew
of this fund, and that he could draw on it at need when he chose. But I
believe the old man's heart was broken. He has never been the same man
since. The last year has put more than ten years on the looks and
bearing of the Posh whom I met first. But his memory is still good, and
I was surprised to see how much he remembered of the people mentioned in
the letters published in this volume when I read them through to him the
other day. He cannot understand how it is that these letters have any
value. He tells me he has torn up "sackfuls on 'em" and strewn them to
the winds. The actual letters have been sold for his benefit, and I
think that FitzGerald would be pleased if he knew (as possibly he does
know) that his letters to his fisherman friend, have proved a stay to his
old age.
{Posh in 1907: p26.jpg}
I have done my best to give approximate dates to the letters, and where I
have succeeded in being absolutely correct I have to thank Dr. Aldis
Wright, whose courtesy and kindliness, the courtesy and kindliness from a
veteran to a tyro which is so encouraging to the tyro, have been beyond
any expression of thanks which I can phrase. I hope that the letters and
notes may help to make a side of FitzGerald, the simple human manly side,
better known, and to enable my readers to judge his memory from the point
of view of those old shrimpers by the new basin as a "_good_ gennleman,"
as a noble-hearted, courageous man, as well as the more artificial
scholar who quotes Attic scholiasts in a playful way as though they were
school classics. Every new discovery of FitzGerald's life seems to
create new wonder, new admiration for him; and there are, I hope, few who
will read without some emotion not far from tears the sentence in his
sermon to Posh.
"Do not let a poor, old, solitary, and sad Man (as I really am, in spite
of my Jokes), do not, I say, let me waste my Anxiety in vain. I thought
I had done with new Likings: and I had a more easy Life perhaps on that
account: _now_ I shall often think of you with uneasiness, for the very
reason that I had so much Liking and Interest for you."
CHAPTER I
THE MEETING
The biography of a hero written by his valet would be interesting, and,
according to proverbial wisdom, unbiased by the heroic repute of its
subject. But it would be artificial for all that. Even though the hero
be no hero to his valet, the valet is fully aware of his master's fame;
indeed, the man will be so inconsistent as to pride himself, and take
pleasure in, those qualities of his master, the existence of which he
would be the first to deny.
Where, however, a literary genius condescends to an intimacy with a
simple son of sea and shore who is not only practically illiterate but is
entirely ignorant of his patron's prowess, the opinions of the illiterate
concerning the personal characteristics of the genius obtain a very
remarkable value as being honest criticism by man of man, uninfluenced by
the spirit either of disingenuous adulation or of equally disingenuous
depreciation. That these opinions are in the eyes of a disciple of the
great man quaint, almost insolently crude is a matter of course. But
when they tend to show the master not only great in letters but great in
heart, soul, human kindness, and generosity, they form, perhaps, the most
notable tribute to a great personality.
{Cottage at corner of Boulge Park, where FitzGerald lived for many years:
p30.jpg}
With the exception of Charles Lamb, no man's letters have endeared his
memory to so many readers as have the letters of Edward FitzGerald. But
FitzGerald's friends (to whom most of the letters hitherto published were
addressed) were cultured gentlemen, men of the first rank of the time, of
the first rank of all time, men who would necessarily be swayed by the
charm of his culture, by the delicacy of his wit, by the refinement of
his thoughts.
In the case of "Posh," however (that typical Lowestoft fisherman who
supplied "Fitz" with a period of exaltation which was as extraordinary as
it was self-revealing), there were no extraneous influences at work. Posh
knew the man as a good-hearted friend, a man of jealous affection, as a
free-handed business partner, as a lover of the sea. He neither knew nor
cared that his partner (he would not admit that "patron" would be the
better word!) was the author of undying verse. To this day it is
impossible to make him understand that reminiscences of FitzGerald are of
greater public interest than any recollection of him--Posh.
It was not easy to explain to him that it was his first meeting with
Edward FitzGerald that was the thing and not the theft of his (Posh's)
father's longshore lugger which led to that meeting. However, time and
patience have rendered it possible to separate the wheat from the tares
of his narrative; and what tares may be left may be swallowed down with
the more nutritious grain without any deleterious effect.
In the early summer of 1865 some daring longshore pirate made off with
Fletcher senior's "punt," or longshore lugger, without saying as much as
"by your leave." The piracy (as was proper to such a deed of darkness)
was effected by night, and on the following morning the coastguard were
warned of the act. These worthy fellows (and they are too fine a lot of
men to be disbanded by any twopenny Radical Government) traced the boat
to Harwich. Here the gallant rover had sought local and expert aid to
enable him to bring up, had then raised an awning, as though he were to
sleep aboard, and, after thus satisfying the local talent to whom he was
still indebted for their services, had slunk ashore and disappeared. Old
Mr. Fletcher, on hearing the news, started off to Harwich in another
craft of his, and (fateful fact!) took his son Posh with him.
Both the Fletchers were known to Tom Newson, a pilot of Felixstowe Ferry,
and they naturally looked him up.
For years Edward FitzGerald had been accustomed to cruise about the Deben
and down the river to Harwich in a small craft captained by one West. But
in 1865 he was the owner of a smart fifteen-ton schooner, which he had
had built for him by Harvey, of Wyvenhoe, two years previously, and of
which Tom Newson was the skipper and his nephew Jack the crew. According
to Posh, the original name of this schooner was the _Shamrock_, but she
has become famous as the _Scandal_. It happened that when the Fletchers
were at Harwich in search of the stolen punt, Edward FitzGerald had come
down the river, and Newson made his two Lowestoft friends known to his
master.
There can be no doubt that at that time, when he was twenty-seven years
of age, Posh was an exceptionally comely and stalwart man. And he was,
doubtless, possessed of the dry humour and the spirit of simple jollity
which make his race such charming companions for a time. At all events
his personality magnetised the poet, then a man of fifty-six, already a
trifle weary of the inanities of life.
FitzGerald must have been tolerably conversant with the Harwich and
Felixstowe mariners--with the "salwagers" of the "Ship-wash"--and the
characters of the pilots and fishermen of the east coast. But Posh seems
to have come to him as something new. How it happened it is impossible
to guess. Posh has no idea. He has a more or less contemptuous
appreciation of FitzGerald's great affection for him. But he cannot help
any one to get to the root of the question why FitzGerald should have
singled him out and set him above all other living men, as, for a brief
period of exaltation, he certainly did.
From the first meeting to the inevitable disillusionment FitzGerald
delighted in the company of the illiterate fisherman. Whether he took
his protege cruising with him on the _Scandal_, or sat with him in his
favourite corner of the kitchen of the old Suffolk Inn at Lowestoft, or
played "all-fours" with him, or sat and "mardled" with him and his wife
in the little cottage (8 Strand Cottages, Lowestoft) where Posh reared
his brood, FitzGerald was fond even to jealousy of his new friend. The
least disrespect shown to Posh by any one less appreciative of his merits
FitzGerald would treat as an insult personal to himself. On one occasion
when he was walking with Posh on the pier some stranger hazarded a casual
word or two to the fisherman. "Mr. Fletcher is _my_ guest," said
FitzGerald at once, and drew away his "guest" by the arm.
It must have been soon after their first meeting that FitzGerald wrote to
Fletcher senior, Posh's father:--
"MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE,
"March 1.
"MR. FLETCHER,
"Your little boy Posh came here yesterday, and is going to-morrow with
Newson to Felixtow Ferry, for a day or two.
"In case he is wanted at Lowestoft to attend a _Summons_, or for any
other purpose, please to write him a line, directing to him at
"Thomas Newson's,
"Pilot,
"Felixtow Ferry,
"_Ipswich_.
"Yours truly,
"EDWARD FITZGERALD."
{11 Market Hill, Woodbridge (showing tablet outside FitzGerald's old
rooms): p36.jpg}
At this time Posh was earning his living as the proprietor of a longshore
"punt," or beach lugger. In those days there were good catches of fish
to be made inshore, and it was not unusual for a good day's long-lining
(for cod, haddock, etc.) to bring in seven or eight pounds. Shrimps and
soles fell victims to the longshoremen's trawls, and altogether there
were a hundred fish to be caught to one in these days. Moreover, before
steam made coast traffic independent of wind, the sand-banks outside the
roads were a great source of profit to the beach men, who went off in
their long yawls to such craft as "missed stays" coming through a "gat,"
or managed to run aground on one of the sand-banks in some way or other.
The methods of the beach men were sometimes rather questionable, and
Colonel Leathes, of Herringfleet Hall, tells a tale of a French brig,
named the _Confiance en Dieu_, which took the ground on the Newcome Sand
off Lowestoft about the year 1850. The weather was perfectly calm, but a
company of beach men boarded her and got her off, and so established a
claim for salvage. As a result she was kept nine weeks in port, and her
skipper, the owner, had to pay 1200 pounds to get clear.
All things considered, it is probable that a Lowestoft longshoreman, in
the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century, could make a very
good living of it, and even now, now when poverty has fallen on the
beach, no beach man, unspoilt by the curse of visitors' tips, would bow
his head to any man as his superior.
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