My Life as an Author

My Life as an Author

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Title: My Life as an Author
Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper
Release Date: January 20, 2006 [EBook #17558]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Martin F. Tupper. Elliott & Fry, Photographers.]

Martin Tupper's Autobiography

MY LIFE
AS AN AUTHOR
BY
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER D.C.L. F.R.S.
Viri, vivo, vivam.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET, E.C. 1886
[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page Preliminary--Sonnet--Public Life, not Private--Benjamin
Franklin--Samples from Books--Self-judgment 1-6
CHAPTER II.
Infancy and Schooldays--Parentage--Germany and Guernsey, America
and Canada--Winsor's Patent Gaslights--King George III.'s
Blessing--My Father's Dream--Second Sight--Heredity--First School at
Brentford--Next at Brook Green--Third Charterhouse--Dr.
Russell--Parson Schoolmasters--Coins and Hoops--Andrew
Irvine--Cockshies--Harpies at the Feast--Dr.
Stocker--Holt's--M'Neile--Harold Browne 7-25
CHAPTER III.

Young Authorship in Verse and Prose--Melite--Rough
Rhymes--Carthage--Umbrella Sapphics--Height of Honesty--Holkar
Hall--Melrose Abbey--Heidelberg--Pterodactyles--The
Buckstone--Scotch Journal--Vitrified Forts--Ireland--Kingston
Caverns--Cornish Letter and Sketches--Penzance--The Logan--Land's
End--St. Michael's Mount--Rapid Travel 26-51
CHAPTER IV.
College Days--Voice from the Cloister--Gladstone--Aristotle
Class--Giants in those Days--Studentship--A Reading-Man--College
Larks--D.C.L.--Dr. Bliss 52-61
CHAPTER V.
Failure as to Orders--Stammering--Blewbury Vicarage--Lincoln's
Inn--Lewin's Critique--Brodie's Cacography--Inkpen's
Entomology--Duke of Wellington--Walters'--Letter as to
India--Barrister and Benedict--A Hoax--Theodore Hook--Old Lady
Cork 62-71
CHAPTER VI.
Stammering--Man's Privilege of Speech--Chess
Playing--Anecdotes--Angling--Fishing Sonnets 72-78
CHAPTER VII.
Oxford Prize Poems--Verses in the Schools--Parodies--Rhyme and
Rhythm--Scriptural Science--Classic Parallels 79-85
CHAPTER VIII.
Sundry Providences--The Small Semisuicide--A Concussion--Horse
Accidents--Perils by Land and Sea--Lydstep Cavern 86-89
CHAPTER IX.

Yet more Escapes--White Cross Guild--Evils and
Temptations--Potipheras--Heresies--Creeds 90-94
CHAPTER X.
Fads and Fancies--Vegetarian--Teetotalism--The Anglo-Saxon--Opera
Colonnade--Moderation--America Revisited--Poem on Temperance
and Total Abstinence--Gough--Dr. Hodgkin--A Martyr--Clerical Letter
on Pharisaism 95-104
CHAPTER XI.
Sacra Poesis--Geraldine--Critiques--John and Tom
Hughes--Donnington Priory--Little Providences 105-110
CHAPTER XII.
Origin of "Proverbial Philosophy"--M'Neile and Stebbing--N.P.
Willis--Harrison Ainsworth--Hatchard's--Moxon's--Cassell's--A
Prophecy--My Father's Letter and Gift--Sixty
Times--Politeuphuia--Parallels--Mr. Orton's Volume--American
Laudations, and English--As to per contra--Copyright
Question--Wedding Gifts--An Elizabethan Author--Seldom Seen, and
Few Adventures 111-133
CHAPTER XIII.
A Modern Pyramid--The Vision--A Fearful Flight--Imagination--The
Crystal Cubes and Mud Bricks--Sonnets and Sonneteering--Mackay
and Shakespeare's 134-144
CHAPTER XIV.
An Author's Mind--Prefatory Ramble--Addled Eggs--The Mental
Cathedral--Probabilities--Job's Trials 145-152
CHAPTER XV.

The Crock of Gold--Dramatised in Boston and London--Origin of the
Story--The Twins--Heart: drawn from Living Models--Critiques from
Ollier and St. John 153-158
CHAPTER XVI.
Æsop Smith--Mudie's--Rabelaisian Hints--The Early Gallop--Alfred, or
Albert Order--Fables 159-162
CHAPTER XVII.
Stephan Langton--King Alfred's Poems--The Silent Pool--Hard
Reading for the History--The Book still in Print--Curious Metrical
Translation of Anglo-Saxon Poetry--The Jubilee at Wantage and at
Liverpool 163-169
CHAPTER XVIII.
Shakespeare Commemoration--Lord Carlisle--Lord Houghton, Leigh
Court--Stratford Church--The Baptismal Font--An American
Autograph Hunter--Sonnet 170-172
CHAPTER XIX.
Translations and Pamphlets--Homer, lib. A.--Tennyson's
Vivien--Classical Versions--Hymn for All Nations--Protestant
Ballads--Fifteen Pamphlets 173-179
CHAPTER XX.
Paterfamilias's Diary--Courier Pierre--Devil's Bridge--Major
Hely--Guernsey--The Haro that saved Castle Cornet--Night-Sail in the
Race of Alderney--Durham's Statue of Prince Albert--Isle of
Man--King Orry--Walter Montgomery--Bishop Powys 180-189
CHAPTER XXI.

Never Give Up, at Dr. Kirkland's--Harvest Hymns--Gordon
Ballads--The Good Earl--John Brown--My Brother--Memory--Evil not
Endless 190-199
CHAPTER XXII.
Protestant Ballads--"So help me, God!"--Nun's Appeal, &c. 200-203
CHAPTER XXIII.
Plays--Alfred--Raleigh--Washington--Twelve Scenes--Family Records
204-207
CHAPTER XXIV.
Antiquariana--Lockhart and my Coin Article in the Quarterly--Farley
Finds--Mummy Wheat and Faraday 208-212
CHAPTER XXV.
Honours--Times' Letter--A Peerage and Baronetcy--Prussian Medal and
Chevalier Bunsen's Letter--Authorship a Rank by Itself--Many
Inventions and Literary Discoveries, as Punch, Humpty Dumpty, 666,
&c. 213-220
CHAPTER XXVI.
Courtly: Prophetic Sonnet on our Empress--Many Royal
Poems--Modern Court Suit v. Queen Anne's--A Greeting to Prince
Albert Victor 221-228
CHAPTER XXVII.
F.R.S.--Lord Melbourne's Carelessness--Spectrum
Analysis--Spiritualism--Vivisection--Painted Windows--Parabolic
Teaching 229-233

CHAPTER XXVIII.
Personation--Bignor--The Greyhound--Alibis--A Rescue on
Snowdon--Fraudulent Collections--Forged Authorials--Boston
Unitarianism--Pictures Falsely Signed 234-237
CHAPTER XXIX.
Hospitalities--Farnham Castle--Orchids and Pines--Bishop
Sumner--Garibaldi at Gladstone's--Parham and Curzon--Ghosts--Purple
Parchments--Uncut Elzevirs--Shenstone's Leasowes--"Little
Testy"--Sonnet--Isle of Wight--Sojourns--City Feasts--Ostentatious
Hospitality 238-244
CHAPTER XXX.
Social and Rural--No Scandals--Hawthorne's Visit--Alexander
Smith's--Jerdan's Haycock--Otto Goldschmidt and Macdougall--Dark
Visitors--Liberian Gold Medal--Noviomagians--Lucky
Angling--Albury Waltz--Rustic Stupidity--Redmen--The Drinking
Fountain--Our House a Hive of Bees--Foxhunt in Drawing-room--The
Donkey Burglar--Anthony Devis--Irvingism 245-256
CHAPTER XXXI.
American Ballads: "Ho, Brother! I'm a Britisher"--The
Quasi-Inspiration--"Thirty Noble Nations," and Thirty-three--Many
Others--Ground-baiting the Transatlantic 257-259
CHAPTER XXXII.
First American Visit--Too Temperate for 1851; not Temperate enough
for 1876--Grand Dinner at Baltimore, and Great Speech--The Astor
Dinner--"Amice Davis"--Mayor Kingsland and the Mile-long
Procession--Willis, at Golden Square--The Fillmore Dinner at the
White House--Jenny Lind's Concert--Gordon Bennet--Squier--Barnum
260-270

CHAPTER XXXIII.
Second American Visit--Extreme
Gold--Talmage--Bryant--Cooper--"Immortality" at the
Tabernacle--Lotus Club--Lord Rosebery--Dr. Levis--Mr. Pettit's
Portrait--The Listers at Hamilton--Toronto--Sir Charles
Tupper--Elgin--Dufferin--Mackay and Sleighing--Dawson and
Eozoa--Vaughan-Tuppers--The Grand John Hopkins'
Banquet--Charleston Tuppers--My Palinode to the South--Visit to
Williams