4546. William Allingham to EBB & RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 79–82.
Lane, Ballyshannon Ireland
December 14/59
My dear Mr & Mrs Browning,
Your most kind & welcome letter [1] found me—not beside Atlantic waves but in the midst of Thames fogs. I was then (6 weeks ago) in London, just returned from 3 weeks’ holiday in North Germany, looking in on Holland by the way.
I put off taking my month’s leave from the Customs Commissioners in the hope of coming to Paris & finding you there, and so passed July—August—& most of September: then I heard from Miss Browning (I mean I wrote to her & had reply—for she is a model correspondent) that your moving northwards this year was not to be expected, and that you were at Sienna, [2] so, the season being then late, I suddenly made up a mind as to which of the almost too many places one must see before dying I should dart off to.
I hope I shall yet find myself bodily in South Italy, Russia, Turkey, Africa, Hindostan, China, Japan, North & South America, & the South Sea Islands. Then—I am ready for another planet—(unless, indeed, it shd appear absolutely right to leave some account of one’s experiences behind). Well, from London (where there was at that time only Dante Rossetti) I crossed to Rotterdam, saw the Hague, or The Hedge, [3] (charming), Amsterdam (a stately city, but smelling of rotten water everywhere), Utrec[h]t with its noble brick tower, [4] and then was in Germany, & saw Hanover with its half-english associations—the blind king’s butler at Herrenhausen [5] a cockney & quite glad to see me—(yet they are said to speak the best German here & hereabouts)—saw Brunswick, with grand old brick churches, & old gablefronted streets, & Lessing’s Statue: [6] then Berlin,—well worth being in of course, but horribly ugly, with long straight flat wide streets of stagnant kennels, rugged pavements, & huge mud-coloured houses, all in stucco; & Unter-den-Linden [7] the poorest celebrity of a place I have ever seen, for the shops make no effect, the trottoir is only four feet wide, and the limetrees are stunted. I met there a young Dr. Rodenberg [8] —an incipient man of the Time—who was last year in Ireland for 3 weeks or so, & has consequently a story called “The Myrtle of Killarney” [9] now going in the Kölnische Zeitung (one of the chief German papers) [10] and a book on Ireland, called “The Island of Saints” in preparation. [11] He immediately fastened on me, in the character of ein Frischer Dichter, [12] said he meant one volume of his work to comprise a history of Irish poetry (a very imaginary entity!) from Saint Patrick to the present day, & requested me to oblige him with a short autobiography. Still I like the Germans; they are literary (which the Irish are not) & näive (which the English are not). Into the bargain with Berlin I saw Potsdam (& our Princess Royal [13] really a good kindly human being) and Charlottenburg with its tomb of Queen Louisa. [14]
Then came Wittenberg & Luther, Dresden & the Pictures [15] & the Elbe (& Ludwig Richter [16] the good woodcut artist, had he been at home there, but he was not)—Leipsig, until 19th of Oct. (as I suddenly became aware in looking at Prince Poniatowsky’s tomb, [17] who was drowned in the millpond-like Elster on that day in 1814—by the bye they had bonfires in Leipsig the day before)—then Weimar, & 3 happy days, with an introduction from Carlyle to a Mr Marshall, [18] a Scotchman, long settled in Germany, and an Hofrath, & Private Sec to the G Duchess of S. Weimar, a most kindly little Scotch man of 50, who has had short poems printed in “the Republic of Letters,” published in Glasgow or Edin some 35 years ago, [19] & is married to a German wife & has 4 or 5 German sons, & daughters. [20] Through him, I saw Goethe’s house, [21] at present closed to the public,—& the house of the grandsons—one of whom is a null poet [22] —residing at Jena, 12 miles off. Neither is married, & it seems likely, Mr Marshall says, that the family will soon disappear. The House is thoroughly interesting—all was as he left it—the wide staircase—the reception room with busts, glass cases of medals &c, and his own working rooms, plain, low ceilinged, looking over the garden. First you come to a bath room, into a clothes press in wh are his coats, flannel vests, trousers, boots &c, & an old hat, which easily bonnetted me though I have a very large head—then the Study, with low ceilings, two windows on the garden, imported wooden desks round the walls, table in the centre round wh G used to walk dictating to his secretary, & a cushion, once red, on which he sometimes leaned without sitting down. The house was shown by a Herr Schuchard[t] [23] who was Goethe’s amanuensis for 8 years. On the right hand, is the Bookroom warm & dark, with plain wood shelves, and found Carlyle[’]s “Sartor Resartus” (meant by the by) also some pages of C’s ms describing certain annexed sketches of his residence in Scotland which he had sent for Goethe’s satisfaction. The Sketches were gone. I believe they were the handiwork of Mrs Carlyle.
On the left hand of the Study is the Bedroom, very small—one small window to the garden—with space merely to stand beside the bed. Here, in a green armchair at the bed head, Goethe died. The last medecine which stands on the washing stand, with 2 or 3 spoonfuls of the liquid in it, & labeled “Geheimrath [24] von Goethe” &c.
In the garden, at back of the house, among falling leaves, we came to a door which leads directly to the Park, & to the “Garden House” on the hillside beyond. Altogether, the house seemed to me the most desirable one in Weimar (homeliness being one chief quality) & charmingly suitable. I also saw the “Garten-Haus”—Schiller’s House [25] —& many things more, which you would care to see, but not much to hear of.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s draft [26] at R.H. Taylor Collection.
2. See SD2287 in vol. 26.
3. English translation of “haag.” The Dutch name for their city is “Den Haag.”
4. The tower of the Gothic cathedral of St. Martin at Utrecht, “321 ft. high (b. 1382), detached from the main building, has a very beautiful top story, and deserves to be ascended on account of the view from it, extending over almost all Holland” (Murray’s A Handbook for Travellers on the Continent, 1860, p. 70).
5. Ancestral home of the Hanoverian dynasty, from which Queen Victoria descended. George V (1819–78), King of Hanover, “lost the sight of one eye during a childish illness, and the other by an accident in 1833” (EB). He reigned from 1851 to 1866, in which year Hanover was annexed by Prussia.
6. The bronze statue of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), German playwright and critic, was designed by Ernst Rietschel (1804–61) and completed in 1849.
7. Famous boulevard of Berlin, running from the Cathedral to the Brandenburg Gate.
8. Julius Rodenberg (né Levy, 1831–1914), German Jewish poet and writer.
9. Die Myrthe von Killarney was published in book form at Berlin in 1867.
10. A Cologne newspaper, first published in 1798.
11. Die Insel der Heiligen (2 vols., Berlin, 1860). An English translation was published by Chapman and Hall in 1861.
12. “A fresh poet.”
13. Princess Victoria, the wife of Prince Frederick William of Prussia (see letter 4117, note 8).
14. Louise, Queen of Prussia (1776–1810), wife of Frederick William III, King of Prussia (1770–1840). Her tomb, in the mausoleum on the grounds of Charlottenburg Palace, is the work of Christian Daniel Rauch (1777–1857), who completed it in 1814. The tomb is described in Murray’s: “It is allowed to be the master-piece of the sculptor Rauch. The figure of the queen reposes on a marble sarcophagus. It is a form and face of the most exquisite beauty, but at the same time, a most perfect resemblance” (Murray’s Handbook, p. 351).
15. At the Picture Gallery, which contained “the finest collection of paintings in Germany” (Murray’s Handbook, p. 454). John Ruskin spent time there the previous summer (see letter 4434).
16. Adrian Ludwig Richter (1803–84), German romantic painter, printmaker, and illustrator, who specialized in woodcut book illustrations.
17. Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski (1763–1813), renowned Polish general who joined Napoleon’s army in 1812, commanding the fifth army corps. During the battle of Leipzig in October 1813, he died fighting in the Elster river. The Poniatowski monument in Leipzig is modest; in 1817 his remains were transported to Poland for burial in the Krakow Cathedral.
18. James Marshall (1805–81), born in Ireland and raised in Ayrshire, was Hofrath (“councilor”) and secretary to Sophie, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1824–97), only daughter of King William II of The Netherlands. Marshall first met Carlyle when Sophie and her husband, Karl Alexander (1818–1901), visited London and expressed a desire to meet the famous author. In an 1847 letter, Carlyle described him as “a curious little German Irish Scotchman” (Carlyle, 21, 246).
19. The Republic of Letters, a Selection, in Poetry and Prose, from the Works of the Most Eminent Writers (4 vols., Glasgow, 1833). Marshall’s poems, signed J.M., appeared in volume one: “To a Caged Skylark” (pp. 257–258), “The Past is Poetry” (pp. 412–413), and “Devotion” (pp. 413–414). A note at the end of the first poem introduced J.M.: “We have much pleasure in laying this highly beautiful piece before our readers. It is the production of a young gentleman of Glasgow, at present residing in Holland” (p. 258).
20. Unidentified.
21. At Frauenplan 1 in central Weimar. Goethe lived in the west half of the house from 1782 to 1789 except for a period spent in Italy (1786–88). In 1792 Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1757–1828) bought the property and presented it to Goethe.
22. Wolfgang Maximilian von Goethe (1820–83). The Brownings met him at Casa Guidi in 1850 (see letter 2891). He had published two volumes of poetry: Erlinde (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1845) and Gedichte (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1851). His older brother (the other grandson), Walther Wolfgang von Goethe (1818–85), was a musician and minor composer.
23. Johann Christian Schuchardt (1799–1870), German lawyer, art historian, and Goethe’s last secretary.
24. “Privy councilor,” a position Goethe held in the cabinet of Karl August.
25. Schiller’s summer house at Jena, which he acquired in 1797.
26. Allingham wrote another draft (letter 4566) before sending a finished letter on 1 February 1860 (letter 4593).
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