[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR] SIR,—I am glad to
see that Mr. Richard Church, in his review of E. and G. Romieu's Life of George Eliot, says, "The praise she received in her own days was justly given." On minor points I should be inclined to clear her still further of some of the faults unjustly charged against her, as a woman as well as a writer. But at the moment I want to call attention to a curious slip of the pen in his naming Nottingham as her home city instead of Coventry. The peculiarity is that the proprietor and editor of the Westminster Review, John Chapman, for whom she sub-edited it, living at his house, 142 Strand, for over two years (1851-58), was a Nottingham man, and the question of whether these two were more than friends has come very mnch to the front recently. Moreover a fine portrait of Dr. John Chapman (a bit of a dandy, says T. P. O'Connor, who knew him) painted about 1890 by the celebrated French artist Benjamin Constant (who also painted Queen Victoria and Queen Alexandra) has just been presented to the Nottingham Art Gallery.
After studying this phase of her life under all available evidence I come to the following conclusions. Chapman in his diary, which was found, and extracts published in the Nottingham Guardian in 1913, notes under date March 24th, 1851, "M." (i.e., Marian Evans), returning to Coventry after a visit to 142 Strand, "pressed me for some indication of the state of my feelings." Other entries seem to hint that Mrs. Chapman had • become jealous. What is certain is that after Chapman's further visit to Coventry in May, Marian Evans returned to 142 Strand in September, and fmm then onwards there is no note in diary or published letters of any further difficulty. That she continued to live with the family and work on the Review for one and a half years longer is evidence of friendship all round and common sense creditable to all concerned. Chapman had doubtless at first, manlike, imagined there was more than friendship without sufficient basis.
Further evidence confirming this can be deduced from the writings of "Mark Rutherford" (Wm. Hale White), who lived at 142 Strand, working on the Westminster at the same time, but it would take too much space here.— I am, Sir, &c., Ilvezar B. MATTHEWS. 14 St. Michael's Road, Bedford.
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