Chapters from Some Memoirs. By Anne Thackeray Ritchie. (Macmillan.)—Mrs. Ritchie
has seen, and kept picturesque reminiscences of, a number of interesting people. Her earliest recollections are of Paris. She saw Jasmin, the Provençal poet, and heard him recite. He did not look like a poet, she remem- bers, but far more like Punchinello. She heard Chopin play. She was in Paris in the '43 ; saw Napoleon III, ride into Paris, and heard the guns announce the birth of the Prince Imperial. Now and then comes in a delightful little story of her father's bonhomie and kindness, as his packing a pill-box with napoleons, and writing on it, "Madame P—, to be taken occasionally when required. Signed, Dr. W. M. T." (Madame P— was an old French lady, who taught history). Count d'Orsay, Leigh Hunt, Trelawny, Charlotte Brontë, Samuel Rogers, Madame Sontag, are among the figures whom she calls up for our inspection. The evening which Charlotte Brontë spent at lhackeray's
house was a dismal failure. So intolerably dull was it, that the host himself quietly disappeared and went off to his club. Dickens and his family appear. We are introduced to the Kensington house, to the original De la Pluche, who seems to have been an ideal servant —he is still flourishing in Australia— to John Leech, David Roberts, Frank Stone, and others whom it is good to read about. Then comes a journey to Weimar, then the lecture at Willis's Rooms, then a visit to Carlyle, and "in viiiegiatura " in France (the father being on a lecture tour in America). Afterwards comes a glimpse of Rome. Other things there are, and all are told in Mrs. Ritchie's admirable way, so thoroughly her own, and yet so suggestive of her father.
Previous page
