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Attributes the 'very kind notice in the "Saturday Review"' of his translation of Dante's Purgaturio to Pollock's friendly pen; is glad Pollock found the 'error in the number of the keys'; sends a copy of the translation.

Highgate. - Encloses a correction slip [no longer present] for p 214 of his book of translations from Italian.

Sends Pollock his 'little tractate on the Italian translation of Benvenuto da Imola['s commentary on Dante]

Trinity College, Cambridge.—Thanks him and his wife for some books. He will probably go to Naples, if he still can. Has received a proof of his lecture.

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Transcript

Coll: SS. Trin. Cantab:
Friday Mar. 13/68

Dear Mr Pollock

I return the speech of Dean Stanley, {1} which I have read with great delight and thank you exceedingly for the loan. The last part especially does one good—“There are … against whom you … dare not propose to institute proceedings ‥ I might mention one … and that individual is the one who now addresses you”—I thought that particularly sweet and refreshing. Will you thank Mrs Pollock also from me for the Autocrat? What an admirable seidlitz powder it makes! I have been lucky enough to secure the first volume of the Guardian Angel at the Union, and think it promises to be at least equal to Elsie Venner. The Autocrat is quite alive in Byles Gridley. {2} On reflection I am likely to go to Naples, if the opportunity is still open, and if it is possible to acquire sufficient knowledge of the rout† before that time—I think you said the 3rd of April. A proof of my lecture {3} has come this morning: the assistant secretary, I suppose, has altered my last sentence into “It is not right to be too proper.” δf too.

With more thanks than I can at all express to you and Mrs Pollock for your great kindness to me

I remain
Yours most truly
+W. K. Clifford.

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Letter-head of the Cambridge Union Society. On the back is written ‘1866–1868’, which probably indicates that the letter was once at the end of a bundle.

{1} Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, The South African Controversy in its Relations to the Church of England: a Speech delivered in the Lower House of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, June 29, 1866 (1867).

{2} The references are to books by Oliver Wendell Holmes, namely his celebrated collection of essays The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table (1857), and the novels Elsie Venner (1861) and The Guardian Angel* (1867). Byles Gridley is a character in latter.

{3} ‘On Some of the Conditions of Mental Development’, delivered at the Royal Institution on 6 March. It was printed in the Institution’s Proceedings.

Trinity College, Cambridge.—Thanks him for a paper-knife. Imagines a comic scene in connection with the canvassing for the university living. J.W. is shocked that Pollock went to see the play Frou-Frou.

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Transcript

Trinity College, Cambridge
Wednesday
May 11

Dear Mr Pollock

This is indeed a paper-knife of pride. {1} I have just been cutting up a French translation of Helmholtz’ Tonempfindungen {2} with it, and I am sorry to say that severe book is already looking quite drunk with the accidental touch of ivory grapes and vineleaves. By a very happy thought I have just laid in a stock of the Trinity paper-knives, which I am assiduously leaving about by way of bread upon the waters.

The university living has given rise to the following interesting scene of canvass

1st Lady (in BB♭) Consider, my dear Mrs Th–ms–n, that my son-in-law has seven children.

2nd do (in DD) But, you see, my dear Mrs B–nd, my candidate has eight children.

1st Lady (in F) Well, but ‥ you know ‥ there is no-doubt whatever that ‥ before the day of election ‥ my son-in-law’s family will also have reached that number.

2nd lady (in a voiceless whisper) But ‥ we have the strongest reasons to think, that before then we shall have nine, and perhaps even ten {3}!

1st Lady disguises her collapse

Of course it is the 24th, and the mistake was mine. Luckily in writing to Mrs Crotch I called it Wednesday the 24th, and can easily explain that the latter is the correct date. J.W. is really quite seriously shocked about your going to Frou Frou at the Olympic. {4} He told me he once had an opportunity of seeing Devrient {5} in Faust, and had neglected it. I endeavoured to look like Leighton, as if no amount of friendship or courtesy would enable one to regard that as venial.

I must go now and read Fred in the Spectator, {6} so good-bye.

Yours ever
W. K. Clifford.

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Black-edged paper.

{1} Probably a birthday present. Clifford celebrated his birthday on 4 May.

{2} Théorie physiologique de la musique, fondée sur l'étude des sensations auditives (1868), a translation by Georges Guéroult of Hermann von Helmholtz’s’ Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik (‘On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music’), first published in 1863.

{3} Underlined twice.

{4} Frou-Frou, a comedy by Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac, translated from the French by H. Sutherland Edwards, was produced at the Olympic Theatre on 16 April.

{5} One of the members of the notable German theatrical family, probably Karl August Devrient (1797-1872), whose most popular parts included the title role in Goethe’s Faust.

{6} An unsigned review by Frederick Pollock of Robert Willis’s Benedict de Spinoza, his Life, Correspondence, and Ethics (London: Trübner & Co., 1870) in the Spectator, No. 2184 (week ending 7 May 1870), pp. 589-91.

Trinity College, Cambridge.—Lists and discusses recent elections to the ‘Cambridge Apostles’. At the last Congregation Sedley Taylor proposed that money should be raised for a chair of physics by abolishing heads of houses.

(Dated Saturday.)

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Transcript

Trin. Coll. Cam.
Saturday

Dear Sir Frederick

At last I have got sight of the secretary’s book, {1} which has been changing keeper lately and so became temporarily invisible. The list of me and my successors is as follows:

165—W. K. C.—Nov. 17 ’66
166—J F Moulton—Jun 1 ’67
167—F. E. Anderson—Nov 2 ’67
168—G. H. Blakesley—Feb 22 ’68
169—C Colbeck—Oct 24 ’68
170—M. R. Pryor—Nov. 13 ’69
171—Hopkinson—Oct 28 ’70

It appears from this that your constant advice about electing people is quite right; for while the average rate of election since the beginning of years has been 3 men a year, we have for the last four years let it get down to below 2. Jackson and Currey have become angels; {2} it appears that Elphinstone was rude to the former at Richmond and hinted that he was staying on too long. Stuart is now secretary. Besides Hopkinson who comes in today we have 2 new men in prospect. The objection to them is that they are all high tripos men to be—I mean mathematical—and this will give too strong a flavour of π to the functions. The last meeting was in my rooms—question wife or mistress?—and you will be glad to hear that with the help of 2 angels we were unanimously in favour of the latter—Stuart making some weak partial protest supposed to be due to a well-known influence. The last news of their shadowy outside is that at a Congregation last Saturday Sedley Taylor proposed to raise money for a physical professor by abolishing heads of houses. 2 of them died on the spot, 3 (including our own) are dangerously ill, and the rest are gone to refresh themselves in the country—we don’t appear to have got the money yet though. I have been sleepless since I came back and accordingly unfit to do anything whatever.

Yours all of us
W. K. Clifford.

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The dashes in the table of elections have been added.

{1} The record book kept by the secretary of the Cambridge Conversazione Society or ‘Cambridge Apostles’.

{2} i.e. they had left the Society.

9 Park Place, Hills Court, Exeter.—The Master (of Trinity?) has sent him a kind testimonial. Walter, who is off to Bodmin tomorrow, looks much better and seems to like being marshal. Relates an amusing story about a drunken servant.

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Transcript

9 Park Place
Hills Court
Exeter, July 28/71

Dear Sir Frederic†

Many thanks for your kind note. I have been on the point of writing to you for some time to say that the master sent me a most kind testimonial and note, which pleased me immensely. Walter is off to Bodmin tomorrow; he looks much better and seems to like being marshal.

There is a gentleman living near here who drove into Exeter the other day and was just going back when one of his servants called Samson came to him dead drunk and asked to be taken home. On the way he talked seriously to him and said—Now, Samson, if I were to get into this state, just think what would happen.—Wellshire, Ishpo you’ld shay Shamson, drive me home; and Ishbe proudooit Shir, proudooit!

Believe me always
Yours most truly
W. K. Clifford.

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† Sic.

26 Colville Road, Bayswater, W.—Sketches the seating arrangement for a proposed dinner-party, and sends greetings from his wife.

(Dated Monday(?). The bride and bridegroom depicted in the sketch are probably Emma Pipon and Walter Pollock, who were married on Tuesday, 11 January 1876.)

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Transcript

26 Colville Road | Bayswater. W.
Monday {1} Evening

Dear Sir Frederic†

[There follows a sketch-plan showing a seating arrangement round a dining-table, with various articles on the table. The sitters are labelled, clockwise, as ‘The fair young bride’, ‘The dear girl’, ‘Sir F. P.’, ‘Mrs W.K.C.’, ‘The dark young bridegroom’, ‘Miladi’, ‘W.K.C.’ Next to the last-named is ‘Smut’, the dog.]

There you are! Space has more dimensions than men quwhot of, but I have contrived to get on the free list. The thing in the middle is not, as you would of course suppose, the book of Genesis open at the account of the 6 days of creation, but a cruet-stand containing 6 varieties of condiment. I am instructed to send my wife’s love and to say that she would have written herself if I had not taken it in hand through observing that she is tired from going to Woolwich to say that she has got another finger-glass from her Aunt and everything is now quite as she (not her Aunt) could desire except Smut who has got the pip, poor beggar, and is getting bald—the Balder the Beautifuller, as the Eddas say. However, you must not now disappoint us, or what will the Dear Girl do? We can’t dine with two ghosts, and now that I have drawn the picture I perceive an a priori necessity for dining in the number of perfection. The Ding an Sich is a mere mistake for dine seven at seven.

Yours always
W. K. Clifford.

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{1} Reading uncertain.

† Sic.

Garrison Library, Gibraltar.—Is glad his health has improved. They (he and Lucy) have done little sightseeing. Refers to his meeting with a Monsignor Clifford, and to the views of Milner Gibson and others on the prospect of war. On Thursday they start for Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Patras, Corfu, and Venice.

(Misdated Tuesday, 24 April 1878. The 24th was a Wednesday. The reference to ‘Thursday’ rather than ‘tomorrow’ suggests that the error is probably in the day of the month.)

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Transcript

Garrison Library, Gibraltar
Tuesday Apr. 24/78

Dear Sir Frederic†

I am very glad indeed to hear reports of your mending, and hope that by the time this reaches you there will be nothing the matter. We have been very happy and lazy here, and have carefully avoided all objects of local interest. We meant to go over to Tangier today, but thought at the last moment that it would be rather a business, and that we could very well imagine the camels and the fleas. We have not even been to see the monkeys on the rock, though there are now 18 of them. The chaplain tells me that a register is kept of their births and deaths, but there is a difficulty about the marriages, as they do not apply to him for his services.

There is a Mgr. Clifford here, who comes to breakfast at the hôtel sometimes. He was much interested to find that we were namesakes and that I came from Devonshire. I assured him that my father came from Herts and that I had not the faintest idea who my grandfather was; and then he said “there was a Professor Clifford, of Exeter ‥” to which I replied “that’s me”. At that he grinned hugely and said he knew where he was. He seems a nice man, and says he has been yer tu months in a way that sounds quite like home.

Milner Gibson has turned up in a little yacht. He seems to have been doing so for about 50 years. He says he got the last pass of the Algerine pirates in 1830, just before the French went in. {1} He has bet Lucy a pair of gloves that there will be no war for 12 months, and all the foreign military and the sea captains say so too; but the English officers think that the Indian contingent is to go straight to Gallipoli, and that the new housing at Malta is for some of the 1st Corps. We get a short telegram here every afternoon, but the papers are 6 days late.

On Thursday we start by a Cunard for Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Patras, Corfu and Venice,—after that the skipper only knows where. They say we may get letters at Naples in answer to those posted today, as we loiter a day or two at each port; but I should think Venice the safest place, because we take 17 days to get there. I presume that we shall not be captured by a privateer. Mind you get well.

yours always
W. K. Clifford.

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{1} Gibson was on board his yacht, the Resolute, at Algiers, at the time of his death in 1884.

† Sic.

Corfu.—They (he and Lucy) have just returned from a scenic drive. Discusses the ancestry of the inhabitants.

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Transcript

Corfu May 18

Your note came just after mine had left. We have just come back from the most lovely drive that was ever seen, full of landscapes wooded with old olive trees, glimpses of surrounding islands, and snowy mountains of Albania in the distance. Half the people are obviously fils et filles du Reg[imen]t 31, which was quartered here; the rest are very like Maories, according to two of our fellow travellers who took a carriage with us, and who have been in New Zealand. This enables us to understand how the ancient Greek race has been preserved so pure. They pretend to write the names of their shops in Greek, but they don’t spell very well. This may be due to the Irish blood.

yours always W.K.C.

[Direction:] Sir Frederic† Pollock | 59 Montagu Square | London W | H. M. πβρεττάνια

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The postmark is indistinct, except the year, ‘78’. Letters omitted from a word abbreviated by a superscript letter have been supplied in square brackets.

† Sic.

Concerns the candidatures of Prince Albert and the Earl of Powis for the office of Chancellor of the university.

Entitled 'Lecture on Dante - at Sherborne Literary Institute - Macready in Chair 185-'.

59 Montagu Square, W. - Reaction to the news of Edward FitzGerald's death. There 'should be some obituary mention of him', as Crabbe suggests. Would be 'in perfectly good hands' if Crabbe wrote it himself; Pollock does 'not know enough of the Persian scholarship and works' to write it, and recommends Aldis Wright if Crabbe does not wish to do it.

Adds in a postscript that he does not know Mrs Kemble's address, but has asked Mowbray Donne to write to her.

Merton Rectory, Watton, Norfolk. - On Edward FitzGerald's forthcoming funeral. Would be glad if Aldis Wright could write a 'little memoir of our friend', as Sir Frederick Pollock suggests; encloses Sir Frederick's letter [Add.MS.a/6/33].

41: Letter from William Frederick Pollock, 18 Jul. [no year], addressed to 'Charles'.

Largely drawn from Fitzgerald's letters, with dates.

ADD.MS.a/6/48 quotes from a FitzGerald letter of 26 Jan [1872] on 'Shakespeare's names'.
ADD.MS.a/6/52 gives quotes from FitzGerald letters on W. B. Donne; Boulge Hall, Lord Tennyson and [Sir Frederick?] Pollock.

59 Montagu Square, W. - Is glad Wright will write the [death] notice for Edward FitzGerald: he is 'quite the best person for it'.

Quotes from a note he received this morning from Tennyson: 'I had no true friend - he was one of the kindliest of men & I have never known one of so fine & delicate a wit'. I had written a poem to him the last week, a dedication, which he will never see. There are now left to me only two or three of my old college companions & who goes next?'

Exeter.—Asks about his legs, and responds to his remarks on the new edition of Hume’s Treatise. Lucy has been trying to save her sister from going into an Anglican convent.

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Exeter Sp. 11/74

My dear old Cripple

You don’t say how far you have got in the mending of your legs—which, although a mere finite empirical relation, finds its meaning in a Welt-sehnsucht {1} or eternal dissatisfaction:—“neither delighteth He in any man’s legs.” {2} What you say about the Green Grosery {3} is quite true as far as I can make out; but there are also according to Appleton (“Strauss as a Theologian,” last Contemp. but one) {4} certain delicate nuances in the Hegelian thought-and-speech-habit, which we with our utter want of tact and the finer sensibilities do not appreciate. They seem to me to consist in saying one thing when you deliberately mean another; but this is doubtless only my gross empirical way of putting it, and an example of the utter want κ.τ.λ. I hope you have seen Sidgwick’s remarks on them (I think in the Academy); he points out that to prove Hume insufficient is not to do much in the present day. It should I think be brought out clearly that if we pay attention only to the scientific or empirical school, the theory of consciousness and its relation to the nervous system has progressed in exactly the same way as any other scientific theory; that no position once gained has ever been lost, and that each investigator has been able to say “I don’t know” of the questions which lay beyond him without at all imperilling his own conclusions. Green for instance points out that Hume has no complete theory of the object, which is of course a very complex thing from the subjective point of view, because of the mixture of association and symbolic substitution in it; and in fact I suppose this piece of work has not yet been satisfactorily done. But it seems merely perverse to say that the scientific method is a wrong one because there is yet something for it to do; and to find fault with Hume for the omission is like blaming Newton for not including Maxwell’s Electricity in the Principia.

Lucy has been to Aberdeen to try to save her sister {5} from going into an anglican convent {6}. It was no use for they would not let her see the poor child till the ceremony of admission was over. Can’t you make the act of persuading any woman under 30 to enter a conventual institution punishable in the same way as the other mode of seducing a child? The higher limit of age is required by the nature of the offence and the far greater demoralization produced. This poor girl is just 21; even supposing that in four or five years her conscience comes to maturity and brings her out of the place, she will have spent the most impressionable part of her life with thoroughly shallow people having only one idea, reading nothing but books of devotion, and living in an atmosphere of falsehood and treachery. The superior deliberately tried to make the other sister deceive her father and sleep in the convent against his orders. Unfortunately these scotch episcopalians are at present beyond the reach of the law, and this might be made a good argument against disestablishment.

Tell Sir Frederic he shall have back your charming bit of Rabelais on Monday.

Thy
Willi.

My best love to Georgie & Mrs Deffell.

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Letter-head of the Devon and Exeter Institution.

{1} Lit. ‘world-longing’ (German).

{2} Psalm cxlvii. 10 (Prayer Book version).

{2} i.e. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose’s edition of Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1874).

{4} See C. E. Appleton, ‘Strauss as a Theologian’, Contemporary Review, vol. xxiv, pp. 234-53 (July 1874), particularly the following passage (p. 239):

'“Common Sense,” the intellectual phase of the eighteenth century, could not accept a miraculous history as miraculous. Missing with characteristic coarseness and absence of tact, all the finer points, all the sentiment, not to speak of the speculative ideas involved in primitive Christianity, it invented the hypothesis of imposture to account for the miracles.'

(In the collected edition of Appleton’s works ‘coarseness and absence of tact’ was replaced by ‘want of tact’. See Dr Appleton, his Life and Literary Relics, ed. J. H. Appleton and A. H. Sayce (1881), p. 139.)

{5} Isabel. Cf. CLIF A4/9a.

{6} St Margaret's.

57 Montagu Square, W. - Condolences on the death of Lady Houghton.

Keir, Dunblane. - Condolences on the death of Lady Houghton.

57: Enclosing copy of 1847 verse by A. Stafford O'Brien.

Also includes notes from Lacaita's preface to Benvenuto da Imola's Dante commentary,

Notes on Memorials of Coleorton dated 9 Nov. 1887. Notes on The Early Life of Samuel Rogers by P. W. Clayden written at the back of the book. Single sheet headed '*Purg[atori]o - Omissions in Trans[lations]' loose at end.

Two letters. He declines to propose Robert Burn to membership at the Athenaeum; reflects on the death of Edward FitzGerald, mentions a recent visit to Trinity, and his negative opinion of Thomas Woolner.

Catalogue kept by Sir William Frederick Pollock, Bt, of his Dante collection; several loose sheets with notes on his translation. Note and letter by his son Sir Frederick Pollock about additions he himself has made in pencil to the catalogue, since the collection has been given by his mother to Trinity.