My dear Henry
I shall be delighted to send my Abridgement, “Passages from the Life of Mrs Campbell” <1> in two or three days. I am making a clean & perfect copy, which I shall soon finish, as it reads so much better when there are no corrections of verbal mistakes, & looks more attractive for an Editor. I have quite altered the Monument part, & Harriot <2> entirely approves now, as I sent it to her to see – she says there should be a notice of it, as it belongs to the subject of Prince Leopold, <3> & it is now a mere notice, entirely unobjectionable. So I should like this left as it is now. No Editor could criticize it. In fact it has been so much more circumstantially related & remarked upon, month after month in the “Court Journal” Which is the most fashionable Paper, & is laid on the Queen’s table every week,<4> that there is no novelty in stating the mere fact. The two last notices were the deputation from Esher thanking her for sending it, & the description of the one erected in its place to the D. Kent – very heavy & elaborate, I thought it sounded.<5> It was curious that she felt obliged to ask the D. of Beaufort about removing one to his ancestors,<6> though she pleased herself about K. Leopold. Whether you or I are right as to the intentional slight, it was in fact a slight, & also an act of sacrilege which the Dean & Chapter should have prevented<7> – the greater slight as the Pss C. is buried there – very probably she never thought anything about the slight, but she should have thought, only as every body says she is crazy, & on some subjects notoriously so. However I have mentioned no slight, or any notice beyond the fact of erecting one to her father’s memory. So people can think as they please, & Harriot is quite satisfied, there being no secret in the fact of the Queen’s desire – indeed no one but her could have done it. On the other page I have written formally about sending the copy, & my other MSS, in case you should like when you write to Messr M.<8> to enclose it as for the chance of their receiving some other of my productions, which would be a great help to me. C. Traherne <9> has wished them much to be received in magazines, but knew no Editor, & the two Editors to whom I offered them Cornhill and Temple Bar,<10> refuse from “unknown Authors” having more than enough of contributors known. Many thanks for your kind help. Harriot is pleased with her longer Memoir for the family, though that is shorn of 2 anecdotes.
I will send the “Passages from the Life of Mrs Campbell in a day or two. I am making a clean copy, & shall shortly finish it.
I have several other MSS. if there were any probability of their pleasing Messrs Macmillan, which I should be happy to send them, with of course stamps, in case of their rejection, and these have all been approved by literary friends. Mrs Traherne, you know, is both literary & intellectual, & she has much liked three of what I may call my historical articles – namely Royal Residences in Germany – Coronation of the Emperor of Austria as King of Hungary. Royal Funeral in Hungary–<11>
I have an article on “Curious Carvings,” those not generally known – Which pleased Mr Cavandish, (Mrs Noel Mundy’s Father,)<12> very much. He said though he had been 25 years in India, the account of one singular carved Figure was quite new to him, & interested him exceedingly.
Two sensational stories, translated from the French, have pleased Mrs Noel Mundy very much – They are not very modern, & not at all known, being from feuilletons<13> in French Journals of years back, & she says they are terribly interesting, & much better worth insertion in a Magazine than half the things that appear in periodicals. Of these I could make clean copies, if they were considered worth inspection.
Your affte cousin
Louisa Charlotte Frampton
Lulworth Villa
St Mary Church
Torquay –
June 12th 1875
I hope Macmillan pays well, but I daresay he does – as it is an object to me. Henry’s wife has a niece who writes in All the Year round.” Dickens’s Magazine,<14> & she gets a guinea a page paid down at once – yet I think her articles of little interest. But all the Editors pay differently, & inferior ones much less.
If Macmillan refuses it, will you return it to me as soon as you can? as I have this moment heard of a prospect of getting it into Chambers Edinburgh Magazine through Sir R. Christison <15> of Edinburgh if English Editors fail, so that in the event of Mess Macmillan’s not liking it, it will be another chance for me, & I should then send it as soon as possible to Chambers. I open my letter to add this bit of news.
Notes:
1. Louisa Charlotte Frampton,‘Princess Charlotte and Mrs Campbell’, The Gentleman’s Magazine, n.s. v. 27, September 1876, pp. 275-289. Alicia Campbell, née Kelly, ‘Tam’ (1768–1829), a close family friend of the Framptons, first joined Princess Charlotte’s household in 1805.
2. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
3. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1790–1865), King Leopold I of Belgium, the first monarch of modern Belgium after the country separated from the Netherlands.
4. The Court Journal. A record of manners, literature, science, art and fashion, a weekly published from 1829-1925, edited by Henry Colburn. It was a favourite of Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom 1837–1901.
5. The monument to King Leopold I of Belgium (1790-1865) in St George’s Chapel, Windsor was replaced by a monument to Queen Victoria’s father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820). Leopold’s monument was moved to Christ Church, Esher, Surrey for which the Esher deputation are conveying thanks.
6. Probably Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset (1824-1899), 8th Duke of Beaufort, succeeded 1853. St George’s Chapel held several Beaufort memorials and a Beaufort Chapel.
7. The Dean and Chapter of St George's Chapel, the burial place of Princess Charlotte.
8. From 1868-1883, George Grove was the editor of MacMillan's Magazine, a monthly published in London and Cambridge.
9. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800–1880), WHFT’s cousin; widow of Rev John Montgomerie Traherne (1788-1860), JP, antiquary & author.
10. The Cornhill Magazine, a Victorian literary journal, was founded by George Murray Smith in 1860 and published until 1975; it was named after Cornhill Street, London. Temple Bar – A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, published from 1860-1906. It was edited by George Augustus Sala, a fan of Charles Dickins.
11. Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), Emperor of Austria, crowned Apostolic King of Hungary in 1867.
12. Hon Richard Cavendish (1794-1876), of Thornton Hall, Bucks, widower of Elizabeth Maria Margaret Cavendish, née Hart (d 1858). Their daughter, Emilia Maria Georgiana Cavendish (1845-1929) m Francis Noel Mundy (1833-1903), WHFT's nephew, in 1864.
13. A supplement to a newspaper.
14. When Charles Dickins got into a dispute with the co-owner of Household Words, he broke off and founded All the Year Round, a weekly literary periodical published from 1859-1895. It was the original publishing home of numerous of his works, including A Tale of Two Cities, and after his 1870 death was carried on by his son, Charles Dickins, jnr.
15. Sir Robert Christison (1797–1882), M.D., Scottish physician, chemist and botanist. Chambers Edinburgh Journal was a weekly, published by the brothers Robert Chambers (1802-1871) and William Chambers (1800-1883).