Dear Sir,
I hope you will not consider that I am taking too
great a liberty in complying with the request contained in these letters
calling your attention to the subject of them. You are probably acquainted with
Mr Tom Taylor … and if so, you will know that his opinion of any artist is not
that of an ignorant enthusiast, but of one who has devoted much earnest study
to the subject, and believes that it may be the means of doing a great work in
the world. It is perhaps rather unbusinesslike to with-hold the price of the picture;
but apropos of that, I will quote a passage from a letter which I do not
forward. 'Remember we do not want subscriptions in the common sense of
the word. We would rather have a man's interest and appreciation of our plan
than his money; indeed we should despise the latter unless his hearty feeling
went with it.'
Will it
be too much to ask for your 'hearty feeling', and will you evince this by
looking at the painting in Mr Watt's [sic] studio, 30 Charles Street,
Berkeley Sqr. Perhaps you would be so kind as to call Mr Schwabe's attention to
this address; and also to the PS at the beginning of the last note in which Mr
Taylor says 'he knows Chevalier Bunsen, & is sure of his co-operation.'?
Our problem here is the identity
of the receiver of the package of letters. It has been suggested in the
published Letters of Mrs Gaskell that this person was James Crossley, a
prominent Manchester solicitor and antiquarian, with the catalogue compiled by
J. A. Green in 1914 cited as the source of this information. However, Green's
list does not name Crossley, the entry simply reads 'Letter from 121 Upper Romford
Street' Mrs Gaskell did write to Crossley twice on bibliographical
matters, and the two letters are clearly marked with his name. They follow the
mystery letter in Green's list, so there may have been an assumption that all
three were addressed to the same person.
Similarly, in an earlier version of the list, referring to an exhibition
of the Gaskell Collection in 1911, Green had catalogued the letters in the same
way: 'Upper Romford Street', followed by the two genuine Crossley letters.
W.E.A. Axon refers to these in a paper given to the Manchester Literary Club in
the same year, but states that in the exhibition 'there is a letter from her
[Mrs Gaskell] to Mr James Crossley F.S.A., on the subject [of Watts's
painting]'. It is probable that this misreading of Green's
catalogue has been carried forward into later editions of the Gaskell
correspondence, including the current one.
MORE TO FOLLOW
