Now! Then! Turner writes from Chelsea to the son of his patron Walter Fawkes – dead for 24 years – thanking him for the annual goose pie from Farnley Hall

24 December 1849: Turner writes from Chelsea to the son of his patron Walter Fawkes – dead for 24 years – thanking him for the annual goose pie from Farnley Hall

George Walter Thornbury. 1877. The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. London: Chatto and Windus. See also other editions. Get it:

Excerpt

Dear Hawkesworth,

Mother Goose came to a rehearsal before Christmas Day, having arrived on Saturday for the knife, and could not be resisted in my drinking your good health in a glass of wine to all friends at Farnley Hall, also wishing happiness and the comp^ts of the season to all. The pie is in most excellent taste, and shall drink the same thanks on Christmas Day. Many thanks for the brace of pheasants and hares – by the same train – indeed, I think it fortunate, for with all the strife and strike of pokers and stokers for the railroads – their commons every day growing worse – in shareholders and directors squabbling about the winding up of the last Bill, to come to some end for those lines known or supposed to be in difficulty.

Ruskin has been in Switzerland with his whife this summer, and now said to be in Venice. Since the revolution shows not any damage to the works of high Art it contains, in Rome not so much as might have been expected. Had the “Transfiguration” occupied its old situation, the St. Pietro Montoreo, it most possibly must have suffered, for the church is completely riddled with shot and balls. The convent on Mount Aventine much battered with cannon balls, and Casino Magdalene, near the Porto Angelino, nearly destroyed; occurred by taking and storming the Bastion No. 8. This is from an eye-witness who has returned to London since the siege by Gen. Oudinot.

I am sorry to say my health is much on the wain. I cannot bear the same fatigue, or have the same bearing against it, I formerly had – but time and tide stop not – but I must stop writing for to-day, and so I again beg to thank you for the Christmas present.

Believe me most truly
Your oblidged Servant,
J. M. W. Turner.

W. H. FAWKES, Esq., Farnley Hall.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Original

For twenty-four consecutive years one of those wonders of the North, a goose pie, was sent to Turner from Yorkshire. The twenty-fifth pie was already packed when news reached Farnley of the painter’s departure from the reach of his friend’s kindness. One of the letters acknowledging the annual present I am enabled to give, through the kindness of Mr. Fawkes. It is dated December 24, 1849, two years before his death. It is curious, as an intelligent friend of mine remarks, to observe the quaint and somewhat contradictory ceremoniousness of the letter, which, beginning with ‘Dear Hawkesworth,’ ends with ‘your obliged servant;’ a conventional deference that is almost royal. The letter, on which the postmark is ‘Queen’s Road, Chelsea,’ runs thus:-

‘Dear Hawkesworth,-Mother Goose came to a rehearsal before Christmas Day, having arrived on Saturday for the knife, and could not be resisted in my drinking your good health in a glass of wine to all friends at Farnley Hall, also wishing happiness and the comp^ts of the season to all. The pie is in most excellent taste, and shall drink the same thanks on Christmas Day. Many thanks for the brace of pheasants and hares – by the same train – indeed, I think it fortunate, for with all the strife and strike of pokers and stokers for the railroads – their commons every day growing worse – in shareholders and directors squabbling about the winding up of the last Bill, to come to some end for those lines known or supposed to be in difficulty.

‘Ruskin has been in Switzerland with his whife this summer, and now said to be in Venice. Since the revolution shows not any damage to the works of high Art it contains, in Rome not so much as might have been expected. Had the “Transfiguration” occupied its old situation, the St. Pietro Montoreo, it most possibly must have suffered, for the church is completely riddled with shot and balls. The convent on Mount Aventine much battered with cannon balls, and Casino Magdalene, near the Porto Angelino, nearly destroyed; occurred by taking and storming the Bastion No. 8.

‘This is from an eye-witness who has returned to London since the siege by Gen. Oudinot.

‘I am sorry to say my health is much on the wain. I cannot bear the same fatigue, or have the same bearing against it, I formerly had – but time and tide stop not – but I must stop writing for to-day, and so I again beg to thank you for the Christmas present.

‘Believe me most truly
‘Your oblidged Servant,
‘J. M. W. Turner.

W. H. FAWKES, Esq., Farnley Hall.’

The letter is curious also as showing that an involved and confused style, and uncertain spelling, were characteristic of him down to the very close of his days.

491 words.