To Jack Tidmarsh   Monday evening July 14th 1845

Halifax | Monday evening July 14th 1845.

My dear Jack,

There was a great big god once in Egypt who was christened Memnon.¹ The people of that country say that in the far gone ancient time this god used to sing like a blackbird. Every morning when the rising sun took his first squint at the pyramids and climbing higher still cooled his hot lips with the exhaled dew from the gardens of Thebes, and laughed and danced and gambolled on the river Nile for all the world as he plays upon the burnished surface of a new tin saucepan. There the sweetest sounds that ever god or mortal manufactured used to proceed from the lips of Memnon! There was no settled measure in the notes, but it seemed as if the summer breeze was wandering over the strings of an Eolian harp,² sometimes rising loudly, anon dying into the most touching melody, as if soft showers of celestial honey were falling from the lips of the big god! Oh! it was grand to listen to him, with his wild, beautiful measureless cadences, enough to make the Sphynx neglect her riddle, or old Father Nile forget the law of gravitation and ask whether the rules of politeness required him to flow up or down!!

I had my head once examined by a phrenologist and he said that I had the bump of comparison largely developed; be that as it may, I cannot help comparing the feelings awakened in my heart on the receipt of your letter with the music of Memnon. ‘And Parker³ has written to me at last’ said I; and immediately a host of little vagabond ideas which I fondly fancied were sleeping the sleep that knows no waking, rushed from the dark crannies of the past, that I really thought the mantle of the big god had been anatomised for their especial inspiration!

There was once an infernal young scamp who stole the sum of fourpence halfpenny from a poor butterwoman in Paris, as he was leaving the shop the old woman twigged him and seizing her poker pursued him as fast as her dilapidated energies would permit. Some men in the street sympathising with the poor old creature joined the hue and cry – ‘Arretez le voleur!’⁴ was shouted from a dozen throats – to scan the strength and swiftness of his pursuers was the work of a moment with the urchin, and seeing that he had nothing to fear from that quarter, the mustered force of his lungs burst forth in a wild echo to the cry behind – ‘Arretez le voleur!’ The people in front of course fancied from this that he was one of the pursuers, and not the pursued, and he was therefore allowed to pass unmolested.

Must I explain the moral Jack? ‘Your silence Tyndall has proved your professions of friendship insincere’ quoth Felix.⁵ ‘Stop thief’ cried the guilty boy, at the same time saying in a whisper ‘I know that I myself am the thief but this is my only chance’. In one respect you and the boy differ, he escaped, you shall not. I have a little Yorkshire salt from your tail⁶ my boy. I’ll nail you with the very pin on which you hang your charges against me!

Of course I heard of Allen’s marriage; I have had letters from him since, I intend to pay him a visit shortly. But the most wonderful part of Allen’s performance is cited in the following quotation from a letter to Bob Martin received yesterday – ‘on the beginning of this week the lady of Mr Robert Allen presented him with a daughter!’ There’s an exhibition of ‘manly vigour’ for you wasn’t it speedily manufactured?

But your revelation respecting Lizzie⁷ has almost unmanned me; I compressed my lips

with fearful energy when I read it. The blood rushed to my temples, and it required no

small effort to make the rebellious torrent retire to its proper channels. I never had the slightest intimation of this before. Well, one fond dream has exploded. Though I had never any ‘intentions’ towards Lizzy still I cannot resign her without a pang. I had promised myself three days pleasuring and Goosnargh⁸ was set down among the places I was to visit, but the light of the village is gone and a visit under present circumstances would be a mournful affair. I’m glad you told me, it will preserve me from keener disappointment. What a time Marques⁹ and I spent there! My recollection of it forms a kind of intellectual banquet, where the ‘dear departed shades’ of roses and ringlets and lips and kisses sweetly mingle – alas! alas! ‘My peerless Lizzy’! ‘Spoiled for ever! :–

‘My peace is gone

My heart is broken!’¹⁰

I can never forget the evening to which you allude.¹¹ And I shall long remember a remark you made at the same time ‘By God Jack, he should not have all the fun to himself!’

Do I remember Miss Wilding?¹² Oh! don’t I just? But man you’re a fool to say you would go through 17 hells for her. Your hair would be burnt off in the passage, and you know that like Samson of old you lose your power when you lose your hair!¹³ You remember Jack - - - - - eh? You know I was in love with Miss Wilding, and had I seen you kissing her, in all human probability you would have experienced, in a certain nameless region, the momentum of my boot toe!!

Johnny my dear

I am no engineer

From which you will see

That the letters ‘C.E.’¹⁴

Apply not to me.

Hope whispers a day

Will come when you may

To the letters J. T.

Attach the ‘C.E.’!

I don’t know any thing that would give me greater pleasure than seeing you here – if ever you do come you may calculate on as cordial a welcome as an Irish heart can give. I have never seen Marquis since we parted in Preston which will be two years next November. I wrote to him a few days ago, having obtained his address by mere chance. There is a sweet gal here named Lizzy, I must endeavour to fall in love with her and forget the former – that cussed apothecary!¹⁵ I should like to kick him! Now have I not sent you a monster scroll, perhaps I have inflicted too much on your patience – finis!

Good bye for the present

My dear dear Jack

and believe me

in consonance with old professions

Your attached

Tyndall.

I am sincerely sorry for Margaret Mulhall tho’ not at all surprised, I knew she was frail, and it required all my virtuous attention to preserve her from Latimer!¹⁶ Jokes apart, I regret her destiny – She was very attentive.

RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3870-3871

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