Letters to a Friend

by Constance Babington Smith

  1 Possibly this refers to Edgar Grieve Dunstan, editor of The Wayfarer, the Quaker monthly journal, 1929-45.

  2 The reference to “poor Isie's O'Shaughnessy” is nowhere elucidated in the letters, but it may relate to Father Johnson's habit of writing texts etc. in the margins of any book he was reading.

  3 “Since concerning ruins and destructive forces.”

  4 “Face to face.”

  5 “ Whom their ancient slavery keeps beneath the yoke of sin.”

  6 The Baptism service as revised in the 1928 Prayer Book.

  7 A slip by R.M. The Conybeare baby, a grandson of R.M.'s first cousin Bruce Conybeare, was named John Bruce not Michael.

  1 One of the American Cowley Fathers then at Cambridge, Mass.

  1 Sulpicius Rufus writing to Cicero says: “(What? Do we puny human beings feel indignant if some friend of us men, whose life ought to be shorter, dies or gets killed), while on a single site He the relics of so many towns overthrown?” See Cicero, Ad Tarn. 4.5,4.

  2 See St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk. 8, Chap. 12.

  3 See R. M/s Staying with Relations.

  1 “By the operation of this Mystery, O Lord, may even our sins be washed away.”

  2 Letters and Exercises of the Elizabethan Schoolmaster, John Conybeare, with Notes and a Fragment of Autobiography by William Daniel Conybeare, Edited by F. C. Conybeare (1905).

  1 Presumably this refers to the letter which R.M. dated 27th November see above pp. 33-35), of which the latter part (and the envelope) is missing.

  2 See R.M.'s Told by an Idiot.

  1 They Were Defeated.

  2 Rev. Arthur Henry Stanton (1839-1913), Anglo-Catholic curate at St. Alban's, Holborn, famous for his preaching.

  3 Before he was received into the Roman Church in 1879, Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J. (1861-1909) lived for some months in an Anglo-Catholic mission house in South-East London organised by Fr. Dolling.

  1 “Absolve, we beseech thee.”

  2 “May we be set free.”

  1 “I am by no means surprised.”

  2 See Alice in Wonderland; the Dormouse's story at the Mad Tea Party.

  3 Rev. Philip Napier Waggett, S.S.J.E. (1862-1939).

  1 P. N. Waggett, The Heart of Jesus (1902).

  1 A Dominican monthly review.

  2 Probably Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation by Thomas More.

  1 Marginal note here by R.M.: “No! I see I am mistaken about this rate.”

  2 This symbol indicates that the letter was sent by airmail.

  3 “For the Irving and the dead.”

  4 “Pardon.”

  1 “(My soul) cleaveth to the dust.” Ps. 119. 25-32.

  2 “Teach me (O Lord, the way of) thy statutes.” Ps. 119.33-40.

  3 “Princes have persecuted me.” Ps. 119.161-68.

  4 Rev. Robert Fletcher Humphreys, S.S.J.E. (1884-1950).

  5 Rev. A. L. Pedersen, S.S.J.E., of the American Congregation at Cambridge, Mass.

  1 “The fear of death had confounded me.”

  2 Mary Macaulay.

  3 Rt. Rev. K. E. Kirk (1886-1954), Bishop of Oxford 1937-54 and formerly Regius Professor of moral and pastoral theology in the University of Oxford.

  1 The Coronation Stone was removed from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalists on 24th December, 1950.

  1 “Man is a mortal god.”

  2 R.M.’s Going Abroad.

  1 In the original letter this three-letter word is undecipherable, but Cassell's Latin Dictionary which R.M. habitually used (see pp. 34 and 273) gives phy as the Latin word for 'tush.'

  1 “Everlasting cure.”

  2 “O Wisdom,” the first of the Greater Antiphons.

  1 “Absolutions from across the ocean.”

  2 “Illegitimate.”

  3 A slip for N.E.L. (”notorious evil liver”).

  1 Rev. Conrad le Despenser Roden Noel (1869-1942), Vicar of Thaxted, Essex, well known for his Socialist views.

  1 John Bailey (1864-1931), the literary critic, was a friend of Father Johnson's father, Canon Cowper Johnson. R.M.'s reference is to his Letters and Diaries (1935).

  1 W. N. Ewer, “How Odd.”

  1 R.M. has interpolated “(not so),” because she later decided to send this letter by air.

  1 William Addison, Worthy Dr. Fuller (1951).

  1 “And make me always to abide in thy commandments.”

  2 S.S.J.E. booklet (1950) by B. D. Wilkins, describing the work of the Society at home and abroad.

  1 The “supposed” relationship of the Johnsons to John Donne.

  1 See R.M.’s Keeping up Appearances.

  1 The Hound of Heaven.

  1 Eleanor Macaulay.

  2 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

  1 A Norfolk Diary: Passages from the diary of the Rev. Benjamin John Armstrong,M.A. [Cantab.), Vicar of East Dereham 1850-88, edited by his grandson, H. B.J. Armstrong (1949).

  1 Probably his Holy Week addresses The Hear tof Jesus, but Lent addresses were included in his book The Scientific Temper in Religion and Other Addresses (1905).

  2 S. C. Roberts, Master of Pembroke College, later Sir Sydney Roberts.

  1 “For no other reason than that it was forbidden.”

  2 “Thou also shalt light my candle: the Lord my God shall make my darkness to be light.” Ps. 18.28.

  3 “But do thou set us wholly free, since thou hast begun.”

  1 Letters of Lady Hesketh to the Rev. John Johnson, LL.D., concerning their kinsman William Cowper the Poet, edited by Catharine Bodham Johnson (1901).

  1 “The Eastward Position,” the practice of the celebrant of the Eucharist standing on the west side of the altar facing east, then a very controversial matter.

  2 Rev. Alexander Heriot Mackonochie (1825-87), Curate-in-charge of St. Alban's, Holborn, 1862-82, and a leading Anglo-Catholic.

  3 The English Church Union, a society formed in 1859 to defend and further the spread of High Church principles in the Church of England.

  4 Rev. Henry Parry Liddon (1829-90) was Canon (not Dean) of St. Paul's.

  5 H. B. J. Armstrong, editor of A Norfolk Diary.

  1 The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde; edited by John Beresford (5 vols, 1924-1931).

  2 The genealogical tree in the Letters of Lady Hesketh (see above p. 78«.) is misleading. In a later book, William Bodham Donne and his Friends (1905), Catharine B. Johnson pointed out that the “supposed” descent from John Donne had not been finally established.

  3 Mrs. Catharine B. Johnson.

  1 The Liber de Miraculis of Johannes Monachus, a 10th-century monk belonging to one of the monasteries near Amalfi, consisting of translations into Latin of various Byzantine legends, with which Johannes had become acquainted during a visit to Constantinople.

  1 “Of old age, alas!”

  1 Father Johnson had translated into English some of the Liber de Miraculis of Johannes Monachus (see below p. 316). The story of Eulogius (a stonemason) and Abbot Daniel occurs in chapter 27; that of the eunuch in chapter 28. The Latin text is accessible in an edition by Michael Huber (Heidelberg, 1913).

  1 Locust fruit.

  2 Literally “biscuits.”

  3 English mystic (c. 1373—after 1433), author of the Book of Margery Kempe.

  1 A collection of R. M/s poetry, number six in the second series of the Augustan Books of English Poetry (Ernest Benn, c. 1925), included a prefatory note by the editor, Humbert Wolfe.

  1 The “air-letter” forms used by Father Johnson carried ten-cent stamps.

  2 “Just like the Lord God—he knows absolutely everything.”

  1 The Sarum Breviary contained the modification of the Roman rite which was used at Salisbury cathedral in the Middle Ages.

  1 An Anglican centre for graduates and young professional men and women, founded in Kensington in 1907 and later moved to South Audley Street and attached to Grosvenor Chapel.

  1 Rev. Darwell Stone (1859-1941), Anglo-Cath
olic theologian.

  1 A series of essays on the Religion of the Incarnation edited by Charles Gore and published in 1889, which included new critical views of the Old Testament.

  2 The Life and Letters of Father Andrew, S.D.C.; edited and compiled by K. E. Burne (1948).

  3 L'Abandon à la Providence Divine, by J. P. de Caussade (1675-1751), first published in 1867. (English translation, Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, with Introduction by David Knowles, 1933.)

  1 The Imitatio Christi of Thomas à Kempis.

  1 The S.S.J.E Office Book.

  1 Father Johnson was compiling for R.M. two “anthologies” of quotations, prayers, and his own compositions.

  2 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (d. 1762) and also John Wilkes (d. 1797) were buried at Grosvenor Chapel.

  1 Marginal note here by R.M.: “All quite unimportant and about nothing, and too closely spaced to read easily. Next page is better.”

  1 This refers to Father Johnson's five years in Malta before going up to Oxford in 1899.

  1 A Carthusian monastery described in R.M.'s Fabled Shore.

  2 William Langland (13 30-1400), reputed author of Piers Plowman.

  3 R.M. aged 13.

  4 A quarterly “newspaper” devoted to the current publications of Sheed and Ward.

  1 Society of St. John the Evangelist (the Cowley Fathers).

  2 Father Johnson's translation of the Abbot Daniel story about the nunnery, which he had already sent to R.M.

  1 Abbreviation of Ordinale, a manual showing the Offices to be recited in accordance with variations in the ecclesiastical year.

  2 In the 15th century “Pie,” or “Pica,” was the name given to the Ordinale in England.

  1 “... ye have obeyed from the heart (that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness).” Rom. 6.17, 18.

  1 R.M. added a footnote: “Forgive this jest: of course I shan't show those typed rules. In fact, I should never show anything of yours to anyone, and never have.”

  2 The description of a banquet given by a vulgar nouveau riche called Trimalchio is part of a romance by Petronius (contemporary of Nero in the mid-ist century A.D.).

  3 H. A.J. Munro, Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus (1878).

  1 “Thesaure of innumerable images,” see St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk, 10, Chap. 8.

  1 “The plains and wide palaces of memory.”

  2 It seems probable that R.M. was referring to The Blecheley Diary of the Rev. William Cole, edited by F. G. Stokes with an introduction by Helen Waddell (1931).

  1 “Whole, smooth, and rounded.” From Horace, Sat. 2.7.86.

  1 Rev. Edward Conduitt Dermer.

  2 Elizabeth Goudge, God So Loved the World: A Life of Christ (1951).

  1 A book containing the forms prescribed to parish priests for the administration of the Sacraments.

  2 “I recite from memory.”

  3 “And (others) reveal streams that they have discovered.” Virg. Aen. 6. 8.

  4 “Love conquers all things.”

  1 “Q” (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch), Lady Good-for-Nothing (1910).

  2 Footnote by R.M.: “those were not ‘the better sort,’ of whom he wrote.”

  1 “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend her.”

  1 The Festival of Britain, trade fair held in London in 1951.

  1 Footnote by R.M.: “The old print on my dust-jacket is pre-quake.”

  1 “Unlearned.”

  2 II Peter, 1.5.

  3 “Through sanctification of the Spirit” (I Peter 1.2).

  1 The only point at issue, Raymond Mortimer recalls, was whether the feast was included in the 1662 Prayer Book.

  2 A cousin by “adoption.”

  3 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was never emperor.

  1 “Receive, O Lord, (the whole of my freedom,)” see below p. 135.

  1 “Sacred mysteries to reverence.”

  2 “Receive, O Lord, the whole of my freedom.”

  3 Novel by Graham Greene (1938).

  1 Norman Nicholson, William Cowper (1951).

  1 Dr. Farrer was then Chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford, not Oriel College.

  1 Vincent Bourne (1695-1747), Latin poet, was a master at Westminster School, where William Cowper was one of his pupils.

  2 “Lord Jesus Christ... and suffer me never to be separated from thee.”

  3 “O God, who under a wonderful sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy Passion”; from the collect for the Feast of Corpus Christi.

  1 T. Mozley, Reminiscences; chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford Movement (1882).

  1 Liber Precum Publicarum, Bright and Medd's edition of the Latin Book of Common Prayer (1865).

  2 “(We beseech thee, that thou wouldest) keep us stedfast in this faith”; from the Collect for Trinity Sunday.

  3 “Make me to remain in thy memory.”

  1 R.M.'s great-grandmother, the wife of Rev. Aulay Macaulay, was Anne Herrick, of the same family as the poet, and her step-grandmother (the first wife of Rev. S. H. Macaulay) was Bishop Heber's daughter.

  1 Daniel Dulany Addison, The Episcopalians (New York, 1904).

  1 R.M. Benson, The Religious Vocation; edited by H. P. Bull with an introduction by L. Cary (1939).

  2 Dame Edith Sitwell received an Hon. Litt.D. from Leeds University and also an Hon. D.Litt. from Durham University in 1948. In 1951 she received an Hon. DXitt. from Oxford University.

  1 One of the English Cowley Fathers visiting Cambridge, Mass. at that time.

  2 Emily Smith (see Preface), grand-daughter of R.M.'s aunt, Mrs. C. S. Smith.

  3 Jean Smith, daughter of Mrs. C. S. Smith.

  1 R.M. has added a note on back of envelope: “No. The Punch ‘R.M.’ [Richard Mallet] is not me, but some man. We are often confused.”

  1 Tied up with bast.

  1 There is a collection of relics at the Church of St. Magnus the Martyr, amongst which is one alleged to be of the Precious Blood. The late Rev. H. J. Fynes-Clinton, rector of this church, did not, however, claim to be able to liquefy blood.

  1 See above p. 138n.

  1 Rev. the Hon. William Cecil Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes.

  2 “Direct and sanctify.”

  1 “All the changes of this journey and this life.”

  2 A brief office now included in the Breviary and prescribed for recitation by clerics about to set out on a journey.

  3 Rev. J. W. E. Conybeare.

  1 Rev. Wilfred Cowper Johnson.

  1 “Author of fictitious histories.”

  1 Jean Macaulay.

  1 Footnote by R.M.: “No, I am wrong. I see the O[xford] Dictionary] does give ‘Twelfth Day.’ But it seems less common.”

  1 Nancy Willetts.

  2 The monks of St. Mary's Abbey, Quarr, are an offshoot of the Benedictine community of Solesmes (Sarthe), founded in 1827. Owing to the persecution of the religious orders in France, the monks were forced to seek refuge abroad.

  1 “Homilies and Prayers.”

  2 “Running the way of thy commandments from the Collect for nth Sunday after Trinity.

  1 “I have no wish to be Caesar and to roam through Britain.”

  2 “I have no wish to be Florus and to be a pub-crawler.”

  3 Joshua Poole, The English Parnassus, or a Helpe to English Poesie (1657).

  1 Presumably the biography Priscilla Lydia Sellon by T. J. Williams (1950).

  1 Note by R.M. on back of envelope.

  1 From “The Sea-birds crying above the Ruins of Corinth” in Greek Poetry for Everyman; selected and translated by F. L. Lucas (1951).