The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics)

by A. J. A. Symons

  That week he went to live with the Sforza-Cesarini. One of the family – Mario – was at Oscott when he was there. I don’t think I ever saw him afterwards. I am afraid these are trivialities, but they are the only memories I have of him. He was at Oscott about a year only.

  Yours sincerely

  Ambrose

  Coadj: Bp: of Shrewsbury

  Finally, I was delighted to receive the following:

  Oscott College

  Birmingham

  Dear Mr Symons,

  I was a contemporary of Rolfe’s at Oscott, though not in the same year. I was a senior boy: he was a junior master. This was in 1887-88, I think. Later on, I knew him rather better, when he was living in Holywell. This would be some ten years later. He certainly caused astonishment and talk at Oscott and elsewhere in this period. I am not sure that I should care to write down recollections of him. One remembers so easily the oddities of a man – and I should not care to write what may be a caricature rather than a portrait. However, if you could find it convenient to come to Oscott (where I should be delighted to entertain you) I could talk for a couple of hours about him, and you might sift what seemed needful for your purpose. We can be easily approached from Birmingham, and I really think you would get better value from a chat between supper and bedtime than if I tried to commit my impressions to writing.

  Yours faithfully

  J. Dey

  I jumped at this chance of a visit to Oscott, which I knew well by the description of another of my idols, George Moore, who also had been an unsuccessful student at the famous Catholic College. I wrote to Mgr Dey (present Rector of Oscott) to propose a date; and when the appointed time came, set off by car, full of hope that I might be able to discover in a lumber-room or loft some of those paintings mentioned by my correspondents. I arrived in full sunshine. Oscott College is a vast red-brick Pugin-Gothic structure, superbly placed on top of a tableland commanding a long stretch southwards. The entrance is from the back by a long drive which winds amid shrubberies and gardens to the front, so that I was quite unprepared for the sight that awaited me at my journey’s end. Standing with my back to the College entrance, I looked out over the edge of the tableland past a small farm with its fields and buildings, to a full, a panoramic, an appalling view of the slate roofs of Birmingham’s suburb, Erdington. Compared with the trim walk, lawn and shrubbery amid which I stood, compared with the farm below, it looked like a vast, hastily-set-up mining camp, built by men devoid of all sense of form and dignity, concerned only with a temporary covering while the ore lasts. Such sights, alas, are common enough in England now. My indignation at Erdington was still alert when Mgr Dey came to meet me: tall, handsome, dignified, becassocked, with the smile of humour in his eyes and on his lips. I expressed my regret at the grim spectacle before us; and he answered with a sigh that there had not been a single house in sight when he and Rolfe first came to Oscott.

  Before turning into the Rector’s study to talk, I walked with him round the College. Architecturally it is not remarkable, but it houses some fine things, mainly the gift of a former Earl of Shrewsbury. The Library has some good illuminated manuscripts, and in the Museum are a number of magnificent fifteenth and sixteenth century vestments, heavy velvet gleaming still with gold thread, ornamented and embroidered with superb panels showing the passions and passings of the saints. They had been on show even in Rolfe’s day, I learned; I could imagine how his mediaeval mind must have revelled in their rich, unsubdued display. We walked through long corridors hung with pictures, to Mgr Dey’s study; there he set himself at my service, and, without prompting, told me all that he could remember of Rolfe.

  They had met in 1887 at Oscott, which was then (as I knew from Fr Jackson’s letter) a secular Catholic College, and not, as now, exclusively a seminary for those preparing for the priesthood. Rolfe was a member of the limited class of ‘divines’ receiving instruction for ordination. His fees were paid by the (then) Bishop of Shrewsbury; Mgr Dey could not tell me how the Bishop had come to take Rolfe up. Rolfe had certainly proved no ordinary student: he developed an inordinate passion for painting, and three sides of his bedroom wall were covered by a remarkable picture of the burial of St William of Norwich, in which the corpse was carried by a hundred and forty-nine bearers dressed in varied vestments, but all alike contrived as to countenance in Rolfe’s own image! Even the Saint (what could be seen of him) was marked with Rolfe’s nose. This unconventional divinity student sported fanciful meerschaum pipes, and carried quite the largest tobacco pouch Mgr Dey had ever seen. He was ruthlessly ragged by the students, though he had his friends, including Mgr Dey himself. After the greater part of a year had passed, Rolfe left Oscott at the instance of the Bishop, who was dissatisfied with the progress of his protégé, and not prepared to pay for him to indulge his hobby of painting. So far as Mgr Dey knew, not a single one of his canvases survived in the College.

  Several years later young Fr Dey was astonished to receive a letter claiming Oscott acquaintance, and inviting a visit, from a ‘Fr Austin’ of whom he had no remembrance. Eventually, however, he discovered that this pseudonym covered the identity of his former friend Rolfe, and, mystified by the change of name, sought him out at Holywell in Wales. There he found the erstwhile student lodged in a schoolroom, engaged in painting banners for the local priest. His circumstances were miserable, his complaints numerous, chief among them being the poor pay for his work, and the shabby behaviour of his priest-employer. Cardinal Vaughan also, it appeared, had disappointed (Rolfe’s word was ‘defrauded’) the unlucky painter, by abandoning a promised, or half-promised, contract for ecclesiastical pictures, on the ground that all his funds were needed for Westminster Cathedral. I was particularly interested in this part of Mgr Dey’s narrative: it filled in the one substantial gap in Rolfe’s pre-literary career, and explained the position of George Arthur Rose at the opening of Hadrian, where he is shown as suffering poverty through the defalcations of his Catholic employers. Evidently he had laboured under a deep grievance: how well-founded, my informant could not say. All that he could add to my knowledge of the Holywell episode was that in the end Rolfe had moved his quarters to the inn, where, from the balcony of his first-floor bedroom, he would (during the religious processions that passed by) point an accusing finger at the priest by whose hand, in his view, he was suffering.

  Again Rolfe had passed out of Mgr Dey’s life for some months, until the end of 1898, when the Aberdeen attack was reprinted almost verbatim in the Catholic Times. Moved by the manifest bias of its tone, Mgr Dey had written in expostulation to the editor, urging the injustice of dragging up old history against an unfortunate man who had paid dearly for his follies, and was trying hard to support himself by his pen. The letter was garbled and cut down; but Rolfe had noticed it, and written in gratitude. He expressed his thanks in more abiding form also, for, long after, Mgr Dey was amused and touched to find himself promoted into a Cardinal in Hadrian the Seventh, wherein, as Sterling, he is faithfully depicted, even as to the mole on his nose and his manner of speech. The two friends never met again. In 1913, Mgr Dey heard (in South Africa) of Rolfe’s death in Venice.

  Unfortunately he had preserved no letters; and I learned with regret that there were no records surviving of Oscott in its pre-seminary days. We looked in vain through albums of old photographs. But, even more to my purpose, Mgr Dey was able to put in my hands a printed testimonial, possibly the means by which Rolfe had brought his clerical aspirations to the notice of his superiors, which gave me exact information of his pedagogic career:

  TESTIMONIALS IN FAVOUR OF MR FREDERICK ROLFE

  I

  F. W. Rolfe conducted himself to my satisfaction while a pupil in this School, and left with an excellent character. He is steady, industrious and persevering, and I think will do his best to give satisfaction.

  CHAS. WM. WILLIAMS, D.D.

  (Trin. Coll. Camb.)

  Head Master, North London Collegiate School.

  I
I

  I have much pleasure in recommending Mr Frederick Rolfe, who was my Assistant-Master for a year and a half. Mr Rolfe’s work consisted entirely in teaching the youngest boys in the School; but that work he has done thoroughly well. His questions are always simple but searching, and he never shrinks from the laborious repetition which is requisite for driving home ideas in very young minds. Mr Rolfe likes his work, and is thoroughly methodical and conscientious in the discharge of his duties, while his powers of maintaining discipline are quite sufficient for the successful management of a fairly large class of junior boys. He rendered valuable aid in training a young Choir, and undertook successfully a class of beginners in Drawing. I may add that Mr Rolfe came to me strongly recommended by Mr Isbister, Head Master of the Stationers’ School, under whom he had previously worked, whose good opinion of him appears to me to be fully justified.

  R. M. LUCKOCK, M.A.

  (Corp. Christi Coll. Camb.)

  Head Master, King Edward VI Grammar School,

  Saffron Walden, Essex.

  III

  Mr Frederick Rolfe has taught in this school for two terms. I received his resignation with regret, as I have found him constant and methodical in work, and believe him to be actuated by the best motives. During his stay here he has taught History throughout the School, and to Junior classes Latin, French, English, Arithmetic and Divinity. He has assisted us considerably with choir work, conducting the boys’ practice and playing the harmonium in chapel. He will exercise a good influence over boys, both by the conscientiousness displayed in work and by the cheerful interest he takes in their games and occupations out of school.

  JOHN M. OGLE, M.A.

  (Clare Coll. Camb.)

  Head Master, Winchester Modern School.

  IV

  Mr Frederick Rolfe has been a non-resident assistant master with me since Easter, 1882. His engagement was a temporary one. He had charge of the second form. I have had ample opportunities of observing his powers of teaching and maintaining discipline, and I can confidently say that he excels both as a teacher and disciplinarian. He is neat and methodical in his work, and regular and punctual in his attendance.

  J. ATKINS, M.A., LL.B.

  (Trin. Coll. Dublin)

  Head Master, S. Bartholomew’s Grammar School, Newbury.

  V

  I have known Mr Frederick Rolfe for more than three years, during the latter portion of which he has assisted me with my pupils. He has always attended assiduously to his duties, and has won a good reputation as a teacher. He excels as a disciplinarian, while gaining the goodwill of boys by the great interest he takes in them out of school.

  GEORGE HOWES, M.A.

  (Pem. Coll. Camb.)

  Balsham Manor, Cambridge.

  My visit to Oscott had been a very fruitful one. As I was taking my leave, one more remembrance came to Mgr Dey: that the poet Vincent O’Sullivan, later the friend of Oscar Wilde and most of the writers of the nineties, had also been Rolfe’s contemporary at Oscott, and might have kept some memories of a minor feud with him. By a lucky chance, O’Sullivan had been a more or less regular correspondent of mine for many years, and I was able to get details without difficulty:

  Hotel Bristol,

  Biarritz, France

  Dear Symons,

  I am glad that Dey remembers me so kindly. It is always a pleasure for me to think of him, and I have a great respect for him.

  You ask me about Rolfe (pronounced Rofe). Any ‘feud’ I had with him I forget, and it could only have been very slight, on account of our relative position, which was that of school-master and schoolboy. I never saw him after I left Oscott. My brother was much more his friend than I was, but my brother, who returned home to the United States after leaving the school, and never came again to Europe, never saw Rolfe again either. I believe he corresponded with Rolfe for some years and kept him in funds for a while, which the financial situation of our family at that time enabled him to do.

  I suppose he was about twenty-six or twenty-eight when I knew him. He had a handsome sensitive face. Although he was never a member of the University, he had passed somehow or other a good deal of time at Oxford, and he had what used to be known as the ‘Oxford accent’ to the extreme. A low musical voice. Very charming manners once his timidity was broken down. One Christmas holidays, as my brother and myself were alone in the College, our home being too far off to go there, we were sent under the charge of Rolfe to make a tour of the Cathedral cities – Worcester, Lichfield, Lincoln etc. and he was very good company. He had a way of giving boys a very good opinion of themselves which made them unable to measure accurately their strength and value afterwards when they were face to face with disagreeable events in life.

  His reading was not wide and it was very peculiar. One of his favourite books was Reade’s Cloister and the Hearth. He also liked the books of Mrs Ewing, and had one or two of them in his room, and would read aloud from them sometimes. The people in vogue at that time – Stevenson, Meredith, Hardy, Henley etc. he didn’t know at all. I had them in my room, but Rolfe could never have asked for them, for I certainly never lent them to him. He adored the Gilbert and Sullivan operettes and would sing the ditties and play the accompaniments on the piano. He had many small accomplishments of the kind that make a man or woman welcome in dull country houses where everybody is boring one another. He wrote verse, atrociously bad most of it. I got some of his poems by heart, and I remember bits of them still. They were about boys and saints, generally both together – altogether objective, by-the-bye.

  He was a man, as I think of him now, who had only the vaguest sense of realities. I never knew anything about his people or what class of the population he came from. In those days I took no interest in such matters. He was surely English, but it is not impossible that he had a Jewish strain. I have since known Jews not unlike him. I don’t even know what he was doing or how he existed before he came to Oscott, nor what diocese it was that sent him there. He would talk by the hour about people we had never seen or heard of before, and make them interesting too – at least to boys. Thinking of him with my present experience of life, I imagine he must have lived for long spells together with more or less wealthy friends until the inevitable quarrel came.

  He was born for the Church: that was his main interest, and if the Catholics had kept him as a priest he would have done them credit and might have been useful. He was not fitted of course for a big dirty parish, but he could have done many things well. The Jesuits, I think, would have had more insight. So far as I know, his chief offence in the eyes of the Oscott people was his propensity to run up bills which he had no chance of paying. His books, brevaries etc. he had bound in the most expensive way. Ugly things really hurt him. It is quite possible that he was of very modest origin. I have known some rather like him, booksellers’ clerks, etc. In happy circumstances he would have led a life like Pater’s. But he had not Pater’s curiosity. If he had had a fortune he would have been defrauded by trustees.

  I suppose you have fathomed the ‘Baron Corvo’ business? If you have not, I can’t help you much. In one of the few letters I wrote him after I left Oscott, I began as usual ‘Dear Mr Rolfe’. He replied ‘Baron Corvo, if you please – a designation I picked up in Italy’. My explanation is this: – the Duc Sforza de Santafiore was at school at Oscott at the same time as I was. He was a friend of my brother, and through my brother came to know Rolfe. I was told that Rolfe went to Italy with Sforza as a tutor or something, and that he was quartered for a time in one of the Duke’s palaces, where he was free to do as he liked. I believe the Italian nobles have a right to bestow one of their minor titles on whom it suits them, and Corvo may have been one of Sforza’s minor titles.

  You know, of course, that Rolfe was not originally a Roman Catholic? Whether he had been Church or Dissent I cannot say. He was very pious. He knew nothing about religion scientifically and he had none of the mental reservations found in many of the clergy. His life was blameless. There
was no guile in him. He was as innocent as a three years’ child of the ways of the world. He had enemies among the ecclesiastics: such a man outraged all their Irish peasant and little English shopkeeper notions. One of their charges against him was that he carried an arm-chair about with him whenever he changed his abode.

  When I came to know Andrew Lang, his voice and something in his manner reminded me of Rolfe. Another point of resemblance was Rolfe’s devotion to the Royal Stuarts. When he had a class in history, I gave one day an uncomplimentary account of Charles I, inspired by Carlyle. Rolfe was more distressed than angry, but he was distressed.

  ‘I bathe in a row’, he would say. But as a matter of fact I think he was probably a bad hand at a row. He was far more shy and timid than self-assertive and bullying. As certain contacts offended him, he preferred to shun them. This was taken for disdain by some of the theological students – ‘divines’ as they were called – among whom he was. I believe he was given some kind of sacerdotal orders. I know he shaved the crown of his head – a large round spot such as I sometimes see on the heads of the Spanish seminarists about here. ‘Whenever they come to the horrors I stop listening and draw pictures’ was all I ever heard him say of his lectures in moral theology. By ‘horrors’ he meant sex-questions. But he was really devout. I was told that he used to go down to the chapel late at night and stay there an hour sometimes when he could have had no notion that he was observed.