WATSON, Sir William (1858-1935). Twenty-two autograph letters signed to James Ashcroft Noble and one to his wife ('Essie'), Burscough, Southport, Liverpool, Ambleside, Borrowdale, London (one) and Switzerland (one), 9 October 1880 - n.d. [1889 ?], mostly incompletely dated, approximately 132 pages, 8vo , laid into an album also including typed transcripts, 20th-century red morocco gilt by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, the upper cover lettered in gilt, gilt fillet borders, spine in six compartments, lettered in three, roll-tooled gilt turn-ins, gilt edges. A series of letters full of youthful enthusiasms and aspirations to a close friend. Most of them include his often irreverent thoughts on established writers and poets, an early one referring to Elizabeth Barrett Browning whose 'right of rank with the foremost is founded upon claims somewhat dissimilar to those of her great fellows. Unlike them, she has written nothing which quite touches the summits of conceivable possibility in sonnet-excellence...But the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' are perhaps the most perfect series of poems in our language'. Elsewhere he pours scorn on Swinburne's 'ineffectual verbiage', and finds Meredith 'the most astonishing literary phenomenon I have met with' and then later, 'an eligible subject for a murderous onslaught'. Of himself he writes 'My chief supports are Poetry, Brandy and opium - not a single day this year without opium, and now the Lord knows what I should do without it', and claims to 'scarcely read aught but Shakespeare and Milton'. He dismisses his chances as a reviewer on account of his uncompromising opinions, finding 'George Herbert simply and merely bad : ditto the major part of the Elisabethan Dramatists: ditto at least one half of Browning'. Other topics include news of his friends, descriptions of places and their associations, and his lack of 'a theology'. All the letters are written in an engagingly informal, teasing or self-mocking style. William John Watson was born in Yorkshire, the son of a merchant. His first volume of verse was published in 1880, at his father's expense. This was swiftly followed by others, but it was only in the 1890s that his talent began to be publicly recognised. He was greatly admired by Gladstone, and was runner-up to Robert Bridges for the laureateship in 1913. Watson, often finding inspiration in current events, deplored the diminishing role of poetry, along with the weakening of the British Empire. James Ashcroft Noble contributed to The Spectator and other journals, and was the author of several works of prose and verse.
WATSON, Sir William (1858-1935). Twenty-two autograph letters signed to James Ashcroft Noble and one to his wife ('Essie'), Burscough, Southport, Liverpool, Ambleside, Borrowdale, London (one) and Switzerland (one), 9 October 1880 - n.d. [1889 ?], mostly incompletely dated, approximately 132 pages, 8vo , laid into an album also including typed transcripts, 20th-century red morocco gilt by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, the upper cover lettered in gilt, gilt fillet borders, spine in six compartments, lettered in three, roll-tooled gilt turn-ins, gilt edges. A series of letters full of youthful enthusiasms and aspirations to a close friend. Most of them include his often irreverent thoughts on established writers and poets, an early one referring to Elizabeth Barrett Browning whose 'right of rank with the foremost is founded upon claims somewhat dissimilar to those of her great fellows. Unlike them, she has written nothing which quite touches the summits of conceivable possibility in sonnet-excellence...But the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' are perhaps the most perfect series of poems in our language'. Elsewhere he pours scorn on Swinburne's 'ineffectual verbiage', and finds Meredith 'the most astonishing literary phenomenon I have met with' and then later, 'an eligible subject for a murderous onslaught'. Of himself he writes 'My chief supports are Poetry, Brandy and opium - not a single day this year without opium, and now the Lord knows what I should do without it', and claims to 'scarcely read aught but Shakespeare and Milton'. He dismisses his chances as a reviewer on account of his uncompromising opinions, finding 'George Herbert simply and merely bad : ditto the major part of the Elisabethan Dramatists: ditto at least one half of Browning'. Other topics include news of his friends, descriptions of places and their associations, and his lack of 'a theology'. All the letters are written in an engagingly informal, teasing or self-mocking style. William John Watson was born in Yorkshire, the son of a merchant. His first volume of verse was published in 1880, at his father's expense. This was swiftly followed by others, but it was only in the 1890s that his talent began to be publicly recognised. He was greatly admired by Gladstone, and was runner-up to Robert Bridges for the laureateship in 1913. Watson, often finding inspiration in current events, deplored the diminishing role of poetry, along with the weakening of the British Empire. James Ashcroft Noble contributed to The Spectator and other journals, and was the author of several works of prose and verse.
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