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= Francis_Turner_Palgrave =
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Introduction
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Francis Turner Palgrave (; 28 September 1824 - 24 October 1897) was a
British critic, anthologist and poet.
Life
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He was born at Great Yarmouth, the eldest son of Sir Francis Palgrave,
the (born Jewish) historian to his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the
banker Dawson Turner. His brothers were William Gifford Palgrave,
Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave and Reginald Palgrave. His childhood was
spent at Yarmouth and at his father's house in Hampstead. At fourteen
he was sent as a day-boy to Charterhouse; and in 1843, having in the
meanwhile travelled extensively in Italy and other parts of the
continent, he won a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1846 he
interrupted his university career to serve as assistant private
secretary to Gladstone, but returned, to Oxford the next year, and
took a first class in Literae Humaniores. From 1847 to 1862 he was
fellow of Exeter College, and in 1849 entered the Education Department
at Whitehall.
In 1850 Palgrave accepted the vice-principalship of Kneller Hall
Training College at Twickenham. The Principal of the College was
Frederick Temple, a friend from his Oxford days. There he also came
into contact with Alfred Tennyson, with whom he laid the foundation of
another lifelong friendship. When the training college was abandoned,
Palgrave returned to Whitehall in 1855, becoming examiner in the
Education Department, and eventually assistant secretary.
He lived at the Hampstead home with his widowed father until on 30
December 1862, he married Cecil Grenville Milnes, daughter of James
Milnes-Gaskell, MP for Much Wenlock and a friend of Gladstone. Temple,
the Gladstones, who invited the couple to Hawarden Castle, and
Tennyson were among the liberal-minded guests who attended the
wedding. When they visited Hawarden again, her father had died, and
Gladstone lost a good friend, for Cis accompanied her husband
everywhere; to Aldworth and Farringford, Tennyson's houses, and to the
Grosvenor family at the Duke of Westminster's house. Yet one of his
greatest friends was Charles Alderson, with whose family he travelled
to Grenoble, and whose familial Norfolk connections included the
aesthete and doyenne, Lady Eastlake. Palgrave's flirtation with
Liberalism came to an abrupt halt, when in 1885, he diverged with
Gladstone over the Home Rule debate. While they lived at 5 York Gate,
a mansion located in Regents Park, they took a holiday home, called
Little Park, in 'Royalist' Lyme Regis, with a more Conservative
inference; it belonged to his parents. Throughout 1870s the Palgraves
paid repeated visits and stays at Hatfield House, the home of the
future Conservative Prime Minister, Lord and Lady Salisbury. He was
hugely impressed by the artistic beauty of the mansion, its 'objets
d'arts', fine art, and furniture being of national significance.
Palgrave continued to work in the Privy Council's Education Department
until he resigned his position in 1884, and in the following year
succeeded John Campbell Shairp as professor of poetry at Oxford. For
many years F. T. Palgrave remained the art critic for the popular
'Saturday Review'. There was a minor scandal when he was commissioned
to write a catalogue for the 1862 International Exhibition, in which
he praised his friend the sculptor Thomas Woolner while simultaneously
denigrating others, especially Woolner's main rival Carlo Marochetti.
The well known controversialist Jacob Omnium pointed out in a series
of letters to the press that the two lived together. William Holman
Hunt wrote a reply supporting Palgrave and Woolner, but Palgrave was
forced to withdraw the catalogue. He died in London, and was buried in
the cemetery on Barnes Common.
His only child, Gwenllian Florence Palgrave (1867-1941), published a
biography of her father's life in 1899.
Poet/critic
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Palgrave published both criticism and poetry, but his work as a critic
was by far the more important. His 'Visions of England' (1880-1881)
has dignity and lucidity, but little of the "natural magic" which the
greatest of his predecessors in the Oxford chair considered to be the
test of inspiration. His last volume of poetry, 'Amenophis', appeared
in 1892. His criticism is considered to demonstrate fine and sensitive
tact, quick intuitive perception, and generally sound judgment. His
'Descriptive Handbook to the Fine Art Collections in the International
Exhibition of 1862', and his 'Essays on Art' (1866), though flawed,
were full of striking judgments strikingly expressed. Nonetheless the
critic John Ruskin wrote in 1855 on his 'History of Painting', "I
think it is a most valuable contribution." Palgrave was immediately
encouraged to write 'History of Engraving' which was completed in
quick time, and hailed as a masterpiece.
His 'Landscape in Poetry' (1897) showed wide knowledge and critical
appreciation of one of the most attractive aspects of poetic
interpretation. But Palgrave's principal contribution to the
development of literary taste was contained in his 'Golden Treasury of
English Songs and Lyrics' (1861), an anthology of the best poetry in
the language constructed upon a plan sound and spacious, and followed
out with a delicacy of feeling which could scarcely be surpassed.
Palgrave followed it with a 'Treasury of Sacred Song' (1889), and a
second series of the 'Golden Treasury' (1897), including the work of
later poets, but in neither of these was quite the same exquisiteness
of judgment preserved. Among his other works were 'The Passionate
Pilgrim' (1858), a volume of selections from Robert Herrick entitled
'Chrysomela' (1877), a memoir of Arthur Hugh Clough (1862) and a
critical essay on Sir Walter Scott (1866) as a preface to an edition
of his poems. He published a small collection of hymns in 1867 which
ran to three editions, each slightly enlarged. Palgrave was also a
hymn-writer using the words, on one occasion, the Elizabethan version
of 120th Psalm "O Thou not made with hands" into a hymn. The highly
poetical "Little Child's Hymn" held great sentimental meaning for his
daughter and biographer Gwenllian.
External links
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http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=21158&back=
Palgrave, Francis Turner [Frank] (1824-1897)]
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