Previously to the termination of the partnership FitzGerald had commissioned S. Laurence to paint a portrait of Posh. On the 13th January, 1870, he wrote to Laurence from Woodbridge (Letters, II, 113, Eversley Edition):—

“. . . If you were down here, I think I should make you take a life-size Oil Sketch of the Head and Shoulders of my Captain of the Lugger. You see by the enclosed” (a copy of the photograph of 1870, no doubt) “that these are neither of them a bad sort: and the Man’s Soul is every way as well proportioned, missing in nothing that may become a Man, as I believe. He and I will, I doubt, part Company; well as he likes me, which is perhaps as well as a sailor cares for any one but Wife and Children: he likes to be, what he is born to be, his own sole Master, of himself, and of other men. So now I have got him a fair start, I think he will carry on the Lugger alone: I shall miss my Hobby, which is no doubt the last I shall ride in this world: but I shall also get eased of some Anxiety about the lives of a Crew for which I now feel responsible. . . .”

On January 20th FitzGerald wrote another letter to Laurence on the same subject.

“. . . I should certainly like a large Oil-sketch like Thackeray’s, done in your most hasty, and worst, style, to hang up with Thackeray and Tennyson, with whom he shares a certain Grandeur of Soul and Body. As you guess, the colouring is (when the Man is all well) the finest Saxon type: with that complexion which Montaigne calls ‘vif, MÂle, et flamboyant’; blue eyes; and strictly auburn hair, that any woman might sigh to possess. He says it is coming off, as it sometimes does from those who are constantly wearing the close, hot Sou’-westers. We must see what can be done about a Sketch” (Letters, II, 115, Eversley Edition).

In February of the same year FitzGerald went down to Lowestoft, and wrote another letter from there with reference to the proposed portrait (Letters, II, 115, Eversley Edition). It is obvious from these letters that there was no bitterness on his side which led to the ending of the partnership. His long-suffering endured to the last.

“My dear Laurence,

“. . . I came here a few days ago, for the benefit of my old Doctor, The Sea, and my Captain’s Company, which is as good. He has not yet got his new Lugger home; but will do so this week, I hope; and then the way for us will be somewhat clearer.

“If you sketch a head, you might send it down to me to look at, so as I might be able to guess if there were any likelihood in that way of proceeding. Merely the Lines of Feature indicated, even by Chalk, might do. As I told you, the Head is of the large type, or size, the proper Capital of a six-foot Body, of the broad dimensions you see in the Photograph. The fine shape of the Nose, less than Roman, and more than Greek, scarce appears in the Photograph; the Eye, and its delicate Eyelash, of course will remain to be made out; and I think you excel in the Eye.

“When I get home (which I shall do this week) I will send you two little Papers about the Sea words and Phrases used hereabout, for which this Man (quite unconsciously) is my main Authority. You will see in them a little of his simplicity of Soul; but not the Justice of Thought, Tenderness of Nature, and all other good Gifts which make him a Gentleman of Nature’s grandest Type.”

Little Grange

The new Lugger was, of course, the Henrietta. The portrait was, according to Posh, painted during the summer at Little Grange, the house which FitzGerald built for himself, or rather altered for himself, at Woodbridge. Dr. Aldis Wright was under the impression that the portrait was never finished; but Posh is very certain about it. “I mind settin’ as still as a cat at a mouse-hole,” says he, “for ten min’t or a quarter of an hour at a time, on and off, and then a stretchin’ o’ my legs in the yard. Ah! I was somethin’ glad when that wuz finished, that I was! Tired! Lor! I niver knowed as dewin’ narthen’ would tire ye like that. The picter was sold at Mr. FitzGerald’s sale, and bought by Billy Hynes o’ Bury St. Edmunds. He kep’ a public there. I reckon he’s dead by now.”

Up to the date of going to press I have been unable to trace this portrait, and it is, of course, possible, that in spite of Posh’s vivid recollection, Dr. Aldis Wright’s impression may be the right one.

A letter to Laurence of August 2nd, 1870, corroborates Posh to the extent of proving that the painter had certainly seen the fisherman. On that date FitzGerald wrote (Letters, II, 118, Eversley Edition):—

“. . . The Lugger is now preparing in the Harbour beside me; the Captain here, there, and everywhere; with a word for no one but on business; the other side of the Man you saw looking for Birds’ Nests: all things in their season. I am sure the Man is fit to be King of a Kingdom as well as of a Lugger. . . .

“I declare, you and I have seen A Man! Have we not? Made in the mould of what Humanity should be, Body and Soul, a poor Fisherman. The proud Fellow had better have kept me for a Partner in some of his responsibilities. But no; he must rule alone, as is right he should too. . . .”

Yes. It would certainly have been better for Posh if he had kept his “guv’nor” for a partner. But the “squalls,” the occasional beer bouts (or “settin’ ins,” as they call them in East Anglia), had excited the spirit of independence of my gentleman. Possibly FitzGerald himself had, by too open a display of his admiration for his partner, this typical longshoreman, contributed to the personal self-satisfaction which must have been at the bottom of the man’s reasons for wishing to be free of one who had befriended him so delicately and so generously. Posh himself admits, or rather boasts, that the “break” was owing to his own action. From first to last it seems that FitzGerald, the cultured gentleman, the scholar, the poet of perfect language and profound philosophy, regarded Posh as almost more than man—certainly as more than average man—and there can be no greater token of the sweet simplicity of the scholar.