James Kenneth Stephen
Aliases: None.
Born: 1859.
Died: 1892.
Biography: From Lapsus Calami and Other Verses, edited by
Herbert Stephen (Macmillan &
Bowes, 1896):
JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN was born in London on the 25th of February, 1859.
He was the second son of his father, who afterwards became Mr. Justice
Stephen. In 1868 he went to a school at South-borough, near Tunbridge
Wells, kept by the Rev. W. C. Wheeler, and in the following year to the
Rev. W. T. Browrnng's school at Thorpe Mandeville, Banbury, which then had
a great reputation as a preparatory school for College at Eton. In 1871
he was elected a Colleger at Eton, being placed second on the list, and he
remained at Eton until Easter 1878, being the pupil first of Mr Oscar
Browning, and afterwards of Mr F. W. Cornish, now Vice-Provost. While he
was at school he worked hard at such of his studies as particularly
interested him, and as hard as he thought practically necessary at those
that did not. The consequence was that he distinguished himself greatly as
an essay-writer, and a student of history, and did not especially
distinguish himself either in classics or mathematics. He always did well
enough to obtain promotion in the School on the earliest opportunity, and
he obtained an Eton Scholarship at King's, which had always been the
object he set before himself, in 1878, when he had attained the usual age
for leaving school.
In athletic pursuits his fortune was not dissimilar. Being big, heavy, and
very strong, be took naturally to the "Wall game" of football, in which, I
think from the first, he always occupied the position of "Wall," and for
summer diversion became a "wet-bob." He got his "College Wall" colours,
if I remember right, in 1874, and was Captain, or "Keeper of the Wall" in
1876 and 1877. In the former of those years his team terminated a long
series of successive drawn matches with the "Oppidans," beating them by
four "shies" to nothing and the following year the Collegers won by ten
"shies" to nothing. I believe he was one of the best "Walls" who ever
played at the game, and for at least ten years - that is, nearly the rest
of his life - he took a great interest in it, and seldom failed to take an
eleven to play the College team of the year. In rowing he was not
eminent, a certain stiffness of joints, and perhaps some disinclination to
take the pains about various small things necessary to proficiency in that
art, preventing his rowing in any of the "Upper Boats" except the
"Monarch," to which he belonged in 1877. He could, however, for a short
time, get an astonishing amount of work out of an oar, and I have heard an
accomplished oarsman bitterly deplore his inability or unwillingness to
learn to "get forward."
Two of the poems at the beginning of Quo Musa Tendis?, now printed
at pp. 123-127 of this volume, show the strength and duration of his
affection for Eton. Since the original appearance of The Old School List
a melancholy interest has been added to the concluding stanza:
There were two good fellows I used to know,
--How distant it all appears!
We played together in football weather,
And messed together for years:
Now one of them's wed, and the other's dead
So long that he's hardly missed
Save by us, who messed with him years ago
But we're all in the old School List.
The "one of them" first-mentioned in the fifth line was Harry Chester
Goodhart, late Professor of Latin at Edinburgh University. He died in
April 1895, at the age of thirty-seven, the last survivor of the mess of
three.
In October 1878 James went into residence at King's, and speedily became
one of the best-known undergraduates of his time. He read at Cambridge in
much the same way as he had done his lessons at Eton. His University
distinctions were that he obtained the "Members' Prize" for an English
Essay the first "Winchester Reading Prize" for reading aloud - a curious
competition that many Cambridge men will remember, and the first Whewell
Scholarship in International Law. He was also bracketed first in the
first class in the History Tripos in 1881, a success which was
patticularly satisfactory because no candidate had been placed in the
first class in either of the two preceding years, owing, as contemporary
tradition declared, to the peculiar merit of the first class in 1878 when
Mr Bernard Holland was "senior." At the "Union" he held the offices
usually held by the most successful speakers, being President in the first
(October) term of his third year. He was elected a Fellow of King's in
1885. While at Cambridge he learnt to play tennis, and became exceedingly
fond of the game. The verses called "Parker's Piece, May 19, 1891"
truthfully represent his sentiments on the subject.
In the summer of 1883 he was selected to read history with Prince Edward
of Wales, afterwards Duke of Clarence, when the Prince had returned from
his cruise in the Bacchante, and was going up to Trinity in the
following October. For this purpose he lived for three months at
Sandringham, where his life was as agreeable to him as his task was
profoundly interesting. The lamented death of his illustrious pupil, nine
years later, happened barely a week before his own.
In 1885 James was called to the Bar, having been a pupil in the chambers
of Mr Fletcher Moulton, and subsequently of Mr R. B. Haldane and the late
Mr Northmore Lawrence. His intention was to practise at the Chancery Bar,
and after completing his term of pupilage with Mr Lawrence he took
chambers in Stone Buildings. During this time, however, he adopted the
practice of journalism, and in the latter part of i886 he became, and
continued for a year or rather more, a constant contributor to the St
James's Gazette which was then edited by his father's old friend Mr
Frederick Greenwood, who had founded it
in the summer of the preceding year. He was an extremely facile,
forcible, and original writer, and this part of his life contributed also
frequently to the Saturday Review, and occasionally to the Pall
Mall Gazette and other organs. It was in the last-named journal that
he published two of his most successful parodies.
In the winter of 1886-7, while paying a visit at Felixstowe, he
accidentally received a very severe blow on the head. He did not lose
consciousness but was badly cut. The wound healed, but I do not thinkhe
ever enjoyed perfect health again.
At the beginning of 1888 he founded a weekly newspaper called the
Reflector. The paper was conducted in open defiance of many of the
rules usually observed by practical journalists. My brother's
intention was that the paper should not contain more than one or two
articles, that its contents should be political or literary as occasion
offered, and that no attempt should be made to affect
that universal knowledge which is the ideal of most weekly productions;
the paper and printing were to be of the best possible quality and the
Reflector was to be its own advertisement. He that hoped good
writing alone would procure the comparatively modest circulation which
would make the undertaking self-supporting. He edited, managed and
published it himself; and wrote I should think nearly half of it. Among
his contributors were Mr George Meredith, Mr Gosse, the late Mr
Locker-Lampson, Mrs Richmond Ritchie, Miss Mary Cholmondeley, and Messrs
Augustine Birrell, Bernard Holland, Rennell Rodd and "F. Anstey." A great
quantity of excellent writing was to be found in its columns; but the
journal increased in bulk with a rapidity out of all proportion to the
growth of its circulation, and after seventeen numbers had appeared my
brother's resources were exhausted, and the Reflector ceased to
appear. I do not think the circulation had ever exceeded 250, but in my
opinion distinct traces of its influence may be observed in at least one
important newspaper of to-day, and to some extent in the current style of
metropolitan journalism generally. Its failure was a great disappointment
to my brother, who had throughout taken an inexplicably sanguine view of
the pecuniary side of the enterprise.
James had for the time abandoned all professional work, but in the summer
of 1888 his father appointed him Clerk of Assize for the South Wales
Circuit, in the hope that in the intervals between circuits, when the
official work of that post is comparatively light, he would be able either
to resume his contributions to newspapers, or to acquire some practice at
the bar. Of this, however, his health did not at any time permit. After
vicissitudes of illness, and one period of leave of absence from his
official duties, he resigned his Clerkship of Assize in 1890, and in the
spring of 1891 returned to Cambridge, where for two terms he took pupils
and gave lectures in constitutional history. During this period he revived
his fame as a speaker the Union. He could do many things well, but in my
opinion he excelled his contemporaries more decidedly as a public speaker
- whether on a platform or in a debating society - than in any other
capacity. I think he was the best public speaker I ever heard, and a
similar opinion has been expressed by men of much greater experience than
mine.
He also took a conspicuous part in other branches of University life,
making friends among a new and younger generation of undergraduates as
quickly and easily as he had done among his own contempoaries ten years
before. It was after his return to Cambridge that he conceived the idea of
re-publishing the little poems the composition of which had been of one
his constant amusements. The success of the venture exceeded any
expectations which had been entertained by himself or his friends, but it
may be worth while to remind those who know of him only as the author of
Lapsus Calami and Quo Musa Tendis? that those works
represent only a small and comparatively trivial part of his talents, and
give no indication of the features of his character best remembered by
those who knew him with any degree of intimacy.
In the autumn of 1891 James seemed to be in better health than he had been
for some years, and on his return to Cambridge after the long vacation he
took an active part in the controversy then proceeding as to whether some
knowledge of Greek should continue to be a necessary qualification for a
degree. He vigorously opposed the suggested innovation, and published
under the title "The Living Languages" (Cambridge: Macmillan and Bowes,
I89I) a pamphlet expounding his opinions on the subject with great cogency
and clearness. To his great gratification the Senate, by a signal
majority, gave effect to the views he had supported. His second volume of
verse was prepared for publication, and for the most part written, during
the summer and autumn of this year. The apparent improvement in his health
proved to have been illusory. He was taken seriously ill, and had to give
up his work and leave Cambridge, in November, and he died on the 3rd of
February, 1892.
The original edition of Lapsus Calami was published in April 1891,
and a second followed in May. The third, "with considerable omissions and
additions," appeared in June, a fourth in August, and a fifth in March
1892. Quo Musa Tendis? was published in November, a day or two
after the author's last illness had declared itself. The present edition
is intended as a complete and final edition of all my brother's poems. It
will be observed that I have included several pieces which the author
advisedly omitted from the third edition. I do so, in the first place,
because the publishers tell me that they are asked for, and are out of
print. I think, however, that there is some further justification for
their republication. It continually happens that where good work in short
pieces - whether prose or verse - is under consideration, readers of more
or less importnence will be found choosing widely different pieces as the
best. If everybody agrees that one or two poems, or
one or two stories, in a volume, are of surpassing merit, I think it is a
reasonable conclusion that the merit of the collection is not high. From
printed and spoken criticisms, and from what my brother told me about the
reception of Lapsus Calami, I believe that many different people
especially liked different pieces, and that their average merit was in
fact higher than it would perhaps appear to any single reader to be.
Therefore I have made this edition practically complete, omitting only a
few short pieces for more or less special reasons. Quo Musa
Tendis? is republished without alteration. Two sets of verses are now
printed for the first time. I think it likely that they were originally
omitted only because my brother happened not to have copies of them. The
lines from the Visitors' Book at the Pen-y-gwryd Hotel were written in
1880, and were seen there by the author some years later, but on a
subsequent visit
were found to have been cut out and stolen. The lines from the book in a
friend's house at Lyndhurst had been demanded, but not written, before my
brother's departure. They were written, I think, in the train, being
artfully made to subserve a useful purpose in the recovery of an umbrella
which had been left behind, and were posted at Waterloo.
The portrait which forms the frontispiece is a photogravure by Messrs
Walker and Boutall from a chalk drawing made by Mr F. Miller in 1887.
H.S.
32 DE VERE GARDENS.
May, 1896.
First suspected: 1972, Michael Harrison suggested J.K. Stephen as the Ripper in his biography of Prince Albert Victor, Clarence.
Reasons for suspicion: Known misogynist and lunatic. Connections with Prince Albert Victor, also suspected.
Problems with candidacy: Not known to have been criminally violent, no connections with the East End.
