COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS

George William Erskine Russell

THE MOST GENIAL OF COMPANIONS

JAMES PAYN

AT WHOSE SUGGESTION THESE PAPERS WERE WRITTEN AND TO WHOM THEY WEREINSCRIBED

DIED MARCH 25, 1898

 * * * * *

 Is he gone to a land of no laughter-- This man that made mirth for us all? Proves Death but a silence hereafter, Where the echoes of earth cannot fall? Once closed, have the lips no more duty? No more pleasure the exquisite ears? Has the heart done o'erflowing with beauty, As the eyes have with tears?

 Nay, if aught be sure, what can be surer Than that earth's good decays not with earth? And of all the heart's springs none are purer Than the springs of the fountains of mirth? He that sounds them has pierced the heart's hollows, The places where tears are and sleep; For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows Are wrung from life's deep. 

J. RHOADES

PREFACE. 

It has been suggested by Mr. Reginald Smith, to whose friendliness andskill the fortunes of this book have been so greatly indebted, that arather fuller preface might be suitably prefixed to this Edition. 

When the book first appeared, it was stated on the title-page to bewritten "by One who has kept a Diary. " My claim to that modest titlewill scarcely be challenged by even the most carping critic who isconversant with the facts. On August 13, 1865, being then twelve yearsold, I began my Diary. Several attempts at diary-keeping I had alreadymade and abandoned. This more serious endeavour was due to the fact thata young lady gave me a manuscript-book attractively bound in scarletleather; and such a gift inspired a resolution to live up to it. Shall Ibe deemed to lift the veil of private life too roughly if I transcribesome early entries? "23rd: Dear Kate came; very nice. " "25th: Kate isvery delightful. " "26th: Kate is a darling girl. _She kissed me_. "

Before long, Love's young dream was dispersed by the realities ofHarrow; but the scarlet book continued to receive my daily confidences. Soon--alas for puerile fickleness!--the name of "Kate" disappears, andis replaced by rougher appellations, such as "Bob" and "Charlie;""Carrots" this, and "Chaw" that. To Harrow succeeds Oxford, and nowmore recognizable names begin to appear--"Liddon" and "Holland, " "Gore"and "Milner", and "Lymington. "

But through all these personal permutations the continuous Life of theDiary remained unbroken, and so remains even to the present date. Not aday is missing. When I have been laid low by any of the rather numerousills to which, if to little else, my flesh has been heir, I have alwaysbeen able to jot down such pregnant entries as "Temperature 102°;""Salicine;" "Boiled Chicken;" "Bath Chair. " It is many a year since thescarlet book was laid aside; but it has had a long line of successors;and together they contain the record of what I have been, done, seen, and heard during thirty-eight years of chequered existence. Entertaininga strong and well-founded suspicion that Posterity would burn theseprecious volumes unread, I was moved, some few years ago, to compressinto small compass the little that seemed worth remembering. At thattime my friend Mr. James Payn was already confined to the house by thebeginnings of what proved to be his last illness. His host of friendsdid what they could to relieve the tedium of his suffering days; and theonly contribution which I could make was to tell him at my weekly visitsanything interesting or amusing which I collected from the reperusal ofmy diary. Greatly to my surprise, he urged me to make these"Collections" into a book, and to add to them whatever "Recollections"they might suggest. Acting on this advice, I published during the year1897 a series of weekly papers in the _Manchester Guardian_. They werereceived more kindly than I had any right to expect; and early in 1898 Ireproduced them in the present volume--just too late to offer it, exceptin memory, to dear James Payn. 

The fortunes of the book, from that time till now, would not interestthe public, but are extremely interesting to me. The book brought memany friends. One story, at any rate, elicited the gracious laughter ofQueen Victoria. A pauper who had known better days wrote to thank mefor enlivening the monotony of a workhouse infirmary. Literary clerksplied me with questions about the sources of my quotations. A Scotchdoctor demurred to the prayer--"Water that spark"--on the ground thatthe water would put the spark out. Elderly clergymen in countryparsonages revived the rollicking memories of their undergraduate days, and sent me academic quips of the forties and fifties. From the mostvarious quarters I received suggestions, corrections, and enrichmentswhich have made each edition an improvement on the last. The publicnotices were, on the whole, extremely kind, and some wereunintentionally amusing. Thus one editor, putting two and two together, calculated that the writer could not be less than eighty years old;while another, like Mrs. Prig, "didn't believe there was no sich aperson, " and acutely divined that the book was a journalistic squibdirected against my amiable garrulity. The most pleasing notice was thatof Jean La Frette, some extracts from which I venture to append. It istrue that competent judges have questioned the accuracy of M. LaFrette's idiom, but his sentiments are unimpeachable. The necessarycorrective was not wanting, for a weekly journal of high culturedescribed my poor handiwork as "Snobbery and Snippets. " There was aboisterousness--almost a brutality--about the phrase which deterred mefrom reading the review; but I am fain to admit that there was a certainrude justice in the implied criticism. 

G. W. E. R. 

_Christmas, 1903_. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER

I. LINKS WITH THE PAST

II. LORD RUSSELL

III. LORD SHAFTESBURY

IV. CARDINAL MANNING

V. LORD HOUGHTON

VI. RELIGION AND MORALITY

VII. SOCIAL EQUALIZATION

VIII. SOCIAL AMELIORATION

IX. THE EVANGELICAL INFLUENCE

X. POLITICS

XI. PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY

XII. PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY (_contd_. )

XIII. CONVERSATION

XIV. CONVERSATION (_continued_)

XV. CONVERSATION (_continued_)

XVI. CONVERSATION (_continued_)

XVII. CLERGYMEN

XVIII. CLERGYMEN (_continued_)

XIX. REPARTEE

XX. TITLES

XXI. THE QUEEN'S ACCESSION

XXII. "PRINCEDOMS, VIRTUES, POWERS"

XXIII. LORD BEACONSFIELD

XXIV. FLATTERERS AND BORES

XXV. ADVERTISEMENTS

XXVI. PARODIES IN PROSE

XXVII. PARODIES IN VERSE

XXVIII. PARODIES IN VERSE (_continued_)

XXIX. VERBAL INFELICITIES

XXX. THE ART OF PUTTING THINGS

XXXI. CHILDREN

XXXII. LETTER-WRITING

XXXIII. OFFICIALDOM

XXXIV. AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH-BOOK

INDEX. 

I. 

LINKS WITH THE PAST. 

Of the celebrated Mrs. Disraeli her husband is reported to have said, "She is an excellent creature, but she never can remember which camefirst, the Greeks or the Romans. " In my walk through life I haveconstantly found myself among excellent creatures of this sort. Theworld is full of vague people, and in the average man, and still more inthe average woman, the chronological sense seems to be entirely wanting. Thus, when I have occasionally stated in a mixed company that my firstdistinct recollection was the burning of Covent Garden Theatre, I haveseen a general expression of surprised interest, and have been told, ina tone meant to be kind and complimentary, that my hearers would hardlyhave thought that my memory went back so far. The explanation has beenthat these excellent creatures had some vague notions of _RejectedAddresses_ floating in their minds, and confounded the burning of CoventGarden Theatre in 1856 with that of Drury Lane Theatre in 1809. It waspleasant to feel that one bore one's years so well as to make the errorpossible. 

But events, however striking, are only landmarks in memory. They areisolated and detached, and begin and end in themselves. The realinterest of one's early life is in its Links with the Past, through theold people whom one has known. Though I place my first distinctrecollection in 1856, I have memories more or less hazy of an earlierdate. 

There was an old Lady Robert Seymour, who lived in Portland Place, anddied there in 1855, in her ninety-first year. Probably she is my mostdirect link with the past, for she carried down to the time of theCrimean War the habits and phraseology of Queen Charlotte's early Court. "Goold" of course she said for gold, and "yaller" for yellow, and"laylock" for lilac. She laid the stress on the second syllable of"balcony. " She called her maid her "'ooman;" instead of sleeping at aplace, she "lay" there, and when she consulted the doctor she spoke ofhaving "used the 'potticary. "

There still lives, in full possession of all her faculties, a venerablelady who can say that her husband was born at Boston when America was aBritish dependency. This is the widow of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, whowas born in 1772, and helped to defeat Mr. Gladstone's Paper Bill in theHouse of Lords on his eighty-eighth birthday. He died in 1862. [1]

A conspicuous figure in my early recollections is Sir Henry Holland, M. D. , father of the present Lord Knutsford. He was born in 1788, anddied in 1873. The stories of his superhuman vigour and activity wouldfill a volume. In 1863 Bishop Wilberforce wrote to a friend abroad: "SirHenry Holland, who got back safe from all his American rambles, has beentaken by Palmerston through the river at Broadlands, and lies veryill. " However, he completely threw off the effects of this mischance, and survived his aquaceous host for some eight years. I well rememberhis telling me in 1868 that his first famous patient was the mysterious"Pamela, " who became the wife of the Irish patriot, Lord EdwardFitzGerald. 

Every one who went about in London in the 'seventies will remember thedyed locks and crimson velvet waistcoat of William, fifth Earl Bathurst, who was born in 1791 and died in 1878. He told me that he was at aprivate school at Sunbury-on-Thames with William and John Russell, thelatter of whom became the author of the Reform Bill and Prime Minister. At this delightful seminary, the peers' sons, including my informant, who was then the Hon. William Bathurst, had a bench to themselves. William and John Russell were not peers' sons, as their father had notthen succeeded to the Dukedom of Bedford. In 1802 he succeeded, on thesudden death of his elder brother, and became sixth Duke of Bedford; andhis sons, becoming _Lord_ William and _Lord_ John, were duly promoted tothe privileged bench. Nothing in _Pelham_ or _Vivian Grey_ quite equalsthis. 

When I went to Harrow, in 1868, there was an old woman, by name PollyArnold, still keeping a stationer's shop in the town, who had sold cribsto Byron when he was a Harrow boy; and Byron's fag, a funny oldgentleman in a brown wig--called Baron Heath--was a standing dish on ourschool Speech-Day. 

Once at a London dinner I happened to say in the hearing of Mrs. Procter(widow of "Barry Cornwall, " and mother of the poetess) that I was goingnext day to the Harrow Speeches. "Ah, " said Mrs. Procter, "that used tobe a pleasant outing. The last time I went I drove down with Lord Byronand Dr. Parr, who had been breakfasting with my father. " Mrs. Procterdied in 1888. 

Among the remarkable women of our time, if merely in respect oflongevity, must be reckoned Lady Louisa Stuart, sister and heir of thelast Earl of Traquair. She was a friend and correspondent of Sir WalterScott, who in describing "Tully Veolan" drew Traquair House with literalexactness, even down to the rampant bears which still guard the lockedentrance-gates against all comers until the Royal Stuarts shall returnto claim their own. Lady Louisa Stuart lived to be ninety-nine, and diedin 1876. 

Perhaps the most remarkable old lady whom I knew intimately was CarolineLowther, Duchess of Cleveland, who was born in 1792 and died in 1883. She had been presented to Queen Charlotte when there were only fortypeople at the Drawing-room, had danced with the Prince of Orange, andhad attended the "breakfasts" given by Albinia Countess ofBuckinghamshire (who died in 1816), at her villa just outside London. The site of that villa is now Hobart Place, having taken its name fromthat of the Buckinghamshire family. The trees of its orchard are stilldiscoverable in the back-gardens of Hobart Place and Wilton Street, andI am looking out upon them as I write this page. 

Stories of highwaymen are excellent Links with the Past, and here isone. The fifth Earl of Berkeley, who died in 1810, had always declaredthat any one might without disgrace be overcome by superior numbers, butthat he would never surrender to a single highwayman. As he was crossingHounslow Heath one night, on his way from Berkeley Castle to London, histravelling carriage was stopped by a man on horseback, who put his headin at the window and said, "I believe you are Lord Berkeley?" "I am. " "Ibelieve you have always boasted that you would never surrender to asingle highwayman?" "I have. " "Well, " presenting a pistol, "I am asingle highwayman, and I say, 'Your money or your life. '" "You cowardlydog, " said Lord Berkeley, "do you think I can't see your confederateskulking behind you?" The highwayman, who was really alone, lookedhurriedly round, and Lord Berkeley shot him through the head. I askedLady Caroline Maxse (1803-1886), who was born a Berkeley, if this storywas true. I can never forget my thrill when she replied, "Yes; and I amproud to say that I am that man's daughter. "

Sir Moses Montefiore was born in 1784, and died in 1885. It is adisheartening fact for the teetotallers that he had drunk a bottle ofport wine every day since he grew up. He had dined with Lord Nelson onboard his ship, and vividly remembered the transcendent beauty of LadyHamilton. The last time Sir Moses appeared in public was, if I mistakenot, at a garden-party at Marlborough House. The party was given on aSaturday. Sir Moses was restrained by religious scruples from using hishorses, and was of course too feeble to walk, so he was conveyed to theparty in a magnificent sedan-chair. That was the only occasion on whichI have seen such an article in use. 

When I began to go out in London, a conspicuous figure in dinner-societyand on Protestant platforms was Captain Francis Maude, R. N. He was bornin 1798 and died in 1886. He used to say, "My grandfather was nine yearsold when Charles II. Died. " And so, if pedigrees may be trusted, he was. Charles II. Died in 1685. Sir Robert Maude was born in 1676. His son, the first Lord Hawarden, was born in 1727, and Captain Francis Maude wasthis Lord Hawarden's youngest son. The year of his death (1880) saw alsothat of a truly venerable woman, Mrs. Hodgson, mother of Kirkman andStewart Hodgson, the well-known partners in Barings' house. Her age wasnot precisely known, but when a schoolgirl in Paris she had seenRobespierre executed, and distinctly recollected the appearance of hisbandaged face. Her granddaughters, Mr. Stewart Hodgson's children, arequite young women, and if they live to the age which, with suchancestry, they are entitled to anticipate, they will carry down into themiddle of the twentieth century the account, derived from aneye-witness, of the central event of the French Revolution. 

One year later, in 1887, there died, at her house in St. James's Square, Mrs. Anne Penelope Hoare, mother of the late Sir Henry Hoare, M. P. Sherecollected being at a children's party when the lady of the house camein and stopped the dancing because news had come that the King of Francehad been put to death. Her range of conscious knowledge extended fromthe execution of Louis XVI. To the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. So short athing is history. 

Sir Walter Stirling, who was born in 1802 and died in 1888, was a littleold gentleman of ubiquitous activity, running about London with a yellowwig, short trousers, and a cotton umbrella. I well remember his sayingto me, when Mr. Bradlaugh was committed to the Clock Tower, "I don't likethis. I am afraid it will mean mischief. I am old enough to rememberseeing Sir Francis Burdett taken to the Tower by the Sergeant-at-Armswith a military force. I saw the riot then, and I am afraid I shall seea riot again. "

In the same year (1888) died Mrs. Thomson Hankey, wife of a former M. P. For Peterborough. Her father, a Mr. Alexander, was born in 1729, and shehad inherited from him traditions of London as it appeared to a youngScotsman in the year of the decapitation of the rebels after the risingof 1745. 

One of the most venerable and interesting figures in London, down to hisdeath in 1891, was George Thomas, sixth Earl of Albemarle. He was bornin 1799. He had played bat-trap-and-ball at St. Anne's Hill with Mr. Fox, and, excepting his old comrade General Whichcote, who outlived himby a few months, was the last survivor of Waterloo. A man whom I knewlonger and more intimately than any of those whom I have described wasthe late Lord Charles James Fox Russell. He was born in 1807, and diedin 1894. His father's groom had led the uproar of London servants whichin the eighteenth century damned the play _High Life Below Stairs_. Heremembered a Highlander who had followed the army of Prince CharlesEdward in 1745, and had learned from another Highlander the Jacobitesoldiers' song--

 "I would I were at Manchester, A-sitting on the grass, And by my side a bottle of wine, And on my lap a lass. "

He had officiated as a page at the coronation of George IV. ; hadconversed with Sir Walter Scott about _The Bride of Lammermoor_ beforeits authorship was disclosed; had served in the Blues under Ernest Dukeof Cumberland; and had lost his way in trying to find the newlydeveloped quarter of London called Belgrave Square. 

Among living[2] links, I hope it is not ungallant to enumerate LadyGeorgiana Grey, only surviving child of

 "That Earl, who forced his compeers to be just, And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned;"

Lady Louisa Tighe, who as Lady Louisa Lennox buckled the Duke ofWellington's sword when he set out from her mother's ball at Brusselsfor the field of Waterloo; and Miss Eliza Smith of Brighton, thevivacious and evergreen daughter of Horace Smith, who wrote the_Rejected Addresses_. But these admirable and accomplished ladies hategarrulity, and the mere mention of their names is a signal to bringthese disjointed reminiscences to a close. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lady Lyndhurst died in 1901. 

[2] "Living" alas! no longer. The last survivor of these ladies diedthis year, 1903. 

II. 

LORD RUSSELL

These chapters are founded on Links with the Past. Let me now describein rather fuller detail three or four remarkable people with whom I hadmore than a cursory acquaintance, and who allowed me for many years theprivilege of drawing without restriction on the rich stores of theirpolitical and social recollections. 

First among these in point of date, if of nothing else, I must placeJohn Earl Russell, the only person I have ever known who knew Napoleonthe Great. Lord Russell--or, to give him the name by which he was mostfamiliar to his countrymen, Lord John Russell--was born in 1792, andwhen I first knew him he was already old; but it might have been said ofhim with perfect truth that

 "Votiva patuit veluti descripta tabella Vita senis. "

After he resigned the leadership of the Liberal party, at Christmas1867, Lord Russell spent the greater part of his time at Pembroke Lodge, a house in Richmond Park which takes its name from Elizabeth Countess ofPembroke, long remembered as the object of King George the Third'shopeless and pathetic love. As a token of his affection the King allowedLady Pembroke to build herself a "lodge" in the "vast wilderness" ofRichmond Park, amid surroundings which went far to realize Cowper'sidea of a "boundless contiguity of shade. "

On her death, in 1831, Pembroke Lodge was assigned by William IV. To hisson-in-law, Lord Erroll, and in 1847 it was offered by the Queen to herPrime Minister, Lord John Russell, who then had no home except his housein Chesham Place. It was gratefully accepted, for indeed it had alreadybeen coveted as an ideal residence for a busy politician who wantedfresh air, and could not safely be far from the House of Commons. Asyears went on Lord John spent more and more of his time in thisdelicious retreat, and in his declining years it was practically hisonly home. 

A quarter of a century ago it was a curious and interesting privilegefor a young man to sit in the trellised dining-room of Pembroke Lodge, or to pace its terrace-walk looking down upon the Thames, in intimateconverse with a statesman who had enjoyed the genial society of CharlesFox, and had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland; hadcorresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and dinedwith Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of Sir WalterScott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; conversed withNapoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and ridden with the Duke ofWellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. 

The genius of John Leech, constantly exercised on the subject for twentyyears, has made all students of _Punch_ familiar with Lord JohnRussell's outward aspect. We know from his boyish diary that on hiseleventh birthday he was "4 feet 2 inches high, and 3 stone 12 lb. Weight;" and though, as time went on, these extremely modest dimensionswere slightly exceeded, he was an unusually short man. His massive headand broad shoulders gave him when he sate the appearance of greatersize, and when he rose to his feet the diminutive stature caused afeeling of surprise. Sydney Smith declared that when Lord John firstcontested Devonshire the burly electors were disappointed by theexiguity of their candidate, but were satisfied when it was explained tothem that he had once been much larger, but was worn away by theanxieties and struggles of the Reform Bill of 1832. Never was so robusta spirit enshrined in so fragile a form. He inherited the miserablelegacy of congenital weakness. Even in those untender days he wasconsidered too delicate to remain at a Public School. It was thoughtimpossible for him to live through his first session of Parliament. Whenhe was fighting the Reform Bill through the House of Commons he had tobe fed with arrowroot by a benevolent lady who was moved to compassionby his pitiful appearance. For years afterwards he was liable tofainting-fits, had a wretched digestion, and was easily upset by hotrooms, late hours, and bad air. These circumstances, combined with hislove of domestic life and his fondness for the country, led him to spendevery evening that he could spare in his seclusion at Pembroke Lodge, and consequently cut him off, very much to his political disadvantage, from constant and intimate associations with official colleagues andparliamentary supporters. 

There were other characteristics which enhanced this unfortunateimpression of aloofness. His voice had what used to be described insatirical writings of the first half of the century as "an aristocraticdrawl, " and his pronunciation was archaic. Like other high-bred peopleof his time, he talked of "cowcumbers" and "laylocks, " called a woman an"'ooman, " and was "much obleeged" where a degenerate age is content tobe obliged. The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness ofhis manner, due really to an innate and incurable shyness, produced evenamong people who ought to have known him well a totally erroneous notionof his character and temperament. To Bulwer Lytton he seemed--

 "How formed to lead, if not to proud to please! His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze. Like or dislike, he does not care a jot; He wants your vote, but your affections not; Vet human hearts need sun as well as oats-- So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes. "

It must be admitted that in some of the small social arts which are sovaluable an equipment for a political leader Lord John was funnilydeficient. He had no memory for faces, and was painfully apt to ignorehis political followers when he met them beyond the walls of Parliament. Once, staying in a Scotch country-house, he found himself thrown withyoung Lord D----, now Earl of S----. He liked the young man'sconversation, and was pleased to find that he was a Whig. When the partybroke up, Lord John conquered his shyness sufficiently to say to his newfriend, "Well, Lord D----, I am very glad to have made youracquaintance, and now you must come into the House of Commons andsupport me there. " "I have been doing that for the last ten years, LordJohn, " was the reply of the gratified follower. 

This inability to remember faces was allied in Lord John with a curiousartlessness of disposition which made it impossible for him to feign acordiality he did not feel. Once, at a concert at Buckingham Palace, hewas seen to get up suddenly, turn his back on the Duchess of Sutherland, by whom he had been sitting, walk to the remotest part of the room, andsit down by the Duchess of Inverness. When questioned afterwards as tothe cause of his unceremonious move, which had the look of a quarrel, hesaid, "I could not have sate any longer by that great fire; I shouldhave fainted. "

"Oh, that was a very good reason for moving; but I hope you told theDuchess of Sutherland why you left her. "

"Well--no; I don't think I did that. But I told the Duchess of Invernesswhy I came and sate by her!"

Thus were opportunities of paying harmless compliments recklesslythrown away. 

It was once remarked by a competent critic that "there have beenMinisters who knew the springs of that public opinion which is deliveredready digested to the nation every morning, and who have not scrupled towork them for their own diurnal glorification, even although the recoilmight injure their colleagues. But Lord Russell has never bowed the kneeto the potentates of the Press; he has offered no sacrifice ofinvitations to social editors; and social editors have accordinglyfailed to discover the merits of a statesman who so little appreciatedthem, until they have almost made the nation forget the services thatLord Russell has so faithfully and courageously rendered. "

Be this as it may, there is no doubt that the old Whig statesman lackedthose gifts or arts which make a man widely popular in a large societyof superficial acquaintances. On his deathbed he said with touchingpathos, "I have seemed cold to my friends, but it was not in my heart. "The friends needed no such assurance. He was the idol of those who weremost closely associated with him by the ties of blood or duty. Even topeople outside the innermost circle of intimacy there was somethingpeculiarly attractive in his singular mixture of gentleness and dignity. He excelled as a host, doing the honours of his table with theold-fashioned grace which he had learned at Woburn Abbey and at HollandHouse when the century was young; and in the charm of his conversationhe was not easily equalled--never, in my experience, surpassed. He hadthe happy knack of expressing a judgment which might be antagonistic tothe sentiments of those with whom he was dealing in language which, while perfectly void of offence, was calmly decisive. His reply to SirFrancis Burdett was pronounced by Mr. Gladstone to be the best reparteeever made in Parliament. Sir Francis, an ex-Radical, attacking hisformer associates with all the bitterness of a renegade, had said, "Themost offensive thing in the world is the cant of Patriotism. " Lord Johnreplied, "I quite agree that the cant of Patriotism is a very offensivething; but the _recant_ of Patriotism is more offensive still. " Hisletter to the Dean of Hereford about the election of Bishop Hampden is aclassical instance of courteous controversy. Once a most IllustriousPersonage asked him if it was true that he taught that under certaincircumstances it was lawful for a subject to disobey the Sovereign. "Well, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can onlyanswer in the affirmative. "

His copiousness of anecdote was inexhaustible. His stories always fittedthe point, and the droll gravity of his way of telling them addedgreatly to their zest. Of his conversation with Napoleon at Elba Irecollect one curious question and answer. The Emperor took the littleEnglishman by the ear and asked him what was thought in England of hischances of returning to the throne of France. "I said, 'Sire, they thinkyou have no chance at all. '" The Emperor said that the EnglishGovernment had made a great mistake in sending the Duke of Wellington toParis--"On n'aime pas voir un homme par qui on a été battu;" and on Warhe made this characteristic comment: "Eh bien, c'est un grand jeu--belleoccupation. "

This interview took place when Lord John was making a tour with Lord andLady Holland, and much of his earlier life had been spent at HollandHouse, in the heart of that brilliant society which Macaulay sopicturesquely described, and in which Luttrell and Samuel Rogers wereconspicuous figures. Their conversation supplied Lord John with ananecdote which he used to bring out, with a twinkling eye and achuckling laugh, whenever he heard that any public reform was regardedwith misgiving by sensible men. Luttrell and Rogers were passing in awherry under old London Bridge when its destruction Was contemplated, and Rogers said, "Some very sensible men think that, if these works arecarried into effect, the tide will flow so rapidly under the bridge thatdangerous consequences will follow. " "My dear Rogers, " answeredLuttrell, "if some very sensible men had been attended to, we shouldstill be eating acorns. "

Of William and John Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell and Lord Eldon, LordRussell used to tell with infinite zest a story which he declared to behighly characteristic of the methods by which they made their fortunesand position. When they were young men at the Bar, having had a strokeof professional luck, they determined to celebrate the occasion byhaving a dinner at a tavern and going to the play. When it was time tocall for the reckoning, William Scott dropped a guinea. He and hisbrother searched for it in vain, and came to the conclusion that it hadfallen between the boards of the uncarpeted floor. 

"This is a bad job, " said William; "we must give up the play. "

"Stop a bit, " said John; "I know a trick worth two of that, " and calledthe waitress. 

"Betty, " said he, "we've dropped two guineas. See if you can find them. "Betty went down on her hands and knees, and found the one guinea, whichhad rolled under the fender. 

"That's a very good girl, Betty, " said John Scott, pocketing the coin;"and when you find the other you can keep it for your trouble. " And theprudent brothers went with a light heart to the play, and so eventuallyto the Bench and the Woolsack. 

In spite of profound differences of political opinion, Lord Russell hada high regard for the memory of the Duke of Wellington, and had beenmuch in his society in early life. Travelling in the Peninsula in 1812, he visited Lord Wellington at his headquarters near Burgos. On themorning after his arrival he rode out with his host and an aide-de-camp, and surveyed the position of the French army. Lord Wellington, peeringthrough his glass, suddenly exclaimed, "By G----! they've changed theirposition!" and said no more. 

When they returned from their ride, the aide-de-camp said to Lord John, "You had better get away as quick as you can. I am confident that LordWellington means to make a move. " Lord John took the hint, made hisexcuses, and went on his way. That evening the British army was in fullretreat, and Lord Russell used to tell the story as illustrating the oldDuke's extreme reticence when there was a chance of a military secretleaking out. 

Lord Russell's father, the sixth Duke of Bedford, belonged to thatsection of the Whigs who thought that, while a Whig ministry wasimpossible, it was wiser to support the Duke of Wellington, whom theybelieved to be a thoroughly honest man, than Canning, whom they regardedas an unscrupulous adventurer. Accordingly the Duke of Wellington was afrequent visitor at Woburn Abbey, and showed consistent friendliness toLord Russell and his many brothers, all of whom were full of anecdotesillustrative of his grim humour and robust common sense. Let a few ofthem be recorded. 

The Government was contemplating the dispatch of an expedition to Burma, with a view of taking Rangoon, and a question arose as to who would bethe fittest general to be sent in command of the expedition. The Cabinetsent for the Duke of Wellington, and asked his advice. He instantlyreplied, "Send Lord Combermere. "

"But we have always understood that your Grace thought Lord Combermere afool. "

"So he is a fool, and a d----d fool; but he can take Rangoon. "

At the time of Queen Caroline's trial the mob of London sided with theQueen, and the Duke's strong adhesion to the King made him extremelyunpopular. Riding up Grosvenor Place one day towards Apsley House, hewas beset by a gang of workmen who were mending the road. They formed acordon, shouldered their pickaxes, and swore they would not let the Dukepass till he said "God save the Queen. " "Well, gentlemen, since you willhave it so--'God save the Queen, ' and may all your wives be like her!"

Mrs. Arbuthnot (wife of the Duke's private secretary, familiarly called"Gosh") was fond of parading her intimacy with the Duke beforemiscellaneous company. One day, in a large party, she said to him, --

"Duke, I know you won't mind my asking you, but is it true that you weresurprised at Waterloo?"

"By G----! not half as much surprised as I am now, mum. "

When the Queen came to the throne her first public act was to go instate to St. James's Palace to be proclaimed. She naturally wished to beaccompanied in her State coach only by the Duchess of Kent and one ofthe Ladies of the Household; but Lord Albemarle, who was Master of theHorse, insisted that he had a right to travel with her Majesty in thecoach, as he had done with William IV. The point was submitted to theDuke of Wellington, as a kind of universal referee in matters ofprecedence and usage. His judgment was delightfully unflattering to theoutraged magnate--"The Queen can make you go inside the coach or outsidethe coach, or run behind like a tinker's dog. "

And surely the whole literary profession, of which the present writer isa feeble unit, must cherish a sentiment of grateful respect for thememory of a man who, in refusing the dedication of a song, informed Mrs. Norton that he had been obliged to make a rule of refusing dedications, "because, in his situation as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, hehad been _much exposed to authors_. "

III. 

LORD SHAFTESBURY. 

If the Christian Socialists ever frame a Kalendar of Worthies (after themanner of Auguste Comte), it is to be hoped that they will mark amongthe most sacred of their anniversaries the day--April 28, 1801--whichgave birth to Anthony Ashley, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. His life ofeighty-four years was consecrated, from boyhood till death, to thesocial service of humanity; and, for my own part, I must always regardthe privilege of his friendship as among the highest honours of my life. Let me try to recall some of the outward and inward characteristics ofthis truly illustrious man. 

Lord Shaftesbury was tall and spare--almost gaunt--in figure, butpowerfully framed, and capable of great exertion. His features werehandsome and strongly marked--an aquiline nose and very prominent chin. His complexion was as pale as marble, and contrasted effectively with athick crop of jet-black hair which extreme old age scarcely tinged withsilver. 

When he first entered Parliament a contemporary observer wrote: "Itwould be difficult to imagine a more complete beau-ideal of aristocracy. His whole countenance has the coldness as well as the grace of achiselled one, and expresses precision, prudence, and determination inno common degree. " The stateliness of bearing, the unbroken figure, thehigh glance of stern though melancholy resolve, he retained to the end. But the incessant labour and anxiety of sixty years made their mark, andSir John Millais's noble portrait, painted in 1877, shows a countenanceon which a lifelong contact with human suffering had written its tale inlegible characters. 

Temperament is, I suppose, hereditary. Lord Shaftesbury's father, whowas for nearly forty years Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, was distinguished by a strong intellect, an imperious temper, and acharacter singularly deficient in amiability. His mother (whose childishbeauty is familiar to all lovers of Sir Joshua's art as the little girlfrightened by the mask in the great "Marlborough Group") was thedaughter of the third Duke of Marlborough by that Duchess whom QueenCharlotte pronounced to be the proudest woman in England. It isreasonable to suppose that from such a parentage and such an ancestryLord Shaftesbury derived some of the most conspicuous features of hischaracter. From his father he inherited his keenness of intellect, hishabits of laborious industry, and his iron tenacity of purpose. From hismother he may have acquired that strong sense of personal dignity--thatintuitive and perhaps unconscious feeling of what was due to his stationas well as to his individuality--which made his presence and address soimpressive and sometimes alarming. 

Dignity was indeed the quality which immediately struck one on one'sfirst encounter with Lord Shaftesbury; and with dignity were associateda marked imperiousness and an eager rapidity of thought, utterance, andaction. As one got to know him better, one began to realize his intensetenderness towards all weakness and suffering; his overflowing affectionfor those who stood nearest to him; his almost morbid sensitiveness; hispassionate indignation against cruelty or oppression. Now and then hisconversation was brightened by brief and sudden gleams of genuinehumour, but these gleams were rare. He had seen too much of human miseryto be habitually jocose, and his whole nature was underlain by agroundwork of melancholy. 

The marble of manhood retained the impression stamped upon the wax ofchildhood. His early years had been profoundly unhappy. His parents werestern disciplinarians of the antique type. His private school was a hellon earth; and yet he used to say that he feared the master and thebullies less than he feared his parents. One element of joy, and oneonly, he recognized in looking back to those dark days, and that was thedevotion of an old nurse, who comforted him in his childish sorrows, andtaught him the rudiments of Christian faith. In all the struggles anddistresses of boyhood and manhood, he used the words of prayer which hehad learned from this good woman before he was seven years old; and of akeepsake which she left him--the gold watch which he wore to the lastday of his life--he used to say, "That was given to me by the bestfriend I ever had in the world. "

At twelve years old Anthony Ashley went to Harrow, where he boarded withthe Head Master, Dr. Butler, father of the present Master of Trinity. Ihave heard him say that the master in whose form he was, being a badsleeper, held "first school" at four o'clock on a winter's morning; andthat the boy for whom he fagged, being anxious to shine as a reciter, and finding it difficult to secure an audience, compelled him and hisfellow-fag to listen night after night to his recitations, perched on ahigh stool where a nap was impossible. 

But in spite of these austerities, Anthony Ashley was happy at Harrow;and the place should be sacred in the eyes of all philanthropists, because it was there that, when he was fourteen years old, heconsciously and definitely gave his life to the service of hisfellow-men. He chanced to see a scene of drunken indecency and neglectat the funeral of one of the villagers, and exclaimed in horror, "Goodheavens! Can this be permitted simply because the man was poor andfriendless?" What resulted is told by a tablet on the wall of the OldSchool, which bears the following inscription:--

 _Love. Serve_. 

 NEAR THIS SPOT

 ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER

AFTERWARDS 7TH EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K. G. 

 WHILE YET A BOY IN HARROW SCHOOL

 SAW WITH SHAME AND INDIGNATION

 THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL

WHICH HELPED TO AWAKEN HIS LIFELONG

DEVOTION TO THE SERVICE OF THE POOR

 AND THE OPPRESSED. 

 _Blessed is he that considereth the poor_. 

After leaving Harrow Lord Ashley (as he now was) spent two years at aprivate tutor's, and in 1819 he went up to Christ Church. In 1822 hetook a First Class in Classics. The next four years were spent in studyand travel, and in 1826 he was returned to Parliament, by the influenceof his uncle the Duke of Marlborough, for the Borough of Woodstock. OnNovember 16 he recorded in his diary: "Took the oaths of Parliament withgreat good will; a slight prayer for assistance in my thoughts anddeeds. " Never was a politician's prayer more abundantly granted. 

In 1830 Lord Ashley married a daughter of Lord Cowper, and thismarriage, independently of the radiant happiness which it brought, hadan important bearing on his political career; for Lady Ashley's unclewas Lord Melbourne, and her mother became, by a second marriage, thewife of Lord Palmerston. Of Lord Melbourne and his strong common senseLord Shaftesbury, in 1882, told me the following characteristic story. When the Queen became engaged to Prince Albert, she wished him to bemade King Consort by Act of Parliament, and urged her wish upon thePrime Minister, Lord Melbourne. At first that sagacious man simplyevaded the point, but when her Majesty insisted on a categorical answer, "I thought it my duty to be very plain with her. I said, 'For G----'ssake, let's hear no more of it, ma'am; for if you once get the Englishpeople into the way of making kings, you will get them into the way ofunmaking them. '"

By this time Lord Ashley was deeply immersed in those philanthropicenterprises which he had deliberately chosen as the occupation of hislifetime. Reform of the Lunacy Law and a humaner treatment of lunaticswere the earliest objects to which he devoted himself. To attain themthe more effectually he got himself made a member, and subsequentlychairman, of the Lunacy Commission, and threw himself into the work withcharacteristic thoroughness. He used to pay "surprise visits" both byday and night to public and private asylums, and discovered by thosemeans a system of regulated and sanctioned cruelty which, as he narratedit in his old age, seemed almost too horrible for credence. 

The abolition of slavery all over the world was a cause which very earlyenlisted his sympathy, and he used to tell, with grim humour, how, when, after he had become Lord Shaftesbury, he signed an Open Letter toAmerica in favour of emancipation, a Southern newspaper sarcasticallyinquired, "Where was this Lord Shaftesbury when the noble-hearted LordAshley was doing his single-handed work on behalf of the English slavesin the factories of Lancashire and Yorkshire?"

Sanitary reform and the promotion of the public health were objects atwhich, in the middle part of his life, he worked hard, both as alandowner and as the unpaid Chairman of the Board of Health. The crusadeagainst vivisection warmed his heart and woke his indignant eloquencein his declining years. His Memorial Service in Westminster Abbey wasattended by representatives of nearly two hundred religious andphilanthropic institutions with which he had been connected, and which, in one way or another, he had served. But, of course, it is with thereform of the Factory Laws that his name is most inseparably associated. 

In 1833 Lord Ashley took up the Ten Hours Bill, previously in the chargeof Mr. Sadler, who had now lost his seat. He carried his Bill throughthe Second Reading, but it was opposed by Lord Althorp, who threw itout, and carried a modified proposal in 1833. In 1844 the introductionof a new Bill for the regulation of labour in factories brought LordAshley back to his old battlefield. A desperate struggle was made toamend the Bill into a Ten Hours Bill, but this failed, owing to SirRobert Peel's threat of resignation. In 1845 Lord Ashley refused theChief Secretaryship for Ireland in order to be able to devote himselfwholly to the Ten Hours Bill; and, as soon as Parliament rose, he wenton a tour through the manufacturing districts, speaking in public, mediating between masters and men, and organizing the Ten Hoursmovement. 

In 1847 the Bill passed into law. On June 1 in that year Lord Ashleywrote in his diary: "News that the Factory Bill has just passed theThird Reading. I am humbled that my heart is not bursting withthankfulness to Almighty God--that I can find breath and sense toexpress my joy. What reward shall we give unto the Lord for all thebenefits He hath conferred upon us?--God in His mercy prosper the work, and grant that these operatives may receive the cup of salvation andcall upon the name of the Lord!"

The perfervid vein of philanthropic zeal which is apparent in thisextract animated every part of Lord Shaftesbury's nature and everyaction of his life. He had, if ever man had, "the Enthusiasm ofHumanity. " His religion, on its interior side, was rapt, emotional, andsometimes mystic; but at the same time it was, in its outwardmanifestations, definite, tangible, and, beyond most men's, practical. At the age of twenty-seven he wrote in his diary: "On my soul, I believethat I desire the welfare of mankind. " At eighty-four he exclaimed, inview of his approaching end, "I cannot bear to leave the world with allthe misery in it. " And this was no mere effusive declamation, but thegenuine utterance of a zeal which condescended to the most minute andlaborious forms of practical expression. "Poor dear children!" heexclaimed to the superintendent of a ragged school, after hearing fromsome of the children their tale of cold and hunger. "What can we do forthem?"

"My God shall supply all their need, " replied the superintendent witheasy faith. 

"Yes, " said Lord Shaftesbury, "He will, but they must have some fooddirectly. " He drove home, and instantly sent two churns of soup, enoughto feed four hundred. That winter ten thousand basins of soup, made inGrosvenor Square, were distributed among the "dear little hearts" ofWhitechapel. 

And as in small things, so in great. One principle consecrated his wholelife. His love of God constrained him to the service of men, and noearthly object or consideration--however natural, innocent, or evenlaudable--was allowed for a moment to interpose itself between him andthe supreme purpose for which he lived. He was by nature a man of keenambition, and yet he twice refused office in the Household, once theChief Secretaryship, and three times a seat in the Cabinet, becauseacceptance would have hindered him in his social legislation andphilanthropic business. When we consider his singular qualifications forpublic life--his physical gifts, his power of speech, his habits ofbusiness, his intimate connections with the official caste--when weremember that he did not succeed to his paternal property till he wasfifty years old, and then found it grossly neglected and burdened withdebt; and that his purse had been constantly drained by hisphilanthropic enterprises--we are justified in saying that very few menhave ever sacrificed so much for a cause which brought neither honours, nor riches, nor power, nor any visible reward, except the diminishedsuffering and increased happiness of multitudes who were the least ableto help themselves. 

Lord Shaftesbury's devotion to the cause of Labour led him to make theFactory Acts a touchstone of character. To the end of his days his viewof public men was largely governed by the part which they had played inthat great controversy. "Gladstone voted against me, " was a sternsentence not seldom on his lips. "Bright was the most malignant opponentthe Factory Bill ever had. " "Cobden, though bitterly hostile, was betterthan Bright. " Even men whom on general grounds he disliked anddespised--such as Lord Beaconsfield and Bishop Wilberforce--found asaving clause in his judgment if he could truthfully say, "He helped mewith the chimney-sweeps, " or, "He felt for the wretched operatives. "

But even apart from questions of humane sentiment and the supremeinterests of social legislation, I always felt in my intercourse withLord Shaftesbury that it would have been impossible for him to act forlong together in subordination to, or even in concert with, anypolitical leader. Resolute, self-reliant, inflexible; hating compromise;never turning aside by a hair's-breadth from the path of duty; incapableof flattering high or low; dreading leaps in the dark, but dreading morethan anything else the sacrifice of principle to party--he wasessentially the type of politician who is the despair of the officialwire-puller. 

Oddly enough, Lord Palmerston was the statesman with whom, despite allethical dissimilarity, he had the most sympathy, and this arose partlyfrom their near relationship and partly from Lord Palmerston'seasy-going habit of placing his ecclesiastical patronage in LordShaftesbury's hands. It was this unseen but not unfelt power as aconfidential yet irresponsible adviser that Lord Shaftesbury reallyenjoyed and, indeed, his political opinions were too individual to haveallowed of binding association with either political party. He was, inthe truest and best sense of the word, a Conservative. To call him aTory would be quite misleading. He was not averse from Roman Catholicemancipation. He took no prominent part against the first Reform Bill. His resistance to the admission of the Jews to Parliament was directedrather against the method than the principle. Though not friendly toWomen's Suffrage, he said: "I shall feel myself bound to conform to thenational will, but I am not prepared to stimulate it. "

But while no blind and unreasoning opponent of all change, he had a deepand lively veneration for the past. Institutions, doctrines, ceremonies, dignities, even social customs, which had descended from old time, hadfor him a fascination and an awe. In his high sense of the privilegesand the duties of kingship, of aristocracy, of territorial possession, of established religions, he recalled the doctrine of Burke; and heresembled that illustrious man in his passionate love of principle, inhis proud hatred of shifts and compromises, in his contempt for thewhole race of mechanical politicians and their ignoble strife for placeand power. 

When Lord Derby formed his Government in 1866, on the defeat of LordRussell's second Reform Bill, he endeavoured to obtain the sanction ofLord Shaftesbury's name and authority by offering him a seat in hisCabinet. This offer was promptly declined; had it been accepted, itmight have had an important bearing on the following event, which wasnarrated to me by Lord Shaftesbury in 1882. One winter evening in 1867he was sitting in his library in Grosvenor Square, when the servant toldhim that there was a poor man waiting to see him. The man was shown in, and proved to be a labourer from Clerkenwell, and one of the innumerablerecipients of the old Earl's charity. He said, "My Lord, you have beenvery good to me, and I have come to tell you what I have heard. " Itappeared that at the public-house which he frequented he had overheardsome Irishmen of desperate character plotting to blow up Clerkenwellprison. He gave Lord Shaftesbury the information to be used as hethought best, but made it a condition that his name should not bedivulged. If it were, his life would not be worth an hour's purchase. Lord Shaftesbury pledged himself to secrecy, ordered his carriage, anddrove instantly to Whitehall. The authorities there refused, on groundsof official practice, to entertain the information without the name andaddress of the informant. These, of course, could not be given. Thewarning was rejected, and the jail blown up. Had Lord Shaftesbury been aCabinet Minister, this triumph of officialism would probably not haveoccurred. 

What I have said of this favourite hero of mine in his public aspectswill have prepared the sympathetic reader for the presentment of the manas he appeared in private life. For what he was abroad that he was athome. He was not a man who showed two natures or lived two lives. He wasprofoundly religious, eagerly benevolent, utterly impatient of whateverstood between him and the laudable object of the moment, warmly attachedto those who shared his sympathies and helped his enterprises--_Fortcomme le diamant; plus tendre qu'une mère_. The imperiousness which Idescribed at the outset remained a leading characteristic to the last. His opinions were strong, his judgment was emphatic, his languageunmeasured. He had been, all through his public life, surrounded by acohort of admiring and obedient coadjutors, and he was unused to, andintolerant of, disagreement or opposition. It was a disconcertingexperience to speak on a platform where he was chairman, and, just asone was warming to an impressive passage, to feel a vigorous pull atone's coat-tail, and to hear a quick, imperative voice say, in nomuffled tone, "My dear fellow, are you never going to stop? We shall behere all night. "

But when due allowance was made for this natural habit of command, LordShaftesbury was delightful company. Given to hospitality, he did thehonours with stately grace; and, on the rare occasions when he could beinduced to dine out, his presence was sure to make the party a success. In early life he had been pestered by a delicate digestion, and hadaccustomed himself to a regimen of rigid simplicity; but, though themost abstemious of men, he knew and liked a good glass of wine, and in asmall party would bring out of the treasures of his memory things newand old with a copiousness and a vivacity which fairly fascinated hishearers. His conversation had a certain flavour of literature. Hisclassical scholarship was easy and graceful. He had the Latin poets athis fingers' ends, spoke French fluently, knew Milton by heart, and wasa great admirer of Crabbe. His own style, both in speech and writing, was copious, vigorous, and often really eloquent. It had the sameornamental precision as his exquisite handwriting. When he was amongfriends whom he thoroughly enjoyed, the sombre dignity of hisconversation was constantly enlivened by flashes of a genuine humour, which relieved, by the force of vivid contrast, the habitual austerityof his demeanour. 

A kind of proud humility was constantly present in his speech andbearing. Ostentation, display, lavish expenditure would have beenabhorrent alike to his taste and his principles. The stately figurewhich bore itself so majestically in Courts and Parliaments naturallyunbent among the costermongers of Whitechapel and the labourers ofDorsetshire. His personal appointments were simple to a degree; his ownexpenditure was restricted within the narrowest limits. But he loved, and was honestly proud of, his beautiful home--St. Giles's House, nearCranbourne; and when he received his guests, gentle or simple, at "TheSaint, " as he affectionately called it, the mixture of stateliness andgeniality in his bearing and address was an object-lesson in highbreeding. Once Lord Beaconsfield, who was staying with Lord Alington atCrichel, was driven over to call on Lord Shaftesbury at St. Giles's. When he rose to take his leave, he said, with characteristicmagniloquence, but not without an element of truth, "Good-bye, my dearLord. You have given me the privilege of seeing one of the mostimpressive of all spectacles--a great English nobleman living inpatriarchal state in his own hereditary halls. "

IV. 

CARDINAL MANNING. 

I have described a great philanthropist and a great statesman. Mypresent subject is a man who combined in singular harmony the qualitiesof philanthropy and of statesmanship--Henry Edward, Cardinal Manning, and titular Archbishop of Westminster. 

My acquaintance with Cardinal Manning began in 1833. Early in theParliamentary session of that year he intimated, through a commonfriend, a desire to make my acquaintance. He wished to get anindependent Member of Parliament, and especially, if possible, a Liberaland a Churchman, to take up in the House of Commons the cause ofDenominational Education. His scheme was much the same as that now[3]adopted by the Government--the concurrent endowment of alldenominational schools; which, as he remarked, would practically come tomean those of the Anglicans, the Romans, and the Wesleyans. Incompliance with his request, I presented myself at that barrack-likebuilding off the Vauxhall Bridge Road, which was formerly the Guards'Institute, and is now the Archbishop's House. Of course, I had long beenfamiliar with the Cardinal's shrunken form and finely-cut features, andthat extraordinary dignity of bearing which gave him, though in realitybelow the middle height, the air and aspect of a tall man. But I onlyknew him as a conspicuous and impressive figure in society, on publicplatforms, and (where he specially loved to be) in the precincts of theHouse of Commons. I had never exchanged a word with him, and it was witha feeling of very special interest that I entered his presence. 

We had little in common. I was still a young man, and the Cardinal wasalready old. I was a staunch Anglican; he, the most devoted ofPapalists. I was strongly opposed both to his Ultramontane policy and tothose dexterous methods by which he was commonly supposed to promote it;and, as far as the circumstances of my life had given me any insightinto the interior of Romanism, I sympathized with the great Oratorian ofBirmingham rather than with his brother-cardinal of Westminster. Butthough I hope that my principles stood firm, all my prejudices meltedaway in that fascinating presence. Though there was something like halfa century's difference in our ages, I felt at once and completely athome with him. 

What made our perfect ease of intercourse more remarkable was that, asfar as the Cardinal's immediate object was concerned, my visit was atotal failure. I had no sympathy with his scheme for the endowment ofdenominational teaching, and, with all the will in the world to pleasehim, I could not even meet him half way. But this untoward circumstancedid not import the least difficulty or restraint into our conversation. He gently glided from business into general topics; knew all about mycareer, congratulated me on some recent success, remembered some of mybelongings, inquired about my school and college, was interested to findthat, like himself, I had been at Harrow and Oxford, and, after anhour's pleasant chat, said, "Now you must stay and have some luncheon. "From that day to the end of his life I was a frequent visitor at hishouse, and every year that I knew him I learned to regard and respecthim increasingly. 

Looking back over these fourteen years, and reviewing my impressions ofhis personality, I must put first the physical aspect of the man. Heseemed older than he was, and even more ascetic, for he looked as if, like the cardinal in _Lothair_, he lived on biscuits and soda-water;whereas he had a hearty appetite for his midday meal, and, in his ownwords, "enjoyed his tea. " Still, he carried the irreducible minimum offlesh on his bones, and his hollow cheeks and shrunken jaws threw hismassive forehead into striking prominence. His line of features wasabsolutely faultless in its statuesque regularity, but his face wassaved from the insipidity of too great perfection by theimperious--rather ruthless--lines of his mouth and the penetratinglustre of his deep-set eyes. His dress--a black cassock edged andbuttoned with crimson, with a crimson skullcap and biretta, and apectoral cross of gold--enhanced the picturesqueness of his aspect, andas he entered the anteroom where one awaited his approach, the mostProtestant knee instinctively bent. 

His dignity was astonishing. The position of a cardinal with a princelyrank recognized abroad but officially ignored in England was difficultto carry off, but his exquisite tact enabled him to sustain it toperfection. He never put himself forward; never asserted his rank; neverexposed himself to rebuffs; still, he always contrived to be the mostconspicuous figure in any company which he entered; and whether onegreeted him with the homage due to a prince of the Church or merely withthe respect which no one refuses to a courtly old gentleman, his mannerwas equally easy, natural, and unembarrassed. The fact that theCardinal's name, after due consideration, was inserted in the RoyalCommission on the Housing of the Poor immediately after that of thePrince of Wales and before Lord Salisbury's was the formal recognitionof a social precedence which adroitness and judgment had already madehis own. 

To imagine that Cardinal Manning regarded station, or dignity, or evenpower, as treasures to be valued in themselves would be ridiculously tomisconceive the man. He had two supreme and absorbing objects inlife--if, indeed, they may not be more properly spoken of as one--theglory of God and the salvation of men. These were, in his intellect andconscience, identified with the victory of the Roman Church. To theseall else was subordinated; by its relation to these all else was weighedand calculated. His ecclesiastical dignity, and the secular recognitionof it, were valuable as means to high ends. They attracted public noticeto his person and mission; they secured him a wider hearing; they gavehim access to circles which, perhaps, would otherwise have been closed. Hence, and for no other reason, they were valuable. 

It has always to be borne in mind that Manning was essentially a man ofthe world, though he was much more than that. Be it far from me todisparage the ordinary type of Roman ecclesiastic, who is bred in aseminary, and perhaps spends his lifetime in a religious community. Thatpeculiar training produces, often enough, a character of saintliness andunworldly grace on which one can only "look, " to use a phrase of Mr. Gladstone's, "as men look up at the stars. " But it was a very differentprocess that had made Cardinal Manning what he was. He had touched lifeat many points. A wealthy home, four years at Harrow, Balliol in itspalmiest days, a good degree, a College Fellowship, political andsecular ambitions of no common kind, apprenticeship to the practicalwork of a Government office, a marriage brightly but all too brieflyhappy, the charge of a country parish, and an early initiation into theduties of ecclesiastical rulership--all these experiences had madeHenry Manning, by the time of his momentous change, an accomplished manof the world. 

His subsequent career, though, of course, it superadded certaincharacteristics of its own, never obliterated or even concealed themarks left by those earlier phases, and the octogenarian Cardinal was abeautifully-mannered, well-informed, sagacious old gentleman who, butfor his dress, might have passed for a Cabinet Minister, an eminentjudge, or a great county magnate. 

His mental alertness was remarkable. He seemed to read everything thatcame out, and to know all that was going on. He probed character with aglance, and was particularly sharp on pretentiousness andself-importance. A well-known publicist, who perhaps thinks of himselfrather more highly than he ought to think, once ventured to tell theCardinal that he knew nothing about the subject of a painful agitationwhich pervaded London in the summer of 1885. "I have been hearingconfessions in London for thirty years, and I fancy more people haveconfided their secrets to me than to you, Mr. ----, " was the Cardinal'sreply. 

Once, when his burning sympathy with suffering and his profound contemptfor Political Economy had led him, in his own words, to "poke fun at theDismal Science, " the _Times_ lectured him in its most superior manner, and said that the venerable prelate seemed to mistake cause and effect. "That, " said the Cardinal to me, "is the sort of criticism that anundergraduate makes, and thinks himself very clever. But I am told thatin the present day the _Times_ is chiefly written by undergraduates. "

I once asked him what he thought of a high dignitary of the EnglishChurch, who had gone a certain way in a public movement, and then hadbeen frightened back by clamour. His reply was the single word"_infirmus_, " accompanied by that peculiar sniff which every one whoever conversed with him must remember as adding so much to the piquancyof his terse judgments. When he was asked his opinion of a famousbiography in which a son had disclosed, with too absolute frankness, hisfather's innermost thoughts and feelings, the Cardinal replied, "I thinkthat ---- has committed the sin of Ham. "

His sense of humour was peculiarly keen, and though it was habituallykept under control, it was sometimes used to point a moral withadmirable effect. 

"What are you going to do in life?" he asked a rather flippantundergraduate at Oxford. 

"Oh, I'm going to take Holy Orders, " was the airy reply. 

"Take care you get them, my son. "

Though he was intolerant of bumptiousness, the Cardinal liked young men. He often had some about him, and in speaking to them the friendliness ofhis manner was touched with fatherliness in a truly attractive fashion. And as with young men, so with children. Surely nothing could beprettier than this answer to a little girl in New York who had addressedsome of her domestic experiences to "Cardinal Manning, England. "

"My Dear Child, --You ask me whether I am glad to receive letters fromlittle children. I am always glad, for they write kindly and give me notrouble. I wish all my letters were like theirs. Give my blessing toyour father, and tell him that our good Master will reward him ahundredfold for all he has lost for the sake of his faith. Tell him thatwhen he comes over to England he must come to see me. And mind you bringyour violin, for I love music, but seldom have any time to hear it. Thenext three or four years of your life are very precious. They are likethe ploughing-time and the sowing-time in the year. You are learning toknow God, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the presence and voice ofthe Holy Ghost in the Church of Jesus Christ. Learn all these thingssolidly, and you will love the Blessed Sacrament and our Blessed Motherwith all your heart. And now you will pray for me that I may make a goodend of a long life, which cannot be far off. And may God guide you andguard you in innocence and in fidelity through this evil, evil world!And may His blessing be on your home and all belonging to you! Believeme always a true friend, Henry Edward, Card. Abp. Of Westminster. "

The Cardinal had, I should say, rather a contempt for women. Heexercised a great influence over them, but I question if he rated theirintellectual and moral qualities as highly as he ought, and their"rights" he held in utter detestation. General society, though in hislater days he saw little of it except at the Athenaeum, he thoroughlyenjoyed. Like most old people, he was fond of talking about old days, and as he had known hosts of important and interesting men, had atenacious memory, and spoke the most finished English, it was a pleasureto listen to his reminiscences. He wrote as well as he talked. Hispointed and lucid style gave to his printed performances a semblance ofcogency which they did not really possess; and his letters--even hisshortest notes--were as exquisite in wording as in penmanship. As hegrew older, he became increasingly sensible of the charms of "Auld LangSyne, " and he delighted to renew his acquaintance with the scenes andassociations of his youth. 

On July 15, 1888, being the first day of the Eton and Harrow Match atLord's, a few old Harrovians of different generations met at a Harrowdinner. The Cardinal, who had just turned eighty, was invited. Hedeclined to dine, on the ground that he never dined out, but he would onno account forego the opportunity of meeting the members of his oldschool, and he recalled with pride that he had played for two years inthe Harrow Eleven. He appeared as soon as dinner was over, gallantlyfaced the cloud of cigar-smoke, was in his very best vein of anecdoteand reminiscence, and stayed till the party broke up. 

The Cardinal's friendships were not, I believe, numerous, but hisaffection for Mr. Gladstone is well known. It dated from Oxford. ThroughManning and Hope-Scott the influence of the Catholic revival reached theyoung member for Newark, and they were the godfathers of his eldest son. After their secession to Rome in 1851 this profound friendship fell intoabeyance. As far as Manning was concerned, it was renewed when, in 1868, Mr. Gladstone took in hand to disestablish the Irish Church. It wasbroken again by the controversy about _Vaticanism_, in 1875, and somefifteen years later was happily revived by the good offices of a commonfriend. "Gladstone is a very fine fellow, " said the Cardinal to me in1890. "He is not vindictive. You may fight him as hard as you like, andwhen the fight is over you will find that it has left no rancour behindit. "

This affection for Mr. Gladstone was a personal matter, quiteindependent of politics; but in political matters also they had much incommon. "You know, " wrote the Cardinal to Mrs. Gladstone on her GoldenWedding, "how nearly I have agreed in William's political career, especially in his Irish policy of the last twenty years. " He acceptedthe principle of Home Rule, though he thought badly of the Bill of 1886, and predicted its failure from the day when it was brought in. Theexclusion of the Irish members was in his eyes a fatal blot, as tendingrather to separation than to that Imperial federation which was hispolitical ideal. But the Cardinal always held his politics insubordination to his religion, and at the General Election of 1885 hisvigorous intervention on behalf of denominational education which heconsidered to be imperilled by the Radical policy, considerablyembarrassed the Liberal cause in those districts of London where thereis a Roman Catholic vote. 

It is necessary to say a word about Cardinal Manning's method ofreligious propagandism. He excelled in the art of driving a nail whereit would go. He never worried his acquaintance with controversy, neverintroduced religious topics unseasonably, never cast his pearls beforeunappreciative animals. But when he saw a chance, an opening, asympathetic tendency, or a weak spot, he fastened on it with unerringinstinct. His line was rather admonitory than persuasive. When hethought that the person whom he was addressing had an inkling of thetruth, but was held back from avowing it by cowardice or indecision, hewould utter the most startling warnings about the danger of dallyingwith grace. 

"I promise you to become a Catholic when I am twenty-one, " said a younglady whom he was trying to convert. 

"But can you promise to live so long?" was the searching rejoinder. 

In Manning's belief, the Roman Church was the one oracle of truth andthe one ark of salvation; and his was the faith which would compass seaand land, sacrifice all that it possessed, and give its body to beburned, if it might by any means bring one more soul to safety. If hecould win a single human being to see the truth and act on it, he wassupremely happy. To make the Church of Rome attractive, to enlarge herborders, to win recruits for her, was therefore his constant effort. Hehad an ulterior eye to it in all his public works--his zealousteetotalism, his advocacy of the claims of labour, his sympathy with thedemand for Home Rule; and the same principle which animated him in theselarge schemes of philanthropy and public policy made itself felt in theminutest details of daily life and personal dealing. Where he saw thepossibility of making a convert, or even of dissipating prejudice andinclining a single Protestant more favourably towards Rome, he left nostone unturned to secure this all-important end. Hence it came that hewas constantly, and not wholly without reason, depicted as a man whom inreligious matters it was impossible to trust; with whom the endjustified the means; and whose every act and word, where the interestsof his Church were involved, must be watched with the most jealoussuspicion. 

All this was grossly overstated. Whatever else Cardinal Manning was, hewas an English gentleman of the old school, with a nice sense of honourand propriety. But still, under a mass of calumny and exaggeration, there lay this substratum of truth--that he who wills the end wills themeans; and that where the interests of a sacred cause are at stake, anenthusiastic adherent will sometimes use methods to which, inenterprises of less pith and moment, recourse could not properly be had. 

Manning had what has been called "the ambition of distinctiveness. " Hefelt that he had a special mission which no other man could soadequately fulfil, and this was to establish and popularize in Englandhis own robust faith in the cause of the Papacy as identical with thecause of God. There never lived a stronger Papalist. He was moreUltramontane than the Ultramontanes. Everything Roman was to him divine. Italian architecture, Italian vestments, the Italian mode of pronouncingecclesiastical Latin were dear to him, because they visibly and audiblyimplied the all-pervading presence and power of Rome. Rightly orwrongly, he conceived that English Romanism, as it was when he joinedthe Roman Church, was practically Gallicanism; that it minimized thePapal supremacy, was disloyal to the Temporal Power, and was prone toaccommodate itself to its Protestant and secular environment. Againstthis time-serving spirit he set his face like a flint. He believed thathe had been divinely appointed to Papalize England. The cause of thePope was the cause of God; Manning was the person who could best servethe Pope's cause, and therefore all forces which opposed him were ineffect opposing the Divine Will. This seems to have been his simple andsufficient creed, and certainly it had the merit of supplying a clearrule of action. It made itself felt in his hostility to the ReligiousOrders, and especially the Society of Jesus. Religious Orders areextra-episcopal. The Jesuits are scarcely subject to the Pope himself. Certainly neither the Orders nor the Society would, or could, be subjectto Manning. A power independent of, or hostile to, his authority wasinimical to religion, and must, as a religious duty, be checked, and, ifpossible, destroyed. Exactly the same principle animated his dealingswith Cardinal Newman. Rightly or wrongly, Manning thought Newman ahalf-hearted Papalist. He dreaded alike his way of putting things andhis practical policy. Newman's favourite scheme of establishing a RomanCatholic college at Oxford, Manning regarded as fraught with peril tothe faith of the rising generation. The scheme must therefore be crushedand its author snubbed. 

I must in candour add that these differences of opinion between the twoCardinals were mixed with and embittered by a sense of personal dislike. When Newman died there appeared in a monthly magazine a series of veryunflattering sketches by one who had lived under his roof. I ventured toask Cardinal Manning if he had seen these sketches. He replied that hehad, and thought them very shocking; the writer must have a veryunenviable mind, &c. , and then, having thus sacrificed to propriety, after a moment's pause he added, "But if you ask me if they are likepoor Newman, I am bound to say--_a photograph_. "

It was, I suppose, matter of common knowledge that Manning's early andconspicuous ascendency in the counsels of the Papacy rested mainly onthe intimacy of his personal relations with Pius IX. But it was news tomost of us that (if his biographer is right) he wished to succeedAntonelli as Secretary of State in 1876, and to transfer the scene ofhis activities from Westminster to Rome, and that he attributed thePope's disregard of his wishes to mental decrepitude. The point, iftrue, is an important one, for his accession to the Secretaryship ofState, and permanent residence in Rome, could not have failed to affectthe development of events when, two years later, the Papal throne becamevacant by the death of Pius IX. But _Deo aliter visum_. It was ordainedthat he should pass the evening of his days in England, and that heshould outlive his intimacy at the Vatican and his influence on thegeneral policy of the Church of Rome. With the accession of Leo XIII. Anew order began, and Newman's elevation to the sacred purple seemed toaffix the sanction of Infallibility to views and methods against whichManning had waged a Thirty Years' War. Henceforward he felt himself astranger at the Vatican, and powerless beyond the limits of his ownjurisdiction. 

Perhaps this restriction of exterior activities in the ecclesiasticalsphere drove the venerable Cardinal to find a vent for his untiringenergies in those various efforts of social reform in which, during thelast ten years of his life, he played so conspicuous a part. If this beso, though Rome may have lost, England was unquestionably a gainer. Itwas during those ten years that I was honoured by his friendship. Thestorms, the struggles, the ambitions, the intrigues which had filled solarge a part of his middle life lay far behind. He was revered, useful, and, I think, contented in his present life, and looked forward withserene confidence to the final, and not distant, issue. Thrice happy isthe man who, in spite of increasing infirmity and the loss of much thatonce made life enjoyable, thus

 "Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. "

FOOTNOTES:

[3] 1903

V. 

LORD HOUGHTON. 

It is narrated of an ancient Fellow of All Souls' that, lamenting thechanges which had transformed his College from the nest of aristocraticidlers into a society of accomplished scholars, he exclaimed: "Hang itall, sir, we were _sui generis_. " What the unreformed Fellows of AllSouls' were among the common run of Oxford dons, that, it may truly (andwith better syntax) be said, the late Lord Houghton was among hisfellow-citizens. Of all the men I have ever known he was, I think, themost completely _sui generis_. His temperament and turn of mind were, asfar as I know, quite unlike anything that obtained among hispredecessors and contemporaries; nor do I see them reproduced among themen who have come after him. His peculiarities were not external. Hisappearance accorded with his position. He looked very much what onewould have expected in a country gentleman of large means and prosperouscircumstances. His early portraits show that he was very like all theother young gentlemen of fashion whom D'Orsay drew, with their longhair, high collars, and stupendous neckcloths. The admirably faithfulwork of Mr. Lehmann will enable all posterity to know exactly how helooked in his later years with his loose-fitting clothes, comfortablefigure, and air of genial gravity. Externally all was normal. Hispeculiarities were those of mental habit, temperament, and taste. As faras I know, he had not a drop of foreign blood in his veins, yet hisnature was essentially un-English. 

A country gentleman who frankly preferred living in London, and aYorkshireman who detested sport, made a sufficiently strange phenomenon;but in Lord Houghton the astonished world beheld as well a politicianwho wrote poetry, a railway-director who lived in literature, a_libre-penseur_ who championed the Tractarians, a sentimentalist whotalked like a cynic, and a philosopher who had elevated conviviality tothe dignity of an exact science. Here, indeed, was a "livingoxymoron"--a combination of inconsistent and incongruous qualities whichto the typical John Bull--Lord Palmerston's "Fat man with a white hat inthe twopenny omnibus"--was a sealed and hopeless mystery. 

Something of this unlikeness to his fellow-Englishmen was due, no doubt, to the fact that Lord Houghton, the only son of a gifted, eccentric, andindulgent father, was brought up at home. The glorification of thePublic School has been ridiculously overdone. But it argues no blindfaith in that strange system of unnatural restraints and scarcely morereasonable indulgences to share Gibbon's opinion that the training of aPublic School is the best adapted to the common run of Englishmen. "Itmade us what we were, sir, " said Major Bagstock to Mr. Dombey; "we wereiron, sir, and it forged us. " The average English boy being what he isby nature--"a soaring human boy, " as Mr. Chadband called him--a PublicSchool simply makes him more so. It confirms alike his characteristicfaults and his peculiar virtues, and turns him out after five or sixyears that altogether lovely and gracious product--the AverageEnglishman. This may be readily conceded; but, after all, thepleasantness of the world as a place of residence, and the growing goodof the human race, do not depend exclusively on the Average Englishman;and something may be said for the system of training which hasproduced, not only all famous foreigners (for they, of course, are anegligible quantity), but such exceptional Englishmen as William Pittand Thomas Macaulay, and John Keble and Samuel Wilberforce, and RichardMonckton Milnes. 

From an opulent and cultivated home young Milnes passed to the mostfamous college in the world, and found himself under the tuition ofWhewell and Thirlwall, and in the companionship of Alfred Tennyson andJulius Hare, Charles Buller and John Sterling--a high-heartedbrotherhood who made their deep mark on the spiritual and intellectuallife of their own generation and of that which succeeded it. 

After Cambridge came foreign travel, on a scale and plan quite outsidethe beaten track of the conventional "grand tour" as our fathers knewit. From the Continent Richard Milnes brought back a gaiety of spirit, afrankness of bearing, a lightness of touch which were quite un-English, and "a taste for French novels, French cookery, and French wines" withwhich Miss Crawley would have sympathized. In 1837 he entered Parliamentas a "Liberal Conservative" for the Borough of Pontefract, over whichhis father exercised considerable influence, and he immediately became aconspicuous figure in the social life of London. A few years later hisposition and character were drawn by the hand of a master in a passagewhich will well bear yet one more reproduction:--

"Mr. Vavasour was a social favourite; a poet, and a real poet, and atroubadour, as well as a Member of Parliament; travelled, sweet-tempered, and good-hearted; amusing and clever. With catholicsympathies and an eclectic turn of mind, Mr. Vavasour saw something goodin everybody and everything; which is certainly amiable, and perhapsjust, but disqualifies a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice. Mr. Vavasour's breakfasts were renowned. Whatever your creed, class, orcountry--one might almost add your character--you were a welcome guestat his matutinal meal, provided you were celebrated. That qualification, however, was rigidly enforced. A real philosopher, alike from his genialdisposition and from the influence of his rich and various information, Vavasour moved amid the strife, sympathizing with every one; andperhaps, after all, the philanthropy which was his boast was notuntinged by a dash of humour, of which rare and charming quality hepossessed no inconsiderable portion. Vavasour liked to know everybodywho was known, and to see everything which ought to be seen. His lifewas a gyration of energetic curiosity; an insatiable whirl of socialcelebrity. There was not a congregation of sages and philosophers in anypart of Europe which he did not attend as a brother. He was present atthe camp of Kalisch in his yeomanry uniform, and assisted at thefestivals of Barcelona in an Andalusian jacket. He was everywhere and ateverything: he had gone down in a diving-bell and gone up in a balloon. As for his acquaintances, he was welcomed in every land; his universalsympathies seemed omnipotent. Emperor and King, Jacobin and Carbonaro, alike cherished him. He was the steward of Polish balls, and thevindicator of Russian humanity; he dined with Louis Philippe, and gavedinners to Louis Blanc. "

Lord Beaconsfield's penetration in reading character and skill indelineating it were never, I think, displayed to better advantage thanin the foregoing passage. Divested of its intentional and humorousexaggerations, it is not a caricature, but a portrait. It exhibits withsingular fidelity the qualities which made Lord Houghton, to the end ofhis long life, at once unique and lovable. We recognize the overflowingsympathy, the keen interest in life, the vivid faculty of enjoyment, theabsolute freedom from national prejudice, the love of seeing and ofbeing seen. 

During the Chartist riots of 1848 Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother:"Tell Miss Martineau it is said here that Monckton Milnes refused to besworn in a special constable, that he might be free to assume the postof President of the Republic at a moment's notice. " And those who knewLord Houghton best suspect that he himself originated the joke at hisown expense. The assured ease of young Milnes's social manner, evenamong complete strangers, so unlike the morbid self-repression and proudhumility of the typical Englishman, won for him the nickname of "TheCool of the Evening. " His wholly un-English tolerance and constanteffort to put himself in the place of others whom the world condemned, procured for him from Carlyle (who genuinely loved him) the title of"President of the Heaven-and-Hell-Amalgamation Company. " BishopWilberforce wrote, describing a dinner-party in 1847: "Carlyle was verygreat. Monckton Milnes drew him out. Milnes began the young man's cantof the present day--the barbarity and wickedness of capital punishment;that, after all, we could not be sure others were wicked, etc. Carlylebroke out on him with, 'None of your Heaven-and-Hell-AmalgamationCompanies for me. We _do_ know what is wickedness, _I_ know wicked men, men whom I _would not live with_--men whom under some conceivablecircumstances I would kill or they should kill me. No, Milnes, there'sno truth or greatness in all that. It's just poor, miserablelittleness. '"

Lord Houghton's faculty of enjoyment was peculiarly keen. He warmed notonly both hands but indeed all his nature before the fire of life. "Allimpulses of soul and sense" affected him with agreeable emotions; nopleasure of body or spirit came amiss to him. And in nothing was he morecharacteristically un-English than in the frank manifestation of hisenjoyment, bubbling over with an infectious jollity, and never, evenwhen touched by years and illness, taking his pleasures after thatmelancholy manner of our nation to which it is a point of literaryhonour not more directly to allude. Equally un-English was his frankopenness of speech and bearing. His address was pre-eminently whatold-fashioned people called "forthcoming. " It was strikingly--evenamusingly--free from that frigid dignity and arrogant reserve for whichas a nation we are so justly famed. I never saw him kiss a guest on bothcheeks, but if I had I should not have felt the least surprised. 

What would have surprised me would have been if the guest (whatever hisdifference of age or station) had not felt immediately and completely athome, or if Lord Houghton had not seemed and spoken as if they had knownone another from the days of short frocks and skipping-ropes. Therenever lived so perfect a host. His sympathy was genius, and hishospitality a fine art. He was peculiarly sensitive to the claims of"Auld Lang Syne, " and when a young man came up from Oxford or Cambridgeto begin life in London, he was certain to find that Lord Houghton hadtravelled on the Continent with his father, or had danced with hismother, or had made love to his aunt, and was eagerly on the look-outfor an opportunity of showing gracious and valuable kindness to the sonof his ancient friends. 

When I first lived in London Lord Houghton was occupying a house inArlington Street made famous by the fact that Hogarth drew its interiorand decorations in his pictures of "Marriage a la Mode. " And nowhere didthe social neophyte receive a warmer welcome, or find himself amid amore eclectic and representative society. Queens of fashion, professional beauties, authors and authoresses, ambassadors, philosophers, discoverers, actors--every one who was famous or evennotorious; who had been anywhere or had done anything, from asuccessful speech in Parliament to a hazardous leap at theAquarium--jostled one another on the wide staircase and in the gravelyornate drawing-rooms. And amid the motley crowd the genial host wasomnipresent, with a warm greeting and a twinkling smile for eachsuccessive guest--a good story, a happy quotation, the last morsel ofpiquant gossip, the newest theory of ethics or of politics. 

Lord Houghton's humour had a quality which was quite its own. Nothingwas sacred to it--neither age, nor sex, nor subject was spared; but itwas essentially good-natured. It was the property of a famous spear toheal the wounds which itself had made; the shafts of Lord Houghton's funneeded no healing virtue, for they made no wound. When that saintlyfriend of temperance and all good causes, Mr. Cowper-Temple, was raisedto the peerage as Lord Mount Temple, Lord Houghton went about saying, "You know that the precedent for Billy Cowper's title is in _DonJuan?_--

 'And Lord Mount Coffee-house, the Irish peer, Who killed himself for love, with drink, last year. '"

When a very impecunious youth, who could barely afford to pay for hiscab fares, lost a pound to him at whist, Lord Houghton said, as hepocketed the coin, "Ah, my dear boy, the _great_ Lord Hertford, whomfoolish people called the _wicked_ Lord Hertford--Thackeray's Steyne andDizzy's Monmouth--used to say, 'There is no pleasure in winning moneyfrom a man who does not feel it. ' How true that was!--" And when he sawa young friend at a club supping on _pâté de foie gras_ and champagne, he said encouragingly, "That's quite right. All the pleasant things inlife are unwholesome, or expensive, or wrong. " And amid these rathergrim morsels of experimental philosophy he would interject certain_obiter dicta_ which came straight from the unspoiled goodness of areally kind heart. "All men are improved by prosperity, " he used tosay. Envy, hatred, and malice had no place in his nature. It was apositive enjoyment to him to see other people happy, and a friend'ssuccess was as gratifying as his own. His life, though in most respectssingularly happy, had not been without its disappointments. At one timehe had nursed political ambitions, and his peculiar knowledge of foreignaffairs had seemed to indicate a special line of activity and success. But things went differently. He always professed to regard his peerageas "a Second Class in the School of Life, " and himself as a politicalfailure. Yet no tinge of sourness, or jealousy, or cynical disbelief inhis more successful contemporaries ever marred the geniality of hispolitical conversation. 

As years advanced he became not (as the manner of most men is) lessLiberal, but more so; keener in sympathy with all popular causes;livelier in his indignation against monopoly and injustice. Thirty yearsago, in the struggle for the Reform Bill of 1866, his character andposition were happily hit off by Sir George Trevelyan in a descriptionof a walk down Piccadilly:--

 "There on warm midsummer Sundays Fryston's Bard is wont to wend, Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and jovial friend: Loved where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the northern kilns-- He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the Gods call Dicky Milnes. "

And eighteen years later there was a whimsical pathos in the phrase inwhich he announced his fatal illness to a friend: "Yes, I am going tojoin the Majority--and you know I have always preferred Minorities. "

It would be foreign to my purpose to criticize Lord Houghton as a poet. My object in these chapters is merely to record the characteristictraits of eminent men who have honoured me with their friendship, andamong those there is none for whose memory I cherish a warmer sentimentof affectionate gratitude than for him whose likeness I have now triedto sketch. His was the most precious of combinations--a genius and aheart. An estimate of his literary gifts and performances liesaltogether outside my scope, but the political circumstances of thepresent hour[4] impel me to conclude this paper with a quotation which, even if it stood alone, would, I think, justify Lord Beaconsfield'sjudgment quoted above--that "he was a poet, and a true poet. " Here isthe lyrical cry which, writing in 1843, he puts into the mouth ofGreece:--

 "And if to his old Asian seat, From this usurped, unnatural throne, The Turk is driven, 'tis surely meet That we again should hold our own; Be but Byzantium's native sign Of Cross on Crescent[5] once unfurled, And Greece shall guard by right divine The portals of the Easter world. "

FOOTNOTES:

[4] March 1897. 

[5] The Turks adopted the sign of the Crescent from Byzantium after theConquest: the Cross above the Crescent is found on many ruins of theGrecian city--among others, on the Genoese castle on the Bosphorus. 

VI. 

RELIGION AND MORALITY. 

In these chapters I have been trying to recall some notable peoplethrough whom I have been brought into contact with the social life ofthe past. I now propose to give the impressions which they conveyed tome of the moral, material, and political condition of England just atthe moment when the old order was yielding place to new, and modernSociety was emerging from the birth-throes of the French Revolution. Alltestimony seems to me to point to the fact that towards the close of theeighteenth century Religion was almost extinct in the highest and lowestclasses of English society. The poor were sunk in ignorance andbarbarism, and the aristocracy was honeycombed by profligacy. Morality, discarded alike by high and low, took refuge in the great Middle Class, then, as now, deeply influenced by Evangelical Dissent. A dissoluteHeir-Apparent presided over a social system in which not merely religionbut decency was habitually disregarded. At his wedding he was so drunkthat his attendant dukes "could scarcely support him from falling. "[6]The Princes of the Blood were notorious for a freedom of life andmanners which would be ludicrous if it were not shocking. Here I maycite an unpublished diary[7] of Lord Robert Seymour (son of the firstMarquis of Hertford), who was born in 1748 and died in 1831. He was aman of fashion and a Member of Parliament; and these are some of theincidents which he notes in 1788:--

"The Prince of Wales declares there is not an honest Woman in London, excepting Ly. Parker and Ly. Westmoreland, and those are so stupid hecan make nothing of them; they are scarcely fit to blow their ownNoses. "

"At Mrs. Vaneck's assembly last week, the Prince of Wales, very much tothe honour of his polite and elegant Behaviour, measured the breadth ofMrs. V. Behind with his Handkerchief, and shew'd the measurement to mostof the Company. "

"Another Trait of the P. Of Wales's Respectful Conduct is that at anassembly he beckoned to the poor old Dutchess of Bedford across a largeRoom, and, when she had taken the trouble of crossing the Room, he veryabruptly told her he had nothing to say to her. "

"The Prince of Wales very much affronted the D. Of Orleans and hisnatural Brother, L'Abbé de la Fai, at Newmarket, L'Abbé declaring itpossible to charm a Fish out of the Water, which being disputedoccasioned a Bett; and the Abbé stooped down over the water to ticklethe Fish with a little switch. Fearing, however, the Prince said playhim some Trick, he declared he hoped the Prince would not use himunfairly by throwing him into the water. The Prince answer'd him that hewould not upon his Honor. The Abbé had no sooner began the operation byleaning over a little Bridge when the Prince took hold of his Heels andthrew him into the Water, which was rather deep. The Abbé, much enraged, the moment he got himself out run at the Prince with great violence, aHorse-whip in his Hand, saying he thought very meanly of a Prince whocou'd not keep his word. The Prince flew from him, and getting to theInn locked himself in one of the Rooms. "

"Prince of Wales, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Duke and Dutchess ofCumberland, and Miss Pigott, Mrs. F. 's companion, went a Party toWindsor during the absence of _The Family_ fm. Windsor; and going to seea cold Bath, Miss P. Expressed a great wish to bathe this hot weather. The D. Of C. Very imprudently pushed her in, and the Dut. Of C. Havingthe presence of mind to throw out the Rope saved her when in such adisagreeable State from fear and surprise as to be near sinking. Mrs. F. Went into convulsion Fits, and the Dut. Fainted away, and the sceneproved ridiculous in the extreme, as Report says the Duke called out toMiss P. That he was instantly coming to her in the water, and continuedundressing himself. Poor Miss P. 's clothes entirely laid upon the Water, and made her appear an awkward figure. They afterwards pushed in one ofthe Prince's attendants. "

So much for High Life at the close of the eighteenth century. It is moredifficult to realize that we are separated only by some sixty years froma time when a Cabinet Minister and a brother of the Sovereign conducteda business-like correspondence on the question whether the Minister hador had not turned the Prince out of the house for insulting his wife. The journals, newspapers, and memoirs of the time throw (especially forthose who can read between the lines) a startling light on thathereditary principle which plays so important a part in our politicalsystem. All the ancillary vices flourished with a rank luxuriance. Harddrinking was the indispensable accomplishment of a fine gentleman, andgreat estates were constantly changing owners at the gaming-table. 

The fifth Duke of Bedford (who had the temerity to attack Burke'spension, and thereby drew down upon himself the most splendid reparteein literature) was a bosom-friend of Fox, and lived in a like-mindedsociety. One night at Newmarket he lost a colossal sum at hazard, and, jumping up in a passion, he swore that the dice were loaded, put themin his pocket, and went to bed. Next morning he examined the dice in thepresence of his boon companions, found that they were not loaded, andhad to apologize and pay. Some years afterwards one of the party waslying on his death-bed, and he sent for the duke. "I have sent for youto tell you that you were right. The dice _were_ loaded. We waited tillyou were asleep, went to your bedroom, took them out of your waistcoatpocket, replaced them with unloaded ones, and retired. "

"But suppose I had woke and caught you doing it. "

"Well, we were desperate men--_and we had pistols_. "

Anecdotes of the same type might be multiplied endlessly, and wouldserve to confirm the strong impression which all contemporary evidenceleaves upon the mind--that the closing years of the eighteenth centurywitnessed the _nadir_ of English virtue. The national conscience was intruth asleep, and it had a rude awakening. "I have heard persons ofgreat weight and authority, " writes Mr. Gladstone, "such as Mr. Grenville, and also, I think, Archbishop Howley, ascribe the beginningsof a reviving seriousness in the upper classes of lay society to areaction against the horrors and impieties of the first FrenchRevolution in its later stages. " And this reviving seriousness was by nomeans confined to Nonconformist circles. In the eighteenth century thereligious activities of the time proceeded largely (though notexclusively) from persons who, from one cause or another, were separatedfrom the Established Church. Much theological learning and controversialskill, with the old traditions of Anglican divinity, had been drawnaside from the highway of the Establishment into the secluded byways ofthe Nonjurors. Whitefield and the Wesleys, and that grim but grand oldMother in Israel, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, found theirevangelistic energies fatally cramped by episcopal authority, and, quiteagainst their natural inclinations, were forced to act throughindependent organizations of their own making. But at the beginning ofthe nineteenth century things took a different turn. 

The distinguishing mark of the religious revival which issued from theFrench Revolution was that it lived and moved and had its being withinthe precincts of the Church of England. Of that Church, as it existed atthe close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the characteristic feature had been a quiet worldliness. The typicalclergyman, as drawn, for instance, in Crabbe's poems and Miss Austen'snovels, is a well-bred, respectable, and kindly person, playing anagreeable part in the social life of his neighbourhood, and doing asecular work of solid value, but equally removed from the sacerdotalpretensions of the Caroline divines and from the awakening fervour ofthe Evangelical preachers. The professors of a more spiritual or a moreaggressive religion were at once disliked and despised. Sydney Smith wasnever tired of poking fun at the "sanctified village of Clapham" and its"serious" inhabitants, at missionary effort and revivalist enthusiasm. When Lady Louisa Lennox was engaged to a prominent Evangelical andLiberal--Mr. Tighe of Woodstock--her mother, the Duchess of Richmond, said, "Poor Louisa is going to make a shocking marriage--a man called_Tiggy_, my dear, a Saint and a Radical. " When Lord Melbourne hadaccidently found himself the unwilling hearer of a rousing Evangelicalsermon about sin and its consequences, he exclaimed in much disgust ashe left the church, "Things have come to a pretty pass when religion isallowed to invade the sphere of private life!"

Arthur Young tells us that a daughter of the first Lord Carrington saidto a visitor, "My papa used to have prayers in his family, but nonesince he has been a Peer. " A venerable Canon of Windsor, who was ayounger son of a great family, told me that his old nurse, when she wasputting him and his little brothers to bed, used to say, "If you'revery good little boys, and go to bed without giving trouble, you needn'tsay your prayers to-night. " When the late Lord Mount Temple was a youth, he wished to take Holy Orders; and the project so horrified his parentsthat, after holding a family council, they plunged him into fashionablesociety in the hope of distracting his mind from religion, andaccomplished their end by making him join the Blues. 

The quiet worldliness which characterized the English Church as a wholewas unpleasantly varied here and there by instances of grave andmonstrous scandal. The system of Pluralities left isolated parishes in acondition of practical heathenism. Even bare morality was not alwaysobserved. In solitary places clerical drunkenness was common. OnSaturday afternoon the parson would return from the nearest town"market-merry. " He consorted freely with the farmers, shared theirhabits, and spoke their language. I have known a lady to whom a countryclergyman said, pointing to the darkened windows where a corpse layawaiting burial, "There's a stiff 'un in that house. " I have known acountry gentleman in Shropshire who had seen his own vicar drop thechalice at the Holy Communion because he was too drunk to hold it. Iknow a corner of Bedfordshire where, within the recollection of personsliving thirty[8] years ago, three clerical neighbours used to meet fordinner at one another's parsonages in turn. One winter afternoon acorpse was brought for burial to the village church. The vicar of theplace came from his dinner so drunk that he could not read the service, although his sister supported him with one hand and held the lanternwith the other. He retired beaten, and both his guests made the sameattempt with no better success. So the corpse was left in the church, and the vicar buried it next day when he had recovered from his debauch. 

While the prevailing tone of quiet worldliness was thus broken, hereand there, by horrid scandals, in other places it was conspicuouslyrelieved by splendid instances of piety and self-devotion, such asGeorge Eliot drew in the character of Edgar Tryan of Milby. But theinnovating clergy of the Evangelical persuasion had to force their waythrough "the teeth of clenched antagonisms. " The bishops, as a rule, were opposed to enthusiasm, and the bishops of that day were, in virtueof their wealth, their secular importance, and their professionalcohesiveness, a formidable force in the life of the Church. 

In the "good old days" of Erastian Churchmanship, before the Catholicrevival had begun to breathe new life into ancient forms, a bishop wasenthroned by proxy! Sydney Smith, rebuking Archbishop Howley for hisundue readiness to surrender cathedral property to the EcclesiasticalCommission, pointed out that his conduct was inconsistent with havingsworn at his enthronement that he would not alienate the possessions ofthe Church of Canterbury. "The oath, " he goes on, "may be less presentto the Archbishop's memory from the fact of his not having taken theoath in person, but by the medium of a gentleman sent down by the coachto take it for him--a practice which, though I believe it to have beenlong established in the Church, surprised me, I confess, not a little. Aproxy to vote, if you please--a proxy to consent to arrangements ofestates, if wanted; but a proxy sent down in the Canterbury Fly to takethe Creator to witness that the Archbishop, detained in town by businessor pleasure, will never violate that foundation of piety over which hepresides--all this seems to me an act of the most extraordinaryindolence ever recorded in history. " In this judgment the leastritualistic of laymen will heartily concur. But from Archbishop Howleyto Archbishop Temple is a far cry, and the latest enthronement inCanterbury Cathedral must have made clear to the most casual eye theenormous transformation which sixty years have wrought alike in theinner temper and the outward aspect of the Church of England. 

Once Dr. Liddon, walking with me down the hall of Christ Church, pointedto the portrait of an extremely bloated and sensual-looking prelate onthe wall, and said, with that peculiar kind of mincing precision whichadded so much to the point of his sarcasms, "How singular, dear friend, to reflect that _that person_ was chosen, in the providential order, toconnect Mr. Keble with the Apostles!" And certainly this connecting linkbore little resemblance to either end of the chain. The considerationswhich governed the selection of a bishop in those good old days wereindeed not a little singular. Perhaps he was chosen because he was asprig of good family, like Archbishop Cornwallis, whose junketings atLambeth drew down upon him the ire of Lady Huntingdon and the threats ofGeorge III. , and whose sole qualification for the clerical office wasthat when an undergraduate he had suffered from a stroke of palsy whichpartially crippled him, but "did not, however, prevent him from holdinga hand at cards. " Perhaps he had been, like Bishop Sumner, "bear-leader"to a great man's son, and had won the gratitude of a powerful patron byextricating young hopeful from a matrimonial scrape. Perhaps, like Marshor Van Mildert, he was a controversial pamphleteer who had tossed aCalvinist or gored an Evangelical. Or perhaps he was, like Blomfield andMonk, a "Greek Play Bishop, " who had annotated Aeschylus or composed aSapphic Ode on a Royal marriage. "Young Crumpet is sent to school; takesto his books; spends the best years of his life in making Latin verses;knows that the _Crum_ in Crumpet is long and the _pet_ short; goes tothe University; gets a prize for an Essay on the Dispersion of the Jews;takes Orders; becomes a bishop's chaplain; has a young nobleman for hispupil; publishes a useless classic and a Serious Call to theUnconverted; and then goes through the Elysian transitions ofPrebendary, Dean, Prelate, and the long train of purple, profit, andpower. "

Few--and very few--are the adducible instances in which, in the reignsof George III. , George IV. , and William IV. , a bishop was appointed forevangelistic zeal or pastoral efficiency. 

But, on whatever principle chosen, the bishop, once duly consecrated andenthroned, was a formidable person, and surrounded by a dignity scarcelyless than royal. "Nobody likes our bishop, " says Parson Lingon in _FelixHolt_. "He's all Greek and greediness, and too proud to dine with hisown father. " People still living can remember the days when theArchbishop of Canterbury was preceded by servants bearing flambeaux whenhe walked across from Lambeth Chapel to what were called "Mrs. Howley'sLodgings. " When the Archbishop dined out he was treated with princelyhonours, and no one left the party till His Grace had made his bow. Oncea week he dined in state in the great hall of Lambeth, presiding over acompany of self-invited guests--strange perversion of the oldarchiepiscopal charity to travellers and the poor--while, as SydneySmith said, "the domestics of the prelacy stood, with swords andbag-wigs, round pig and turkey and venison, to defend, as it were, theorthodox gastronome from the fierce Unitarian, the fell Baptist, and allthe famished children of Dissent. " When Sir John Coleridge, father ofthe late Lord Chief Justice, was a young man at the Bar, he wished toobtain a small legal post in the Archbishop's Prerogative Court. Aninfluential friend undertook to forward his application to theArchbishop. "But remember, " he said, "in writing your letter, that hisGrace can only be approached on gilt-edged paper. " Archbishop Harcourtnever went from Bishopthorpe to York Minster except attended by hischaplains, in a coach and six, while Lady Anne was made to follow in apair-horse carriage, to show her that her position was not the samething among women that her husband's was among men. At Durham, which wasworth £40, 000 a year, the Bishop, as Prince Palatine, exercised asecular jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, and the Commission at theAssizes ran in the name of "Our Lord the Bishop. " At Ely, Bishop Sparkegave so many of his best livings to his family that it was locally saidthat you could find your way across the Fens on a dark night by thenumber of little Sparkes along the road. When this good prelate secureda residential canonry for his eldest son, the event was so much a matterof course that he did not deem it worthy of special notice; but when hesecured a second canonry for his second son, he was so filled with piousgratitude that, as a thank-offering, he gave a ball at the Palace of Elyto all the county of Cambridge. "And I think, " said Bishop Woodford, intelling me the story, "that the achievement and the way of celebratingit were equally remarkable. "

This grand tradition of mingled splendour and profit ran down, in duedegree, through all ranks of the hierarchy. The poorer bishoprics werecommonly held in conjunction with a rich deanery or prebend, and notseldom with some important living; so that the most impecunioussuccessor of the Apostles could manage to have four horses to hiscarriage and his daily bottle of Madeira. Not so splendid as a palace, but quite as comfortable, was a first-class deanery. A "Golden Stall" atDurham or St. Paul's made its occupant a rich man. And even the rectorsof the more opulent parishes contrived to "live, " as the phrase went, "very much like gentleman. "

The old Prince Bishops are as extinct as the dodo. The EcclesiasticalCommission has made an end of them. Bishop Sumner of Winchester, whodied in 1874, was the last of his race. But the dignified countryclergyman, who combined private means with a rich living, did his countybusiness in person, and performed his religious duties by deputy, survived into very recent times. I have known a fine old specimen ofthis class--a man who never entered his church on a week-day, nor wore awhite neckcloth except on Sunday; who was an active magistrate, a keensportsman, an acknowledged authority on horticulture and farming; andwho boasted that he had never written a sermon in his life, but couldalter one with any man in England--which, in truth, he did soeffectively that the author would never have recognized his ownhandiwork. When the neighbouring parsons first tried to get up aperiodical "clerical meeting" for the study of theology, he respondedgenially to the suggestion: "Oh yes; I think it sounds a capital thing, and I suppose we shall finish up with a rubber and a bit of supper. "

The reverence in which a rector of this type was held, and thedifference, not merely of degree but of kind, which was supposed toseparate him from the inferior order of curates, were amusinglyexemplified in the case of an old friend of mine. Returning to hisparish after his autumn holiday, and noticing a woman at her cottagedoor with a baby in her arms, he asked, "Has that child been baptised?""Well, sir, " replied the curtsying mother, "I shouldn't like to say asmuch as that; but your young man came and _did what he could_. "

Lost in these entrancing recollections of Anglicanism as it once was, but will never be again, I have wandered far from my theme. I began bysaying that all one has read, all one has heard, all one has been ableto collect by study or by conversation, points to the close of theeighteenth century as the low-water mark of English religion andmorality. The first thirty years of the nineteenth century witnessed agreat revival, due chiefly to the Evangelical movement, and not only, as in the previous century, on lines outside the Establishment, but inthe very heart and core of the Church of England. That movement, thoughlittle countenanced by ecclesiastical authority, changed the whole toneof religious thought and life in England. It recalled men to seriousideas of faith and duty; it curbed profligacy, it made decencyfashionable, it revived the external usages of piety, and it preparedthe way for that later movement which, issuing from Oxford in 1833, hastransfigured the Church of England. 

"I do not mean to say, " wrote Mr. Gladstone in 1879, "that the foundersof the Oxford School announced, or even that they knew, to how large anextent they were to be pupils and continuators of the Evangelical work, besides being something else.... Their distinctive speech was of Churchand priesthood, of Sacraments and services, as the vesture under thevaried folds of which the Form of the Divine Redeemer was to beexhibited to the world in a way capable of, and suited for, transmissionby a collective body from generation to generation. It may well havehappened that, in straining to secure for their ideas what they thoughttheir due place, some at least may have forgotten or disparaged thatpersonal and experimental life of the human soul with God which profitsby all ordinances but is tied to none, dwelling ever, through all itsvarying moods, in the inner courts of the sanctuary whereof the wallsare not built with hands. The only matter, however, with which I am nowconcerned is to record the fact that the pith and life of theEvangelical teaching, as it consists in the reintroduction of Christ ourLord to be the woof and warp of preaching, was the great gift of themovement to the teaching Church, and has now penetrated and possessed iton a scale so general that it may be considered as pervading the wholemass. "

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Lord Holland's _Memoirs of the Whig Party_, ii. P. 123. 

[7] The property of Colonel Davies-Evans of Highmead. 

[8] Written in 1897. 

VII. 

SOCIAL EQUALIZATION. 

It was a characteristic saying of Talleyrand that no one could conceivehow pleasant life was capable of being who had not belonged to theFrench aristocracy before the Revolution. There were, no doubt, in thecase of that great man's congeners some legal and constitutionalprerogatives which rendered their condition supremely enviable; but sofar as splendour, stateliness, and exclusive privilege are elements of apleasant life, he might have extended his remark to England. Similarconditions of social existence here and in France were similarly andsimultaneously transformed by the same tremendous upheaval which markedthe final disappearance of the feudal spirit and the birth of the modernworld. 

The old order passed away, and the face of human society was made new. The law-abiding and temperate genius of the Anglo-Saxon race savedEngland from the excesses, the horrors, and the dramatic incidents whichmarked this period of transition in France; but though more quietlyeffected, the change in England was not less marked, less momentous, orless permanent than on the Continent. I have spoken in a former chapterof the religious revival which was the most striking result in Englandof the Revolution in France. To-day I shall say a word about anotherresult, or group of results, which may be summarized as SocialEqualization. 

The barriers between ranks and classes were to a large extent brokendown. The prescriptive privileges of aristocracy were reduced. Theceremoniousness of social demeanour was diminished. Great men werecontent with less elaboration and display in their retinues, equipages, and mode of living. Dress lost its richness of ornament and itsdistinctive characteristics. Young men of fashion no longer bedizenedthemselves in velvet, brocade, and gold lace. Knights of the Garter nolonger displayed the Blue Ribbon in Parliament. Officers no longer wentinto society with uniform and sword. Bishops laid aside their wigs;dignified clergy discarded the cassock. Coloured coats, silk stockings, lace ruffles, and hair-powder survived only in the footmen's liveries. When the Reform Bill of 1832 received the Royal Assent, the LordBathurst of the period, who had been a member of the Duke ofWellington's Cabinet, solemnly cut off his pigtail, saying, "Ichabod, for the glory is departed;" and to the first Reformed Parliament onlyone pigtail was returned (it pertained to Mr. Sheppard, M. P. ForFrome)--an impressive symbol of social transformation. 

The lines of demarcation between the peerage and the untitled classeswere partially obliterated. How clear and rigid those lines had been itis difficult for us to conceive. In _Humphrey Clinker_ the noblemanrefuses to fight a duel with the squire on the ground of their socialinequality. Mr. Wilberforce declined a peerage because it would excludehis sons from intimacy with private gentlemen, clergymen, and mercantilefamilies. I have stated in a previous chapter that Lord Bathurst, whowas born in 1791, told me that at his private school he and the othersons of peers sate together on a privileged bench apart from the rest ofthe boys. A typical aristocrat was the first Marquis of Abercorn. Hedied in 1818, but he is still revered in Ulster under the name of "TheOwld Marquis. " This admirable nobleman always went out shooting in hisBlue Ribbon, and required his housemaids to wear white kid gloves whenthey made his bed. Before he married his first cousin, Miss CecilHamilton, he induced the Crown to confer on her the titular rank of anEarl's daughter, that he might not marry beneath his position; and whenhe discovered that she contemplated eloping, he sent a message beggingher to take the family coach, as it ought never to be said that LadyAbercorn left her husband's roof in a hack chaise. By such endearingtraits do the truly great live in the hearts of posterity. 

In the earlier part of this century Dr. Arnold inveighed withcharacteristic vigour against "the insolencies of our aristocracy, thescandalous exemption of the peers from all ignominious punishments shortof death, and the insolent practice of allowing peers to vote incriminal trials on their honour, while other men vote on their oath. "But generally the claims of rank and birth were admitted with achildlike cheerfulness. The high function of government was thebirthright of the few. The people, according to episcopal showing, hadnothing to do with the laws but to obey them. The ingenious author of_Russell's Modern Europe_ states in his preface to that immortal workthat his object in adopting the form of a Series of Letters from aNobleman to his Son is "to give more Weight to the Moral and PoliticalMaxims, and to entitle the author to offer, without seeming to dictateto the World, such reflections on Life and Manners as are supposed moreimmediately to belong to the higher orders in Society. " Nor were theprivileges of rank held to pertain merely to temporal concerns. WhenSelina Countess of Huntingdon asked the Duchess of Buckingham toaccompany her to a sermon of Whitefield's, the Duchess replied: "I thankyour ladyship for the information concerning the Methodist preachers;their doctrines are most repulsive, and strongly tinctured withimpertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetuallyendeavouring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions. It ismonstrous to be told you have a heart as sinful as the common wretchesthat crawl on the earth; and I cannot but wonder that your ladyshipshould relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and goodbreeding. "

The exclusive and almost feudal character of the English peerage wasdestroyed, finally and of set purpose, by Pitt when he declared thatevery man who had an estate of ten thousand a year had a right to be apeer. In Lord Beaconsfield's words, "He created a plebeian aristocracyand blended it with the patrician oligarchy. He made peers ofsecond-rate squires and fat graziers. He caught them in the alleys ofLombard Street, and clutched them from the counting-houses of Cornhill. "This democratization of the peerage was accompanied by greatmodifications of pomp and stateliness in the daily life of the peers. Inthe eighteenth century the Duke and Duchess of Atholl were always servedat their own table before their guests, in recognition of their royalrank as Sovereigns of the Isle of Man; and the Duke and Duchess ofArgyll observed the same courteous usage for no better reason thanbecause they liked it. The "Household Book" of Alnwick Castle recordsthe amplitude and complexity of the domestic hierarchy which ministeredto the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland; and at Arundel and Belvoir, and Trentham and Wentworth, the magnates of the peerage lived in a statelittle less than regal. Seneschals and gentlemen-ushers, ladies-in-waiting and pages-of-the-presence adorned noble as well asroyal households. The private chaplain of a great Whig duke, within therecollection of people whom I have known, used to preface his sermonwith a prayer for the nobility, and "especially for the noble duke towhom I am indebted for my scarf"--the badge of chaplaincy--accompanyingthe words by a profound bow toward his Grace's pew. The last "runningfootman" pertained to "Old Q. "--the notorious Duke of Queensberry, whodied in 1810. Horace Walpole describes how, when a guest playing cardsat Woburn Abbey dropped a silver piece on the floor, and said, "Oh, never mind; let the Groom of the Chambers have it, " the Duchess replied, "Let the carpet-sweeper have it; the Groom of the Chambers never takesanything but gold. "

These grotesque splendours of domestic living went out with theeighteenth century. Dr. Johnson, who died in 1784, had already notedtheir decline. There was a general approach towards externalequalization of ranks, and that approach was accompanied by a generaldiffusion of material enjoyment. The luxury of the period was prodigalrather than refined. There lies before me as I write a tavern bill for adinner for seven persons in the year 1751. I reproduce the itemsverbally and literally, and certainly the bill of fare is worth studyingas a record of gastronomical exertion on a heroic scale:--

 Bread and Beer. Potage de Tortue. Calipash. Calipees. Un Paté de Jambon de Bayone. Potage Julien Verd. Two Turbots to remove the Soops. Haunch of Venison. Palaits de Mouton. Selle de Mouton. Salade. Saucisses au Ecrevisses. Boudin Blanc à le Reine. Petits Patés à l'Espaniol. Coteletts a la Cardinal. Selle d'Agneau glacé aux Cocombres. Saumon à la Chambord. Fillets de Saules Royales. Une bisque de Lait de Maquereaux. Un Lambert aux Innocents. Des Perdrix Sauce Vin de Champaign. Poulets à le Russiene. Ris de Veau en Arlequin. Quée d'Agneau à la Montaban. Dix Cailles. Un Lapreau. Un Phésant. Dix Ortolans. Une Tourte de Cerises. Artichaux à le Provensalle. Choufleurs au flour. Cretes de Cocq en Bonets. Amorte de Jesuits. Salade. Chicken. Ice Cream and Fruits. Fruit of various sorts, forced. Fruit from Market. Butter and Cheese. Clare. Champaign. Burgundy. Hock. White Wine. Madeira. Sack. Cape. Cyprus. Neuilly. Usquebaugh. Spa and Bristol Waters. Oranges and Lemons. Coffee and Tea. Lemonade. 

The total charge for this dinner for seven amounted to £81, 11s. 6d. , and a footnote informs the curious reader that there was also "a turtlesent as a Present to the Company, and dressed in a very high _Gout_after the West Indian Manner. " Old cookery-books, such as the misquotedwork of Mrs. Glasse, Dr. Kitchener's _Cook's Oracle_, and the anonymousbut admirable _Culina_, all concur in their testimony to the enormousamount of animal food which went to make an ordinary meal, and theamazing variety of irreconcilable ingredients which were combined in asingle dish. Lord Beaconsfield, whose knowledge of this recondite branchof English literature was curiously minute, thus describes--no doubtfrom authentic sources--a family dinner at the end of the eighteenthcentury:--

"The ample tureen of _potage royal_ had a boned duck swimming in itscentre. At the other end of the table scowled in death the grimcountenance of a huge roast pike, flanked on one side by a leg of mutton_à la daube_, and on the other by the tempting delicacies of BombardedVeal. To these succeeded that masterpiece of the culinary art a grandBattalia Pie, in which the bodies of chickens, pigeons, and rabbits wereembalmed in spices, cocks' combs, and savoury balls, and well bedewedwith one of those rich sauces of claret, anchovy, and sweet herbs inwhich our grandfathers delighted, and which was technically termed aLear. A Florentine tourte or tansy, an old English custard, a morerefined blamango, and a riband jelly of many colours offered a pleasantrelief after these vaster inventions, and the repast closed with a dishof oyster-loaves and a pomepetone of larks. "

As the old order yielded place to the new, this enormous profusion ofrich food became by degrees less fashionable, though its terribletraditions endured, through the days of Soyer and Francatelli, almost toour own time. But gradually refinement began to supersede profusion. Simultaneously all forms of luxury spread from the aristocracy to theplutocracy; while the middle and lower classes attained a degree ofsolid comfort which would a few years before have been impossible. UnderPitt's administration wealth increased rapidly. Great fortunes wereamassed through the improvement of agricultural methods and theapplication of machinery to manufacture. The Indian Nabobs, as they werecalled, became a recognized and powerful element in society, and theirhabits of "Asiatic luxury" are represented by Chatham, Burke, Voltaire, and Home Tooke as producing a marked effect upon the social life of thetime. Lord Robert Seymour notes in his diary for 1788 that a fashionablelady gave £100 a year to the cook who superintended her suppers; that ata sale of bric-à-brac 230 guineas were paid for a mirror; and that, at aball given by the Knights of the Bath at the Pantheon, the decorationscost upwards of £3000. The general consumption of French and Portuguesewines in place of beer, which had till recently been the beverage evenof the affluent, was regarded by grave writers as a most alarming signof the times, and the cause of a great increase of drunkenness among theupper classes. The habits and manners prevalent in London spread intothe country. As the distinction between the nobility, who, roughlyspeaking, had been the frequenters of the capital, and the minor gentry, who had lived almost entirely on their own estates, graduallydisappeared, the distinction between town and country life sensiblydiminished. 

The enormous increase in the facilities for travelling and for theinterchange of information contributed to the same result; and grave menlamented the growing fondness of the provincial ladies for thecard-table, the theatre, the assembly, the masquerade, and--singularsocial juxtaposition--the Circulating Library. The process of socialassimilation, while it spread from town to country and from nobility togentry, reached down from the gentry to the merchants, and from themerchants to the tradesmen. The merchant had his villa three or fourmiles away from his place of business, and lived at Clapham or Dulwichin a degree and kind of luxury which had a few years before been themonopoly of the aristocracy. The tradesman no longer inhabited the roomsover his shop, but a house in Bloomsbury or Soho. Where, fifty yearsbefore, one fire in the kitchen served the whole family, and one dish ofmeat appeared on the table, now a footman waited at the banquet ofimported luxuries, and small beer and punch had made way for Burgundyand Madeira. 

But the subject expands before us, and it is time to close. Now Ipropose to inquire how far this Social Equalization was accompanied bySocial Amelioration. 

VIII. 

SOCIAL AMELIORATION. 

At this point it is necessary to look back a little, and to clear ourminds of the delusion that an age of splendour is necessarily an age ofrefinement. We have seen something of the regal state and prodigalluxury which surrounded the English aristocracy in the middle of theeighteenth century. Yet at no period of our national history--unless, perhaps, during the orgies of the Restoration were aristocratic moralsat so low an ebb. Edmund Burke, in a passage which is as ethicallyquestionable as it is rhetorically beautiful, taught that vice loseshalf its evil when it loses all its grossness. But in the Englishsociety of his time grossness was as conspicuous as vice itself, and itinfected not only the region of morals, but also that of manners. 

Sir Walter Scott has described how, in his youth, refined gentlewomenread aloud to their families the most startling passages of the mostoutrageous authors. I have been told by one who heard it from aneye-witness that a great Whig duchess, who figures brilliantly in thesocial and political memoirs of the eighteenth century, turning to thefootman who was waiting on her at dinner, exclaimed, "I wish to G---that you wouldn't keep rubbing your great greasy belly against the backof my chair. " Men and women of the highest fashion swore like troopers;the Princes of the Blood, who carried down into the middle of thenineteenth century the courtly habits of their youth, setting theexample. Mr. Gladstone told me the following anecdote, which he had fromthe Lord Pembroke of the period, who was present at the scene. 

In the early days of the first Reformed Parliament the Whig Governmentwere contemplating a reform of the law of Church Rates. Success wascertain in the House of Commons, but the Tory peers, headed by the Dukeof Cumberland, determined to defeat the Bill in the House of Lords. Ameeting of the party was held, when it appeared that, in the balancedstate of parties, the Tory peers could not effect their purpose unlessthey could rally the bishops to their aid. The question was, What wouldthe Archbishop of Canterbury do? He was Dr. Howley, the mildest and mostapostolic of men, and the most averse from strife and contention. It wasimpossible to be certain of his action, and the Duke of Cumberlandposted off to Lambeth to ascertain it. Returning in hot haste to thecaucus, he burst into the room, exclaiming, "It's all right, my lords;the Archbishop says he will be d----d to hell if he doesn't throw theBill out. " The Duke of Wellington's "Twopenny d----n" has becomeproverbial; and Sydney Smith neatly rebuked a similar propensity in LordMelbourne by saying, "Let us assume everybody and everything to be d---d, and come to the point. " The Miss Berrys, who had been thecorrespondents of Horace Walpole, and who carried down to the 'fiftiesthe most refined traditions of social life in the previous century, habitually "d----d" the tea-kettle if it burned their fingers, andcalled their male friends by their surnames--"Come, Milnes, will youhave a cup of tea?" "Now, Macaulay, we have had enough of that subject. "

So much, then, for the refinement of the upper classes. Did the SocialEqualization of which we have spoken bring with it anything in the wayof Social Amelioration? A philosophical orator of my time at the OxfordUnion, now a valued member of the House of Lords, once said in a debateon national intemperance that he had made a careful study of thesubject, and, with much show of scientific analysis, he thus announcedthe result of his researches: "The causes of national intemperance arethree: first, the adulteration of liquor; second, the love of drink; andthird, the desire for more. " Knowing my incapacity to rival thismasterpiece of exact thinking, I have not thought it necessary in thesechapters to enlarge on the national habit of excessive drinking in thelate years of the eighteenth century. The grossness and the universalityof the vice are too well known to need elaborating. All oral tradition, all contemporary literature, all satiric art, tell the same horrid tale;and the number of bottles which a single toper would consume at asitting not only, in Burke's phrase, "outraged economy, " but "staggeredcredibility. " Even as late as 1831, Samuel Wilberforce, afterwardsBishop, wrote thus in his diary:--"A good Audit Dinner: 23 people drank11 bottles of wine, 28 quarts of beer, 2-1/2 of spirits, and 12 bowls ofpunch; and would have drunk twice as much if not restrained. _None, wehope, drunk!_" Mr. Gladstone told me that once, when he was a young man, he was dining at a house where the principal guest was a Bishop. Whenthe decanters had made a sufficient number of circuits, the host said, "Shall we have any more wine, my Lord?" "Thank you--not till we havedisposed of what is before us, " was the bland episcopal reply. 

But still, in the matter of drinking, the turn of the century witnessedsome social amelioration among the upper classes. There was a change, ifnot in quantity, at least in quality. Where port and Madeira had beenthe Staple drinks, corrected by libations of brandy, less potentbeverages became fashionable. The late Mr. Thomson Hankey, formerlyM. P. For Peterborough, told me that he remembered his father coming homefrom the city one day and saying to his mother, "My dear, I have ordereda dozen bottles of a new white wine. It is called sherry, and I am toldthe Prince Regent drinks nothing else. " The fifteenth Lord Derby told methat the cellar-books at Knowsley and St. James's Square had beencarefully kept for a hundred years, and that--contrary to what every onewould have supposed--the number of bottles drunk in a year had notdiminished. The alteration was in the alcoholic strength of the winesconsumed. Burgundy, port, and Madeira had made way for light claret, champagne, and hock. That, even under these changed conditions ofpotency, the actual number of bottles consumed showed no diminution, wasaccounted for by the fact that at balls and evening parties a great dealmore champagne was drunk than formerly, and that luncheon in a largehouse had now become practically an earlier dinner. 

The growth of these subsidiary meals was a curious feature of thenineteenth century. We exclaim with horror at such preposterous bills offare as that which I quoted in my last chapter, but it should beremembered, in justice to our fathers, that dinner was the onlysubstantial meal of the day. Holland House was always regarded as thevery temple of luxury, and Macaulay tells us that the viands at abreakfast-party there were tea and coffee, eggs, rolls, and butter. Thefashion, which began in the nineteenth century, of going to theHighlands for shooting, popularized in England certain northern habitsof feeding, and a morning meal at which game and cold meat appeared wasknown in England as a "Scotch breakfast. " Apparently it had made someway by 1840, for the _Ingoldsby Legends_ published in that year thusdescribe the morning meal of the ill-fated Sir Thomas:--

 "It seems he had taken A light breakfast--bacon, An egg, with a little broiled haddock; at most A round and a half of some hot buttered toast; With a slice of cold sirloin from yesterday's roast. "

Luncheon, or "nuncheon" as some very ancient friends of mine alwayscalled it, was the merest mouthful. Men went out shooting with asandwich in their pocket; the ladies who sat at home had some coldchicken and wine and water brought into the drawing-room on a tray. MissAusten in her novels always dismisses the midday meal under the cursoryappellation of "cold meat. " The celebrated Dr. Kitchener, thesympathetic author of the _Cook's Oracle_, writing in 1825, says: "Yourluncheon may consist of a bit of roasted poultry, a basin of beef tea, or eggs poached, or boiled in the shell; fish plainly dressed, or asandwich; stale bread; and half a pint of good homebrewed beer, ortoast-and-water, with about one-fourth or one-third part of its measureof wine. " And this prescription would no doubt have worn an aspect ofliberal concession to the demands of the patient's appetite. It isdifficult, by any effort of a morbid imagination, to realize a time whenthere was no five-o'clock tea; and yet that most sacred of our nationalinstitutions was only invented by the Duchess of Bedford who died in1857, and whose name should surely be enrolled in the PositivistKalendar as a benefactress of the human race. No wonder that by seveno'clock our fathers, and even our mothers, were ready to tackle a dinnerof solid properties; and even to supplement it with the amazing supper(which Dr. Kitchener prescribes for "those who dine very late") of"gruel, or a little bread and cheese, or pounded cheese, and a glass ofbeer. "

This is a long digression from the subject of excessive drinking, withwhich, however, it is not remotely connected; and, both in respect ofdrunkenness and of gluttony, the habits of English society in the yearswhich immediately succeeded the French Revolution showed a markedamelioration. To a company of enthusiastic Wordsworthians who weredeploring their master's confession that he got drunk at Cambridge, Iheard Mr. Shorthouse, the accomplished author of _John Inglesant_, soothingly remark that in all probability "Wordsworth's standard ofintoxication was miserably low. "[9] Simultaneously with the restrictionof excess there was seen a corresponding increase in refinement of tasteand manners. Some of the more brutal forms of so-called sport, such asbull-baiting and cock-fighting, became less fashionable. The morecivilized forms, such as fox-hunting and racing, increased in favour. Aesthetic culture was more generally diffused. The stage was at theheight of its glory. Music was a favourite form of public recreation. Great prices were given for works of art. The study of physical science, or "natural philosophy" as it was called, became popular. PublicLibraries and local "book societies" sprang up, and there was a widedemand for encyclopaedias and similar vehicles for the diffusion ofgeneral knowledge. The love of natural beauty was beginning to move thehearts of men, and it found expression at once in an entirely new schoolof landscape painting, and in a more romantic and natural form ofpoetry. 

But against these marked instances of social amelioration must be setsome darker traits of national life. The public conscience had not yetrevolted against violence and brutality. The prize-ring, patronized byRoyalty, was at its zenith. Humanitarians and philanthropists were asyet an obscure and ridiculed sect. The slave trade, though menaced, wasstill undisturbed. Under a system scarcely distinguishable from slavery, pauper children were bound over to the owners of factories and subjectedto the utmost rigour of enforced labour. The treatment of the insanewas darkened by incredible barbarities. As late as 1828 Lord Shaftesburyfound that the lunatics in Bedlam were chained to their straw beds, andleft from Saturday to Monday without attendance, and with only bread andwater within their reach, while the keepers were enjoying themselves. Discipline in the services, in poorhouses, and in schools was of themost brutal type. Our prisons were unreformed. Our penal code wasinconceivably sanguinary and savage. In 1770 there were one hundred andsixty capital offences on the Statute-book, and by the beginning of thenineteenth century the number had greatly increased. To steal fiveshillings' worth of goods from a shop was punishable by death. A girl oftwenty-two was hanged for receiving a piece of woollen stuff from theman who had stolen it. 

In 1789 a woman was burnt at the stake for coining. People still livinghave seen the skeletons of pirates and highwaymen hanging in chains. Ihave heard that the children of the Bluecoat School at Hertford werealways taken to see the executions there; and as late as 1820 the deadbodies of the Cato Street conspirators were decapitated in front ofNewgate, and the Westminster boys had a special holiday to enable themto see the sight, which was thus described by an eye-witness, the lateLord de Ros: "The executioner and his assistant cut down one of thecorpses from the gallows, and placed it in the coffin, but with the headhanging over on the block. The man with the knife instantly severed thehead from the body, and the executioner, receiving it in his hands, heldit up, saying in a loud voice, 'This is the head of a traitor. ' He thendropped it into the coffin, which being removed, another was broughtforward, and they proceeded to cut down the next body and to go throughthe same ghastly operation. It was observed that the mob, which was verylarge, gazed in silence at the hanging of the conspirators, and showednot the least sympathy; but when each head as cut off and held up, aloud and deep groan of horror burst from all sides, which was not soonforgotten by those who heard it. "

Duelling was the recognized mode of settling all personal disputes, andno attempt was made to enforce the law which, theoretically, treated thekilling of a man in a duel as wilful murder; but, on the other hand, debt was punished with what often was imprisonment for life. A womandied in the County Jail at Exeter after forty-five years' incarcerationfor a debt of £19. Crime was rampant. Daring burglaries, accompanied byevery circumstance of violence, took place nightly. Highwaymen infestedthe suburban roads, and not seldom plied their calling in the capitalitself. The iron post at the end of the narrow footway between thegardens of Devonshire House and Lansdowne House is said by tradition tohave been placed there after a Knight of the Road had eluded theofficers of justice by galloping down the stone steps and along theflagged path. Sir Hamilton Seymour (1797-1880) was in his father'scarriage when it was "stopped" by a highwayman in Upper Brook Street. Young gentlemen of broken fortunes, and tradesmen whose business hadgrown slack, swelled the ranks of these desperadoes. It was even saidthat an Irish prelate--Dr. Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe--whose incurablelove of adventure had drawn him to "the road, " received the penalty ofhis uncanonical diversion in the shape of a bullet from a traveller whomhe had stopped on Hounslow Heath. The Lord Mayor was made to stand anddeliver on Turnham Green. Stars and "Georges" were snipped offambassadors and peers as they entered St. James's Palace. 

It is superfluous to multiply illustrations. Enough has been said toshow that the circumscription of aristocratic privilege and thediffusion of material luxury did not precipitate the millennium. SocialEqualization was not synonymous with Social Amelioration. Someimprovement, indeed, in the tone and habit of society occurred at theturn of the century; but it was little more than a beginning. I proceedto trace its development, and to indicate its source. 

FOOTNOTES:

[9] I have since been told that this happy saying was borrowed from SirFrancis Doyle. 

IX. 

THE EVANGELICAL INFLUENCE. 

Mr. Lecky justly remarks that "it is difficult to measure the changewhich must have passed over the public mind since the days when thelunatics in Bedlam were constantly spoken of as one of the sights ofLondon; when the maintenance of the African slave-trade was a foremostobject of English commercial policy; when men and even women werepublicly whipped through the streets when skulls lined the top of TempleBar and rotting corpses hung on gibbets along the Edgware Road; whenpersons exposed in the pillory not unfrequently died through theill-usage of the mob; and when the procession every six weeks ofcondemned criminals to Tyburn was one of the great festivals of London. "

Difficult, indeed, it is to measure so great a change, and it is notwholly easy to ascertain with precision its various and concurrentcauses, and to attribute to each its proper potency. But we shallcertainly not be wrong if, among those causes, we assign a prominentplace to the Evangelical revival of religion. It would be a mistake toclaim for the Evangelical movement the whole credit of our social reformand philanthropic work. Even in the darkest times of spiritual torporand general profligacy England could show a creditable amount ofpractical benevolence. The public charities of London were large andexcellent. The first Foundling Hospital was established in 1739; thefirst Magdalen Hospital in 1769. In 1795 it was estimated that theannual expenditure on charity-schools, asylums, hospitals, and similarinstitutions in London was £750, 000. 

Mr. Lecky, whose study of these social phenomena is exhaustive, imaginesthat the habit of unostentatious charity, which seems indigenous toEngland, was powerfully stimulated by the philosophy of Shaftesbury andVoltaire, by Rousseau's sentiment and Fielding's fiction. This theorymay have something to say for itself, and indeed it is antecedentlyplausible; but I can hardly believe that purely literary influencescounted for so very much in the sphere of practice. I doubt if anyconsiderable number of Englishmen were effectively swayed by thathumanitarian philosophy of France which in the actions of its maturityso awfully belied the promise of its youth. We are, I think, on surerground when, admitting a national bias towards material benevolence, andnot denying some stimulus from literature and philosophy, we assign themain credit of our social regeneration to the Evangelical revival. 

The life of John Wesley, practically coterminous with the eighteenthcentury, witnessed both the lowest point of our moral degradation andalso the earliest promise of our moral restoration. He cannot, indeed, be reckoned the founder of the Evangelical school; that title belongsrather to George Whitefield. But his influence, combined with that ofhis brother Charles, acting on such men as Newton and Cecil and Venn andScott of Aston Sandford; on Selina Lady Huntingdon and Mrs. Hannah More;on Howard and Clarkson and William Wilberforce; made a deep mark on theEstablished Church, gave new and permanent life to EnglishNonconformity, and sensibly affected the character and aspect of secularsociety. 

Wesley himself had received the governing impulse of his life from Law's_Serious Call_ and _Christian Perfection_, and he had been a member ofone of those religious societies (or guilds, as they would now becalled) with which the piety of Bishop Beveridge and Dr. Horneck hadenriched the Church of England. These societies were, of course, distinctly Anglican in origin and character, and were stamped with theHigh Church theology. They constituted, so to say, a church within theChurch, and, though they raised the level of personal piety among theirmembers to a very high point, they did not widely affect the generaltone and character of national religion. The Evangelical leaders, relying on less exclusively ecclesiastical methods, diffused theirinfluence over a much wider area, and, under the impulse of theirteaching, drunkenness, indecency, and profanity were sensibly abated. The reaction from the rampant wickedness of the eighteenth century drovemen into strict and even puritanical courses. 

Lord Robert Seymour wrote on the 20th of March, 1788: "Tho' Good Friday, Mrs. Sawbridge has an assembly this evening; tells her invited Friendsthey really are only to play for a Watch which she has had some time onher Hands and wishes to dispose of. "

"'Really, I declare 'pon my honor it's true' (said Ly. Bridget Talmashto the Dutchess of Bolton) 'that a great many People now go to Chapel. Isaw a vaste number of Carriages at Portman Chapel last Sunday. ' The Dut. Told her she always went to Chapel on Sunday, and in the country readPrayers in the Hall to her Family. "

But where the Evangelical influence reached, it brought a markedabstention from such forms of recreation as dancing, card-playing, andthe drama. Sunday was observed with a Judaical rigour. A more frequentattendance on public worship was accompanied by the revival of familyprayers and grace before meat. Manuals of private devotion weremultiplied. Religious literature of all kinds was published in greatquantity. A higher standard of morals was generally professed. Marriagewas gradually restored in public estimation to its proper place, notmerely as a civil bond or social festival, but as a chief solemnity ofthe Christian religion. 

There was no more significant sign of the times than this alteration. Inthe eighteenth century some of the gravest of our social offences hadclustered round the institution of marriage, which was almost as muchdishonoured in the observance as in the breach. In the first half ofthat century the irregular and clandestine weddings, celebrated withoutbanns or licence in the Fleet Prison, had been one of the cryingscandals of the middle and lower classes; and in the second half, thenocturnal flittings to Gretna Green of young couples who could affordsuch a Pilgrimage of Passion lowered the whole conception of marriage. It was through the elopement of Miss Child--heiress of the opulentbanker at Temple Bar--from her father's house in Berkeley Square (nowLord Rosebery's) that the ownership of the great banking business passedeventually to the present Lord Jersey; and the annals of almost everyaristocratic family contain the record of similar escapades. 

The Evangelical movement, not content with permeating England, sought toexpand itself all over the Empire. The Society for the Propagation ofthe Gospel and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge had beenessentially Anglican institutions; and similar societies, but lessecclesiastical in character, now sprang up in great numbers. The LondonMissionary Society was founded in 1795, the Church Missionary Society in1799, the Religious Tract Society in the same year, and the British andForeign Bible Society three years later. All these were distinctlycreations of the Evangelical movement, as were also the Societies forthe Reformation of Manners and for the Better Observance of the Lord'sDay. Religious education found in the Evangelical party its most activefriends. The Sunday School Society was founded in 1785. Two years laterit was educating two hundred thousand children. Its most earnestchampions were Rowland Hill and Mrs. Hannah More; but it is worthy ofnote that this excellent lady, justly honoured as a pioneer ofelementary education, confined her curriculum to the Bible and theCatechism, and "such coarse works as may fit the children for servants. _I allow of no writing for the poor_. "

To the Society of Friends--a body not historically or theologicallyEvangelical--belongs the credit of having first awoke, and tried torouse others, to a sense of the horrors and iniquities involved in theslave-trade; but the adhesion of William Wilberforce and his friends atClapham identified the movement for emancipation with the Evangelicalparty. Never were the enthusiasm, the activity, the uncompromisingdevotion to principle which marked the Evangelicals turned to betteraccount. Their very narrowness gave intensity and concentration to theirwork, and their victory, though deferred, was complete. It has beentruly said that when the English nation had been thoroughly convincedthat slavery was a curse which must be got rid of at any cost, wecheerfully paid down as the price of its abolition twenty millions incash, and threw the prosperity of our West Indian colonies into thebargain. Yet we only spent on it one-tenth of what it cost us to loseAmerica, and one-fiftieth of what we spent in avenging the execution ofLouis XVI. 

In spite of all these conspicuous and beneficent advances in thedirection of humanity, a great deal of severity, and what appears to usbrutality, remained embedded in our social system. I have spoken inprevious chapters of the methods of discipline enforced in the services, in jails, in poorhouses, and in schools. [10] A very similar spiritprevailed even in the home. Children were shut up in dark closets, starved, and flogged. Lord Shaftesbury's father used to knock him down, and recommended his tutor at Harrow to do the same. Archdeacon Denisondescribes in his autobiography how he and his brothers were thrashed bytheir tutor when they were youths of sixteen and had left Eton. _TheFairchild Family_--that quaint picture of Evangelical life andmanners--depicts a religious father as punishing his quarrelsomechildren by taking them to see a murderer hanging in chains, and aschastising every peccadillo of infancy with a severity which makes onelong to flog Mr. Fairchild. 

But still, in spite of all these checks and drawbacks and evilsurvivals, the tide of humanitarianism flowed on, and gradually alteredthe aspect of English life. The bloody Penal Code was mitigated. Prisonsand poorhouses were reformed. The discipline of school and of home wastempered by the infusion of mercy and reason into the iron regimen ofterror. And this general diminution of brutality was not the only formof social amelioration. It was accompanied by a gradual but perceptibleincrease in decency, refinement, and material prosperity. Splendourdiminished, and luxury remained the monopoly of the rich; butcomfort--that peculiarly English treasure--was more generally diffused. In that diffusion the Evangelicals had their full share. Thackeray'sadmirable description of Mrs. Newcome's villa is drawn from the life:"In Egypt itself there were not more savoury fleshpots than those atClapham. Her mansion was long the resort of the most favoured among thereligious world. The most eloquent expounders, the most giftedmissionaries, the most interesting converts from foreign islands were tobe found at her sumptuous table, spread with the produce of hermagnificent gardens ... A great, shining, mahogany table, covered withgrapes, pineapples, plum-cake, port wine, and Madeira, and surroundedby stout men in black, with baggy white neckcloths, who took littleTommy on their knees and questioned him as to his right understanding ofthe place whither naughty boys were bound. "

Again, in his paper on _Dinners_ the same great master of a fascinatingsubject speaks the words of truth and soberness when he says: "I don'tknow when I have been better entertained, as far as creature comfortsgo, than by men of very Low Church principles; and one of the very bestrepasts that ever I saw in my life was at Darlington, given by aQuaker. " This admirable tradition of material comfort allied withEvangelical opinion extended into my own time. The characteristicweakness of Mr. Stiggins has no place in my recollection; but Mr. Chadband I have frequently met in Evangelical circles, both inside andoutside the Establishment. Debarred by the strictness of theirprinciples from such amusements as dancing, cards, and theatres, theEvangelicals took their pleasure in eating and drinking. They aboundedin hospitality; and when they were not entertaining or beingentertained, occupied their evenings with systematic reading, which gavetheir religious compositions a sound basis of general culture. Austerity, gloom, and Pharisaism had no place among the better class ofEvangelicals. Wilberforce, pronounced by Madame de Staël to be the mostagreeable man in England, was of "a most gay and genial disposition;""lived in perpetual sunshine, and shed its radiance all around him. "Legh Richmond was "exceedingly good company. " Robinson of Leicester was"a capital conversationalist, very lively and bright. " Alexander Knoxfound that Mrs. Hannah More "far exceeded his expectations in pleasantmanners and interesting conversation. "

The increasing taste for solid comfort and easy living which accompaniedthe development of humanitarianism, and in which, as we have just seen, the Evangelicals had their full share, was evidenced to the eye by thechanges in domestic architecture. There was less pretension in exteriorsand elevations, but more regard to convenience and propriety within. Thespace was not all sacrificed to reception-rooms. Bedrooms weremultiplied and enlarged; and fireplaces were introduced into every room, transforming the arctic "powdering-closet" into a habitabledressing-room. The diminution of the Window-Tax made light andventilation possible. Personal cleanliness became fashionable, and themeans of attaining it were cultivated. The whole art or science ofdomestic sanitation--rudimentary enough in its beginnings--belongs tothe nineteenth century. The system which went before it was tooprimitively abominable to bear description. Sir Robert Rawlinson, thesanitary expert, who was called in to inspect Windsor Castle after thePrince Consort's death, reported that, within the Queen's reign, "cesspools full of putrid refuse and drains of the worst descriptionexisted beneath the basements.... Twenty of these cesspools were removedfrom the upper ward, and twenty-eight from the middle and lowerwards.... Means of ventilation by windows in Windsor Castle were verydefective. Even in the royal apartments the upper portions of thewindows were fixed. Lower casements alone could be opened, so that byfar the largest amount of air-spaces in the rooms contained vitiatedair, comparatively stagnant. " When this was the condition of royalabodes, no wonder that the typhoid-germ, like Solomon's spider, "tookhold with her hands, and was in kings' palaces. " And well might SirGeorge Trevelyan, in his ardent youth, exclaim:--

 "We much revere our sires; they were a famous race of men. For every glass of port we drink, they nothing thought of ten. They lived above the foulest drains, they breathed the closest air, They had their yearly twinge of gout, but little seemed to care. But, though they burned their coals at home, nor fetched their ice from Wenham, They played the man before Quebec and stormed the lines at Blenheim. When sailors lived on mouldy bread and lumps of rusty pork, No Frenchman dared to show his nose between the Downs and Cork. But now that Jack gets beef and greens and next his skin wears flannel, The _Standard_ says we've not a ship in plight to hold the Channel. "

So much for Social Amelioration. 

FOOTNOTES:

[10] For a lively description of Andover School in the eighteenthcentury, see the _Memoirs of "Orator Hunt_. '"

X. 

POLITICS. 

I now approach the political condition at the turn of the century, andthat was to a great extent the product of the French Revolution. Somehistorians, indeed, when dealing with that inexhaustible theme, havewrought cause and effect into a circular chain, and have reckoned amongthe circumstances which prepared the way for the French Revolution thefact that Voltaire in his youth spent three years in England, andmastered the philosophy of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, the Deism of theEnglish Freethinkers, and the English theory of political liberty. Thatthese doctrines, recommended by Voltaire's mordant genius and matchlessstyle, and circulating in a community prepared by tyranny to receivethem, acted as a powerful solvent on the intellectual basis of Frenchsociety, is indeed likely enough. But to pursue the theme would carry ustoo far back into the eighteenth century. In dealing with therecollections of persons whom one's self has known we must dismiss fromview the causes of the French Revolution. Our business is with itseffect on political thought and action in England. 

About half way through the nineteenth century it became the fashion tomake out that the effect of the Revolution on England had beenexaggerated. Satirists made fun of our traditional Gallophobia. In thatadmirable skit on philosophical history, the introduction to the _Bookof Snobs_, Thackeray first illustrates his theme by a reference to theFrench Revolution, and then adds (in sarcastic brackets)--"Which thereader will be pleased to have introduced so early. " Lord Beaconsfield, quizzing John Wilson Croker in _Coningsby_, says: "He bored his audiencewith too much history, especially the French Revolution, which hefancied was his forte, so that the people at last, whenever he made anyallusion to the subject, were almost as much terrified as if they hadseen the guillotine. " In spite of these gibes, historians have of lateyears returned to the earlier and truer view, and have deliberatelyreaffirmed the tremendous effect of the Revolution on English politics. The philosophical Mr. Lecky says that it influenced English history inthe later years of the eighteenth century more powerfully than any otherevent; that it gave a completely new direction to the statesmanship ofPitt; that it instantaneously shattered, and rendered ineffectual for awhole generation, one of the two great parties in the State; and that itdetermined for a like period the character and complexion of our foreignpolicy. 

All contemporary Europe--all subsequent time--quivered with the shockand sickened at the carnage; but I have gathered that it was not tillthe capture of the Bastille that the events which were taking place inFrance attracted any general or lively interest in England. The strifesof rival politicians, the illness of George III. , and the consequentquestions as to the Regency, engrossed the public mind, and what littleinterest was felt in foreign affairs was directed much more to thepossible designs of Russia than to the actual condition of France. Thecapture of the Bastille, however, was an event so startling and sodramatic that it instantly arrested the public attention of England, andthe events which immediately followed in rapid and striking successionraised interest into excitement, and excitement into passion. Men whohad been accustomed from their childhood to regard the Monarchy ofFrance as the type of a splendid, powerful, and enduring polity now sawa National Army constituted in complete independence of the Crown; aRepresentative Body assuming absolute power and denying the King's rightto dissolve; the summary abrogation of the whole feudal system, which ayear before had seemed endowed with perpetual vigour; an insurrection ofthe peasantry against their territorial tyrants, accompanied by everyhorror of pillage, arson, and bloodshed; the beautiful and stately Queenflying, half naked, for her life, amid the slaughter of her sentinelsand courtiers; and the King himself virtually a prisoner in the veryCourt which, up to that moment, had seemed the ark and sanctuary ofabsolute government. All over England these events produced theirimmediate and natural effect. Enemies of religious establishments tookcourage from the downfall of ecclesiastical institutions. Enemies ofmonarchy rejoiced in the formal and public degradation of a monarch. Those who had long been conscientiously working for Parliamentary reformsaw with glee their principles expressed in the most uncompromisingterms in the French Declaration of Rights, and practically applied inthe constitution of the Sovereign Body of France. 

These convinced and constitutional reformers found new and strangeallies. Serious advocates of Republican institutions, mere lovers ofchange and excitement, secret sympathizers with lawlessness andviolence, sedentary theorists, reckless adventurers, and localbusybodies associated themselves in the endeavour to popularize theFrench Revolution in England and to imbue the English mind withcongenial sentiments. The movement had leaders of greater mark. The Dukeof Norfolk and the Duke of Richmond, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Stanhope, held language about the Sovereignty of the People such as filled thereverent and orderly mind of Burke with indignant astonishment. In Dr. Priestley the revolutionary party had an eminent man of science and apolemical writer of rare power. Dr. Price was a rhetorician whom anycause would have gladly enlisted as its champion. The RevolutionSociety, founded to commemorate the capture of the Bastille, corresponded with the leaders of the Revolution, and promised itsalliance in a revolutionary compact. And, to add a touch of comedy tothese more serious demonstrations, the young Duke of Bedford and otherleaders of fashion discarded hair-powder, and wore their hair cut shortin what was understood to be the Republican mode of Paris. 

Amidst all this hurly-burly Pitt maintained a stately and cautiousreserve. Probably he foresaw his opportunity in the inevitabledisruption of his opponents; and if so, his foresight was soon realizedby events. On the capture of the Bastille, Fox exclaimed: "How much thegreatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much thebest!" At the same time Burke was writing to an intimate friend: "Theold Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner. It is truethat this may be no more than a sudden explosion. If so, no indicationcan be taken from it; but if it should be character rather thanaccident, then that people are not fit for liberty, and must have astrong hand like that of their former masters to coerce them. " Thiscontrast between the judgments of the 10 great Whigs was continuouslyand rapidly heightened. Fox threw himself into the revolutionary causewith all the ardour which he had displayed on behalf of Americanindependence. Burke opposed with characteristic vehemence the Frenchattempt to build up a theoretical Constitution on the ruins ofreligion, history, and authority; and any fresh act of cruelty oroppression which accompanied the process stirred in him that tremendousindignation against violence and injustice of which Warren Hastings hadlearned by stern experience the intensity and the volume. The_Reflections on the French Revolution_ and the _Appeal from the New tothe Old Whigs_ expressed in the most splendid English which was everwritten the dire apprehensions that darkened their author's receptiveand impassioned mind. "A voice like the Apocalypse sounded over England, and even echoed in all the Courts of Europe. Burke poured the vials ofhis hoarded vengeance into the agitated heart of Christendom, andstimulated the panic of a world by the wild pictures of his inspiredimagination. "

Meanwhile the Whig party was rent in twain. The Duke of Portland, LordFitzwilliam, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord John Cavendish, and Sir GeorgeElliot adhered to Burke. Fox as stoutly opposed him, and was reinforcedby Sheridan, Francis, Erskine, and Grey. The pathetic issue of thedispute, in Burke's formal repudiation of Fox's friendship, has takenits place among those historic Partings of Friends which have modifiedthe course of human society. As far as can now be judged, the bulk ofthe country was with Burke, and the execution of Louis XVI. Was followedby an astonishing outbreak of popular feeling. The theatres were closed. The whole population wore mourning. The streets rang with the cry "Warwith France!" The very pulpits re-echoed the summons. Fox himself wasconstrained to declare to the electors of Westminster that there was noone outside France who did not consider this sad catastrophe "as a mostrevolting act of cruelty and injustice. "

But it was too late. The horror and indignation of England were not tobe allayed by soothing words of decorous sympathy from men who hadapplauded the earlier stages of the tragedy, though they wept at itsculmination. The warlike spirit of the race was aroused, and it spoke inthe cry, "No peace with the regicides!" Pitt clearly discerned thefeeling of the country, and promptly gave effect to it. He dismissedChauvelin, who informally represented the Revolutionary Government inLondon, and he demanded from Parliament an immediate augmentation of theforces. 

On the 20th of January, 1793, France declared war against England. Thegreat struggle had begun, and that declaration was a new starting-pointin the political history of England. English parties entered into newcombinations. English politics assumed a new complexion. Pitt's imperialmind maintained its ascendency, but the drift of his policy was entirelychanged. All the schemes of Parliamentary, financial, and commercialreform in which he had been immersed yielded place to the sternexpedients of a Minister fighting for his life against revolution abroadand sedition at home. For though, as I said just now, popular sentimentwas stirred by the King's execution into vehement hostility to France, still the progress of the war was attended by domestic consequenceswhich considerably modified this sentiment. Hostility gave way topassive acquiescence, and acquiescence to active sympathy. 

Among the causes which produced this change were the immense increase ofnational burdens; the sudden agglomeration of a lawless population inthe manufacturing towns which the war called into being; the growingdifficulties in Ireland, where revolutionary theories found readylearners; the absolute abandonment of all attempts at social andpolitical improvement; the dogged determination of those in authority toremedy no grievance however patent, and to correct no abuse howeverindefensible. 

The wise and temperate reforms for which the times were ripe, and whichthe civil genius of Pitt pre-eminently qualified him to effect, were notonly suspended but finally abandoned under the influence of an insanereaction. The besotted resistance to all change stimulated the desirefor it. Physical distress co-operated with political discontent toproduce a state of popular disaffection such as the whole precedingcentury had never seen. The severest measures of coercion and repressiononly, and scarcely, restrained the populace from open and desperateinsurrection, and thirty years of this experience brought England to theverge of a civil catastrophe. 

Patriotism was lost in partisanship. Political faction ran to anincredible excess. The whole community was divided into two hostilecamps. Broadly speaking, the cause of France was espoused, withdifferent degrees of fervour, by all lovers of civil and religiousfreedom. To the Whigs the humiliation of Pitt was a more cherishedobject than the defeat of Napoleon. Fox wrote to a friend: "The triumphof the French Government over the English does, in fact, afford me adegree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise;" and I havegathered that this was the prevalent temper of Whiggery during the longand desperate struggle with Republican and Imperial France. What Byroncalled "The crowning carnage, Waterloo, " brought no abatement ofpolitical rancour. The question of France, indeed, was eliminated fromthe contest, but its elimination enabled English Liberals to concentratetheir hostility on the Tory Government without incurring the reproach ofunpatriotic sympathy with the enemies of England. 

In the great fight between Tory and Whig, Government and Opposition, Authority and Freedom, there was no quarter. Neither age nor sex wasspared. No department of national life was untouched by the fury of thecontest. The Royal Family was divided. The Duke of Cumberland was one ofthe most dogged and unscrupulous leaders of the Tory party; the Duke ofSussex toasted the memory of Charles James Fox, and at a public dinnerjoined in singing "The Trumpet of Liberty, " of which the chorus ran--

 "Fall, tyrants, fall! These are the days of liberty; Fall, tyrants, fall!"

The Established Church was on the side of authority; the Dissentersstood for freedom. "Our opponents, " said Lord John Russell, in one ofhis earliest speeches--"our opponents deafen us with their cry of'Church and King. ' Shall I tell you what they mean by it? They mean aChurch without the Gospel and a King above the law. " An old Radicalelectioneer, describing the activity of the country clergy on the Toryside, said: "In every village we had the Black Recruiting-Sergeantagainst us. " Even within sacred walls the echoes of the fight wereheard. The State Holy-days--Gunpowder Treason, Charles the Martyr, theRestoration and the Accession--gave suitable occasion for sermons of themost polemical vehemence. Even the two Collects for the King at thebeginning of the Communion Service were regarded as respectively Toryand Whig. The first, with its bold assertion of the Divine Right ofSovereignty, was that which commended itself to every loyal clergyman onhis promotion; and unfavourable conclusions were drawn with regard tothe civil sentiments of the man who preferred the colourlessalternative. As in the Church, so in our educational system. Oxford, with its Caroline and Jacobite traditions, was the Tory University;Cambridge, the nursing mother of Whigs; Eton was supposed to cherish asentiment of romantic affection for the Stuarts; Harrow was profoundlyHanoverian. Even the drama was involved in political antipathies, andthe most enthusiastic adherents of Kean and Kemble were foundrespectively among the leaders of Whig and Tory Society. 

The vigour, heartiness, and sincerity of this political hatred put toshame the more tepid convictions of our degenerate days. The first Earlof Leicester, better known as "Coke of Norfolk, " told my father thatwhen he was a child his grandfather took him on his knee and said, "Now, remember, Tom, as long as you live, never trust a Tory;" and he used tosay, "I never have, and, by George, I never will. " A little girl ofWhig descent, accustomed from her cradle to hear language of this sort, asked her mother, "Mamma, are Tories born wicked, or do they grow wickedafterwards?" and her mother judiciously replied, "They are born wicked, and grow worse. " I well remember in my youth an eccentric maidenlady--Miss Harriet Fanny Cuyler--who had spent a long and interestinglife in the innermost circles of aristocratic Whiggery; and she alwaysrefused to enter a four-wheel cab until she had extorted from the driverhis personal assurance that he never had cases of infectious disease inhis cab, that he was not a Puseyite, and was a Whig. 

I am bound to say that this vehement prejudice was not unnatural in ageneration that remembered, either personally or by immediate tradition, the iron coercion which Pitt exercised in his later days, and which hissuccessors continued. The barbarous executions for high treason remain ablot on the fair fame of the nineteenth century. Scarcely less horriblewere the trials for sedition, which sent an English clergyman totransportation for life because he had signed a petition in favour ofParliamentary reform. 

 "The good old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, And each old English peasant had his good old English spies, To tempt his starving discontent with good old English lies, Then call the British yeomanry to stop his peevish cries. "

At Woburn, a market town forty miles from London, under the very shadowof a great Whig house, no political meeting could be held for fear ofPitt's spies, who dropped down from London by the night coach andreturned to lay information against popular speakers; and when thepoliticians of the place desired to express their sentiments, they hadto repair secretly to an adjacent village off the coach road, where theywere harangued under cover of night by the young sons of the Duke ofBedford. 

The ferocity, the venality, the profligate expenditure, the deliriousexcitement of contested elections have made an indelible mark on ourpolitical history. In 1780 King George III. Personally canvassed theBorough of Windsor against the Whig candidate, Admiral Keppel, andpropitiated a silk-mercer by calling at his shop and saying, "The Queenwants a gown--wants a gown. No Keppel. No Keppel. " It is pleasant toreflect that the friends of freedom were not an inch behind theupholders of tyranny in the vigour and adroitness of theirelectioneering methods. The contest for the City of Westminster in 1788is thus described in the manuscript diary of Lord Robert Seymour:--

"The Riotts of the Westr. Election are carried such lengths the Militaryobliged to be called into the assistance of Ld. Hood's party. SeveralPersons have been killed by Ld. J. Townsend's Butchers who cleave themto the Ground with their Cleavers--Mr. Fox very narrowly escaped beingkilled by a Bayonet wch. W'd certainly have been fatal had not a poorBlack saved him fm. The blow. Mr. Macnamara's Life is despaired of--&several others have died in the difft. Hospitals. Next Thursday decidesthe business. 

"July 25. --Lord John Townsend likely to get the Election--what haschiefly contributed to Ld. Hood's losing it is that Mr. Pulteney is hisFriend--Mr. P. Can command 1, 500 Votes--& as he is universally dislikedby his Tenants they are unanimous in voting against him--wch. For Ld. H. Proves a very unfortunate circumstance. The Duke of Bedford sent £10, 000towards the Expenses of the Opposition. 

"It is thought that Lord Hood will not attempt a Scrutiny. One of Ld. Hood's votes was discovered to be a carrot-scraper in St. James's Marketwho sleeps in a little Kennel about the Size of a Hen Coup. 

"Augt. 5th--The Election decided in favour of Ld. J. T. , who waschaired--and attend'd by a Procession of a mile in length. On his Headwas a crown of Laurel. C. Fox follow'd him in a Landau & 6 Horsescover'd in Favors & Lawrels. The appearance this Procession made wasequal in splendor to the public Entry of an Ambassador. "

A by-election was impending in Yorkshire, and Pitt, paying a socialvisit to the famous Mrs. B. --one of the Whig Queens of the WestRiding--said, banteringly, "Well, the election is all right for us. Tenthousand guineas for the use of our side go down to Yorkshire to-nightby a sure hand. " "The devil they do!" responded Mrs. B. , and that nightthe bearer of the precious burden was stopped by a highwayman on theGreat North Road, and the ten thousand guineas were used to procure thereturn of the Whig candidate. The electioneering methods, lessadventurous but not more scrupulous, of a rather later day have beendepicted in _Pickwick_, and _Coningsby_, and _My Novel_, and_Middlemarch_, with all the suggestive fun of a painting by Hogarth. 

And so, with startling incidents and culpable expedients and varyingfortunes, the great struggle for political freedom was conducted throughthe first thirty years of the nineteenth century, and it has been myinteresting fortune to know some of the toughest of the combatants bothamong the leaders and in the rank-and-file. And from all of themalike--and not only from them, but from all who remembered the time--Ihave gathered the impression that all through their earlier life thehidden fires of revolution were smouldering under English society, andthat again and again an actual outbreak was only averted by some happystroke of fortune. At the Election of 1868 an old labourer in theagricultural Borough of Woodstock told a Liberal canvasser from Oxfordthat in his youth arms had been stored in his father's cottage so as tobe in readiness for the outbreak which was to take place if Lord Grey'sReform Bill was finally defeated. A Whig nobleman, of great experienceand calm judgment, told me that if Princess Victoria had died beforeWilliam IV. , and thereby Ernest Duke of Cumberland had succeeded to theThrone, no earthly power could have averted a revolution. "I have nohesitation in saying, " I heard Mr. Gladstone say, "that if the repeal ofthe Corn Laws had been defeated, or even retarded, we should have had arevolution. " Charles Kingsley and his fellow-workers for Social Reformexpected a revolution in April 1848. 

But, after all, these testimonies belong to the region of conjecture. Let me close this chapter by a narrative of fact, derived from the lateLord de Ros, who was an eye-witness of the events which he narrated. Arthur Thistlewood (whose execution for the "Cato Street Conspiracy" Ihave described in a previous chapter) was a young Englishman who hadbeen in Paris in the time of Robespierre's ascendency, and had thereimbibed revolutionary sentiments. He served for a short time as anofficer in the English Army, and after quitting the service he madehimself notorious by trying to organize a political riot in London, forwhich he was tried and acquitted. He subsequently collected round him asecret society of disaffected citizens, and proceeded to arrange a planby which he hoped to paralyze Government and establish a Reign of Terrorin London. 

One evening, in the winter of 1819-20, a full-dress ball was given bythe Spanish Ambassador in Portland Place, and was attended by the PrinceRegent, the Royal Dukes, the Duke of Wellington, the Ministers of State, and the leaders of fashion and society. "About one o'clock, just beforesupper, a sort of order was circulated among the junior officers to drawtowards the head of the stairs, though no one knew for what reason, except that an unusual crowd had assembled in the street. The appearanceof Lavender and one or two well-known Bow Street officers in theentrance-hall also gave rise to surmises of some impending riot. Whilethe officers were whispering to one another as to what was expected tohappen, a great noise was heard in the street, the crowd dispersed withloud cries in all directions, and a squadron of the 2nd Life Guardsarrived with drawn swords at a gallop from their barracks (then situatein King Street), and rapidly formed in front of the Ambassador's house. Lavender and the Bow Street officers now withdrew; the officers who hadgathered about the stairhead were desired to return to the ballroom. 

"The alarm, whatever it might have been, appeared to be over, and beforethe company broke up the Life Guards had been withdrawn to theirbarracks. Inside the Ambassador's house all had remained so quiet thatvery few of the ladies present were aware till next day that anythingunusual had happened, but it became known after a short time that theDuke of Wellington had received information of an intended attack uponthe house, which the precautions taken had probably prevented; and uponthe trial of Thistlewood and his gang (for the Cato Street Conspiracy)it came out, among other evidence of the various wild schemes they hadformed, that Thistlewood had certainly entertained the project, at thetime of this ball, to attack the Spanish Ambassador's house, and destroythe Regent and other Royal personages, as well as the Ministers, whowere sure to be, most of them, present on the occasion. "

For details of the Cato Street Conspiracy the curious reader is referredto the _Annual Register_ for 1820, and it is strange to reflect thatthese explosions of revolutionary rage occurred well within therecollection of people now[11] living, among whom I hope it is notinvidious to mention Mr. Charles Villiers, [12] Lady Mary Saurin, [13] andLady Glentworth. [14]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] 1897. 

[12] The Right Hon. C. P. Villiers, M. P. , 1802-98. 

[13] (_nee_ Ryder), 1801-1900. 

[14] Eve Maria, Viscountess Glentworth, 1803-19. 

XI. 

PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY. 

Closely connected with the subject of Politics, of which we werespeaking in the last chapter, is that of Parliamentary Oratory, and fora right estimate of oratory personal impressions (such as those on whichI have relied) are peculiarly valuable. They serve both to correct andto confirm. It is impossible to form from the perusal of a printedspeech anything but the vaguest and often the most erroneous notion ofthe effect which it produced upon its hearers. But from the testimony ofcontemporaries one can often gain the clue to what is otherwiseunintelligible. One learns what were the special attributes of bearing, voice, or gesture, the circumstances of delivery, or even the antecedentconditions of character and reputation, which perhaps doomed somemagnificent peroration to ludicrous failure, or, on the contrary, "ordained strength" out of stammering lips and disjointed sentences. Testimony of this kind the circumstances of my life have given me ingreat abundance. My chain of tradition links me to the days of thegiants. 

Almost all the old people whose opinions and experience I have recordedwere connected, either personally or through their nearest relations, with one or other of the Houses of Parliament. Not a few of them wereconspicuous actors on the stage of political life. Lord Robert Seymour, from whose diary I have quoted, died in 1831, after a long life spentin the House of Commons, which he entered in 1771, and of which fortwenty-three years he was a fellow-member with Edmund Burke. Let melinger for a moment on that illustrious name. 

In originality, erudition, and accomplishments Burke had no rival amongParliamentary speakers. His prose is, as we read it now, the mostfascinating, the most musical, in the English language. It bears onevery page the divine lineaments of genius. Yet an orator requiressomething more than mere force of words. He must feel, while he speaks, the pulse of his audience, and instinctively regulate every sentence byreference to their feelings. All contemporary evidence shows that inthis kind of oratorical tact Burke was eminently deficient. Hisnickname, "The Dinner-bell of the House of Commons, " speaks for hiseffect on the mind of the average M. P. "In vain, " said: Moore, "didBurke's genius put forth its superb plumage, glittering all over withthe hundred eyes of fancy. The gait of the bird was heavy and awkward, and its voice seemed rather to scare than attract. "

Macaulay has done full justice to the extraordinary blaze of brilliancywhich on supreme occasions threw these minor defects into the shade. Even now the old oak rafters of Westminster Hall seem to echo thatsuperlative peroration which taught Mrs. Siddons a higher flight oftragedy than her own, and made the accused proconsul feel himself forthe moment the guiltiest of men. Mr. Gladstone declared that Burke wasdirectly responsible for the war with France, for "Pitt could not haveresisted him. " For the more refined, the more cultivated, the morespeculative intellects he had--and has--an almost supernatural charm. His style is without any exception the richest, the most picturesque, the most inspired and inspiring in the language. In its glories and itsterrors it resembles the Apocalypse. Mr. Morley, in the most striking ofall his critical essays, has truly said that the natural ardour whichimpelled Burke to clothe his judgments in glowing and exaggeratedphrases is one secret of his power over us, because it kindles in thosewho are capable of that generous infection a respondent interest andsympathy. "He has the sacred gift of inspiring men to care for highthings, and to make their lives at once rich and austere. Such a gift israre indeed. We feel no emotion of revolt when Mackintosh speaks ofShakespeare and Burke in the same breath as being, both of them, abovemere talent. We do not dissent when Macaulay, after reading Burke'sworks over again, exclaims: 'How admirable! The greatest man sinceMilton!'"

No sane critic would dream of comparing the genius of Pitt with that ofBurke. Yet where Burke failed Pitt succeeded. Burke's speeches, indeed, are a part of our national literature; Pitt was, in spite of grave andundeniable faults, the greatest Minister that ever governed England. Foremost among the gifts by which he acquired his supreme ascendencymust be placed his power of parliamentary speaking. He was not, as hisfather was, an orator in that highest sense of oratory which impliessomething of inspiration, of genius, of passionate and poetic rapture;but he was a public speaker of extraordinary merit. He had while still ayouth what Coleridge aptly termed "a premature and unnatural dexterityin the combination of words, " and this developed into "a power ofpouring forth with endless facility perfectly modulated sentences ofperfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed the reach of a normalintellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed the capacities of a normalbody. " It was eloquence particularly well calculated to sway a popularassembly which yet had none of the characteristics of a mob. A sonorousvoice; a figure and bearing which, though stiff and ungainly, weresingularly dignified; an inexhaustible copiousness of grandiloquentphrase; a peculiar vein of sarcasm which froze like ice and cut likesteel--these were some of the characteristics of the oratory which from1782 to 1806 at once awed and fascinated the House of Commons. 

"I never want a word, but Mr. Pitt always has at command the rightword. " This was the generous tribute of Pitt's most eminent rival, Charles James Fox. Never were great opponents in public life moreexactly designed by Nature to be contrasts to one another. While everytone of Pitt's voice and every muscle of his countenance expressed withunmistakable distinctness the cold and stately composure of hischaracter, every particle of Fox's mental and physical formation borewitness to his fiery and passionate enthusiasm. "What is that fatgentleman in such a passion about?" was the artless query of the lateLord Eversley, who, as Mr. Speaker Shaw-Lefevre, so long presided overthe House of Commons, and who as a child had been taken to the galleryto hear Mr. Fox. While Pitt was the embodied representative of Order, his rival was the Apostle and Evangelist of Liberty. If the masterpassion of Pitt's mind was enthusiasm for his country, Fox was swayed bythe still nobler enthusiasm of Humanity. His style of oratory was theexact reflex of his mind. He was unequalled in passionate argument, inimpromptu reply, in ready and spontaneous declamation. His style wasunstudied to a fault. Though he was so intimately acquainted with thegreat models of classical antiquity, his oratory owed little to thecontact, and nothing to the formal arts of rhetoric; everything toinborn genius and the greatness of the cause which he espoused. It wouldbe difficult to point to a single public question of his time on whichhis voice did not sound with rousing effect, and whenever that voice washeard it was on behalf of freedom, humanity, and the sacred brotherhoodof nations. 

I pass on to the orator of whose masterpiece Fox said that "eloquentindeed it was; so much so that all he had ever heard, all he had everread, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun. "In sparkling brilliancy and pointed wit, in all the livelier graces ofdeclamation and delivery, Sheridan surpassed all his contemporaries. When he concluded his speech on the charge against Warren Hastings ofplundering the Begums of Oude, the peers and strangers joined with theHouse in a tumult of applause, and could not be restrained from clappingtheir hands in ecstasy. The House adjourned in order to recover itsself-possession. Pitt declared that this speech surpassed all theeloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed everything thatgenius or art could furnish to agitate or control the human mind. Andyet, while Sheridan's supreme efforts met with this startling success, his deficiencies in statesmanship and character prevented him fromcommanding that position in the House and in the Government which hisoratorical gift, if not thus handicapped, must have secured for itspossessor. 

As a speaker in his own sphere Lord Erskine was not inferior to thegreatest of his contemporaries. He excelled in fire, force, and passion. Lord Brougham finely described "that noble figure every look of whosecountenance is expressive, every motion of whose form graceful; an eyethat sparkles and pierces and almost assures victory, while it 'speaksaudience ere the tongue. '" Yet, as is so often the case, the unequalledadvocate found himself in the House of Commons less conspicuouslysuccessful than he had been at the Bar. The forensic manner of speech, in which he was a head and shoulders higher than any of his legalcontemporaries, is, after all, distinct from parliamentary eloquence. 

The same disqualification attached to the oratory of Lord Brougham, whose speech at the bar of the House of Lords in defence of QueenCaroline had made so deep an impression. His extraordinary fiercenessand even violence of nature pervaded his whole physical as well asintellectual being. When he spoke he was on springs and quicksilver, andpoured forth sarcasm, invective, argument, and declamation in apromiscuous and headlong flood. Yet all contemporary evidence shows thathis grandest efforts were dogged by the inevitable fate of the man who, not content with excellence in one or two departments, aims at thehighest point in all. In reading his speeches, while one admires theversatility, one is haunted by that fatal sense of superficiality whichgave rise to the saying that "if the Lord Chancellor only knew a littlelaw he would know something about everything. "

Pitt died in 1806, but he lived long enough to hear the splendideloquence of Grattan, rich in imagination, metaphor, and epigram; and toopen the doors of the official hierarchy to George Canning. Trained byPitt, and in many gifts and graces his superior, Canning first displayedhis full greatness after the death of his illustrious master. For twentyyears he was the most accomplished debater in the House of Commons, andyet he never succeeded in winning the full confidence of the nation, nor, except in foreign affairs, in leaving his mark upon our nationalpolicy. "The English are afraid of genius, " and when genius is displayedin the person of a social adventurer, however brilliant and delightful, it is doubly alarming. 

We can judge of Canning's speeches more exactly than of those of hispredecessors, for by the time that he had become famous the art ofparliamentary reporting had attained almost to its present perfection;and there are none which more amply repay critical study. Second only toBurke in the grandeur and richness of his imagery, he greatly excelledhim in readiness, in tact, and in those adventitious advantages which goso far to make an orator. Mr. Gladstone remembered the "light and music"of the eloquence with which he had fascinated Liverpool seventy yearsbefore. Scarcely any one contributed so many beautiful thoughts andhappy phrases to the common stock of public speech. All contemporaryobservers testify to the effect produced by the proud strength of hisdeclaration on foreign policy: "I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old. " And the language does not contain amore magnificent or perfect image than that in which he likens a strongnation at peace to a great man-of-war lying calm and motionless till themoment for action comes, when "it puts forth all its beauty and itsbravely collects its scattered elements of strength, and awakens itsdormant thunder. "

Lord John Russell entered the House of Commons in 1813, and left it in1861. He used to say that in his early days there were a dozen men therewho could make a finer speech than any one now living; "but, " he used toadd, "there were not another dozen who could understand what they weretalking about. " I asked him who was, on the whole, the best speaker heever heard. He answered, "Lord Plunket, " and subsequently gave as hisreason this--that while Plunket had his national Irish gifts offluency, brilliant imagination, and ready wit very highly developed, they were all adjuncts to his strong, cool, inflexible argument. This, it will be readily observed, is a very rare and a very strikingcombination, and goes far to account for the transcendent success whichPlunket attained at the Bar and in the House, and alike in the Irish andthe English Parliament. Lord Brougham said of him that his eloquence wasa continuous flow of "clear statement, close reasoning, felicitousillustration, all confined strictly to the subject in hand; everyportion, without any exception, furthering the process of conviction;"and I do not know a more impressive passage of sombre passion than theperoration of his first speech against the Act of Union: "For my ownpart, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with thelast drop of my blood; and when I feel the hour of my dissolutionapproaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children tothe altar and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders oftheir country's freedom. "

Before the death of Pitt another great man had risen to eminence, thoughthe main achievement of his life associates him with 1832. Lord Grey wasdistinguished by a stately and massive eloquence which exactly suitedhis high purpose and earnest gravity of nature, while its effect wasenormously enhanced by his handsome presence and kingly bearing. Thoughthe leader of the popular cause, he was an aristocrat in nature, andpre-eminently qualified for the great part which, during twenty years, he played in that essentially aristocratic assembly--the unreformedHouse of Commons. In a subsequent chapter I hope to say a little aboutparliamentary orators of a rather more recent date; and here it may notbe uninteresting to compare the House of Commons as we have seen it andknown it, modified by successive extensions of the suffrage, with whatit was before Grey and Russell destroyed for ever its exclusivecharacter. 

The following description is taken from Lord Beaconsfield, who isdrawing a character derived in part from Sir Francis Burdett(1770-1840), and in part from George Byng, who was M. P. For Middlesexfor fifty-six years, and died in 1847:--"He was the Father of the House, though it was difficult to believe that from his appearance. He wastall, and kept his distinguished figure; a handsome man with a musicalvoice, and a countenance now benignant, though very bright and Oncehaughty. He still retained the same fashion of costume in which he hadridden up to Westminster more than half a century ago to support hisdear friend Charles Fox--real topboots and a blue coat and buffwaistcoat. He had a large estate, and had refused an earldom. KnowingE. , he came and sate by him one Jay in the House, and asked him, good-naturedly, how he liked his new life. It is very different fromwhat it as when I was your age. Up to Easter we rarely had a regulardebate, never a party division; very few people came up indeed. Butthere was a good deal of speaking on all subjects before dinner. We hadthe privilege then of speaking on the presentation of petitions at anylength, and we seldom spoke on any other occasion. After Easter therewas always at least one great party fight. This was a mighty affair, talked of for weeks before it came off, and then rarely an adjourneddebate. We were gentlemen, used to sit up late, and should have beensitting up somewhere else had we not been in the House of Commons. Afterthis party fight the House for the rest of the session was a mereclub.... The House of Commons was very much like what the House of Lordsis now. You went home to dine, and then came back for an importantdivision.... Twenty years ago no man would think of coming down to theHouse except in evening dress. I remember so late as Mr. Canning theMinister always came down in silk stockings and pantaloons orknee-breeches. All these things change, and quoting Virgil will be thenext thing to disappear. In the last--Parliament we often had Latinquotations, but never from a member with a new constituency. I haveheard Greek quoted here, but that was long ago, and a great mistake. TheHouse was quite alarmed. Charles Fox used to say as to quotation, 'NoGreek; as much Latin as you like; and never French under anycircumstances. No English poet unless he has completed his century. 'These were, like some other good rules, the unwritten orders of theHouse of Commons. "

XII. 

PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY--_continued_. 

I concluded my last chapter with a quotation from Lord Beaconsfield, describing parliamentary speaking as it was when he entered the House ofCommons in 1837. Of that particular form of speaking perhaps thegreatest master was Sir Robert Peel. He was deficient in those gifts ofimagination and romance which are essential to the highest oratory. Heutterly lacked--possibly he would have despised--that almost propheticrapture which we recognize in Burke and Chatham and Erskine. His mannerwas frigid and pompous, and his rhetorical devices were mechanical. Every parliamentary sketch of the time satirizes his habit of turninground towards his supporters at given periods to ask for their applause;his trick of emphasizing his points by perpetually striking the boxbefore him; and his inveterate propensity to indulge in hackneyedquotation. But when we have said this we have said all that can be urgedin his disparagement. As a parliamentary speaker of the second andperhaps most useful class he has never been excelled. Firmly thoughdispassionately persuaded of certain political and economic doctrines, he brought to the task of promoting them unfailing tact, prompt courage, intimate acquaintance with the foibles of his hearers, unconquerablepatience and perseverance, and an inexhaustible supply of sonorousphrases and rounded periods. Nor was his success confined to the Houseof Commons. As a speaker on public platforms, in the heyday of theten-pound householder and the middle-class franchise, he was peculiarlyin his element. He had beyond most men the art of "making a platitudeendurable by making it pompous. " He excelled in demonstrating thematerial advantages of a moderate and cautious conservatism, and hecould draw at will and with effect upon a prodigious fund ofconstitutional commonplaces. If we measure the merit of a parliamentaryspeaker by his practical influence, we must allow that Peel waspre-eminently great. 

In the foremost rank of orators a place must certainly be assigned toO'Connell. He was not at his best in the House of Commons. Hiscoarseness, violence, and cunning were seen to the worst advantage inwhat was still an assemblage of gentlemen. His powers of ridicule, sarcasm, and invective, his dramatic and sensational predilections, required another scene for their effective display. But few men haveever been so richly endowed by Nature with the original, theincommunicable, the inspired qualifications which go to make an orator. He was magnificently built, and blessed with a voice which, by allcontemporary testimony, was one of the most thrilling, flexible, andmelodious that ever vibrated through a popular assembly. "From grave togay, from lively to severe" he flew without delay or difficulty. His witgave point to the most irrelevant personalities, and cogency to the mostillogical syllogisms. The most daring perversions of truth and justicewere driven home by appeals to the emotions which the coldest naturescould scarcely withstand; "the passions of his audience were playthingsin his hand. " Lord Lytton thus described him:--

 "Once to my sight the giant thus was given: Walled by wide air, and roofed by boundless heaven, Beneath his feet the human ocean lay, And wave on wave flowed into space away. Methought no clarion could have sent its sound Even to the centre of the hosts around; But, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell As from some church tower swings the silvery bell. Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide It glided, easy as a bird may glide; To the last verge of that vast audience sent, It played with each wild passion as it went; Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled, And sobs or laughter answered as it willed. Then did I know what spells of infinite choice, To rouse or lull, hath the sweet human voice; Then did I seem to seize the sudden clue To that grand troublous Life Antique--to view, Under the rockstand of Demosthenes, Mutable Athens heave her noisy seas. "

A remarkable contrast, as far as outward characteristics went, wasoffered by the other great orator of the same time. Sheil was verysmall, and of mean presence; with a singularly fidgety manner, a shrillvoice, and a delivery unintelligibly rapid. But in sheer beauty ofelaborated diction not O'Connell nor any one else could surpass him. There are few finer speeches in the language than that in which he tookLord Lyndhurst to task for applying the term "aliens" to the Irish in aspeech on municipal reform:--

"Aliens! Good God! was Arthur Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, 'Hold! I have seen the aliens dotheir duty'?... I appeal to the gallant soldier before me, from whoseopinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in anintrepid bosom--tell me, for you needs must remember, on that day whenthe destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fellin showers--tell me if for an instant, when to hesitate for an instantwas to be lost, the 'aliens' blenched.... On the field of Waterloo theblood of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same streamand drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned their deadlay cold and stark together; in the same deep pit their bodies weredeposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from theircommingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon this union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted toparticipate? And shall we be told as a requital that we are 'aliens'from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was pouredout?"

By the time which we are now considering there had risen to eminence aman who, if he could not be ranked with the great orators of thebeginning of the century, yet inherited their best traditions and camevery near to rivalling their fame. I refer to the great Lord Derby. Hiseloquence was of the most impetuous kind, corresponding to the sensitivefierceness of the man, and had gained for him the nickname of "TheRupert of Debate. " Lord Beaconsfield, speaking in the last year of hislife to Mr. Matthew Arnold, said that the task of carrying Mr. Forster'sCoercion Bill of 1881 through the House of Commons "needed such a man asLord Derby was in his youth--a man full of nerve, dash, fire, andresource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him"--no meantribute from a consummate judge. Among Lord Derby's ancillaryqualifications were his musical voice, his fine English style, and hisfacility in apt and novel quotation, as when he applied Meg Merrilies'sthrenody over the ruins of Derncleugh to the destruction of the IrishChurch Establishment. I turn to Lord Lytton again for a description:--

 "One after one, the Lords of Time advance; Here Stanley meets--how Stanley scorns!--the glance. The brilliant chief, irregularly great, Frank, haughty, rash, the Rupert of Debate; Nor gout nor toil his freshness can destroy, And time still leaves all Eton in the boy. First in the class, and keenest in the ring, He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring! Yet who not listens, with delighted smile, To the pure Saxon of that silver style; In the clear style a heart as clear is seen, Prompt to the rash, revolting from the mean. "

I turn now to Lord Derby's most eminent rival--Lord Russell. Writing in1844, Lord Beaconsfield thus described him:--"He is not a naturalorator, and labours under physical deficiencies which even a Demosthenicimpulse could scarcely overcome. But he is experienced in debate, quickin reply, fertile in resource, takes large views, and frequentlycompensates for a dry and hesitating manner by the expression of thosenoble truths that flash across the fancy and rise spontaneously to thelip of men of poetic temperament when addressing popular assemblies. "Twenty years earlier Moore had described Lord John Russell's publicspeaking in a peculiarly happy image:--

 "An eloquence, not like those rills from a height Which sparkle and foam and in vapour are o'er; But a current that works out its way into light Through the filtering recesses of thought and of lore. "

Cobden, when they were opposed to one another in the earlier days of thestruggle for Free Trade, described him as "a cunning little fox, " andavowed that he dreaded his dexterity in parliamentary debate more thanthat of any other opponent. 

In 1834 Lord John made his memorable declaration in favour of a liberalpolicy with reference to the Irish Church Establishment, and, in his ownwords, "The speech made a great impression; the cheering was loud andgeneral; and Stanley expressed his sense of it in a well-known note toSir James Graham: 'Johnny has upset the coach. '" The phrase wasperpetuated by Lord Lytton, to whom I must go once again for a perfectlyapt description of the Whig leader, both in his defects of manner and inhis essential greatness:--

 "Next cool, and all unconscious of reproach, Comes the calm Johnny who "upset the coach"-- How formed to lead, if not too proud to please! His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze; Like or dislike, he does not care a jot; He wants your vote, but your affections not. Yet human hearts need sun as well as oats; So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes. But see our hero when the steam is on, And languid Johnny glows to Glorious John; When Hampden's thought, by Falkland's muses drest, Lights the pale cheek and swells the generous breast; When the pent heat expands the quickening soul, And foremost in the race the wheels of genius roll. "

As the general idea of these chapters has been a concatenation of Linkswith the Past, I must say a word about Lord Palmerston, who was born in1784, entered Parliament in 1807, and was still leading the House ofCommons when I first attended its debates. A man who, when turnedseventy, could speak from the "dusk of a summer evening to the dawn of asummer morning" in defence of his foreign policy, and carry thevindication of it by a majority of 46, was certainly no common performeron the parliamentary stage; and yet Lord Palmerston had very slenderclaims to the title of an orator. His style was not only devoid ofornament and rhetorical device, but it was slipshod and untidy in thelast degree. He eked out his sentences with "hum" and "hah;" he clearedhis throat, and flourished his pocket-handkerchief, and sucked hisorange; he rounded his periods with "you know what I mean" and "all thatkind of thing, " and seemed actually to revel in an anti-climax--"I thinkthe hon. Member's proposal an outrageous violation of constitutionalpropriety, a daring departure from traditional policy, and, in short, agreat mistake. " It taxed all the skill of the reporters' gallery to trimhis speeches into decent form; and yet no one was listened to withkeener interest, no one was so much dreaded as an opponent, and no oneever approached him in the art of putting a plausible face upon adoubtful policy and making the worse appear the better cause. Palmerston's parliamentary success perfectly illustrates the judgment ofDemosthenes, that "it is not the orator's language that matters, nor thetone of his voice; but what matters is that he should have the samepredilections as the majority, and should entertain the same likes anddislikes as his country. " If those are the requisites of publicspeaking, Palmerston was supreme. 

The most conspicuous of all Links with the Past in the matter ofParliamentary Oratory is obviously Mr. Gladstone. Like the younger Pitt, he had a "premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination ofwords. " He was trained under the immediate influence of Canning, who washis father's friend. When he was sixteen his style was already formed. Iquote from the records of the Eton Debating Society for 1826:--

"Thus much, sir, I have said, as conceiving myself bound in fairness notto regard the names under which men have hidden their designs so much asthe designs themselves. I am well aware that my prejudicesand my predilections have long been enlisted on the side ofToryism--(cheers)--and that in a cause like this I am not likely to beinfluenced unfairly against men bearing that name and professing to acton the principles which I have always been accustomed to revere. But thegood of my country must stand on a higher ground than distinctions likethese. In common fairness and in common candour, I feel myself compelledto give my decisive verdict against the conduct of men whose measures Ifirmly believe to have been hostile to British interests, destructive ofBritish glory, and subversive of the splendid and, I trust, lastingfabric of the British Constitution. "

Mr. Gladstone entered Parliament when he was not quite twenty-three, atthe General Election of 1832, and it is evident from a perusal of hisearly speeches in the House of Commons, imperfectly reported in thethird person, and from contemporary evidence, that, when due allowanceis made for growth and development, his manner of oratory was the sameas it was in after-life. He was only too fluent. His style was copious, redundant, and involved, and his speeches were garnished, after themanner of his time, with Horatian and Virgilian tags. His voice wasalways clear, flexible, and musical, though his utterance was marked bya Lancastrian "burr. " His gesture was varied and animated, though notviolent. He turned his face and body from side to side, and oftenwheeled right round to face his own party as he appealed for theircheers. 

"Did you ever feel nervous in public speaking?" asked the late LordColeridge. 

"In opening a subject, often, " answered Mr. Gladstone; "in reply, never. "

It was a characteristic saying, for, in truth, he was a born debater, never so happy as when coping on the spur of the moment with thearguments and appeals which an opponent had spent perhaps days inelaborating beforehand. Again, in the art of elucidating figures he wasunequalled. He was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever madethe Budget interesting. "He talked shop, " it was said, "like a tenthmuse. " He could apply all the resources of a glowing rhetoric to themost prosaic questions of cost and profit; could make beer romantic andsugar serious. He could sweep the widest horizon of the financialfuture, and yet stoop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosmof penny stamps and the monetary merits of half-farthings. And yet, extraordinary as were these feats of intellectual athletics, Mr. Gladstone's unapproached supremacy as an orator was not really seenuntil he touched the moral elements involved in some great politicalissue. Then, indeed, he spoke like a prophet and a man inspired. Hiswhole physical formation seemed to become "fusile" with the fire of hisethical passion, and his eloquence flowed like a stream of molten lava, carrying all before it in its irresistible rush, glorious as well asterrible, and fertilizing while it subdued. Mr. Gladstone's departurefrom the House of Commons closed a splendid tradition, and ParliamentaryOratory as our fathers understood it may now be reckoned among the lostarts. 

XIII. 

CONVERSATION. 

We have agreed that Parliamentary Oratory, as our fathers understoodthat phrase, is a lost art. Must Conversation be included in the samecategory? To answer with positiveness is difficult; but this much may bereadily conceded--that a belief in the decadence of conversation isnatural to those who have specially cultivated Links with the Past; whogrew up in the traditions of Luttrell and Mackintosh, and Lord Alvanleyand Samuel Rogers; who have felt Sydney Smith's irresistible fun, andknown the overwhelming fullness of Lord Macaulay. It is not unreasonableeven in that later generation which can still recall the frank buthigh-bred gaiety of the great Lord Derby, the rollicking good-humour andanimal spirits of Bishop Wilberforce, the saturnine epigrams of LordBeaconsfield, the versatility and choice diction of Lord Houghton, themany-sided yet concentrated malice which supplied the stock in trade ofAbraham Hayward. More recent losses have been heavier still. Just tenyears ago[15] died Mr. Matthew Arnold, who combined in singular harmonythe various elements which go to make good conversation--urbanity, liveliness, quick sympathy, keen interest in the world's works and ways, the happiest choice of words, and a natural and never-failing humour, asgenial as it was pungent. It was his characteristic glory that he knewhow to be a man of the world without being frivolous, and a man ofletters without being pedantic. 

Eight years ago[16] I was asked to discuss the Art of Conversation inone of the monthly reviews, and I could then illustrate it by suchliving instances as Lord Granville, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Coleridge, Lord Bowen, Mr. Browning, and Mr. Lowell. Each of those distinguishedmen had a conversational gift which was peculiarly his own. Each talkedlike himself, and like no one else; each made his distinct andindividual contribution to the social agreeableness of London. If in nowendeavouring to recall their characteristic gifts I use words which Ihave used before, my excuse must be that the contemporary record of apersonal impression cannot with advantage be retouched after the lapseof years. 

Lord Granville's most notable quality was a humorous urbanity. As astory-teller he was unsurpassed. He had been everywhere and had knownevery one. He was quick to seize a point, and extraordinarily apt inanecdote and illustration. His fine taste appreciated whatever was bestin life, in conversation, in literature, even when (as in his selectionof the preface to the Sanctus as his favourite piece of English prose)it was gathered from fields in which he had not habitually roamed. A manwhose career had been so full of vivid and varied interests must oftenhave felt acutely bored by the trivial round of social conversation. Butif he could not rise--who can?--to the apostolic virtue of sufferingbores gladly, at any rate he endured their onslaughts as unflinchinglyas he stood the gout. A smiling countenance and an unfailing courtesyconcealed the torment which was none the less keen because it wasunexpressed. He could always feel, or at least could show, a graciousinterest in what interested his company, and he possessed in supremeperfection the happy knack of putting those to whom he spoke in goodconceit with themselves. 

The late Sir Robert Peel was, both mentally and physically, one of themost picturesque figures in society. Alike in his character and in hisaspect the Creole blood which he had inherited from his maternal descenttriumphed over the robust and serviceable commonplace which was thecharacteristic quality of the Peels. Lord Beaconsfield described "astill gallant figure, scrupulously attired; a blue frock coat, with aribboned button-hole; a well-turned boot; hat a little too hidalgoish, but quite new. There was something respectable and substantial abouthim, notwithstanding his moustaches and a carriage too debonair for hisyears. " The description, for whomsoever intended, is a lifelike portraitof Sir Robert Peel. His most salient feature as a talker was his lovelyvoice--deep, flexible, melodious. Mr. Gladstone--no mean judge of suchmatters--pronounced it the finest organ he ever heard in Parliament; butwith all due submission to so high an authority, I should have said thatit was a voice better adapted to the drawing-room than to the House ofCommons. In a large space a higher note and a clearer tone tell better, but in the close quarters of social intercourse one appreciates thesympathetic qualities of a rich baritone. And Sir Robert's voice, admirable in itself, was the vehicle of conversation quite worthy of it. He could talk of art and sport, and politics and books; he had a greatmemory, varied information, lively interest in the world and its doings, and a full-bodied humour which recalled the social tone of theEighteenth century. 

His vein of personal raillery was rather robust than refined. Nothinghas been heard in our time quite like his criticism of Sir Edgar Boehmin the House of Commons, or his joke about Mr. Justice Chitty at theelection for Oxford in 1880. But his humour (to quote his own words)"had an English ring, " and much must be pardoned to a man who, in thisportentous age of reticence and pose, was wholly free from solemnity, and when he heard or saw what was ludicrous was not afraid to laugh atit. Sir Robert Peel was an excellent hand at what our fathers calledbanter and we call chaff. A prig or a pedant was his favourite butt, andthe performance was rendered all the more effective by his elaborateassumption of the _grand seigneur's_ manner. The victim was dimlyconscious that he was being laughed at, but comically uncertain aboutthe best means of reprisal. Sydney Smith described Sir James Mackintoshas "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the most successfulridicule. " Whoever performs that process is a social benefactor, and thegreatest master of it whom I have ever known was Sir Robert Peel. 

The Judges live so entirely in their own narrow and rather technicalcircle that their social abilities are lost to the world. It is a pity, for several of them are men well fitted by their talents andaccomplishments to take a leading part in society. The late LordColeridge was pre-eminently a case in point. Personally, I had an almostfanatical admiration for his genius, and in many of the qualities whichmake an agreeable talker he was unsurpassed. Every one who ever heardhim at the Bar or on the Bench must recall that silvery voice and thatperfect elocution which prompted a competent judge of such matters tosay: "I should enjoy listening to Coleridge even if he only read out apage of _Bradshaw_. " To these gifts were added an immense store ofvaried knowledge, a genuine enthusiasm for whatever is beautiful inliterature or art, an inexhaustible copiousness of anecdote, and a happyknack of exact yet not offensive mimicry. It is always pleasant to see aman in great station, who, in the intercourse of society, is perfectlyuntrammelled by pomp and form, can make a joke and enjoy it, and is nottoo cautious to garnish his conversation with personalities or to seasonit with sarcasm. Perhaps Lord Coleridge's gibes were a little out ofplace on "The Royal Bench of British Themis, " but at a dinner-table theywere delightful, and they derived a double zest from the exquisiteprecision and finish of the English in which they were conveyed. 

Another judge who excelled in conversation was the late Lord Bowen. Those who knew him intimately would say that he was the best talker inLondon. In spite of the burden of learning which he carried and hismarvellous rapidity and grasp of mind, his social demeanour was quietand unobtrusive almost to the point of affectation. His manner wassingularly suave and winning, and his smile resembled that of themuch-quoted Chinaman who played but did not understand the game ofeuchre. This singular gentleness of speech gave a special piquancy tohis keen and delicate satire, his readiness in repartee, and his subtleirony. No one ever met Lord Bowen without wishing to meet him again; noone ever made his acquaintance without desiring his friendship. SirHenry Cunningham's memoir of him only illustrated afresh theimpossibility of transplanting to the printed page the rarefied humourof so delicate a spirit. Let me make just one attempt. Of a brotherjudge he said: "To go to the Court of Appeal with a judgment of ----'s inyour favour, is like going to sea on a Friday. It is not necessarilyfatal; but _one would rather it had not happened_. " Had Bowen been morewidely known, the traditions of his table-talk would probably have takentheir place with the best recollections of English conversation. Hisadmirers can only regret that gifts so rich and so rare should have beenburied in judicial dining-rooms or squandered on the dismal orgies ofthe Cosmopolitan Club, where dull men sit round a meagre fire, in alarge, draughty, and half-lit room, drinking lemon-squash and talkingfor talking's sake--the most melancholy of occupations. 

The society of London between 1870 and 1890 contained no more strikingor interesting figure than that of Robert Browning. No one meeting himfor the first time and unfurnished with a clue would have guessed hisvocation. He might have been a diplomatist, a statesman, a discoverer, or a man of science. But whatever was his calling, one felt sure that itmust be something essentially practical. Of the disordered appearance, the unconventional demeanour, the rapt and mystic air which we assume tobe characteristic of the poet he had absolutely none. And hisconversation corresponded to his appearance. It abounded in vigour, infire, in vivacity. It was genuinely interesting, and often strikinglyeloquent, yet all the time it was entirely free from mystery, vagueness, and jargon. It was the crisp, emphatic, and powerful discourse of a manof the world who was incomparably better informed than the mass of hiscongeners. Mr. Browning was the readiest, the blithest, and the mostforcible of talkers, and when he dealt in criticism the edge of hissword was mercilessly whetted against pretension and vanity. Theinflection of his voice, the flash of his eye, the pose of his head, theaction of his hand, all lent their special emphasis to the condemnation. "I like religion to be treated seriously, " he exclaimed with referenceto a theological novel of great renown, "and I don't want to know whatthis curate or that curate thought about it. _No, I don't. _" Surely thesecret thoughts of many hearts found utterance in that emphatic cry. 

Here I must venture to insert a personal reminiscence. Mr. Browning hadhonoured me with his company at dinner, and an unduly fervent admirerhad button-holed him throughout a long evening, plying him withquestions about what he meant by this line, and whom he intended by thatcharacter. It was more than flesh and blood could stand, and at lastthe master extricated himself from the grasp of the disciple, exclaimingwith the most airy grace, "But, my dear fellow, this is too bad. _I_ ammonopolizing _you_. " Now and then, at rather rare intervals, when timeand place, and company and surroundings, were altogether suitable, Mr. Browning would consent to appear in his true character and to delighthis hearers by speaking of his art. Then the higher and rarer qualitiesof his genius came into play. He kindled with responsive fire at abeautiful thought, and burned with contagious enthusiasm over a phrasewhich struck his fancy. Yet all the while the poetic rapture wasunderlain by a groundwork of robust sense. Rant, and gush, andaffectation were abhorrent to his nature, and even in his grandestflights of fancy he was always intelligible. 

The late Mr. Lowell must certainly be reckoned among the famous talkersof his time. During the years that he represented the United States inLondon his trim sentences, his airy omniscience, his minute andcircumstantial way of laying down literary law, were the inevitableornaments of serious dinners and cultured tea-tables. My first encounterwith Mr. Lowell took place many years before he entered on hisdiplomatic career. It was in 1872, when I chanced to meet him in acompany of tourists at Durham Castle. Though I was a devotee of the_Biglow Papers_, I did not know their distinguished author even bysight; and I was intensely amused by the air of easy mastery, the calmand almost fatherly patronage, with which this cultivated Americanoverrode the indignant showwoman; pointed out, for the general benefitof the admiring tourists, the gaps and lapses in her artistic, architectural, and archaeological knowledge; and made mullion andportcullis, and armour and tapestry the pegs for a series of neatdiscourses on mediaeval history, domestic decoration, and the science offortification. 

Which things are an allegory. We, as a nation, take this calm assuranceof foreigners at its own valuation. We consent to be told that we do notknow our own poets, cannot pronounce our own language, and have nowell-educated women. But after a time this process palls. We questionthe divine right of the superiority thus imposed on us. We ask on whatfoundation these high claims rest, and we discover all at once that wehave paid a great deal of deference where very little was deserved. Byprocesses such as these I came to find, in years long subsequent to theencounter at Durham, that Mr. Lowell, though an accomplished politician, a brilliant writer, and an admirable after-dinner speaker, was, conversationally considered, an inaccurate man with an accurate manner. But, after all, inaccuracy is by no means the worst of conversationalfaults, and when he was in the vein Mr. Lowell could be exceedingly goodcompany. He liked talking, and talked not only much but very well. Hehad a genuine vein of wit and great dexterity in phrase-making; and ondue occasion would produce from the rich stores of his own experiencesome of the most vivid and striking incidents, both civil and military, of that tremendous struggle for human freedom with which his name andfame must be always and most honourably associated. 

FOOTNOTES:

[15] April 15 1888

[16] Written in 1897. 

XIV. 

CONVERSATION--_continued_. 

Brave men have lived since as well as before Agamemnon, and those whoknow the present society of London may not unreasonably ask whether, even granting the heavy losses which I enumerated in my last chapter, the Art of Conversation is really extinct. Are the talkers of to-day intruth so immeasurably inferior to the great men who preceded them?Before we can answer these questions, even tentatively, we must try todefine our idea of good conversation, and this can best be done byrigidly ruling out what is bad. To begin with, all affectation, unreality, and straining aftereffect are intolerable; scarcely less soare rhetoric, declamation, and whatever tends towards speech-making. Mimicry is a very dangerous trick, rare in perfection, and contemptiblewhen imperfect. An apt story well told is delicious, but there was soundphilosophy in Mr. Pinto's view that "when a man fell into his anecdotageit was a sign for him to retire from the world. " One touch of ill-naturemakes the whole world kin, and a spice of malice tickles theintellectual palate; but a conversation which is mainly malicious isentirely dull. Constant joking is a weariness to the flesh; but, on theother hand, a sustained seriousness of discourse is fatally apt torecall the conversation between the Hon. Elijah Pogram and the ThreeLiterary Ladies--"How Pogram got out of his depth instantly, and how theThree L. L. 's were never in theirs, is a piece of history not worthrecording. Suffice it that, being all four out of their depths and allunable to swim, they splashed up words in all directions, and flounderedabout famously. On the whole, it was considered to have been theseverest mental exercise ever heard in the National Hotel, and the wholecompany observed that their heads ached with the effort--as well theymight. "

A talker who monopolizes the conversation is by common consentinsufferable, and a man who regulates his choice of topics by referenceto what interests not his hearers but himself has yet to learn thealphabet of the art. Conversation is like lawn-tennis, and requiresalacrity in return at least as much as vigour in service. A happyphrase, an unexpected collocation of words, a habitual precision in thechoice of terms, are rare and shining ornaments of conversation, butthey do not for an instant supply the place of lively and interestingmatter, and an excessive care for them is apt to tell unfavourably onthe substance of discourse. 

"I might as well attempt to gather up the foam of the sea as to conveyan idea of the extraordinary language in which he clothed hisdescription. There were at least five words in every sentence that musthave been very much astonished at the use they were put to, and yet noothers apparently could so well have expressed his idea. He talked likea racehorse approaching the winning-post--every muscle in action, andthe utmost energy of expression flung out into every burst. " This is acontemporary description of Lord Beaconsfield's conversation in thosedistant days when, as a young man about town, he was talking anddressing his way into social fame. Though written in admiration, itseems to me to describe the most intolerable performance that could everhave afflicted society. _He talked like a racehorse approaching thewinning-post_. Could the wit of man devise a more appalling image?

Mr. Matthew Arnold once said to me: "People think that I can teach themstyle. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it asclearly as you can. That is the only secret of style. " This dictumapplies, I think, at least as well to conversation as to literature. Theone thing needful is to have something to say. The way of saying it maybest be left to take care of itself. A young man about town onceremarked to me, in the tone of one who utters an accepted truism: "It isso much more interesting to talk about people than things. " Thesentiment was highly characteristic of the mental calibre andassociations of the speaker; and certainly the habitual talk--for it isnot conversation--of that section of society which calls itself "smart"seems to touch the lowest depth of spiteful and sordid dullness. Butstill, when the mischiefs of habitual personality have been admitted tothe uttermost, there remains something to be said on the other side. Weare not inhabitants of Jupiter or Saturn, but human beings to whomnothing that is human is wholly alien. And if in the pursuit of highabstractions and improving themes we imitate too closely Wordsworth'savoidance of Personal Talk, our dinner-table will run much risk ofbecoming as dull as that poet's own fireside. 

Granting, then, that to have something to say which is worth hearing isthe substance of good conversation, we must reckon among its accidentsand ornaments a manner which knows how to be easy and free without beingfree-and-easy; a habitual deference to the tastes and even theprejudices of other people; a hearty desire to be, or at least to seem, interested in their concerns; and a constant recollection that even themost patient hearers may sometimes wish to be speakers. Above all else, the agreeable talker cultivates gentleness and delicacy of speech, avoids aggressive and overwhelming displays, and remembers the torturedcry of the neurotic bard:--

 "Vociferated logic kills me quite; A noisy man is always in the right-- I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; And when I hope his blunders all are out, Reply discreetly, 'To be sure--no doubt!'"

If these, or something like these, are the attributes of goodconversation, in whom do we find them best exemplified? Who bestunderstands the Art of Conversation? Who, in a word, are our besttalkers? I hope that I shall not be considered ungallant if I saynothing about the part borne in conversation by ladies. Really it is asacred awe that makes me mute. London is happy in possessing not a fewhostesses, excellently accomplished, and not more accomplished thangracious, of whom it is no flattery to say that to know them is aliberal education. But, as Lord Beaconsfield observes in a more thanusually grotesque passage of _Lothair_, "We must not profane themysteries of Bona Dea. " We will not "peep and botanize" on sacred soil, nor submit our most refined delights to the impertinences of criticalanalysis. 

In considering the Art of Conversation I obey a natural instinct when Ithink first of Mr. Charles Villiers, M. P. His venerable age alone wouldentitle him to this pre-eminence, for he was born in 1802, and was forseventy years one of the best talkers in London. Born of a family whichcombined high rank with intellectual distinction, his parentage was apassport to all that was best in social and political life. It argues nopolitical bias to maintain that in the first quarter of the nineteenthcentury Toryism afforded its neophytes no educational opportunitiesequal to those which a young Whig enjoyed at Bowood and Panshanger andHolland House. There the best traditions of the previous century wereconstantly reinforced by accessions of fresh intellect. The charmedcircle was indeed essentially, but it was not exclusively, aristocratic;genius held the key, and there was a _carrière ouverte aux talents_. 

Thus it came to pass that the society of Lord Lansdowne and Lord Hollandand Lord Melbourne was also the society of Brougham and Mackintosh, andMacaulay and Sydney Smith. It presented every variety of accomplishmentand experience and social charm, and offered to a man beginning life thebest conceivable education in the art of making oneself agreeable. Forthat art Mr. Villiers had a natural genius, and his lifelong associationwith the Whigs superadded a technical training in it. But this, thoughmuch, was by no means all. I hold it to be an axiom that a man who isonly a member of society can never be so agreeable as one who issomething else as well. And Mr. Villiers, though "a man about town, " astory-teller, and a diner-out of high renown, has had seventy years'experience of practical business and Parliamentary life. Thus theresources of his knowledge have been perpetually enlarged, and, learningmuch, he has forgotten nothing. The stores of his memory are full oftreasures new and old. He has taken part in the making of history, andcan estimate the great men of the present day by a comparison with thepolitical immortals. 

That this comparison is not always favourable to some exaltedreputations of the present hour is indeed sufficiently notorious to allwho have the pleasure of Mr. Villiers's acquaintance; and nowhere is hismastery of the art of conversation more conspicuous than in his knack ofimplying dislike and insinuating contempt without crude abuse or noisydenunciation. He has a delicate sense of fun, a keen eye forincongruities and absurdities, and that genuine cynicism which springs, not from the poor desire to be thought worldly-wise, but from a lifelongacquaintance with the foibles of political men. To these gifts must beadded a voice which age has not robbed of its sympathetic qualities, astyle of diction and a habit of pronunciation which belong to theeighteenth century, and that formal yet facile courtesy which no oneless than eighty years old seems capable of even imitating. 

I have instanced Mr. Villiers as an eminent talker. I now turn to aneminent man who talks--Mr. Gladstone. [17] An absurd story has long beencurrent among credulous people with rampant prejudices that Mr. Gladstone was habitually uncivil to the Queen. Now, it happens that Mr. Gladstone is the most courteous of mankind. His courtesy is one of hismost engaging gifts, and accounts in no small degree for his power ofattracting the regard of young men and undistinguished people generally. To all such he is polite to the point of deference, yet nevercondescending. His manners to all alike--young and old, rich andpoor--are the ceremonious manners of the old school, and his demeanourtowards ladies is a model of chivalrous propriety. It would thereforehave been to the last degree improbable that he should make a departurefrom his usual habits in the case of a lady who was also his Sovereign. And, as a matter of fact, the story is so ridiculously wide of the markthat it deserves mention only because, in itself false, it is founded ona truth. "I, " said the Duke of Wellington on a memorable occasion, "haveno small talk, and Peel has no manners. " Mr. Gladstone has manners butno small talk. He is so consumed by zeal for great subjects that heleaves out of account the possibility that they may not interest otherpeople. He pays to every one, and not least to ladies, the compliment ofassuming that they are on his own intellectual level, engrossed in thesubjects which engross him, and furnished with at least as muchinformation as will enable them to follow and to understand him. Hencethe genesis of that absurd story about his demeanour to the Queen. 

"He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting, " is a complaint which issaid to have proceeded from illustrious lips. That most successful ofall courtiers, the astute Lord Beaconsfield, used to engage her Majestyin conversation about water-colour drawing and the third-cousinships ofGerman princes. Mr. Gladstone harangues her about the polity of theHittites, or the harmony between the Athanasian Creed andHomer. The Queen, perplexed and uncomfortable, tries to make adigression--addresses a remark to a daughter or proffers biscuit to abegging terrier. Mr. Gladstone restrains himself with an effort till thePrincess has answered or the dog has sat down, and then promptlyresumes: "I was about to say--" Meanwhile the flood has gathered forceby delay, and when it bursts forth again it carries all before it. 

No image except that of a flood can convey the notion of Mr. Gladstone'stable-talk on a subject which interests him keenly--its rapidity, itsvolume, its splash and dash, its frequent beauty, its striking effects, the amount of varied matter which it brings with it, the hopelessness oftrying to withstand it, the unexpectedness of its onrush, the subduedbut fertilized condition of the subjected area over which it has passed. The bare mention of a topic which interests Mr. Gladstone opens thefloodgates and submerges a province. But the torrent does not wait forthe invitation. If not invited it comes of its own accord; headlong, overwhelming, sweeping all before it, and gathering fresh force fromevery obstacle which it encounters on its course. Such is Mr. Gladstone's table-talk. For conversation, strictly so called, he has noturn. He asks questions when he wants information, and answers themcopiously when asked by others. But of give-and-take, of meeting youhalf-way, of paying you back in your own conversational coin, he haslittle notion. He discourses, he lectures, he harangues. But if asubject is started which does not interest him it falls flat. He makesno attempt to return the ball. Although, when he is amused, hisamusement is intense and long sustained, his sense of humour is highlycapricious. It is impossible for even his most intimate friends to guessbeforehand what will amuse him and what will not; and he has a mostdisconcerting habit of taking a comic story in grim earnest, and arguingsome farcical fantasy as if it was a serious proposition of law orlogic. Nothing funnier can be imagined than the discomfiture of astory-teller who has fondly thought to tickle the great man's fancy byan anecdote which depends for its point upon some trait of baseness, cynicism, or sharp practice. He finds his tale received in dead silence, looks up wonderingly for an explanation, and finds that what wasintended to amuse has only disgusted. Mr. Browning once told Mr. Gladstone a highly characteristic story of Disraelitish duplicity, andfor all reply heard a voice choked with indignation:--"Do you call thatamusing, Browning? _I call it devilish_. "[18]

FOOTNOTES:

[17] This was written before the 19th of May, 1898, on which day "theworld lost its greatest citizen;" but it has not been thought necessary, here or elsewhere, to change the present into the past tense. 

[18] I give this story as I received it from Mr. Browning. 

XV. 

CONVERSATION--_continued_. 

More than thirty years have passed since the festive evening describedby Sir George Trevelyan in _The Ladies in Parliament_:--

 "When, over the port of the innermost bin, The circle of diners was laughing with Phinn; When Brookfield had hit on his happiest vein. And Harcourt was capping the jokes of Delane. "

The sole survivor of that brilliant group now[19] leads the Opposition;but at the time when the lines were written he had not yet entered theHouse of Commons. As a youth of twenty-five he had astonished thepolitical world by his anonymous letters on _The Morality of PublicMen_, in which he denounced, in the style of Junius, the Protectionistrevival of 1852. He had fought a plucky but unsuccessful fight atKirkcaldy; was making his five thousand a year at the Parliamentary Bar;had taught the world international law over the signature of"Historicus, " and was already, what he is still, one of the mostconspicuous and interesting figures in the society of London. Of SirWilliam Harcourt's political alliances this is not the place nor am Ithe person to treat:

 "Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian: We are but mortals, and must sing of Man. "

My theme is not Sir William Harcourt the politician, but Sir WilliamHarcourt the man, the member of society--above all, the talker. And, although I have thus deliberately put politics on one side, it isstrictly relevant to my purpose to observe that Sir William isessentially and typically a Whig. For Whiggery, rightly understood, isnot a political creed but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, isborn, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside theprivileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated itsspirit. The Whigs, indeed, as a body have held certain opinions andpursued certain tactics which have been analyzed in chapters xix. Andxxi. Of the unexpurgated _Book of Snobs_. But those opinions and thosetactics have been mere accidents, though perhaps inseparable accidents, of Whiggery. Its substance has been relationship. 

When Lord John Russell formed his first Administration his opponentsalleged that it was mainly composed of his cousins, and one of hisyounger brothers was charged with the impossible task of rebutting theaccusation in a public speech. Mr. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made excellent fun of what he called "the sacred circle of theGreat-Grandmotherhood. " He showed--what, indeed, the Whigs themselvesknew uncommonly well--that from a certain Earl Gower, who flourished inthe eighteenth century, and was great-great-great-grandfather of thepresent Duke of Sutherland, are descended all the Levesons, [20] Gowers, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Russells, and Harcourts, who walk onthe face of the earth. Truly a noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They _are_ our superiors, " said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I amnot a Whig myself (perhaps it is as unnecessary to say so as to say I'mnot King Pippin in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or MissBurdett-Coutts). I'm not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!"

From this illustrious stock Sir William Harcourt is descended throughhis grandmother, Lady Anne Harcourt--born Leveson-Gower, and wife ofthe last Prince-Archbishop of York (whom, by the way, Sir Williamstrikingly resembles both in figure and in feature). When one meets SirWilliam Harcourt for the first time in society, perhaps one is firststruck by the fact that he is in aspect and bearing a great gentleman ofthe old school, and then that he is an admirable talker. He is a trueWhig in culture as well as in blood. Though his conversation is neverpedantic, it rests on a wide and strong basis of generous learning. Eventhose who most cordially admire his political ability do not alwaysremember that he is an excellent scholar, and graduated as eighth in theFirst Class of the Classical Tripos in the year when Bishop Lightfootwas Senior Classic. He has the _Corpus Poetarum_ and Shakespeare andPope at his finger-ends, and his intimate acquaintance with thepolitical history of England elicited a characteristic compliment fromLord Beaconsfield. It is his favourite boast that in all his tastes, sentiments, and mental habits he belongs to the eighteenth century, which he glorifies as the golden age of reason, patriotism, and liberallearning. This self-estimate strikes me as perfectly sound, and itrequires a very slight effort of the imagination to conceive thiswell-born young Templar wielding his doughty pen in the BangorianControversy, or declaiming on the hustings for Wilkes and Liberty;bandying witticisms with Sheridan, and capping Latin verses with CharlesFox; or helping to rule England as a member of that "Venetian Oligarchy"on which Lord Beaconsfield lavished all the vials of his sarcasm. Intruth, it is not fanciful to say that whatever was best in theeighteenth century--its robust common sense, its racy humour, itsthorough and unaffected learning, its ceremonious courtesy for greatoccasions, its jolly self-abandonment in social intercourse--isexhibited in the demeanour and conversation of Sir William Harcourt. Heis an admirable host, and, to borrow a phrase from Sydney Smith, "receives his friends with that honest joy which warms more than dinneror wine. " As a guest, he is a splendid acquisition, always ready toamuse and to be amused, delighting in the rapid cut-and-thrust ofpersonal banter, and bringing out of his treasure things new and old forthe amusement and the benefit of a later and less instructed generation. 

Extracts from the private conversation of living people, as a rule, Iforbear; but some of Sir William's quotations are so extraordinarily aptthat they deserve a permanent place in the annals of table-talk. Thatfine old country gentleman, the late Lord Knightley (who was the livingdouble of Dickens's Sir Leicester Dedlock), had been expatiating afterdinner on the undoubted glories of his famous pedigree. The company wasgetting a little restive under the recitation, when Sir William washeard to say, in an appreciative aside, "This reminds me of Addison'sevening hymn--

 'And Knightley to the listening earth Repeats the story of his birth. '"

Surely the force of apt citation can no further go. When Lord Tennysonchanced to say in Sir William Harcourt's hearing that his pipe afterbreakfast was the most enjoyable of the day, Sir William softly murmuredthe Tennysonian line--

 "The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds. "

Some historians say that he substituted "bards" for "birds, " and thereception accorded by the poet to the parody was not as cordial as itsexcellence deserved. 

Another capital talker is Sir George Trevelyan. He has been, from thenecessities of his position, a man of the world and a politician, and heis as ready as Mr. Bertie-Tremaine's guests in _Endymion_ to talk of"that heinous subject on which enormous fibs are ever told--theRegistration. " But, after all, the man of the world and the politicianare only respectable parts which he had been bound to assume, and he hasplayed them--with assiduity and success: but the true man in Sir GeorgeTrevelyan is the man of letters. Whenever he touches a historical orliterary theme his whole being seems to undergo a transformation. Thereal nature flashes out through his twinkling eyes. While he muses thefire burns, and, like the Psalmist, he speaks with his tongue. Dates anddetails, facts and traditions, cantos and poetry, reams of prose, English and Latin and Greek and French, come tumbling out in headlongbut not disorderly array. He jumps at an opening, seizes an illusion, replies with lightning quickness to a conversational challenge, and isready at a moment's notice to decide any literary or historicalcontroversy in a measured tone of deliberate emphasis which is notwholly free from exaggeration. Like his uncle Lord Macaulay, Sir GeorgeTrevelyan has "his own heightened and telling way of putting things, "and those who know him well make allowance for this habit. For the rest, he is delightful company, light-hearted as a boy, full ofautobiographical chit-chat about Harrow and Trinity, and India and HollyLodge, eagerly interested in his friends' concerns, brimming over withenthusiasm, never bored, never flat, never stale. A well-concerted partyis a kind of unconscious conspiracy to promote cheerfulness andenjoyment, and in such an undertaking there can be no more serviceableally than Sir George Trevelyan. 

Mr. John Morley's agreeableness in conversation is of a different kind. His leading characteristic is a dignified austerity of demeanour whichrepels familiarity and tends to keep conversation on a high level; buteach time one meets him there is less formality and less restraint, andthe grave courtesy which never fails is soon touched with friendlinessand frank good-humour in a singularly attractive fashion. He talks, notmuch, but remarkably well. His sentences are deliberate, clear-cut, often eloquent. He excels in phrase-making. His quotations are apt andnovel. His fine taste and varied reading enable him to hold his own inmany fields where the merely professional politician is apt to beterribly astray. His kindness to social and literary beginners is one ofhis most engaging traits. He invariably finds something pleasant to sayabout the most immature and unpromising efforts, and he has the knack ofso handling his own early experience as to make it an encouragement anda stimulus, and not (as the manner of some is) a burden and a bogey. Mr. Morley never obtrudes his own opinions, never introduces debatablematter, never dogmatizes. But he is always ready to pick up thegauntlet, especially if a Tory flings it down; is merciless towardsill-formed assertion, and is the alert and unsparing enemy of what Mr. Ruskin calls "the obscene empires of Mammon and Belial. "

Lord Salisbury goes so little into general society that his qualities asa talker are not familiarly known. He is painfully shy, and at a club orin a large party undergoes the torments of the lost. Yet no one canlisten, even casually, to his conversation without appreciating the finemanner, full both of dignity and of courtesy; the utter freedom frompomposity, formality, and self-assertion, and the agreeable dash ofgenuine cynicism, which modifies, though it does not mask, the flavourof his fun. After a visit to Hatfield in 1868, Bishop Wilberforce wrotein his diary: "Gladstone how struck with Salisbury: 'Never saw a moreperfect host. '" And again--"He remarked to me on the great power ofcharming and pleasant hosting possessed by Salisbury. " And it is theuniversal testimony of Lord Salisbury's guests, whether at Hatfield orin Arlington Street, that he is seen at his very best in his own house. The combination of such genuine amiability in private life with suchcalculated brutality in public utterance constitutes a psychologicalproblem which might profitably be made the subject of a Romanes Lecture. 

Barring the shyness, from which Mr. Balfour is conspicuously free, thereis something of Lord Salisbury's social manner about his accomplishednephew. He has the same courtesy, the same sense of humour, the samefreedom from official solemnity. But the characteristics of the elderman are exaggerated in the younger. The cynicism which is natural inLord Salisbury is affected in Mr. Balfour. He cultivates the art ofindifference, and gives himself the airs of a jaded Epicurean who cravesonly for a new sensation. There is what an Irish Member, in a moment ofinspiration, called a "toploftiness" about his social demeanour which isnot a little irritating. He is too anxious to show that he is not asother men are. Among politicians he is a philosopher; amongphilosophers, a politician. Before that hard-bitten crew whom Burkeridiculed--the "calculators and economists"--he will talk airily of golfand ladies' fashions; and ladies he will seek to impress by the Praiseof Vivisection or the Defence of Philosophic Doubt. His socialagreeableness has, indeed, been marred by the fatuous idolatry of afashionable clique, stimulating the self-consciousness which was hisnatural foible; but when he can for a moment forget himself he still isexcellent company, for he is genuinely amiable and thoroughly wellinformed. 

FOOTNOTES:

[19] 1897. 

[20] Cromartie, 4th Duke. 

XVI. 

CONVERSATION--_continued_. 

The writer of these chapters has always felt some inward affinity to thecharacter of Lord St. Jerome in _Lothair_, of whom it is recorded thathe loved conversation, though he never conversed. "There must be anaudience, " he would say, "and I am the audience. " In my capacity ofaudience I assign a high place to the agreeableness of Lord Rosebery'sconversation. To begin with, he has a delightful voice. It is low, butperfectly distinct, rich and sympathetic in quality, and singularlyrefined in accent. It is exactly the sort of voice which bespeaks thegoodwill of the hearer and recommends what it utters. In a formerchapter we agreed that the chief requisite of good conversation is tohave something to say which is worth saying, and here Lord Rosebery isexcellently equipped. Last week the newspapers announced with a flourishof rhetorical trumpets that he had just celebrated his fiftiethbirthday. [21] Some of the trumpeters, with a laudable intention to becivil, cried, "Is it possible that he can be so old?" Others, withsubtler art, professed themselves unable to believe that he was soyoung. Each compliment contained its element of truth. In appearance, air, and tastes Lord Rosebery is still young. In experience, knowledge, and conduct he is already old. He has had a vivid and a variedexperience. He is equally at home on Epsom Downs and in the House ofLords. His life has been full of action, incident, and interest. He hasnot only collected books, but has read them; and has found time, evenamid the engrossing demands of the London County Council, the Turf, andthe Foreign Office, not only for study, but--what is much moreremarkable--for thought. 

So far, then, as substance goes, his conversation is (to use Mr. Gladstone's quaint phrase) "as full of infinitely varied matter as anegg is full of meat;" and in its accidents and ornaments it compliesexactly with the conditions laid down in a former chapter--a mannerwhich knows how to be easy and free without being free-and-easy;habitual deference to the tastes and prejudices of other people; acourteous desire to be, or at least to seem, interested in theirconcerns; and a recollection that even the most patient hearers (amongwhom the present writer reckons himself) may sometimes wish to bespeakers. To these gifts he adds a keen sense of humour, a habit ofclose observation, and a sub-acid vein of sarcasm which resembles thedash of Tarragon in a successful salad. In a word, Lord Rosebery is oneof the most agreeable talkers of the day; and even if it is true that_il s'écoute quand il parle_, his friends may reply that it would bestrange indeed if one could help listening to what is always soagreeable and often so brilliant. 

A genial journalist recently said that Mr. Goschen was now chieflyremembered by the fact that he had once had Sir Alfred Milner for hisPrivate Secretary. But whatever may be thought of the First Lord of theAdmiralty as a politician and an administrator, I claim for him a highplace among agreeable talkers. There are some men who habitually use thesame style of speech in public and in private life. Happily for hisfriends, this is not the case with Mr. Goschen. Nothing can be lessagreeable than his public style, whether on the platform or in the Houseof Commons. Its tawdry staginess, its "Sadler's Wells sarcasm, " itsconstant striving after strong effects, are distressing to good taste. But in private life he is another and a much more agreeable man. He iscourteous, genial, perfectly free from affectation, and enters into thediscussion of social banalities as eagerly and as brightly as if he hadnever converted the Three per Cents, or established the ratio betweendead millionaires and new ironclads. His easiness in conversation isperhaps a little marred by a Teutonic tendency to excessive analysiswhich will not suffer him to rest until he has resolved every subjectand almost every phrase into its primary elements. But this philosophictemperament has its counterbalancing advantages in a genuine openness ofmind, willingness to weigh and measure opposing views, andinaccessibility to intellectual passion. It is true that on the platformthe exigencies of his position compel him to indulge in mock-heroics andcut rhetorical capers for which Nature never designed him; but these arefor public consumption only, and when he is not playing to the galleryhe can discuss his political opponents and their sayings and doings asdispassionately as a microscopist examines a black-beetle. Himself agood talker, Mr. Goschen encourages good talk in other people; and inold days, when the Art of Conversation was still seriously cultivated, he used to gather round his table in Portland Place a group of intimatefriends who drank '34 port and conversed accordingly. Among these wereLord Sherbrooke, whose aptness in quotation and dexterity in reparteehave never, in my experience, been surpassed; and Lord Chief JusticeCockburn, whose "sunny face and voice of music, which lent melody toscorn and sometimes reached the depth of pathos, " were gracefullycommemorated by Lord Beaconsfield in his sketch of Hortensius. But thisbelongs to ancient history, and my business is with the conversation ofto-day. 

Very distinctly of to-day is the conversation of Mr. Labouchere. Evenour country cousins are aware that the Member for Northampton is lessan ornament of general society than the oracle of an initiated circle. The smoking-room of the House of Commons is his shrine, and there, poised in an American rocking-chair and delicately toying with acigarette, he unlocks the varied treasures of his well-stored memory, and throws over the changing scenes of life the mild light of his genialphilosophy. It is a chequered experience that has made him what he is. He has known men and cities; has probed in turn the mysteries of thecaucus, the green-room, and the Stock Exchange; has been a diplomatist, a financier, a journalist, and a politician. Under these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that his faith--no doubt originallyrobust--in the purity of human nature and the uprightness of humanmotive should have undergone some process of degeneration. Still it maybe questioned whether, after all that he has seen and done, he is theabsolute and all-round cynic that he would seem to be. The palpableendeavour to make out the worst of every one--including himself--gives acertain flavour of unreality to his conversation; but, in spite of thispeculiarity, he is an engaging talker. His language is racy andincisive, and he talks as neatly as he writes. His voice is pleasant, and his utterance deliberate and effective. He has a keen eye forabsurdities and incongruities, a shrewd insight into affectation andbombast, and an admirable impatience of all the moral and intellectualqualities which constitute the Bore. He is by no means inclined to bowhis knee too slavishly to an exalted reputation, and analyzes withagreeable frankness the personal and political qualities of great andgood men, even if they sit on the front Opposition bench. As acontributor to enjoyment, as a promoter of fun, as an unmasker ofpolitical and social humbug, he is unsurpassed. His performances indebate are no concern of mine, for I am speaking of conversation only;but most Members of Parliament will agree that he is the best companionthat can be found for the last weary half-hour before the division-bellrings, when some eminent nonentity is declaiming his foregoneconclusions to an audience whose whole mind is fixed on the chance offinding a disengaged cab in Palace Yard. 

Like Mr. Labouchere, Lord Acton has touched life at many points--but notthe same. He is a theologian, a professor, a man of letters, a member ofsociety; and his conversation derives a distinct tinge from each ofthese environments. When, at intervals all too long, he quits hisretirement at Cannes or Cambridge, and flits mysteriously across thesocial scene, his appearance is hailed with devout rejoicing by everyone who appreciates manifold learning, a courtly manner, and adelicately sarcastic vein of humour. The distinguishing feature of LordActon's conversation is an air of sphinx-like mystery, which suggeststhat he knows a great deal more than he is willing to impart. Partly bywhat he says, and even more by what he leaves unsaid, his hearers aremade to feel that, if he has not acted conspicuous parts, he has beenbehind the scenes of many and very different theatres. 

He has had relations, neither few nor unimportant, with the Pope and theOld Catholics, with Oxford and Lambeth, with the cultivated Whiggery ofthe great English families, with the philosophic radicalism of Germany, and with those Nationalist complications which, in these later days, have drawn official Liberalism into their folds. He has long lived onterms of the closest intimacy with Mr. Gladstone, and may perhaps bebracketed with Canon MacColl and Sir Algernon West as the most absoluteand profound Gladstonian outside the family circle of Hawarden. But heis thoroughly eclectic in his friendships, and when he is in London heflits from Lady Hayter's tea-table to Mr. Goschen's bureau, analyzes atthe Athenaeum the gossip which he has acquired at Brooks's, and bydinner-time is able, if only he is willing, to tell you what Spainintends and what America; the present relations between the Curia andthe Secret Societies; how long Lord Salisbury will combine thePremiership with the Foreign Office; and the latest theory about theside of Whitehall on which Charles I. Was beheaded. 

The ranks of our good talkers--none too numerous a body at the best, andsadly thinned by the losses which I described in a former chapter--havebeen opportunely reinforced by the discovery of Mr. Augustine Birrell. For forty-eight years he has walked this earth, but it is only duringthe last nine--in short, since he entered Parliament--that the admirablequalities of his conversation have been generally recognized. Beforethat time his delightful _Obiter Dicta_ had secured for him a widecircle of friends who had never seen his face, and by these admirers hisfirst appearance on the social scene was awaited with lively interest. What would he be like? Should we be disillusioned? Would he talk aspleasantly as he wrote? Well, in due course he appeared, and thequestions were soon answered in a sense as laudatory as his friends oreven himself could have desired. It was unanimously voted that hisconversation was as agreeable as his writing; but, oddly enough, itsagreeableness was of an entirely different kind. His literary knack ofchatty criticism had required a new word to convey its precise effect. To "birrell" is now a verb as firmly established as to "boycott, " and itsignifies a style light, easy, playful, pretty, rather discursive, perhaps a little superficial. Its characteristic note is grace. But whenthe eponymous hero of the new verb entered the conversational lists itwas seen that his predominant quality was strength. 

An enthusiastic admirer who sketched him in a novel nicknamed him "TheHarmonious Blacksmith, " and the collocation of words happily hits offthe special quality of his conversation. There is burly strength in hispositive opinions, his cogent statement, his remorseless logic, histhorough knowledge of the persons and things that he discusses. In hissledge-hammer blows against humbug and wickedness, intellectualaffectation, and moral baseness, he is the Blacksmith all over. In hisgeniality, his sociability, his genuine love of fun, his frank readinessto amuse or be amused, the epithet "harmonious" is abundantly justified. He cultivates to some extent the airs and tone of the eighteenthcentury, in which his studies have chiefly lain. He says what he means, and calls a spade a spade, and glories in an old-fashioned prejudice. Heis the jolliest of companions and the steadiest of friends, and perhapsthe most genuine book-lover in London, where, as a rule, people are too"cultured" to read books, though willing enough to chatter about them. 

FOOTNOTES:

[21] May 7, 1897. 

XVII. 

CLERGYMEN. 

_ Clerus Anglicanus stupor mundi_. I believe that this complimentaryproverb originally referred to the learning of the English clergy, butit would apply with equal truth to their social agreeableness. When Iwas writing about the Art of Conversation and the men who excelled init, I was surprised to find how many of the best sayings that recurredspontaneously to my memory had a clerical origin; and it struck me thata not uninteresting chapter might be written about the socialagreeableness of clergymen. A mere layman may well feel a natural andbecoming diffidence in venturing to handle so high a theme. 

In a former chapter I said something of the secular magnificence whichsurrounded great prelates in the good old days, when the Archbishop ofCanterbury could only be approached on gilt-edged paper, and even theBishop of impecunious Oxford never appeared in his Cathedral citywithout four horses and two powdered footmen. In a certain sense, nodoubt, these splendid products of established religion conduced tosocial agreeableness. Like the excellent prelate described in_Friendship's Garland_, they "had thoroughly learnt the divine lessonthat charity begins at home. " They maintained an abundant hospitality;they celebrated domestic events by balls at the episcopal palace; theydid not disdain (as we gather from the Life of the Hon. And Rev. GeorgeSpencer) the relaxation of a rubber of whist, even on the night beforean Ordination, with a candidate for a partner. They dined out, like thatwell-drawn bishop in _Little Dorrit_, who "was crisp, fresh, cheerful, affable, bland, but so surprisingly innocent;" or like the prelate onwhom Thackeray moralized: "My Lord, I was pleased to see good thingafter good thing disappear before you; and think that no man ever betterbecame that rounded episcopal apron. How amiable he was! how kind! Heput water into his wine. Let us respect the moderation of theEstablishment. "

But the agreeableness which I had in my mind when I took upon myself todiscourse of agreeable clergymen was not an official but a personalagreeableness. We have been told on high authority that the Merriment ofParsons is mighty offensive; but the truth of this dictum dependsentirely on the topic of the merriment. A clergyman who made light ofthe religion which he professes to teach, or even joked about theincidents and accompaniments of his sacred calling, would by commonconsent be intolerable. Decency exacts from priests at least a semblanceof piety; but I entirely deny that there is anything offensive in the"merriment of parsons" when it plays round subjects outside the scope oftheir professional duties. 

Of Sydney Smith Lord Houghton recorded that "he never, except once, knewhim to make a jest on any religious subject, and then he immediatelywithdrew his words, and seemed ashamed that he had uttered them;" and Iregard the admirable Sydney as not only the supreme head of allecclesiastical jesters, but as, on the whole, the greatest humoristwhose jokes have come down to us in an authentic and unmutilated form. Almost alone among professional jokers, he made his merriment--rich, natural, fantastic, unbridled as it was--subserve the serious purposesof his life and writing. Each joke was a link in an argument; eachsarcasm was a moral lesson. 

_Peter Plymley's Letters_, and those addressed to Archdeacon Singleton, the Essays on _America_ and _Persecuting Bishops_, will probably be readas long as the _Tale of a Tub_ or Macaulay's review of Montgomery'sPoems; while of detached and isolated jokes--pure freaks of fun clad inliterary garb--an incredible number of those which are current in dailyconverse deduce their birth from this incomparable Canon. 

When one is talking of facetious clergymen, it is inevitable to think ofBishop Wilberforce; but his humour was of an entirely different qualityfrom that of Sydney Smith. To begin with, it is unquotable. It must, Ithink, have struck every reader of the Bishop's Life, whether in thethree huge volumes of the authorized Biography or in the briefer butmore characteristic monograph of Dean Burgon, that, though thebiographers had themselves tasted and enjoyed to the full the peculiarflavour of his fun, they utterly failed in the attempt to convey it tothe reader. Puerile puns, personal banter of a rather homely type, andgood stories collected from other people are all that the booksdisclose. Animal spirits did the rest; and yet, by the concurrenttestimony of nearly all who knew him, Bishop Wilberforce was not onlyone of the most agreeable but one of the most amusing men of his time. We know from one of his own letters that he peculiarly disliked thedescription which Lord Beaconsfield gave of him in _Lothair_, and on theprinciple of _Ce n'est que la vérité qui blesse_, it may be worth whileto recall it: "The Bishop was particularly playful on the morrow atbreakfast. Though his face beamed with Christian kindness, there was atwinkle in his eye which seemed not entirely superior to mundaneself-complacency, even to a sense of earthly merriment. His seraphicraillery elicited sympathetic applause from the ladies, especially fromthe daughters of the house, who laughed occasionally even before hisangelic jokes were well launched. "

Mr. Bright once said, with characteristic downrightness, "If I was paidwhat a bishop is paid for doing what a bishop does, I should findabundant cause for merriment in the credulity of my countrymen;" and, waiving the theological animus which the saying implies, it is notuncharitable to surmise that a general sense of prosperity and a strongfaculty of enjoying life in all its aspects and phases had much to dowith Bishop Wilberforce's exuberant and infectious jollity. "A trulyemotional spirit, " wrote Matthew Arnold, after meeting him in a countryhouse, "he undoubtedly has beneath his outside of society-haunting andmen-pleasing, and each of the two lives he leads gives him the more zestfor the other. "

A scarcely less prominent figure in society than Bishop Wilberforce, andto many people a much more attractive one, was Dean Stanley. A clergymanto whom the Queen signed herself "Ever yours affectionately" mustcertainly be regarded as the social head of his profession, and everycircumstance of Stanley's nature and antecedents exactly fitted him forthe part. He was in truth a spoiled child of fortune, in a sense morerefined and spiritual than the phrase generally conveys. He was born offamous ancestry, in a bright and unworldly home; early filled with themoral and intellectual enthusiasms of Rugby in its best days; steeped inthe characteristic culture of Oxford, and advanced by easy stages ofwell-deserved promotion to the most delightful of all offices in theChurch of England. His inward nature accorded well with this happyenvironment. It was in a singular degree pure, simple, refined, ingenuous. All the grosser and harsher elements of human characterseemed to have been omitted from his composition. He was naturally good, naturally graceful, naturally amiable. A sense of humour was, I think, almost the only intellectual gift with which he was not endowed. LordBeaconsfield spoke of his "picturesque sensibility, " and the phrase washappily chosen. He had the keenest sympathy with whatever was gracefulin literature; a style full of flexibility and colour; a rare faculty ofgraphic description; and all glorified by something of the poet'simagination. His conversation was incessant, teeming with information, and illustrated by familiar acquaintance with all the best that has beenthought and said in the world. 

Never was a brighter intellect or a more gallant heart housed in a morefragile form. His figure, features, bearing, and accent were the verytype of refinement; and as the spare figure, so short yet so full ofdignity, marked out by the decanal dress and the red ribbon of the Orderof the Bath, threaded its way through the crowded saloons of Londonsociety, one felt that the Church, as a civilizing institution, couldnot be more appropriately represented. 

A lady of Presbyterian antecedents who had conformed to Anglicanism oncesaid to the present writer, "I dislike the _Episcopal_ Church as much asever, but I love the _Decanal_ Church. " Her warmest admiration wasreserved for that particular Dean, supreme alike in station and incharm, whom I have just now been describing; but there were, at the timeof speaking, several other members of the same order who wereconspicuous ornaments of the society in which they moved. There was Dr. Elliot, Dean of Bristol, a yearly visitor to London; dignified, clever, agreeable, highly connected; an administrator, a politician, anadmirable talker; and so little trammelled by any ecclesiasticalprejudices or habitudes that he might have been the original of Dr. Stanhope in _Barchester Towers_. There was Dr. Liddell, Dean of ChristChurch, whose periodical appearances at Court and in society displayedto the admiring gaze of the world the very handsomest and stateliestspecimen of the old English gentleman that our time has produced. Therewas Dr. Church, Dean of St. Paul's, by many competent judges pronouncedto be our most accomplished man of letters, yet so modest and soretiring that the world was never suffered to come in contact with himexcept through his books. And there was Dr. Vaughan, Dean of Llandaff, who concealed under the blandest of manners a remorseless sarcasm and amordant wit, and who, returning from the comparative publicity of theAthenaeum to the domestic shades of the Temple, would often leave behindhim some pungent sentence which travelled from mouth to mouth, andspared neither age nor sex nor friendship nor affinity. 

The very highest dignitaries of the Church in London have never, in myexperience, contributed very largely to its social life. Thegarden-parties of Fulham and Lambeth are indeed recognized incidents ofthe London season; but they present to the critical eye less the aspectof a social gathering than that of a Church Congress combined with aMothers' Meeting. The overwhelming disparity between theposition of host and guests is painfully apparent, and that"drop-down-dead-ativeness" of manner which Sydney Smith quizzed stillcharacterizes the demeanour of the unbeneficed clergy. Archbishop Tait, whose natural stateliness of aspect and manner was one of the mostconspicuous qualifications for his great office, was a dignified andhospitable host; and Archbishop Thomson, reinforced by a beautiful andcharming wife, was sometimes spoken of as the Archbishop of Society. Archbishop Benson looked the part to perfection, but did not take muchshare in general conversation, though I remember one terse saying of hisin which the _odium theologicum_ supplied the place of wit. A portraitof Cardinal Manning was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and I remarkedto the Archbishop on the extraordinary picturesqueness of the Cardinal'sappearance "The dress is very effective, " replied the Archbishop dryly, "but I don't think there is much besides. " "Oh, surely it is a finehead?" "No, not a fine head; only _no face_. "

Passing down through the ranks of the hierarchy, I shall presently havesomething to say about two or three metropolitan Canons who are notablefigures in society; but before I come to them I must offer a word ofaffectionate tribute to the memory of Dr. Liddon. Probably there neverwas a man whose social habit and manner were less like what a mereoutsider would have inferred from his physical aspect and publicdemeanour. Nature had given him the outward semblance of a foreigner andan ascetic; a life-long study of ecclesiastical rhetoric had stamped himwith a mannerism which belongs peculiarly to the pulpit. But the trueinwardness of the man was that of the typical John Bull--hearty, natural, full of humour, utterly free from self-consciousness. He had ahealthy appetite, and was not ashamed to gratify it; liked a good glassof wine; was peculiarly fond of sociable company, whether as host orguest; and told an amusing story with incomparable zest and point. Hisverbal felicity was a marked feature of his conversation. Hisdescription of Archbishop Benson (revived, with strange taste, by the_Saturday Review_ on the occasion of the Archbishop's death) was amasterpiece of sarcastic character-drawing. The judicious BishopDavidson and the accomplished Canon Mason were the subjects of similarpleasantries; and there was substantial truth as well as genuine fun inhis letter to a friend written one dark Christmas from Amen Court:"London is just now buried under a dense fog. This is commonlyattributed to Dr. Westcott having opened his study-window atWestminster. "

XVIII. 

CLERGYMEN--_continued_. 

Of the "Merriment of Parsons" one of the most conspicuous instances wasto be found in the Rev. W. H. Brookfield, the "little Frank Whitestock"of Thackeray's _Curate's Walk_, and the subject of Lord Tennyson'scharacteristic elegy:--

 "Brooks, for they called you so that knew you best-- Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes, How oft we two have heard St. Mary's chimes! How oft the Cantab supper host, and guest, Would echo helpless laughter to your jest!

 * * * * *

 You man of humorous-melancholy mark Dead of some inward agony--is it so? Our kindlier, trustier Jaques, past away! I cannot laud this life, it looks so dark: [Greek: Skias onar]--dream of a shadow, go, -- God bless you. I shall join you in a day. "

This tribute is as true in substance as it is striking in phrase. I havenoticed the same peculiarity about Mr. Brookfield's humour as aboutJenny Lind's singing. Those who had once heard it were always eager totalk about it. Ask some elderly man about the early triumphs of theSwedish Nightingale, and notice how he kindles. "Ah! Jenny Lind! Yes;there was never anything like that!" And he begins about the _Figlia_, and how she came along the bridge in the _Sonnambula_; and you feel thetenderness in his tone, as of a positive love for her whose voice seemsstill ringing through him as he talks. I have noticed exactly the samephenomenon when people who knew Mr. Brookfield hear his name mentionedin casual conversation. "Ah! Brookfield! Yes; there never was any onequite like him!" And off they go, with visible pleasure and genuineemotion, to describe the inimitable charm, the touch of genius whichbrought humorous delight out of the commonest incidents, the tinge ofbrooding melancholy which threw the flashing fun into such high relief. 

Not soon will fade from the memory of any who ever heard it the historyof the examination at the ladies' school, where Brookfield, who hadthought that he was only expected to examine in languages andliterature, found himself required to set a paper in physical science. "What was I to do? I know nothing about hydrogen or oxygen or any other'gen. ' So I set them a paper in common sense, or what I called 'AppliedScience. ' One of my questions was, 'What would you do to cure a cold inthe head?' One young lady answered, 'I should put _my_ feet in hotmustard and water till _you_ were in a profuse perspiration. ' Anothersaid, 'I should put him to bed, give him a soothing drink, and sit byhim till he was better. ' But, on reconsideration, she ran her penthrough all the 'him's' and 'he's, ' and substituted 'her' and 'she. '"

Mr. Brookfield was during the greater part of his life a hard-workingservant of the public, and his friends could only obtain his delightfulcompany in the rare and scanty intervals of school-inspecting--aprofession of which not even the leisure is leisurely. The type of theFrench abbé, whose sacerdotal avocations lay completely in thebackground and who could give the best hours of the day and night to thepleasures or duties of society, was best represented in our day by theRev. William Harness and the Rev. Henry White. Mr. Harness was adiner-out of the first water; an author and a critic; perhaps the bestShakespearean scholar of his time; and a recognized and even dreadedauthority on all matters connected with the art and literature of thedrama. Mr. White, burdened only with the sinecure chaplaincies of theSavoy and the House of Commons, took the Theatre as his parish, mediatedwith the happiest tact between the Church and the Stage, and pronounceda genial benediction over the famous suppers in Stratton Street at whichan enthusiastic patroness used to entertain Sir Henry Irving when thepublic labours of the Lyceum were ended for the night. 

Canon Malcolm MacColl is an abbé with a difference. No one eats hisdinner more sociably or tells a story more aptly; no one enjoys goodsociety more keenly or is more appreciated in it; but he does not makesociety a profession. He is conscientiously devoted to the duties of hiscanonry; he is an accomplished theologian; and he is perhaps the mostexpert and vigorous pamphleteer in England. The Franco-German War, theAthanasian Creed, the Ritualistic prosecutions, the case for Home Rule, and the misdeeds of the Sultan have in turn produced from his penpamphlets which have rushed into huge circulations and swollen to thedimensions of solid treatises. Canon MacColl is genuinely and _ex animo_an ecclesiastic; but he is a politician as well. His inflexibleintegrity and fine sense of honour have enabled him to play, with creditto himself and advantage to the public, the rather risky part of thePriest in Politics. He has been trusted alike by Lord Salisbury and byMr. Gladstone; has conducted negotiations of great pith and moment; andhas been behind the scenes of some historic performances. Yet he hasnever made an enemy, nor betrayed a secret, nor lowered the honour ofhis sacred calling. 

Miss Mabel Collins, in her vivid story of _The Star Sapphire_, has drawnunder a very thin pseudonym a striking portrait of a clergyman who, withhis environment, plays a considerable part in the social agreeablenessof London at the present moment. Is social agreeableness a hereditarygift? Nowadays, when everything, good or bad, is referred to heredity, one is inclined to say that it must be; and, though no training couldsupply the gift where Nature had withheld it, yet a judicious educationcan develop a social faculty which ancestry has transmitted. It isrecorded, I think, of Madame de Stael, that, after her firstconversation with William Wilberforce, she said: "I have always heardthat Mr. Wilberforce was the most religious man in England, but I didnot know that he was also the wittiest. " The agreeableness of the greatphilanthropist's son--Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and ofWinchester--I discussed in my last chapter. We may put aside the fulsomedithyrambics of grateful archdeacons and promoted chaplains, and becontent to rest the Bishop's reputation for agreeableness on testimonyso little interested as that of Matthew Arnold and Archbishop Tait. TheArchbishop wrote, after the Bishop's death, of his "social andirresistibly fascinating side, as displayed in his dealings withsociety;" and in 1864 Mr. Arnold, after listening with only verymoderate admiration to one of the Bishop's celebrated sermons, wrote:"Where he was excellent was in his speeches at luncheon afterwards--gay, easy, cordial, and wonderfully happy. "

I think that one gathers from all dispassionate observers of the Bishopthat what struck them most in him was the blending of boisterous fun andanimal spirits with a deep and abiding sense of the seriousness ofreligion. In the philanthropist-father the religious seriousness ratherpreponderated over the fun; in the bishop-son (by a curious inversion ofparts) the fun sometimes concealed the religiousness. To those whospeculate in matters of race and pedigree it is interesting to watch thetwo elements contending in the character of Canon Basil Wilberforce, theBishop's youngest and best-beloved son. When you see his gracefulfigure and clean-shaven ecclesiastical face in the pulpit of hisstrangely old-fashioned church, or catch the vibrating notes of hisbeautifully modulated voice in

 "The hush of our dread high altar, Where The Abbey makes us _We_, "

you feel yourself in the presence of a born ecclesiastic, called fromhis cradle by an irresistible vocation to a separate and sanctifiedcareer. When you see him on the platform of some great public meeting, pouring forth argument, appeal, sarcasm, anecdote, fun, and pathos in anever-ceasing flood of vivid English, you feel that you are under thespell of a born orator. And yet again, when you see the priest ofSunday, the orator of Monday, presiding on Tuesday with easy yetfinished courtesy at the hospitable table of the most beautifuldining-room in London, or welcomed with equal warmth for his racy humourand his unfailing sympathy in the homes of his countless friends, youfeel that here is a man naturally framed for society, in whom his fatherand grandfather live again. Truly a combination of hereditary gifts isdisplayed in Canon Wilberforce; and the social agreeableness of Londonreceived a notable addition when Mr. Gladstone transferred him fromSouthampton to Dean's Yard. 

Of agreeable Canons there is no end, and the Chapter of Westminster ispeculiarly rich in them. Mr. Gore's ascetic saintliness of life concealsfrom the general world, but not from the privileged circle of hisintimate friends, the high breeding of a great Whig family and thephilosophy of Balliol. Archdeacon Furse has the refined scholarship anddelicate literary sense which characterized Eton in its days of glory. Dr. Duckworth's handsome presence has long been welcomed in the veryhighest of all social circles. Mr. Eyton's massive bulk and warm heart, and rugged humour and sturdy common sense, produce the effect of aclerical Dr. Johnson. But perhaps we must turn our back on the Abbeyand pursue our walk along the Thames Embankment as far as St. Paul's ifwe want to discover the very finest flower of canonical culture andcharm, for it blushes unseen in the shady recesses of Amen Court. HenryScott Holland, Canon of St. Paul's, is beyond all question one of themost agreeable men of his time. In fun and geniality and warm-heartedhospitality he is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose officialhouse he inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he addscertain others which his admirable predecessor could scarcely haveclaimed. He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, itsversatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave togay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and nature, literature and life. His temperament is essentially musical, and, indeed, it was from him that I borrowed, in a former paragraph, mydescription of Jenny Lind and her effect on her hearers. No man inLondon, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in everyclass and stratum; and those friends acknowledge in him not only themost vivacious and exhilarating of social companions, but one of themoral forces which have done most to quicken their consciences and lifttheir lives. 

Before I have done with the agreeableness of clergymen I must say a wordabout two academical personages, of whom it was not always easy toremember that they were clergymen, and whose agreeableness struck one indifferent lights, according as one happened to be the victim or thewitness of their jocosity. If any one wishes to know what the lateMaster of Balliol was really like in his social aspect, I should referhim, not to the two volumes of his Biography, nor even to the amusingchit-chat of Mr. Lionel Tollemache's Recollections, but to the cleverestwork of a very clever Balliol man--Mr. W. H. Mallock's _New Republic_. The description of Mr. Jowett's appearance, conversation, and socialbearing is photographic, and the sermon which Mr. Mallock puts into hismouth is not a parody, but an absolutely faultless reproduction both ofsubstance and of style. That it excessively irritated the subject of thesketch is the best proof of its accuracy. For my own part, I must freelyadmit that I do not write as an admirer of Mr. Jowett; but one saying ofhis, which I had the advantage of hearing, does much to atone, in myjudgment, for the snappish impertinences on which his reputation for withas been generally based. The scene was the Master's own dining-room, and the moment that the ladies had left the room one of the guests begana most outrageous conversation. Every one sat flabbergasted. The Masterwinced with annoyance; and then, bending down the table towards theoffender, said in his shrillest tone--"Shall we continue thisconversation in the drawing-room?" and rose from his chair. It wasreally a stroke of genius thus both to terminate and to rebuke theimpropriety without violating the decorum due from host to guest. 

Of the late Master of Trinity--Dr. Thompson--it was said: "He castethforth his ice like morsels. Who is able to abide his frost?" The storiesof his mordant wit are endless, but an Oxford man can scarcely hope tonarrate them with proper accuracy. He was nothing if not critical. AtSeeley's Inaugural Lecture as Professor of History his only remarkwas--"Well, well. I did not think we could so soon have had occasion toregret poor Kingsley. " To a gushing admirer who said that a popularpreacher had so much taste--"Oh yes; so very much, and all so very bad. "Of a certain Dr. Woods, who wrote elementary mathematical books forschoolboys, and whose statue occupies the most conspicuous position inthe ante-chapel of St. John's College--"The Johnian Newton. " His hit atthe present Chief Secretary for Ireland, [22] when he was a junior Fellowof Trinity, is classical--"We are none of us infallible--not even theyoungest of us. " But it requires an eye-witness of the scene to dojustice to the exordium of the Master's sermon on the Parable of theTalents, addressed in Trinity Chapel to what considers itself, and notwithout justice, the cleverest congregation in the world. "It would beobviously superfluous in a congregation such as that which I now addressto expatiate on the responsibilities of those who have five, or eventwo, talents. I shall therefore confine my observations to the moreordinary case of those of us who have _one talent_. "

FOOTNOTES:

[22] The Right Hon. G. W. Balfour. 

XIX. 

REPARTEE. 

Lord Beaconsfield, describing Monsignore Berwick in _Lothair_, says thathe "could always, when necessary, sparkle with anecdote or blaze withrepartee. " The former performance is considerably easier than thelatter. Indeed, when a man has a varied experience, a retentive memory, and a sufficient copiousness of speech, the facility of story-tellingmay attain the character of a disease. The "sparkle" evaporates whilethe "anecdote" is left. But, though what Mr. Pinto called "Anecdotage"is deplorable, a repartee is always delightful: and, while by no meansinclined to admit the general inferiority of contemporary conversationto that of the last generation, I am disposed to think that in the artof repartee our predecessors excelled us. 

If this is true, it may be partly due to the greater freedom of an agewhen well-bred men and refined women spoke their minds with anuncompromising plainness which would now be voted intolerable. I havesaid that the old Royal Dukes were distinguished by the racy vigour oftheir conversation; and the Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King Ernestof Hanover, was held to excel all his brothers in this respect. I wastold by the late Sir Charles Wyke that he was once walking with the Dukeof Cumberland along Piccadilly when the Duke of Gloucester (first cousinto Cumberland, and familiarly known as "Silly Billy") came out ofGloucester House. "Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Gloucester, stop aminute. I want to speak to you, " roared the Duke of Cumberland. PoorSilly Billy, whom nobody ever noticed, was delighted to find himselfthus accosted, and ambled up smiling. "Who's your tailor?" shoutedCumberland. "Stultz, " replied Gloucester. "Thank you. I only wanted toknow, because, whoever he is, he ought to be avoided like a pestilence. "Exit Silly Billy. 

Of this inoffensive but not brilliant prince (who, by the way, wasChancellor of the University of Cambridge) it is related that once at alevée he noticed a naval friend with a much-tanned face. "How do, Admiral? Glad to see you again. It's a long time since you have been ata levée. " "Yes, sir. Since I last saw your Royal Highness I have beennearly to the North Pole. " "By G---, you look more as if you had been tothe South Pole. " It is but bare justice to this depreciated memory toobserve that the Duke of Gloucester scored a point against his kinglycousin when, on hearing that William IV. Had consented to the ReformBill, he ejaculated, "Who's Silly Billy now?" But this is a digression. 

Early in the nineteenth century a famous lady, whose name, for obviousreasons, I forbear to indicate even by an initial, had inherited greatwealth under a will which, to put it mildly, occasioned much surprise. She shared an opera-box with a certain Lady D---, who loved the flowingwine-cup not wisely, but too well. One night Lady D--- was visiblyintoxicated at the opera, and her friend told her that the partnershipin the box must cease, as she could not appear again in company sodisgraceful. "As you please, " said Lady D---. "I may have had a glass ofwine too much; but at any rate I never forged my father's signature, andthen murdered the butler to prevent his telling. "

Beau Brummell, the Prince of Dandies and the most insolent of men, wasonce asked by a lady if be would "take a cup of tea. " "Thank you, ma'am, " he replied, "I never _take_ anything but physic. " "I beg yourpardon, " replied the hostess, "you also take liberties. "

The Duchess of Somerset, born Sheridan, and famous as the Queen ofBeauty at the Eglinton Tournament of 1839, was pre-eminent in thisagreeable art of swift response. One day she called at a shop for somearticle which she had purchased the day before, and which had not beensent home. The order could not be traced. The proprietor of theestablishment inquired, with great concern, "May I ask who took yourGrace's order? Was it a young gentleman with fair hair?" "No; it was anelderly nobleman with a bald head. "

The celebrated Lady Clanricarde, daughter of George Canning, was talkingduring the Franco-German War of 1870 to the French Ambassador, whocomplained bitterly that England had not intervened on behalf of France. "But, after all, " he said, "it was only what we might have expected. Wealways believed that you were a nation of shopkeepers, and now we knowyou are. " "And we, " replied Lady Clanricarde, "always believed that youwere a nation of soldiers, and now we know you are not"--a reparteeworthy to rank with Queen Mary's reply to Lady Lochleven about thesacramental character of marriage, in the third volume of _The Abbot_. 

A young lady, who had just been appointed a Maid of Honour, was tellingsome friends with whom she was dining that one of the conditions of theoffice was that she should not keep a diary of what went on at Court. Acynical man of the world who was present said, "What a tiresome rule! Ithink I should keep my diary all the same. " "Then, " replied the younglady, "I am afraid you would not be a maid of _Honour_. "

In the famous society of old Holland House a conspicuous and interestingfigure was Henry Luttrell. It was known that he must be getting on inlife, for he had sat in the Irish Parliament, but his precise age no oneknew. At length Lady Holland, whose curiosity was restrained by noconsiderations of courtesy, asked him point-blank--"Now, Luttrell, we'reall dying to know how old you are. Just tell me. " Eyeing his questionergravely, Luttrell made answer, "It is an odd question; but as you, LadyHolland, ask it, I don't mind telling you. If I live till next year, Ishall be--devilish old. "

For the mutual amenities of Melbourne and Alvanley and Rogers and Allen, for Lord Holland's genial humour, and for Lady Holland's indiscriminateinsolence, we can refer to Lord Macaulay's Life and Charles Greville'sJournals, and the enormous mass of contemporary memoirs. Most of theseverbal encounters were fought with all imaginable good-humour, over somesocial or literary topic; but now and then, when political passion wasreally roused, they took a fiercely personal tone. 

Let one instance of elaborate invective suffice. Sir James Mackintosh, who, as the writer of the _Vindiciae Gallicae_, had been the foremostapologist for the French Revolution, fell later under the influence ofBurke, and proclaimed the most unmeasured hostility to the Revolutionand its authors, their works and ways. Having thus become a vehementchampion of law and order, he exclaimed one day that O'Coighley, thepriest who negotiated between the Revolutionary parties in Ireland andFrance, was the basest of mankind. "No, Mackintosh, " replied that soundthough pedantic old Whig, Dr. Parr; "he might have been much worse. Hewas an Irishman; he might have been a Scotsman. He was a priest; hemight have been a lawyer. He was a rebel; he might have been arenegade. "

These severe forms of elaborated sarcasm belong, I think, to a past age. Lord Beaconsfield was the last man who indulged in them. When theGreville Memoirs--that mine of social information in which I have sooften quarried--came out, some one asked Mr. Disraeli, as he then was, if he had read them. He replied, "No. I do not feel attracted to them. Iremember the author, and he was the most conceited person with whom Ihave ever been brought in contact, although I have read Cicero and knownBulwer Lytton. " This three-edged compliment has seldom been excelled. Ina lighter style, and more accordant with feminine grace, was LadyMorley's comment on the decaying charms of her famous rival, LadyJersey--the Zenobia of _Endymion_--of whom some gushing admirer had saidthat she looked so splendid going to court in her mourning array ofblack and diamonds--"it was like night. " "Yes, my dear; _minuit passé_. "A masculine analogue to this amiable compliment may be cited from thetable-talk of Lord Granville--certainly not an unkindly man--to whom thelate Mr. Delane had been complaining of the difficulty of finding asuitable wedding-present for a young lady of the house of Rothschild. "It would be absurd to give a Rothschild a costly gift. I should like tofind something not intrinsically valuable, but interesting because it israre. " "Nothing easier, my dear fellow; send her a lock of your hair. "

When a remote cousin of Lord Henniker was elected to the Head Mastershipof Rossall, a disappointed competitor said that it was a case of [Greek:eneka tou kuriou]; but a Greek joke is scarcely fair play. 

When the _New Review_ was started, its accomplished Editor designed itto be an inexpensive copy of the _Nineteenth Century_. It was to costonly sixpence, and was to be written by bearers of famous names--thoseof the British aristocracy for choice. He was complaining in society ofthe difficulty of finding a suitable title, when a vivacious lady said, "We have got _Cornhill_, and _Ludgate_, and _Strand_--why not call yours_Cheapside_?"

Oxford has always been a nursing-mother of polished satirists. Of asmall sprig of aristocracy, who was an undergraduate in my time, it wassaid by a friend that he was like Euclid's definition of a point: he hadno parts and no magnitude, but had position. In previous chapters I havequoted the late Master of Balliol and Lord Sherbrooke. Professor ThoroldRogers excelled in a Shandean vein. Lord Bowen is immortalized by hisemendation to the Judge's address to the Queen, which had contained theHeep-like sentence--"Conscious as we are of our own unworthiness for thegreat office to which we have been called. " "Wouldn't it be better tosay, 'Conscious as we are of one another's unworthiness'?" Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, the wittiest, most learned, and most genial ofIrishmen, said of a well-known man of science--"His only fault is thathe sometimes forgets that he is the Editor, not the Author, of Nature. "A great lawyer who is now a great judge, and has, with good reason, thevery highest opinion of himself, stood as a Liberal at the GeneralElection of 1880. His Tory opponents set on foot a rumour that he was anAtheist, and when Henry Smith heard it he said, "Now, that's really toobad, for ---- is a man who reluctantly acknowledges the existence of a_Superior Being_. "

At dinner at Balliol the Master's guests were discussing the careers oftwo Balliol men, the one of whom had just been made a judge and theother a bishop. "Oh, " said Henry Smith, "I think the bishop is thegreater man. A judge, at the most, can only say, 'You be hanged, ' but abishop can say, 'You be d---d. '" "Yes, " twittered the Master; "but ifthe judge says, 'You be hanged, ' you _are_ hanged. "

Henry Smith, though a delightful companion, was a very unsatisfactorypolitician--nominally, indeed, a Liberal, but full of qualifications andexceptions. When Mr. Gathorne Hardy was raised to the peerage at thecrisis of the Eastern Question in 1878, and thereby vacated his seatfor the University of Oxford, Henry Smith came forward as a candidate inthe Liberal interest; but his language about the great controversy ofthe moment was so lukewarm that Professor Freeman said that, instead ofsitting for Oxford in the House of Commons, he ought to representLaodicea in the Parliament of Asia Minor. 

Of Dr. Haig-Brown it is reported that, when Head Master of Charterhouse, he was toasted by the Mayor of Godalming as a man who knew how tocombine the _fortiter in re_ with the _suav[=i]ter in modo_. In replyingto the toast he said, "I am really overwhelmed not only by the quality, but by the _quantity_ of his Worship's eulogium. "

It has been a matter of frequent remark that, considering what animmense proportion of parliamentary time has been engrossed during thelast seventeen years by Irish speeches, we have heard so little Irishhumour, whether conscious or unconscious--whether jokes or "bulls. " Anadmirably vigorous simile was used by the late Mr. O'Sullivan, when hecomplained that the whisky supplied at the bar was like "a torchlightprocession marching down your throat;" but of Irish bulls in ParliamentI have only heard one--proceeding, if my memory serves me, from Mr. T. Healy: "As long as the voice of Irish suffering is dumb, the ear ofEnglish compassion is deaf to it. " One I read in the columns of the_Irish Times_: "The key of the Irish difficulty is to be found in the_empty_ pocket of the landlord. " An excellent confusion of metaphors wasuttered by one of the members for the Principality in the debate on theWelsh Church Bill, in indignant protest against the allegation that themajority of Welshmen now belonged to the Established Church. He said, "It is a lie, sir; and it is high time that we nailed this lie to themast. " But a confusion of metaphors is not a bull. 

Among tellers of Irish stories, Lord Morris is supreme; one of his bestdepicts two Irish officials of the good old times discussing, in all theconfidence of their after-dinner claret, the principles on which theybestowed their patronage Said the first, "Well, I don't mind admittingthat, _caeteris paribus_, I prefer my own relations. " "My dear boy, "replied his boon companion, "_caeteris paribus_ be d----d. " Thecleverest thing that I have lately heard was from a young lady, who isan Irishwoman, and I hope that its excellence will excuse thepersonality. It must be premised that Lord Erne is a gentleman whoabounds in anecdote, and that Lady Erne is an extremely handsome woman. Their irreverent compatriot has nicknamed them

"The storied Erne and animated bust. "

Frances Countess Waldegrave, who had previously been married threetimes, took as her fourth husband an Irishman, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, who was shortly afterwards made Chief Secretary. The first night thatLady Waldegrave and Mr. Fortescue appeared at the theatre in Dublin, awag in the gallery called out, "Which of the four do you like best, mylady?" Instantaneously from the Chief Secretary's box came the adroitreply: "Why, the Irishman, of course '"

The late Lord Coleridge was once speaking in the House of Commons insupport of Women's Rights. One of his main arguments as that there wasno essential difference between the masculine and the feminineintellect. For example, he said, some of the most valuable qualities ofwhat is called the judicial genius--sensibility, quickness, delicacy--are peculiarly feminine. In reply, Serjeant Dowse said: "Theargument of the hon. And learned Member, compendiously stated, amountsto this--because some judges are old women, therefore all old women arefit to be judges. "

To my friend Mr. Julian Sturgis, himself one of the happiest ofphrase-makers, I am indebted for the following gems from America. 

Mr. Evarts, formerly Secretary of State, showed an English friend theplace where Washington was said to have thrown a dollar across thePotomac. The English friend expressed surprise; "but, " said Mr. Evarts, "you must remember that a dollar went further in those days. " A Senatormet Mr. Evarts next day, and said that he had been amused by his jest. "But, " said Mr. Evarts, "I met a mere journalist just afterwards whosaid, 'Oh, Mr. Evarts, you should have said that it was a small matterto throw a dollar across the Potomac for a man who had chucked asovereign across the Atlantic. '" Mr. Evarts, weary of making many jokes, would invent a journalist or other man and tell a story as his. It washe who, on a kindly busybody expressing surprise at his daring to drinkso many different wines at dinner, said that it was only the indifferentwines of which he was afraid. 

It was Mr. Motley who said in Boston--"Give me the luxuries of life, andI care not who has the necessaries. "

Mr. Tom Appleton, famous for many witty sayings (among them thewell-known "Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"), heard somegrave city fathers debating what could be done to mitigate the crueleast wind at an exposed corner of a certain street in Boston. Hesuggested that they should tether a shorn lamb there. 

A witty Bostonian going to dine with a lady was met by her with a faceof apology. "I could not get another man, " she said; "and we are fourwomen, and you will have to take us all in to dinner. " "Fore-warned isfour-armed, " said he with a bow. 

This gentleman was in a hotel in Boston when the law forbidding the saleof liquor was in force. "What would you say, " said an angry Bostonian, "if a man from St. Louis, where they have freedom, were to come in andask you where he could get a drink?" Now it was known that spirits couldbe clandestinely bought in a room under the roof, and the wit pointingupwards replied, "I should say, 'Fils de St. Louis, montez au ciel. '"

Madame Apponyi was in London during the debates on the Reform Bill of1867, and, like all foreigners and not a few Englishmen, was muchperplexed by the "Compound Householder, " who figured so largely in thediscussion. Hayward explained that he was the Masculine of the FemmeIncomprise. 

One of the best repartees ever made, because the briefest and thejustest, was made by "the gorgeous Lady Blessington" to Napoleon III. When Prince Louis Napoleon was living in impecunious exile in London hehad been a constant guest at Lady Blessington's hospitable and brilliantbut Bohemian house. And she, when visiting Paris after the _coup d'état_naturally expected to receive at the Tuileries some return for theunbounded hospitalities of Gore House. Weeks passed, no invitationarrived, and the Imperial Court took no notice of Lady Blessington'spresence. At length she encountered the Emperor at a great reception. Ashe passed through the bowing and curtsying crowd, the Emperor caughtsight of his former hostess. "Ah, Miladi Blessington! Restez-vouslongtemps à Paris?" "Et vous, Sire?" History does not record theusurper's reply. 

Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter from 1830 to 1869, lived at abeautiful villa near Torquay, and an enthusiastic lady who visited himthere burst into dithyrambics and cried, "What a lovely spot this is, Bishop! It is so Swiss. " "Yes, ma'am, " blandly replied old Harry ofExeter, "it is very Swiss; only there is no sea in Switzerland, andthere are no mountains here. " To one of his clergy desiring to renew alease of some episcopal property, the Bishop named a preposterous sum asthe fine on renewal. The poor parson, consenting with reluctance, said, "Well, I suppose it is better than endangering the lease, but certainlyyour lordship has got the lion's share. " "But, my dear sir, I am sureyou would not wish me to have that of the other creature. "

Still, after all, for a bishop to score off a clergyman is aninglorious victory; it is like the triumph of a magistrate over aprisoner or of a don over an undergraduate. Bishop Wilberforce, whosepowers of repartee were among his most conspicuous gifts, was alwaysready to use them where retaliation was possible--not in the safeenclosure of the episcopal study, but on the open battlefield of theplatform and the House of Lords. At the great meeting in St. James'sHall in the summer of 1868 to protest against the Disestablishment ofthe Irish Church, some Orange enthusiast, in the hope of disturbing theBishop, kept interrupting his honeyed eloquence with inopportune shoutsof "Speak up, my lord. " "I am already speaking up, " replied the Bishopin his most dulcet tone; "I always speak up; and I decline to speak downto the level of the ill-mannered person in the gallery. " Every one whosememory runs back thirty years will recall the Homeric encounters betweenthe Bishop and Lord Chancellor Westbury in the House of Lords, and willremember the melancholy circumstances under which Lord Westbury had toresign his office. When he was leaving the Royal Closet aftersurrendering the Great Seal into the Queen's hands, Lord Westbury metthe Bishop, who was going in to the Queen. It was a painful encounter, and in reminding the Bishop of the occurrence when next they met, Westbury said, "I felt inclined to say, 'Hast thou found me, O mineenemy?'" The Bishop in relating this used to say, "I never in my lifewas so tempted as to finish the quotation, and say, 'Yea, I have foundthee, because thou hast sold thyself to work iniquity. ' But by a greateffort I kept it down, and said, 'Does your lordship remember the end ofthe quotation?'" The Bishop, who enjoyed a laugh against himself, usedto say that he had once been effectually scored off by one of his clergywhom he had rebuked for his addiction to fox-hunting. The Bishop urgedthat it had a worldly appearance. The clergyman replied that it was nota bit more worldly than a ball at Blenheim Palace at which the Bishophad been present. The Bishop explained that he was staying in the house, but was never within three rooms of the dancing. "Oh, if it comes tothat, " replied the clergyman, "I never am within three fields of thehounds. "

One of the best replies--it is scarcely a repartee--traditionallyreported at Oxford was made by the great Saint of the TractarianMovement, the Rev. Charles Marriott. A brother-Fellow of Oriel hadbehaved rather outrageously at dinner overnight, and coming out ofchapel next morning, essayed to apologize to Marriott: "My friend, I'mafraid I made rather a fool of myself last night. " "My dear fellow, Iassure you I observed nothing unusual. "

In a former chapter about the Art of Conversation I referred to thesingular readiness which characterized Lord Sherbrooke's talk. A goodinstance of it was his reply to the strenuous advocate of modernstudies, who, presuming on Sherbrooke's sympathy, said, "I have thegreatest contempt for Aristotle. " "But not that contempt whichfamiliarity breeds, I should imagine, " was Sherbrooke's mild rejoinder. "I have got a box at the Lyceum to-night, " I once heard a lady say, "anda place to spare. Lord Sherbrooke, will you come? If you are engaged, Imust take the Bishop of Gibraltar. " "Oh, that's no good. Gibraltar cannever be taken. "

In 1872, when University College, Oxford, celebrated the thousandthanniversary of its foundation, Lord Sherbrooke, as an old Member of theCollege, made the speech of the evening. His theme was a complaint ofthe iconoclastic tendency of New Historians. Nothing was safe from theirsacrilegious research. Every tradition, however venerable, howeverprecious, was resolved into a myth or a fable. "For example, " he said, "we have always believed that certain lands which this college owns inBerkshire were given to us by King Alfred. Now the New Historians comeand tell us that this could not have been the case, because they canprove that the lands in question never belonged to the King. It seems tome that the New Historians prove too much--indeed, they prove the verypoint which they contest. If the lands had belonged to the King, hewould probably have kept them to himself; but as they belonged to someone else, he made a handsome present of them to the College. "

Lord Beaconsfield's excellence in conversation lay rather in studiedepigrams than in impromptu repartees. But in his old electioneeringcontests he used sometimes to make very happy hits. When he cameforward, a young, penniless, unknown coxcomb, to contest High Wycombeagainst the dominating Whiggery of the Greys and the Carringtons, someone in the crowd shouted, "We know all about Colonel Grey; but pray whatdo you stand on?" "I stand on my head, " was the prompt reply, to whichMr. Gladstone always rendered unstinted admiration. At Aylesbury theRadical leader had been a man of notoriously profligate life, and whenMr. Disraeli came to seek re-election as Tory Chancellor of theExchequer this tribune of the people produced at the hustings theRadical manifesto which Mr. Disraeli had issued twenty years before. "What do you say to that, sir?" "I say that we all sow our wild oats, and no one knows the meaning of that phrase better than you, Mr. ----. "

A member of the diplomatic service at Rome in the old days of theTemporal Power had the honour of an interview with Pio Nono. The Popegraciously offered him a cigar--"I am told you will find this veryfine. " The Englishman made that stupidest of all answers, "Thank yourHoliness, but I have no vices. " "This isn't a vice; if it was you wouldhave it. " Another repartee from the Vatican reached me a few years ago, when the German Emperor paid his visit to Leo XIII. Count HerbertBismarck was in attendance on his Imperial master, and when theyreached the door of the Pope's audience-chamber the Emperor passed in, and the Count tried to follow. A gentleman of the Papal Court motionedhim to stand back, as there must be no third person at the interviewbetween the Pope and the Emperor. "I am Count Herbert Bismarck, " shoutedthe German, as he struggled to follow his master. "That, " replied theRoman, with calm dignity, "may account for, but it does not excuse, yourconduct. "

But, after all these "fash'nable fax and polite annygoats, " as Thackeraywould have called them, after all these engaging courtesies of kings andprelates and great ladies, I think that the honours in the way ofrepartee rest with the little Harrow boy who was shouting himself hoarsein the jubilation of victory after an Eton and Harrow match at Lord's inwhich Harrow had it hollow. To him an Eton boy, of corresponding years, severely observed, "Well, you Harrow fellows needn't be so beastlycocky. When you wanted a Head Master you had to come to Eton to getone. " The small Harrovian was dumfounded for a moment, and then, pullinghimself together for a final effort of deadly sarcasm, exclaimed, "Well, at any rate, no one can say that we ever produced a Mr. Gladstone. "

XX. 

TITLES. 

The List of Honours, usually published on Her Majesty's Birthday, isthis year[23] reserved till the Jubilee Day, and to sanguine aspirants Iwould say, in Mrs. Gamp's immortal words, "Seek not to proticipate. "Such a list always contains food for the reflective mind, and some ofthe thoughts which it suggests may even lie too deep for tears. Why ismy namesake picked out for knighthood, while I remain hidden in mynative obscurity? Why is my rival made a C. B. , while I "go forthCompanionless" to meet the chances and the vexations of another year?But there is balm in Gilead. If I have fared badly, my friends have donelittle better. Like Mr. Squeers, when Bolder's father was two pound tenshort, they have had their disappointments to contend against. A. , whowas so confident of a peerage, is fobbed off with a baronetcy; and B. , whose labours for the Primrose League entitled him to expect the Bath, finds himself grouped with the Queen's footmen in the Royal VictorianOrder. As, when Sir Robert Peel declined to form a Government in 1839, "twenty gentlemen who had not been appointed Under Secretaries for Statemoaned over the martyrdom of young ambition, " so during the firstfortnight of 1897 at least that number of middle-aged self-seekers cameto the regretful conclusion that Lord Salisbury was not sufficiently aman of the world for his present position, and inwardly asked why ajudge or a surgeon should be preferred before a company-promoter or aparty hack. And, while feeling is thus fermenting at the base of thesocial edifice, things are not really tranquil at the summit. 

It is not long since the chief of the princely House of Duff was raisedto the first order of the peerage, and one or two opulent earls, encouraged by his example, are understood to be looking upward. Everyconstitutional Briton, whatever his political creed, has in his heart ofhearts a wholesome reverence for a dukedom. Lord Beaconsfield, whounderstood these little traits of our national character even moreperfectly than Thackeray, says of his favourite St. Aldegonde (who washeir to the richest dukedom in the kingdom) that "he held extremeopinions, especially on political affairs, being a Republican of thereddest dye. He was opposed to all privilege, and indeed to all ordersof men except dukes, who were a necessity. " That is a delicious touch. St. Aldegonde, whatever his political aberrations, "voiced" theuniversal sentiment of his less fortunate fellow-citizens; nor can themost soaring ambition of the British Matron desire a nobler epitaph thanthat of the lady immortalized by Thomas Ingoldsby:--

 "She drank prussic acid without any water, And died like a Duke-and-a-Duchess's daughter. "

As, according to Dr. Johnson, all claret would be port if it could, so, presumably, every marquis would like to be a duke; and yet, as a matterof fact, that Elysian translation is not often made. A marquis, properlyregarded, is not so much a nascent duke as a magnified earl. A shrewdobserver of the world once said to me: "When an earl gets a marquisate, it is worth a hundred thousand pounds in hard money to his family. " Theexplanation of this cryptic utterance is that, whereas an earl's youngersons are "misters, " a marquis's younger sons are "lords. " Each "mylord" can make a "my lady, " and therefore commands a distinctly higherprice in the marriage-market of a wholesomely-minded community. MissHiggs, with her fifty thousand pounds, might scorn the notion ofbecoming the Honourable Mrs. Percy Popjoy; but as Lady Magnus Chartersshe would feel a laudable ambition gratified. 

An earldom is, in its combination of euphony, antiquity, andassociation, perhaps the most impressive of all the titles in thepeerage. Most rightly did the fourteenth Earl of Derby decline to bedegraded into a brand-new duke. An earldom has always been the right ofa Prime Minister who wishes to leave the Commons. In 1880 a member ofthe House of Russell (in which there are certain Whiggish traditions ofjobbery) was fighting a hotly contested election, and his ardentsupporters brought out a sarcastic placard--"Benjamin, Earl ofBeaconsfield! He made himself an earl and the people poor"; to which arejoinder was instantly forthcoming--"John, Earl Russell! He madehimself an earl and his relations rich. " The amount of truth in the twostatements was about equal. In 1885 this order of the peerage missed thegreatest distinction which fate is likely ever to offer it, when Mr. Gladstone declined the earldom proffered by her Majesty on hisretirement from office. Had he accepted, it was understood that therepresentatives of the last Earl of Liverpool would have waived theirclaims to the extinct title, and the greatest of the Queen's PrimeMinisters would have borne the name of the city which gave him birth. 

But, magnificent and euphonious as an earldom is, the children of anearl are the half-castes of the peerage. The eldest son is "my lord, "and his sisters are "my lady;" and ever since the days of Mr. Foker, Senior, it has been _de rigueur_ for an opulent brewer to marry anearl's daughter; but the younger sons are not distinguishable from theignominious progeny of viscounts and barons. Two little boys, respectively the eldest and the second son of an earl, were playing onthe front staircase of their home, when the eldest fell over into thehall below. The younger called to the footman who picked his brother up, "Is he hurt?" "Killed, _my lord_, " was the instantanteous reply of aservant who knew the devolution of a courtesy title. 

As the marquises people the debatable land between the dukes and theearls, so do the viscounts between the earls and the barons. A childwhom Matthew Arnold was examining in grammar once wrote of certain wordswhich he found it hard to classify under their proper parts of speechthat they were "thrown into the common sink, which is adverbs. " I hope Ishall not be considered guilty of any disrespect if I say thatex-Speakers, ex-Secretaries of State, successful generals, and ambitiousbarons who are not quite good enough for earldoms, are "thrown into thecommon sink, which is viscounts. " Not only heralds and genealogists, butevery one who has the historic sense, must have felt an emotion ofregret when the splendid title of twenty-third Baron Dacre was merged byMr. Speaker Brand in the pinchbeck dignity of first Viscount Hampden. 

After viscounts, barons. The baronage of England is headed by thebishops; but, as we have already discoursed of those right reverendpeers, we, Dante-like, will not reason of them, but pass on--onlyremarking, as we pass, that it is held on good authority that no humanbeing ever experiences a rapture so intense as an American bishop from aWestern State when he first hears himself called "My lord" at a Londondinner-party. After the spiritual barons come the secular barons--the"common or garden" peers of the United Kingdom. Of these there areconsiderably more than three hundred; and of all, except some thirty orforty at the most, it may be said without offence that they are productsof the opulent Middle Class. Pitt destroyed deliberately and for everthe exclusive character of the British peerage when, as LordBeaconsfield said, he "created a plebeian aristocracy and blended itwith the patrician oligarchy. " And in order to gain admission to this"plebeian aristocracy" men otherwise reasonable and honest will spendincredible sums, undergo prodigious exertions, associate themselves withthe basest intrigues, and perform the most unblushing tergiversations. Lord Houghton told me that he said to a well-known politician whoboasted that he had refused a peerage: "Then you made a great mistake. Apeerage would have secured you three things that you are much in needof--social consideration, longer credit with your tradesmen, and bettermarriages for your younger children. "

It is unlucky that a comparatively recent change has put it out of thepower of a Prime Minister to create fresh Irish peers, for an Irishpeerage was a cheap and convenient method of rewarding politicalservice. [24] Lord Palmerston held that, combining social rank witheligibility to the House of Commons, it was the most desirabledistinction for a politician. Pitt, when his banker Mr. Smith (who livedin Whitehall) desired the privilege of driving through the Horse Guards, said: "No, I can't give you that; but I will make you an Irish peer;"and the banker became the first Lord Carrington. 

What is a Baronet? ask some. Sir Wilfrid Lawson (who ought to know)replies that he is a man "who has ceased to be a gentleman and has notbecome a nobleman. " But this is too severe a judgment. It breathes aspirit of contempt bred of familiarity, which may, without irreverence, be assumed by a member of an exalted Order, but which a humble outsiderwould do well to avoid. As Major Pendennis said of a similarmanifestation, "It sits prettily enough on a young patrician in earlylife, though, nothing is so loathsome among persons of our rank. " Iturn, therefore, for an answer to Sir Bernard Burke, who says: "Thehereditary Order of Baronets was created by patent in England by KingJames I. In 1611. At the institution many of the chief estated gentlemenof the kingdom were selected for the dignity. The first batch ofBaronets comprised some of the principal landed proprietors among thebest-descended gentlemen of the kingdom, and the list was headed by aname illustrious more than any other for the intellectual pre-eminencewith which it is associated--the name of Bacon. The Order of Baronets isscarcely estimated at its proper value. "

I cannot help feeling that this account of the baronetage, thoughadmirable in tone and spirit, and actually pathetic in its closing touchof regretful melancholy, is a little wanting in what the French wouldcall "actuality. " It leaves out of sight the most endearing, because themost human, trait of the baronetage--its pecuniary origin. On this pointlet us hear the historian Hume--"The title of Baronet was sold and twohundred patents of that species of knighthood were disposed of for somany thousand pounds. " This was truly epoch-making. It was one of those"actions of the just" which "smell sweet and blossom in the dust. " KingJames's baronets were the models and precursors of all who to the end oftime should traffic in the purchase of honours. Their example hasjustified posterity, and the precedent which they set is to-day theprincipal method by which the war-chests of our political parties arereplenished. 

Another authority, handling the same high theme, tells us that therebellion in Ulster gave rise to this Order, and "it was required ofeach baronet on his creation to pay into the Exchequer as much as wouldmaintain thirty soldiers three years at eight-pence a day in theprovince of Ulster, " and, as a historical memorial of their originalservice, the baronets bear as an augmentation to their coats-of-armsthe royal badge of Ulster--a Bloody Hand on a white field. It was in aptreference to this that a famous Whip, on learning that a baronet of hisparty was extremely anxious to be promoted to the peerage, said, "Youcan tell Sir Peter Proudflesh, with my compliments, that we don't dothese things for nothing. If he wants a peerage, he will have to put hisBloody Hand into his pocket. "

For the female mind the baronetage has a peculiar fascination. As therewas once a female Freemason, so there was once a female baronet--DameMaria Bolles, of Osberton, in the County of Nottingham. The rank of abaronet's wife is not unfrequently conferred on the widow of a man towhom a baronetcy had been promised and who died too soon to receive it. "Call me a vulgar woman!" screamed a lady once prominent in society whena good-natured friend repeated a critical comment. "Call me a vulgarwoman! me, who was Miss Blank, of Blank Hall, and if I had been a boyshould have been a baronet!"

The baronets of fiction are, like their congeners in real life, anumerous and a motley band. Lord Beaconsfield described, with abrilliancy of touch which was all his own, the labours and thesacrifices of Sir Vavasour Firebrace on behalf of the Order of Baronetsand the privileges wrongfully withheld from them. "They are evidentlythe body destined to save this country; blending all sympathies--theCrown, of which they are the peculiar champions: the nobles, of whomthey are the popular branch; the people, who recognize in them theirnatural leaders.... Had the poor King lived, we should at least have hadthe Badge, " added Sir Vavasour mournfully. 

"The Badge?"

"It would have satisfied Sir Grosvenor le Draughte; he was forcompromise. But, confound him, his father was only an accoucheur. "

A great merit of the baronets, from the novelist's point of view, isthat they and their belongings are so uncommonly easy to draw. He is SirGrosvenor, his wife is Lady le Draughte, his sons, elder and younger, are Mr. Le Draughte, and his daughters Miss le Draughte. The wayfaringmen, though fools, cannot err where the rule is so simple, andaccordingly the baronets enjoy a deserved popularity with thosenovelists who look up to the titled classes of society as men look atthe stars, but are a little puzzled about their proper designations. Miss Braddon alone has drawn more baronets, virtuous and vicious, handsome and hideous, than would have colonized Ulster ten times overand left a residue for Nova Scotia. Sir Pitt Crawley and Sir BarnesNewcome will live as long as English novels are read, and I hope thatdull forgetfulness will never seize as its prey Sir Alfred Mogyns Smythde Mogyns, who was born Alfred Smith Muggins, but traced a descent fromHogyn Mogyn of the Hundred Beeves, and took for his motto "Ung Roy ungMogyns. " His pedigree is drawn in the seventh chapter of the _Book ofSnobs_, and is imitated with great fidelity on more than one page ofBurke's Peerage. 

An eye closely intent upon the lesser beauties of the natural world willfind a very engaging specimen of the genus Baronet in Sir BarnetSkettles, who was so kind to Paul Dombey and so angry with poor Mr. Baps. Sir Leicester Dedlock is on a larger scale--in fact, almost too"fine and large" for life. But I recall a fleeting vision of perfectloveliness among Miss Monflathers's pupils--"a baronet's daughter who bysome extraordinary reversal of the laws of Nature was not only plain infeature but dull in intellect. "

So far we have spoken only of hereditary honours; but our review wouldbe singularly incomplete if it excluded those which are purely personal. Of these, of course, incomparably the highest is the Order of theGarter, and its most characteristic glory is that, in Lord Melbourne'sphrase, "there is no d----d nonsense of merit about it. " The Emperor ofLilliput rewarded his courtiers with three fine silken threads, one ofwhich was blue, one green, and one red. The Emperor held a stickhorizontally, and the candidates crept under it, backwards and forwards, several times. Whoever showed the most agility in creeping was rewardedwith the blue thread. 

Let us hope that the methods of chivalry have undergone somemodification since the days of Queen Anne, and that the Blue Ribbon ofthe Garter, which ranks with the Golden Fleece and makes its wearer acomrade of all the crowned heads of Europe, is attained by arts moredignified than those which awoke the picturesque satire of Dean Swift. But I do not feel sure about it. 

Great is the charm of a personal decoration. Byron wrote:

 "Ye stars, that are the poetry of heaven. "

"A stupid line, " says Mr. St. Barbe in _Endymion_; "he should havewritten, 'Ye stars, that are the poetry of dress. '" North of the Tweedthe green thread of Swift's imagination--"the most ancient and mostnoble Order of the Thistle"--is scarcely less coveted than the supremehonour of the Garter; but wild horses should not drag from me the nameof the Scottish peer of whom his political leader said, "If I gave ----the Thistle, he would eat it. " The Bath tries to make up by the luridsplendour of its ribbon and the brilliancy of its star for itscomparatively humble and homely associations. It is the peculiar prizeof Generals and Home Secretaries, and is displayed with manly opennesson the bosom of the statesman once characteristically described by LordBeaconsfield as "Mr. Secretary Cross, whom I can never remember to callSir Richard. "

But, after all said and done, the institution of knighthood is olderthan any particular order of knights; and lovers of the old world mustobserve with regret the discredit into which it has fallen since itbecame the guerdon of the successful grocer. When Lord Beaconsfield leftoffice in 1880 he conferred a knighthood--the first of a long seriessimilarly bestowed--on an eminent journalist. The friends of the newknight were inclined to banter him, and proposed his health at a dinnerin facetious terms. Lord Beaconsfield, who was of the company, lookedpreternaturally grave, and, filling his glass, gazed steadily at theflattered editor and said in his deepest tone: "Yes, Sir A. B. , I drinkto your good health, and I congratulate you on having attained a rankwhich was deemed sufficient honour for Sir Philip Sidney and Sir WalterRaleigh, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren. "

But a truce to this idle jesting on exalted themes--too palpably theutterance of social envy and mortified ambition. "They _are_ oursuperiors, and that's the fact, " as Thackeray exclaims in his chapter onthe Whigs. "I am not a Whig myself; but, oh, how I should like to beone!" In a similar spirit of compunctious self-abasement, the presentwriter may exclaim, "I have not myself been included in the list ofBirthday Honours, --but, oh, how I should like to be there!"

FOOTNOTES:

[23] 1897. 

[24] Since this passage was written, a return has been made to theearlier practice, and an Irish peerage has been created--the first since1868. 

XXI. 

THE QUEEN'S ACCESSION. 

The writer of these chapters would not willingly fall behind hiscountrymen in the loyal sentiments and picturesque memories proper tothe "high mid-summer pomps" which begin to-morrow. [25] But there is analmost insuperable difficulty in finding anything to write which shallbe at once new and true; and this chapter must therefore consist mainlyof extracts. As the sun of August brings out wasps, so the genialinfluence of the Jubilee has produced an incredible abundance of fibs, myths, and fables. They have for their subject the early days of ourGracious Sovereign, and round that central theme they play with everyvariety of picturesque inventiveness. Nor has invention alone been atwork. Research has been equally busy. Miss Wynn's description, admirablein its simplicity, of the manner in which the girl queen received thenews of her accession was given to the world by Abraham Hayward in_Diaries of a Lady of Quality_ a generation ago. Within the last monthit must have done duty a hundred times. 

Scarcely less familiar is the more elaborate but still impressivepassage from _Sybil_, in which Lord Beaconsfield described the sameevent. And yet, as far as my observation has gone, the citations fromthis fine description have always stopped short just at the opening ofthe most appropriate passage; my readers, at any rate, shall see it andjudge it for themselves. If there is one feature in the national life ofthe last sixty years on which Englishmen may justly pride themselves itis the amelioration of the social condition of the workers. Puttingaside all ecclesiastical revivals, all purely political changes, and allappeals, however successful, to the horrible arbitrament of the sword, it is Social Reform which has made the Queen's reign memorable andglorious. The first incident of that reign was described in _Sybil_ notonly with vivid observation of the present, but with something ofprophetic insight into the future. 

"In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien whichindicates rather the absorbing sense of august duty than an absence ofemotion, THE QUEEN announces her accession to the throne of herancestors, and her humble hope that Divine Providence will guard overthe fulfilment of her lofty trust. The prelates and captains and chiefmen of her realm then advance to the throne, and, kneeling before her, pledge their troth and take the sacred oaths of allegiance andsupremacy--allegiance to one who rules over the land that the greatMacedonian could not conquer, and over a continent of which Columbusnever dreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone. 

"It is not of these that I would speak, but of a nation nearer herfootstool, and which at this moment looks to her with anxiety, withaffection, perhaps with hope. Fair and serene, she has the blood andbeauty of the Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to bearrelief to suffering millions, and with that soft hand which mightinspire troubadours and guerdon knights, break the last links in thechain of Saxon thraldom?"

To-day, with pride and thankfulness, chastened though it be by our senseof national shortcomings, we can answer _Yes_ to this wistful questionof genius and humanity. We have seen the regulation of dangerous labour, the protection of women and children from excessive toil, the removalof the tax on bread, the establishment of a system of nationaleducation; and in Macaulay's phrase, a point which yesterday wasinvisible is our goal to-day, and will be our starting-post to-morrow. 

Her Majesty ascended the throne on the 20th of June 1837, and on the29th the _Times_ published a delightfully characteristic article againstthe Whig Ministers, "into whose hands the all but infant and helplessQueen has been compelled by her unhappy condition to deliver up herselfand her indignant people. " Bating one word, this might be an extractfrom an article on the formation of Mr. Gladstone's Home RuleGovernment. Surely the consistency of the _Times_ in evil-speaking isone of the most precious of our national possessions: On the 30th ofJune the Royal Assent was given by commission to forty Bills--the firstBills which became law in the Queen's reign; and, the clerks in theHouse of Lords having been accustomed ever since the days of Queen Anneto say "his Majesty" and "Le Roy le veult, " there was hopeless bunglingover the feminine appellations, now after 130 years revived. However, the Bills scrambled through somehow, and among them was the Act whichabolished the pillory--an auspicious commencement of a humane andreforming reign. On the 8th of July came the rather belated burial ofWilliam IV. At Windsor, and on the 11th the newly completed BuckinghamPalace was occupied for the first time, the Queen and the Duchess ofKent moving thither from Kensington. 

On the 17th of July, Parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person. Her Majesty's first Speech from the Throne referred to friendlyrelations with Foreign Powers, the diminution of capital punishment, and"discreet improvements in ecclesiastical institutions. " It was read in aclear and musical voice, with a fascinating grace of accent andelocution which never faded from the memory of those who heard it. Aslong as her Majesty continued to open and prorogue Parliament in personthe same perfection of delivery was always noticed. An old M. P. , by nomeans inclined to be a courtier, told me that when her Majestyapproached the part of her speech relating to the estimates, her way ofuttering the words "Gentlemen of the House of Commons" was the mostwinning address he had ever heard: it gave to an official demand thecharacter of a personal request. After the Prince Consort's death, theQueen did not again appear at Westminster till the opening of the newParliament in 1866. On that occasion the speech was read by the LordChancellor, and the same usage has prevailed whenever her Majesty hasopened Parliament since that time. But on several occasions of lateyears she has read her reply to addresses presented by public bodies, and I well recollect that at the opening of the Imperial Institute in1893, though the _timbre_ of her voice was deeper than in early years, the same admirable elocution made every syllable audible. 

In June 1837 the most lively emotion in the masses of the people was thejoy of a great escape. I have said before that grave men, not the leastgiven to exaggeration, told me their profound conviction that, hadErnest Duke of Cumberland succeeded to the throne on the death ofWilliam IV. , no earthly power could have averted a revolution. The plotsof which the Duke was the centre have been described with a duecommixture of history and romance in Mr. Allen Upward's fascinatingstory, _God save the Queen_. Into the causes of his intenseunpopularity, this is not the occasion to enter; but let me justdescribe a curious print of the year 1837 which lies before me as Iwrite. It is headed "The Contrast, " and is divided into two panels. Onyour left hand is a young girl, simply dressed in mourning, with a pearlnecklace and a gauzy shawl, and her hair coiled in plaits, somethingafter the fashion of a crown. Under this portrait is "_Victoria_. " Onthe other side of the picture is a hideous old man, with shaggy eyebrowsand scowling gaze, wrapped in a military cloak with fur collar and blackstock. Under this portrait is "_Ernest_" and running the whole length ofthe picture is the legend:--

 "Look here upon _this_ picture--and--on this, The counterfeit presentment of two sov'reigns. "

This print was given to me by a veteran Reformer, who told me that itexpressed in visible form the universal sentiment of England. Thatsentiment was daily and hourly confirmed by all that was heard and seenof the girl-queen. We read of her walking with a gallant suite upon theterrace at Windsor; dressed in scarlet uniform and mounted on her roancharger, to receive with uplifted hand the salute of her troops; orseated on the throne of the Plantagenets at the opening of herParliament, and invoking the Divine benediction on the labours whichshould conduce to "the welfare and contentment of My people. " We see heryielding her bright intelligence to the constitutional guidance, wisethough worldly, of her first Prime Minister, the sagacious Melbourne. And then, when the exigencies of parliamentary government forced her toexchange her Whig advisers for the Tories, we see her carrying out withexact propriety the lessons taught by "the friend of her youth, " andextending to each premier in turn, whether personally agreeable to heror not, the same absolute confidence and loyalty. 

As regards domestic life, we have been told by Mr. Gladstone that "evenamong happy marriages her marriage was exceptional, so nearly did theunion of thought, heart, and action both fulfil the ideal and bringduality near to the borders of identity. "

And so twenty years went on, full of an ever-growing popularity, and apurifying influence on the tone of society never fully realized till thepersonal presence was withdrawn. And then came the blow which crushedher life--"the sun going down at noon"--and total disappearance from allfestivity and parade and social splendour, but never from politicalduty. In later years we have seen the gradual resumption of more publicoffices; the occasional reappearances, so earnestly anticipated by hersubjects, and hedged with something of a divinity more than regal; theincomparable majesty of personal bearing which has taught so many anonlooker that dignity has nothing to do with height, or beauty orsplendour of raiment; and, mingled with that majesty and unspeakablyenhancing it, the human sympathy with suffering and sorrow, which hasmade Queen Victoria, as none of her predecessors ever was or could be, the Mother of her People. 

And the response of the English people to that sympathy--the recognitionof that motherhood--is written, not only in the printed records of thereign, but on the "fleshly tables" of English hearts. Let one homelycitation suffice as an illustration. It is taken from a letter ofcondolence addressed to the Queen in 1892, on the death of Prince"Eddie, " Duke of Clarence:--

"_To our beloved Queen, Victoria_. 

"Dear Lady, --We, the surviving widows and mothers of some of the men andboys who lost their lives by the explosion which occurred in the OaksColliery, near Barnsley, in December 1866, desire to tell your Majestyhow stunned we all feel by the cruel and unexpected blow which has taken'Prince Eddie' from his dear Grandmother, his loving parents, hisbeloved intended, and an admiring nation. The sad news affected usdeeply, we all believing that his youthful strength would carry himthrough the danger. Dear Lady, we feel more than we can express. To tellyou that we sincerely condole with your Majesty and the Prince andPrincess of Wales in your and their sad bereavement and great distressis not to tell you all we feel; but the widow of Albert the Good and theparents of Prince Eddie will understand what we feel when we say that wefeel all that widows and mothers feel who have lost those who were dearas life to them. Dear Lady, we remember with gratitude all that you didfor us Oaks widows in the time of our great trouble, and we cannotforget you in yours. We have not forgotten that it was you, dear Queen, who set the example, so promptly followed by all feeling people, offorming a fund for the relief of our distress--a fund which kept us outof the workhouse at the time and has kept us out ever since.... We wishit were in our power, dear Lady, to dry up your tears and comfort you, but that we cannot do. But what we can do, and will do, is to pray God, in His mercy and goodness, to comfort and strengthen you in this yourtime of great trouble. --Wishing your Majesty, the Prince and Princess ofWales, and the Princess May all the strength, consolation, and comfortwhich God alone can give, and which He never fails to give to all whoseek Him in truth and sincerity, we remain, beloved Queen, your lovingand grateful though sorrowing subjects, "THE OAKS WIDOWS. "

The historic associations, half gay, half sad, of the week on which weare just entering tempt me to linger on this fascinating theme, and Icannot illustrate it better than by quoting the concluding paragraphsfrom a sermon, which now has something of the dignity of fulfilledprophecy, and which was preached by Sydney Smith in St. Paul's Cathedralon the Sunday after the Queen's accession. 

The sermon is throughout a noble composition, grandly conceived andadmirably expressed. It begins with some grave reflections on the "follyand nothingness of all things human" as exemplified by the death of aking. It goes on to enforce on the young Queen the paramount duties ofeducating her people, avoiding war, and cultivating personal religion. It concludes with the following passage, which in its letter, or atleast in its spirit, might well find a place in some of to-morrow'ssermons:--"The Patriot Queen, whom I am painting, reverences theNational Church, frequents its worship, and regulates her faith by itsprecepts; but she withstands the encroachments and keeps down theambition natural to Establishments, and, by rendering the privileges ofthe Church compatible with the civil freedom of all sects, confersstrength upon and adds duration to that wise and magnificentinstitution. And then this youthful Monarch, profoundly but wiselyreligious, disdaining hypocrisy, and far above the childish follies offalse piety, casts herself upon God, and seeks from the Gospel of Hisblessed Son a path for her steps and a comfort for her soul. Here is apicture which warms every English heart, and would bring all thiscongregation upon their bended knees to pray it may be realized. Whatlimits to the glory and happiness of the native land if the Creatorshould in His mercy have placed in the heart of this royal woman therudiments of wisdom and mercy? And if, giving them time to expand, andto bless our children's children with her goodness, He should grant toher a long sojourning upon earth, and leave her to reign over us tillshe is well stricken in years, what glory! what happiness! what joy!what bounty of God! I of course can only expect to see the beginning ofsuch a splendid period; but when I do see it I shall exclaim with thepious Simeon--'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, formine eyes have seen Thy salvation. '"

As respects the avoidance of war, the event has hardly accorded with theaspiration. It is melancholy to recall the idealist enthusiasms whichpreceded the Exhibition of 1851, and to contrast them with the realitiesof the present hour. Then the arts of industry and the competitions ofpeace were to supplant for ever the science of bloodshed. Nations wereto beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears intopruning-hooks, and men were not to learn war any more. And this was onthe eve of the Crimea--the most ruinous, the most cruel, and the leastjustifiable of all campaigns. In one corner of the world or another, thewar-drum has throbbed almost without intermission from that day to this. 

But when we turn to other aspirations the retrospect is more cheerful. Slavery has been entirely abolished, and, with all due respect to Mr. George Curzon, is not going to be re-established under the British flag. The punishment of death, rendered infinitely more impressive, andtherefore more deterrent, by its withdrawal from the public gaze, isreserved for offences which even Romilly would not have condoned. Thediminution of crime is an acknowledged fact. Better laws and improvedinstitutions--judicial, political, social, sanitary--we flatterourselves that we may claim. National Education dates from 1870, and itsoperation during a quarter of a century has changed the face of theindustrial world. Queen Victoria in her later years reigns over aneducated people. 

Of the most important theme of all--our national advance in religion, morality, and the principles of humane living--I have spoken in previouschapters, and this is not the occasion for anything but the briefestrecapitulation. "Where is boasting? It is excluded. " There is much to bethankful for, much to encourage: something to cause anxiety, and nothingto justify bombast. No one believes more profoundly than I do in theprovidential mission of the English race, and the very intensity of myfaith in that mission makes me even painfully anxious that we shouldinterpret it aright. Men who were undergraduates at Oxford in the'seventies learned the interpretation, in words of unsurpassable beauty, from John Ruskin:--

"There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before anation, to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; arace mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute intemper, but still have the firmness to govern and the grace to obey. Wehave been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either nowfinally betray or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in aninheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years ofnoble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase withsplendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour, should be the most offending souls alive. 

"Within the last few years we have had the laws of natural scienceopened to us with a rapidity which has been blinded by its brightness, and means of transit and communication given to us which have made butone kingdom of the habitable globe. One kingdom--but who is to be itsKing? Is there to be no King in it, think you, and every man to do thatwhich is right in his own eyes? Or only kings of terror, and the obsceneEmpires of Mammon and Belial? Or will you, youths of England, make yourcountry again a royal throne of Kings, a sceptred isle, for all theworld a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of learning and ofthe arts; faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverentand ephemeral visions; faithful servant of time-tried principles, undertemptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and amidst thecruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strangevalour of good will towards men?"

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Sunday, June 20, 1897. 

XXII. 

"PRINCEDOMS, VIRTUES, POWERS. "

The celebrations of the past week[26] have set us all upon a royal tack. Diary-keepers have turned back to their earliest volumes for stories ofthe girl-queen; there has been an unprecedented run on the _AnnualRegister_ for 1837; and every rusty print of Princess Victoria in thecostume of Kate Nickleby has been paraded as a pearl of price. As Ialways pride myself on following what Mr. Matthew Arnold used to call"the great mundane movement, " I have been careful to obey the impulse ofthe hour. I have cudgelled my memory for Collections and Recollectionssuitable to this season of retrospective enthusiasm. Last week Iendeavoured to touch some of the more serious aspects of the Jubilee, but now that the great day has come and gone--"Bedtime, Hal, and allwell"--a lighter handling of the majestic theme may not be esteemedunpardonable. 

Those of my fellow-chroniclers who have blacked themselves all over forthe part have acted on the principle that no human life can be properlyunderstood without an exhaustive knowledge of its grandfathers andgrandmothers. They have resuscitated George III. And called QueenCharlotte from her long home. With a less heroic insistence on thehistoric method, I leave grandparents out of sight, and begin my gossipwith the Queen's uncles. Of George IV. It is less necessary that Ishould speak, for has not his character been drawn by Thackeray in his_Lectures on the Four Georges?_

 "The dandy of sixty, who bows with a grace, And has taste in wigs, collars, cuirasses, and lace; Who to tricksters and fools leaves the State and its treasure, And, while Britain's in tears, sails about at his pleasure, "

was styled, as we all know, "the First Gentleman in Europe. " I forget ifI have previously narrated the following instance of gentlemanlikeconduct. If I have, it will bear repetition. The late Lord CharlesRussell (1807-1894), when a youth of eighteen, had just received acommission in the Blues, and was commanded, with the rest of hisregiment, to a full-dress ball at Carlton House, where the King thenheld his Court. Unluckily for his peace of mind, the young subalterndressed at his father's house, and, not being used to the splendidparaphernalia of the Blues' uniform, he omitted to put on hisaiguillette. Arrived at Carlton House the company, before they couldenter the ball-room, had to advance in single file along a corridor inwhich the old King, bewigged and bestarred, was seated on a sofa. Whenthe hapless youth who lacked the aiguillette approached the presence, heheard a very high voice exclaim, "Who is this d--d fellow?" Retreat wasimpossible, and there was nothing for it but to shuffle on and try topass the King without further rebuke. Not a bit of it. As he neared thesofa the King exclaimed, "Good evening, sir. I suppose you are theregimental doctor?" and the imperfectly-accoutred youth, covered withconfusion as with a cloak, fled blushing into the ball-room, and hidhimself from further observation. And yet the narrator of this painfulstory always declared that George IV. Could be very gracious when thefancy took him; that he was uniformly kind to children; and that onpublic occasions his manner was the perfection of kingly courtesy. Hisgorgeous habits and profuse expenditure made him strangely popular. Thepeople, though they detested his conduct, thought him "every inch aKing. " Lord Shaftesbury, noting in his diary for the 19th of May 1849the attempt of Hamilton upon the Queen's life, writes:--"The profligateGeorge IV. Passed through a life of selfishness and sin without a singleproved attempt to take it. This mild and virtuous young woman has fourtimes already been exposed to imminent peril. "

The careers of the King's younger brothers and sisters would fill avolume of "queer stories. " Of the Duke of York Mr. Goldwin Smithgenially remarks that "the only meritorious action of his life was thathe once risked it in a duel. " The Duke of Clarence--Burns's "Young royalTarry Breeks"--lived in disreputable seclusion till he ascended thethrone, and then was so excited by his elevation that people thought hewas going mad. The Duke of Cumberland was the object of a populardetestation of which the grounds can be discovered in the _AnnualRegister_ for 1810. The Duke of Sussex made two marriages in defiance ofthe Royal Marriage Act, and took a political part as active on theLiberal side as that of the Duke of Cumberland among the Tories. TheDuke of Cambridge is chiefly remembered by his grotesque habit(recorded, by the way, in _Happy Thoughts_) of making loud responses ofhis own invention to the service in church. "Let us pray, " said theclergyman: "By all means, " said the Duke. The clergyman begins theprayer for rain: the Duke exclaims, "No good as long as the wind is inthe east. "

_Clergyman_: "'Zacchaeus stood forth and said, Behold, Lord, the half ofmy goods I give to the poor. '"

_Duke_: "Too much, too much; don't mind tithes, but can't stand that. "To two of the Commandments, which I decline to discriminate, the Duke'sresponses were--"Quite right, quite right, but very difficultsometimes;'" and "No, no! It was my brother Ernest did that. "

Those who care to pursue these curious byways of not very ancienthistory are referred to the unfailing Greville; to Lady Anne Hamilton's_Secret History of the Court of England;_ and to the _Recollections of aLady of Quality_, commonly ascribed to Lady Charlotte Bury. The closerour acquaintance with the manners and habits of the last age, even inwhat are called "the highest circles, " the more wonderful will appearthe social transformation which dates from her Majesty's accession. Thackeray spoke the words of truth and soberness when, after describingthe virtues and the limitations of George III. , he said: "I think weacknowledge in the inheritrix of his sceptre a wiser rule and a life ashonourable and pure; and I am sure that the future painter of ourmanners will pay a willing allegiance to that good life, and be loyal tothe memory of that unsullied virtue. "

For the earlier years of the Queen's reign Greville continues to be afairly safe guide, though his footing at the palace was by no means sointimate as it had been in the roistering days of George IV. And WilliamIV. Of course, her Majesty's own volumes and Sir Theodore Martin's _Lifeof the Prince Consort_ are of primary authority. Interesting glimpsesare to be caught in the first volume of Bishop Wilberforce's Life, ereyet his tergiversation in the matter of Bishop Hampden had forfeited theRoyal favour; and the historian of the future will probably make greatuse of the Letters of Sarah Lady Lyttelton--Governess, to the Queen'schildren--which, being printed for private circulation, are unluckilywithheld from the present generation. 

A pleasing instance of the ultra-German etiquette fomented by PrinceAlbert was told me by an eye-witness of the scene. The Prime Ministerand his wife were dining at Buckingham Palace very shortly after theyhad received an addition to their family. When the ladies retired to thedrawing-room after dinner, the Queen said most kindly to the Premier'swife, "I know you are not very strong yet, Lady----; so I beg you willsit down. And, when the Prince comes in, Lady D---- shall stand in frontof you. " This device of screening a breach of etiquette by hiding itbehind the portly figure of a British Matron always struck me asextremely droll. 

Courtly etiquette, with the conditions out of which it springs and itseffect upon the character of those who are subjected to it, has, ofcourse, been a favourite theme of satirists time out of mind, and therecan scarcely be a more fruitful one. There are no heights to which itdoes not rise, nor depths to which it does not sink. In the service forthe Queen's Accession the Christological psalms are boldly transferredto the Sovereign by the calm substitution of "her" for "Him. " A fewyears back--I do not know if it is so now--I noticed that in theprayer-books in St. George's Chapel at Windsor all the pronouns whichreferred to the Holy Trinity were spelt with small letters, and thosewhich referred to the Queen with capitals. So much for the heights ofetiquette, and for its depths we will go to Thackeray's account of anincident stated to have occurred on the birth of the Duke of Connaught:

 "Lord John he next alights. And who comes here in haste? The Hero of a Hundred Fights, The caudle for to taste. 

 "Then Mrs. Lily the nuss, Towards them steps with joy; Says the brave old Duke, 'Come tell to us. Is it a gal or boy?'

 "Says Mrs. L. To the Duke, 'Your Grace, it is a _Prince_' And at that nurse's bold rebuke He did both laugh and wince. "

Such was the etiquette of the Royal nursery in 1850; but little Princes, even though ushered into the world under such very impressivecircumstances, grow up into something not very unlike other little boyswhen once they go to school. Of course, in former days young Princeswere educated at home by private tutors. This was the education of theQueen's uncles and of her sons. A very different experience has beenpermitted to her grandsons. The Prince of Wales's boys, as we allremember, were middies; Princess Christian's sons were at Wellington;Prince Arthur of Connaught is at Eton. There he is to be joined nextyear by the little Duke of Albany, who is now at a private school in theNew Forest. He has among his schoolfellows his cousin Prince Alexanderof Battenberg, of whom a delightful story is current just now. [27] Likemany other little boys, he ran short of pocket money, and wrote aningenious letter to his august Grandmother asking for some slightpecuniary assistance. He received in return a just rebuke, telling himthat little boys should keep within their limits, and that he must waittill his allowance next became due. Shortly afterwards the undefeatedlittle Prince resumed the correspondence in something like the followingform: "My dear Grandmamma, --I am sure you will be glad to know that Ineed not trouble you for any money just now, for I sold your last letterto another boy here for 30s. "

As Royalty emerges from infancy and boyhood into the vulgar andartificial atmosphere of the grown-up world, it is daily and hourlyexposed to such sycophancy that Royal persons acquire, quiteunconsciously, a habit of regarding every subject in heaven and earth inits relation to themselves. An amusing instance of this occurred a fewyears ago on an occasion when one of our most popular Princessesexpressed a gracious wish to present a very smart young gentleman to theQueen. This young man had a remarkably good opinion of himself; was theeldest son of a peer, and a Member of Parliament; and it happened thathe was also related to a lady who belonged to one of the RoyalHouseholds. So the Princess led the young exquisite to the augustpresence, and then sweetly said, "I present Mr. ----, who is"--not LordBlank's eldest son or Member for Loamshire, but--"nephew to dear AuntCambridge's lady. " My young friend told me that he had never till thatmoment realized how completely he lacked a position of his own in theuniverse of created being. 

FOOTNOTES:

[26] June 20-27, 1897. 

[27] All this is now ancient history. 1903. 

XXIII. 

LORD BEACONSFIELD. 

Archbishop Tait wrote on the 11th of February 1877: "Attended this weekthe opening of Parliament, the Queen being present, and wearing for thefirst time, some one says, her crown as Empress of India. LordBeaconsfield was on her left side, holding aloft the Sword of State. Atfive the House again was crammed to see him take his seat; and SlingsbyBethell, equal to the occasion, read aloud the writ in very distincttones. All seemed to be founded on the model, 'What shall be done to theman whom the king delighteth to honour?'"

_Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu près d'elle_. For the lastmonth[28] our thoughts have been fixed upon the Queen to the exclusionof all else; but now the regal splendours of the Jubilee have faded. Themajestic theme is, in fact, exhausted; and we turn, by a naturaltransition, from the Royal Rose to its subservient primrose; from thewisest of Sovereigns to the wiliest of Premiers; from the character, habits, and life of the Queen to the personality of that extraordinarychild of Israel who, though he was not the Rose, lived uncommonly nearit; and who, more than any other Minister before or since his day, contrived to identify himself in the public view with the Crown itself. There is nothing invidious in this use of a racial term. It was one ofLord Beaconsfield's finest qualities that he laboured all through hislife to make his race glorious and admired. To a Jewish boy--a friend ofmy own--who was presented to him in his old age he said: "You and Ibelong to a race which knows how to do everything but fail. "

Is Lord Beaconsfield's biography ever to be given to the world? Not inour time, at any rate, if we may judge by the signs. Perhaps Lord Rowtonfinds it more convenient to live on the vague but splendid anticipationsof future success than on the admitted and definite failure of a toocautious book. Perhaps he finds his personal dignity enhanced by thosemysterious flittings to Windsor and Osborne, where he is understood tobe comparing manuscripts and revising proofs with an IllustriousPersonage. But there is the less occasion to lament Lord Rowton'stardiness, because we already possess Mr. Froude's admirable monographon Lord Beaconsfield in the series of _The Queen's Prime Ministers_, andan extremely clear-sighted account of his relations with the Crown inMr. Reginald Brett's _Yoke of Empire_. 

My present purpose is not controversial. I do not intend to estimate thesoundness of Lord Beaconsfield's opinions or the permanent value of hispolitical work. It is enough to recall what the last GermanAmbassador--Count Münster--told me, and what, in a curtailed form, hasbeen so often quoted. Prince Bismarck said, "I think nothing of theirLord Salisbury. He is only a lath painted to look like iron. But thatold Jew means business. " This is merely a parenthesis. I am at presentconcerned only with Lord Beaconsfield's personal traits. When I firstencountered him he was already an old man. He had left far behind thosewonderful days of the black velvet dress-coat lined with white satin, the "gorgeous gold flowers on a splendidly embroidered waistcoat, " thejewelled rings worn outside the white gloves, the evening cane of ivoryinlaid with gold and adorned with a tassel of black silk. "We were noneof us fools, " said one of his most brilliant contemporaries, "and eachman talked his best; but we all agreed that the cleverest fellow in theparty was the young Jew in the green velvet trousers. " Considerably inthe background, too, were the grotesque performances of his rural life, when, making up for the character of a country gentleman, he "rode anArabian mare for thirty miles across country without stopping, " attendedQuarter Sessions in drab breeches and gaiters, and wandered about thelanes round Hughenden pecking up primroses with a spud. 

When I first saw Mr. Disraeli, as he then was, all these follies werematters of ancient history. They had played their part, and werediscarded. He was dressed much like other gentlemen of the 'Sixties--ina black frock coat, gray or drab trousers, a waistcoat cut rather low, and a black cravat which went once round the neck and was tied in aloose bow. In the country his costume was a little more adventurous. Ablack velveteen jacket, a white waistcoat, a Tyrolese hat, lentpicturesque incident and variety to his appearance. But the brilliantcolours were reserved for public occasions. I never saw him look betterthan in his peer's robes of scarlet and ermine when he took his seat inthe House of Lords, or more amazing than when, tightly buttoned up inthe Privy Councillor's uniform of blue and gold, he stood in the"general circle" at the Drawing-room or Levée. In his secondAdministration he looked extraordinarily old. His form was shrunk, andhis face of a death-like pallor. Ever since an illness in early manhoodhe had always dyed his hair, and the contrast between the artificialblackness and the natural paleness was extremely startling. The one signof vitality which his appearance presented was the brilliancy of hisdark eyes, which still flashed with penetrating lustre. 

The immense powers of conversation of which we read so much in hisearly days, when he "talked like a racehorse approaching the winningpost, " and held the whole company spellbound by his tropical eloquence, had utterly vanished. He seemed, as he was, habitually oppressed byillness or discomfort. He sat for hours together in moody silence. Whenhe opened his lips it was to pay an elaborate (and sometimes misplaced)compliment to a lady, or to utter an epigrammatic judgment on men orbooks, which recalled the conversational triumphs of his prime. Skill inphrase-making was perhaps the literary gift which he most admired. In aconversation with Mr. Matthew Arnold shortly before his death he said, with a touch of pathos, "You are a fortunate man. The young men readyou; they no longer read me. And you have invented phrases which everyone quotes--such as 'Philistinism' and 'Sweetness and Light. '" It was acharacteristic compliment, for he dearly loved a good phrase. From thenecessities of his position as a fighting politician, his own bestperformances in that line were sarcasms; and indeed sarcasm was the giftin which from first to last, in public and in private, in writing and inspeaking, he peculiarly excelled. To recall the instances would be torewrite his political novels and to transcribe those attacks on SirRobert Peel which made his fame and fortune. 

It was my good fortune when quite a boy to be present at the debates inthe House of Commons on the Tory Reform Bill of 1867. Never were Mr. Disraeli's gifts of sarcasm, satire, and ridicule so richly displayed, and never did they find so responsive a subject as Mr. Gladstone. Asschoolboys say, "he rose freely. " The Bill was read a second timewithout a division, but in Committee the fun waxed fast and furious, andwas marked by the liveliest encounters between the Leader of the Houseand the Leader of the Opposition. At the conclusion of one of thesepassages of arms Mr. Disraeli gravely congratulated himself on havingsuch a substantial piece of furniture as the table of the House betweenhimself and his energetic opponent. In May 1867 Lord Houghton writesthus: "I met Gladstone at breakfast. He seems quite awed with thediabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, is gradually driving allideas of political honour out of the House, and accustoming it to themost revolting cynicism. " Was it cynicism, or some related but moreagreeable quality, which suggested Mr. Disraeli's reply to the wealthymanufacturer, newly arrived in the House of Commons, who complimentedhim on his novels? "I can't say I've read them myself. Novels are not inmy line. But my daughters tell me they are uncommonly good. " "Ah, " saidthe Leader of the House, in his deepest note, "this, indeed, is fame. "The mention of novels reminds me of a story which I heard twenty yearsago; when Mr. Mallock produced his first book--the admirable _NewRepublic_. A lady who was his constant friend and benefactress beggedLord Beaconsfield to read the book and say something civil about it. ThePrime Minister replied with a groan, "Ask me anything, dear lady, exceptthis. I am an old man. Do not make me read your young friend'sromances. " "Oh, but he would be a great accession to the Tory party, anda civil word from you would secure him for ever. " "Oh--well, then, giveme a pen and a sheet of paper, " and sitting down in the lady'sdrawing-room, he wrote: "Dear Mrs. ----, --I am sorry that I cannot dinewith you, but I am going down to Hughenden for a week. Would that mysolitude could be peopled by the bright creations of Mr. Mallock'sfancy!" "Will that do for your young friend?" Surely, as an appreciationof a book which one has not read, this is absolutely perfect. 

When Lord Beaconsfield was driven from office by the General Election of1880, one of his supporters in the House of Commons begged a greatfavour--"May I bring my boy to see you, and will you give him some wordof counsel which he may treasure all his life as the utterance of thegreatest Englishman who ever lived?" Lord Beaconsfield groaned, butconsented. On the appointed day the proud father presented himself withhis young hopeful in Lord Beaconsfield's presence. "My dear youngfriend, " said the statesman, "your good papa has asked me to give you aword of counsel which may serve you all your life. Never ask who wrotethe Letters of Junius, or on which side of Whitehall Charles I. Wasbeheaded; for if you do you will be considered a bore--and that issomething too dreadful for you at your tender age to understand. " Forthese last two stories I by no means vouch. They belong to the flotsamand jetsam of ephemeral gossip. But the following, which I regard aseminently characteristic, I had from Lord Randolph Churchill. 

Towards the end of Lord Beaconsfield's second Premiership a youngerpolitician asked the Premier to dinner. It was a domestic event of thefirst importance, and no pains were spared to make the entertainment asuccess. When the ladies retired, the host came and sat where thehostess had been, next to his distinguished guest. "Will you have somemore claret, Lord Beaconsfield?" "No, thank you, my dear fellow. It isadmirable wine--true Falernian--but I have already exceeded myprescribed quantity, and the gout holds me in its horrid clutch. " Whenthe party had broken up, the host and hostess were talking it over. "Ithink the chief enjoyed himself, " said the host, "and I know he likedhis claret. " "Claret!" exclaimed the hostess; "why, he drankbrandy-and-water all dinner-time. "

I said in an earlier paragraph that Lord Beaconsfield's flattery wassometimes misplaced. An instance recurs to my recollection. He wasstaying in a country house where the whole party was Conservative withthe exception of one rather plain, elderly lady, who belonged to a greatWhig family. The Tory leader was holding forth on politics to anadmiring circle when the Whig lady came into the room. Pausing in hisconversation, Lord Beaconsfield exclaimed, in his most histrionicmanner, "But hush! We must not continue these Tory heresies until thosepretty little ears have been covered up with those pretty littlehands"--a strange remark under any circumstances, and stranger still if, as his friends believed, it was honestly intended as an acceptablecompliment. 

Mr. Brett, who shows a curious sympathy with the personal character ofLord Beaconsfield, acquits him of the charge of flattery, and quotes hisown description of his method: "I never contradict; I never deny; but Isometimes forget. " On the other hand, it has always been asserted bythose who had the best opportunities of personal observation that LordBeaconsfield succeeded in converting the dislike with which he had oncebeen regarded in the highest quarters into admiration and evenaffection, by his elaborate and studied acquiescence in every claim, social or political, of Royalty, and by his unflagging perseverance inthe art of flattery. He was a courtier, not by descent or breeding, butby genius. What could be more skilful than the inclusion of _Leaves fromthe Journal of our Life in the Highlands_ with _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_in the phrase "We authors"?--than his grave declaration, "Your Majestyis the head of the literary profession"?--than his announcement at thedinner-table at Windsor, with reference to some disputed point of regalgenealogy, "We are in the presence of probably the only Person in Europewho could tell us"? In the last year of his life he said to Mr. MatthewArnold, in a strange burst of confidence which showed how completely herealized that his fall from power was final, "You have heard me accusedof being a flatterer. It is true. I am a flatterer. I have found ituseful. Every one likes flattery: and when you come to Royalty youshould lay it on with a trowel. " In this business Lord Beaconsfieldexcelled. Once, sitting at dinner by the Princess of Wales, he wastrying to cut a hard dinner-roll. The knife slipped and cut his finger, which the Princess, with her natural grace, instantly wrapped up in herhandkerchief. The old gentleman gave a dramatic groan, and exclaimed, "When I asked for bread they gave me a stone; but I had a Princess tobind my wounds. "

The atmosphere of a Court naturally suited him, and he had a quainttrick of transferring the grandiose nomenclature of palaces to his ownvery modest domain of Hughenden. He called his simple drawing-room theSaloon; he styled his pond the Lake; he expatiated on the beauties ofthe terrace walks, and the "Golden Gate, " and the "German Forest. " Hisstyle of entertaining was more showy than comfortable. Nothing couldexcel the grandeur of his state coach and powdered footmen; but when theice at dessert came up melting, one of his friends exclaimed, "At last, my dear Dizzy, we have got something hot;" and in the days when he wasChancellor of the Exchequer some critical guest remarked of the soupthat it was apparently made with Deferred Stock. When Lady Beaconsfielddied he sent for his agent and said, "I desire that her Ladyship'sremains should be borne to the grave by the tenants of the estate. "Presently the agent came back with a troubled countenance and said, "Iregret to say there are not tenants enough to carry a coffin. "

Lord Beaconsfield's last years were tormented by a bronchial asthma ofgouty origin, against which he fought with tenacious and uncomplainingcourage. The last six weeks of his life, described all too graphicallyby Dr. Kidd in an article in the _Nineteenth Century_, were ahand-to-hand struggle with death. Every day the end was expected, andhis compatriot, companion, and so-called friend, Bernal Osborne, foundit in his heart to remark, "Ah, overdoing it--as he always overdideverything. "

For my own part, I never was numbered among Lord Beaconsfield'sfriends, and I regarded the Imperialistic and pro-Turkish policy of hislatter days with an equal measure of indignation and contempt. But Iplace his political novels among the masterpieces of Victorianliterature, and I have a sneaking affection for the man who wrote thefollowing passage: "We live in an age when to be young and to beindifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the cominghour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions, and the Youth of a Nation are the Trustees of Posterity. "

FOOTNOTES:

[28] June 1897. 

XXIV. 

FLATTERERS AND BORES. 

Can a flatterer be flattered? Does he instinctively recognize thecommodity in which he deals? And if he does so recognize it, does heenjoy or dislike the application of it to his own case? These questionsare suggested to my mind by the ungrudging tributes paid in my lastchapter to Lord Beaconsfield's pre-eminence in the art of flattery. 

"Supreme of heroes, bravest, noblest, best!"

No one else ever flattered so long and so much, so boldly and sopersistently, so skilfully and with such success. And it so happenedthat at the very crisis of his romantic career he became the subject ofan act of flattery quite as daring as any of his own performances in thesame line, and one which was attended with diplomatic consequences ofgreat pith and moment. 

It fell out on this wise. When the Congress of the Powers assembled atBerlin in the summer of 1878, our Ambassador in that city of stuccopalaces was the loved and lamented Lord Odo Russell, afterwards LordAmpthill, a born diplomatist if ever there was one, with a suavity andaffectionateness of manner and a charm of voice which would have enabledhim, in homely phrase, to whistle the bird off the bough. On the eveningbefore the formal opening of the Congress Lord Beaconsfield arrived inall his plenipotentiary glory, and was received with high honours atthe British Embassy. In the course of the evening one of his privatesecretaries came to Lord Odo Russell and said, "Lord Odo, we are in afrightful mess, and we can only turn to you to help us out of it. Theold chief has determined to open the proceedings of the Congress inFrench. He has written out the devil's own long speech in French andlearnt it by heart, and is going to fire it off at the Congressto-morrow. We shall be the laughing-stock of Europe. He pronounces_épicier_ as if it rhymed with _overseer_, and all his pronunciation isto match. It is as much as our places are worth to tell him so. Can youhelp us?" Lord Odo listened with amused good humour to this tale of woe, and then replied: "It is a very delicate mission that you ask me toundertake, but then I am fond of delicate missions. I will see what Ican do. " And so he repaired to the state bedroom, where our venerablePlenipotentiary was beginning those elaborate processes of the toiletwith which he prepared for the couch. "My dear Lord, " began Lord Odo, "adreadful rumour has reached us. " "Indeed! Pray what is it?" "We haveheard that you intend to open the proceedings to-morrow in French. ""Well, Lord Odo, what of that?" "Why, of course, we all know that thereis no one in Europe more competent to do so than yourself. But then, after all, to make a French speech is a commonplace accomplishment. There will be at least half a dozen men at the Congress who could do italmost, if not quite, as well as yourself. But, on the other hand, whobut you can make an English speech? All these Plenipotentiaries havecome from the various Courts of Europe expecting the greatestintellectual treat of their lives in hearing English spoken by itsgreatest living master. The question for you, my dear Lord, is--Will youdisappoint them?" Lord Beaconsfield put his glass in his eye, fixed hisgaze on Lord Odo, and then said, "There is much force in what you say. Iwill consider the point. " And next day he opened the proceedings inEnglish. Now the psychological conundrum is this--Did he swallow theflattery, and honestly believe that the object of Lord Odo's appeal wasto secure the pleasure of hearing him speak English? Or did he seethrough the manoeuvre, and recognize a polite intimation that a Frenchspeech from him would throw an air of comedy over all the proceedings ofthe Congress, and perhaps kill it with ridicule? The problem is wellfitted to be made the subject of a Prize Essay; but personally I inclineto believe that he saw through the manoeuvre and acted on the hint. Ifthis be the true reading of the case, the answer to my opening questionis that the flatterer cannot be flattered. 

We saw in my last chapter how careful Lord Beaconsfield was, in thegreat days of his political struggles, to flatter every one who camewithin his reach. To the same effect is the story that when he wasaccosted by any one who claimed acquaintance but whose face he hadforgotten he always used to inquire, in a tone of affectionatesolicitude, "And how is the old complaint?" But when he grew older, andhad attained the highest objects of his political ambition, these littlearts, having served their purpose, were discarded, like the green velvettrousers and tasselled canes of his aspiring youth. There was no moreuse for them, and they were dropped. He manifested less and less of theapostolic virtue of suffering bores gladly, and though always delightfulto his intimate friends, he was less and less inclined to curry favourwith mere acquaintances. A characteristic instance of this latter mannerhas been given to the world in a book of chit-chat by a prosy gentlemanwhose name it would be unkind to recall. 

This worthy soul narrates with artless candour that towards the end ofLord Beaconsfield's second Administration he had the honour of diningwith the great man, whose political follower he was, at the Premier'sofficial residence in Downing Street. When he arrived he found his hostlooking ghastly ill, and apparently incapable of speech. He made somecommonplace remark about the weather or the House, and the only replywas a dismal groan. A second remark was similarly received, and thevisitor then abandoned the attempt in despair. "I felt he would notsurvive the night. Within a quarter of an hour, all being seated atdinner, I observed him talking to the Austrian Ambassador with extremevivacity. During the whole of dinner their conversation was kept up; Isaw no sign of flagging. _This is difficult to account for. _" And theworthy man goes on to theorize about the cause, and suggests that LordBeaconsfield was in the habit of taking doses of opium which were sotimed that their effect passed off at a certain moment!

This freedom from self-knowledge which bores enjoy is one of their moststriking characteristics. One of the principal clubs in London has themisfortune to be frequented by a gentleman who is by common consent thegreatest bore and buttonholer in London. He always reminds me of thephilosopher described by Sir George Trevelyan, who used to wander aboutasking, "Why are we created? Whither do we tend? Have we an innerconsciousness?" till all his friends, when they saw him from afar, usedto exclaim, "Why was Tompkins created? Is he tending this way? Has he aninner consciousness that he is a bore?"

Well, a few years ago this good man, on his return from his autumnholiday, was telling all his acquaintances at the club that he had beenoccupying a house at the Lakes not far from Mr. Ruskin, who, he added, was in a very melancholy state, "I am truly sorry for that, " said one ofhis hearers. "What is the matter with him?" "Well, " replied thebuttonholer, "I was walking one day in the lane which separated Ruskin'shouse from mine, and I saw him coming down the lane towards me. Themoment he caught sight of me he darted into a wood which was close by, and hid behind a tree till I had passed. Oh, very sad indeed. " But thetruly pathetic part of it was one's consciousness that what Mr. Ruskindid we should all have done, and that not all the trees in Birnam Woodand the Forest of Arden combined would have hidden the multitude ofbrother-clubmen who sought to avoid the narrator. 

The faculty of boring belongs, unhappily, to no one period of life. Agecannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. Middle life isits heyday. Perhaps infancy is free from it, but I strongly suspect thatit is a form of original sin, and shows itself very early. Boys arenotoriously rich in it; with them it takes two forms--the loquacious andthe awkward; and in some exceptionally favoured cases the two forms arecombined. I once was talking with an eminent educationist about thecharacteristic qualities produced by various Public Schools, and when Iasked him what Harrow produced he replied, "A certain shybumptiousness. " It was a judgment which wrung my Harrovian withers, butof which I could not dispute the truth. 

One of the forms which shyness takes in boyhood is an inability to getup and go. When Dr. Vaughan was Head Master of Harrow, and had toentertain his boys at breakfast, this inability was frequentlymanifested, and was met by the Doctor in a most characteristic fashion. When the muffins and sausages had been devoured, the perfunctoryinquiries about the health of "your people" made and answered, and allpermissible school topics discussed, there used to ensue a horridsilence, while "Dr. Blimber's young friends" sat tightly glued to theirchairs. Then the Doctor would approach with Agag-like delicacy, and, extending his hand to the shyest and most loutish boy, would say, "Mustyou go? Can't you stay?" and the party broke up with magical celerity. Such, at least, was our Harrovian tradition. 

Nothing is so refreshing to a jaded sense of humour as to be therecipient of one of your own stories retold with appreciative fervourbut with all the point left out. This was my experience not long agowith reference to the story of Dr. Vaughan and his boy-bores which Ihave just related. A Dissenting minister was telling me, with extremesatisfaction, that he had a son at Trinity College, Cambridge. He wenton to praise the Master, Dr. Butler, whom he extolled to the skies, winding up his eulogy with, "He has such wonderful tact in dealing withshy undergraduates. " I began to scent my old story from afar, but heldmy peace and awaited results. "You know, " he continued, "that young menare sometimes a little awkward about making a move and going away when aparty is over. Well, when Dr. Butler has undergraduates to breakfast, ifthey linger inconveniently long when he wants to be busy, he has such ahappy knack of getting rid of them. It is so tactful, so like him. Hegoes up to one of them and says, '_Can't you go? Must you stay?_' andthey are off immediately. " So, as Macaulay says of Montgomery's literarythefts, may such ill-got gains ever prosper. 

My Dissenting minister had a congener in the late Lord P----, who was arollicking man about town thirty years ago, and was famous, among otheraccomplishments, for this peculiar art of so telling a story as todestroy the point. When the large house at Albert Gate, which fronts theFrench Embassy and is now the abode of Mr. Arthur Sassoon, was built, its size and cost were regarded as prohibitive, and some social wagchristened it "Gibraltar, because it can never be taken. " Lord P----thought that this must be an excellent joke, because every one laughedat it; and so he ran round the town saying to each man he met--"I say, do you know what they call that big house at Albert Gate? They call itGibraltar, because it can never be let. Isn't that awfully good?" We allremember an innocent riddle of our childhood--"Why was the elephant thelast animal to get into the Ark?"--to which the answer was, "Because hehad to pack his trunk. " Lord P--asked the riddle, and gave as theanswer, "Because he had to pack his portmanteau, " and was beyond measureastonished when his hearers did not join in his uproarious laughter. Poor Lord P--! he was a fellow of infinite jest, though not alwaysexactly in the sense that he intended. If he had only known of it, hemight with advantage have resorted to the conversational device of oldSamuel Rogers, who, when he told a story which failed to produce alaugh, used to observe in a reflective tone, "The curious part of thatstory is that stupid people never see the point of it, " and then loud, though belated, guffaws resounded round the table. 

XXV. 

ADVERTISEMENTS. 

Lately, when hunting for some notes which I had mislaid, I came upon acollection of Advertisements. No branch of literature is more suggestiveof philosophical reflections. I take my specimens quite at random, justas they turn up in my diary, and the first which meets my eye is printedon the sad sea-green of the _Westminster Gazette:_--

"GUARDIAN, whose late ward merits the highest encomiums, seeks for himthe POSITION of SECRETARY to a Nobleman or Lady of Position: one withliterary tastes preferred: the young gentleman is highly connected, distinguished-looking, a lover of books, remarkably steady, andexceptionally well read, clever and ambitious: has travelled much: goodlinguist, photographer, musician: a moderate fortune, but debarred bytimidity from competitive examination. "

I have always longed to know the fate of this lucky youth. Few of us canboast of even "a moderate fortune, " and fewer still of such anadditional combination of gifts, graces, and accomplishments. On theother hand, most of us, at one time or another in our career, have felt"debarred by timidity from competitive examination. " But, unluckily, wehave had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and college dons whoforced us to face the agonies of the Schools, instead of an amiableguardian who bestowed on us "the highest encomiums, " and sought toplant us on Ladies of Position, "with literary tastes preferred. "

Another case, presenting some points of resemblance to the last, but farless favoured by fortune, was notified to the compassionate world by the_Morning Post_ in 1889:--

"Will any rich person TAKE a gentleman and BOARD him? Of good family:age 27: good musician: thoroughly conversant with all office-work: _noobjection to turn Jew_: lost his money through dishonest trustee:excellent writer. "

I earnestly hope that this poor victim of fraud has long since found hisdesired haven in some comfortable Hebrew home, where he can exercise hisskill in writing and office-work during the day and display his musicalaccomplishments after the family supper. I have known not a few youngGentiles who would be glad to be adopted on similar terms. 

The next is extracted from the _Manchester Guardian_ of 1894:--

"A Child of God, seeking employment, would like to take charge ofproperty and collect rents; has a slight knowledge of architecture andsanitary; can give unexceptionable references; age 31; married. "

What offers? Very few, I should fear, in a community so shrewdlycommercial as Manchester, where, I understand, religious profession isseldom taken as a substitute for technical training. The mention of thatfamous city reminds me that not long ago I was describing ChethamCollege to an ignorant outsider, who, not realizing how the name wasspelt, observed that it sounded as if Mr. Squeers had been caught by theOxford Movement and the Gothic Revival, and had sought to give anecclesiastical air to his famous seminary of Dotheboys Hall bytransforming it into "Cheat'em College. "

That immortal pedagogue owed much of his deserved success to his skillin the art of drawing an advertisement:--

"At Mr. Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightfulvillage of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, Youth areboarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with allnecessaries, instructed in all languages, living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, singlestick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineasper annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. "

Now, mark what follows. Wackford Squeers the younger was, as we allknow, destined by his parents to follow the schoolmaster's profession, to assist his father as long as assistance was required, and then totake the management of the Hall and its pupils into his own hands. "Am Ito take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?" said Wackfordjunior. "You are, my son, " replied Mr. Squeers in a sentimental voice. "Oh, my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interestingchild, grasping his father's cane--"won't I make 'em squeak again!" Butwe know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legaldifficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, theschool at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So farwe have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture. But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with all thedogged perseverance of a true Yorkshireman, struggled manfully againstmisfortune; resolved to make a home for his parents and sister; and, assoon as he could raise the needful capital, opened a private school inthe South of England, as far as possible from the scene of earliermisfortune. Making due allowance for change of time and circumstances, Itrace a close similarity of substance and style between theadvertisement which I quoted above and that which I give below, and Ifeel persuaded that young Wackford inherited from his more famousfather this peculiar power of attracting parental confidence by meansof picturesque statement. We have read the earlier manifesto; let us nowcompare the later:--

"Vacancies now occur in the establishment of a gentleman who undertakesthe care and education of a few backward boys, who are beguiled andtrained to study by kind discipline, without the least severity (whichtoo often frustrates the end desired). Situation extremely healthy. Seaand country air; deep gravelly soil. Christian gentility assiduouslycultivated on sound Church principles. Diet unsurpassed. Wardrobescarefully preserved. The course of instruction comprises English, classics, mathematics, and science. Inclusive terms, 30 guineas perannum, quarterly in advance. Music, drawing, and modern languages areextras, but moderate. Address--------, Chichester. " Was it Vivian Greyor Pelham who was educated at a private school where "the only extraswere pure milk and the guitar"?

I believe that there is no charitable institution which more thoroughlydeserves support than the Metropolitan Association for Befriending YoungServants, affectionately contracted by its supporters into the "MABYS. "Here is one of its advertisements, from which, I am bound to say, thealluring skill displayed by Mr. Squeers is curiously absent:--

"Will any one undertake as SERVANT a bright, clean, neat girl, who isdeceitful, lazy, and inclined to be dishonest? Address, Hon. Secretary, M. A. B. Y. S. , 21 Charlotte Street, S. E. "

I remember some years ago an advertisement which sought a kind masterand a pleasant home for a large, savage dog; and I remember howadmirably _Punch_ described the kind of life which the "large, savagedog" would lead the "kind master" when he got him. But really the visionof a bright maid-servant who is "deceitful, lazy, and inclined to bedishonest, " and the havoc which she might work in a well-orderedhousehold, is scarcely less appalling. A much more deserving case isthis which I append:--

"Under-Housekeeper, under-Matron, desired by a Young Woman, age 22. Energetic, domesticated. Great misfortune in losing right arm, but goodartificial one. Happy home, with small remuneration. "

It is not, I fear, in my power to make a contribution of permanent valueto the "Great Servant Question. " But, having given instances ofinsufficient qualification in people seeking to be employed, I now turnto the opposite side of the account, and, after perusing what follows, would respectfully ask, Who is sufficient for these things?

"Can any lady or gentleman recommend a MAN and WIFE (Church of England)?Man useful indoors and out. Principal duties large flower-garden, smallconservatory, draw bath-chair, must wait at table, understand lamps, non-smoker, wear dress suit except in garden. Clothes and beer notfound. Family, lady and child, lady-help. House-parlourmaid kept. Mustnot object to small bedroom. Wife plain cook (good), to undertakekitchen offices, dining-room, and hall (wash clothes). Joint wages £50, all found. "

Now there is really a study in exacting eccentricity which Thackeraymight have made the subject of a "Roundabout Paper. " In the first place, the two servants must be man and wife--unmarried people need notapply--and yet they must be contented with a small bedroom. The familyconsists of a lady (apparently an invalid), a child, a lady-help, and ahouse-parlourmaid. For these the wife must cook, and cook well, besidescleaning the dining-room, hall and offices, and washing the clothes. Herhusband, yet more accommodating, must attend to a large flower-gardenand a small conservatory, must draw a bath-chair, wait at table andclean lamps. After all these varied and arduous labours, he is deniedthe refreshment of a pipe; but, as a kind of compensation, he is notobliged to wear his dress suit when he is gardening! The joint wages are£50, with all found except clothes and beer; and the lucky recipients ofthis overpowering guerdon must be members of the Church of England. 

This last requirement reminds me of a letter from a girl-emigrantwritten to Lady Laura Ridding, wife of the Bishop of Southwell, who hadbefriended her at home. "Dear Madam, --I hope this finds you as well asit leaves me. The ship is in the middle of the Red Sea, and it isfearfully hot. I am in a terrible state of melting all day long. But, honoured Madam, I know you will be pleased to hear that I am still amember of the Church of England. " I hope the good plain cook and hernon-smoking, bath-chair drawing, large-gardening husband may be able tocomfort themselves with the same reflection when the varied toils of theday are ended and they seek their well-earned repose in the "smallbedroom. "

From these lowly mysteries of domestic life I pass to the Debatable Landbetween servitude and gentility. "MAN AND WIFE, superior and active, seek, in gentleman's family, PLACE OF TRUST; country, houseboat, &c. Wife needlewoman or Plain Cook, linen, &c. : man ride and drive, waiting, or useful. _Can teach or play violin in musical family;_ sight-reader inclassical works. Both tall, and refined appearance. "

From the Debatable Land I pass on to the exalted regions of courtlylife. 

"The Great-niece of a Lord Chamberlain to King George III. REQUIRES aSITUATION as COMPANION to a lady, or Cicerone to young ladies. Her mindis highly cultivated. _English habits and Parisian accent. _"

"Vieille école bonne école, begad!" cried Major Pendennis, and herewould have been a companion for Mrs. Pendennis or a cicerone for Lauraafter his own heart. The austere traditions of the Court of George III. And Queen Charlotte might be expected to survive in the great-niece oftheir Lord Chamberlain; and what a tactful concession to the prejudicesof Mrs. Grundy in the statement that, though the accent may be Parisian, the habits are English! This excellent lady--evidently a near relationto Mrs. General in _Little Dorrit_--reintroduces us to the genteelsociety in which we are most at home; and here I may remark that thelove of aristocracy which is so marked and so amiable a feature of ournational character finds its expression not only in the advertisementcolumns, but in the daily notices of deaths and marriages. For example:"On the 22nd inst. , at Lisbon, William Thorold Wood, cousin to theBishop of Rochester, to Sir John Thorold of Syston Park, and brother tothe Rector of Widmerpool. He was a man of great mental endowments andexemplary conduct. " I dare say he was, but I fear they would have goneunrecorded had it not been for the more impressive fact that he waskinsman to a Bishop and a Baronet. 

While we are on the subject of Advertisements a word must be said aboutthe Medical branch of this fine art; and knowing the enormous fortuneswhich have often been made out of a casual prescription for _acne_ or_alopecia_, I freely place at the disposal of any aspiring young chemistwho reads this paper the following tale of enterprise and success. A fewyears ago, according to the information before me, a London doctor had alady patient who complained of an incessant neuralgia in her face andjaw. The doctor could detect nothing amiss, but exhausted his skill, hispatience, and his remedies in trying to comfort the complainant, who, however, refused to be comforted. At length, being convinced that thecase was one of pure hypochondria, he wrote to the afflicted lady, saying that he did not feel justified in any longer taking her money fora case which was evidently beyond his powers, but recommended her totry change of air, live in the country, and trust to that _edax rerum_which sooner or later cures all human ills. 

The lady departed in sorrow, but in faith; obeyed her doctor'sinstructions to the letter, and established herself not a hundred milesfrom the good city of Newcastle. Once established there, her first carewas to seek the local chemist and to place her doctor's letter in hishands. A smart young assistant was presiding at the counter; he read thedoctor's letter, and promptly made up a bottle which he labelled "_EdaxRerum_. To be taken twice a day before meals, " and for which he demanded7s. 6d. The lady rejoicingly paid, and requested that a similar bottlemight be sent to her every week till further notice. She continued touse and to pay for this specific for a year and a half, and then, finding her neuralgia considerably abated, she came up to London for aweek's amusement. Full of gratitude, she called on her former doctor, and said that, though she had felt a little hurt at the abrupt manner inwhich he had dismissed so old a patient, still she could not forbear totell him that his last prescription had done her far more good than anyof its predecessors, and that, indeed, she now regarded herself aspractically cured. Explanations followed; inquiries were set on foot;the chemist's assistant sailed for South Africa; and "_Edax Rerum_" isnow largely in demand among the unlettered heroes who bear the banner ofthe Chartered Company. 

That combination of pietism with money-making, which critics of ournational character tell us is so peculiarly British, was wellillustrated in the _Christian Million_ of September 22, 1898:--

"BETHESDA, Hest Bank. Beautiful country home, near the sea. Christianfellowship, 3s. Per day. Sickly persons desiring to trust the Lord willbe considered financially. Apply Miss----. Stamped Envelope. "

When poetry is forced into the service of advertisements, the result ispeculiarly gratifying. This is an appeal for funds to repair the churchin which Nelson's father officiated:--

 "The man who first taught Englishmen their duty, And fenced with wooden walls his native isle, Now asks ONE SHILLING to preserve in beauty The Church that brooded o'er his infant smile. "[29]

An electioneering address is, in its essence, an advertisement; and inthis peculiar branch of literature it would be difficult to excel thefollowing manifesto recently issued by a clergyman when candidate for abenefice to which the appointment is by popular election:--

"I appeal with the utmost confidence for the full support of the IRISHAND ROMAN CATHOLICS, because I am a Son of the Emerald Isle; toFOREIGNERS, because they love Ireland; to HIGH CHURCH, LOW CHURCH, andBROAD CHURCH, because I am tolerant to all parties; to NONCONFORMISTS, because I have stated in my pamphlet on Reunion that they are "the saltof the earth and the light of the world;" to JEWS, because my love forthe Children of Promise is well known; to ATHEISTS, because they haveoften heard me in Hyde Park telling them of the Author of Nature in itsendless beauties;--to one and all I appeal with the utmost confidence, and feel sure that the whole electorate will vote for me and dothemselves honour, when they consider who I am, and when a person of mysocial and ecclesiastical standing allowed my name at all to bementioned for a popular election. "

I am thankful to say that this "Son of the Emerald Isle" was left at thebottom of the poll. 

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Kindly communicated by "J. C. C. "

XXVI. 

PARODIES IN PROSE. 

"Parody, " wrote Mr. Matthew Arnold in 1882, "is a vile art, but I mustsay I read _Poor Matthias_ in the _World_ with an amused pleasure. " Itwas a generous appreciation, for the original _Poor Matthias_--an elegyon a canary--is an exquisite poem, and the _World's_ parody of it is arather dull imitation. On the whole, I agree with Mr. Arnold that parodyis a vile art; but the dictum is a little too sweeping. A parody ofanything really good, whether in prose or verse, is as odious as aburlesque of _Hamlet_; but, on the other hand, parody is the appropriatepunishment for certain kinds of literary affectation. There are, andalways have been, some styles of poetry and of prose which no oneendowed with an ear for rhythm and a sense of humour could forbear toparody. Such, to a generation brought up on Milton and Pope, were thestyles of the various poetasters satirized in _Rejected Addresses_; butexcellent as are the metrical parodies in that famous book, the prose iseven better. Modern parodists, of whom I will speak more particularly ina future chapter, have, I think, surpassed such poems as _The Baby'sDébut_ and _A Tale of Drury Lane_, but in the far more difficult art ofimitating a prose style none that I know of has even approached theauthor of the _Hampshire Farmer's Address_ and _Johnson's Ghost_. Doesany one read William Cobbett nowadays? If so, let him compare whatfollows with the recorded specimens of Cobbett's public speaking:--

"Most thinking People, --When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, your servant. ' If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and_brute beast_ enough to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in abreath. In the first place, you are not ladies and gentlemen, but, Ihope, something better--that is to say, honest men and women; and, inthe next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so muchgentlemen, I am not, _nor ever will be_, your humble servant. "

With Dr. Johnson's style--supposing we had ever forgotten its masculineforce and its balanced antitheses--we have been made again familiar bythe erudite labours of Dr. Birkbeck Hill and Mr. Augustine Birrell. Buteven those learned critics might, I think, have mistaken a copy for anoriginal if in some collection of old speeches they had lighted on theensuing address:--

"That which was organized by the moral ability of one has been executedby the physical efforts of many, and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glowbeneath the brush of the varnisher or vibrate to the hammer of thecarpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said bythe Committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed to theaccommodation of either, and he who should pronounce that our edificehas received its final embellishment would be disseminating falsehoodwithout incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection withoutparticipating the advantage of success. "

An excellent morsel of Johnsonese prose belongs to a more recent date. It became current about the time when the scheme of Dr. Murray'sDictionary of the English Language was first made public. It took theform of a dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Boswell:--

"_Boswell_. Pray, sir, what would you say if you were told that the nextdictionary of the English language would be written by a Scotsman and aPresbyterian domiciled at Oxford?

"_Dr. J_. Sir, in order to be facetious it is not necessary to beindecent. "

When Bulwer-Lytton brought out his play _Not so Bad as we Seem_, hisfriends pleasantly altered its title to _Not so Good as we Expected_. And when a lady's newspaper advertised a work called "How to Dress onFifteen Pounds a Year, as a Lady. By a Lady, " _Punch_ was ready with thecharacteristic parody: "How to Dress on Nothing a Year, as a Kaffir. Bya Kaffir. "

Mr. Gladstone's authority compels me to submit the ensuing imitation ofMacaulay--the most easily parodied of all prose writers--to the judgmentof my readers. It was written by the late Abraham Hayward. Macaulay iscontrasting, in his customary vein of overwrought and over-coloureddetail, the evils of arbitrary government with those of a debasedcurrency:--

"The misgovernment of Charles and James, gross as it had been, had notprevented the common business of life from going steadily andprosperously on. 

"While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreignPower, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws wereviolated, hundreds of thousands of quiet, honest, and industriousfamilies laboured and traded, ate their meals, and lay down to rest incomfort and security. Whether Whig or Tories, Protestants or Jesuitswere uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market; the grocerweighed out his currants; the draper measured out his broadcloth; thehum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; theharvest-home was celebrated as joyously as ever in the hamlets; thecream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed in thepresses of Herefordshire: the piles of crockery glowed in the furnacesof the Trent; and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timberrailways of the Tyne. "

This reads like a parody, but it is a literal transcript of theoriginal; and Hayward justly observes that there is no reason why thisrigmarole should ever stop, as long as there is a trade, calling, oroccupation to be particularized. The pith of the proposition (whichneeded no proof) is contained in the first sentence. Why not continuethus?--

"The apothecary vended his drugs as usual; the poulterer crammed histurkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels; the wine merchant adulteratedhis port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, asmany pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas pies on ChristmasDay; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth ofthe chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars thefeline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cat's-meatman; the courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cab rattled throughthe Strand; and, from the suburban regions of Fulham and Putney, thecart of the market gardener wended its slow and midnight way alongPiccadilly to deposit its load of cabbages and turnips in CoventGarden. "

Twice has Mr. Gladstone publicly called attention to the merits of this"effective morsel of parody, " as he styles it; and he judiciously addsthat what follows (by the late Dean Hook) is "a like attempt, but lesshappy. " Most people remember the attack on the constitution of the Courtof Chancery in the preface to _Bleak House_. Dean Hook, in a laudableattempt to soothe the ruffled feelings of his old friend Vice-ChancellorPage Wood, of whom Dickens in that preface had made fun, thus endeavoursto translate the accusation into Macaulayese:--

"REIGN OF VICTORIA--1856. 

"THE COURTS OF JUSTICE. 

"The Court of Chancery was corrupt. The guardian of lunatics was thecause of insanity to the suitors in his court. An attempt at reform wasmade when Wood was Solicitor-General. It consisted chiefly in increasingthe number of judges in the Equity Court. Government was pleased by anincrease of patronage; the lawyers approved of the new professionalprizes. The Government papers applauded. Wood became Vice-Chancellor. Atthe close of 1855 the Equity Courts were without business. People hadbecome weary of seeking justice where justice was not to be found. Thestate of the Bench was unsatisfactory. Cranworth was feeble; KnightBruce, though powerful, sacrificed justice to a joke; Turner was heavy;Romilly was scientific; Kindersley was slow; Stuart was pompous; Woodwas at Bealings. "

If I were to indulge in quotations from well-known parodies of prose, this chapter would soon overflow all proper limits. I forbear, therefore, to do more than remind my readers of Thackeray's _Novels byEminent Hands_ and Bret Harte's _Sensation Novels_, only remarking, withreference to the latter book, that "Miss Mix" is in places reallyindistinguishable from _Jane Eyre_. The sermon by Mr. Jowett in Mr. Mallock's _New Republic_ is so perfect an imitation, both in substanceand in style, that it suggested to some readers the idea that it hadbeen reproduced from notes of an actual discourse. On spoken asdistinguished from written eloquence there are some capital skits in the_Anti-Jacobin_, where (under the name of Macfungus) excellent fun ismade of the too mellifluous eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh. 

The differentiating absurdities of after-dinner oratory are photographedin Thackeray's _Dinner in the City_, where the speech of the AmericanMinister seems to have formed a model for a long series of similarperformances. Dickens's experience as a reporter in the gallery of theHouse of Commons had given him a perfect command of that peculiar styleof speaking which is called Parliamentary, and he used it with greateffect in his accounts of the inaugural meeting of the "UnitedMetropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and PunctualDelivery Company" in _Nicholas Nickleby_ (where he introduces a capitalsketch of Tom Duncombe, Radical Member for Finsbury); and in theinterview between Mr. Gregsbury, M. P. , and his constituents in a laterchapter of the same immortal book. 

The parliamentary eloquence of a later day was admirably reproduced inMr. Edward Jenkins's prophetic squib (published in 1872) _BarneyGeoghegan, M. P. , and Home Rule at St. Stephen's_. As this clever littlebook has, I fear, lapsed into complete oblivion, I venture to cite apassage. It will vividly recall to the memory of middle-aged politiciansthe style and tone of the verbal duels which, towards the end of Mr. Gladstone's first Administration, took place so frequently between theLeader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Geoghegan hasbeen returned, a very early Home Ruler, for the Borough of Rashkillen, and for some violent breaches of order is committed to the custody ofthe Sergeant-at-Arms. On this the leader of the House rises andaddresses the Speaker:--

"Sir, --The House cannot but sympathize with you in the eloquent andindignant denunciation you have uttered against the painful invasion ofthe decorum of the House which we have just witnessed. There can be nodoubt in any mind, even in the minds of those with whom the hon. Membernow at the bar usually acts, that of all methods of argument which couldbe employed in this House, he has selected the least politic. Sir, may Ibe permitted, with great deference, to say a word upon a remark thatfell from the Chair, and which might be misunderstood? Solitary andanomalous instances of this kind could never be legitimately used asarguments against general systems of representation or the course of arecent policy. I do not, at this moment, venture to pronounce an opinionupon the degree of criminality that attaches to the hon. Member nowunhappily in the custody of the Officer of the House. It is possible--Ido not say it is probable, I do not now say whether I shall be preparedto commit myself to that hypothesis or not--but it is not impossiblethat the hon. Member or some of his friends may be able to urge someextenuating circumstances--(Oh! oh!)--I mean circumstances that, whenduly weighed, may have a tendency in a greater or less degree to modifythe judgment of the House upon the extraordinary event that hasoccurred. Sir, it becomes a great people and a great assembly like thisto be patient, dignified, and generous. The honourable member, whom weregret to see in his present position, no doubt represents a phase ofIrish opinion unfamiliar to this House. (Cheers and laughter. ) ... TheHouse is naturally in a rather excited state after an event so unusual, and I venture to urge that it should not hastily proceed to action. Wemust be careful of the feelings of the Irish people. (Oh! oh!) If we areto govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, we must make allowance forpersonal, local, and transitory ebullitions of Irish feeling, having nogeneral or universal consequence or bearing.... The course, therefore, which I propose to take is this--to move that the hon. Member shallremain in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, that a Committee beappointed to take evidence, and that their report be discussed this daymonth. "

To this replies the Leader of the Opposition:--

"The right hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on the results of hisIrish policy. (Cheers and laughter. ) ... Sir, this, I presume, is one ofthe right hon. Gentleman's contented and pacified people! I deeplysympathize with the right hon. Gentleman. His policy produces strangeand portentous results. A policy of concession, of confiscation, oftruckling to ecclesiastical arrogance, to popular passions and ignorantprejudices, of lenity to Fenian revolutionists, has at length brought usto this, that the outrages of Galway and Tipperary, no longer restrictedto those charming counties, no longer restrained to even Her Majesty'sjudges, are to reach the interior of this House and the august person ofits Speaker. (Cheers. ) Sir, I wash my hands of all responsibility forthis absurd and anomalous state of things. Whenever it has fallen to theTory party to conduct the affairs of Ireland, they have consistentlypursued a policy of mingled firmness and conciliation with the mostdistinguished success. All the great measures of reform in Ireland maybe said to have had their root in the action of the Tory party, though, as usual, the praise has been appropriated by the right hon. Gentlemanand his allies. We have preferred, instead of truckling to prejudice orpassion, to appeal, and we still appeal, to the sublime instincts of anancient people!"

I hope that an unknown author, whose skill in reproducing an archaicstyle I heartily admire, will forgive me for quoting the followingnarrative of certain doings decreed by the General Post Office on theoccasion of the Jubilee of the Penny Post. Like all that is truly goodin literature, it will be seen that this narrative was not for its owntime alone, but for the future, and has its relevancy to events of thepresent day:[30]

"1. Now it came to pass in the month June of the Post-office Jubilee, that Raikes, the Postmaster-General, said to himself, Lo! an openingwhereby I may find grace in the sight of the Queen!

"2. And Raikes appointed an Executive Committee; and Baines, theInspector-General of Mails, made he Chairman. 

"3. He called also Cardin, the Receiver and Accountant-General; Preece, Lord of Lightning; Thompson, the Secretarial Officer; and Tombs; theController. 

"4. Then did these four send to the Heads of Departments, thePostmasters and Sub-Postmasters, the Letter-Receivers, theClerks-in-Charge, the Postal Officers, the Telegraphists, She Sorters, the Postmen; yea from the lowest even unto the highest sent they out. 

"5. And the word of Baines and of them that were with him went forththat the Jubilee should be kept by a conversazione at the SouthKensington Museum on Wednesday the second day of the month July in theyear 1890. 

"6. And Victoria the Queen became a patron of the Jubilee Celebration;and her heart was stirred within her; for she said, For three wholeyears have I not had a Jubilee. 

"7. And the word of Baines and of them that were with him went forthagain to the Heads of Departments; the Postmasters and Sub-Postmasters, the Letter-Receivers, the Clerks-in-Charge, the Postal Officers andTelegraphists, the Sorters and the Postmen. 

"8. Saying unto them, Lo! the Queen is become Patron of the Rowland HillMemorial and Benevolent Fund, and of the conversazione in the museum;and we the Executive Committee bid you, from the lowest even to thehighest, to join with us at the tenth hour of the conversazione in agreat shouting to praise the name of the Queen our patron. 

"9. Each man in his Post Office at the tenth hour shall shout upon hername; and a record thereof shall be sent to us that we may cause itsmemory to endure for ever. 

"10. Then a great fear came upon the Postmasters, the Sub-Postmasters, and the Letter-Receivers, which were bidden to make the record. 

"11. For they said, If those over whom we are set in authority shout notat the tenth hour, and we send an evil report, we shall surely perish. 

"12. And they besought their men to shout, aloud at the tenth hour, lest a worse thing should befall. 

"13. And they that were of the tribes of Nob and of Snob rejoiced withan exceeding great joy, and did shout with their whole might; so thattheir voices became as the voices of them that sell tidings in thestreet at nightfall. 

"14. But the Telegraphists and the Sorters and the Postmen, and themthat were of the tribes of Rag and of Tag, hardened their hearts, andwere silent at the tenth hour; for they said among themselves, 'Shallthe poor man shout in his poverty, and the hungry celebrate his lack ofbread?'

"15. Now Preece, Lord of Lightning, had wrought with a cord of metalthat they who were at the conversazione might hear the shouting from thePost Offices. 

"16. And the tenth hour came; and lo! there was no great shout; and thetribes of Nob and Snob were as the voice of men calling in thewilderness. 

"17. Then was the wrath of Baines kindled against the tribes of Rag andTag for that they had not shouted according to his word; and hecommanded that their chief men and counsellors should be cast out of theQueen's Post Office. 

"18. And Raikes, the Postmaster-General; told the Queen all the travailof Baines, the Inspector-General, and of them that were with him, andhow they had wrought all for the greater glory of the Queen's name. 

"19. And the Queen hearkened to the word of Raikes, and lifted up Bainesto be a Centurion of the Bath; also she placed honours upon Cardin, theReceiver-General and Accountant-General; upon Preece, Lord of Lightning;upon Thompson, the Secretarial Officer; and upon Tombs, the Controller, so that they dazzled the eyes of the tribe of Snob, and were favourablyentreated of the sons of Nob. 

"20. And they lived long in the land; and all men said pleasant thingsunto them. 

"21. But they of Tag and of Rag that had been cast out were utterlyforgotten; so that they were fain to cry aloud, saying, 'How long, O yehonest and upright in heart, shall Snobs and Nobs be rulers over us, seeing that they are but men like unto us, though they imagine us intheir hearts to be otherwise?'

"22. And the answer is not yet. "

FOOTNOTES:

[30] June 1897. 

XXVII. 

PARODIES IN VERSE. 

Here I embark on the shoreless sea of metrical parody, and I begin mycruise by reaffirming that in this department _Rejected Addresses_, though distinctly good for their time, have been left far behind bymodern achievements. The sense of style seems to have grown acuter, andthe art of reproducing it has been brought to absolute perfection. Thetheory of development is instructively illustrated in the history ofmetrical parody. 

Of the same date as _Rejected Addresses_, and of about equal merit, isthe _Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, which our grandfathers, if theycombined literary taste with Conservative opinions, were never tired ofrepeating. The extraordinary brilliancy of the group of men whocontributed to it guaranteed the general character of the book. Itsmerely satiric verse is a little beside my present mark; but as a parodythe ballad of _Duke Smithson of Northumberland_, founded on _ChevyChase_, ranks high, and the inscription for the cell in Newgate whereMrs. Brownrigg, who murdered her apprentices, was imprisoned, is evenbetter. Southey, in his Radical youth, had written some lines on thecell in Chepstow Castle where Henry Marten the Regicide was confined:--

 "For thirty years secluded from mankind Here Marten lingered ... Dost thou ask his crime? He had rebell'd against the King, and sate In judgment on him. "

Here is Canning's parody:--

 "For one long term, or e'er her trial came, Here Brownrigg lingered ... Dost thou ask her crime? She whipped two female 'prentices to death, And hid them in a coal-hole. "

The time of _Rejected Addresses_ and the _Anti-Jacobin_ was also theheyday of parliamentary quotation, and old parliamentary hands used tocite a happy instance of instantaneous parody by Daniel O'Connell, who, having noticed that the speaker to whom he was replying had his speechwritten out in his hat, immediately likened him to Goldsmith's villageschoolmaster, saying, --

 "And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small _hat_ could carry all he knew. "

Another instance of the same kind was O'Connell's extemporizeddescription of three ultra-Protestant members, Colonel Verner, ColonelVandeleur, and Colonel Sibthorp, the third of whom was conspicuous in aclosely shaven age for his profusion of facial hair. 

 "Three Colonels, in three different counties born, Armagh and Clare and Lincoln did adorn. The first in direst bigotry surpassed: The next in impudence: in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go-- To beard the third, she shaved the former two. "

A similarly happy turn to an old quotation was given by Baron Parke, afterwards Lord Wensleydale. His old friend and comrade at the Bar, SirDavid Dundas, had just been appointed Solicitor-General, and, in replyto Baron Parke's invitation to dinner, he wrote that he could not acceptit, as he had been already invited by seven peers for the same evening. He promptly received the following couplets:--

 "Seven thriving cities fight for Homer dead Through which the living Homer begged his bread. "

 "Seven noble Lords ask Davie to break bread Who wouldn't care a d--were Davie dead. "

The _Ingoldsby Legends_--long since, I believe, deposed from theirposition in public favour--were published in 1840. Their principalmerits are a vein of humour, rollicking and often coarse, but genuineand infectious; great command over unusual metres; and an unequalledingenuity in making double and treble rhymes: for example--

 "The poor little Page, too, himself got no quarter, but Was served the same way, And was found the next day, With his heels in the air, and his head in the water-butt. "

There is a general flavour of parody about most of the ballads. It doesnot as a rule amount to more than a rather clumsy mockery ofmediaevalism, but the verses prefixed to the _Lay of St. Gengulphus_ arereally rather like a fragment of a black-letter ballad. The bookcontains only one absolute parody, borrowed from Samuel Lover's _Lyricsof Ireland_, and then the result is truly offensive, for the poem chosenfor the experiment is one of the most beautiful in the language--the_Burial of Sir John Moore_, which is transmuted into a stupid story ofvulgar debauch. Of much the same date as the _Ingoldsby Legends_ was the_Old Curiosity Shop_, and no one who has a really scholarly acquaintancewith Dickens will forget the delightful scraps of Tom Moore's amatoryditties with which, slightly adapted to current circumstances, DickSwiveller used to console himself when Destiny seemed too strong forhim. And it will be remembered that Mr. Slum composed some very tellingparodies of the same popular author as advertisements for Mrs. Jarley'sWaxworks; but I forbear to quote here what is so easily accessible. 

By way of tracing the development of the Art of Parody, I am taking mysamples in chronological order. In 1845 the Newdigate Prize for anEnglish poem at Oxford was won by J. W. Burgon, afterwards Dean ofChichester. The subject was Petra. The successful poem was, on thewhole, not much better and not much worse than the general run of suchcompositions; but it contained one couplet which Dean Stanley regardedas an absolute gem--a volume of description condensed into two lines:--

 "Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime-- A rose-red city, half as old as time. "

The couplet was universally praised and quoted, and, as a naturalconsequence, parodied. There resided then (and long after) at TrinityCollege, Oxford, an extraordinarily old don called Short. [31] When I wasan undergraduate he was still tottering about, and we looked at him withinterest because he had been Newman's tutor. To his case the parodist ofthe period, in a moment of inspiration, adapted Burgon's beautifulcouplet, saying or singing:--

 "Match me such marvel, save in college port, That rose-red liquor, half as old as Short. "

The Rev. E. T. Turner, till recently Registrar of the University, hasbeen known to say: "I was present when that egg was laid. " It issatisfactory to know that the undergraduate who laid it--William BasilTickell Jones--attained deserved eminence in after-life, and died Bishopof St. David's. 

When Burgon was writing his prize-poem about Petra, Lord John Manners(afterwards seventh Duke of Rutland), in his capacity as Poet Laureateof Young England, was writing chivalrous ditties about castles andbanners, and merry peasants, and Holy Church. This kind of mediaevalromanticism, though glorified by Lord Beaconsfield in _Coningsby_, seemed purely laughable to Thackeray, and he made rather bitter fun ofit in _Lines upon my Sister's Portrait, by the Lord Southdown. _

 "Dash down, dash down yon mandolin, beloved sister mine! Those blushing lips may never sing the glories of our line: Our ancient castles echo to the clumsy feet of churls. The spinning-jenny houses in the mansion of our Earls. Sing not, sing not, my Angelina! in days so base and vile, 'Twere sinful to be happy, 'twere sacrilege to smile. I'll hie me to my lonely hall, and by its cheerless hob I'll muse on other days, and wish--and wish I were--A SNOB. "

But, though the spirit of this mournful song is the spirit of _England'sTrust_, the verbal imitation is not close enough to deserve the title ofParody. 

The _Ballads of Bon Gaultier_, published anonymously in 1855, had asuccess which would only have been possible at a time when reallyartistic parodies were unknown. Bon Gaultier's verses are not as a rulemuch more than rough-and-ready imitations; and, like so much of thehumour of their day, and of Scotch humour in particular, they generallydepend for their point upon drinking and drunkenness. Some of thedifferent forms of the Puff Poetical are amusing, especially theadvertisement of Doudney Brothers' Waistcoats, and the Puff Direct inwhich Parr's Life-pills are glorified after the manner of a Germanballad. _The Laureate_ is a fair hit at some of Tennyson's earliermannerisms:--

 "Who would not be The Laureate bold, With his butt of sherry To keep him merry, And nothing to do but pocket his gold?"

But _The Lay of the Lovelorn_ is a clumsy and rather vulgar skit on_Locksley Hall_--a poem on which two such writers as Sir Theodore Martinand Professor Aytoun would have done well not to lay their sacrilegioushands. 

We have now passed through the middle stage of the development which Iam trying to trace; we are leaving clumsiness and vulgarity behind us, and are approaching the age of perfection. Sir George Trevelyan'sparodies are transitional. He was born in 1838, three times won theprize poem at Harrow, and brought out his Cambridge squibs in and soonafter the year 1858. _Horace at the University of Athens_, originallywritten for acting at the famous "A. D. C. , " still holds its own as oneof the wittiest of extravaganzas. It contains a really pretty imitationof the 10th Eclogue, and it is studded with adaptations, of which theonly possible fault is that, for the general reader, they are tootopical. Here is a sample:--

 "_Donec gratus eram tibi_. "

 _Hor_. While still you loved your Horace best Of all my peers who round you pressed (Though not in expurgated versions), More proud I lived than King of Persians. 

 _Lyd_. And while as yet no other dame Had kindled in your breast a flame, (Though Niebuhr her existence doubt), I cut historic Ilia out. 

 _Hor_. Dark Chloe now my homage owns, Skilled on the banjo and the bones; For whom I would not fear to die, If death would pass my charmer by. 

 _Lyd_. I now am lodging at the _rus- In-urbe_ of young Decius Mus. Twice over would I gladly die To see him hit in either eye. 

 _Hor_. But should the old love come again, And Lydia her sway retain, If to my heart once more I take her, And bid black Chloe wed the baker?

 _Lyd_. Though you be treacherous as audit When at the fire you've lately thawed it, For Decius Mus no more I'd care Than for their plate the Dons of Clare. 

Really this is a much better rendering of the famous ode thannine-tenths of its more pompous competitors; and the allusions to theperfidious qualities of Trinity Audit Ale and the mercenary conduct ofthe Fellows of Clare need no explanation for Cambridge readers, andlittle for others. But it may be fairly objected that this is not, instrictness, a parody. That is true, and indeed as a parodist Sir GeorgeTrevelyan belongs to the metrical miocene. His Horace, when serving as avolunteer in the Republican Army, bursts into a pretty snatch of songwhich has a flavour of Moore:--

 "The minstrel boy from the wars is gone, All out of breath you'll find him; He has run some five miles, off and on, And his shield has flung behind him. "

And the Bedmaker's Song in one of the Cambridge scenes is sweetlyreminiscent of a delightful and forgotten bard:--

 "I make the butler fly, all in an hour; I put aside the preserves and cold meats, Telling my master the cream has turned sour, Hiding the pickles, purloining the sweets. "

 "I never languish for husband or dower; I never sigh to see 'gyps' at my feet; I make the butter fly, all in an hour, Taking it home for my Saturday treat. "

This, unless I greatly err, is a very good parody of Thomas HaynesBayly, author of some of the most popular songs of a sentimental castwhich were chanted in our youth and before it. But this is ground onwhich I must not trench, for Mr. Andrew Lang has made it his own. Themost delightful essay in one of his books of Reprints deals with thisamazing bard, and contains some parodies so perfect that Mr. HaynesBayly would have rejoicingly claimed them as his own. 

Charles Stuart Calverley is by common consent the king of metricalparodists. All who went before merely adumbrated him and led up to him;all who have come since are descended from him and reflect him. Ofcourse he was infinitely more than a mere imitator of rhymes andrhythms. He was a true poet; he was one of the most graceful scholarsthat Cambridge ever produced; and all his exuberant fun was based on abroad and strong foundation of Greek, Latin, and English literature. _Verses and Translations, by C. S. C. _, which appeared in 1862, was ayoung man's book, although its author had already established hisreputation as a humorist by the inimitable Examination Paper on_Pickwick_; and, being a young man's book, it was a book of unequalmerit. The translations I leave on one side, as lying outside my presentpurview, only remarking as I pass that if there is a finer renderingthan that of Ajax--645-692--I do not know where it is to be found. Mybusiness is with the parodies. It was not till ten years later that in_Fly Leaves_ Calverley asserted his supremacy in the art, but even in_Verses and Translations_ he gave good promise of what was to be. 

Of all poems in the world, I suppose _Horatius_ has been most frequentlyand most justly parodied. Every Public School magazine contains at leastone parody of it every year. In my Oxford days there was current anadmirable version of it (attributed to the Rev. W. W. Merry, now Rectorof Lincoln College), which began, --

 "Adolphus Smalls, of Boniface, By all the powers he swore That, though he had been ploughed three times, He would be ploughed no more, "

and traced with curious fidelity the successive steps in the process ofpreparation till the dreadful day of examination arrived:--

 "They said he made strange quantities, Which none might make but he; And that strange things were in his Prose Canine to a degree: But they called his _Viva Voce_ fair, They said his 'Books' would do; And native cheek, where facts were weak, Brought him triumphant through. And in each Oxford college In the dim November days, When undergraduates fresh from hall Are gathering round the blaze; When the 'crusted port' is opened, And the Moderator's lit, And the weed glows in the Freshman's mouth, And makes him turn to spit; With laughing and with chaffing The story they renew, How Smalls of Boniface went in, And actually got through. "

So much for the Oxford rendering of Macaulay's famous lay. "C. S. C. " thusadapted it to Cambridge, and to a different aspect of undergraduatelife:--

 "On pinnacled St. Mary's Lingers the setting sun; Into the street the blackguards Are skulking one by one; Butcher and Boots and Bargeman Lay pipe and pewter down, And with wild shout come tumbling out To join the Town and Gown. 

 * * * * *

 "'Twere long to tell how Boxer Was countered on the cheek, And knocked into the middle Of the ensuing week; How Barnacles the Freshman Was asked his name and college, And how he did the fatal facts Reluctantly acknowledge. "

Quite different, but better because more difficult, is this essay in_Proverbial Philosophy_:--

 "I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky, And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo! I blessed him as he rose. Foolish; for far better is the trained boudoir bullfinch, Which pipeth the semblance of a tune and mechanically draweth up water. For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade, And God made thee one thing that thou mightest make thyself another. A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling upwards, And it needed that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of Propriety. He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure, Let him drink deeply of its sweetness nor grumble if it tasteth of the cork. "

_Enoch Arden_ was published in 1864, and was not enthusiasticallyreceived by true lovers of Tennyson, though people who had never readhim before thought it wonderfully fine. A kinsman of mine alwayscontended that the story ended wrongly, and that the really human, andtherefore dramatic, conclusion would have been as follows:--

 "For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, And Enoch, coming, saw the house a blaze Of light, and Annie drinking from a mug-- A funny mug, all blue with strange device Of birds and waters and a little man. And Philip held a bottle; and a smell Of strong tobacco, with a fainter smell-- But still a smell, and quite distinct--of gin Was there. He raised the latch, and stealing by The cupboard, where a row of teacups stood, Hard by the genial hearth, he paused behind The luckless pair, then drawing back his foot-- His manly foot, all clad in sailors' hose-- He swung it forth with such a grievous kick That Philip in a moment was propelled Against his wife, though not his wife; and she Fell forwards, smashing saucers, cups, and jug Fell in a heap. All shapeless on the floor Philip and Annie and the crockery lay. Then Enoch's voice accompanied his foot, For both were raised, with horrid oath and kick, Till constables came in with Miriam Lane And bare them all to prison, railing loud. Then Philip was discharged and ran away, And Enoch paid a fine for the assault; And Annie went to Philip, telling him That she would see old Enoch further first Before she would acknowledge him to be Himself, if Philip only would return. But Philip said that he would rather not. Then Annie plucked such handfuls of his hair Out of his head that he was nearly bald. But Enoch laughed, and said, 'Well done, my girl. ' And so the two shook hands and made it up. "

In 1869 Lewis Carroll published a little book of rhymes called_Phantasmagoria_. It related chiefly to Oxford. Partly because it wasanonymous, partly because it was mainly topical, the book had nosuccess. But it contained two or three parodies which deserve to rankwith the best in the language. One is an imitation of a ballad inblack-letter called

 "YE CARPETTE KNYGHTE. 

 "I have a horse--a ryghte goode horse-- Ne doe I envye those Who scoure ye playne yn headye course Tyll soddayne on theyre nose They lyghte wyth unexpected force-- Yt ys a Horse of Clothes. "

Then, again, there is excellent metaphysical fooling in _The ThreeVoices_. But far the best parody in the book--and the most richlydeserved by the absurdity of its original--is _Hiawatha'sPhotographing_. It has the double merit of absolute similarity incadence and lifelike realism. Unluckily the limits of space forbidcomplete citation:--

 "From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing. But he opened out the hinges, Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges, Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the Second Book of Euclid. This he perched upon a tripod, And the family in order Sate before him for their portraits. 

 * * * * *

 Each in turn, as he was taken, Volunteered his own suggestions, His ingenious suggestions. First the Governor, the Father: He suggested velvet curtains, And the corner of a table, Of a rosewood dining-table. He would hold a scroll of something, Hold it firmly in his left hand; He would keep his right hand buried (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat; He would contemplate the distance With a look of pensive meaning, As of ducks that die in tempests. Grand, heroic was the notion, Yet the picture failed entirely, Failed, because he moved a little; Moved, because he couldn't help it. "

Who does not know that Father in the flesh? and who has not seenhim--velvet curtains, dining-table, scroll, and all--on the mostconspicuous wall of the Royal Academy? The Father being disposed of, "Next his better half took courage, She would have her picture taken. "

But her restlessness and questionings proved fatal to the result. 

 "Next the son, the Stunning-Cantab: He suggested curves of beauty, Curves pervading all his figure, Which the eye might follow onward Till they centered in the breastpin, Centered in the golden breastpin. He had learnt it all from Ruskin, Author of the _Stones of Venice_. "

But, in spite of such culture, the portrait was a failure, and the eldersister fared no better. Then the younger brother followed, and hisportrait was so awful that--

 "In comparison the others Seemed to one's bewildered fancy To have partially succeeded. "

Undaunted by these repeated failures, Hiawatha, by a great final effort, "tumbled all the tribe together" in the manner of a family group, and--

 "Did at last obtain a picture Where the faces all succeeded-- Each came out a perfect likeness Then they joined and all abused it, Unrestrainedly abused it, As the worst and ugliest picture They could possibly have dreamed of; 'Giving one such strange expressions-- Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. Really any one would take us (Any one that didn't know us) For the most unpleasant people. ' Hiawatha seemed to think so, Seemed to think it not unlikely. "

How true to life is this final touch of indignation at the unflatteringtruth! But time and space forbid me further to pursue the photographicsong of Hiawatha. 

_Phantasmagoria_ filled an aching void during the ten years whichelapsed between the appearance of _Verses and Translations_ and that of_Fly Leaves_. The latter book is small, only 124 pages in all, includingthe _Pickwick_ Examination Paper, but what marvels of mirth and poetryand satire it contains! How secure its place in the affections of allwho love the gentle art of parody! My rule is not to quote extensivelyfrom books which are widely known; but I must give myself the pleasureof repeating just six lines which even appreciative critics generallyoverlook. They relate to the conversation of the travelling tinker. 

 "Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook. Then I: 'The sun hath slipt behind the hill, And my Aunt Vivian dines at half-past six, ' So in all love we parted; I to the Hall, He to the village. It was noised next noon That chickens had been missed at Syllabub Farm. "

Will any one stake his literary reputation on the assertion that theselines are not really Tennyson's?

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Rev. Thomas Short, 1789-1879. 

XXVIII. 

PARODIES IN VERSE--_continued_. 

When I embarked upon the subject of metrical parody I said that it was ashoreless sea. For my own part, I enjoy sailing over these ripplingwaters, and cannot be induced to hurry. Let us put in for a moment atBelfast. There in 1874 the British Association held its annual meeting;and Professor Tyndall delivered an inaugural address in which he revivedand glorified the Atomic Theory of the Universe. His glowing perorationran as follows: "Here I must quit a theme too great for me to handle, but which will be handled by the loftiest minds ages after you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azureof the past. " Shortly afterwards _Blackwood's Magazine_, always famousfor its humorous and satiric verse, published a rhymed abstract ofTyndall's address, of which I quote (from memory) the concludinglines:--

 "Let us greatly honour the Atom, so lively, so wise, and so small; The Atomists, too, let us honour--Epicurus, Lucretius, and all. Let us damn with faint praise Bishop Butler, in whom many atoms combined To form that remarkable structure which it pleased him to call his mind. Next praise we the noble body to which, for the time, we belong (Ere yet the swift course of the Atom hath hurried us breathless along)-- The BRITISH ASSOCIATION--like Leviathan worshipped by Hobbes, The incarnation of wisdom built up of our witless nobs; Which will carry on endless discussion till I, and probably you, Have _melted in infinite azure_--and, in short, till all is blue. "

Surely this translation of the Professor's misplaced dithyrambics intothe homeliest of colloquialisms is both good parody and just criticism. 

In 1876 there appeared a clever little book (attributed to Sir FrederickPollock) which was styled _Leading Cases done into English, by anApprentice of Lincoln's Inn_. It appealed only to a limited public, forit is actually a collection of sixteen important law-cases set forth, with explanatory notes, in excellent verse imitated from poets great andsmall. Chaucer, Browning, Tennyson, Swinburne, Clough, Rossetti, andJames Rhoades supply the models, and I have been credibly informed thatthe law is as good as the versification. Mr. Swinburne was in those daysthe favourite butt of young parodists, and the gem of the book is thededication to "J. S. " or "John Stiles, " a mythical person, nearly relatedto John Doe and Richard Roe, with whom all budding jurists had in olddays to make acquaintance. The disappearance of the venerated initialsfrom modern law-books inspired the following:--

 "When waters are rent with commotion Of storms, or with sunlight made whole, The river still pours to the ocean The stream of its effluent soul; You, too, from all lips of all living, Of worship disthroned and discrowned, Shall know by these gifts of my giving That faith is yet found;

 "By the sight of my song-flight of cases That bears, on wings woven of rhyme, Names set for a sign in high places By sentence of men of old time; From all counties they meet and they mingle, Dead suitors whom Westminster saw; They are many, but your name is singles Pure flower of pure law. 

 * * * * *

 "So I pour you this drink of my verses, Of learning made lovely with lays, Song bitter and sweet that reheares The deeds of your eminent days; Yea, in these evil days from their reading Some profit a student shall draw, Though some points are of obsolete pleading, And some are not law. 

 "Though the Courts, that were manifold, dwindle To divers Divisions of One, And no fire from your face may rekindle The light of old learning undone, We have suitors and briefs for our payment, While, so long as a Court shall hold pleas, We talk moonshine with wigs for our raiment, Not sinking the fees. "

Some five-and-twenty years ago there appeared the first number of amagazine called _The Dark Blue_. It was published in London, but wasunderstood to represent in some occult way the thought and life of YoungOxford, and its contributors were mainly Oxford men. The first numbercontained an amazing ditty called "The Sun of my Songs. " It was dark, and mystic, and transcendental, and unintelligible. It dealt extensivelyin strange words and cryptic phrases. One verse I must transcribe:--

 "Yet all your song Is--'Ding dong, Summer is dead, Spring is dead-- O my heart, and O my head Go a-singing a silly song All wrong, For all is dead. Ding dong, And I am dead! Dong!'"

I quote thus fully because Cambridge, never backward in poking fun ather more romantic sister, shortly afterwards produced an excellentlittle magazine named sarcastically _The Light Green_, and devoted tothe ridicule of its cerulean rival. The poem from which I have justquoted was thus burlesqued, if, indeed, burlesque of such a compositionwere possible:--

 "Ding dong, ding dong, There goes the gong; Dick, come along, It is time for dinner Wash your face, Take your place. Where's your grace, You little sinner?

 "Baby cry, Wipe his eye. Baby good, Give him food. Baby sleepy, Go to bed. Baby naughty, Smack his head!"

_The Light Green_, which had only an ephemeral life, was, I have alwaysheard, entirely, or almost entirely, the work of one undergraduate, whodied young--Arthur Clement Hilton, of, St. John's. [32] He certainly hadthe knack of catching and reproducing style. In the "May Exam. , " areally good imitation of the "May Queen, " the departing undergraduatethus addresses his "gyp":--

 "When the men come up again, Filcher, and the Term is at its height, You'll never see me more in these long gay rooms at night; When the "old dry wines" are circling, and the claret-cup flows cool, And the loo is fast and furious, with a fiver in the pool. "

In 1872 "Lewis Carroll" brought out _Through the Looking-glass_, andevery one who has ever read that pretty work of poetic fancy willremember the ballad of the Walrus and the Carpenter. It was parodied in_The Light Green_ under the title of "The Vulture and the Husbandman. "This poem described the agonies of a _viva-voce_ examination, and itderived its title from two facts of evil omen--that the Vulture plucksits victim, and that the Husbandman makes his living by ploughing:--

 "Two undergraduates came up, And slowly took a seat, They knit their brows, and bit their thumbs, As if they found them sweet; And this was odd, because, you know, Thumbs are not good to eat. 

 "'The time has come, ' the Vulture said, 'To talk of many things-- Of Accidence and Adjectives, And names of Jewish Kings; How many notes a Sackbut has, And whether Shawms have strings. '

 "'Please sir, ' the Undergraduates said, Turning a little blue, 'We did not know that was the sort Of thing we had to do. ' 'We thank you much, ' the Vulture said; 'Send up another two. '"

The base expedients to which an examination reduces its victims are hitoff with much dexterity in "The Heathen Pass-ee, " a parody of anAmerican poem which is too familiar to justify quotation:--

 "Tom Crib was his name, And I shall not deny, In regard to the same, What that name might imply; But his face it was trustful and childlike, And he had the most innocent eye. 

 * * * * *

 "On the cuffs of his shirt He had managed to get What we hoped had been dirt, But which proved, I regret, To be notes on the Rise of the Drama A question invariably set. 

 "In the crown of his cap Were the Furies and Fates, And a delicate map Of the Dorian States; And we found in his palms, which were hollow, What are frequent in palms--that is, dates. "

Deservedly dear to the heart of English youth are the Nonsense Rhymesof Edward Lear. It will be recollected that the form of the verse asoriginally constructed reproduced the final word of the first line atthe end of the fifth, thus:--

 "There was an old person of Basing Whose presence of mind was amazing; He purchased a steed Which he rode at full speed, And escaped from the people of Basing. "

But in the process of development it became usual to find a new word forthe end of the fifth line, thus at once securing a threefold rhyme andintroducing the element of unexpectedness, instead of inevitableness, into the conclusion. Thus _The Light Green_ sang of the Colleges inwhich it circulated--

 "There was an old Fellow of Trinity, A Doctor well versed in divinity; But he took to free-thinking, And then to deep drinking, And so had to leave the vicinity. "

And--

 "There was a young genius of Queen's Who was fond of explosive machines; He blew open a door, But he'll do so no more-- For it chanced that that door was the Dean's. "

And--

 "There was a young gourmand of John's Who'd a notion of dining off swans; To the "Backs" he took big nets To capture the cygnets, But was told they were kept for the Dons. "

So far _The Light Green_. 

Not at all dissimilar in feeling to these ebullitions of youthful fancywere the parodies of nursery rhymes which the lamented Corney Graininvented for one of his most popular entertainments, and used toaccompany on the piano in his own inimitable style. I well remember theopening verse of one, in which an incident in the social career of aLiberal millionaire was understood to be immortalized:--

 "Old Mr. Parvenu gave a great ball, And of all his smart guests he knew no one at all; Old Mr. Parvenu went up to bed, And his guests said good-night to the butler instead. "

Twenty years ago we were in the crisis of the great Jingo fever, andLord Beaconsfield's antics in the East were frightening all sobercitizens out of their senses. It was at that period that the music-hallsrang with the "Great MacDermott's" Tyrtaean strain--

 "We don't want to fight; but, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too;"

and the word "Jingo" took its place in the language as the recognizedsymbol of a warlike policy. At Easter 1878 it was announced that theGovernment were bringing black troops from India to Malta, to aid ourEnglish forces in whatever enterprises lay before them. The refrain ofthe music-hall was instantly adapted with great effect, even the grave_Spectator_ giving currency to the parody--

 "We don't want to fight; but, by Jingo, if we do, We won't go to the front ourselves, but we'll send the mild Hindoo. "

Two years passed. Lord Beaconsfield was deposed. The tide of popularfeeling turned in favour of Liberalism, and "Jingo" became a term ofreproach. Mr. Tennyson, as he then was, endeavoured to revive thepatriotic spirit of his countrymen by publishing _Hands all Round_--apoem which had the supreme honour of being quoted in the House ofCommons by Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett. Forthwith an irreverentparodist--some say Mr. Andrew Lang--appeared with the followingcounterblast:--

DRINKS ALL ROUND. 

(Being an attempt to arrange Mr. Tennyson's noble words for trulypatriotic, Protectionist, and Anti-aboriginal circles. )

 "A health to Jingo first, and then A health to shell, a health to shot! The man who hates not other men I deem no perfect patriot. " To all who hold all England mad We drink; to all who'd tax her food! We pledge the man who hates the Rad, We drink to Bartle Frere and Froude!

 Drinks all round! Here's to Jingo, king and crowned! To the great cause of Jingo drink, my boys, And the great name of Jingo, round and round. 

 To all the companies that long To rob, as folk robbed years ago; To all that wield the double thong, From Queensland round to Borneo! To all that, under Indian skies, Call Aryan man a "blasted nigger;" To all rapacious enterprise; To rigour everywhere, and vigour!

 Drinks all round! Here's to Jingo, king and crowned! To the great name of Jingo drink, my boys, And every filibuster, round and round!

 To all our Statesmen, while they see An outlet new for British trade, Where British fabrics still may be With British size all overweighed; Wherever gin and guns are sold We've scooped the artless nigger in; Where men give ivory and gold, We give them measles, tracts, and gin. 

 Drinks all round! Here's to Jingo, king and crowned! To the great name of Jingo drink, my boys. And to Adulteration round and round. 

The Jingo fever having abated, another malady appeared in the bodypolitic. Trouble broke out in Ireland, and in January 1881 Parliamentwas summoned to pass Mr. Forster's Coercion Act. My diary for that datesupplies me with the following excellent imitation of a veteran Poet ofFreedom rushing with ardent sympathy into the Irish struggle. 

A L'IRLANDE. 

PAR VICTOR HUGO. 

 O Irlande, grand pays du shillelagh et du bog, Où les patriots vont toujours ce qu'on appelle le whole hog. Aujourd'hui je prends la plume, moi qui suis vieux, Pour dire au grand patriot Parnell, "How d'ye do?" Erin, aux armes! le whisky vous donne la force De se battre l'un pour l'autre comme les fameux Frères Corses. Votre Land League et vos Home Rulers sont des libérateurs. Payez la valuation de Griffith et n'ayez pas peur. 

 De la tenure la fixité c'est l'astre de vos rêves, Que Rory des Collines vit et que les landgrabbers crèvent Moi, je suis vieux, mais dans l'ombre je vois clair, Bientôt serez-vous maîtres de vos bonnes pommes de terre. C'est le brave Biggar, le T. P. O'Connor et les autres Qui sont vos sauveurs, comme Gambetta était le nôtre; Suivez-les, et la victoire sera toujours à vous, Si à Milbank ce cher Forster ne vous envoie pas. Hooroo!

By the time that these lines were written the late Mr. J. K. Stephen--affectionately known by his friends as "Jem Stephen"--wasbeginning to be recognized as an extraordinarily good writer of humorousverse. His performances in this line were not collected till ten yearslater (_Lapsus Calami_, 1891), and his brilliant career was cut short, by the results of an accident, in 1892. I reproduce the followingsonnet, not only because I think it an excellent criticism aptlyexpressed, but because I desire to pay my tribute of admiration to oneof whom all men spoke golden words:--

 "Two voices are there: one is of the deep-- It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep; And one is of an old, half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That glass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep; And, Wordsworth, both are thine. "

I hope that there are few among my readers who have not in their timeknown and loved the dear old ditty which tells us how

 "There was a youth, and a well-beloved youth, And he was a squire's son, And he loved the Bailiff's daughter dear Who dwelt at Islington. "

Well, to all who have followed that touching story of love and grief Icommend the following version of it. French, after all, is the truelanguage of sentiment:--

 "Il y avait un garçon, Fort amiable et fort bon, Qui était le fils du Lord Mayor; Et il aimait la fille D'un sergent de ville Qui demeurait à Leycesster Sqvare. 

 "Mais elle était un peu prude, Et n'avait pas l'habitude De coqueter, comme les autres demoiselles; Jusqu'à ce que le Lord Mayor (Homme brutal, comme tous les pères) L'éloigna de sa tourterelle. 

 "Après quelques ans d'absence, Au rencontre elle s'élance; Elle se fait une toilette de très bon goût-- Des pantoufles sur les pieds, Des lunettes sur le nez, Et un collier sur le cou--c'était tout. 

 "Mais bientôt elle s'assit Dans la rue Piccadilli, Car il faisait extrêmement chaud; Et là elle vit s'avancer L'unique objet de ses pensées, Sur le plus magnifique de chevaux!

 "Je suis pauvre et sans ressource! Prête, prête-moi ta bourse, Ou ta montre, pour me montrer confiance. ' 'Jeune femme, je ne vous connais, Ainsi il faut me donner Une adresse et quelques références'

 "'Mon adresse--c'est Leycesster Sqvare, Et pour référence j'espère Que la statue de Shakespeare vous suffira, ' 'Ah! connais-tu ma mie, La fille du sergent?' 'Si; Mais elle est morte comme un rat!'

 "'Si défunte est ma belle, Prenez, s'il vous plaît, ma selle, Et ma bride, et mon cheval incomparable; Car il ne faut rien dire, Mais vite, vite m'ensevelir Dans un désert sec et désagréable. '

 "'Ah! mon brave, arrête-toi. Je suis ton unique choix; La fille du sergent sans peur! Pour mon trousseau, c'est modeste, Vous le voyez! Pour le reste, Je t'épouse dans une demi-heure!'

 "Mais le jeune homme épouvanté Sur son cheval vite remontait, La liberté lui était trop chère! Et la pauvre fille dégoûtée N'avait qu'à reprendre sa route, et Son adresse est encore Leycesster Sqvare. "

The chiefs of the Permanent Civil Service are not usually, as Swiftsaid, "blasted with poetic fire, " but this delightful ditty is from thepen of Mr. Henry Graham, the Clerk of the Parliaments. 

Of the metrical parodists of the present hour two are extremely good. Mr. Owen Seaman is, beyond and before all his rivals, "up to date, " andpokes his lyrical fun at such songsters as Mr. Alfred Austin, Mr. William Watson, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, and Mr. Richard Le Gallienne. But"Q. " is content to try his hand on poets of more ancient standing; andhe is not only of the school but of the lineage of "C. S. C. " I have saidbefore that I forbear, as a rule, to quote from books as easilyaccessible as _Green Bays;_ but is there a branch of the famous "OmarKhayyám Club" in Manchester? If there be, to it I offer this deliciousmorsel, only apologizing to the uninitiated reader for the pregnantallusiveness, which none but a sworn Khayyámite can perfectlyapprehend:--

MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 

 Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept, And wailed the Nightingale with "Jug, jug, jug!" Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept. 

 Enter with me where yonder door hangs out Its Red Triangle to a world of drought, Inviting to the Palace of the Djinn, Where death, Aladdin, waits as Chuckeroût. 

 Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe Stood by the Tavern-door and whispered, "Lo! The Pledge departed, what avails the Cup? Then take the Pledge and let the Wine-cup go. "

 But I: "For every thirsty soul that drains This Anodyne of Thought its rim contains-- Freewill the _can_, Necessity the _must;_ Pour off the _must_, and see, the _can_ remains. 

 "Then, pot or glass, why label it '_With care?'_ Or why your Sheepskin with my Gourd compare? Lo! here the Bar and I the only Judge:-- O Dog that bit me, I exact an hair!"

No versifier of the present day lends himself so readily to parody asMr. Kipling. His "Story of Ung" is an excellent satire on certainmethods of contemporary literature:--

 "Once on a glittering icefield, ages and ages ago, Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow. Fashioned the form of a tribesman; gaily he whistled and sung, Working the snow with his fingers, '_Read ye the story of Ung!_'

 * * * * *

 And the father of Ung gave answer, that was old and wise in the craft, Maker of pictures aforetime, he leaned on his lance and laughed: 'If they could see as thou seest they would do as thou hast done, And each man would make him a picture, and--what would become of my son?'"

So far Mr. Kipling. A parodist writing in _Truth_ applies the same"criticism of life" to commercial production:--

 THE STORY OF BUNG. 

 Once, ere the glittering icefields paid us a tribute of gold, Bung, the son of a brewer, heir to a fortune untold-- Vast was his knowledge of brewing--gaily began his career. Whispered the voice of ambition, "Perhaps they will make thee a peer. "

 People who sampled his liquor wunk an incredulous wink, Smelt it, then drank it, and grunted, "Verily _this_ is a drink!" Even the Clubman admitted, wetting the tip of his tongue, "Lo! it is excellent beer! Glory and honour to Bung!"

 Straightway the doubters assembled, a prying, unsatisfied horde: "It is _said_ the materials used are approved by the Revenue Board; It is claimed that no adjuncts are used, the advertisements say it is pure; True, the beer is good--and it may be--but can the consumer be sure?"

 Wroth was that brewer of liquor, knowing the doubters were right, User of chemical adjuncts, and methods that bear not the light; Little he recked of disclosures, much of the profits he cleared, So in the ear of his father whispered the thing that he feared. 

 And the father of Bung gave answer, that was old and wise in the craft, "If they cast suspicion upon thee, it is nought but a random shaft; If others could know what thou knowest, they would do what thou hast done, And men would drink of their brewing, and--what would become of my son?

 "So long as thy beer is best, so long shall thy brewing win The praise no money can buy, and the money that praise brings in. And if the majority's pleased, the majority does not mind The _how_, and the _what_, and the _whence_. Rejoice that the public is blind. "

 And Bung took his father's counsel, and fell to his brewing of beer, And he gave the Government cheques, and the Government made him a peer, And the doubters ceased from their doubting, loudly his praises they sung, Cursing their previous blindness. _Heed ye the story of Bung!_

But no effort of intentional parody can, I think, surpass this seriousadaptation of the "March of the Men of Harlech" to the ecclesiasticalcrisis of 1898-9:--

A PROTESTANT BATTLE-SONG;

OR, PASTORAL ADDRESS TO CHRISTIAN BRETHREN. 

 Sons of Freedom, rouse the Nation! Or Britain's glorious Reformation Soon will reach dire consummation! God defend the right! Shall false traitor-bishops lead us, Chained to Rome, and madly speed us, From the Word of God which freed us, Unto Papal night? False example setting, Treachery begetting, Temple, Halifax, Maclagan, Now with Rome coquetting. Mighty House of Convocation Thou art not the British Nation! Every warrior to your station; Freedom calls for fight!

 Cuba, Spain, and Madagascar, Where the Jesuits are master, Shout our shame in their disaster, -- What shall Britain say? Rome, thy smile is cold as Zero. Drop the mask, thou crafty Nero! Britons! rouse ye! Play the Hero! Right shall win the day! False example setting, Treachery begetting, Temple, Halifax, Maclagan, Now with Rome coquetting. Trust in God! His truth protecting, Prayer and duty ne'er neglecting, Fearless, victory expecting, Prepare you for the fray!

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Born 1851; ordained 1874; died 1877. 

XXIX. 

VERBAL INFELICITIES. 

"_Se non è vero_, " said a very great Lord Mayor, "_è ben traviata_. " Hislordship's linguistic slip served him right. Latin is fair play, thoughsome of us are in the condition of the auctioneer in _The Mill on theFloss_, who had brought away with him from the Great Mudport Free School"a sense of understanding Latin generally, though his comprehension ofany particular Latin was not ready. " But to quote from any otherlanguage is to commit an outrage on your guests. The late Sir RobertFowler was, I believe, the only Lord Mayor who ever ventured to quoteGreek, but I have heard him do it, and have seen the turtle-fed companysmile with alien lips in the painful attempt to look as if theyunderstood it, and in abject terror lest their neighbour should ask themto translate. Mr. James Payn used to tell a pleasing tale of a learnedclergyman who quoted Greek at dinner. The lady who was sitting by Mr. Payn inquired in a whisper what one of these quotations meant. He gaveher to understand, with a well-assumed blush, that it was scarcely fitfor a lady's ear. "Good heavens!" she exclaimed; "you don't mean tosay----" "Please don't ask any more, " said Payn pleadingly; "I reallycould not tell you. " Which was true to the ear, if not to the sense. 

Municipal eloquence has been time out of mind a storehouse of delight. It was, according to tradition, a provincial mayor who, blessed with anumerous progeny, publicly expressed the pious hope that his sons mightgrow up to be better citizens than their father, and his daughters morevirtuous women than their mother. There was a worthy alderman at Oxfordin my time who was entertained at a public dinner on his retirement fromcivic office. In replying to the toast of his health, he said it hadalways been his anxious endeavour to administer justice without swervingto "partiality on the one hand or impartiality on the other. " Surely hemust have been near akin to the moralist who always tried to tread "thenarrow path which lay between right and wrong;" or, perchance, to thenewly-elected mayor who, in returning thanks for his elevation, saidthat during his year of office he should lay aside all his politicalprepossessions and be, "like Caesar's wife, all things to all men. " Awell-known dignitary, rebuking his housemaid for using his bath duringhis absence from the Deanery, said, "I am grieved to think that youshould do behind my back what you wouldn't do before my face;" and itwas related of my old friend Dean Burgon that once, in a sermon on thetranscendent merits of the Anglican school of theology, he exclaimed, with a fervour which was all his own, "May I live the life of a Taylor, and die the death of a Bull!" The late Lord Coleridge, eulogizingOxford, said in his most dulcet tone, "I speak not of this college or ofthat, but of the University as a whole; and, gentlemen, what a _whole_Oxford is!"

The admirable Mr. Brooke, when he purposed to contest the Borough ofMiddlemarch, found Will Ladislaw extremely useful, because he"remembered what the right quotations are--_Omne tulit punctum_, andthat sort of thing. " And certainly an apt quotation is one of the mosteffective decorations of a public speech; but the dangers ofinappositeness are correspondingly formidable. I have always heard thatthe most infelicitous quotation on record was made by the fourth LordFitzwilliam at a county meeting held at York to raise a fund for therepair of the Minster after the fire which so nearly destroyed it in1829. Previous speakers had, naturally, appealed to the piousmunificence of Churchmen. Lord Fitzwilliam, as the leading Whig of thecounty, thought that it would be an excellent move to enlist thesympathies of the rich Nonconformists, and that he was the man to do it. So he perorated somewhat after the following fashion:--"And, if theliberality of Yorkshire Churchmen proves insufficient to restore thechief glory of our native county, then, with all confidence, I turn toour excellent Dissenting brethren, and I exclaim, with the Latin poet, 'Flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta movebo. '"

Mr. Anstey Guthrie has some pleasant instances of texts misapplied. Hewas staying once in a Scotch country-house where, over his bed, hung anilluminated scroll with the inscription, "Occupy till I come, " which, asMr. Guthrie justly observes, is an unusually extended invitation, evenfor Scottish notions of hospitality. According to the same authority, the leading citizen of a seaside town erected some iron benches on thesea front, and, with the view of at once commemorating his ownmunificence and giving a profitable turn to the thoughts of the sitters, inscribed on the backs--

 THESE SEATSWERE PRESENTED TO THIS TOWN OF SHINGLETON BY JOSEPH BUGGINS, ESQ. , J. P. FOR THE BOROUGH. "THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT. "

Nothing is more deeply rooted in the mind of the average man than thatcertain well-known aphorisms of piety are to be found in theBible--possibly in that lost book the Second Epistle to the Ephesians, which Dickens must have had in his mind when he wrote in _Dombey andSon_ of the First Epistle to that Church. "In the midst of life we arein death" is a favourite quotation from this imaginary Scripture. "Hisend was peace" holds its place on many a tomb in virtue of a similarbelief. "He tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" is, I believe, commonlyattributed to Solomon; and a charming song which was popular in my youthdeclared that, though the loss of friends was sad, it would have beenmuch sadder, "Had we ne'er heard that Scripture word, 'Not lost, but gone before. '"

Mrs. Gamp, with some hazy recollections of the New Testament floating inher mind, invented the admirable aphorism that "Rich folks may ride oncamels, but it ain't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye. " Anda lady of my acquaintance, soliloquizing on the afflictions of life andthe serenity of her own temper, exclaimed, "How true it is what Solomonsays, 'A contented spirit is like a perpetual dropping on a rainy day'!"

A Dissenting minister, winding up a week's mission, is reported to havesaid, "And if any spark of grace has been kindled by these exercises, oh, we pray Thee, water that spark. " A watered spark is good, but whatof a harnessed volcano? When that eminent Civil servant, Sir Hugh Owen, retired from the Local Government Board, a gentleman wrote to the _DailyChronicle_ in favour of "harnessing this by no means extinct volcano tothe great task" of codifying the Poor Law. An old peasant-woman inBuckinghamshire, extolling the merits of her favourite curate, said tothe rector, "I do say that Mr. Woods is quite an angel in sheep'sclothing;" and Dr. Liddon told me of a Presbyterian minister who wascalled on at short notice to officiate at the parish church of Crathiein the presence of the Queen, and, transported by this tremendousexperience, burst forth in rhetorical supplication--"Grant that as shegrows to be an old woman she may be made a new man; and that in allrighteous causes she may go forth before her people like a he-goat onthe mountains. "

Undergraduates, whose wretched existence for a week before eachexamination is spent in the hasty acquisition of much ill-assorted andindigestible knowledge, are not seldom the victims of similarconfusions. At Oxford--and, for all I know, at Cambridge too--a hideouscustom prevails of placing before the examinee a list of isolated texts, and requiring him to supply the name of the speaker, the occasion, andthe context. 

_Question_. --"'My punishment is greater than I can bear. ' Who said this?Under what circumstances?"

_Answer_. --"Agag, when he was hewn in pieces. "

One wonders at what stage of the process he began to think it was goinga little too far. 

"What is faith?" inquired an examiner in "Pass-Divinity. " "Faith is thefaculty by which we are enabled to believe that which we know is nottrue, " replied the undergraduate, who had learned his definition byheart, but imperfectly, from a popular cram-book. A superficialknowledge of literature may sometimes be a snare. "Can you give me anyparticulars of Oliver Cromwell's death?" asked an Examiner in History in1874. "Oh yes, sir, " eagerly replied the victim: "he exclaimed, 'Had Ibut served my God as I have served my King, He would not in mine agehave left me naked to mine enemies. '"

"Things one would rather have expressed differently" are, I believe, adiscovery of Mr. Punch's. Of course he did not create them. They must beas old as human nature itself. The history of their discovery is notunlike that of another epoch-making achievement of the same greatgenius, as set forth in the preface to the _Book of Snobs_. First, theworld was made; then, as a matter of course, snobs; they existed foryears and years, and were no more known than America. Butpresently--_ingens patebat tellus_--people became darkly aware thatthere was such a race. Then in time a name arose to designate that race. That name has spread over England like railroads. Snobs are known andrecognised throughout an Empire on which the sun never sets. _Punch_appeared at the ripe season to chronicle their history, and theindividual came forth to write that history in _Punch_. We may applythis historical method to the origin and discovery of "Things one wouldrather have expressed differently. " They must have existed as long aslanguage; they must have flourished wherever men and women encounteredone another in social intercourse. But the glory of having discoveredthem, recognized them, classified them, and established them among thepermanent sources of human enjoyment belongs to Mr. Punch alone. 

 "He was the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. "

Let us humbly follow in his wake. 

We shall see later on that no department of human speech is altogetherfree from "Things one would rather have expressed differently;" but, naturally, the great bulk of them belong to social conversation; and, just as the essential quality of a "bull" is that it expressessubstantial sense in the guise of verbal nonsense, so the social "Thingone would rather have expressed differently" must, to be reallyprecious, show a polite intention struggling with verbal infelicity. Mr. Corney Grain, narrating his early experiences as a social entertainer, used to describe an evening party given by the Dowager Duchess of S----at which he was engaged to play and sing. Late in the evening the youngDuke of S---- came in, and Mr. Grain heard his mother prompting him inan anxious undertone: "Pray go and say something civil to Mr. Grain. Youknow he's quite a gentleman--not a common professional person. " Thusinstructed, the young Duke strolled up to the piano and said, "Good-evening, Mr. Grain. I'm sorry I am so late, and have missed yourperformance. But I was at Lady ----'s. _We had a dancing-dog there. _"

The married daughter of one of the most brilliant men of QueenVictoria's reign has an only child. An amiable matron of heracquaintance, anxious to be thoroughly kind, said, "O Mrs. W----, I hearthat you have such a clever little boy. " Mrs. W. , beaming with amother's pride, replied, "Well, yes, I think Roger is rather a sharplittle fellow. " "Yes, " replied her friend. "How often one seesthat--the talent skipping a generation!" A stately old rector inBuckinghamshire--a younger son of a great family--whom I knew well in myyouth, had, and was justly proud of, a remarkably pretty andwell-appointed rectory. To him an acquaintance, coming for the firsttime to call, genially exclaimed, "What a delightful rectory! Really astranger arriving in the village, and not knowing who lived here, wouldtake it for a gentleman's house. " One of our best-known novelists, themost sensitively courteous of men, arriving very late at a dinner-party, was overcome with confusion--"I am truly sorry to be so shockinglylate. " The genial hostess, only meaning to assure him that he was notthe last, emphatically replied "O, Mr. ----, you can't come too late. " Amember of the present[33] Cabinet was engaged with his wife and daughterto dine at a friend's house in the height of the season. The daughterfell ill at the last moment, and her parents first telegraphed herexcuses for dislocating the party, and then repeated them earnestly onarriving. The hostess, receiving them with the most cordial sympathy, exclaimed, "Oh, it doesn't matter in the least to us; we are only sosorry for your daughter. " An eminent authoress, who lives not a hundredmiles from Richmond Hill, was asked, in my hearing, if she had been to"write her name" at White Lodge, in Richmond Park (then occupied by theDuchess of Took), on the occasion of an important event in the Duchess'sfamily. She replied that she had not, because she did not know theDuchess, and saw no use in adding another stranger's signature to theenormous list. "Oh, that's a pity, " was the rejoinder; "the Royal Familythink more of the quantity of names than the quality. "

In all these cases the courtesy of the intention was manifest; butsometimes it is less easy to discover. Not long ago Sir Henry Tryingmost kindly went down to one of our great Public Schools to give someShakespearean recitations. Talking over the arrangements with the HeadMaster, who was not a man of felicities and facilities, he said, "Eachpiece will take about an hour; and there must be fifteen minutes'interval between the two. " "Oh! certainly, " replied the Head Master;"you couldn't expect the boys to stand two hours of it without a break. "The newly appointed rector of one of the chief parishes in London wasentertained at dinner by a prominent member of the congregation. Conversation turned on the use of stimulants as an aid to intellectualand physical effort, and Mr. Gladstone's historic egg-flip was cited. "Well, for my own part, " said the divine, "I am quite independent ofthat kind of help. The only occasion in my life when I used anything ofthe sort was when I was in for my tripos at Cambridge, and then, by thedoctor's order, I took a strong dose of strychnine, in order to clearthe brain. " The hostess, in a tone of the deepest interest, inquired, "How soon did the effect pass off?" and the rector, a man of academicaldistinction, who had done his level best in his inaugural sermons on theprevious Sunday, didn't half like the question. 

Not long ago I was dining with one of the City Companies. On my rightwas another guest--a member of the Worshipful Company of Butchers. Wehad a long and genial conversation on topics relevant to Smithfield, when, in the midst of it, I was suddenly called on to return thanks forthe visitors. The chairman, in proposing the toast, was good enough tospeak of my belongings and myself in flattering terms, to which I hopethat I suitably responded. When I resumed my seat my butcher friendexclaimed, with the most obvious sincerity, "I declare, sir, I'm quiteashamed of myself. To think that I have been sitting alongside of agentleman all the evening, and never found it out!"

The doorkeepers and attendants at the House of Commons are all oldservants, who generally have lived in great families, and have obtainedtheir places through influential recommendations. One of these fine oldmen encountered, on the opening day of a new Parliament, a young sprigof a great family who had just been for the first time elected to theHouse of Commons, and thus accosted him, with tears in his eyes: "I amglad indeed, sir, to see you here; and when I think that I helped to putyour noble grandfather and grandmother both into their coffins, it makesme feel quite at home with you. " Never, surely, was a political careermore impressively auspicated. 

These Verbal Infelicities are by no means confined to socialintercourse. Lord Cross, when the House laughed at his memorable speechin favour of Spiritual Peers, exclaimed in solemn remonstrance, "I heara smile. " When the Bishop of Southwell, preaching in the London Missionof 1885, began his sermon by saying, "I feel a feeling which I feel youall feel, " it is only fair to assume that he said something which hewould rather have expressed differently. Quite lately I heard an Irishrhetorician exclaim, "If the Liberal Party is to maintain its position, it must move forward. " A clerical orator, fresh from a signal triumph ata Diocesan Conference, informed me, together with some hundreds ofother hearers, that when his resolution was put "quite a shower of handswent up;" and at a missionary meeting I once heard that impressivepersonage, "the Deputation from the Parent Society, " involve himselfvery delightfully in extemporaneous imagery. He had been explaining thathere in England we hear so much of the rival systems and operations ofthe Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Church MissionarySociety that we are often led to regard them as hostile institutions;whereas if, as he himself had done, his hearers would go out to themission-field and observe the working of the societies at closequarters, they would find them to be in essential unison. "Even so, " heexclaimed; "as I walked in the beautiful park which adjoins your townto-day, I noticed what appeared at a distance to be one gigantic tree. It was only when I got close to it and sat down under its branches thatI perceived that what I had thought was one tree was really twotrees--as completely distinct in origin, growth, and nature as if theyhad stood a hundred miles apart. " No one in the audience (besidesmyself) noticed the infelicity of the illustration; nor do I think thatthe worthy "Deputation, " if he had perceived it, would have had thepresence of mind to act as a famous preacher did in like circumstances, and, throwing up his hands, exclaim, "Oh, blessed contrast!"

But it does not always require verbal infelicity to produce a "Thing onewould rather have expressed differently. " The mere misplacement of acomma will do it. A distinguished graduate of Oxford determined to enterthe Nonconformist ministry, and, quite unnecessarily, published amanifesto setting forth his reasons and his intentions. In hisenumeration of the various methods by which he was going to mark hisaloofness from the sacerdotalism of the Established Church, he wrote; "Ishall wear no clothes, to distinguish me from my fellow-Christians. "Need I say that all the picture-shops of the University promptlydisplayed a fancy portrait of the newly fledged minister clad in whatArtemus Ward called "the scandalous style of the Greek slave, " andbearing the unkind inscription--"The Rev. X. Y. Z. Distinguishing himselffrom his fellow-Christians"? If a comma too much brought ruin into Mr. Z. 's allocution, a comma too little was the undoing of a well-rememberedadvertisement. "A PIANO for sale by a lady about to leave England in anoak case with carved legs. "

An imperfect sympathy with the prepossessions of one's environment mayoften lead the unwary talker to give a totally erroneous impression ofhis meaning. Thus the Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford once brought anIndian army chaplain to dine at the high table of Oriel, and in thecommon room after dinner the Fellows courteously turned the conversationto the subject of life and work in India, on which the chaplain heldforth with fluency and zest. When he had made an end of speaking, theProfessor of Anglo-Saxon, who was not only a very learned scholar butalso a very devout clergyman, leaned forward and said, "I am a littlehard of hearing, sir, but from what I could gather I rejoice to inferthat you consider the position of an army chaplain in India a hopefulfield. " "Hopeful field indeed, " replied the chaplain; "I should ratherthink so! You begin at £400 a year. "

A too transparent honesty which reveals each transient emotion throughthe medium of suddenly chosen words is not without its perils. None thatheard it could ever forget Norman Macleod's story of the Presbyterianminister who, when he noticed champagne-glasses on the dinner-table, began his grace, "Bountiful Jehovah!" but, when he saw onlyclaret-glasses, subsided into, "We are not worthy of the least of Thymercies. " I deny the right of Bishop Wilberforce in narrating this storyin his diary to stigmatize this good man as "gluttonous. " He was simplyhonest, and his honesty led him into one of those "Things one wouldrather have expressed differently. " But, however expressed, the meaningwould have been the same, and equally sound. 

Absence of mind, of course, conversationally slays its thousands, thoughperhaps more by the way of "Things one would rather have left unsaid"than by "Things one would rather have expressed differently. " The lateArchbishop Trench, a man of singularly vague and dreamy habits, resignedthe See of Dublin on account of advancing years, and settled in London. He once went back to pay a visit to his successor, Lord Plunket. Findinghimself back again in his old palace, sitting at his old dinner-table, and gazing across it at his old wife, he lapsed in memory to the dayswhen he was master of the house, and gently remarked to Mrs. Trench, "Iam afraid, my love, that we must put this cook down among our failures. "Delight of Lord and Lady Plunket!

Medical men are sometimes led by carelessness of phrase into givingtheir patients shocks. The country doctor who, combining in hismorning's round a visit to the Squire and another to the Vicar, saidthat he was trying to kill two birds with one stone, would probably haveexpressed himself differently if he had premeditated his remark; and aLondon physician who found his patient busy composing a book ofRecollections, and asked, "Why have you put it off so long?" uttered a"Thing one would rather have left unsaid. " The "donniest" of Oxford donsin an unexampled fit of good nature once undertook to discharge theduties of the chaplain of Oxford Jail during the Long Vacation. Unluckily it so fell out that he had to perform the terrible office ofpreparing a criminal for execution, and it was felt that he said a"Thing one would rather have expressed differently, " when, at the closeof his final interview, he left the condemned cell, observing, "Well, ateight o'clock to-morrow morning, then. "

The path of those who inhabit Courts is thickly beset with pitfalls. There are so many things that must be left unsaid, and so many more thatmust be expressed differently. Who does not know the "Copper Horse" atWindsor--that equestrian statue at the end of the Long Walk to which(and back again) the local flyman always offers to drive the tourist?Queen Victoria was entertaining a great man, who, in the afternoon, walked from the Castle to Cumberland Lodge. At dinner her Majesty, full, as always, of gracious solicitude for the comfort of her guests, said, "I hope you were not tired by your long walk?" "Oh, not at all, thankyou, ma'am. I got a lift back as far as the Copper Horse. " "As far aswhat?" inquired her Majesty, in palpable astonishment. "Oh, the CopperHorse, at the end of the Long Walk!" "That's not a copper horse. That'smy grandfather!"

A little learning is proverbially dangerous, and often lures vaguepeople into unsuspected perils. One of the most charming ladies of myacquaintance, remonstrating with her mother for letting the fire go outon a rather chilly day, exclaimed, "O dear mamma, how could you be socareless? If you had been a Vestal Virgin you would have been brickedup. " When the London County Council first came into existence, it usedto assemble in the Guildhall, and the following dialogue took placebetween a highly cultured councillor and one of his commercialcolleagues. 

_Cultured Councillor_. "The acoustics of this place seem very bad. "

_Commercial Councillor (sniffing)_. "Indeed, sir? I haven't perceivedanything unpleasant. "

A well-known lady had lived for some years in a house in Harley Streetwhich contained some fine ornamentation by Angelica Kauffmann, and, onmoving to another quarter of the town, she loudly lamented the loss ofher former drawing-room, "for it was so beautifully painted by FraAngelico. "

Mistakes of idiom are the prolific parents of error, or, as Mrs. Lirriper said, with an admirable confusion of metaphors, breed fruitfulhot water for all parties concerned. "The wines of this hotel leave onenothing to hope for, " was the alluring advertisement of a Swissinnkeeper who thought that his vintages left nothing to be desired. LadyDufferin, in her Reminiscences of Viceregal Life, has some excellentinstances of the same sort. "Your Enormity" is a delightful variant on"Your Excellency;" and there is something really pathetic in the Baboo'sbenediction, "You have been very good to us, and may Almighty God giveyou tit for tat. " But to deride these errors of idiom scarcely lies inthe mouth of an Englishman. A friend of mine, wishing to express hisopinion that a Frenchman was an idiot, told him that he was a"cretonne. " Lord R----, preaching at the French Exhibition, implored hishearers to come and drink of the "eau de vie;" and a good-naturedCockney, complaining of the incivility of French drivers, said, "It isso uncalled for, because I always try to make things pleasant bybeginning with 'Bon jour, Cochon. '" Even in our own tongue Englishmensometimes come to grief over an idiomatic proverb. In a debate inConvocation at Oxford, Dr. Liddon, referring to a concession made by theopposite side, said, "It is proverbially ungracious to look a gift horse_in the face. _" And, though the undergraduates in the gallery roared"Mouth, sir; mouth!" till they were hoarse, the Angelic Doctor neverperceived the unmeaningness of his proverb. 

Some years ago a complaint of inefficiency was preferred against aworkhouse-chaplain, and, when the Board of Guardians came to considerthe case, one of the Guardians, defending the chaplain, observed that"Mr. P---- was only fifty-two, and had a mother running about. "Commenting on this line of defence, a newspaper, which took the viewhostile to the chaplain, caustically remarked:--"On this principle, themore athletic or restless were a clergyman's relatives, the morevaluable an acquisition would he himself be to the Church. Supposingthat some Embertide a bishop were fortunate enough to secure among hiscandidates for ordination a man who, in addition to 'a mother runningabout, ' had a brother who gained prizes at Lillie Bridge, and a cousinwho pulled in the 'Varsity Eight, and a nephew who was in the SchoolEleven, to say nothing of a grandmother who had St. Vitus's Dance, andan aunt in the country whose mind wandered, then surely Dr. Liddonhimself would have to look out for his laurels. "

The "Things one would rather have expressed differently" for whichreporters are responsible are of course legion. I forbear to enlarge onsuch familiar instances as "the shattered libertine of debate, " appliedto Mr. Bernal Osborne, and "the roaring loom of the _Times_" when Mr. Lowell had spoken of the "roaring loom of time. " I content myself withtwo which occurred in my own immediate circle. A clerical uncle of minetook the Pledge in his old age, and at a public meeting stated that hisreason for so doing was that for thirty years he had been trying to curedrunkards by making them drink in moderation, but had never oncesucceeded. He was thus reported:--"The rev. Gentleman stated that hisreason for taking the Pledge was that for thirty years he had beentrying to drink in moderation, but had never once succeeded. " Anothernear relation of mine, protesting on a public platform against somemisrepresentation by opponents, said:--"The worst enemy that any causecan have to fight is a double lie in the shape of half a truth. " Thenewspaper which reported the proceedings gave the sentiment thus:--"Theworst enemy that any cause can have to fight is a double eye in theshape of half a tooth. " And, when an indignant remonstrance wasaddressed to the editor, he blandly said that he certainly had notunderstood the phrase, but imagined it must be "a quotation from an oldwriter. "

But if journalistic reporting, on which some care and thought arebestowed, sometimes proves misleading, common rumour is far moreprolific of things which would have been better expressed differently. It is now (thank goodness!) a good many years since "spelling-bees" werea favourite amusement in London drawing-rooms. The late Lady Combermere, an octogenarian dame who retained a sempiternal taste for _les petitsjeux innocents_ kindly invited a young curate whom she had been asked tobefriend to take part in a "spelling-bee. " He got on splendidly for awhile, and then broke down among the repeated "n's" in "drunkenness. "Returning crestfallen to his suburban parish, he was soon gratified byhearing the rumour that he had been turned out of a lady's house at theWest End for drunkenness. 

Shy people are constantly getting into conversational scrapes, theirtongues carrying them whither they know not, like the shy young man whowas arguing with a charming and intellectual young lady. 

_Charming Young Lady. _ "The worst of me is that I am so apt to be runaway with by an inference. "

_Shy Young Man. _ "Oh, how I wish I was an inference!"

When the late Dr. Woodford became Bishop of Ely, a rumour went beforehim in the diocese that he was a misogynist. He was staying, on hisfirst round of Confirmations, at a country house, attended by anastonishingly mild young chaplain, very like the hero of _The PrivateSecretary_. In the evening the lady of the house said archly to thisyouthful Levite, "I hope you can contradict the story which we haveheard about our new bishop, that he hates ladies. " The chaplain, in muchconfusion, hastily replied, "Oh, that is quite an exaggeration; but I dothink his Lordship feels safer with the married ladies. "

Let me conclude with a personal reminiscence of a "Thing one wouldrather have left unsaid. " A remarkably pompous clergyman who was anInspector of Schools showed me a theme on a Scriptural subject, writtenby a girl who was trying to pass from being a pupil-teacher to aschoolmistress. The theme was full of absurd mistakes, over which theinspector snorted stertorously. "Well, what do you think of that?" heinquired, when I handed back the paper. "Oh, " said I, in perfectly goodfaith, "the mistakes are bad enough, but the writing is far worse. Itreally is a disgrace. " "Oh, _my_ writing!" said the inspector; "I copiedthe theme out. " Even after the lapse of twenty years I turn hot all overwhen I recall the sensations of that moment. 

FOOTNOTES:

[33] 1897. 

XXX. 

THE ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 

It was "A. K. H. B. , " if I recollect aright, who wrote a popular essay on"The Art of Putting Things. " As I know nothing of the essay beyond itstitle, and am not quite certain about that, I shall not be guilty ofintentional plagiarism if I attempt to discuss the same subject. It isnot identical with the theme which I have just handled, for "Things onewould rather have expressed differently" are essentially things whichone might have expressed better. If one is not conscious of this at themoment, a good-natured friend is always at hand to point it out, and thepoignancy of one's regret creates the zest of the situation. Forexample, when a German financier, contesting an English borough, droveover an old woman on the polling-day, and affectionately pressed fiveshillings into her hand, saying, "Never mind, my tear, here's somethingto get drunk with, " his agent instantly pointed out that she wore theBlue Ribbon, and that her husband was an influential class-leader amongthe Wesleyans. 

But "The Art of Putting Things" includes also the things which one mighthave expressed worse, and covers the cases where a dexterous choice ofwords seems, at any rate to the speaker, to have extricated him from aconversational quandary. As an instance of this perilous art carried tohigh perfection, may be cited Abraham Lincoln's judgment on anunreadably sentimental book--"People who like this sort of thing willfind this the sort of thing they like"--humbly imitated by two eminentmen on this side of the Atlantic, one of whom is in the habit of writingto struggling authors--"Thank you for sending me your book, which Ishall lose no time in reading;" while the other prefers the lesstruthful but perhaps more flattering formula--"I have read your blankverse, _and much like it_"

The late Mr. Walter Pater was once invited to admire a hideouswedding-present, compact of ormolu and malachite. Closing his eyes, thefounder of modern aesthetics leaned back in his chair, and waving awaythe offending object, murmured in his softest tone, "Oh, very rich, veryhandsome, very expensive, I am sure. But they mustn't make any more ofthem. "

Dexterities of phrase sometimes recoil with dire effect upon theirauthor. A very popular clergyman of my acquaintance prides himself onnever forgetting an inhabitant of his parish. He was stopped one day inthe street by an aggrieved parishioner whom, to use a homely phrase, hedid not know from Adam. Ready in resource, he produced his pocket-book, and, hastily jotting down a memorandum of the parishioner's grievance, he said, with an insinuating smile, "It is so stupid of me, but I alwaysforget how to spell your name. " "J--O--N--E--S, " was the gruff response;and the shepherd and the sheep went their several ways in mutualdisgust. Perhaps the worst recorded attempt at an escape from aconversational difficulty was made by an East-end curate who speciallycultivated the friendship of the artisans. One day a carpenter arrivedin his room, and, producing a photograph, said, "I've brought you myboy's likeness, as you said you'd like to have it. "

_Curate_ (rapturously). "How awfully good of you to remember! What acapital likeness! Where is he?"

_Carpenter_. "Why, sir, don't you remember? He's dead. "

_Curate. _ "Oh yes, of course, I know that. I mean, where's the man thattook the photograph?"

The art of disguising an unpleasant truth with a graceful phrase waswell illustrated in the case of a friend of mine, not remarkable forphysical courage, of whom a tactful phrenologist pronounced that he was"full of precaution against real or imaginary danger. " It is not everyone who can tell a man he is an arrant coward without offending him. Thesame art, as applied by a man to his own shortcomings, is exemplified inthe story of the ecclesiastical dignitary who gloried in his Presence ofMind. According to Dean Stanley, who knew him well, he used to narratethe incident in the following terms:--

"A friend invited me to go out with him on the water. The sky wasthreatening, and I declined. At length he succeeded in persuading me, and we embarked. A squall came on, the boat lurched, and my friend felloverboard. Twice he sank; and twice he rose to the surface. He placedhis hands on the prow and endeavoured to climb in. There was greatapprehension lest he should upset the boat. Providentially, I hadbrought my umbrella with me, I had the _presence of mind_ to strike himtwo or three hard blows over the knuckles. He let go his hold and sank. The boat righted itself, and we were saved. "

The art of avoiding conversational unpleasantness by a graceful way ofputting things belongs, I suppose, in its highest perfection, to theEast. When Lord Dufferin was Viceroy of India, he had a "shikarry, " orsporting servant, whose special duty was to attend the visitors at theViceregal Court on their shooting excursions. Returning one day from oneof these expeditions, the shikarry encountered the Viceroy, who, full ofcourteous solicitude for his guests' enjoyment, asked: "Well, what sortof sport has Lord----had?" "Oh, " replied the scrupulously polite Indian, "the young Sahib shot divinely, but God was very merciful to thebirds. " Compare this honeyed speech with the terms in which an Englishgamekeeper would convey his opinion of a bad shot, and we are forced toadmit the social superiority of Lord Salisbury's "black man. "

If we turn from the Orient to the Occident, and from our dependencies tothe United Kingdom, the Art of Putting Things is found to flourishbetter on Irish than on Scotch or English soil. We all remember thatArchbishop Whately is said to have thanked God on his deathbed that hehad never given a penny in indiscriminate charity. Perhaps one mightfind more suitable subjects of moribund self-congratulation; and I havealways rejoiced in the mental picture of the Archbishop, in all thefrigid pomp of Political Economy, waving off the Dublin beggar with "Goaway, go away; I never give to any one in the street, " and receiving theinstantaneous rejoinder, "Then where would your reverence have me waiton you?" A lady of my acquaintance, who is a proprietress in CountyGalway, is in the habit of receiving her own rents. One day, when atenant-farmer had pleaded long and unsuccessfully for an abatement, heexclaimed as he handed over his money, "Well, my lady, all I can say isthat if I had my time over again it's not a tenant-farmer I'd be. I'dfollow one of the learn'd professions. " The proprietress gently repliedthat even in the learned professions there were losses as well as gains, and perhaps he would have found professional life as precarious asfarming. "Ah, my lady, how can that be then?" replied the son of St. Patrick. "If you're a lawyer--win or lose, you're paid. If you're adoctor--kill or cure, you're paid. If you're a priest--heaven or hell, you're paid. " Who can imagine an English farmer pleading the case for anabatement with this happy mixture of fun and satire?

"Urbane" is a word which etymologically bears witness that the ancientworld believed the arts of courtesy to be the products of the townrather than of the country. Something of the same distinction mayoccasionally be traced even in the civilization of modern England. Thehouse-surgeon of a London hospital was attending to the injuries of apoor woman whose arm had been severely bitten. As he was dressing thewound he said, "I cannot make out what sort of animal bit you. This istoo small for a horse's bite, and too large for a dog's. " "O sir, "replied the patient, "it wasn't an animal; it was _another lydy. _"Surely the force of Urbanity could no further go. On the other hand, itwas a country clergyman who, in view of the approaching Confirmation, announced that on the morning of the ceremony the young _ladies_ wouldassemble at the Vicarage and the young _women_ at the National School. 

"Let us distinguish, " said the philosopher, and certainly the arbitraryuse of the term "lady" and "gentleman" suggests some curious studies inthe Art of Putting Things. A good woman who let furnished apartments ina country town, describing a lodger who had apparently "known betterdays, " said, "I am positive she was a real born lady, for she hadn't theleast idea how to do hanything for herself; it took her hours to peelher potatoes. " Carlyle has illustrated from the annals of our criminaljurisprudence the truly British conception of "a very respectable man"as one who keeps a gig; and similarly, I recollect that in the famoustrial of Kurr and Benson, the turf-swindlers, twenty years ago, awitness testified, with reference to one of the prisoners, that he hadalways considered him a "perfect gentleman;" and, being pressed bycounsel to give his reasons for this view, said, "He had rooms at theLangham Hotel, and dined with the Lord Mayor. "

On the other hand, it would seem that in certain circles andcontingencies the "grand old name of Gentleman" is regarded as a term ofopprobrium. The late Lord Wriothesley Russell, who was for many years aCanon of Windsor, used to conduct a mission service for the Householdtroops quartered there; and one of his converts, a stalwart trooper ofthe Blues, expressing his gratitude for these voluntary ministrations, and contrasting them with the officer-like and disciplinary methods ofthe army chaplains, genially exclaimed, "But I always say there's not abit of the gentleman about you, my lord. " When Dr. Harold Browne becameBishop of Ely, he asked the head verger some questions as to where hispredecessor had been accustomed to sit in the Cathedral, what part hehad taken in the services, and so on. The verger proved quite unable tosupply the required information, and said in self-excuse, "Well, yousee, my lord, his late lordship wasn't at all a church-going gentleman;"which, being interpreted, meant that, on account of age and infirmities, Bishop Turton had long confined his ministrations to his private chapel. 

Just after a change of Government not many years ago, an officer of theRoyal Household was chatting with one of the Queen's old coachmen (whosename and location I, for obvious reasons, forbear to indicate). "Well, Whipcord, have you seen your new Master of the Horse yet?" "Yes, sir, Ihave; and I should say that his lordship is more of an indoors man. " Thephrase has a touch of genial contempt for a long-descended but effetearistocracy which tickles the democratic palate. It was not oldWhipcord, but a brother in the craft, who, when asked, during theJubilee of 1887, if he was driving any of the Imperial and Royal gueststhen quartered at Buckingham Palace, replied, with calm self-respect, "No, sir; I am the Queen's Coachman. I don't drive the riff-raff. " Itake this to be a sublime instance of the Art of Putting Things. Lingering for a moment on these back stairs of History, let me tell thetragic tale of Mr. And Mrs. M----. Mr. M---- was one of the merchantprinces of London, and Mrs. M---- had occasion to engage a newhousekeeper for their palace in Park Lane. The outgoing official wroteto her incoming successor a detailed account of the house and itsinmates. The butler was a very pleasant man. The _chef_ was inclined totipple. The lady's-maid gave herself airs; and the head housemaid was avery well principled young woman--and so on and so forth. After thesignature, huddled away in a casual postscript, came the damningsentence, "As for Mr. And Mrs. M----, they behave as well as they knowhow. " Was it by inadvertence, or from a desire to let people know theirproper place, that the recipient of this letter allowed its contents tofind their way to the children of the family?

As incidentally indicated above, a free recourse to alcoholic stimulusused to be, in less temperate days, closely associated with the culinaryart; and one of the best cooks I ever knew was urged by her mistress toattend a great meeting for the propagation of the Blue Ribbon, to beheld not a hundred miles from Southampton, and addressed by a famouspreacher of total abstinence. The meeting was enthusiastic, and the BlueRibbon was freely distributed. Next morning the lady anxiously asked hercook what effect the oratory had produced on her, and she replied, withthe evident sense of narrow escape from imminent danger, "Well, my lady, if Mr. ---- had gone on for five minutes more, I believe I should havetaken the Ribbon too; but, thank goodness! he stopped in time. "

So far, I find, I have chiefly dealt with the Art of Putting Things aspractised by the "urbane" or town-bred classes. Let me give a fewinstances of "pagan" or countrified use. A village blacksmith wasdescribing to me with unaffected pathos the sudden death of his veryaged father; "and, " he added, "the worst part of it was that I had to goand break it to my poor old mother. " Genuinely entering into my friend'sgrief, I said, "Yes; that must have been terrible. How did you breakit?" "Well, I went into her cottage and I said. 'Dad's dead. ' She said, 'What?' and I said, 'Dad's dead, and you may as well know it first aslast. '" Breaking it! Truly a curious instance of the rural Art ofPutting Things. 

A labourer in Buckinghamshire, being asked how the rector of the villagewas, replied, "Well, he's getting wonderful old; but they do tell methat his understanding's no worse than it always was"--a pagan synonymfor the hackneyed phrase that one is in full possession of one'sfaculties. This entire avoidance of flattering circumlocutions, thoughit sometimes produces these rather startling effects, gives a peculiarraciness to rustic oratory. Not long ago a member for a ruralconstituency, who had always professed the most democratic sentiments, suddenly astonished his constituents by taking a peerage. During theelection caused by his transmigration, one of his former supporters saidat a public meeting, "Mr. ---- says as how he's going to the House ofLords to leaven it. I tell you, you can't no more leaven the House ofLords by putting Mr. ---- into it than you can sweeten a cart-load ofmuck with a pot of marmalade. " During the General Election of 1892 Iheard an old labourer on a village green denouncing the evils of anEstablished Church. "I'll tell you how it is with one of these 'ereState parsons. If you take away his book, he can't preach; and if youtake away his gownd, he mustn't preach; and if you take away his screw, he'll be d----d if he'll preach. " The humour which underlies theroughness of countrified speech is often not only genuine but subtle. Ihave heard a story of a young labourer who, on his way to his day'swork, called at the registrar's office to register his father's death. When the official asked the date of the event, the son replied, "Heain't dead yet, but he'll be dead before night, so I thought it wouldsave me another journey if you would put it down now. " "Oh, that won'tdo at all, " said the registrar, "perhaps your father will live tillto-morrow. " "Well, I don't know, sir; the doctor says as he won't, andhe knows what he has given him. "

The accomplished authoress of _Country Conversations_ has put on recordsome delightful specimens of rural dialogue, culled chiefly from thelabouring classes of Cheshire. And, rising in the social scale from thelabourer to the farmer, what could be more lifelike than this tale of anill-starred wooing? "My son Tom has met with a disappointment aboutgetting married. You know he's got that nice farm at H----; so he met ayoung lady at a dance, and he was very much took up, and she seemedquite agreeable. So, as he heard she had Five Hundred, he wrote next dayto pursue the acquaintance, and her father wrote and asked Tom to comeover to S----. Eh, dear! Poor fellow! He went off in such sperrits, andhe looked so spruce in his best clothes, with a new tie and all. So nextday, when I heard him come to the gate, I ran out as pleased as couldbe; but I see in a moment he was sadly cast down. 'Why, Tom, my lad, 'says I, 'what is it?' 'Why, mother, ' says he, 'she'd understood mine wasa harable; _and she will not marry to a dairy_. '"

From Cheshire to East Anglia is a far cry, but let me give one morelesson in the Art of Putting Things, derived from that delightful writerDr. Jessopp. In one of his studies of rural life the Doctor tells, inhis own inimitable style, a story of which the moral is the necessity ofusing plain words when you are preaching to the poor. The story runsthat in the parish where he served his first curacy there was an oldfarmer on whom had fallen all the troubles of Job--loss of stock, lossof capital, eviction from his holding, the death of his wife, and thefailure of his own health. The well-meaning young curate, though full ofcompassion, could find no more novel topic of consolation than to saythat all these trials were the dispensations of Providence. On this thepoor old victim brightened up and said with a cheerful smile, "Ah yes, sir; I know that right enough. That old Providence has been against meall along; but I reckon _there's One above_ that will put a stopper onhim if he goes too far. " Evidently, as Dr. Jessopp observes, "Providence" was to the good old man a learned synonym for the devil. 

XXXI. 

CHILDREN. 

The humours of childhood include in rich abundance both Things whichwould have been better left unsaid, and Things which might have beenexpressed differently. But just now they lack their sacred bard. Thereis no one to observe and chronicle them. It is a pity, for the "heartthat watches and receives" will often find in the pleasantries ofchildhood a good deal that deserves perpetuation. 

The children of fiction are a mixed company, some lifelike and someeminently the reverse. In _Joan_ Miss Rhoda Broughton drew withunequalled skill a family of odious children. Henry Kingsley look a moregenial view of his subject, and sketched some pleasant children in_Austin Elliot_, and some delightful ones in the last chapter of_Ravenshoe_. The "Last of the Neros" in _Barchester Towers_ is admirablydrawn, and all elderly bachelors must have sympathized with good Mr. Thorne when, by way of making himself agreeable to the mother, SignoraVesey-Neroni, he took the child upon his knee, jumped her up and down, saying, "Diddle, diddle, diddle, " and was rewarded with, "I don't wantto be diddle-diddle-diddled. Let me go, you naughty old man. " Dickens'schildren are by common consent intolerable, but a quarter of a centuryago we were all thrilled by Miss Montgomery's _Misunderstood_. It iscredibly reported that an earlier and more susceptible generation wasmoved to tears by the sinfulness of Topsy and the saintliness of Eva;and the adventures of the _Fairchild Family_ enjoy a deserved popularityamong all lovers of unintentional humour. But the "sacred bard" ofchild-life was John Leech, whose twofold skill immortalized it with penand with pencil. The childish incidents and sayings which Leechillustrated were, I believe, always taken from real life. His sisters"kept an establishment, " as Mr. Dombey said--the very duplicate of thatto which little Paul was sent. "'It is not a Preparatory School by anymeans. Should I express my meaning, ' said Miss Tox with peculiarsweetness, 'if I designated it an infantine boarding-house of a veryselect description?'"

"'On an exceedingly limited and particular scale, ' suggested Mrs. Chick, with a glance at her brother. "

"'Oh! exclusion itself, ' said Miss Tox. "

The analogy may be even more closely pressed, for, as at Mrs. Pipchin'sso at Miss Leech's, "juvenile nobility itself was no stranger to theestablishment. " Miss Tox told Mr. Dombey that "the humble individual whonow addressed him was once under Mrs. Pipchin's charge;" and, similarly, the obscure writer of these papers was once under Miss Leech's. Herschool supplied the originals of all the little boys, whether greedy orgracious, grave or gay, on foot or on pony-back, in knickerbockers or innightshirts, who figure so frequently in _Punch_ between 1850 and 1864;and one of the pleasantest recollections of those distant days is thekindness with which the great artist used to receive us when, as thesupreme reward of exceptionally good conduct, we were taken to see himin his studio at Kensington. It is my rule not to quote at length fromwhat is readily accessible, and therefore I cull only one delightfulepisode from Leech's _Sketches of Life and Character_. Two little chapsare discussing the age of a third; and the one reflectively remarks, "Well, I don't 'zactly know how old Charlie is; but he must be veryold, for he blows his own nose. " Happy and far distant days, when suchan accomplishment seemed to be characteristic of a remotely future age!"Mamma, " inquired an infant aristocrat of a superlatively refinedmother, "when shall I be old enough to eat bread and cheese with aknife, and put the knife in my mouth?" But the answer is not recorded. 

The vagueness of the young with respect to the age of their elders ispleasingly illustrated by the early history of a nobleman who recentlyrepresented a division of Manchester in Parliament. His mother had amaid, who seemed to childish eyes extremely old. The children of thefamily longed to know her age, but were much too well-bred to ask aquestion which they felt would be painful; so they sought to attain thedesired end by a system of ingenious traps. The future Member forManchester chanced in a lucky hour to find in his "Book of UsefulKnowledge" the tradition that the aloe flowers only once in a hundredyears. He instantly saw his opportunity, and accosting the maid withwinning air and wheedling accent, asked insinuatingly, "Dunn, have youoften seen the aloe flower?"

The _Enfant Terrible_, though his name is imported from France, is anindigenous growth of English soil. A young husband and wife of myacquaintance were conversing in the comfortable belief that "Tommydidn't understand, " when Tommy looked up from his toys, and saidreprovingly, "Mamma, oughtn't you to have said that in French?"

The late Lord ----, who had a deformed foot, was going to visit QueenVictoria at Osborne, and before his arrival the Queen and Prince Albertdebated whether it would be better to warn the Prince of Wales and thePrincess Royal of his physical peculiarity, so as to avoid embarrassingremarks, or to leave it to their own good feeling. The latter course wasadopted. Lord ---- duly arrived. The foot elicited no remarks from theRoyal children, and the visit passed off anxiously but with success. Next day the Princess Royal asked the Queen, "Where is Lord----?" "Hehas gone back to London, dear. " "Oh! what a pity! He had promised toshow Bertie and me his foot!" They had caught him in the corridor andmade their own terms with their captive. 

In more recent years the little daughter of one of the Queen's mostconfidential advisers had the unexampled honour of being invited toluncheon with her Majesty. During the meal, an Illustrious Lady, negotiating a pigeon after the German fashion, took up one of its boneswith her finger and thumb. The little visitor, whose sense of Britishpropriety was stronger than her awe of Courts, regarded the proceedingwith wonder-dilated eyes, and then burst out, "Oh, Piggy-wiggy, Piggy-wiggy! You _are_ Piggy-wiggy. " Probably she is now languishing inthe dungeon keep of Windsor Castle. 

If the essence of the _Enfant Terrible_ is that he or she causesprofound embarrassment to the surrounding adults, the palm ofpre-eminence must be assigned to the children of a famous diplomatist, who, some twenty years ago, organized a charade and performed it withoutassistance from their elders. The scene displayed a Crusader knightreturning from the wars to his ancestral castle. At the castle gate hewas welcomed by his beautiful and rejoicing wife, to whom, after tendersalutations, he recounted his triumphs on the tented field and thenumber of paynim whom he had slain. "And I too, my lord, " replied hiswife, pointing with conscious pride to a long roll of dolls of varioussizes--"and I too, my lord, have not been idle. " _Tableau_ indeed!

The argumentative child is scarcely less trying than the _EnfantTerrible_. Miss Sellon, the foundress of English sisterhoods, adoptedand brought up in her convent at Devonport a little Irish waif who hadbeen made an orphan by the outbreak of cholera in 1849. The infant'scustoms and manners, especially at table, were a perpetual trial to acommunity of refined old maids. "Chew your food, Aileen, " said MissSellon. "If you please, mother, the whale didn't chew Jonah, " was theprompt reply of the little Romanist, who had been taught that theexamples of Holy Writ were for our imitation. Answers made inexaminations I forbear, as a rule, to quote, but one I must give, because it so beautifully illustrates the value of ecclesiasticalobservances in our elementary schools:--

_Vicar_. "Now, my dear, do you know what happened on Ascension Day?"

_Child_. "Yes, sir, please. We had buns and a swing. "

Natural childhood should know nothing of social forms, and thecoachman's son who described his father's master as "the man that ridesin dad's carriage, " showed a finely democratic instinct. But theboastful child is a very unpleasant product of nature or of art. "We'vegot a private master comes to teach us at home, but we ain't proud, because Ma says it's sinful, " quoth Morleena Kenwigs, under her mother'sinstructions, when Nicholas Nickleby gave her French lessons. The infantdaughter of a country clergyman, drinking tea in the nursery of theepiscopal Palace, boasted that at the Vicarage they had a hen which laidan egg every day. "Oh, that's nothing, " retorted the bishop's daughter;"Papa lays a foundation-stone every week. "

The precocious child, even when thoroughly well-meaning, is a source ofterror by virtue of its intense earnestness. In the days when Mauricefirst discredited the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, some learned andtheological people were discussing, in a country house near Oxford, theabstract credibility of endless pain. Suddenly the child of the house(now its owner), who was playing on the hearth-rug, looked up and said, "But how am I to know that it isn't hell already, and that I am not init?"--a question which threw a lurid light on his educational anddisciplinary experiences. Some of my readers will probably recollect the"Japanese Village" at Knightsbridge--a pretty show of Oriental wareswhich was burnt down, just at the height of its popularity, a few yearsago. On the day of its destruction I was at the house of a famousfinancier, whose children had been to see the show only two days before. One of them, an urchin of eight, immensely interested by the news of thefire, asked, not if the pretty things were burnt or the people hurt, butthis one question, "Mamma, was it insured?" Verily, _bon chat chasse derace_. The children of an excellent but unfortunate judge are said tohave rushed one day into their mother's drawing-room exclaiming, "DearMamma, may we have jam for tea? One of Papa's judgments has been upheldin the Court of Appeal. " An admirable story of commercial precocityreaches me from one of the many correspondents who have been good enoughto write to me in connection with this book. It may be commended to thepromoters of that class of company which is specially affected by thewidow, the orphan, and the curate. Two small boys, walking downTottenham Court Road, passed a tobacconist's shop. The bigger remarked, "I say, Bill, I've got a ha'penny, and, if you've got one too, we'llhave a penny smoke between us. " Bill produced his copper, and Tommydiving into the shop, promptly reappeared with a penny cigar in hismouth. The boys walked side by side for a few minutes, when the smallermildly said, "I say, Tom, when am I to have a puff? The weed's halfmine. " "Oh, you shut up, " was the business-like reply. "I'm the Chairmanof this Company, and you are only a shareholder. _You can spit. _"

Mr. H. J. Barker, who is, I believe, what Mr. Squeers called "A Educatorof Youth, " has lately given us some pleasant echoes from the BoardSchool. A young moralist recorded his judgment, that it is not cruel tokill a turkey, "if only you take it into the backyard and use a sharpknife, _and the turkey is yours!_" Another dogmatized thus: "Don'tteese cats, for firstly, it is wrong so to do; and 2nd, cats haveclawses which is longer than people think. " The following theory of theBank Holiday would scarcely commend itself to that sound economist SirJohn Lubbock:--"The Banks shut up shop, so as people can't put theirmoney in, but has to spend it. " So far the rude male: it required thegenius of feminine delicacy to define a Civil War as "one in which themilitary are unnecessarily and punctiliously civil or polite, oftenraising their helmets to each other before engaging in deadly combat. "

The joys of childhood are a theme on which a good deal of verse has beenexpended. I am far from denying that they are real, but I contend thatthey commonly take a form which is quite inconsistent with poetry, andthat the poet (like heaven) "lies about us in our infancy. " "I wishevery day in the year was a pot of jam, " was the obviously sincereexclamation of a fat little boy whom I knew, and whom Leech would havedelighted to draw. Two little London girls who had been sent by thekindness of the vicar's wife to have "a happy day in the country, "narrating their experiences on their return, said, "Oh yes, mum, we_did_ 'ave a 'appy day. We saw two pigs killed and a gentleman buried. "And the little boy who was asked if he thought he should like ahymn-book for his birthday present replied that "he _thought_ he shouldlike a hymn-book, but he _knew_ he should like a squirt. " A small cousinof mine, hearing his big brothers describe their experiences at a PublicSchool, observed with unction, "If ever I have a fag of my own, I willstick pins into him. " But now we are leaving childhood behind, andattaining to the riper joys of full-blooded boyhood. 

 "O running stream of sparkling joy To be a soaring human boy!"

exclaimed Mr. Chadband in a moment of inspiration. "In the strictestsense a boy, " was Mr. Gladstone's expressive phrase in his controversywith Colonel Dopping. For my own part, I confess to a frank dislike ofboys. I dislike them equally whether they are priggish boys, like KenelmChillingly, who asked his mother if she was never overpowered by a senseof her own identity; or sentimental boys, like Dibbins in _Basil theSchoolboy_, who, discussing with a friend how to spend a whole holiday, said, "Let us go to Dingley Dell and talk about Byron;" or manly boyslike Tom Tulliver, of whom it is excellently said that he was the kindof boy who is commonly spoken of as being very fond of animals--that is, very fond of throwing stones at them. 

Whatever its type, "I've seemed of late To shrink from happy boyhood--boys Have grown so noisy, and I hate A noise. They fright me when the beech is green, By swarming up its stem for eggs; They drive their horrid hoops between My legs. It's idle to repine, I know; I'll tell you what I'll do instead: I'll drink my arrowroot, and go To bed. "

But before I do so let me tell one boy-story, connected with the Etonand Harrow match, which has always struck me as rather pleasing. In theyear 1866, when F. C. Cobden, who was afterwards so famous for hisbowling in the Cambridge Eleven, was playing for Harrow, an affablefather, by way of making conversation for a little Harrow boy at Lord's, asked, "Is your Cobden any relation to the great Cobden?" "Why, he _is_the great Cobden, " was the simple and swift reply. This is the truespirit of hero-worship. 

XXXII. 

LETTER-WRITING. 

"Odd men write odd letters. " This rather platitudinous sentence, from anotherwise excellent essay of the late Bishop Thorold's, is abundantlyillustrated alike by my Collections and by my Recollections. I plunge atrandom into my subject, and immediately encounter the following letterfrom a Protestant clergyman in the north of Ireland, written in responseto a suggestion that he might with advantage study Mr. Gladstone'smagnificent speech on the Second Reading of the Affirmation Bill in1883:--

"My dear Sir, --I have received your recommendation to read carefully thespeech of Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaughinto Parliament, I did so when it was delivered, and I must say that thestrength of argument rests with the opposition. I fully expect in theevent of a dissolution the Government will lose between fifty and sixtyseats. Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laiddown. Mr. G. Avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. Allparties knew the feeling of the country on the subject, and, notwithstanding the bullying and majority of Gladstone, he was defeated. Before the Irish Church was robbed, I was nominated to the Deanery ofTuam, but Mr. Disraeli resigning, I was defrauded of my just right byMr. Gladstone, and my wife, Lady----, the only surviving child of anEarl, was sadly disappointed; but there is a just Judge above. Theletter of nomination is still in my possession. I am, dear sir, yoursfaithfully, ----. "

It is highly characteristic of Mr. Gladstone that, when this letter wasshown to him by its recipient as a specimen of epistolary oddity, heread it, not with a smile, but with a portentous frown, and, handing itback, sternly asked, "What does the fellow mean by quoting an engagemententered into by my predecessor as binding on me?"

It is not only clergy "defrauded" of expected dignities that write oddletters. Young curates in search of benefices often seek to gratifytheir innocent ambitions by the most ingenious appeals. Here is a letterreceived not many years ago by the Prime Minister of the day:--

"I have no doubt but that your time is fully occupied. I will thereforecompress as much as possible what I wish to say, and frame my request ina few words. Some time ago my mother wrote to her brother, Lord ----, asking him to try and do something for me in the way of obtaining aliving. The reply from Lady ---- was that my uncle could do nothing tohelp me. I naturally thought that a Premier possessed of such aplenitude of power as yourself would find it a matter of less difficultyto transform a curate into a rector or vicar than to create a peer. Myname is in the Chancellor's List--a proceeding, as far as results, somewhat suggestive, I fear, of the Greek Kalends.... My futurefather-in-law is a member of the City Liberal Club, in which a _largebust_ of yourself was unveiled last year. I am 31 years of age; a HighChurchman; musical, &c. ; graduate of----. If I had a living I couldmarry.... I am very anxious to marry, but I am very poor, and a livingwould help me very much. Being a Southerner, fond of music and of books, I naturally would like to be somewhere near town. I hope you will beable to help me in this respect, and thus afford much happiness to morethan one. " There is great force in that appeal to the "large bust. "

Here is a request which Bishop Thorold received from an admirer, whounfortunately omitted to give his address:--

"Rev. And learned Sir, --Coming into your presence through the medium ofa letter, I do so in the spirit of respect due to you as a gentleman anda scholar. I unfortunately am a scholar, but a blackguard. I heard youpreach a few times, and thought you might pity the position I havebrought myself to. I should be grateful to you for an old coat or an oldpair of boots. "

And while the seekers after emolument write odd letters, odd letters arealso written by their admirers on their behalf. A few years ago one ofthe principal benefices in West London was vacated, and, thepresentation lapsing to the Crown, the Prime Minister received thefollowing appeal:--

"Sir, --Doubtless you do not often get a letter from a working man on thesubject of clerical appointments, but as I here you have got to find aminister for to fill Mr. Boyd Carpenter's place, allow me to ask you tojust go some Sunday afternoon and here our little curate, Mr. ----, atSt. Matthew's Church--he is a good, Earnest little man, and a genuinelittle Fellow; got no humbug about him, but a sound Churchman, is anExtempor Preacher, and deserves promotion. Nobody knows I am writing toyou, and it is not a matter of kiss and go by favour, but simply askingyou to take a run over and here him, and then put him a stept higher--hedeserves it. I know Mr. Sullivan will give him a good character, and sowill Mr. Alcroft, the Patron. Now do go over and here him before youmake a choice. We working men will be sorry to loose him, but we thinkhe ought not to be missed promotion, as he is a good fellow. --Yourobediently servant. "

Ladies, as might naturally be expected, are even more enthusiastic inadvocating the claims of their favourite divines. Writing lately on theAgreeableness of Clergymen, I described some of the Canons of St. Paul'sand Westminster, and casually referred to the handsome presence of Dr. Duckworth. I immediately received the following effusion, which, wishingto oblige the writer, and having no access to the _Church FamilyNewspaper_, I now make public:--

"A member of the Rev. Canon Duckworth's congregation for _more than 25years_ has been much pained by the scant and curious manner in which heis mentioned by you, and begs to say that his Gospel teaching, hisscholarly and yet simple and charitable discourses (and teaching), hiscourteous and sympathetic and prompt answers to his people's requestsand inquiries, his energetic and constant work in his parish, are beyondpraise. Added to all is his clear and sonorous voice in his rendering ofthe prayer and praise amongst us. A grateful parishioner hopes and_asks_ for some further recognition of his position in the Church ofChrist, in the _Church Family Newspaper_, June 12. " So far the Church. Inow turn to the world. 

In the second volume of Lord Beaconsfield's _Endymion_ will be found adescription, by a hand which was never excelled at such business, ofthat grotesque revival of medievalism, the Tournament at Eglinton Castlein 1839. But the writer, conceding something to the requirements of art, ignores the fact that the splendid pageant was spoilt by rain. Twoyears' preparation and enormous expense were thrown away. A grandcavalcade, in which Prince Louis Napoleon rode as one of the knights, left Eglinton Castle on the 28th of August at two in the afternoon, withheralds, banners, pursuivants, the knight-marshal, the jester, the Kingof the Tournament, the Queen of Beauty, and a glowing assemblage ofknights and ladies, seneschals, chamberlains, esquires, pages, andmen-at-arms, and took their way in procession to the lists, which wereoverlooked by galleries in which nearly two thousand spectators wereaccommodated; but all the while the rain came down in bucketfuls, neverceased while the tourney proceeded, and brought the proceedings to apremature and ignominious close. I only mention the occurrence herebecause the Queen of Beauty, elected to that high honour by unanimousacclamation, was Jane Sheridan, Lady Seymour; and there is all the charmof vivid contrast in turning from the reckless expenditure and fantasticbrilliancy of 1839 to the following correspondence, which was publishedin the newspapers in the early part of 1840. 

Anne, Lady Shuckburgh, was the wife of Sir Francis Shuckburgh, aNorthamptonshire Baronet, and to her the Queen of Beauty, forsaking thetriumphs of chivalry for the duties of domestic economy, addressed thefollowing letter:--

"Lady Seymour presents her compliments to Lady Shuckburgh, and would beobliged to her for the character of Mary Stedman, who states that shelived twelve months, and still is, in Lady Shuckburgh's establishment. Can Mary Stedman cook plain dishes well? make bread? and is she honest, good-tempered, sober, willing, and cleanly? Lady Seymour would also liketo know the reason why she leaves Lady Shuckburgh's service. Direct, under cover to Lord Seymour, Maiden Bradley. "

To this polite and business-like inquiry, Lady Shuckburgh replied asfollows:--

"Lady Shuckburgh presents her compliments to Lady Seymour. Herladyship's note, dated October 28, only reached her yesterday, November3. Lady Shuckburgh was unacquainted with the name of the kitchen-maiduntil mentioned by Lady Seymour, as it is her custom neither to applyfor or to give characters to any of the under servants, this beingalways done by the housekeeper, Mrs. Couch--and this was well known tothe young woman; therefore Lady Shuckburgh is surprised at her referringany lady to her for a character. Lady Shuckburgh having a professedcook, as well as a housekeeper, in her establishment, it is not verylikely she herself should know anything of the abilities or merits ofthe under servants; therefore she is unable to answer Lady Seymour'snote. Lady Shuckburgh cannot imagine Mary Stedman to be capable ofcooking for any except the servants'-hall table. 

"November 4, Pavilion, Hans Place. "

But Sheridan's granddaughter was quite the wrong subject for theseexperiments in fine-ladyism, and she lost no time in replying asfollows:--

"Lady Seymour presents her compliments to Lady Shuckburgh, and begs shewill order her housekeeper, Mrs. Pouch, to send the girl's characterwithout delay; otherwise another young woman will be sought forelsewhere, as Lady Seymour's children cannot remain without theirdinners because Lady Shuckburgh, keeping a 'professed cook and ahousekeeper, ' thinks a knowledge of the details of her establishmentbeneath her notice. Lady Seymour understands from Stedman that, inaddition to her other talents, she was actually capable of dressing foodfit for the little Shuckburghs to partake of when hungry. "

To this note was appended a pen-and-ink vignette by Lady Seymourrepresenting the three "little Shuckburghs, " with large heads andcauliflower wigs, sitting at a round table and voraciously scramblingfor mutton chops dressed by Mary Stedman, who was seen looking on withsupreme satisfaction, while Lady Shuckburgh appeared in the distance inevident dismay. A crushing rejoinder closed this correspondence:--

"Madam, --Lady Shuckburgh has directed me to acquaint you that shedeclines answering your note, the vulgarity of which is beneathcontempt; and although it may be the characteristic of the Sheridans tobe vulgar, coarse, and witty, it is not that of a 'lady, ' unless shehappens to have been born in a garret and bred in a kitchen. MaryStedman informs me that your ladyship does not keep either a cook or ahousekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a muttonchop. If so, I apprehend that Mary Stedman or any other scullion will befound fully equal to cook for or manage the establishment of the Queenof Beauty. --I am, your Ladyship's, &c. , "ELIZABETH COUCH (not Pouch). "

"Odd men, " quoth Bishop Thorold, "write odd letters, " and so do oddwomen. The original of the following epistle to Mr. Gladstone liesbefore me. It is dated Cannes, March 15, 1893:--

"Far away from my native Land, my bitter indignation as a _Welshwoman_prompts me to reproach you, you _bad, wicked, false_, treacherous OldMan! for your iniquitous scheme to _rob_ and overthrow thedearly-beloved Old Church of my Country. You have no conscience, but Ipray that God may even yet give you one that will sorely _smart_ andtrouble you before you die. You pretend to be religious, you oldhypocrite! that you may more successfully pander to the evil passions ofthe lowest and most ignorant of the Welsh people. But you neither carefor nor respect the principles of Religion, or you would not distressthe minds of all true Christian people by instigating a mob to Committhe awful sin of Sacrilege. You think you will shine in History, but itwill be a notoriety similar to that of _Nero. _ I see some one pays youthe unintentional compliment of comparing you to Pontius Pilate, and Iam sorry, for Pilate, though a political time-server, was, with all hisfaults, a very respectable man in comparison with you. And he did not, like you, profess the Christian Religion You are certainly _clever_. Soalso is your lord and master the Devil. And I cannot regard it as sinfulto hate and despise you, any more than it is sinful to abhor him. So, with full measure of contempt and detestation, accept these complimentsfrom

"A DAUGHTER OF OLD WALES. "

It is a triumph of female perseverance and ingenuity that the whole ofthe foregoing is compressed into a single postcard. 

Some letters, like the foregoing, are odd from their extraordinaryrudeness. Others--not usually, it must be admitted, Englishmen'sletters--are odd from their excess of civility. An Italian priestworking in London wrote to a Roman Catholic M. P. , asking for an order ofadmission to the House of Commons, and, on receiving it, acknowledged itas follows:--

"_To the Hon. Mr. ----, M. P. _

"Hon. Sir, Son in Jesu Christ, I beg most respectfully you, Hon. Sir, toaccept the very deep gratitude for the ticket which you, Hon. Sir, withnoble kindness, favoured me by post to-day. May the Blessing of GodAlmighty come upon you, Hon. Sir, and may He preserve you, Hon. Sir, forever and ever, Amen! With all due respect, I have the honour to be, Hon. Sir, your most

"humble and obedient servant, "----. "

Surely the British Constituent might take a lesson from this extremelypolite letter-writer when his long-suffering Member has squeezed himinto the Strangers' Gallery. 

Some letters, again, are odd from their excess of candour. A gentleman, unknown to me, soliciting pecuniary assistance, informed me that, having"sought relief from trouble in dissipation, " he "committed an act whichsent him into Penal Servitude, " and shortly after his release, "wrote abook containing many suggestions for the reform of prison discipline, " Alady, widely known for the benevolent use which she makes of greatwealth, received a letter from an absolute stranger, setting forth thathe had been so unfortunate as to overdraw his account at his bankers, and adding, "As I know that it will only cost you a scratch of the pento set this right, I make no apology for asking you to do so. "

Among "odd men" might certainly be reckoned the late Archdeacon Denison, and he displayed his oddness very characteristically when, havingquarrelled with the Committee of Council on Education, he refused tohave his parish schools inspected, and thus intimated his resolve to theinspector:--

"My dear Bellairs, --I love you very much; but if you ever come hereagain to inspect, I lock the door of the school, and tell the boys toput you in the pond. "

I am not sure whether the great Duke of Wellington can properly bedescribed as an "odd man, " but beyond question he wrote odd letters. Ihave already quoted from his reply to Mrs. Norton when she asked leaveto dedicate a song to him: "I have made it a rule to have nothingdedicated to me, and have kept it in every instance, though I have beenChancellor of the University of Oxford, and in other situations _muchexposed to authors_. " The Duke replied to every letter that he received, but his replies were not always acceptable to their recipients. When aphilanthropist begged him to present some petitions to the House ofLords on behalf of the wretched chimney sweeps, the Duke wrote back:"Mr. Stevens has _thought fit_ to leave some petitions at Apsley House. They will be found with the porter. " The Duke's correspondence with"Miss J. , " which was published by Mr. Fisher Unwin some ten years ago, and is much less known than it deserves to be, contains some gems ofcomposition. Miss J. Consulted the Duke about her duty when afellow-passenger in the stage-coach swore, and he wrote: "I don'tconsider with you that it is necessary to enter into a disputation withevery wandering Blasphemer. Much must depend upon the circumstances. "And when the good lady mixed flirtation with piety, and irritabilitywith both, he wrote: "The Duke of Wellington presents His Compliments toMiss J. She is quite mistaken. He has no Lock of Hair of Hers. He neverhad one. "[34] The Letter of Condolence is a branch of the art ofletter-writing which requires very delicate handling. This was evidentlyfelt by the Oxford Don who, writing to condole with a father on thedeath of his undergraduate son, concluded his tribute of sympathy bysaying: "At the same time, I feel it my duty to tell you that your sonwould not in any case have been allowed to return next term, as he hadfailed to pass Responsions. "

Curtness in letter-writing does not necessarily indicate oddity. Itoften is the most judicious method of avoiding interminablecorrespondence. When one of Bishop Thorold's clergy wrote to beg leaveof absence from his duties in order that he might make a long tour inthe East, he received for all reply: "Dear--, --Go to Jericho. --Yours, A. W. R. " At a moment when scarlet fever was ravaging Haileybury, andsuggestions for treatment were pouring in by every post, the Head Masterhad a lithographed answer prepared, which ran: "Dear Sir, --I am obligedby your opinions, and retain my own. " An admirable answer was made byanother Head Master to a pompous matron, who wrote that, before she senther boy to his school, she must ask if he was very particular about thesocial antecedents of his pupils: "Dear Madam, as long as your sonbehaves himself and his fees are paid, no questions will be asked abouthis social antecedents. "

Sydney Smith's reply, when Lord Houghton, then young "Dicky Milnes, "wrote him an angry letter about some supposed unfriendliness, was amodel of mature and genial wisdom: "Dear Milnes, --Never lose your goodtemper, which is one of your best qualities. " When the then Dean ofHereford wrote a solemn letter to Lord John Russell, announcing that heand his colleagues would refuse to elect Dr. Hampden to the See, LordJohn replied: "Sir, --I have had the honour to receive your letter of the22nd inst. , in which you intimate to me your intention of violating thelaw. " Some years ago Lady----, who is well known as an ardent worker inthe interests of the Roman Church, wrote to the Duke of----, a sturdyProtestant, that she was greatly interested in a Roman Catholic Charity, and, knowing the Duke's wide benevolence, had ventured to put down hisname for £100. The Duke wrote back: "Dear Lady----, --It is a curiouscoincidence that, just before I got your letter, I had put down yourname for a like sum to the English Mission for converting IrishCatholics; so no money need pass between us. " But perhaps the supremehonours of curt correspondence belong to Mr. Bright. Let one instancesuffice. Having been calumniated by a Tory orator at Barrow, Mr. Brightwrote as follows about his traducer: "He may not know that he isignorant, but he cannot be ignorant that he lies. And after such aspeech the meeting thanked him--I presume because they enjoyed what hehad given them. I think the speaker was named Smith. He is a discreditto _the numerous family of that name. _"

FOOTNOTES:

[34] Sir Herbert Maxwell, in his _Life of Wellington_, vouches for thegenuineness of the Duke's letters to "Miss J. " She was Miss A. M. Jenkins. 

XXXIII. 

OFFICIALDOM. 

The announcements relating to the first Cabinet of the winter set methinking whether my readers might be interested in seeing what I have"collected" as to the daily life and labours of her Majesty's Ministers. I decided that I would try the experiment, and, acting on the principlewhich I have professed before--that when once one has deliberatelychosen certain words to express one's meaning one cannot, as a rule, alter them with advantage--I shall borrow from some former writings ofmy own. 

The Cabinet is the Board of Directors of the British Empire. All itsmembers are theoretically equal; but, as at other Boards, the effectivepower really resides in three or four. At the present moment[35]Manchester is represented by one of these potent few. Saturday is theusual day for the meeting of the Cabinet, though it may be convened atany moment as special occasion arises. Describing the potato-diseasewhich led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, Lord Beaconsfield wrote: "Thismysterious but universal sickness of a single root changed the historyof the world. 'There is no gambling like politics, ' said LordRoehampton, as he glanced at the _Times_: 'four Cabinets in one week!The Government must be more sick than the potatoes!'"

Twelve is the usual hour for the meeting of the Cabinet, and thebusiness is generally over by two. At the Cabinets held during Novemberthe legislative programme for next session is settled, and thepreparation of each measure is assigned to a sub-committee of Ministersspecially conversant with the subject-matter. Lord Salisbury holds hisCabinets at the Foreign Office; but the old place of meeting was theofficial residence of the First Lord of the Treasury at 10 DowningStreet, in a pillared room looking over the Horse Guards Parade, andhung with portraits of departed First Lords. 

In theory, of course, the proceedings of the Cabinet are absolutelysecret. The Privy Councillor's oath prohibits all disclosures. No recordis kept of the business done. The door is guarded by vigilant attendantsagainst possible eavesdroppers. The dispatch-boxes which constantlycirculate between Cabinet Ministers, carrying confidential matters, arecarefully locked with special keys, said to date from the administrationof Mr. Pitt; and the possession of these keys constitutes admission intowhat Lord Beaconsfield called "the circles of high initiation. " Yet inreality more leaks out than is supposed. In the Cabinet of 1880-5 theleakage to the press was systematic and continuous. Even Mr. Gladstone, the stiffest of sticklers for official reticence, held that a CabinetMinister might impart his secrets to his wife and his Private Secretary. The wives of official men are not always as trustworthy as Mrs. Bucketin _Bleak House_, and some of the Private Secretaries in the Governmentof 1880 were little more than boys. Two members of that Cabinet werenotorious for their free communications to the press, and it was oftenremarked that the _Birmingham Daily Post_ was peculiarly well informed. A noble Lord who held a high office, and who, though the most pompous, was not the wisest of mankind, was habitually a victim to a certainjournalist of known enterprise, who used to waylay him outside DowningStreet and accost him with jaunty confidence: "Well, Lord----, so youhave settled on so-and-so after all?" The noble lord, astonished thatthe Cabinet's decision was already public property, would reply, "As youknow so much, there can be no harm in telling the rest"; and thejournalist, grinning like a dog, ran off to print the precious morsel ina special edition of the _Millbank Gazette_. Mr. Justin McCarthy could, I believe, tell a curious story of a highly important piece of foreignintelligence communicated by a Minister to the _Daily News_; of aresulting question in the House of Commons; and of the same Minister'semphatic declaration that no effort should be wanting to trace thisviolator of official confidence and bring him to condign punishment. 

While it is true that outsiders sometimes become possessed by thesedodges of official secrets, it is not less true that Cabinet Ministersare often curiously in the dark about great and even startling events. Apolitical lady once said to me, "Do you in your party think much of myneighbour, Mr. ----?" As in duty bound, I replied, "Oh yes, a greatdeal. " She rejoined, "I shouldn't have thought it, for when the boys areshouting any startling news in the special editions, I see him run outwithout his hat to buy an evening paper. That doesn't look well for aCabinet Minister. " On the fatal 6th of May 1882 I dined in company withMr. Bright. He stayed late, but never heard a word of the murders whichhad taken place that evening in the Phoenix Park; went off quietly tobed, and read them as news in the next morning's _Observer_. 

But, after all, attendance at the Cabinet, though a most important, isonly an occasional, event in the life of one of her Majesty's Ministers. Let us consider the ordinary routine of his day's work during thesession of Parliament. The truly virtuous Minister, we may presume, struggles down to the dining room to read prayers and to breakfast inthe bosom of his family between 9 and 10 A. M. But the self-indulgentbachelor declines to be called, and sleeps his sleep out. Mr. ArthurBalfour invariably breakfasts at 12; and more politicians than wouldadmit it consume their tea and toast in bed. Mercifully, the dreadfulhabit of giving breakfast-parties, though sanctioned by the memories ofHolland and Macaulay and Rogers and Houghton, virtually died out withthe disappearance of Mr. Gladstone. 

"Men who breakfast out are generally Liberals, " says Lady St. Julians in_Sybil_. "Have not you observed that?"

"I wonder why?"

"It shows a restless, revolutionary mind, " said Lady Firebrace, "thatcan settle to nothing, but must be running after gossip the moment theyare awake. "

"Yes, " said Lady St. Julians, "I think those men who breakfast out, orwho give breakfasts, are generally dangerous characters; at least Iwould not trust them. "

And Lady St. Julians's doctrine, though half a century old, applies withperfect exactness to those enemies of the human race who endeavour tokeep alive or to resuscitate this desperate tradition. Juvenal describedthe untimely fate of the man who went into his bath with an undigestedpeacock in his system. Scarcely pleasanter are the sensations of theMinister or the M. P. Who goes from a breakfast-party, full of butteredmuffins and broiled salmon, to the sedentary desk-work of his office orthe fusty wrangles of a Grand Committee. 

Breakfast over, the Minister's fancy lightly turns to thoughts ofexercise. If he is a man of active habits and strenuous tastes, he maytake a gentle breather up Highgate Hill, like Mr. Gladstone, or playtennis, like Sir Edward Grey. Lord Spencer when in office might be seenany morning cantering up St. James's Street on a hack, or pounding roundHyde Park in high naval debate with Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth. LordRosebery drives himself in a cab; Mr. Asquith is driven; bothoccasionally survey the riding world over the railings of Rotten Row;and even Lord Salisbury may be found prowling about the Green Park, towhich his house in Arlington Street has a private access. Mr. Balfour, as we all know, is a devotee of the cycle, and his example is catching;but Mr. Chamberlain holds fast to the soothing belief that, when a manhas walked upstairs to bed, he has made as much demand on his physicalenergies as is good for him, and that exercise was invented by thedoctors in order to bring grist to their mill. 

Whichever of these examples our Minister prefers to follow, his exerciseor his lounge must be over by 12 o'clock. The Grand Committees meet atthat hour; on Wednesday the House meets then; and if he is not requiredby departmental business to attend either the Committee or the House, hewill probably be at his office by midday. The exterior aspect of theGovernment Offices in Whitehall is sufficiently well known, and anypeculiarities which it may present are referable to the fact that theexecution of an Italian design was entrusted by the wisdom of Parliamentto a Gothic architect. Inside, their leading characteristics are theabundance and steepness of the stairs, the total absence of light, andan atmosphere densely charged with Irish stew. Why the servants of theBritish Government should live exclusively on this delicacy, and why itsodours should prevail with equal pungency "from morn to noon, from noonto dewy eve, " are matters of speculation too recondite for popularhandling. 

The Minister's own room is probably on the first floor--perhaps lookinginto Whitehall, perhaps into the Foreign Office Square, perhaps on tothe Horse Guards Parade. It is a large room with immense windows, and afireplace ingeniously contrived to send all its heat up the chimney. Ifthe office is one of the older ones, the room probably contains somegood pieces of furniture derived, from a less penurious age than ours--abureau or bookcase of mahogany dark with years, showing in its staidornamentation traces of Chippendale or Sheraton; a big clock in ahandsome case; and an interesting portrait of some historic statesmanwho presided over the department two centuries ago. But in the moremodern offices all is barren. Since the late Mr. Ayrton was FirstCommissioner of Works a squalid cheapness has reigned supreme. Deal andpaint are everywhere; doors that won't shut, bells that won't ring, andcurtains that won't meet. In two articles alone there isprodigality--books and stationery. Hansard's Debates, the Statutes atLarge, treatises illustrating the work of the office, and books ofreference innumerable, are there; and the stationery shows a delightfulvariety of shape, size, and texture, adapted to every conceivableexigency of official correspondence. 

It is indeed in the item of stationery, and in that alone, that thegrand old constitutional system of perquisites survives. Morbidlyconscientious Ministers sometimes keep a supply of their privateletter-paper on their office-table and use it for their privatecorrespondence; but the more frankly human sort write all their letterson official paper. On whatever paper written, Ministers' letters go freefrom the office and the House of Commons; and certain artfulcorrespondents outside, knowing that a letter to a public office neednot be stamped, write to the Minister at his official address and savetheir penny. In days gone by each Secretary of State received on hisappointment a silver inkstand, which he could hand down as a keepsake tohis children. Mr. Gladstone, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, abolished this little perquisite, and the only token of office which anoutgoing Minister can now take with him is his dispatch-box. The wife ofa minister who had long occupied an official residence, on being evictedfrom office said with a pensive sigh, "I hope I am not avaricious, butI must say, when one was hanging up pictures, it was very pleasant tohave the Board of Works carpenter and a bag of the largest nails fornothing. "

The late Sir William Gregory used to narrate how when a child he wastaken by his grandfather, who was Under-Secretary for Ireland, to seethe Chief Secretary, Lord Melbourne, in his official room. Thegood-natured old Whig asked the boy if there was anything in the roomthat he would like; and he chose a large stick of sealing-wax, "That'sright, " said Lord Melbourne, pressing a bundle of pens into his hand:"begin life early. All these things belong to the public, and yourbusiness must always be to get out of the public as much as you can. "There spoke the true spirit of our great governing families. 

And now our Minister, seated at his official table, touches hispneumatic bell. His Private Secretary appears with a pile of papers, andthe day's work begins. That work, of course, differs enormously inamount, nature, importance, and interest with different offices. To theoutside world probably one office is much the same as another, but thedifference in the esoteric view is wide indeed. When the Revised Versionof the New Testament came out, an accomplished gentleman who had oncebeen Mr. Gladstone's Private Secretary, and had been appointed by him toan important post in the permanent Civil Service, said: "Mr. Gladstone, I have been looking at the Revised Version, and I think it distinctlyinferior to the old one. "

"Indeed, " said Mr. Gladstone, with all his theological ardour roused atonce: "I am very much interested to hear you say so. Pray give me aninstance. "

"Well, " replied the Permanent Official, "look at the first verse of thesecond chapter of St. Luke. That verse used to run, 'There went out adecree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. ' Well, Ialways thought that a splendid idea--a tax levied on the whole world bya single Act--a grand stroke worthy of a great empire and an imperialtreasury. But in the Revised Version I find, 'There went out a decreethat all the world should be enrolled'--a mere counting! a census! thesort of thing the Local Government Board could do! Will any one tell methat the new version is as good as the old one in this passage?"

This story aptly illustrates the sentiments with which the more powerfuland more ancient departments regard those later births of time, theBoard of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Board of Agriculture, and even the Scotch Office--though this last is redeemed from uttercontempt by the irritable patriotism of our Scottish fellow-citizens, and by the beautiful house in which it is lodged. For a Minister wholoves an arbitrary and single-handed authority the India Office is themost attractive of all. The Secretary of State for India, is (except infinancial matters, where he is controlled by his Council) a pure despot. He has the Viceroy at the end of a telegraph-wire, and the Queen's threehundred millions of Indian subjects under his thumb. His salary is notvoted by the House of Commons; very few M. P. 's care a rap about India;and he is practically free from Parliamentary control. The ForeignOffice, of course, is full of interest, and its social traditions havealways been of the most dignified sort--from the days when Mr. Ranville-Ranville used to frequent Mrs. Perkins's Balls to the existingreign of Sir Thomas Sanderson and Mr. Eric Barrington. 

The Treasury has its finger in every departmental pie except the Indianone, for no Minister and no department can carry out reforms or evendischarge its ordinary routine without public money, and of public moneythe Treasury is the vigilant and inflexible guardian. "I am directed toacquaint you that My Lords do not see their way to comply with yoursuggestion, inasmuch as to do so would be to _open a serious door_. "This delightful formula, with its dread suggestion of a flippant doorand all the mischief to which it might lead, is daily employed to checkthe ardour of Ministers who are seeking to advance the benefit of therace (including their own popularity among their constituents) by ajudicious expenditure of public money. But whatever be the scope andfunction of the office, and whatever the nature of the work done there, the mode of doing it is pretty much the same. Whether the matter inquestion originates inside the office by some direction or inquiry ofthe chief, or comes by letter from outside, it is referred to theparticular department of the office which is concerned with it. A clerkmakes a careful minute, giving the facts of the case and the practice ofthe office as bearing on it. The paper is then sent to any otherdepartment or person in the office that can possibly have any concernwith it. It is minuted by each, and it gradually passes up, by more orfewer official gradations, to the Under-Secretary of State, who reads, or is supposed to read, all that has been written on the paper in itsearlier stages, balances the perhaps conflicting views of differentannotators, and, if the matter is too important for his own decision, sums up in a minute of recommendation to the chief. The ultimatedecision, however, is probably less affected by the Under-Secretary'sminute than by the oral advice of a much more important personage, thePermanent Head of the office. 

It would be beyond my present scope to discuss the composition andpowers of the permanent Civil Service, whose chiefs have been, at leastsince the days of Bagehot, recognized as the real rulers of thiscountry. For absolute knowledge of their business, for self-denyingdevotion to duty, for ability, patience, courtesy, and readiness to helpthe fleeting Political Official, the permanent chiefs of the CivilService are worthy of the highest praise. That they areconservative[36] to the core is only to say that they are human. Onbeing appointed to permanent office the extremist theorists, like thebees in the famous epigram, "cease to hum" their revolutionary airs, andsettle down into the profound conviction that things are well as theyare. All the more remarkable is the entire equanimity with which thePermanent Official accepts the unpalatable decision of a chief who isstrong enough to override him, and the absolute loyalty with which hewill carry out a policy which he cordially disapproves. 

Much of a Minister's comfort and success depends upon his PrivateSecretary. Some Ministers import for this function a young gentleman offashion whom they know at home--a picturesque butterfly who flits gailythrough the dusty air of the office, making, by the splendour of hisraiment, sunshine in its shady places, and daintily passing on the workto unrecognized and unrewarded clerks. But the better practice is toappoint as Private Secretary one of the permanent staff of the office. He supplies his chief with official information, hunts up necessaryreferences, writes his letters, and interviews his bores. 

When the late Lord Ampthill was a junior clerk in the Foreign Office, Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, introduced an innovationwhereby, instead of being solemnly summoned by a verbal message, theclerks were expected to answer his bell. Some haughty spirits rebelledagainst being treated like footmen, and tried to organize resistance;but Odo Russell, as he then was, refused to join the rebelliousmovement, saying that whatever method apprized him most quickly of LordPalmerston's wishes was the method which he preferred. The aggrievedclerks regarded him as a traitor to his order--but he died anambassador. Trollope described the wounded feelings of a young clerkwhose chief sent him to fetch his slippers; and in our own day a PrivateSecretary, who had patiently taken tickets for the play for his chief'sdaughters, drew the line when he was told to take the chief's razors tobe ground. But such assertions of independence are extremely rare, andas a rule the Private Secretary is the most cheerful and the most alertof ministering spirits. 

But it is time to return from this personal digression to the routine ofthe day's work. Among the most important of the morning's duties is thepreparation of answers to be given in the House of Commons, and it isoften necessary to have answers ready by three o'clock to questionswhich have only appeared that morning on the notice-paper. The range ofquestions is infinite, and all the resources of the office are taxed inorder to prepare answers at once accurate in fact and wise in policy, topass them under the Minister's review, and to get them fairly copied outbefore the House meets. As a rule, the Minister, knowing something ofthe temper of Parliament, wishes to give a full, explicit, andintelligible answer, or even to go a little beyond the strict terms ofthe question if he sees what his interrogator is driving at. But thispolicy is abhorrent to the Permanent Official. The traditions of theCircumlocution Office are by no means dead, and the crime of "wanting toknow, you know, " is one of the most heinous that the M. P. Can commit. The answers, therefore, as prepared for the Minister are generallyjejune, often barely civil, sometimes actually misleading. But theMinister, if he be a wise man, edits them into a more informing shape, and after a long and careful deliberation as to the probable effect ofhis words and the reception which they will have from his questioner, hesends the bundle of written answers away to be fair-copied and turns tohis correspondence. 

And here the practice of Ministers varies exceedingly. Lord Salisburywrites almost everything with his own hand. Mr. Balfour dictates to ashorthand clerk. Most Ministers write a great deal by their PrivateSecretaries. Letters of any importance are usually transcribed into acopying-book. A Minister whom I knew used to burn the fragment ofblotting-paper with which he had blotted his letter, and laid it down asan axiom that, if a constituent wrote and asked a Member to vote for aparticular measure, the Member should on no account give a more precisereply than, "I shall have great pleasure in voting in the sense youdesire. " For, as this expert observed with great truth, "unless theconstituent has kept a copy of his letter--and the chances are twenty toone against that--there will be nothing to prove what the sense hedesired was, and you will be perfectly safe in voting as you like. " Theletters received by a Minister are many, various, and surprising. Ofcourse, a great proportion of them relate to public business, and aconsiderable number to the affairs of his constituency. But, in additionto all this, lunatics, cranks, and impostors mark a Minister for theirown, and their applications for loans, gifts, and offices of profitwould exhaust the total patronage of the Crown and break the Bank ofEngland. 

When the day's official papers have been dealt with, answers toquestions settled, correspondence read, and the replies written ordictated, it is very likely time to go to a conference on some Bill withwhich the office is concerned. This conference will consist of theMinister in charge of the Bill, two or three of his colleagues who havespecial knowledge of the subject, the Permanent Officials, theParliamentary draftsman, and perhaps one of the Law Officers. At theconference the amendments on the paper are carefully discussed, togetherwith the objects for which they were presumably put down, their probableeffect, their merits or demerits, and the best mode of meeting them. Anhour soon passes in this kind of anticipatory debate, and the Ministeris called away to receive a deputation. 

The scene is exactly like that which Matthew Arnold described at theSocial Science Congress--the large bare room, dusty air, and jadedlight, serried ranks of men with bald heads and women in spectacles; thelocal M. P. , like Mr. Gregsbury in _Nicholas Nickleby_, full ofaffability and importance, introducing the selected spokesmen--"Ourworthy mayor; our leading employer of labour; Miss Twoshoes, aphilanthropic worker in all good causes"--the Minister, profoundlyignorant of the whole subject, smiling blandly or gazing earnestly fromhis padded chair; the Permanent Official at his elbow murmuring what the"practice of the department" has been, what his predecessor said on asimilar occasion ten years ago, and why the object of the deputation isequally mischievous and impossible; and the Minister finally expressingsympathy and promising earnest consideration. Mr. Bright, though thelaziest of mankind at official work, was the ideal hand at receivingdeputations. Some Ministers scold or snub or harangue, but he let thespokesmen talk their full, listened patiently, smiled pleasantly, saidvery little, treated the subject with gravity or banter as its naturerequired, paid the introducing member a compliment on his assiduity andpublic spirit, and sent them all away on excellent terms with themselvesand highly gratified by their intelligent and courteous reception. 

So far we have described our Minister's purely departmental duties. Butperhaps the Cabinet meets at twelve, and at the Cabinet he must, to useMr. Gladstone's phrase, "throw his mind into the common stock" with hisfellow-Ministers, and take part in the discussions and decisions whichgovern the Empire. By two o'clock or thereabouts the Cabinet is over. The labours of the morning are now beginning to tell, and exhaustedNature rings her luncheon-bell. Here again men's habits widely differ. If our Minister has breakfasted late, he will go on till four or five, and then have tea and toast, and perhaps a poached egg; but if he is anearly man, he craves for nutriment more substantial. He must not go outto luncheon to a friend's house, for he will be tempted to eat and drinktoo much, and absence from official territory in the middle of the dayhas a bad look of idleness and self-indulgence. The _dura ilia_ of thepresent[37] Duke of Devonshire could always cope with a slice of theoffice-joint, a hunch of the office-bread, a glass of the office-sherry. But, as a rule, if a man cannot manage to get back to the family meal inSouth Kensington or Cavendish Square, he turns into a club, has a cutletand a glass of claret, and gets back to his office for another hour'swork before going to the House. 

At 3. 30 questions begin, and every Minister is in his place, unless, indeed, there is a Levee or a Drawing-room, when a certain number ofMinisters, besides the great Officers of State, are expected to bepresent. The Minister lets himself into the House by a private door--ofwhich Ministers alone have the key--at the back of the Chair. For anhour and a half, or perhaps longer, the storm of questions rages, andthen the Minister, if he is in charge of the Bill under discussion, settles himself on the Treasury Bench to spend the remainder of the dayin a hand-to-hand encounter with the banded forces of the Opposition, which will tax to their utmost his brain, nerve, and physical endurance. If, however, he is not directly concerned with the business, he goes outperhaps for a breath of air and a cup of tea on the Terrace, and thenburies himself in his private room--generally a miserable littledog-hole in the basement of the House--where he finds a pile ofoffice-boxes, containing papers which must be read, minuted, andreturned to the office with all convenient dispatch. From these labourshe is suddenly summoned by the shrill ting-ting of the division-bell andthe raucous bellow of the policeman to take part in a division. Herushes upstairs two steps at a time, and squeezes himself into theHouse through the almost closed doors. "What are we?" he shouts to theWhip. "Ayes" or "Noes" is the hurried answer; and he stalks through thelobby to discharge this intelligent function, dives down to his roomagain, only, if the House is in Committee, to be dragged up again tenminutes afterwards for another repetition of the same farce, and so onindefinitely. 

It may be asked why a Minister should undergo all this worry of runningup and down and in and out, laying down his work and taking it up again, dropping threads, and losing touch, and wasting time, all to give apurely party vote, settled for him by his colleague in charge of theBill, on a subject with which he is personally unfamiliar. If theGovernment is in peril, of course every vote is wanted; but, with anormal majority, Ministers' votes might surely be "taken as read, " andassumed to be given to the side to which they belong. But the traditionsof Government require Ministers to vote. It is a point of honour foreach man to be in as many divisions as possible. A record is kept of allthe divisions of the session and of the week, and a list is sent roundevery Monday morning showing in how many each Minister has voted. 

The Whips, who must live and move and have their being in the House, naturally head the list, and their colleagues follow in a ratheruncertain order. A Minister's place in this list is mainly governed bythe question whether he dines at the House or not. If he dines away and"pairs, " of course he does not in the least jeopardize his party orembarrass his colleagues; but "pairs" are not indicated in the list ofdivisions, and, as divisions have an awkward knack of happening betweennine and ten, the habitual diner-out naturally sinks in the list. If heis a married man, the claims of the home are to a certain extentrecognized by his Whips, but woe to the bachelor who, with no domesticexcuse, steals away for two hours' relaxation. The good Ministertherefore stays at the House and dines there. Perhaps he is entertainingladies in the crypt-like dining-rooms which look on the Terrace, and inthat case the charms of society may neutralize the material discomforts. But, if he dine upstairs at the Ministerial table, few indeed are thealleviations of his lot. In the first place he must dine with thecolleagues with whom his whole waking life is passed--excellent fellowsand capital company--but nature demands an occasional enlargement of themental horizon. Then if by chance he has one special bugbear--a bore oran egotist, a man with dirty hands or a churlish temper--that man willinevitably come and sit down beside him and insist on being affectionateand fraternal. 

The room is very hot; dinners have been going on in it for the last twohours; the [Greek: knisê]--the odour of roast meat, which the godsloved, but which most men dislike--pervades the atmosphere; yournext-door neighbour is eating a rather high grouse while you are at yourapple-tart, or the perfumes of a deliquescent Camembert mingle with yourcoffee. As to beverages, you may, if you choose, follow the example ofLord Cross, who, when he was Sir Richard, drank beer in its nativepewter, or of Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, who tries to popularize cider; or youmay venture on that thickest, blackest, and most potent of vintageswhich a few years back still went by the name of "Mr. Disraeli's port. "But as a rule these heroic draughts are eschewed by the modern Minister. Perhaps, if he is in good spirits after making a successful speech orfighting his Estimates through Committee, he will indulge himself withan imperial pint of champagne; but more often a whiskey-and-soda or ahalf-bottle of Zeltinger quenches his modest thirst. 

On Wednesday and Saturday our Minister, if he is not out of London, probably dines at a large dinner-party. Once a session he must dine infull dress with the Speaker; once he must dine at, or give, a full-dressdinner "to celebrate her Majesty's Birthday. " On the eve of the meetingof Parliament he must dine again in full dress with the Leader of theHouse, to hear the rehearsal of the "gracious Speech from the Throne. "But, as a rule, his fate on Wednesday and Saturday is a ceremoniousbanquet at a colleague's house, and a party strictly political--perhapsthe Prime Minister as the main attraction, reinforced by Lord and LadyDecimus Tite-Barnacle, Mr. And Mrs. Stiltstalking, Sir John Taper, andyoung Mr. Tadpole. A political dinner of thirty colleagues, male andfemale, in the dog-days is only a shade less intolerable than the greasyrations and mephitic vapours of the House of Commons' dining-room. 

At the political dinner "shop" is the order of the day. Conversationturns on Brown's successful speech, Jones's palpable falling-off, Robinson's chance of office, the explanation of a recent by-election, orthe prospects of an impending division. And, to fill the cup of boredomto the brim, the political dinner is usually followed by a politicalevening-party. On Saturday the Minister probably does two hours' work athis office and has some boxes sent to his house, but the afternoon hespends in cycling, or golfing, or riding, or boating, or he leavesLondon till Monday morning. On Wednesday he is at the House till six, and then escapes for a breath of air before dinner. But on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, as a rule, he is at the House from itsmeeting at three till it adjourns at any hour after midnight. Afterdinner he smokes and reads and tries to work in his room, and goes tosleep and wakes again, and towards midnight is unnaturally lively. Outsiders believe in the "twelve o'clock rule, " but insiders know that, as a matter of fact, it is suspended as often as an Irish member in the'80 Parliament. Whoever else slopes homewards, the Government must stay. Before now a Minister has been fetched out of his bed, to which he hadsurreptitiously retired, by a messenger in a hansom, and taken back tothe House to defend his Estimates at three in the morning. 

 "There they sit with ranks unbroken, cheering on the fierce debate, Till the sunrise lights them homeward as they tramp through Storey's Gate, Racked with headache, pale and haggard, worn by nights of endless talk, While the early sparrows twitter all along the Birdcage Walk. "

Some ardent souls there are who, if report speaks true, are not contentwith even this amount of exertion and excitement, but finish the night, or begin the day, with a rubber at the club or even a turn at baccarat. However, we are describing, not choice spirits or chartered _viveurs_, but the blameless Minister, whose whole life during the Parliamentarysession is the undeviating and conscientious discharge of official duty;and he, when he lays his head upon his respectable pillow any time after1 a. M. , may surely go to sleep in the comfortable consciousness that hehas done a fair day's work for a not exorbitant remuneration. 

FOOTNOTES:

[35] 1897. 

[36] The word "conservative" here applies only to official routine. TheCivil Service has no politics, but many of its members are staunchLiberals. 

[37] Spencer Compton, 8th Duke. 

XXXIV. 

AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH-BOOK. 

The diary from which these Recollections have been mainly gathered datesfrom my thirteenth year, and it has lately received some unexpectedillustrations. In turning out the contents of a neglected cupboard, Istumbled on a photograph-book which I filled while I was a boy at aPublic School. The school has lately been described under the name ofLyonness, [38] and that name will serve as well as another. The book hadbeen mislaid years ago, and when it accidentally came to light a strangearoma of old times seemed still to hang about it. Inside and out, it wasreminiscent of a life in which for five happy years I bore my part. Externally the book showed manifest traces of a schoolboy's ownership, in broken corners; plentiful ink-stains, from exercises and punishments;droppings of illicit candle grease, consumed long after curfew-time;round marks like fairy rings on a greensward, which indicated thestandpoint of extinct jam pots--where are those jam pots now? But, whilethe outside of the book spoke thus, as it were, by innuendo andsuggestion, the inside seemed to shout with joyous laughter or chucklewith irreverent mirth; or murmured, in tones lower perhaps, butcertainly not less distinct, of things which were neither joyous normirthful. 

The book had been carefully arranged. As I turned over the leaves, there came back the memory of holiday-evenings and the interestedquestionings of sisters over each new face or scene; and the kindfingers which did the pasting-in; and the care with which we madeportrait and landscape fit into and illustrate one another. And whatmemories, what impressions, strong and clear as yesterday's, clung toeach succeeding view! The Spire--that "pinnacle perched on aprecipice"--with its embosoming trees, as one had so often seen it fromthe North-Western Railway, while the finger of fate, protruding from thecarriage window, pointed it out with--"That's where you will go toschool. " And, years later, came the day when one travelled for the firsttime by a train which did not rush through Lyonness Station (then howsmall), but stopped there, and disgorged its crowd of boys and theirconfusion of luggage, and oneself among the rest, and one's father justas excited and anxious and eager as his son. 

A scurry for a seat on the omnibus or a tramp uphill, and we findourselves abruptly in the village street. Then did each page as I turnedit over bring some fresh recollection of one's unspeakable sense ofnewness and desolation; the haunting fear of doing something ludicrous;the morbid dread of chaff and of being "greened, " which even in my timehad, happily, supplanted the old terrors of being tossed in a blanket orroasted at a fire. Even less, I venture to think, was one thrilled bythe heroic ambitions, the magnificent visions of struggle and success, which stir the heroes of schoolboy novels on the day of their arrival. 

Here was a view of the School Library, with its patch of greenswardseparating it from the dust and traffic of the road. There was the OldSchool with its Fourth Form Room, of which one had heard so much thatthe actual sight of it made one half inclined to laugh and half to crywith surprise and disappointment. There was the twisting High Street, with its precipitous causeway; there was the faithful presentment of thefashionable "tuck-shop, " with two boys standing in the road, and the legof a third caught by the camera as he hurried past; and, wanderingthrough all these scenes in the album as one had wandered through themin real life, I reached at last my boarding-house, once a place ofmystery and wonderful expectations and untried experiences; now full ofmemories, some bright, some sad, but all gathering enchantment fromtheir retrospective distance; and in every brick and beam and cupboardand corner as familiar as home itself. 

The next picture, a view of the School Bathing-place, carried me a stageonward in memory to my first summer quarter. Two terms of school lifehad inured one to a new existence, and one began to know the pleasures, as well as the pains, of a Public School. It was a time of cloudlessskies, and abundant "strawberry mashes, " and _dolce far niente_ in thatsweetly-shaded pool, when the sky was at its bluest, and the air at itshottest, and the water at its most inviting temperature. 

And then the Old Speech-Room, so ugly, so incommodious, where we stoodpenned together like sheep for the slaughter, under the gallery, to hearour fate on the first morning of our school life, and where, when he hadmade his way up the school, the budding scholar received his prize ordeclaimed his verses on Speech Day. That was the crowning day of theyoung orator's ambition, when there was an arch of evergreens rearedover the school gate, and Lyonness was all alive with carriages, andrelations, and grandees, "And, as Lear, he poured forth the deep imprecation, By his daughters of Kingdom and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, He regarded himself as a Garrick revived. "

Opposite the Old Speech-Room was the interior of the Chapel, with itsroof still echoing the thunder of the Parting Hymn; and the pulpit withits unforgotten pleadings for truthfulness and purity; and the organ, still vocal with those glorious psalms. And, high over all, theChurchyard Hill, with its heaven-pointing spire, and the Poet's Tomb;and, below, the incomparable expanse of pasture and woodland stretchingright away to the "proud keep with its double belt of kindred and coevaltowers. "

 "Still does yon bank its living hues unfold, With bloomy wealth of amethyst and gold; How oft at eve we watched, while there we lay, The flaming sun lead down the dying day, Soothed by the breeze that wandered to and fro Through the glad foliage musically low. Still stands that tree, and rears its stately form In rugged strength, and mocks the winter storm; There, while of slender shade and sapling growth, We carved our schoolboy names, a mutual troth. All, all, revives a bliss too bright to last, And every leaflet whispers of the past. "

And while the views of places were thus eloquent of the old days, assuredly not less so were the portraits. There was the Head Master inhis silken robes, looking exactly as he did when, enthroned in the SixthForm Room, he used to deliver those well-remembered admonitions--"Neversay what you know to be wrong, " and "Let us leave _commence_ and_partake_ to the newspapers. "

And there was the Mathematical Master--the Rev. RhadamanthusRhomboid--compared with whom his classical namesake was a lenient judge. An admirable example was old Mr. Rhomboid of a pedagogic type which, Iam told, is passing away--precise, accurate, stern, solid; knowing verylittle, but that little thoroughly; never overlooking a slip, but seldomguilty of an injustice; sternest and most unbending of prehistoricTories, both in matters political and educational; yet carryingconcealed somewhere under the square-cut waistcoat a heart which knewhow to sympathize with boy-flesh and the many ills which it is heir to. Good old Mr. Rhomboid! I wonder if he is still alive. 

Facing him in the album, and most appropriately contrasted, was theportrait of a young master--the embodiment of all that Mr. Rhomboid mostheartily loathed. We will call him Vivian Grey. Vivian Grey was anOxford Double First of unusual brilliancy, and therefore found a specialcharm and a satisfying sense of being suitably employed in his duty atLyonness, which was to instil [Greek: tuptô] and Phaedrus into thefive-and-thirty little wiseacres who constituted the lowest form. Overthe heads of these sages his political and metaphysical utterancesrolled like harmless thunder, for he was at once a transcendentalist inphilosophy and a utilitarian Radical of the purest dye. All of whichmattered singularly little to his five-and-thirty disciples, but causedinfinite commotion and annoyance to the Rhomboids and Rhadamanthuses. Vivian Grey at Oxford had belonged to that school which has beendescribed as professing

 "One Kant with a K, And many a cant with a c. "

At Lyonness he was supposed to have helped to break the railings of HydePark in the riot of 1866, and to be a Head Centre of the FenianBrotherhood. As to personal appearance, Mr. Grey was bearded like thepard--and in those days the scholastic order shaved--while his taste indress made it likely that he was the "Man in the Red Tie" whom weremember at the Oxford Commemoration some thirty years ago. In short, hewas the very embodiment of all that was most abhorrent to the oldtraditions of the schoolmaster's profession; and proportionately greatwas the appositeness of a practical joke which was played me on mysecond or third morning at Lyonness. I was told to go for mymathematical lesson to Mr. Rhomboid, who tenanted a room in the OldSchool. Next door to his room was Mr. Grey's, and I need not say thatthe first boy whom I asked for guidance playfully directed me to thewrong door. I enter, and the Third Form suspend their Phaedrus, "Please, sir, are you Mr. Rhomboid?" I ask, amid unsmotherable laughter. Nevershall I forget the indignant ferocity with which the professor of thenew lights drove me from the room, nor the tranquil austerity with whichMr. Rhomboid, when I reached him, set me "fifty lines" before he askedme my name. 

On the same page I find the portrait of two men who have before nowfigured in the world of school-fiction under the names of Rose andGordon. [39] Of Mr. Rose I will say no more than that he was an excellentschoolmaster and a most true saint, and that to his influence andwarnings many a man can, in the long retrospect, trace his escape frommoral ruin. Mr. Gordon is now a decorous Dean; at Lyonness he was themost brilliant, the most irregular, and the most fascinating ofteachers. He spoilt me for a whole quarter. I loved him for it then, andI thank him even now. 

These more distinguished portraits, of cabinet dimensions, werescattered up and down among the miscellaneous herd of _cartes devisits_. The art of Messrs. Hills and Saunders was denoted by thepretentious character of the chairs introduced--the ecclesiasticalGlastonbury for masters, and velvet backs studded with gilt nails forboys. The productions of the rival photographer were distinguished by apillar of variegated marble, or possibly scagliola, on which the personportrayed leaned, bent, or propped himself in every phase of gracefuldiscomfort. The athletes and members of the School Eleven, dressed inappropriate flannel, were depicted as a rale with their arms crossedover the backs of chairs, and brought very much into focus so as todisplay the muscular development in high relief. The more studiousportion of the community, "with leaden eye that loved the ground, "scanned small photograph-books with absorbing interest; while a group ofeditors, of whom I was one, were gathered round a writing-table, withpens, ink, and paper, the finger pressed on the forehead, and on thefloor proofs of the journal which we edited--was it the _Tyro_ or the_Triumvirate_?

Among the athletes I instantly recognize Biceps Max. , captain of theCricket Eleven, and practically autocrat of my house--"Charity's" thehouse was called, in allusion to a prominent feature of my tutor'scharacter. Well, at Charity's we did not think much of intellectualdistinction in those days, and little recked that Biceps was "unworthyto be classed" in the terminal examination. We were much more concernedwith the fact that he made the highest score at Lord's; that we atCharity's were absolutely under his thumb, in the most literalacceptation of that phrase; that he beat us into mummies if we evadedcricket-fagging; and that if we burnt his toast he chastised us with atea-tray. Where is Biceps now, and what? If he took Orders, I am sure hemust be a muscular Christian of the most aggressive type. If he is anOld Bailey barrister, I pity the timid witness whom he cross-examines. Why do I never meet him at the club or in society? It would be arefreshing novelty to sit at dinner opposite a man who corrected yourjuvenile shortcomings with a tea-tray. Would he attempt it again if Icontradicted him in conversation, or confuted him in argument, or cappedhis best story with a better?

Next comes Longbow--Old Longbow, as we called him; I suppose as a termof endearment, for there was no Young Longbow. He was an Irishman, andthe established wit, buffoon, and jester of the school. Innumerablestories are still told of his youthful escapades, of his audacity andskill in cribbing, of his dexterity in getting out of scrapes, of hisrepartees to masters and persons in authority. He it was who took up thesame exercise in algebra to Mr. Rhomboid all the time he was in theSixth Form, and obtained maiks, ostensibly for a French exercise, with acomposition called _De Camelo qualis sit_. He alone of created boyscould joke in the rarefied air of the Head Master's schoolroom, and hadpower to "chase away the passing frown" with some audacious witticismfor which an English boy would have been punished. Longbow was ploughedthree times at Oxford, and once "sent down. " But he is now the veryorthodox vicar of a West End parish, a preacher of culture, and apattern of ecclesiastical propriety. Then, leaving these heroic figuresand coming to my own contemporaries, I discern little Paley, esteemed aprodigy of parts--Paley, who won an Entrance Scholarship while still inknickerbockers; Paley, who ran up the school faster than any boy onrecord; Paley, who was popularly supposed never to have been turned in a"rep" or to have made a false quantity; Paley, for whom his tutor andthe whole magisterial body were never tired of predicting a miraculoussuccess in after life. Poor Paley! He is at this moment languishing inLincoln's Inn, consoling himself for professional failure bycontemplating the largest extant collection of Lyonness prize-books. Iknew Paley, as boys say, "at home, " and, when he had been a few years atthe Bar, I asked his mother if he had got any briefs yet. "Yes, " sheanswered with maternal pride; "he has been very lucky in that way. " "Andhas he got a verdict?" I asked. "Oh, no, " replied the simple soul; "wedon't aspire to anything so grand as that. "

Next to Paley in my book is Roderick Random, the cricketer. Dear Random, my contemporary, my form-fellow and house-fellow; partaker with me inthe ignominy of Biceps's tea-tray and the tedium of Mr. Rhomboid'sproblems: my sympathetic companion in every amusement, and the pleasantdrag on every intellectual effort--Random, who never knew a lesson, norcould answer a question; who never could get up in time for FirstSchool, nor lay his hand on his own Virgil--Random, who spent more ofhis half-holidays in Extra School than any boy of his day, and hadacquired by long practice the power of writing the "record" number oflines in an hour; who never told a lie, nor bullied a weaker boy, nordropped an unkind jest, nor uttered a shameful word--Random, for whomevery one in authority prophesied ruin, speedy and inevitable; who is, therefore, the best of landlords and the most popular of countrygentlemen; who was the most popular officer in the Guards till dutycalled him elsewhere, and at the last election came in at the top of thepoll for his native county. 

Then what shall we say for Lucian Gay, whose bright eyes and curly hairgreet me on the same page, with the attractive charm which won me whenwe stood together under the Speech-Room gallery on the first morning ofour school life? Gay was often at the top of his form, yet sometimesnear the bottom; wrote, apparently by inspiration, the most brilliantverses; and never could put two and two together in Mr. Rhomboid'sschoolroom. He had the most astonishing memory on record, and aninventive faculty which often did him even better service. He was thesoul of every intellectual enterprise in the school, the best speaker atthe Debating Society; the best performer on Speech Day; who knew nothingabout [Greek: ge] and less about [Greek: men] and [Greek: de]; whocomposed satirical choices when he should have been taking notes onTacitus; edited a School Journal with surprising brilliancy; failed, toconjugate the verbs in [Greek: mi] during his last fortnight in theschool; and won the Balliol Scholarship when he was seventeen. I trust, if this meets his eye, he will accept it as a tribute of affectionaterecollection from one who worked with him, idled with him, and jokedwith him for five happy years. 

Under another face, marked by a more spiritual grace, I find written_Requiescat_. None who ever knew them will forget that bright and purebeauty, those eyes of strange, supernatural light, that voice whichthrilled and vibrated with an unearthly charm. All who were hiscontemporaries remember that dauntless courage, that heroic virtue, thatstainless purity of thought and speech, before which all evil thingsseemed to shrink away abashed. We remember how the outward beauty ofbody seemed only the visible symbol of a goodness which dwelt within, and how moral and intellectual excellence grew up together, blendinginto a perfect whole. We remember the School Concert, and the enchantingvoice, and the words of the song which afterwards sounded like a warningprophecy, and the last walk together in the gloaming of a June holiday, and the loving, trusting companionship, and the tender talk of home. Andthen for a day or two we missed the accustomed presence, and dimlycaught a word of dangerous illness; and then came the agony of theparting scene, and the clear, hard, pitiless school bell, cutting on ourhearts the sense of an irreparable loss, as it thrilled through thesultry darkness of the summer night. 

Here I shut the book. And with the memories which that picture called upI may well bring these Recollections to a close. It is something toremember, amid the bustle and bitterness of active life, that one oncehad youth, and hope, and eagerness, and large opportunities, andgenerous friends. A tender and regretful sentiment seems to cling to thevery walls and trees among which one cherished such bright ambitions andfelt the passionate sympathy of such loving hearts. The innocence andthe confidence of boyhood pass away soon enough, and thrice happy is hewho has contrived to keep

 "The young lamb's heart amid the full-grown flocks. "

FOOTNOTES:

[38] In _School and Home Life, _ by T. G. Rooper, M. A. 

[39] In _Eric_, by F. W. Farrar, D. D. 

TRAITS DE MOEURS ANGLAISES. 

JEAN LA FRETTE. 

De ce côté de la Manche nous avons une spécialité de souvenirsmilitaires, et le public paraît prendre goût à ce genre de lectures. Del'autre côté, les souvenirs sont plutôt d'ordre politique ou littéraire. Ils n'en sont pas moins intéressants. Après tout, les récits demassacres et de saccages se ressemblent beaucoup, qu'ils soientd'Hérodote ou de Canrobert: et même il ne semble pas que le genre soiten progrès, si l'on compare les termes extrêmes de la série. CarHérodote vit autre chose que les tueries, et il l'en faut féliciter. 

Il y a une autre différence entre les deux groupes de mémoires enquestion. Les nôtres ont trait pour la plupart à une époque que beaucoupde gens considèrent comme un apogée, de sorte que, pour le lecteur, ilsapportent plutôt un sentiment de découragement. "Voilà ce qu'ilsfirent, " se dit-il: "et nous?... " Car ce qu'on est convenu d'appeler"les gloires" napoléoniennes du début du siècle ne suffit pas, hélas, àeffacer la tache--non moins napoléonienne--de 1870. Ce sentiment, lelecteur anglais ne l'éprouve pas à lire les mémoires qui lui sontofferts, et qui, s'ils ne racontent pas, d'habitude, des exploitsguerriers, relatent les phases principales d'une lente évolution, d'unprogrès très réel dans les moeurs, dans la culture et dansl'amélioration sociale générale. 

Quel était l'auteur du plus récent volume de souvenirs, _Collections andRecollections_, publié par MM. Smith, Elder et C'ie, à Londres, onl'ignora quelques semaines. Maintenant il n'y a plus de doute: l'auteurs'est fait connaître; c'est M. G. W. E. Russell. Sa personnalité importaitassez peu d'ailleurs: car ce n'est lui-même qu'il raconte: ce sont sescontemporains et les faits dont il a été témoin. Mais M. Russell est unhomme de culture, qui a beaucoup approché de notabilités politiques etlittéraires, et a su les écouter parler, saisissant plus volontiers lecôté humoristique ou anecdotique de leurs propos. Son livre est amusantet instructif à la fois: et il met bien en lumière, dans les premierschapitres en particulier, l'évolution dont il était parlé plus haut, latransformation graduelle que les moeurs anglaises ont subie depuis lecommencement du siècle. 

Ce n'est point que l'auteur soit centenaire, d'ailleurs. Il nous le ditexpressément: ses souvenirs personnels remontent à 1856 seulement: maisil a beaucoup vu de vieilles gens, il a pris note de leurs récits, etc'est par ces récits qu'il est facile de mesurer le chemin parcouru. 

Ils confirment ce qu'on savait déjà de la grossièreté des moeurs à uneépoque encore récente. Du reste l'exemple venait de haut, et la familleroyale ne pouvait en imposer ni par la tenue, ni par la moralité. 

Le prince de Galles, raconte Lord Seymour, dans des mémoires inédits, leprince de Galles assure--et doit s'y connaître--"qu'il n'y a pas unehonnête femme à Londres, excepté Lady Parker et Lady Westmorland: etencore sont-elles si bêtes qu'on n'en peut rien tirer: tout au plussont-elles capables de se moucher elles-mêmes. " A la réception de MmeVaneck, la semaine dernière [ceci se passe en 1788], le prince deGalles; à l'honneur de la politesse et de l'élégance de ses manières, mesura la largeur de Mme V---- par derrière avec son mouchoir, et allamontrer les dimensions à presque tous ceux qui étaient là. Un autretrait de la conduite respectueuse du prince: à cette même assemblée il afait signe à la pauvre vieille duchesse de Bedford à travers une grandesalle, et après qu'elle eut pris la peine de traverser cette dernière, il lui dit brusquement n'avoir rien à lui communiquer. Le prince a renduvisite la semaine dernière à Mme Vaneck, avec deux de ses écuyers. Enentrant dans la salle il s'est exclame: "Il _faut_ que je le fasse: ille _faut_ ... " Mme V---- lui a demandé ce qu'il était obligé de faire, et là-dessus il a jeté un clignement d'oeil à St. Léger et à l'autrecomplice qui ont couché Mme V---- à terre, et le prince l'a positivementfouettée... 

C'était le résultat d'un pari. Mais Mlle Vaneck avait quelque habitudedes "jeux de rois": le prince fit pénitence le lendemain, et elle ne luien voulut point. Autre aimable fantaisie du prince: il reçoit le ducd'Orléans, accompagné de son frère naturel, l'abbé de la Fai(?). L'abbéprétend avoir un secret pour charmer les poissons: d'où le pari, à lasuite duquel l'abbé s'approche de l'eau pour chatouiller un poisson avecune baguette. Se méfiant toutefois du prince, qu'il connaissait sansdoute de réputation, il dit qu'il espère bien que celui-ci ne lui jouerapas le tour de le jeter à l'eau. Le prince de protester et de donner "saparole d'honneur. " L'abbé commence à se pencher sur un petit pont et leprince aussitôt le saisit et le fait culbuter à l'eau, d'où l'abbé setire non sans peine, et non sans colère, car il court sur le prince avecun fouet pour le corriger, déclarant à qui veut l'entendre ce qu'ilpense d'un prince incapable de tenir parole. Les _practical jokers_ dece genre n'étaient pas rares: le duc de Cumberland fit partager le mêmesort à une jeune fille qui servait de dame de compagnie. Les "grands"s'amusent.... 

Ils ont d'autres manières de s'amuser: le jeu, la boisson, et le reste, qui sont de tous les temps et de tous les pays: l'histoire de France enpeut témoigner autant que celle de n'importe quelle nation. Il fautcroire que ces plaisirs sont les plus appropriés à la caste oisive etriche, à qui il a suffi de naître pour être--ou paraître--quelque chose. Au reste, il n'y aurait guère à s'en plaindre: ils font office d'agentsde sélection; ils éliminent--dans la stérilité ou imbécillité--des êtresimbéciles et malfaisants, et ils remettent en circulation des richessesqui n'ont souvent été accumulées qu'à coups de rapines, ou par unepersévérante marche dans les voies déshonnêtes. 

Mais ces soi-disant plaisirs mènent de façon très directe au crime:c'est là une notion banale, et les exemples ne manquent point. 

Le duc de Bedford--cinquième du nom--ayant perdu de grosses sommes unsoir, à Newmarket, incrimina les dés, les accusant d'être pipés. Il seleva de table en colère, saisit les instruments de son malheur, et lesemporta pour les examiner à loisir. Rentré chez lui, il se coucha, pourse calmer, remettant ses investigations au lendemain. Celles-ci sefirent avec le concours de ses compagnons, et il dut reconnaître que lesdés étaient fort orthodoxes. Cela le surprit, mais il n'avait qu'às'exécuter et c'est ce qu'il fit: il adressa des excuses, et paya. Quelques années après, un des joueurs qui se mourait le fit appeler. "Jevous ai prié de venir, " dit-il, "parce que je voulais vous dire que vousétiez dans le vrai. Les dés étaient effectivement pipés. Mais nousattendîmes que vous fussiez couché: nous nous sommes glissés dans votrechambre, et aux dés pipés que vous aviez emportés nous avons substituéqui ne l'étaient point, et nous les avons placés dans votre poche. ""Mais si je m'étais éveillé, et si je vous avais pris sur le fait?... ""Eh bien! nous étions décidés à tout ... Et nous avions des pistolets. "

La seule action méritoire de sa vie, disait M. Goldwin Smith du ducd'York, c'est de l'avoir une fois risquée en duel.... C'était maigre, pour un prince du sang, et pour un simple particulier aussi bien. Car ilne la perdit point. 

La délicatesse est très médiocre. 

William et John Scott, plus tard Lord Stowell et Lord Eldon, ayantobtenu quelque succès comme avocats; dans leurs jeunes aimées, avaientrésolu de célébrer l'événement par un dîner à la taverne, après quoil'on irait au théâtre. En payant l'addition, William laissa tomber uneguinée que les deux frères ne purent retrouver. "Mauvaise affaire, " fitWilliam: "voilà qu'il nous faut renoncer au théâtre. " "Que non pas, " ditJohn: "je sais une tour qui vaut mieux. " Il appela la servante. "Betty, nous avons perdu deux guinées: voyez donc si vous pouvez les retrouver. "Betty se met à quatre pattes et cherche si bien qu'elle retrouve lapièce. "Bonne fille, " fait William: "quand vous trouverez l'autre, vouspourrez la garder pour votre peine. " Et les deux frères s'en furent authéâtre, et plus tard aux plus hautes dignités de la magistrature. Lapauvre Betty a-t-elle jamais compris le tour? Il se peut: ce n'est pointpar la délicatesse et les scrupules que se distinguait la clientèle àlaquelle elle avait d'habitude affaire. 

De façon générale, pourtant, ce monde avait un certain couragepersonnel. 

Le cinquième comte de Berkeley avait dit un jour, devant témoins, qu'iln'y a point de honte à être réduit par des adversaires, quand ceux-cil'emportent par le nombre, mais que, pour lui, il ne se rendrait jamaisà un voleur de grand chemin qui l'attaquerait seul. 

En ce temps le brigandage était répandu. Une nuit qu'il se rendait deBerkeley à Londres, sa voiture fut arrêtée par un seigneur de granderoute qui, passant sa tête à la portière, lui dit: "N'êtes-vous pas LordBerkeley?"

"Certainement, " répliqua celui-ci. 

"C'est bien vous qui avez déclaré que vous ne vous rendriez jamais à unvoleur de grand chemin qui vous attaquerait seul?"

"Parfaitement. "

"Eh bien!"--et ce disant il braquait un pistolet sur Lord Berkeley--"jesuis un de ces voleurs, et je suis seul; je vous demande la bourse ou lavie. "

"Chien couard, " crie Lord Berkeley, "crois-tu donc me tromper? Est-ceque je ne vois pas tes complices cachés derrière toi?"

Le voleur se retourne, surpris, pour voir ces complices qu'il ignorait, car il était réellement seul, et dans ce moment Lord Berkeley lui brûlela cervelle. 

Courage, et surtout présence d'esprit. Cette anecdote a été racontée ànotre auteur par la propre fille de Lord Berkeley. 

La religion n'inspirait qu'un médiocre respect. La faute en était enpartie à ses représentants, en partie à l'esprit général. Un purformalisme, une étiquette mondaine, telle elle était: rien de plus. Lesystème était commode; il est resté tel, d'ailleurs, et non passeulement en Angleterre. 

Le mépris des choses religieuses était naturel, et l'exemple partait dehaut. Un des frères du roi, le duc de Cambridge, s'était fait unespécialité dans l'irrévérence, en se créant pour lui seul une liturgie, et en répondant personnellement à l'officiant. 

"Prions, " disait ce dernier à la congrégation. 

"Certainement, " faisait observer le duc; "c'est cela; prions. "

Le clergyman commença. Sans doute, la saison était fort sèche, car ildemanda d'abord au ciel d'envoyer de la pluie. Mais le ducl'interrompit:

"Inutile; rien à faire pour le moment, le vent est à l'Est.... "

Le service continua par une lecture de la Bible. "Et Zacchée se leva etdit: Vois, Seigneur, je donne la moitié de mes biens aux pauvres ... "

"C'est trop, c'est beaucoup trop, " interrompit le duc; "des privilèges, si vous voulez, mais pas le reste. "

On lit les commandements. Le duc les commente. Il en est deux qui legênent:

"C'est très bien dit; mais il est des cas où c'est diablement difficiled'obéir.... Ah! pour celui-là, non; c'est mon frère Ernest qui l'aviolé; cela ne me regarde pas. "

A ce troupeau grossier, et mené par des pasteurs grossiers, onchercherait avec peine quelques sentiments élevés, en dehors du couragepersonnel. C'est quelque chose assurément: mais n'est-il pas infinimentplus déshonorant de ne l'avoir point, qu'il n'est honorable de l'avoir?Il ne semble pas qu'il y ait tant à vanter la possession d'un attributqu'il serait dégradant de ne pas posséder: c'est une vertu négative. Lacondition du peuple était pitoyable: entre le _status_ des enfants desfabriques et l'esclavage, il était difficile d'apercevoir unedifférence. A Bedlam, les aliénés étaient enchaînés à leurs lits depaille, en 1828, et du samedi au lundi ils étaient abandonnés àeux-mêmes, avec les aliments nécessaires à portée, tandis que le geôlierallait s'amuser au dehors. En 1770, il y avait 160 offenses punies de lapeine de mort, et le nombre s'en était beaucoup accru au commencement dece siècle. Le vol simple appelait la peine capitale, et pour avoir volécinq _shillings_ de marchandises dans un magasin, c'était la corde. En1789, on brûlait les faux monnayeurs. C'étaient du reste desréjouissances, que les exécutions, et pour inculquer à la jeunesse dessentiments moraux, on conduisait des écoles entières au spectacle. Cecise passait encore en 1820. Sur le chapitre des dettes, la loi étaitféroce. Une femme est morte dans la prison d'Exeter après quarante cinqans d'incarcération, cette dernière motivée par le fait qu'elle nepouvait acquitter une dette de moins de 500 francs... Aussi lesmalheureux qui avaient perdu leur avoir, ou qui ne pouvaient faire faceà leurs engagements, étaient-ils, pour ainsi dire, jetés dans les brasdu crime. Plutôt que d'aller moisir dans les cachots, ils prenaient lafuite, et comme il faut manger, ils demandaient le nécessaire à lasociété. Ils le demandaient de façons variées: l'une des plus répandues, et qui est relativement honorable, consistait à se faire brigand degrand chemin. Nombre de vaincus de la vie embrassèrent cette carrière oùl'on put voir des gentlemen ruinés et jusqu'à un prélat, l'évêque deRaphoe. Ils avaient beaucoup d'audace, pillant les voitures des invitésà peu de distance du palais. 

Voilà pour le passé. 

C'est par le mouvement religieux, issu d'Oxford il y a bientôtsoixante-dix ans, que la transformation fut opérée. Par le mouvementreligieux, qui fut admirable, et aussi par le mouvement politique où laRévolution et la France jouèrent un rôle prépondérant. Ces deux facteursont puissamment contribué à remodeler l'Angleterre. 

La passion politique était vive: et pendant un temps, tout l'intérêt seconcentra sur ce qui se passait en France. Tous les esprits qui avaientà coeur la liberté civile et la liberté religieuse, tous ceux quel'impéritie et la suffisance de la classe aristocratique dégoûtaient, tous ceux qui voyaient avec mépris ce que l'Eglise avait pu faire de lareligion, avaient embrassé la cause de la France révolutionnaire. Fox, àla prise de la Bastille, s'exclamait: "C'est le plus grand événement quise soit passé au monde, et c'en est le meilleur. " Il croyait que toutserait fini avec le démantèlement de la vieille forteresse symbolique etne prévoyait pas qu'elle pouvait être sitôt reconstituée: l'idée que lepeuple serait assez bête pour se forger, bénévolement, des chaînes pours'entraver lui-même ne lui était point apparue. Par contre, Burke étaitpessimiste. Il ne voyait là que "la vieille férocité parisienne, " et sedemandait si, après tout, ce peuple n'est pas impropre à la liberté, ets'il n'a pas besoin d'une main vigoureuse pour le contenir. Il étaitpessimiste et autoritaire: aussi eut-il beaucoup d'adhérents; et Pittbientôt se joignit à lui, au moins dans la haine des révolutionnaires. Son humiliation fut une joie profonde pour les whigs qui suivaient Fox:et il est intéressant de voir que, pour beaucoup, la défaite de Pittcomptait plus que celle de Napoléon. Il y avait des whigs jusque dans lafamille royale, et ils étaient pleins d'ardeur. Au reste la cause étaitbelle: c'était celle de la liberté contre l'autorité. "Nos adversaires, "s'écriait Lord John Russell, "nous cassent le tympan avec le cri: 'Leroi et l'Eglise. ' Savez-vous ce qu'ils entendent par là? C'est uneEglise sans évangile et un roi qui se met au-dessus de la loi. "Oxford--clérical et littéraire--était tory; Cambridge, scientifique, quiavait eu Newton et attendait Darwin, était whig. Il est bon que lapolitique inspire de telles passions: car, au total, c'est la lutteentre les principes fondamentaux, et l'enjeu est de nature telle que nuln'a le droit de se désintéresser de la partie. Car l'enjeu ce sont leshommes mêmes, leurs privilèges et leurs droits, et s'ils sedésintéressent, ils n'ont que ce qu'ils méritent le jour où la forces'appesantit sur eux brutalement. 

A n'entendre parler que de politique, les enfants mêmes se troublaient"Maman, " demandait la fille d'un whig éminent; "les tories naissent-ilsméchants, ou bien le deviennent-ils?" "Ils naissent méchants, " répliquala mère, "et deviennent pires.... ' Une vieille fille excentrique, quel'auteur a connue, ne consentait à monter dans une voiture de louagequ'après avoir demandé au cocher s'il n'avait point transporté demalades atteints d'une maladie infectieuse, s'il n'était pas puseyite, et enfin s'il adhérait au programme whig. 

"La passion aveugle, " dît Topffer: elle aveuglait sur la moralité desprocédés. Pitt, en visite chez une femme qui occupait un rang élevé dansle monde whig, au moment d'une élection, dit à son interlocutrice: "Ehbien! vous savez, nous l'emporterons. Dix mille guinées partirontdemain par un homme de confiance pour le Yorkshire, et c'est pour notreusage qu'elles partent. " "Du diable s'il en est ainsi, " réplique ladame. Et la nuit même le porteur était arrêté, et son précieux fardeauallait grossir les poches des électeurs qui votèrent pour le candidatwhig et en assurèrent la nomination. 

C'est au cours de ces luttes politiques, pleines de feu et glorieuses, qui marquèrent principalement le début de ce siècle, et firent tant debien à la nation, que les barrières entre les castes commencèrent às'abaisser. Jusque-là, il n'y avait point de rapports entrel'aristocratie et la classe moyenne, en dehors des cas, encore rares, oùla première patronnait l'aristocratie intellectuelle. (Voyez _La Vie deJohnson_ par Boswell, par exemple. )

Les choses allaient à ce point que Wilberforce refusa la pairie pour nepoint retirer à ses fils le privilège de fréquenter chez les_gentlemen_, les familles du commerce, etc. A l'école--et c'est lordBathurst qui a raconté ceci à l'auteur--les fils de nobles étaient assissur un banc à part, loin du contact avec les roturiers. Il fallaitgarder la tradition. C'est ce que faisait le marquis d'Abercorn, quimourut en 1818. Il n'allait jamais à la chasse sans arborer sadécoration--son _Blue Ribbon_--et exigeait que pour faire son lit lesfemmes de chambre eussent les mains gantées, et de gants de peau, pas defil.... Avant d'épouser sa cousine Hamilton, il la fit anoblir par lerégent, pour ne pas se marier au-dessous de sa condition. Et quand ilapprit qu'elle le voulait planter là pour suivre un amant, il la pria deprendre le carrosse de famille afin qu'il ne fût pas dit que LadyAbercorn avait quitté le domicile conjugal dans une voiture de louage. Ases yeux cette "voiture de louage" jetait évidemment un grand discréditsur les operations. On a de la race ou l'on n'en a pas. 

Nous avons dit plus haut que M. G. W. E. Russell avait connu beaucoupd'hommes marquants de ce siècle, et avait eu avec eux des relationspersonnelles. Il en fut de toutes sortes; leurs opinions religieuses etpolitiques étaient souvent très opposées, mais tous étaient au nombredes, notabilités du jour. Sur chacun d'eux, notre auteur donne sonimpression personnelle, et rappelle des souvenirs personnels ou desanecdotes intéressantes. Nous ne pouvons les passer tous en revue: maison en peut citer quelques-uns. 

Sir Moses Montefiore ne fut pas le plus célèbre: mais il avait unespécialité. Né en 1784, il mourut en 1885, ayant été toute sa vie unobjet d'horreur pour les _teetotallers_; car de quel oeil en véritépouvaient-ils considérer un homme qui buvait chaque jour une bouteillede porto, et à qui la Providence permettait de se bien porter? C'étaitindécent... 

Une physionomie plus curieuse était celle de Lord Russell, pleind'anecdotes, spirituel, souvent froid en apparence, à l'occasionéloquent. A une dame qui demandait la permission de lui dédier un livre, il répliquait qu'à son grand regret il se voyait obligé de refuser:"parce que, comme chancelier de l'Université d'Oxford, il avait été trèsexposé aux auteurs. "

Pour un chef politique, il avait un grave défaut. Sa mémoire des visagesétait très faible. Il se rencontra une fois en Ecosse chez un ami communavec le jeune Lord D.... , depuis comte de S.... Le jeune homme lui plutpar sa personne et par ses opinions _whig_. Quand vint l'heure de laséparation, Lord John dit à Lord D.... Tout le plaisir qu'il avait eu àfaire sa connaissance, et ajouta: "Maintenant il faut que vous veniez medonner votre appui à la Chambre des communes. " "Mais je ne fais pasautre chose depuis dix ans, " répondit le jeune politicien. Son chef nel'avait pas reconnu. Avec cela des distractions qui auraient pu le fairecroire dénué d'éducation alors qu'il n'était que dénué d'artifice. 

Etant assis un soir à un concert à Buckingham Palace, aux côtés de laduchesse de Sutherland, il se leva tout à coup, et s'en fut au fond dela pièce, où il s'assit auprès de la duchesse d'Inverness. La chose futremarquée, et l'on soupçonna quelque querelle, aussi fut-il interrogépar un ami sur la cause de son attitude, et il répondit et toutesincérité: "Je ne pouvais rester plus longtemps auprès d'un feu aussivif: je me serais évanoui. " "Ah! très bien: la raison est bonne eneffet, mais au moins avez-vous dit à la duchesse de Sutherland la raisonde votre changement de place?" "Tiens, non, je ne crois pas le lui avoirdit: mais j'ai dit à la duchesse d'Inverness pourquoi je venaism'asseoir près d'elle. "

Il n'était pas diplomate--comme on le peut voir--mais il avait del'esprit, et sa conversation était pleine d'anecdotes curieuses. Ilavait conversé avec Napoléon à l'île d'Elbe. Celui-ci l'avait pris parl'oreille, et lui avait demandé ce qu'en Angleterre on pensait deschances qu'il pouvait avoir de remonter sur le trône de France. "Sire, "répondit Russell, "les Anglais considèrent vos chances comme nulles. ""Alors vous pouvez leur dire de ma part qu'ils se trompent. "

 * * * * *

Autre physionomie intéressante, celle de Lord Shaftesbury, un beau typed'aristocrate, au physique comme au moral, très sensible etcompatissant, un philanthrope bon et loyal, anti-esclavagiste militant. "Pauvres enfants, " disait-il en écoutant le récit d'un inspecteurd'école d'enfants assistés. "Que pouvons-nous faire pour eux?" "NotreDieu subviendra à tous leurs besoins, " dit l'inspecteur, en servant lecliché habituel. "Oui, sans doute, mais il faut qu'ils aient à mangertout de suite, " dit Shaftesbury, et sur l'heure il rentre chez lui, etexpédie 400 rations de soupe. Le quiproquo d'un journaliste américainl'amusa fort. Devenu Lord Shaftesbury après avoir longtemps porté le nomde Lord Ashley, il signa une lettre sur l'émancipation des esclaves desEtats-Unis du Sud. "Où était-il donc, ce lord Shaftesbury, " demandaitle journaliste, "pendant que ce noble coeur, Lord Ashley, seul et sansappui, se faisait le champion des esclaves anglais dans les manufacturesdu Lancashire et du Yorkshire?" C'était un type admirable de grandseigneur, et de grand coeur, et l'on comprend ce que lui disaitBeaconsfield, avec un peu d'emphase, une fois qu'il prenait congé, aprèslui avoir rendu visite dans son château: "Adieu, mon cher lord. Vousm'avez donné le privilège de contempler l'un des plus impressionnantsdes spectacles; de voir un grand noble anglais vivant à l'étatpatriarcal dans son domaine héréditaire. "

Puis c'est Lord Houghton, qui avait de l'esprit et de la psychologie. Ilvenait de gagner une livre a un jeune homme de ressources très modestes, au cours d'une partie de whist, et comme il empochait la pièce: "Ah! moncher enfant, " dit-il, "le _grand_ Lord Hertford, que les sots appellentle _méchant_ Lord Hertford, avait accoutumé de dire: Il n'y a pas deplaisir à gagner de l'argent à un homme qui ne sent point sa perte. Comme c'est vrai!"

Et apercevant un jeune ami, au club, qui faisait un souper de pâté defoie gras et de Champagne, il lui fit un regard d'encouragement: "Voilàqui est bien, mon ami: toutes les choses agréables de la vie sontmalsaines, ou coûteuses, ou illicites. " C'est un peu la philosophie du_Pudd'n-head Wilson_ de Mark Twain, qui déclare que, pour bien fairedans la vie, il faut se priver de tout ce que l'on aime, et faire toutce que l'on n'aime point. 

Notre auteur n'a point connu Wellington, mais des anecdotes lui ont étéfournies à son égard, de première main. 

C'était lors du couronnement de la reine Victoria. Celle-ci voulaitaller au palais de Saint-James, n'ayant dans son carrosse que laduchesse de Kent et une dame d'honneur; mais Lord Albemarle, _master ofthe Horse_, exposa qu'il avait le droit de faire le trajet avec lareine, dans la même voiture, comme il l'avait fait avec Guillaume IV. De là, discussion. L'affaire fut soumise au duc de Wellington, considérécomme une sorte d'arbitre en choses de la cour. Sa réponse fut préciseet peu satisfaisante. "La reine seule a droit de décider, " dit-il: "ellepeut vous faire aller dans la voiture ou hors de la voiture, ou courirderrière comme un s... Chien de raccommodeur. "

A un autre moment le gouvernement méditait une expédition en Birmaniepour la prise de Rangoon, et l'on se demandait à quel général la tâcheserait confiée. Le cabinet consulta Wellington. Celui-ci répliquaaussitôt: 'Envoyez Lord Combermere. '

"Mais nous avons toujours compris que Votre Seigneurie considérait LordCombermere comme un imbécile.... " "Assurément, c'est un imbécile, "répliqua Wellington, "c'est un s... Imbécile, mais il peut bien prendreRangoon. "

Autre trait de la même période, et qui se rapporte à Lord Melbourne. 

La reine Victoria venait de se fiancer, et elle voulait que le princeAlbert fût fait roi consort, par acte du Parlement. Elle parla de ceci àLord Melbourne, le premier ministre. Celui-ci commença par éviter ladiscussion, mais comme Sa Majesté insistait pour obtenir un aviscatégorique: "Pour l'amour de Dieu, Madame, ne parlons plus de ceci. Car, une fois que vous aurez donné à la nation anglaise le moyen defaire des rois, vous lui aurez aussi donné le moyen de les défaire. "

Il avait de la philosophie, Lord Melbourne.... C'est lui qui disait quel'intelligence n'est pas toujours indispensable: le grand avantage ducélèbre ordre de la Jarretière, ajoutait-il, c'est qu'au moins "il n'y apas, dans toute cette bête d'histoire, de _mérite_ à l'avoir. " LordMelbourne avait la bosse de l'esprit pratique, en même temps que laphilosophie. 

Pour les personnalités plus modernes, notre auteur insiste assezlonguement sur Disraeli, _alias_ Dizzy, _alias_ encore LordBeaconsfield. C'était un homme ingénieux. 

"On m'accuse d'être un flatteur, " disait-il à Matthew Arnold. "Cela estvrai, je suis un flatteur. Il est utile de l'être. Chacun aime laflatterie, et, si vous approchez les rois, il faut l'empiler avec unetruelle.... " "Mon secret, c'est de ne jamais contredire et de ne jamaisnier; j'oublie quelquefois.... "

Il savait être aimable quand il le fallait, et voici son procédé pour sefaire bien venir des personnes qu'il ne reconnaissait pas, mais qui leconnaissaient, à en juger par leur manière de venir à lui: "Eh bien!"disait-il sur un ton d'affectueuse sollicitude, "et le vieil ennemi, quefait-il?" (_How is thé old complaint?_ Comment va l'indispositionaccoutumée?) Cela tombait rarement à faux; et cela faisait toujoursplaisir. 

Bismarck, qui s'y connaissait, avait une haute opinion de Disraeli, "Salisbury est sans importance, " disait-il durant le congrès de Berlin:"ce n'est qu'une baguette peinte pour ressembler à du fer. Mais ce vieuxjuif--Disraeli--s'entend aux affaires. "

Un amusant épisode se rapporte au même congrès, et au même "vieux juif. "

Lord Beaconsfield arriva à Berlin la veille de l'ouverture, etl'ambassade anglaise le reçut avec beaucoup d'apparat. Dans le courantde la soirée un des secrétaires vint trouver Lord Odo Russell qui étaitl'ambassadeur en ce moment et lui dit:

"Nous sommes dans un terrible embarras. Vous seul pouvez nous en tirer. Le vieux chef a résolu d'ouvrir le congrès avec un discours enfrançais.... Il a rédigé une longue oraison, en français, et il l'aapprise par coeur. Il ouvrira les écluses demain. L'Europe entière va semoquer de nous: sa prononciation est exécrable. Nous perdrions nosplaces à vouloir le lui dire: voulez-vous nous tirer d'affaire?"

"La mission est délicate, " fit Lord Odo: "mais j'aime les missionsdélicates. Je vais voir ce que je puis faire. "

Il alla rejoindre Dizzy dans la chambre à coucher d'honneur del'ambassade. 

"Mon cher lord, " dit-il, "une terrible rumeur est arrivée jusqu'à mesoreilles. "

"Vraiment, qu'est-ce donc?"

"On nous dit que vous avez l'intention d'ouvrir demain les travaux ducongrès en français. "

"Eh bien! et après?"

"Ce qu'il y a, c'est que nous savons tous que nul en Europe n'est mieuxen état de ce faire. Mais, à tout prendre, faire un discours en françaisest un tour de force banal. Il y aura au congrès au moins unedemi-douzaine d'hommes qui pourraient en faire autant, presque aussibien. Mais, d'un autre côté, qui donc, hormis vous, pourrait prononcerun discours en anglais? Tous ces plénipotentiaires sont venus desdifférentes cours d'Europe dans l'expectative du plus grand régalintellectuel de leur existence: entendre parler en anglais par le maîtrele plus éminent de la langue. La question est de savoir si vous lesvoulez désappointer?... "

Dizzy écouta avec attention, mit son monocle, considéra Lord Odo, et ditenfin:

"11 y a un argument sérieux dans ce que vous me dites là. Je vais yréfléchir. "

Et il y réfléchit si bien que le lendemain il ouvrait le congrès enlangue anglaise. Avait-il réellement avalé la flatterie, ou bienavait-il compris--fût-ce vaguement--son infériorité en français? On nesait; mais un flatteur tel que lui devait avoir quelque méfiance; et laseconde hypothèse est sans doute la plus exacte. 

Autre anecdote. Il dînait un jour à côté de la princesse de Galles, etse blessa le doigt en voulant couper du pain trop dur. La princesse, pleine de grâce, entoura le doigt de son propre mouchoir. Et Dizzy, avecà-propos, de s'exclamer:

"Je leur ai demandé du pain, et c'est une pierre qu'ils m'ontdonnée.... Mais j'ai eu une princesse pour panser mes plaies. "

Sa mort fut longue et douloureuse. Pendant six semaines elle approcha ets'éloigna tour à tour. Un ami--ce nom est-il bien en situation--trouvale courage de dire à ce propos: "Ah! le voilà bien; il exagère: il atoujours exagéré. "

Sur Gladstone, Newman et beaucoup d'autres, il faut passer rapidement. Manning a toutefois laissé une grande impression à l'auteur, par saprestance et sa dignité. Il était malicieux aussi. 

Peu après la mort de Newman, un article nécrologique parut dans unerevue, qui était piquant et même méchant. Manning fut interrogé à cepropos; il déclara qu'il plaignait l'auteur de l'avoir écrit, quecelui-ci devait avoir un fort mauvais esprit, etc. , mais, ajouta-t-il:"Si vous demandez si c'est bien là Newman, je suis bien obligé de vousle dire; c'est une vraie photographie. "

On peut du reste ouvrir _Collections and Recollections_ au hasard; àtoute page c'est un trait curieux et spirituel qui se montre. J'en citequelques-uns, "tout venant, " comme disent les carriers. Les deuxpremiers rapportent à Henry Smith, un Irlandais des plus spirituels, quifut professeur de géométrie à Oxford. Un homme politique éminent, quiest actuellement un des premiers jurisconsultes de son pays, et dont leprincipal défaut est une suffisance exagérée, se présentait auxélections en 1880, comme candidat libéral. Pour le discréditer, sesadversaires politiques le représentèrent aux élections comme athée;c'était une manoeuvre. Apprenant cette accusation, Henry Smith s'écria, avec une indignation feinte:

"Tout cela est faux. Il n'est nullement un athée. Il croit le plusfermement du monde à l'existence d'un être supérieur "--sans ajouter quel'être supérieur, en qui X----croyait, était X---- lui-même. 

"Que vaut-il le mieux être, évêque ou juge?" "Oh!" fait Henry Smith, "évêque. Car le juge, au plus, peut dire: 'Allez vous faire pendre;'mais l'évêque peut vous damner. " "Oui, " dit le maître de Balliol, "maissi le juge dit: 'Allez vous faire pendre, ' vous êtes effectivementpendu. " Ici Smith avait le dessous. 

Une jolie anecdote dont Napoléon III. _n'est pas_ le héros:

Napoléon III. , alors qu'il n'était que prétendant, et plus riched'espérances que de monnaie ayant cours légal, fréquentait beaucoup, àLondres, chez Lady Blessington, maison plus clinquante que solide. Aprèsle coup d'Etat, la dame vint à Paris faire un petit voyage, et elles'attendait à ce que ses politesses lui fussent rendues. Aucuneinvitation ne venait, l'empereur oubliait les bienfaits reçus par leprince. A la fin, pourtant, Lady Blessington réussit à le rencontrer aucours d'une réception quelconque. Il ne put éviter de la voir etl'interpella: "Ah! milady Blessington, restez-vous longtemps à Paris?""Et vous, Sire?" repliqua-t-elle. 

Revenons un peu en arrière et voici une autre jolie ironie. 

Au collège d'Oriel, un soir, un des compagnons de Charles Marriott, quijoua un si grand rôle dans le _Tractarian Movement_, s'oublia, et seconduisit de façon déplacée. Le lendemain, rencontrant Marriott, ilessaya de s'excuser. "Mon cher ami, je crois bien que j'ai quelque peufait la bête hier au soir. " "Comment donc, cher camarade?" repliquaMarriott. "Je ne me suis pas aperçu que vous fussiez autrement qu'àl'ordinaire. "

Le tact n'est pas donné à tous; et pour en avoir, il ne suffit pasd'occuper une haute situation. 

Il y a à Windsor, au bout d'une des promenades du château, une statueéquestre que le peuple a dénommée le Cheval de cuivre. Un grand dedistinction, mais assez pauvre en culture historique, était l'hôte de laReine, et une après-midi il fit une promenade. A dîner la Reines'informa de ce qu'il avait fait, demandant s'il n'était point fatigué. 

"Du tout, Madame, merci; j'ai trouvé une voiture qui m'a ramené jusqu'auCheval de cuivre. "

"Jusqu'où?" dit la Reine avec effarement

"Jusqu'au Cheval de cuivre, vous savez bien, au bout de Long Walk. "

"Mais ce n'est pas un cheval de cuivre: c'est mon grand-père. "

"Avez-vous lu les _Greville Memoirs_?" demandait quelqu'un à Disraeli. "Non, " repliqua-t-il. "Ils ne m'attirent pas. Il me souvient del'auteur, et c'était la personne la plus vaniteuse avec qui je soisjamais entré en contact, encore que j'aie lu Cicéron et connu BulwerLytton. " D'une pierre trois coups; et ils sont bons. Voulez-vous de lamalice féminine?

"Que Lady Jersey est donc belle!" s'exclamait un admirateur fervent, devant Lady Morley, sa rivale en beauté. "Dans sa toilette de deuil, ennoir et avec ses diamants, elle semble personnifier la nuit. " "Oui, moncher, " fit Lady Morley, "mais minuit passé. "

 * * * * *

Le chapitre des mots d'enfants est fort étendu. J'en cueillequelques-uns au hasard:

Voici un trait d'Alexandre de Battenberg, alors qu'il était tout jeuneencore. Manquant d'argent de poche, il imagina d'écrire à son augustegrand'mère, la reine et impératrice Victoria, pour en demander. Elle luirépondit une admonestation, et en l'engageant à être désormais pluséconome, de façon à ne pas se trouver dépourvu à la fin du mois. Trèsbien. Quelque jours après, elle reçut un second billet de sonpetit-fils. 

"Chère grand'mère, " disait le très pratique personnage, "je suis certainque vous apprendrez avec plaisir que je n'ai pas besoin de vous ennuyerpour de l'argent en ce moment, car j'ai vendu votre dernière lettre pour30 shillings à un de mes camarades d'ici!... "

Un enfant--qui depuis a été représentant de Manchester auParlement--avait dans sa famille une servante qu'il jugeait être fortvieille. Il eût voulu savoir son âge, mais il n'osait le lui demander, sachant que c'est là une question qu'on ne pose pas. Il fallait ruser. Enfin, un jour, il trouva le biais requis. Il venait de lire que l'aloèsne fleurit qu'une fois tous les cent ans--ce qui est une erreurd'ailleurs--et il y avait des aloès dans la serre. Abordant la servanted'un air câlin: "Avez-vous souvent vu fleurir l'aloès?"

Une élégante forme de politesse. C'est aux Indes, et un Indien rendcompte au gouverneur d'une partie de chasse qui a été organisée enl'honneur d'un jeune lord de passage. "Eh bien?" fait le gouverneur. "Oh!" dit l'Indien, "le jeune Sahib a tiré divinement; mais Dieu a ététrès miséricordieux pour les petits oiseaux. "

Comme cela est finement dit! Je n'en dirai pas autant de quelquesexemples de rhétorique religieuse. 

C'est une métaphore cueillie dans le sermon d'un clergyman: "Et siquelque étincelle de grâce a pu être allumée par cet exercice, veuille, ô Dieu, l'arroser. "

Et que dites-vous de cette prière prononcée devant la reine Victoria parun prédicateur de petite ville? "Elle, " c'est la souveraine: "accorde, ôDieu! qu'en devenant plus âgée elle soit faite un homme nouveau, et quedans toutes les causes de justice elle marche en avant de son peuplecomme un bélier dans les montagnes. "

Que de métamorphoses, grand Dieu!

Et enfin, pour ne pas sortir de la théologie. C'est aux examens del'Université. 

"Qu'est-ce que la foi?

"C'est cette faculté par laquelle nous pouvons croire ce que nous savonsn'être pas vrai. "

Et j'en passe, et des meilleures, et en grand nombre. Lisez _Collectionsand Recollections_ l'occupation est amusante et instructive, et uneexcellente table des noms vous permettra de savoir tout de suite s'ilest parlé de tel ou toi personnage et de retrouver les anecdotes qui leconcernent. 

Abercorn, marquis ofActon, LordAlbermarle, sixth Earl of, fifth Earl ofAlbert, Prince ConsortAlbert Edward, Prince of Wales (_see_ Wales)Alvanley, LordAmpthill, LordAppleton, TomApponyi, Mme. Arbuthnot, Mrs. Argyll, Duke and Duchess ofArnold, MatthewAtholl, Duke andDuchess of Aytoun, W. E. 

Balfour, A. J. G. W. Barham, Rev. R. H. D. ("Thomas Ingoldsby")Barker, H. J. Bathurst, EarlBattenberg, Prince Alexander ofBayly, T. H. Beaconsfield, Earl ofBeaconsfield, ViscountessBedford, Anna Maria, Duchess of fifth Duke of Gertrude, Duchess of sixth Duke ofBenson, Dr. , Archbishop of CanterburyBenson, HarryBeresford-Hope, A. J. B. Berkeley, Earl ofBernal-Osborne, RalphBerry, the MissesBirrell, AugustineBismarck, Count Herbert PrinceBlessington, Countess ofBlomfield, Dr. , Bishop of LondonBolles, Dame MariaBolton, Duchess ofBoswell, JamesBowen, LordBraddon, MissBright, JohnBrookfield, Rev. W. H. Brougham, LordBroughton, Miss, Browne, Dr. , Bishop of Ely, Browning, Robert, Brownrigg, Mrs. , Brummell, G. B. , Buckinghamshire, Countess of, Bull, Bishop, Burdett, Sir Francis, Burgon, Dean, Burke, Sir Bernard, Edmund, Bury, Lady Charlotte, Butler, Dr. , Master of Trinity, Dr. , Bishop of Lichfield, Byng, George, Byron, Lord, Calverley, C. S. , Cambridge, Adolphus, Duke of, Duchess of, Canning, George, Canterbury, Archbishops Benson, Cornwallis, Howley, Tait, andTemple, of (_see_ those headings). Carlyle, Thomas, Carrington, Lord, "Carroll, Lewis, "Chamberlain, Joseph, Charles I. , II. , Chatham, Earl of, Child, Miss, Church, Dean, Churchill, Lord Randolph, Clarence, Edward, Duke of, William, Duke of, Cleveland, Duchess of, Cobbett, William, Cobden, F. C. , Richard, Cockburn, Sir Alexander, "Coke of Norfolk" (Earl of Leicester), Coleridge, Lord, Sir J. T. , Collins, Miss, Combermere, Viscount, Viscountess, Connaught, Duke of, Prince Arthur of, Cornwallis, Dr. , Archbishop of Canterbury, Cowper-Temple, W. F. (Lord Mount-Temple), Croker, J. W. , Cross, Viscount, Cumberland, Ernest, Duke of, Henry Frederick, Duke of, Cuyler, Miss, Cunningham, Sir Henry, Delane, J. T. , Denison, Archdeacon, Derby, fourteenth Earl of, fifteenth Earl of, De Ros, Lord, Devonshire, eighth Duke of, Dickens, Charles, Disraeli (_see_ Beaconsfield). D'Orsay, Count Alfred, Dowse, Serjeant, Dublin, Archbishops Plunket, Trench, and Whately, of (_see_those headings). Duckworth, Rev. Dr. Dufferin, Marchioness of, Marquis of, Duncombe, Thomas, Dundas, Sir David, Eldon, Earl of, Elliot, Dean, Ely, Bishops Browne, Sparke, Turton, and Woodford, of (_see_ those headings). Erne, Earl and Countess of, Erskine, Lord, Evarts, Jeremiah, Exeter, Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of, Eyton, Rev. Robert, FitzGerald, Lady Edward, Fitzherbert, Mrs. , Fitzwilliam, Earl, Forster, W. E. , Fox, C. J. , Frederick, the Empress (Princess Royal), Freeman, E. A. , Fronde, J. A. , Furse, Archdeacon, Gambetta, Leon, George IV. (_see_ under Kings). Gladstone, W. E. , Glasse, Hannah, Glentworth, Viscountess, Gloucester, Duke of ("Silly Billy"), Gore, Rev. Charles, Goschen, G. J. , Gower, Earl, Graham, H. J. L. , Grain, Corney, Granville, Earl, Grattan, Henry, Grenville, Thomas, Greville, C. C. F. , Grey, Colonel Charles, Grey, Earl, Lady Georgiana, Guthrie, Anstey, Haig-Brown, Rev. Dr. , Hamilton, Lady Anne, Lady Cecil, Emma, Lady, Hampden, Viscount, Dr. , Bishop of Hereford, Hankey, Thomson, Mrs. , Hanover, Ernest, King of, Harcourt, Lady Anne, Dr. , Archbishop of York, Sir William, Hardy, Gathorne (Earl of Cranbrook), Harness, Rev. William, Harte, Bret, Hayward, Abraham, Healy, T. M. , Heath, Baron, Hertford, first Marquis of, third Marquis of, Hilton, A. C. , Hoare, Mrs. , Holland, Sir Henry, M. D. , Rev. H. S. , Lady, Lord, Hook, Dean, Hope-Scott, J. R. , Houghton, Lord, Howley, Dr. , Archbishop of Canterbury, Hugo, Victor, Hume, David, Huntingdon, Countess of, "Ingoldsby, Thomas" (Rev. R. H. D, Barham), his "Legends, "Irving, Sir Henry, Jenkins, Miss A. M. , Edward, Jersey, Countess of, Jessopp, Rev. Dr. , Johnson, Dr. , Jones, W. B. T. , Jowett, Rev. Benjamin, Keble, Rev. John, Kent, Duchess of, Keppel, Admiral, Kidd, Dr. , Kings-- Earnest of Hanover, George III. , George IV. , William IV. , Kingsley, Rev. Charles, Henry, Kipling, Rudyard, Kitchener, Dr. , Knox, Alexander, Knutsford, Viscount, Kurr, William, Labouchere, Henry, La Fai, l'Abbé de, Lang, Andrew, Law, Rev. William, Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, Lear, Edward, Lecky, W. E. H. , Leech, John, Miss, Leicester, Earl of ("Coke of Norfolk"), Lennox, Lady Louisa, Leo XIII. (_see_ Popes, Leo XIII. ). Liddell, Dean, Liddon, Rev. Dr. , Lightfoot, Dr. , Bishop of Durham, Lily, Mrs. , Lincoln, Abraham, Lind, Jenny, London, Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of, Lover, Samuel, Lowell, J. R. , Luttrell, Henry, Lyndhurst, Lady, Lord, Lyttelton, Lady, Lytton, Lord, Macaulay, Lord, M'Carthy, Justin, MacColl, Rev. Malcolm, Mackintosh, Sir James, Macleod, Rev. Norman, Mallock, W. H. , Manners, Lord John (Duke of Rutland), Manning, Cardinal, Marlborough, third Duke of, fourth Duke of, Marriott, Rev. Charles, Marsh, Dr. , Bishop of Peterborough, Marten, Henry, Martin, Sir Theodore, Maude, Capt. Francis, Maxse, Lady Caroline, Maxwell, Sir Herbert, Melbourne, Viscount, Merry, Rev. W. W. , Milnes, R. M. (_see_ Lord Houghton)"Miss J. , "Monk, Dr. , Bishop of Gloucester, Montefiore, Sir Moses, Montgomery, Miss, Rev. Robert, Moore, Thomas, More, Hannah, Morley, John, ", Countess of, Morris, Lord, Motley, J. L. , Mount-Temple, Lord (_see_ Cowper-Temple, W. F. ). 

Napoleon I. , III. , Newman, Cardinal, Northumberland, Duke and Duchess of, Norton, Mrs. , OAKS Widows, the, O'Coighley, J. , O'Connell, Daniel, "Old Q. , "Orleans, Duke of, O'Sullivan, W. H. , Owen, Sir Hugh, Palmerston, Viscount, Viscountess, "Pamela" (Lady Edward FitzGerald), Parke, Sir James (_see_ Lord Wensleydale). Parr, Rev. Dr. , Pater, W. H. , Payn, James, Peel, Sir Robert (father), (son), Pembroke, Countess, Earl of, Phillpotts, Dr. , Bishop of Exeter, Pigott, Miss, Pitt, William (_see_ Chatham). Pitt, William (younger), Pius IX. (_see_ Popes, Pius IX. ). Plunket, Lord, Pollock, Sir Frederick, Popes, Leo XIII. , Pius IX. , Prince Regent (_see_ Kings, George IV. ). Princess Royal (_see_ Victoria, Princess Royal). Procter, Mrs. , "Q. , "Queen Victoria, Queensberry, Duke of (_see_ "Old Q. ")

Raikes, H. C. , Raphoe, Dr. Twysden, Bishop of (_see_ Twysden, Dr. ). Rawlinson, Sir Robert, Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Rhoades, James, Richmond, Rev. Legh, Duchess of, Ridding, Dr. , Bishop of Southwell, Lady Laura, Robinson, Rev. Thomas, Rochester, Dr. Thorold, Bishop of (_see_ Thorold). Rogers, Samuel, J. E. Thorold, Rosebery, Earl of, Rossetti, D. G. , Rowton, Lord, Ruskin, John, Russell, Lord Charles, Lord John (sixth Duke of Bedford), Lord John (Earl Russell), Russell, Odo (Lord Ampthill), Lord William, Lord Wriothesley, Rutland, Duke of, Salisbury, Marquis of, Saurin, Lady Mary (_née_ Ryder), Sawbridge, Mrs. , Scott, John (Earl of Eldon), Rev. Thomas, Sir Waller, William (Lord Stowell), Seaman, Owen, Seeley, Sir John, Sellon, Miss, Seymour, Lady Robert, Sir Hamilton, Jane, Lady (Duchess of Somerset), Lord Robert, Shaftesbury, sixth Earl of, seventh Earl of, Shaw-Lefevre, Charles (Viscount Eversley), Sheil, R. L. , Sheppard, Thomas, Sherbrooke, Viscount, Sheridan, Jane (Lady Seymour, Duchess of Somerset), Sheridan, R. B. , Short, Rev. Thomas, Shorthouse, J. H. , Shuckburgh, Lady, Sibthorp, Colonel, Siddons, Mrs. , "Silly Billy, "Smith, Eliza, Goldwin, Henry, Horace, Smith, Robert (Lord Carrington), Rev. Sydney, Somerset, Duchess of (_see_ Sheridan, Jane). Southey, Robert, Southwell, Dr. Ridding, Bishop of, Sparke, Dr. , Bishop of ElySpencer, Rev. George, Earl, Staël, Mme de, Stanley, Dean, Stephen, J. K. , Stirling, Sir Walter, Stowell, Lord, Stuart, Prince Charles Edward, Lady Louisa, Sturgis, Julian, Sumner, Dr. , Bishop of Winchester, Sussex, Duke of, Swinburne, A. C. , Tait, Dr. , Archbishop of Canterbury, Talleyrand, Prince, Talmash, Lady Bridget, Temple, Dr. , Archbishop of Canterbury, Tennyson, Lord, Thackeray, W. M. , Thistlewood, Arthur, Thompson, Dr. (Master of Trinity), Thomson, Dr. , Archbishop of York, Thorold, Dr. , Bishop of Winchester, Sir John, Tighe, Lady Louisa, Mr. , Trench, Dr. , Archbishop of Dublin, Trevelyan, Sir George, Trollope, Anthony, Turner, Rev. E. T. , Turton, Dr. , Bishop of Ely, Twysden, Dr. , Bishop of Raphoe, Tyndall, John, Upward, Allen, Vaneck, Mrs. , Van Mildert, Dr. , Bishop of Durham, Vaughan, Dean, Venn, Rev. Henry, Victoria, Her Majesty Queen (_see_ under Queen). Princess, Royal, Villiers, C. P. , Waldegrave, Countess, Wales, Albert Edward, Prince of, Alexandra, Princess of, George, Prince of, Walpole, Horace, Wellington, Duke of, Wensleydale, Lord (Sir James Paike), Wesley, Rev. Charles, Rev. John, West, Sir Algernon, Westbury, Lord, Westcott, Dr. , Bishop of Durham, Whately, Dr. , Archbishop of Dublin, White, Rev. Henry, Whitefield, Rev. George, Wilberforce, Rev. Basil, Bishop, William, Winchester, Bishops Sumner, Thorold, and Wilberforce, of (_see_ those headings). Woodford, Dr. , Bishop of Ely, Woods, Rev. Dr. , Wordsworth, William, Wyke, Sir Charles, Wynn, Miss, York, Dr. Harcourt, Archbishop of, Dr. Thomson, Archbishop of, Frederick, Duke of, Young, Arthur, THE END.