FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

 * * * * *

 _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. _

THE GREAT BOER WAR. _Arthur Conan Doyle. _

COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. _G. W. E. Russell. _

FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. _E. S. Grogan. _

SPURGEON'S SERMONS. _Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL. D. _

SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD. _Augustine Birrell, K. C. , M. P. _

THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER. _Colonel Durand. _

LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. _Lord Morley. _

LIFE OF PARNELL. _R. Barry O'Brien. _

MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY. _Dr. John Kerr. _

A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. _S. Reynolds Hole. _

RANDOM REMINISCENCES. _Charles Brookfield. _

AT THE WORKS. _Lady Bell. _

MEXICO AS I SAW IT. _Mrs. Alec Tweedie. _

PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND. _Harry de Windt. _

LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL. _Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. _

THE MANTLE OF THE EAST. _Edmund Candler. _

LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN. 

JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET. _Prince Ranjitsinhji. _

BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD. _Louisa Jebb. _

SOME OLD LOVE STORIES. _T. P. O'Connor. _

FIELDS, FACTORIES, & WORKSHOPS. _Prince Kropotkin. _

PROBLEMS OF POVERTY. _Dr. Chalmers. _

THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. _M. E. Durham. _

LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY. --I. & II. _Sir George O. Trevelyan, Bart. _

WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA. _Hon. Maurice Baring. _

WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY. _C. J. Cornish. _

THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS. _Mrs. Alec Tweedie. _

THE VOYAGE OF THE "DISCOVERY. "--I. & II. _Captain Scott. _

FELICITY IN FRANCE. _Constance E. Maud. _

MY CLIMBS IN THE ALPS AND CAUCASUS. _A. F. Mummery. _

JOHN BRIGHT. _R. Barry O'Brien. _

POVERTY. _B. Seebohm Rowntree. _

SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. _Commander E. Hamilton Currey, R. N. _

FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES. _A. Hilliard Atteridge. _

THE CRUISE OF THE "FALCON. " _E. F. Knight. _

A. K. H. B. (A Volume of Selections). 

THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS. _Jack London. _

GRAIN OR CHAFF? _A. Chichele Plowden. _

LIFE AT THE ZOO. _C. J. Cornish. _

THE FOUR MEN. _Hilaire Belloc. _

CRUISE OF THE "ALERTE. " _E. F. Knight. _

FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS. _Stoddard Dewey. _

A REAPING. _E. F. Benson. _

 _Etc. , etc. _

 _Others to follow. _

 * * * * *

Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography

BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL

[Illustration: Publisher's logo]

THOMAS NELSON AND SONSLONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLINAND NEW YORK

_NOTE. _

_This book was originally published under the title of "One Look Back. "_

TO

HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND

IN HONOUR OF THE BEST GIFT WHICH OXFORD GAVE ME

CONTENTS

 I. BEGINNINGS 9

 II. HARROW 35

 III. HARROVIANA 56

 IV. OXFORD 82

 V. OXONIANA 102

 VI. HOME 125

 VII. LONDON 143

VIII. HOSPITALITY 171

 IX. ELECTIONEERING 195

 X. PARLIAMENT 222

 XI. POLITICS 246

 XII. ORATORY 283

XIII. LITERATURE 309

 XIV. SERVICE 338

 XV. ECCLESIASTICA 365

FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

I

BEGINNINGS

 One look back--as we hurry o'er the plain, Man's years speeding us along-- One look back! From the hollow past again, Youth, come flooding into song! Tell how once, in the breath of summer air, Winds blew fresher than they blow; Times long hid, with their triumph and their care, Yesterday--many years ago! E. E. BOWEN. 

The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the midst ofthem a kind of wooden temple, and passes by it unmoved. But, if hiscuriosity tempts him to enter it, he sees, through an aperture in theboarded floor, a slab of stone bearing this inscription:

 "On this spot was beheaded William Lord Russell, A lover of constitutional liberty, 21st July, A. D. 1683. "[1]

Of the martyr thus temperately eulogized I am thegreat-great-great-great-grandson, and I agree with The Antiquary, that"it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy wayof expressing a relationship of which we have occasion to think andspeak so frequently. "

Before we part company with my ill-fated ancestor, let me tell a storybearing on his historical position. When my father was a cornet in theBlues, he invited a brother-officer to spend some of his leave at WoburnAbbey. One day, when the weather was too bad for any kind of sport, thevisitor was induced to have a look at the pictures. The Rembrandts, andCuyps, and Van Dykes and Sir Joshuas bored him to extremity, butaccidentally his eye lit on Hayter's famous picture of Lord Russell'strial, and, with a sudden gleam of intelligence, he exclaimed, "Hullo!What's this? It looks like a trial. " My father answered, with modestpride--"It is a trial--the trial of my ancestor, William, Lord Russell. ""Good heavens! my dear fellow--an ancestor of yours tried? What ashocking thing! _I hope he got off. _"

So much for our Family Martyr. 

In analysing one's nationality, it is natural to regard one's fourgrand-parents as one's component parts. Tried by this test, I am half anEnglishman, one quarter a Highlander, and one quarter a Welshman, for myfather's father was wholly English; my father's mother wholly Scotch; mymother's father wholly Welsh; and my mother's mother wholly English. Mygrandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was born in 1766 and died in1839. He married, as his second wife, Lady Georgiana Gordon, sister ofthe last Duke of Gordon, and herself "the last of the Gordons" of thesenior line. She died just after I was born, and from her and the "gayGordons" who preceded her, I derive my name of George. It has alwaysbeen a comfort to me, when rebuked for ritualistic tendencies, to recallthat I am great-great-nephew of that undeniable Protestant, Lord GeorgeGordon, whose icon I daily revere. My grandmother had a numerous family, of whom my father was the third. He was born in Dublin Castle, hisfather being then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of "All theTalents. " My grandfather had been a political and personal friend ofCharles James Fox, and Fox had promised to be godfather to his nextchild. But Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and my father didnot appear till the 10th of February, 1807. Fox's nephew, Henry LordHolland, took over the sponsorship, and bestowed the names of "CharlesJames Fox" on the infant Whig, who, as became his father's viceregalstate, was christened by the Archbishop of Dublin, with water from agolden bowl. 

The life so impressively auspicated lasted till the 29th of June, 1894. So my father, who remembered an old Highlander who had been out withPrince Charlie in '45, lived to see the close of Mr. Gladstone's fourthPremiership. He was educated at Rottingdean, at Westminster, where myfamily had fagged and fought for many generations, and at the Universityof Edinburgh, where he boarded with that "paltry Pillans, " who, according to Byron, "traduced his friend. " From Edinburgh he passedinto the Blues, then commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, and thenceinto the 52nd Regiment. In 1832 he was returned to the first ReformedParliament as Whig Member for Bedfordshire. He finally retired in 1847, and from that date till 1875 was Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House ofCommons. He married in 1834, and had six children, of whom I was theyoungest by eight years, being born on the 3rd of February, 1853. [2]

My birthplace (not yet marked with a blue and white medallion) was 16, Mansfield Street; but very soon afterwards the official residences atthe Palace of Westminster were finished, and my father took possessionof the excellent but rather gloomy house in the Speaker's Court, now(1913) occupied by Sir David Erskine. 

Here my clear memories begin. I have indeed some vague impressions of avisit to the widow of my mother's grandfather--Lady Robert Seymour--whodied in her ninety-first year when I was two years old; though, as thoseimpressions are chiefly connected with a jam-cupboard, I fancy that theymust pertain less to Lady Robert than to her housekeeper. But twomemories of my fourth year are perfectly defined. The first is the firewhich destroyed Covent Garden Theatre on the 5th of March, 1856. "Duringthe operatic recess, Mr. Gye, the lessee of the Theatre, had sub-let itto one Anderson, a performer of sleight-of-hand feats, and so-called'Professor. ' He brought his short season to a close by an entertainmentdescribed as a 'Grand Carnival Complimentary Benefit and Dramatic Gala, to commence on Monday morning, and terminate with a _bal masqué_ onTuesday night. ' At 3 on the Wednesday morning, the Professor thought ittime to close the orgies. At this moment the gasfitter discovered thefire issuing from the cracks of the ceiling, and, amid the wildestshrieking and confusion, the drunken, panic-stricken masquers rushed tothe street. The flames burst through the roof, sending high up into theair columns of fire, which threw into bright reflection every tower andspire within the circuit of the metropolis, brilliantly illuminating thewhole fabric of St. Paul's, and throwing a flood of light acrossWaterloo Bridge, which set out in bold relief the dark outline of theSurrey hills. " That "flood of light" was beheld by me, held up in mynurse's arms at a window under "Big Ben, " which looks on WestminsterBridge. When in later years I have occasionally stated in a mixedcompany that I could remember the burning of Covent Garden Theatre, Ihave noticed a general expression of surprised interest, and have beentold, in a tone meant to be kind and complimentary, that my hearerswould hardly have thought that my memory went back so far. Theexplanation has been that these good people had some vague notions of_Rejected Addresses_ floating through their minds, and confounded theburning of Covent Garden Theatre in 1856 with that of Drury Lane Theatrein 1809. Most people have no chronological sense. 

Our home was at Woburn, in a house belonging to the Duke of Bedford, but given by my grandfather to my parents for their joint and severallives. My father's duties at the House of Commons kept him in Londonduring the Parliamentary Session, but my mother, who detested London andworshipped her garden, used to return with her family to Woburn, in timeto superintend the "bedding-out. " My first memory is connected with myhome in London; my second with my home in the country, and therejoicings for the termination of the Crimean War. 

Under the date of May 29, 1856, we read in _Annals of Our Time_, "Throughout the Kingdom, the day was marked by a cessation from work, and, during the night, illuminations and fireworks were all butuniversal. " The banners and bands of the triumphal procession whichparaded the streets of our little town--scarcely more than a village indimensions--made as strong an impression on my mind as the conflagrationwhich had startled all London in the previous March. 

People who have only known me as a double-dyed Londoner always seem tofind a difficulty in believing that I once was a countryman; yet, forthe first twenty-five years of my life, I lived almost entirely in thecountry. "We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had had nochildhood in it--if it were not the earth where the same flowers come upagain every spring, that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as wesat lisping to ourselves on the grass--the same hips and haws on theautumn hedgerows.... One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging theconfused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than thefinest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulatingturf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a Nursery-Gardener. Andthere is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than thatit stirs an early memory--that it is no novelty in my life, speaking tome merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but thelong companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joyswere vivid. "

I had the unspeakable advantage of being reared in close contact withNature, in an aspect beautiful and wild. My father's house wasremarkable for its pretty garden, laid out with the old-fashionedintricacy of pattern, and blazing, even into autumn, with varied colour. In the midst of it, a large and absolutely symmetrical cedar "spread itsdark green layers of shade, " and supplied us in summer with a kind of_al fresco_ sitting-room. The background of the garden was formed by thetowering trees of Woburn Park; and close by there were great tracts ofwoodland, which stretch far into Buckinghamshire, and have the characterand effect of virgin forest. 

Having no boy-companions (for my only brother was ten years older thanmyself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought upin a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and agood all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored bycoursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal truththat I have never killed anything larger than a wasp, and that only inself-defence. But Woburn is an ideal country for riding, and I spent agood deal of my time on an excellent pony, or more strictly, galloway. An hour or two with the hounds was the reward of virtue in theschoolroom; and cub-hunting in a woodland country at 7 o'clock on aSeptember morning still remains my most cherished memory of physicalenjoyment. 

"That things are not as ill with you and me as they might have been ishalf owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and nowrest in unvisited tombs. " Most true: and among that faithful number Imust remember our governess, --Catherine Emily Runciman--who devotedforty years of her life, in one capacity or another, to us and to ourparents. She was what boys call "jolly out of school, " but ratherdespotic in it; and, after a few trials of strength, I was emancipatedfrom her control when I was eight. When we were in London for theSession of Parliament, I attended a Day School, kept by two sisters ofJohn Leech, in a curious little cottage, since destroyed, at the bottomof Lower Belgrave Street. Just at the age when, in the ordinary course, I should have gone to a boarding-school, it was discovered that I wasphysically unfit for the experiment; and then I had a series of tutorsat home. To one of these tutors my father wrote--"I must warn you ofyour pupil's powers of conversation, and tact in leading his teachersinto it. "

But I was to a great extent self-taught. We had an excellent, thoughold-fashioned, library, and I spent a great deal of my time inmiscellaneous reading. The Waverley Novels gave me my first taste ofliterary enjoyment, and _Pickwick_ (in the original green covers) camesoon after. Shakespeare and _Don Quixote_ were imposed by paternalauthority. Jeremy Taylor, Fielding, Smollett, Swift, Dryden, Pope, Byron, Moore, Macaulay, Miss Edgeworth, Bulwer-Lytton, were among myearliest friends, and I had an insatiable thirst for dictionaries andencyclopædias. Tennyson was the first poet whom I really loved, but Ialso was fond of Scott's poetry, the _Lays of Ancient Rome_, the _Laysof the Scottish Cavaliers_, and _The Golden Treasury_. Milton, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Matthew Arnold came later, but while I was still a boy. George Eliot, Thackeray, Ruskin, and Trollope came when I was at Oxford;and I am not sure that Browning ever came. On the whole, I owe my chiefenjoyment to Scott, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and to _Pickwick_more than to any single book. But I think the keenest thrill ofintellectual pleasure which I ever felt passed through me when, as a boyat Harrow, I first read Wordsworth's "Daffodils. "

Our home, in its outward aspects, was extremely bright and cheerful. Wehad, as a family, a keen sense of fun, much contempt for convention, andgreat fluency of speech; and our material surroundings were such as tomake life enjoyable. Even as a child, I used to say to myself, whencantering among Scotch firs and rhododendrons, "The lines are fallenunto me in pleasant places. " A graver element was supplied by a gooddeal of ill-health, by bereavements, and, in some sense, by our way ofreligion. My home was intensely Evangelical, and I lived from myearliest days in an atmosphere where the salvation of the individualsoul was the supreme and constant concern of life. No form ofworldliness entered into it, but it was full of good works, of socialservice, and of practical labour for the poor. All life was lived, downto its minutest detail, "as ever in the great task-Master's eye. " Fromour very earliest years we were taught the Bible, at first orally; andlater on were encouraged to read it, by gifts of handsomely boundcopies. I remember that our aids to study were Adam Clarke's Commentary, Nicholl's _Help to Reading the Bible_, and a book called _Light in theDwelling_. Hymns played a great part in our training. As soon as wecould speak, we learned "When rising from the bed of death, " and"Beautiful Zion, built above. " "Rock of Ages" and "Jesu, Lover of mysoul" were soon added. The Church Catechism we were never taught. I wasconfirmed without learning it. It was said to be too difficult; itreally was too sacramental. By way of an easier exercise, I wasconstrained to learn "The Shorter Catechism of the General Assembly ofDivines at Westminster. " We had Family Prayers twice every day. Myfather read a chapter, very much as the fancy took him, or where theBible opened of itself; and he read without note or comment. I recall avery distinct impression on my infant mind that the passages of the OldTestament which were read at prayers had no meaning, and that the publicreading of the words, without reference to sense, was an act of piety. After the chapter, my father read one of Henry Thornton's FamilyPrayers, replaced in later years by those of Ashton Oxenden. 

While we were still very young children, we were carefully incited toacts of practical charity. We began by carrying dinners to the sick andaged poor; then we went on to reading hymns and bits of Bible to theblind and unlettered. As soon as we were old enough, we became teachersin Sunday schools, and conducted classes and cottage-meetings. From thevery beginning we were taught to save up our money for good causes. Eachof us had a "missionary box, " and I remember another box, in thecounterfeit presentment of a Gothic church, which received contributionsfor the Church Pastoral Aid Society. When, on an occasion of raredissipation, I won some shillings at "The Race-Game, " they wereimpounded for the service of the C. M. S. , and an aunt of mine, making hersole excursion into melody, wrote for the benefit of her young friends:

 "Would you like to be told the best use for a penny? I can tell you a use which is better than any-- Not on toys or on fruit or on sweetmeats to spend it, But over the seas to the heathen to send it. "

I learned my religion from my mother, the sweetest, brightest, and mostpersuasive of teachers, and what she taught I received as gospel. 

 "Oh that those lips had language! Life has past With me but roughly since I heard thee last. "

_Sit anima mea cum Sanctis. _ May my lot be with those Evangelical saintsfrom whom I first learned that, in the supreme work of salvation, nohuman being and no created thing can interpose between the soul and theCreator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on theimpregnable rock of that belief. 

So much for the foundation. The superstructure was rather accidentalthan designed. 

From my very earliest days I had a natural love of pomp and pageantry;and, though I never saw them, I used to read of them with delight inbooks of continental travel, and try to depict them in my sketch-books, and even enact them with my toys. Then came Sir Walter Scott, whoinspired me, as he inspired so many greater men, with the love ofecclesiastical splendour, and so turned my vague love of ceremony into adefinite channel. Another contribution to the same end was made, allunwittingly, by my dear and deeply Protestant father. He was anenthusiast for Gothic architecture, and it was natural to enquire theuses of such things as piscinas and sedilia in fabrics which he taughtme to admire. And then came the opportune discovery (in an idle momentunder a dull sermon) of the Occasional Offices of the Prayer Book. Iflanguage meant anything, those Offices meant the sacramental system ofthe Catholic Church; and the impression derived from the Prayer Book wasconfirmed by Jeremy Taylor and _The Christian Year_. I was alwaysimpatient of the attempt, even when made by the most respectable people, to pervert plain English, and I felt perfect confidence in building theCatholic superstructure on my Evangelical foundation. 

As soon as I had turned fourteen, I was confirmed by the Bishop of Ely(Harold Browne), and made my first Communion in Woburn Church on EasterDay, April 21, 1867. 

After the Easter Recess, I went with my parents to London, then seethingwith excitement over the Tory Reform Bill, which created HouseholdSuffrage in towns. My father, being Sergeant-at-Arms, could give me aseat under the Gallery whenever he chose, and I heard some of the mostmemorable debates in that great controversy. In the previous year myuncle, Lord Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as Leader of the House ofCommons, had been beaten in an attempt to lower the franchise; but thecontest had left me cold. The debates of 1867 awoke quite a freshinterest in me. I began to understand the Democratic, as against theWhig, ideal; and I was tremendously impressed by Disraeli, who seemed totower by a head and shoulders above everyone in the House. Gladstoneplayed a secondary and ambiguous part; and, if I heard him speak, whichI doubt, the speech left no dint in my memory. 

At this point of the narrative it is necessary to make a passingallusion to Doctors, who, far more than Premiers or Priests or any otherclass of men, have determined the course and condition of my life. Ibelieve that I know, by personal experience, more about Doctors andDoctoring than any other man of my age in England. I am, in my ownperson, a monument of medical practice, and have not only seen, butfelt, the rise and fall of several systems of physic and surgery. Tohave experienced the art is also to have known the artist; and theportraits of all the practitioners with whom at one time or another Ihave been brought into intimate relations would fill the largest album, and go some way towards furnishing a modest Picture-Gallery. Broadlyspeaking, the Doctors of the 'fifties and 'sixties were as Dickens drewthem. The famous consultant, Dr. Parker Peps; the fashionable physician, Sir Tumley Snuffim; the General Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins; and theMedical Officer of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and LifeInsurance Company, Dr. Jobling; are in the highest degree representativeand typical; but perhaps the Doctor--his name, unfortunately, hasperished--who was called to the bedside of little Nell, and came with "agreat bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, "is the most carefully finished portrait. Such, exactly, were the FamilyPhysicians of my youth. They always dressed in shiny black, --trousers, neckcloth, and all; they were invariably bald, and had shaved upper lipsand chins, and carefully-trimmed whiskers. They said "Hah!" and "Hum!"in tones of omniscience which would have converted a ChristianScientist; and, when feeling one's pulse, they produced the largest andmost audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the horologist's art. They had what were called "the courtly manners of the old school"; werediffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus they spoke of "thegastric organ" where their successors talk of the stomach, and referredto brandy as "the domestic stimulant. " When attending families wherereligion was held in honour, they were apt to say to the lady of thehouse, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"; and, where classicalculture prevailed, they not infrequently remarked--

 Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops. 

By the way, my reference to "the domestic stimulant" reminds me that onstimulants, domestic and other, this school of Physicians relied with anunalterable confidence. For a delicate child, a glass of port wine at11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was oftenadded to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility andenfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited, " as the phrasewent; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy wasincreased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by awell-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret atbedtime; and my recollection is that, as a nightcap, it beat bromide andsulphonal hollow. In the light of more recent science, I suppose thatall this alcoholic treatment was what Milton calls "the sweet poyson ofmisuséd wine, " and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, andcirculation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grewto man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer, " tothe loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it wasimpossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was oncewriting the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal, andthe compositor substituted "disadvantage" for "advantage, " apparentlythinking that my early regimen had deprived me of a real happiness inafter-life. 

Such were the Doctors of my youth. By no sudden wrench, no violenttransition, but gently, gradually, imperceptibly, the type hastransformed itself into that which we behold to-day. No doubt an inwardcontinuity has been maintained, but the visible phenomena are soradically altered as to suggest to the superficial observer the idea ofa new creation; and even we, who, as Matthew Arnold said, "stand by theSea of Time, and listen to the solemn and rhythmical beat of its waves, "even we can scarcely point with confidence to the date of eachsuccessive change. First, as to personal appearance. When did doctorsabandon black cloth, and betake themselves (like Newman, when he secededto the Church of Rome) to grey trousers? Not, I feel pretty sure, tillthe 'seventies were well advanced. Quite certainly the first time that Iever fell into the hands of a moustached Doctor was in 1877. Everyonecondemned the hirsute appendage as highly unprofessional, and when, soonafter, the poor man found his way into a Lunatic Asylum, theneighbouring Doctors of the older school said that they were notsurprised; that "there was a bad family history"; and that he himselfhad shown marked signs of eccentricity. That meant the moustache, andnothing else. Then, again, when was it first recognized as possible totake a pulse without the assistance of a gold chronometer? History issilent; but I am inclined to assign that discovery to the same date asthe clinical thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my youth, who, indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled. Then "the courtly manners of the old school"--when did they go out? I donot mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my presentdoctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one couldwish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly, " nor the least "of theold school. " He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes handsand says it's an A1 day and I had better get out in the motor. Whateverthe symptoms presented to his observation, he never says "Hah!" or"Hum!" and he has never once quoted the Bible or Horace, though I havereason to believe that he has read both. Then, again, as a mere matterof style, when did Doctors abandon the majestic "We, " which formerlythey shared with Kings and Editors? "We shall be all the better when wehave had our luncheon and a glass of sherry, " said Sir Tumley Snuffim. "We will continue the bark and linseed, " murmured Dr. Parker Peps, ashe bowed himself out. My Doctor says, "Do you feel as if you couldmanage a chop? It would do you pounds of good"; and "I know the peroxidedressing is rather beastly, but I'd stick it another day or two, if Iwere you. " Medical conversation, too, is an art which has greatlychanged. In old days it was thought an excellent method of lubricatingthe first interview for the Doctor to ask where one's home was, and tostate, quite irrespective of the fact, that he was born in the sameneighbourhood; having ascertained that one was, say, a Yorkshireman, toremark that he would have known it from one's accent; to enlarge on hisown connexions, especially if of the territorial caste; to describe hisearly travels in the South of Europe or the United States; and todiscourse on water-colour drawing or the flute. "We doctors, too, haveour hobbies; though, alas! the demands of a profession in which _Neotium quidem otiosum est_ leave us little time to enjoy them. "

Quite different is the conversation of the modern doctor. He does notlubricate the interview, but goes straight to business--enquires, examines, pronounces, prescribes--and then, if any time is left forlight discourse, discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer, "speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that theBritish Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so muchon his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or thatsome much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Pepsregale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the shattered nerves ofMrs. Wititterly. The reaction against alcoholic treatment can, Ibelieve, be definitely dated from the 10th of January, 1872, when theheads of the medical profession published their opinion that "alcohol, in whatever form, should be prescribed with as much care as any powerfuldrug, and the directions for its use should be so framed as not to beinterpreted as a sanction for excess. " This was a heavy blow and deepdiscouragement to the school of Snuffim and Pilkins, and the system ofport at 11, and "the domestic stimulant" between whiles, died hard. 

But this is a long digression. I return to the Family Physician whoprescribed for my youth. He was Dr. T. Somerset Snuffim, son of thecelebrated Sir Tumley, and successor to his lucrative practice. Hispatients believed in him with an unquestioning and even passionatefaith, and his lightest word was law. It was he who in 1862 pronouncedme physically unfit for a Private School, but held out hopes that, if Icould be kept alive till I was fourteen, I might then be fit for aPublic School. Four years passed, and nothing particular happened. Thenthe time arrived when the decision had to be made between Public Schooland Private Tutor. After a vast amount of stethoscoping andpulse-feeling, Snuffim decided peremptorily against a Public School. Myparents had a strong and just detestation of "private study" and itsproducts, and they revolved a great many schemes for avoiding it. Suddenly my mother, who was not only the kindest but also the wisest ofmothers, bethought herself of making me a Home-boarder at Harrow. Shewas one of those persons who, when once they are persuaded that acertain course is right, do not let the grass grow under their feet, butact at once. We did not desert our old home in Bedfordshire, and myfather had still his official residence in Speaker's Court; but myparents took a house at Harrow, at the top of Sudbury Hill, and there weestablished ourselves in September, 1867. 

On the 4th of November in that year, Matthew Arnold, who wascontemplating a similar move, wrote to Lady de Rothschild:--"What youtell me is very important and interesting. I think Lady Charles Russellhas a boy who, like my eldest boy, is an invalid, and I dare say youwill some time or other be kind enough to ascertain from her whether theschool life is at all trying for him, or whether she has any difficultyin getting him excused fagging or violent exercises. "

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The L. C. C. , which placed this slab, made a topographical error. James Wright, in his _Compendious View of the late Tumults and Troublesin this Kingdom_ (1683), says: "The Lord Russel ... Was on the dayfollowing, viz. Saturday the 21st of July, Beheaded in Lincoln's InnFields. For which purpose a Scaffold was erected that Morning on thatside of the Fields next to the Arch going into Duke Street, in themiddle between the said Arch and the corner turning into Queen Street. "

[2]

 To the Editor of _The Times_. 

 SIR--As Links with the Past seem just now to be in fashion, permit me to supply two which concern my near relations. 

 1. My uncle, Lord Russell (1792-1878) visited Napoleon at Elba in December, 1814, and had a long conversation with him, which is reported in Spencer Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell. " There must be plenty of people now alive who conversed with my uncle, so this Link cannot be a very rare one. 

 2. My second Link is more remarkable. My father (1807-1894) remembered an old Highlander who had been "out" with Prince Charles Edward in 1745. Of course, this "linking" took place at the extremes of age, my father being a little boy and the Highlander a very old man. My grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was one of the first Englishmen who took a shooting in the Highlands (on the Spey), and the first time that my father accompanied him to the north, Prince Charlie's follower was still living near the place which my grandfather rented. Your obedient servant, _Sept. 6, 1910. _ GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL. 

II

HARROW

 Not to River nor Royal Keep, Low Meads nor level Close, Up to the sturdy wind-worn steep, _Levavi oculos_; To four red walls on a skyward climb, Towering over the fields and Time. E. MILNER-WHITE. 

When Dr. Vaughan re-created Harrow School, after its long decadenceunder Longley and Wordsworth, he wished that the number should neverexceed five hundred. Of late years the school has been greatly enlarged, but in my time we were always just about the number which, in Vaughan'sjudgment, was the largest that a Head-master could properly supervise. That number is embalmed in Edward Howson's touching song:--

 "Five hundred faces, and all so strange! Life in front of me, Home behind-- I felt like a waif before the wind, Tossed on an ocean of shock and change. "

Some of those faces I shall presently describe; but, in reviewing mylife at Harrow, my first tribute must be paid to my Head-master--forforty-five years the kindest, most generous, and most faithful offriends. Henry Montagu Butler, youngest son of Dr. George Butler, Deanof Peterborough and sometime Head-master of Harrow, was born in 1833, and educated at Harrow. He was Head of the School, made the cock-scorein the Eton match at Lords, was Scholar and Fellow of Trinity, andSenior Classic in 1855. He was elected to the Head-mastership of Harrow, in succession to Dr. Vaughan, when he was only a few months over 26, andentered on his reign in January, 1860. It is not easy to describe what agraceful and brilliant creature he seemed to my boyish eyes, when Ifirst saw him in 1867, nor how unlike what one had imagined aHead-master to be. He was then just thirty-four and looked much youngerthan he was. Gracefulness is the idea which I specially connect withhim. He was graceful in shape, gesture, and carriage; graceful inmanners and ways, graceful in scholarship, graceful in writing, pre-eminently graceful in speech. It was his custom from time to time, if any peculiar enormity displayed itself in the school, to call us alltogether in the Speech-Room, and give us what we called a "Pi-jaw. " Oneof these discourses I remember as well as if I had heard it yesterday. It was directed against Lying, as not only un-Christian butungentlemanlike. As he stood on the dais, one hand grasping his gownbehind his back and the other marking his points, I felt that, perhapsfor the first time, I was listening to pure and unstudied eloquence, suffused with just as much scorn against base wrongdoing as makes speechpungent without making it abusive. It should be recorded to Butler'scredit that he was thoroughly feared. A Head-master who is not fearedshould be at once dismissed from his post. And, besides being feared, hewas profoundly detested by bad boys. The worse the boy's moralcharacter, the more he hated Butler. But boys who were, in any sense ordegree, on the right side; who were striving, however imperfectly, afterwhat is pure and lovely and of good report, felt instinctively thatButler was their friend. His preaching in the School Chapel (thoughperhaps a little impeded by certain mannerisms) was direct, interesting, and uplifting in no common degree. Many of his sermons made a lifelongimpression on me. His written English was always beautifully pellucid, and often adorned by some memorable anecdote or quotation, or by sometelling phrase. But once, when, owing to a broken arm, he could notwrite his sermons, but preached to us extempore three Sundays insuccession, he fairly fascinated us. As we rose in the School and cameinto close contact with him, we found ever more and more to admire. Itwould be impertinent for me to praise the attainments of a SeniorClassic, but no one could fail to see that Butler's scholarship wasunusually graceful and literary. Indeed, he was literary through andthrough. All fine literature appealed to him with compelling force, andhe was peculiarly fond of English oratory. Chatham, Burke, Canning, Sheil, and Bright are some of the great orators to whom he introducedus, and he was never so happy as when he could quote them to illustratesome fine passage in Cicero or Demosthenes. One other introduction whichI owe to him I must by no means forget--Lord Beaconsfield's novels. Ihad read _Lothair_ when it came out, but I was then too inexperienced todiscern the deep truths which underlie its glittering satire. Butlerintroduced me to _Sybil_, and thereby opened up to me a new world ofinterest and amusement. When Butler entertained boys at breakfast ordinner, he was a most delightful host, and threw off all magisterialawfulness as easily as his gown. His conversation was full of fun andsprightliness, and he could talk "Cricket-shop, " ancient and modern, like Lillywhite or R. H. Lyttelton. In time of illness or failure orconscience-stricken remorse, he showed an Arthur-like simplicity ofreligion which no one could ignore or gainsay. 

Next to Dr. Butler, in my list of Harrow masters, must be placed Farrar, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, to whom I owed more in the way ofintellectual stimulus and encouragement than to any other teacher. Ihad, I believe, by nature, some sense of beauty; and Farrar stimulatedand encouraged this sense to the top of its bent. Himself inspired byRuskin, he taught us to admire rich colours and gracefulforms--illuminated missals, and Fra Angelico's blue angels on goldgrounds--and to see the exquisite beauty of common things, such assunsets, and spring grass, and autumn leaves; the waters of a shoalingsea, and the transparent amber of a mountain stream. In literature hisrange was extremely wide. Nothing worth reading seemed to have escapedhim, and he loved poetry as much as Butler loved oratory. When hepreached in Chapel his gorgeous rhetoric, as yet not overwrought orover-coloured, held us spellbound; and though, or perhaps because, hewas inclined to spoil the boys who responded to his appeals, and to ratethem higher than they deserved, we loved and admired him as, I shouldthink, few schoolmasters have been loved and admired. 

When I speak of masters who were also friends, I should be ungratefulindeed if I omitted Arthur George Watson, in whose House I was placed assoon as the doctors were satisfied that the experiment could be triedwithout undue risks. Mr. Watson was a Fellow of All Souls, and was inall respects what we should have expected a member of that Society(elected the same day as the late Lord Salisbury) to be. It was said ofC. P. Golightly at Oxford that, when he was asked his opinion of Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, he replied: "Well, if I were forced to choosethe epithet which should be least descriptive of the dear Provost, Ishould choose _gushing_. " Exactly the same might be said of Mr. Watson;but he was the most high-minded and conscientious of men, a thoroughgentleman, inflexibly just, and a perfect House-Master. The days whichI spent under his roof must always be reckoned among the happiest of mylife. 

Among masters who were also friends I must assign a high place to theRev. William Done Bushell, who vainly endeavoured to teach memathematics, but found me more at home in the sphere (which he alsoloved) of Ecclesiology. And not even the most thoughtless orill-conditioned boy who was at Harrow between 1854 and 1882 could everforget the Rev. John Smith, who, through a life-time overshadowed byimpending calamity, was an Apostle to boys, if ever there was one, andthe Guardian Angel of youthful innocence. Dr. Vaughan, no lover ofexaggerated phrases, called him, in a memorial sermon, "the Christ ofHarrow;" and there must be many a man now living who, as he looks back, feels that he owed the salvation of his soul to that Christ-likecharacter. 

During my first two years at Harrow, Dr. Westcott, afterwards Bishop ofDurham, was one of the masters, and it has always been a matter of deepregret to me that I had no opportunity of getting to know him. He washardly visible in the common life of the School. He lived remote, aloof, apart, alone. It must be presumed that the boys who boarded in hisHouse knew something of him, but with the School in general he nevercame in contact. His special work was to supervise the composition, English and classical, of the Sixth Form, and on this task he lavishedall his minute and scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasmfor literary beauty. But, until we were in the Sixth, we saw Westcottonly on public occasions, and one of these occasions was the callingover of names on half-holidays, styled at Eton "Absence, " and at Harrow"Bill. " To see Westcott performing this function made one, even in thosepuerile days, feel that the beautifully delicate instrument waseminently unfitted for the rough work of mere routine on which it wasemployed. We had sense enough to know that Westcott was a man oflearning and distinction altogether outside the beaten track ofschoolmasters' accomplishments; and that he had performed achievementsin scholarship and divinity which great men recognized as great. "Calling Bill" was an occupation well enough suited for hiscolleagues--for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green--but it wasactually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of culture and pietycontending with the clamour and tumult of five hundred obstreperousboys. 

It was not only as a great scholar that we revered Westcott. We knew, by that mysterious process by which school-boys get to know something ofthe real, as distinct from the official, characters of their masters, that he was a saint. There were strange stories in the School about hisascetic way of living. We were told that he wrote his sermons on hisknees. We heard that he never went into local society, and that he readno newspaper except _The Guardian_. Thus when Liddon, at the height ofhis fame as the author of the great Bampton Lectures, came to Harrow topreach on Founder's Day, it was reported that Westcott would not dinewith the Head-master to meet him. He could not spare three hours fromprayer and study; but he came in for an hour's conversation afterdinner. 

All that we saw and heard in Chapel confirmed what we were told. We sawthe bowed form, the clasped hands, the rapt gaze, as of a man who inworship was really _solus cum Solo_, and not, as the manner of some ofhis colleagues was, sleeping the sleep of the just, or watching for thedevotional delinquencies of the Human Boy. His sermons were rare events;but some of us looked forward to them as to something quite out of thecommon groove. There were none of the accessories which generallyattract boyish admiration--no rhetoric, no purple patches, nodeclamation, no pretence of spontaneity. His anxious forehead crowned apuny body, and his voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. Thelanguage was totally unadorned; the sentences were closely packed withmeaning; and the meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay indistinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking and speaking, a wideoutlook on events and movements in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasmall the more telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as if Iheard it yesterday a reference in December, 1869, to "that augustassemblage which gathers to-morrow under the dome of St. Peter's, " and Iremember feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no otherschoolmaster in England who would preach to his boys about the VaticanCouncil. But by far the most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrowwas that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1868. The text was Ephesians v. 15: "See then that ye walk circumspectly. " Thesermon was an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and thepreacher endeavoured to show "what new blessings God has in store forabsolute self-sacrifice" by telling his hearers about the greatvictories of asceticism in history. He took first the instance of St. Anthony, as the type of personal asceticism; then that of St. Benedict, as the author of the Common Life of equality and brotherhood; and thenthat of St. Francis, who, "in the midst of a Church endowed with allthat art and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted thelove of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most repulsive of Hischildren, and placed again the simple Cross above all the treasures ofthe world. " Even "the unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy, of the Jesuits" were duly recognized as triumphs of faith anddiscipline; and the sermon ended with a passionate appeal to the Harrowboys to follow the example of young Antony or the still youngerBenedict, and prepare themselves to take their part in reviving theascetic life of the English Church. 

"It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with the moststirring and the most cheering voice. The young alone have the freshenthusiasm which in former times God has been pleased to consecrate tolike services.... And if, as I do believe most deeply, a work atpresent awaits England, and our English Church, greater than the worldhas yet seen, I cannot but pray everyone who hears me to listen humblyfor the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be that He is even now callinghim to take a foremost part in it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hearthe call, but it is for you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work isalready sealed by the past: yours is still rich in boundlesspossibilities. "

It may readily be believed that this discourse did not please either theBritish Parent or the Common Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr. Westcott was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud was theclamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott made the only dignifiedreply. He printed (without publishing) the peccant sermon, under thetitle "Disciplined Life, " and gave a copy to every boy in the School, expressing the hope that "God, in His great love, will even thus, bywords most unworthily spoken, lead some one among us to think on onepeculiar work of the English Church, and in due time to offer himselffor the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach. " Those who rememberthat Charles Gore was one of the boys who heard the sermon may thinkthat the preacher's prayer was answered. 

With the masters generally I was on the best of terms. Indeed, I canonly remember two whom I actively disliked, and of these two one was theabsolute reproduction of Mr. Creakle, only armed with "thirty Greeklines" instead of the cane. Some of the staff were not particularlyfriends, but notable as curiosities; and at the head of these must beplaced the Rev. Thomas Henry Steel. This truly remarkable man was bornin 1806. He was Second Classic and Twentieth Wrangler, and Fellow ofTrinity College, Cambridge. He became a master at Harrow under Dr. Wordsworth in 1836; left the School in 1843, to take a country living;returned to Harrow, under Dr. Vaughan, in 1849, and in 1855 became (forthe second time) master of The Grove, one of the largest boarding-housesin Harrow, where he remained till 1881. He was a keen, alert, and activeold gentleman, with a rosy face and long white beard, like FatherChristmas: and he carried, in season and out of season, a bright blueumbrella. His degree sufficiently proves that he was a ripe scholar, but, as George Eliot says, "to all ripeness under the sun there comes afurther stage of development which is less esteemed in the market";and, when I was in his Form, it was chiefly characterized by anagreeable laxity of discipline. As regards his boarding-house of fortyboys, it was currently reported that he had never been seen in the boys'side of it. Perhaps he went round it when they were asleep. But it wason his preaching that his fame chiefly rested. His sermons were writtenin a most exuberant style of old-fashioned rhetoric, and abounded inphrases, allusions, and illustrations, so quaint that, once heard, theycould never be forgotten. I believe that he kept a small stock of thesesermons, and seldom added to it; but knowing, I suppose, that ifpreached twice they must inevitably be recognized, he never preached asermon a second time as long as there was even one boy in the School whohad heard it on its first delivery. This was a very sensible precaution;but he little knew that some of his most elaborate passages had, bytheir sheer oddity, imprinted themselves indelibly on the memories ofthe hearers, and were handed down by oral tradition. One suchespecially, about a lady who used to visit the hospitals in the AmericanWar, and left a bun or a rose on the pillow of the wounded according asshe thought that they would recover or die, had an established place inour annals; and it is not easy to describe the rapture of hearing apassage which, as repeated by one's schoolfellows, had seemed too absurdfor credence, delivered from the School-pulpit, in a kind of solemnstage-whisper. However, "Tommy Steel" was a kind-hearted old gentleman, who believed in letting boys alone, and by a hundred eccentricities ofspeech and manner, added daily to the gaiety of our life. For one greatboon I am eternally his debtor. He set me on reading Wordsworth, andchose his favourite bits with skill and judgment. I had been reared inthe school that derided--

 "A drowsy, frowsy poem called _The Excursion_, Writ in a manner which is my aversion, "

and "Tommy Steel" opened my eyes to a new world of beauty. By the way, he had known Wordsworth, and had entertained him at Harrow; and he toldus that the Poet always said "housen, " where we say houses. 

Another of our curiosities was Mr. Jacob Francis Marillier, a genial oldgentleman without a degree, who had been supposed to teach writing andMathematics, but long before my time had dropped the writing--I supposeas hopeless--and only played a mathematical barrel-organ. He had joinedthe staff at Harrow in 1819, and, as from my earliest days I had a loveof Links with the Past, I learned from Mr. Marillier a vast amount aboutthe ancient traditions of the School, which, even in 1869 (when heresigned), were becoming faint and forgotten. 

Yet a third oddity must be commemorated; but in this case it isdesirable to use a pseudonym. I think I remember in one ofBulwer-Lytton's novels a family called Sticktoright, [3] and that namewill do as well as another. The Rev. Samuel Sticktoright was essentiallywhat is called a "Master of the old school. " He was born in 1808, cameto Harrow in 1845, and had a large House for thirty years. I have justbeen contemplating his photograph in my Harrow album, and he certainlylooks "the old school" all over, with his carefully-trimmed whiskers, double-breasted waistcoat, and large white "choker, " neatly tied. By theboys generally he was regarded as an implacable tyrant, and I have heard(though this was before my time) that a special victim of hispassionless severity was a pink-faced youth with blue eyes calledRandall Thomas Davidson. Personally, I rather liked him; partly, nodoubt, on the principle on which Homer called the Æthiopiansblameless--namely, that he had nothing to do with them. But there was asly twinkle in the corner of Mr. Sticktoright's eye which bespoke alurking sense of humour, and in the very few words which he everbestowed on me there generally was a suggestion of dry--very dry--fun. He was, of course, the most uncompromising of Tories, and every form ofchange, in Church or State or School, was equally abhorrent to him. Inlocal society he played a considerable part, both giving and receivinghospitality; and it was the traditional pleasantry to chaff him as aninveterate bachelor, at whom all the young ladies of the place weresetting their virginal caps. These jests he received very much as TimLinkinwater received the allusions of Mr. Cheeryble to the "uncommonlyhandsome spinster, " rather encouraging them as tributes to the factthat, though now advanced in years, he was well preserved, and, as mostpeople surmised, well off. 

These facetious passages were, of course, confined to the society inwhich the masters moved, and we boys knew them only by hearsay. But whatwe saw with our own eyes was that the only human being who ever dared to"cheek" Mr. Sticktoright, or to interfere with his arrangements, or todisregard his orders, was his butler, whom we will call Boniface. Everyone who knows school-boys knows that they have a trick of sayingthings about those in authority over them, which really they do not theleast believe but which they make a bold pretence of believing. So inthe case of "Sticky" and Boniface. They were of much the same age, andrather similar in appearance; wherefore we said that they were brothers;that they had risen from a lowly station in the world, and had tossed upwhich should be master and which butler; that "Sticky" had won the toss, and that the disappointed Boniface held his brother in subjection by aveiled threat that, if he were offended, he would reveal the whole storyto the world. This tradition seemed to present some elements ofunlikelihood, and yet it survived from generation to generation; for nototherwise could we account for the palpable fact that the iron severitywhich held all boy-flesh in awe melted into impotence when Boniface wasthe offender. 

The solution of the mystery was romantic. Dr. Butler, contrary to hisusual practice, was spending the Christmas holidays of 1876-7 at Harrow. One day a stranger was announced, and opened the conversation bysaying--"I regret to tell you that your colleague, Mr. Sticktoright, isdead. He died suddenly at Brighton, where he was spending the holidays. I am his brother-in-law and executor, and, in compliance with hisinstructions, I have to ask you to accompany me to his house. " Those whoknow the present Master of Trinity can picture the genuine grief withwhich he received this notification. Mr. Sticktoright had been a masterwhen he was a boy at school, and a highly-respected colleague ever sincehe became Head-master. That the bearer of the sad news should beSticktoright's brother-in-law seemed quite natural, for he must havemarried a Miss Sticktoright; and the Head-master and the executor wenttogether to the dead man's house. There, after some unlocking of drawersand opening of cabinets, they came upon a document to this effect: "Incase of my dying away from Harrow, this is to certify that on a certainday, in a certain place, I married Mary Smith, sometime a housemaid inmy service, by whom I leave a family. "

So there had really been much more foundation for our tradition than wehad ever dreamed, and Boniface had probably known the romantic historyof his master's life. The extraordinary part of the matter was that oldSticktoright had always spent the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidaysin the bosom of his family at Brighton, and that no one connected withHarrow had ever chanced to see him basking in their smiles. [N. B. --thenames, personal and local, are fictitious. ] In the north aisle of HarrowSchool Chapel, where departed masters are commemorated, you may searchin vain for any memorial to the Rev. Samuel Sticktoright. 

Yet one more curiosity must be named, this time not a Harrow master. "Polly Arnold" kept a stationer's shop, and, as a child, helping hergrand-mother in the same shop, had sold pens--some added cribs--to Byronwhen a boy in the school. Here was a Link of the Past which exactlysuited me, and, if only Polly could have understood the allusion, Ishould have said to her--"Ah, did you once see Byron plain?" I happenedto have a sister who, though exceptionally clever and lively, hadabsolutely no chronological sense. I took her to see Polly Arnold oneday, when this conversation ensued--"Well, Miss Arnold, I am very gladto make your acquaintance. I have often heard of you from my brother. Hetells me you remember John Lyon. How very interesting!" [N. B. --John Lyonfounded Harrow School in 1571. ] To this tribute Polly replied with muchasperity--"I know I'm getting on in life, Miss, but I'm not quite threehundred years old yet"--while my sister murmured in my ear--"Who _is_ itshe remembers? I know it's someone who lived a long time ago. "

But the name of Arnold, when connected with Harrow, suggests quiteanother train of thought. At Easter, 1868, Matthew Arnold came to liveat Harrow, with a view of placing his three boys in the School. Theeldest of the three was the invalid to whom his father referred in aletter quoted in my first chapter: I was able to show him some littlekindnesses, and thus arose an intimacy with the parents, brothers, andsisters which I have always regarded as--

 "Part of my life's unalterable good. "

FOOTNOTE:

[3] "The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to theSticktorights--an old Saxon family if ever there was one. " _My Novel_. Book I. 

III

HARROVIANA

 "I may have failed, my School may fail; I tremble, but thus much I dare; I love her. Let the critics rail, My brethren and my home are there. " W. CORY. 

Everyone who travels by the North Western, or the Great Central, or theMidland Railway, must be conversant with the appearance of that"Pinnacle perched on a Precipice, " which was Charles II. 's idea of theVisible Church on Earth--the Parish Church of Harrow on the Hill. Anselmconsecrated it, Becket said Mass in it, and John Lyon, the Founder ofHarrow School, lies buried in it. When I was a Harrow boy, theCelebrations of the Holy Communion in the School Chapel were rare, andgenerally late; so some of us were accustomed to communicate everySunday at the 8 o'clock service in the Parish Church. But even in holyplaces, and amid sacred associations, the ludicrous is apt to assertitself; and I could never sufficiently admire a tablet in the Northaisle, commemorating a gentleman who died of the first Reform Bill. 

 "JOHN HENRY NORTH, Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland. Without an equal at the University, a rival at the Bar, Or a superior in chaste and classic eloquence in Parliament. Honoured, Revered, Admired, Beloved, Deplored, By the Irish Bar, the Senate and his country, He sunk beneath the efforts of a mind too great for His earthly frame, In opposing the Revolutionary Invasion of the Religion and Constitution of England, On the 29th of September, 1831, in the 44th year of his age. "

Alas! poor Mr. North. What would he have felt if he had lived to see theReform Bills of 1867 and 1885? Clearly he was taken away from the evilto come. 

Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hillstood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by fivemiles of grass from the nearest point of London, and encompassed byisolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to countryhouses. Most of these have fallen victims to the Speculative Builder, and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco, though one or twostill remain among their hay-fields and rhododendrons. When I firstascended Harrow Hill, I drove there from London with my mother; and, from Harlesden onwards, our road lay between grass meadows, and wasshaded by hedgerow timber. Harrow was then a much prettier place than itis now. The far-seen elms under which Byron dreamed[4] were still intheir unlopped glory, and the whole effect of the Hill was wooded. So anEton man and Harrow master[5] wrote:--

 "Collis incola frondei Nympha, sive lubentius Nostra Pieris audies, Lux adest; ades O tuis Herga[6] mater, alumnis!"

 "Goddess of the leafy Hill, Nymph, or Muse, or what you will, With the light begins the lay, -- Herga, be our guest to-day. "

The site now covered by the externally hideous Speech-room--a crossbetween a swimming-bath and a tennis-court--was then a garden. In truth, it only grew strawberries and cabbages, but to the imaginative eye, itwas as beautiful as the hanging pleasaunces of Semiramis. 

Dr. Butler, with a hundred gifts and accomplishments, had no æsthetic orartistic sense; and, under his rule, the whole place was over-run byterrible combinations of red and black brick; and the beautiful viewfrom the School-Yard, stretching away across the Uxbridge plain, wasobstructed by some kind of play-shed, with a little spout atop--the veryimpertinence of ugliness. 

Of the various buildings at Harrow, by far the most interesting is whatis now called "The Fourth Form Room, " in the West wing of the OldSchool. It is the original room which John Lyon designed--"A large andconvenient school-house with a chimney in it, "--and in its appearanceand arrangements it exactly bespeaks the village Day School that Harroworiginally was. Its stout brick walls have faced the western breezes ofthree hundred years, and in their mellow richness of tint remind one ofHatfield House and Hampton Court. This single room has been the nucleusround which all subsequent buildings--Chapel and Library andSchool-Rooms and Boarding-Houses--have gathered; and, as long as itexists, Harrow will be visibly and tangibly connected with its Founder'sprescient care. 

John Lyon knew nothing of Conscience Clauses. He ordained that all hisschool-boys should attend the Parish Church; and so they did, stowedaway in galleries where hearing was difficult and kneeling impossible. In 1836 Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, waselected Head-master of Harrow, in succession to the genial but toogentle Longley. Seeing that Worship was practically impossible for theboys under existing conditions, he set to work to build a Chapel. Itoccupied the same site as the present Chapel, but only one fragment ofit remains, embedded in the West wall of Sir Gilbert Scott's moregraceful structure. The Chapel was consecrated by the Visitor, Archbishop Howley, in 1839. Dr. Wordsworth, justly proud of hishandiwork, invited his brother-master, Dr. Hawtrey of Eton, to view it. Much to Wordsworth's surprise, Hawtrey did not take off his hat onentering the Chapel; but, when he neared the altar, started back inconfusion, and exclaimed, in hasty apology, "I assure you, my dearfriend, I had no notion that we were already inside the Sacred Edifice. "

So much for the æsthetics of Harrow Chapel as originally constructed, but time and piety have completely changed it. In 1855, Dr. Vaughanadded a Chancel with an apsidal end, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. Next, the central passage of the Chapel became a Nave, with pillars anda North Aisle. Then the South Aisle was added, and decorated with glassbefore which one shudders, as a Memorial to Harrow men who fell in theCrimea. So the Chapel remained till 1903, when two curious additions, something between transepts and side-chapels, were added in memory ofHarrow men who fell in South Africa. The total result of thesesuccessive changes is a building of remarkably irregular shape, butrichly decorated, and sanctified by innumerable memories of friends longsince loved and lost. A tablet, near which as a new boy I used to sit, bears this inscription--

 In mournful and affectionate remembrance of JOHN HYDE D'ARCY, Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, and formerly Head of this School. He passed through the Strait Gate of Humility, Toil, and Patience, into the clear light and true knowledge of Him Who is our Peace. 

 "If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine. "

Few sermons have ever impressed me so powerfully as this significantmemorial of a life which lasted only nineteen years. 

The morning and evening services in the Chapel were what is called"bright and cheerful"--in other words, extremely noisy and not veryharmonious or reverent. We had two sermons every Sunday. The Head-masterpreached in the evening; the Assistant-masters in the morning. Occasionally, we had a stranger of repute. Dr. Butler's preaching I havealready described, and also that of Farrar and Westcott. Mr. Steel'straditional discourses were in a class by themselves. But otherpreachers we had, not less remarkable. I distinctly remember a sermon byMr. Sticktoright, who told us that we did not know in what way the worldwould be destroyed--it might be by fire, or it might be by water(though this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix. 11). TheRev. James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared thedifference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox anda dog. "To the ox, the universe comprises only the impassive blue above, and the edible green beneath; while the dog finds a world of excitementin hunting, and a demi-god in man. " Dean Stanley, preaching on TrinitySunday, 1868, thus explained away the doctrine of the Trinity--"God theFather is God in Nature. God the Son is God in History. God the HolyGhost is God in the Conscience. " And Thring of Uppingham bellowed anexposition of Psalm lxxviii. 70 with such surprising vigour that heacquired among us the affectionate nickname of "Old Sheepfolds. " It is apleasure to place in contrast with these absurdities the truly pastoraland moving sermons of Mr. John Smith, whose apostolic work at Harrow Ihave already commemorated. His paraphrase of 1. St. Peter iv. 7-8 stilllingers in my ear--"Be watchful, be prayerful, be very kind. " He is thusdescribed on a Memorial Tablet in the Chapel:

 To the Young a Father, To friends in joy or grief a Brother, To the poor, the suffering, and the tempted, A minister of Hope and Strength. Tried by more than common sorrows, And upborne by more than common faith, His holy life interpreted to many The Mind which was in Christ Jesus, The Promise of the Comforter, And the Vision granted to the Pure in Heart. 

It may seem odd that one should remember so much about sermons preachedso long ago, but Bishop Welldon's testimony illustrates the point. "WhenI came to Harrow, I was greatly struck by the feeling of the boys forthe weekly Sermon; they looked for it as an element in their lives, theyattended to it, and passed judgment upon it. " (I may remark in passingthat Dr. Welldon promptly and wisely reduced the Sunday Sermons from twoto one. )

But the day of days in Harrow Chapel was Founder's Day, October 10th, 1868, when the preacher at the Commemoration Service was Liddon, who hadlately become famous by the Bampton Lectures of 1866. The scene and thesermon can never be forgotten. Prayers and hymns and thanksgivings forFounder and Benefactors had been duly performed, and we had listenedwith becoming solemnity to that droll chapter about "Such as found outmusical tunes, and recited verses in writing. " When the preacher enteredthe pulpit, his appearance instantly attracted attention. We had heardvaguely of him as "the great Oxford swell, " but now that we saw him wefelt a livelier interest. "He looks like a monk, " one boy whispers tohis neighbour; and indeed it is a better description than the speakerknows. The Oxford M. A. Gown, worn over a cassock, is the Benedictinehabit modified by time and place; the spare, thin figure suggestsasceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, theclose-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguelyof something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture ofSt. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified bysound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite, almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. Therestrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warnseven the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff ofschool-sermons is coming. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thyyouth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thoushalt say, I have no pleasure in them. " The speaker speaks of theblessedness and glory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a PublicSchool built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities oflearning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is stillreceptive; the worthlessness of all merely secular attainment, howeverdesirable, however necessary, when weighed in the balance against "theone thing needful. " The congregation still are boys, but soon they willbe men. Dark days will come, as Ecclesiastes warned--dark in variousways and senses, darkest when, at the University or elsewhere, we firstare bidden to cast faith aside and to believe nothing but what can bedemonstrated by "an appeal, in the last resort, to the organs of sense. "Now is the time, and this is the place, so to "remember our Creator"that, come what may, we shall never be able to forget Him, or doubt Hislove, or question His revelation. The preacher leans far out from thepulpit, spreading himself, as it were, over the congregation, in an actof benediction. "From this place may Christ ever be preached, in thefulness of His creative, redemptive, and sacramental work. Here may youlearn to remember Him in the days of your youth, and, in the last andmost awful day of all, may He remember you. "

Five minutes afterwards we are in the open air. Boys stare and gasp;masters hurry past, excited and loquacious. Notes are compared, andwatches consulted. Liddon has preached for an hour, and the school mustgo without its dinner. 

Enough has now been said about the Chapel and its memories. I must nowturn to lighter themes. I remember once hearing Mrs. Procter, who wasborn in 1799 and died in 1888, say casually at a London dinner-party, when someone mentioned Harrow Speech-Day--"Ah! that used to be apleasant day. The last time I was there I drove down with Lord Byron andDoctor Parr, who had been breakfasting with my step-father, BasilMontagu. " This reminiscence seemed to carry one back some way, but Ientirely agreed with Mrs. Procter. Speech-Day at Harrow has been formore than forty years one of my favourite holidays. In my time thepresent Speech-Room did not exist. The old Speech-Room, added to JohnLyon's original building in 1819, was a well-proportioned hall, withpanelled walls and large windows. Tiers of seats rose on three sides ofthe room; on the fourth was the platform, and just opposite theplatform sat the Head-master, flanked right and left by distinguishedvisitors. There was a triumphal arch of evergreens over the gate, andthe presence of the Beadle of the Parish Church, sumptuous in purple andgold, pointed to the historic but obsolescent connexion between theParish and the School. The material of the "Speeches, " so-called, wasmuch the same as that provided at other schools--Shakespeare, Sheridan, Chatham, Aristophanes, Plautus, Molière, Schiller. An age-long desire toplay the Trial in _Pickwick_ was only attained, under the liberal ruleof Dr. Wood, in 1909. At the Speeches, one caught one's first glimpse ofcelebrities whom one was destined to see at closer quarters in the yearsto come; and I never can forget the radiant beauty of "Spencer's FaeryQueen, "[7] as I saw her at the Speeches of 1869. 

While I am speaking of Celebrities, I must make a short digression fromSpeech-Day to Holidays. Dr. Vaughan, some time Head-master of Harrow andafterwards Dean of Llandaff, was in 1868 Vicar of Doncaster. My onlybrother was one of his curates; the Vaughans asked my mother to staywith them at the Vicarage, in order that she might see her son, thennewly ordained, at his work; and, the visit falling in the Harrowholidays, they good-naturedly said that she might bring me with her. Dr. Vaughan was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one morning, on our wayback from the daily service, he said to me--"Sir Grosvenor LeDraughte[8] has proposed to break his journey here, on his return fromScotland. Do you know him? No? Well--observe Sir Grosvenor. He is wellworthy of observation. He is exactly what the hymn-book calls 'aworldling. '" The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared. The Doctorcame into the drawing-room repeatedly, asking if "that tiresome oldgentleman had arrived, " and Mrs. Vaughan plied him with topics ofconsolation--"Perhaps he has missed his train. Perhaps there has been anaccident. Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey"--but the Doctorshook his head and refused to be comforted. After dinner, we sat in anawe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour at which thelast train from Scotland came in, and the length of time which it tookto drive from the station, listened with ears erect. Presently thewheels of a fly came rumbling up, and Dr. Vaughan, exclaiming, "Ourworst anticipations are realized!" hurried to the front door. Then, welcoming the aged traveller with open arms, he said in his blandesttones--"Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you must be dreadfully tired. You shall go to bed at once. " Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up tillmidnight, telling anecdotes and drinking brandy-and-water, feeblyremonstrated; but the remorseless Doctor led his unwilling captiveupstairs. It was a triumph of the _Suaviter in modo_, and gave me animpressive lesson on the welcome which awaits self-invited guests, evenwhen they are celebrities. But all this is a parenthesis. 

I should be shamefully ungrateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if Iforbore to mention the Library at Harrow. It was opened in 1863, as aMemorial of Dr. Vaughan's Head-mastership, and its delicious bow-window, looking towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort. On whole-holidays, when others were playing cricket, I used to read there for hours at astretch; and gratified my insatiable thirst for Biographies, Memoirs, and Encyclopædias. The Library was also the home of the DebatingSociety, and there I moved, forty-two years ago, that a HereditaryLegislative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supportedthe present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the bestform of Government. The mention of the Debating Society leads me to thesubject of Politics. I have said in a former chapter that theConservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event whichinterested me. It was a stirring time all over the world, in France, inItaly, and in Mexico. There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion. Monarchical institutions were threatened. Secret Societies were in fullactivity. The whole social order seemed to be passing through a crisis, and I, like the Abbé Siéyes, fell to framing constitutions; my favouritescheme being a Republic, with a President elected for life, and aLegislature chosen by universal suffrage. But all these dreams weredispelled by the realities of my new life at Harrow, and, for a while, Iperforce thought more of Imperial than of Papal Rome, of Greek than ofEnglish Republics. But in the summer of 1868, Mr. Gladstone's firstattack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had neverbefore known. It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties ofthe State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonianstandard. In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decidethe issue. Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the seais salt. Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed theLiberal colour. These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, theHomeric Scholar; W. A. Meek, now Recorder of York; M. G. Dauglish, whoedited the "Harrow Register, " and myself. On the polling day I receivedmy "Baptism of Fire, " or rather of mud, being rolled over and over inthe attempt to tear my colours from me. The Tory colour was red; theLiberal was blue; and my mother, chancing to drive through Harrow withthe light blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, wasplayfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette. Among themasters, political opinion was divided. Mr. Young, whom I quoted justnow, was a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of thepresent Lord Tankerville) covered himself with glory by pinning a redstreamer to the back of Young's gown while he was calling "Bill. "

In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through theestablishment of _The Harrovian_. I had dabbled in composition eversince I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I enteredHarrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning, in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First School, one[9] ofthe Editors overtook me and said--

"We want you to contribute to _The Harrovian_. We are only going toemploy fellows who can write English--not such stuff as 'The followingboys _were given prizes_. '" Purism indeed!

Here began my journalistic career. For three years I wrote aconsiderable part of the paper, and I was an Editor during my last year, in conjunction with my friends Dumbar Barton and Walter Sichel. 

Harrow is sometimes said to be the most musical of Public Schools; andcertainly our School Songs have attained a wide popularity. I believethat "Forty Years on" is sung all over the world. But, when I went toHarrow, we were confined to the traditional English songs and ballads, and to some Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowedlustily but could not always construe. E. E. Bowen's stirring, thoughoften bizarre, compositions (admirably set to music by John Farmer)began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's reallytouching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after Ihad left. Other song-writers, of greater or less merit, we have had; butfrom first to last, the thrilling spell of a Harrow concert has been anexperience quite apart from all other musical enjoyments. "The singingis the thing. When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up likea lark from the ground, and rise and swell and swell and rise till therafters seem to crack and shiver, then you seem to have discovered allthe sources of feeling. " This was the tribute of a stranger, and anHarrovian has recorded the same emotion:--"John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease andself-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher andhigher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingledin a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to thequavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of thespirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh--the pure spirit, notreleased from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that momentDesmond loved the singer--the singer who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he saw--'the visionsplendid. '"[10]

I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics withsuch scant respect that his worshippers may doubt if I ever was really aboy. Certainly my physical inability to play games was rendered lessbitter by the fact that I did not care about them. I well remember theastonishment of my tutor, when he kindly asked me to luncheon on hiscarriage at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I shouldnot be there. 

"Not be at Lord's, my boy? How very strange! Why?"

"Because there are three things which I particularly dislike--heat, andcrowds, and cricket. " It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but letme say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become askeen on "Lord's, " as the best of my compeers. 

That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game, I was still, as Mr. Chadband said, "a human boy, " is proved by theintense interest with which I beheld the one and only "Mill" which evertook place while I was at Harrow. [11] It was fought on the 25th ofFebruary, 1868, with much form and ceremony. The "Milling-ground, " nowperverted to all sorts of base uses, is immediately below theSchool-Yard. The ground slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yardforms the gallery of the Milling-Ground. The moment that "Bill" wasover, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning myelbows on the wall, while a friend, who was a moment later, sat on myshoulders and looked over my bowed head. It would be indiscreet tomention the names of the combatants, though I remember them perfectly. One was a red-headed giant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged. Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and I must admit that Ienjoyed seeing them pound each other into pulp. I felt that two beastswere getting their deserts. To-day such a sight would kill me; but thisis the degeneracy of old age. 

Now that I am talking about school-fellows, several names call forspecial mention. As I disliked athletics, it follows that I did notadore athletes. I can safely say that I never admired a boy because ofhis athletic skill, though I have admired many in spite of it. ProbablySidney Pelham, Archdeacon of Norfolk, who was in the Harrow Eleven in1867 and 1868, and the Oxford Eleven in 1871, will never see this book;so I may safely say that I have seldom envied anyone as keenly as Ienvied him, when Dr. Butler, bidding him farewell before the wholeschool, thanked him for "having set an example which all might be proudto follow--unfailing sweetness of temper, and perfect purity of life. "In one respect, the most conspicuous of my school-fellows was H. R. H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, nephew of Victor Emmanuel, andnow an Admiral in the Italian Navy. He came to Harrow in 1869, and livedwith Mr. And Mrs. Matthew Arnold. He was elected King of Spain by a voteof the Cortes on the 3rd of October 1869. He was quite a popular boy, and no one had the slightest grudge against him; but, for all that, everyone made a point of kicking him, in the hope of being able to sayin after-life that they had kicked the King of Spain. UnfortunatelyVictor Emmanuel, fearing dynastic complications, forbade him to acceptthe Crown; so he got all the Harrow kicks and none of the Spanishhalf-pence. When I entered Harrow, the winner of all the classicalprizes was Andrew Graham Murray, now Lord Dunedin and Lord President ofthe Court of Session; a most graceful scholar, and also a considerablemathematician. Just below him was Walter Leaf, to whom no form oflearning came amiss; who was as likely to be Senior Wrangler as SeniorClassic, and whose performances in Physical Science won the warm praiseof Huxley. Of the same standing as these were Arthur Evans, theNumismatist, Frank Balfour, the Physiologist, and Gerald Rendall, Head-master of Charterhouse. Among my contemporaries the mostdistinguished was Charles Gore, whose subsequent career has onlyfulfilled what all foresaw; and just after him came (to call them bytheir present names) Lord Crewe, Lord Ribblesdale, Lord Spencer, Mr. Justice Barton of the Irish Bench, and Mr. Walter Long, in whom Harrowmay find her next Prime Minister. Walter Sichel was at seventeen thecleverest school-boy whom I have ever known. Sir Henry McKinnon obtainedhis Commission in the Guards while he was still in the Fifth Form. Pakenham Beatty was the Swinburnian of the school, then, as now, a truePoet of Liberty. Ion Keith-Falconer, Orientalist and missionary, was asaint in boyhood as in manhood. Edward Eyre seemed foreordained to bewhat in London and in Northumberland he has been--the modelParish-Priest; and my closest friend of all was Charles BaldwynChilde-Pemberton, who, as Major Childe, fell at the battle of Spion Kop, on a spot now called, in honour of his memory, "Childe's Hill. " _Deminimis non curat Respublica_; which, being interpreted, signifies--_TheCommonwealth_ will not care to know the names of the urchins who faggedfor me. [12] But I cherish an ebony match-box carved and given to me byone of these ministering spirits, as a proof that, though my lazinessmay have made me exacting, my exactions were not brutal. 

On the 15th of June, 1871, Harrow School celebrated the three-hundredthanniversary of its foundation. Harrovians came from every corner of theglobe to take part in this Tercentenary Festival. The arrangements wereelaborated with the most anxious care. The Duke of Abercorn, affectionately and appropriately nicknamed "Old Splendid, " presidedover a banquet in the School-Yard; and the programme of the day'sproceedings had announced, rather to the terror of intending visitors, that after luncheon there would be "speeches, interspersed with songs, from three hundred and fifty of the boys. " The abolition of the secondcomma dispelled the dreadful vision of three-hundred-and-fiftyschool-boy-speeches, and all went merry as a marriage-bell--all, exceptthe weather. It seemed as if the accumulated rain of three centurieswere discharged on the devoted Hill. It was raining when we went to theearly celebration in the Chapel; it was raining harder when we came out. At the culminating moment of the day's proceedings, when Dr. Vaughan wasproposing "Prosperity to Harrow, " the downpour and the thunder drownedthe speaker's voice; and, when evening fell on the soddencricket-ground, the rain extinguished the fireworks. 

On that same cricket-ground nine days later, in the golden afternoon ofMidsummer Day, George Clement Cottrell, a boy beautiful alike in faceand in character, was killed in an instant by a blow from a ball, whichstruck him behind the ear when he was umpiring in the Sixth Form game. On the 29th of June his five hundred school-fellows followed him to hisresting-place in the Churchyard on the Hill, and I believe weunanimously felt that he whom we had lost was the one, of all ournumber, of whom we could say, with the surest confidence, that he wasfit to pass, without a moment's warning, into the invisible World. _Beati mundo corde_. 

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Writing to John Murray in 1832, Byron said--"There is a spot in theChurchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the Hill looking towardsWindsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, orPeachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was myfavourite spot. "

[5] The Rev. E. M. Young. 

[6] Herga is the Anglo-Saxon name of Harrow. 

[7] Charlotte Seymour, Countess Spencer, died 1903. 

[8] The name is borrowed from "Sybil. " The bearer of it was an ancientphysician, who had doctored all the famous people of his time, beginningwith "Pamela. "

[9] Mr. R. De C. Welch. 

[10] _The Hill. _ Chapter vi. 

[11] Some authorities say that it was the last on record. 

[12] This paper appeared in _The Commonwealth_. 

IV

OXFORD

 "For place, for grace, and for sweet companee, Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be. " SIR JOHN DAVIES. 

The faithful student of "Verdant Green" will not have forgotten thatCharlie Larkyns, when introducing his Freshman-friend to the sights ofOxford, called his attention to a mystic inscription on a wall in OrielLane. "You see that? Well, that's one of the plates they put up torecord the Vice's height. F. P. --7 feet, you see: the initials of hisname--Frederick Plumptre!" "He scarcely seemed so tall as that, " repliedVerdant, "though certainly a tall man. But the gown makes a difference, I suppose. "

Dr. Plumptre was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1848 to 1851, and Masterof University College for thirty-four years. He died in 1870, and theCollege thereupon elected the Rev. G. G. Bradley, then Head-master ofMarlborough, and afterwards Dean of Westminster, to the vacant post. Itwas an unfortunate choice. Mr. Bradley was a man of many gifts andvirtues, and a successful schoolmaster; but the methods which hadsucceeded at Marlborough were not adapted to Oxford, and he sooncontrived to get at loggerheads both with Dons and with Undergraduates. 

However, there existed at that time--and I daresay it exists still--anefarious kind of trades-unionism among the Headmasters of PublicSchools; and, as Bradley had been a Head-master, all the Head-mastersadvised their best pupils to try the scholarships at University College. 

So far as I had any academical connexions, they were exclusively withTrinity, Cambridge; and my father was as ignorant of Oxford as myself. All I knew about it was that it was the source and home of the Oxfordmovement, which some of my friends at Harrow had taught me to admire. Two or three of those friends were already there, and I wished to rejointhem; but, as between the different Colleges, I was fancy-free; so when, early in 1872, Dr. Butler suggested that I should try for a scholarshipat University, I assented, reserving myself, in the too probable eventof failure, for Christ Church. However, I was elected at University onthe 24th of February, 1872, and went into residence there on the 11th ofthe following October. The Vice-Chancellor who matriculated me was themajestic Liddell, who, with his six feet of stately height draped inscarlet, his "argent aureole" of white hair, and his three silver macesborne before him, always helped me to understand what Sydney Smith meantwhen he said, of some nonsensical proposition, that no power on earth, save and except the Dean of Christ Church, should induce him to believeit. As I write, I see the announcement of Mrs. Liddell's death; and mymind travels back to the drawing-room and lawns of the Deanery at ChristChurch, and the garland of beautiful faces

 "Decking the matron temples of a place So famous through the world. "

The 13th of October was my first Sunday in Oxford, and my friend CharlesGore took me to the Choral Eucharist at Cowley St. John, and afterwardsto luncheon with the Fathers. So began my acquaintance with a Societyof which I have always been a grateful admirer. But more excitingexperiences were at hand: on the 20th of October it was Liddon's turn, as Select Preacher, to occupy the pulpit at St. Mary's. The impressionsof that, my first University sermon, have never faded from my mind. Abright autumn morning, the yellow sunlight streaming in upon the denselycrowded church, the long array of scarlet-robed doctors, the preacher'sbeautiful face looking down from the high pulpit, with anxious brow andwistful gaze. And then the rolling Latin hymn, and then the BiddingPrayer, and then the pregnant text--_He that believeth on the Son hatheverlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;but the wrath of God abideth on him_. Are we listening to St. John theBaptist or St. John the Evangelist? The preacher holds that we arelistening to the Evangelist, and says that the purpose of St. John'sGospel is condensed into his text. "If to believe in Him is life, tohave known and yet to reject him is death. There is no middle term orstate between the two.... In fact, this stern, yet truthful andmerciful, claim makes all the difference between a Faith and a theory. "And now there is a moment's pause. Preacher and hearers alike takebreath. Some instinct assures us that we are just coming to the crucialpoint. The preacher resumes: "A statement of this truth in other termsis at present occasioning a painful controversy, which it would bebetter in this place to pass over in silence if too much was not atstake to warrant a course from which I shall only depart with sincerereluctance. Need I say that I allude to the vexed question of theAthanasian Creed?" The great discourse which was thus introduced, withits strong argument for the retention of the Creed as it stands, haslong been the property of the Church, and there is no need torecapitulate it. But the concluding words, extolling "the high and raregrace of an intrepid loyalty to known truth, " spoke with a force ofpersonal appeal which demands commemoration: "To be forced back upon thecentral realities of the faith which we profess; to learn, better thanever before, what are the convictions which we dare not surrender at anycost; to renew the freshness of an early faith, which affirms within us, clearly and irresistibly, that the one thing worth thinking of, worthliving for, if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated faith ofJesus Christ our Lord, --these may be the results of inevitabledifferences, and, if they are, they are blessings indeed. "[13]

The same Sunday was marked by another unforgettable experience--my firstvisit to St. Barnabas'. The church was then just three years old. BishopWilberforce had consecrated it on the 19th of October, 1869, and madethis characteristic note in his diary:--"Disagreeable service. Acolyterunning about. Paste squares for bread, etc. , but the church a greatgift. " Three years later, a boy fresh from Harrow, and less sensitivelyProtestant than the good Bishop, not only thought "the church a greatgift, " but enjoyed the "acolyte running about, " and found the wholeservice the most inspiring and uplifting worship in which he had everjoined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's--the unadornedsimplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light andcolour round the altar; the floating cloud of incense; the expressiveand unfussy ceremonial; the straightforward preaching; and, mostimpressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, richand poor, undergraduates and artisans, all singing Evangelical hymnswith one heart and one voice. It was, if ever there was on earth, congregational worship; and I, for one, have never seen its like. Thepeople's pride in the church was very characteristic: they habituallyspoke of it as "our Barnabas. " The clergy and the worshippers were afamily, and the church was a home. 

At the Dedication Festival of 1872, there was a strong list ofpreachers, including W. J. E. Bennett, of Frome, and Edward King, thenPrincipal of Cuddesdon. But the sermon which made an indelibleimpression on me was preached by R. W. Randall, then vicar of AllSaints, Clifton, and afterwards Dean of Chichester. It was indeed amemorable performance. "Performance" is the right word, for, young asone was, one realized instinctively the wonderful art and mastery andtechnical perfection of the whole. There was the exquisitely modulatedvoice, sinking lower, yet becoming more distinct, whenever any speciallymoving topic was touched; the restrained, yet emphatic action--I can seethat uplifted forefinger still--and the touch of personal reminiscenceat the close, so managed as to give the sense that we were listening toan elder brother who, thirty years before, had passed through the sameexperiences, so awfully intermingled of hope and tragedy, which now laybefore us on the threshold of our Oxford life. It was, in brief, asermon never to be forgotten; it was "a night to be much remembered untothe Lord. "

Some thirty years later, I was introduced to Dean Randall at a Londondinner-party. After dinner, I drew my chair towards him, and said, "Mr. Dean, I have always wished to have an opportunity of thanking you for asermon which you preached at St. Barnabas', Oxford, at the DedicationFestival, 1872. " The Dean smiled, with the graceful pleasure of an oldman honoured by a younger one, and said, "Yes? What was the text?" "Thetext I have long forgotten, but I remember the subject. " "And what wasthat?" "It was the insecurity of even the best-founded hopes. " "Rather awell-worn theme, " said the Dean, with a half-smile. "But not, sir, " Isaid, "as you handled it. You told us, at the end of the sermon, thatyou remembered a summer afternoon when you were an undergraduate atChrist Church, and were sitting over your Thucydides close to yourwindow, grappling with a long and complicated passage which was to bethe subject of next morning's lecture; and that, glancing for a momentfrom your book, you saw the two most brilliant young Christ Church menof the day going down to bathe in the Isis. You described the gifts andgraces of the pair, who, between them, seemed to combine all that wasbest and most beautiful in body and mind and soul. And then you told ushow, as your friends disappeared towards Christ Church Meadows, youreturned to your work; and only were roused from it two hours later, when a confused noise of grief and terror in the quadrangle belowattracted your attention, and you saw the dead bodies of Gaisford andPhillimore borne past your window from their 'watery bier' at SandfordLasher. "

On Advent Sunday, December 1, I saw and heard Dr. Pusey for the firsttime. He was then in broken health; but he gathered all his physical andmental energies for a great sermon on "The Responsibility of Intellectin Matters of Faith. " The theme of this sermon was that Intellect is agreat trust confided to us by God; that we are responsible to Him forthe use of it; and that we must exercise it in submission to Hisrevealed Will. What He has declared, that it is our duty to believe. OurLord Himself had uttered the most solemn warning against wilfulunbelief; the Athanasian Creed only re-echoed His awful words; and thestorm which assailed the Creed was really directed against the revealedTruth of God. "This tornado will, I trust, by God's mercy, soon pass; itis a matter of life and death. To remove those words of warning, or theCreed because it contains them, would be emphatically to teach ourpeople that it is _not_ necessary to salvation to believe faithfully theIncarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in One God as He has madeHimself known to us. "

Immediately after delivering himself of this great apology for theFaith, Pusey went abroad for the benefit of his health, and did notreturn to Oxford till the Summer Term. I well remember the crowd ofancient disciples, who had missed their accustomed interview atChristmas, thronging his door in Christ Church, like the impotent folkat the Pool of Bethesda. 

Another reminiscence, and of a very different kind, belongs to my firstTerm. Dean Stanley had been nominated as Select Preacher, and theold-fashioned High Churchmen made common cause with the Low Churchmen tooppose his appointment. There was a prodigious clamour, but Dr. Puseyheld aloof from the agitation, believing--and in this he wasconspicuously right--that "opposition would only aggravate the evil byenlisting the enthusiasm of the young. " The vote was taken, in anunusually crowded Convocation, on the 11th of December. It was anoteworthy and rather an amusing scene, and was well described by aneyewitness. [14] "Oxford was fairly startled from the serenity whichusually marks the fag-end of the Michaelmas Term by a sudden irruptionof the outer world. Recognitions took place at every street-corner. Thehotels were put upon their mettle. The porters' lodges of the Collegeswere besieged, and Boffin's Refreshment Rooms ran over with hungryparsons from the country. As an evidence of the interest which thequestion of Dean Stanley's appointment excited beyond the walls of theUniversity, I may mention that even the guards and porters at therailway hallooed to each other to know "the state of the betting"; buteven they did not seem quite to have calculated on the matter being sowarmly taken up in London and by the country at large. " At half-past oneo'clock the bell of St. Mary's gave notice to the combatants to preparefor the fray, and immediately the floor of the Theatre was sprinkledwith representative men of all the schools. The non-residents appearedin gowns of various degrees of rustiness, some with chimney-pot hats andsome with wide-awakes. The early comers conversed in small groups, hugging instinctively those sides of the building on which were writtenrespectively _Placet_ or _Non-Placet_, giving thereby an inkling of howthey meant to vote. The gathering increased every moment, and soon theDoctors in their scarlet began to dot the seats around theVice-Chancellor's chair. Prince Leopold, by right of his royalty, entered the sacred enclosure with Dr. Acland, and afterwards took hisseat among the Doctors. Before two o'clock every inch of the floor wasfull, the occupants standing in anticipation of the coming encounter. "Still they gravitated towards their respective voting-doors, and on the_Placet_ side one descried the scholarly face of Professor Jowett, thesharply-cut features of the Rev. Mark Pattison, and the well-knownphysiognomy of Professor Max Müller. On the opposite side Mr. Burgon wasmarshalling his forces, and Dean Goulburn, from the Doctors' benches, looked out over the seething mass of M. A. 's below him. " At two o'clockthe Vice-Chancellor arrived, and forthwith commenced proceedings inLatin, which must have been extremely edifying to the ladies who, inlarge numbers, occupied the Strangers' Gallery, backed by a narrowfringe of Undergraduates. The object of the Convocation was stated asbeing the appointment of Select Preachers, and the names were thensubmitted to the Doctors and Masters for approval. "_Placetne igiturvobis huic nomini assentire?_" being the form in which the question wasproposed. 

The name first on the list was that of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin; and afaint buzz in the assembly was interpreted by the Vice-Chancellor, skilled in such sounds, as an expression of approval. Thereupon hepassed on to name number two, which, with some agitation, but withclear, resonant voice, he read out as "Arthurus Penrhyn Stanley. "Immediately there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion. On the_Placet_ side, cheers and waving of trencher-caps; on the _Non-Placet_side feeble hisses; and from all sides, undergraduate as well asgraduate, mingled shouts of _Placet_ and _Non_, with an accompaniment ofcheers and hisses; until the ringing voice of Dean Liddell pronouncedthe magic words _Fiat scrutinium_. Thereupon the two Proctors proceededfirst of all to take the votes of the Doctors on their benches; and, when this was done, they took their station at the doors labelled_Placet_ and _Non-placet_. During the process of polling we had anopportunity of criticizing the constituents of that truly exceptionalgathering. It was certainly not true to say, as some said, that only theyounger Masters voted for Dean Stanley. There was quite a fairproportion of white and bald heads on the _Placet_ side. "The countrycontingent was not so numerous as one had expected, and I do not believethat all of these went out at the _Non-placet_ door. Evidently, partieswere pretty evenly balanced; and, when the _Non-placets_ had allrecorded their votes there were about twenty-five left on Dean Stanley'sside, which probably would have nearly represented the actual majority, but, at the last moment, some stragglers, who had only arrived in Oxfordby 2. 25 train hurried in, and so swelled the numbers. One late-comerarrived without his academicals, and some zealous supporter of the Deanhad to denude himself, and pass his cap and gown outside to enable thisgentleman to vote. " Soon it was over. The Proctors presented their liststo the Vice-Chancellor, who, amid breathless silence, pronounced thefateful words--"_Majori parti placet. _" Then there was indeed a cheer, which rang through the building from basement to upper gallery, and wastaken up outside in a way that reminded one of the trial of the SevenBishops. The hisses, if there were any, were fairly drowned. Oxford hadgiven its approval to Dean Stanley, the numbers being--_Placet_, 349;_Non-placet_, 287. 

When the fuss was over, Liddon wrote thus to a friend:--"It was adiscreditable nomination; but, having been made, ought, in the interestsof the Faith, to have been allowed to pass _sub silentio_; for, ifopposed, it must either be defeated or affirmed by Convocation--achoice, _me judice_, of nearly balanced evils. To have defeated it wouldhave been to invest Stanley with the cheap honours of a petty martyrdom. To have affirmed it is, I fear, to have given a new impetus to thebarren, unspiritual negations which he represents. "

I went up to Oxford well supplied with introductions. Dr. Cradock, thewell-beloved Principal of Brasenose, scholar, gentleman, man of theworld, devout Wordsworthian, enthusiastic lover of cricket and boating, had married a connexion of my own, who had been a Maid of Honour inQueen Victoria's first household. Theirs was the most hospitable housein Oxford, and a portrait of Mrs. Cradock, not quite kind, but verylifelike, enlivens the serious pages of _Robert Elsmere_. Dr. , afterwards Sir Henry, Acland, with his majestic presence, blandlypaternal address, and ample rhetoric, was not only the Regius Professorof Medicine, but also the true and patient friend of many undergraduategenerations. Mrs. Acland is commemorated in what I have always thoughtone of the grandest sermons in the English language--Liddon's "Worth ofFaith in a Life to Come. "[15] The Warden of Keble and Mrs. Talbot (thenthe young wife of the young Head of a very young College) were, as theyhave been for 40 years, the kindest and most constant of friends. Dr. Bright, Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History, was a lavish entertainer, "with an intense dramatic skill in telling astory, an almost biblical knowledge of all the pages of Dickens (and ofScott), with shouts of glee, and outpourings of play and fancy andallusion. " But I need not elaborate the portrait, for everyone ought toknow Dr. Holland's "Personal Studies" by heart. Edwin Palmer, Professorof Latin, was reputed to be the best scholar in Oxford, and Mrs. Palmerwas a most genial hostess. Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, was, Isuppose, the most accomplished man of his time;[16] yet he lives, not byhis performances in the unthinkable sphere of metaphysical mathematics, but by his intervention at Gladstone's last contest for the University. Those were the days of open voting, and Smith was watching the votes inGladstone's interest. Professor ----, who never could manage his h's, wished to vote for the Tory candidates, Sir William Heathcote and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, but lost his head, and said:--"I vote for Glad----. "Then, suddenly correcting himself, exclaimed, "I mean for 'Eathcote and'Ardy. " Thereupon Smith said, "I claim that vote for Gladstone. " "But, "said the Vice-Chancellor, "the voter did not finish your candidate'sname. " "That is true, " said Smith, "but then he did not even begin theother two. " Henry Smith kept house with an admirable and accomplishedsister--the first woman, I believe, to be elected to a School Board, and certainly the only one to whom J. W. Burgon (afterwards Dean ofChichester) devoted a whole sermon. "Miss Smith's Sermon, " with itswhimsical protest against feminine activities, was a standing joke inthose distant days. The Rev. H. R. Bramley, Fellow of Magdalen, used toentertain us sumptuously in his most beautiful College. He was aconnecting link between Dr. Routh (1755-1854) and modern Oxford, and inhis rooms I was introduced to the ablest man of my generation--anewly-elected Scholar of Balliol called Alfred Milner. 

It is anticipating, but only by a Term or two (for Dr. King came toChrist Church in 1873), to speak of Sunday luncheons at the house of theRegius Professor of Pastoral Theology, and of Dr. Liddon'scharacteristic allusion to a remarkably bloated-looking Bishop of Oxfordin balloon sleeves and a wig, whose portrait adorned the Professor'shouse. "How singular, dear friend, to reflect that _that person_ shouldhave been chosen, in the providential order, to connect Mr. Keble withthe Apostles!"

But though the lines seem to have fallen unto me in ritualistic places, I was not without Evangelical advantages. Canon Linton, Rector of St. Peter-le-Bailey, was a dear old gentleman, who used to entertainundergraduates at breakfasts and luncheons, and after the meal, whenmore secularly-minded hosts might have suggested pipes, would lead us toa side-table, where a selection of theological works was displayed, andbid us take our choice. "Kay on the Psalms" was a possession thusacquired, and has been used by me from that time to this. Nor must thisretrospective page omit some further reference to J. W. Burgon, Fellowof Oriel and Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin. Dean Church called him "thedear old learned Professor of Billingsgate, " and certainly his method ofconducting controversy savoured (as Sydney Smith said about Bishop Monk)of the apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish. But to those whom heliked, and who looked up to him (for this was an essential condition), he was kind, hospitable, courteous, and even playful. His humour, whichwas of a crabbed kind quite peculiar to himself, found its best vent inhis sermons. I often wondered whether he realized that the extremegrotesqueness of his preaching was the spell which drew undergraduatesto the Sunday evening service at St. Mary's. 

For my next reminiscence of hospitality to Freshmen I must rely on theassistance of a pseudonym. At the time of which I am writing, Oxfordnumbered among her Professors one who had graduated, at a ratheradvanced age, from Magdalen Hall. Borrowing a name from Dickens, we willcall him "Professor Dingo, of European reputation. " To the kindness ofProfessor and Mrs. Dingo I was commended by a friend who lived near myhome in Bedfordshire, and soon after my arrival in Oxford they asked meto Sunday luncheon at their villa in The Parks. The conversation turnedon a new book of Limericks (or "Nonsense Rhymes, " as we called themthen) about the various Colleges. The Professor had not seen it, andwanted to know if it was amusing. In my virginal innocence I repliedthat one rhyme had amused me. "Let's have it, " quoth the Professor, sooff I went at score--

 "There once was at Magdalen Hall A Man who knew nothing at all; When he took his degree He was past fifty-three-- Which is youngish for Magdalen Hall. "

The Professor snarled like an angry dog, and said, witheringly, that, if_that_ was a specimen, the book must be sorry stuff indeed. Afterluncheon I walked away with another undergraduate, rather senior tomyself, who said rejoicingly, "You've made a good start. That rhyme ismeant to describe old Dingo. "

FOOTNOTES:

[13] "The Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed. " University Sermons. Series II. 

[14] The Rev. C. M. Davies, D. D. 

[15] University Sermons. Series II. 

[16] "He had gained University honours, such as have been gained by noone now living, and will probably never be won again.... He was one ofthe greatest mathematical geniuses of the century. His chief and highestintellectual interests lay in an unknown world into which not more thantwo or three persons could follow. In that world he travelledalone. "--_From a Memorial Sermon by B. Jowett. _

V

OXONIANA

 "Mind'st thou the bells? What a place it was for bells, lad! Spires as sharp as thrushes' bills to pierce the sky with song. How it shook the heart of one, the swaying and the swinging, How it set the blood a-tramp and all the brains a-singing, Aye, and what a world of thought the calmer chimes came bringing, Telling praises every hour To His majesty and power, Telling prayers with punctual service, summers, centuries, how long? The beads upon our rosary of immemorial song. " _The Minstrelsy of Isis_. 

Oxford is a subject from which one cannot easily tear oneself: so I makeno apology for returning to it. In that delightful book, "The Minstrelsyof Isis, " I have found an anonymous poem beginning

 "Royal heart, loyal heart, comrade that I loved, "

and, in the spirit of that line, I dedicate this chapter to the friendwhom I always regarded as the Ideal Undergraduate. [17] Other names andother faces of contemporaries and companions come crowding upon thememory, but it is better, on all accounts, to leave them unspecified. Ilived quite as much in other colleges as in my own, and in a fellowshipwhich was gathered from all sorts and sections of undergraduate life. Let the reader imagine all the best and brightest men in the Universitybetween 1872 and 1876, and he will not go far wrong in assuming that myfriends were among them. 

My Oxford life was cut sharply into two halves by a very definitedividing-line; the first half was cheerful and irresponsible enough. Alarge part of the cheerfulness was connected with the Church, and myearliest friendships (after those which I brought with me from Harrow)were formed in the circle which frequented St. Barnabas. I am thankfulto remember that my eyes were even then open to see the moral beauty andgoodness all around me, and I had a splendid dream of blending it allinto one. In my second term I founded an "Oxford University ChurchSociety, " designed to unite religious undergraduates of all shades ofChurchmanship for common worship and interchange of views. We formedourselves on what we heard of a similar Society at Cambridge; and, earlyin the Summer Term of 1873, a youth of ruddy countenance and gracefuladdress--now Canon Mason and Master of Pembroke--came over fromCambridge, and told us how to set to work. The effort was indeedwell-meant. It was blessed by Churchmen as dissimilar as BishopMackarness, Edwin Palmer, Burgon, Scott Holland, Illingworth, Ottley, Lacey, Gore, and Jayne, now Bishop of Chester; but it was notlong-lived. Very soon the "Victorian Persecution, " as we used to callit, engineered by Archbishop Tait through the P. W. R. Act, made itdifficult for ritualists to feel that they had part or lot with thosewho were imprisoning conscientious clergymen; so the O. U. C. S. Fell topieces and disappeared, to be revived after long years and under morepeaceable conditions, by the present Archbishop of York, when Vicar ofSt. Mary's. 

The accession of Dr. King to the Pastoral Professorship brought a newelement of social delight into the ecclesiastical world of Oxford, andthat was just what was wanted. We revered our leaders, but saw little ofthem. Dr. Pusey was buried in Christ Church; and though there were somewho fraudulently professed to be students of Hebrew, in order that theymight see him (and sketch him) at his lectures, most of us only heardhim in the pulpit of St. Mary's. It was rather fun to take ritualisticladies, who had fashioned mental pictures of the great Tractarian, toEvensong in Christ Church, and to watch their dismay as that veryunascetic figure, with tumbled surplice and hood awry, toddled to hisstall. "Dear me! Is that Dr. Pusey? Somehow I had fancied quite adifferent-looking man. " Liddon was now a Canon of St. Paul's, and hishome was at Amen Court; so, when residing at Oxford, he lived a sort ofhermit-life in his rooms in Christ Church, and did not hold muchcommunication with undergraduates. I have lively recollections of eatinga kind of plum duff on Fridays at the Mission-House of Cowley, while oneof the Fathers read passages from Tertullian on the remarriage ofwidows; but this, though edifying, was scarcely social. 

But the arrival of "Canon King, " with the admirable mother who kepthouse for him, was like a sunrise. All those notions of austerity andstiffness and gloom which had somehow clung about Tractarianism weredispelled at once by his fun and sympathy and social tact. Under hisroof, undergraduates always felt happy and at home; and in his "Bethel, "as he called it, a kind of disused greenhouse in his garden, hegathered week by week a band of undergraduate hearers, to whom religionspoke, through his lips, with her most searching yet most persuasiveaccent. 

Lovers of _Friendship's Garland_ will remember that, during their threeyears at Oxford, Lord Lumpington and Esau Hittall were "so much occupiedwith Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity forthose mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for futureacquisition. " My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs;and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplementedby a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories ofautumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallopsacross Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through themeadows by the river-side, towards Radley and Nuneham. Having beenbrought up in the country, and having ridden ever since I was promotedfrom panniers, I looked upon riding as a commonplace accomplishment, much on a par with swimming and skating. Great, therefore, was mysurprise to find that many undergraduates, I suppose town-bred, regardedhorsemanship not merely as a rare and difficult art, but also asimplying a kind of moral distinction. When riding men met me riding, Isaw that they "looked at each other with a wild surmise;" and soon, perhaps as a consequence, I was elected to "Vincent's. " When, after aterm or two, my father suggested that I had better have my own horsesent from home, I was distinctly conscious of a social elevation. Henceforward I might, if I would, associate with "Bloods"; but thosewhom they would have contemned as "Ritualistic Smugs" were moreinteresting companions. 

The mention of "Vincent's" reminds me of the Union, to which also Ibelonged, though I was a sparing and infrequent participator in itsdebates. I disliked debating for debating's sake; and, though I havealways loved speaking on Religion or Politics or any other subject inwhich the spoken word might influence practice, it has always seemed tome a waste of effort to argue for abstract propositions. If by speakingI can lead a man to give a vote on the right side, or a boy to be moredutiful to his mother, or a sin-burdened youth to "open his grief, " I amready to speak all night; but the debates of the Oxford Union on theFalck Laws and the Imperial Titles Bill always left me cold. 

The General Election of 1874 occurred during my second year at Oxford. The City of Oxford was contested by Harcourt, Cardwell, and the localbrewer. Harcourt and Cardwell were returned; but immediately afterwardsCardwell was raised to the peerage, and a bye-election ensued. I canvividly recall the gratification which I felt when the Liberalcandidate--J. D. Lewis--warmly pressed my hand, and, looking at myrosette, hoped that he might count on my vote and interest. Not for theworld would I have revealed the damning fact that I was a votelessundergraduate. 

In connexion with the Election of 1874, my tutor--C. A. Fyffe--told me acurious story. He was canvassing the Borough of Woodstock on behalf ofGeorge Brodrick, then an academic Liberal of the deepest dye. Woodstockwas what was called an "Agricultural Borough"--practically a division ofthe County--and in an outlying district, in a solitary cottage, thecanvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be aRadical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could inducehim to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, herevealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before theReform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyonebelieved that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty andmisery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. Hesaid--and this was the curious point--that firearms were stored in hisfather's cottage, to be used in a popular rising if the Bill wererejected by the Lords. Well, the Lords had submitted, and the Bill hadbeen passed; and we had got our reform--and no one was any better off. The poor were still poor, and there was misery and oppression, and thegreat people had it all their own way. He had got his roof over hishead, and "a bit of meat in his pot, " and it was no good hoping foranything more, and he was never going to take any part in politicsagain. It was a notable echo from the voices which, in 1832, hadproclaimed the arrival of the Millennium. 

Oxford in those days was full of Celebrities. Whenever one's friendscame "up" to pay one a visit, one was pretty certain to be able, in acasual stroll up the High or round Magdalen Walks or Christ ChurchMeadows, to point out someone of whom they had heard before. I havealready spoken of Liddell and Pusey and Liddon and Acland and Burgonand Henry Smith. Chief perhaps among our celebrities was Ruskin, who hadlately been made Slade Professor of Fine Art, and whose InauguralLecture was incessantly on the lips of such undergraduates as cared forglorious declamation. 

"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.... Will you, youths ofEngland, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptredisle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistressof Learning and of the Arts; faithful guardian of time-tried principles, under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and, amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped inher strange valour, of goodwill towards men? _Vexilla regis prodeunt. _Yes, but of which King? There are two oriflammes; which shall we planton the farthest islands--the one that floats in heavenly fire, or thathangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold?"

Ruskin's lectures, ostensibly devoted to the Fine Arts, ranged overevery topic in earth and heaven, and were attended by the largest, mostrepresentative, and most responsive audiences which had ever beengathered in Oxford since Matthew Arnold delivered his Farewell Lectureon "Culture and its Enemies. "

Another of our Professors--J. E. Thorold Rogers--though perhaps scarcelya celebrity, was well known outside Oxford, partly because he was thefirst person to relinquish the clerical character under the Act of 1870, partly because of his really learned labours in history and economics, and partly because of his Rabelaisian humour. He was fond of writingsarcastic epigrams, and of reciting them to his friends, and this habitproduced a characteristic retort from Jowett. Rogers had only animperfect sympathy with the historians of the new school, and thusderided the mutual admiration of Green and Freeman--

 "Where, ladling butter from a large tureen, See blustering Freeman butter blundering Green. "

To which Jowett replied, in his quavering treble, "That's a falseantithesis, Rogers. It's quite possible to bluster and blunder, too!"

The mention of Oxford historians reminds me of my friend ProfessorDingo, to whom reference has been made in an earlier chapter. He had astrong admiration for the virile and masterful character of Henry VIII. , and was wont to conceal the blots on his hero's career by this patheticparaphrase--"The later years of this excellent monarch's reign wereclouded by _much domestic unhappiness_. "

Jowett has been mentioned more than once, and there is no need for me todescribe him. Lord Beaconsfield, in _Endymion_, gave a snapshot of "acertain Dr. Comeley, an Oxford Don of the new school, who wereinitiating Lord Montfort in all the mysteries of Neology. Thiscelebrated divine, who, in a sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates insteadof St. Paul, was opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentiallyunphilosophical. " Mr. Mallock, in the _New Republic_, supplied us witha more finished portrait of "Dr. Jenkinson, " and parodied his style ofpreaching with a perfection which irritated the Master of Balliol out ofhis habitual calm. My own intercourse with Jowett was not intimate, butI once dined with him on an occasion which made an equally deepimpression on two of the guests--Lord Milner and myself. When the ladieshad left the dining-room, an eminent diplomatist began an extremelyfull-flavoured conversation, which would have been unpleasant anywhere, and, in the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, wasdisgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visibleannoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other endof the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir ----. " "Yes, Master. ""Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke wasever more neatly administered. 

Jowett's name reminds me, rather obliquely, of the Rev. H. O. Coxe, whoin my time was Bodleian Librarian. He was clergyman, sportsman, scholar, all in one, with an infectious enthusiasm for the treasures in hischarge, and the most unfailing kindness and patience in exhibiting them. "Those who have enjoyed the real privilege of hearing Mr. Coxe discusspoints of historical detail, or have been introduced by him to some ofthe rarer treasures of the Bodleian, will bear witness to the livinginterest which such subjects acquired in his hands. How he would kindlewhile he recited Lord Clarendon's written resignation of theChancellorship of the University! With what dramatic zest he read outthe scraps of paper (carefully preserved by Clarendon) which used topass between himself and his Royal Master across the Council-table!"

I quote this life-like description from Burgon's _Twelve Good Men_, andBurgon it is who supplies the link with Jowett. "It was shortly afterthe publication of _Essays and Reviews_ that Jowett, meeting Coxe, enquired:--"Have you read my essay?" "No, my dear Jowett. We are goodfriends now; but I know that, if I were to read that essay, I shouldhave to cut you. So I haven't read it, and I don't mean to. ""--Acommendable way of escape from theological controversy. 

It is scarcely fair to reckon Cardinal Manning among Oxford celebrities;but during my undergraduateship he made two incursions into theUniversity, which were attended by some quaint consequences. In 1873 hewas a guest at the banquet held in honour of the fiftieth anniversary ofthe foundation of the Union; and it was noted with amusement that, though he was not then a Cardinal, but merely a schismatic Archbishop, he contrived to take precedence of the Bishop of Oxford in his owncathedral city. Bishop Wilberforce had died three months before, and Iremember that all the old stagers said:--"If Sam had still been Bishopof Oxford, this would not have happened. " The Roman Catholics of Oxfordwere of course delighted; and when, soon afterwards, Manning returned asCardinal to open the Roman Catholic Church in St. Giles's, great effortswere made to bring all undergraduates who showed any Rome-wardproclivities within the sphere of his influence. To one rather bumptiousyouth he said:--"And what are you going to do with your life?" "I'mthinking of taking Orders. " "Take care you get them, my friend. "Another, quite unmoved by the pectoral cross and crimson soutane, askedartlessly, "What was your college?" The Cardinal replied, with somedignity, "I was at Balliol, and subsequently at Merton. " "Oh! that waslike me. I was at Exeter, and I was sent down to a Hall for not gettingthrough Smalls. " "_I was a Fellow of Merton. _" No powers of type can dojustice to the intonation. 

At the time of which I speak Oxford was particularly rich in delightfuland accomplished ladies. I have already paid my tribute to Mrs. Cradock, Mrs. Liddell, Mrs. Acland, Mrs. Talbot, and Miss Eleanor Smith. MissFelicia Skene was at once a devoted servant of the poor and the outcast, and also one of the most powerful writers of her time, although shecontrived almost entirely to escape observation. Let anyone who thinksthat I rate her powers too highly read "The Divine Master, " "LaRoquette--1871, " and "Hidden Depths. "

No account of the famous women at Oxford would be complete without areference to Miss Marion Hughes--the first Sister of Mercy in the Churchof England--professed on Trinity Sunday, 1841, and still theFoundress-Mother of the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity atOxford. 

 * * * * *

I said at the beginning of this chapter that my Oxford life was dividedsharply into two halves. Neither the climate nor the way of living eversuited my health. In my first term I fell into the doctor's hands, andnever escaped from them so long as I was an undergraduate. I wellremember the decisive counsel of the first doctor whom I consulted (notDr. Acland). "What wine do you drink?" "None--only beer. " "Oh! that'sall nonsense. You never will be able to live in this climate unless youdrink port, and plenty of it. "

To this generous prescription I dutifully submitted, but even port waspowerless to keep me well at Oxford. I always felt "seedy"; and thenervous worry inseparable from a time of spiritual storm and stress (forfour of my most intimate friends seceded to Rome) told upon me more thanI knew. An accidental chill brought things to a climax, and during theChristmas vacation of 1874 I was laid low by a sharp attack of_myelitis_, mistaken at the time for rheumatic fever. I heard the laststroke of midnight, December 31, in a paroxysm of pain which, for yearsafter, I never could recall without feeling sick. I lost two termsthrough illness, and the doctors were against my returning to the dampsof Oxford. However, I managed to hobble back on two sticks, maimed forlife, and with all dreams of academical distinction at an end. But whatwas more important was that my whole scheme of life was dissipated. Henceforward it was with me, as with Robert Elsmere after his malariaat Cannes--"It was clear to himself and everybody else that he must dowhat he could, and not what he would, in the Christian vineyard. " Thewords have always made me smile; but the reality was no smiling matter. The remainder of my life at Oxford was of necessity lived at half-speed;and in this place I must commemorate, with a gratitude which the lapseof years has never chilled, the extraordinary kindness and tendernesswith which my undergraduate friends tended and nursed me in that time ofcrippledom. [18] Prince Leopold, then an undergraduate of Christ Church, and living at Wykeham House in The Parks, used to lend me hispony-carriage, which, as it strictly belonged to the Queen, and bore hercrown and cypher, did not pay toll; and, with an undergraduate friend atmy side, I used to snatch a fearful joy from driving at full tiltthrough turnpike gates, and mystifying the toll-keeper by saying thatthe Queen's carriages paid no toll. For the short remainder of my timeat Oxford I was cut off from riding and all active exercise, and was notable even to go out in bad weather. It was with me as with CaptainHarville in _Persuasion_--"His lameness prevented him from taking muchexercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish himwith constant employment within. "

 * * * * *

Here I must close my recollections of Oxford, and, as I look back uponthose four years--1872-1876--I find my thoughts best expressed by SirArthur Quiller-Couch, who has done for Oxford in his _Alma Mater_ justwhat Matthew Arnold did in the preface to _Essays in Criticism_.... 

 "Know you her secret none can utter? Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown? Still on the spire the pigeons flutter; Still by the gateway flits the gown; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, Faces of stone look down. 

 * * * * *

 Still on her spire the pigeons hover; Still by her gateway haunts the gown; Ah, but her secret? You, young lover, Drumming her old ones forth from town, Know you the secret none discover? Tell it--when _you_ go down. "

_Know you the secret none discover_--none, that is, while they still areundergraduates?

Well, I think I do; and, to begin with a negative, it is not the secretof Nirvana. There are misguided critics abroad in the land who seem toassume that life lived easily in a beautiful place, amid a society whichincludes all knowledge in its comprehensive survey, and far remote fromthe human tragedy of poverty and toil and pain, must necessarily becalm. And so, as regards the actual work and warfare of mankind, it maybe. The bitter cry of starving Poplar does not very readily penetrate tothe well-spread tables of Halls and Common-rooms. In a laburnum-cladvilla in The Parks we can afford to reason very temperately about lifein cities where five families camp in one room. But, when we leaveactualities, and come to the region of thought and opinion, all the pentenergy of Oxford seethes and stirs. The Hebrew word for "Prophet" comes, I believe, from a root which signifies to bubble like water on theflame; and it is just in this fervency of thought and feeling thatOxford is Prophetic. It is the tradition that in one year of thestorm-tossed 'forties the subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem wasCromwell, whereas the subject for the corresponding poem at Cambridgewas Plato. In that selection Oxford was true to herself. For a centuryat least (even if we leave out of sight her earlier convulsions) shehas been the battle-field of contending sects. Her air has resoundedwith party-cries, and the dead bodies of the controversially slain liethick in her streets. All the opposing forces of Church and State, oftheology and politics, of philosophy and science, of literary and socialand economic theory, have contended for mastery in the place whichMatthew Arnold, with fine irony, described as "so unruffled by thefierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!" Every succeedinggeneration of Oxford men has borne its part in these ever recurringstrifes. To hold aloof from them would have been poltroonery. Passionately convinced (at twenty) that we had sworn ourselves for lifeto each cause which we espoused, we have pleaded and planned anddenounced and persuaded; have struck the shrewdest blows which ourstrength could compass, and devised the most dangerous pitfalls for ouropponents' feet which wit could suggest. Nothing came of it all, andnothing could come, except the ruin of our appointed studies and theresulting dislocation of all subsequent life. But we were obeying theirresistible impulse of the time and the place in which our lot wascast, and we were ready to risk our all upon the venture. 

But now all that passion, genuine enough while it lasted, lies far backin the past, and we learn the secret which we never discovered while asyet Oxford held us in the thick of the fight. We thought then that wewere the most desperate partisans; we asked no quarter, and gave none;pushed our argumentative victories to their uttermost consequences, andmade short work of a fallen foe. But, when all the old battle-cries havedied out of our ears, gentler voices begin to make themselves heard. Allat once we realize that a great part of our old contentions was onlysound and fury and self-deception, and that, though the causes for whichwe strove may have been absolutely right, our opponents were notnecessarily villains. In a word, we have learnt the Secret of Oxford. All the time that we were fighting and fuming, the higher and subtlerinfluences of the place were moulding us, unconscious though we were, toa more gracious ideal. We had really learnt to distinguish betweenintellectual error and moral obliquity. We could differ from another onevery point of the political and theological compass, and yet in ourhearts acknowledge him to be the best of all good fellows. Withoutsurrendering a single conviction, we came to see the virtue of sostating our beliefs as to persuade and propitiate, instead of offendingand alienating. We had attained to that temper which, in the sphere ofthought and opinion, is analogous to the crowning virtue of Christiancharity. 

 "Tell it--when _you_ go down. "

Not long ago I was addressing a company of Oxford undergraduates, allkeenly alive to the interests and controversies of the present hour, alldevotedly loyal to the tradition of Oxford as each understood it, andall with their eyes eagerly fixed on "the wistful limit of the world. "With such an audience it was inevitable to insist on the graces andbenedictions which Oxford can confer, and to dwell on Mr. Gladstone'sdogma that to call a man a "typically Oxford man" is to bestow thehighest possible praise. 

But this was not all. Something more remained to be said. It was for aspeaker whose undergraduateship lay thirty years behind to state asplainly as he could his own deepest obligation to the place which haddecided the course and complexion of his life. Wherever philosophicalinsight is combined with literary genius and personal charm, one saysinstinctively, "That man is, or ought to be, an Oxford man. " Chiefestamong the great names which Oxford ought to claim but cannot is the nameof Edmund Burke; and the "Secret" on which we have been discoursingseems to be conveyed with luminous precision in his description of theideal character:--"It is our business ... To bring the dispositions thatare lovely in private life into the service and conduct of thecommonwealth; so to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen; tocultivate friendships and to incur enmities; to have both strong, butboth selected--in the one to be placable, in the other immovable. "

Whoso has attained to that ideal has learnt the "Secret" of Oxford. 

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The Rev. J. M. Lester. 

[18] Here I must depart from my rule, and mention a name--FitzRoyStewart. 

VI

HOME

 "Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. " WORDSWORTH, "_To a Sky-lark_. "

I said good-bye to Oxford on the 17th of June, 1876. What was the nextstep to be? As so often in my life, the decision came through a doctor'slips. He spoke in a figure, and this is what he said. "When a man hashad a severe illness, he has taken a large sum out of his capital. Unless he has the wisdom to replace it, he must be permanently poorer;and, when the original stock was not large, the necessity of economizingbecomes more urgent. You are in that case. My advice, therefore, is--Donothing for the next two or three years. Concentrate all your efforts ongetting better. Live as healthy a life as you can, and give mind andbody a complete rest. If you will obey this counsel, you will find thatyou have replaced the capital, or, at any rate, some of it; and you may, in spite of all disabilities, be able to take your part in the life andwork of the world. " The prescription of total abstinence from effortexactly suited my disposition of the moment. Oxford, one way andanother, had taken more out of me than till then I had realized, and Iwas only too thankful to have an opportunity of making good the loss. 

It being, for the time, my prime object to recover some portion ofhealth and strength, I was beyond measure fortunate in the possession ofan absolutely ideal home. "'Home! Sweet Home!' Yes. That is the songthat goes straight to the heart of every English man and woman. Forforty years we never asked Madame Adelina Patti to sing anything else. The unhappy, decadent, Latin races have not even a word in theirlanguage by which to express it, poor things! Home is the secret of ourhonest, British, Protestant virtues. It is the only nursery of ourAnglo-Saxon citizenship. Back to it our far-flung children turn, withall their memories aflame. They may lapse into rough ways, but they keepsomething sound at the core so long as they are faithful to the oldhome. There is still a tenderness in the voice, and tears are in theireyes, as they speak together of the days that can never die out oftheir lives, when they were at home in the old familiar places, withfather and mother, in the healthy gladness of their childhood. "[19] Tome home was all this and even more; for not only had it been my earthlyParadise when I was a child, but now, in opening manhood, it was asanctuary and a resting-place, in which I could prepare myself to facewhatever lot the future might have in store for me. 

That London as well as country may be, under certain conditions, Home, Iam well aware. For many natures London has an attractiveness which isall its own. And yet to indulge one's taste for it may be a gravedereliction of duty. The State is built upon the Home, and as atraining-place for social virtue, there can surely be no comparisonbetween a home in the country and a home in London. All those educatinginfluences which count for so much in the true home are infinitelyweaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there isnothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and thechimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevateeven the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, noEnchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built byCubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can beno traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry, in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which theprevious owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "TheGardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds, the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, butyou cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind youto the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, orto the septuagenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team eversince he was ten years old. Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, or All Saints, Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation whatLord Beaconsfield called "sparkling and modish"; but they can never havethe romantic charm of the Village Church where you were confirmed sideby side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the Vicar's daughter whenyou were wreathing holly round the lectern. There is a magic in thememory of a country home with which no urban associations can compete. 

Nowadays the world is perpetually on the move, but in the old dayspeople who possessed a country house passed nine months out of thetwelve under its sacred roof--sacred because it was inseparablyconnected with memories of ancestry and parentage and early association;with marriage and children, and pure enjoyment and active benevolenceand neighbourly goodwill. In a word, the country house was Home, and forthose who dwelt in it the interests of life were very much bound up inthe Park and the covers, the croquet-ground and the cricket-ground, thekennel, the stable, and the garden. I remember, when I was anundergraduate, lionizing some Yorkshire damsels on their first visit toOxford, then in the "high midsummer pomps" of its beauty. But all theysaid was, in the pensive tone of unwilling exiles, "How beautifully thesun must be shining on the South Walk at home!"

The Village Church was a great centre of domestic affection. All thefamily had been christened in it. The eldest sister had been married init. Generations of ancestry mouldered under the chancel-floor. Christmasdecorations were an occasion of much innocent merriment, and a littleditty high in favour in Tractarian homes warned the decorators to be--

 "Unselfish--looking not to see Proofs of their own dexterity; But quite contented that 'I' should Forgotten be in brotherhood. "

Of course, whether Tractarian or Evangelical, religious people regardedchurch-going as a spiritual privilege; and everyone, religious or not, recognized it as a civil duty. "When a gentleman is _sur ses terres_, "said Major Pendennis, "he must give an example to the country people;and, if I could turn a tune, I even think I should sing. The Duke of St. David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, always sings in the country, and let me tell you it has a doosed fine effect from the Family Pew. "Before the passion for "restoration" had set in, and ere yet Sir GilbertScott had transmogrified the Parish Churches of England, the Family Pewwas indeed the ark and sanctuary of the territorial system--and a verycomfortable ark too. It had a private entrance, a round table, a goodassortment of armchairs, a fire-place, and a wood-basket. And I wellremember a wash-leather glove of unusual size which was kept in thewood-basket for the greater convenience of making up the fire duringdivine service. "You may restore the church as much as you like, " saidthe lay-rector of our parish, to an innovating Incumbent, "but I mustinsist on my Family Pew not being touched. If I had to sit in an openseat, I should never get a wink of sleep again. "

A country home left its mark for all time on those who were brought upin it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the villageboys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching expedition to thepaternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy aPublic-school boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days tillhe could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap andfishing-rod. In after years, amid all the toil and worry of active life, he looked back lovingly to the corner of the cover where he shot hisfirst pheasant, or the precise spot in the middle of the Vale where hefirst saw a fox killed, and underwent the disgusting Baptism of Blood. 

Girls, living more continuously at home, entered even more intimatelyinto the daily life of the place. Their morning rides led them acrossthe Village Green; their afternoon drives were often steered by theclaims of this or that cottage to a visit. They were taught as soon asthey could toddle never to enter a door without knocking, never to sitdown without being asked, and never to call at meal-time. They kneweveryone in the village--old and young; played with the babies, taughtthe boys in Sunday School, carried savoury messes to the old andimpotent, read by the sick-beds, and brought flowers for the coffin. Mamma knitted comforters and dispensed warm clothing, organized reliefin hard winters and times of epidemic, and found places for thehobbledehoys of both sexes. The pony-boy and the scullery-maid werepretty sure to be products of the village. Very likely theyoung-ladies'-maid was a village girl whom the doctor had pronounced toodelicate for factory or farm. I have seen an excited young groom staringhis eyes out of his head at the Eton and Harrow match, and exclaimingwith rapture at a good catch, "It was my young governor as 'scouted'that. 'E's nimble, ain't he?" And I well remember an ancientstable-helper at a country house in Buckinghamshire who was called "OldBucks, " because he had never slept out of his native county, and veryrarely out of his native village, and had spent his whole life in theservice of one family. 

Of course, when so much of the impressionable part of life was livedamid the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life, " there grew up, between the family at the Hall and the families in the village, afeeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had achivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the lifeand doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant istoo much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were oftenbestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'isunderstanding's no worse than it always were, " was a ploughman's way ofsaying that an uncle of mine was in full possession of his faculties. "We call 'im 'Lord Charles' because he's so old and so cunning, " wasanother's description of a pony which had belonged to my father. "Ah, Iknow you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way ofcomplimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romanticdelicacy. 

But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deepvein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes andfour 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" wasthe exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had beenoffended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When thedaughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sureto find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion, and was full of enquiries about his Lordship and her Ladyship, and MissPinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, andwho lived now at the Entrance Lodge. Whether the sons got commissions, or took ranches, or became curates in slums, or contested remoteconstituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowdwith "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go birds-nesting withyou"; or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your blackpony. " When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking thisstep was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom, there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, oraltered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Boardof Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, thetraditional loyalty was unabated. Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about thebirth of his eldest son's eldest son:--"My little village is all agogwith the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first, it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born. The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags andflowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people wereexulting. 'He is one of us. ' 'He is a fellow-villager. ' 'We have now gota lord of our own. ' This is really gratifying. I did not think thatthere remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasantand proprietor, landlord and tenant. "

In the present day, if a season of financial pressure sets in, peopleshut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves offwith a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simplepleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights ofLondon. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, andnothing required. 

But in old days, when people wished to economize, it was London thatthey deserted. They sold the "Family Mansion" in Portland Place or EatonSquare; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, theytook a furnished house for six weeks in the summer; the rest of the yearthey spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was norent to pay, and only very small rates, for everyone knows that countryhouses are shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not requirere-painting every season, and no new clothes were wanted. As the ladiesin _Cranford_ said--"What can it matter what we wear here, whereeveryone knows who we are?" The products of the Park, the Home Farm, thehothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. Abrother-magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Angleseywaxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and, venturing on the privilege ofan old friendship, asked how much it cost him. "Cost me?" screamed thehero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! I don't buy it. It's my own, " andhe was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that"his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house, conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the verynumerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, andthat their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later lifewere due to this ascetic regimen. 

People were always hospitable in the country; but rural entertaining wasnot a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack, " whichrepresent the minimum requirements of the present day, are a hugedevelopment of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast hadalready grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, whichMacaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affairof covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given--terribleceremonies which lasted from two to four; but the ordinary luncheon ofthe family was a snack from the servants' joint or the children's ricepudding; and five o'clock tea had only lately been invented. Toremember, as I just can, the Foundress[20] of that divine refreshmentseems like having known Stephenson or Jenner. 

Dinner was substantial enough in all conscience, and the wine nearly asheavy as the food. Imagine quenching one's thirst with sherry in thedog-days! Yet so we did, till about half-way through dinner, and then, on great occasions, a dark-coloured rill of champagne began to trickleinto the V-shaped glasses. At the epoch of cheese, port made itsappearance in company with home-brewed beer; and, as soon as the ladiesand the schoolboys departed, the men applied themselves, with muchseriousness of purpose, to the consumption of claret which was reallyvinous. 

Grace was said before and after dinner. There was a famous squire inHertfordshire whose love of his dinner was constantly at war with hispietistic traditions. He always had his glass of sherry poured outbefore he sat down to dinner, so that he might get at it without amoment's delay. One night, in his generous eagerness, he upset the glassjust as he dropped into his seat at the end of grace, and the formularan on to an unexpected conclusion, thus: "For what we are going toreceive, the Lord make us truly thankful--D--n!" But if theincongruities which attended grace before dinner were disturbing, stillmore so were the solemnities of the close. Grace after dinner alwayshappened at the moment of loudest and most general conversation. For anhour and a half people had been stuffing as if their lives depended onit--"one feeding like forty. " Out of the abundance of the mouth theheart speaketh, and everyone was talking at once, and very loud. Perhapsthe venue was laid in a fox-hunting country, and then the air was fullof such voices as these: "Were you out with the Squire to-day?" "Anysport?" "Yes, we'd rather a nice gallop. " "Plenty of the animal about, Ihope?" "Well, I don't know. I believe that new keeper at Boreham Wood isa vulpicide. I don't half like his looks. " "What an infernal villain! Aman who would shoot a fox would poison his own grandmother. " "Sh! Sh!""What's the matter?"

"_For what we have received_, " &c. 

"Do you know you've been talking at the top of your voice all the timegrace was going on?"

"Not really? I'm awfully sorry. But our host mumbles so, I never canmake out what he's saying. "

"I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'mmuch more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton. "

And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolitionof grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social changewhich I have seen. 

In this kind of hospitality there was no great expense. People made verylittle difference between their way of living when they were alone, andtheir way of living when they had company. A visitor who wished to makehimself agreeable sometimes brought down a basket of fish or a barrel ofoysters from London; and, if one had no deer of one's own, the arrivalof a haunch from a neighbour's or kinsman's park was the signal for agathering of local gastronomers. And in matters other than meals lifewent on very much the same whether you had friends staying with you orwhether you were alone. The guests drove and rode, and walked and shot, according to their tastes and the season of the year. They were carriedoff, more or less willingly, to see the sights of theneighbourhood--ruined castles, restored cathedrals, famous views. Insummer there might be a picnic or a croquet-party; in winter a lawn-meetor a ball. But all these entertainments were of the most homely andinexpensive character. There was very little outlay, no fuss, and nodisplay. 

But now an entirely different spirit prevails. People seem to have lostthe power of living quietly and happily in their country homes. They allhave imbibed the urban philosophy of George Warrington, who, when Pengushed about the country with its "long, calm days, and long calmevenings, " brutally replied, "Devilish long, and a great deal too calm. I've tried 'em. " People of that type desert the country simply becausethey are bored by it. They feel with the gentleman who stood for MatthewArnold in _The New Republic_, and who, after talking about "liberalair, " "sedged brooks, " and "meadow grass, " admitted that it would be adreadful bore to have no other society than the Clergyman of the parish, and no other topics of conversation than Justification by Faith and themeasles. They do not care for the country in itself; they have no eyefor its beauty, no sense of its atmosphere, no memory for itstraditions. It is only made endurable to them by sport and gambling andboisterous house-parties; and when, from one cause or another, theseresources fail, they are frankly bored, and long for London. They are nolonger content, as our fathers were, to entertain their friends withhospitable simplicity. So profoundly has all society been vulgarized bythe worship of the Golden Calf that, unless people can vie with alienmillionaires in the sumptuousness with which they "do you"--delightfulphrase, --they prefer not to entertain at all. An emulous ostentation haskilled hospitality. All this is treason to a high ideal. 

Whatever tends to make the Home beautiful, attractive, romantic--toassociate it with the ideas of pure pleasure and high duty--to connectit not only with all that was happiest, but also with all that was best, in early years--whatever fulfils these purposes purifies the fountain ofnational life. A home, to be perfectly a home, should "incorporatetradition, and prolong the reign of the dead. " It should animate thosewho dwell in it to virtue and beneficence, by reminding them of whatothers did, who went before them in the same place, and lived amid thesame surroundings. Thank God, such a home was mine. 

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Henry Scott Holland. 

[20] Anna Maria, Duchess of Bedford, died in 1857. 

VII

LONDON

 "O'er royal London, in luxuriant May, While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day. Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals; Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels; From fields suburban rolls the early cart; As rests the Revel, so awakes the Mart. " _The New Timon_. 

When I was penning, in the last chapter, my perfectly sincere praises ofthe country, an incongruous reminiscence suddenly froze the genialcurrent of my soul. Something, I know not what, reminded me of theoccasion when Mrs. Bardell and her friends made their memorableexpedition to the "Spaniards Tea-Gardens" at Hampstead. "How sweet thecountry is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived init always. " To this Mr. Raddle, full of sympathy, rejoined: "For lonepeople as have got nobody to care for them, or as have been hurt intheir mind, or that sort of thing, the country is all very well. Thecountry for a wounded spirit, they say. " But the general verdict of thecompany was that Mrs. Rogers was "a great deal too lively andsought-after, to be content with the country"; and, on second thoughts, the lady herself acquiesced. I feel that my natural temperament hadsomething in common with that of Mrs. Rogers. "My spirit" (and my bodytoo) had been "wounded" by Oxford, and the country acted as both apoultice and a tonic. But my social instinct was always strong, andcould not be permanently content with "a lodge in the vast wilderness"of Woburn Park, or dwell for ever in the "boundless contiguity of shade"which obliterates the line between Beds and Bucks. 

I was very careful to observe the doctor's prescription of totalidleness, but I found it was quite as easily obeyed in London as in thecountry. For three or four months then, of every year, I forsook theHome which just now I praised so lavishly, and applied myself, circumspectly indeed but with keen enjoyment, to the pleasures of thetown. 

"_One look back_"--What was London like in those distant days, whichlie, say, between 1876 and 1886?

Structurally and visibly, it was a much uglier place than now. Theimmeasurable wastes of Belgravian stucco; the "Baker Streets and HarleyStreets and Wimpole Streets, resembling each other like a large familyof plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for theirrespectable parents, "[21] were still unbroken by the red brick andterra-cotta, white stone and green tiles, of our more æsthetic age. Theflower-beds in the Parks were less brilliant, for that "Grand oldgardener, " Mr. Harcourt, to whom we are so much indebted, was still atEton. Piccadilly had not been widened. The Arches at Hyde Park Cornerhad not been re-arranged. Glorious Whitehall was half occupied by shabbyshops; and labyrinths of slums covered the sites of Kingsway andShaftesbury Avenue. 

But, though London is now a much prettier place than it was then, Idoubt if it is as socially magnificent. The divinity which hedged QueenVictoria invested her occasional visits to her Capital with a glamourwhich it is difficult to explain to those who never felt it. Of beauty, stature, splendour, and other fancied attributes of Queenship, there wasnone; but there was a dignity which can neither be described norimitated; and, when her subjects knelt to kiss her hand at DrawingRoom, or Levee, or Investiture, they felt a kind of sacred awe which noother presence could inspire. 

It was, of course, one of the elements of Queen Victoria's mysteriouspower, that she was so seldom seen in London. In the early days of herwidowhood she had resigned the command of Society into other hands; andsocial London, at the time of which I write, was dominated by the Princeof Wales. Just at this moment, [22] when those who knew him well aregenuinely mourning the loss of King Edward VII. , it would scarcelybecome me to describe his influence on Society when first I moved in it. So I borrow the words of an anonymous writer, who, at the time at whichhis book was published, was generally admitted to know the subjects ofwhich he discoursed. 

"The Social Ruler of the English realm is the Prince of Wales. I callhim the Social Ruler, because, in all matters pertaining to society andto ceremonial, he plays vicariously the part of the Sovereign. TheEnglish monarchy may be described at the present moment as being in astate of commission. Most of its official duties are performed by theQueen. It is the Prince of Wales who transacts its ceremonial business, and exhibits to the masses the embodiment of the monarchical principle. If there were no Marlborough House, there would be no Court in London. The house of the Prince of Wales may be an unsatisfactory substitute fora Court, but it is the only substitute which exists, and it is the bestwhich, under the circumstances, is attainable. 

"In his attitude to English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolentdespot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing, and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so inthe right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and ofthese conditions he holds that he is the best, and, indeed, aninfallible, judge. 

"The Prince of Wales is the Bismarck of London society: he is also itsmicrocosm. All its idiosyncrasies are reflected in the person of HisRoyal Highness. Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations, its solicitudes, its susceptibilities, its philosophy, its way of looking at life and ofappraising character--of each of these is the Heir-Apparent the mirror. If a definition of Society were sought for, I should be inclined to giveit as the social area of which the Prince of Wales is personallycognizant, within the limits of which he visits, and every member ofwhich is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His RoyalHighness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be inimminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as theuniverse itself, were one of the great laws of nature to be suspendedfor five minutes. "

Of the loved and gracious lady who is now Queen Mother, I may trustmyself to speak. I first saw her at Harrow Speeches, when I was a boy of18, and from that day to this I have admired her more than any womanwhom I have ever seen. To the flawless beauty of the face there wasadded that wonderful charm of innocence and unfading youth which nosumptuosities of dress and decoration could conceal. To see the Princessin Society was in those days one of my chief delights, and the sightalways suggested to my mind the idea of a Puritan Maiden set in themidst of Vanity Fair. 

We have seen that the centre of Society at the period which I amdescribing was Marlborough House, and that centre was encircled by ringsof various compass, the widest extending to South Kensington in the onedirection, and Portman Square in the other. The innermost ring wascomposed of personal friends, and, as personal friendship belongs toprivate life, we must not here discuss it. The second ring was composedof the great houses--"The Palaces, " as Pennialinus[23] calls them, --thehouses, I mean, which are not distinguished by numbers, but are called"House, " with a capital H. And first among these I must place GrosvenorHouse. As I look back over all the entertainments which I have ever seenin London, I can recall nothing to compare with a Ball at GrosvenorHouse, in the days of Hugh, Duke of Westminster, and his glorious wife. No lesser epithet than "glorious" expresses the combination of beauty, splendour, and hospitable enjoyment, which made Constance, Duchess ofWestminster, so unique a hostess. Let me try to recall the scene. 

Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a suddenpause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Princeand Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageantworth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostessusher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with thecanvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the funbegins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests thetender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sèvres chinain a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!'exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds fromtheir bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. Howsafe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"[24]

Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerableinterval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building thanthe other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke ofSutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect inproportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow_scagliola_ might deceive the very elect into the belief that it ismarble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and thehighest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiarfeeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking, and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, wasrather that of a mob than of a party. 

Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historicPercys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place toNorthumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Nearwhere the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico ofthe patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners havenot yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, hesuggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that itmight not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. Inthe famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfieldharangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live tosee. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorativework of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round thehost, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts wasDevonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as theDuke of Devonshire who built it. " There the 7th Duke, who was amathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hidebehind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, LordHartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion onhis political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palaceof Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted inthe very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century thecreation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a politicalparty; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of selectand beautiful entertaining. 

Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo, " could not, in my time, be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum ofWellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters ofRoman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight ofMatthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an eveningparty. [25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubtthe grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplishedMr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador. Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze fromthe dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built bythe fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" andcontains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son. Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party, still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, Ifear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothingelse, will always preserve it from oblivion. 

I have written so far about these "Houses, " because in virtue of theirimposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not theinnermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did notdwell exclusively in "Houses, " and any social chronicler of the periodwhich I am describing will have to include in his survey the longstretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W. " from the "S. W. " district. Onthe upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square, the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street, Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace, Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square andChesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we cometo Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning itssocial career on the coming of age of the present Speaker, [26] April1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince'sGardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; andthat low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under LordCadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a"residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and adozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth andbeauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described theconcentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. SydneySmith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that"the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, andHyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing ofwealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a spacebefore. " This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); buthe flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when SouthKensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the Heir Apparenthad fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would havehad to enlarge his mental borders. 

Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when Ifirst knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The"Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, Ihope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names. The "Smart Men, " old and young, the "cheery boys, " the "dancingdogs, "--the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes--can be imagined aseasily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows;friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers wouldscarcely call them interesting; and the companionship of a club or aballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:--

 "The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there, The shining, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there. "

But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, oneused to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of LordBeaconsfield, --past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with hisblack-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of hisface; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes whichstill bespoke his unconquerable vitality. 

Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working roundtoward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking likea rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who movedthrough the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing whichhad distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, LadyLyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes. " Robert Lowe, not yet LordSherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society, --anoteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblindgaze. The first Lord Lytton--Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist--was deadbefore I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith, " in theintervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure inSociety; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitictype. 

Lord Houghton--to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditaryfriends--had a personality and a position altogether his own. Hisappearance was typically English; his manner as free and forthcoming asa Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand asMr. Vavasour in _Tancred_, but no lapse of time could stale his infinitevariety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, countrygentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, andacted each part with equal zest and assiduity. When I first knew him hewas living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarthhad copied the decoration for his "Marriage à la mode. " The site is nowoccupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to hauntthe Piccadilly which he loved. 

 "There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend, Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial friend; Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the northern kilns, He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the gods call Dicky Milnes. "[27]

When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantlyarrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with arosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains ofreddish hair, and an extremely alert and vivacious expression. Thebroad Red Ribbon of a G. C. B. Marked him out as in some way adistinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord ChiefJustice of England, --Sir Alexander Cockburn, one of the most conspicuousfigures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the"Hortensius" of _Endymion_, whose "sunny face and voice of music" hadcarried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of theBritish judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial andthe Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame whowas to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-lookingof poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow ofconversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or asuccessful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning, "growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in astiff choker, at a London dinner-party. "

The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, atthe period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8thDuke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seenlounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour, weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of greatpossessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet dosomething in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdlyyouthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions. 

Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and aboutthose who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights andshows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will bestruck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of itis more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and thewalkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worthcoming to London to see. " This description, though written some yearsbefore, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when Ifirst frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, askedin some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:

 "But where is now the courtly troop That once rode laughing by? I miss the curls of Cantilupe, The laugh of Lady Di. "

Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest manof his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck hadmarried Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I cameto London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflectivemelancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there, " askedLord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world thanHyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such finehorses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of suchagreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and thetriumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and thelovely glades of Kensington. " This passage would need some re-touchingif it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still aphotograph. 

With regard to Public Entertainments in the more technical sense, theperiod of which I am writing was highly favoured. We had Irving and MissTerry at the height of their powers, with all the gorgeous yet accurate"staging" which Irving had originated. We had Lady Bancroft with thatwonderful undertone of pathos in even her brightest comedy, and heraccomplished husband, whose peculiar art blended so harmoniously withher own. We had John Hare, the "perfect gentleman" of Stage-land, andthe Kendals with their quiet excellence in Drawing-room Drama; and theriotous glory of Mrs. John Wood, whose performances, with Arthur Cecil, at the Court Theatre, will always remain the most mirth-provokingmemories of my life. Midway between the Theatre and the Opera, there wasthe long and lovely series of Gilbert and Sullivan, who surely must haveafforded a larger amount of absolutely innocent delight to a largernumber of people than any two artists who ever collaborated in thepublic service. 

As to the Opera itself, I must quote a curious passage from LordBeaconsfield, who figures so often in these pages, because none everunderstood London so perfectly as he. 

"What will strike you most at the Opera is that you will not see asingle person you ever saw before in your life. It is strange; and itshows what a mass of wealth and taste and refinement there is in thiswonderful metropolis of ours, quite irrespective of the circles in whichwe move, and which we once thought, entirely engrossed them. "

Those words describe, roughly, the seasons of 1867-1870; and they stillhold good, to a considerable extent, of my earlier years in London. TheOpera was then the resort of people who really loved music. It hadceased to be, what it had been in the 'thirties and 'forties, a merelyfashionable resort; and its social resurrection had scarcely begun. 

Personally, I have always been fonder of real life than of its dramaticcounterfeit; and a form of Public Entertainment which greatly attractedme was that provided by the Law Courts. To follow the intricacies of areally interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of thewitnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel;to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see theChinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactnessby a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardlybe equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired ina capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of afellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting totyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony;and of Dr. Lampson for poisoning his brother-in-law, can never beforgotten. Not so thrilling, but quite as interesting, were the "JockeyTrial, " in 1888, the "Baccarat Case, " in 1891, and the "Trial at Bar, "of the Raiders in 1896. But they belong to a later date than the periodcovered by this chapter. 

My fondness for the Law Courts might suggest that I was inclined to be alawyer. Not so. Only two professions ever attracted me in the slightestdegree, --Holy Orders and Parliament. But when the dividing-line of 1874cut my life in two, it occurred to my Father that, aided by name andconnexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar, pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of enteringParliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because itseemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, astudent of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as theTemple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form ofeating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded of the experiencesof my favourite "Pen. " The ways of Law-students had altered wonderfullylittle in the lapse of forty years. 

"The ancient and liberal Inn of the Inner Temple provides in its Hall, and for a most moderate price, an excellent and wholesome dinner ofsoup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the Barristers andStudents who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged inmesses of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg ofmutton, its sufficient apple-pie, and its bottle of wine. 'This isboiled beef day, I believe, Sir, ' said Lowton to Pen. 'Upon my word, Sir, I'm not aware, ' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term;on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall. 'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regularswells--tip-top fellows, I can tell you--Mr. Trail, the Bishop ofEaling's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, youknow; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to messwith those chaps. ' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down hereto dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. _They_ dine here, Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to somegrand dinner-party. You see their names in the _Morning Post_ at all thefine parties in London. They dine! They won't dine these two hours, Idare say. ' 'But why should you like to mess with them, if they don'teat any dinner?' Pen asked, still puzzled. 'There's plenty, isn'tthere?' 'How green you are, ' said Lowton. 'Excuse me, but you are green!They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottleto himself, if he likes it, when he messes with those three chaps. That's why Corkoran got in with them. '"

Such were dinners at the Temple in Thackeray's time, and such they werein mine. My legal studies were superintended by my friend Mr. J. S. Fox, now K. C. , and Recorder of Sheffield. Should this book ever fall underhis learned eye, I should be interested to know if he has ever completedthe erudite work which in those distant days he contemplatedundertaking, "Tell a Lie and Stick to it:" A Treatise on the Law of Estoppel. 

But this is a digression. 

Before I leave London as it was when first I dwelt in it, I ought torecall some of the eminent persons who adorned it. Lord Beaconsfield wasat the zenith of his power and popularity. Mr. Gladstone, though thecrowning triumph of 1880 was not far off, was so unpopular in Societythat I was asked to meet him at a dinner as a favour to the hostess, whofound it difficult to collect a party when he was dining. Lord Salisburyhad just emerged from a seven years' retirement, and was beginning toplay for the Premiership. Mr. Chamberlain was spoken of with a kind ofawe, as a desperate demagogue longing to head a revolution; and LordRandolph Churchill was hardly known outside the Turf Club. 

Law was presided over, as I have already said, by the brilliantCockburn, and the mellifluous Coleridge was palpably preparing tosucceed him. People whispered wonders about Charles Bowen; and HenryJames and Charles Russell had established their positions. In thehierarchy of Medicine there were several leaders. Jenner ruled hispatients by terror; Gull by tact, and Andrew Clark by religiousmysticism. To me, complaining of dyspepsia, he prescribed a diet withthe Pauline formula: "I seek to impose a yoke upon you, that you may betruly free. " In the chief seat of the Church sat Archbishop Tait, themost dignified prelate whom I have ever met in our communion, and areally impressive spokesman of the Church in the House of Lords. TheNorthern Primate, Dr. Thomson, was styled "The Archbishop of Society";and the Deanery at Westminster sheltered the fine flower of grace andculture in the fragile person of Dean Stanley. G. H. Wilkinson, afterwards Bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, had lately been appointedto St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and had burst like a gunboat into a DeadSea of lethargy and formalism. 

Of course, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. It only aims atcommemorating a few of the figures, in different walks of life, whichcommanded my attention when I began to know--otherwise than as aschoolboy can know it--what London is, means, and contains. Five andthirty years have sped their course. My Home in the country has ceasedto exist; and I find myself numbered among that goodly company who, insucceeding ages, have loved London and found it their naturaldwelling-place. I fancy that Lord St. Aldwyn is too much of a sportsmanto applaud the sentiment of his ancestor who flourished in the reign ofCharles II. , but it is exactly mine. 

"London is the only place of England to winter in, whereof many true menmight be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, thenfields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go to theCourt. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; andso shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for nokind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here isa companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If yoube sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain. When you are weary of your lodging, you may walk into St. Paul's ... Inthe Middle Aisle you may hear what the Protestants say, and in theothers what the Papists whisper; and, when you have heard both, believebut one, for but one of both says true you may be assured. "

We clear the chasm of a century, and hear Dr. Johnson singing the sametune as Squire Hicks. 

"The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who havebeen in it. I'll venture to say, there is more learning and sciencewithin the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in allthe rest of the kingdom. "

"London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure isintellectual, London is the place. "

"The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, towhich I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. "

But even Johnson, who is always quoted as the typical lover of London, was not more enthusiastic in its praise than Gibbon. To him "London wasnever dull, there at least he could keep the monster _Ennui_ at arespectful distance. " For him its heat was always tempered; even itssolitude was "delicious. " In "the soft retirement of my _bocage de_Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded. "Charming hot weather! I amjust going to dine alone. Afterwards I shall walk till dark in _my_gardens at Kensington, and shall then return to a frugal supper andearly bed in Bentinck Street. I lead the life of a philosopher, withoutany regard to the world or to fashion. "

So much for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; we now return tothe nineteenth and are listening to Sydney Smith. "I look forwardanxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good societyin a crowded city. " "The country is bad enough in summer, but in winterit is a fit residence only for beings doomed to such misery for misdeedsin another state of existence. " "You may depend upon it, all lives livedout of London are mistakes, more or less grievous--but mistakes. " "Ishall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of simple pleasures, bad reasoning, and worse cookery. "

Let Lord Beaconsfield have the last word, as is his due; for truly didhe know and love his London. 

"It was a mild winter evening, a little fog still hanging about, butvanquished by the cheerful lamps, and the voice of the muffin-bell washeard at intervals; a genial sound that calls up visions of trim andhappy hearths. If we could only so contrive our lives as to go into thecountry for the first note of the nightingale, and return to town forthe first note of the muffin-bell, existence, it is humbly presumed, might be more enjoyable. "

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Lord Beaconsfield, _Tancred_. 

[22] Written in May, 1910. 

[23] A nickname invented by the famous Eton tutor, "Billy Johnson, " fora florid journalist. 

[24] Lord Beaconsfield, _Lothair_. 

[25] See M. Arnold's Letters, May 15, 1880. 

[26] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther. 

[27] Sir George Trevelyan, _The Ladies in Parliament_. 

VIII

HOSPITALITY

 "I never eat and I never drink, " said the Cardinal. "I am sorry to say I cannot. I like dinner-society very much. You see the world, and you hear things which you do not hear otherwise. " LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_. 

The Cardinal was much to be pitied. He had a real genius for society, and thoroughly enjoyed such forms of it as his health and professionpermitted. Though he could not dine with Mr. Putney Giles, he went toMrs. Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an importantacquaintance. He looked in at Lady St. Jerome's after dinner; and hisvisits to Vauxe and to Muriel Towers were fraught with memorableresults. 

Mrs. Putney Giles, though a staunch Protestant, was delighted to receivea Cardinal, and not less so that he should meet in her drawing-room theinexpressibly magnificent Lothair. That is all in the course of nature;but what has always puzzled me is the ease with which a youth of noparticular pretensions, arriving in London from Oxford or Cambridge orfrom a country home, swims into society, and finds himself welcomed bypeople whose names he barely knows. I suppose that in this, as in moreimportant matters, the helpers of the social fledgling are good-naturedwomen. The fledgling probably starts by being related to one or two, andacquainted with three or four more; and each of them says to a friendwho entertains--"My cousin, Freddy Du Cane, is a very nice fellow, andwaltzes capitally. Do send him a card for your dance"--or "Tommy Tuckeris a neighbour of ours in the country. If ever you want an odd man tofill up a place at dinner, I think you will find him useful. " Then therewas in those days, and perhaps there is still, a mysterious race ofmen--Hierophants of Society--who had great powers of helping orhindering the social beginner. They were bachelors, not very young; whohad seen active service as dancers and diners for ten or twenty seasons;and who kept lists of eligible youths which they were perpetuallyrenewing at White's or the Marlborough. To one of these the intendinghostess would turn, saying, "Dear Mr. Golightly, _do_ give me yourlist;" and, if Freddy Du Cane had contrived to ingratiate himself withMr. Golightly, invitations to balls and dances, of every size and sort, would soon begin to flutter down on him like snow-flakes. It matterednothing that he had never seen his host or hostess, nor they him. CorneyGrain expressed the situation in his own inimitable verse:

 "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 the guest said 'Good-night' to the butler instead. "

But light come, light go. Ball-going is elysian when one is very youngand cheerful and active, but it is a pleasure which, for nine men out often, soon palls. Dinner-society, as Cardinal Grandison knew, is a moreserious affair, and admission to it is not so lightly attained. 

When Sydney Smith returned from a visit to Paris, he wrote, in thefulness of his heart:

"I care very little about dinners, but I shall not easily forget a_matelote_ at the 'Rochers de Cancale, ' or an almond tart at Montreuil, or a _poulet à la Tartare_ at Grignon's. These are impressions which nochanges in future life can obliterate. "

I am tempted to pursue the line of thought thus invitingly opened, but Iforbear; for it really has no special connexion with the retrospectivevein. I am now describing the years 1876-1880, and dinners then werepretty much what they are now. The new age of dining had begun. Thosefrightful hecatombs of sheep and oxen which Francatelli decreed had madeway for more ethereal fare. The age-long tyranny of "The Joint" wasalready undermined. I have indeed been one of a party of forty in thedog-days, where a belated haunch of venison cried aloud for decentburial; but such outrages were even then becoming rare. The champagne ofwhich a poet had beautifully said:

 "How sad and bad and mad it was, And Oh! how it was sweet!"

had been banished in favour of the barely alcoholic liquor which foamsin modern glasses. And, thanks to the influence of King Edward VII, after-dinner drinking had been exorcised by cigarettes. The portentouspiles of clumsy silver which had overshadowed our fathers'tables--effigies of Peace and Plenty, Racing Cups and Prizes for fatcattle--had been banished to the plate-closets; bright china andbrighter flowers reigned in their stead. In short, a dinner thirty-fiveyears ago was very like a dinner to-day. It did not take me long to findthat (with Cardinal Grandison) "I liked dinner-society very much, " andthat "you see the world there and hear things which you do not hearotherwise. "

I have already described the methods by which ball-society was, andperhaps is, recruited. An incident which befell me in my second seasonthrew a similar light on the more obscure question of dinner-society. One day I received a large card which intimated that Mr. And Mrs. Goldmore requested the honour of my company at dinner. I was a littlesurprised, because though I had been to balls at the Goldmores' houseand had made my bow at the top of the stairs, I did not really knowthem. They had newly arrived in London, with a great fortune made inclay pipes and dolls' eyes, and were making their way by entertaininglavishly. However, it was very kind of them to ask me to dinner, and Ireadily accepted. The appointed evening came, and I arrived rather late. In an immense drawing-room there were some thirty guests assembled, and, as I looked round, I could not see a single face which I had ever seenbefore. Worse than that, it was obvious that Mr. And Mrs. Goldmore didnot know me. They heard my name announced, received me quite politely, and then retired into a window, where their darkling undertones, enquiring glances, and heads negatively shaken, made it only too clearthat they were asking one another who on earth the last arrival was. However, their embarrassment and mine was soon relieved by theannouncement of dinner. As there were more male guests than women, therewas no need to give me a partner; so we all swept downstairs in apromiscuous flood, and soon were making the vital choice between_bisque_ and _consommé_. Eating my dinner, I revolved my plans, anddecided to make a clean breast of it. So, when we went up into thedrawing-room, I made straight for my hostess. "I feel sure, " I said, "that you and Mr. Goldmore did not expect me to-night. " "Oh, " was thegracious reply, "I hope there was nothing in our manner which made youfeel that you were unwelcome. " "Nothing, " I replied, "could have beenkinder than your manner, but one has a certain social instinct whichtells one when one has made a mistake. And yet what the mistake was Icannot guess. I am sure it is the right house and the right evening--Doplease explain. " "Well, " said Mrs. Goldmore, "as you have found out somuch, I think I had better tell you all. _We were not expecting you. _ Wehave not even now the pleasure of knowing who you are. We wereexpecting Dr. Russell, the _Times_ Correspondent, and all these ladiesand gentlemen have been asked to meet him. " So it was not my mistakeafter all, and I promptly rallied my forces. "The card certainly had myfirst name, initials, and address all right, so there was nothing tomake me suspect a mistake. Besides, I should have thought that everyonewho knew the _Times_ Russell knew that his first name was William--he isalways called 'Billy Russell. '" "Well"--and now the truth coylyemerged--"the fact is that we _don't_ know him. We heard that he was apleasant man and fond of dining out, and so we looked him up in the_Court Guide_, and sent the invitation. I suppose we hit on your addressby mistake for his. " I suppose so too; and that this is the method bywhich newcomers build up a "Dinner-Society" in London. 

One particular form of dinner deserves a special word of commemoration, because it has gone, never to return. This was the "Fish Dinner" atGreenwich or Blackwall, or even so far afield as Gravesend. It was to acertain extent a picnic; without the formality of dressing, and madepleasant by opportunities of fun and fresh air, in the park or on theriver, before we addressed ourselves to the serious business of theevening; but that was serious indeed. The "Menu" of a dinner at the ShipHotel at Greenwich lies before me as I write. It contains turtle soup, eleven kinds of fish, two _entrées_, a haunch of venison, poultry, ham, grouse, leverets, five sweet dishes, and two kinds of ice. Well, thosewere great days--we shall not look upon their like again. Let a poet[28]who knew what he was writing about have the last word on Dinner. 

 "We may live without poetry, music, and art; We may live without conscience and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without Cooks. 

 "He may live without lore--what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope--what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love--what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?"

There is an exquisite truth in this lyrical cry, but it stops short ofthe fulness of the subject. It must be remembered that "dining" is notthe only form of eating. Mr. Gladstone, who thought modern luxury ratherdisgusting, used to complain that nowadays life in a country house meantthree dinners a day, and, if you reckoned sandwiches and poached eggs atfive o'clock tea, nearly four. Indeed, the only difference that I canperceive between a modern luncheon and a modern dinner is that at theformer meal you don't have soup or a printed _Menu_. There have alwaysbeen some houses where the luncheons were much more famous than thedinners. Dinner, after all, is something of a ceremony; it requiresforethought, care, and organization. Luncheon is more of a scramble, and, in the case of a numerous and scattered family, it is thepleasantest of reunions. 

My uncle Lord John Russell (1792-1878) published in 1820 a book of_Essays and Sketches_, in which he speaks of "women sitting down to asubstantial luncheon at three or four, " and observes that men would bewise if they followed the example. All contemporary evidence points toluncheon as a female meal, at which men attended, if at all, clandestinely. If a man habitually sat down to luncheon, and ate itthrough, he was regarded as indifferent to the claims of dinner, and, moreover, was contemned as an idler. No one who had anything to do couldfind time for a square meal in the middle of the day. But, as years wenton, the feeling changed. Prince Albert was notoriously fond of luncheon, and Queen Victoria humoured him. They dined very late, and the luncheonat the Palace became a very real and fully recognized meal. The example, communicated from the highest quarters, was soon followed in Society;and, when I first knew London, luncheon was as firmly established asdinner. As a rule, it was not an affair of fixed invitation; but ahostess would say, "You will always find us at luncheon, somewhere abouttwo"--and one took her at her word. 

The luncheon by invitation was a more formal, and rather terrible, affair. I well remember a house where at two o'clock in June we had tosit down with curtains drawn, lights ablaze, and rose-coloured shades tothe candles, because the hostess thought, rightly as regarded herself, less so as regarded her guests, that no one's complexion could stand thesearching trial of midsummer sunshine. 

"Sunday Luncheon" was always a thing apart. For some reason, notaltogether clear, perhaps because devotion long sustained makes a strongdemand on the nervous system, men who turned up their noses at luncheonon weekdays devoured roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, andwent forth, like giants refreshed, for a round of afternoon calls. TheSunday Luncheon was a recognized centre of social life. Where there waseven a moderate degree of intimacy a guest might drop in and be sure ofmayonnaise, chicken, and welcome. I can recall an occasion of this kindwhen I saw social Presence of Mind exemplified, as I thought and think, on an heroic scale. Luncheon was over. It had not been a particularlybounteous meal; the guests had been many; the chicken had been eaten tothe drumstick and the cutlets to the bone. Nothing remained but a hugeTrifle, of chromatic and threatening aspect, on which no one hadventured to embark. Coffee was just coming, when the servant enteredwith an anxious expression, and murmured to the hostess that Monsieur dePetitpois--a newly-arrived attaché--had come, and seemed to expectluncheon. The hostess grasped the situation in an instant, and issuedher commands with a promptitude and a directness which the Duke ofWellington could not have surpassed. "Clear everything away, but leavethe Trifle. Then show M. De Petitpois in. " Enter De Petitpois. "Delighted to see you. Quite right. Always at home at Sunday luncheon. Pray come and sit here and have some Trifle. It is our national Sundaydish. " Poor young De Petitpois, actuated by the same principle whichmade the Prodigal desire the husks, filled himself with spongecake, jam, and whipped cream; and went away looking rather pale. If he kept ajournal, he no doubt noted the English Sunday as one of our most curiousinstitutions, and "Le Trifle" as its crowning horror. 

Supper is a word of very different significances. There is the BallSupper, which I have described in a previous chapter. There is theSupper after the Missionary Meeting in the country, when "The Deputationfrom the Parent Society" is entertained with cold beef, boiled eggs, andcocoa. There is the diurnal Supper, fruitful parent of our nationalcrudities, eaten by the social class that dines at one; and this Supper(as was disclosed at a recent inquest) may consist of steak, tomatoes, and tea. 

And yet, again, there is the Theatrical Supper, which, eaten incongenial company after _Patience_ or _The Whip_, is our nearestapproach to the "Nights and Suppers of the Gods. " This kind of supperhas a niche of its own in my retrospects. It was my privilege when firstI came to London to know Lady Burdett-Coutts, famous all over the worldas a philanthropist, and also, in every tone and gesture, a survivalfrom the days when great station and great manner went together. LadyBurdett-Coutts was an enthusiastic devotee of the drama; and, when herEvening Parties were breaking up, she would gently glide round the greatrooms in Stratton Street, and say to a departing guest:

"I hope you need not go just yet. I am expecting Mr. Irving to supperafter the play, and I am asking a few friends to meet him. "

As far as I know, I am the only survivor of those delightful feasts. 

Dinner and luncheon and supper must, I suppose, be reckoned among thepermanent facts of life; but there is, or was, one meal of which I havewitnessed the unwept disappearance. It had its roots in our historicpast. It clung to its place in our social economy. It lived long anddied hard. It was the Breakfast-Party. When I first lived in London, itwas, like some types of human character, vigorous but unpopular. No onecould really like going out to breakfast; but the people who gaveBreakfast-Parties were worthy and often agreeable people; and there werefew who had the hardihood to say them Nay. 

The most famous breakfast-parties of the time were given by Mr. Gladstone, on every Thursday morning in the Session; when, while we atebroiled salmon and drank coffee, our host discoursed to an admiringcircle about the colour-sense in Homer, or the polity of the ancientHittites. Around the table were gathered Lions and Lionesses of variousbreeds and sizes, who, if I remember aright, did not get quite as muchopportunity for roaring as they would have liked; for, when Mr. Gladstone had started on a congenial theme, it was difficult to get in aword edgeways. One of these breakfast-parties at 10, Downing Street, stands out in memory more clearly than the rest, for it very nearly hada part in that "Making of History" which was then so much in vogue. Thedate was April 23, 1885. The party comprised Lady Ripon, Lord Granville, Dean Church, and Miss Mary Anderson, then in the height of her fame andbeauty. We were stolidly munching and listening, when suddenly we hearda crash as if heaven and earth had come together; and presently welearned that there had been an explosion of dynamite at the Admiralty, about a hundred yards from where we were sitting. The proximity ofnitro-glycerine seemed to operate as a check on conversation, and, as werose from the table, I heard Miss Anderson say to Miss Gladstone, "Yourpa seemed quite scared. "

Other breakfast-givers of the time were Lord Houghton, Lord ArthurRussell, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley), and Sir JohnLubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury); and there were even people sodesperately wedded to this terrible tradition that they formedthemselves into Clubs with no other object than to breakfast, and boundthemselves by solemn pledges to meet one morning in every week, and eatand argue themselves into dyspepsia. Sydney Smith wrote thus to afriend: "I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at tenpunctually--muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Willyou come?" That inviting picture, though it was drawn before I was born, exactly describes the breakfast-parties which I remember. One met allsorts of people, but very few Mary Andersons. Breakfasters weregenerally old, --politicians, diplomatists, authors, journalists, men ofscience, political economists, and everyone else who was most improving. No doubt it was a priceless privilege to meet them; yet, as I heard themprate and prose, I could not help recalling a favourite passage fromMrs. Sherwood's quaint tale of _Henry Milner_:--

"Mr. Dolben, as usual, gave utterance at breakfast to several of thosepure and wise and refined principles, which sometimes distil as drops ofhoney from the lips of pious and intellectual old persons. " It wasbreakfast that set Mr. Dolben off. We are not told that he distilled hishoney at dinner or supper; so his case must be added to the long list ofdeleterious results produced by breakfasting in public. 

Conversation must, I think, have been at rather a low ebb when I firstencountered it in London. Men breakfasted in public, as we have justseen, in order to indulge in it; and I remember a terrible Club where itraged on two nights of every week, in a large, dark, and draughty room, while men sat round an indifferent fire, drinking barley-water, andtalking for talking's sake--the most melancholy of occupations. But atthese dismal orgies one never heard anything worth remembering. The"pious and intellectual old persons" whom Mrs. Sherwood admired hadwithdrawn from the scene, if indeed they had ever figured on it. Thosewho remained were neither pious nor intellectual, but compact of spiteand greediness, with here and there worse faults. But some brighterspirits were coming on. To call them by the names which they then bore, Mr. George Trevelyan and Mr. John Morley were thought very promising, for social fame in London takes a long time to establish itself. SirWilliam Harcourt was capital company in the heavier style; and LordRosebery in the lighter. But Mr. Herbert Paul was known only to the_Daily News_, and Mr. Augustine Birrell's ray serene had not emergedfrom the dim, unfathomed caves of the Chancery Bar. 

So far, I have been writing about Conversation with a capital "C, "--anelaborate and studied art which in old days such men as Sharpe andJekyll and Luttrell illustrated, and, in times more modern, Brookfieldand Cockburn and Lowe and Hayward. For the ordinary chit-chat of socialintercourse--chaff and repartee, gossip and fun and frolic--I believethat London was just as good in 1876 as it had been fifty years before. We were young and happy, enjoying ourselves, and on easy terms with oneanother. "It was roses, roses all the way. " Our talk was unpremeditatedand unstudied, quick as lightning, springing out of the interest or thesituation of the moment, uttered in an instant and as soon forgotten. Everyone who has ever made the attempt must realize that to gather upthe fragments of such talk as this is as impossible as to collectshooting stars or to reconstruct a rainbow. 

But, though I cannot say what we talked about in those distant days, Ibelieve I can indicate with certainty two topics which were nevermentioned. One is Health, and the other is Money. I presume that peoplehad pretty much the same complaints as now, but no one talked aboutthem. We had been told of a lady who died in agony because she insistedon telling the doctor that the pain was in her chest, whereas it reallywas in the unmentionable organ of digestion. That martyr to proprietyhas no imitator in the present day. Everyone has a disease and a doctor, and young people of both sexes are ready on the slightest acquaintanceto describe symptoms and compare experiences. "Ice!" exclaimed a prettygirl at dessert. "Good gracious, no. So bad for indy!" And hercompanion, who had not travelled with the times, learned with interestthat "indy" was the pet name for indigestion. 

Then, again, as to money. In the "Sacred Circle of the GreatGrandmotherhood, " I never heard the slightest reference to income. Notthat the Whigs despised money. They were at least as fond of it as otherpeople, and, even when it took the shape of slum-rents, its odour wasnot displeasing; but it was not a subject for conversation. People didnot chatter about their neighbours' incomes; and, if they made their ownmoney in trades or professions, they did not regale us with statisticsof profit and loss. To-day everyone seems to be, if I may use thefavourite colloquialism, "on the make"; and the devotion with whichpeople worship money pervades their whole conversation, and colourstheir whole view of life. "Scions of Aristocracy, " to use the good oldphrase of Pennialinus, will produce samples of tea or floor-cloth fromtheir pockets, and sue quite winningly for custom. A speculative bottleof extraordinarily cheap peach-brandy will arrive with the complimentsof Lord Tom Noddy, who has just gone into the wine-trade; and LordMagnus Charters will tell you that, if you are going to rearrange yourelectric light, his firm has got some really artistic fittings which hecan let you have on specially easy terms. 

So far I have spoken of Hospitality as if it consisted wholly in eatingand drinking. Not so. In those days Evening Parties, or Receptions, orDrums, or Tails, for so they were indifferently called, took place onfour or five nights of every week. "Tails" as the name implies, werelittle parties tacked on to the end of big dinners, where a few peoplelooked in, rather cross at not having been invited to dine, or else in adesperate hurry to get on to a larger party or a ball. The largerparties were given generally on Saturday evenings; and then, amid acrushing crowd and a din which recalled the Parrot-House at the Zoo, onemight rub shoulders with all the famous men and women of the time. WhenMr. St. Barbe in _Endymion_ attended a gathering of this kind, he saidto his companion, "I daresay that Ambassador has been blundering all hislife, and yet there is something in that Star and Ribbon. I do not knowhow you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees to him. 

 'Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven, '

Byron wrote; a silly line, he should have written--

 'Ye stars which are the poetry of dress. '"

Political "Drums" had a flavour which was all their own. If they weregiven in any of the Great Houses of London, where the stateliness andbeauty of the old world still survived, such guests as LordBeaconsfield's creations, Mr. Horrocks, M. P. , and Trodgitts, theunsuccessful candidate, would look a little subdued. But in the ordinaryhouse, with a back and front drawing-room and a buffet in thedining-room, those good men were quite at home, and the air was thickwith political shop--whether we should loose Pedlington or saveShuffleborough with a struggle--whether A would get office and howdisgusted B would be if he did. 

Here and there a more thrilling note was sounded. At a Liberal party inthe spring of 1881 an ex-Whip of the Liberal party said to a Liberallady, as he was giving her a cup of tea: "Have you heard how ill oldDizzy is?" "Oh, yes!" replied the lady, with a rapturous wink, "Iknow--dying!" Such are the amenities of political strife. 

A much more agreeable form of hospitality was the Garden-Party. When Icame to live in London, the old-fashioned phrase--a "Breakfast"--sofamiliar in memoirs and novels, had almost passed out of use. On the22nd of June, 1868, Queen Victoria signalized her partial return tosocial life by commanding her lieges to a "Breakfast" in the gardens ofBuckingham Palace; and the newspapers made merry over the notion ofBreakfast which began at four and ended at seven. The old titlegradually died out, and by 1876 people had begun to talk about"Garden-Parties. "

By whichever names they were called, they were, and are, delightfulfestivals. Sometimes they carried one as far as Hatfield, myunapproached favourite among all the "Stately homes of England"; butgenerally they were nearer London--at Syon, with the Thames floatinggravely past its lawns--Osterley, where the decorative skill of theBrothers Adam is superimposed on Sir Thomas Gresham's Elizabethanbrickwork--Holland House, rife with memories of Fox andMacaulay--Lowther Lodge, with its patch of unspoiled country in theheart of Western London. Closely akin to these Garden-Parties were otherforms of outdoor entertainment--tea at Hurlingham or Ranelagh; andriver-parties where ardent youth might contrive to capsize the adoredone, and propose as he rescued her, dripping, from the Thames. 

It is only within the last few years that we have begun to talk of"Week-Ends" and "week-Ending. " These terrible phrases have come down tous from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing whichthey signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called. They were not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favouritenight for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken fordinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms becameunendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of Londonbegan to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, andstay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequentcultivator, for they always meant two sleepless nights; and, as someonetruly observed, just as you had begun to wear off the corners of yoursoap, it was time to return to London. But there were people, morehappily constituted, who could thoroughly enjoy and profit by the weeklydose of fresh air and quiet. It was seldom that Mrs. Gladstone failed todrag Mr. Gladstone to some country house "from Saturday to Monday. "

As I re-read what I have written in this chapter, I seem to have livedfrom 1876 to 1880 in the constant enjoyment of one kind or another ofHospitality. It is true; and for the kindness of the friends who thendid so much to make my life agreeable, I am as grateful as I was when Ireceived it. My social life in London seems to me, as I look back, "acrystal river of unreproved enjoyment"; and some of those who shared itwith me are still among my closest friends. 

One word more, and I have done with Hospitality. I brought with me fromOxford a simple lad who had been a College servant. In those morecourteous days a young man made it a rule to leave his card at everyhouse where he had been entertained; so I made a list of addresses, gaveit to my servant with a nicely-calculated batch of cards, and told himto leave them all before dinner. When I came in to dress, this dialogueensued: "Have you left all those cards?" "Yes, sir. " "You left two ateach of the houses on your list?" "Oh no, sir. I left one at each house, and all the rest at the Duke of Leinster's. " Surely Mrs. Humphry Ward orMr. H. G. Wells might make something of this bewildering effect producedby exalted rank on the untutored mind. 

FOOTNOTE:

[28] The second Lord Lytton. 

IX

ELECTIONEERING

 "Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely excluded. Mr. Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing.... He is very young, genteel, and handsome, and the town seems to be much at his service. " _W. Cowper_, 1784. 

Gladstone's first administration, which had begun so gloriously in 1868, ended rather ignominiously at the General Election of 1874. MatthewArnold wrote to his friend, Lady de Rothschild, "What a beating it is!You know that Liberalism did not seem to me quite the beautiful andadmirable thing it does to the Liberal party in general, and I am notsorry that a new stage in its growth should commence, and that the partyshould be driven to examine itself, and to see how much real stuff ithas in its mind, and how much claptrap. "

That wholesome discipline of self-examination was greatly assisted bythe progress of events. England was now subjected to the personal ruleof Disraeli. In 1868 he had been for ten months Prime Minister onsufferance, but now for the first time in his life he was in power. Hiscolleagues were serfs or cyphers. He had acquired an influence at Courtsuch as no other Minister ever possessed. He had conciliated the Houseof Lords, which in old days had looked askance at the picturesqueadventurer. He was supported by a strong, compact, and determinedmajority in the House of Commons. He was the idol of Society, of theClubs, and of the London Press. He was, in short, as nearly a dictatoras the forms of our constitution permit; and the genius, which for fortyyears had been hampered and trammelled by the exigencies of a precariousstruggle, could now for the first time display its true character andsignificance. Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessantblunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like MatthewArnold, had welcomed a change of government, soon began to see that theyhad exchanged what was merely fatuous and foolish for what was activelymischievous. They were forced to ask themselves how much of thepolitical faith which they had professed was "real stuff, " and how muchwas "claptrap. " Disraeli soon taught them that, even when all"claptrap" was laid aside, the "real stuff" of Liberalism--its vital andessential part--was utterly incompatible with Disraelitish ideals. 

The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbanceproceeded from a quite unexpected quarter. The two Primates of theEnglish Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson. Both were masterful men. Both hated Ritualism; and both worshipped theMan in the Street. The Man in the Street was supposed to be ananti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design ofenlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, withtheir own unaided resources, they had failed to crush. BishopWilberforce, who would not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied, had been killed in the previous summer. Gladstone, notoriously notunfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easyfor a policy of persecution. On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Taitintroduced his "Public Worship Regulation Bill" into the House of Lords;and, in explanation of this measure, Tait's biographers say that itmerely "aimed at reviving in a practical shape the _forum domesticum_of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemednecessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times. " I havealways loved this sentence. _Forum domesticum_ is distinctly good, andso is "coercive force. " The _forum domesticum_ has quite a comfortablesound, and, as to the "coercive force" which lurks in the background, Ritualists must not enquire too curiously. The Bishops were to have itall their own way, and everyone was to be happy. Such was the Bill asintroduced; but in Committee it was made infinitely more oppressive. Henceforward a single lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops, was to hear and determine all cases relating to irregularities in PublicWorship. 

When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed byGladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt, who, six months before, had been his Solicitor-General, distinguishedhimself by the truculence with which he assailed the Ritualists. On the5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: "An able but yet frantictirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimedat poor me.... I have really treated him with forbearance before, but Iwas obliged to let out a little to-day. "

Meanwhile, Disraeli, seeing his opportunity, had seized it withcharacteristic skill. He adopted the Bill with great cordiality. Herejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords. He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about _forum domesticum_, andpaternal guidance, and the authoritative interpretation of ambiguousformularies. "This, " he said, "is a Bill to put down Ritualism. " So thenaked truth, carefully veiled from view in episcopal aprons andlawn-sleeves, was now displayed in all its native charm. Its success wasinstant and complete. The Second Reading passed unanimously; and theArchbishops' masterpiece became at once a law and a laughing-stock. Theinstrument of tyranny broke in the clumsy hands which had forged it, andits fragments to-day lie rusting in the lumber-room of archiepiscopalfailures. 

But in the meantime the debates on the Bill had produced some politicaleffects which its authors certainly had not desired. Gladstone'svehement attacks on the Bill, and his exhilarating triumph over therecalcitrant Harcourt, showed the Liberal party that their chief, thoughtemporarily withdrawn from active service, was as vivacious and asenergetic as ever, as formidable in debate, and as unquestionablysupreme in his party whenever he chose to assert his power. Anotherimportant result of the controversy was that Gladstone was now thedelight and glory of the Ritualists. The Committee organized to defendthe clergy of St. Alban's, Holborn, against the _forum domesticum_ and"coercive force" of Bishop Jackson, made a formal and publicacknowledgment of their gratitude for Gladstone's "noble and unsupporteddefence of the rights of the Church of England. " Cultivated and earnestChurchmen, even when they had little sympathy with Ritualism, wereattracted to his standard, and turned in righteous disgust from theperpetrator of clumsy witticisms about "Mass in masquerade. " In townswhere, as at Oxford and Brighton, the Church is powerful, the effect ofthese desertions was unmistakably felt at the General Election of 1880. 

It has been truly said that among the subjects which never fail toexcite Englishmen is Slavery. "No public man, " said Matthew Arnold, "inthis country will be damaged by having even 'fanaticism' in his hatredof slavery imputed to him. " In July, 1875, the Admiralty issued toCaptains of Her Majesty's ships a Circular of Instructions which rousedfeelings of anger and of shame. This circular ran counter alike to thejealousy of patriots and to the sentiment of humanitarians. It directedthat a fugitive slave should not be received on board a British vesselunless his life was in danger, and that, if she were in territorialwaters, he should be surrendered on legal proof of his condition. If theship were at sea, he should only be received and protected until shereached the country to which he belonged. These strange and startlingorders were not in harmony either with the Law of Nations or with thelaw of England. They infringed the invaluable rule which prescribes thata man-of-war is British territory, wherever she may be; and they seemedto challenge the famous decision of Lord Mansfield, that a slave whoenters British jurisdiction becomes free for ever. Parliament had risenfor the recess just before the circular appeared, so it could not bechallenged in the House of Commons; but it raised a storm of indignationout of doors which astonished its authors. Disraeli wrote "The incidentis grave;" and, though in the subsequent session the Government tried towhittle down the enormity, the "incident" proved to be graver than eventhe Premier had imagined; for it showed the Liberals once again thatToryism is by instinct hostile to freedom. 

But events were now at hand before which the Public Worship RegulationAct and the Slave Circular paled into insignificance. 

In the autumn of 1875 an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria, andthe Turkish Government despatched a large force to repress it. This wasdone, and repression was followed by a hideous orgy of massacre andoutrage. A rumour of these horrors reached England, and publicindignation spontaneously awoke. Disraeli, with a strange frankness ofcynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as "Coffee-house babble, " andmade odious jokes about the Oriental way of executing malefactors. ButChristian England was not to be pacified with these Asiaticpleasantries, and in the autumn of 1876 the country rose in passionateindignation against what were known as "the Bulgarian Atrocities. "Preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral, Liddon made a signal departure fromhis general rule of avoiding politics in the pulpit, and gave splendidutterance to the passion which was burning in his heart. "Day by day weEnglish are learning that this year of grace 1876 has been signalized bya public tragedy which, I firmly believe, is without a parallel inmodern times.... Not merely armed men, but young women and girls andbabes, counted by hundreds, counted by thousands, subjected to the mostrefined cruelties, subjected to the last indignities, have been thevictims of the Turk. " And then came a fine burst of patrioticindignation. "That which makes the voice falter as we say it is that, through whatever misunderstanding, the Government which is immediatelyresponsible for acts like these has turned for sympathy, forencouragement, not to any of the historical homes of despotism oroppression, not to any other European Power, but alas! to England--tofree, humane, Christian England. The Turk has, not altogether withoutreason, believed himself, amid these scenes of cruelty, to be leaning onour country's arm, to be sure of her smile, or at least of heracquiescence. "

And soon a mightier voice than even Liddon's was added to the chorus ofrighteous indignation. Gladstone had resigned the leadership of theLiberal Party at the beginning of 1875, and for sixteen months heremained buried in his library at Hawarden. But now he suddenlyreappeared, and flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with azeal which in his prime he had never excelled, if, indeed, he hadequalled it. On Christmas Day, 1876, he wrote in his diary--"The mostsolemn I have known for long; I see that eastward sky of storm and ofunderlight!" When Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready withall his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation, andinconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great indictment against theTurkish Government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become LordBeaconsfield. For three arduous years he sustained the strife with aversatility, a courage, and a resourcefulness, which raised theenthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled hisantagonists with a rage akin to frenzy. I well remember that in July, 1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, alady asked me as a special favour to dine with her: "Because I have gotthe Gladstones coming, and everyone declines to meet him. " Strange, buttrue. 

1878 was perhaps the most critical year of the Eastern question. Russiaand Turkey were at death-grips, and Lord Beaconsfield seemed determinedto commit this country to a war in defence of the Mahomedan Power, whichfor centuries has persecuted the worshippers of Christ in the East ofEurope. By frustrating the sinister design Gladstone saved England fromthe indelible disgrace of a second Crimea. But it was not only inEastern Europe that he played the hero's part. In Africa, and India, andwherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, hedealt his resounding blows at that odious system of bluster and swaggerand might against right, on which the Prime Minister and his colleaguesbestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism. In his own phrase hedevoted himself to "counterworking the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield, "and all that was ardent and enthusiastic and adventurous in Liberalismflocked to his standard. 

 "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven. "

One could not stand aloof--the call to arms was too imperious. We sawour Leader contending single-handed with "the obscene empires of Mammonand Belial, " and we longed to be at his side in the thick of the fight. To a man born and circumstanced as I was the call came with peculiarpower. I had the love of Freedom in my blood. I had been trained tobelieve in and to serve the Liberal cause. I was incessantly reminded ofthe verse, which, sixty years before, Moore had addressed to my uncle, Lord John Russell, "Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree Set apart for the Fane and its service divine, So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine. "

In 1841 that same uncle wrote thus to his eldest brother: "Whatever maybe said about other families, I do not think ours ought to retire fromactive exertion. In all times of popular movement, the Russells havebeen on the 'forward' side. At the Reformation, the first Earl ofBedford; in Charles the First's days, Francis, the Great Earl; inCharles the Second's, William, Lord Russell; in later times, Francis, Duke of Bedford; our father; you; and lastly myself in the Reform Bill. "

These hereditary appeals were strong, but there were influences whichwere stronger. A kind of romantic and religious glamour, such as one hadnever before connected with politics, seemed to surround this attack onthe strongholds of Anti-Christ. The campaign became a crusade. 

Towards the end of 1879 I accepted an invitation to contest "the Boroughand Hundreds of Aylesbury" at the next General Election. The "Borough"was a compact and attractive-looking town, and the "Hundreds" whichsurrounded it covered an area nearly coextensive with the presentdivision of Mid Bucks. Close by was Hampden House, unaltered since theday when four thousand freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up toWestminster to defend their impeached member, John Hampden. All aroundwere those beech-clad recesses of the Chiltern Hills, in which, according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Great Rebellion was hatched. I donot vouch for that fact, but I can affirm that thirty years ago thoserecesses sheltered some of the stoutest Liberals whom I have ever known. The town and its surroundings were, for parliamentary purposes, aBorough, and, as all householders in Boroughs had been enfranchised bythe Reform Act of 1867, the Agricultural Labourers of the district werealready voters. 

It happens that Agricultural Labourers are the class of voters withwhich I am most familiar; and an intimate acquaintance with these menhas taught me increasingly to admire their staunchness, theirshrewdness, and their racy humour. Two or three of the old sayings comeback to memory as I write. "More pigs and less parsons" must have been asurvival from the days of Tithe. "The Black Recruiting Sergeant" was anickname for a canvassing Incumbent. "I tell you how it is with aState-Parson, " cried a Village Hampden: "if you take away his book, hecan't preach. If you take away his gown he mayn't preach. If you takeaway his screw, he'll be d--d if he'll preach. " A Radical M. P. Suddenlydeserted his constituency and took a peerage, and this was the verdictof the Village Green: "Mister So-and-so says he's going to the House ofLords to 'leaven it with Liberal principles. ' Bosh! Mr. So-and-so can'tno more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cartload ofmuck with a pot of marmalade. "

Aylesbury returned two Members to Parliament, and its political historyhad been chequered. When first I came to know it, the two members wereMr. Samuel George Smith and Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild (afterwards LordRothschild). Mr. Smith was a Tory. Sir Nathaniel professed to be aLiberal; but, as his Liberalism was of the sort which had doggedlysupported Lord Beaconsfield all through the Eastern Question, the moreenthusiastic spirits in the constituency felt that they were whollyunrepresented. It was they who invited me to stand. From the first, SirNathaniel made it known that he would not support or coalesce with me;and perhaps, considering the dissimilarity of our politics, it was justas well. So there were three candidates, fighting independently for twoseats; there was no Corrupt Practices Act in those days; and thesituation was neatly summarized by a tradesman of the town. "Our threecandidates are Mr. S. G. Smith, head of 'Smith, Payne & Co. ;' SirNathaniel de Rothschild, head of 'N. M. Rothschild & Sons, ' and Mr. George Russell, who, we understand, has the Duke of Bedford behind him. So we are looking forward to a very interesting contest. " That word_interesting_ was well chosen. 

Now began the most vivid and enjoyable portion of my life. Everythingconspired to make it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutelyin my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy ofcandour. " There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in mymind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics wasclear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the mostextraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed tohave a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believedin their politics as part of their religion. 

After my first speech in the Corn Exchange of Aylesbury I was severelyreprehended because I had called Lord Beaconsfield a "Jew. " If I hadknown better, I should have said "a Semite" or "an Israelite, " or--hisown phrase--"a Mosaic Arab, " and all would have been well. I had andhave close friends among the Jews, so my use of the offending word wasnot dictated by racial or social prejudice. But it expressed a strongconviction. I held then, and I hold now, that it was a heavy misfortunefor England that, during the Eastern Question, her Prime Minister wasone of the Ancient Race. The spiritual affinity between Judaism andMahomedanism, founded on a common denial of the Christian Creed, couldnot be without its influence on a statesman whose deepest convictions, from first to last, were with the religion of his forefathers. In 1876Mr. Gladstone wrote--"Some new lights about Disraeli's Judaic feeling, in which he is both consistent and conscientious, have come in upon me. "And similar "lights" dictated my action and my language at the crisis of1879-1880. 

Another element of enjoyment was that I was young--only twenty-six. Youth is an invaluable asset in a first campaign. Youth can canvass allday, and harangue all night. It can traverse immense distances withoutfatigue, make speeches in the open air without catching cold, sleepanywhere, eat anything, and even drink port with a grocer's label on it, at five in the afternoon. Then again, I had a natural and inborn love ofpublic speaking, and I have known no enjoyment in life equal to that ofaddressing a great audience which you feel to be actively sympathetic. 

Yes, that spring of 1880 was a delightful time. As the condemnedhighwayman said to the chaplain who was exhorting him to repentance forhis life of adventure on the road--"You dog, it was delicious. " It wasall so new. One emerged (like Herbert Gladstone) from the obscurity ofCollege rooms or from the undistinguished herd of London ball-goers, orfrom the stables and stubbles of a country home, and became, all in amoment, a Personage. For the first time in one's life one found thatpeople--grown-up, sensible, vote-possessing people--wished to know one'sopinions, and gave heed to one's words. For the first time, one had"Colours" of one's own, as if one were a Regiment or a University; forthe first time one beheld one's portrait, flattering though perhapsmud-bespattered, on every wall. For the first time one was cheered inthe street, and entered the Corn-Exchange amid what the Liberal papercalled "thunders of applause, " and the opponent's organ whittled down to"cheers. "

But canvassing cannot, I think, be reckoned among the pleasures of acandidature. One must be very young indeed to find it even tolerable. Acandidate engaged in a house-to-house canvass has always seemed to me(and not least clearly when I was the candidate) to sink beneath thelevel of humanity. To beg for votes, as if they were alms or brokenvictuals, is a form of mendicancy which is incompatible with commonself-respect, and yet it is a self-abasement which thirty years agocustom imperatively demanded. "If my vote ain't worth calling for, Isuppose it ain't worth 'aving" was the formula in which the electorstated his requirement. 

To trudge, weary and footsore, dusty and deliquescent, from door todoor; to ask, with damnable iteration, if Mr. So-and-so is at home, andto meet the invariable rejoinder, "No, he isn't, " not seldom running onwith--"And, if he was, he wouldn't see you;" to find oneself (beingBlue) in a Red quarter, where the very children hoot at you, andinebriate matrons shout personalities from upper windows--all this isdetestable enough. But to find the voter at home and unfriendly is anexperience which plunges the candidate lower still. A curious traditionof privileged insolence, which runs through all English history from thedays when great men kept Jesters and the Universities had their _TerræFilii_, asserts itself, by immemorial usage, at an election. People whowould be perfectly civil if one called on them in the ordinary way, andeven rapturously grateful if they could sell one six boxes of lucifersor a pound of toffee, permit themselves a freedom of speech to thesuppliant candidate, which tests the fibre of his manhood. If he loseshis temper and answers in like sort, the door is shut on him with someParthian jeer, and, as he walks dejectedly away, the agent says--"Ah, it's a pity you offended that fellow. He's very influential in thisward, and I believe a civil word would have won him. " If, on the otherhand, the candidate endures the raillery and smiles a sickly smile, hereally fares no better. After a prolonged battle of wits (in which hetakes care not to be too successful) he discovers that the beerygentleman in shirtsleeves has no vote, and that, in the time which hehas spent in these fruitless pleasantries, he might have canvassed halfthe street. 

There is, of course, a pleasanter side to canvassing. It warms thecockles of one's heart to be greeted with the words, "Don't waste yourtime here, sir. My vote's yours before you ask for it. There's yourpicture over the chimney-piece. " And when a wife says, "My husband isout at work, but I know he means to vote for you, " one is inclined toembrace her on the spot. 

These are the amenities of electioneering; but a man who enters on apolitical campaign expecting fair treatment from his opponents is indeedwalking in a vain shadow. The ordinary rules of fairplay andstraightforward conduct are forgotten at an election. In a politicalcontest people say and do a great many things of which in every-day lifethey would be heartily ashamed. An election-agent of the old school oncesaid to me in the confidence of after-dinner claret, "For my own part, when I go into a fight, I go in to win, and I'm not particular to ashade or two. " All this is the common form of electioneering, but in onerespect I think my experience rather unusual. I have been all my life askeen a Churchman as I am a Liberal, and some of my closest friends areclergymen. I never found that the Nonconformists were the leastunfriendly to me on this account. They had their own convictions, andthey respected mine; and we could work together in perfect concord forthe causes of Humanity and Freedom. But the most unscrupulous opponentswhom I have ever encountered have been the parochial clergy of theChurch to which I belong, and the bands of "workers" whom they direct. Tennyson once depicted a clergyman who--

 "From a throne Mounted in heaven should shoot into the dark Arrows of lightnings, "

and graciously added that he "would stand and mark. " But, when the Vicarfrom his pulpit-throne launches barbed sayings about "those who wouldconvert our schools into seminaries of Atheism or Socialism, and woulddegrade this hallowed edifice into a Lecture-Hall--nay, a Music-Hall, "then the Liberal candidate, constrained to "sit and mark" these boltsaimed at his cause, is tempted to a breach of charity. The Vicar's"workers" follow suit, but descend a little further into personalities. "You know that the Radical Candidate arrived drunk at one of hismeetings? He had to be lifted out of the carriage, and kept in theCommittee Room till he was sober. Shocking, isn't it? and then suchshameful hypocrisy to talk about Local Option! But can you wonder? Youknow he's an atheist? Oh yes, I know he goes to Church, but that's all ablind. His one object is to do away with Religion. Yes, they do say hehas been in the Divorce Court, but I should not like to say I know it, though I quite believe it. His great friend, Mr. Comus, certainly was, and Mr. Quickly only got off by paying an immense sum in hush-money. They're all tarred with the same brush, and it really is a religiousduty to keep them out of Parliament. "

Such I have observed to be the attitude of parochial clergy andchurch-workers towards Liberal candidates. 

 "They said their duty both to man and God Required such conduct--which seemed very odd. "

I suppose they would have justified it by that zeal for EstablishedChurches and Sectarian Schools which, if it does not actually "eat up"its votaries, certainly destroys their sense of proportion andperspective. [29]

Though I have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I wouldnot have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward inpolitical activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; butone had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones andcabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part inelectioneering. Squires hid their gamekeepers in dark coppices withinstructions to pelt one as one drove past after dark. The linch-pin wastaken out of one's carriage while one was busy at a meeting; and it wasthought seriously unsafe for the candidate to walk unescorted throughthe hostile parts of the borough. 

But, after all, this animosity, theological, moral, physical, did nogreat harm. It quickened the zeal and strengthened the resolve of one'ssupporters; and it procured one the inestimable aid of young, active, and pugnacious friends, who formed themselves into a body-guard and acycle-corps, protecting their candidate when the play was rough, andspreading the light all over the constituency. 

Why did not Lord Beaconsfield dissolve Parliament in July, 1878, when hereturned in a blaze of triumph from the Congress of Berlin? Probablybecause his nerve had failed him, and he chose to retain his supremacyunquestioned, rather than commit it to the chances of a GeneralElection. Anyhow, he let the moment pass; and from that time on hisGovernment began to lose ground. In 1879 _Vanity Fair_, a stronglyDisraelitish organ, pronounced (under a cartoon) that Gladstone was themost popular man in England. In the autumn of that year, the"Mid-Lothian Campaign" raised him to the very summit of his greatcareer; and, when Christmas came, most Liberals felt that it was allover except the shouting. 

On the 9th of March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield announced that he had"advised the Queen to recur to the sense of her people. " His opponentsremarked that the nonsense of her people was likely to serve his turn agood deal better; and to the task of exposing and correcting thatnonsense we vigorously applied ourselves during the remaining weeks ofLent. It is true that the same statesman had once declared himself "onthe side of the Angels" in order to reassure the clergy, and had oncedated a letter on "Maundy Thursday" in order to secure the High Churchvote. Encouraged by these signs of grace, some of his followers mildlyremonstrated against a Lenten dissolution and an Easter poll. Butcounsels which might have weighed with Mr. Disraeli, M. P. For Bucks (whohad clerical constituents), were thrown away on Lord Beaconsfield, whohad the Crown, Lords, and Commons on his side; and on the 24th of Marchthe Parliament which he had dominated for six years was scattered to thewinds. 

Electioneering in rural districts was pure joy. It was a deliciousspring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns werein early leafage. 

 "There is a rapturous movement, a green growing, Among the hills and valleys once again, And silent rivers of delight are flowing Into the hearts of men. 

 "There is a purple weaving on the heather, Night drops down starry gold upon the furze; Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together, Dead Nature breathes and stirs. "[30]

In the spring of 1880, Nature had no monopoly of seasonable life. Humanity was up and doing. Calm people were roused to passion, andlethargic people to activity. There was hurrying and rushing andplotting and planning, and all the fierce but fascinating bustle of agreat campaign. One hurried across the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary, where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the"Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapelor a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberalcandidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past thevillage green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the ParishChurch, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week. The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen whotook his citizenship seriously, the meeting was an even more imperativeduty than the service. Hostilities were suspended for Good Friday, Easter Even, and Easter Day, but on Easter Monday they broke out againwith redoubled vigour; and, before the week was over, the PaschalAlleluias were blending strangely with pæans of victory over conqueredfoes. When even so grave and spiritually-minded a man as Dean Churchwrote to a triumphant Gladstonian, "I don't wonder at your rememberingthe Song of Miriam, " it is manifest that political fervour had reached avery unusual point. 

On the 2nd of April I was returned to Parliament, as colleague of SirNathaniel de Rothschild, in the representation of Aylesbury. We were thelast Members for that ancient Borough, for, before the next GeneralElection came round, it had been merged, by Redistribution, in MidBucks. The Liberal victory was overwhelming. Lord Beaconsfield, who hadexpected a very different result, resigned on the 18th of April, andGladstone became Prime Minister for the second time. Truly his enemieshad been made his footstool. On the 30th of April I took the oath and myseat in the House of Commons, and a fresh stage of life began. 

FOOTNOTES:

[29] I must except from this general indictment the Rev. A. T. Lloyd, Vicar of Aylesbury in 1880, and afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. A strongConservative, but eminently a Christian gentleman. 

[30] Archbishop Alexander. 

X

PARLIAMENT

 "Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack, It is not genius;--call old giants back, And men now living might as tall appear; Judged by our sons, not us--_we_ stand too near. Ne'er of the living can the living judge-- Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge. " BULWER-LYTTON, _St. Stephen's_. 

"In old days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commonswas an essentially 'queer place, ' which no one could understand until hewas a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhatmysterious quality still altogether attaches to that assembly. 'Our ownReporter' has invaded it in all its purlieus. No longer content withgiving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfiedunless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristicmannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wines and dishes whichthey favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of theirsmoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a certain fine sense of thefeelings, and opinions, and humours of this Assembly which cannot beacquired by hasty notions and necessarily superficial remarks, but mustbe the result of long and patient observation, and of that quicksympathy with human sentiment, in all its classes, which is involved inthe possession of that inestimable quality styled tact. 

"When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, itstill fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. For himself, Endymion entered the Chamber with a certain degree of awe, which, withuse, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene was one overwhich his boyhood even had long mused, and it was associated with allthose traditions of genius, eloquence, and power that charm and inspireyouth. His acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House was ofgreat advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerouslyaccompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life ofsuch deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions. "[31]

I quote these words from a statesman who knew the House of Commons morethoroughly than anyone else has ever known it; and, though LordBeaconsfield was describing the Parliament which assembled in August, 1841, his description would fit, with scarcely the alteration of a word, the Parliament in which I took my seat in April, 1880. [32]

The "acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House, " which LordBeaconsfield attributes to his favourite Endymion, was also mine; frommy earliest years I had been familiar with every nook and corner of thePalace of Westminster. My father's official residence in Speaker's Courtcommunicated by a private door with the corridors of the Palace, and myfather's privilege as Sergeant-at-Arms enabled him to place me in, orunder, the Gallery whenever there was a debate or a scene of specialinterest. I was early initiated into all the forms and ceremonies ofthe House; the manoeuvres of the mace, the obeisances to the Chair, the rap of "Black Rod" on the locked door, the daily procession of Mr. Speaker and his attendants (which Sir Henry Irving pronounced the mosttheatrically effective thing of its kind in our public life). 

The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all thedoorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my fatherwas Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusivelycomposed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends'families. This circumstance was vividly brought home to me on the day onwhich I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted bya venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shookhands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, whenI think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmotherinto their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you. "

The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and onthe 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards LordHampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr. Brand was a short man, but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himselfwith a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice wasmellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest wordwhich fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He lookedwhat he was, and what the traditions of the House required--a countrygentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was hiscomplexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after astormy "all-night sitting, " saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker hasborne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint. " Whereupon thetrain-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it'sthe Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'ighcolour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin. "

The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and theMembers sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meetfor the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for abrief recapitulation of recent events. 

Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire) had been, eversince the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party. But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost assailant ofLord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his partywas sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he wasbrushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of theLiberal Party were sworn to Gladstone's standard. 

When the General Election of 1880 reached its close, everyone felt thatGladstone was now the real, though not the titular, leader of theLiberal Party, and the inevitable Prime Minister. Lord Beaconsfield didnot wait for an adverse vote in the new House, but resigned on the 18thof April. We do not at present know, but no doubt we shall know when Mr. Monypenny's "Life" is completed, whether Queen Victoria consulted LordBeaconsfield as to his successor. A friend of mine once asked the Queenthis plain question: "When a Prime Minister goes out, does he recommenda successor?" And the Queen replied, with equal plainness, "Not unless Iask him to do so. " There can, I think, be little doubt that Her Majesty, in April, 1880, asked Lord Beaconsfield's advice in this delicatematter, and we may presume that the advice was that Her Majesty shouldfollow the constitutional practice, and send for Lord Hartington, asbeing the leader of the victorious party. This was done, and on the 22ndof April Lord Hartington waited on Her Majesty at Windsor, and wasinvited to form an Administration. Feeling in the Liberal Party ran veryhigh. It was not for this that we had fought and won. If Gladstone didnot become Prime Minister, our victory would be robbed of half its joy;and great was our jubilation when we learned that the task had beendeclined. As the precise nature of the transaction has often beenmisrepresented, it is as well to give it in Lord Hartington's ownwords--

"The advice which Lord Hartington gave to the Queen from first to lastwas that Her Majesty should send for Mr. Gladstone, and consult him asto the formation of a Government; and that, if he should be willing toundertake the task, she should call upon him to form an Administration. 

"Lord Hartington had up to that time had no communication with Mr. Gladstone on the subject, and did not know what his views as toreturning to office might be. With the Queen's permission, LordHartington, on his return from Windsor, informed Mr. Gladstone and LordGranville, but no other person, of what had passed between Her Majestyand himself. "

The result of that interview was a foregone conclusion. If LordHartington consented to form an Administration, Gladstone would not takea place in it. If he was not to be Prime Minister, he must remainoutside. Having put this point beyond the reach of doubt, LordHartington returned next day to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Granville, who led the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. They both assured theQueen that the victory was Gladstone's, and that the Liberal Party wouldbe satisfied with no other Prime Minister. The two statesmen returned toLondon in the afternoon, and called on Gladstone. He was expecting themand the message which they brought. He went down to Windsor without anhour's delay, and that evening "kissed hands" as Prime Minister for thesecond time. 

This was the climax of his career. He had dethroned Lord Beaconsfield. He had vindicated the cause of humanity and freedom all over the world;and he had been recalled, by unanimous acclamation, to the task ofgoverning the British Empire. On the 20th of May he met his twelfthParliament, and the second in which he had been Chief Minister of theCrown. "At 4. 15, " he wrote in his diary, "I went down to the House withHerbert. [33] There was a great and fervent crowd in Palace Yard, andmuch feeling in the House. It almost overpowered me, as I thought bywhat deep and hidden agencies I have been brought into the midst of thevortex of political action and contention.... Looking calmly on thecourse of experience, I do believe that the Almighty has employed me forHis purposes in a manner larger or more special than before, and hasstrengthened me and led me on accordingly, though I must not forget theadmirable saying of Hooker, that even ministers of good things are liketorches--a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves. "

The conviction so solemnly expressed by Gladstone was entertained by nota few of his followers. We felt that, _Deo adjuvante_, we had won afamous victory for the cause of Right; and, as a Party, we "stood on thetop of golden hours. " An overwhelming triumph after a desperate fight;an immense majority, in which internecine jealousies were, at least forthe moment, happily composed; a leader of extraordinary powers andpopularity; an administration of All the Talents; an attractive andpracticable programme of Ministerial measures--these were some of theelements in a condition unusually prosperous and promising. But trainedobservers of political phenomena laid even greater stress on Gladstone'spersonal ascendancy over the House of Commons. Old and experiencedMembers of Parliament instructed the newcomer to watch carefully themethods of his leadership, because it was remarkable for itscompleteness, its dexterity, and the willing submission with which itwas received. 

The pre-eminence of the Premier was, indeed, the most noteworthy featurewhich the new House presented to the student of Parliamentary life. Whether considered morally or intellectually, he seemed to tower a headand shoulders above his colleagues, and above the Front OppositionBench. The leader of the Opposition was the amiable and accomplished SirStafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, a

 "scrupulous, good man, Who would not, with a peremptory tone, Assert the nose upon his face his own. "

In his youth he had been Gladstone's Private Secretary, and he stillseemed to tremble at his old chief's glance. 

But, when everything looked so fair and smiling, Speaker Brand quietlynoted in his diary, that the Liberal Party "were not only strong, butdetermined to have their way in spite of Mr. Gladstone. " And thisdetermination to "have their way" was soon and startlingly manifested, and challenged the personal ascendancy of which we had heard so much. 

Charles Bradlaugh, a defiant Atheist, and the teacher of a socialdoctrine which decent people abhor, had been returned as one of theMembers for Northampton. When the other Members were sworn, he claimed aright to affirm, which was disallowed on legal grounds. He thereuponproposed to take the oath in the ordinary way; the Tories objected, andthe Speaker weakly gave way. The House, on a division, decided thatBradlaugh must neither affirm nor swear. In effect, it decreed that aduly elected Member was not to take his seat. On the 23rd of June, Bradlaugh came to the table of the House, and again claimed his right totake the oath. The Speaker read the Resolution of the House forbiddingit. Thereupon Bradlaugh asked to be heard, and addressed the House fromthe Bar. I happened to be dining that night with Mr. And Mrs. Gladstonein Downing Street. Gladstone came in full of excitement, and pronouncedBradlaugh's speech "consummate. " However, it availed nothing. Bradlaughwas ordered to withdraw from the House; refused, and was committed to afarcical imprisonment of two days in the Clock Tower; and so, as LordMorley says, there "opened a series of incidents that went on as long asthe Parliament, clouded the radiance of the Party triumph, threw the newGovernment at once into a minority, dimmed the ascendancy of the greatMinister, and showed human nature at its worst. " From the day whenBradlaugh's case was first mooted, it became apparent that the LiberalParty contained a good many men who had only the frailest hold on theprimary principles of Liberalism, and who, under the pressure of socialand theological prejudice, were quite ready to join the Tories in atyrannical negation of Religious Liberty. Gladstone, though deserted anddefeated by his own followers, maintained the righteous cause with asignal consistency and courage. There was no one in the world to whomBradlaugh's special opinions could have been more abhorrent; but hefelt--and we who followed him felt the same--that the cause of God andmorality can never be served by the insolent refusal of a civil right. 

There is no need to recapitulate the story in all its stages, but oneincident deserves commemoration. In April, 1883, Gladstone brought in anAffirmation Bill, permitting Members of Parliament (as witnesses inLaw-Courts were already permitted) to affirm their allegiance instead ofswearing it. On the 26th of April he moved the Second Reading of theBill in the finest speech which I have ever heard. Under the existingsystem (which admitted Jews to Parliament, but excluded Atheists), todeny the existence of God was a fatal bar, but to deny the ChristianCreed was no bar at all. This, as Gladstone contended, was a formaldisparagement of Christianity, which was thereby relegated to a place ofsecondary importance. And then, on the general question of attachingcivil penalties to religious misbelief, he uttered a passage which noone who heard it can forget. "Truth is the expression of the DivineMind; and, however little our feeble vision may be able to discern themeans by which God may provide for its preservation, we may leave thematter in His hands, and we may be sure that a firm and courageousapplication of every principle of equity and of justice is the bestmethod we can adopt for the preservation and influence of Truth. "

The Bill was lost by a majority of three, recreant Liberals againhelping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; andBradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament haddenied. Meanwhile, a few of us, actuated by the desperate hope ofbringing the clergy to a right view of the controversy, printedGladstone's speech as a pamphlet, and sent a copy, with a coveringletter, to every beneficed clergyman in England, Scotland, and Ireland. One of the clergy thus addressed sent me the following reply, which hasever since been hoarded among my choicest treasures:

 June 16th, 1883. MY DEAR SIR, I have received your recommendation to read carefully the speech of Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaugh into Parliament. I did so, when it was delivered, and I must say that the strength of argument rests with the Opposition. I fully expect, in the event of a dissolution, the Government will lose between 50 and 60 seats. 

 Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laid down. Mr. G. Avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. All parties 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 of Tuam; but, Mr. Disraeli resigning, I was defrauded of my just right by Mr. Gladstone, and my wife, Lady ---- ----, the only surviving child of an Earl, was sadly disappointed, but there is a just Judge above. The letter of nomination is still in my possession. I am, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, ---- ----, D. D. And LL. D. 

One is often asked if Gladstone had any sense of humour. My simple andsufficient reply is that, when he had read this letter, he returned itto my hands with a knitted brow and flashing eyes, and this indignantquestion: "What does the fellow mean by quoting an engagement enteredinto by my predecessor as binding on me?"

The good fortune, which had so signally attended Gladstone's campaignagainst Lord Beaconsfield, seemed to desert him as soon as the victorywas won. The refusal of the House to follow his lead in Bradlaugh's caseput heart of grace into his opponents, who saw thus early in the newParliament a hopeful opening for vicious attack. The Front OppositionBench, left to its own devices, would not have accomplished much, but itwas splendidly reinforced by the Fourth Party--a Party of Four--LordRandolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Sir John Gorst, and Mr. Arthur Balfour. Some light has been cast by recent memoirs on the mutualrelations of the Four; but beyond question the head and front of theParty was Lord Randolph. That ingenious man possessed a deadly knack of"drawing" Gladstone, as the boys say. He knew the great man's"vulnerable temper and impetuous moods, "[34] and delighted in exercisingthem. He pelted Gladstone with rebukes and taunts and gibes, and therecipient of these attentions "rose freely. " There was something ratherunpleasant in the spectacle of a man of thirty playing these tricks upona man of seventy; but one could not deny that the tricks were extremelyclever; and beyond doubt they did a vast deal to consolidate theperformer's popularity out of doors. It is not too much to say that, byallowing himself to be drawn, Gladstone made Lord Randolph. 

The most formidable enemy of the Liberal Party in the House of Commonswas Parnell; and, when he joined forces with the Fourth Party and theiradherents, the conjunction was disastrous to Liberalism. He figures inLord Morley's "Life" of Gladstone as a high-souled and amiable patriot. I always thought him entirely destitute of humane feeling, and a bitterenemy of England. I remember the late Lord Carlisle, then George Howardand Member for East Cumberland, gazing at Parnell across the House andquoting from _The Newcomes_--"The figure of this garçon is notagreeable. Of pale, he has become livid. " A lady who met him in acountry house wrote me this interesting account of him:

"I cannot exaggerate the impression he made on me. I never before feltsuch power and magnetic force in any man. As for his eyes, if he looksat you, you can't look away, and, if he doesn't, you are wondering howsoon he will look at you again. I'm afraid I have very little trust inhis goodness--I should think it a very minus quantity; but I believeabsolutely in his strength and his power of influence. I should be sorryif he were my enemy, for I think he would stop at nothing. "

At the General Election of 1880, Irish questions were completely in thebackground. The demand for Home Rule was not taken seriously, even byMr. John Morley, [35] who stood unsuccessfully for Westminster. Irelandwas politically tranquil, and the distress due to the failure of thecrops had been alleviated by the combined action of Englishmenirrespective of party. But during the summer of 1880 it was found thatthe Irish landlords were evicting wholesale the tenants whom famine hadimpoverished. To provide compensation for these evicted tenants was theobject of a well-meant but hastily drawn "Disturbance Bill, " which theGovernment passed through the Commons. It was rejected by anoverwhelming majority in the Lords, and the natural consequence of itsrejection was seen in the ghastly record of outrage and murder whichstained the following winter. 

The Session of 1881 opened on the 6th of January. The speech from theThrone announced two Irish Bills--one to reform the tenure of land, andone to repress crime and outrage. The combination was stigmatized by Mr. T. P. O'Connor as "weak reform and strong coercion"; and the samevivacious orator, alluding to Mr. Chamberlain's supposed sympathy withthe Irish cause, taunted the Right Honourable gentleman with having had"if not the courage of his convictions, at least the silence of hisshame. "

The debate on the Address in the Commons lasted eleven nights, theIrish Members moving endless amendments, with the avowed object ofdelaying the Coercion Bill, which was eventually brought in by Forsteron the 24th January. The gist of the Bill was arrest on suspicion andimprisonment without trial. The Irish Members fought it tooth and nail, and were defied by Gladstone in a speech of unusual fire. "With fataland painful precision, " he exclaimed, "the steps of crime dogged thesteps of the Land League; and it is not possible to get rid of factssuch as I have stated, by vague and general complaints, by imputationsagainst parties, imputations against England, or imputations againstGovernment. You must meet them, and confute them, if you can. None willrejoice more than myself if you can attain such an end. But in themeantime they stand, and they stand uncontradicted, in the face of theBritish House of Commons. " The speech in which this tremendousindictment was delivered attracted loud cheers from Liberals andConservatives alike, but stirred the Irish to fury. I remember Mr. O'Connor saying to me, "If only Gladstone had been in opposition, how hewould have enjoyed tearing into shreds the statistics which he has justquoted!" The resistance to the Bill became impassioned. The House satcontinuously from the afternoon of January 31st to the forenoon ofFebruary 2nd. Members were divided, like miners, into Day-Shifts andNight-Shifts. The Refreshment-Rooms at the House were kept open allnight, and we recruited our exhausted energies with grilled bones, oysters, and champagne, and went to bed at breakfast-time. At 9. 30 onWednesday morning, February 2nd, Mr. Speaker Brand, who had been absentfrom the House for some hours, suddenly resumed the Chair, and, withoutwaiting for J. G. Biggar to finish his speech, put the question thatleave be given to bring in the Coercion Bill. The Irish raved andstormed, and cried out against the Speaker's action as "a Breach ofPrivilege. " That it was not; but it was an unexpected and a salutaryrevolution. When questioned, later in the day, as to the authority onwhich he had acted, the Speaker said, "I acted on my own responsibility, and from a sense of my duty to the House. " Thus was established, summarily and under unprecedented circumstances, that principle ofClosure which has since developed into an indispensable feature ofParliamentary procedure. 

The Session as a whole was extremely dull. The Irish Land Bill was socomplicated that, according to common report, only three persons in theHouse understood it, and they were Gladstone, the Irish Chancellor, [36]and Mr. T. M. Healy. The only amusing incident was that on the 16th ofJune, owing to the attendance of Liberal Members at Ascot Races, themajority on a critical division fell to twenty-five. Having occupied thewhole Session, the Bill was so mangled by the House of Lords that thebest part of another year had to be spent on mending it. Meanwhile, theCoercion Bill proved, in working, a total failure. Forster had averredthat the police knew the "Village Ruffians" who incited to crime, andthat, if only he were empowered to imprison them without trial, outrageswould cease. But either he did not lay hold of the right men, or elseimprisonment had no terrors; for all through the autumn and winter of1881 agrarian crimes increased with terrible rapidity. In a fit ofdesperation, Forster cast Parnell into prison, and Gladstone announcedthe feat amid the tumultuous applause of the Guildhall. But things onlywent from bad to worse, and soon there were forty agrarian murdersunpunished. Having imprisoned Parnell without trial, and kept him inprison for six months, the Government now determined to release him, inthe hope, for certainly there was no assurance, that he would behavelike a repentant child who has been locked up in a dark cupboard, andwould use his influence to restore order in Ireland. Dissenting, as wellhe might, from this policy, Forster resigned. His resignation wasannounced on the 2nd of May. That evening I met Gladstone at a party, and, in answer to an anxious friend, he said: "The state of Ireland isvery greatly improved. " Ardent Liberals on both sides of the Channelshared this sanguine faith, but they were doomed to a crueldisappointment. On the 6th of May, the Queen performed the publicceremony of dedicating Epping Forest, then lately rescued fromdepredation, to the service of the public. It was a forward spring; theday was bright, and the forest looked more beautiful than anything thatDoré ever painted. I was standing in the space reserved for the House ofCommons, by W. H. O'Sullivan, M. P. For the County of Limerick. He was anardent Nationalist, but recent events had touched his heart, and heoverflowed with friendly feeling. "This is a fine sight, " he said tome, "but, please God, we shall yet see something like it in Ireland. Wehave entered at last upon the right path. You will hear no more of theIrish difficulty. " Within an hour of the time at which he spoke, thenewly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland--the gallant and high-mindedLord Frederick Cavendish--and the Under Secretary, Mr. Burke, werestabbed to death in the Phoenix Park at Dublin, and the "Irishdifficulty" entered on the acutest phase which it has ever known. 

At that time Lord Northbrook was First Lord of the Admiralty, and onSaturday evening, the 6th of May, he gave a party at his officialresidence. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were among the guests, andthere was some music after dinner. In the middle of the performance, Inoticed a slight commotion, and saw a friend leading Mrs. Gladstone outof the room. The incident attracted attention, and people began towhisper that Gladstone, who was not at the party, must have been takensuddenly ill. While we were all wondering and guessing, a waiter leanedacross the buffet in the tea-room, and said to me, "Lord FrederickCavendish has been murdered in Dublin. I am a Messenger at the HomeOffice, and we heard it by telegram this evening. " In an incrediblyshort time the ghastly news spread from room to room, and the gueststrooped out in speechless horror. That night brought a condition morelike delirium than repose. One felt as though Hell had opened her mouth, and the Powers of Darkness had been let loose. Next day London was likea city of the dead, and by Monday all England was in mourning. SirWilfrid Lawson thus described that awful Sunday: "The effect washorrifying--almost stupefying. No one who walked in the streets ofLondon that day can ever forget the sort of ghastly depression whichseemed to affect everyone. Perfect strangers seemed disposed to speak insympathizing, horror-stricken words with those whom they met. In short, there was a moral gloom which could be felt over the whole place. "

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Lord Beaconsfield. _Endymion. _

[32] The following incident may be worth recording for the informationof such as are interested in the antiquities of Parliament. I first tookmy seat on the highest bench above and behind the Treasury Bench, underthe shadow of the Gallery. A few days later, an old Parliamentarian saidto me, "That's quite the wrong place for you. That belongs to ancientPrivy Councillors, and they sit there because, if any difficulty arises, the Minister in charge of the business can consult them, without beingobserved by everyone in the House. " That was the tradition in 1880, butit has long since died out. 

[33] Afterwards Lord Gladstone. 

[34] Gladstone's own phrase. 

[35] Afterwards Lord Morley of Blackburn. 

[36] The Right Hon. Hugh Law. 

XI

POLITICS

 "Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest, Since their foundation came a nobler guest; Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade. " T. TICKELL, _On the death of Mr. Addison_. 

Lord Frederick Cavendish was laid to rest with his forefathers atEdensor, near Chatsworth, on the 11th of May, 1882--and on the eveningof that day the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, brought in a"Prevention of Crimes Bill" for Ireland, designed to supersede theCoercion Act which had proved such a dismal failure. The new Billprovided for the creation of special tribunals composed of Judges of theSuperior Courts, who could sit without juries; and gave the police theright of search at any time in proclaimed districts, and authorized themto arrest any persons unable to give an account of themselves. The Billwas succinctly described as "Martial Law in a Wig, " and, as such, itwas exactly adapted to the needs of a country in which social war hadraged unchecked for two years. The murderous conspiracy died hard, butexperience soon justified those who had maintained that, as soon as aproper tribunal was constituted, evidence would be forthcoming. The Actwas courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan, under circumstances of personal and political peril which the presentgeneration can hardly realize. In less than two years the murderers ofLord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had been hanged; the conspiracywhich organized the murders had been broken up; and social order waspermanently re-established. 

Such were the excellent effects of the Crimes Act of 1882, and annaliststreating of this period have commonly said that the Act was due to themurders in the Phoenix Park. Some years ago Lord James of Hereford, who, as Attorney-General, had been closely associated with these events, placed in my hands a written statement of the circumstances in which theAct originated, and begged that, if possible, the truth of the mattermight be made known. This may be a convenient opportunity for giving histestimony. 

"The Bill of 1882 was designed, and on the stocks, during the month ofApril. I saw F. Cavendish as to some of its details almost immediatelybefore his starting for Ireland. As Chief Secretary, he discussed withme the provisions the Bill should contain. On Sunday, May 7, 1882, whenthe news of F. Cavendish's murder became known, I went to see Harcourt. He begged me to see that the drawing of the Bill was hastened on. About2 o'clock I went to the Irish Office, and found the IrishAttorney-General hard at work on the Bill. The first draft of it wasthen in print. No doubt F. Cavendish's death tended to affect thesubsequent framing of the Bill. Harcourt came upon the scenes. T---- andJ---- were called to the assistance of the Irish draftsmen, and no doubtthe Bill was rendered stronger in consequence of the events of May 6. 

"I also well remember the change of front about the power of Search. TheIrish Members in the most determined manner fought against the creationof this power.... Harcourt, who had charge of the Bill, would listen tonone of these arguments, but Mr. Gladstone was much moved by them. Therewas almost a crisis produced in consequence of this disagreement; butHarcourt gave way, and the concession was announced. "

It is not my purpose in these chapters to speak about my ownperformances in Parliament, but the foregoing allusion to the concessionon the Right of Search tempts me to a personal confession. In the Bill, as brought in, there was a most salutary provision giving the police theright to search houses in which murders were believed to be plotted. After making us vote for this clause three times--on the First Reading, on the Second Reading, and in Committee--the Government, as we have justseen, yielded to clamour, and proposed on Report to alter the clause bylimiting the Right of Search to day-time. I opposed this alteration, asproviding a "close time for murder, " and had the satisfaction of helpingto defeat the Government. The Big-Wigs of the Party were extremelyangry, and Mr. R. H. Hutton, in _The Spectator_, rebuked us in his mostgrandmotherly style. In reply, I quoted some words of his own. "There isnothing which injures true Liberalism more than the sympathy of its leftwing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States. " "Such a State, " Isaid, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinarydifficulties, Ministers vacillate or waver in their dealings with it, the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them firmly totheir duty. "

In that sad Session of 1882 the troubles of the Government "came notsingle spies, but in battalions, " and the most enduring of thosetroubles arose in Egypt. For the benefit of a younger generation, let merecall the circumstances. 

Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, had accumulated a national debt ofabout £100, 000, 000, and the pressure on the wretched peasants who had topay was crushing. Presently they broke out in revolt, partly with thehope of shaking off this burden, and partly with a view to establishingsome sort of self-government. But the financiers who had lent money toEgypt took fright, and urged the Government to interfere and suppressthe insurrection. A meeting of Tories was held in London on June 29thand the Tory Leaders made the most inflammatory speeches. Unhappily, theGovernment yielded to this show of violence. It was said by a closeobserver of Parliamentary institutions that "When the Government of theday and the Opposition of the day take the same side, one may be almostsure that some great wrong is at hand, " and so it was now. On July 10thour fleet bombarded Alexandria, smashing its rotten forts with theutmost ease, and killing plenty of Egyptians. I remember to this day thesense of shame with which I read our Admiral's telegraphic despatch:"Enemy's fire weak and ineffectual. "

The protest delivered on the following day, by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, themost consistent and the most disinterested politician whom I ever knew, deserves to be remembered. 

"I say deliberately, and in doing so I challenge either Tory or Liberalto contradict me, that no Tory Government could have done what theLiberal Government did yesterday in bombarding those forts. If such athing had been proposed, what would have happened? We should have hadSir William Harcourt stumping the country, and denouncing Government byUltimatum. We should have had Lord Hartington coming down, and moving aResolution condemning these proceedings being taken behind the back ofParliament. We should have had Mr. Chamberlain summoning the Caucuses. We should have had Mr. Bright declaiming in the Town Hall of Birminghamagainst the wicked Tory Government; and as for Mr. Gladstone, we allknow that there would not have been a railway-train, passing a roadsidestation, that he would not have pulled up at, to proclaimnon-intervention as the duty of the Government. "

On the 12th of July John Bright retired from the Government, as aprotest against the bombardment, and made a short speech full of solemndignity. "I asked my calm judgment and my conscience what was the path Iought to take. They pointed it out to me, as I think, with an unerringfinger, and I am humbly endeavouring to follow it. "

But it was too late. The mischief was done, and has not been undone tothis day. I remember Mr. Chamberlain saying to me: "Well, I confess Iwas tired of having England kicked about all over the world. I nevercondemned the Tory Government for going to war; only for going to war onthe wrong side. " It was a characteristic saying; but this amazing lapseinto naked jingoism spread wonder and indignation through the LiberalParty, and shook the faith of many who, down to that time, had regardedGladstone as a sworn servant of Peace. The Egyptian policy of 1882 must, I fear, always remain the blot on Gladstone's scutcheon; and threeyears later he gave away the whole case for intervention, and threw theblame on his predecessors in office. In his Address to the Electors ofMidlothian before the General Election of 1885 he used the followingwords: "We have, according to my conviction from the very first (whenthe question was not within the sphere of Party contentions), committedby our intervention in Egypt a grave political error, and theconsequence which the Providential order commonly allots to such erroris not compensation, but retribution. "

But, though Providence eventually allotted "retribution" to our crimesand follies in Egypt, and though they were always unpopular with theLiberal Party out of doors, it was curious to observe that the positionof the Government in the House of Commons was stronger at the end of1882 than it was at the beginning. That this was so was due, I think, inpart to the fact that for the moment we were victorious in Egypt, [37]and in part to admiration for the vigour with which Lord Spencer wasfighting the murderous conspiracy in Ireland. The Government enjoyed thedangerous praise of the Opposition; obstruction collapsed; and some newRules of Procedure were carried by overwhelming majorities. Here let meinterpolate an anecdote. Mr. M---- L---- was a barrister, an obsequioussupporter of the Government, and, as was generally surmised, on thelookout for preferment. Mr. Philip Callan, M. P. For County Louth, wasspeaking on an amendment to one of the new Rules, and Mr. M---- L----thrice tried to call him to order on the ground of irrelevancy. Eachtime, the Chairman of Committee ruled that, though the Honourable Memberfor Louth was certainly taking a wide sweep, he was not out of order. Rising the third time from the seat Callan said: "I may as well take theopportunity of giving notice that I propose to move the insertion of anew Standing Order, which will read as follows: 'Any Hon. Member whothree times unsuccessfully calls another Hon. Member to order, shall beineligible for a County Court Judgeship. '" Mr. M---- L---- looked coy, and everyone else shouted with glee. 

The Session of 1883 opened very quietly. The speech from the Throneextolled the success of the Ministerial policy in Ireland and Egypt, andpromised a series of useful but not exciting measures. Meanwhile themore active Members of the Liberal Party, among whom I presumed toreckon myself, began to agitate for more substantial reforms. We hadentered on the fourth Session of the Parliament. A noble majority wasbeginning to decline, and we felt that there was no time to lose if wewere to secure the ends which we desired. Knowing that I felt keenly onthese subjects, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, then Editor of the _Fortnightly_, asked me to write an article for his Review, and in that article I spokemy mind about the Agricultural Labourers' Suffrage, the Game Laws, thereform of the City of London, and an English Land Bill. "The action ofthe Peers, " I said, "under Lord Salisbury's guidance will probably forceon the question of a Second Chamber, and those who flatter themselvesthat the Liberal Party will shrink from discussing it will be grievouslydisillusioned. Disestablishment, begun in Ireland, will inevitably workround, by Scotland, to England. And who is to preside over thesechanges?"

I returned to the charge in the June number of the _Nineteenth Century_, and urged my points more strongly. I pleaded for social reform, and for"a Free Church in a Free State. " I crossed swords with a noble Lord whohad pronounced dogmatically that "A Second Chamber is absolutelynecessary. " I gave my reasons for thinking that now-a-days there is verylittle danger of hasty and ill-considered legislation, and I pointed outthat, when this danger disappears, the reason for a Second Chamberdisappears with it. "But, " I said, "granting, for the sake of argument, that something of this danger still survives, would it not be fully metby limiting the power of the Lords to a Veto for a year on a measurepassed by the Commons?"

These articles, coupled with my speeches in the House and in myconstituency, gave dire offence to the Whigs; and I was chastened withrebukes which, if not weighty, were at any rate ponderous. "Not thisway, " wrote the _St. James's Gazette_, in a humorous apostrophe, "notthis way, O Junior Member for Aylesbury, lies the road to the TreasuryBench, " and so, indeed, it seemed. But, on returning from an eveningparty at Sir Matthew Ridley's, on the 5th of June, 1883, I found aletter from Mr. Gladstone, offering me the post of ParliamentarySecretary to the Local Government Board. One sentence of that letter Imay be allowed to quote:

"Your name, and the recollections it suggests, add much to thesatisfaction which, independently of relationship, I should have felt insubmitting to you this request. " It was like Gladstone's courtesy tocall his offer a "request. "

Thus I became harnessed to the machine of Government, and my friends, inside the House and out of it, were extremely kind about theappointment. Nearly everyone who wrote to congratulate me used the sameimage: "You have now set your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. "But my staunch friend George Trevelyan handled the matter morepoetically, in the following stanza:

 "As long as a plank can float, or a bolt can hold together, When the sea is smooth as glass, or the waves run mountains high, In the brightest of summer skies, or the blackest of dirty weather, Wherever the ship swims, there swim I. "

The part of "the ship" to which I was now fastened was certainly not themost exalted or exciting of the public offices. The estimation in whichit was held in official circles is aptly illustrated by a pleasantry ofthat eminent Civil Servant, Sir Algernon West. When the Revised Versionof the New Testament appeared, Gladstone asked Sir Algernon (who hadbegun life in the Treasury), if he thought it as good as the AuthorizedVersion. "Certainly not, " was the reply. "It is so painfully lacking indignity. " Gladstone, always delighted to hear an innovation censured(unless he himself had made it), asked for an illustration. "Well, " saidWest, "look at the Second Chapter of St. Luke. _There went out a decreefrom Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. _ Now that alwaysstruck me as a sublime conception--a tax levied on the whole world by astroke of the pen--an act worthy of an Imperial Treasury. But I turn tothe Revised Version, and what do I read? _That all the world should beenrolled_--a census--the sort of thing the Local Government Board coulddo. That instance, to my mind, settles the question between Old andNew. "

But in the office thus contemned by the Paladins of the Treasury, therewas plenty of interesting though little-observed work. In the autumn of1883 I undertook, in conjunction with the President of the Board, amission of enquiry into the worst slums in London. There is no need torecapitulate here all the horrors we encountered, for they can be readin the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Housing of thePoor which was appointed in the following year; but one incident made apeculiar impression on my mind. The Sanitary Officer reported someunderground dwellings in Spitalfields as being perhaps the worstspecimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to bemy guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one'seyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather thansaw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned byher voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir, " she replied, "I comefrom Wantage, in Berkshire. " Having always heard of Wantage as a kind ofEarthly Paradise, where the Church, the Sisterhood, and the "GreatHouse" combined to produce the millennium, I said, involuntarily, "Howyou must wish to be back there!" "Back at Wantage!" exclaimed the Ladyof the Cellar. "No, indeed, sir. This is a poor place, but it's betterthan Wantage. " It was instructive to find this love of freedom, andresentment of interference, in the bowels of the earth of Spitalfields. 

An incident which helps to illustrate Gladstone's personal ascendancybelongs to this period. Those were the days of agitation for andagainst a Channel Tunnel, eagerly promoted by speculative tunnel-makers, and resolutely opposed by Mr. Chamberlain, then President of the Boardof Trade. Gladstone, when asked if he was for or against the Tunnel, said very characteristically, "I am not so much in favour of the Tunnel, as opposed to the opponents of it"; and this of course meant that he wasreally in favour of it. About this time I met him at dinner, and afterthe ladies had gone, I think we were eight men round the table. Gladstone began praising the Tunnel; one of the hearers echoed him, andthe rest of us were silent. Looking round triumphantly, Gladstone said, "Ah, this is capital! Here we are--eight sensible men--and all in favourof the Tunnel. " Knowing that several of us were against the Tunnel, Ichallenged a division and collected the votes. Excepting Gladstone andhis echo, we all were anti-tunnelites, and yet none of us would have hadthe hardihood to say so. 

In this year--1883--Gladstone's Government had regained some portion ofthe popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ranout, their success was palpably on the wane, and their popularity ofcourse waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities, crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to beconcealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Governmentresolved on their crowning and fatal blunder. On the 18th of January, Lord Hartington (Secretary of State for War), Lord Granville, LordNorthbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke had an interview with General Gordon, and determined that he should be sent to evacuate the Soudan. Gladstoneassented, and Gordon started that evening on his ill-starred errand. Inview of subsequent events, it is worth recording that there were someLiberals who, from the moment they heard of it, condemned theundertaking. The dithyrambics of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ drew fromWilliam Cory[38] the following protest:

 "January 21, 1884. 

 "It's really ludicrous--the P. M. G. Professing a clearly suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... As if he could go to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his escort to Khartoum, and, when at Khartoum, issue edicts right and left; as if he could act without subaltern officers, money, stores, gold, etc. ; as if he were an _homme drapeau_, and had an old army out there ready to troop round him, as the French veterans round Bonaparte at Fréjus. "

In Parliament, the principal work of 1884 was to extend theParliamentary Franchise to the Agricultural Labourer. A Tory Member saidin debate that the labourers were no more fit to have the franchise thanthe beasts they tended; and Lord Goschen, who had remained outside theCabinet of 1880 sooner than be party to giving them the vote, used tosay to the end of his life that, if the Union were ever destroyed, itwould be by the agricultural labourers. I, however, who had lived amongthem all my life and knew that they were at least as fit for politicalresponsibility as the artisans, threw myself with ardour into theadvocacy of their cause. (By the way, my speech of the Second Reading ofthe Franchise Bill was answered by the present Speaker[39] in his maidenspeech. ) All through the summer the battle raged. The Lords did notrefuse to pass the Bill, but said that, before they passed it, they mustsee the accompanying scheme of Redistribution. It was not a veryunreasonable demand, but Gladstone denounced it as an unheard-ofusurpation. We all took our cue from him, and vowed that we would smashthe House of Lords into atoms before we consented to this insolentclaim. Throughout the Parliamentary recess, the voices of protestresounded from every Liberal platform, and even so lethargic apolitician as Lord Hartington harangued a huge gathering in the Park atChatsworth. Everything wore the appearance of a constitutional crisis. Queen Victoria, as we now know, was seriously perturbed, and did herutmost to avert a rupture between Lords and Commons. But still wepersisted in our outcry. The Lords must pass the Franchise Bill withoutconditions, and when it was law, we would discuss Redistribution. A newSession began on 23rd of October. The Franchise Bill was brought inagain, passed, and sent up to the Lords. At first the Lords seemedresolved to insist on their terms; then they wavered; and then againthey hardened their hearts. Lord Salisbury reported that they would notlet the Franchise Bill through till they got the Redistribution Billfrom the Commons. Meanwhile, all sorts of mysterious negotiations weregoing on between the "moderate" men on both sides; and it was known thatGladstone dared not dissolve on the old franchise, as he was sure to bebeaten in the Boroughs. His only hope was in the agriculturallabourers. Then, acting under pressure which is not known but can beeasily guessed, he suddenly announced, on the 17th of November, that hewas prepared to introduce the Redistribution Bill before the Lords wentinto Committee on the Franchise Bill. It was the point for which theTories had been contending all along, and by conceding it, Gladstonemade an absolute surrender. All the sound and fury of the last sixmonths had been expended in protesting that we could never do what nowwe meekly did. It was the beginning of troubles which have lasted tothis day. The House of Lords learned the welcome lesson that, when theLiberal Party railed, they only had to sit still; and the lesson learntin 1884 was applied in each succeeding crisis down to August 1911. Ithas always been to me an amazing instance of Gladstone's powers ofself-deception that to the end of his life he spoke of this pernicioussurrender as a signal victory. 

Early in 1885, it became my duty to receive at the Local GovernmentBoard a deputation of the Unemployed, who then were beginning to agitatethe habitual calm of the well-fed and the easy-going. It was a curiousexperience. The deputation consisted of respectable-looking andapparently earnest men, some of whom spoke the language of _AltonLocke_, while others talked in a more modern strain of dynamite, SecretSocieties, and "a life for a life. " The most conspicuous figure in thedeputation was an engineer called John Burns, [40] and those who areinterested in political development may find something to their mind inthe report of the deputation in _The Times_ of February 17th, 1885. There they will read that, after leaving Whitehall, the crowd adjournedto the Embankment, where the following resolution was carried, anddespatched to the President of the Local Government Board:

 "That this meeting of the unemployed, having heard the answer given by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose lives would have been saved had the suggestion of the deputation been acted on. 

 (Signed) JOHN BURNS, _Engineer_. JOHN E. WILLIAMS, _Labourer_. WILLIAM HENRY, _Foreman_. JAMES MACDONALD, _Tailor_. "

The threats with which the leaders of the Unemployed regaled us deriveda pleasing actuality from the fact that on the 24th of Januarysimultaneous explosions had occurred at the Tower and in the House ofCommons. I did not see the destruction at the Tower, but I went straightacross from my office to the House of Commons, and saw a curiousobject-lesson in scientific Fenianism. In Westminster Hall there was ahole in the pavement six feet wide, and another in the roof. I hadscarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook thewhole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been explodedin the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wreckingthe galleries, and smashing the Treasury Bench into matchwood. TheFrench Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for awhile stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no othercountry in the world where this could happen. " Certainly it must beadmitted that at that moment our detective organization was not at itsbest. 

However, neither mock-heroics nor actual outrage could obscure the factthat during the spring of 1885 there Was an immense amount ofunemployment, and consequent suffering, among the unskilled labourers. Isuggested that we should issue from the Local Government Board aCircular Letter to all the Local Authorities in London, asking them, notto invent work, but to push forward works which, owing to the rapidextension of London into the suburbs, were becoming absolutelynecessary. But the President of the Board, a bond slave of PoliticalEconomy, would not sanction even this very mild departure from theprecepts of the Dismal Science. The distress was peculiarly acute at theDocks, where work is precarious and uncertain in the highest degree. Some well-meaning people at the West End instituted a plan of "FreeBreakfasts" to be served at the Dock-Gates to men who had failed toobtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions--and verypathetic they were--I was the host, and the _Saturday Review_ treated meto some not unkindly ridicule. 

 Child of the Whigs whose name you flout, Slip of the tree you fain would fell; Your colleagues own, I cannot doubt, Your plan, George Russell, likes them well, "What will regain, " you heard them cry, "That popular praise we once enjoyed?" And instant was your smart reply, "Free Breakfasts to the Unemployed. "

And then, after six more verses of rhythmical chaff, this propheticstanza:

 And howsoe'er profusely flow The tea and coffee round the board, The hospitality you show Shall nowise lack its due reward. For soon, I trust, our turn 'twill be, With joy by no regret alloyed, To give the present Ministry A Breakfast for the Unemployed. 

The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles hadbeen settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but thedetails were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By thistime we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptianpolicy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our teeth;but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew--for there wasan incessant leakage of official secrets--that the Cabinet was rent byacute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing theIrish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed toconciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middleof April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for onecause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputesGladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day--only threeresignations. " Six months later, after his Government had fallen, hewrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his sensescould covenant to call _the late Cabinet_ together. " The solution ofthese difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by HughChilders on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additionalduties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular. Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffectedLiberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox--aleading Tory--told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on thefollowing day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to theBudget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. [41] It was thought at the timethat the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out ofdifficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. Thescene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been oftendescribed, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord RandolphChurchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which forfive momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24thof June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time. 

The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact thatthe Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by LordHartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone didhis best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken frontto the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfullyapparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return ofLord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after themanner of admiring Englishmen, to give him a public dinner. The currentphrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish. " As hehad done that thoroughly for the space of three years, and, at the riskof his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy, he was well entitled to all the honours which we could give him. So itwas arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster PalaceHotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr. Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinnerto Spencer. I am not going, nor is D----. Certainly Spencer has done hisduty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done thesame, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all, coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forcedinto it. " However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer'sadministration, and as his family and mine had been politicallyassociated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capitalevening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company oftwo hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled LordSpencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act bysaying that, when it was passed, there was an organization of thirtythousand Fenians, aided by branches in Scotland and England, and byfunds from America, defying the law of the land in Ireland. Not a wordin all this about Home Rule, or the Union of Hearts, but we cheered itto the echo, little dreaming what the next six months had in store forus. 

Though I was thoroughly in favour of resolute dealing with murder andoutrage, I was also--and this was a combination which sorely puzzled_The Spectator_--an enthusiastic Radical, and specially keen on the sideof social reform. My views on domestic politics were substantially thesame as those set forth with extraordinary vigour and effect in a longseries of speeches by Mr. Chamberlain, who was now unmuzzled, and wasmaking the fullest use of his freedom. He was then at the very zenith ofhis powers, and the scheme of political and social reform which heexpounded is still, in my opinion, the best compendium of Radicalpolitics; but it tended in the direction of what old-fashioned peoplecalled Socialism, and this was to Gladstone an abomination. One day, tomy consternation, he asked me if it was true that Socialism had madesome way among the younger Liberals, of whom I was then one. Endeavouring to parry a question which must have revealed my own guilt, I feebly asked if by Socialism my venerable Leader meant the practice oftaking private property for public uses, or the performance by the Stateof what ought to be left to the individual; whereupon he replied, withstartling emphasis: "I mean both, but I reserve my worst Billingsgatefor the attack on private property. "

On the 18th of September Gladstone issued his Address to the Electors ofMidlothian--an exceedingly long-winded document, which seemed to committhe Liberal Party to nothing in particular. _Verbosa et grandisepistola_, said Mr. John Morley. "An old man's manifesto, " wrote the_Pall Mall_. By contrast with this colourless but authoritativedocument, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme became known as "The UnauthorizedProgramme, " and of that programme I was a zealous promoter. 

As soon as the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill had passedinto law, it was arranged that the dissolution should take place inNovember. The whole autumn was given up to electioneering. Thenewly-enfranchised labourers seemed friendly to the Liberal cause, butour bewildered candidates saw that their leaders were divided into twosections--one might almost say, two camps. This was a condition ofthings which boded disaster to the Liberal Party; but Gladstone neverrealized that Chamberlain was a power which it was madness to alienate. 

On the 2nd of October I went on a visit to Hawarden, and the next dayGladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and theprospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain'sconfidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not theleast in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been veryfriendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But, " I said, "I thinkthat what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oustyou from the Leadership of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that, when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you. " Thisseemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I venturedto follow up my advantage. "After all, " I said, "Chamberlain has beenyour colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invitehim here, and ascertain his intentions from himself. " If I hadsuggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he couldnot have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point, " he said, "of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never inviteanyone except private friends. " "Well, " I said, "but we are within sixweeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the countrywith you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies. "

Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrotethe telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leaveHawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meetingwhich I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr. Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, ithad been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstonesee the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to dropit now, " he said, "the stones would immediately cry out. "

What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Partywas just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeata combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore, retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread. 

On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by thespirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have HomeRule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourlybores. " On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by ananonymous announcement in two newspapers--and the rest followed suitnext day--that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would beprepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule. This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. Wenow know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed withoutGladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment whenevery consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselledsilence. " But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was setwagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewildermentand confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who wason what side; or whither his party--or, indeed, himself--was tending. One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, theParnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. Thenew Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the--, theGovernment were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour ofMunicipal Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment ofintense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy ofeventful living. "

On the 29th of January, I dined with Mr. And Mrs. Gladstone. The hostwas in a grim mood of suppressed excitement, anger, and apprehension. All day long he had been expecting a summons from the Queen, and it hadnot arrived. "It begins to look, " he said, "as if the Government meantafter all to ignore the vote of the House of Commons, and go on. All Ican say is that, if they do, the Crown will be placed in a worseposition than it has ever occupied in my lifetime. " But after the partyhad broken up, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived with the desired message fromthe Queen; and on the 1st of February Gladstone kissed hands, as PrimeMinister for the third time. 

"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like thepigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him, roaring in grunts of exultation. " This was Lord Shaftesbury's predictionin the previous year; but it was based on an assumption which provederroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the LiberalParty. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults whichfilled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of FebruaryI was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue andexposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was outof bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in thesick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which theLiberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effectiveresistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but animportant minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home RuleBill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediatelydissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundredagainst Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury againbecame Prime Minister. 

In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once ayear, when my father was staying with me, Mr. And Mrs. Gladstone dinedwith me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered publiclife at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describehim as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with hishat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by acrop of thick, curly hair, " while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone. He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing. " Theannual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner, Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has beena great disappointment. " I replied that we could certainly have wishedit better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement, Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The expertsassured me that we should sweep the country. " (I always wish that Icould have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts. ")Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to asecond election in six months, and that some of his colleagues hadrecommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn'tdissolve, we should be showing the white feather. "

It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the LiberalParty between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves tobe recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th ofMarch, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging inpassionate diatribes against Pitt. One phrase has always stuck in mymemory. "There is no crime recorded in history--I do not except theMassacre of St. Bartholomew--which will compare for a moment with themeans by which the Union was brought about. " When the party was breakingup, one of the diners said: "I hope Mr. Gladstone won't draw thatparallel, between the Union and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, on apublic platform, or we shall stand even less well with the thinkingpublic than we do now. "

Parliament was dissolved in June, 1892, and, when the elections wereover, it was found that the Liberal Party, including the Irish, had onlya majority of 40. When Gladstone knew the final figures, he saw theimpossibility of forcing Home Rule through the Lords, and exclaimed: "Mylife's work is done. " However, as we all remember, he took thePremiership for a fourth time, and during the Session of 1893 passed aHome Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Lords threw it out by419 to 41, the minority being mainly wage-receivers. Other troublesthere were, both inside the Government and outside it; Mr. Gladstonetold his friends that the Naval Estimates demanded by the Admiralty were"mad and drunk"; and people began to suspect that the great change wasat hand. 

On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone made his last speech in the Houseof Commons. In that speech he bequeathed to his party the legacy of anobly-worded protest against the irresponsible power of the "NominatedChamber"; and then, having accomplished sixty-one years of Parliamentaryservice, he simply disappeared, without ceremony or farewell. In mymind's eye I see him now, upright as ever, and walking fast, with hisdespatch-box dangling from his right hand, as he passed the Speaker'sChair, and quitted the scene of his life's work for ever. 

In spite of warnings and anticipations, the end had, after all, comesuddenly; and, with a sharp pang of regretful surprise, we woke to thefact that "our master was taken away from our head to-day. " Strong menwere shaken with emotion and hard men were moved to unaccustomed tears, as we passed out of the emptied House in the dusk of that gloomyafternoon. 

On the 6th of March, 1894, Gladstone wrote to me as follows, in reply tomy letter of farewell:

"My speculative view into the future shows me a very mixed spectacle, and a doubtful atmosphere. I am thankful to have borne a part in theemancipating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertainhow, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very differentproblems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always havebeen, convinced--it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, andthe terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. Insome, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossiblerevival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, whichimmediately followed the first Reform Act. But I am stepping out upon aboundless plain. 

"May God give you strength of all kinds to perform your appointed workin the world. "

FOOTNOTES:

[37] The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September, 1882. 

[38] Better known as "Billy Johnson, " the famous Eton Tutor. 

[39] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther. 

[40] Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M. P. , President of the LocalGovernment Board. 

[41] Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn. 

XII

ORATORY

 [Greek: esti d' ouch ho logos tou rhêtoros, Aischinê, timion, oud' ho tonos tês phônês, alla to tauta proaireisthai tois pollois, kai to tous autous misein kai philein, housper an hê patris. ] DEMOSTHENES. _De Corona_. 

 The important thing in public speaking is neither the diction nor the voice. What is important is that the speaker should have the same predilections as the majority, and that his country's friends and foes should be also his own. 

I hope that I shall not be reproached with either Pedantry or Vanity(though I deserve both) if, having begun so classically, I hereintroduce some verses which, when I was a boy at Harrow, my kind HeadMaster addressed to my Father. The occasion of these verses was that therecipient of them, who was then Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commonsand was much exhausted by the long Session which passed the first IrishLand Act, had said in his haste that he wished all mankind were dumb. This petulant ejaculation drew from Dr. Butler the followingremonstrance:

 Semper ego auditor? Requies data nulla loquelæ Quæ miseras aures his et ubique premit? Tot mala non tulit ipse Jobas, cui constat amicos Septenos saltem conticuisse dies. "Si mihi non dabitur talem sperare quietem, Sit, precor, humanum sit sine voce genus!" Mucius[42] hæc secum, sortem indignatus iniquam, (Tum primum proavis creditus esse minor) Seque malis negat esse parem: cui Musa querenti, "Tu genus humanum voce carere cupis? Tene adeo fatis diffidere! Non tibi Natus Quem jam signavit Diva Loquela suum? En! ego quæ vindex 'mutis quoque piscibus' adsum, Donatura cycni, si ferat hora, sonos, Ipsa loquor vates: Patriæ decus addere linguæ Hic sciet, ut titulis laus eat aucta tuis. Hunc sua fata vocant; hunc, nostro numine fretum, Apta jubent aptis ponere verba locis. Hunc olim domus ipsa canet, silvæque paternæ, Curiaque, et felix vatibus Herga parens. Nec lingua caruisse voles, quo vindice vestræ Gentis in æternum fama superstes erit. " H. M. B. , Aug. , 1870. 

The prophecy has scarcely been fulfilled; but it is true that from myearliest days I have had an inborn love of oratory. The witchery ofwords, powerful enough on the printed page, is to me ten times morepowerful when it is reinforced by voice and glance and gesture. Finerhetoric and lofty declamation have always stirred my blood; and yet Isuppose that Demosthenes was right, and that, though rhetoric anddeclamation are good, still the most valuable asset for a public speakeris a complete identification with the majority of his countrymen, intheir prejudices, their likings, and their hatreds. 

If Oratory signifies the power of speaking without premeditation, Gladstone stands in a class by himself, far above all the publicspeakers whom I have ever heard. The records of his speaking at Eton andOxford, and the reports of his earliest performances in Parliament, alike give proof that he had, as Coleridge said of Pitt, "a prematureand unnatural dexterity in the combination of words"; and this developedinto "a power of pouring forth, with endless facility, perfectlymodulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassedthe reach of a normal intellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed thecapacities of a normal body. "

His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone);though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; hisgestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle ofhis face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and theflash of his deep-set eyes revealed the fiery spirit that was at workwithin. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a moustacheincompatible with effective speaking--"Why should a man hide one of themost expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still moreexpressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance wasthat of a bird of prey swooping on its victim. 

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone ifhe ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject, " saidGladstone, "often; in reply never, " and certainly his most triumphantspeeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulatedand demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writesglibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us, he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we allused to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech heever made. " On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an oratorwas made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased torepresent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions ofmodern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls andtheatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease tohis new environment, and captivated the constituencies as he hadcaptivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. Hediffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In everyconsiderable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing thissupreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene ofhis most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, hespoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it wasestimated that he addressed thirty thousand people. 

 "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; And, 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:"[43]

It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: butone would be giving a false notion of Gladstone's speaking if onesuggested that it was always equally effective. Masterly in his appealto a popular audience, supernaturally dexterous in explaining acomplicated subject to the House of Commons, supremely solemn andpathetic in a Memorial Oration, he was heard to least advantage on asocial or festive occasion. He would use a Club-dinner or awedding-breakfast, a flower-show or an Exhibition, for the utterance ofgrave thoughts which had perhaps been long fermenting in his mind; andthen his intensity, his absorption in his theme, and his terriblegravity, disconcerted hearers who had expected a lighter touch. Anillustration of this piquant maladroitness recurs to my memory as Iwrite. In 1882 I was concerned with a few Radical friends in foundingthe National Liberal Club. [44] We certainly never foresaw the palatialpile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name. [45] Ourmodest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitanand provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should beattainable at what are called "popular prices. " Two years later, Gladstone laid the foundation-stone of the present Club-house, and, inone of his most austere orations, drew a sharp contrast between our poorhandiwork and those "Temples of Luxury and Ease" which gaze in haughtygrandeur on Pall Mall. We had hoped to provide what might seem like"luxury" to the unsophisticated citizen of Little Pedlington; and, atthe least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radicaltoiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated tostrenuous labour; and all the fair promises of our Prospectus weretrodden under foot. [46]

I have often heard Gladstone say that, in the nature of things, a speechcannot be adequately reported. You may get the words with literalprecision, but the loss of gesture, voice, and intonation, willinevitably obscure the meaning and impede the effect. Of no one'sspeaking is this more true than of his own. Here and there, in theenormous mass of his reported eloquence, you will come upon a fineperoration, a poetic image, a verse aptly cited, or a phrase which canbe remembered. But they are few and far between--_oases_ in a wildernessof what reads like verbiage. Quite certainly, his speeches, in the mass, are not literature, as those found to their cost who endeavoured topublish them in ten volumes. 

For speeches which are literature we must go to John Bright; but thenBright's speaking was not spontaneous, and therefore, according to thedefinition suggested above, could not be reckoned as Oratory. Yet, whendelivered in that penetrating voice, with its varied emphasis of scornand sympathy and passion; enforced by the dignity of that noble head, and punctuated by the aptest gesture, they sounded uncommonly likeoratory. The fact is that Bright's consummate art concealed theelaborate preparation which went to make the performance. When he wasgoing to make a speech, he was encompassed by safeguards againstdisturbance and distraction, which suggested the rites of Lucina. He wasinvisible and inaccessible. No bell might ring, no door might bang, nofoot tread too heavily. There was a crisis, and everyone in the houseknew it; and when at length the speech had been safely uttered, therewas the joy of a great reaction. 

My Father, unlike most of the Whigs, had a warm admiration for Bright;and Bright showed his appreciation of this feeling by being extremelykind to me. Early in my Parliamentary career, he gave me some hints onthe art of speech-making, which are interesting because they describehis own practice. "You cannot, " he said, "over-prepare the substance ofa speech. The more completely you have mastered it, the better yourspeech will be. But it is very easy to over-prepare your words. Arrangeyour subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or fourheads--not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I meana carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trustyourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids. Keep your best 'island'--your most effective passage--for yourperoration; and, when once you have uttered it, sit down at once. Let nopower induce you to go on. "

Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followedhis own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simpleand unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; andthe peroration is a masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after allwhat Demosthenes said is true of these two great men--the Twin Stars ofVictorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, andyet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he rancounter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstonesucceeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced theabominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate hisblunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the"Predominant Partner. " Bright succeeded when he pleaded for the Repealof the Corn Laws and the extension of the Suffrage: he failed when heopposed the Crimean War, and lost his seat when he protested against ouraggression on China. It must often fall to the lot of the patrioticorator thus to set himself against the drift of national sentiment, andto pay the penalty. No such perils beset the Demagogue. 

I should not ascribe the title of orator to Mr. Chamberlain. He hasnothing of the inspiration, the poetry, the "vision splendid, " the"faculty divine, " which make the genuine orator. But as a speaker of thesecond, and perhaps most useful, class, he has never been surpassed. His speaking was the perfection of clearness. Each argument seemedirresistible, each illustration told. His invective was powerful, hispassion seemed genuine, his satire cut like steel and froze like ice. His perception of his hearers' likes and dislikes was intuitive, and washeightened by constant observation. His friends and his enemies werethose whom he esteemed the friends and the enemies of England; and henever committed the heroic but perilous error of setting himself againstthe passing mood of national feeling. He combined in rare harmony thedebating instinct which conquers the House of Commons, with the power ofappeal to popular passion which is the glory of the Demagogue. 

The word with which my last sentence closed recalls inevitably thetragic figure of Lord Randolph Churchill. The adroitness, the courage, and the persistency with which between 1880 and 1885 he sappedGladstone's authority, deposed Northcote, and made himself the mostconspicuous man in the Tory Party, have been described in his Biography, and need not be recapitulated here. Mr. Chamberlain, who was exactlyqualified to resist and abate him, had not yet acquired a commandingposition in the House of Commons; and on the platform Churchill couldnot be beaten. In these two men each party possessed a Demagogue of thehighest gifts, and it would have puzzled an expert to say which was thebetter exponent of his peculiar art. In January, 1884, Churchill made aspeech at Blackpool, and thus attacked his eminent rival--"Mr. Chamberlain a short time ago attempted to hold Lord Salisbury up to theexecration of the people as one who enjoyed great riches for which hehad neither toiled nor spun, and he savagely denounced Lord Salisburyand his class. As a matter of fact, Lord Salisbury from his earliestdays has toiled and spun in the service of the State, and for theadvancement of his countrymen in learning, in wealth, and in prosperity;but no Radical ever yet allowed himself to be embarrassed by a questionof fact. Just look, however, at what Mr. Chamberlain himself does; hegoes to Newcastle, and is entertained at a banquet there, and procuresfor the president of the feast a live Earl--no less a person than theEarl of Durham. Now, Lord Durham is a young person who has just come ofage, who is in the possession of immense hereditary estates, who is wellknown on Newmarket Heath, and prominent among the gilded youth whothrong the doors of the Gaiety Theatre; but he has studied politicsabout as much as Barnum's new white elephant, and the idea of renderingservice to the State has not yet commenced to dawn on his ingenuousmind. If by any means it could be legitimate, and I hold it isillegitimate, to stigmatize any individual as enjoying great riches forwhich he has neither toiled nor spun, such a case would be the case ofthe Earl of Durham; and yet it is under the patronage of the Earl ofDurham, and basking in the smiles of the Earl of Durham, and bandyingvulgar compliments with the Earl of Durham, that this stern patriot, this rigid moralist, this unbending censor, the Right Honourable JosephChamberlain, flaunts his Radical and levelling doctrines before theastonished democrats of Newcastle. 'Vanity of Vanities, ' saith thepreacher, 'all is vanity. ' 'Humbug of Humbugs, ' says the Radical, 'allis humbug. '"

And with that most characteristic specimen of popular eloquence, we mayleave the two great demagogues of the Victorian Age. 

At the period of which I am speaking the House of Commons contained twoor three orators surviving from a class which had almost died away. These were men who, having no gift for extempore speaking, used to studythe earlier stages of a debate, prepare a tremendous oration, and thendeliver it by heart. Such, in days gone by, had been the practice ofBulwer-Lytton, and, as far as one can see, of Macaulay. In my day it wasfollowed by Patrick Smyth, Member for Tipperary, and by Joseph Cowen, Member for Newcastle. Both were real rhetoricians. Both could composelong discourses, couched in the most flowery English, interlarded withanecdotes and decorated with quotations; and both could declaim thesecompositions with grace and vigour. But the effect was very droll. Theywould work, say, all Tuesday and Wednesday at a point which had beenexhausted by discussion on Monday, and then on Thursday they would burstinto the debate just whenever they could catch the Speaker's eye, andwould discharge these cascades of prepared eloquence without theslightest reference to time, fitness, or occasion. 

My uncle, Lord Russell, who entered Parliament in 1813, always said thatthe first Lord Plunket was, on the whole, the finest speaker he had everheard, because he combined a most cogent logic with a most movingeloquence; and these gifts descended to Plunket's grandson, now LordRathmore, and, in the days of which I am speaking, Mr. David Plunket, Member for the University of Dublin. Voice, manner, diction, delivery, were all alike delightful; and, though such finished oratory couldscarcely be unprepared, Mr. Plunket had a great deal too much of hisnation's tact to produce it except when he knew that the House wasanxious to receive it. In view of all that has happened since, it iscurious to remember that Mr. Arthur Balfour was, in those days, aremarkably bad speaker. No one, I should think, was ever born with lessof the orator's faculty, or was under heavier obligations to theReporters' Gallery. He shambled and stumbled, and clung to the lapels ofhis coat, and made immense pauses while he searched for the right word, and eventually got hold of the wrong one. In conflict with Gladstone, heseemed to exude the very essence of acrimonious partisanship, and yet henever exactly scored. As Lord Beaconsfield said of Lord Salisbury, "hisinvective lacked finish. "

A precisely opposite description might befit Sir Robert Peel, thestrangely-contrasted son of the great Free Trader. Peel was naturally anorator. He could make the most slashing onslaughts without theappearance of ill-temper, and could convulse the House with laughterwhile he himself remained to all appearance unconscious of the fun. Hisvoice, pronounced by Gladstone the most beautiful he ever heard inParliament, was low, rich, melodious, and flexible. His appearance wasstriking and rather un-English, his gestures were various and animated, and he enforced his points with beautifully shaped hands. If voice andmanner could make a public speaker great, Sir Robert Peel might have ledthe Tory Party; but Demosthenes was right after all. The graces oforatory, though delightful for the moment, have no permanent effect. Theperfection of Parliamentary style is to utter cruel platitudes with agrave and informing air; and, if a little pomposity be superadded, theHouse will instinctively recognize the speaker as a Statesman. I haveheard Sir William Harcourt say, "After March, comes April, " in a tonewhich carried conviction to every heart. 

A word must be said about speakers who read their speeches. I do notthink I shall be contradicted if I say that in those distant days SirWilliam Harcourt, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Gibson, now LordAshbourne, wrote every word, and delivered their speeches from themanuscript. In late years, when Harcourt had to pilot his famous Budgetthrough Committee, he acquired a perfect facility in extempore speech;but at the beginning it was not so. The Irish are an eloquent nation, and we are apt to send them rather prosy rulers. "The Honourable Memberfor Bletherum was at that time perambulating the district with verygreat activity, and, I need not say, with very great ability. " Such asentence as that, laboriously inscribed in the manuscript of a ChiefSecretary's speech, seems indeed to dissipate all thoughts of oratory. Mr. Henry Richard, a "Stickit Minister" who represented Merthyr, was theworst offender against the Standing Order which forbids a Member to readhis speech, though it allows him to "refresh his memory with notes"; andonce, being called to order for his offence, he palliated it by sayingthat he was ready to hand his manuscript to his censor, and challengedhim to read a word of it. 

The least oratorical of mankind was the fifteenth Lord Derby, whoseformal adhesion to the Liberal Party in 1882 supplied _Punch_ with anadmirable cartoon of a female Gladstone singing in impassioned strain--

 "Always the same, Derby my own! Always the same to your old Glad-stone. "

Lord Derby wrote every word of his speeches, and sent them in advance tothe press. It was said that once he dropped his manuscript in thestreet, and that, being picked up, it was found to contain such entriesas "Cheers, " "Laughter, " and "Loud applause, " culminating in "'But I amdetaining you too long. ' (Cries of 'No, no, ' and 'Go on. ')"

The mention of Lord Derby reminds me of the much-criticized body towhich he belonged. When I entered Parliament, the Chief Clerk of theHouse of Commons was Sir Thomas Erskine May, afterwards LordFarnborough--an hereditary friend. He gave me many useful hints, andthis among the rest--"Always go across to the House of Lords when theyare sitting, even if you only stop five minutes. You may often happen onsomething worth hearing; and on no account ever miss one of theirfull-dress debates. " I acted on the advice, and soon became familiarwith the oratory of "the Gilded Chamber, " as Pennialinus calls it. Ihave spoken in a former chapter of the effect produced on me as a boy bythe predominance of Disraeli during the debates on the Reform Bill of1867. He had left the House of Commons before I entered it, but thatsame mysterious attribute of predominance followed him to the House ofLords, and indeed increased with his increasing years. His strangeappearance--un-English features, corpse-like pallor, blackened locks, and piercing eyes--marked him out as someone quite aloof from the commonpopulation of the House of Lords. When he sat, silent and immovable, onhis crimson bench, everyone kept watching him as though they werefascinated. When he rose to speak, there was strained and awe-strickenattention. His voice was deep, his utterance slow, his pronunciationrather affected. He had said in early life that there were two models ofstyle for the two Houses of Parliament--for the Commons, _Don Juan_: forthe Lords, _Paradise Lost_. As the youthful Disraeli, he had out-JuanedJuan; when, as the aged Beaconsfield, he talked of "stamping adeleterious doctrine with the reprobation of the Peers of England, " heapproached the dignity of the Miltonic Satan. It was more obviously trueof him than of most speakers that he "listened to himself while hespoke"; and his complete mastery of all the tricks of speechcountervailed the decay of his physical powers. He had always known thevalue of an artificial pause, an effective hesitation, in heralding theapt word or the memorable phrase; and just at the close of his life heused the method with a striking though unrehearsed effect. On the 4th ofMarch, 1881, he was speaking in support of Lord Lytton's motioncondemning the evacuation of Kandahar. "My Lords, " he said, "the Key ofIndia is not Merv, or Herat, or, "--here came a long pause, and ratherpainful anxiety in the audience; and then the quiet resumption of thethread--"It is not the place of which I cannot recall the name--the Keyof India is London. "

At a dinner at Lord Airlie's in the previous month Lord Beaconsfield, talking to Matthew Arnold, had described the great (that is, thefourteenth) Lord Derby as having been "a man full of nerve, dash, fire, and resource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him. " BishopSamuel Wilberforce was reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as one of the three menwho, of all his acquaintance, had the greatest natural gift of publicspeaking. [47] Both the Bishop and the Statesman found, each in theother, a foeman worthy of his steel; but both had passed beyond thesevoices before I entered Parliament, leaving only tantalizingtraditions--"Ah! but you should have heard Derby on the Irish Church, "or "It was a treat to hear 'Sam' trouncing Westbury. " Failing thoseimpossible enjoyments, I found great pleasure in listening to LordSalisbury. I should reckon him as about the most interesting speaker Iever heard. His appearance was pre-eminently dignified: he looked, whether he was in or out of office, the ideal Minister of a greatEmpire--

 "With that vast bulk of chest and limb assigned So oft to men who subjugate their kind; So sturdy Cromwell pushed broad-shouldered on; So burly Luther breasted Babylon; So brawny Cleon bawled his agora down; And large-limb'd Mahomed clutched a Prophet's crown. "

In public speaking, Lord Salisbury seemed to be thinking aloud, and tobe quite unconscious of his audience. Though he was saturated with hissubject there was apparently no verbal preparation. Yet his diction waspeculiarly apt and pointed. He never looked at a note; used no gesture;scarcely raised or lowered his voice. But in a clear and penetratingmonotone he uttered the workings of a profound and reflective mind, andthe treasures of a vast experience. Though massive, his style was neverponderous: and it was constantly lightened by the sallies of a pungenthumour. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill of1893, Lord Ribblesdale, then recently converted from Unionism toGladstonianism, and Master of the Buckhounds in the Liberal government, had given the history of his mental change. In replying, Lord Salisburysaid, "The next speech, my lords, was a confession. Confessions arealways an interesting form of literature--from St. Augustine toRousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale. " The House laughed, and theMaster of the Buckhounds laughed with it. 

One of the most vigorous orators whom I have ever heard, in the House ofLords or out of it, was Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, andafterwards Archbishop of York. He had made his fame by his speech on theSecond Reading of the Irish Church Bill, and was always at his best whendefending the temporal interests of ecclesiastical institutions. Noclergyman ever smacked so little of the pulpit. His mind was essentiallylegal--clear, practical, logical, cogent. No one on earth could make abetter case for a bad cause; no one could argue more closely, ordeclaim more vigorously. When his blood was up, he must either speak orburst; but his indignation, though it found vent in flashing sarcasms, never betrayed him into irrelevancies or inexactitudes. 

A fine speaker of a different type--and one better fitted for aChurchman--was Archbishop Tait, whose dignity of speech and bearing, clear judgment, and forcible utterance, made him the worthiestrepresentative of the Church in Parliament whom these latter days haveseen. To contrast Tait's stately calm with Benson's flutteringobsequiousness[48] or Temple's hammering force, was to perceive themanner that is, and the manners that are not, adapted to what Gladstonecalled "the mixed sphere of Religion and the _Sæculum_. "

By far the greatest orator whom the House of Lords has possessed in myrecollection was the late Duke of Argyll. I have heard that LordBeaconsfield, newly arrived in the House of Lords and hearing the Dukefor the first time, exclaimed, "And has this been going on all theseyears, and I have never found it out?" It is true that the Duke'sreputation as an administrator, a writer, a naturalist, and an amateurtheologian, distracted public attention from his power as an orator; andI have been told that he himself did not realize it. Yet orator indeedhe was, in the highest implication of the term. He spoke always underthe influence of fiery conviction, and the live coal from the altarseemed to touch his lips. He was absolute master of every mood oforatory--pathos, satire, contemptuous humour, ethical passion, noblewrath; and his unstudied eloquence flowed like a river through thesuccessive moods, taking a colour from each, and gaining force as itrolled towards its close. 

On the 6th of September, 1893, I heard the Duke speaking on the SecondReading of the Home Rule Bill. He was then an old man, and in brokenhealth; the speech attempted little in the way of argument, and wasdesultory beyond belief. But suddenly there came a passage which liftedthe whole debate into a nobler air. The orator described himselfstanding on the Western shores of Scotland, and gazing across towardsthe hills of Antrim: "We can see the colour of their fields, and in thesunset we can see the glancing of the light upon the windows of thecabins of the people. This is the country, I thought the other day whenI looked on the scene--this is the country which the greatest Englishstatesman tells us must be governed as we govern the Antipodes. " And heemphasized the last word with a downward sweep of his right hand, whichin a commonplace speaker would have been frankly comic, but in thisgreat master of oratory was a master-stroke of dramatic art. 

Before I close this chapter, I should like to recall a word ofGladstone's which at the time when he said it struck me as memorable. InAugust, 1895, I was staying at Hawarden. Gladstone's Parliamentary lifewas done, and he talked about political people and events with a freedomwhich I had never before known in him. As perhaps was natural, we fellto discussing the men who had been his colleagues in the late LiberalMinistry. We reviewed in turn Lord Spencer, Sir William Harcourt, LordRosebery, Mr. John Morley, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Asquith. It isperhaps a little curious, in view of what happened later on, that SirHenry Campbell-Bannerman was not mentioned; but, with regard to theforegoing names, I perfectly recollect, though there is no need torepeat, the terse and trenchant judgment passed on each. When we hadcome to the end of my list, the ex-Premier turned on me with one ofthose compelling glances which we knew so well, and said with emphasis, "But you haven't mentioned the most important man of all. " "Who isthat?" "Edward Grey--there is the man with the real Parliamentary gift. "I am happy to make the Foreign Secretary a present of this handsomecompliment. 

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Mucius Scævola per multos annos "Princeps Senatûs. "

[43] Bulwer-Lytton, _St. Stephen's_. 

[44] Mr. A. J. Willams, Mr. A. G. Symond, Mr. Walter Wren, Mr. W. L. Bright, and Mr. J. J. Tylor were some of them; and we used to meet inMr. Bright's rooms at Storey's Gate. 

[45] "It is an extraordinary big club done in a bold, wholesale, shiny, marbled style, richly furnished with numerous paintings, steelengravings, busts, and full-length statues of the late Mr. Gladstone. "--H. G. Wells, _The New Machiavelli_. 

[46] "Speaking generally, I should say there could not be a lessinteresting occasion than the laying of the foundation-stone of a Clubin London. For, after all, what are the Clubs of London? I am afraidlittle else than temples of luxury and ease. This, however, is a club ofa very different character. "

[47] The others were the late Duke of Argyll and the eighth Lord Elgin. 

[48] "I had to speak in the House of Lords last night. It is a reallyterrible place for the unaccustomed. Frigid impatience and absolutegoodwill, combined with a thorough conviction of the infallibility oflaymen (if not too religious) on all sacred subjects, are the tone, _morale_, and reason, of the House as a living being. My wholeself-possession departs, and ejection from the House seems the bestthing which could happen to one. "--Archbishop Benson to the Rev. B. F. Westcott, March 22, 1884. 

XIII

LITERATURE

 There was Captain Sumph, an ex-beau, still about town, and related in some indistinct manner to Literature and the Peerage. He was said to have written a book once, to have been a friend of Lord Byron, to be related to Lord Sumphington.... This gentleman was listened to with great attention by Mrs. Bungay; his anecdotes of the Aristocracy, of which he was a middle-aged member, delighted the publisher's lady. W. M. THACKERAY, _Pendennis_. 

When I am writing Reminiscences, I always feel dreadfully like CaptainSumph; but, in order to make the resemblance quite exact, I must devotea chapter to Literature. 

I seem, from my earliest conscious years, to have lived in a world ofbooks; and yet my home was by no means "bookish. " I was trained bypeople who had not read much, but had read thoroughly; who regarded goodliterature with unfeigned admiration; and who, though they would neverhave dreamt of forcing or cramming, yet were pleased when they saw a boyinclined to read, and did their best to guide his reading aright. As Isurvey my early life and compare it with the present day, one of thesocial changes which impresses me most is the general decay ofintellectual cultivation. This may sound paradoxical in an age whichhabitually talks so much about Education and Culture; but I am persuadedthat it is true. Dilettantism is universal, and a smattering oferudition, infinitely more offensive than honest and manly ignorance, has usurped the place which was formerly occupied by genuine and liberallearning. A vast deal of specialism, "mugged up, " as boys say, at theBritish Museum or the London Library, may coexist with a profoundignorance of all that is really worth knowing. It sounds veryintellectual to chatter about the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, or toscoff at St. John's "senile iterations and contorted metaphysics"; but, when a clergyman read St. Paul's eulogy on Charity, instead of anaddress, at the end of a fashionable wedding, one of his hearers said, "How very appropriate that was! Where did you get it from?" Everyone canpatter nonsense about the traces of Bacon's influence in _The MerryWives of Windsor_, and can ransack their family histories for theoriginal of "Mr. W. H. " But, when _Cymbeline_ was put on the stage, Society was startled to find that the principal part was not a woman's. When some excellent scenes from Jane Austen were given in a Belgraviandrawing-room, a lady of the highest notoriety, enthusiastically praisingthe performance, enquired who was the author of the dialogue between Mr. And Mrs. John Dashwood, and whether he had written anything else. I haveknown a Lord Chief Justice who had never seen the view from RichmondHill; a publicist who had never heard of Lord Althorp; and an authoresswho did not know the name of Izaak Walton. 

Perhaps these curious "ignorances, " as the Prayer Book calls them, impressed me the more forcibly because I was born a Whig, and brought upin a Whiggish society; for the Whigs were rather specially the allies oflearning; and made it a point of honour to know, though never to parade, the best that has been thought and written. Very likely they had nomonopoly of culture: the Tories may have been just as well-informed. Buta man "belongs to his belongings"; one can only describe what one hasseen; and here the contrast between Past and Present is palpableenough. I am not thinking of professed scholars and students, such asLord Stanhope the Historian, and Sir Edward Bunbury the Senior Classic;or of professed blue-stockings, such as Barbarina, Lady Dacre, andGeorgiana, Lady Chatterton; but of ordinary men and women of good familyand good position, who had received the usual education of their class, and had profited by it. 

Mr. Gladstone used to say that, in his schooldays at Eton, a boy mightlearn much, or learn nothing; but he could not learn superficially. Asimilar remark would have applied to the attainments of people who wereold when I was young. They might know much, or they might know nothing;but they did not know superficially. What they professed to know, thatyou could be sure they knew. The affectation of culture was despised;and ignorance, where it existed, was avowed. For example, everyone knewItalian, but no one pretended to know German. I remember men who hadnever been at a University, but had passed straight from a Public Schoolto a Cavalry Regiment or the House of Commons, and who yet could quoteHorace as easily as the present generation quotes Kipling. These peopleinherited the traditions of Mrs. Montagu, who "vindicated the genius ofShakespeare against the calumnies of Voltaire, " and they knew thegreatest poet of all time with an absolute ease and familiarity. Theydid not trouble themselves about various readings, and corrupt texts, and difficult passages. They had nothing in common with that true fatherof all Shakespearean criticism, Mr. Curdle, in _Nicholas Nickleby_, whohad written a treatise on the question whether Juliet's nurse's husbandwas really "a merry man, " or whether it was only his widow'saffectionate partiality that induced her so to report him. But they knewthe whole mass of the Plays with a natural and unforced intimacy; theirspeech was saturated with the immortal diction, and Hamlet'sspeculations were their nearest approach to metaphysics. Pope was quotedwhenever the occasion suggested him, and Johnson was esteemed the Princeof Critics. Broadly speaking, all educated people knew the English poetsdown to the end of the eighteenth century. Byron and Moore were enjoyedwith a sort of furtive and fearful pleasure; Wordsworth was tolerated, and Tennyson was "coming in. " Everyone knew Scott's novels by heart, andhad his or her favourite heroine and hero. 

I said in a former chapter that I had from my earliest days free accessto an excellent library; and, even before I could read comfortably bymyself, my interest in books was stimulated by listening to my elders asthey read aloud. The magic of words and cadence--the purely sensuouspleasure of melodious sound--stirred me from the time when I was quite achild. Poetry, of course, came first; but prose was not much later. Ihad by nature a good memory, and it retained, by no effort on my part, my favourite bits of Macaulay and Scott. _The Battle of Lake Regillus_and _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, the impeachment of Warren Hastingsand the death of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, are samples of the literaturewith which my mind was stored. Every boy, I suppose, attempts to imitatewhat he admires, and I was eternally scribbling. When I was eleven, Ibegan a novel, of which the heroine was a modern Die Vernon. At twelve, I took to versification, for which the swinging couplets of _EnglishBards and Scotch Reviewers_ supplied the model. Fragments of prose andverse came thick and fast. When I was thirteen, I made my firstappearance in print; with a set of verses on a Volunteer Encampment, which really were not at all bad; and at fourteen I published(anonymously) a religious tract, which had some success in Evangelicalcircles. 

The effect of Harrow was both to stimulate and to discipline my tastefor literature. It was my good fortune to be taught my Sophocles andEuripides, Tacitus and Virgil, by scholars who had the literary sense, and could enrich school-lessons with all the resources of a generousculture. My sixteenth and seventeenth years brought me a real andconscious growth in the things of the mind, and with that period of mylife I must always gratefully associate the names of Frederic Farrar, Edward Bowen, and Arthur Watson. [49]

Meanwhile I was not only learning, but also practising. My teachers withone accord incited me to write. Essay-writing formed a regular part ofour work in school and pupil-room, and I composed a great deal for myown amusement. I wrote both prose and verse, and verse in a great manymetres; but it was soon borne in upon me--conclusively after I had beenbeaten for the Prize Poem[50]--that the Muse of Poetry was not mine. Inprose, I was more successful. My work for _The Harrovian_ gave meconstant practice, and I twice won the School-Prize for an EnglishEssay. In writing, I indulged to the full my taste for resonant androlling sound; and my style was ludicrously rhetorical. The subject forthe Prize Essay in 1872 was "Parliamentary Oratory: its History andInfluence, " and the discourse which I composed on that attractive themehas served me from that day to this as the basis of a popular lecture. The "Young Lion" of the _Daily Telegraph_ thus "roared" over myperformance--

"The English Essay now takes a higher place on Speech Day than it did inthe old season; and the essay which was crowned yesterday was notablealike for the theme, the opinions, and the literary promise of thewriter. The young author bore the historical name of Russell, and he wasreally reviewing the forerunners and the fellow-workers of his ownancestors, in describing the rhetorical powers of the elder and theyounger Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Canning and Grey.... The well-knownConstitutional note of Lord Russell was heard in every page, and thesonorous English was such as the Earl himself might have written fiftyyears ago, if the undergraduates of that day had been able to copy aMacaulay. The essayist has read the prose of that dangerous model untilhe has imitated the well-known and now hackneyed devices of the greatrhetorician with a closeness which perilously brought to mind the showpassages of the 'Essays' and the 'History. ' Mr. Russell has caught thetrick of cutting up his paragraphs into rolling periods, and short, sharp, and disjointed sentences; but he will go to more subtle and moresimple masters of style than Macaulay, when he shall have passed therhetorical stage of youth. "

This prophecy was soon fulfilled, and indeed the process of fulfilmenthad already begun. In the Sixth Form, we naturally were influenced byDr. Butler, who, though he certainly did not despise fine rhetoric, wrote a beautifully simple style, and constantly instructed us in thedifference between eloquence and journalese. "Let us leave _commence_and _partake_ to the newspapers, " was an admonition often on his lips. Our Composition Masters were Edward Young, an exquisite scholar of theEton type, and the accomplished Henry Nettleship, who detestedflamboyancy, and taught us to admire Newman's incomparable easiness andgrace. And there was Matthew Arnold living on the Hill, generouslyencouraging every bud of literary promise, and always warning us againstour tendency to "Middle-class Macaulayese. "

At Oxford, the chastening process went on apace. Newman became mymaster, as far as language was concerned; and I learned to bracket himwith Arnold and Church as possessing "The Oriel style. " Thackeray'sLatinized constructions began to fascinate me; and, though I still lovedgorgeous diction, I sought it from Ruskin instead of Macaulay. 

All this time I was writing--in a very humble and obscure way, certainly, but still writing. I wrote in local newspapers and ParishMagazines. I published anonymous comments on current topics. Icontributed secretly to ephemeral journals. I gave lectures and printedthem as pamphlets. It was all very good exercise; but the odd part of itseems to me, in looking back, that I never expected pay, but ratherspent my own money in printing what I wrote. That last infirmity ofliterary minds I laid aside soon after I left Oxford. I rather thinkthat the first money which I made with my pen was payment for acharacter-study of my uncle, Lord Russell, which I wrote for _TheWorld_; thereby eliciting from Matthew Arnold the urbane remark, "Ah, mydear George, I hear you have become one of Yates's hired stabbers. "

After I entered Parliament, opportunities of writing, and of writing forprofit, became more frequent. I contributed to the _Quarterly_, the _NewQuarterly_, the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, the_Contemporary_, the _Spectator_, and the _Pall Mall_. Yet anothermagazine recurs pleasantly to my mind, because of the warning which wasinscribed on one's proof-sheet--"The cost of _corrigenda_ will bededucted from _honoraria_. " What fine language! and what a base economy!

It did not take me long to find that the society in which I habituallylived, and which I have described in a former chapter, was profoundlyignorant. A most amusing law-suit between a Duchess and her maid tookplace about the time of which I am writing, and the Duchess'sincriminated letter, beginning in the third person, wandering off intothe first, and returning with an effort to the third, was indeed anobject-lesson in English composition. A young sprig of fashion once saidto me, in the tone of a man who utters an accepted truth, "It is somuch more interesting to talk about people than things"--even thoughthose "things" were the literary triumphs of humour or tragedy. In onegreat house, Books were a prohibited subject, and the word "Books" wasconstrued with such liberal latitude that it seemed to includeeverything except Bradshaw. Even where people did not thus truculentlydeclare war against literature, they gave it an uncommonly wide berth, and shrank with ill-concealed aversion from such names as Meredith andBrowning. "Meredith, " said Oscar Wilde, "is a prose-Browning--and so isBrowning. " And both those forms of prose were equally eschewed bysociety. 

Of course, when one is surveying a whole class, one sees someconspicuous exceptions to the prevailing colour; and here and there onehad the pleasure of meeting in society persons admirably accomplished. Ihave already mentioned Lord Houghton, poet, essayist, pamphleteer, book-lover, and book-collector, who was equally at home in the world ofsociety and the world of literature. Nothing that was good in books, whether ancient or modern, escaped his curious scrutiny, and at hishospitable table, which might truly be called a "Festive Board, "authors great and small rubbed shoulders with dandies and diplomats andstatesmen. On the 16th of June, 1863, Matthew Arnold wrote--"On Sunday Idined with Monckton Milnes, [51] and met all the advanced Liberals inreligion and politics, and a Cingalese in full costume.... Thephilosophers were fearful! George Lewes, Herbert Spencer, a sort ofpseudo-Shelley called Swinburne, and so on. Froude, however, was there, and Browning, and Ruskin. "

The mention of Matthew Arnold reminds me that, though I had admired andliked him in a reverent sort of way, when I was a Harrow boy and he wasa man, I found him even more fascinating when I met him on the more eventerms of social life in London. He was indeed the most delightful ofcompanions; a man of the world entirely free from worldliness, and a manof letters without the faintest trace of pedantry. He walked through theworld enjoying it and loving it; and yet all the time one felt that his"eyes were on the higher loadstars" of the intellect and the spirit. Inthose days I used to say that, if one could fashion oneself, I shouldwish to be like Matthew Arnold; and the lapse of years has not alteredmy desire. 

Of Robert Browning, as he appeared in society, I have already spoken;but here let me add an instance which well illustrates his tact andreadiness. He once did me the honour of dining with me, and I hadcollected a group of eager disciples to meet him. As soon as dinner wasover, one of these enthusiasts led the great man into a corner, andbegan cross-examining him about the identity of _The Lost Leader_ andthe meaning of _Sordello_. For a space Browning bore the catechism withadmirable patience; and then, laying his hand on the questioner'sshoulder, he exclaimed, "But, my dear fellow, this is too bad. _I_ ammonopolizing _you_, " and skipped out of the corner. 

Lord Tennyson was scarcely ever to be encountered in society; but I waspresented to him at a garden-party by Mr. James Knowles, of the_Nineteenth Century_. He was, is, and always will be, one of the chiefdivinities of my poetical heaven; but he was more worshipful at adistance than at close quarters, and I was determined not to dispelillusion by a too near approach to the shrine. J. A. Froude was a man ofletters whom from time to time one encountered in society. No one coulddoubt his cleverness; but it was a cleverness which rather repelled thanattracted. With his thin lips, his cold smile, and his remorseless, deliberate, way of speaking, he always seemed to be secretly gloatingover the hideous scene in the hall of Fotheringay, or the last agoniesof a disembowelled Papist. Lord Acton was, or seemed to be, a man of theworld first and foremost; a politician and a lover of society; a gossip, and, as his "Letters" show, not always a friendly gossip. [52] Hisdemeanour was profoundly sphinx-like, and he seemed to enjoy the sensethat his hearers were anxious to learn what he was able but unwilling toimpart. His knowledge and accomplishments it would, at this time of day, be ridiculous to question; and on the main concerns of humanlife--Religion and Freedom--I was entirely at one with him. All the moredo I regret that in society he so effectually concealed his higherenthusiasms, and that, having lived on the vague fame of his "History ofLiberty, " he died leaving it unwritten. 

I am writing of the years when I first knew London socially, and I mayextend them from 1876 to 1886. All through those years, as through manybefore and since, the best representative of culture in society was Mr. , now Sir, George Trevelyan--a poet, a scholar to his finger-tips, anenthusiast for all that is best in literature, ancient or modern, andauthor of one of the six great Biographies in the English language. There is no need to recapitulate Sir George's services to the State, orto criticize his performances in literature. It is enough to record mylively and lasting gratitude for the unbroken kindness which began whenI was a boy at Harrow, and continues to the present hour. 

I have spoken, so far, of literary men who played a more or lessconspicuous part in society; but, as this chapter is dedicated toLiterature, I ought to say a word about one or two men of Letters whoalways avoided society, but who, when one sought them out in their ownsurroundings, were delightful company. Foremost among these I shouldplace James Payn. 

Payn was a man who lived in, for, and by Literature. He detestedexercise. He never travelled. He scarcely ever left London. He took noholidays. If he was forced into the country for a day or two, he usedthe exile as material for a story or an essay. His life was oneincessant round of literary activity. He had published his first bookwhile he was an Undergraduate at Trinity, and from first to last hewrote more than a hundred volumes. _By Proxy_ has been justly admiredfor the wonderful accuracy of its local colour, and for a masterlyknowledge of Chinese character; but the writer drew exclusively fromencyclopædias and books of travel. In my judgment, he was at his best inthe Short Story. He practised that difficult art long before it becamepopular, and a book called originally _People, Places, and Things_, butnow _Humorous Stories_, is a masterpiece of fun, invention, andobservation. In 1874, he became "Reader" to Messrs. Smith and Elder, andin that capacity had the happiness of discovering _Vice Versa_, and theless felicitous experience of rejecting _John Inglesant_ as unreadable. 

It was at this period of his life that I first encountered Payn, and Ifell at once under his charm. His was not a faultless character, for hewas irritable, petulant, and prejudiced. He took the strongest dislikes, sometimes on very slight grounds; was unrestrained in expressing them, and was apt to treat opinions which he did not share very cavalierly. But none of these faults could obscure his charm. He was the mosttender-hearted of human beings, and the sight, even the thought, ofcruelty set his blood on fire. But, though he was intensely humane, hewas absolutely free from mawkishness; and a wife-beater, or achild-torturer, or a cattle-maimer would have had short shrift at hishands. He was genuinely sympathetic, especially towards the hopes andstruggles of the young and the unbefriended. Many an author, oncestruggling but now triumphant, could attest this trait. But his chiefcharm was his humour. It was absolutely natural; bubbled like afountain, and danced like light. Nothing escaped it, and solemnity onlystimulated it to further activities. He had the power, which SydneySmith described, of "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with themost successful ridicule;" and, when he was offended, the ridicule had aremarkably sharp point. It was of course, impossible that all the humourof a man who joked incessantly could be equally good. Sometimes it wasrather boyish, playing on proper names or personal peculiarities; andsometimes it descended to puns. But, for sheer rapidity, I have neverknown Payn's equal. When a casual word annoyed him, his reparteeflashed out like lightning. I could give plenty of instances, but tomake them intelligible I should have to give a considerable amount ofintroduction, and that would entirely spoil the sense of flashingrapidity. There was no appreciable interval of time between theprovoking word and the repartee which it provoked. 

Another great element of charm in Payn was his warm love of Life, "And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. "

While he hated the black and savage and sordid side of existence with apassionate hatred, he enjoyed all its better--which he believed to beits larger--part with an infectious relish. Never have I known a moreblithe and friendly spirit; never a nature to which Literature andSociety--books and men--yielded a more constant and exhilarating joy. Hehad unstinted admiration for the performances of others, and was whollyfree from jealousy. His temperament indeed was not equable. He had upsand downs, bright moods and dark, seasons of exaltation and seasons ofdepression. The one succeeded the other with startling rapidity, but thebright moods triumphed, and it was impossible to keep him permanentlydepressed. His health had always been delicate, but illness neithercrushed his spirit nor paralysed his pen. Once he broke a blood-vesselin the street, and was conveyed home in an ambulance. During thetransit, though he was in some danger of bleeding to death, he began tocompose a narrative of his adventure, and next week it appeared in the_Illustrated London News_. 

During the last two years of his life he was painfully crippled byarthritic rheumatism, and could no longer visit the Reform Club, wherefor many years he had every day eaten his luncheon and played hisrubber. Determining that he should not completely lose his favourite, orI should rather say his only, amusement, some members of the Club bandedthemselves together to supply him with a rubber in his own house twice aweek; and this practice was maintained to his death. It was a strikingtestimony to the affection which he inspired. In those years I was apretty frequent visitor, and, on my way to the house, I used to bethinkme of stories which might amuse him, and I used even to note them downbetween one visit and another, as a provision for next time. One dayPayn said, "A collection of your stories would make a book, and I thinkSmith and Elder would publish it. " I thought my anecdotage scarcelyworthy of so much honour; but I promised to make a weekly experiment inthe _Manchester Guardian_. My _Collections and Recollections_ ranthrough the year 1897, and appeared in book-form at Easter, 1898. ButPayn died on the 25th of the previous March; and the book, which I hadhoped to put in his hand, I could only inscribe to his delightfulmemory. 

Another remarkable man of letters, wholly remote from the world, wasRichard Holt Hutton, for thirty-six years (1861-1897) the honouredEditor of _The Spectator_. Hutton was a "stickit minister" of theUnitarian persuasion, who had been led, mainly by the teaching of F. D. Maurice, to the acceptance of orthodox Christianity; and who devoted allthe rest of his life to the inculcation of what he conceived to be moraland religious truth, through the medium of a weekly review. He lived, akind of married hermit, on the edge of Windsor Forest, and could hardlybe separated, even for a week's holiday, from his beloved _Spectator_. His output of work was enormous and incessant, and was throughoutcritical and didactic. The style was pre-eminently characteristic ofthe man--tangled, untidy, ungraceful, disfigured by "trailing relatives"and accumulated epithets; and yet all the time conveying the sense ofsome real and even profound thought that strove to express itselfintelligibly. As the style, so the substance. "_The Spectator_, " wroteMatthew Arnold in 1865, "is all very well, but the article has Hutton'sfault of seeing so very far into a mill-stone. " And, two years later, "_The Spectator_ has an article in which Hutton shows his strangeaptitude for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. " Both weresound criticisms. When Hutton addressed himself to a deep topic ofabstract speculation, he "saw so very far into it" that even his mostearnest admirers could not follow the visual act. When he handled themore commonplace subjects of thought or action with which ordinary menconcern themselves, he seemed to miss the most obvious and palpablepoints. He was a philosophical thinker, with a natural bent towards theabstract and the mystical--a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian. Hesaw things invisible to grosser eyes; he heard voices not audible toordinary ears; and, when he was once fairly launched in speculation onsuch a theme as Personal Identity or the Idea of God, he "found no end, in wandering mazes lost. "

But the very quality of aloofness from other men and their ways ofthinking, which made it impossible for him to be the exponent of asystem or the founder of a school, made him a peculiarly interestingfriend. In homely phrase, you never knew where to have him; he wasalways breaking out in a fresh place. Whatever subject he handled, fromimpaled Bulgarians to the credibility of miracles, was certain to bepresented in a new and unlooked-for aspect. He was as full of splendidgleams as a landscape by Turner, and as free from all formal rules ofart and method. He was an independent thinker, if ever there was one, and as honest as he was independent. In his belief, truth was the mostprecious of treasures, to be sought at all hazards, and, when acquired, to be safeguarded at all costs. His zeal for truth was closely alliedwith his sense of justice. His mind came as near absolute fairness as ispossible for a man who takes any part in live controversies. He neverused an unfair argument to establish his point, nor pressed a fairargument unduly. He was scrupulously careful in stating his adversary'scase, and did all in his power to secure a judicial and patient hearingeven for the causes with which he had least sympathy. His ownconvictions, which he had reached through stern and self-sacrificingstruggles, were absolutely solid. By the incessant writing of some fortyyears, he enforced the fundamental truth of human redemption through Godmade Man on the attention of people to whom professional preachers speakin vain, and he steadily impressed on his fellow-Christians thoseethical duties of justice and mercy which should be, but sometimes arenot, the characteristic fruits of their creed. It was a high function, excellently fulfilled. 

The transition is abrupt, but no catalogue of the literary men with whomI was brought in contact could be complete without a mention of Mr. George Augustus Sala. He was the very embodiment of Bohemia; and, alikein his views and in his style, the fine flower of such journalism as isassociated with the name of the _Daily Telegraph_. His portrait, sketched with rare felicity, may be found in Letter XII. Of thatincomparable book, _Friendship's Garland_. "Adolescens Leo" thusdescribes him--"Sala, like us his disciples, has studied in the book ofthe world even more than in the world of books. But his career andgenius have given him somehow the secret of a literary mixture novel andfascinating in the last degree: he blends the airy epicureanism of the_salons_ of Augustus with the full-bodied gaiety of our Englishcider-cellar. With our people and country, _mon cher_, this mixture isnow the very thing to go down; there arises every day a larger publicfor it; and we, Sala's disciples, may be trusted not willingly to let itdie. "

That was written in 1871; and, when sixteen years had elapsed, I thoughtit would be safe, and I knew it would be amusing, to bring Sala andMatthew Arnold face to face at dinner. For the credit of human naturelet it be recorded that the experiment was entirely successful; for, asLord Beaconsfield said, "Turtle makes all men equal, " and vindictivenessis exorcised by champagne. 

The Journalist of Society in those days was Mr. T. H. S. Escott, who wasalso Editor of the _Fortnightly_ and leader-writer of the _Standard_. Ishould be inclined to think that no writer in London worked so hard; andhe paid the penalty in shattered health. It is a pleasure to me, who inthose days owed much to his kindness, to witness the renewal of hisearly activities, and to welcome volume after volume from his prolificpen. Mr. Kegan Paul, essayist, critic, editor, and ex-clergyman, wasalways an interesting figure; and his successive transitions fromTractarianism to Latitudinarianism, and from Agnosticism toUltramontanism, gave a peculiar piquancy to his utterances on religion. He deserves remembrance on two quite different scores--one, that he wasthe first publisher to study prettiness in the production of even cheapbooks; and the other, that he was an early and enthusiastic worker inthe cause of National Temperance. It was my privilege to be often withhim in the suffering and blindness of his last years, and I have neverseen a trying discipline more bravely borne. 

More than once in these chapters I have referred to "Billy Johnson, " ashis pupils and friends called William Cory in remembrance of old times. He was from 1845 to 1872 the most brilliant tutor at Eton: anastonishing number of eminent men passed through his hands, and retainedthrough life the influence of his teaching. After leaving Eton, hechanged his name from Johnson to Cory, and established himself on thetop of the hill at Hampstead, where he freely imparted the treasures ofhis exquisite scholarship to all who cared to seek them, and not leastwillingly to young ladies. He was a man of absolutely original mind;paradoxical, prejudiced, and intellectually independent to the point ofeccentricity. His range was wide, his taste infallible, and his love ofthe beautiful a passion. He lived, from boyhood to old age, the life ofthe Intellect; and yet posterity will know him only as having writtenone thin book of delightful verse;[53] a fragmentary History of England;and some of the most fascinating letters in the language. 

A friend and brother-Scholar of mine at Oxford was "Willy" Arnold, sonof Mr. Thomas Arnold, and nephew of Matthew. After taking his degree, hejoined the staff of the _Manchester Guardian_, and before long becameone of the first journalists of his time. He was not merely ajournalist, but also a publicist, and could have made his mark in publiclife by his exceptional knowledge of European politics. We had not seenone another for a good many years, when we met casually at dinner in thesummer of 1887. To that chance meeting I owed my introduction to the_Manchester Guardian_. My first contribution to it was a description ofthe Jubilee Garden-Party at Buckingham Palace on the 29th of June, 1887; so I can reckon almost a quarter of a century of association withwhat I am bold to call (defying all allusion to the fabled Tanner) thebest newspaper in Great Britain. 

But journalism, though now practised on a more dignified level, was onlya continuation and development of a life-long habit; whereas, though Ihad been scribbling ever since I was a boy, I had never written a book. In 1890 Messrs. Sampson Low started a series of _The Queen's PrimeMinisters_. Froude led off, brilliantly, with Lord Beaconsfield; and theeditor[54] asked me to follow with Mr. Gladstone. Before acceding tothis proposal, I thought it right to ask whether Gladstone had anyobjection; and, supposing that he had not, whether he would give me anyhelp. His reply was eminently characteristic, --

"When someone proposed to write a book about Harry Phillpotts, Bishop ofExeter, the Bishop procured an Injunction in Chancery to stop him. Ishall not seek an Injunction against you--but that is all the help I cangive you. "

Thus encouraged, or rather, I should say, not discouraged, I addressedmyself to the task, and the book came out in July, 1891. I was toldthat Gladstone did not read it, and this assurance was in many respectsa relief. But someone told him that I had stated, on the authority ofone of his school-fellows, that he played no games at Eton. The nexttime I met him, he referred to this point; declared that I had beenmisinformed; and affirmed that he played both cricket and football, and"was in the Second Eleven at Cricket. " In obedience to his request, Imade the necessary correction in the Second Edition; but _a priori_ Ishould not have been inclined to suspect my venerated leader of havingbeen a cricketer. 

It is no part of my plan to narrate my own extremely humble performancesin the way of authorship. The heading of the chapter speaks not ofBook-making, but of Literature; and for a man to say that he hascontributed to Literature would indeed be to invite rebuff. I amthinking now, not of what I have done, but of what I have received; andmy debt to Literature is great indeed. I do not know the sensation ofdulness, but, like most human beings, I know the sensation of sorrow;and with a grateful heart I record the fact that the darkest hours of mylife have been made endurable by the Companionship of Books. 

FOOTNOTES:

[49] To Mr. Watson I owed my introduction to Matthew Arnold's _Essays inCriticism_--a real event in one's mental life. 

[50] By Sir Walter Strickland; whose poem on William Tyndale was justlyadmired. 

[51] Richard Monckton Milnes was created Lord Houghton, August 20, 1863. 

[52] It is only fair to observe that those "Letters" were written in thestrictest confidence. 

[53] Ionica. 

[54] Mr. Stuart J. Reid. 

XIV

SERVICE

 May He "in knowledge of Whom standeth our eternal life, Whose service is perfect freedom"--_Quem nosse vivere, Cui servire regnare est_--teach us the rules and laws of that eternal service, which is now beginning on the scene of time. R. W. CHURCH, _Human Life and its Conditions_. 

It was my happiness to be born and brought up in a home where Religionhabitually expressed itself in Social Service. I cannot remember a timewhen those nearest to me were not actively engaged in ministering to thepoor, the sick, the underfed, and the miserable. The motive of all thisincessant ministration was the Christian Faith, and its motto was_Charitas Christi urget nos_. The religion in which the children of anEvangelical home were reared was an intensely vivid and energeticprinciple, passionate on its emotional side, definite in its theory, imperious in its demands, practical, visible, and tangible in itseffects. If a boy's heart--

 "Were less insensible than sodden clay In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide, "

it could scarcely fail to carry with it into the world outside theimpressions stamped by such a training. I can remember quite clearlythat, even in my Harrow days, the idea of Life as Service was alwayspresent to my mind: and it was constantly enforced by the preaching ofsuch men as Butler, Westcott, and Farrar. 

"Here you are being educated either for life or for fashion. Which isit? What is your ambition? Is it to continue, with fewer restrictions, the amusements which have engrossed you here? Is it to be favourite orbrilliant members of a society which keeps want and misery at adistance? Would this content you? Is this your idea of life? Or may wenot hope that you will have a nobler conception of what a Christianmanhood may be made in a country so rich in opportunities as our own nowpresents?"[55]

In Dr. Butler's sermons our thoughts were directed to such subjects asthe Housing of the Working Classes, Popular Education, and the contrastbetween the lot of the rich and the lot of the poor. "May God neverallow us to grow proud, or to grow indolent, or to be deaf to the cry ofhuman suffering. " "Pray that God may count you worthy to be foremost inthe truly holy and heroic work of bringing purity to the homes of thelabouring classes, and so hastening the coming of the day when thelonging of our common Lord shall be accomplished. " "Forget not thecomplaints, and the yet more fatal silence, of the poor, and pray thatthe ennobling of your own life, and the gratification of your ownhappiness, may be linked hereafter with some public Christian labour. "

Thus the influences of school co-operated with the influences of home togive one, at the most impressionable age, a lively interest in SocialService; and that interest found a practical outlet at Oxford. Whenyoung men first attempt good works, they always begin with teaching; anda Sunday School at Cowley and a Night School at St. Frideswide's werethe scenes of my (very unsuccessful) attempts in that direction. Throughmy devotion to St. Barnabas', I became acquainted with the homes andlives of the poor in the then squalid district of "Jericho"; and theexperience thus acquired was a valuable complement to the knowledge ofthe agricultural poor which I had gained at home. It was at this timethat I first read _Yeast_ and _Alton Locke_. The living voice of Ruskintaught us the sanctity of work for others. A fascinating but awful bookcalled _Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism_ laid compellinghands on some young hearts; and in 1875 Dr. Pusey made that book thesubject of a sermon before the University, in which he pleaded the causeof the poor with an unforgettable solemnity. [56]

For two or three years, illness and decrepitude interfered with myactive service, but the ideal was still enthroned in my heart; and, ashealth returned, the shame of doing nothing for others becameintolerable. Return to activity was a very gradual process, and, if onehad ever "despised the day of small things, " one now learned to valueit. When I came up to London, two or three of us, who had beenundergraduate friends at Oxford, formed a little party forworkhouse-visiting. One of the party has since been a ConservativeMinister, one a Liberal Minister, and one a high official of the CentralConservative Association. Sisters joined their brothers, and we used tojog off together on Saturday afternoons to the Holborn Workhouse, which, if I remember right, stood in a poetically-named butprosaic-looking street called "Shepherdess Walk. " The girls visited thewomen, and we the men. We used to take oranges and flowers to the wards, give short readings from amusing books, and gossip with the bedriddenabout the outside world. We always had the kindest of welcomes from ourold friends; and great was their enthusiasm when they learned that twoof their visitors had been returned to Parliament at the GeneralElection of 1880. As one of the two was a Conservative and one aLiberal, the political susceptibilities of the ward were not offended, and we both received congratulations from all alike. One quaint incidentis connected with these memories. Just outside the Workhouse was a sortof booth, or "lean-to, " where a very respectable woman sold daffodilsand wall-flowers, which we used to buy for our friends inside. One day, when one of the girls of our party was making her purchase, theflower-seller said, "Would your Ladyship like to go to the LadyMayoress's Fancy Dress Ball? If so, I can send you and your brothertickets. You have been good customers to me, and I should be very gladif you would accept them. " The explanation was that the flower-sellerwas sister to the Lady Mayoress, whom the Lord Mayor had married when hewas in a humbler station. The tickets were gratefully accepted; and, when we asked the giver if she was going to the Ball, she replied, withexcellent sense and taste, "Oh, no. My sister, in her position, isobliged to give these grand parties, but I should be quite out of placethere. You must tell me all about it next time you come to theWorkhouse. "

Meanwhile, during this "day of small things" a quiet but momentousrevolution had been going on all round us, in the spheres of thought andconscience; and the earlier idea of individual service had been, notswamped by, but expanded into, the nobler conception of corporateendeavour. 

It had been a work of time. The Christian Socialism of 1848--one of thefinest episodes in our moral history--had been trampled underfoot by thewickedness of the Crimean War. To all appearance, it fell into theground and died. After two years of aimless bloodshed, peace wasrestored in 1856, and a spell of national prosperity succeeded. TheRepeal of the Corn Laws had done its work; food was cheaper; times werebetter; the revenue advanced "by leaps and bounds. " But commercialismwas rampant. It was the heyday of the Ten Pound Householder and theMiddle Class Franchise. Mr. Podsnap and Mr. Gradgrind enounced thesocial law. Bright and Cobden dominated political thinking. TheUniversities were fast bound in the misery and iron of Mill and Bain. Everywhere the same grim idols were worshipped--unrestrictedcompetition, the survival of the fittest, and universal selfishnessenthroned in the place which belonged to universal love. "The Devil takethe hindermost" was the motto of industrial life. "In the huge andhideous cities, the awful problem of Industry lay like a bad dream; butPolitical Economy warned us off that ground. We were assured that thefree play of competitive forces was bound to discover the trueequipoise. No intervention could really affect the inevitable outcome. It could only hinder and disturb. "[57] The Church, whose pride it hadbeen in remoter ages to be the Handmaid of the Poor, was bidden to leavethe Social Problem severely alone; and so ten years rolled by, while thesocial pressure on labour became daily more grievous to be borne. Butmeanwhile the change was proceeding underground, or at least out ofsight. Forces were working side by side which knew nothing of eachother, but which were all tending to the same result. The Church, boldlycasting aside the trammels which had bound her to wealth and culture, went down into the slums; brought the beauty and romance of Worship tothe poorest and the most depraved, and compelled them to come in. Whenever such a Church as St. Alban's, Holborn, or St. Barnabas, Oxford, was established in the slums of a populous city, it became a centre notonly of religious influence, but of social, physical, and educationalreform. Ruskin's many-coloured wisdom, long recognized in the domain ofArt, began to win its way through economic darkness, and chargedcheerfully against the dismal strongholds of Supply and Demand. _Untothis Last_ became a handbook for Social Reformers. The teaching ofMaurice filtered, through all sorts of unsuspected channels, intoliterature and politics and churchmanship. In the intellectual world, Huxley transformed "the Survival of the Fittest, " by bidding us devoteourselves to the task of fitting as many as possible to survive. AtOxford, the "home" not of "lost" but of victorious "causes, " T. H. Green, wielding a spiritual influence which reached farther than that ofmany bishops, taught that Freedom of Contract, if it is to be anythingbut a callous fraud, implies conditions in which men are really free tocontract or to refuse; and insisted that all wholesome competitionimplies "adequate equipment for the competitors. "

It is impossible to say exactly how all these influences intertwined andco-operated. One man was swayed by one force; another by another; and, after long years of subterranean working, a moment came, as it comes tothe germinating seed deep-hidden in the furrow, when it must pierce thesuperincumbent mass, and show its tiny point of life above ground. [58]The General Election of 1880, by dethroning Lord Beaconsfield andputting Gladstone in power, had fulfilled the strictly political objectswhich during the preceding three years my friends and I had been tryingto attain. So we, who entered Parliament at that Election, were setfree, at the very outset of our public career, to work for the SocialReform which we had at heart. We earnestly desired to make the lives ofour fellow-men healthier, sweeter, brighter, and more humane; and it wasan ennobling and invigorating ambition, lifting the pursuit of politics, out of the vulgar dust of office-seeking and wire-pulling, into thepurer air of unselfish endeavour. To some of us it was much more; for itmeant the application of the Gospel of Christ to the practical businessof modern life. But the difficulties were enormous. The Liberal partystill clung to its miserable old mumpsimus of _Laissez-faire_, andsteadily refused to learn the new and nobler language of Social Service. Alone among our leading men, Mr. Chamberlain seemed to apprehend thetruth that political reform is related to social reform as the means tothe end, and that Politics, in its widest sense, is the science of humanhappiness. 

But, in spite of all discouragements, we clung to "a Social Philosophywhich, however materialistic some of its tendencies might have become, had been allied with the spiritual Hegelianism with which we had beentouched. It took its scientific shape in the hands of Karl Marx, but italso floated to us, in dreams and visions, using our own Christianlanguage, and invoking the unity of the Social Body, as the Law ofLove, and the Solidarity of Humanity. "[59]

At the sound of these voices the old idols fell--_Laissez-faire_ and_Laissez-aller_, Individualism and Self-content, UnrestrictedCompetition and the Survival of the Fittest. They all went down with acrash, like so many dishonoured Dagons; and, before their startledworshippers had time to reinstate them, yet another voice of warningbroke upon our ears. _The Bitter Cry of Outcast London_, describing theenormous amount of preventable misery caused by over-crowding, startledmen into recognizing the duty of the State to cope with the evil. Thencame Henry George with his _Progress and Poverty_, and, as Dr. Hollandsays, he "forced us on to new thinking. " That "new thinking" tooksomething of this form--"Here are the urgent and grinding facts of humanmisery. The Political Economy of such blind guides as Ricardo andBastiat and Fawcett has signally failed to cure or even mitigate them. Now comes a new prophet with his gospel of the Single Tax. He may, ormay not, have found the remedy, but at any rate he has shown us moreclearly than ever the immensity of the evil, and our responsibility forsuffering it to continue. We profess and call ourselves Christians. Isit not about time that, casting aside all human teachings, whetherEconomic or Socialistic, we tried to see what the Gospel says about thesubject, and about our duty in regard to it?"

Out of this stress of mind and heart arose "The Christian Social Union. "It was founded in Lent, 1889, and it set forth its objects in thefollowing statement--

 "This Union consists of Churchmen who have the following objects at heart:--

 (i) To claim for the Christian Law the ultimate authority to rule social practice. 

 (ii) To study in common how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time. 

 (iii) To present CHRIST in practical life as the Living Master and King, the enemy of wrong and selfishness, the power of righteousness and love. "

The Christian Social Union, originating with some Oxford men in London, was soon reinforced from Cambridge, which had fallen under the inspiringthough impalpable influence of Westcott's teaching. Westcott was, insome sense, the continuator of Mauricianism; and so, when Westcottjoined the Union, the two streams, of Mauricianism and of the OxfordMovement, fused. Let Dr. Holland, with whom the work began, tell therest of the story--"We founded the C. S. U. Under Westcott'spresidentship, leaving to the Guild of St. Matthew their old work ofjustifying God to the People, while we devoted ourselves to convertingand impregnating the solid, stolid, flock of our own church folk withinthe fold.... We had our work cut out for us in dislodging the horriblecast-iron formulæ, which were indeed wholly obsolete, but which seemedfor that very reason to take tighter possession of their last refuge inthe bulk of the Church's laity. "

 "Let no man think that sudden in a minute All is accomplished and the work is done;-- Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it, Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun. "[60]

The spirit which created the Christian Social Union found, in the sameyear, an unexpected outlet in the secular sphere. In the Session of1888, the Conservative Ministry, noting the general disgust which hadbeen aroused by the corrupt misgovernment of Greater London, passed the"Local Government Act, " which, among other provisions, made London intoa County, gave it a "County Council, " and endowed that Council withfar-reaching powers. To social reformers this was a tremendous event. For forty years they had been labouring to procure something of thesort, and now it dropped down from the skies, and seemed at first almosttoo good to be true. Under the shock of the surprise, London suddenlyawoke to the consciousness of a corporate life. On every side men werestirred by an honest impulse to give the experiment a good start; towork the new machine for all it was worth; and to make theadministration of Greater London a model for all lesser municipalities. The Divisions of London, for the purposes of its new Council, were thesame as its Parliamentary Divisions, but each constituency returned twomembers, and the City four. Every seat (except those for St. George's, Hanover Square) was contested, and there were often as many as six orseven candidates for one division. It was said at the time that "theuncertainty of the issues, the multitude of candidates, and thevagueness of parties made it impossible to tabulate the results with thesame accuracy and completeness which are possible in the case of theHouse of Commons. " Some candidates stood professedly as Liberals, andothers as Conservatives. The majority, however, declared themselves tobe "strictly non-political. " Some leading objects, such as BetterHousing of the Poor, Sanitary Reform, and the abolition of jobbery andcorruption, were professed by all alike; and the main issues in disputewere the control of the Police by the Council, the reform of theCorporation of London and of the City Guilds, the abolition of dues oncoal coming into the Port of London, and the taxation of ground-rents. 

In such projects as these it was easy to discern the working of the newspirit. Men were trying, earnestly though amid much confusion, totranslate the doctrines of Social Reform into fact. "PracticableSocialism" became the ideal of the reforming party, who styledthemselves "Progressives. " Their opponents got the unfortunate name of"Moderates"; and between the ideas roughly indicated by those two namesthe battle was fought. The Election took place in January, 1889. Theresult was that 71 candidates labelled "Progressive" were returned, and47 "Moderates. " The Act empowered the Council to complete its number byelecting 19 Aldermen. Of these, 18 were Progressives, and one was aModerate; so the total result was a "Progressive" majority of 41. 

By the time of which I write I had become, by habitual residence, aLondoner; and I hope I was as keen on Social Reform as anyone in London, or outside it. But, after what I said in an earlier chapter, it willsurprise no one that I declined to be a candidate for the London CountyCouncil. My dislike of electioneering is so intense that nothing onearth except the prospect of a seat in Parliament would tempt me toundertake it; so to all suggestions that I should stand in theProgressive interest I turned a resolutely deaf ear. But, when theelection was over and the Progressive majority had to choose a list ofAldermen, I saw my opportunity and volunteered my services. By thegoodwill of my friends on the Council, I was placed on the "ProgressiveList, " and on the 5th of February I was elected an Alderman for sixyears. Among my colleagues were Lord Meath, Lord Lingen, Lord Hobhouse, Mr. Quintin Hogg, Sir Thomas Farrer, and Mr. Frederic Harrison. LordMeath was accepted by the Progressive party, in recognition of hisdevoted services to the cause of social amelioration, especially in thematter of Public Gardens and Open Spaces; but, with this soleexception, the list was frankly partisan. The Progressives had got amajority on the new "Parliament of London, " and had no notion ofwatering it down. 

Before the Council was created, the governing body for Greater Londonhad been the "Metropolitan Board of Works, " which had its dwelling inSpring Gardens. The old building had to be adapted to its new uses, and, while the reconstruction was in progress, the County Council waspermitted by the Corporation to meet in the Guildhall. There weassembled on the 12th of February, a highly-diversified, and, in somerespects, an interesting company. A careful analysis of our quality andoccupations gave the following results: Peers, 4; M. P. 's and ex-M. P. 's, 9; Clergymen, 2; Barristers, 14; Solicitors, 3; Soldiers, 4; Doctors, 5;Tutors, 2; Architects, 2; Builders, 4; Engineers, 3; Journalists, 4;Publisher, 1; Bankers, 5; Stock-Exchange men, 5; Auctioneers, 3; Brewer, 1; Clothiers, 2; Confectioner, 1; Drapers, 2; Grocers, 2; MineralWater-maker, 1; Optician, 1; Shoemaker, 1; Merchants, 22; Manufacturers, 13; Gentlemen at large, 8; "Unspecified, " 10. And to these must be addedthree ladies, who had been illegally elected and were soon unseated. Acurrent joke of the time represented one of our more highly-culturedCouncillors saying to a colleague drawn from another rank, --"Theacoustics of this Hall seem very defective"--to which the colleague, after sniffing, replies--"Indeed? I don't perceive anything unpleasant. "Which things were an allegory; but conveyed a true impression of oursocial and educational diversities. 

The first business which we had to transact was the election of aChairman. Lord Rosebery was elected by 104 votes to 17; and so began themost useful portion of his varied career. The honorary office ofVice-Chairman was unanimously conferred on Sir John Lubbock, afterwardsLord Avebury; and for the Deputy Chairmanship, a salaried post ofpractical importance, the Council chose Mr. J. F. B. Firth, who had madehis name as an exponent of the intricacies of Metropolitan Government. 

To watch the methods of Lord Rosebery's chairmanship was an interestingstudy. After much experience of public bodies and public meetings, Iconsider him the best chairman but one under whom I ever sat. The bestwas Mr. Leonard Courtney, now Lord Courtney of Penwith, who to the giftsof accuracy, promptness, and mastery of detail, added the rarer graceof absolute impartiality. Lord Rosebery had the accuracy, thepromptness, and the mastery, but he was not impartial. He was inclinedto add the functions of Leader of the House to those of Speaker, whichwere rightly his. When a subject on which he felt strongly was underdiscussion, and opinion in the Council was closely balanced, LordRosebery would intervene just at the close of the debate, with a short, strong, and emphatic speech, and so influence the division in favour ofhis own view. This practice is, in my judgment, inconsistent with idealchairmanship, but in the early days of the Council it was not withoutits uses. 

We had to furnish ourselves with a constitution, to distribute ourvarious powers, to frame rules of debate, and to create an order ofbusiness. To do all this in a full Council of 137 members, most of themquite unversed in public life, many of them opinionated, all articulate, and not a few vociferous, was a work of the utmost difficulty, and LordRosebery engineered it to perfection. He was suave and courteous;smoothed acrid dissensions with judicious humour; used sarcasmsparingly, but with effect; and maintained a certain dignity of bearingwhich profoundly impressed the representatives of the Great MiddleClass. "By Jove, how these chaps funk Rosebery!" was the candidexclamation of Sir Howard Vincent; and his remark applied quite equallyto his own "Moderate" friends and to my "Progressives. " It wascharacteristic of these gentry that they longed to call Lord Rosebery"My Lord, " and were with difficulty induced to substitute "Mr. Chairman. " The one member of the Council who stands out in my memory asnot having "funked" the Chairman is Mr. John Burns, whose action andbearing in the Council formed one of my most interesting studies. Theevents of February, 1885, were still present to my memory, though theCouncillor for Battersea had probably forgotten them. The change whichfour years had wrought was extraordinary. He spoke constantly andeffectively, but always with moderation, good feeling, and common sense. At the same time, he maintained a breezy independence, and, when hethought that the Chair ought to be defied, defied it. This was awkward, for the Chairman had no disciplinary powers, and there was no executiveforce to compel submission to his rulings. As far as I could observe, Mr. Burns never gave way, and yet he soon ceased to enter into conflictwith the Chair. What was the influence which tamed him? I oftenwondered, but never knew. 

The Council had got itself duly divided into Committees, and it wasnoticeable that there was an enormous rush of Councillors anxious toserve on the Housing Committee. The "Bitter Cry of Outcast London" hadnot been raised in vain, and every man in the Council seemed anxious tobear his part in the work of redressing an intolerable wrong. The weeklySession of the Council was fixed for Tuesday afternoon, to the disgustof some Progressives who hankered after the more democratic hour of 7p. M. The main part of the business was the discussion of the Reportsbrought up from the various Committees, and, when those were disposedof, abstract motions could be debated. Some earnest Liberals were alwaystrying to raise such questions as Home Rule, Land Law, Enfranchisementof Leaseholds, and other matters which lay outside the purview of theCouncil; and it was delightful to see Lord Rosebery damping down theseirregular enthusiasms, and reminding his hearers of the limits whichParliament had set to their activities. Those limits were, in allconscience, wide enough, and included in their scope Housing, Asylums, Bridges, Fire-Brigades, Highways, Reformatory Schools, Main Drainage, Parks, Theatres, and Music-Halls, besides the complicated system offinance by which all our practice was regulated. The Committees dealingwith these subjects, and several others of less importance, were mannedby able, zealous, and conscientious servants of the public, who gaveungrudgingly of their time (which in many cases was also money), thought, and labour. The Council as a whole displayed a voraciousappetite for work, and rendered, without fee or reward, a service toGreater London which no money could have purchased. 

In the autumn of this year--1889--some correspondence appeared innewspapers and reviews about what was called "The New Liberalism. " Bythat title was meant a Liberalism which could no longer content itselfwith the crudities of official politics, but longed to bear its part inthe social regeneration of the race. In an article in the _NineteenthCentury_, I commented on the insensibility of the Liberal Leaders tothis new inspiration. "Who would lead our armies into Edom?" I confessthat I thought of Lord Rosebery as our likeliest champion; but I put thecause above the man. "Wherever our leader may come from, I am confidentthat the movement will go on. _Ça ira! Ça ira! Malgré les mutins, toutréussira!_ The cause of Social Service arouses that moral enthusiasmwhich cannot be bought and cannot be resisted, and which carries initself the pledge of victory. The terrible magnitude and urgency of theevils with which we have to cope cannot be overstated. Those who set outto fight them will have to encounter great and manifolddifficulties--ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, greed, cruelty, self-interest, instincts of class, cowardly distrust of popularmovements, 'spiritual wickedness in high places. ' And, in the face ofthese opposing forces, it is cheering to think that, after long years ofsingle-handed striving, the good cause now has its workers everywhere. And to none does it make a more direct or a more imperious appeal thanto us Liberal politicians. If we are worthy of the name, we must be inearnest about a cause which promises happiness, and health, and lengthof days to those who by their daily labour of hand and head principallymaintain the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race. We must be impatient ofa state of society in which healthy dwellings and unadulterated food andpure water and fresh air are made the monopolies of the rich. We must beeager to do our part towards abolishing filth and eradicating disease, and giving free scope to those beneficent laws of Nature which, if onlywe will obey them, are so manifestly designed to promote the welfare andthe longevity of man. If we believe that every human being has equallyand indefeasibly the right to be happy, we must find our chief interestand most satisfying occupation in Social Service. Our aim is, first, tolighten the load of existence for those thronging thousands of the humanfamily whose experience of life is one long suffering, and then to 'addsunshine to daylight by making the happy happier. ' The poor, theignorant, the weak, the hungry, the over-worked, all call for aid; and, in ministering to their wants, the adherent of the New Liberalism knowsthat he is fulfilling the best function of the character which heprofesses, and moreover is helping to enlarge the boundaries of theKingdom of God. "

When those words were written, the London County Council had just begunits work. I served on it till March, 1895; and during those six years ithad proved in practice what a right-minded Municipality can do towardsbrightening and sweetening human life. It cut broad roads throughsqualid slums, letting in light and air where all had been darkness andpollution. It cleared wide areas of insanitary dwellings, where onlyvice could thrive, and re-housed the dispossessed. It broke up themonotony of mean streets with beautiful parks and health-givingpleasure-grounds. It transfigured the Music-Halls, and showed that, bythe exercise of a little firmness and common sense, the tone andcharacter of the "Poor Man's Theatre" could be raised to the level ofwhat would be applauded in a drawing-room. By forbidding the sale ofrefreshments in the auditorium, it crushed the old-fashionedsuperstition that public entertainment and alcoholic drink areinseparably connected. In some of these good works it was my privilegeto bear a part; and, in that matter of the purification of theMusic-Halls, I was proud to follow the lead of Sir John McDougall, whohas since been Chairman of the Council, and who, at the time of which Iam writing, fearlessly exposed himself to unbounded calumny, and evenphysical violence, in his crusade for the moral purity of popularamusement. Those were six years of fruitful service; and, though a longtime has elapsed since I left the Council, I have constantly watched itslabours, and can heartily assent to the eulogy pronounced by my friendHenry Scott Holland, when he was quitting his Canonry at St. Paul's forhis Professorship at Oxford:

"As for London, my whole heart is still given to the lines of theProgressive policy on the County Council. I still think that this hasgiven London a soul; and that it has been by far the most effective workthat one has watched happening.... The hope of London lies with theCounty Council. "

Before I say goodbye to this portion of my "Autobiography, " let merecord the fact that the London County Council produced a poet of itsown. The first Council came to an end in March, 1892, and the second, elected on the 5th of that month, gave the Progressives a greatlyincreased majority. One of the newly-elected Councillors uttered histriumphant joy in song. 

 "Here then you have your answer, you that thought To find our London unawakened still, A sleeping plunder for you, thought to fill The gorge of private greed, and count for naught The common good. Time unto her has brought Her glorious hour, her strength of public will Grown conscious, and a civic soul to thrill The once dull mass that for your spoil you sought. Lo, where the alert majestic city stands, Dreaming her dream of golden days to be, With shaded eyes beneath her arching hands Scanning the forward pathway, like a seer To whom the riven future has made clear The marvel of some mighty destiny. "[61]

Moved by the desire to gratify a young ambition, I introduced the poetto Mr. Gladstone, and that great man, who never damned with faintpraise, pronounced that this was the finest thing written about Londonsince Wordsworth's Sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge. "

In August, 1892, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time. Hegave me a place in his Government; and for the next three years myactivities were limited to North Bedfordshire, which I then represented, the House of Commons, and Whitehall. I was restored to liberty by thedissolution of July, 1895. In my chapter about Oxford, I spoke of theRev. E. S. Talbot, then Warden of Keble, and now Bishop of Winchester, as one of those whose friendship I had acquired in undergraduate days. After serving for a while as Vicar of Leeds, he was appointed in 1895 tothe See of Rochester, which then included South London. Soon after hehad entered on his new work, he said to me, "Men of leisure are veryscarce in South London. Will you come across the Thames, and lend us ahand?"

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Dr. Butler's Harrow Sermons. Series II. 

[56] "Christianity without the Cross a Corruption of the Gospel ofChrist. "

[57] Rev. H. Scott Holland, D. D. 

[58] Honourable mention ought here to be made of "The Guild of St. Matthew, " founded by the Rev. Stewart Headlam in 1877. Its object was"To justify God to the People, " and it prepared the way for laterorganizations. 

[59] The Rev. H. S. Holland, D. D. 

[60] F. W. H. Myers. 

[61] F. Henderson, _By the Sea, and other poems_. 

XV

ECCLESIASTICA

 The English Church, as established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose sun shines alike on the evil and on the good. J. H. SHORTHOUSE, _John Inglesant_. 

Mr. Shorthouse, like most people who have come over to the Church fromDissent, set an inordinate value on the principle of Establishment. Heseemed (and in that particular he resembled Archbishop Tait) incapableof conceiving the idea of a Church as separate from, and independent of, the State. The words "as established by the law of England" in thepassage which stands at the head of this chapter appear to suggest adoubt whether the English Church, if she ceased to be "established, "could still discharge her function as the divinely-appointed dispenserof sacramental grace to the English people. Those who, like Mr. Gladstone, believe that no change in her worldly circumstances could"compromise or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Churchof this country, " would omit Mr. Shorthouse's qualifying words, andwould say, simply, that the English Church, whether established or not, offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come, and that she is, hasbeen, and always will be, "historically the same institution throughwhich the Gospel was originally preached to the English Nation. " Butthis is not the place for theorization; so, for the moment, I am contentto take Mr. Shorthouse's statement as it stands, and to say that aloving pride in the English Church has been the permanent passion of mylife. I hold with Dean Church, a man not given to hyperbole, that "inspite of inconsistencies and menacing troubles, she is still the mostglorious Church in Christendom. "

I was baptized in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Woburn, formerly a chapel dependent on the Cistercian Abbey hard by, which thefirst Earl of Bedford received as a gift from Henry VIII. [62] This trulyinteresting church was destroyed, to please an innovating incumbent, in1864; but my earliest impressions of public worship are connected withit, and in my mind's eye I can see it as clearly as if it were stillstanding. It had never been "restored "; but had been decorated by mygrandfather, who inherited the ecclesiastical rights of the Abbots ofWoburn, and whose "Curate" the incumbent was. [63] My grandfather was aliberal giver, and did his best, according to his lights, to make theChurch beautiful. He filled the East Window with stained glass, thecentral subject being his own coat of arms, with patriarchs and saintsgrouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the window was a finepicture, by Carlo Maratti, of the Holy Family. The Holy Table was atable indeed, with legs and drawers after the manner of a writing-table, and a cover of red velvet. The chancel was long; and the south side ofit was engrossed by "the Duke's Pew, " which was enclosed within highwalls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace. The north side ofthe chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the Duke's servants. Thechoir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in agallery at the West End. The whole Church was pewed throughout, andwhite-washed, the chancel being enriched with plaster mouldings. On thecapital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some familyallied to our own. The largest and most vivid presentment of the RoyalArms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel-arch. 

Our clerical staff consisted of the incumbent (who became a "Vicar" byAct of Parliament in 1868) and a curate. Our list of services was asfollows: Sunday--11 a. M. , Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, andSermon; 6 p. M. , Evening Prayer and Sermon. There was Evening Prayer witha sermon on Thursdays, and a prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesdayevenings. There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor on anyHoly Days except Good Friday and Ascension Day. The Holy Communion wasadministered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the month, andon Christmas and Easter Days; and after Evening Service on the thirdSunday. The black gown was, of course, worn in the pulpit, and Iremember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayerswere preached; the Psalms were read; and the hymn-book in use was "TheChurch and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal"--a quaint compilation whichI have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to describe thedreariness of the services; and the preaching corresponded to them. This is curious, for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing andeffective. I remember that we heard preaching of that type fromstrangers who occasionally "took duty" or "pleaded for Societies"; butour own pastors always expatiated on Justification by Faith only. Icannot recall any other subject; and, even in enforcing this, "Pulpit-eloquence, " topical allusions, and illustrations whether fromnature or from books, were rigidly eschewed. "As dull as a sermon" is aproverbial saying which for me in early boyhood had an awful truth. 

It has been stated in an earlier chapter that I discovered theSacramental System of the Church by the simple method of studying thePrayer Book. Certainly I got no help in that direction from my spiritualpastors. The incumbent was, I should think, the Lowest Churchman whoever lived. He was a Cambridge man; a thorough gentleman; well-read;wholly devoted to his sacred calling; and fearless in his assertion ofwhat he believed to be right. (He once refused to let Jowett preach inour pulpit, though the noble patron made the request. ) He was entirelyinsensible to poetry, beauty, romance, and enthusiasm; but his mind wasessentially logical, and he followed his creed to its extremestconsequences. Baptismal grace, of course, he absolutely denied. Heprepared me for Confirmation, and he began his preparation by assailingmy faith in the Presence and the Succession. He defined Confirmation as"a coming of age in the things of the soul. " I perfectly remember asermon preached on "Sacrament Sunday, " which ended with some such wordsas these, "I go to yonder table to-day; not expecting to meet the Lord, because I know He will not be there. " I have seldom heard the doctrineof the Real Absence stated with equal frankness. 

All my religious associations were with the Evangelical school, of whichmy parents were devoted adherents. My uncle, the Rev. Lord WriothesleyRussell (1804-1886), had been a disciple of Charles Simeon at Cambridge, but had completely discarded such fragments of Churchmanship as lingeredin his master's teaching. My mother (1810-1884) had been in early lifeclosely allied with "the Clapham Sect"; and our friendship with the lastsurvivor of that sect, Miss Marianne Thornton (1797-1887), linked us tothe Wilberforces, the Venns, and the Macaulays. My acquaintance withLord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) I have always esteemed one of the chiefhonours of my life. He combined in a singular degree the gifts whichmake a Leader. He had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unboundedenthusiasm, inexhaustible energy. Any movement with which he wasconnected he controlled. He brooked neither opposition nor criticism. His authority was reinforced by advantages of aspect and station; by astately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence. But all these giftswere as nothing when compared with the power of his lifelongconsistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal scene at a pauper'sfuneral awoke his devotion to the cause of the poor and helpless. Seventy years later, when he lay on his deathbed, his only regret wasthat he must leave the world with so much misery in it. From first tolast, he was an Evangelical of the highest and purest type, displayingall the religious and social virtues of that school in their perfection. Yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly treated by theEvangelical party than by any other. Perhaps the explanation is thatthose excellent people were only kicking against the pricks of atoo-absolute control. 

Such were the religious associations of my early life; and I am deeplythankful for them. I have found, by much experiment, that there is nofoundation on which the superstructure of Catholic religion can be moresecurely built than on the Evangelical confession of man's uttersinfulness, and of the free pardon purchased by the Blood of Christ. Aman trained in that confession may, without sacrificing a jot of hisearlier creed, learn to accept all that the Catholic Church teachesabout Orders and Sacraments; but to the end he will retain somecharacteristic marks of his spiritual beginnings. For my own part, Ihold with Mr. Gladstone that to label oneself with an ecclesiasticalnickname would be to compromise "the first of earthly blessings--one'smental freedom[64]"; but if anyone chose to call me a "CatholicEvangelical, " I should not quarrel with the designation. 

I said in an earlier chapter that I had an inborn fondness for Catholicceremonial, and this, I suppose, was part of my general love of materialbeauty. Amid such surroundings as I have described, it was a fondnessnot easily indulged. When I was twelve years old, I was staying atLeamington in August, and on a Holy Day I peeped into the Roman Churchthere, and saw for the first time the ceremonies of High Mass; and fromthat day on I longed to see them reproduced in the Church of England. During one of our periodical visits to London, I discovered thebeautiful church in Gordon Square where the "Adherents of a RestoredApostolate" celebrate Divine Worship with bewildering splendour. Thepropinquity of our house to Westminster Abbey enabled me to enter intothe more chastened, yet dignified, beauty of the English rite. At Harrowthe brightness and colour of our School-Chapel struck my untutored eyeas "exceeding magnifical"; and the early celebrations in the ParishChurch had a solemnity which the Chapel lacked. 

But the happiest memory of all is connected with a little Church[65]about two miles from my home. It is a tiny structure of one aisle, withthe altar fenced off by a screen of carved oak. It served a group ofhalf a dozen houses, and it stood amid green fields, remote fromtraffic, and scarcely visible except to those who searched for it. Therean enthusiastic and devoted priest spent five and twenty years of anisolated ministry; and there, for the first time in our communion, I sawthe Divine Mysteries celebrated with the appropriate accessories. 

My walks to that secluded altar, in the fresh brightness of summermornings, can never be forgotten until the whole tablet is blotted. Onthe sky-line, the great masses of distant woodland, half-veiled in mist, lay like a blue cloud. Within, there was "the fair white linen clothupon the wooden table, with fresh flowers above, and the worn slabsbeneath that record the dim names of the forgotten dead"; and there"amid the faint streaks of the early dawn, the faithful, kneeling roundthe oaken railing, took into their hands the worn silver of the Grail--

 "The chalice of the Grapes of God. "[66]

Perhaps it was just as well for a boy that these glimpses of beautifulworship were few and far between. One was saved from the perils of amere externalism, and was driven inward on the unseen realities whichceremonial may sometimes obscure. And then, when one got up to Oxford, one found all the splendours of the sanctuary in rich abundance, andenjoyed them with a whole-hearted self-abandonment. I need not repeatwhat I have already said about St. Barnabas and Cowley and the otherstrongholds of Catholic worship. I am eternally their debtor, and thefriends with whom I shared them have helped to shape my life. 

But, in spite of all these enjoyments, religious life at Oxford between1872 and 1876 was not altogether happy. A strong flood of Romanism burstupon the University, and carried some of my best friends from my side;and, concurrently with this disturbance, an American teacher attackedour faith from the opposite quarter. He taught an absolute disregard ofall forms and rites, and, not content with the ordinary doctrine ofinstantaneous conversion, preached the absolute sinlessness of thebeliever. The movement which, in 1874, he set on foot was marked bydisasters, of which the nature can best be inferred from acharacteristic saying, "The believer's conflict with Sin is all stuff. "This teaching had its natural consequences, and the movement issued inspiritual tragedy. 

In the following year we were touched by the much more wholesomeenterprise of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Their teaching was wholly freefrom the perilous stuff which had defiled the previous mission; andthough it shook the faith of some who had cultivated the husk ratherthan the kernel of ritualism, still all could join in the generoustribute paid by Dr. Liddon on Whitsun Day, 1876:

"Last year two American preachers visited this country, to whom God hadgiven, together with earnest belief in some portions of the gospel, acorresponding spirit of fearless enterprise. Certainly they had no suchcredentials of an Apostolic Ministry as a well-instructed and believingChurchman would require.... And yet, acting according to the light whichGod had given them, they threw themselves on our great cities with theardour of Apostles; spoke of a higher world to thousands who pass thegreater part of life in dreaming only of this; and made many of us feelthat we owe them at least the debt of an example, which He Who breathethwhere He listeth must surely have inspired them to give us. "[67]

When I came up to London after leaving Oxford, "the world was all beforeme where to choose, " and I made a pretty wide survey before deciding onmy habitual place of worship. St. Paul's Cathedral had lately awoke fromits long sleep, and, under the wise guidance of Church, Gregory, andLiddon, was beginning to show the perfection of worship on the strictline of the English Prayer-Book. 

Being by temperament profoundly Gothic, I hold (with Sir WilliamRichmond) that Westminster Abbey is the most beautiful church in theworld. But it had nothing to offer in the way of seemly worship; and, while Liddon was preaching the Gospel at St. Paul's, Dean Stanley atWestminster was delivering the fine rhetoric and dubious history whichwere his substitutes for theology, and with reference to which a Jewishlady said to me, "I have heard the Dean preach for eighteen years, and Ihave never heard a word from him which I could not accept. " At theTemple, Dr. Vaughan was at the height of his vogue, and Sunday afterSunday was teaching the lawyers the effective grace of a nervous andfinished style. 

All Saints, Margaret Street, St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and St. Barnabas, Pimlico, showed a type of worship refined, artistic, andrather prim. St. Alban's, Holborn, "the Mother and Mistress" of allritualistic churches, combined Roman ceremonial with the passionatelyEvangelical teaching of the greatest extempore preacher I have everheard, Arthur Stanton. St. Michael's, Shoreditch, and St. Peter's, London Docks, were outposts of the ritualistic army. The Low Churchcongregated at Portman Chapel, and Belgrave Chapel, and Eaton Chapel(all since demolished), at St. Michael's, Chester Square, and St. John's, Paddington. Broad Churchmen, as a rule, were hidden in holes andcorners; for the bizarre magnificence of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, had not yet superseded the humble structure in which Henry Blunt hadformerly preached into the Duchess of Beaufort's[68] ear-trumpet; andSt. Margaret's, Westminster, had only just begun to reverberate therolling eloquence of Dr. Farrar. At St. Peter's, Eaton Square, amidsurroundings truly hideous, George Wilkinson, afterward Bishop of St. Andrews, dominated, sheerly by spiritual force, a congregation which, having regard to the numbers, wealth, and importance of the men whocomposed it, was the most remarkable that I have ever seen. CabinetMinisters, great noblemen, landed proprietors, Members of Parliament, soldiers, lawyers, doctors, and "men about town, " were the clay whichthis master-potter moulded at his will. 

Then, as now, Society loved to be scolded, and the more Mr. Wilkinsonthundered, the more it crowded to his feet. "Pay your bills. " "Get upwhen you are called. " "Don't stay at a ball till two, and then say youare too delicate for early services. " "Eat one dinner a day instead ofthree, and try to earn that one. " "Give up champagne for the season, andwhat you save on your wine-merchant's bill send to the Mission-Field. ""You are sixty-five years old, and have never been confirmed. Never toolate to mend. Join a Confirmation Class at once, and try to remedy, bygood example now, the harm you have done your servants or yourneighbours by fifty years' indifference. " "Sell that diamond cross whichyou carry with you into the sin-polluted atmosphere of the Opera, givethe proceeds to feed the poor, and wear the only real cross--the crossof self-discipline and self-denial. " These are echoes, faint, indeed, but not, I think, unfaithful, of St. Peter's pulpit in its days ofglory. 

When I look back upon the Church in London as it was when I first knewit, and when I compare my recollections with what I see now, I note, ofcourse, a good many changes, and not all of them improvements. TheEvangelicals, with their plain teaching about sin and forgiveness, aregone, and their place is taken by the professors of a flabbylatitudinarianism, which ignores sin--the central fact of humanlife--and therefore can find no place for the Atonement. Heresy ispreached more unblushingly than it was thirty years ago; and when ittries to disguise itself in the frippery of æsthetic Anglicanism, itleads captive not a few. In the churches commonly called Ritualistic, Inote one great and significant improvement. English Churchmen havegradually discovered that they have an indigenous ritual of theirown--dignified, expressive, artistic, free from fuss and fidgets--andthat they have no need to import strange rites from France or Belgium. The evolution of the English Rite is one of the wholesome signs of thetimes. About preaching, I am not so clear. The almost complete disuse ofthe written sermon is in many ways a loss. The discipline of the paperprotects the flock alike against shambling inanities, and against a tooboisterous rhetoric. No doubt a really fine extempore sermon is a greatwork of art; but for nine preachers out of ten the manuscript is thesafer way. 

As regards the quality of the clergy, the change is all to the good. When I was a boy at Harrow, Dr. Vaughan, preaching to us on ourFounder's Day, spoke with just contempt of "men who choose the Ministrybecause there is a Family Living waiting for them; or because they thinkthey can make that profession--that, and none other--compatible withindolence and self-indulgence; or because they imagine that a scantiertalent and a more idle use of it can in that one calling be made tosuffice. " "These notions, " he added, "are out of date, one Act ofDisestablishment would annihilate them. " That Act of Disestablishmenthas not come yet, but the change has come without waiting for it. Eventhe "Family Living" no longer attracts. Young men seek Holy Ordersbecause they want work. Clerical dreams of laziness or avarice, self-seeking or self-indulgence, have gone out for ever; and the EnglishChurch has in her commissioned service a band of men whose devotion andself-sacrifice would be a glory to any Church in Christendom. 

An active politician, as I was thirty years ago, has not much leisure;but all through my parliamentary work I sought to bear in mind that Lifeis Service. I helped to found the White Cross League, and worked hardfor the cause which it represents. I bore a hand in Missions andBible-classes. I was a member of a Diocesan Conference. I had ten yearsof happy visiting in Hospitals, receiving infinitely more than I couldever give. And I should think that no man of my age has spoken on somany platforms, or at so many Drawing Room meetings. But all this wasdesultory business, and I always desired a more definite obligation. 

On St. Luke's Day, 1895, my loved and honoured friend, Edward Talbot, formerly Warden of Keble, was consecrated 100th Bishop of Rochester; andthe diocese at that time included all South London. As soon as heestablished himself there, the new Bishop, so I have already stated, asked me to come across the Thames, and do some definite work in SouthLondon. At first, that work consisted of service on a Public MoralsCommittee, and of lecturing on ecclesiastical topics; but gradually thefield contracted in one direction and expanded in another. 

It was in 1891 that Dr. Temple, then Bishop of London, and afterwardsArchbishop of Canterbury, being anxious to lighten the burden ofpreaching which lies so heavily on hardworked clergy, determined tolicense lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a boldstep, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristicallydeclared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, whenthe Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one wouldbe churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that theBishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band oflicensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuableaid. I was from the first a good deal attracted by the prospect ofjoining this band, but Parliament and Office left me no availableleisure. When Dr. Talbot became Bishop of Rochester, he at once took inhand the work of reorganizing the body of Lay-Readers in his Diocese;and before long had determined to follow the example set by BishopTemple, and to license some of his readers to speak at extra services inconsecrated buildings. He made it quite clear from the first--and thepoint has subsequently been established by Convocation--that there wasno idea of reviving the Minor Orders. The lay-reader was to be, in everysense, a layman; and, while he might speak, under proper restrictions, in a consecrated building, he still would speak not "as one havingauthority, " but simply as brother-man to brother-men. 

I was admitted to the office of a Diocesan Lay-Reader, in the PrivateChapel of the Bishop's House at Kennington, on the 15th of January, 1898, and have been permitted to spend fifteen years of happy service inthis informal ministry. 

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Cf. Froude's "Short Studies in Great Subjects. "

[63] It may perhaps be worth noting that my parents were married, in1834, by a Special License issued by my grandfather as Abbot of Woburn. 

[64] _Letters on the Church and Religion. _ Vol. I. , p. 385. 

[65] Pottesgrove. 

[66] J. H. Shorthouse--Introduction to George Herbert's _Temple_. 

[67] _Influences of the Holy Spirit. _ University Sermons, Series II. 

[68] Charlotte Sophia, Duchess of Beaufort, a leader of the Evangelicalparty, died 1854--aged eighty-four. 

THE END

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