PRIME MINISTERS

AND SOME OTHERS

A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL

TOTHE EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON, K. G. , I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK, NOT SHARING HIS OPINIONS BUTPRIZING HIS FRIENDSHIP

NOTE

My cordial thanks for leave to reproduce papers already publishedare due to my friend Mr. John Murray, and to the Editors of the_Cornhill Magazine_, the _Spectator_, the _Daily News_, the _ManchesterGuardian_, the _Church Family Newspaper_, and the _Red Triangle_. 

G. W. E. R. 

_July_, 1918. 

CONTENTS

I. --PRIME MINISTERS

 I. LORD PALMERSTON II. LORD RUSSELL III. LORD DERBY IV. BENJAMIN DISRAELI V. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE VI. LORD SALISBURY VIII. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR IX. HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

II. --IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP

 I. GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS II. HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND III. LORD HALLIFAX IV. LORD AND LADY RIPON V. "FREDDY LEVESON" VI. SAMUEL WHITBREAD VII. HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER VIII. BASIL WILBERFORCE IX. EDITH SICHEL X. "WILL" GLADSTONE XI. LORD CHARLES RUSSELL

III. --RELIGION AND THE CHURCH

 I. A STRANGE EPIPHANY II. THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION III. PAN-ANGLICANISM IV. LIFE AND LIBERTY V. LOVE AND PUNISHMENT VI. HATRED AND LOVE VII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE VIII. A SOLEMN FARCE

IV. --POLITICS

 I. MIRAGE II. MIST III. "DISSOLVING THROES" IV. INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER V. REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS VI. "THE INCOMPATIBLES" VII. FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS

V. --EDUCATION

 I. EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE II. THE GOLDEN LADDER III. OASES IV. LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE V. THE STATE AND THE BOY VI. A PLEA FOR INNOCENTS

VI. --MISCELLANEA

 I. THE "HUMOROUS STAGE" II. THE JEWISH REGIMENT III. INDURATION IV. FLACCIDITY V. THE PROMISE OF MAY VI. PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM

VII. --FACT AND FICTION

 I. A FORGOTTEN PANIC II. A CRIMEAN EPISODE

I

PRIME MINISTERS

PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS

I

_LORD PALMERSTON_

I remember ten Prime Ministers, and I know an eleventh. Some havepassed beyond earshot of our criticism; but some remain, pale andineffectual ghosts of former greatness, yet still touched by thathuman infirmity which prefers praise to blame. It will behove meto walk warily when I reach the present day; but, in dealing withfigures which are already historical, one's judgments may becomparatively untrammelled. 

I trace my paternal ancestry direct to a Russell who entered theHouse of Commons at the General Election of 1441, and since 1538some of us have always sat in one or other of the two Houses ofParliament; so I may be fairly said to have the Parliamentary traditionin my blood. But I cannot profess to have taken any intelligentinterest in political persons or doings before I was six yearsold; my retrospect, therefore, shall begin with Lord Palmerston, whom I can recall in his last Administration, 1859-1865. 

I must confess that I chiefly remember his outward characteristics--hislarge, dyed, carefully brushed whiskers; his broad-shouldered figure, which always seemed struggling to be upright; his huge and ratherdistorted feet--"each foot, to describe it mathematically, was afour-sided irregular figure"--his strong and comfortable seat onthe old white hack which carried him daily to the House of Commons. Lord Granville described him to a nicety: "I saw him the othernight looking very well, but old, and wearing a green shade, whichhe afterwards concealed. He looked like a retired old croupierfrom Baden. "

Having frequented the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the moreprivileged seats "under the Gallery, " from my days of knickerbockers, I often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather"bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort ofgood-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off aninconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ardour ofa Radical supporter. 

Of course, a boy's attention was attracted rather by appearance andmanner than by the substance of a speech; so, for a frank estimateof Palmerston's policy at the period which I am discussing, I turnto Bishop Wilberforce (whom he had just refused to make Archbishopof York). 

"That wretched Pam seems to me to get worse and worse. There isnot a particle of veracity or noble feeling that I have ever beenable to trace in him. He manages the House of Commons by debauchingit, making all parties laugh at one another; the Tories at theLiberals, by his defeating all Liberal measures; the Liberals atthe Tories, by their consciousness of getting everything that is tobe got in Church and State; and all at one another, by substitutinglow ribaldry for argument, bad jokes for principle, and an openlyavowed, vainglorious, imbecile vanity as a panoply to guard himselffrom the attacks of all thoughtful men. "

But what I remember even more clearly than Palmers ton is appearanceor manner--perhaps because it did not end with his death--is theestimation in which he was held by that "Sacred Circle of theGreat-Grandmotherhood" to which I myself belong. 

In the first place, it was always asserted, with emphasis and evenwith acrimony, that he was not a Whig. Gladstone, who did not muchlike Whiggery, though he often used Whigs, laid it down that "to bea Whig a man must be a born Whig, " and I believe that the doctrineis absolutely sound. But Palmerston was born and bred a Tory, andfrom 1807 to 1830 held office in Tory Administrations. The remainingthirty-five years of his life he spent, for the most part, in WhigAdministrations, but a Whig he was not. The one thing in the worldwhich he loved supremely was power, and, as long as this was secured, he did not trouble himself much about the political complexion ofhis associates. "Palmerston does not care how much dirt he eats, so long as it is gilded dirt;" and, if gilded dirt be the rightdescription of office procured by flexible politics, Palmerstonate, in his long career, an extraordinary amount of it. 

Then, again, I remember that the Whigs thought Palmerston veryvulgar. The newspapers always spoke of him as an aristocrat, butthe Whigs knew better. He had been, in all senses of the word, aman of fashion; he had won the nickname of "Cupid, " and had figured, far beyond the term of youth, in a raffish kind of smart societywhich the Whigs regarded with a mixture of contempt and horror. His bearing towards the Queen, who abhorred him--not without goodreason--was considered to be lamentably lacking in that ceremoniousrespect for the Crown which the Whigs always maintained even whenthey were dethroning Kings. Disraeli likened his manner to thatof "a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress, " and onewho was in official relations with him wrote: "He left on myrecollection the impression of a strong character, with an intellectwith a coarse vein in it, verging sometimes on brutality, and of amind little exercised on subjects of thought beyond the immediateinterests of public and private life, little cultivated, and drawingits stores, not from reading but from experience, and long andvaried intercourse with men and women. "

Having come rather late in life to the chief place in politics, Palmerston kept it to the end. He was an indomitable fighter, andhad extraordinary health. At the opening of the Session of 1865 hegave the customary Full-Dress Dinner, and Mr. Speaker Denison, [*]who sat beside him, made this curious memorandum of his performanceat table: "He ate two plates of turtle soup; he was then served veryamply to cod and oyster sauce; he then took a _pâté_; afterwardshe was helped to two very greasy-looking entrées; he then despatcheda plate of roast mutton; there then appeared before him the largest, and to my mind the hardest, slice of ham that ever figured on thetable of a nobleman, yet it disappeared just in time to answer theenquiry of the butler, 'Snipe or pheasant, my lord?' He instantlyreplied, 'Pheasant, ' thus completing his ninth dish of meat atthat meal. " A few weeks later the Speaker, in conversation withPalmerston, expressed a hope that he was taking care of his health, to which the octogenarian Premier replied: "Oh yes--indeed I am. Ivery often take a cab at night, and if you have both windows openit is almost as good as walking home. " "Almost as good!" exclaimedthe valetudinarian Speaker. "A through draught and a north-eastwind! And in a hack cab! What a combination for health!"

[Footnote *: Afterwards Lord Ossington. ]

Palmerston fought and won his last election in July, 1865, beingthen in his eighty-first year, and he died on the 15th of Octobernext ensuing. On the 19th the Queen wrote as follows to the statesmanwho, as Lord John Russell, had been her Prime Minister twenty yearsbefore, and who, as Earl Russell, had been for the last six yearsForeign Secretary in Palmerston's Administration: "The Queen canturn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend ofhers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister and to carryon the Government. "

It is sometimes said of my good friend Sir George Trevelyan that hismost responsible task in life has been to "live up to the positionof being his uncle's nephew. " He has made a much better job of histask than I have made of mine; and yet I have never been indifferentto the fact that I was related by so close a tie to the author ofthe first Reform Bill, and the chief promoter--as regards thiscountry--of Italian unity and freedom. 

II

_LORD RUSSELL_

Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for thefirst time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interestedin the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Praytell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising youngman in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied, "George Byng, ma'am, " signifying thereby a youth who eventuallybecame the third Earl of Strafford. 

In 1865 Lord John, who in the meantime had been created Earl Russell, became, after many vicissitudes in office and opposition, PrimeMinister for the second time. The Queen, apparently hard put toit for conversation, asked him whom he now considered the mostpromising young man in the Liberal party. He replied, withouthesitation, "George Byng, ma'am, " thereby eliciting the very naturalrejoinder, "But that's what you told me twenty years ago!"

This fragment of anecdotage, whether true or false, is eminentlycharacteristic of Lord Russell. In principles, beliefs, opinions, even in tastes and habits, he was singularly unchanging. He livedto be close on eighty-six; he spent more than half a century inactive politics; and it would be difficult to detect in all thoseyears a single deviation from the creed which he professed when, being not yet twenty-one, he was returned as M. P. For his father'spocket-borough of Tavistock. 

From first to last he was the staunch and unwavering champion offreedom--civil, intellectual, and religious. At the very outsetof his Parliamentary career he said, "We talk much--and think agreat deal too much--of the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish wecould imitate the courage of our ancestors. They were not readyto lay their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every vain orimaginary alarm. " At the close of life he referred to England as"the country whose freedom I have worshipped, and whose libertiesand prosperity I am not ashamed to say we owe to the providenceof Almighty God. "

This faith Lord Russell was prepared to maintain at all times, inall places, and amid surroundings which have been known to testthe moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundlyattached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian succession, he was nocourtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, and he had a habitof applying the principles of our English Revolution to the issuesof modern politics. 

Actuated, probably, by some playful desire to probe the heart ofWhiggery by putting an extreme case, Queen Victoria once said:"Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign?" "Well, ma'am, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can onlysay that I suppose it is!"

When Italy was struggling towards unity and freedom, the Queen wasextremely anxious that Lord John, then Foreign Secretary, shouldnot encourage the revolutionary party. He promptly referred HerMajesty to "the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688, " and informedher that, "according to those doctrines, all power held by Sovereignsmay be forfeited by misconduct, and each nation is the judge ofits own internal government. "

The love of justice was as strongly marked in Lord John Russell asthe love of freedom. He could make no terms with what he thoughtone-sided or oppressive. When the starving labourers of Dorsetcombined in an association which they did not know to be illegal, he urged that incendiaries in high places, such as the Duke ofCumberland and Lord Wynford, were "far more guilty than the labourers, but the law does not reach them, I fear. "

When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the groundof expense, he said:

"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you mayas well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no rightto raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice isthe first and primary end of all government. "

Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections ofmy uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston'sGovernment, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes, in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge--theprettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he was very muchwhat _Punch_ always represented him--very short, with a head andshoulders which might have belonged to a much larger frame. Whensitting he might have been taken for a man of average height, andit was only when he rose to his feet that his diminutive staturebecame apparent. 

One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which hadwhat, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to becalled "an aristocratic drawl, " and his pronunciation was archaic. Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers"and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man, " and was much "obleeged"where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged. "

The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his mannerwere really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced, even among people who ought to have known him better, a totallyerroneous impression of his character and temperament. 

In the small social arts, which are so valuable an equipment fora political leader, he was indeed deficient. He had no memory forfaces, and was painfully apt to ignore his political supporterswhen he met them outside the walls of Parliament; and this inabilityto remember faces was allied with a curious artlessness which madeit impossible for him to feign a cordiality he did not feel. Inhis last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, butit was not in my heart. " The friends needed no such assurance, forin private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tenderto an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genialhost and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummatejudge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful, full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those toldby the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of hisown personal experience and intercourse with other distinguishedmen. "

When Lord Palmerston died, _The Times_ was in its zenith, and itseditor, J. T. Delane, had long been used to "shape the whispers"of Downing Street. Lord Russell resented journalistic dictation. "I know, " he said, "that Mr. Delane is very angry because I did notkiss his hand instead of the Queen's" _The Times_ became hostile, and a competent critic remarked:"

"There have been Ministers who knew the springs of that publicopinion which is delivered ready digested to the nation every morning, and who have not scrupled to work them for their own diurnalglorification, even although the recoil might injure their colleagues. But Lord Russell has never bowed the knee to the potentates ofthe Press; he has offered no sacrifice of invitations to socialeditors; and social editors have accordingly failed to discoverthe merits of a statesman who so little appreciated them, untilthey have almost made the nation forget the services that LordRussell has so faithfully and courageously rendered. "

Of Lord Russell's political consistency I have already spoken; andit was most conspicuously displayed in his lifelong zeal for theextension of the suffrage. He had begun his political activitiesby a successful attack on the rottenest of rotten boroughs; theenfranchisement of the Middle Class was the triumph of his middlelife. As years advanced his zeal showed no abatement; again andagain he returned to the charge, though amidst the most discouragingcircumstances; and when, in his old age, he became Prime Ministerfor the second time, the first task to which he set his hand wasso to extend the suffrage as to include "the best of the workingclasses. "

In spite of this generous aspiration, it must be confessed thatthe Reform Bill of 1866 was not a very exciting measure. It loweredthe qualification for the county franchise to £14 and that forthe boroughs to £7; and this, together with the enfranchisementof lodgers, was expected to add 400, 000 new voters to the list. 

The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm. Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought itrevolutionary, and made common cause with the Tories to defeatit. As it was introduced into the House of Commons, Lord Russellhad no chance of speaking on it; but Gladstone's speeches for itand Lowe's against it remain to this day among the masterpiecesof political oratory, and eventually it was lost, on an amendmentmoved in committee, by a majority of eleven. Lord Russell of courseresigned. The Queen received his decision with regret. It was evidentthat Prussia and Austria were on the brink of war, and Her Majestyconsidered it a most unfortunate moment for a change in her Government. She thought that the Ministry had better accept the amendment andgo on with the Bill. But Lord Russell stood his ground, and thatground was the highest. "He considers that vacillation on such aquestion weakens the authority of the Crown, promotes distrustof public men, and inflames the animosity of parties. "

On the 26th of June, 1866, it was announced in Parliament thatthe Ministers had resigned, and that the Queen had sent for LordDerby. Lord Russell retained the Liberal leadership till Christmas, 1867, and then definitely retired from public life, though hisinterest in political events continued unabated to the end. 

Of course, I am old enough to remember very well the tumults andcommotions which attended the defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866. They contrasted strangely with the apathy and indifference whichhad prevailed while the Bill was in progress; but the fact was thata new force had appeared. The Liberal party had discovered Gladstone;and were eagerly awaiting the much more democratic measure whichthey thought he was destined to carry in the very near future. That it was really carried by Disraeli is one of the ironies ofour political history. 

During the years of my uncle's retirement was much more in hiscompany than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he wasForeign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to mea second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spentthere by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball withCharles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland;had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, anddined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company ofSir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; hadconversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had riddenwith the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It wasnot without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career, epitomized it in Dryden couplet:

 "Not heaven itself upon the past has power, But what has been has been, and I have had my hour. "

III

_LORD DERBY_

My opportunities of observing Lord Derby at close quarters, werecomparatively scanty. When, in June, 1866, he kissed hands as PrimeMinister for the third time, I was a boy of thirteen, and I was onlysixteen when he died. I had known Lord Palmerston in the House ofCommons and Lord Russell in private life; but my infant footstepswere seldom guided towards the House of Lords, and it was onlythere that "the Rupert of debate" could at that time be heard. 

The Whigs, among whom I was reared, detested Derby with the peculiardetestation which partisans always feel for a renegade. In 1836Charles Dickens, in his capacity of Parliamentary reporter, hadconversed with an ancient M. P. Who allowed that Lord Stanley--whobecame Lord Derby in 1851--might do something one of these days, but "he's too young, sir--too young. " The active politicians ofthe sixties did not forget that this too-young Stanley, heir of agreat Whig house, had flung himself with ardour into the popularcause, and, when the Lords threw out the first Reform Bill, hadjumped on to the table at Brooks's and had proclaimed the greatconstitutional truth--reaffirmed over the Parliament Bill in 1911--that"His Majesty can clap coronets on the heads of a whole company ofhis Foot Guards. "

The question of the influences which had changed Stanley from aWhig to a Tory lies outside the purview of a sketch like this. Formy present purpose it must suffice to say that, as he had absolutelynothing to gain by the change, we may fairly assume that it was dueto conviction. But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition, or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remainedWhigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, saidthat Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth, but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledgedhelp. " Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings ofa party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into theopposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as anyparty would have been thankful to claim. 

He was the future head of one of the few English families whichthe exacting genealogists of the Continent recognize as noble. Topedigree he added great possessions, and wealth which the industrialdevelopment of Lancashire was increasing every day. He was a gracefuland tasteful scholar, who won the Chanceller's prize for Latinverse at Oxford, and translated the Iliad into fluent hexameters. Good as a scholar, he was, as became the grandson of the founderof "The Derby, " even better as a sportsman; and in private lifehe was the best companion in the world, playful and reckless, asa schoolboy, and never letting prudence or propriety stand betweenhim and his jest. "Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall have!" was hischaracteristic greeting to Lord John Russell, when that ancientrival entered the House of Lords. 

Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great naturalgift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nicknameof "Rupert, " and a voice which would have stirred his hearers ifhe had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a brilliant sketch of hissocial aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield's_Endymion_; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same greatman's account, reported by Matthew Arnold: "Full of nerve, dash, fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along withhim. "

In the Parliament of 1859-1865 (with which my political recollectionsbegin) Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord Derby Leaderof the Opposition, with Disraeli as his lieutenant in the Houseof Commons. If, as Lord Randolph Churchill said in later years, the business of an Opposition is to oppose, it must be admittedthat Derby and Disraeli were extremely remiss. It was suspected atthe time, and has since been made known through Lord Malmesbury's_Memoirs_, that there was something like an "understanding" betweenPalmerston and Derby. As long as Palmerston kept his Liberal colleaguesin order, and chaffed his Radical supporters out of all the reformson which their hearts were set, Derby was not to turn him out ofoffice, though the Conservative minority in the House of Commonswas very large, and there were frequent openings for harassingattack. 

Palmerston's death, of course, dissolved this compact; and, thoughthe General Election of 1865 had again yielded a Liberal majority, the change in the Premiership had transformed the aspect of politicalaffairs. The new Prime Minister was in the House of Lords, seventy-threeyears old, and not a strong man for his age. His lieutenant in theHouse of Commons was Gladstone, fifty-five years old, and in thefullest vigour of body and mind. Had any difference of opinionarisen between the two men, it was obvious that Gladstone was in aposition to make his will prevail; but on the immediate business ofthe new Parliament they were absolutely at one, and that businesswas exactly what Palmerston had for the last six years successfullyopposed--the extension of the franchise to the working man. Whenno one is enthusiastic about a Bill, and its opponents hate it, there is not much difficulty in defeating it, and Derby and Disraeliwere not the men to let the opportunity slide. With the aid of themalcontent Whigs they defeated the Reform Bill, and Derby becamePrime Minister, with Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons. Itwas a conjuncture fraught with consequences vastly more importantthan anyone foresaw. 

In announcing his acceptance of office (which he had obtained bydefeating a Reform Bill), Derby amazed his opponents and agitatedhis friends by saying that he "reserved to himself complete libertyto deal with the question of Parliamentary reform whenever suitableoccasion should arise. " In February, 1867, Disraeli, on behalfof the Tory Government, brought in the first really democraticReform Bill which England had ever known. He piloted it throughthe House of Commons with a daring and a skill of which I was aneye-witness, and, when it went up to the Lords, Derby persuadedhis fellow-peers to accept a measure which established householdsuffrage in the towns. 

It was "a revolution by due course of law, " nothing less; and tothis day people dispute whether Disraeli induced Derby to acceptit, or whether the process was reversed. Derby called it "a leapin the dark. " Disraeli vaulted that he had "educated his party"up to the point of accepting it. Both alike took comfort in thefact that they had "dished the Whigs"--which, indeed, they haddone most effectually. The disgusted Clarendon declared that Derby"had only agreed to the Reform Bill as he would of old have backeda horse at Newmarket. He hates Disraeli, but believes in him ashe would have done in an unprincipled trainer: _he wins_--thatis all. "

On the 15th of August, 1867, the Tory Reform Bill received theRoyal Assent, and Derby attained the summit of his career. Inspiredby whatever motives, influenced by whatever circumstances, theTory chief had accomplished that which the most liberal-minded ofhis predecessors had never even dreamed of doing. He had rebuiltthe British Constitution on a democratic foundation. 

At this point some account of Lord Derby's personal appearancemay be introduced. My impression is that he was only of the middleheight, but quite free from the disfigurement of obesity; light inframe, and brisk in movement. Whereas most statesmen were bald, he had an immense crop of curly, and rather untidy, hair and theabundant whiskers of the period. His features were exactly of thetype which novelists used to call aristocratic: an aquiline nose, a wide but firmly compressed mouth, and a prominent chin. His dresswas, even then, old-fashioned, and his enormous black satin cravat, arranged in I know not how many folds, seemed to be a survivalfrom the days of Count D'Orsay. His air and bearing were such asone expects in a man whose position needs no advertizing; and Ihave been told that, even in the breeziest moments of unguardedmerriment, his chaff was always the chaff of a gentleman. 

Lord Beaconsfield, writing to a friend, once said that he had justemerged from an attack of the gout, "of renovating ferocity, " andthis phrase might have been applied to the long succession of goutyillnesses which were always harassing Lord Derby. Unfortunately, aswe advance in life, the "renovating" effects of gout become lessconspicuous than its "ferocity;" and Lord Derby, who was born in1799, was older than his years in 1867. In January and February, 1868, his gout was so severe that it threatened his life. He recovered, but he saw that his health was no longer equal to the strain ofoffice, and on the 24th of February he placed his resignation inthe Queen's hands. 

But during the year and a half that remained to him he was by nomeans idle. He had originally broken away from the Whigs on a pointwhich threatened the temporalities of the still-established Churchof Ireland; and in the summer of 1868 Gladstone's avowal of theprinciple of Irish Disestablishment roused all his ire, and seemedto quicken him into fresh life. The General Election was fixedfor November, and the Liberal party, almost without exception, prepared to follow Gladstone in his Irish policy. On the 29th ofOctober Bishop Wilberforce noted that Derby was "very keen, " and hadasked: "What will the Whigs not swallow? Disraeli is very sanguinestill about the elections. "

The question about the Whigs came comically from the man who hadjust made the Tories swallow Household Suffrage; and Disraeli'ssanguineness was ill-founded. The election resulted in a majorityof one hundred for Irish Disestablishment; Disraeli resigned, andGladstone became for the first time Prime Minister. 

The Session of 1869 was devoted to the Irish Bill, and Lord Derby, though on the brink of the grave, opposed the Bill in what somepeople thought the greatest of his speeches in the House of Lords. He was pale, his voice was feeble, he looked, as he was, a brokenman; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had alreadybecome traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to theLaird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight ofthe Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in Englishoratory. The speech concluded thus:

"My Lords, I am now an old man, and, like many of your Lordships, I have already passed three score years and ten. My official lifeis entirely closed; my political life is nearly so; and, in thecourse of nature, my natural life cannot now be long. That naturallife commenced with the bloody suppression of a formidable rebellionin Ireland, which immediately preceded the union between the twocountries. And may God grant that its close may not witness a renewalof the one and a dissolution of the other. "

This speech was delivered on the 17th of June, 1869, and the speakerdied on the 23rd of the following October. 

IV

_BENJAMIN DISRAEI_

I always count it among the happy accidents of my life that I happenedto be in London during the summer of 1867. I was going to Harrowin the following September, and for the next five years my chanceof hearing Parliamentary debates was small. In the summer of 1866, when the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill was thrown out, I was in thecountry, and therefore I had missed the excitement caused by thedemolition of the Hyde Park railings, the tears of the terrifiedHome Secretary, and the litanies chanted by the Reform League underGladstone's window in Carlton House Terrace. But in 1867 I was inthe thick of the fun. My father was the Sergeant-at-Arms attendingthe House of Commons, and could always admit me to the privilegedseats "under the Gallery, " then more numerous than now. So it cameabout that I heard all the most famous debates in Committee onthe Tory Reform Bill, and thereby learned for the first time thefascination of Disraeli's genius. The Whigs, among whom I was reared, did not dislike "Dizzy" as they disliked Lord Derby, or as Dizzyhimself was disliked by the older school of Tories. But they absolutelymiscalculated and misconceived him, treating him as merely an amusingcharlatan, whose rococo oratory and fantastic tricks afforded awelcome relief from the dulness of ordinary politics. 

To a boy of fourteen thus reared, the Disraeli of 1867 was anastonishment and a revelation--as the modern world would say, aneye-opener. The House of Commons was full of distinguished men--LordCranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury; John Bright and Robert Lowe, Gathorne Hardy, Bernal-Osborne, Goschen, Mill, Kinglake, Renley, Horsman, Coleridge. The list might be greatly prolonged, but ofcourse it culminates in Gladstone, then in the full vigour of hispowers. All these people I saw and heard during that memorablesummer; but high above them all towers, in my recollection, thestrange and sinister figure of the great Disraeli. The Whigs hadlaughed at him for thirty years; but now, to use a phrase of thenursery, they laughed on the wrong side of their mouths. Therewas nothing ludicrous about him now, nothing to provoke a smile, except when he wished to provoke it, and gaily unhorsed his opponentsof every type--Gladstone, or Lowe, or Beresford-Hope. He seemed, for the moment, to dominate the House of Commons, to pervade itwith his presence, and to guide it where he would. At every turnhe displayed his reckless audacity, his swiftness in transition, his readiness to throw overboard a stupid colleague, his alacrityto take a hint from an opponent and make it appear his own. TheBill underwent all sorts of changes in Committee; but still itseemed to be Disraeli's Bill, and no one else's. And, indeed, heis entitled to all the credit which he got, for it was his geniusthat first saw the possibilities hidden in a Tory democracy. 

To a boy of fourteen, details of rating, registration, and residentialqualification make no strong appeal; but the personality of thisstrange magician, un-English, inscrutable, irresistible, was profoundlyinteresting. "Gladstone, " wrote Lord Houghton to a friend, "seemsquite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, is gradually driving all ideas of political honour out of the House, and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism. " I had beentrained by people who were sensitive about "Political honour, "and I knew nothing of "cynicism"; but the "diabolical cleverness"made an impression on me which has lasted to this day. 

What was Dizzy in personal appearance? If I had not known the fact, I do not think that I should have recognized him as one of theancient race of Israel. His profile was not the least what we inEngland consider Semitic. He might have been a Spaniard or an Italian, but he certainly was not a Briton. He was rather tall than short, but slightly bowed, except when he drew himself up for the moreeffective delivery of some shrewd blow. His complexion was extremelypale, and the pallor was made more conspicuous by contrast with hishair, steeped in Tyrian dye, worn long, and eked out with artificialadditions. 

He was very quietly dressed. The green velvet trousers and ringsworn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his famein "the days of the dandies, " had long since been discarded. Hedressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coatworn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, and a black cravat tied in a loose bow--and those spring-sidedboots of soft material which used to be called "Jemimas. " I mayremark, in passing, that these details of costume were reproducedwith startling fidelity in Mr. Dennis Eadie's wonderful play--thebest representation of personal appearance that I have ever seenon the stage. 

Disraeli's voice was by nature deep, and he had a knack of deepeningit when he wished to be impressive. His articulation was extremelydeliberate, so that every word told; and his habitual manner wascalm, but not stolid. I say "habitual, " because it had variations. When Gladstone, just the other side of the Table, was thundering hisprotests, Disraeli became absolutely statuesque, eyed his opponentstonily through his monocle, and then congratulated himself, in akind of stage drawl, that there was a "good broad piece of furniture"between him and the enraged Leader of the Opposition. But when itwas his turn to simulate the passion which the other felt, he wouldshout and wave his arms, recoil from the Table and return to it, and act his part with a vigour which, on one memorable occasion, was attributed to champagne; but this was merely play-acting, andwas completely laid aside as he advanced in years. 

What I have written so far is, no doubt, an anachronism, for Ihave been describing what I saw and heard in the Session of 1867, and Disraeli did not become Prime Minister till February, 1868; butsix months made no perceptible change in his appearance, speech, or manner. What he had been when he was fighting his Reform Billthrough the House, that he was when, as Prime Minister, he governedthe country at the head of a Parliamentary minority. His triumphwas the triumph of audacity. In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, who enquired his object in life, "I want to be Prime Minister"--andnow that object was attained. At Brooks's they said, "The lastGovernment was the Derby; this is the Hoax. " Gladstone's discomfiturewas thus described by Frederick Greenwood:

"The scorner who shot out the lip and shook the head at him acrossthe Table of the House of Commons last Session has now more thanheart could wish; his eyes--speaking in an Oriental manner--standout with fatness, he speaketh loftily; and pride compasseth himabout as with a chain. It is all very well to say that the candleof the wicked is put out in the long run; that they are as stubblebefore the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away. So wewere told in other times of tribulation. This was the sort ofconsolation that used to be offered in the jaunty days of LordPalmerston. People used then to soothe the earnest Liberal by thesame kind of argument. 'Only wait, ' it was said, 'until he hasretired, and all will be well with us. ' But no sooner has the stormcarried away the wicked Whig chaff than the heavens are forthwithdarkened by new clouds of Tory chaff. "

Lord Shaftesbury, as became his character, took a sterner view. "Disraeli Prime Minister! He is a Hebrew; this is a good thing. He is a man sprung from an inferior station; another good thingin these days, as showing the liberality of our institutions. Buthe is a leper, without principle, without feeling, without regardto anything, human or Divine, beyond his own personal ambition. "

The situation in which the new Prime Minister found himself was, fromthe constitutional point of view, highly anomalous. The settlementof the question of Reform, which he had effected in the previousyear, had healed the schism in the Liberal party, and the Liberalscould now defeat the Government whenever they chose to mass theirforces. Disraeli was officially the Leader of a House in which hisopponents had a large majority. In March, 1868, Gladstone began hisattack on the Irish Church, and pursued it with all his vigour, andwith the support of a united party. He moved a series of Resolutionsfavouring Irish Disestablishment, and the first was carried by amajority of sixty-five against the Government. 

This defeat involved explanation. Disraeli, in a speech which Brightcalled "a mixture of pompousness and servility, " described hisaudiences of the Queen, and so handled the Royal name as to conveythe impression that Her Majesty was on his side. Divested of verbiageand mystification, his statement amounted to this--that, in spite ofadverse votes, he intended to hold on till the autumn, and then toappeal to the new electorate created by the Reform Act of the previousyear. As the one question to be submitted to the electors was thatof the Irish Church, the campaign naturally assumed a theologicalcharacter. On the 20th of August Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "Dizzy isseeking everywhere for support. He is all things to all men, andnothing to anyone. He cannot make up his mind to be Evangelical, Neologian, or Ritualistic; he is waiting for the highest bidder. "

Parliament was dissolved in November, and the General Electionresulted in a majority of one hundred for Gladstone and IrishDisestablishment. By a commendable innovation on previous practice, Disraeli resigned the Premiership without waiting for a hostilevote of the new Parliament. He declined the Earldom to which, asan ex-Prime Minister, he was by usage entitled; but he asked theQueen to make his devoted wife Viscountess Beaconsfield. As a youth, after hearing the great speakers of the House which he had notyet entered, he had said, "Between ourselves, I could floor themall"--but now Gladstone had "floored" him, and it took him fiveyears to recover his breath. 

V

_WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE_

Most people remember Gladstone as an old man. He reached the summitof his career when he had just struck seventy. After Easter, 1880, when he dethroned Lord Beaconsfield and formed his secondAdministration, the eighteen years of life that remained to himadded nothing to his fame, and even in some respects detractedfrom it. Gradually he passed into the stage which was indicatedby Labouchere's nickname of "The Grand Old Man"; and he enjoyedthe homage which rightly attends the closing period of an exemplarylife, wonderfully prolonged, and spent in the service of the nation. He had become historical before he died. But my recollections ofhim go back to the earlier sixties, when he was Chancellor of theExchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and they become vividat the point of time when he became Prime Minister--December, 1868. 

In old age his appearance was impressive, through the combination ofphysical wear-and-tear with the unconquerable vitality of the spiritwhich dwelt within. The pictures of him as a young man representhim as distinctly handsome, with masses of dark hair thrown backfrom a truly noble forehead, and eyes of singular expressiveness. But in middle life--and in his case middle life was continued tillhe was sixty--he was neither as good-looking as he once had been, nor, as grand-looking as he eventually became. He looked much olderthan his age. When he met the new Parliament which had been electedat the end of 1868, he was only as old as Lord Curzon is now; buthe looked old enough to be Lord Curzon's father. His life had been, as he was fond of saying, a life of contention; and the contentionhad left its mark on his face, with its deep furrows and carewornexpression. Three years before he had felt, to use his own phrase, "sore with conflicts about the public expenditure" (in which oldPalmerston had always beaten him), and to that soreness had beenadded traces of the fierce strife about Parliamentary Reform andIrish Disestablishment. F. D. Maurice thus described him: "Hisface is a very expressive one, hard-worked, as you say, and notperhaps specially happy; more indicative of struggle than of victory, though not without promise of that. He has preserved the type whichI can remember that he bore at the University thirty-six yearsago, though it has undergone curious development. "

My own recollection exactly confirms Maurice's estimate. In Gladstone'sface, as I used to see it in those days, there was no look of gladnessor victory. He had, indeed, won a signal triumph at the GeneralElection of 1868, and had attained the supreme object of a politician'sambition. But he did not look the least as if he enjoyed his honours, but rather as if he felt an insupportable burden of responsibility. He knew that he had an immense amount to do in carrying the reformswhich Palmerston had burked, and, coming to the Premiership on theeve of sixty, he realized that the time for doing it was necessarilyshort. He seemed consumed by a burning and absorbing energy; and, when he found himself seriously hampered or strenuously opposed, hewas angry with an anger which was all the more formidable becauseit never vented itself in an insolent or abusive word. A vulnerabletemper kept resolutely under control had always been to me one ofthe most impressive features in human character. 

Gladstone had won the General Election by asking the constituenciesto approve the Disestablishment of the Irish Church; and this wasthe first task to which he addressed himself in the Parliamentof 1869. It was often remarked about his speaking that in everySession he made at least one speech of which everyone said, "Thatwas the finest thing Gladstone ever did. " This was freely saidof it he speech in which he introduced the Disestablishment Billon the 1st of March, 1869, and again of that in which he wound upthe debate on the Second Reading. In pure eloquence he had rivals, and in Parliamentary management superiors; but in the power ofembodying principles in legislative form and preserving unity ofpurpose through a multitude of confusing minutiæ he had neitherequal nor second. 

The Disestablishment Bill passed easily through the Commons, butwas threatened with disaster in the Lords, and it was with profoundsatisfaction that Mrs. Gladstone, most devoted and most helpful ofwives, announced the result of the division on the Second Reading. Gladstone had been unwell, and had gone to bed early. Mrs. Gladstonewho had been listening to the debate in the House of Lords, saidto a friend, "I could not help it; I gave William a discreet poke. 'A majority of thirty-three, my dear. ' 'Thank you, my dear, ' hesaid, and turned round, and went to sleep on the other side. " Aftera stormy passage through Committee, the Bill became law on the26th of July. 

So Gladstone's first great act of legislation ended, and he wasathirst for more. Such momentous reforms as the Irish Land Act, theEducation Act, the abolition of religious tests in the University, the abolition of purchase in the Army, and the establishment of theBallot, filled Session after Session with excitement; and Gladstonepursued each in turn with an ardour which left his followers outof breath. 

He was not very skilful in managing his party, or even his Cabinet. He kept his friendships and his official relations quite distinct. He never realized the force of the saying that men who have onlyworked together have only half lived together. It was truly saidthat he understood MAN, but not men; and meek followers in theHouse of Commons, who had sacrificed money, time, toil, health, and sometimes conscience, to the support of the Government, turned, like the crushed worm, when they found that Gladstone sternly ignoredtheir presence in the Lobby, or, if forced to speak to them, calledthem by inappropriate names. His strenuousness of reforming purposeand strength of will were concealed by no lightness of touch, nogive-and-take, no playfulness, no fun. He had little of that savinggrace of humour which smoothes the practical working of life as muchas it adds to its enjoyment. He was fiercely, terribly, incessantlyin earnest; and unbroken earnestness, though admirable, exhaustsand in the long run alienates. 

There was yet another feature of his Parliamentary management whichproved disastrous to his cause, and this was his tendency to what thevulgar call hair-splitting and the learned casuistry. At Oxford menare taught to distinguish with scrupulous care between propositionsclosely similar, but not identical. In the House of Commons theyare satisfied with the roughest and broadest divisions betweenright and wrong; they see no shades of colour between black-andwhite. Hence arose two unfortunate incidents, which were nicknamed"The Ewelme Scandal" and "The Colliery Explosion"--two cases inwhich Gladstone, while observing the letter of an Act of Parliament, violated, or seemed to violate, its spirit in order to qualifyhighly deserving gentlemen for posts to which he wished to appointthem. By law the Rectory of Ewelme (in the gift of the Crown) couldonly be held by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Gladstoneconferred it on a Cambridge man, who had to procure an _ad eundem_degree at Oxford before he could accept the preferment. By law noman could be made a paid member of the Judicial Committee of thePrivy Council unless he had served as a judge. Gladstone made hisAttorney-General, Sir John Collier, a Judge for three weeks, and thenpassed him on to the Judicial Committee. Both these appointmentswere angrily challenged in Parliament. Gladstone defended them withenergy and skill, and logically his defence was unassailable. Butthese were cases where the plain man--and the House of Commonsis full of plain men--feels, though he cannot prove, that therehas been a departure from ordinary straightforwardness and fairdealing. 

Yet again; the United States had a just complaint against us; arisingout of the performances of the _Alabama_, which, built in an Englishdockyard and manned by an English crew, but owned by the Slaveowners'Confederacy, had got out to sea, and, during a two years' cruise ofpiracy and devastation, had harassed the Government of the UnitedStates. The quarrel had lasted for years, with ever-increasinggravity. Gladstone determined to end it; and, with that purpose, arranged for a Board of Arbitration, which sat at Geneva, and decidedagainst England. We were heavily amerced by the sentence of thisInternational Tribunal. We paid, but we did not like it. Gladstonegloried in the moral triumph of a settlement without bloodshed; buta large section of the nation, including many of his own party, felt that national honour had been lowered, and determined to avengethemselves on the Minister who had lowered it. 

Meanwhile Disraeli, whom Gladstone had deposed in 1868, was watchingthe development of these events with sarcastic interest and effectivecriticism, till in 1872 he was able to liken the great Liberal, Government to "a range of exhausted volcanoes, " and to say of itseminent leader that he "alternated between a menace and a sigh. " In1873 Gladstone introduced a wholly unworkable Bill for the reformof University education in Ireland. It pleased no one, and wasdefeated on the Second Reading. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sentfor Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the experiment ofgoverning the country without a majority in the House of Commons, and Gladstone was forced to resume office, though, of course, withimmensely diminished authority. His Cabinet was all at sixes andsevens. There were resignations and rumours of resignation. Hetook the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and, as some authoritiescontended, vacated his seat by doing so. Election after electionwent wrong, and the end was visibly at hand. 

At the beginning of 1874 Gladstone, confined to his house by acold, executed a _coup d'état_. He announced the Dissolution ofParliament, and promised, if his lease of power were renewed, torepeal the income-tax. _The Times_ observed: "The Prime Ministerdescends upon Greenwich" (where he had taken refuge after beingexpelled from South Lancashire) "amid a shower of gold, and mustneeds prove as irresistible as the Father of the Gods. " But thiswas too sanguine a forecast. Greenwich, which returned two members, placed Gladstone second on the poll, below a local distiller, whilehis followers were blown out of their seats like chaff before thewind. When the General Election was over, the Tories had a majorityof forty-six. Gladstone, after some hesitation, resigned withoutwaiting to meet a hostile Parliament. Disraeli became Prime Ministerfor the second time; and in addressing the new House of Commonshe paid a generous compliment to his great antagonist. "If, " hesaid, "I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief so eminent, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed ratherto exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember thegreat victories which he had fought and won; I should rememberhis illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, notits accidental or even disastrous mistakes. "

The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, andGladstone's greatest day was yet to come. 

VI

_LORD SALISBURY_

This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative, but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense theevents of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he becameLord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeededit, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attemptedto describe. 

From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office, but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his firstAdministration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the Houseof Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, onevery critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals. He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour andfriendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House ofLords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backedby a noisy and unscrupulous Press. 

In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing formsof the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If onlyhe had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlinin July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorshipfor life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed withit. "I am very unwell, " he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but Imanage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I lookas fierce as I can. "

Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce, " but agitatingfiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptlyretired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had dividedhis cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington. But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into thethick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselvespractically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, andGladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of theLiberal party. 

It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilfulopposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase, "counter-worked the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield" from 1876 to1880--and he attained his object. Lord Beaconsfield, like otherPremiers nearer our own time, imagined that he was indispensableand invulnerable. Gladstone might harangue, but Beaconsfield wouldstill govern. He told the Queen that she might safely go abroadin March, 1880, for, though there was a Dissolution impending, he knew that the country would support him. So the Queen went offin perfect ease of mind, and returned in three weeks' time to finda Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members, with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resignedwithout waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone, though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartingtonto form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his secondAdministration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lastedtill the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures, and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulationhere. 

When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determinedto resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote, who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill anddignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better;and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. Toall frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar, if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then asLord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership hewas a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as short-sightedpeople always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion was unusuallydark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty hair wereintensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon became famousfor his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. He joinedLord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his hostilityto the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both with penand tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible thatthe two men could ever again speak to one another--let alone worktogether. But political grudges are short-lived; or perhaps itwould be nearer the mark to say that, however strong those grudgesmay be, the allurements of office are stronger still. Men consciousof great powers for serving the State will often put up with agood deal which they dislike sooner than decline an opportunityof public usefulness. 

Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (whohad succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duelswith the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a nearkinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that thedays of physical duelling were over. In 1878 he accompanied LordBeaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin, being second Plenipotentiary;and when on their return he drove through the acclaiming streetsof London in the back seat of the Triumphal Car, it was generallysurmised that he had established his claim to the ultimate reversionof the Premiership. That reversion, as I said just now, he attainedin June, 1885, and enjoyed till February, 1886--a short tenure ofoffice, put the earnest of better and longer things to come. 

At this period of His career Lord Salisbury was forced to yield tothe democratic spirit so far as to "go on the stump" and addresspopular audiences in great towns. It was an uncongenial employment. His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talkeffectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working menbellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularlyunlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating, but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of thethings which interested him; but whether or not they interestedhis hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off theplatform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, therewas a general sense of mutual relief. 

But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home. The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, andhis splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere, a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, hisaudience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and, through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemedas profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spokewithout notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric, no declamation, no display. As one listened, one seemed to hear thegenuine thoughts of a singularly clever and reflective man, who hadstrong prejudices of his own in favour of religion, authority, andproperty, but was quite unswayed by the prejudices of other people. The general tone of his thought was sombre. Lord Lytton described, with curious exactness, the "massive temple, " the "large slouchingshoulder, " and the "prone head, " which "habitually stoops"--

 "Above a world his contemplative gaze Peruses, finding little there to praise!"

But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world whichhad departed so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, thisprevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, byflashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelledhim in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Carelesscritics called him "cynical, " but it was an abuse of words. Cynicismis shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury whichwas inconsistent with the highest ideals of patriotic statesmanship. 

He was by nature as shy as he was short-sighted. He shrank from newacquaintances, and did not always detect old friends. His failureto recognize a young politician who sat in his Cabinet, and a zealousclergyman whom he had just made a Bishop, supplied his circle withabundant mirth, which was increased when, at the beginning of theSouth African War, he was seen deep in military conversation withLord Blyth, under the impression that he was talking to Lord Roberts. 

But, in spite of these impediments to social facility, he was anadmirable host both at Hatfield and in Arlington Street--courteous, dignified, and only anxious to put everyone at their ease. Hisopinions were not mine, and it always seemed to me that he wasliable to be swayed by stronger wills than his own. But he wasexactly what he called Gladstone, "a great Christian statesman. "

VII

_LORD ROSEBERY_

It was in December, 1885, that the present Lord Gladstone; inconjunction with the late Sir Wemyss Reid, sent up "the HawardenKite. " After a lapse of thirty-two years, that strange creatureis still flapping about in a stormy sky; and in the process oftime it has become a familiar, if not an attractive, object. Butthe history of its earlier gyrations must be briefly recalled. 

The General Election of 1885 had just ended in a tie, the Liberalsbeing exactly equal to the combined Tories and Parnellites. Suddenlythe Liberals found themselves committed, as far as Gladstone couldcommit them, to the principle of Home Rule, which down to thattime they had been taught to denounce. Most of them followed theirleader, but many rebelled. The Irish transferred their votes in theHouse to the statesman whom--as they thought--they had squeezedinto compliance with their policy, and helped him to evict LordSalisbury after six months of office. Gladstone formed a Government, introduced a Home Rule Bill, split his party in twain, was defeatedin the House of Commons, dissolved Parliament, and was soundlybeaten at the General Election which he had precipitated. LordSalisbury became Prime Minister for the second time, and ruled, with great authority and success, till the summer of 1892. 

Meanwhile, Gladstone, by his indefatigable insistence on Home Ruleand by judicious concessions to opponents, had to some extent repairedthe damage done in 1886; but not sufficiently. Parliament was dissolvedin June, 1892, and, when the Election was over, the Liberals, _plus_the Irish, made a majority of forty for Home Rule. Gladstone realizedthat this majority, even if he could hold it together, had no chanceof coercing the House of Lords into submission; but he consideredhimself bound in honour to form a Government and bring in a secondHome Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became his Foreign Secretary, andSir William Harcourt his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The HomeRule Bill struggled through the House of Commons, but was thrownout in the Lords, 41 voting for and 419 against it. Not a singlemeeting was held to protest against this decisive action of theLords, and it was evident that the country was sick to death ofthe Irish Question. 

Gladstone knew that his public work was done, and in the spring of1894 it began to be rumoured that he was going to resign. On the 1stof March he delivered his last speech in the House of Commons, andimmediately afterwards it became known that he was really resigning. The next day he went to dine and sleep at Windsor, taking his formalletter of resignation with him. He had already arranged with theQueen that a Council should be held on the 3rd of March. At thismoment he thought it possible that the Queen might consult himabout the choice of his successor, and, as we now know from LordMorley's "Life, " he had determined to recommend Lord Spencer. 

Lord Harcourt's evidence on this point is interesting. Accordingto him--and there could not be a better authority--Sir WilliamHarcourt knew of Gladstone's intention. But he may very well havebelieved that the Queen would act (as in the event she did) onher own unaided judgment, and that her choice would fall on himas Leader of the House of Commons. The fact that he was summonedto attend the Council on the 3rd of March would naturally confirmthe belief. But _Dis aliter visum_. After the Council the Queensent, through the Lord President (Lord Kimberley), a summons toLord Rosebery, who kissed hands as Prime Minister at BuckinghamPalace on the 9th of March. 

Bulwer-Lytton, writing "about political personalities, said withperfect truth:

 "Ne'er of the living can the living judge, Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge. "

In this case, therefore, I must attempt not judgment but narrative. Lord Rosebery was born under what most people would consider luckystars. He inherited an honourable name, a competent fortune, andabilities far above the average. But his father died when he was achild, and as soon as he struck twenty-one he was "Lord of himself, that heritage of woe. "

At Eton he had attracted the notice of his gifted tutor, "BillyJohnson, " who described him as "one of those who like the palmwithout the dust, " and predicted that he would "be an orator, and, if not a poet, such a man as poets delight in. " It was a remarkablyshrewd prophecy. From Eton to Christ Church the transition wasnatural. Lord Rosebery left Oxford without a degree, travelled, went into society, cultivated the Turf, and bestowed some of hisleisure on the House of Lords. He voted for the Disestablishmentof the Irish Church, and generally took the line of what was thenconsidered advanced Liberalism. 

But it is worthy of note that the first achievement which broughthim public fame was not political. "Billy Rogers, " the well-knownRector of Bishopsgate, once said to me: "The first thing whichmade me think that Rosebery had real stuff in him was finding himhard at work in London in August, when everyone else was in acountry-house or on the Moors. He was getting up his PresidentialAddress for the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874. " Certainly, it was an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The SocialScience Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by thatomniscient charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were happilydescribed by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our dismalprovincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benchesfull of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an oratorlifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without. "One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkablyunlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-lookingeven for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style ratherhorsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cutvery deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions, it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and itabounded in glittering phrases. "

Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and hisdefinite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, importantin politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Earlyin the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man, and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics. Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association ofMidlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no needto enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberaltriumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the secondtime. 

When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a placein it to Lord Rosebery, who, with sound judgment, declined whatmight have looked like a reward for services just rendered. In1881 he consented to take the Under-Secretaryship of the HomeDepartment, with Sir William Harcourt as his chief; but the combinationdid not promise well, and ended rather abruptly in 1883. When theLiberal Government was in the throes of dissolution, Lord Roseberyreturned to it, entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in 1885. It was just at this moment that Matthew Arnold, encountering himin a country-house, thus described him: "Lord Rosebery is verygay and 'smart, ' and I like him very much. "

The schism over Home Rule was now approaching, and, when it came, Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with Gladstone, becoming ForeignSecretary in February, 1886, and falling with his chief in thefollowing summer. In 1889 he was chosen Chairman of the first LondonCounty Council, and there did the best work of his life, shaping thatpowerful but amorphous body into order and efficiency. Meanwhile, he was, by judicious speech and still more judicious silence, consolidating his political position; and before he joined Gladstone'slast Government in August, 1892, he had been generally recognized asthe exponent of a moderate and reasonable Home Rule and an advocateof Social Reform. My own belief is that the Liberal party as awhole, and the Liberal Government in particular, rejoiced in thedecision which, on Gladstone's final retirement, made RoseberyPrime Minister. 

But it was a difficult and disappointing Premiership. Harcourt, notbest pleased by the Queen's choice, was Chancellor of the Exchequer andLeader of the House of Commons. Gladstone, expounding our Parliamentarysystem to the American nation, once said: "The overweight of theHouse of Commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring itsLeader inconveniently near in power to a Prime Minister who isa Peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his chief, and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare, when he has served him very ugly tricks. "

The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget, with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellorof the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanishedmore and more completely from the public view. After the triumphof the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challengethe judgment of the country on the performances of the last threeyears. 

Thus ingloriously ended a Premiership of which much had been expected. It was impossible not to be reminded of Goderich's "transient andembarrassed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offerto my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been PrimeMinister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiershiphad only lasted for ten. 

VII

_AUTHUR JAMES BALFOUR_

When Lord Rosebery brought his brief Administration to an end, LordSalisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physicalenergy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest ofall bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden ofoffice increasingly irksome. He retired in 1902, and was succeededby his nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, The Administration formed in1895 had borne some resemblance to a family party, and had therebyinvited ridicule--even, in some quarters, created disaffection. But when Lord Salisbury was nearing the close of his career, theinterests of family and of party were found to coincide, and everybodyfelt that Mr. Balfour must succeed him. Indeed, the transfer ofpower from uncle to nephew was so quietly effected that the newPrime Minister had kissed hands before the general public quiterealized that the old one had disappeared. 

Mr. Balfour had long been a conspicuous and impressive figure inpublic life. With a large estate and a sufficient fortune, withthe Tory leader for his uncle, and a pocket-borough bidden by thatuncle to return him, he had obvious qualifications for politicalsuccess. He entered Parliament in his twenty-sixth year, at theGeneral Election of 1874, and his many friends predicted greatperformances. But for a time the fulfilment of those predictionshung fire. Disraeli was reported to have said, after scrutinizinghis young follower's attitude: "I never expect much from a manwho sits on his shoulders. "

Beyond some rather perplexed dealings with the unpopular subject ofBurial Law, the Member for Hertford took no active part in politicalbusiness. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself in Moral Science. This was an unfortunate distinction. Classical scholarship had beentraditionally associated with great office, and a high wranglerwas always credited with hardheadedness; but "Moral Science" wasa different business, not widely understood, and connected in thepopular mind with metaphysics and general vagueness. The rumourwent abroad that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy withmatters which lay quite remote from politics, and was even followingthe path of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance ofour national inclination to talk about books without reading themthat, when Mr. Balfour published _A Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, everyone rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism. His friends went about looking very solemn, and those who dislikedhim piously hoped that all this "philosophic doubt" might not endin atheism. It was not till he had consolidated his position as apolitical leader that politicians read the book, and then discovered, to their delight, that, in spite of its alarming name, it was anessay in orthodox apologetic. 

The General Election of 1880 seemed to alter the drift of Mr. Balfour'sthought and life. It was said that he still was very philosophicalbehind the scenes, but as we saw him in the House of Commons he wasonly an eager and a sedulous partisan. Gladstone's overwhelmingvictory at the polls put the Tories on their mettle, and they wereeager to avenge the dethronement of their Dagon. "The Fourth Party"was a birth of this eventful time, and its history has been writtenby the sons of two of its members. With the performances of LordRandolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff Ihave no concern; but the fourth member of the party was Mr. Balfour, who now, for the first time, began to take a prominent part inpublic business. I must be forgiven if I say that, though he wasan admirable writer, it was evident that Nature had not intendedhim for a public speaker. Even at this distance of time I can recallhis broken sentences, his desperate tugs at the lapel of his coat, his long pauses in search of a word, and his selection of the wrongword after all. 

But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of theHouse, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885, drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In thenew Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but hissphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local GovernmentBoard, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, hemight have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt orunphilosophic cocksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked astage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented since1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to Manchester, where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances of popularelection. 

The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party, beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following itsleader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething withlawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-foundzeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuateall Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons wastrying to make Parliamentary government impossible. 

At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointmentwas the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of thenext four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likenedto a young lady--"Miss Balfour, " "Clara, " and "Lucy"; he was called"a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused ofbeing a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronouncedincapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviouslyunfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration. 

The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries, rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, forthe first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment. He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special meritof not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it shouldbe repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English, that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threatswere rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, andruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administrationwas marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure todiscriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandevilleis a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did notstand alone. 

Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr. Balfour's prowess, thus described it:

"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and softspeech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic ofsenate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity, an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, androused in his friends a delight hardly surpassed in the politicsof our day. "

It is not my business to attack or defend. I only record the factthat Mr. Balfour's work in Ireland established his position asthe most important member of the Conservative party. In 1891 heresigned the Chief Secretaryship, and became Leader of the House;was an eminently successful Leader of Opposition between 1892 and1895; and, as I said before, was the obvious and unquestioned heirto the Premiership which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1902. 

As Prime Minister Mr. Balfour had no opportunity for exercisinghis peculiar gift of practical administration, and only too muchopportunity for dialectical ingenuity. His faults as a debaterhad always been that he loved to "score, " even though the scoremight be obtained by a sacrifice of candour, and that he seemedoften to argue merely for arguing's sake. It was said of the greatLord Holland that he always put his opponent's case better than theopponent put it for himself. No one ever said this of Mr. Balfour;and his tendency to sophistication led Mr. Humphrey Paul to predictthat his name "would always be had in honour wherever hairs weresplit. " His manner and address (except when he was debating) werealways courteous and conciliatory; those who were brought intoclose contact with him liked him, and those who worked under himloved him. Socially, he was by no means as expansive as the leaderof a party should be. He was surrounded by an adoring clique, andreminded one of the dignitaries satirized by Sydney Smith: "Theylive in high places with high people, or with little people whodepend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear onlyone sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a ladyveils herself from rough breezes. "

But, unfortunately, a Prime Minister, though he may "avoid" recklessmen, cannot always escape them, and may sometimes be forced tocount them among his colleagues. Lord Rosebery's Administration wassterilized partly by his own unfamiliarity with Liberal sentiment, and partly by the frowardness of his colleagues. Mr. Balfour knewall about Conservative sentiment, so far as it is concerned withorder, property, and religion; but he did not realize the economicheresy which always lurks in the secret heart of Toryism; and itwas his misfortune to have as his most important colleague a "bold, reckless man" who realized that heresy, and was resolved to workit for his own ends. From the day when Mr. Chamberlain launchedhis scheme, or dream, of Tariff Reform, Mr. Balfour's authoritysteadily declined. Endless ingenuity in dialectic, nimble exchangesof posture, candid disquisition for the benefit of the well-informed, impressive phrase-making for the bewilderment of the ignorant--theseand a dozen other arts were tried in vain. People began to laughat the Tory leader, and likened him to Issachar crouching downbetween two burdens, or to that moralist who said that he alwayssought "the narrow path which lies between right and wrong. " Hiscolleagues fell away from him, and he was unduly ruffled by theirsecession. "It is time, " exclaimed the Liberal leader, "to havedone with this fooling"; and though he was blamed by the Balfouritesfor his abruptness of speech, the country adopted his opinion. Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. Balfour that his position wasno longer tenable. He slipped out of office as quietly as he hadslipped into it; and the Liberal party entered on its ten years'reign. 

IX

_HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN_

"He put his country first, his party next, and himself last. " This, the noblest eulogy which can be pronounced upon a politician, wasstrikingly applicable to my old and honoured friend whose namestands at the head of this page. And yet, when applied to him, it might require a certain modification, for, in his view, theinterests of his country and the interests of his party were almostsynonymous terms--so profoundly was he convinced that freedom isthe best security for national welfare. When he was entertained atdinner by the Reform Club on his accession to the Premiership, hehappened to catch my eye while he was speaking, and he interjectedthis remark: "I see George Russell there. He is by birth, descent, and training a Whig; but he is a little more than a Whig. " Thusdescribing me he described himself. He was a Whig who had marchedwith the times from Whiggery to Liberalism; who had never laggedan inch behind his party, but who did not, as a rule, outstep it. His place was, so to speak, in the front line of the main body, and every forward movement found him ready and eager to take hisplace in it. His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion tothe Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidanceof sects and schisms. 

He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourishedin Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited additional wealth, whichtransformed his name from Campbell to Campbell-Bannerman--the familiar"C. -B. " of more recent times. Having graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, he entered Parliament as Member for the Stirling Burghsin 1868, and was returned by the same delightful constituency tillhis death, generally without a contest. He began official life inGladstone's first Administration as Financial Secretary to the WarOffice, and returned to the same post after the Liberal victory of1880. One of the reasons for putting him there was that his tact, goodsense, and lightness in hand enabled him to work harmoniously withthe Duke of Cambridge--a fiery chief who was not fond of Liberals, and abhorred prigs and pedants. In 1884, when Sir George Trevelyanwas promoted to the Cabinet, Campbell-Bannerman was made ChiefSecretary for Ireland, and in that most difficult office acquittedhimself with notable success. Those were not the days of "the Unionof Hearts, " and it was not thought necessary for a Liberal ChiefSecretary to slobber over murderers and outrage-mongers. On the otherhand, the iron system of coercion, which Mr. Balfour administered sounflinchingly, had not been invented; and the Chief Secretary hadto rely chiefly on his own resources of firmness, shrewdness, andgood-humour. With these Campbell-Bannerman was abundantly endowed, and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adaptedto the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turneda deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, hereplied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetoricalfury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He wasnot a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but heinvariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstatednor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastichumour which befitted his comfortable aspect, and spoke in histwinkling eyes even when he restrained his tongue. 

The Liberal Government came to an end in June, 1885. The "HomeRule split" was now nigh at hand, and not even Campbell-Bannerman'sclosest friends could have predicted the side which he would take. On the one hand, there was his congenital dislike of rant and gush, of mock-heroics and mock-pathetics; there was his strong sensefor firm government, and there was his recent experience of Irishdisaffection. These things might have tended to make him a Unionist, and he had none of those personal idolatries which carried menover because Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Spencer, or Mr. Morley hadmade the transition. On the other hand, there was his profoundconviction--which is indeed the very root of Whiggery--that eachnation has the right to choose its own rulers, and that no governmentis legitimate unless it rests on the consent of the governed. 

This conviction prevailed over all doubts and difficulties, andbefore long it became known that Campbell-Bannerman had, in his ownphrase, "found salvation. " There were those who were scandalizedwhen they heard the language of Revivalism thus applied, but itexactly hit the truth as regards a great many of the converts toHome Rule. In a very few cases--_e. G. _, in Gladstone's own--therehad peen a gradual approximation to the idea of Irish autonomy, and the crisis of December, 1885, gave the opportunity of avowingconvictions which had long been forming. But in the great majorityof cases the conversion was instantaneous. Men, perplexed by thechronic darkness of the Irish situation, suddenly saw, or thoughtthey saw, a light from heaven, and were converted as suddenly asSt. Paul himself. I remember asking the late Lord Ripon the reasonwhich had governed his decision. He answered: "I always have beenfor the most advanced thing in the Liberal programme, and Home Ruleis the most advanced thing just now, so I'm for it. " I should notwonder if a similar sentiment had some influence in the decision, arrived at by Campbell-Bannerman, who, when Gladstone formed hisHome Rule Cabinet in 1886, entered it as Secretary of State forWar. He went out with his chief in the following August, and inthe incessant clamour for and against Home Rule which occupiedthe next six years he took a very moderate part. 

When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannermanreturned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerninghis Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895. He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expectedfrom the habitual composure of his character; but it was no doubtthe more provoking because in the previous spring he had wishedto succeed Lord Peel as Speaker. He told me that the Speakershipwas the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed, and which would best have suited his capacities. But his colleaguesdeclared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true tohis fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim. 

In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership. Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Somewere for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the Houseof Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicianscall "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, andCampbell-Bannerman--the least self-seeking man in public life--foundhimself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leadershipwas an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain section ofthe Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should returnon his own terms. There were others who wished for Lord Spencer, and even in those early days there were some who already saw themakings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from these sectionalpreferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper than any two-edgedsword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow. "

The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; theIrish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the thirdtime it was rent by the South African Question. Holding that theSouth African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally againstit, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal partyas a whole rather than those of any particular section which hemight personally favour. As the campaign advanced, and the motiveswith which it had been engineered became more evident, his leadbecame clearer and more decisive. What we read about ConcentrationCamps and burnt villages and Chinese labour provoked his emphaticprotest against "methods of barbarism, " and those Liberals whoenjoyed the war and called themselves "Imperialists" openly revoltedagainst his leadership. He bore all attacks and slights andimpertinences with a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, but, though he said very little, he saw very clearly. He knew exactlythe source and centre of the intrigues against his leadership, and he knew also that those intrigues were directed to the end ofmaking Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister. The controversy aboutTariff Reform distracted general attention from these domesticcabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. Balfour suddenlyresigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman. Then camea critical moment. 

If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have comeback at the head of a great majority, and could have formed hisAdministration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelledhis successor to form his Administration out of existing materials. So the cabals took a new form. The Liberal Imperialists were eagerto have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scrupleabout serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they hadforsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by aspeech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly;but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager foremployment. The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, only too ready to forgive and forget. His motto was _Alors commealors_, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of pastintrigues. But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him thatthey would not join his Government unless he consented to go tothe House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the Houseof Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely turnedthe tables. 

The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelmingmajority; but in one sense it came too late. His health was a gooddeal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties whichdoubled the burden of office. Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, aftera long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely tillhis own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907. Heresigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd. 

His brief Premiership had not been signalized by any legislativetriumphs. He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the firstfreshness of 1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless EducationBill. But during his term of office he had two signal opportunitiesof showing the faith that was in him. One was the occasion when, indefiance of all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, "La Duma est morte!Vive la Duma!" The other was the day when he gave self-government toSouth Africa, and won the tribute thus nobly rendered by GeneralSmuts: "The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by oneof the wisest political settlements ever made in the history ofthe British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-buildersI hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought intobeing a united South Africa, will never be forgotten. "

II

IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP

I

_GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS_

The 19th of May, 1898, was Ascension Day; and, just as the earliestEucharists were going up to God, William Ewart Gladstone passed outof mortal suffering into the peace which passeth understanding. Forpeople who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, it is a shock to be told by those who are in immediate contact withyoung men that for the rising generation he is only, or scarcely, a name. For my own part, I say advisedly that he was the finestspecimen of God's handiwork that I have ever seen; and by thisI mean that he combined strength of body, strength of intellect, and spiritual attainments, in a harmony which I have never knownequalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so livedand wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England. " Of himit was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone diedthe world lost its greatest citizen. " Mr. Balfour called him "thegreatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that theworld has ever seen"; and Lord Salisbury said, "He will be longremembered as a great example, to which history hardly furnishesa parallel of a great Christian statesman. "

I have written so often and so copiously of Mr. Gladstone, who wasboth my religious and my political leader, that I might have foundit difficult to discover any fresh aspects of his character and work;but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He haspointed out certain topics which strikingly connect Gladstone'spersonality with the events and emotions of the present hour. Iwill take them as indicated, point by point. 

[Footnote *: Of the _Red Triangle_. ]

1. THE LOVE OF LIBERTY. 

I have never doubted that the master-passion of Gladstone's naturewas his religiousness--his intensely-realized relation with God, with the Saviour, and with "the powers of the world to come. " Thiswas inborn. His love of liberty was acquired. There was nothingin his birth or education or early circumstances to incline himin this direction. He was trained to "regard liberty with jealousyand fear, as something which could not wholly be dispensed with, but which was continually to be watched for fear of excesses. "Gradually--very gradually--he came to regard it as the greatestof temporal blessings, and this new view affected every departmentof his public life. In financial matters it led him to adopt thedoctrine of Free Exchanges. In politics, it induced him to extendthe suffrage, first to the artisan and then to the labourer. Inforeign affairs, it made him an unrelenting foe of the Turkishtyranny. In Ireland, it converted him to Home Rule. In religion, it brought him nearer and nearer to the ideal of the Free Churchin the Free State. 

2. BELGIUM AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 

Gladstone hated war. He held, as most people hold, that there arecauses, such as Life and Home and Freedom, for which the gentlestand most humane of men must be prepared to draw the sword. But hewas profoundly anxious that it should never be drawn except underthe absolute compulsion of national duty, and during the CrimeanWar he made this memorable declaration:

"If, when you have attained the objects of the war, you continueit for the sake of mere military glory, I say you tempt the justiceof Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodgedas the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle. "

This being his general view of war, it was inevitable that he shouldregard with horror the prospect of intervention in the Franco-GermanWar, which broke out with startling suddenness, when he was PrimeMinister, in the summer of 1870. He strained every nerve to keepEngland out of the struggle, and was profoundly thankful that Providenceenabled him to do so. Yet all through that terrible crisis he sawquite clearly that either of the belligerent Powers might takea step which would oblige England to intervene, and he made asimultaneous agreement with Prussia and France that, if eitherviolated the neutrality of Belgium, England would co-operate withthe other to defend the little State. Should Belgium, he said, "goplump down the maw of another country to satisfy dynastic greed, "such a tragedy would "come near to an extinction of public rightin Europe, and I do not think we could look on while the sacrificeof freedom and independence was in course of consummation. "

3. WAR-FINANCE AND ECONOMY. 

A colleague once said about Gladstone, "The only two things whichreally interest him are Religion and Finance. " The saying is muchtoo unguarded, but it conveys a certain truth. My own opinion isthat Finance was the field of intellectual effort in which hispowers were most conspicuously displayed; and it was always remarkedthat, when he came to deal with the most prosaic details of nationalincome and expenditure, his eloquence rose to an unusual height andpower. At the same time, he was a most vigilant guardian of thepublic purse, and he was incessantly on the alert to prevent thenational wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. Thisjealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peaceto make him very chary of spending money on national defences. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, hiseagerness in this regard caused his chief to write to the Queenthat "it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the riskof losing Portsmouth or Plymouth. " At the end of his career, hisfinal retirement was precipitated by his reluctance to sanctiona greatly increased expenditure on the Navy, which the Admiraltyconsidered necessary. From first to last he sheltered himself undera dogma of his financial master--Sir Robert Peel--to the effectthat it is possible for a nation, as for an individual, so toover-insure its property as to sacrifice its income. "My name, "he said at the end, "stands in Europe as a symbol of the policyof peace, moderation, and non-aggression. What would be said ofmy active participation in a policy that will be taken as plungingEngland into the whirlpool of Militarism?"

4. ARBITRATION AND THE "ALABAMA. "

Gladstone's hatred of war, and his resolve to avoid it at all hazardsunless national duty required it, determined his much criticizedaction in regard to the _Alabama_. That famous and ill-omened vesselwas a privateer, built in an English dockyard and manned by anEnglish crew, which during the American Civil War got out to sea, captured seventy Northern vessels, and did a vast deal of damageto the Navy and commerce of the Union. The Government of the UnitedStates had a just quarrel with England in this matter, and thecontroversy--not very skilfully handled on either side--dragged ontill the two nations seemed to be on the edge of war. Then Gladstoneagreed to submit the case to arbitration, and the arbitration resultedin a judgment hostile to England. From that time--1872--Gladstone'spopularity rapidly declined, till it revived, after an interval ofLord Beaconsfield's rule, at the General Election of 1880. In thefirst Session of that Parliament, he vindicated the pacific policywhich had been so severely criticized in the following words:

"The dispositions which led us to become parties to the arbitrationof the _Alabama_ case are still with us the same as ever; we are notdiscouraged, we are not damped in the exercise of these feelingsby the fact that we were amerced, and severely amerced, by thesentence of the international tribunal; and, although we may thinkthe sentence was harsh in its extent and unjust in its basis, weregard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balancecompared with the moral value of the example set when these twogreat nations of England and America, who are among the most fieryand the most jealous in the world with regard to anything thattouches national honour, went in peace and concord before a judicialtribunal to dispose of these painful differences, rather than resortto the arbitrament of the sword. "

5. NATIONALITY--THE BALKANS AND IRELAND. 

Gladstone was an intense believer in the principle of nationality, andhe had a special sympathy with the struggles of small and materiallyfeeble States. "Let us recognize, " he said, "and recognize withfrankness, the equality of the weak with the strong, the principlesof brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belongto our fellow-subjects, resident abroad, let us do as we would bedone by, and let us pay that respect to a feeble State, and tothe infancy of free institutions, which we would desire and shouldexact from others, towards their maturity and their strength. "

He was passionately Phil-Hellene. Greece, he said in 1897, is nota State "equipped with powerful fleets, large armies, and boundlesstreasure supplied by uncounted millions. It is a petty Power, hardlycounting in the list of European States. But it is a Power representingthe race that fought the battles of Thermopylæ and Salamis, andhurled back the hordes of Asia from European shores. "

Of the Christian populations in Eastern Europe which had the misfortuneto live under "the black hoof of the Turkish invader, " he was thechivalrous and indefatigable champion, from the days of the Bulgarianatrocities in 1875 to the Armenian massacres of twenty years later. "If only, " he exclaimed, "the spirit of little Montenegro had animatedthe body of big Bulgaria, " very different would have been the fateof Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions. The fact thatIreland is so distinctly a nation--not a mere province of GreatBritain--and the fact that she is economically poor, reinforcedthat effort to give her self-government which had originated inhis late-acquired love of political freedom. 

6. THE IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT. 

Of the "Concert of Europe" as it actually lived and worked (howeverplausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for"the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers. " It had conspicuouslyfailed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, andit had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. LordMorley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelityto public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which isthe legitimate defence for small communities against the great andpowerful"; and yet again: "He had a vision, high in the heavens, ofthe flash of an uplifted sword and the gleaming arm of the AvengingAngel. "

I have now reached the limits of the task assigned me by the Editor, and my concluding word must be more personal. 

I do not attempt to anticipate history. We cannot tell how muchof those seventy years of strenuous labour will live, or how farGladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of theworld. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectlywell what we owe to him. If ever we should be tempted to despondabout the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shallthink of him and take courage. If ever our religious faith shouldbe perplexed by the

 "Blank misgivings of a creature, Moving about in worlds not realized, "

the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. And if everwe are told by the flippancy of scepticism that "Religion is adisease, " then we can point to him who, down to the very vergeof ninety years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly lifebeyond all that we had ever known. 

II

_HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND_[*]

[Footnote *: Written in 1907. ]

The Hollands spring from Mobberley, in Cheshire, and more recentlyfrom the town of Knutsford, familiar to all lovers of English fictionas "Cranford. " They have made their mark in several fields ofintellectual effort. Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for theColonies from 1887 to 1892, was a son of Sir Henry Holland, M. D. (1788-1873), who doctored half the celebrities of Europe; and one ofSir Henry's first cousins was the incomparable Mrs. Gaskell. Anotherfirst-cousin was George Henry Holland (1818-1891), of Dumbleton Hall, Evesham, who married in 1844 the Hon. Charlotte Dorothy Gifford, daughter of the first Lord Gifford. 

George Holland was an enthusiastic fox-hunter, and frequently changedhis abode for the better enjoyment of his favourite sport. In 1847he was living at a place called Underdown, near Ledbury; and there, on the 27th of January in that year, his eldest son was born. 

The first Lord Gifford (1779-1826), who was successively Lord ChiefJustice and Master of the Rolls, had owed much in early life to thegoodwill of Lord Eldon, and, in honour of his patron, he named one ofhis sons' Scott. This Scott Gifford was Mrs. George Holland's brother, and his name was bestowed on her eldest son, who was christened"Henry Scott, " but has always been known by his second name. Thislink with George III. 's Tory Chancellor is pleasingly appropriate. 

Let it be remarked in passing that the hyphen so often introducedinto the name is solely a creation of the newspapers, which, alwaysrejoicing in double-barrelled surnames, gratify a natural impulseby writing about "Canon Scott-Holland. "

I regret that the most exhaustive research has failed to discoverany recorded traits of "Scotty" Holland in the nursery, but hiscareer in the schoolroom is less obscure. His governess was a Swisslady, who pronounced her young pupil "the most delightful of boys;not clever or studious, but full of fun and charm. " This governessmust have been a remarkable woman, for she is, I believe, the onlyhuman being who ever pronounced Scott Holland "not clever. " Itis something to be the sole upholder of an opinion, even a wrongone, against a unanimous world. By this time George Holland hadestablished himself at Wellesbourne Hall, near Warwick, and therehis son Scott was brought up in the usual habits of a country homewhere hunting and shooting are predominant interests. From theSwiss lady's control he passed to a private school at Allesley, near Coventry, and in January, 1860, he went to Eton. There heboarded at the house of Mrs. Gulliver, [*] and was a pupil of WilliamJohnson (afterwards Cory), a brilliant and eccentric scholar, whosepower of eliciting and stimulating a boy's intellect has neverbeen surpassed. 

[Footnote *: Of Mrs. Gulliver and her sister, H. S. H. Writes:"They allowed football in top passage twice a week, which stillseems to be the zenith of all joy. "]

From this point onwards, Scott Holland's history--the formation ofhis character, the development of his intellect, the place whichhe attained in the regard of his friends--can be easily and exactlytraced; for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries hasnot been effaced, or even dimmed, by the lapse of seven-and-fortyyears. 

"My recollection of him at Eton, " writes one of his friends, "isthat of a boy most popular and high-spirited, strong, and fullof life; but not eminent at games. " Another writes: "He was verypopular with a certain set, but not exactly eminent. " He was nota member of "Pop, " the famous Debating Society of Eton, but hisgenius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished usall by an excellent performance in some private theatricals inhis house. " For the rest, he rowed, steered the _Victory_ twice, played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and was afirst-rate swimmer. 

With regard to more important matters, it must suffice to say thatthen, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no evilthing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been trained, by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the Tractarianschool, and he was worthy of his training. Among his intimate friendswere Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry Northcote, now LordNorthcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; Alberic Bertie; andFrancis Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester. He left Eton in July, 1864, and his tutor, in a letter to a friend, thus commented onhis departure: "There was nothing to comfort me in parting withHolland; and he was the picture of tenderness. He and others stayeda good while, talking in the ordinary easy way. M. L. Came, andhis shyness did not prevent my saying what I wished to say to him. But to Holland I could say nothing; and now that I am writing aboutit I cannot bear to think that he is lost. "

On leaving Eton, Holland went abroad to learn French, with an ultimateview to making his career in diplomacy. Truly the Canon of St. Paul's is an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown. " What an Ambassadorhe would have made! There is something that warms the heart in thethought of His Excellency Sir Henry Scott Holland, G. C. B. , writingdespatches to Sir Edward Grey in the style of _The Commonwealth_, and negotiating with the Czar or the Sultan on the lines of theChristian Social Union. 

Returning from his French pilgrimage, he wept to a private tutorin Northamptonshire, who reported that "Holland was quite uniquein charm and goodness, but would never be a scholar. " In January, 1866, this charming but unscholarly youth went up to Balliol, anda new and momentous chapter in his life began. 

What was he like at this period of his life? A graphic letter justreceived enables me to answer this question. "When I first methim, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized thecharm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and wasintensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. Hewould listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumannto him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, andvery fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was also deeply moved bysocial questions, East End poor, etc. ; always unconventional, andalways passionately interested in whatever he talked of. Burne-Jonesonce told me: 'It was perfectly delicious to see Holland come into aroom, laughing before he had even said a word, and always bubblingover with life and joy. ' Canon Mason said to me many years ago thathe had hoped I kept every scrap Scotty ever wrote to me, as hewas quite sure he was the most remarkable man of his generation. But there was a grave background to all this merriment. I rememberthat, as we were coming out of a London party, and looked on thehungry faces in the crowd outside the door, I rather foolishlysaid: 'One couldn't bear to look at them unless one felt that therewas another world for them. ' He replied: 'Are we to have both, then?' I know how his tone and the look in his face haunted me morethan I can say. "

A contemporary at Oxford writes, with reference to the same period:"When we went up, Liddon was preaching his Bamptons, and we wentto them together, and were much moved by them. There were threeof us who always met for Friday teas in one another's rooms, andduring Lent we used to go to the Special Sermons at St. Mary's. We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sundayevening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to goto the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the ironchurch at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting theGregorians. "

On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literaturewas already marked. "I can remember reading Wordsworth with him, and Carlyle, and Clough; and, after Sunday breakfasts, Boswell's_Life of Johnson_. " Then, as always, he found a great part of hispleasure in music. 

No record, however brief, of an undergraduate life can afford todisregard athletics; so let it be here recorded that Holland playedracquets and fives, and skated, and "jumped high, " and steeredthe _Torpid_, and three times rowed in his College Eight. He hadinnumerable friends, among whom three should be specially recalled:Stephen Fremantle and R. L. Nettleship, both of Balliol, and W. H. Ady, of Exeter. In short, he lived the life of the modelundergraduate, tasting all the joys of Oxford, and finding timeto spare for his prescribed studies. His first encounter with theexaminers, in "Classical Moderations, " was only partially successful. "He did not appreciate the niceties of scholarship, and could notwrite verses or do Greek or Latin prose at all well;" and he wasaccordingly placed in the Third Class. But as soon as the tyrannyof Virgil and Homer and Sophocles was overpast, he betook himselfto more congenial studies. Of the two tutors who then made Balliolfamous, he owed nothing to Jowett and everything to T. H. Green. That truly great man "simply fell in love" with his brilliant pupil, and gave him of his best. 

"Philosophy's the chap for me, " said an eminent man on a momentousoccasion. "If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers, ' he says, 'I ain't. ''Then, sir, ' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be ableto explain it. ' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he wasa philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one. "

That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructedby Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searchingtest to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom atBalliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I rememberthat Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality. It was known that he had a good chance of a 'First in Greats, 'if only his translations from Greek and Latin books did not pullhim down. He admired the ancient authors, especially Plato, andhis quick grasp of the meaning of what he read, good memory, andvery remarkable powers of expression, all helped him much. He wasgood at History and he had a great turn for Philosophy" (_cf_. Mr. Squeers, _supra_), "Plato, Hegel; etc. , and he understood, asfew could, Green's expositions, and counter-attack on John StuartMill and the Positivist School, which was the dominant party atthat time. "

In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examinationat Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from hispaper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his _viva voce_was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of the examiners, T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said he had never heardanything like it. " In fine, a new and vivid light had appearedin the intellectual sky--a new planet had swum into the ken ofOxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally that Holland, havingobtained his brilliant First, was immediately elected to a Studentshipat Christ Church, which, of course, is the same as a Fellowshipanywhere else. He went into residence at his new home in January, 1871, and remained there for thirteen years, a "don, " indeed, byoffice, but so undonnish in character, ways, and words, that hebecame the subject of a eulogistic riddle: "When is a don not adon? When he is Scott Holland. "

Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before theonrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerationswhich determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not soughtto enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Ordershe would have the best chance of using the powers, of which bythis time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God andthe service of man. I have been told that the choice was in somemeasure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subjectof Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon'ssociety, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, must have tended in the same direction. 

[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11thof March, 1870. ]

Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwardsBishop of Lincoln, and then Principal of Cuddesdon, in whom themost persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifullydisplayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which allthat was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistiblyattracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owedso much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglementCuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend;and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how enticing, the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving it all seemed, as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk in College;so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of our Oxfordinterests. The little rooms, like college rooms just shrinkinginto cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old church withits quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of the eveningchapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with the sound ofCompline Psalms still ringing in our hearts--ah! happy, happy day!It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering in our soulstook shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon when the timeof preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing passagehave naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself havebeen a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as Iknow, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted ofa visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task ofstudying theology under Dr. Westcott. 

In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, inCuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination;and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was duringhis diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. Weoften came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religiousmeetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons whichhe preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutelyoriginal; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the stylewas entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movementand colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory. [*]

[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty withhis aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by'alf. "]

Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. Helectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full sharein the business of University and College; he worked and pleadedfor all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and amongthe citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strongeffort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland'sProctorship. "

This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitudetowards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creedoutworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for GladstonianLiberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spiritof State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured hissternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H. , when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics morethan chaffing others for being so Tory. " (He never spoke at theUnion, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker. )"But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Deanof Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come andsee me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social lifein the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbotand Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about amongthe people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thoughtthat this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House. "

All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original andindependent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast forLiberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, waswidening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man witha great opportunity. 

From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the publiceye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recentcareer. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher;a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplishedteacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellorin difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vividand joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to tracesome change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways offeeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to sideunder the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friendsrejoice--and others lament--that he is much less of a partisanthan he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides ofa question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself sopassionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, hehas stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworkedhis own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in hisown passionate love of God and man. 

Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hatehim. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measureand restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. Onewhom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is littlechanged from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate--thesame joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception andinsight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in livesof all sorts, delight in young people--these never fail. He neverseems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depresshis cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of someuse. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well. "

This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do notpresume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide andexample; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful peoplein the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, heis a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house heinhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certainothers which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, itsversatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from graveto gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art andnature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station;and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivaciousand exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forceswhich have done most to quicken their consciences and lift theirlives. 

 * * * * *

By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched, [*]or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Lightwhich lighteth every man that cometh into the world. "

[Footnote *: Written in 1918. ]

Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associatedin my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light--its revealingpower, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivablerapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. Hesaw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. Hediffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity byhis essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautifulunder his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bearwitness of that Light, " and bore it for seventy years by the mereforce of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland beganin my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or abreak from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputationfor goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outsideit. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as adelightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a processof mental development was going on, of which none but his intimatefriends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett, " he was accustomedto say; "everything to Green. " From that great teacher he caughthis Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical andspiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeksto apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions toscholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticedby a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searchingschool of _Literoe Humaniores_. Green had triumphed; he had made aphilosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed aborn Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer. 

Holland had what Tertullian calls the _anima naturaliter Christiana_, and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement. When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomaticcareer, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and wasordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantlymade his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in theparish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministrystand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher'sgifts--a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodiousvoice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spokewith an energy of passionate conviction which drove every wordstraight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal forGod and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attractedmany hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they wereaccustomed--then as later--to say that here was a Christian who knewenough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worthhearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strangetricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strungadjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque descriptionwith jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew withhis growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently markedto detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listenedto his preaching as to "a very lovely song. "

Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greateras a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people inthis--that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paperthan when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, waswriting a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluencyin bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but hedid not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscriptand a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement. 

I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed asmuch to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a greatdeal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom ofGod"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in whichtheir lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology;and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom;they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and theyboth were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East ofEurope. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the greatcontroversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag withthe loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son. 

When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, the announcement was received with an amount of interest which isnot often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone feltthat it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophetof the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centreof the world's concourse. " Would his preaching attract or repel?Would the "philosophy of religion, " which is the perennial interestof Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd whichsits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond theprecincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domesticlife of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood andsocial service--in short, the programme of the Christian SocialUnion--win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questionswere answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whomthey were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-sevenyears later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absoluteagreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church inLondon had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a geniusand a saint. 

In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered withthe free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral orintellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimatea human character. His own life had always been lived on the highestplane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from theworld. " His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak andact--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. Thishabit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degreefor the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certaindegree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic ofthose elect and lovely souls

 "Who, through the world's long day of strife, Still chant their morning song. "

III

_LORD HALIFAX_

There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Woodand Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they havefor centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunctionwhich united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son ofSir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughterof Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat inParliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highestoffices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston andMr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifaxin 1866. 

Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest wasCharles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names togetherbecause Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and charactermade a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact withher) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peeragein 1885) writes thus about his early days:

"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the timewhen it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing toher every day when we were away from one another; and for manyyears after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, Idon't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. Sheis never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19thof July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood outamongst all the days of the year. "

This extract illustrates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual loveand trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Woodwere reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one wouldnaturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics werejudiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a brighthome, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship ofa favourite sister, the transition to a private school is alwaysdepressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. CharlesArnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What I chiefly remember aboutthe place is being punished all one day, with several canings, because I either could not or would not learn the Fifth Declensionof the Greek Nouns. "

So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for oneyear, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, CharlesWood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of theRev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholarand a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerningfriend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his privatepupils. In his book of verses--_Ionica_--he made graceful playwith a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasyof swimming--"Oh, how I wish I could fly!"

 "Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech, Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye, Tossing those river-pearled locks about, Throwing those delicate limbs straight out, Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach, Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!'

 "Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply, Answer disdainfully, flouting my words: How should the listener at simple sixteen Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean, Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'-- Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds?

 * * * * *

 "Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet; Walk through some passionless years by my side, Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk, Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk. When the sap stays, and the blossom is set, Others will take the fruit; I shall have died. "

Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favouritepupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecyfulfilled. 

The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships;so here let me record the names of those who are recalled bycontemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, atEton--Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, GeorgeLane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley, [1] and Augustus Legge. [2]With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed, " and with Stopford, nowStopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuitsI may quote his own words:

[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield. ]

[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. ]

"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take longwalks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up tothe Castle, to ride with the present King. [3] I remember, in twolittle plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking thepart of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the PeninsularWar; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, inan historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and aboy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. InUpper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with LyulphStanley in a French piece called _Femme à Vendre_. In 1857, I andGeorge Cadogan, [4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] wentwith the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in thefollowing August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, and I won the 'Albert, ' the Prince Consort's Prize for French. "

[Footnote 3: Edward VII. ] [Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan. ][Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby. ]

A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony:

"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys andthe masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a customof a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books, 'from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided bythe parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldonwent to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the customof parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crowncopy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room. Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the endof the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimonyfrom a small boy to one at the top of the house. "

In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. Theremany of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh onesadded: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson, afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster;and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in thesocial life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to"Bullingdon"--institutions of high repute in the Oxford world;and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chiefjoy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, andmade some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far asSuez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom ofthe Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attendedhis royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10thof March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. Atthe same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin, Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, andretained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administrationin 1866. 

"There was, " writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing forsome Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was noteasy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped. I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatestdevotion to King Charles I. And Archbishop Laud. I can recall nowthe services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used towear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the flooras the clock struck twelve. "

This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's"convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, likeall the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to taketheir children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the leastecclesiastical-looking place of worship in London; and the observancesof the Parish Church at Hickleton--their country home nearDoncaster--were not calculated to inspire a delight in the beautyof holiness. However, when quite a boy, Charles Wood, who had beenconfirmed at Eton by Bishop Wilberforce, found his way to St. Barnabas, Pimlico, then newly opened, and fell much under the influence ofMr. Bennett at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and Mr. Richards, at AllSaints', Margaret Street. At Oxford he became acquainted with Dr. Pusey and the young and inspiring Liddon, and frequented the servicesat Merton College Chapel, where Liddon used often to officiate. By1863 his religious opinions must have been definitely shaped; forin that year his old tutor, William Johnson, when paying a visitto Hickleton, writes as follows:

"He told me of Mr. Liddon, the saintly and learned preacher; ofthe devout worshippers at All Saints', whose black nails show theyare artisans; of the society formed to pray daily for the restorationof Christian unity. "

And again:

"His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness fromlooking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard againsthis unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zealmisdirected.... And all the while his mother's face gets brighterand kinder because she is looking at him. Happy are the parentswho, when they have reached that time of life in which the world isgetting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickenedby the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and sorenew their youth. "

In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellorof the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union. 

"At that time, " he writes, "I was much concerned with the affairsof the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. 1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect coming straight backfrom Lorne's[*] coming of age to London, where I saw Dr. Pusey, with the result that I set to work to help Miss Sellon with hertemporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel. "

[Footnote *: Afterwards Duke of Argyll. ]

In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services whichhe rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; andthose who know what religious prejudice was in rural districtsforty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded toan institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentationby the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding. There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelicalmother--Lady Charles Russell--to her son, then just ordained toa curacy at Doncaster. 

"I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax. I knew them prettywell as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirementsince before he was raised to the peerage. His eldest son was notonly very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I daresay Dr. Vaughan may have heard. Do you know anything about him?"

That "very good" and "very good-looking" young man was now approachingwhat may be called the decisive event of his life. In April, 1867, Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English ChurchUnion, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fillhis place. Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote: "As to his beingPresident of the E. C. U. , he is the sense and moderation of it. " Hehas administered its affairs and guided its policy through fiftyanxious years. Indeed, the President and the Union have been socompletely identified that the history of the one has been thehistory of the other. His action has been governed by a grand andsimple consistency. Alike in storms and in fair weather, at timesof crisis and at times of reaction, he has been the unswervingand unsleeping champion of the spiritual claims of the EnglishChurch, and the alert, resourceful, and unsparing enemy of allattempts, from whatever quarter, to subject her doctrine and disciplineto the control of the State and its secular tribunals. The eagerand fiery enthusiasm which pre-eminently marks his nature awakesa kindred flame in those who are reached by his influence; and, even when the reason is unconvinced, it is difficult to resistthe leadership of so pure and passionate a temper. 

It would be ridiculous for an outsider, like myself, to discuss theinterior working of the E. C. U. , so I avail myself of the testimonywhich has reached me from within. 

"Like most men of his temperament, Lord Halifax seems now and againto be a little before his time. On the other hand, it is remarkablethat Time generally justifies him. There is no question that hehas always enjoyed the enthusiastic and affectionate support ofthe Union as a whole. "

It is true that once with reference to the book called _Lux Mundi_, and once with reference to the "Lambeth Opinions" of 1899, therewas some resistance in the Union to Lord Halifax's guidance; andthat, in his negotiations about the recognition of Anglican Orders, he would not, if he had been acting officially, have carried theUnion with him. But these exceptions only go to confirm the generaltruth that his policy has been as successful as it has been boldand conscientious. 

It is time to return, for a moment, to the story of Lord Halifax'sprivate life. In 1869 he married Lady Agnes Courtenay, daughterof the twelfth Earl of Devon, and in so doing allied himself withone of the few English families which even the most exactinggenealogists recognize as noble. [1] His old tutor wrote on the 22ndof April:

[Footnote 1: "The purple of three Emperors who have reigned atConstantinople will authorize or excuse a digression on the originand singular fortunes of the House of Courtenay" (Gibbon, chapterxii. ). ]

"This has been a remarkable day--the wedding of Charles Wood andLady Agnes Courtenay. It was in St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, which was full, galleries and all, the central passage left empty, and carpeted with red. It was a solemn, rapt congregation; therewas a flood of music and solemn tender voices. The married manand woman took the Lord's Supper, with hundreds of witnesses whodid not Communicate.... Perhaps a good many were Church Union folk, honouring their Chairman. "

Of this marriage I can only say that it has been, in the highestaspects, ideally happy, and that the sorrows which have chequeredit have added a new significance to the saying of Ecclesiastesthat "A threefold cord is not quickly broken. "[2]

[Footnote 2: Charles Reginald Lindley Wood died 1890; Francis HughLindley Wood died 1889; Henry Paul Lindley Wood died 1886. ]

In 1877 Mr. Wood resigned his office in the household of the Princeof Wales. It was the time when the affairs of St. James's, Hatcham, and the persecution of Mr. Tooth, were first bringing the Churchinto sharp collision with the courts of law. The President of theChurch Union was the last man to hold his peace when even the stoneswere crying out against this profane intrusion of the State intothe kingdom of God; and up and down the country he preached, inseason and out of season, the spiritual independence of the Church, and the criminal folly of trying to coerce Christian consciences bydeprivation and imprisonment. The story went that an IllustriousPersonage said to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What'sthis I hear? I'm told you go about the country saying that theQueen is not the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head ofthe Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, and the Sultan the Head of _his_ Church. '" But this may only bea creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and itis better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction:

"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard todisobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that Ithought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromisedby anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself didnot approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resignmy place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Princewas about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for himon the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doingwhat I thought right. "

In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "sayand do what he thinks right, " without hesitation or compromiseor regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and thepractice of his life. And here the reader has a right to ask, Whatmanner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record?

First and foremost, it must be said--truth demands it, and noconventional reticence must withhold it--that the predominant featureof his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher worldthan this. His "citizenship is in Heaven. " Never can I forget anaddress which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in StepneyMeeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness. " The audienceconsisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I imagine, had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity tosee the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Cæsarand the things of God was just then attracting, general attention, and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, as the hightheme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futilityof all that this world has to offer when compared with the realitiesof the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, andthe address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause. "

 "That strain I heard was of a higher mood. "

As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, about

"One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one ofsingular moderation as well as wisdom, who can discriminate withsingular sagacity what is essential from is not essential--C. Wood. "

The Doctor went on:

"I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a publicaddress which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, without controversy or saying anything which could have offendedanyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precisionwhich reminded me of Hooker's wonderful enunciation of the doctrineof the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. "

After so solemn a tribute from so great a saint, it seems almosta profanity--certainly a bathos--to add any more secular touches. Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it must beremembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, the most graceful and attractive figure, in the Vanity Fair ofsocial life. He is full of ardour, zeal, and emotion, endowed witha physical activity which corresponds to his mental alertness, andyoung with that perpetual youth which is the reward of "a consciencevoid of offence toward God and toward man. "

Clarendon, in one of his most famous portraits, depicts a high-souledCavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of a glowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, andof a primitive simplicity and integrity of life. " He was writingof Lord Falkland: he described Lord Halifax. 

IV

_LORD AND LADY RIPON_[*]

[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess ofRipon, K. G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta AnnTheodosia Vyner. ]

The _Character of the Happy Warrior_ is, by common consent, oneof the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writersand speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present warbegan, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a newacquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, anda devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism, it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed, the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" asfor the "Happy Warrior. " There is nothing specially warlike in theportraiture of the man

 "Who, with a toward or untoward lot, Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not, Plays in the many games of life, that one Where what he most doth value must be won; Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Not thought of tender happiness betray; Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpast. "

These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances broughtme into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship Ienjoyed from my first entrance into public life. 

I know few careers in the political life of modern England moreinteresting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonantwith Wordsworth's eulogy:

 "Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpast. "

The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, enteredpublic life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled prettynearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including, for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartiallyunder moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no verymaterial difference between their respective creeds. The experiencesof the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; andgreat must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesmanwhen he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robustconvictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. Tomen possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heardthe question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Whyare you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for sothe second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father'stitle) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it. " Hewas an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to formhis own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to thestereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almostbefore his arrival at man's estate, he had clearly marked out hisline of political action, and to that line he adhered with undeviatingconsistency. 

He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage. Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of _The Talking Oak_from Henrietta, Lady Ripon:

 "Yet, since I first could cast a shade, Did never creature pass, So slightly, musically made, So light upon the grass. "

Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she wasthe brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends. She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause, and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform. 

From the earliest days of their married life, Lord and Lady Goderichmade their home a centre and a rallying-point for all the scatteredforces which, within the Liberal party or beyond its pale, werelabouring to promote the betterment of human life. There the "ChristianSocialists, " recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48, re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking worldthat the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice withhis mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughesand Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerfulpens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young RadicalM. P. , whose zeal for social service had already marked him outfrom the ruck of mechanical politicians; and from time to timeCarlyle himself would vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval toenterprises which, whether wise or foolish, were at least not shams. In 1852 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers conducted in Londonand Lancashire a strike which had begun in some engineering worksat Oldham. The Christian Socialists gave it their support, andLord Goderich subscribed £500 to the maintenance of the strikers. But, although he lived in this highly idealistic society, surroundedby young men who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, LordGoderich was neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under LordRussell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long seriesof practical and laborious offices. He became Secretary of Statefor India, and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council, attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointedChairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the UnitedStates. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanentmark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forwardno Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless itcould show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February, 1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establishHome Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, explained his position to me with happy candour: "I have alwaysbeen in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal Programme. Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm a Home Ruler. "

In the last year of Lord Ripon's life, when he had just retiredfrom the Cabinet and the leadership of the House of Lords, he wasentertained at luncheon by the Eighty Club, and the occasion wasmarked by some more than usually interesting speeches. It alwaysis satisfactory to see public honours rendered, not to a monumentor a tomb, but to the living man; and, in Lord Ripon's case, thehonours, though ripe, were not belated. George Eliot has remindedus that "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a further stageof development which is less esteemed in the market. " The EightyClub avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while theywere still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of aLiberalism "more high and heroical than the present age affecteth. "One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon facedwhen he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicalsthemselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence toa Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion, and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause. The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressivethan the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who, in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station andenvironment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor, the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotionwas far more difficult than now. It is probable that not a fewof Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words and wavedtheir salutations, may have added in the depths of their heartssome aspiration such as this: "When I come to my eightieth year, mayI be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as unselfish, and as beneficent. "

Thrice happy is the man, be he Warrior or Statesman, who, in spiteof lessened activity and increasing burdens and the loss of muchthat once made life enjoyable, still

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

V

"_FREDDY LEVESON_"

When a man has died in his eighty-ninth year, it seems irreverentto call him by his nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather inseeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation, is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with thesubject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heartand mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out ofplace. 

Edward Frederick Leveson-Gower was the third son of GranvilleLeveson-Gower, first Earl Granville, by his marriage with HenriettaElizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire. The very names breathe Whiggery, and in their combination theysuggest a considerable and an important portion of our social andpolitical history. 

I have always maintained that Whiggery, rightly understood, is nota political creed, but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, isborn, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become aJew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside theprivileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilatedits spirit. It is true that the Whigs, as a body, have held certainopinions and pursued certain tactics, which were analysed in chaptersxix. And xxi. Of the unexpurgated _Book of Snobs_. But those opinionsand those tactics have been accidents of Whiggery. Its substancehas been relationship. When Lord John Russell formed his firstAdministration, his opponents alleged that it was mainly composedof his cousins, and the lively oracles of Sir Bernard Burke confirmedthe allegation. A. J. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, madeexcellent fun of what he called the "Sacred Circle of theGreat-Grandmotherhood. " He showed--what, indeed, the Whigs themselvesknew uncommonly well--that from John, Earl Gower, who died in 1754, descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Harcourts, and Russells, who walk on the face of the earth. Trulya noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They _are_ our superiors, "said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhapsit is as unnecessary to say so as to say that I'm not King Pippinin a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts)--I'mnot a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!"

It argues no political bias to maintain that, in the earlier partof the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its neophytes noeducational opportunities equal to those which a young Whig enjoyedat Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. Here thebest traditions of the previous century were constantly reinforcedby accessions of fresh intellect. The circle was, indeed, anaristocratic Family Party, but it paid a genuine homage to abilityand culture. Genius held the key, and there was a _carrière ouverteaux talents_. 

Into this privileged society Frederick Leveson-Gower was born onthe 3rd of May, 1819, and within its precincts he "kept the noiselesstenour of his way" for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 theexperiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton, he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again beenseriously ill. " To that extraordinary immunity from physical sufferingwas probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognizedas his most characteristic trait, and which remained unruffled tothe end. 

It is recorded of the fastidious Lady Montfort in _Endymion_ that, visiting Paris in 1841, she could only with difficulty be inducedto call on the British Ambassador and Ambassadress. "I dined, " shesaid, "with those people once; but I confess that, when I thoughtof those dear Granvilles, their _entrées_ stuck in my throat. "The "dear Granvilles" in question were the parents of the secondLord Granville, whom we all remember as the most urbane of ForeignSecretaries, and of Frederick Leveson-Gower. The first Lord Granvillewas a younger son of the first Marquess of Stafford and brother ofthe second Marquess, who was made Duke of Sutherland. He was bornin 1773, entered Parliament at twenty-two, and "found himself adiplomatist as well as a politician before he was thirty years ofage. " In 1804 he was appointed Ambassador to St. Petersburg, wherehe remained till 1807. In 1813 he was created Viscount Granville, and in 1824 became Ambassador to the Court of France. "To theindignation of the Legitimist party in France, he made a specialjourney from Paris to London in order to vote for the Reform Billof 1832, and, to their astonishment, returned alive to glory inhaving done so. " For this and similar acts of virtue he was raisedto an earldom in 1833; he retired from diplomacy in 1841, and diedin 1846. 

Before he became an Ambassador, this Lord Granville had renteda place called Wherstead, in Suffolk. It was there that FreddyLeveson passed the first years of his life, but from 1824 onwardsthe British Embassy at Paris was his home. Both those places hadmade permanent dints in his memory. At Wherstead he rememberedthe Duke of Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face andimperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir WalterScott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living atthe Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux, afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sentfrom Paris to a Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was calledthe House of Lords, owing to most of the boys being related tothe peerage, many of them future peers, and among them severaldukes. " Here, again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate ofPrinces. Prince George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridgewere staying with King William IV. At the Pavilion; their companionswere chosen from Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused hisnephews and their friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rathercoarse ones. " In his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refinedsociety at Holland House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation:"He always sits next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasingall dinner-time. "

From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course toEton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health, and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one, he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and thatwas the complete indifference to social distinctions. 

"There is, " he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, thelate Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked hisname, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquisof Bath. ' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscountand the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but atany rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boastedof his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!"

Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutorin Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest inpolitics. "Reform, " he wrote, "is my principal aim. " Albany Fonblanque, whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the _Examiner_, may stillbe read in _England under Seven Administrations_, was his politicalinstructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especiallyin the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemedheretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth. In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his motherwrote: "As to Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be ifit was to last more than a week longer. His dancing _fait fureur_. "

In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishingunder Dean Gaisford's mismanagement. Here for three years he enjoyedhimself thoroughly. He rode with the drag, was President of theArchery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal ofhospitality, and made some lifelong friendships. Among hiscontemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainlydepressing. "He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, toseek no friends, and to have none. I never met him in anyone else'srooms, or at any social gathering. I see him now, looking rathercrazy, taking his solitary walks. "

That Freddy Leveson was "thoroughly idle" was his own confession;and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is notsurprising. What is surprising, and what he himself recorded withsurprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the leastattention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, although--andthis makes it stranger still--they used to attend Newman's Sermonsat St. Mary's. They duly admired his unequalled style, but thesubstance of his teaching seems to have passed by them like theidle wind. 

After taking a "Nobleman's Degree, " Frederick Leveson spent aninstructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father'sposition, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers, Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned toEngland with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of readingfor the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, andthe choice was determined by a civil speech of George Canning, who, staying at the British Embassy at Paris, noticed little Freddy, and pleasantly said to Lord Granville, "Bring that boy up as alawyer, and he will one day become Lord Chancellor. " As a firststep towards that elevation, Frederick Leveson entered the chambersof an eminent conveyancer called Plunkett, where he had for hisfellow-pupils the men who became Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Farrer. Thence he went to a Special Pleader, and lastly to a leading memberof the Oxford Circuit. As Marshal to Lord Denman and to Baron Parke, he acquired some knowledge of the art of carving; but with regardto the total result of his legal training, he remarked, withcharacteristic simplicity, "I cannot say I learnt much law. " Whenliving in lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners atLincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantageof having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like ason, giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; whileLady Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him makea second home of Holland House. 

"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word inthe morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a wordat dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk--toMacaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith'sexquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasmsand Luttrell's repartees. "

Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the OxfordCircuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G. Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stagein the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granvilledied at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this eventproduced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described inhis own quaint words:

"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgentparent--possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although Icannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized withme for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been thisfeeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me wellprovided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn myown bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded. "

His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answeringit affirmatively; but the practical test was never applied, for onsucceeding to his inheritance he glided--"plunged" would be anunsuitable word--into a way of living which was, more like the[Greek: scholae] of the Athenian citizen than the sordid strife ofprofessional activity. He was singularly happy in private life, for the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained somedelightful women as well as some distinguished men. Such was hissister-in-law Marie, Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland; such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville;and such, pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, of whom a competent critic said that, in the female characters ofher novel _Ellen Middleton_, she had drawn "the line which is soapt to be overstepped, and which Walter Scott never clearly saw, between _naïveté_ and vulgarity. " Myself a devoted adherent ofSir Walter, I can yet recall some would-be pleasantries of JuliaMannering, of Isabella Wardour, and even of Die Vernon, which wouldhave caused a shudder in the "Sacred Circle. " Happiest of all wasFreddy Leveson in his marriage with Lady Margaret Compton; buttheir married life lasted only five years, and left behind it amemory too tender to bear translation to the printed page. 

Devonshire House was the centre of Freddy Leveson's social life--atleast until the death of his uncle, the sixth Duke, in 1858. Thatunsightly but comfortable mansion was then in its days of glory, andthose who frequented it had no reason to regret the past. "PoodleByng, " who carried down to 1871 the social conditions of the eighteenthcentury, declared that nothing could be duller than DevonshireHouse in his youth. "It was a great honour to go there, but I wasbored to death. The Duchess was usually stitching in one corner ofthe room, and Charles Fox snoring in another. " Under the splendidbut arbitrary rule of the sixth Duke no one stitched or snored. Everyone who entered his saloons was well-born or beautiful orclever or famous, and many of the guests combined all fourcharacteristics. When Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards NapoleonIII. , first came to live in London, his uncle Jerome asked theDuke of Devonshire to invite his _mauvais sujet_ of a nephew toDevonshire House, "so that he might for once be seen in decentsociety"; and the Prince, repaid the Duke by trying to borrow fivethousand pounds to finance his descent on Boulogne. But the Duke, though magnificent, was business-like, and the Prince was sentempty away. 

The society in which Freddy Leveson moved during his long career wascuriously varied. There was his own family in all its ramifications ofcousinship; and beyond its radius there was a circle of acquaintancesand associates which contained Charles Greville the diarist andhis more amiable brother Henry, Carlyle and Macaulay, Broughamand Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Groteand Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay, " andDisraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone. "

For womankind there were Lady Morley the wit and Lady Cowper thehumorist, and Lady Ashburton, who tamed Carlyle; Lady Jersey, thequeen of fashion, and the two sister-queens of beauty, Lady Canningand Lady Waterford; Lady Tankerville, who as a girl had taken refugein England from the matrimonial advances of the Comte d'Artois;the three fascinating Foresters, Mrs. Robert Smith, Mrs. Anson, and Lady Chesterfield; and Lady Molesworth and Lady Waldegrave, who had climbed by their cleverness from the lowest rung of thesocial ladder to a place not very far from the top. 

Beyond this circle, again, there was a miscellaneous zone, wheredwelt politicians ranging from John Bright to Arthur Balfour; poetsand men of letters, such as Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray andMotley and Laurance Oliphant; Paxton the gardener-architect andHudson the railway-king; stars of the musical world, such as Marioand Grisi and Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and MadameMohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and LolaMontez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education willconvert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable memberof society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligenceand a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfectionby such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life. And so it came about that alike as a young man, in middle life(which was in his case unusually prolonged), and in old age, heenjoyed a universal and unbroken popularity. 

It is impossible to connect the memory of Freddy Leveson with theidea of ambition, and it must therefore have been the praiseworthydesire to render unpaid service to the public which induced him toembark on the unquiet sea of politics. At a bye-election in thesummer of 1847 he was returned, through the interest of his uncle theDuke of Devonshire, for Derby. A General Election immediately ensued;he was returned again, but was unseated, with his colleague, for atechnical irregularity. In 1852 he was returned for Stoke-upon-Trent, this time by the aid of his cousin the Duke of Sutherland (for the"Sacred Circle" retained a good deal of what was termed "legitimateinfluence"). In 1854, having been chosen to second the Address atthe opening of Parliament, he was directed to call on Lord JohnRussell, who would instruct him in his duties. Lord John was theshyest of human beings, and the interview was brief: "I am gladyou are going to second the Address. You will know what to say. Good-morning. "

At the General Election of 1857 he lost his seat for Stoke. "PoorFreddy, " writes his brother, Lord Granville, "is dreadfully disappointedby his failure in the Potteries. He was out-jockeyed by Ricardo. "All who knew "poor Freddy" will easily realize that in a jockeyingcontest he stood no chance. In 1859 he was returned for Bodmin, thistime by the good offices, not of relations, but of friends--LordRobartes and Lady Molesworth--and he retained the seat by his ownmerits till Bodmin ceased to be a borough. Twice during hisParliamentary career Mr. Gladstone offered him important office, and he declined it for a most characteristic reason--"I feared itwould be thought a job. " The gaps in his Parliamentary life wereoccupied by travelling. As a young man he had been a great dealon the Continent, and he had made what was then the adventuroustour of Spain. The winter of 1850-1851 he spent in India; and in1856 he accompanied his brother Lord Granville (to whom he hadbeen "précis-writer" at the Foreign Office) on his Special Missionto St. Petersburg for the Coronation of Alexander II. No chapter inhis life was fuller of vivid and entertaining reminiscences, andhis mind was stored with familiar memories of Radziwill, Nesselrode, and Todleben. "Freddy, " wrote his brother, "is supposed to havedistinguished himself greatly by his presence of mind when theGrande Duchesse Hélène got deep into politics with him. "

A travelling experience, which Freddy Leveson used to relate withinfinite gusto, belongs to a later journey, and had its origin inthe strong resemblance between himself and his brother. Except thatLord Granville shaved, and that in later years Freddy Leveson grew abeard, there was little facially to distinguish them. In 1865 LordGranville was Lord President of the Council, and therefore, accordingto the arrangement then prevailing, head of the Education Office. In that year Matthew Arnold, then an Inspector of Schools, wasdespatched on a mission to enquire into the schools and Universitiesof the Continent. Finding his travelling allowances insufficient forhis needs, he wrote home to the Privy Council Office requestingan increase. Soon after he had despatched this letter, and beforehe could receive the official reply, he was dining at a famousrestaurant in Paris, and he chose the most highly priced dinner ofthe day. Looking up from his well-earned meal, he saw his officialchief, Lord Granville, who chanced to be eating a cheaper dinner. Feeling that this gastronomical indulgence might, from the officialpoint of view, seem inconsistent with his request for increasedallowances, he stepped across to the Lord President, explainedthat it was only once in a way that he thus compensated himself forhis habitual abstinence, and was delighted by the facile and kindlycourtesy with which his official chief received the _apologia_. Hisdelight was abated when he subsequently found that he had been makinghis confession, not to Lord Granville, but to Mr. Leveson-Gower. 

Looking back from the close of life upon its beginning, FreddyLeveson noted that as an infant he used to eat his egg "very slowly, and with prolonged pleasure. " "Did this, " he used to ask, "portendthat I should grow up a philosopher or a _gourmand_? I certainlydid not become the former, and I hope not the latter. " I am inclinedto think that he was both; for whoso understands the needs of thebody has mastered at least one great department of philosophy, andhe who feeds his fellow-men supremely well is in the most creditablesense of the word a _gourmand_. Freddy Leveson's dinners were justlyfamous, and, though he modestly observed that "hospitality is praisedmore than it deserves, " no one who enjoyed the labours of MonsieurBeguinot ever thought that they could be overpraised. The scene ofthese delights was a house in South Audley Street, which, thoughactually small, was so designed as to seem like a large house inminiature; and in 1870 the genial host acquired a delicious homeon the Surrey hills, which commands a view right across Sussex tothe South Downs. "Holm-bury" is its name, and "There's no placelike Home-bury" became the grateful watchword of a numerous andadmiring society. 

People distinguished in every line of life, and conspicuous byevery social charm, found at Holm-bury a constant and delightfulhospitality. None appreciated it more thoroughly than Mr. And Mrs. Gladstone, whose friendship was one of the chief happinesses ofFreddy Leveson's maturer life. His link with them was Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, who, in spite of all Whiggish prejudicesagainst the half-converted Tory, was one of Gladstone's mostenthusiastic disciples. In "Cliveden's proud alcove, " and in thatsumptuous villa at Chiswick where Fox and Canning died, Mr. AndMrs. Gladstone were her constant guests; and there they formedtheir affectionate intimacy with Freddy Leveson. Every year, andmore than once a year, they stayed with him at Holmbury; and oneat least of those visits was memorable. On the 19th of July, 1873, Mr. Gladstone wrote in his diary:

"Off at 4. 25 to Holmbury, We were enjoying that beautiful spotand expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester, [*] whenthe groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a badfall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad:'It's all over. ' In an instant the thread of that precious lifewas snapped, We were all in deep and silent grief. "

[Footnote *: Samuel Wilberforce. ]

And now, for the sake of those who never knew Freddy Leveson, aword of personal description must be added. He was of middle height, with a slight stoop, which began, I fancy from the fact that he wasshort-sighted and was obliged to peer rather closely at objectswhich he wished to see. His growing deafness, which in later yearswas a marked infirmity--he had no others--tended to intensify thestooping habit, as bringing him nearer to his companions voice. Hisfeatures were characteristically those of the House of Cavendish, as may be seen by comparing his portrait with that of his mother. His expression was placid, benign, but very far from inert; forhis half-closed eyes twinkled with quiet mirth. His voice was softand harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of thatpeculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued. "His bearing was the very perfection of courteous ease, equallyremote from stiffness and from familiarity. His manners it would beimpertinent to eulogize, and the only dislikes which I ever heardhim express were directed against rudeness, violence, indifferenceto other people's feelings, and breaches of social decorum. Ifby such offences as these it was easy to displease him, it wasno less easy to obtain his forgiveness, for he was as amiable ashe was refined. In old age he wrote, with reference to the wishwhich some people express for sudden death: "It is a feeling Icannot understand, as I myself shall feel anxious before I dieto take an affectionate leave of those I love. " His desire wasgranted, and there my story ends. I have never known a kinder heart;I could not imagine a more perfect gentleman. 

VI

_SAMUEL WHITBREAD_

The family of Whitbread enjoyed for several generations substantialpossessions in North Bedfordshire. They were of the upper middleclass, and were connected by marriage with John Howard thePrison-Reformer, whose property near Bedford they inherited. Asyears went on, their wealth and station increased. Samuel Whitbread, who died in 1796, founded the brewery in Chiswell Street, E. C. , which still bears his name, was Member for the Borough of Bedford, and purchased from the fourth Lord Torrington a fine place nearBiggleswade, called Southill, of which the wooded uplands suppliedJohn Bunyan, dwelling on the flats of Elstow, with his idea ofthe Delectable Mountains. 

This Samuel Whitbread was succeeded as M. P. For Bedford by a morefamous Samuel, his eldest son, who was born in 1758, and marriedLady Elizabeth Grey; sister of

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

Samuel Whitbread became one of the most active and influentialmembers of the Whig party, a staunch ally of Fox and a coadjutorof Wilberforce in his attack on the Slave Trade. He was closelyand unfortunately involved in the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre, and, for that reason, figures frequently in _Rejected Addresses_. He died before his time in 1815, and his eldest son, William HenryWhitbread, became M. P. For Bedford. This William Henry died withoutissue, and his nephew and heir was the admirable man and distinguishedParliamentarian who is here commemorated. 

Samuel Whitbread was born in 1830, and educated at Rugby, wherehe was a contemporary of Lord Goschen, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where one of his closest friends was James Payn, thenovelist. He married Lady Isabella Pelham, daughter of the thirdEarl of Chichester. In those days Bedford returned two members, and at the General Election of 1852, which scotched Lord Derby'sattempt to revive Protection, "Young Sam Whitbread" was returnedas junior Member for the Borough, and at the elections of 1857, 1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1885, 1886, and 1892 he was againelected, each time after a contest and each time at the top ofthe poll. Had he stood again in 1895, and been again successful, he would have been "Father of the House. "

It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbreadwas the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful andbenignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified;his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through hisutterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even ofpolitical opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabledhim to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests ofhis brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He wasactive in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge ofall that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointmentdisclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, andsedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to thenormally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was morethan he could stand. "I cannot, " he said, "get a living out ofthe London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of highpreferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himselfthence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders ofthe Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeatedefforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twicethe Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctionsor hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile. 

The knowledge that these things were so gave Whit bread a peculiarauthority in the House of Commons. His independence was absoluteand assured. He was, if any politician ever was, unbuyable; andthough he was a sound Party man, on whom at a pinch his leaderscould rely, he yet seemed to rise superior to the lower air ofpartisanship, and to lift debate into the atmosphere of conviction. The _St. James's Gazette_ once confessed that his peculiar positionin the House of Commons was one of those Parliamentary mysterieswhich no outsider could understand. He seemed, even amid the hottestcontroversies, to be rather an arbiter than an advocate. Once Mr. T. W. Russell, in a moment of inspiration, described him as "anumpire, perfectly impartial--except that he never gives his ownside out. " Whereupon Whitbread, with a quaint half-smile, whisperedto the man sitting next to him: "That hit of 'T. W. 's' was _notvery bad_. " A singular tribute to Whitbread's influence, and theweight attaching to his counsel, is found in the fact that, in theautumn of 1885, before Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversionto Home Rule, Whitbread was one of the very few people (Goschen wasanother) to whom he confided his change of view. Of the estimationin which Whitbread was held by his neighbours, even after he hadceased to represent them in Parliament, the present writer once hearda ludicrous, but illuminating, instance. Among the men sentenced todeath after the Jameson Raid was one connected by ties of familywith Bedford. For a while his kinsfolk could not believe that hewas really in danger; but, when ominous rumours began to thicken, one of his uncles said, with an air of grave resolve: "This isbecoming serious about my nephew. If it goes on much longer, I shallhave to write to Mr. Whitbread. "

In the general course of politics Whitbread was a Whig, holdingto the great principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform; but he was a Whig with a difference. Hestuck to the party after it had been permeated by Gladstonianism, advanced in Liberalism as he advanced in years, and became a convincedHome Ruler. His political prescience, founded on long experienceand close observation, was remarkable. Soon after Lord Salisbury'saccession to power in the summer of 1895, he said to the presentwriter: "I fancy that for two or three years the Government willgo on quietly enough; and then, when they find their popularitywaning, they will pick a quarrel with somebody, and go to war. It is always difficult for an Opposition to attack a Governmentwhich is conducting a war, and I think Chamberlain is just theman to take advantage of that difficulty. "

In religion Whitbread was an Evangelical of the more liberal type, mistrusting extremes, and always on the friendliest terms withNonconformists. As regards the affairs of common life, he was amost hospitable and courteous host; a thorough agriculturist, anda keen sportsman. His size and weight debarred him from hunting, but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in allthings, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were embodiedin Samuel Whitbread. 

VII

_HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER_

The loved and honoured friend whose name stands at the head ofthis section was the fourth son and, youngest child of Dr. GeorgeButler, Dean of Peterborough, and sometime Head Master of Harrow. Montagu Butler was himself-educated at Harrow under Dr. Vaughan, afterwards the well-known Master of the Temple, and proved to bein many respects the ideal schoolboy. He won all the prizes forcomposition, prose and verse, Greek, Latin, and English. He gainedthe principal scholarship, and was Head of the School. Beside allthis, he was a member of the Cricket Eleven and made the highestscore for Harrow in the match against Eton at Lord's. 

In July, 1851, Montagu Butler left Harrow, and in the followingOctober entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Scholar. He wonthe Bell University Scholarship, the Battie University Scholarship, the Browne Medal for a Greek Ode twice, the Camden Medal, PorsonPrize, and First Member's Prize for a Latin Essay, and graduated asSenior Classic in 1855. Of such an undergraduate career a Fellowshipat Trinity was the natural sequel, but Butler did not long resideat Cambridge. All through his boyhood and early manhood he hadset his heart on a political career. He had a minute acquaintancewith the political history of modern England, and his memory wasstored with the masterpieces of political eloquence. 

In 1856 he accepted the post of Private Secretary to the Right Hon. W. F. Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount Temple, and then President of theBoard of Health in Lord Palmerston's Administration. In this officehe served for two years, and then, retiring, he spent eleven monthsin foreign travel, visiting in turn the Tyrol, Venice, the Danube, Greece, Rome, Florence, and the Holy Land. During this period, hechanged his plan of life, and in September, 1859, he was ordainedDeacon by Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield, on Letters Dimissory fromBishop Turton of Ely. His title was his Fellowship; but it wassettled that the College should present him to the Vicarage ofGreat St. Mary's, Cambridge; and till it was vacant he was to haveworked as a classical tutor in Trinity. Then came another change. "Dr. Vaughan's retirement, " he wrote, "from the Head Mastershipof Harrow startled us. We all took quietly for granted that hewould stay on for years. " However, this "startling" retirementtook place, and there was a general agreement among friends ofthe School that Vaughan's favourite pupil, Montagu Butler, wasthe right man to succeed him. Accordingly, Butler was elected inNovember, 1859, though only twenty-six years old; and, with a viewto the pastoral oversight of Harrow School, he was ordained priest, again by Bishop Lonsdale, at Advent, 1859. 

In January, 1860, Montagu Butler entered on his new duties at Harrow, and there he spent five-and-twenty years of happy, strenuous, andserviceable life. He found 469 boys in the School; under his rulethe numbers increased till they reached 600. 

Butler's own culture was essentially classical, for he had beenfashioned by Vaughan, who "thought in Greek, " and he himself mightalmost have been said to think and feel in Latin elegiacs. But hisscholarship was redeemed from pedantry by his wide reading, andby his genuine enthusiasm for all that is graceful in literature, modern as well as ancient. Under his rule the "grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum, " which Matthew Arnold satirized, fought hardand long for its monopoly; but gradually it had to yield. Butler'sfirst concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latinversification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever hisgifts or tastes. At the same time he introduced the regular teachingof Natural Science, and in 1869 he created a "Modern Side. " An evenmore important feature of his rule was the official encouragementgiven to the study of music, which, from an illicit indulgence practisedin holes and corners, became, under the energetic management of Mr. John Farmer, a prime element in the life of the School. 

In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School. My father hadintroduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen atonce under his charm. He was curiously unlike what one had imagineda Head Master to be--not old and pompous and austere, but young andgracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand. His leadingcharacteristic was gracefulness. He was graceful in appearance, tall andas yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; graceful in writing, and pre-eminently graceful in speech. He was young--thirty-four--andlooked younger, although (availing himself of the opportunity affordedby an illness in the summer of 1867) he had just grown a beard. He had a keen sense of humour, and was not afraid to display itbefore boys, although he was a little pampered by a sense of thesolemn reverence due not only to what was sacred, but to everythingthat was established and official. To breakfast with a Head Masteris usually rather an awful experience, but there was no awe aboutthe pleasant meals in Butler's dining-room (now the head Master'sstudy), for he was unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, and tactful in adapting his conversation to the capacities of hisguests. 

It was rather more alarming to face him at the periodical inspectionof one's Form. ("Saying to the Head Master" was the old phrase, thenlapsing out of date. ) We used to think that he found a peculiar interestin testing the acquirements of such boys as he knew personally, andof those whose parents were his friends; so that on these occasionsit was a doubtful privilege to "know him, " as the phrase is, "athome. " Till one reached the Sixth Form these social and officialencounters with Butler were one's only opportunities of meetinghim at close quarters; but every Sunday evening we heard him preachin the Chapel, and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, atleast in many cases, great. They were always written in beautifullyclear and fluent English, and were often decorated with a finequotation in prose or verse. In substance they were extraordinarilysimple, though not childish. For example, he often preached onsuch practical topics as Gambling, National Education; and theHousing of the Poor, as well as on themes more obviously and directlyreligious. He was at his best in commemorating a boy who had diedin the School, when his genuine sympathy with sorrow made itselfunmistakably felt. But whatever was the subject, whether public ordomestic, he always treated it in the same simply Christian spirit. I know from his own lips that he had never passed through thosedepths of spiritual experience which go to make a great preacher;but his sermons revealed in every sentence a pure, chivalrous, andduty-loving heart. One of his intimate friends once spoke of his"Arthur-like" character, and the epithet was exactly right. 

His most conspicuous gift was unquestionably his eloquence. Hisfluency, beauty of phrase, and happy power of turning "from graveto gay, from lively to severe, " made him extraordinarily effectiveon a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writinghis sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, andeven boys who did not usually care for sermons were fascinatedby his oratory. 

In the region of thought I doubt if he exercised any great influence. To me he never seemed to have arrived at his conclusions by anyprocess of serious reasoning. He held strongly and conscientiouslya certain number of conventions--a kind of Palmerstonian Whiggery, a love of "spirited foreign policy;" an admiration for the militarycharacter, an immense regard for the Crown, for Parliament, andfor all established institutions (he was much shocked when thepresent Bishop of Oxford spoke in the Debating Society in favour ofRepublicanism); and in every department of life he paid an almostsuperstitious reverence to authority. I once ventured to tell himthat even a beadle was a sacred being in his eyes, and he did notdeny the soft impeachment. 

His intellectual influence was not in the region of thought, but inthat of expression. His scholarship was essentially literary. He hadan instinctive and unaffected love of all that was beautiful, whetherin prose or verse, in Greek, Latin, or English. His reading was wideand thorough. Nobody knew Burke so well, and he had a contagiousenthusiasm for Parliamentary oratory. In composition he had a _curiosafelicitas_ in the strictest meaning of the phrase; for his felicitywas the product of care. To go through a prize-exercise with himwas a real joy, so generous was his appreciation, so fastidioushis taste, so dexterous his substitution of the telling for theineffective word, and so palpably genuine his enjoyment of thebusiness. 

As a ruler his most noticeable quality was his power of discipline. He was feared--and a Head Master who is not feared is not fit forhis post; and by bad boys he was hated, and by most good boys hewas loved. By most, but not by all. There were some, even among thebest, who resented his system of minute regulation, his "Chineseexactness" in trivial detail, his tendency to treat the tiniestbreach of a School rule as if it were an offence against the morallaw. 

I think it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew himbest loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, butit was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into aninjustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour anddishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always and exactly thesame. His memory for anything associated with his pupils careerswas extraordinarily retentive, and he was even passionately loyalto _Auld Lang Syne_. And there is yet another characteristic whichclaims emphatic mention in any attempt to estimate his influence. He was conspicuously and essentially a gentleman. In appearance, manner, speech, thought, and act, this gentlemanlike quality of hisnature made itself felt; and it roused in such as were susceptibleof the spell an admiration which the most meritorious teachers haveoften, by sheer boorishness forfeited. 

Time out of mind, a Head Mastership has been regarded as astepping-stone to a Bishopric--with disastrous results to theChurch--and in Butler's case it seemed only too likely that theprecedent would be followed. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, oncesaid to a Harrovian colleague, "What sort of Bishop would yourold master, Dr. Butler, make?" "The very worst, " was the reply. "He is quite ignorant of the Church, and would try to disciplinehis clergy like school-boys. But there is one place for which heis peculiarly qualified--the Mastership of Trinity. " And the PrimeMinister concurred. In June, 1885, Gladstone was driven from office, and was succeeded by Lord Salisbury. In October, 1886, the Master ofTrinity (Dr. W. H. Thompson) died, and Salisbury promptly offeredthe Mastership to Dr. Butler, who had for a year been Dean ofGloucester. It is not often that a man is designated for the samegreat post by two Prime Ministers of different politics. 

At Trinity, though at first he had to live down certain amount ofjealousy and ill-feeling, Butler's power and influence increasedsteadily from year to year, and towards the end he was universallyrespected and admired. A resident contemporary writes: "He wascertainly a Reformer, but not a violent one. His most conspicuousservices to the College were, in my opinion, these: (1) Sage guidanceof the turbulent and uncouth democracy of which a College Governingbody consists. (2) A steady aim at the highest in education, beingcareful to secure the position of literary education from theencroachments of science and mathematics. (3) Affectionate stimulusto all undergraduates who need it, especially Old Harrovians. (4)The maintenance of the dignity and commanding position of Trinityand consequently of the University in the world at large. "

To Cambridge generally Butler endeared himself by his eager interestin all good enterprises, by his stirring oratory and persuasivepreaching, and by his lavish hospitality. As Vice-Chancellor, in1889 and 1890, he worthily maintained the most dignified traditionsof academical office. Those who knew him both on the religiousand on the social side will appreciate the judgment said to havebeen pronounced by Canon Mason, then Master of Pembroke: "Butlerwill be saved, like Rahab, by hospitality and faith. "

VIII

_BASIL WILBERFORCE_[*]

[Footnote *: A Memorial Address delivered in St. John's Church, Westminster. ]

In the House of God the praise of man should always be restrained. I, therefore, do not propose to obey the natural instinct whichwould prompt me to deliver a copious eulogy of the friend whomwe commemorate--an analysis of his character or a description ofhis gifts. 

But, even in church, there is nothing out of place in an attempt torecall the particular aspects of truth which presented themselveswith special force to a particular mind. Rather, it is a dutifulendeavour to acknowledge the gifts, whether in the way of spiritualillumination or of practical guidance, which God gave us throughHis servant; and, it is on some of those aspects as they presentedthemselves to the mind of Basil Wilberforce that I propose tospeak--not, indeed, professing to treat them exhaustively, butbearing in mind that true saying of Jeremy Taylor: "In this worldwe believe in part and prophesy in part; and this imperfectionshall never be done away, till we be transplanted to a more gloriousstate. "

1. I cannot doubt about the point which should be put most prominently. 

Wilberforce's most conspicuous characteristic was his vivid apprehensionof the Spiritual World. His eyes, like Elisha's, were always open tosee "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire. " Incorporealpresences were to him at least as real as those which are embodiedin flesh and blood. Material phenomena were the veils of spiritualrealities; and "the powers of the world to come" were more actualand more momentous than those which operate in time and space. Perhaps the most important gift which God gave to the Church throughhis ministry was his lifelong testimony against the darkness ofMaterialism. 

2. Second only to his keen sense of the Unseen World was his convictionof God's love. 

Other aspects of the Divine Nature as it is revealed tous--Almightiness, Justice, Awfulness (though, of course, he recognizedthem all)--did not colour his heart and life as they were colouredby the sense of the Divine Love. That Love seemed to him to explainall the mysteries of existence, to lift

 "the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world";

to make its dark places light, its rough places plain, its hardthings easy, even its saddest things endurable. His Gospel wasthis: God, Who made us in His own Image, loves us like a Father;and therefore, in life and in death, in time and in eternity, allis, and must be, well. 

3. "He prayeth best, who lovest best All things both great and small. For the dear God Who loveth us, He made and loveth all. "

Those familiar words of Coleridge perfectly express Wilberforce'sattitude towards his fellow-creatures, and when I say "fellow-creatures, "I am not thinking only of his brothers and sisters in the human family. 

He was filled with a God-like love of all that God has made. Hatredand wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy. "Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt astenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadsideat Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that, all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in thatloathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforceto devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to thereclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, andwhich stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms. 

But his love extended far beyond the bounds of the human family;and (in this again resembling St. Francis) he loved the birds andbeasts which God has provided as our companions in this life, andperhaps--for aught we know--in the next. In a word, he loved allGod's creatures for God's sake. 

4. No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spiritin regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; andyet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belongedessentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imaginehim happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere elsecould he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholicantiquity and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combinedwith that freedom of religious speculation and that elasticityof devotional forms which were to him as necessary as vital air. Various elements of his teaching, various aspects of his practicewill occur to different minds; but (just because it is sometimesoverlooked) I feel bound to remind you of his testimony to theblessings which he had received through Confession, and to theglory of the Holy Eucharist, as the Sun and Centre of Catholicworship. His conviction of the reality and nearness of the spiritualworld gave him a singular ease and "access" in intercessory prayer, and his love of humanity responded to that ideal of public worshipwhich is set forth in _John Inglesant:_ "The English Church, asestablished by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to allwho choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whosesun shines alike on the evil and on the good. "

5. In what theology did Wilberforce, whose adult life had beenone long search for truth, finally repose? Assuredly he never losthis hold on the central facts of the Christian revelation as theyare stated in the creed of Nicæa and Constantinople. Yet, as yearswent on, he came to regard them less and less in their objectiveaspect; more and more as they correspond to the work of the Spiritin the heart and conscience. Towards the end, all theology seemed tobe for him comprehended in the one doctrine of the Divine Immanence, and to find its natural expression in that significant phrase ofSt. Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of glory. "

Spiritually-minded men do not, as a rule, talk much of their spiritualexperiences; but, if one had asked Wilberforce to say what he regardedas the most decisive moment of his religious life, I can well believethat he would have replied, "The moment when 'it pleased God toreveal His Son _in_ me. '"

The subject expands before us, as is always the case when we meditateon the character and spirit of those whom we have lost; and I musthasten to a close. 

I have already quoted from a writer with whom I think Wilberforcewould have felt a close affinity, though, as a matter of fact, Inever heard him mention that writer's name; I mean J. H. Shorthouse;and I return to the same book--the stimulating story of _JohnInglesant_--for my concluding words, which seem to express, withaccidental fidelity, the principle of Wilberforce's spiritual being:"We are like children, or men in a tennis-court, and before ourconquest is half-won, the dim twilight comes and stops the game;nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all hold fast bythe law of life we feel within. This was the method which Christfollowed, and He won the world by placing Himself in harmony withthat law of gradual development which the Divine wisdom has planned. Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the ideal life;and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread the free andspacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above. "

IX

_EDITH SICHEL_

This notice is more suitably headed with a name than with a title. Edith Sichel was greater than anything she wrote, and the maininterest of the book before us[*] is the character which it reveals. Among Miss Sichel's many activities was that of reviewing, and Mr. Bradley tells that "her first object was to let the reader knowwhat kind of matter he might expect to find in the book, and, ifnecessary, from what point of view it is treated there. " Followingthis excellent example, let us say that in _New and Old_ the readerwill find an appreciative but not quite adequate "Introduction";some extracts from letters; some "thoughts" or aphorisms; somepoems; and thirty-two miscellaneous pieces of varying interest-andmerit. This is what we "find in the book, " and the "point of view"is developed as we read. 

[Footnote *: _New and Old_. By Edith Sichel. With an Introductionby A. C. Bradley. London: Constable and Co. ]

To say that the Introduction is not quite adequate is no aspersionon Mr. Bradley. He tells us that he only knew Miss Sichel "towardsthe close of her life" (she was born in 1862 and died in 1914), andin her case pre-eminently the child was mother of the woman. Herblood was purely Jewish, and the Jewish characteristic of precocitywas conspicuous in her from the first. At ten she had the intellectualalertness of sixteen, and at sixteen she could have held her ownwith ordinary people of thirty. To converse with her even casuallyalways reminded me of Matthew Arnold's exclamation: "What womenthese Jewesses are! with a _force_ which seems to triple that ofthe women of our Western and Northern races. "

From the days of early womanhood to the end, Edith Sichel led adouble life, though in a sense very different from that in whichthis ambiguous phrase is generally employed. "She was known to thereading public as a writer of books and of papers in magazines.... Her principal books were warmly praised by judges competent to estimatetheir value as contributions to French biography and history;" andher various writings, belonging to very different orders and rangingover a wide variety of topics, were always marked by vigour andoriginality. Her versatility was marvellous; and, "though she hadnot in youth the severe training that makes for perfect accuracy, "she had by nature the instinct which avoids the commonplace, andwhich touches even hackneyed themes with light and fire. Her humourwas exuberant, unforced, untrammelled; it played freely round everyobject which met her mental gaze--sometimes too freely when she wasdealing with things traditionally held sacred. But her flippancywas of speech rather than of thought, for her fundamental view oflife was serious. "Life, in her view, brings much that is pureand unsought joy, more, perhaps, that needs transforming effort, little or nothing that cannot be made to contribute to an inwardand abiding happiness. "

Some more detailed account of her literary work may be given lateron; at this point I must turn to the other side of her double life. She was only twenty-two when she began her career of practicalbenevolence among the poor girls of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, andShadwell. She established in the country Homes for the girl-childrenof an East End work-house, and maintained them till she died. Fortwenty-two years she was treasurer of a Boys' Home. She was a managerof Elementary Schools in London. She held a class for female prisonersat Holloway. She was deeply impressed by the importance of startingyoung people in suitable employment, and threw all her energiesinto the work, "in case of need, supplying the money required forapprenticeship. " In this and in all her other enterprises she wasgenerous to a fault, always being ready to give away half herincome--and yet not "to a fault, " for her strong administrativeand financial instinct restrained her from foolish or mischievousexpenditure. All this work, of body and mind, was done in spiteof fragile health and frequent suffering; yet she never seemedoverburdened, or fussed, or flurried, and those who enjoyed hergraceful hospitality in Onslow Gardens would never have suspectedeither that her day had been spent in what she called "the picturesquemire of Wapping, " or that she had been sitting up late at night, immersed in _Human Documents from the Four Centuries precedingthe Reformation_. 

We have spoken of her humour. Those who would see a sample of itare referred to her description of the Eisteddfod on p. 22; andthis piece of pungent fun may be profitably read in contrast withher grim story of _Gladys Leonora Pratt_. In that story some ofthe writer's saddest experiences in the East End are told with anunshrinking fidelity, which yet has nothing mawkish or prurient init. Edith Sichel was too good an artist to be needlessly disgusting. "It might, " she said, "be well for the modern realist to rememberthat literalness is not the same as truth, nor curiosity as courage. "

She was best known as a writer of books about the French Renaissance, on which she became an acknowledged authority. She was less wellknown, but not less effective, as a reviewer--no one ever dissectedCharlotte Yonge so justly--and she excelled in personal description. Her accounts of her friends Miss Emily Lawless, Miss Mary Coleridge, and Joseph Joachim, are masterpieces of characterization. All herliterary work was based on a wide and strong foundation of generousculture. German was to her a second mother-tongue, and she lectureddelightfully on _Faust_. Though she spoke of herself as talking"fluent and incomprehensible bad French, " she was steeped in Frenchscholarship. She had read Plato and Sophocles under the stimulatingguidance of William Cory, and her love of Italy had taught her agreat deal of Italian. The authors whom she enjoyed and quotedwere a motley crowd--Dante and Rabelais, Pascal and Montaigne, George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, Tolstoi and George Borrow, "MarkRutherford" and Samuel Butler, Fénelon and Renan and Anatole France. Her vein of poetic feeling was strong and genuine. In addressing someyoung girls she said: "We all think a great deal of the importanceof opening our windows and airing our rooms. I wish we thoughtas much of airing our imaginations. To me poetry is quite likethat. It is like opening the window daily, and looking out andletting in the air and the sunlight into an otherwise stuffy littleroom; and if I cannot read some poetry in the day I feel moreuncomfortable than I can tell you. " She might have put the casemore strongly; for poetry, and music, and painting, and indeed allart at its highest level, made a great part of her religion. Herfamily had long ago conformed to the Church of England, in whichshe was brought up; but she never shook off her essential Judaism. She had no sympathy with rites or ordinances, creeds or dogmas, and therefore outward conformity to the faith of her forefatherswould have been impossible to her; but she looked with reverentpride on the tombs in the Jewish cemetery at Prague. "It gave mea strange feeling to stand at the tombstone of our tribe--900 A. D. The oldest scholar's grave is 600 A. D. , and Heaven knows how manygreat old Rabbis lie there, memorable and forgotten. The wind andthe rain were sobbing all round the place, and all the melancholyof my race seemed to rise up and answer them. " Though she was aChurchwoman by practice, her own religion was a kind of undefinedUnitarianism. "The Immanence of God and the life of Christ are mytreasures. " "I am a heretic, you know, and it seems to me thatall who call Christ Master with adoration of that life are of thesame band. " Her favourite theologians were James Martineau, AlfredAinger (whose Life she wrote admirably), and Samuel Barnett, whomshe elevated into a mystic and a prophet. The ways of the Churchof England did not please her. She had nothing but scorn for "ajoyless curate prating of Easter joy with limpest lips, " or for "theAthanasian Creed sung in the highest of spirits in a prosperous church"filled with "sealskin-jacketed mammas and blowsy old gentlemen. " Butthe conclusion of the whole matter was more comfortable--"All theclergymen in the world cannot make one disbelieve in God. "

X

_"WILL" GLADSTONE_

"He bequeathed to his children the perilous inheritance of a namewhich the Christian world venerates. " The words were originallyused by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce with reference to his father, the emancipator of the negro. I venture to apply them to the greatman who, in days gone by, was my political leader, and I do so themore confidently because I hold that Gladstone will be rememberedquite apart from politics, and, as Bishop Westcott said, "ratherfor what he was than for what he did. " He was, in Lord Salisbury'swords, "an example, to which history hardly furnishes a parallel, of a great Christian, Statesman. " It was no light matter for aboy of thirteen to inherit a name which had been so nobly bornefor close on ninety years, and to acquire, as soon as he came ofage, the possession of a large and difficult property, and allthe local influence which such ownership implies. Yet this wasthe burden which was imposed on "Will" Gladstone by his father'suntimely death. After an honourable career at Eton and Oxford, andsome instructive journeyings in the East and in America (where hewas an attaché at the British Embassy), he entered Parliament asMember for the Kilmarnock Boroughs. His Parliamentary career wasnot destined to be long, but it was in many respects remarkable. 

In some ways he was an ideal candidate. He was very tall, with afair complexion and a singular nobility of feature and bearing. To the most casual observer it was palpable that he walked theworld

 "With conscious step of purity and pride. "

People interested in heredity tried to trace in him some resemblanceto his famous grandfather; but, alike in appearance and in character, the two were utterly dissimilar. In only one respect they resembledeach other, and that was the highest. Both were earnest and practicalChristians, walking by a faith which no doubts ever disturbed, and serving God in the spirit and by the methods of the EnglishChurch. And here we see alike Will Gladstone's qualifications andhis drawbacks as a candidate for a Scottish constituency. His nameand his political convictions commended him to the electors; hisecclesiastial opinions they could not share. His uprightness ofcharacter and nobility of aspect commanded respect; his innatedislike of popularity-hunting and men-pleasing made him seem for soyoung a man--he was only twenty-seven--austere and aloof. Everyonecould feel the intensity of his convictions on the points on whichhe had made up his mind; some were unreasonably distressed whenhe gave expression to that intensity by speech and vote. He waschosen to second the Address at the opening of the Session of 1912, and acquitted himself, as always, creditably; but it was in thedebates on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill that he first definitelymade his mark. "He strongly supported the principle, holding that ithad been fully justified by the results of the Irish DisestablishmentAct on the Irish Church. But, as in that case, generosity shouldcharacterize legislation; disendowment should be clearly limited totithes. Accordingly, in Committee, he took an independent course. His chief speech on this subject captivated the House. For a veryyoung Member to oppose his own party without causing irritation, and to receive the cheers of the Opposition without being led toseek in them solace for the silence of his own side, and to wingeneral admiration by transparent sincerity and clear, balancedstatement of reason, was a rare and notable performance. "

When Will Gladstone struck twenty-nine, there were few young men inEngland who occupied a more enviable position. He had a beautifulhome; sufficient, but not overwhelming, wealth; a property whichgave full scope for all the gifts of management and administrationwhich he might possess; the devoted love of his family, and thegoodwill even of those who did not politically agree with him. His health, delicate in childhood, had improved with years. "Whilehe never neglected his public duties, his natural, keen, healthylove of nature, sport, fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly. In these matters he was still a boy"--but a boy who, as it seemed, had already crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such wasWill Gladstone on his last birthday--the 12th of July, 1914. Amonth later the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinkingworld, and all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness, yes; but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible, and an unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part--theconviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and tohimself--became only more imperious when the call to arms was heard:_Christus ad arma vocat_. 

Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart. He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels ofother nations. "His health was still delicate; he possessed neitherthe training nor instincts of a soldier; war and fighting wererepugnant to his whole moral and physical fibre. " No one, in short, could have been by nature less disposed for the duty which nowbecame urgent. "The invasion of Belgium shattered his hopes andhis ideals. " He now realized the stern truth that England mustfight, and, if England must fight, he must bear his part in thefighting. He had been made, when only twenty-six, Lord-Lieutenantof Flintshire, and as such President of the Territorial ForceAssociation. It was his official duty to "make personal appealsfor the enlistment of young men. But how could he urge others tojoin the Army while he, a young man not disqualified for militaryservice, remained at home in safety? It was his duty to lead, andhis best discharge of it lay in personal example. " His decisionwas quickly and quietly made. "He was the only son of his mother, and what it meant to her he knew full well;" but there was nohesitation, no repining, no looking back. He took a commission inthe 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and on the 15thof March, 1915, he started with a draft for France. On the 12thof April he was killed. "It is not"--he had just written to hismother--"the length of existence, that counts, but what is achievedduring that existence, however short. " These words of his formhis worthiest epitaph. 

XI

_LORD CHARLES RUSSELL_

A man can have no better friend than a good father; and thisconsideration warrants, I hope, the inclusion of yet one more sketchdrawn "in honour of friendship. "

Charles James Fox Russell (1807-1894) was the sixth son of the sixthDuke of Bedford. His mother was Lady Georgiana Gordon, daughterof the fourth Duke of Gordon and of the adventurous "Duchess Jane, "who, besides other achievements even more remarkable, raised the"Gordon Highlanders" by a method peculiarly her own. Thus he wasgreat-great-great-grandson of the Whig martyr, William, Lord Russell, and great-nephew of Lord George Gordon, whose Protestant zeal excitedthe riots of 1780. He was one of a numerous family, of whom the bestremembered are John, first Earl Russell, principal author of theReform Act of 1832, and Louisa, Duchess of Abercorn, grandmotherof the present Duke. 

Charles James Fox was a close friend, both politically and privately, of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and he promised them that hewould be godfather to their next child; but he died before thechild was born, whereupon his nephew, Lord Holland, took over thesponsorship, and named his godson "Charles James Fox. " The childwas born in 1807, and his birthplace was Dublin Castle. [*] TheDuke of Bedford was then Viceroy of Ireland, and became involvedin some controversy because he refused to suspend the Habeas CorpusAct. When Lord Charles Russell reached man's estate, he used, halfin joke but quite half in-earnest, to attribute his lifelong sympathywith the political demands of the Irish people to the fact thathe was a Dublin man by birth. 

[Footnote *: He was christened from a gold bowl by the Archbishopof Dublin, Lord Normanton. ]

The Duke of Bedford was one of the first Englishmen who took ashooting in Scotland (being urged thereto by his Highland Duchess);and near his shooting-lodge a man who had been "out" with PrinceCharlie in 1745 was still living when Charles Russell first visitedSpeyside. Westminster was the Russells' hereditary school, andCharles Russell was duly subjected to the austere discipline whichthere prevailed. From the trials of gerund-grinding and faggingand flogging a temporary relief was afforded by the Coronation ofGeorge IV. , at which he officiated as Page to the acting Lord GreatChamberlain. It was the last Coronation at which the procession wasformed in Westminster Hall and moved across to the Abbey. YoungRussell, by mischievousness or carelessness, contrived to tearhis master's train from the ermine cape which surmounted it; andthe procession was delayed till a seamstress could be found torepair the damage. "I contrived to keep that old rascal GeorgeIV. Off the throne for half an hour, " was Lord Charles-Russell'sboast in maturer age. [*]

[Footnote *: J, W. Croker, recording the events of the day, says:"The King had to wait full half an hour for the Great Chamberlain, Lord Gwydyr, who, it seems, had torn his robes, and was obligedto wait to have them mended. I daresay the public lays the blameof the delay on to the King, who was ready long before anyoneelse, "--_The Croker Papers_, vol. I. , p. 195. ]

From Westminster Lord Charles passed to the University of Edinburgh, where his brother John had preceded him. He boarded with ProfessorPillans, whom Byron gibbeted as "paltry"[*] in "English Bards andScotch Reviewers, " and enjoyed the society of the literary circlewhich in those days made Edinburgh famous. The authorship of theWaverley Novels was not yet revealed, and young Russell had thepleasure of discussing with Sir Walter Scott the dramatic qualitiesof _The Bride of Lammermoor_. He was, perhaps, less unfitted for suchhigh converse than most lads would be, because, as Lord Holland'sgodson, he had been from his schooldays a frequenter of HollandHouse in its days of glory. [**]

[Footnote *: Why?]

[Footnote **: On his first visit Lord Holland told him that hemight order his own dinner. He declared for a roast duck with greenpeas, and an apricot tart; whereupon the old Amphitryon said: "Decideas wisely on every question in life, and you will never go farwrong. "]

On leaving Edinburgh, Lord Charles Russell joined the Blues, thencommanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover;and he was able to confirm, by personal knowledge, the strangetales of designs which the Duke entertained for placing himself orhis son upon the throne of England. [*] He subsequently exchangedinto the 52nd Light Infantry, from which he retired, with the rankof Lieutenant-Colonel, in order to enter Parliament. In December, 1832, he was returned at the head of the poll for Bedfordshire, and on Christmas Eve a young lady (who in 1834 became his wife)wrote thus to her sister:

"Lord Charles Russell is returned for this County. The Chairing, Dinner, etc. , take place to-day. Everybody is interested abouthim, as he is very young and it is his first appearance in thecharacter. His speeches have delighted the whole County, and heis, of course, very much pleased. " This faculty of public speakingwas perhaps his most remarkable endowment. He had an excellentcommand of cultivated English, a clear and harmonious voice, a keensense of humour, and a happy knack of apt quotation. 

[Footnote *: _Cf. Tales of my Father_, by A. F. Longmans, 1902. ]

On the 23rd of February, 1841, Disraeli wrote, with reference toan impending division on the Irish Registration Bill: "The Whigshad last week two hunting accidents; but Lord Charles Russell, though he put his collar-bone out, and we refused to pair him, showed last night. " He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolutionof that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeedbound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agriculturalcommunity which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell, " wrote Cobden, "is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaringat the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out ofcultivation. " He returned to Parliament for a brief space in 1847, and was then appointed Serjeant-at-Arms--not, as he always insisted, "Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons, " but "one of the Queen'sSerjeants-at-Arms, directed by her to attend on the Speaker duringthe sitting of Parliament. " In 1873 the office and its holder werethus described by "Jehu Junior" in _Vanity Fair_:

"For the filling of so portentous an office, it is highly importantthat one should be chosen who will, by personal mien and bearingnot less than by character, detract nothing from its dignity. Sucha one is Lord Charles Russell, who is a worthy representative ofthe great house of Bedford from which he springs. 

"For a quarter of a century he has borne the mace before successiveSpeakers. From his chair he has listened to Peel, to Russell, toPalmerston, to Disraeli, and to Gladstone, and he still survivesas a depository of their eloquence. He is himself popular beyondthe fair expectations of one who has so important a part to playin the disciplinary arrangements of a popular assembly; for heis exceptionally amiable and genial by nature, is an excellentsportsman, and has cultivated a special taste for letters. [*] It israrely that in these times a man can be found so thoroughly fittedto fill an office which could be easily invested with ridicule, or so invariably to invest it, as he has, with dignity. "

[Footnote *: He was the best Shakespearean I ever knew, and foundedthe "Shakespeare Medal" at Harrow. Lord Chief justice Coleridgewrote thus: "A munificent and accomplished nobleman, Lord CharlesRussell, has, by the wise liberality which dictated the foundationof his Shakespeare Medal at Harrow, secured that at least at onegreat Public School the boys may be stimulated in youth to an exactand scholarlike acquaintance with the poet whom age will show themto be the greatest in the world. "]

Sir George Trevelyan writes: "You can hardly imagine how formidableand impressive Lord Charles seemed to the mass of Members, andespecially to the young; and how exquisite and attractive was themoment when he admitted you to his friendly notice, and the absoluteassurance that, once a friend, he would be a friend for ever. "

Lord Charles Russell held the Serjeancy till 1875; and at this pointI had better transcribe the record in _Hansard_:

 * * * * *

_Monday, April_ 5, 1875:

Mr. Speaker acquainted the House that he had received from LordCharles James Fox Russell the following letter:

 HOUSE OF COMMONS, _April_ 5_th_, 1875. 

SIR, I have the honour to make application to you that you will be pleasedto sanction my retirement from my office, by Patent, of Her Majesty'sSerjeant-at-Arms attending the Speaker of the House of Commons. I have held this honourable office for twenty-seven years, andI feel that the time is come when it is desirable that I shouldno longer retain it. 

 I have the honour to be, Sir, Your very obedient servant, CHARLES J. F. RUSSELL, _Serjeant-at-Arms_. 

THE RIGHT HONBLE. THE SPEAKER. 

_Thursday, April_ 8, 1875:

Mr. DISRAELI: I beg to move, Sir, that the letter addressed toyou by Lord Charles Russell, the late Serjeant-at-Arms, be readby the Clerk at the Table. 

Letter [5th April] read. 

Mr. DISRAELI: Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the resignation ofhis office by one who has long and ably served this House. The officeof Serjeant-at-Arms is one which requires no ordinary qualities; forit requires at the same time patience, firmness, and suavity, andthat is a combination of qualities more rare than one could wishin this world. The noble Lord who filled the office recently, andwhose resignation has just been read at the Table, has obtained ourconfidence by the manner in which he has discharged his duties throughan unusually long period of years; and we should remember, I think, that occasions like the present are almost the only opportunity wehave of expressing our sense of those qualities, entitled so muchto our respect, which are possessed and exercised by those who filloffices attached to this House, and upon whose able fulfilment oftheir duties much of our convenience depends. Therefore, followingthe wise example of those who have preceded me in this office, I have prepared a Resolution which expresses the feeling of theHouse on this occasion, and I now place it, Sir, in your hands. 

Mr. Speaker, read the Resolution, as follows: "That Mr. Speakerbe requested to acquaint Lord Charles James Fox Russell that thisHouse entertains a just sense of the exemplary manner in which hehas uniformly discharged the duties of the Office of Serjeant-at-Armsduring his long attendance on this House. "

The MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of the Members who siton this side of the House, I rise to second the Motion of the RightHon. Gentleman. He has on more than one occasion gracefully, butat the same time justly, recognized the services rendered to theState by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy aforemost place in the history of the Party to which I am proudto belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place inthe history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who hasjust resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the timewhen he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that hisresignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number ofnew Members of this House to add their testimony to that of uswho are better acquainted with him, as to the invariable dignityand courtesy with which he has discharged his duties. 

The Resolution was adopted by the House, _nemine contradicente. _

 * * * * *

Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, wherehe spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had alwaysbeen devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and histwo main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M. C. C. In1827, and for twenty years before his death I had been its seniormember. Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give _me_bowling, _Pilch_ in, _Box_ at the wicket, and your Lordship lookingon. "[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle hewas supreme--a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge ofa hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularlystill later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdalewrites: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your fatherwe went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five yearsbefore his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, andLord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old--or was sheonly four?--which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! She wasnot easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her with theease of long proficiency--not long years--and his interest in allthat goes to make up a day's hunting was as full of zest and youthas I recollect his interest used to be in all that made up acricket-match in my Harrow days. "

[Footnote *: See _Lords and the M. C. C. _, p. 86. ]

In religion Lord Charles Russell was an Evangelical, and he wasa frequent speaker on religious platforms. In politics he was anardent Liberal; always (except in that soon-repented heresy aboutFree Trade) rather in advance of his party; a staunch adherentof Mr. Gladstone, and a convinced advocate of Home Rule, thoughhe saw from the outset that the first Home Rule Bill, withoutChamberlain's support, was, as he said, "No go. " He took an activepart in electioneering, from the distant days when, as a Westminsterboy, he cheered for Sir Francis Burdett, down to September, 1892, whenhe addressed his last meeting in support of Mr. Howard Whitbread, then Liberal candidate for South Bedfordshire. A speech which hedelivered at the General Election of 1886, denouncing the "impiety"of holding that the Irish were incapable of self-government, won theenthusiastic applause of Mr. Gladstone. When slow-going Liberalscomplained of too-rapid reforms, he used to say: "When I was aboy, our cry was 'Universal Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, andthe Ballot. ' That was seventy years ago, and we have only got oneof the three yet. "

In local matters, he was always on the side of the poor and theoppressed, and a sturdy opponent of all aggressions on their rights. "Footpaths, " he wrote, "are a precious right of the poor, andconsequently much encroached on. "

It is scarcely decent for a son to praise his father, but even ason may be allowed to quote the tributes which his father's deathevoked. Let some of these tributes end my tale. 

 _June_ 29_th_, 1894. 

My DEAR G. RUSSELL, I am truly grieved to learn this sad news. It is the disappearance of an illustrious figure tous, but of much more, I fear, to you. 

 Yours most sincerely, ROSEBERY. 

 _June_ 30_th_, 1894. 

DEAR G. RUSSELL, I saw with sorrow the announcement of your father's death. He wasa good and kind friend to me in the days long ago, and I mournhis loss. In these backsliding days he set a great example ofsteadfastness and loyalty to the faith of his youth and his race. 

 Yours very truly, W. V. HARCOURT. 

 _July_ 31_rd_ 1894. 

DEAR RUSSELL, I was very grieved to hear of your revered father's death. 

He was a fine specimen of our real aristocracy, and such specimensare becoming rarer and rarer in these degenerate days. 

There was a true ring of the "Grand Seigneur" about him which alwaysimpressed me. 

 Yours sincerely, REAY. 

 _July_ 1_st_, 1894. 

My DEAR RUSSELL, I thank you very much for your kindness in writing to me. 

You may, indeed, presume that it is with painful interest and deepregret that I hear of the death of your father, and that I valuethe terms in which you speak of his feelings towards myself. 

Though he died at such an advanced age, it is, I think, remarkablethat his friends spoke of him to the last as if he were still inthe full intercourse of daily life, without the disqualificationor forgetfulness that old age sometimes brings with it. 

For my part I can never forget my association with him in the Houseof Commons and elsewhere, nor the uniform kindness which he alwaysshowed me. 

 Believe me, most truly yours, ARTHUR W. PEEL. 

 _June_ 29_th_, 1894. 

My DEAR RUSSELL, I have seen, with the eyes of others, in newspapers of this afternoonthe account of the death--shall I say?--or of the ingathering ofyour father. And of what he was to you as a father I can reasonably, if remotely, conceive from knowing what he was in the outer circle, as a firm, true, loyal friend. 

He has done, and will do, no dishonour to the name of Russell. Itis a higher matter to know, at a supreme moment like this, thathe had placed his treasure where moth and dust do not corrupt, andhis dependence where dependence never fails. May he enjoy the rest, light, and peace of the just until you are permitted to rejoin him. With growing years you will feel more and more that here everythingis but a rent, and that it is death alone which integrates. 

On Monday I hope to go to Pitlochrie, N. B. , and in a little timeto return southward, and resume, if it please God, the great giftof working vision. 

 Always and sincerely yours, W. E. GLADSTONE. 

III

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH

I

_A STRANGE EPIPHANY_

Whenever the State meddles with the Church's business, it contrivesto make a muddle. This familiar truth has been exemplified afreshby the decree which dedicated last Sunday[*] to devotions connectedwith the War. The Feast of the Epiphany has had, at least sincethe fourth century, its definite place in the Christian year, itsspecial function, and its peculiar lesson. The function is tocommemorate the revelation of Christianity to the Gentile world;and the lesson is the fulfilment of all that the better part ofHeathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion whichemanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance ofthis day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motivesand its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph of ineptitude. 

[Footnote *: January 6th, 1918. ]

Tennyson wrote of

 "this northern island, Sundered once from all the human race";

and when Christians first began to observe the Epiphany, or Theophany(as the feast was indifferently called), our own forefathers wereamong the heathen on whom the light of the Holy Manger was beforelong to shine. It has shone on us now for a good many centuries;England has ranked as one of the chiefest of Christian nations, and has always professed, and often felt, a charitable concernfor the races which are still lying in darkness. Epiphany is veryspecially the feast of a missionary Church, and the strongest appealwhich it could address to Heathendom would be to cry, "See whatChristianity has done for the world! Christendom possesses theone religion. Come in and share its blessings. "

There have been times and places at which that appeal could besuccessfully made. Indeed, as Gibbon owned, it was one of the causesto which the gradual triumph of Christianity was due. But for Europeat the present moment to address that appeal to Africa or Indiaor China would be to invite a deadly repartee. In the long ages, Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "roseout of chaos, " you have improved very little on the manners ofthose primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime. " Twothousand years of Christianity have not taught you to beat yourswords into plough-shares. You still make your sons to pass throughthe fire to Moloch, and the most remarkable developments of physicalscience are those which make possible the destruction of human lifeon the largest scale. Certainly, in Zeppelins and submarines andpoisonous gas there is very little to remind the world of Epiphanyand what it stands for. 

Thirty years ago the great Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "The presentis terrible, the future far more so; every day adds to the powerand facility of the means of destruction. Science is hard at work(science, the great--nay, to some the only--God of these days)to discover and concentrate the shortest and easiest methods toannihilate the human race. " We see the results of that work inGerman methods of warfare. 

Germany has for four centuries asserted for herself a conspicuousplace in European religion. She has been a bully there as in otherfields, and the lazy and the timid have submitted to her theologicalpretensions. Now, by the mouth of her official pastors she hasrenounced the religion of sacrifice for the lust of conquest, andhas substituted the creed of Odin for the faith of Christ. A countrywhich, in spite of learning and opportunity, has wilfully elapsedfrom civilization into barbarism can scarcely evangelize Confuciansor Buddhists. 

If we turn from the Protestant strongholds of the North to thecitadel of Authority at Rome, the signs of an Epiphany are equallylacking. The Infallibility which did not save the largest sectionof Christendom from such crimes as the Inquisition and the massacreof St. Bartholomew has proved itself equally impotent in theselatter days. No one could have expected the Pope, who has spiritualchildren in all lands, to take sides in an international dispute;but one would have thought that a divinely-given infallibilitywould have denounced, with the trumpet-tone of Sinai, the orgiesof sexual and sacrilegious crime which have devastated Belgium. 

Is the outlook in allied Russia any more hopeful than in hostileGermany and in neutral Rome? I must confess that I cannot answer. We were always told that the force which welded together in one thedifferent races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritualforce; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; andthat even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion. At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy OrthodoxChurch manifest her power and instil into her children the primaryconceptions of Christian citizenship?

And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the conditionof England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with alively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesleycomplained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "thesinners unbaptized out-sin. " And everyone who remembers the socialand moral state of England during the ten years immediately precedingthe present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth centuryhad not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling, and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, andwere doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was anopen and insolent disregard of religious observance, especiallywith respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest beingperverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. Therewas a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of societywhich are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasinginvasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated inthe agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Otherand darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to makemy meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent ofand to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise, we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany. 

II

_THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_

"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides. " I know no betterdefinition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustratedin the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One--is, of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history hasRomance been more splendidly displayed than when the young menand maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to thewild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of theCross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, the "Martyrs-Elect, " as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willingto lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carriedwith them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilationsinflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own time, "many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, has gladlymet her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would have made herin a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant community. "Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the Romance of theCloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian desert, and Benedictin his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis tending the leperby the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, as in thousandsmore, the world was well lost for an idea. 

The world is well lost--and supremely well lost--by the Missionary, whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier lost it wellwhen he made his response to the insistent question: "What shallit profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his ownsoul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse foolishnessas men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant prospectswhich a University offers to preach and fail among the heathen, and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge Pattersonlost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures of Eton andOxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, he went outto spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of the Pacific, and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen whom he lovedand served. 

These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but othersthere are, which, though less "high and heroical, " are not lessTeal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though fora cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who on"Black Bartholomew, " in the year 1662, renounced their beneficesin the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worshipwhich their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world wasgloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates ofthe Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption, sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromisethe "Headship of Christ over His own house. "

One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in givingit I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now, I suppose, entirely forgotten--the name of the Honble. And Revd. Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years andten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry notof mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none wholistened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliestyouth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ, 'in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquishedeven the church which was his living and the pulpit which was histhrone, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance, and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he carednot whither. "

After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it mayseem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise tothis chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple, by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order todevote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty, " has establisheda strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I stateon p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To mythinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment. The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be anintolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, whileretaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment, they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of aspiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own idealis Cavour's--the Free Church in the Free State; and all such schemesas Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the best oftwo incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our fettersmight be made to gall less painfully, but they would be more securelyriveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. Temple stands onone side and I on the other; but this does not impair my respectfor a man who is ready to "lose the world for an idea"--even thoughthat idea be erroneous and Impracticable. 

To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion, but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all thequalifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune. He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervourwhich in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his fatherone of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he wasesteemed a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent himfrom being an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorousworker, a powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an importantparish. Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in thewish to be a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by thebiographies of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee, and in the actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopalthrones. But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals, and has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is affordedby the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position. 

That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come tonaught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at lengthrecognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete, severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidancein the use of her new-born freedom. 

III

_PAN-ANGLICANISM_

It is an awful word. Our forefathers, from Shakespeare downwards, ate pan-cakes, and trod the pantiles at Tunbridge Wells; but their"pan" was purely English, and they linked it with other Englishwords. The freedom of the "Ecclesia Anglicana" was guaranteed bythe Great Charter, and "Anglicanism" became a theological term. Then Johnson, making the most of his little Greek, began to talkabout a "pancratical" man, where we talk of an all-round athlete;and, a little later, "Pantheist" became a favourite missile withtheologians who wished to abuse rival practitioners, but did notknow exactly how to formulate their charge. It was reserved for thejournalists of 1867 to form the terrible compound of two languages, and, by writing of the "Pan-Anglican Synod, " to prepare the way for"Pan-Protestant" and "Pan-denominational. " Just now the "LivelyLibertines" (as their detractors style the promoters of "Life andLiberty") seem to be testing from their labours, and they mightprofitably employ their leisure by reading the history of theirforerunners half a century ago. 

The hideously named "Pan-Anglican Synod, " which assembled at Lambethin September, 1867, and terminated its proceedings in the followingDecember, was a real movement in the direction of Life and Libertyfor the Church of England. The impulse came from the Colonies, which, themselves enjoying the privilege of spiritual independence, were generously anxious to coalesce at a time of trial with thefettered Church at home. The immediate occasion of the movementwas the eccentricity of Bishop Colenso--"the arithmetical Bishopwho could not forgive Moses for having written a Book of Numbers. "The faith of some was seriously perturbed when they heard of aBishop who, as Matthew Arnold said, "had learnt among the Zulusthat only a certain number of people can stand in a doorway atonce, and that no man can eat eighty-eight pigeons a day; and whotells us, as a consequence, that the Pentateuch is all fiction, which, however, the author may very likely have composed withoutmeaning to do wrong, and as a work of poetry, like Homer's. "

Certainly the tremors of a faith so lightly overset were justlyobnoxious to Arnold's ridicule; but Colenso's negations went deeperthan the doorway and the pigeons; and the faithful of his diocese, being untrammelled by the State, politely dismissed him from hischarge. In England steady-going Christians had been not less perturbedby that queer collection of rather musty discourses which was called_Essays and Reviews_; and the Church of England had made an attemptto rid itself, by synodical action, of all complicity in the dubiousdoctrine. But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had justifiedthe essayists, and had done its best to uphold Colenso. By so doing, ithad, of course, delighted all Erastians; but Churchmen, whether at homeor abroad, who believed in the English Church as a spiritual society, with a life of its own apart from all legal establishment, felt thatthe time had come when this belief should be publicly proclaimed. InFebruary, 1866, the Anglican Bishops of Canada addressed a Memorialto Dr. Longley, then Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting him tosummon a conference of all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion;and, after some characteristic hesitation, this was done. A Letter ofInvitation was issued in February, 1867. The more dogged Erastiansheld aloof; but those who conceived of the Church as a spiritualsociety obeyed the summons; the "Conference of Bishops" assembled, and the priceless word "Pan-Anglicanism" was added to the resourcesof the language. 

What did these good men do when they were come together? Not, itmust be admitted, very much. They prayed and they preached, anddebated and divided, and, in the matter of Colenso, quarrelled. They issued a Pastoral Letter which, as Bishop Tait said, was "theexpression of essential agreement and a repudiation of Infidelityand Romanism. " If this had been the sole result of the Conference, it would have been meagre enough; but under this officialineffectiveness there had been a real movement towards "Life andLiberty. " The Conference taught the Established Bishops of Englandand Ireland that the Bishops of Free Churches--Scottish, American, Colonial--were at least as keen about religious work and as jealousfor the spiritual independence of the Christian society as the highlyplaced and handsomely paid occupants of Lambeth and Bishopthorpe. Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury (whom the Catholic-minded section ofthe English Church regarded as their special champion) "thoughtthat we had much to learn from contact with the faith and vigourof the American Episcopate"; and Bishop Wilberforce thus recordedhis judgment: "The Lambeth gathering was a very great success. Itsstrongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of London (Tait), was quite remarkable. We are now sitting in Committee trying tocomplete our work--agree to a voluntary Court of English DoctrinalAppeal for the free Colonies of America. If we can carry this out, we shall have erected a barrier of immense moral strength againstPrivy Council latitudinarianism. My view is that God gives us theopportunity, as at home latitudinarianism must spread, of encirclingthe Home Church with a band of far more dogmatic truth-holdingcommunions who will act most strongly in favour of truth here. I was in great measure the framer of the "Pan-Anglican" for thispurpose, and the result has abundantly satisfied me. The AmericanBishops won golden opinions. "

And so this modest effort in the direction of "Life and Liberty, "which had begun amid obloquy and ridicule, gained strength witheach succeeding year. The Conference was repeated, with vastlyincreased numbers and general recognition, in 1878, 1888, 1898, and1908. The war makes the date of the next assemblage, as it makesall things, doubtful; but already Churchmen, including some who havehitherto shrunk in horror from the prospect of Disestablishment, are beginning to look forward to the next Conference of Bishopsas to something which may be a decisive step in the march of theEnglish Church towards freedom and self-government. Men who havebeen reared in a system of ecclesiastical endowments are apt tocherish the very unapostolic belief that money is a sacred thing;but even they are coming, though by slow degrees, to realize that theFaith may be still more sacred. For the rest of us, the issue wasformulated by Gladstone sixty years ago: "You have our decision:take your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthrightof the Bride of Christ. "

IV

_LIFE AND LIBERTY_

The title is glorious; and, so far as I know, the credit of inventingit belongs to my friend the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, the enterprisingVicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Mr. Sheppard has what in newspaperswe call a "magnetic personality, " and no one has more thoroughlylaid to heart the sagacious saying that "Sweet are the uses ofadvertisement. " Whatever cause he adopts, the world must know thathe has adopted it; and it shall obtain a hearing, or he will knowthe reason why. The cause to which (outside his pastoral work) heis just now devoted is that which is summarized in the phrase, "Life and Liberty for the Church of England. " It is a fine ideal, and Mr. Sheppard and his friends have been expounding it at theQueen's Hall. 

It was no common achievement to fill that hall on a hot summerevening in the middle of the war, and with very little' assistancefrom the Press. Yet Mr. Sheppard did it, and he filled an "over-flowmeeting" as well. The chair was taken by the Rev. William Temple, who tempered what might have been the too fervid spirit of thegathering with the austerity which belongs to a writer on philosophy, an ex-Head Master, and a prospective Bishop. The hall was denselycrowded with clergy, old and young--old ones who had more or lessmissed their mark, and young ones keen to take warning by theseexamples. There were plenty of laymen, too, quite proud to realizethat, though they are not in Holy Orders, they too are "in theChurch"; and a brilliant star, if only he had appeared, would havebeen a Second-Lieutenant in khaki, who unfortunately was detainedat the front by military duties. A naval and a military chaplaindid the "breezy" business, as befitted their cloth; and, beamingon the scene with a paternal smile, was the most popular of Canons, who by a vehement effort kept silence even from good words, thoughit must have been pain and grief to him. [*]

[Footnote *: Alas! we have lost him since. ]

The oratorical honours of the evening were by common consent adjudgedto a lady, who has since been appointed "Pulpit Assistant" to theCity Temple. May an old-fashioned Churchman suggest that, if thisis a sample of Mr. Sheppard's new movement, the "Life" of the Churchof England is likely to be a little too lively, and its "Liberty"to verge on licence? A ministry of undenominational feminism is"a thing imagination boggles at. " Here it is to be remarked thatthe leaders of the movement are male and female after their kind. Dr. And Mrs. Dingo sit in council side by side, and much regretis expressed that Archdeacon Buckemup is still a celibate. Butlet us be of good cheer. Earnest-minded spinsters, undeterred bythe example of Korah (who, as they truly say, was only a man), are clamouring for the priesthood as well as the vote; and in thenear future the "Venerable Archdeaconess" will be a common objectof the ecclesiastical sea-shore. Miss Jenkyns, in _Cranford_, wouldhave made a capital Dean. 

So much for the setting of the scene. The "business" must be nowconsidered, and we will take the programme of "Life and Liberty"point by point, as set forth in a pamphlet by Mr. Temple. In thefirst place, its leaders are very clear that they wish to keep theirendowments; but it must not be supposed that they dread reform. Their policy is "Redistribution. " Those great episcopal incomesare again threatened; the Bishops are to be delivered from thatburden of wealth which presses so hardly on them; and the slumparson is to have a living wage. But the incumbent, though hisincome may thus be increased, is by no means to have it all hisown way. His freehold in his benefice is to be abolished; and, evenwhile he retains his position, he is to have his duties assignedto him, and his work arranged, by a "Parochial Church Council, " inwhich the "Pulpit Assistant" at Bethesda or Bethel may have herplace. Life and Liberty indeed! But further boons are in store forus. We have at present two Archbishops, and, I hope, are thankfulfor them. Under the new scheme we are promised eight, or even nine. "Showers of blessing, " as the hymn says! I presume that the six (orseven) new Archbishops are to be paid out of the "redistributed"incomes of the existing two. The believers in "Life and Liberty"humanely propose to compensate the Archbishop of Canterbury forthe diminution of his £15, 000 a year by letting him call himselfa "Patriarch, " but I can hardly fancy a Scotsman regarding thisas a satisfactory bargain. 

But how are these and similar boons to be attained? The promoters ofLife and Liberty (not, I fancy, without a secret hope of frighteningthe Bishops into compliance with their schemes) affirm their readinessto accept Disestablishment "if no other way to self-government seemsfeasible"; but they, themselves, prefer a less heroic method. Whileretaining the dignity of Establishment and the opulence of Endowment, they propose that the Church should have "power to legislate on allmatters affecting the Church, subject to Parliamentary veto.... This proposal has the immense practical advantage that, whereas itis now necessary to secure time for the passage of any measurethrough Parliament, if this scheme were adopted it would becomenecessary for the opponent or obstructor to find time to preventits passage. The difference which this would make in practice isenormous. " It is indeed; and the proposal is interesting as a choicespecimen of what the world knows (and dislikes) as EcclesiasticalStatesmanship. 

"Life and Liberty"--there is music in the very words; and, eversince I was old enough to have an opinion on serious matters, Ihave cherished them as the ideals for the Church to which I belong. From the oratory of Queen's Hall and the "slim" statesmanship whichproposes to steal a march on the House of Commons I turn to thatgreat evangelist, Arthur Stanton, who wrote as follows when WelshDisestablishment was agitating the clerical mind. 

"Nothing will ever reconcile me to the Establishment of Christ'sChurch on earth by Sovereigns or Parliaments. It is establishedby God on Faith and the Sacraments, and so endowed, and all otherpretended establishment and endowment to me is profane. " And again:

"Taking away endowments doesn't affect me; but what does try meis the inheriting them, and denying the faith of the donors--andthen talking of sacrilege. The only endowment of Christ's Churchcomes from the Father and the Son, and is the Holy Ghost, Whichno man can give and no man can take away. '"

Here, if you like, is the authentic voice of Life and Liberty. 

V

_LOVE AND PUNISHMENT_

Lord Hugh Cecil is, I think, one of the most interesting figuresin the public life of the time. Ten years ago I regarded him as thefuture leader of the Tory party and a predestined Prime Minister. Oflate years he has seemed to turn away from the strifes and intriguesof ordinary politics, and to have resigned official ambition to hiselder brother; but his figure has not lost--rather has gained--ininterest by the change. Almost alone among our public men, he seemsto have "his eyes fixed on higher lodestars" than those which guideParliamentary majorities. He avows his allegiance to those morallaws of political action of which John Bright so memorably saidthat "though they were not given amid the thunders of Sinai, theyare not less the commandments of God. "

Now, the fearless utterance of this ethical creed does not tendto popularity. Englishmen will bear a good deal of preaching, solong as it is delivered from the pulpit; but when it is utteredby the lips of laymen, and deals with public problems, it arousesa curious irritation. That jovial old heathen, Palmerston, oncealluded to Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend Member"; Gladstone'ssplendid appeals to faith and conscience were pronounced "d----dcopy-book-y"; and Lord Houghton, who knew the world as well as mostmen, said, "Does it ever strike you that nothing shocks people somuch as any immediate and practical application of the characterand life of Christ?"

Lord Hugh Cecil need not mind the slings and arrows of outrageouspartisanship, so long as he shares them with Bright and Gladstone. Just lately, his pronouncement that we ought to love the Germans, as our fellow-citizens in the Kingdom of God on earth, has provokedvery acrid criticism from some who generally share his politicalbeliefs; and in a Tory paper I noticed the singularly inept gibethat this doctrine was "medieval. " For my own part I should scarcelyhave thought that an undue tendency to love one's enemies was acharacteristic trait of the Middle Age, or that Englishmen andFrenchmen, Guelphs and Ghibellines, were inclined to sink theirracial differences in the unity of Christian citizenship. Lord Hugh'sdoctrine might be called by some modern and by others primitive; butmedieval it can only be called on the principle that, in invective, a long word, is better than a short one. 

Having thus repelled what I think a ridiculous criticism, I willadmit that Lord Hugh's doctrine raises some interesting, and evendisputable, points. In the first place, there is the theory ofthe Universal Church as the Divine Kingdom on earth, and of thecitizenship in which all its members are united. I grant the theory;but I ask myself if I am really bound by it to love all these myfellow-citizens, whatever their conduct and character may be. Loveis an elastic word; and, if I am to love the Germans, I must lovethem in some very different sense from that in which I love my countryand my race. It really is, in another form, the old controversybetween cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity"is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of thehuman family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment, impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without, cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wishdevoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and mind--thatall the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one law of rightand wrong; but when some members of the family, some citizens ofthe kingdom, have "given themselves over to a reprobate mind, "our love must be reserved for those who still own the claim ofrighteousness. If our own country stood as a solitary championof right against a world in unrighteous arms, patriotism would bea synonym for religion, and cosmopolitanism for sin. 

And then again I ask myself this question: Even assuming that LordHugh is right, and that it is our bounden duty to love the Germans, is love inconsistent with punishment? We postulate the love of Godtowards mankind, and we rightly regard it as the highest manifestationof what love means; but is it inconsistent with punishment forunrighteous action? Neither Revelation, nor Nature, nor History, knows anything of the conception which has been embodied in thewords, "a good-natured God. " Of Revelation I will not speak atlength, for this is not the place for theological discussion; Ionly remark in passing that the idea of punishment for wrong-doingis not, as some sciolists imagine, confined to the Old Testament, though there it is seen in its most startling form; in the NewTestament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul'sMaster, as a manifestation of love--not vindictive, but remedial. The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate theDivine dealings with insubordinate mankind. About Nature we needscarcely argue. "In the physical world there is no forgiveness ofsins, " and rebellion against the laws of righteous living bringspenal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet again, hasHistory any more unmistakable lesson than that "for every falseword or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lustor vanity, the price has to be paid at last"? Froude was right. "Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comesat last to them, in French Revolutions and other terrible ways. "

What we believe of the Divine Love, thus dealing with humantransgression, we may well believe of human love, when it is calledby duty to chastise unrighteousness. I do not suppose that JohnStuart Mill was actuated by hatred of Palmer or Pritchard or anyother famous malefactor of his time when he said that there are somepeople so bad that they "ought to be blotted out of the catalogueof living men. " It was the dispassionate judgment of philosophyon crime. When the convicted murderer exclaimed, "Don't condemnme to death; I am not fit to die!" a great Judge replied, "I knownothing about that; I only know that you are not fit to live"; butI do not suppose that he hated the wretch in the dock. Even so, though it may be our duty to love our enemies as our fellow-citizensin the kingdom of God, we need not shrink, when the time comes, frombeing the ministers of that righteous vengeance which, accordingto the immutable order of the world, is prepared for impenitentwrong-doing. 

VI

_HATRED AND LOVE_

I lately saw the following sentence quoted from Sir Arthur ConanDoyle: "Hatred steels the mind and sets the resolution as no otheremotion can do. " The enlightened conscience of humanity (to saynothing of Christianity) repudiates this sentiment as ethicallyunsound and historically untrue; and yet, erroneous as it is, itis worth pondering for the sake of a truth which it overstates. 

However little we may like to make the confession in the twentiethcentury of the Christian era, hatred is a very real power, andthere is more of it at work in civilized society than we alwaysrecognize. It is, in truth, an abiding element of human nature, andis one of those instincts which we share with the lower animals. "The great cur showed his teeth; and the devilish instincts of hisold wolf-ancestry looked out from his eyes, and yawned in his widemouth and deep red gullet. " Oliver Wendell Holmes was describinga dog's savagery; but he would have been the first to admit that anexactly similar spirit may be concealed--and not always concealed--ina human frame. We have lived so long, if not under the domination, still in the profession, of the Christian ethic, that people generallyare ashamed to avow a glaringly anti-Christian feeling. Hence thepoignancy of the bitter saying: "I forgive him as a Christian--whichmeans that I don't forgive him at all. " Under a decent, thoughhypocritical, veil of religious commonplace, men go on hating oneanother very much as they hated in Patriarchal Palestine or ImperialRome. 

Hatred generally has a personal root. An injury or an insult receivedin youth may colour the feelings and actions of a whole lifetime. "Revenge is a dish which can be eaten cold"; and there are unhappynatures which know no enjoyment so keen as the satisfaction of along-cherished grudge. There is an even deeper depravity whichhates just in proportion to benefits received; which hates becauseit is enraged by a high example; which hates even more virulentlybecause the object of its hatred is meek or weak or pitiable. "Ihave read of a woman who said that she never saw a cripple withoutlonging to throw a stone at him. Do you comprehend what she meant?No? Well, I do. " It was a woman who wrote the words. 

The less abhorrent sort of hatred (if one can discriminate whereall is abominable) is the hatred which has no personal root, butis roused by invincible dislike of a principle or a cause. To thistype belong controversial hatreds, political hatreds, internationalhatreds. Jael is the supreme instance of this hatred in action, and it is only fair to assume that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had thiskind of hatred in his mind when he wrote the sentence which I quotedabove. But hatred, which begins impersonally, has a dangerous habitof becoming personal as it warms to its work; and an emotion whichstarted by merely wishing to check a wrong deed may develop beforelong into a strong desire to torture the wrong-doer. Whatever be thesource from which it springs, hatred is a powerful and an energeticprinciple. It is capable, as we all know, of enormous crimes; butit does not despise the pettiest methods by which it can injureits victim. "Hatred, " said George Eliot, "is like fire--it makeseven light rubbish deadly. "

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perfectly right when he says that hatred"steels the mind and sets the resolution. " If he had stopped there, I should not have questioned his theory. Again and again one has seenindolent, flabby, and irresolute natures stimulated to activity and"steeled" into hardness by the deep, though perhaps unuttered, desireto repay an insult or avenge an injury. It is in his superlativethat Sir Arthur goes astray. When he affirms that hatred "steelsthe mind and sets the resolution as no other emotion can do, " hispsychology is curiously at fault. There is another emotion quite aspowerful as hatred to "steel the mind and set the resolution"--andthe name of this other emotion is love. It required some resolutionand a "steeled" mind for Father Damien to give himself in earlymanhood to the service of a leper-struck island, living amid, anddying of, the foul disease which he set out to tend. It was lovethat steeled John Coleridge Patteson to encounter death at thehands of "savage men whom he loved, and for whose sake he gaveup home and country and friends dearer than his life. " There was"steel" in the resolve which drew Henry Martyn from the highesthonours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitudeof Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decisionwhen Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to the task of evangelizingIndia. 

But it is not only in the missionary field, or in any other formof ecclesiastical activity, that the steeling effect of love onthe human will is manifested. John Howard devoted the comfortsand advantages which pertain to a position in the opulent MiddleClass to the purely philanthropic work of Prison Reform; and LordShaftesbury used the richer boons of rank and eloquence and politicalopportunity for the deliverance of tortured lunatics, and climbingboys and factory slaves. If ever I knew a man whose resolutionwas "steeled, " it was this honoured friend of my early manhood, and the steeling power was simply love. A humbler illustrationof the same spirit may be supplied by the instance of one whomworldly people ridiculed and who "for fifty years seized everychance of doing kindness to a man who had tormented him at school";and this though a boy's nature is "wax to receive, and marble toretain. " The name of E. C. Hawtrey is little remembered now evenby Eton men, but this tribute to the power of love ought not tobe withheld. 

I am only too painfully aware that we live just now in conditionsin which love must take the aspect of severity; in which the mindmust be "steeled" and the resolution "set" for a solemn work ofinternational justice. But hatred will not help us; for hatredis fundamentally at variance with that moral law which we dailyand hourly invoke as the sanction of our enterprise. Hatred isnatural enough, and at least as old as the Fall of Man; but itsdoom was pronounced by a Teacher Who said to His disciples: "Anew commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. " Twelvemen heard and heeded that new commandment, and they changed theface of the world. Are we to abjure the doctrine which wroughtthis change, and give heed to the blind guides who would lure usstraight back to barbarism?

 "What though they come with scroll and pen, And grave as a shaven clerk, By this sign shall ye know them, That they ruin and make dark;

 "By thought a crawling ruin, By life a leaping mire, By a broken heart in the breast of the world, And the end of the world's desire;

 "By God and man dishonoured, By death and life made vain, Know ye the old Barbarian, The Barbarian come again. "[*]

[Footnote *: G. K. Chesterton. ]

VII

_THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE_

"By your endurance ye shall make your souls your own. " If the originof this saying were unknown, one could fancy much ingenious conjectureabout it; but no one, I think, would attribute it to an Englishsource. An Englishman's idea of self-realization is action. Ifhe is to be truly himself he must be doing something; life forhim means energy. To be laid on one side, and to exist only asa spectator or a sufferer, is the last method of making his soulhis own which would occur to him. _Dolce far niente_ is a phrasewhich could never have originated on English soil. The greater thedifficulties by which he is confronted, the more gnawing becomesthe Englishman's, hunger for action. "Something must be done!" ishis instinctive cry when dangers or perplexities arise, and heis feverishly eager to do it. What exactly "it" should be, andhow it may be most wisely done, are secondary, and even tertiary, considerations. "Wisdom is profitable to direct"; but the needfor wisdom is not so generally recognized in England as the needfor courage or promptitude or vigour. 

Some of the shallower natures find a substitute for action in speech. If only they talk loud enough and long enough, they feel that theyare doing something valuable towards the desired end, and theyfind others, still weaker than themselves, who take their wordsat their own valuation. Who does not recall moments of the presentwar when the man-in-the-street has exclaimed, "That was a splendidspeech of Blower's! I feel now that we are on the right line"; or, "After what Bellowell said last night, there can be no going backto the discredited policy"? The man-in-the-street did not realizethat Blower's words are only articulated air, or that Bellowellcould speak with equal effect whether his brief were to defendBelgium or to annex her. But alike the Englishman who acts andthe Englishman who talks look askance on the people who think. Ournational history is a history of action, in religion, in politics, in war, in discovery. It is only now and then that an Englishmancan allow himself a moment for contemplation, for the endeavourto "see into the life of things, " for contact with those spiritualrealities of which phenomena are only the shadows. Burke did it, but then he was an Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did it, but thenhe was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a Scotsman. MayI add that the present Prime Minister does it, but then he is aWelshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; it isto them a religion, and it takes the place of a philosophy. 

At this moment all England is acting, from the King and the WarCabinet to the children who play at soldiers in the gutter. Thereis no distinction of class, or sex, or temperament. All alike feelthat they must be doing something to win the war, and that theywould die or go mad if they were restrained from action. Limitations, physical or mental, incapacities for effort, restrictions ofopportunity, gall as they never galled before. To compare greatthings with small, the whole nation pulsates with the spirit ofthe fiercely contested cricket-match:

 "Oh, good lads in the field they were, Laboured and ran and threw; But we that sat on the benches there Had the hardest work to do!"

Action, then, is the creed and the consolation of the English race, and God forbid that we should disparage that on which nationalsalvation depends. The war must be won by action; but in the strainand stress of these tremendous days we are tempted to forget thatthere is something to be won or lost besides the war. It is possibleto conquer on the Western front, and at the same time to be defeatedon the not less important field of moral being. The promise whichheads this paper was uttered in full view of an impending agonywhich should crush religion and civilization into powder. We canrealize the consternation with which a patriotic audience heardthose premonitions from the lips of a patriotic Teacher; but inthe midst of all that was harrowing and heart-rending came thepromise of triumph through endurance. "Ye shall make your soulsyour own. " The gloomy and the cheerful prediction were alike madegood. 

 "The East bow'd low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again. 

 "So well she mused, a morning broke Across her spirit grey; A conquering, new-born joy awoke, And fill'd her life with day. "

The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before thenewly discovered Cross. Endurance won. 

And so it has been from that time to this. The triumphs of endurancehave no end. The barbarism of the Cæsars, the barbarism of Islam, the barbarism of Odin and Thor, all in turn did their uttermostto destroy the new religion. Persecution fell, not on armed menstrong to resist, but on slaves and women and boys and girls. "Wecould tell of those who fought with savage beasts, yea, of maidenswho stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into thering. We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfullyas we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fireand the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls. " Thesewere the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith forwhich they gave their lives. It did not take Rome long to discoverthat "the blood of Christians is seed. "

The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, onthe other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored. Itwas a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years'war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, commemorates the supreme example of endurance. As far as actionis concerned, the national will is not in the slightest dangerof collapse. The British nation will plan, and work and fight forever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Thoughour power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance mayebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?";to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protractedagony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which weprofess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. It is just by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we canmake our souls our own. If we went into the war believing in thesacredness of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, itwould be a moral collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, imperialism, and the rule of the strong. "He that endureth to theend shall be saved. " On that "end" we must keep heart and eyeunflinchingly fixed; and strive to add one more to the age-longtriumphs of endurance. 

VIII

_A SOLEMN FARCE_

Sweet to the antiquarian palate are the fragments of Norman Frenchwhich still survive in the formularies of the Constitution. InNorman French the King acknowledges the inconceivable sums whichfrom time to time his faithful Commons place at his disposal forthe prosecution of the war. In Norman French the Peers of the Realmare summoned to their seats in Parliament which they adorn. In NormanFrench, the Royal Assent has just been given to a Bill which doublesthe electorate and admits over six million women to the franchise. All these things are dear to the antiquary, the historian, and(perhaps we should add) the pedant, as witnessing to the unbrokencontinuity of our constitutional forms, though the substance ofour polity has been altered beyond all recognition. 

Another instance of Norman French which has lately emerged intounusual prominence is the "Congé d'élire. " We can trace this "Licenceto Elect" from the days of the Great Charter downwards; but it willsuffice for my present purpose to recall the unrepealed legislationof Henry VIII. "It was then enacted that, at every future avoidanceof a bishopric, the King may send to the Dean and Chapter his usuallicence (called his 'Congé d'Élire') to proceed to election; whichis always, accompanied by a Letter Missive from the King containingthe name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the Deanand Chapter delay their election above twelve days the nominationshall devolve to the King, who may then by Letters Patent appointsuch person as he pleases.... And, if such Dean and Chapter do notelect in the manner by their Act appointed they shall incur allthe penalties of a præmunire--that is, the loss of all civil rights, with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment, during the Royal pleasure. "

Such are the singular conditions under which the Church of Englandnow exercises that right of electing her chief pastors which hasbeen from the beginning the heritage of Christendom. It would bedifficult to imagine a more dexterous use of chicanery, preservingthe semblance but carefully precluding the reality of a free choice. We all know something of Deans and Chapters--the well-endowedinhabitants of cathedral closes--and of those "greater Chapters"which consist of Honorary Canons, longing for more substantialpreferment. It would indeed require a very bold flight of fancyto imagine those worthy and comfortable men exposing themselves tothe "loss of civil rights, the forfeiture of goods and chattels, and imprisonment during the King's pleasure, " for a scruple ofconscience about the orthodoxy of a divine recommended by the Crown. Truly in a capitular election, if anywhere, the better part ofvalour is discretion, and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford haverealized this saving truth. But my view is wholly independent oflocal or personal issues, and is best expressed by these words ofArthur Stanton, true Catholic and true Liberal: "I am stronglyin favour of Disestablishment, and always have been. The connexionbetween Church and State has done harm to both--more, however, to the Church. Take our plan of electing Bishops. In the earlycenturies they were elected by the people--as they ought to be. Now they are chosen, sometimes by a Tory, sometimes by a RadicalGovernment. The Dean and Chapter meet and ask the guidance of theHoly Ghost to enable them to choose, knowing all the while they havethe 'Letter Missive' in their pockets. To me this comes perilouslynear blasphemy. "

But let us suppose an extreme case. Let us imagine a Dean and Chapterso deeply impressed by the unsuitableness of the Crown's nomineethat they refuse to elect him. Here, again, the law dodges us. Except as a protest their refusal would have not the slightesteffect. The Crown has nothing to do but issue Letters Patent infavour of its nominee, and he would be as secure of his bishopric asif the Chapter had chosen him with one consent of heart and voice. True, he would not yet be a Bishop; for the episcopal character canonly be conferred by consecration, and at this point the Archbishopbecomes responsible. To him the King signifies the fact that Dr. Proudie has been elected to the See of Barchester, requiring him to"confirm, invest, and consecrate" that divine. Should the Archbishoprefuse compliance with this command, he exposes himself to exactlythe same penalties as would be inflicted on a recalcitrant Chapter, only with this aggravation--that he has more to lose. When my goodfriend the Bishop of Oxford addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury, imploring him to withhold consecration from Dr. Henson, he made avaliant and faithful protest against what he holds to be a flagitiousaction on the part of the Crown; but, knowing the respected occupantof Lambeth as well as he does, I think he must have anticipatedthe reply which, as a matter of fact, he received. 

Such being the absurdities and unrealities which surround the Congéd'Élire, one naturally asks, Why not abolish it? This question wasraised in a pointed form by the late Mr. C. J. Monk, for many yearsLiberal M. P. For the City of Gloucester, who, in 1880, introduced aBill to abolish the Congé and to place the appointment of Bishopsformally, as it is really, in the hands of the Prime Minister. Heurged the painful sense of unreality which clings to the wholetransaction, and the injury to religion which is involved in thuspaltering in a double sense with sacred forms and words. It isamusing to those who can recall the two men to remember that Mr. Monk was opposed by Lord Randolph Churchill, who thought he perceivedin the proposal some dark design hostile to the interests of theEstablished Church; but the important speech was made by Gladstone. That great man, always greatest in debate when his case was weakest, opposed the abolition of the Congé. He deprecated any legislationwhich would interfere with one of the most delicate functions ofthe Crown, and he insisted that the true path of reform lay, notin the abolition of the form of election, but in an attempt tore-invest it with some elements of reality. This was well enough, and eminently characteristic of his reverence for ancient formsof constitutional action; but what was more surprising was that, speaking from long and intimate experience of its practical workinghe maintained that the Congé d'Élire, even under the nullifyingconditions now attached to it, was "a moral check upon the prerogativesof the Crown, " which worked well rather than ill. "I am, " he said, "by no means prepared to say that, from partial information orerror, a Minister might not make an appointment to which this moralobstacle might be set up with very beneficial effect. It wouldtend to secure care in the selections, and its importance cannotbe overstated. "

I must confess, with the greatest respect for my old leader, thatthe "importance" of the Congé d'Élire as a restraint upon the actionsof the Prime Minister can be very easily "overstated. " Indeed, theCongé could only be important if the Capitular Body to which the"Letter Missive" is addressed have the courage of conscientiousdisobedience, and were prepared to face, for the sake of imperilledtruth, the anger of the powers that be and the laughter of theworld. Courage of that type is a plant of slow growth in EstablishedChurches; and as long as my friends hug the yoke of Establishment, I cannot sympathize with them when they cry out against its gallingpressure. To complainants of that class the final word was addressedby Gladstone, nearly seventy years ago: "You have our decision: takeyour own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthrightof the Bride of Christ. "

IV

POLITICS

I

_MIRAGE_

"Operations had to be temporarily suspended owing to the mirage. "This sentence from one of Sir Stanley Maude's despatches struck meas parabolic. There are other, and vaster, issues than a strategicvictory on the Diala River which have been "suspended owing to themirage. " Let us apply the parable. 

The parched caravan sees, half a mile ahead, the gleaming lakewhich is to quench its thirst. It toils along over the interveningdistance, only to find that Nature has been playing a trick. Thevision has vanished, and what seemed to be water is really sand. There can be no more expressive image of disillusionment. 

To follow the "Mirage" of receding triumph through long years ofhope deferred was the lot of Labour generally, and it was especiallythe lot of agricultural labour. The artisans gained their politicalenfranchisement in 1867, and, though they made remarkably little useof it, still they had the power, if they had the will, to bettertheir condition. But the agricultural labourers remained inarticulate, unnoticed, unrepresented. A Tory orator, said--and many of his classagreed with him, though they were too prudent to say it--that thelabourer was no fitter for the vote than the beasts he tended. Butthere were others who knew the labourers by personal contact, andby friendly intercourse had been able to penetrate their necessaryreserve; and we (for I was one of these) knew that our friends inthe furrow and the cow-shed were at least as capable of forminga solid judgment as their brethren in the tailor's shop and theprinting-works. There was nothing of the new Radicalism in this--itwas as old as English history. The toilers on the land had alwaysbeen aspiring towards freedom, though social pressure made themwisely dumb. Cobbett and Cartwright, and all the old reformerswho kept the lamp of Freedom alive in the dark days of Pitt andLiverpool and Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" ofthe agricultural poor, and noted with indignation the successiveinvasions of their freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs andtrials for sedition, and all the other implements of tyranny. 

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

To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirageappeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Billcould pass into law, the reign of injustice and oppression wouldcease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor wouldrejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. But no sooner was theRoyal Assent given to the Bill than the Mirage--that deceitfulimage of joy and refreshment--receded into the dim distance, andmen woke to the disheartening fact that, though power had beentransferred from the aristocracy to the middle class, the poor wereas badly off as ever. The visible effects of that disillusionmentwere Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, and there was a deepundercurrent of sullen anger which seldom found expression. Aslate as the General Election of 1868 an old man in the duke-riddenborough of Woodstock declined to vote for the Liberal candidateexpressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. Before 1832, hesaid, arms had been stored in his father's cottage to be used ifthe Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and the arms werenot required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porththe better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics, and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age wasadded to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger menhope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with itstreacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting onits pilgrimage from the very heart of England, forced the labourer'swants and claims upon the attention of the land-owners, the farmers, and the clergy. 

Those who had been brought by early association into touch withthe agricultural population knew only too well how deep and justwas the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning forbetter chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourerseemed to be the first step towards the improvement of his lot. The General Election of 1880 was, as nearly as our constitutionalforms admit, a plébiscite on foreign policy; but to many a man whowas then beginning public life the emancipation of the labourer wasan object quite as dear as the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield. It was not for nothing that we had read _Hodge and His Masters_, and we were resolved that henceforward "Hodge" should be not aserf or a cipher, but a free man and a self-governing citizen. 

We carried our Bill in 1884, and as the General Election of 1885drew on, it was touching to feel the labourer's gratitude to allwho had helped him in the attainment of his rights. By that timeGladstone had lost a great deal of his popularity in the towns, where Chamberlain was the hero. But in the rural districts thepeople worshipped Gladstone, and neither knew nor cared for anyother politician. His was the name to conjure with. His picturehung in every cottage. His speeches were studied and thumbed byhard hands till the paper was frayed into tatters. It was Gladstonewho had won the vote for the labourer, and it was Gladstone who wasto lead them into the Land of Promise. "Three Acres and a Cow, "from being a joke, had passed into a watchword, though Gladstonehad never given it the faintest sanction. And the labourers vaguelybelieved that the possession of the vote would bring them somematerial benefit. So they voted for Gladstone with solid enthusiasm, and placed their Mirage in his return to power. But alas! they onlyrealized a new and a more tragical disappointment. In January, 1886, an amendment to the Address embodying the principle of "ThreeAcres and a Cow" was carried against the Tory Government; Gladstonebecame Prime Minister, and the disconsolate labourers found thatthe Mirage had cheated them once again. It is not easy to depictthe sorrow and mortification which ensued on this discovery. Thevote, after all, was only a Dead Sea apple. The energies whichwere to have been bestowed on the creation of better surroundingsfor English labourers were suddenly transferred to the creationof an Irish Parliament, and in wide areas of rural population thelabourers sank back again into hopelessness and inactivity. Oncebit, twice shy. They had braved the wrath of their employers andall the banded influences of the Hall and the Vicarage in orderto vote Liberal in December, 1885. They had got nothing by theirconstancy; and in six months, when they were again incited to thepoll, they shook their heads and abstained. The disillusionmentof the labourers gave the victory of 1886 to the Tories, and keptthe Liberals out of power for twenty years. 

II

_MIST_

"Mistiness is the Mother of Wisdom. " If this sarcastic dogma betrue, we are living in a generation pre-eminently wise. A "seasonof mists" it unquestionably is; whether it is equally marked by"mellow fruitfulness" is perhaps more disputable. 

My path in life is metaphorically very much what Wordsworth's wasliterally. "I wander, lonely as a cloud that floats on high, o'ervales and hills. " I find hills and vales alike shrouded in mist. Everyone is befogged, and the guesses as to where exactly we areand whither we are tending are various and perplexing. While allare, in truth, equally bewildered, people take their bewildermentin different ways. Some honestly confess that they cannot see ayard in front of them; others profess a more penetrating vision, and affect to be quite sure of what lies ahead. It is a matterof temperament; but the professors of clear sight are certainlyless numerous than they were three years ago. 

We are like men standing on a mountain when the mist rolls up fromthe valley. At first we all are very cheerful, and assure one anotherthat it will pass away in half an hour, leaving our path quiteclear. Then by degrees we begin to say that it promises to be amore tedious business than we expected, and we must just wait inpatience till the clouds roll by. At length we frankly confess toone another that we have completely lost our bearings, and thatwe dare not move a foot for fear we should tumble into the abyss. In this awkward plight our "strength is to sit still"; but, evenwhile we so sit, we try to keep ourselves warm by remembering thatthe most persistent mists do not last for ever. 

In one section of society I hear voices of melancholy vaticination. "I don't believe, " said one lady in my hearing--"I don't believethat we shall ever again see six-feet footmen with powdered hair, "and a silent gloom settled on the company, only deepened by anotherlady, also attached to the old order, who murmured: "Ah! and powderedfootmen are not the only things that we shall never see again. "Within twenty-four hours of this depressing dialogue I encountermy democratic friend, the Editor of the _Red Flag_. He glories inthe fact that Labour has "come into its own, " and is quite surethat, unless it can get more to eat, it will cease to make munitions, and so will secure an early, if not a satisfactory, peace. In vainI suggest to my friend that his vision is obscured by the mist, and that the apparition which thus strangely exhilarates him isthe creation of his own brain. 

Then I turn to the politicians, and of these it is to be remarkedthat, however much befogged they may be, they always are certainthat they see much more clearly than the world at large. Thiscircumstance would invest their opinions with a peculiar authority, if only they did not contradict one another flat. We are doublingthe electorate: what result will the General Election produce?Politicians who belong to the family of Mr. Despondency and hisdaughter, Muchafraid, reply that Monarchy will be abolished, Capital"conscripted" (delightful verb), debt repudiated, and Anarchy enthroned. Strangely dissimilar results are predicted by the Party-hacks, who, being by lifelong habit trained to applaud whatever Governmentdoes, announce with smug satisfaction that the British workmanloves property, and will use his new powers to conserve it; adoresthe Crown, and feels that the House of Lords is the true protectorof his liberties. 

Again, there are publicists who (like myself) have all their livesproclaimed their belief in universal suffrage as the one guaranteeof freedom. If we are consistent, we ought to rejoice in the prospectnow unfolding itself before us; but perhaps the mist has got into oureyes. Our forefathers abolished the tyranny of the Crown. SuccessiveReform Acts have abolished the tyranny of class. But what about thetyranny of capital? Is Democracy safe from it?

I do not pretend to be clearer-sighted than my neighbours; but inthe mist each of us sees the form of some evil which he speciallydislikes; and to my thinking Bureaucracy is just as grave a menaceto Freedom as Militarism, and in some ways graver, as being moreplausible. We used to call ourselves Collectivists, and we rejoicedin the prospect of the State doing for us what we ought to do forourselves. We voted Political Economy a dismal science (which itis), and felt sure that, if only the Government would take in handthe regulation of supply and demand, the inequalities of life wouldbe adjusted, everyone would be well fed, and everyone would behappy. As far as we can see through the blinding mist which nowsurrounds us, it looks as if the State were about as competentto control trade as to control the weather. Bureaucracy is havingits fling, and when the mist clears off it will stand revealedas a well-meant (and well-paid) imposture. 

Closely related to all these problems is the problem of the women'svote. Here the mist is very thick indeed. Those who have alwaysfavoured it are naturally sanguine of good results. Women willvote for peace; women will vote for temperance; women will votefor everything that guards the sanctity of the home. Those whohave opposed the change see very different consequences. Womenwill vote for war; women will vote as the clergyman bids them;women will vote for Socialism. All this is sheer guess-work, andvery misty guess-work too. 

And yet once more. There are (though this may to some seem strange)people who consider the Church at least as important as the State, and even more so, inasmuch as its concernments relate to an eternalinstead of a transitory order. What are the prospects of the Church?Here the mists are thicker than ever. Is the ideal of the FreeChurch in the Free State any nearer realization than it was threeyears ago? All sorts of discordant voices reach me through thelayers of cloud. Some cry, "Our one hope for national religionis to rivet tighter than ever the chains which bind the Churchto the chariot-wheels of the State. " Others reply, "Break thosechains, and let us go free--even without a roof over our heads ora pound in our pockets. " And there is a third section--the partywhich, as Newman said, attempts to steer between the Scylla ofAye and the Charybdis of No through the channel of no meaning, and this section cries for some reform which shall abolish thecynical mockery of the Congé d'Élire, and secure to the Church, while still established and endowed, the self-governing rightsof a Free Church. In ecclesiastical quarters the mist is alwaysparticularly thick. 

Certainly at this moment, if ever in our national life, we mustbe content to "walk by faith and not by sight. " This chapter beganwith imagery, and with imagery it shall end. "I have often stoodon some mountain peak, some Cumbrian or Alpine hill, over whichthe dim mists rolled; and suddenly, through one mighty rent inthat cloudy curtain, I have seen the blue heaven in all its beauty, and, far below my feet, the rivers and cities and cornfields ofthe plain sparkled in the heavenly sunlight. "

That is, in a figure, the vision for which we must hope and pray. 

III

"_DISSOLVING THROES_"

I borrow my title from a poet. 

 "He grew old in an age he condemned; He looked on the rushing decay Of the times which had sheltered his youth; Felt the dissolving throes Of a social order he loved. "

It seems odd that Matthew Arnold should have spoken thus aboutWordsworth; for one would have expected that the man who wrote sogloriously of the French Revolution, "as it appeared to enthusiastsat its commencement, " would have rejoiced in the new order which itestablished for all Europe. But the younger poet knew the elderwith an intimacy which defies contradiction; and one must, I suppose, number Wordsworth among those who, in each succeeding age, haveshed tears of useless regret over the unreturning past. Talleyrandsaid that, to know what an enjoyable thing life was capable ofbeing, one must have been a member of the _ancienne noblesse_ beforethe Revolution. It was the cynical and characteristic utteranceof a nature singularly base; but even the divine Burke (though hehad no personal or selfish interests in the matter) was convincedthat the Revolution had not only destroyed political freedom, butalso social welfare, and had "crushed everything respectable andvirtuous in the nation. " What, in the view of Burke and Talleyrand, the Revolution did for France, that, by a curious irony of fate, our attempt to defeat the Revolution did for England. Burke forcedus into the Revolutionary War, and that war (as Gladstone once saidin a letter to the present writer) "almost unmade the liberties, the Constitution, even the material interests and prosperity, of ourcountry. " Patriots like William Cobbett and Sydney Smith, thoughabsolutely convinced that the war was just and necessary, doubtedif England could ever rally from the immense strain which it hadimposed on her resources, or regain the freedom which, in orderto beat France, she had so lightly surrendered. 

At a time when Manchester was unrepresented and Gatton sent twoMembers to Parliament, it was steadily maintained by lovers of theestablished order that the proposed enlargement of the electoratewas "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with thenecessary restraints of social obligation. " If it were carried, religion, morality, and property would perish together, and ourvenerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousandyears have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hourmay lay her in the dust. " In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubtthat the Reform Bill is a stepping-stone in England to a republic, and in Ireland to separation. Both _may_ happen without the Bill, but with it they are inevitable. " Next year the Bill became law. Lord Bathurst cut off his pigtail, exclaiming: "Ichabod, for theglory is departed"--an exquisitely significant combination of actand word--and the Duke of Wellington announced that England hadaccomplished "a revolution by due course of law. " In some sense thewords were true. Political power had passed from the aristocracyto the middle class. The English equivalents of Talleyrand--themen who directly or in their ancestors had ruled England since1688, had enjoyed power without responsibility, and privilege whichalike Kings and mobs had questioned in vain--were filled with thewildest alarms. Emotional orators saw visions of the guillotine;calmer spirits anticipated the ballot-box; and the one implementof anarchy was scarcely more dreaded than the other. 

Sixteen years passed. Property and freedom seemed pretty secure. Evenprivilege, though shaken, had not been overthrown; and a generationhad grown up to which the fears of revolution seemed fantastic. Thensuddenly came the uprising of the nations in '48; and once again"dissolving throes" were felt, with pain or joy according to thetemperament of those who felt them. "We have seen, " said CharlesGreville, "such a stirring-up of all the elements of society asnobody ever dreamt of; we have seen a general saturnalia--ignorance, vanity, insolence, poverty, ambition, escaping from every kindof restraint, ranging over the world, and turning it topsy-turvyas it pleased. All Europe exhibits the result--a mass of ruin, terror, and despair. " Matthew Arnold, young and ardent, and insome ways democratic, wrote in a different vein: "The hour of thehereditary peerage, and eldest sonship, and immense properties, has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck. " Seventy yearsago! And that "hour" has not struck yet!

The "dissolving throes" were lulled again, and I scarcely madethemselves felt till 1866, when a mild attempt to admit the pickof the artisans to the electoral privileges of the middle classwoke the panic-stricken vehemence of Robert Lowe. "If, " he asked, "you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means ofintimidation; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violentpeople, where will you go to look for them--to the top or to thebottom?" Well might Bishop Wilberforce report to a friend, "It wasenough to make the flesh creep to hear Bob Lowe's prognosticationsfor the future of England. "

Next year the artisans got the vote, though the great Lord Shaftesbury, who knew more than most of his peers about working-men, plainlytold the House of Lords that "a large proportion of the workingclasses have a deep and solemn conviction that property is notdistributed as property ought to be; that some checks ought tobe kept upon the accumulation of property in single hands; andthat to take away by legislation that which is in excess with aview to bestowing it on those who have less, is not a breach ofany law, human or Divine. "

Yet once more. When in 1885 the agricultural labourers (of whom aTory M. P. Said that they were no fitter for a vote than the beaststhey tended), were admitted to the franchise, the same terrorsshook the squirearchy. We were warned that the land would soon bebroken up into small holdings; that sport would become impossible;and that "the stately homes of England" must all be closed, forlack of money to keep them open. The country, we were told, hadseen its best days, and "Merry England" had vanished for ever. 

I only recall these "dissolving throes, " real or imaginary, becauseI fancy that just now they are again making themselves felt, andperhaps with better reason than ever before in our history. Peoplewho venture to look ahead are asking themselves this question: Ifthis war goes on much longer, what sort of England will emerge?Some are looking forward with rapture to a new heaven and a newearth; others dread the impending destruction "of a social orderthey loved. " Can we not trace something of this dread in LordLansdowne's much-canvassed letter? He is one of the most patrioticand most experienced men in public life; he "looks on the rushingdecay of the times which sheltered his youth"; and it may well bethat he is striving to avert what seems to him a social catastrophe. 

IV

_INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER_

As a rule, I call a spade a spade. When I mean _The Times_, I say_The Times_, and I condemn the old-fashioned twaddle of talkingabout "a morning contemporary. " But to-day I depart from my ruleand content myself with saying that I lately read in an importantnewspaper a letter dealing with Mr. Asquith's distinction between"Prussian Militarism" and "German Democracy. " For my own part, I did not think that distinction very sound. The experience ofthe last three years has led me to the conclusion that the Germandemocracy is to the full as bellicose as the military caste, andthat it has in no way dissociated itself from the abominable crimesagainst decency and humanity which the military caste has committed. I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized;but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, oneis bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitousa result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "doubledose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as itleaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; andwhen we see it deformed and degraded, we must look for the influencewhich has been its bane. In dealing with individuals the enquiry iscomparatively simple, and the answer not far to seek. But when wedeal with nations we cannot, as a rule; point to a single figure, or even a group of figures, and say, "He, or they, did the mischief. "We are forced to look wider and deeper, and we shall be well advisedif we learn from Burke to realize "the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness of man. " Let meapply Burke's teaching to the case before us. 

The writer of the letter which I am discussing has a whole-hearteddislike of the Germans, and especially of the Prussians; chargesthem with "cruelty, brutal arrogance, deceit, cunning, mannersand customs below those of savages"; includes in the indictmentprofessors, commercial men, and women; recites the hideous listof crimes committed during the present war; and roundly says that, however you label him, "the Prussian will always remain a beast. "

I dispute none of these propositions. I believe them to be sadlyand bitterly true; but if I am to follow Burke's counsel, I mustenquire into the "laws, institutions, and government" which haveprevailed in Germany, and which have exercised so disastrous a"mastery over the character and happiness of man. " In this enquiryit would be obvious to touch military ascendency, despotic monarchy, representative institutions deprived of effective power, administrationmade omnipotent, and bureaucratic interference with every detail ofhuman life. Sydney Smith's words about unreformed England applyperfectly to modern Germany. "Of all ingenious instruments of despotismI most commend a popular assembly where the majority are paid andhired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, makethe people believe they are free. "

But for our present purpose I must concentrate attention on anotherinstitution which has had an even more direct and practical bearingon the character of the German people--and this is the enforcementof military service. This, like every other institution, must bejudged by its effects on the character of those who are subjectto it. The writer of the letter holds that "the only good thingabout the German nation" is the "national service through whichall men pass, and which makes soldiers of all not physically unfit, and which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty. " Now, these words, read in connexion with thedescription of the German people quoted above, suggest a puzzlingproblem. The Germans are cruel, brutally arrogant, deceitful, andcunning, and "the Prussian will always remain a beast. " Yet thesesame people have all passed through a discipline "which inculcatespatriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty. " Doth afountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Doesthe same system make men patriotic and cruel, loyal and arrogant, obedient and deceitful, courageous and cunning, dutiful and beastly?

Perhaps it does. I can conceive some of these pairs of qualitiesunited in a single character. A man might be a zealous patriot, and yet horribly cruel; loyal to his Sovereign, but arrogant tohis inferiors; obedient to authority, yet deceitful among coequals;courageous in danger, yet cunning in avoiding it; dutiful accordingto his own standard of duty, and yet as "beastly" as the torturersof Belgium. But a system which produces such a very chequered typeof character is scarcely to be commended. 

Now, the writer might reply, "I only said that the military system_inculcated_ certain virtues. I did not say that it ensured them. "Then it fails. If it has produced only the "vile German race" whichthe writer so justly dislikes, unredeemed by any of the virtueswhich it "inculcates, " then it has nothing to say for itself. Itstands confessed as an unmixed evil. 

It is right to expose a logical fallacy, but I am not fond of theattempt to obscure by logic-chopping what is a writer's real meaning. I will therefore say that, as far as I can make out, what thisparticular writer really believes is that the German people, throughsome innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turnedthe inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their ownmoral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, in spite of a beneficent institution which would have made themgood and even pleasant. 

Here I take leave to differ, and to range myself on the side ofBurke. Great, indeed--nay, incalculable--is "the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness ofman. " The system is known by its fruits. We may think as badly as welike of the Germans--as badly as they deserve--but we must rememberthe "laws, institutions, and government" that have dominated theirnational development. And this is not only a matter of just andrational thinking, but is also a counsel of safety for ourselves. If, as a result of this war, we allow our personal and social liberties(rightly suspended for the moment) to be permanently abolished orrestricted; and, above all, if we bend our necks to the yoke of amilitary despotism; we shall be inviting a profound degradation ofour national character. It would indeed be a tragical consummationof our great fight for Freedom if, when it is over, the other nationscould point to us and say: "England has sunk to the moral levelof Germany. "

V

_REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS_

"A revolution by due course of law. " This, as we have seen, wasthe Duke of Wellington's description of the Reform Act of 1832, which transferred the government of England from the aristocracyto the middle class. Though eventually accomplished by law, itdid not pass without bloodshed and conflagration; and timid peoplesatisfied themselves that not only the downfall of England, butthe end of the world, must be close at hand. 

Twenty years passed, and nothing in particular happened. Nationalwealth increased, all established institutions seemed secure, andpeople began to forget that they had passed through a revolution. Then arose John Bright, reminding the working-men of the Midlandsthat their fathers "had shaken the citadel of Privilege to itsbase, " and inciting them to give the tottering structure anotherpush. A second revolution seemed to be drawing near. Dickens puton record, in chapter xxvi. Of _Little Dorrit_, the alarms whichagitated respectable and reactionary circles. The one point, asDickens remarked, on which everyone agreed, was that the countrywas in very imminent danger, and wanted all the preserving it couldget. Presently, but not till 1867, the second revolution arrived. Some of the finest oratory ever heard in England was lavished on thequestion whether the power, formerly exercised by the aristocracyand more recently by the middle class, was to be extended to theartisans. The great Lord Shaftesbury predicted "the destructionof the Empire, " and Bishop Wilberforce "did not see how we wereto escape fundamental changes in Church and State. " "History, "exclaimed Lowe, "may record other catastrophes as signal and asdisastrous, but none so wanton and so disgraceful. " However, theartisans made a singularly moderate use of their newly acquiredpower; voted Conservative as often as they voted Liberal; and soagain belied the apprehensions of the alarmists. 

When the workman of the town had been enfranchised, it was impossibleto keep his brother who worked on the land permanently in the positionof a serf or a cipher. So we began to agitate for the "CountyFranchise"; and once again the cry of "Revolution" was heard--perhapsin its most typical form from the lips of a Tory M. P. , who, asI said before, affirmed that the labourer was no fitter for thesuffrage than the beasts he tended. Even ten years later, LordGoschen, who was by nature distrustful of popular movements, prognosticated that, if ever the Union with Ireland were lost, itwould be lost through the votes of the agricultural labourers. Tothose who, like myself, were brought up in agricultural districts, the notion that the labourer was a revolutionary seemed strangelyunreal; but it was a haunting obsession in the minds of clubmenand town-dwellers. 

So, in each succeeding decade, the next extension of constitutionalfreedom has been acclaimed by its supporters as an instalment ofthe millennium, and denounced by its opponents as the destructionof social order. So it had been, time out of mind; and so it wouldhave been to the end had not the European war burst upon us, andshaken us out of all our habitual concernments. Now "the oraclesare dumb. " The voices, of lugubrious prophecy are silent. The ReformAct which has become law this year is beyond doubt the greatestrevolution which has as yet been effected "by due course of law. "It has doubled the electorate; it has enfranchised the women; ithas practically established universal suffrage; it has placed allproperty, as well as all policy, under the control of a class, if only that class chooses to vote and act together. All theseeffects of the Act (except one) are objects which I have desiredto see attained ever since I was a boy at Harrow, supporting thepresent Bishop of Oxford and the late Lord Grey in the School DebatingSociety; so it is not for me to express even the faintest apprehensionof evil results. But I am deliberately of opinion that the changenow effected in our electoral arrangements is of farther-reachingsignificance than the substitution of a republic for a monarchy;and the amazing part of the business is that no one has protestedat any stage of it. We were told at the beginning of the war thatthere was to be no controversial legislation till it was over. That engagement was broken; no one protested. A vitally importanttransaction was removed from the purview of Parliament to a secretconference; no one protested. If we suggested that the House ofCommons was morally and constitutionally dead, and that it oughtto renew its life by an appeal to the constituencies before itenforced a revolution, we were told that it was impossible to holda General Election with the soldiers all out of the country; butnow it seems that this is to be the next step, and no one protestsagainst it. 

But these may be dismissed as constitutional pedantries. So beit. The Whigs, who made the Constitution, may be pardoned if theyhave a sneaking regard for their handiwork. Much more astonishingis the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealthand privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. Themen of £100, 000 a year--not numerous, according to the Chancellorof the Exchequer, but influential--have been as meekly acquiescentas clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled onan Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is theexplanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Didthey laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Governmentwhich is conducting a great war? Or did they, less laudably, shrinkfrom the prospect of appearing as the inveterate enemies of a socialand economic revolution which they saw to be inevitable? Let uscharitably incline to the former hypothesis. 

But there is something about this, our most recent revolution, which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition andpanic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the leastattention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossibleto turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world--butpre-eminently Rations, --seemed more vital and more pressing. "TheReform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficultto get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'msure James Lowther won't allow them to do anything very silly--butI really cannot imagine how we are to get on without meat. " Oryet again: A triumphant Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister:"So we've got the vote at last!" "What vote?" replied the sister. "Surely we've had a vote for ever so long? I'm sure I have, thoughI never used it. "

When the real history of this wonderful war is written, methinksthe historian will reckon among its most amazing features the factthat it so absorbed the mind of the nation as to make possible a'silent revolution. '

VI

"_THE INCOMPATIBLES_"

My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have everwritten wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify ourSister Kingdom have been many and various--Disestablishment Acts, Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and every othervariety of legislative experiment; but through them all Irelandremained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons which shehad not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, with thebest intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. Thisfailure on the part of England may have been due to the fact thatGladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himselfwith Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact. It is startling to read, in Lord Morley's _Life_ this casual recordof his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his firstand only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks, and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Ofthe multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had littlechance of seeing much. "

One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolveof Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition wasthe "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable orunwilling to supply. Late in life Gladstone discovered that Irelandwas a nation, and ought to be treated as such. As regards his ownshare in the matter, the change came too late, and he went to thegrave leaving Ireland (in spite of two Home Rule Bills) stillunpacified; but his influence has lived and wrought, not only inthe Liberal party. The principle of Irish nationality has beenrecognized in legislative form, and the most law-abiding citizenin Great Britain might drink that toast of "Ireland a Nation" whichaforetime was considered seditious, if not treasonable. 

It was certainly a very odd prejudice of English Philistinism whichprevented us, for so many centuries, from recognizing a fact so palpableas Irish nationality. If ever a race of men had characteristics ofits own, marking it out from its nearest neighbours, that race isthe Irish, and among the best of those characteristics are chastity, courtesy, hospitality, humour, and fine manners. The intense Catholicismof Ireland may be difficult for Protestants to applaud; yet mostcertainly those who fail to take it into account are hopelesslyhandicapped in the attempt to deal with Irish problems. The Irishare born fighters. One of the most splendid passages which evenIrish oratory ever produced was that in which Sheill protestedagainst the insolence of stigmatizing the countrymen of Wellingtonas "aliens" from England, and no policy could be more suicidal thanthat which deflects the soldiership of Ireland from the Britishcause. 

Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of havingbrought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government, and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written:"We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelingsand affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we haveno sympathy. " Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, orcan we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understandthe working of the Irish temperament?

The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not betweenthe two nations which Providence has so closely knit together, but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, andsensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnoldlamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland, and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine, unmitigated Murdstone--the common middle-class Englishman, whohas come forth from Salem House--and Mr. Creakle. He is seen infull force, of course, in the Protestant North; but throughoutIreland he is a prominent figure of the English garrison. Him theIrish see, see him only too much and too often"--and to see himis to dislike him, and the country which sent him forth. 

Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealingsof Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem Househave decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and haveconverted--for the astonishment of after-ages--Mr. Balfour andLord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one questionwhich, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled tosettle for itself it is the question whether military service shallbe compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is notyet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only methodby which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduceconscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliamentof their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surelyis a breach of manners and good sense. 

VII

_FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS_

Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, arethey who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom"is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit thatthis generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth. 

Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she couldcount one, Authority could count two. [*] Five years ago, how manyEnglishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service, but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause? If you polledthe nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would youfind? At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls, would rise, at another it would sink. At the best of times, if youdivide the nation into strata, you would find large sections inwhich Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends. It had longbeen one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty hadalmost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language ofsocial convention, "the upper classes. " For generations the despisedand calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in theirpeculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had establishedthe political liberties of England on a strong foundation. But theirday was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendantshad made common cause with their hereditary opponents. 

[Footnote *: I am speaking here of England only--not of Scotland, Ireland, or Wales. ]

After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upperstrata of society was so rare a character that people encounteringhim instinctively asked, "Is he insincere? Or only mad?" Desertedby the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the greatMiddle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun;and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered forFreedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became moreaudible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as beingthe natural guardian of property. If you make the divisiongeographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the Northstood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were alwaysunfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy. 

If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regardedas wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkabledegree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose, the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered. Howmany friends could Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece, in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How manyArmenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposedthe annexation of the South African Republics? At each extensionof the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attemptto place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bearit, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes ofsociety; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlandsand the South; in the Church, alas!; in the Universities, theProfessions, and the Press. 

And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters thererises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts verydiscordantly with the habitual language of five years ago. To-daythe friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal. Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and theenergy of her new worshippers. Lapses from grace are not unknown inthe after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume theconversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere. And to what are we to attribute it? Various answers are possible. Perhaps, as long as it was only other people's liberty which wasimperilled, we could look on without concern. Perhaps we neverrealized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life, till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force, first dawned on our imagination. Perhaps--and this is the happiestsupposition--we have learnt our lesson by contemplating the effectsof a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting the morals andwrecking the civilization of a powerful and once friendly people. 

But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable, and, at least on the surface, satisfactory. To-day we all are thefriends and lovers of Liberty--and yet the very multitude of ournew comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground forperplexity and even for concern. "He who really loves Liberty mustwalk alone. " In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe thatthis stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustratedafresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect andregret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney. [*]

[Footnote *: Leonard, Henry Courtney (Lord Courtney of Penwith), died May 11, 1918, in his eighty-sixth year. ]

V

EDUCATION

I

_EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE_

Not long ago a Judge of the High Court (who was also a Liberal)made what struck me as an eminently wise observation. While tryinga couple of Elementary School-teachers whose obscenity was toogross for even an Old Bailey audience, and who themselves wereproducts of Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makesone hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing whichwe had hoped it was. " Of course, all the prigs of the educationalworld, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declarationof common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark which had beensedulously misconstrued. 

Long years ago Queen Victoria recording the conversation at herdinner-table, said: "Lord Melbourne made us laugh very much withhis opinions about Schools and Public Education; the latter hedon't like, and when I asked him if he did he said, 'I daren'tsay in these times that I'm against it--but I _am_ against it. '"

There is a pleasantly human touch in that confession of a WhigPrime Minister, that he was afraid to avow his mistrust of a greatsocial policy to which the Liberal party was committing itself. Thearch-charlatan, Lord Brougham, was raging up and down the kingdomextolling the unmixed blessings of education. The University ofLondon, which was to make all things new, had just been set up. "The school-master was abroad. " Lord John Russell was making sometentative steps towards a system of national education. Societies, Congresses, and Institutes were springing up like mushrooms; andall enlightened people agreed that extension of knowledge was theone and all-sufficient remedy for the obvious disorders of the bodypolitic. The Victorian Age was, in brief, the age of Education;and the one dogma which no one ventured to question was that theextension of knowledge was necessarily, and in itself, a blessing. 

When I say "no one" I should perhaps say "hardly anyone"; for thewisest and wittiest man of the time saw the crack in the foundationon which his friends were laboriously erecting the temple of theirnew divinity. "Reading and writing, " said Sydney Smith, "are mereincrease of power. They may be turned, I admit, to a good or abad purpose; but for several years of his life the child is inyour hands, and you may give to that power what bias you please. Ibelieve the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the lessonsof his early life. When I see the village school, and the tatteredscholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanicalart of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teachingthat alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, insuring property, fencing the Altar, guarding the Throne, givingspace and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting himup to his own place in the order of Creation. "

That first sentence contain? the pith of the whole matter. "Readingand writing are mere increase of power, " and they may be turnedto a good or a bad purpose. Here enters the ethical considerationwhich the zealots of sheer knowledge so persistently ignored. Thelanguage about fencing the Altar and guarding the Throne might, nodoubt, strike the Judge who tried the school-teachers as undulyidealistic; but the sentiment is sound, and knowledge is eithera blessing or a curse, according as it is used. 

Sydney Smith was speaking of the Elementary School, and, indeed, was urging the claims of the working classes to better education. But his doctrine applies with at least equal force to the higherand wider ranges of knowledge. During the Victorian Age physicalscience came into its own, and a good deal more than its own. Anydiscovery in mechanics or chemistry was hailed as a fresh boon, and the discoverer was ranged, with Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, among our national heroes. As long ago as 1865 a scientific soldierperceived the possibilities of aerial navigation. His vision hasbeen translated into fact; but Count Zeppelin has shown us quiteclearly that the discovery is not an unmixed blessing. Chemistryis, to some minds, the most interesting of studies, just becauseit is, as Lord Salisbury once said of it, the science of thingsas they are. Yet aconitine, strychnine, and antimony have playedtheir part in murders, and chloroform has been used for destructionas well as for salvation. Dr. Lardner was one of the most conspicuousfigures in that March of Mind which Brougham and his congenersled; and his researches into chemistry resulted in the productionof an effluvium which was calculated to destroy all human lifewithin five miles of the spot where it was discharged. This wasan enlargement of knowledge; but if there had been Nihilists inthe reign of William IV. They would have found in Dr. Lardner'sdiscovery a weapon ready to their hand. Someone must have discoveredalcohol; and my teetotal friends would probably say, invented it, for they cannot attribute so diabolical an agency to the action ofpurely natural causes. But even those who least sympathize with"the lean and sallow abstinence" would scarcely maintain that alcoholhas been an unmixed blessing to the race. 

To turn from material to mental discoveries, I hold that a greatmany additions which have been made to our philosophical knowledgehave diminished alike the happiness and the usefulness of thosewho made them. "To live a life of the deepest pessimism temperedonly by the highest mathematics" is a sad result of sheer knowledge. An historian, toiling terribly in the muniment-rooms of collegesor country houses, makes definite additions to our knowledge ofHenry VIII. Or Charles I. ; learns cruelty from the one and perfidyfrom the other, and emerges with a theory of government as odiousas Carlyle's or Froude's. A young student of religion diligentlyadds to his stock of learning, and plunges into the complicatederrors of Manicheans, and Sabellians, and Pelagians, with the resultthat he absorbs the heresies and forgets the Gospel. In each ofthese cases knowledge has been increased, but mankind has not beenbenefited. We come back to what Sydney Smith said. Increase ofknowledge is merely increase of power. Whether it is to be a boonor a curse to humanity depends absolutely on the spirit in whichit is applied. Just now we find ourselves engaged in a desperateconflict between materialism and morality--between consummate knowledgeorganized for evil ends, and the sublime ideal of public right. Education has done for Germany all that Education, divorced fromMorality, can do; and the result has been a defeat of civilizationand a destruction of human happiness such as Europe has not seensince the Middle Age closed in blood. What shall it profit a nationif it "gain the whole world" and lose its own soul?

II

_THE GOLDEN LADDER_

Education is an excellent thing, but the word has a deterrent sound. It breathes pedantry and dogmatism, and "all that is at enmity withjoy. " To people of my age it recalls the dread spirits of Pinnockand Colenso and Hamblin Smith, and that even more terrible Smith whoedited Dictionaries of everything. So, though this chapter is to beconcerned with the substance, I eschew the word, and choose for mytitle a figurative phrase. I might, with perfect justice, have chosenanother figure, and have headed my paper "The Peg and the Hole"; for, after nearly a century of patient expectation, we have at last gota Square Peg in the Square Hole of Public Instruction. In simplerspeech, England has at length got a Minister of Education who hasa genuine enthusiasm for knowledge, and will do his appointed workwith a single eye to the intellectual advancement of the country, neither giving heed to the pribbles and prabbles of theologicaldisputants, nor modifying his plans to suit the convenience of themanufacturer or the squire. He is, in my judgment, exactly theright man for the office which he fills; and is therefore strikinglydifferentiated not only from some Ministers of Education whom wehave known, but also from the swarm of Controllers and Directorsand salaried busybodies who have so long been misdirecting us andcontradicting one another. 

When I say that Mr. Fisher will not give heed to theological disputants, I by no means ignore the grievance under which some of those disputantshave suffered. The ever-memorable majority of 1906 was won, notwholly by Tariff Reform or Chinese Labour, but to a great extentby the righteous indignation of Nonconformity at the injury whichhad been inflicted on it by the Tory Education Acts. There werePassive Resisters in those days, as there are Conscientious Objectorsnow; and they made their grievance felt when the time for votingcame. The Liberal Government, in spite of its immense victory atthe polls, scored a fourfold failure in its attempts to redressthat grievance, and it remains unredressed to this hour. Not that Iadmired the Liberal Education Bills. My own doctrine on the matterwas expressed by my friend Arthur Stanton, who said in 1906: "Ithink National and Compulsory Education must be secular, and withfacilities for the denominations to add their particular tenets. Myobjection to this Bill" (Mr. Birrell's Bill) "is that it subsidizesundenominationalism. " And again in 1909, when another of our Liberalpractitioners was handling the subject: "I object altogether tothe State teaching religion. I would have it teach secular mattersonly, and leave the religious teaching entirely to the clergy, who should undertake it at their own expense. This is the onlyfair plan--fair to all. The State gives, and pays for, religiousteaching which I do not regard as being worth anything at all. Itis worse than useless. Real religious teaching can only be givenby the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He didnot mean mathematics and geography. "

That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politicswe must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicablereforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr. Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on oneside, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equallywell the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformistsand the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religiousfreedom, aspire. 

I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a greatBill. " Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morleyobserves, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being theworst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it iscommonly used, a formula of social ruin. " Enlarging on this theme, Lord Morley points out that the essential virtue of a small reform--thequality which makes it not an evil, but a good--is that it shouldbe made "on the lines and in the direction" of the greater reformwhich is desiderated. 

Now, this condition Mr. Fisher's Bill exactly fulfils. I supposethat the "greater reform" of education which we all wish to see--theideal of national instruction--is that the State should providefor every boy and girl the opportunity of cultivating his or hernatural gifts to the highest perfection which they are capableof attaining. When I speak of "natural gifts" I refer not onlyto the intellect, but also to the other parts of our nature, thebody and the moral sense. This ideal involves a system which, by anatural and orderly development, should conduct the capable childfrom the Elementary School, through all the intermediate stages, to the highest honours of the Universities. 

The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, becauseour mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied. A goodmany children may be unable to profit by any instruction higherthan that provided by the Elementary School. A good many more willbe able to profit by intermediate education. Comparatively few--thebest--will make their way to really high attainment, and will become, at and through the Universities, great philosophers, or scholars, or scientists, or historians, or mathematicians. 

At that point--and it ought to be reached at a much earlier agethan is now usual--the State's, concern in the matter ends. Thechild has become, a man, and henceforth must work out his ownintellectual salvation; but in the earlier stages the State canand must exercise a potent influence. The earliest stage must becompulsory--that was secured by the Act of 1870. In the succeedingstages, the State, while it does not compel, must stimulate andencourage; and above all must ensure that no supposed exigenciesof money-making, no selfish tyranny of the employing classes, shallbe allowed to interfere with mental or physical development, or todivert the boy or the girl from any course of instruction by whichhe or she is capable of profiting. This ideal Mr. Fisher's Bill, withits plain enactment that education shall be free; with its precautionagainst "half-time"; with its ample provision for ContinuationSchools, goes far to realize. Even if it is a "small" reform--andI should dispute the epithet--it is certainly "on the lines andin the direction" of that larger reform which the enthusiasts ofeducation have symbolized by the title of "The Golden Ladder. "[*]

[Footnote *: Happily for Education, Mr. Fisher's Bill is now anAct. ]

III

_OASES_

My title is figurative, but figures are sometimes useful. Murray'sDictionary defines an oasis as "a fertile spot in the midst of adesert"; and no combination of words could better describe theideal which I wish to set before my readers. 

The suggestion of this article came to me from a correspondentin Northumberland--"an old miner, who went to work down a minebefore he was eight years old, and is working yet at seventy-two. "My friend tells me that he has "spent about forty years of hisspare time in trying to promote popular education among his fellowworking-men. " His notice was attracted by a paper which I recentlywrote on "The Golden Ladder" of Education, and that paper led himto offer some suggestions which I think too valuable to be lost. 

My friend does not despise the Golden Ladder. Quite the contrary. He sees its usefulness for such as are able to climb it, but heholds that they are, and must be, the few, while he is concerned forthe many. I agree. When (following Matthew Arnold at a respectfuldistance) I have urged the formation of a national system by whicha poor man's son may be enabled to climb from the Elementary Schoolto a Fellowship or a Professorship at Oxford or Cambridge, I havealways realized that I was planning a course for the exceptionallygifted boy. That boy has often emerged in real life, and theUniversities have profited by his emergence; but he is, and alwaysmust be, exceptional. What can be done for the mass of intelligent, but not exceptional, boys, who, to quote my Northumbrian friend, "must be drilled into a calling of some kind, so as to be able toprovide for themselves when they grow up to manhood"? When oncetheir schooling, in the narrow sense, is over, must their minds beleft to lie fallow or run wild? Can nothing be done to supplementtheir elementary knowledge, to stimulate and discipline their mentalpowers?

The University Extension Movement was an attempt to answer thesequestions in a practical fashion, and my friend does full justiceto the spirit which initiated that movement, and to the men--suchas the late Lord Grey--who led it. But I suppose he speaks fromexperience when he says: "University Extension, as it is, willnever become established in working-class villages. Forty-five tofifty pounds is too big a sum to be raised in three months, andis also considered too much to be paid for a man coming to lectureonce a week for twelve weeks, and then disappear for ever like acomet. " My friend uses an astronomical figure, I a geographical one;but we mean the same thing. The idea is to establish Oases--"fertilespots in the midst of deserts"--permanent centres of light andculture in manufacturing districts. "The Universities teach andtrain ministers of religion, and they go and live in their parishesamong their flocks all the year round. Why not send lecturers andteachers of secular subjects in the same way? A system somethingsimilar to the Wesleyan or Primitive Methodists' ministerial systemwould answer the purpose. The country might be divided into circuitsof four or five centres each, and a University man stationed ineach circuit, to organize Students' Associations, give lectures, hold classes, and superintend scientific experiments, as the casemay be. "

This is a good illustration. The Church professes to place in eachparish an official teacher of religion and morality, and most ofthe Nonconformist communities do the same. To place an officialteacher of culture (in its widest sense) in every parish is perhapsa task beyond our national powers as at present developed; but toplace one in every industrial district is not conceivable only, but, I believe, practicable. The lecturer who comes from Oxfordor Cambridge, delivers his course, and departs, has no doubt hisuses. He is like the "Hot Gospeller" of an earlier age, or the"Missioner" of to-day. He delivers an awakening message, and manyare the better for it; but if culture is to get hold of the averagelads and young men of an industrial district, its exponent must bemore like the resident minister, the endowed and established priest. That he should live among the people whom he is to instruct, knowthem personally, understand their ways of thinking and speaking, is at least as important as that he should be a competent historianor mathematician or man of letters. If the State, or voluntaryeffort, or a combination of the two, could secure the permanentpresence of such a teacher in every district where men work hard, and yet have leisure enough to cultivate their intellects, a yawninggap in our educational system would be filled. 

It would not be polite to mention actual names; but take by wayof example such a district as Dickens's "Coketown, " or Disraeli's"Wodgate, " or George Eliot's "Milby, " or any of those towns whichCobbett expressively called "Hell-Holes. " Let the State establishin each of those places a qualified and accredited teacher foradult students. The teacher may, if necessary, be paid in partby voluntary subscription; but it is, in my view, all-importantthat he should have the sanction and authority of the State to givehim a definite place among local administrators, and to the Statehe should be responsible for the due discharge of his functions. In Coketown or Wodgate or Milby his lecture-room would be a realOasis--"a fertile spot in the midst of a desert. " Even if it hasnot been our lot to dwell in those deserts, we all have had, astravellers, some taste of their quality. We know the hideousnessof all that meets the eye; the necessary absorption in the strugglefor subsistence; the resulting tendency to regard money as theone subject worth serious consideration; the inadequate means ofintellectual recreation; the almost irresistible atmosphere ofmaterialism in which life and thought are involved. The "Oasis"would provide a remedy for all this. It would offer to all whocared to seek them "the fairy-tale of science, " the pregnant lessonsof history, the infinitely various joys of literature, the moralprinciples of personal and social action which have been thoughtout "by larger minds in calmer ages. "

That there may be practical difficulties in the way of such a schemeI do not dispute. The object of this chapter is not to elaborate aplan, but to exhibit an idea. That the amount of definite knowledgeacquired in this way might be small, and what Archbishop Bensonoddly called "unexaminable, " is, I think, quite likely. A man cannotlearn in the leisure-hours left over by exhausting work as he wouldlearn if he had nothing to think of except his studies and hisexamination. But Education has a larger function than the merecommunication of knowledge. It opens the windows of the mind; itshows vistas which before were unsuspected; and so, as Wordsworthsaid, "is efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier. "

IV

_LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE_

When an article in a newspaper produces a reply, the modest writeris gratified; for he knows that he has had at any rate one reader. If the reply comes to him privately, he is even better pleased, forthen he feels that his reader thinks the matter worthy of personaldiscussion and of freely exchanged opinion. I have lately written anarticle on "Life and Liberty" as proposed by some earnest clergymenfor the English Church, and an article on Mr. Fisher's EducationBill, in which I avowed my dislike to all attempts on the part ofthe State to teach religion. Both these articles have brought mea good deal of correspondence, both friendly and hostile. The termallotted to human life does not allow one to enter into privatecontroversy with every correspondent, so I take this method ofmaking a general reply. "Life and Liberty" are glorious ideals, but, to make the combination, perfect, we must add Justice. Hencemy title. 

The State consists of persons who profess all sorts of religion, and none. If the State compels its citizens to pay for religiousteaching in which they do not believe, it commits, in my opinion, a palpable injustice. This is not merely a question between onesect and another sect. It is, indeed, unjust to make a Quaker payfor teaching the doctrine of the Sacraments, or a Unitarian forteaching the Deity of Christ; but it is equally unjust to makean Atheist pay for teaching the existence of God, or a Churchmanfor teaching that curious kind of implied Socinianism which iscalled "undenominational religion. "

The only way out of these inequities is what is commonly called"Secularism. " The word has some unfortunate associations. It hasbeen connected in the past with a blatant form of negation, andalso with a social doctrine which all decent people repudiate. But, strictly considered, it means no more than "temporal" or "worldly";and when I say that I recommend the "Secular" system of education, I mean that the State should confine itself to the temporal orworldly work with which alone it is competent to deal, and shouldleave religion (which it cannot touch without inflicting injusticeon someone) to those whose proper function is to instil it. 

Who are they? Speaking generally, parents, ministers of religion, and teachers who are themselves convinced of what they teach; butI must narrow my ground. To-day I am writing as a Churchman forthose Churchmen whom my previous articles disturbed; and I haveonly space to set forth some of the grounds on which we Churchmenshould support the "secular solution. "

A Churchman is bound by his baptismal vows to "believe all thearticles of the Christian Faith. " These, according to his catechism, are summed up in the Apostles' Creed. He cannot, therefore, besatisfied with any religious instruction which is not based onthat formula; and yet such instruction cannot rightly be enforcedin schools which belong as much to unbelievers as to Christians. A Churchman's religious faith is not derived primarily from theBible, but from the teaching of the Christian Church, who is olderthan the oldest of her documents. There was a Church before theNew Testament was written, and that Church transmitted the faithby oral tradition. "From the very first the rule has been, as amatter of fact, that the Church should teach the truth, and thenshould appeal to Scripture in vindication of its own teaching. "For a Churchman, religious instruction must be the teaching of theChurch, tested by the Bible. The two cannot be separated. Hence itfollows that, while the State is bound to respect the convictionsof those who adhere to all manner of beliefs and disbeliefs, theChurchman cannot recognize religious teaching imparted under suchconditions as being that which his own conscience demands. 

And, further, supposing that some contrivance could be discoveredwhereby the State might authorize the teaching of the Church'sdoctrine, the Churchman could not conscientiously be a party toit; for, according to his theory, there is only one Body divinelycommissioned to decide what is to be taught--and that Body is notthe State, but the Church; and there is only one set of personsqualified to teach it--viz. , those who are duly authorized by theChurch, and are fully persuaded as to the truth of what they teach. 

It is sometimes asked how the Church is to fulfil this obligationwithout being subsidized in some way by the State. The principalrequisite is greater faith in its Divine mission. If the Bishopsand clergy had a stronger conviction that what they are divinelycommissioned to undertake they will be divinely assisted to fulfil, this question need not be suggested. The first teachers of theChristian religion performed their task without either "Rate-aid"or "State-aid" and the result of their labour is still to be seen;whereas now the object of leaders of religion seems to be to getdone for them what they ought to do for themselves. It may be wellto quote an utterance of the Bishop of Oxford at the time when theLiberal Government was dealing with education. "We are now, moreor less, in the middle of a crisis. We are always in the middleof a crisis. This crisis is about the religious question in ourday-schools. I would ask you, then, to get at the root of ourdifficulty. What is it? The heart of our difficulty is partly thatwe have _shifted on to the wrong shoulders_ the central functionof teaching children; secondly, that we have so lost the idea ofwhat the teaching of the Church is, and _the meaning of religiouseducation_, that we are considered by the public to be unreasonableand uncompromising people if we are not disposed to admit that theCounty Councils can settle the standard of sufficient religiousknowledge for everybody. "

The difficulty as to means might be overcome if the Church wouldmind its own business, and leave to the State what the State cando so much more effectively. Let me quote the words of a greatChristian and a great Churchman--Mr. Gladstone--written in 1894:"Foul fall the day when the persons of this world shall, on whateverpretext, take into their uncommissioned hands the manipulation ofthe religion of our Lord and Saviour. "

Surely Churchmen will best serve the religion which they profess byjoining with other "men of goodwill, " though of different faiths, who desire the secular solution. In that way only, as far as I cansee, can the interests of Education be reconciled with the higherinterests of Justice. 

V

_THE STATE AND THE BOY_

When Mr. A. J. Balfour was a very young man he published _A Defenceof Philosophic Doubt_. Nobody read it, but a great many talkedabout it; and serious people went about with long faces, murmuring, "How sad that Lord Salisbury's nephew should be an Agnostic!" WhenMr. Balfour had become a conspicuous figure in politics, the seriouspeople began to read the book which, so far, they had only denounced, and then they found, to their surprise and joy, that it was anessay in orthodox apologetic. Thenceforward Mr. Balfour rankedin their eyes as a "Defender of the Faith" second only to HenryVIII. 

To compare small things with great, I have had a similar experience. Not long ago I wrote a paper designed to set forth the pretty obvioustruth that increase in knowledge is not in itself a good. It evokedmuch criticism, and the critics once again exemplified our trulyEnglish habit of denouncing what we have not read. If these quaintpeople were to be believed, I was an enemy of education in generaland of elementary education in particular. I hope that they will beas much relieved as were Mr. Balfour's critics when they discover thatI am, and all my life have been, a zealous supporter of education, and, to some extent, an expert in it. 

If the world could be exhaustively divided into two classes-theEducated and the Uneducated--I suppose that I should be included inthe former, though I anticipate an inevitable sarcasm by allowingthat I should find myself perilously near the dividing-line. Itis more to the purpose to say that, whatever my own educationaldeficiencies, I have always been keenly interested in the educationof other people, and have preached incessantly that the State has asacred duty to its boys. If I leave the education of girls on oneside, I do so, not because I consider it unimportant, but becauseI know nothing about it. 

Information, as the great Butler said, is the least part of education. The greatest is the development of the child's natural power toits utmost extent and capacity; and the duty of so developing itmust be admitted by everyone who ponders our Lord's teaching aboutthe Buried Talent and the Pound laid up in the Napkin. Unless weenable and encourage every boy in England to bring whatever mentalgifts he has to the highest point of their possible perfection, we are shamefully and culpably squandering the treasure which Godhas given us to be traded with and accounted for. We shall haveno one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis on our neglect, welose our present standing among the educated peoples of the world. I always get back to the ideal of the "Golden Ladder, " reachingfrom the Elementary Schools, by Scholarships or "free places, " tothe Secondary Schools, and from them again to the Universities. This ideal is, unlike some ideals, attainable, and has in repeatedinstances been attained. Again and again the highest mathematicalhonours of Cambridge have been won by Elementary Schoolboys, andwhat is true of mathematics might also be true of every branch ofknowledge. I say advisedly that it "might" be true: whether ornot it will be depends on our handling of quite young boys. 

The pedagogic notion under which people of my time were reared wasthat every boy must learn exactly the same things as every otherboy, and must go on learning them till his last day at school, whether that day arrived when he was fourteen or eighteen. "We mustcatch up every man, whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke, begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he istwenty; making him conjugate and decline for life and death; andso teaching him to estimate his progress in real wisdom as he canscan the verses of the Greek tragedians. " So said Sydney Smith, andwith perfect truth. "The grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum"was enforced on the boy whose whole heart was in the engineer's shed, while his friend, to whom literature was a passion, was constrainedto simulate an interest in the blue lights and bad smells of achemical lecture. "Let it be granted" (as the odious Euclid, nowhappily dethroned, used to say) that there is a certain amount thatall alike must learn but this amount will prove, when scrutinized, to be very small. I suppose we must all learn to read and write, and it is useful to be able to do a sum in simple addition; thoughvery eminent people have often written very illegible hands, andDean Stanley--one of the most accomplished men of his day--couldnever be persuaded that eighteen pence was not the equivalent of1s. 8d. Zealots for various "knowledges" (to use the curious pluralsanctioned by Matthew Arnold) will urge the indispensability oftheir respective hobbies. One will say let everybody learn thatthe earth is round; another, that James I. Was not the son of QueenElizabeth. But let us leave, these pribbles and prabbles. Let everyboy be coerced into learning what is absolutely necessary for thedaily work of life; but let him, at a very early age, have hispowers concentrated on the subject which really interests him. 

One of the highest gifts which a teacher can possess is the powerof "discerning the spirits"--of discovering what a boy's mind reallyis; what it is made of; what can be made of it. This power is a naturalgift, and can by no means be acquired. Many teachers entirely lackit; but those who possess it are among the most valuable servantsof the State. This power may be brought to bear on every boy whenhe is, say, from fourteen to sixteen years old--perhaps in somecases even earlier; and, when once the teacher has made theall-important discovery, then let everything be done to stimulate, and at the same time to discipline, the boy's natural inclination, his inborn aptitude. Fifty years ago, every boy at every PublicSchool, though he might be as unpoetical as Blackstone who wrotethe Commentaries, or Bradshaw who compiled the Railway Guide, wasforced to produce a weekly tale of Latin and Greek verses which wouldhave made Horace laugh and Sophocles cry. The Rev. Esau Hittall's"Longs and Shorts about the Calydonian Boar, " commemorated in_Friendship's Garland_, may stand for a sample of the absurditieswhich I have in mind; and the supporters of this amazing abuseassured the world that Greek and Latin versification was an essentialelement of a liberal education. It took a good many generations todeliver England from this absurdity, and there are others likeunto it which still hold their own in the scholastic world. Tosweep these away should be the first object of the educationalreformer; and, when that preliminary step has been taken, the Statewill be able to say to every boy who is not mentally deficient:"This, or this, is the path which Nature intended you to tread. Follow it with all your heart. We will back you, and help you, and applaud you, and will not forsake you till the goal is won. "

VI

_A PLEA FOR THE INNOCENTS_

My "spiritual home" is not Berlin, nor even Rome, but Jerusalem. In heart and mind I am there to-day, and have been there ever sincethe eternally memorable day on which our army entered it. What I amwriting will see the light on the Feast of the Holy Innocents;[*]and my thoughts have been running on a prophetic verse which unitesthe place and the festival in a picturesque accord:

"Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell inthe midst of Jerusalem:... And the streets of the city shall befull of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof. "

The most brilliant Israelite of our times, Lord Beaconsfield, saidof a brilliant Englishman, Dean Stanley, that his leading featurewas his "picturesque sensibility, " and that sensibility was nevermore happily expressed than when he instituted the service forchildren in Westminster Abbey on Innocents' Day--"Childermas Day, "as our forefathers called it, in the age when holidays were alsoholy days, and the Mass was the centre of social as well as ofspiritual life. On this touching feast a vast congregation of boysand girls assembles in that Abbey Church which has been rightlycalled "the most lovable thing in Christendom"; and, as it movesin "solemn troops and sweet societies" through aisles grey withthe memories of a thousand years, it seems a living prophecy ofa brighter age already at the door. 

[Footnote *: December 28, 1917. ]

It seems--rather, it seemed. Who can pierce the "hues of earthquakeand eclipse" which darken the aspect of the present world? Whocan foresee, or even reasonably conjecture, the fate which is instore for the children who to-day are singing their carols in thechurch of the Confessor? Will it be their lot to be "playing in thestreets" of a spiritual Jerusalem--the Holy City of a regeneratedhumanity? or are they destined to grow up in a reign of blood andiron which spurns the "Vision of Peace" as the most contemptibleof dreams?

In some form or another these questions must force themselves onthe mind of anyone who contemplates the boys and girls of to-day, and tries to forecast what may befall them in the next four orfive years. 

It is a gruesome thought that the children of to-day are growing upin an atmosphere of war. Bloodshed, slaughter, peril and privation, bereavement and sorrow and anxiety--all the evils from which happychildhood is most sedulously guarded have become the natural elementsin which they live and move and have their being. For the momentthe cloud rests lightly on them, for not "all that is at enmitywith joy" can depress the Divine merriment of healthy childhood;but the cloud will become darker and heavier with each succeedingyear of war; and every boy and girl is growing up into a fullerrealization of miseries which four years ago would have beenunimaginable. 

But at Christmastide, if ever, we are bound to take the brightestview which circumstances allow. Let us then assume the best. Let usassume that before next Innocents' Day the war will have ended ina glorious peace. God grant it; but, even in that beatific event, what will become of the children? They cannot be exactly what theywould have been if their lot had been cast in normal times. Unknownto themselves, their "subconscious intelligence" must have taken acolour and a tone from the circumstances in which they have beenreared. As to the colour, our task will be to wipe out the tingeof blood; as to the tone, to restore the note which is associatedwith the Angels' Song. 

This is my "Plea for the Innocents. " What will the State offerthem as they emerge from childhood into boyhood, and from boyhoodinto adolescence?

Perhaps it will offer Conscription; and, with no "perhaps" at all, some strident voices will pronounce that offer the finest boonever conferred upon the youth of a nation. Then, if there is anymanliness or fibre left in the adherents of freedom, they willanswer that we adopted Conscription for a definite object, and, when once that object is attained, we renounce it for ever. 

What will the State offer? Obviously it must offer education--butwhat sort of education? The curse of militarism may make itselffelt even in the school-room. It would be deplorable indeed if, as a result of our present experience, children were to be taughtwhat J. R. Green called a "drum-and-trumpet history, " and were madeto believe that the triumphs of war are the highest achievementsof the human spirit. 

As long as there is an Established Church, the State, in some sense, offers religion. Is the religion of the next few years to be whatRuskin commends: a "religion of pure mercy, which we must learn todefend by fulfilling"; or is it to be the sort of religion whichProfessor Cramb taught, and which Prussian Lutheranism has substitutedfor the Gospel?

And, finally, what of home? After all said and done, it is thehome that, in the vast majority of cases, influences the soul andshapes the life. What will the homes of England be like when the waris over? Will they be homes in which the moral law reigns supreme;where social virtue is recognized as the sole foundation of nationalprosperity; where the "strange valour of goodwill towards men", is revered as the highest type of manly resolution?

It is easy enough to ask these questions: it is impossible to answerthem. The Poet is the Prophet, and this is the Poet's vision:

 "The days are dark with storm;-- The coming revolutions have to face Of peace and music, but of blood and fire; The strife of Races scarce consolidate, Succeeded by the far more bitter strife Of Classes--that which nineteen hundred years, Since Christ spake, have not yet availed to close, But rather brought to issue only now, When first the Peoples international Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs. "[*]

_Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs_--a solemnline, which at this season we may profitably ponder. 

[Footnote *: "The Disciples, " by H. E. Hamilton King. ]

VI

MISCELLANEA

I

_THE "HUMOROUS STAGE"_

I am not adventuring on the dangerous paths of dramatic criticism. When I write of the "humorous stage, " I am using the phrase asWordsworth used it, to signify a scene where new characters aresuddenly assumed, and the old as suddenly discarded. 

Long ago, Matthew Arnold, poking fun at the clamours of Secularism, asked in mockery, "Why is not Mr. Bradlaugh a Dean?" To-day I read, in a perfectly serious manifesto forwarded to me by a friendlycorrespondant, this searching question: "Why is not the Archbishopof Canterbury Censor of Plays?" It really is a great conception;and, if adopted in practice, might facilitate the solution of someperplexing problems. If any lover of the ancient ways should demuron the ground of incongruity, I reply that this objection mighthold good in normal times, but that just now the "humorous stage"of public life so abounds in incongruities that one more or lesswould make no perceptible difference. Everyone is playing a part forwhich, three years ago, we should have thought him or her totallyunqualified. Old habits, old prepossessions--even in some cases oldprinciples--are cast aside with a levity which even Wordsworth'syoung actor could not have surpassed. We all are saying and doingthings of which we should have thought ourselves incapable; andeven our surprise at ourselves, great as it is, is less than oursurprise at our friends. 

To begin at the top. I have long held the present Prime Minister inhigh admiration. I can never forget--nor allow others to forget--thathe fought for the cause of Justice and Freedom in South Africaalmost single-handed, and at the risk of his life. An orator, apatriot, a lover of justice, a hater of privilege, I knew him tobe. I did not see in him the makings of a Dictator directing thedestinies of an Empire at war, and in his spare moments appointingSuccessors to the Apostles within the precincts of an EstablishedChurch. Certainly of Mr. Lloyd George, if of no one else, it istrue that

 "The little actor cons another part, "

and I heartily wish him success in it. But it is true of everyone, and true in every corner of the stage. Let me strike into the medleyat random. The anti-feminists, where are they? They have changedtheir garb and their "lines" so thoroughly that it is difficultfor even a practised eye to recognize them in their new parts. Lord Curzon is a member of a Cabinet which established the women'svote, and such stalwarts as Mr. Asquith and Lord Harcourt welcomewith effusion the enfranchisement of the victorious suffragette. 

And what of the Pacificists? Where are they? Some, I know, arein prison, but, if it had not been for the rapid change of partswhich the war has brought, they would have had a good many morefellow-captives than they have. The writer of this article was, from his first entrance into public affairs, a Pacificist to thebackbone. He believed that war was the greatest of preventibleevils, and that no war which had occurred in his lifetime had beenjustified by the laws of right and wrong. To-day that Pacificist isheart and soul with his countrymen in their struggle; and, havinglived to see England engaged in a righteous war, he has changedhis motto from "Rub lightly" to "Mak sicker. "

Not less remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers(among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself). Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detectthe slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodiesto invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly whatwe like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into thewilling subjects of a despotism. We tumble over each other in ourhaste to throwaway the liberties which we used to consider vitalto our being; and some of us have been not merely the victims, butthe active agents, of an administrative system which we believeto be necessary for the safety of the State. 

But is there not a remnant? Have all the lovers of Liberty changedtheir garb and conned new parts? Not all. A remnant there is, andit is to be found in the House of Lords. This is perhaps the mostastonishing feature of the "humorous stage"; and if, among superlatives, a super-superlative is possible, I reserve that epithet for the factthat the most vigorous champion of personal freedom in the Houseof Lords has been an ecclesiastical lawyer. From Lord Stowell toLord Parmoor is indeed a far cry. Who could have dreamt that, evenamid the upheaval of a world, a spokesman of liberty and consciencewould emerge from the iron-bound precincts of the Consistory Courtand the Vicar-General's Office?

Bishops again--not even these most securely placed of all Britishofficials can escape the tendency to change which pervades thewhole stage of public life. The Bishop of Winchester, whom allgood Progressives used to denounce as a dark conspirator againstthe rights of conscience; the Bishop of Oxford, whom we were taughtto regard as a Hildebrand and a Torquemada rolled into one--theseadmirable prelates emerge from the safe seclusion of Castle andPalace to rebuke the persecution of the Conscientious Objector, even when his objection is "nearly intolerable. "

That the Press should have had its share in this general readjustmentof parts was only natural; but even in what is natural there may bepoints of special interest. There is a weekly journal of high reputewhich has earned a secure place in the regard of serious-mindedpeople by its lifelong sobriety, moderation, and respect for theprunes and prisms. When this staid old print, this steady-goingsupporter of all established institutions, bursts out in a furiousattack on the man who has to bear the chief responsibility of thewar, I can only rub my eyes in amazement. If a sheep had suddenlygone mad, and begun to bark and bite, the transformation couldnot have been more astonishing. 

But I reserve my most striking illustration of the "humorous stage"for the last. Fifteen years ago it was the fashion to point at LordHugh Cecil as a belated upholder of exploded superstitions; asan "ecclesiastical layman" (the phrase was meant to be sarcastic)who lived in a realm of speculative theology, out of touch withall practical life; as a zealot, a bigot, a would-be persecutor;an interesting survival of the Middle Age; a monk who had strayedinto politics. To-day we salute him as the one Member of Parliamentwho has had the courage to affirm the supremacy of the moral law, and to assert the imperious claim which Christianity makes on thewhole of man's being. 

II

_THE JEWISH REGIMENT_

It was an old and a true allegation against John Bull that he hadno tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not meanto be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, whichhe could not understand. In Ireland he called the Roman Catholicfaith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood, made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftinessand oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he foundthe language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equallycomic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the Eisteddfod. Abroad, "Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing formula. Nasality, Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized his notion of American civilization;and he cheerfully echoed the sentiments

 "Of all who under Eastern skies Call Aryan man a blasted nigger. "

Now, of late years, John has altered his course. Some faint conceptionof his previous foolishness has dawned on his mind; and, as he isa thoroughly good fellow at heart, he has tried to make amends. The present war has taught him a good deal that he did not knowbefore, and he renders a homage, all the more enthusiastic becausebelated, to the principle of Nationality. His latest exploit in thisdirection has been to suggest the creation of a Jewish Regiment. The intention was excellent and the idea picturesque; but for thepractical business of life we need something more than good intentionsand picturesque ideas. "Wisdom, " said Ecclesiastes, "is profitableto direct;" and Wisdom would have suggested that it was advisableto consult Jewish opinion before the formation of a Jewish Regimentwas proclaimed to the world. There is probably no race of peopleabout which John Bull has been so much mistaken as he has beenabout the Jews. Lord Beaconsfield's description of Mr. Buggins, with his comments on the Feast of Tabernacles in Houndsditch, isscarcely yet anachronistic. [*] But slowly our manners and ourintelligence have improved in this as in other directions; and LordDerby (who represents John Bull in his more refined development)thought that he would be paying his Jewish fellow-citizens a prettycompliment if he invited them to form a Jewish Regiment. 

[Footnote *: See _Tancred_, Book V. , chapter vi. ]

Historically, Lord Derby and those who applauded his scheme had agreat deal to say for themselves. The remote history of Judaism isa history of war. The Old Testament is full of "the battle of thewarrior" and of "garments rolled in blood. " Gideon, and Barak, andSamson, and Jephthah, and David are names that sound like trumpets;and the great Maccabean Princes of a later age played an equalpart with Romans and Lacedæmonians. All this is historically true;but it never occurred to Lord Derby and his friends that the ideawhich underlay their scheme is the opposite of that which animatesmodern Judaism. Broadly speaking, the idea of modern Judaism is notNationality, but Religion. Mr. Lucien Wolf has lately reminded usthat, according to authoritative utterances, "The Jews are neithera nation within a nation, nor cosmopolitan, " but an integral partof the nations among whom they live, claiming the same rights andacknowledging the same duties as are claimed and acknowledged bytheir fellow-citizens. It is worth noticing that Macaulay acceptedthis position as disposing of the last obstacle to the civil andpolitical enfranchisement of the English Jews, and ridiculed thenotion that they would regard England, "not as their country, butmerely as their place of exile. " Mr. Wolf thus formulates his faith:"In the purely religious communities of Western Jewry we have thespiritual heirs of the law-givers, prophets, and teachers who, from the dawn of history, have conceived Israel, not primarilyas a political organism, but as a nation of priests, the chosenservants of the Eternal. "

Mr. Claude Montefiore, who is second to none as an interpreterof modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain. The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinaryfunctions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen ofthe country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said theother day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racialgrounds: "_I would shoot a Jewish Prussian as readily as a ChristianPrussian, if I found him fighting under the German flag_. " Thus, toenrol a regiment of Jews is about as wise as to enrol a regimentof Roman Catholics or of Wesleyan Methodists. Jews, Romans, andWesleyans alike hold with laudable tenacity the religious faithswhich they respectively profess; but they are well content to fightside by side with Anglicans, or Presbyterians, or Plymouth Brethren. They need no special standard, no differentiating motto. They aresoldiers of the country to which they belong. 

Here let me quote the exhilarating verses of a Jewish lady, [*] writtenat the time of the Boer War (March, 1900):

 "Long ago and far away, O Mother England, We were warriors brave and bold, But a hundred nations rose in arms against us, And the shades of exile closed o'er those heroic Days of old. 

 "Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother England. Thou hast let us live again Free and fearless 'midst thy free and fearless children, Sparing with them, as one people, grief and gladness, Joy and pain. 

 "Now we Jews, we English Jews, O Mother England, Ask another boon of thee! Let us share with them the danger and the glory; Where thy best and bravest lead, there let us follow O'er the sea!

 "For the Jew has heart and hand, our Mother England, And they both are thine to-day-- Thine for life, and thine for death, yea, thine for ever! Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly? England, say!"

[Footnote *: Mrs. Henry Lucas (reprinted in her _Talmudic Legends, Hymns and Paraphrases_. Chatto and Windus, 1908). ]

I am well aware that in what I have written, though I have beencareful to reinforce myself with Jewish authority, I may be runningcounter to that interesting movement which is called "Zionism. "It is not for a Gentile to take part in the dissensions of theJewish community; but I may be permitted to express my sympathywith a noble idea, and to do so in words written by a brilliantIsraelite, Lord Beaconsfield: "I do not bow to the necessity of avisible head in a defined locality; but, were I to seek for such, it would not be at Rome. When Omnipotence deigned to be incarnate, the ineffable Word did not select a Roman frame. The prophets werenot Romans; the Apostles were not Romans; she, who was blessedabove all women--I never heard that she was a Roman maiden. No;I should look to a land more distant than Italy, to a city moresacred even than Rome. "[*]

[Footnote *: _Sybil_, Book II. , chapter xii. ]

III

_INDURATION_

Though my heading is as old as Chaucer, it has, I must admit, aJohnsonian sound. Its sense is conveyed in the title of an excellentbook on suffering called _Lest We Grow Hard_, and this is a veryreal peril against which it behoves everyone

 "Who makes his moral being his prime care"

to be sedulously on his guard. During the last four years we havebeen, in a very special way and degree, exposed to it; and we oughtto be thankful that, as a nation, we seem to have escaped. Theconstant contemplation, even with the mental eye, of bloodshed andtorture, has a strong tendency to harden the heart; and a peculiargrace was needed to keep alive in us that sympathy with suffering, thatpassion of mercy, which is the characteristic virtue of regeneratehumanity. I speak not only of human suffering. Animals, it has beensaid, may have no rights, but they have many wrongs, and amongthose wrongs are the tortures which war inflicts. The sufferingof all sentient nature appeals alike to humanitarian sympathy. 

It has always seemed to me a signal instance of Wordsworth's penetratingthought "on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, " that he assigned tothis virtue a dominant place in the Character of the Happy Warrior--

 "Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain";

and who, "as more exposed" than others "to suffering and distress, "is

 "Hence, also, more alive to tenderness. "

This tribute to the moral nature of the Warrior, whether his warfarebe on land or on sea or in the air, is as true to-day as when Wordsworthpaid it. The brutal and senseless cry for "reprisals" which of latehas risen from some tainted spots of the Body Politic will wakeno response unless it be an exclamation of disgust from soldiersand sailors and airmen. Of course, everyone knows that there is asense in which reprisals are a necessary part of warfare. Generationafter generation our forefathers fought bow to bow and sword tosword and gun to gun against equally armed and well-matched foes;this was reprisal, or, if you prefer, retaliation. And when, in morerecent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonousgas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting onour German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had firstemployed. 

But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand. They contend that because the Germans kill innocent civilians, and women, and little children in English streets, Englishmen areto commit the same foul deeds in Germany. "It is hard, " says the_Church Times_, "to say whether futility or immorality is the morestriking characteristic of the present clamour for reprisals inthe matter of air-raids.... Mr. Joynson Hicks would 'lay a Germantown in ashes after every raid on London, ' and he is not much worsethan others who scream in the same key. " Nay, he is better thanmany of them. The people who use this language are not the menof action. They belong to a sedentary and neurotic class, who, lacking alike courage and mercy, gloat over the notion of tortureinflicted on the innocent and the helpless. 

A German baby is as innocent as an English baby, a German motheris as helpless as an English mother; and our stay-at-home heroes, safely ensconced in pulpits or editorial chairs, shrilly proclaimthat they must be bombed by English airmen. What a function toimpose on a band of fighters, peculiarly chivalrous and humane!

I refer to the pulpit because one gross and disgusting instanceof clerical ferocity has lately been reported. A raving clergymanhas been insolently parodying the Gospel which he has sworn topreach. Some of the newspapers commended his courage; and we donot know whether his congregation quitted the church or his Bishoprebuked him. Both results are possible, and I sincerely hope thatthe latter is true. The established and endowed teachers of religionhave not always used their influence on the side of mercy; but onthe question of reprisals I have observed with thankfulness thatthe Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have spokenon the right side, and have spoken with energy and decision. They, at any rate, have escaped the peril of induration, and in thatrespect they are at one with the great mass of decent citizens. 

I am no advocate of a mawkish lenity. When our soldiers and sailorsand airmen meet our armed foes on equal terms, my prayers go withthem; and the harder they strike, the better I am pleased. When aman or woman has committed a cold-blooded murder and has escapedthe just penalty of the crime, I loathe the political intriguewhich sets him or her free. Heavy punishment for savage deeds, remorseless fighting till victory is ours--these surely should beguiding principles in peace and war; and to hold them is no proofthat one has suffered the process of induration. 

Here I am not ashamed to make common cause with the stout old Puritanin _Peveril of the Peak:_ "To forgive our human wrongs is Christian-likeand commendable; but we have no commission to forgive those whichhave been done to the cause of religion and of liberty; we haveno right to grant immunity or to shake hands with those who havepoured forth the blood of our brethren. "

But let us keep our vengeance for those who by their own actionshave justly incurred it. The very intensity of our desire to punishthe wrong-doer should be the measure of our unwillingness to inflicttorture on the helpless and the innocent. "Lest we grow hard"--itshould be our daily dread. "A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character: bestial, childish, stupid, scurrilous, tyrannical. " A pagan, who had observed such a character in itsworking, prayed to be preserved from it. Christians of the twentiethcentury must not sink below the moral level of Marcus Aurelius. 

IV

_FLACCIDITY_

My discourse on "Induration" was intended to convey a warning which, as individuals, we all need. But Governments are beset by an evengreater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and thesimple--"flabbiness. "

The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scripturalallusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announcedthat he would "set his face" against a certain policy and thengave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face, ' but he did not 'set itas a flint'--rather _as a pudding_. "

To set one's face as a pudding is the characteristic action of allweak Governments. Lord Randolph Churchill once attracted noticeby enouncing the homely truth that "the business of an Oppositionis to oppose. " A truth even more primary is that the duty of aGovernment is to govern; to set its face, not as a pudding, but asa flint, against lawlessness and outrage; to protect the innocentand to punish the wrong-doer. 

This is a duty from which all weak Governments shrink. If a Ministeris not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a unitedparty, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious abouthis own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the nextmove of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neitherprotects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal andthe rebel. In this particular, there is no distinction of party. Tories can show no better record than Whigs, nor Liberals thanConservatives. It is a question of the governing temper, which isas absolutely requisite to the character of the ruler as courageto the soldier or incorruptibility to the Judge. 

It used to be held, and perhaps still is held, by what may be styledthe toad-eating school of publicists, that this governing temperwas an hereditary gift transmitted by a long line of ancestors, who in their successive generations had possessed it, and had usedit on a large scale in the governance of England. "How natural, "they exclaimed, "that Lord Nozoo, whose ancestors have ruled halfLoamshire since the Conquest, should have more notion of governingmen than that wretched Bagman, whose grandfather swept out theshop, and who has never had to rule anyone except a clerk and aparlourmaid!"

This sounded plausible enough, especially in the days when hereditywas everything, and when ancestral habit was held to explain, and ifnecessary extenuate, all personal characteristics; but experienceand observation proved it false. Pitt was, I suppose, the greatestMinister who ever ruled England; but his pedigree would have moved agenealogist to scorn. Peel was a Minister who governed so effectuallythat, according to Gladstone, who served under him, his directauthority was felt in every department, high or low, of theAdministration over which he presided; and Peel was a very recentproduct of cotton. Abraham Lincoln was, perhaps, the greatest rulerof the modern world, and the quality of his ancestry is a topic fitonly to be handled in a lecture on the Self-Made Men of History. 

When we regard our own time, I should say that Joseph Chamberlain had, of all English statesmen I have ever known, both the most satisfactoryideal of government and the greatest faculty for exercising it. Butthe Cordwainers' Company was the school in which his forefathershad learnt the art of rule. Ancestral achievements, hereditarypossessions, have nothing to do with the matter. What makes a mana ruler of men, and enables him to set his face as a flint againstwrong-doing; is a faculty born in himself--"the soul that risethwith him, his life's star. "

And it has no more to do with politics than with pedigree. SydneySmith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knewthat sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, andafter the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flacciditywith great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured aboutBristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, and thirty imprisoned. You will save lives by it in the end. "

It was a Tory Government which in the London Riots of 1866 made, asMatthew Arnold said, "an exhibition of mismanagement, imprudence, and weakness almost incredible. " Next year the Fenians blew upClerkenwell Prison, and the same acute critic observed: "A Governmentwhich dares not deal with a mob, of any nation or with any design, simply opens the floodgates to anarchy. Who can wonder at the Irish, who have cause to hate us, and who do not own their allegianceto us, making war on a State and society which has shown itselfirresolute and feeble?"

But the head of that feeble State, the leader of that irresolutesociety, was the fourteenth Earl of Derby, whose ancestors hadpractised the arts of government for eight hundred years. 

In Ireland the case is the same. Both parties have succeeded ingoverning it, and both have failed. Mr. Balfour has been justlypraised for his vigour in protecting property and restoring order;but it was Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan who, four yearsbefore, had caught and hanged the assassins of the Phoenix Park, andhad abolished agrarian murder. It was, alas! a Liberal Governmentthat tolerated the Ulster treason, and so prepared the way for theDublin rebellion. Highly placed and highly paid flaccidity thenreigned supreme, and produced its inevitable result. But last Decemberwe were assured that flaccidity had made way for firmness, and thatthe pudding had been replaced by the flint. But the transactionsof the last few weeks--one transaction in particular[*]--seem worthyof our flabbiest days. 

[Footnote *: A release for political objects. ]

I turn my eyes homewards again, from Dublin to the House of Commons. The report of the Mesopotamia Commission has announced to the worlda series of actions which every Briton feels as a national disgrace. Are the perpetrators of those actions to go unpunished? Are theyto retain their honours and emoluments, the confidence of theirSovereign, and the approbation of his Ministers? If so, flacciditywill stand revealed as what in truth it has always been--the onequality which neutralizes all other gifts, and makes its possessorincapable of governing. 

V

_THE PROMISE OF MAY_

This is the real season for a holiday, if holidays were still possible. It is a point of literary honour not to quote the line which showsthat our forefathers, in the days of Chaucer, felt the holiday-makinginstinct of the spring, and that instinct has not been affected bythe lapse of the centuries. It stirs us even in London, when theimpetuous lilacs are bursting into bud, and the sooty sparrowschirrup love-songs, and "a livelier iris changes on the burnisheddove"--or, to be more accurate, pigeon--which swells and straddlesas if Piccadilly were all his own. The very wallflowers and daffodilswhich crown the costers' barrows help to weave the spell; and, though pleasure-jaunts are out of the question, we welcome a callof duty which takes us, even for twenty-four hours, into "the countryplaces, which God made and not man. "

For my own part, I am no victim of the "pathetic fallacy" by whichpeople in all ages have persuaded themselves that Nature sympathizedwith their joys and sorrows. Even if that dream had not been dispelled, in prose by Walter Scott, and in verse by Matthew Arnold, one'sown experience, would have proved it false. 

"Alas! what are we, that the laws of Nature should correspond intheir march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings?" _The Heartof Midlothian_. 

 "Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends. "[*]

[Footnote *: _In Harmony with Nature_. ]

A funeral under the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June losesnothing of its sadness--perhaps is made more sad--by the unsympatheticaspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitualgloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in theBirthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall disasters anddisappointments which have overcast the spring, and tidings ofachievement or deliverance which have been happily out of keepingwith the melancholy beauty of autumn. 

In short, Nature cares nothing for the acts and sufferings of humankind; yet, with a strange sort of affectionate obstinacy, men insiston trying to sympathize with Nature, who declines to sympathizewith them; and now, when she spreads before our enchanted eyes allthe sweetness and promise of the land in spring, we try to bringour thoughts into harmony with the things we see, and to forget, though it be only for a moment, alike regrets and forebodings. 

And surely the effort is salutary. With Tom Hughes, jovial yetthoughtful patriot, for our guide, we make our way to the summitof some well-remembered hill, which has perhaps already won a namein history, and find it "a place to open a man's soul and makehim prophesy, as he looks down on the great vale spread out, asthe Garden of the Lord, before him": wide tracts of woodland, andfat meadows and winding streams, and snug homesteads embowered intrees, and miles on miles of what will soon be cornfields. Far awayin the distance, a thin cloud of smoke floats over some laborioustown, and whichever way we look, church after church is dotted overthe whole surface of the country, like knots in network. 

Such, or something like it, is the traditional aspect of our fairEnglish land; but to-day she wears her beauty with a difference. The saw is at work in the woodlands; and individual trees, whichwere not only the landmarks, but also the friends and companionsof one's childhood, have disappeared for ever. The rich meadows bythe tranquil streams, and the grazing cattle, which used to remindus only of Cuyp's peaceful landscapes, now suggest the sterner thoughtof rations and queues. The corn-fields, not yet "white to harvest, "acquire new dignity from the thought of all that is involved in"the staff of life. " The smoke-cloud over the manufacturing townis no longer a mere blur on the horizon, but tells of a prodigalityof human effort, directed to the destruction of human life, suchas the world has never known. Even from the towers of the villagechurches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-songof an older patriotism--"In the name of our God we will set upour banners. "[*]

[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5. ]

Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what thisyear is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truthand fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours ofthis sin-worn mould. " It is the promise of strong endurance, whichwill bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, and never failor murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise of a brighterday, when the skill of invention and of handicraft may be oncemore directed, not to the devices which destroy life, but to thesciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify it. Aboveall, it is the promise of a return, through blood and fire, tothe faith which made England great, and the law which yet may wrapthe world in peace. 

"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeththe things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord Godwill cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before allthe nations" (Isa. Lxi. II). 

VI

_PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM_

Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almostto frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult withphilosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below thesurface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle. "In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man, " he wrote, "we find employed that investiture of the acts themselves withan appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual. The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same:it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expressionof the inward. " The word "ritual" is by common usage restrictedto the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it has a far widersignificance. It gives us the august rite of the Convocation, theceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, the formal usagesof battleships, the silent but expressive language of heraldry andsymbol; and, in its humbler developments, the paraphernalia ofMasonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty pageantry of Flag-daysand Rose-days. Why should these things be? "Human nature itself, with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. The marriage of theoutward and the inward pervades the universe. "

The power of the outward reaches the inward chiefly through the eyeand the ear. Colour, as Ruskin taught us, is not only delightful, but sacred. "Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour isthe holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.... Consider whatsort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leavesblack, and the sky _brown_. " The perfection of form--the grace ofoutline, the harmony of flowing curves--appeals, perhaps, lessgenerally than colour, because to appreciate it the eye requiressome training, whereas to love colour one only needs feeling. Yetform has its own use and message, and so, again, has the solemnity ofordered movement; and when all these three elements of charm--colourand form and motion--are combined in a public ceremony, the effectis irresistible. 

But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through theeye. The ear has an even higher function. Perhaps the composer ofgreat music speaks, in the course of the ages, to a larger number ofhuman hearts than are touched by any other form of genius. Thousands, listening enraptured to his strain, hear "the outpourings of eternalharmony in the medium of created sound. " And yet again there arethose, and they are not a few, to whom even music never speaksso convincingly as when it is wedded to suitable words; for thentwo emotions are combined in one appeal, and human speech helpsto interpret the unspoken. 

It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishesthe beauty of our public and communal life. Khaki instead of scarlet, potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly thingsusurping the places aforetime assigned to beauty and splendour--theseare our daily and hourly reminders of the "great tribulation" throughwhich the nation is passing. Of course, one ought not to wish itotherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet, " but eminently salutary, are these"uses of adversity, " for they prevent us from forgetting, even ifwe were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realitiesof the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, and in spite ofall this, beauty retains its sway over "the common heart of man. "Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily obscure, thebeauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting for theopportunity of Peace to reassert itself. 

To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcomeexception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, duringthe week now closed, has been enacted at Queen's Hall. [*] Therewere critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contendedthat such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it allsorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if thepublic had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque;some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomimeof fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was performed, at agreat cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of allthis. All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonialwere displayed--colour and form and ordered motion; noble musicset to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above theirordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion. The climax, wisely ordered, was our tribute of gratitude to the United States, and never did the "Battle-hymn of the Republic" sound its trumpetsmore exultingly. For once, the word "Ritual" might with perfectpropriety be separated from its controversial associations, andbestowed on this great act of patriotic pageantry. It was, in thetruest sense, a religious service, fitly commemorating the entryof all the world's best powers into the crowning conflict of lightwith darkness. 

[Footnote *: Under the direction of Madame Clara Butt (May, 1918). ]

VII

FACT AND FICTION

N. B. --_These two stories are founded on fact; but the personalallusions are fictitious. As regards public events, they arehistorically accurate. --G. W. E. R. _

I

_A FORGOTTEN PANIC_

Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrowholidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to somefriends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I wasalone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task;but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into thecarriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porterwho breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This isall, " and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settledhimself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage whichI had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of thecarriage--a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an umbrella, and one or two smaller parcels--all legibly labelled

 G. W. E. RUSSELL, Woodside, Harrow-on-the-Hill. 

After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed:"When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you willknow that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease. " Youth, I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but therewas something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as todisarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alikeprepossessing. He drew from his pocket the _Daily News_, in thosedays a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he composedhimself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his appearance. He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, of the middleheight, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the train had shown, as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned that it was difficultto guess his natural complexion; but his closely cropped hair wasjet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed the roots of a verydark beard. In those days it was fashionable to wear one's hairrather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a moustache. Priestsand actors were the only people who shaved clean, and I decidedin my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he laid down hispaper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy which when oneis very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, sir, that my abruptentry did not disturb you. I had a rush for it, and nearly lost mytrain as it was. And I hope what I said about luggage did not seemimpertinent. I was only thinking that, if I had been obliged to lookafter portmanteaus, I should probably still be on the platform atCarlisle. " I hastened to say, with my best air, that I had not beenthe least offended, and rather apologized for my own encumbrancesby saying that I was going South for three months, and had to takeall my possessions with me. I am not sure that I was pleased whenmy friend said: "Ah, yes; the end of the vacation. You are returningto college at Harrow, I see. " It was humiliating to confess thatHarrow was a school, and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it withgreat composure. Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He shouldhave said "school, " not "college. " He had a great admiration forthe English Public Schools. It was his misfortune to have beeneducated abroad. A French lycée, or a German gymnasium, was notsuch a pleasant place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the bestway of starting a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve beingonce broken, we chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told himeverything about myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amusements, myfavourite authors, and all the rest of it; but presently it dawnedupon me that, though I had disclosed everything to him, he haddisclosed nothing to me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemedhim so, was not very proud of his profession. His nationality, too, perplexed me. He spoke English as fluently as I did, but notquite idiomatically; and there was just a trace of an accent whichwas not English. Sometimes it sounded French, but then again therewas a tinge of American. On the whole, I came to the conclusionthat my friend was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad, or else an American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced, the American theory gained upon me; for, though my friend told menothing about himself, he told me a great deal about every placewhich we passed. He knew the industries of the various towns, andthe events connected with them, and the names of the people whoowned the castles and great country-houses. I had been told thatthis habit of endless exposition was characteristic of the culturedAmerican. But, whatever was the nationality of my companion, Ienjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not as a man toa boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy ofasking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all thelittle arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good termswith myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a veryjolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a littleabout himself. 

When, late in the afternoon, we passed Bletchley Station, I bethoughtme that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Westerntrain, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order todisgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goodsand to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to mygreat joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. Ishall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much liketo pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions. '" This wasexactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so Ijoyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, thoughwe had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend'sname. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in abackward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif, " and handed it to me, saying, "I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I willwrite you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit. " Just thenthe train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fightingmy way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform, I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the windowof the carriage which I had just quitted. 

The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficultForm, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, saying that he would be at Harrow by 2. 30 on Saturday afternoon, the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found himeven pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools tothe skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in greatpart due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration asthe School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our courseof study? What our system of discipline? What were our amusements?The last question I was able to answer by showing him both theend of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were beingplayed; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and theSpire, he asked me if we had any other amusements. Fives or racquetshe did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics?(In those days we had not. ) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Everyboy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was anational glory. Had we any part in it?

The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those daysHarrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In thePublic Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the AshburtonChallenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in theschool-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way toour "Armoury. " This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingycellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitiveto sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glancedround our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only. Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Ratherwishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously wasnot impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightlyof the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carvedname of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of thelocal corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This wasa barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing, remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on theway to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury, and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, itcontained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian, who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kepteverything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon wasjust putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the propertiesin his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spokeenthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in gunsand gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guardagainst her former allies across the Channel. As the discourseproceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor. Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuitswere clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty ofgeneral agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretakerat the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train?As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friendreally was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask himthan I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for, to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He toldme that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the stationwith mutual regrets. 

 * * * * *

The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. Thetermination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employmenta great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who hadserved for five years in the American armies. Among these wereGeneral Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi, and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier ofthe day. " The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolatedoutrages, but of an armed rising in Ireland; and, after consultationwith the Fenian leaders in New York, Cluseret came to England witha view to organizing the insurrection. What then befell can beread in Lathair, where Cluseret is thinly disguised as "CaptainBruges, " and also in his own narrative, published in _Fraser'sMagazine_ for 1872. He arrived in London in January, 1867, andstartling events began to happen in quick succession. On the 11thof February an armed party of Fenians attacked Chester Castle, and were not repulsed without some difficulty. There was an armedrising at Killarney. The police-barracks at Tallaght were besieged, and at Glencullen the insurgents captured the police-force andtheir weapons. At Kilmallock there was an encounter between theFenians and the constabulary, and life was lost on both sides. There was a design of concentrating all the Fenian forces on MallowJunction, but the rapid movement of the Queen's troops frustratedthe design, and the general rising was postponed. Presently twovagrants were arrested on suspicion at Liverpool, and proved to betwo of the most notorious of the Fenian leaders, "Colonel" Kellyand "Captain" Deasy. It was when these prisoners, remanded forfurther enquiry, were being driven under a strong escort to gaolthat the prison-van was attacked by a rescue-party, and SergeantBrett, who was in charge of the prisoners, was shot. The rescuers, Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were executed on the 2nd of November, and on the 1st of December Clerkenwell Prison was blown up, inan ineffectual attempt to liberate the Fenian prisoners confinedin it. On the 20th of December Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother, "We are in a strange uneasy state in London, and the profound senseI have long had of the hollowness and insufficiency of our wholesystem of administration does not inspire me with much confidence. "The "strange uneasy state" was not confined to London, but prevailedeverywhere. Obviously England was threatened by a mysterious anddesperate enemy, and no one seemed to know that enemy's headquartersor base of operations. The Secret Societies were actively at workin England, Ireland, France, and Italy. It was suspected then--itis known now, and chiefly through Cluseret's revelations--that theisolated attacks on barracks and police-stations were designedfor the purpose of securing arms and ammunition; and, if only therehad been a competent General to command the rebel forces, Irelandwould have risen in open war. But a competent General was exactlywhat the insurgents lacked; for Cluseret, having surveyed the wholesituation with eyes trained by a lifelong experience of war, decidedthat the scheme was hopeless, and returned to Paris. 

Such were some--for I have only mentioned a few--of the incidentswhich made 1867 a memorable year. On my own memory it is stampedwith a peculiar clearness. 

On Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, 1867, as we were going upto First School at Harrow, a rumour flew from mouth to mouth thatthe drill-shed had been attacked by Fenians. Sure enough it had. Thecaretaker (as I said before) lived some way from the building, andwhen he went to open it in the morning he found that the door hadbeen forced and the place swept clean of arms and ammunition. Herewas a real sensation, and we felt for a few hours "the joy of eventfulliving"; but later in the day the evening papers, coming down fromLondon, quenched our excitement with a greater. It appeared thatduring the night of the 1st of October, drill-sheds and armouriesbelonging to the Volunteer regiments had been simultaneously raidednorth, south, east, and west of London, and all munitions of warspirited away, for a purpose which was not hard to guess. Commentingon this startling occurrence, the papers said: "We have reasonto believe that one of the ablest of the Fenian agents has beenfor some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom. He hasbeen traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It isbelieved at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteerheadquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferredby a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris. " Afriend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist broughtback a _Globe_ with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointedout the passage which I have just cited. As I read it, my heartgave a jump--a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friendMr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought intoactual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicionsto anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that thiswas a case where silence was golden. Fortunately, none of myschool-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and theold caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talkand tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spokengentleman. "

Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far moreexhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closedthe year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May, 1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the historyof Fenianism in England to an end. 

As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk roundHarrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did notarrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he wouldnot abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him. Perhaps itreally was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many. 

 * * * * *

The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; andI spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, inParis. They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mentiontheir real name, they would be immediately recognized. They hadsocial position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, actingunder irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from theirnatural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics. It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committedhimself so deeply if it had not been for his wife's influence;and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult towithstand. Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in hercompany one felt that "the Cause, " as she always called it withoutqualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and livingfor. As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, andJessie White-Mario, and the authoress of _Aspromonte_, a passionatezeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she married, herenthusiasm fired her husband. They became sworn allies both ofGaribaldi and of Mazzini, and through them were brought into close, though mysterious, relations with the revolutionary party in Italyand also in France. They witnessed the last great act of the Papacyat the Vatican Council; and then, early in 1870, they establishedthemselves in Paris. French society was at that moment in a strangestate of tension and unrest. The impending calamity of the Franco-GermanWar was not foreseen; but everyone knew that the Imperial throne wasrocking; that the soil was primed by Secret Societies; and thatall the elements of revolution were at hand, and needed only somesudden concussion to stir them into activity. This was a conditionwhich exactly suited my cousin Evelyn Brentford. She was "at theheight of the circumstances, " and she gathered round her, at hervilla on the outskirts of Paris, a society partly political, partlyBohemian, and wholly Red. "Do come, " she wrote, "and stay withus at Easter. I can't promise you a Revolution; but it's quiteon the cards that you may come in for one. Anyhow, you will seesome fun. " I had some difficulty in inducing my parents (soundWhigs) to give the necessary permission; but they admitted thatat seventeen a son must be trusted, and I went off rejoicing tojoin the Brentfords at Paris. Those three weeks, from the 12thof April to the 4th of May, 1870, gave me, as the boys now say, "the time of my life. " I met a great many people whose names Ialready knew, and some more of whom we heard next year in the historyof the Commune. The air was full of the most sensational rumours, and those who hoped "to see the last King strangled in the bowelsof the last priest" enjoyed themselves thoroughly. 

My cousin Evelyn was always at home to her friends on Sunday andWednesday evenings, and her rooms were thronged by a miscellaneouscrowd in which the Parisian accent mingled with the tongues ofAmerica and Italy, and the French of the southern provinces. Atone of these parties I was talking to a delightful lady who livedonly in the hope of seeing "the Devil come for that dog" (indicatingby this term an Imperial malefactor), and who, when exhausted byregicidal eloquence, demanded coffee. As we approached the buffet, aman who had just put down his cup turned round and met my companionand me face to face. Two years and a half had made no differencein him. He was Mr. Aulif, as active and fresh as ever, and, beforeI had time to reflect on my course, I had impulsively seized himby the hand. "Don't you remember me?" I cried. He only stared. "Myname is George Russell, and you visited me at Harrow. " "I fear, sir, you have made a mistake, " said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly tomy companion, and hurried back into the drawing-room. My companionlooked surprised. "The General seems put out--I wonder why. Heand I are the greatest allies. Let me tell you, my friend, thathe is the man that the Revolution will have to rely on when thetime comes for rising. Ask them at Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi. AskMcClellan. Ask General Grant. He is the greatest General in theworld, and has sacrificed his career for Freedom. " "Is his nameAulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret. "

 * * * * *

Next day at _déjuner_ I was full of my evening's adventure; but myhost and hostess received it with mortifying composure. "Nothingcould be more likely, " said my cousin Evelyn. "General Cluseretwas here, though he did not stay long. Perhaps he really did notremember you. When he saw you before, you were a boy, and now you looklike a young man. Or perhaps he did not wish to be cross-examined. He is pretty busy here just now, but in 1867 he was constantlybackwards and forwards between Paris and London trying to organizethat Irish insurrection which never came off. England is not theonly country he has visited on business of that kind, and he hasmany travelling names. He thinks it safer, for obvious reasons, totravel without luggage. If you had been able to open that leathercase in the train you would probably have found nothing in it exceptsome maps, a toothbrush, and a spare revolver. Certainly that Irishaffair was a _fiasco_; but depend upon it you will hear of GeneralCluseret again. "

And so indeed I did, and so did the whole civilized world, andthat within twelve months of the time of speaking; but there isno need to rewrite in this place the history of the Commune. 

II

_A CRIMEAN EPISODE_

It was eight o'clock in the evening of the 5th of April, 1880, andthe Travellers' Club was full to overflowing. Men who were justsitting down to dinner got up from their tables, and joined theexcited concourse in the hall. The General Election which terminatedLord Beaconsfield's reign was nearing its close, and the issuewas scarcely in doubt; but at this moment the decisive event ofthe campaign was announced. Members, as they eagerly scanned thetape, saw that Gladstone was returned for Midlothian; and, as theypassed, the news to the expectant crowd behind them, there arosea tumult of excited voices. 

"I told you how it would be!" "Well, I've lost my money. " "I couldnot have believed that Scotsmen would be such fools. " "I'm awfullysorry for Dalkeith. " "Why couldn't that old windbag have stuckto Greenwich?" "I blame Rosebery for getting him down. " "Well, I suppose we're in for another Gladstone Premiership. " "Oh, nofear. The Queen won't speak to him. " "No, Hartington's the man, and, as an old Whig, I'm glad of it. " "Perhaps Gladstone will takethe Exchequer. " "What! serve under Hartington? You don't know theold gentleman's pride if you expect that;" and so on and so forth, a chorus of excited and bewildering exclamations. Amid all thehurly-burly, one figure in the throng seemed quite unmoved, andits immobility attracted the notice of the throng. "Well, really, Vaughan, I should have thought that even you would have felt excitedabout this. I know you don't care much about politics in a generalway, but this is something out of the common. The Duke of Buccleuchbeaten on his own ground, and Gladstone heading straight for thePremiership! Isn't that enough to quicken your pulse?"

But the man whom they saluted as Vaughan still looked undisturbed. "Well, I don't think I ever was quite as much in love with Dizzyas you were; and as to the Premiership, we are not quite at theend yet, and _Alors comme alors_. "

Philip Vaughan was a man just over fifty: tall, pale, distinguished-looking, with something in his figure and bearingthat reminded one of the statue of Sidney Herbert, which in 1880still stood before the War Office in Pall Mall. He looked bothdelicate and melancholy. His face was curiously devoid of animation;but his most marked characteristic was an habitual look of meditativeabstraction from the things which immediately surrounded him. Ashe walked down the steps of the club towards a brougham which waswaiting for him, the man who had tried in vain to interest himin the Midlothian Election turned to his nearest neighbour, andsaid: "Vaughan is really the most extraordinary fellow I know. There is nothing on earth that interests him in the faintest degree. Politics, books, sport, society, foreign affairs--he I never seemsto care a rap about any of them; and yet he knows something aboutthem all, and, if only you can get him to talk, he can talk extremelywell. It is particularly curious about politics, for generally, ifa man has once been in political life, he feels the fascinationof it to the end. " "But was Vaughan ever in political life?" "Ohyes I suppose you are too young to remember. He got into Parliamentjust after he left Oxford. He was put in by an old uncle for a FamilyBorough--Bilton--one of those snug little seats, not exactly 'PocketBoroughs, ' but very like them, which survived until the Reform Actof 1867. " "How long did he sit?" "Only for one Parliament--from1852 to 1857. No one ever knew why he gave up. He put it on health, but I believe it was just freakishness. He always was an odd chap, and of course he grows odder as he grows older. " But just at thatmoment another exciting result came, trickling down the tape, andthe hubbub was renewed. 

Philip Vaughan was, as he put it in his languid way, "rather fondof clubs, " so long as they were not political, and he spent a gooddeal of his time at the Travellers', the Athenæum, and the UnitedUniversities, and was a member of some more modern institutions. He had plenty of acquaintances, but no friends--at least of hisown age. The Argus-eyed surveyors of club-life noticed that theonly people to whom he seemed to talk freely and cheerfully werethe youngest members; and he was notoriously good-natured in helpingyoung fellows who wished to join his clubs, and did his utmost tostay the hand of the blackballer. 

He had a very numerous cousinship, but did not much cultivate it. Sometimes, yielding to pressure, he would dine with cousins inLondon; or pay a flying visit to them in the country; but in order, as it was supposed to avoid these family entanglements, he livedat Wimbledon, where he enjoyed, in a quiet way, his garden andhis library, and spent most of the day in solitary rides amongthe Surrey hills. When winter set in he generally vanished towardsthe South of Europe, but by Easter he was back again at Wimbledon, and was to be found pretty often at one or other of his clubs. 

This was Philip Vaughan, as people knew him in 1880. Some likedhim; some pitied him; some rather despised him; but no one tookthe trouble to understand him; and indeed, if anyone had thoughtit worth while to do so, the attempt would probably have beenunsuccessful; for Vaughan never talked of the past, and to understandhim in 1880 one must have known him as he had been thirty yearsbefore. 

In 1850 two of the best known of the young men in society wereArthur Grey and Philip Vaughan. They were, and had been ever sincetheir schooldays at Harrow, inseparable friends. The people towhom friendship is a sealed and hopeless mystery were puzzled bythe alliance. "What have those two fellows in common?" was theconstant question, "and yet you never see them apart. " They sharedlodgings in Mount Street, frequented the same clubs, and went, night after night, to the same diners and balls. They belonged, in short, to the same set: "went everywhere, " as the phrase is, and both were extremely popular; but their pursuits and careerswere different. Grey was essentially a sportsman and an athlete. Hewas one of those men to whom all bodily exercises come naturally, and who attain perfection in them with no apparent effort. Fromhis earliest days he had set his heart on being a soldier, and by1850 had obtained a commission in the Guards. Vaughan had neithergifts nor inclinations in the way of sport or games. At Harrow helived the life of the intellect and the spirit, and was unpopularaccordingly. He was constantly to be found "mooning, " as hisschoolfellows said, in the green lanes and meadow-paths which liebetween Harrow and Uxbridge, or gazing, as Byron had loved to gaze, at the sunset from the Churchyard Terrace. It was even whisperedthat he wrote poetry. 

Arthur Grey, with his good looks, his frank bearing, and his facilesupremacy on the cricket-ground and in the racquet-court, was apopular hero; and of all his schoolfellows none paid him a morewhole-hearted worship than the totally dissimilar Philip Vaughan. Their close and intimate affection was a standing puzzle to hardand dull and superficial natures; but a poet could interpret it. 

 "We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart From churls, who, wondered what our friendship meant; And in that coy retirement heart to heart Drew closer, and our natures were content. "[*]

[Footnote *: William Cory. ]

Vaughan and Grey left Harrow, as they had entered it, on the sameday, and in the following October both went up to Christ Church. Neither contemplated a long stay at Oxford, for each had his careercut out. Grey was to join the Guards at the earliest opportunity, and Vaughan was destined for Parliament. Bilton was a borough whichthe "Schedule A" of 1832 had spared. It numbered some 900 voters;and, even as the electors of Liskeard "were commonly of the sameopinion as Mr. Eliot, " so the electors of Bilton were commonlyof the same opinion as Lord Liscombe. 

The eighth Lord Liscombe was the last male member of his family. The peerage must die with him; but his property, including the"Borough influence, " was at his own disposal. His only sister hadmarried a Mr. Vaughan, and Lord Liscombe, having carefully watchedthe character and career of his nephew Philip Vaughan, determinedto make him his heir. This was all very well; no one had a wordto say against it, for no more obvious heir could be suggested. But when it became known that Lord Liscombe meant to bring PhilipVaughan into Parliament for Bilton there was great dissatisfaction. "What a shame, " people said, "to disturb old Mr. Cobley, who hassat so long and voted so steadily! To be sure, he is very tiresome, and can't make himself heard a yard off, and is very stingy aboutsubscriptions; and, if there was some rising young man to put intohis seat, as the Duke of Newcastle put Gladstone, it might be allvery well. But, really, Philip Vaughan is such a moody, dreamycreature, and so wrapped up in books and poetry, that he can nevermake a decent Member of Parliament. Politics are quite out of hisline, and I shouldn't wonder if Lord Liscombe contrived to losethe seat. But he's as obstinate as a mule; and he has persuadedhimself that young Vaughan is a genius. Was there ever such folly?"

Lord Liscombe had his own way--as he commonly had. Mr. Cobley receiveda polite intimation that at the next election he would not be ableto rely on the Liscombe interest, and retired with a very bad grace, but not without his reward; for before long he received the offerof a baronetcy (which he accepted, as he said, to please his wife), and died honourably as Sir Thomas Cobley. Meanwhile Lord Liscombe, who, when he had framed a plan, never let the grass grow underhis feet, induced Philip Vaughan to quit Oxford without waitingfor a degree, made him address "Market Ordinaries" and politicalmeetings at Bilton, presented him at the Levee, proposed him athis favourite clubs, gave him an ample allowance, and launched him, with a vigorous push, into society. In all this Lord Liscombe didwell, and showed his knowledge of human nature. The air of politicsstirred young Vaughan's pulses as they had never been stirred before. What casual observers had regarded as idle reveries turned out tohave been serious studies. With the theory of English politics, asit shaped itself in 1852 when Lord Derby and Disraeli were tryingto restore Protection, Vaughan showed himself thoroughly acquainted;and, as often happens when a contemplative and romantic natureis first brought into contact with eager humanity, he developeda faculty of public speaking which astonished his uncle as muchas it astonished anyone, though that astute nobleman concealedhis surprise. Meanwhile, Grey had got his commission. In thosedays officers of the Guards lived in lodgings, so it was obviousfor Grey and Vaughan to live together; and every now and then Greywould slip down to Bilton, and by making himself pleasant to theshop-keepers, and talking appropriately to the farmers, would actas his friend's most effective election-agent. The Dissolutioncame in July, 1852, and Philip Vaughan was returned unopposed forthe Free and Independent Borough of Bilton. 

Then followed a halcyon time. The two friends had long known thatthey had only one heart between them; and now, living under thesame roof and going into the same society, they lived practicallyone life. There was just enough separation to make reunion moredelightful--a dull debate at the House for Vaughan, or a dustyfield-day at Aldershot for Grey; but for both there was the earlygallop in Rotten Row, the breakfast which no third person evershared, the evening of social amusement, and the long, deep, intimatetalk over the last cigar, when the doings of the day were reviewedand the programme for to-morrow was sketched. 

Grey had always been popular and always lighthearted. Vaughan, asa schoolboy and an undergraduate, had been unpopular and grave. But now people who knew them both observed that, at any rate as faras outward characteristics showed, the two natures were becomingharmonized. Vaughan was a visibly lighter, brighter, and morecompanionable fellow; and Grey began to manifest something of thatmanly seriousness which was wanted to complete his character. Itis pleasant to contemplate "one entire and perfect chrysolite" ofhappiness, and that, during these bright years of opening manhood, was the rare and fragile possession of Philip Vaughan and ArthurGrey. 

 * * * * *

John Bright was once walking with one of his sons, then a schoolboy, past the Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place. The boy asked themeaning of the single word inscribed on the base, CRIMEA. Bright'sanswer was as emphatic as the inscription: "A crime. " There is noneed to recapitulate in this place the series of blunders throughwhich this country, in Lord Clarendon's phrase, "drifted towardswar. " Month by month things shaped themselves in a way which leftno reasonable doubt about the issue. The two friends said little. Deep in the heart of each there lay the conviction that an eventwas at hand which would "pierce even to the dividing asunder ofsoul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow. " But each held theconviction with a difference. To Grey it meant the approach of thatto which, from the days of his chivalrous boyhood, he had lookedforward, as the supreme good of life--the chance of a soldier's gloryand a soldier's death. To Vaughan it meant simply the extinctionof all that made life worth living. Each foresaw an agony, butthe one foresaw it with a joy which no affection could subdue;the other with a despair which even religion seemed powerless torelieve. Before long silence became impossible. The decision of theCabinet was made known. Two strong and ardent natures, which sinceboyhood had lived in and on one another, were forced to admit that aseparation, which might be eternal, "was nigh, even at the doors. "But there was this vital difference between the two cases--theone had to act; the other only to endure. 

On the 22nd of February, 1854, the Guards sailed from Southampton, and on the 27th of March war between England and Russia was formallydeclared. 

 * * * * *

The events of the next two years must be compressed into a fewlines. To the inseparable evils of war--bloodshed and sickness--wereadded the horrors of a peculiarly cruel winter. Five-sixths of thesoldiers whom England lost died from preventable diseases, andthe want of proper food, clothing, and shelter. Bullets and choleraand frost-bite did their deadly work unchecked. The officers had atleast their full share of the hardships and the fatalities. Whatthe Guards lost can be read on the walls of the Chapel at WellingtonBarracks and in the pedigrees of Burke's Peerage. For all Englandit was a time of piercing trial, and of that hope deferred whichmaketh the heart sick. No one ever knew what Vaughan endured, for heas too proud to bare his soul. For two years he never looked at agazette, or opened a newspaper, or heard a Ministerial announcementin the House of Commons, or listened to a conversation at his club, without the sickening apprehension that the next moment he wouldknow that Arthur Grey was dead. Letters from Grey reached him fromtime to time, but their brave cheerfulness did nothing to soothehis apprehensions. For they were few and far between; postalcommunication was slow and broken, and by the time a letter reachedhim the hand which had penned it might be cold in death. Yet, inspite of an apprehensive dread which had become a second natureto Philip Vaughan, the fatal news lingered. Weeks lengthened intomonths, and months into two years, and yet the blow had not fallen. It was not in Philip's nature to "cheer up, " or "expect the best, "or "hope against hope, " or to adopt any of the cheap remedies whichshallow souls enjoy and prescribe. Nothing but certainty could givehim ease, and certainty was in this case impossible. Nervousness, restlessness, fidgetiness, increased upon him day by day. The gossipand bustle of the House of Commons became intolerable to him. Societyhe had never entered since Grey sailed for the Crimea. As in boyhood, so again now, he felt that Nature was the only true consoler, and forweeks at a time he tried to bury himself in the wilds of Scotlandor Cumberland or Cornwall, spending his whole day in solitary walks, with Wordsworth or the _Imitatio_ for a companion, and sleepingonly from physical exhaustion. 

In the early part of 1856 the newspapers began to talk of peace. Sebastopol had fallen, and Russia was said to be exhausted. TheEmperor of the French had his own reasons for withdrawing fromthe contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of LordPalmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of hisprayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previousapprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatterof irresponsible clubmen and M. P. 's was an insupportable affliction;so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, anddeparted on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himselfoff as completely as possible from his usual environment, he leftno address at his lodgings, but told his servant that when he wantedhis letters he would telegraph for them from the place, whateverit might be, where he was halting. He kept steadily to his plan, wandering over hill and dale, by lake and river, and steeping hissoul in "the cheerful silence of the fells. " When he lighted on aspot which particularly took his fancy, he would halt there fortwo or three days, and would send what in those day was called"a telegraphic despatch" from the nearest town. In response tothe despatch he would receive from his servant in Mount Streeta package containing all the letters which had been accumulatingduring the fortnight or three weeks since he last telegraphed. One day in April, when he opened the customary package, he foundin it a letter from Arthur Grey. 

"The General has just told us that peace is practically settled. If this proves true, you will not get another letter from me. Ipresume we shall be sent home directly, and I shall make straightfor London and Mount Street, where I expect I shall find you. Dearold chap, I can guess what you have been going through; but itlooks as if we should meet again in this world after all. "

What this letter meant to Philip Vaughan they only know who havebeen through a similar experience; and words are powerless to expressit

 * * * * *

After the first bewilderment of joy had subsided, Philip beganto study the practical bearings of the letter. By a comparison ofthe date within and the post-mark outside, the letter appeared tohave been a long time on the way, and another delay had occurredsince it had arrived at Mount Street. It was possible that peacemight have been actually concluded. News in those days took longto travel through Scottish glens, and Vaughan had never looked ata paper since he left England. It was conceivable that the Guardswere already on their homeward voyage--nay, it might even be thatthey were just arriving, or had arrived, in London. The one clearpoint was that Vaughan must get home. Twenty miles on his landlord'spony brought him to a telegraph-office, whence he telegraphed tohis servant, "Returning immediately, " and then, setting his facesouthward, he travelled as fast as steamers and express trainswould take him. As he travelled, he picked up the news. Peace hadbeen concluded on the 30th of March, and some of our troops werehomeward bound; some had actually arrived. The journey seemedunnaturally long, and it was dark when the train rattled into EustonStation.... In a bewildered mood of uncertainty and joy, he rangthe bell in Mount Street. His servant opened the door. "You'rejust in time, sir. You will find him in the drawing-room. "

The drawing-room of the lodging-house had always been Grey'ssitting-room, and during his absence Vaughan had studiously kept itin it accustomed order. There were some stags' heads on the walls, and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, andengravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honouredas masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philipflung open the door with a passionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! Atlast! Thank God----" But the words died on his lips. 

In the middle of the room, just under the central chandelier, therewas a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door. On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse, and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey. 

 * * * * *

What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Noteven the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut. 

Next morning the park-keepers found a young man lying on the grassin Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with the night's heavy rain, unconscious, and apparently dying. The papers in his pockets provedthat he was Philip Vaughan. A long and desperate illness followed, and for months both life and reason trembled in the balance. LordLiscombe hurried up to London, and Vaughan's servant explainedeverything. Arthur Grey had been taken ill on the homeward voyage. The symptoms would now be recognized as typhoid, but the diseasehad not then been diagnosed, and the ship's surgeon pronounced it"low fever. " He landed at Southampton, pushed his way to London, arrived at his lodgings more dead than alive, and almost immediatelysank into the coma from which he never recovered. It was impossibleto communicate with Vaughan, whose address was unknown; and whenhis telegram arrived, announcing his instant return, the servantand the landlady agreed that he must have heard the news from someother source, and was hurrying back to see his friend before hebecame invisible for ever. "You're just in time" meant just intime to see the body, for the coffin was to be closed that evening. 

 * * * * *

The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his sideyouth and a constitution, not strong indeed, but unweakened byprofligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from theshock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, ingreat part, to his former habits. Only he could not and would notre-enter the House of Commons, but announced his retirement, on thescore of health, at the next Election. Soon afterwards he inherited LordLiscombe's fortune, made over Liscombe Abbey and its responsibilitiesto a distant cousin, and insensibly glided into the way of livingwhich I described at the outset. Two years after the Election of1880 he died at Rome, where he had been spending the winter. Theattack of fever to which he succumbed was not peculiarly severe, but the doctor said that he made no effort to live, and was infact worn out, though not by years. 

Nobody missed him. Nobody lamented him. Few even said a kind wordabout him. His will expressed only one personal wish--that he mightbe buried by the side of Arthur Grey. But his executors thoughtthat this arrangement would cause them a great deal of trouble, and he rests in the English cemetery at Rome.