'»^^J01949q ^ ^ f^ ^us i CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 088 006 774 The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088006774 LONDON LETTERS. VOL. II. LONDON LETTERS AND SOME OTHERS BY GEOEGE W. SMALLEY IN TWO VOLUMES Vol. II. NOTES our SOCIAL LIFE-NOTES ON PARLIAMENT PA OEANTS-MISCELLANIES NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1891 Copyright, 1890, by Hauper &; Brothers. AU rights reserved. CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. ' PAGE NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE 1 London Society 3 English Talk and Talkers 47 The American Girl in England . 101 Duhlin Castle 118 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT 137 The Queen during a Cabinet Crisis 139 The Opening of Parliament by the Queen 144 New and Old Peers 161 The Bishops as Legislators 169 Mr. Speaker 173 The House of Commons and the Constituencies 187 A Great Night in the House of Commons 193 PAGEANTS 219 A London Sunday 231 A Koyal Review 227 The Law Courts 233 The People's Palace 243 The Jubilee , 253 The Queen's Garden Party 262 Jubilee Notes 268 The Naval Review 273 MISCELLANIES 287 President Garfield in England 289 Mr. Gladstone on Washington 297 England and America 303 The Lansdowne Washington 308 The London Riots 315 vi CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. .The London Mob At Westminster Mr. Gladstone's Opinions . Tlie Cliannel Tunnel Imperialism The New Federal Idea Kotes on Early Home Rule The Morals of Trade London in August A Scene in the Tower ........ A Channel Cruise The Private Secretary Samuel Pepys On Books Court Scenes INDEX NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. LONDON SOCIETY. I. ITS ATTITUDE TOWAED ME. GLADSTONE. — ITS POLITICAL DIVISIONS. [London, May 30, 1888.] Feom time to time I have mentioned in a brief way some of the incidents which struck me as significant of the real condition of society in London. The boycotting of Mr. Gladstone, the singular animosity shown to Earl Spencer, the steadily growing disposition to make politics the test of social intercourse; then the acceptance, as it were, of the challenge by the Gladstonians, the Home Eule party at Spencer House, the meeting of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Par- nell at dinner, privately ; the public announcement of this private dinner ; then the dinner given to Mr. Parnell by the Eighty Club ; finally, the altogether astonishing act of the Duke of Westminster in revoking his invitation to Mr. Kobert Spencer because of his presence at this hospitable homage to the Irish leader — these are some and only some of the social events which have here been most discussed. But it is not until one begins to think them over, and col- lect them together, and make an inventory of them, and see how they bear on one another, that it is possible to have a true notion of the gravity of the state of things actually ex- isting in London society. No doubt there are persons to whom social phenomena seem of no importance, and all dis- cussion of them mere vanity and vexation of spirit. For them these facts have no meaning, but even for them, if 4 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. they would but relax their moroseness for a moment, the bubbles on the surface might suffice to show how the stream is moving, and whither, and at what pace. For others, for those who know the extent and potency of social influences in London, they may mean a good deal more. What I have called the boycotting of Mr. Gladstone is as remarkable as any single fact that can be selected. It is a loose use of the word boycotting, but the word has some- how got possession of the public mind and is employed to denote every degree of neglect as well as of that hatred which, in its organised form, passes easily into conspiracy and intolerable persecution. You know, all America knows, what Mr. Gladstone is in public life. Perhaps it is less com- monly known that he is, in private life, one of the most ad- mirable of talkers ; indeed, a man with much of that charm and fascination for other men which the best women have. Yet, for purely political reasons, he is now avoided and de- tested ; the greatest bore in society could not be so hateful to his fellow-creatures as Mr. Gladstone is to the more ex- treme section of society. It is literally true that to arrange a dinner party of desirable people to meet him is an effort which tasks the resources of the most accomplished hostess in London. The list of Gladstonian Liberals who are also persons of great social position is not a long one, nor would anything be gained by advertising the fact that, in order to compose a suitable company, the same people had to be asked again and again. Nor, in the crowded life of Lon- don, are the same people always available. But I win take two recent examples, which I do without scruple because the names of the guests at each of these two dinner parties were pubhshed at the time in the usual way. At the first, with the exception of two diplomatists, who have no politics, there was not a single person not be- longing to the Home Rule party. One name is of the very highest distinction ; two or three others there are which the world would agree to call " smart " ; the rest call for no par- ticular comment. A few days later came a dinner given at LONDON SOCIETY. 5 a non-political house. Anybody -who vas there will tell you that the experiment did not answer. There was a shadow over the board ; people hardly talked, Mr. Gladstone himself sat almost silent. If these details are not in print they are, at any rate, or were at the time, matters of common con- versation among friend and foe. A sentence which a Glad- stonian let fall not long since throws a flood of light on the situation : " When there is a dinner to Mr. Gladstone, we are always asked " — -we meaning himself and his wife. It would have been, but a httle while ago, impossible for anybody to say that. Observe, too, that Lady Hayter who gave the first dinner, herself a convinced and ardent Gladstonian Home Kule Liberal, never meant to make her house exclu- sively Home Eule. The party which followed her dinner was a mixed party. Home Eulers were in the majority ; but Unionists were there in considerable numbers. Why none were at the dinner is a question I leave somebody else to ask. This animosity, this bitterness, toward Mr. Gladstone, this hatred of him — no word can be too strong — is of old date. It has broken out more than once before. It was almost as vehement in 1878 as now. That was the year in which the star of Lord Beaconsfield was in the ascendant, or rather at the zenith, and every other star for a while paled its ineffect- ual fire. Mr. Gladstone had made himself an object of sus- picion and dislike to the Conservatives in 1876 by his crusade against the Bulgarian atrocities. The Jingo tempest " swell- ed and swelled, and on his head was hurled." I was talking the other day with a Tory — not of the elder or more hard- hearted generation but of the younger — about this present social detestation of the Liberal leader. " If," said he, " you mean that it was never so strong as during last year and this, you are wrong. Mr. Gladstone in 1878 was simply execrated." " Yes, but he was not boycotted." " He was not boycotted because boycotting had not then been invented. But there were plenty of people who 6 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. would not meet him ; much less sit down to dinner with him." He maintained, in short, that the relations between Mr. Gladstone and society were almost as severely strained then as now. There Avas, at any rate, this difference. There had been no split in the Liberal party. The great Whig Dukes were still of Mr. Gladstone's following — the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Westminster — and many another Whig magnate of lesser rank who now is divided from him as by a gulf. The Whig aristocracy was a body hardly less numerous, hardly less powerful in society than the Tory, and the Tories would have thought twice and thrice before entering Upon a social struggle with their rivals. At all these great houses Mr. Gladstone was a welcome guest. From most of them he is now banished. He himself is well aware of what has befallen. He is in a position to measure accurately tlie distance that divides him from his old friends ; the breadth and the depth of the abyss over which no bridge seems likely ever to be built. He has referred more than once publicly to the separation between himself and those whom he valued so highly ; to the win- nowing out from the party he leads of so much rank, wealth, social authority, intelligence, and high character. Half re- gretfully, half defiantly, he recognises the facts ; not to rec- ognise them would be difficult even for a man whose pow.er of shutting his eyes to what is unpleasant, and of fixing his gaze on what suits him for the moment, is unequalled. Putting Mr. Gladstone aside — I beg his pardon, the phrase is not very respectful — looking at the situation without ref- erence to him, a parallel to it may be found in the years that immediately preceded and followed the passing of the Ee- form Bill of 1832. Then,, as now, politics were volcanic. There was an upheaval of the foundations. Society was stirred to its depths ; men thought it a struggle between the established order of things and anarchy itself. They were ferocious in their language. If they had met at the same table the decanters would soon have been flying about ; so, LONDON SOCIETY. >j wisely enough, they did not meet. I am indebted to a lady whose memory goes back to that period for an account of what then happened. Her birth and position were such, her knowledge so remarkable in more ways than one, that her testimony may be accepted as decisive. " I was then a girl," she said, " and just out. It was not the fashion at that time to ask girls out to dinner, but for my father's sake and other reasons people made an exception in my favour. I dined out often ; never once except in a Whig house. I went, as other girls went, to parties and balls. The line of separation was not quite so strict about parties and balls, but, as a rule, I went to Whig houses for parties and balls also. The two political parties gave, as a rule, each their own social parties. They mixed seldom; if I visited a Tory house it was an exception and an event. I assure you that, in point of isolation and exclusiveness, there was little to choose between those days and these. We hated each other just as much. There was no Mr. Gladstone but you never saw Earl Grey and the Duke of Wellington at the same dinner ; hardly ever in the same drawing-room. It was discovered after a while that the Reform Bill was not a Kevolution but had prevented a Eevolution, and the two London worlds came together again. While they stood asun- der, things were as bad as they are now. Believe me, there is nothing new under the sun. As an old woman I am look- ing on at the same spectacle I saw as a girl." The spectacle has, indeed, a brighter side to it. In many houses social intercourse between political foes is still fre- quent and friendly. It would be altogether a mistake to im- agine Mayfair a huge menagerie whose tenants glare and growl at each other from their separate cages. It is possible to meet at the same table some of the men who sit opposite to each other in the House of Commons, and some from each section of that curiously consorted Opposition front bench where Lord Hartington is side by side with Mr. Gladstone, and Sir William Harcourt elbows Mr. Chamberlain. I end with these two names as an omen of peace. Mr. Chamberlain 8 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. has been Sir William Harcourt's guest during these Whit- suntide Holidays, at his house in the 'New Forest, and not even the Southampton election disturbed their good re- lations. II. SPENCEE HOUSE. — THE QUEEN. — THE PEINCE. POLITICS IN THE DEAWING-KOOM. [London, June 6, 1888.] It is comparatively easy to discuss social and personal questions when they concern only persons of the very high- est public position— men like Lord Beaconsfield, especially since he is dead, and like Mr. Gladstone, whose whole life has been passed in the glare of a great renown. Lord Salis- bury is Prime Minister of England, and Lady Salisbury's parties, and even her qualities as a hostess, are freely com- mented on in Enghsh print, because Lord Salisbury is Prime Minister of England. It might be hazardous to accept as a precedent everything that appears in English print. The so- ciety journal — this is not the name of a particular printed sheet but a generic term — concerns itself at times with top- ics which might well be left to the smoking-room, or even be left alone in the smoking-room ; still, on the whole, a cer- tain respect is stiR paid by all the better society journals to the privacies of private life. Much, I may add, of what is revealed in print is revealed by those who are the subject of these revelations; by them, or with their knowledge and consent. But I will forego all appeals to precedent and I shall say nothing in this letter, any more than in the last, about social matters, except so far as they are connected with politics and are matters of notoriety in London itself, whether in print or otherwise. Probably in America you have forgotten all about Lady Spencer's Home Eule party. The memory of it wa? revived here and the Avhole subject reopened by the Westminster- LONDON SOCIETY. 9 Spencer incident, which. I will refer to in a moment. I re- peat, therefore, that society was at the time disposed to treat Lady Spencer's act as a declaration of war. They said, and said truly, that she had not on that occasion invited to Spen- cer House a single personal friend unless of the strict Home Kule faith. This, continued the astonished mouthpieces of the fashionable world, is a purely political reception; the first of the kind in our time. Perhaps, secretly, they thought it was rather accepting than offering a challenge ; well know- ing as they did how much politics have of late had to do' with the decision of questions heretofore regarded as entire- ly social. Even from that point of view they thought no- body on either side had before gone so far, and they asked, " Does Lady Spencer mean to rouse people to a sense of what they have really been doing in social matters since Mr. Gladstone proposed to establish an Irish Parliament ?" And they said, " "Well, perhaps she has succeeded in that." Peo- ple have for the first time become aware that such a pohcy as has been adopted by a portion of the London world might end in completely dividing London into two opposing camps, entrance into one of which would, as in Paris, mean exclusion from the other. Not for a long time has any social topic been debated with more animation. Persons interested in the matter were left, of course, to form their own opinions. Lady Spencer oifered no expla- nation ; none was due from her or from Lord Spencer ; the doors of Spencer House opened and closed, then as ever, to whomsoever the owners of it chose to ask, or chose not to ask. "What the people whom I have been quoting said was based upon their guilty recollection of what they themselves had deliberately elected to do. It was not the Liberals, or any of them, who began this warfare. It was not a Home Kule shibboleth which any Tory or Unionist was ever, in the beginning, called upon to pronounce. And it might be safe to assume that Lord and Lady Spencer had no more direct object in view than to bring together the members of their own party ; an object which involved no belligerent purpose 10 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. toward those who were not members of their party. It was said that five Irish Members had been invited — Mr. Par- nell, Mr. Billon, Mr. O'Brien, Mr. O'Connor, and Mr. Justin McCarthy. Two questions were raised by this act ; first, whether oth- er Liberal hosts and hostesses would follow the example — if it were meant as an example — thus set them ; and secondly, whether, supposing it to be a challenge, the Tories would take it up. But it was at once understood among Liberals that to set an example was no part of Lady Spencer's plan. There was no desire to enter upon a campaign ; therefore no allies were required. 'So enemies were recognised as en- emies, either, and so the Tories felt themselves at liberty to pursue their own line without reference to what, at first, they seemed ready to regard as a provocation. Lady Hayter, as we have already seen, invited to her next party those whom she had been ia the habit of inviting, without reference to politics, and no other very important Liberal house has since been opened. There is an anecdote which may serve well enough as se- quel to this story. Lady Oadogan had a party at Cadogan House on the same night ; largely but not exclusively Con- servative. The guests at Cadogan House had heard of what was going on at Spencer House and gossip was as lively as usual, or more so. Mr. Eobert Spencer toward the end of the evening quitted his Home Rule friends and went on to Lady Cadogan's. His host met him with the question, " "Well, Spencer, what sort of people have you got to-night at Spen- cer House?" — "Very much the same, Cadogan," answered Mr. Spencer, "as you have here — only rather better dressed." The Westminster-Spencer episode is one which I must briefly retell ; it is the most striking, the most sensational of all, in this politico-social campaign. When two such fami- lies as the Grosvenors and the Spencers fall out, London, and a world wider than London, has to give its attention to the matter. The Duke of Westminster is one of the srreat- est nobles of England ; one of the greatest landlords ; one LONDON SOCIETY. H of the leaders of society. Grosvenor House, his London res- idence, is surpassed by none other in its social importance. The late Duchess delighted to gather about her men of let- ters, men of art, men of any high distinction as well as men and women of rank and fashion. Since the Duke remarried, it is, perhaps, rather more exclusively the smart world which is to be seen in those splendid rooms panelled with pictures by Kubens and Eaphael, Titian and Veronese. Such par- ties as are given there are small ; reason enough why invi- tations to them should be coveted. "Well, this great personage the Duke of Westminster had invited to dine with him at Grosvenor House Mr. and Mrs. Eobert Spencer. Mr. Kobert Spencer is half-brother to Earl Spencer and heir to the title and estates. It is not, let me say in passing,' because he is half-brother to "an" Earl, but because the Earl is Earl Spencer, and because Mr. Spencer himself is one of the favourites of society, that society is agitated by this event. There are many Earls' brothers, half or whole, about whose affairs society altogether declines to be" agitated. Their' admission to Grosvenor House, not their exclusion from it, is what would excite surprise. This par- ticular half-brother is a weU-known figure in London, in so- ciety, and in the House of Commons where he has sat since 1880. His marriage with the Hon. Margaret Baring, second daughter of Lord and Lady Eevelstoke, took place last au- tumn, and this dinner was meant to be a kind of celebration of this marriage. Between the invitation and the day fixed for the dinner Mr. Eobert Spencer saw fit to be present at the banquet given by the Eighty Club to Mr. Parnell. As he is a member of the Eighty Club he thus became one of Mr. ParneU's hosts. When the Duke knew of this he cancelled his invitation by letter. I have heard of nobody who approves of this singu- lar proceeding ; not even the most convinced Unionist ; not even any friend of the Duke of Westminster. Political pas- sion runs nowhere, it would seem, so high as in this ducal breast. You may meet many who ask, " Why should ' Bobby ' 12 NOTES 0\ SOCIAI. LIFE. want to dine with. Mr. Parnell?" But between vague won- der as to Mr. Eobert Spencer's motives in accepting Mr. Parnell as his guest and the very strong step taken by the Duke of Westminster, the interval is a great one. The Duke's friends think he might well enough have sacrificed his dinner ; put everybody off together, and then have rein- vited all but the one whose company had become disagreea- ble to him. If the thing was to be done, that, in the opin- ion of society, is how it should have been done ; done in the grand manner. " You should be pohte," said Prince Bis- marck, " even when you declare war." So uneasy seems to have been the Duke's conscience that he wrote Mr. Spencer a second letter, to explain the motives which had made it imperative upon him to do this painful thing. "Whether his attempt to reassure himself succeeded is not known. It is known that it did not reassure other people, nor convince them that the Duke had made anything but a mistake. The Queen takes sides in these disputes in a way of her own. JSTothing to do with party politics, is the constitution- al maxim ; or rather, to take no open part in pohtical con- troversies is supposed to have been Her Majesty's practice during her long reign. ISTor does she now appear as advo- cate or partisan on one side or the other. It may none the less be said that if you are an Englishman Avhose social or political position warrants you in expecting an invitation to Windsor, and if you care about an invitation to Windsor, you had better be a Unionist than a Home Euler. As you are not an Englishman but a good Eepublican, you read, of course, your Court Circular, and day by day enlarge your mind with a knowledge of what goes on in the charmed cir- cle illumined by direct rays from the throne. Look down, then, the list of guests at Windsor Castle dur- ing the last few weeks. It is a Unionist roll-call. Lord Eowton, always a persona grata with the Queen, the Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Fife, Viscount Cranbrook, Vis- count Cross, the Marquis of Londonderry, the Earl of La- thom, Mr. W. H. Smith, the Bishop of Peterborough, the LONDON SOCIETY. I3 Marquis of Salisbury — all these and many more have dined or slept at the Castle, or both. Her Majesty has fentertained rather more freely than usual. But, with the exception of Lord Eosebery who is such a favourite with the Queen that his personal qualities atone for his politics, you will find, I think, not one Home Euler. Her Majesty is entitled to choose her own guests and there is nothing to be said. ITothing is said, or not much is said. Nobody complains. But the fact is known and noted. ]S"or have the Prince and Princess of "Wales done much to soften the Queen's hard-heartedness toward Home Rulers or to make up for her coldness to them. They went, it is true, to a Liberal house in Scotland when they opened the Glasgow Exhibition, and they were boycotted by the Scot- tish nobles for going. Undeterred by what befell them there, they are going next Sunday to spend the day at the Durdans, Lord Eosebery's place near Epsom. They arrive early in the afternoon, dine, and return by special train the same evening to London. But to accept the hospitality of good Gladstonians like Lord Hamilton of Dalzell and Lord Eosebery is one thing ; to return it, or to open their own house to good Gladstonian guests, is another. What Home Eulers or what Gladstonian Liberals were invited to Sandringham when the Prince and Princess were last staying at their ISTorfolk home? It might not be easy to say who were. It is certain that Lord and Lady Spencer were not. What makes the omis- sion a marked one, in their case, is the fact that young Prince Edward had not long before been their guest at Al- thorp. More still ; it was during Lord Spencer's Yiceroyal- ty that the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Ireland. He received them with a magnificence that would have been thought creditable to the richest nobleman who ever held that great and luxurious ofiice. All this seems to be forgotten; forgotten also are other claims of theirs upon the goodwill of the Heir to the Throne. Lord Spencer is the last man in England to Qomplain of such a shght, or to 14 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. allow his friends to complain of it. But whether by friends or foes it was talked of, and I imagine the Prince might have been astonished had he heard what was thought of his treatment of those to whom his obligations were so heavy. There are cases where political antipathies give way to a sense of what is befitting and honourable. Noblesse oblige ; so much the more may it be said, royaute oblige. There have been, of course, many parties and balls but few of them have been given in circumstances which call for comment. Half a dozen in one evening is no unusual number ; nor does this include the outlying districts of Eays- water and Kensington. "With some striking exceptions, the social geography of London extends but little beyond May- fair and Belgravia and St. James's. I once heard a man whose social experiences are numerous and varied declare that he had never dined west of the Marble Arch. He is sixty years old, and knows London from end to end, and is a personage in society. Perhaps on cross-examination he would have recollected exceptions ; but cross-examination is not here the custom. It is reserved for the law courts. There have been a certain number of small gatherings of the entirely one-sided kind ; Gladstonian or Liberal-Union- ist. Mrs. Gladstone entertains, but not much. There have been dinners at the little house in Buckingham Gate, and sometimes some of those scanty collections of friends after dinner which the Londoner, more expressive than elegant, calls "tails." The faithful, and the faithful only, are invited on these occasions. They seem to assume a religious or semi -religious character; acts of adoration are frequent; words of adoration more frequent still ; they are poured out in streams ; clouds of incense rising with them. And this, say his opponents or some of his opponents, is the atmos- phere in which Mr. Gladstone lives and which he delights to breathe. No doubt he has sycophants about him and toler- ates them, as great men must, or think they must. From Buckingham Gate to Arhngton Street is not three minutes' drive, yet he who accomphshes it might well think LONDON SOCIETY-. 15 he had traversed half the island. The modest home of the great Liberal chief differs in nothing from thousands of other modest homes. Lord Salisbury's yellow stone mansion in Arlington Street is a palace, stretching from the street to Green Park on Avhich its chief fagade looks ; a palace with hall and galleries and great apartments hung with pictures, briUiant with stufifs. It was in the great drawing-room of this great house that Lord Beaconsfield sat on one memora- ble evening after his return from Berlin, with the Star of the Order of the Garter blazing on his breast and Duchesses doing homage before him. The fehcity which he deemed highest on earth was his. Of late. Democracy has invaded the rooms which the shade of the great Tory leader perhaps still haunts. Lady Salisbury's receptions have become more and more political ; more numerous than ever are the use- ful " workers " for whose work one of her at home cards is deemed none too great a reward. Liberals are still permitted to enter these portals but the majority of Lady Sahsbury's guests are anything but Liber- als. So of Lady Borthwick's parties ; pohtics have little or nothing to say to the composition of her visiting list, but it somehow happens that in Piccadilly as well as in Arlington Street the tone is Tory ; at any rate, it is not Gladstonian. A little farther on are marble halls in which the Bohemian Girl might have dreamt that she dwelt ; the palace looking down on the respectable roof which a grateful nation thought good enough to cover its saviour, the Duke of "Wellington. Lady Eothschild opens her gilded doors to the smartest peo- ple in London ; there are no better parties, none more beau- tiful ; perhaps none where may be seen in one evening so many beautiful women of fashion in gowns of such exceed- ing splendour. E^othing could be more remote from such assembhes than any thought of pohtical contentions, yet, as your eye wanders up and down this gleaming staircase, the finest in London, or about the cool galleries, or about the drawing-room, with its matchless Gainsboroughs and lovely Murillos, the men and women on whom it rests most often 16 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. are not to be counted as Home Kulers. Yet I believe it is in this house only, among Unionist houses in London, that Mr. Gladstone has dined this year. Let us not be too tragic about it. Dinners and parties are no great matter ; they do not, or do not always, settle the fate of empires, nor will even the fate of Ireland be deter- mined in a drawing-room. Tragedy and politics may be put aside together, if you like, and still will there be left some human interest in English society. If it were possible, which it is not, or prudent, to describe society as it is — to describe the society of to-day as freely as the society of a hundred years ago, the interest of to-day surely need not be less than the interest in what our ancestors were doing in the last half of the eighteenth century. Then, indeed, were to be seen the most brilliant groups of men and women of whom we have any record. What is there in Greville comparable to Selwyn and Walpole ? It would, however, have been neces- sary to take care to be born into the right station of life as well as at the right period. Doors did not open then as they do now and there is, after all, this to be said of society as it exists in London : It is, in ISTapoleon's phrase, a carriere ou- verte aux talents. To prove it I need but point to the success of American women in London. They have gained, not mere- ly a foothold, but something very like an ascendancy, in a very jealous and difficult and exacting company ; gained it, always without rank or birth to help them, often without riches ; gained it by grace of manner and by those many fine qualities and gifts which the British mother has recognised with uncon- cealed regret. III. FKOM EPSOM TO ASCOT. THE GOSPEL OF IJSTVITATIONS. [London, June 13, 1888.] The week between Epsom and Ascot is by common con- sent the " fullest " week of the year in London society. This, like all recent seasons, is deemed to be a duU season yet the LONDON SOCIETY. lY list of entertainments in which society, or some section of it, took part from the 3d to the 10th of June is long enough to reheve the year from any such reproach. I include two Sundays. This country is supposed to be given over to Sab- batarianism and in London you cannot have a letter dehv- ered on Sunday, noi^, without much delay, even a telegram. But society makes distinctions. No ball is ever given on that day, no large evening party. Dinners are given ; there are lawn-tennis parties and afternoon receptions ; you may have music not altogether sacred in character; parties are made up for Niagara ; the Gallery Club is open ; and most ladies who are ever at home to their friends in the afternoon, are at home then. The Sunday Park is a feature by itself ; and Sunday luncheons hardly less so. If you preferred something more rural you might choose between a drive to Richmond and a drive to Heath House, Hampstead, now in the possession of Lady Borthwick who, during Sundays in June, prefers Hampstead to Piccadilly for her afternoon at- homes. If you will ask Mr. Chauncey Depew, who was there last year, he will tell you all you want to know of Heath House and even who the diplomatist was who flew the Japanese kite for Lord Wolseley's amusement. The diplomatist is flying his kite now in an Oriental capital. To catalogue such a week's entertainments would be but a dreary business, nor is there space if it were worth doing. But you might, if you cared, have gone to one or two " things " each evening, and on some evenings would have had to choose between half a dozen attractions. The con- cert at Albert Gate on Monday was the sequel to a farewell dinner given by the French Ambassador and Madame Wad- dington to the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and Countess Karolyi, whose departure everybody laments. As Madame Waddington is an American her renown in London may well enough be a matter of interest to other Americans. The French Embassy is known to Londoners as the most exclusive of all the diplomatic houses. That is only another way of saying, human nature being what it is, that it is the II. -3 18 NOTES ON' SOCIAL LIFE. one to ■which invitations are most sought ; sought, that is, by people who seek invitations ; and most valued by those who have not to seek them. A large party is sometimes given there but it is only relatively large. The position of diplomatic personages is exceptional. If they are under some oppressive social obhgations they enjoy likewise some immunities, and among the latter may be reckoned the priv- ilege of not holding, unless they choose, great assemblies of guests. The customs and traditions of the Embassies, or most of them, in London are all in favour of splendid hospi- tality. The German, the Austrian, the Eussian Embassies all are, or all have been at one time or another, famous for various forms of entertainment; and even the Turk gave parties.. The Turk of to-day, Kustem Pacha, who is not a Turk, not many weeks since opened the doors of the rather sombre mansion in Bryanston Square to a great multitude of men and women^ The outer world is kept advised of these events, or of some of them, by announcements in some of the papers. You may read during the season each morn- ing a list of the evening parties ; and on Mondays a list for the week, and for many weeks ahead, is published. You might ask what is the use of this publicity. They who are bidden to these festivities know that they are bid- den, and why should they who are not bidden care to be re- minded of the omission? These questions and comments ignore, however, what is perhaps the most extraordinary feature of the social life of London, the habit of asking to be asked. I say nothing of official or semi-official or court functions. There is a certain pubhcity in the character of these solemnities. They are ministerial or royal, and sup- porters of a ministry or loyal subjects of the Crown who have given proofs of their devotion by being presented at Court may well enough think themselves suitable candidates for such marks of ministerial or royal favour as cards to Court balls or State concerts at Buckingham Palace, or to Lady Salisbury's Foreign Office parties, or even to the hard- ly less crowded gatherings in Arlington Street. ISTor need LONDON SOCIETY. 19 much criticism be wasted on requests made by Americans, or in behalf of Americans who are strangers in London and want a ghmpse of what there is best in London. The American Legation will not thank me for this charitable view. Applications to the American Minister and Secre- taries of Legation are at times numerous enough to give full employment to the fuU staff in disposing of them ; nor are they always confined to oflBcial or semi-official or royal functions. But I keep to the purely English side of the question. There is not a hostess in London who could not teU you strange stories of the importunities she has to endure. Her cards are sent out for a party ; or, very hkely, her party is announced in print long before the cards go out. Forth- with she is besieged. Her friends begin to ask for their friends, and for their friends' friends, and cases have been known where a card thus sent has brought a fresh apphca- tion for a friend of the friend to whose friend the too good- natured hostess has despatched what is still, by courtesy, caUed an invitation. I hope I do not overtax your compre- hension, or your credulity. Up to this point all is conceiva- ble by the generous mind ; perhaps with a little effort, yet still conceivable. But there is a point beyond. The stran- ger appears on the scene ; the total stranger, and boldly, under one pretext or another or sometimes under none, pe- titions for a card. She knows somebody who knows the giver of the party ; she has met her at some other party ; she has heard that these particular parties are so delightful ; nay, she received an invitation (procured heaven knows how) to a former party and therefore thinks herself entitled to a second. Again I say, there are women in London so large- hearted that even these suitors are not all sent empty away. Others there are whose austerity is such that they find them- selves able to refuse all these piteous entreaties. Some — the minority — have been heard to say that no guest enters their doors who is not known to them personally; known it may be very slightly, by a single meeting or by an 20 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. exchange of cards, but known. Their opposites are to be found in those ladies, sometimes of rank but with a secure social foothold yet to be gained, who of their own free will address invitations to persons of station not known to them, but whom they would like to know. This plan answers but seldom. Tried not many years ago by one or two ladies whose names are familiar to London, it failed rather conspic- uously. In the case of parties more or less political in character or in object, the Whips' Lists must be treated with respect. These lists are for the most part lists of names of members of Parliament and their wives (sometimes dead), but they contain also a choice selection of persons who in one capaci- ty or another have been useful to the party and are deemed presentable. Sometimes it is hard to say who is not present- able. But I have discoursed on this theme in times past, and I will leave political considerations alone on this occasion. If it be not a mere reception but a ball or dance, the press- ure on the hostess and on aU her friends and kin is very much greater. " Can you get me a card for Lady Pimlico's dance ?" is a question you may hear openly put, time after time, in crowded rooms. There is no pretence of concealment or sense of shame in these appeals. They are made and repeat- ed with unblushing pertinacity. " There are so few good balls in these days," said a kindhearted woman, " how can you blame people for asking ?" Heaven forbid that I should blame anybody for anything; I do but relate what occurs and my relation is purely historical in spirit. This lady, it so happens, is closely connected by blood with another lady who has, within no long time past, given one of the smartest and most beautiful balls of the season. She was inundated with letters of supplication, all in one tone ; "Do get me a card to your daughter's ball." — "I refused every one," she said, " simply because my daughter could not refuse me if I asked." It may be inferred from this that the people who do not mind asking to be asked are often peo- ple of undeniable social position. And it would be rightly LONDON SOCIETy. 21 inferred. They succeed sometimes, and fail sometimes, but the failures do not count and the successes do. " If you want to go about in London you must ask," once said an American, of much experience in social matters on both sides of the Atlantic. He has, in fact, not only experience but au- thority, yet I will venture to dissent from his dictum and to say that it is possible to see something of London society — the best of it — and never to ask, directly or indirectly, for an invitation. IV. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SOCIAL MENTOR. [London, June 20, 1888.] There is a character in London who is sometimes called the Social Mentor ; indeed, there are several such. The name is not an expressive one, but perhaps it is expressive enough for the persons it is meant to denote. It is by his help, and in the discharge of his rather peculiar functions, that the great army of the Unasked may be said to be avenged upon those whom they would fain have as hostesses. I recounted but lately the woes and humiliations of this great army. It will now be seen that, as there are would-be guests without host- esses, so there are would-be hostesses without guests. The function of the Social Mentor is to bring these last together. Why no corresponding personage has devoted himself to es- tablishing good relations between the former classes it might be hard to say. Complicated indeed is the social structure ; yearly becoming more complicated ; yearly developing new growths ; so that, in time, there may be evolved this corre- sponding personage who shall take upon himself as a duty the supplying of hostesses to guests, and the securing of in- vitations to those who have none. Should this honest broker appear upon the scene enormous will be his difficulties ; they would beyond doubt prove to be in many cases, and above all in those where success would be most essential, impossibilities. 22 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. "Whether he exists, even in the embryo stage, I know not, and I have no wish to anticipate. At present, with possibly one exception which I will mention later, duties and functions which may in the remote future become official and be con- centrated in a few skilled hands are discharged by the dilet- tante when they are discharged at all. For the most part these numerous requests for invitations are but the sohcita- tions of private friendship or petitions at the bottom of which lies the hope, or the lively sense, of favours to come. But there are in London ladies of means, of social ambition, and even of a certain social position, who, in spite of all these advantages, still find themselves unable to compass their ob- jects and to give a good ball or party, or sometimes even din- ner, without the aid of an intermediary. I shall mention no names. But I deal with facts which are notorious in London. If by chance they have become known in New York so that the travelled New Yorker should be able to give a particular apphcation to my generalities, that is a thing I cannot help and am not responsible for. Some of the persons who have had recourse to the Social Mentor are, it may be frankly ad- mitted, Americans. They did but follow the example set them by their English kinswomen. Nationality has really nothing to do with the matter. I will define the Mentor without reference to nationahty. He may be of either sex but I will speak of him at present as a masculine Mentor. He is young or old or middle-aged as the case may be. He must have position and a wide acquaint- ance. He has in fact a list, or more lists than one, of men, and to take the simplest example they shall be young men who dance. Mrs. A. has set her heart upon giving a ball. She has a good house or the money to hire one for the night ; for often it happens in London that balls or dances are giv- en in houses hired for the purpose. The large house in Gros- venor Place now occupied by the Welhngton Club was let out in this way and brought in a good revenue. The houses now most in demand are two in Carlton House Terrace. The Mentor may or may not be concerned in the letting of them. LONDON SOCIETY. 23 His most important mission is not supplying the house but filling it with suitable guests. He may provide both men and women ; perhaps oftcnest it is dancing young men whom he provides. This is a kind of assistance which he may offer to ladies not otherwise in need of social support. The age has its own characteristics. The young man of the period knows his value — if he did not, the young women of the pe- riod would soon inform him — and he neither holds nor makes himself cheap. Sometimes, of course, he goes to a ball upon the mere invitation of Mrs. A., should Mrs. A. happen to be in his set and be approved of by him and his comrades ; be smart enough, and give sufficiently good suppers to reinvig- orate energies exhausted by the effort of continuous dancing. Otherwise, he goes upon the summons or it may be upon the entreaty, of the Mentor. He has confidence in him; he knows that the chief whom he follows will not lead him into battle save upon fit occasion and in a good cause. I never could make out just what the relations are which exist between the parties to this singular contract ; nor does it much signify. The law of supply and demand, not yet rel- egated to the planet Saturn, is operative I daresay in social not less than in pohtical or economical regions. The chief and his followers go into action together. It seems to be understood that the chief shall not merely furnish recruits but command them. Perhaps he takes care that their time is not too unequally distributed between the ball-room and the supper-room. Possibly he assures himself that no young lady is wholy neglected, or it may be that a general superin- tendence over the behaviour of the company is expected of him. At any rate, there he is at the head of his battalions. And what battalions they are; what rows and groups of good-looking young men ; all accurately dressed, all good- looking, and all precisely alike ! When I have looked on at one of these scenes I have wondered whether these young feUows knew each other apart. The smooth locks, the waxed moustache, the shaven cheek and chin, the expression- less countenance, the unfailing conformity in each particular 24: NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. of dress and gesture to a rigid standard of conventionality — what is there to choose between them? They are irre- proachable and shghtly uninteresting but as dancing ma- chines they are perfect. Do not suppose they have anything to do with the mash- er. The masher is extinct, or nearly so, and in this serene world on which we are looking he never existed. The part- ners provided for these pink and white girls — who are al- most as much alike as are their black and brown or, perad- venture, blond cavaliers — ^must be, and are, without reproach from a social point of view. The masher was altogether an inferior being who haunted the stalls and stage doors of cer- tain theatres and their adjacent bars and refreshment sa- loons. It was, perhaps, the appearance of stray specimens of this lower order that gave rise to a dialogue celebrated in the chronicles of the time. It is the Mentor who addresses one of his trusted lieutenants. " Dear boy, who are those odd-looking men by the door?" " I think, old chap, they must be men whom our hostess has herself invited." For there are cases in which it would be part of the tacit understanding between hostess and Mentor that no invita- tions should go forth till they had been approved by him. His power is vast ; his responsibilities are also vast, and the beneficent influence of his reign would be sadly impaired were it not well known that he guaranteed the general char- acter of the entertainment. He must have time, too. These great enterprises are not to be achieved in a moment. The over-confident hostess who had really made some progress and who mistakenly be- lieved herself competent to give a ball unaided, discovered a day or two before the date fixed that there would not be men enough. She applied hurriedly to the two Mentors who are deemed the most efficient of all. They told her it was too late but promised to do what they could. The ball was given and to the ordinary eye seemed a very good ball, with serried ranks of well-groomed dancers. But I met next LONDON SOCIETY. 25 day one of the Mentors whom I have the honour of know- ing ; not in this exalted professional capacity but as a good fellow. He wore a melancholy look and I divined disaster. " How did Mrs. X.'s ball go off ?" I asked. " Badly," groaned he ; " very badly. It was as bad as they make them. There were no men." There is nothing like having a lofty ideal. To this brave spirit there was no half-way house between complete success and complete failure. I referred above to a possible exception to the rule that uninvited people who want invitations have to ask for them, either themselves or by friends. If there be an exception, I suspect it occurs in the sheepfolds peopled by the youths on the social Mentor's list. He reverses his engines sometimes — I have purposely mixed my metaphors— and, being himself on good terms with givers of desirable entertainments, may pro- cure cards to these entertainments for some of the very youth whom he bestows as favouring guests on less favoured host- esses. But this is as deep as I care to go into these myste- ries. It is preferable to remain in the region of conjecture. The exploits of the female Mentor would, I well know, seem to you more thrilling than those of her male congener. When I began this letter I meant she should be a pendant to him and being the best I kept her for the last. But it is too late to do her justice to-day, and whether any to-morrow will come I dare not predict. As I reflect upon the delicacy of the subject my courage oozes away and prudence says, be silent. THE MOUENING FOE THE LATE GEEMAN EMPEEOE AND THE CLOTHES QUESTION IN GENEEAL. [London, June 21, 1888.] The fourteen days of public mourning ordered by the Queen for her son-in-law are drawing to a close, and very glad people wiU be to see the last of them. London in black 26 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. is not an exhilarating spectacle. There have been court mournings before now but no general mourning of recent years and the depressing effect of it came as a novelty, and not an agreeable novelty. Society, by one of those tacit ple- biscites which are voted nobody quite knows how, had agreed from the first to respect the Queen's wish. Not to respect it was thought a proof of bad taste. The dissenters had to advertise their dissent by wearing colours, and few care to be conspicuous in red when all the world is in black. AU the world, however, means the classes. The masses made an effort for a day or two which was not kept up, and the streets have never been quite black. A shop-girl who put on a bit of black ribbon somewhere thought she had done enough to express her sympathy with the Queen, and so perhaps she had. The most remarkable act of com- pliance with the royal wish was on the part of the unhappy women who throng Eegent Street in the late afternoon and evening. They have, it appears, a pubhc opinion of their own, and they too, hke the world above them, voted for conformity and the hues of death. It was honestly meant, no doubt, but what a comment on social customs and what a caricature ! The rule of dress has not, after all, been very rigid. La- dies thought themselves entitled to wear on occasion instead of black, white, or gray, or mauve, or white and black. They wore black or gray gloves, generally black. Bonnets and hats were black ; so were parasols. A few put their servants also into mourning but this was the exception. You could not enter a room without feeling the gloom, and the more people there were the greater the gloom. It was deepest of all at the opera. The aspect of Covent Garden with its great area of stalls, its tiers of boxes, its long stretch of gal- leries, its vast amphitheatre, and every woman everywhere in black, was funereal. Some of the younger women were in white but not many. The one thing that lent brilliancy to the scene was the diamonds. It seemed as if never before had so many been worn. The black gowns set off LONDON SOCIETY. 2T the gems, which sparkled and shone and hghted up the house. More melancholy than the opera was the Park on Sunday in the interval between church and luncheon, from half-past twelve to two o'clock. This is ordinarily one of the sights and gaieties of London ; one that the transient American in his hurried flight to the Continent may be advised to see. Time was when society walked in the Kow or, more accu- rately, in the paths on either side of the Eow. It walks there no longer. The Kow is full but not, to use a current phrase, with the right people. It is full of people who have gone there to see the right people, and who probably be- lieve they do see them. But the real world some time since moved a httle northward. It gathered for awhile in the open space at the east end of the Eow. Then it crossed the drive and sat in the shadow of the Achilles statue. Now it has migrated stiR farther, and is to be found on the expanse of turf between the statue and Stanhope Gate. Some of the right people still stroll up and down the walk that borders this grassy plain and there are still some who push their way toward the older promenade. But most of those whom you will most care to see, most of the women whose social re- nown is greatest, spend this hour of sunshine in chairs in the triangle of which I have given you the apex. Not all this multitude, not all even of those who are in the space which society has set apart for itself, are really persons of distinc- tion, or, as they used to say, of quahty. I heard only a few Sundays ago a lady, who is within, far within, this magic circle, if not quite at the centre, deplore the impossibility of keeping any space absolutely sacred to the select few ; the select two thousand or three thousand whose names are to be found in the Golden Books of the leaders of society. "They follow us wherever we go," cries this disconsolate dame. Perhaps she would be more disconsolate still if they did not follow. Well, this great company is in common times a very showy one in costume; showy, but not too showy. For in the 28 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. matter of costume the Englishwoman of to-day is a far more admirable person than she was ten years ago. The Ameri- can has taught her Enghsh cousin how to dress, and her cousin has learnt the lesson and now dresses almost as well as her teacher. Paris and !N"ew York between them have educated London. Hyde Park has become no unworthy rival of Central Park and the Bois de Boulogne, and the number of reaUy well-dressed women in London is to-day ten or twenty times as great as it was before the century got into the eighties. The transformation is nowhere to be better seen than in the Park of a Sunday morning unless it be in the Koyal Enclosure at Ascot on the Cup Day. It is in the Enclosure that the greatest number of women allow themselves the greatest splendour. On the Sunday before Ascot, which is supposed to be the best Sunday for the Park, there appeared a certain lady who belongs, as everybody knows, to the very smartest set in society. She is young, she is extremely pretty, she has every title to admiration. She had chosen on that day to array herself in a gown whereof the body was in vivid green velvet covered with gold braid in intricate patterns ; a vivid green wide velvet sash with gold braid hanging from the waist to the ground ; the petticoat of mouse-colored silk ; the bonnet again of green and gold ; and a parasol of green bestrewn with swarms of gold butterflies. There was no denying the elegance of these garments but the dearest and most candid friends of the wearer pronounced their verdict on them with that instantaneous decision pecuhar to the feminine intellect. " It would be too smart even for Ascot." The rumour of the lustrous apparition spread. The ques- tion was, "Have you seen Lady X.'s costume?" and the people who asked and answered it, though incapable of any- thing so unconventional as running, sailed off to see the sight. There sat this lovely person with a group of admirers about her, while a long procession filed past and gazed. It is long since any single gown has created such excitement. LONDON SOCIETY. 29 That it was much too fine for the Park was agreed. " But will she wear it at Ascot ?" queried her friends. Their anx- iety was satisfied on Cup Day. The gown was worn ; the gown and parasol were the most striking things in all that assembly of gaily dressed women who had borrowed for their own parasols all the tints of the rainbow. Two people who parted and wished to meet again, agreed to meet near the parasol ; nothing was so conspicuous as that ; every couple chose it as a rendezvous. From this extreme example you may judge how much variety and radiance of colour you may see in the Park on these Sunday mornings. It is a spectacle ; the sunlight, the foliage, the distant view, the lawn all peopled witn these beautiful beings beautifully apparelled, the animation, the movement, the murmur of conversation, the laughter — all together make this a scene such as nowhere else in England, perhaps not anywhere in the world, has a parallel. The death of the Emperor Frederick was a pall thrown over the whole, and what you saw these last two Sundays was a col- lection of persons who looked as if fresh from a funeral. Crape was not worn but nine women out of ten were in black silk, and as diamonds are not displayed by day there was little to reheve, as at the opera, the sombre uniformity of these habiliments of woe. Less strictness has marked the dressing of the men than of the women. In the day time men have gone about with black coats and waistcoats as usual ; with trousers of gray or other neutral tints, or of black and white stripes ; with gray gloves if they sought to be extremely correct; with black scarfs out of which they had omitted the usual scarf- pin unless it happened to be a pin of pearl ; and with a nar- row band of crape about their black silk stove-pipe hats ; which the Englishman by preference calls chimney-pots ; or more simply, tall hats. The round low pot-hat which you call in l!few York a Derby hat, a name here unknown, is never worn during the season in London by any one who has a character to lose. The officials of the Court put 30 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. themselves into deeper mourning than the non-official world. I met the Lord Chamberlain one morning all ebony from head to foot ; his long full gray beard looking grayer and fuller than ever. I met the same great functionary again in the evening at the Opera and there was not a sign of sor- row about him. If a man were the happy possessor of black pearl shirt studs he wore them ; other black studs were not worn, but either white pearl or white enamel. The sleeve buttons might be what the caprice of the wearer dictated. The tie was invariably white and the evening dress as usual throughout. No crape was borne on the arm. Amid this general uniformity of compliance with the Queen's wishes there have been, naturally, some incidents significant of a careless or even rebellious spirit ; or of a per- sonal independence that would accept dictation from nobody ; not even from the Queen. " I am not an Englishwoman," said one lady domiciled in London, " why should an English Queen tell me what to wear or whom to receive in my house?" She declined, therefore, to put off her party or even her ball and she slightly scandahsed her friends and Mrs. Grundy by driving about the West End in a gown of startling red. I mentioned the other day Lady Ailesbury's dinner-party, and the " tail " after it, and the presence of the Duke of Cam- bridge, at both. It was on the very day that the sumptu- ary edict of Her Maj esty came into force. Lady Ailesbury is a woman of such distinction, and so closely connected with the Court, that her acts might often be said to be so many precedents for society. None the less was the general sur- prise that the Duke should have been present that evening at her house ; stiU greater was it that he should have stayed for the reception which followed the dinner. What befeU him in consequence I have said before ; he had to endure a sharp reproof from his august cousin on the throne. If royalty was not to set a good example, who would ? There were, in his case, no more deviations from the path of duty. Most exemplary of aU were the diplomatists ; most exem- plary of the diplomatists were the French Ambassador and LONDON SOCIETY. 31 Madame Waddington. There was no mourning in France but the representative of France in England took extreme care lest it should be said of him that, from pique or any other motive, he had omitted to conform in the least particular to Enghsh etiquette on this occasion. They were to have dined with Lady Ailesbury. They sent excuses at the last mo- ment, and not till the last moment was it known that Her Majesty's rescript had that day become operative. The Em- bassy at Albert Gate has remained closed. I even heard of an eminent Frenchman who called in a blue tie and was re- quested to come next time in a black. The American Legation, like the rest, expressed its sym- pathy with the bereavement of Germany and its respect for the Queen's wish by the most accurate observance of these new customs in attire. I really do not know whether all the Ambassadors and Ministers and Secretaries, and the wives of all these, will be expected to continue in mourning while the Court does. I believe not, however. For them, as for the rest of the world, the rule for the next few weeks will be to dress as they like save when they are to meet one of the royal family. When that occurs they must go in black, or in such modification of black as happens at the moment to be prescribed by the regulations of the Court. VI. ON THE EELATIONS OF ACTOES AND ACTEESSES TO SOCIETY. [London, July 11, 1888.] The relations between society and the stage have been a good deal discussed of late years, but only of late years, and perhaps I might say only or chiefly in London. It is within the memory of living men that there were no such relations or none which, even in London, gave any real social standing to actors and actresses. A few men, Macready for example, were admitted to a few houses ; no women. It is of very 32 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. recent date that actresses have been received into the s6cial church, nor are they now received as actresses, but as, in many cases, very well-bred and agreeable women to whom the stage is a profession. Their profession is still, I am told, a social disqualification in New York ; no other door opens to the most gifted or excellent woman who enters the stage door. The rule is a harsh one ; probably it is not of univer- sal application but it seems to be a rule. Here it may be said there is no rule ; a woman is not ad- mitted into society because she is an actress, and she is not excluded from society because she is an actress. There are houses from which she is excluded ; and there is the Court. It used to be said until last year that no actress had been invited by the Queen to any courtly function. I do not know whether that was true or not but it is true no longer for Mrs. Kendal was one of the Queen's guests at the Buck- ingham Palace garden party last summer. That act on the part, of the Queen was none the less considered a new de- parture. The publication of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft's Reminiscences set people talking afresh on this delicate subject. Anybody who turns over the pages of those entertaining volumes will come across royal names, interviews with royalties, and the like. There has been, obviously, a considerable period dur- ing which those two accomplished artists were on good terms with personages of what is called exalted rank. If, however, you read critically you will discover that these personages are mentioned in terms which to good republi- cans might seem too elaborately ceremonious. " His Koyal Highness the Duke of Connaught did us the honour to be present on that occasion ;" that is the style and state observ- able. The note is pitched too high and it might be inferred by one who did not know the position of the Bancrofts that they were not entirely at their ease under the burden of the royal favour accorded to them. I suppose that it was the terror of the printed page, and not of the royal presence, which weighted and over-weighted such sentences. LONDON SOCIETY. 33 If, however, I were to enter on the very wide subject of he relations between royalty and the stage I should want , great deal of space. For the present, it may be enough to ay that the influence of the Prince of Wales has been, and 3, very great. If he did not set the fashion he extended it. f he was not the first to suggest that the theatrical profes- ion bore no social bar-sinister, he is the one who has done Qost to make people forget that such prejudices once existed .nd. that the exclusion of actresses from society was once general. He has relaxed more rules than one that used to fovern social intercourse; this is perhaps the one he has lome nearest to abolishing. He is interested in the theatre, joes often to the play, has a good knowledge of dramatic .rt, and a wide acquaintance among those who practise it. 3ut even he draws a line, and draws more than one. He ^ks actors to dine with him at Marlborough House. If in- dtations sent thence to dinner have ever included actresses hey must have gone in the name of Her Eoyal Highness he Princess of Wales, and it is not probable that any such ustance can be cited. There was some years ago a case which may serve as an Uustration. A lady known to both the Prince and the Prin- icss was about to go on the stage. She was asked to dine •n a certain day at Marlborough House and that day was lamed as the last which could be fixed before the date of ler first appearance. The implication conveyed, and no loubt intended, was that it would not be possible for the Mncess to receive her after she had become a professional lomedian. It will be safe enough to suppose that this re- triction, which is but a relic of the older time, is maintained n obedience to court etiquette or to the Queen's command. The well-known incident of the silken rope is not hkely o occur again. It was Grisi, if I recoUect, who refused to ing till this barrier between the general company and the .rtists had been taken down. Many years have passed ; no uch dividing hue is now drawn. It now depends, not on he art but on the person who practises it, whether he or II.-3 34 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. she makes one of the society they are good enough to amuse. I will take a strong instance. Madame Patti, before and after she became Marquise de Caux, was a favourite in very good society. There followed a period of retirement which lasted for some years after her divorce from the Marquis de Caux. Whether her subsequent marriage to Signor Nicolini would renew the relations between her and her old friends was a question. It was settled in a single evening with a decisiveness that admitted of no further debate. A concert Avas given in one of those houses in London whence social edicts go forth. The Prince and Princess of Wales were present. Less than a hundred guests had been invited to meet them ; which is another way of saying that the half of London was beseeching their hostess for invitations which they did not get. Madame Patti sang. Supper was served afterward in two rooms, and the diva supped with the rest and held a little court of her own afterward. Her recep- tion was precisely what it had been in former days. Madame Patti, though as I said a favourite, never be- came at any one moment the rage that Madame Sarah Bernhardt did. I am not going over that history again. I refer to it only to point a moral. While the fashion lasted it was despotic. When it came to an end it came to a total end. In other words, Madame Sarah was, with one or two very smart sets in London during part of two seasons, idol- ised and lionised to her heart's content. Then some other fashion set in and Sarah's social star sank below the horizon as suddenly as it had risen. She has often been here since ; season after season has she played to f uU houses. She has kept her friends and is as welcome as ever to them, but the general world of Mayfair and Belgravia knows her no more save as the supreme actress of her time. I speak of that world over which women preside. Dare I allude to our distinguished countryman, known here to the more devout of his worshippers as Colonel the Hon. W. F. Cody, to the larger public as Buflfalo BiU? Again it is for the sake of the same moral. No vogue could LONDON SOCIETY. 35 ave been greater than his for two or three months; no clipse could be more complete than that which now ob- 3ures his former glory. He is not forgotten, but those who dmired and invited him, who thronged the "Wild West, who rowded the tent where, after he had hit (or not, as the case light be) his last glass ball and dismounted from his fiery acking horse, he received those who burnt incense before im and who sat at meat with him (in their own houses), — ven they would hesitate before promising him a repetition f his triumphs. Let him rest on his laurels. The same is true of those players of the Comedie Fran- aise who have haunted London at different seasons. The len were welcomed, Enghsh fashion. They were made hon- rary members of certain clubs. This is supposed in New ''ork never to occur in London, but it does occur and the f or- lalities of election are sometimes completed before the indi- idual thus honoured has left town. It was not a craze ; it ras a sincere effort to treat hospitably, and even handsomely, ctors who had pleased the town in their vocation. Alas ! I o not think even that experiment likely to be repeated. M. Coquelin, whom you will presently have with you, is till accepted in narrow circles, and may possiblj'' be quoted as n exception. His astonishing powers of continuous conver- ation, his authority, his versatility, his incredible energy, is great knowledge of his own art and great readiness to alk of it — these and other qualities make him a personality ot lightly to be set aside. You will judge for yourselves. But since, in naming JVI. Coquelin, I have crossed the /hannel, I must say this, — that the rigour of Parisian opin- 3n toward the stage and those who tread it is at least as Teat as that in New York. The obduracy of French soci- ty extends to French actors as well as to French actresses, t is everywhere understood that no actress enters a fashion- ble front door in Paris save in her professional quality. Ihe comes to act or to recite ; says her say and then de- larts ; mingles never with the audience who have applauded ler to the skies. It may not be everywhere understood 36 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. but it is equally true that these fashionable front doors close just as relentlessly in the faces of men as of women. Again M. Coquelin may be quoted as, in one sense, an exception. He was the friend and associate of Gambetta ; he is still on terms with other well-known men. But the fashionable world in Paris knew not Gambetta ; still less does it know those who, since his death, have divided his mantle among them. Then, too, London has enjoyed the visits of other Amer- ican actors and actresses. We had Mr. Dixey ; and I seem to remember that expressions of astonishment at his recep- tion here were wafted across the Atlantic. It will be quite needless to waft any more of them. He is here, I am told, but no man regardeth ; nor woman either. If there be an American belonging to the theatre who can be said to have seen a little of one section of London society, it is Miss Ada Kehan. Miss Eehan is admired upon the stage ; is admired by those who meet her privately, and is invited to some good houses. For the rest, London knows her no otherwise than New York knows her. There is no craze, no sensation, she is not the fashion among the leaders of fashion. It is not easy to say why one should be taken and the other left, but so it is. The caprices of the world are incapable of cal- culation ; no one can foretell them. There is quite enough to do if one attempts to give even a sketch of those which are historical. The ice is indeed too thin to risk one's self on save for a few minutes at a time, and I shall be glad if I es- cape alive after one more essay. VII. FUETHEE NOTES ON THE EELATIONS BETWEEN SOCIETY AND THE STAGE. [London, July 18, 1888.] Mr. Irving's place at the head of the dramatic profession in England is so universally conceded that, in what I have been saying about society and the stage, I ought perhaps to LONDON SOCIETY. 3Y lave begun with him. The more so as he is an actor, not m actress, and the question of sex has something to do with the comphcations which make any accurate statement on such a subject so difficult. Nobody has done more than Mr. Irving to smooth away the distinctions which society ised to make, and still makes in a less degree, between itself md the world beyond the footlights ; yes, and the rest of ;he world as well. He came to the front at a time when things were still in I transition state; or rather, at an earlier period of that transition from the old to the new which is still going on. He has, as you must know in America, excellent social gifts IS well as dramatic gifts. In one direction they amount to genius. He saw that not much could be effected by merely iccepting what was freely offered him. Invitations of all jorts and from all quarters showered m upon him, and that it a very early date in his extraordinary career. But from ;he time when fortune as well as fame became his, he pre- ferred the role of host to that of guest. He was destined :o be the Amphitryon as well as the Koscius of the pro- fession. He was to be met at smart dinners, and in smart 30untry houses, and sometimes even at smart parties, for kvhich he seemed to care little. But his social renown is as m entertainer. The dinners and suppers at the Lyceum, at the Grange, at Eichmond, at Oatlands Park, at Greenwich, md elsewhere, have long been famous. When London once mderstood that the Prince of Wales accepted Mr. Irving's nvitations other people were only too eager to accept them. [ make no comment on this state of things ; society every- svhere in the world wants a leader and London long since feund one in the Heir to the Throne. Yet so finely are the Ines drawn that the Princess of Wales has never, that I leard of, been Mr. Irving's guest. There were reasons in plenty for the kind of prestige that Mr. Irving soon established. The men and even the women jf London who dine out prefer, other things being equal, I good dinner to a bad one, and the Lyceum dinners and 38 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. suppers were pronounced good. As for company, there was nobody whom you might not meet — nobody, that is, who was somebody ; who brought something to this joint stock entertainment. It might be celebrity, or distinction of any kind, or rank, or good talk, or agreeableness, or beauty, or fashion, or personal friendship to Mr. Irving, or that quality of American nationality which in England is sometimes a substitute for aU other qualities and often adds to the value of all others. Royalties — not the Prince of Wales alone — Ambassadors, and Ministers, Generals, Statesmen, the no- bility of every grade, women of rank and fashion, actresses, actors, painters, men of all arts and professions, even jour- nalists — these and many more have many times figured at these festivities. You may find yourself one of four or five guests, or one of fifty or sixty. In either case there wiU be the same attention to detail, the same care in bringing peo- ple together — not by any means in assorting them accord- ing to any supposed identity of social position; for real success in these experiments is only attained when people remarkable for their apparent remoteness from each other are assembled, and allowed to discover that they have inter- ests and sympathies in common. Such experiments are, in fact, great successes or great fail- ures. It is Mr. Irving's distinction to have made them great successes. And it is because he has made them great suc- cesses that he has done such service to his profession and to society. Did you ever hear why the Garrick Club was founded ? There Avere, in those early days, benevolent be- ings who thought it would be a good thing if some resort could be set up where actors should meet gentlemen, and learn how to enter a room and how to carry their hats. The most charitable imagination of that time seems not to have gone farther than that. Actors were to be tolerated. They were to be admitted on sufferance and favour to the occasional company of their betters. Who among these ex- cellent gentlemen dreamed, or could have dreamed, that be- fore half a century had passed, the invitations of a great LONDON SOCIETY. 39 ictor to dinner would have been coveted by the nearest pos- ;erity of these grands seigneurs ? It is Mr. Irving's merit, )r one of his merits, to have understood his time. It is an- )ther that he has from the beginning respected not only the irt vrhich he practises but the profession of which he is the lead ; and has known how to make it respected by the rest )f the respectable world. If you turn to the other side and look at the question Tom the society point of view, much of what I have said of Mir. Irving might be said of Mrs. Jeune, whose name and louse have been too often mentioned in print to make it leedful to apologise for mentioning them once more. She ;oo has had a marked influence on the development of social ntimacies or acquaintances. I do not ever forget, as I said n a former letter, how much stiffer New York is in such matters than London. But I must ask my readers to judge Londoners by the London standard. Mrs. Jeune never, I :hink, paid much court to Mrs. Grundy. The purely «on- rentional has many attractions for others, few or none for ler. Her luncheons and dinners and parties have been call- id, by people who have not been asked to them, miscellane- 3US. Well, it is true that the people whom she invites are lot all cut to one pattern, and I daresay if this accomplish- ed hostess were asked, she would answer that she required lothing of her guests except that they should be, for one "eason or another and for as many difl'erent reasons as pos- sible, interesting. " I always go to Mrs. Jeune when she is ^ood enough to ask me," said a certain great lady. " I do lot know whom I shall meet but I know I shall not be aored." Her remark recalls a story which I turn aside to tell be- 3ause the two together are a measure of the advance which London society has made within thirty years ; not only tow- ird the stage but toward whatever is most enlightened and most liberal. A woman famous in her time was a former Duchess of Cleveland, now dead. She sat down one day to iinner at a very great house and, for the first time in her 40 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. life, remarked a man whose face she did not know. She said to her host — "Who is that man?" " That is Mr. Leighton." " Who is Mr. Leighton ?" " Oh, a very rising young artist whose picture you saw to-day in the Academy." Her Grace of Cleveland brooded a moment on this star- tling announcement, then, very gravely — " What strange people you do ask to meet us !" The unknown Mr. Leighton is now Sir Frederick Leigh- ton, president of the Eoyal Academy — which might be noth- ing in the eyes of this grande dame of an earlier generation — and, which would be much to her, of a social position long since assured and conspicuous. If you can imagine a great lady of to-day putting such a question about, for example, Mr. Irving, her comment would have been, " How does it happen I have never met him before ?" But if Mrs. Jeune's name is one of the first to occur when this ameliorating process as between stage and society is discussed, it is very far indeed from being the only one about which a great deal might be written. I say nothing of Bo- hemia proper ; or improper. It never had much influence ; it now has less than ever. Mrs. Jeune could have done lit- tle, with all her cleverness, had her visiting list been restrict- ed to those outlying and sometimes outlandish parts. She reckons among her friends whole sections of London society, and those among the most important. They are as much a feature at the house in Wimpole Street as the artists and actors and actresses. And the feature of all others is that the most different sets are asked, not separately and succes- sively, but together and to the same dinners and parties. Her house is not typical ; there is only one Mrs. Jeune, but in measuring the flow of the tide her house is, for this purpose, at high- water mark. Dozens of other houses, many of them far greater, might be named, where this blending of various social vintages may be seen in many stages of completeness. LONDON SOCIETY. 41 I hesitate to sum up this whole subject as I meant to when I began. There is still one large branch of it which I have left untouched ; a branch on which there are golden apples that, touched, might turn to ashes. If I hinted in a former letter that something ought to be said about actresses as well as actors — about other actresses than those already mentioned — it was in a moment of rashness of which I have repented. VIII. ACTEESSES IN THEIE EELATIONS TO BISHOPS AND TO SOCIETY IN GENERAL. [London, July 25, 1888.] Since writing what I did about the attitude of reserve which New York society maintains toward the stage, I have been reminded that this obduracy has of late been relaxed and notably, to some extent, in the case of Miss EUen Terry. That accomplished actress was received, it is said, by Amer- ican ladies who had never opened their doors to any other actress. I heard something of the sort at the time but I know too little of the facts to be sure whether the doors open to her closed again upon her colleagues and have re- mained closed, or not. But I drew the distinction between London and New York so sharply that I am bound to .take note of any exception. Some of the London papers have published the list of guests at a dinner given some ten days since at a well- known house in London. Among them were Miss EUen Terry and Miss Ada Kehan, to meet whom the American Minister and Mrs. Phelps and other persons of position were thought none too good. "Whether New York host- esses have shown themselves so far emancipated from early prejudices as that, it is for you to say. The name of this London hostess was pubHshed as well as the names of those whom she invited. I will leave you to guess it without ray 42 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. help. But I must confess that, for one reason or another, this particular dinner gave rise to some criticisms, and these criticisms came in part from American sources ; from Amer- icans living in London who have not yet shaken off their New York notions. It would have been impossible in New York, they alleged ; for reasons which must be left to con- jecture. Another case might be quoted which, even though no names be mentioned, may strike you as equally remarkable. A number of persons of distinction found themselves last Saturday at the same dinner -table. One was a lady likely to be seen, as the London phrase goes, wherever a candle is lighted. There were two Cabinet Ministers ; one with his wife, the other with his daughter. There were two Bish- ops ; one of them an Archbishop. Opposite the Bishops sat an actress. I keep to the anonymous in this case, but she was an actress whose name I have not yet mentioned. The Bishops did not seem to object to the actress ; nor the ac- tress to the Bishops; nor the Cabinet Ministers to either. One of the Cabinet Ministers sought an introduction to the actress in the drawing-room after dinner, and obtained it. As for Lady X., she has been known to say that she did not care whom she met — were it even Mr. Gladstone. Now the true test, or one true test, is whether an incident of this kind occasions remark. I am bound to say that this, like .the other, did; not because anybody disliked the actress in question or could utter a word of reproach against her, but simply because she and the two Bishops were asked to the same dinner. Yet could anybody suppose that a Bish- op's morals would be the worse for breathing during two or three hours the same atmosphere with a pleasant young lady whose profession it is to hold the mirror up to Nature ? "Were that so, of what frail stuff must episcopal morals, and archiepiscopal morals at that, be made! But it is not so. It is Mrs. Grundy and her sisters her cousins and her aunts who are the critics. Away with them ! Why should anybody care ? It ought not to be necessary LONDON SOCIETY. 43 to ask such a question or to answer it, and perhaps the best answer may be found in the proposition laid down earlier in these letters ; viz. that there is a large section of the best London society from which actresses are not excluded be- cause they are actresses. There are some who are desirable acquaintances, there are others who are not; and there is no grade or set of women in society of whom precisely the same thing may not be said. It might be difficult in these days to explain with accura- cy what it is that will, or will not, exclude any woman from society in London. Perhaps it may be said that a woman who is an actress has to make her title clear to mansions in Mayfair, but so have many other women not born into that celestial atmosphere. Often, no doubt, there is a presump- tion against her because she is an actress ; sometimes there is a presumption in her favour because she is an actress; so that we come back pretty nearly to where we started. The Puritan idea, that the theatre is a nursery of immoralities, is not eradicated from minds which have httle sympathy with Puritanism in other forms. No wise friend of the theatre will care to deny that temptations beset the actress. If she holds her own in spite of them and if, in spite of the suspicion which connects itself with the footlights, she at- tains to a position of social equahty with those who never see the footlights except from the front, so much the more credit to her. All that is very cheap moralising and very commonplace reflection. An allusion to this side of the subject cannot be omitted but it shall be an allusion only. If you hke to study the question by the light of London drawing-rooms, where the actual living figures whom you have seen on the stage pass and repass before you, you must come here and do it for yourself. Once there, these actresses would seem to you, I will venture to predict, very much like other women in all essential points. Their dress, their demeanour, their con- versation, are modelled on the dress, the demeanour, the conversation, which prevail in society generally. It is their 44 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. business to study such things ; their success in their profes- sion sometimes depends on this study ; much more often in France than in England, for an English audience sometimes accepts without protest the most extravagant travesties on the stage of what passes in real hfe. Let us keep to the best only ; the number of them may be counted on the fingers of — well, of both hands. That win perhaps reassure those who think, if anybody does think, that society welcomes the walking ladies of the Sur- rey Theatre or the baUet girls of the Alhambra. The half- dozen or dozen actresses who have a more or less secure social footing are not easily distinguished from the rest of the company. Some of them have perhaps a larger man- ner; as if the auditorium of a theatre spread out before them. Sometimes the manner is slightly apologetic, some- times ambitious or assertive, which comes to the same thing; sometimes slightly restless or uncertain. None of these adjectives would be applied save to those whose en- trance into society is recent or whose position is, for one reason or another, precarious. The slender list of the best would have to be enlarged, much enlarged, if it were to in- clude opera singers. There has been for a long time a dis- position in favour of opera singers, why, I know not, but with them this present discourse has no concern. The most brilUant instance that can be quoted of this power of immediate assimilation in women is not English, but French. I mean Madame Sarah Bernhardt. It is now so long ago that there can be no harm in relating an anec- dote of her very first appearance in what can be called society. Yery soon after her arrival in London a dinner was given her at a smart house, and some twenty men and women were her fellow-guests. There were among them one or two women who have a reputation for strictness in social matters. They knew they were to meet Madame Sarah and their curiosity overcame their scruples, if any they had. An Ambassador was at one end of the table; Madame LONDON SOOIETy. 45 Sarah with her host at the other and many fashionable peo- ple of both sexes in between. It certainly was the first time in her life that this famous actress had sat down in such a company, or anything like it. But you would have said that she had dined with just such people often — had been in the habit of meeting women of the best set. She caught the note at once. There was but one noticeable point of difference. She talked during dinner with one or two men at the other end of the table, whom she knew, as if they had been at her side. It was done without an ef- fort ; so easily, in fact, as hardly to attract attention. " She carries it off perfectly," said one man ; " but what I am curi- ous to know is how she wiU get on with the women in the drawing-room after dinner before we come up." "WeU, when the men arrived in the drawing-room they found Madame Sarah in a corner, surrounded by the other women to whom she was talking with fluent ease ; they lis- tening, all absorbed in her conversation. The men joined in but still it was the actress to whom most of the talk was left ; she was far too amusing to be interrupted ; at times pungent, original always. The proprieties were strictly ob- served, and even the conventionalities. The only qualifica- tion I should make is that the conventionalities she observed were rather French than English. French Avomen discuss some subjects with greater freedom than English women ; just as the English in their turn are more outspoken than the women of America, whom their cousins here sometimes think prudish. Her own art was her chief topic ; not her own acting but the art of acting. She discussed her col- leagues and rivals — for rivals, one rival at least, she still had. An actress of much fame in Paris had disappointed the London public; the London public thought her less beautiful than she ought to have been, and too stout. There was a scene in a certain play where she has to tear open her gown at the neck. " Yes," said Madame Sarah, "she is a good actress; she was very pretty; she had a charming figure. Mais maintenant, quand elle a commence 46 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. d degrafer son corsa-ge, toute la salle etait consternee : on ne savait plus d quoi s' en tenir ; (detail la Tamise qui de- hordaitP This sparkling sentence would be accounted per- fectly innocent in Paris ; in London it shocked nobody as it was said. I cannot see why New York should object but I leave to you the responsibility of printing it. The evening came to an end, as all evenings will ; the company departed, the lights were put out. Next morning it was known all over London, where such things seem to have a power of spontaneous and instantaneous transmission, that the exper- iment which seemed so bold had justified its boldness by success. And then followed the series of social homages to this wonderful artist, the fame of which has survived to this day. Mr. Hare in a recent speech referred rather bitterly, it is said, to the fact that any general social recognition of actors and actresses was deferred until the Comedie Fran9aise had come over to London. Then, the very men and women who were outcasts in Paris were taken up by English society and lionised, and welcomed as equals, for the time being, by those who had never seemed aware of the existence of the best members of the profession in London except as purvey- ors of amusement. There is something in this reproach but the objects of it might reply that the craze about French- men and Frenchwomen soon died out. There is no craze about English actors and actresses ; only a friendly appreci- ation»of their gifts and qualities, and that seems likely to be lasting. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. CONVERSATION AND THE DIFFERENT STYLES OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. [London, August 1, 1888.] Among many changes in the social life of London none perhaps is more striking than the change in the fashion of talk. The note of to-day is not the note of twenty years ago or of the generation which preceded. The literature, the biographical literature, the reminiscences, of the last fifty years are full of the renown of great talkers. Ma- caulay may be taken as the type of them. He was the su- perior of all in his own style, but the style was one which prevailed and it is fair to judge it by its best example or ex- ponent. No fame, on the whole, is equal to his in his own manner. The world has had every means of judging of it and of him. Sir George Trevelyan's biography of his uncle has made him a familiar figure and a greater favourite with the world than he was before these records of his private life had been made public. The biographer has much of that prepossession in favour of his subject which is permitted to biographers. He has, however, done his hero-worshipping with great literary skill. He does not shock his reader ; he attracts him : the most indifferent reader cannot but sympathise with the hero. Yet I imagine few people have laid down the book without a vague wonder whether Macaulay was indeed an agreeable 48 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. man in societj'^ ; whether this marvellous conversation — mar- vellous it really was — was reaUj conversation. I have asked a number of persons who knew Macaulay well, who met him often, who made part of the world he lived in, Avho sat with him at the table, who listened to him, whether his immense reputation was deserved and whether he would now be thought a good talker. I quote nobody but I sum up the general sense of all the answers in one phrase, — he would be thought a bore. "Whether that be a reflection on Macaulay or on the society of to-day is an open question, but the opinion cannot be far wrong. " Macaulay," said a talker whose conversation ranged Qver three genera- tions, " did not talk, he lectured. He chose his subject, it mattered little what, and he delivered a discourse on it; poured out masses of facts, of arguments, of historical illus- tration. He was not witty, he had no humour, he was not a critic, as he himself confessed, he was devoid of imaginative or poetic faculty. But he had the most prodigious memory ever possessed by a human being and on this he drew, with- out stint and without end." People in those days listened to him, his authority was established, his audience docile, nobody interrupted, controversy was out of the question. "Now," continued the witness, "no dinner -table would stand it ; he would be stopped, contradicted, his long sto- ries vetoed ; no monopoly or monopohst is tolerated. If you wanted to know about Queen Anne you could go home and read a cyclopedia." This is probably overstated: the picture is overdrawn. Macaulay is made as much too black as Sir George Trevel- yan has made him too white. But it is true in substance and it wiU give you a notion of the change in the fashion of talk which, as I began by saying, has really taken place. Every- thing now is touch and go. Topics are treated lightly, and above all briefly ; if you want to preach a sermon you must get into a pulpit or a newspaper ; preach it at table you can- not. The autocrat who held sway over the company and forced them to listen has disappeared. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 49 Perhaps it is the democratic tendency of the age which has driven him out of the field, or out of the drawing-room ; at any rate he is gone and nobody wants him back. You may tell a story but you must, in Hayward's phrase, cut it to the bone. The ornamental elaboration, the tricking out your tale with showy tags—purpxireis pannis — the leisurely prolongation of the narrative once practised, can be prac- tised no more. If you do not cut it short you Avill be cut into, and before you are half-way through, another man will have begun and finished his, and your audience will have gone over to the enemy. Worse still, if you persist you may for once have your way, but it will be for once only. Your host makes the appalling discovery that you are im- possible and he asks you not again, — neither he nor any of the company. No reputation is so universal as that of the bore ; no other criminal is so shunned by his fellow-men. It is this rapidity, this lightness of touch, which makes it so diflBcult for the provincial or the foreigner to seize the note of modern society in London. Seldom does either suc- ceed at once. Of the provincial I will say nothing ; he shall be left unsung. But the transient visitor has painful experi- ences at times because he insists on bringing with him to London the manners and customs which he has found avail in his native land. Women make few mistakes ; their pre- ternatural quickness of perception, their instantaneous in- sight into the real condition of things perfect^ new to them, their intuitions, are so many extra senses and safeguards. It is the male foreigner whose tact cannot always be de- pended on to carry him safely over the social reefs and shoals which surround him in the sea he has never navigated be- fore. He comes, let us say, from Central Africa ; the Congo is his home. He is a cultivated, an accomplished man ; but not quite what is here understood by a man of the world. He belongs in fact to that same past generation which had so heavy a hand, or such a genius for getting to the bottom of a subject, and sometimes staying there. He is asked to II. -4 60 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. an evening party. He goes correctly attired, and bent on conquest. He is not content with the silent bow or the word or two of commonplace greeting to his hostess which here are thought sufficient. He comes to a dead halt at the top of the staircase ; sets forth in elegant language his pleas- ure at seeing her, his pleasure at being asked, the pleasure he expects from seeing so many pleasant people, his pleasure at having quite unexpectedly found the English so civil to the tribes of Central Africa. Long before he has finished, the pressure of guests arriving behind him has carried him on into the middle of the drawing-room, and the compliment ■which he began to his hostess is completed in the ear of a stranger. His friend introduces him to the stranger; a woman of the world and of the London world. She receives him pre- cisely as she receives nine-tenths of her acquaintances. Per- haps she even shakes hands with him, seeing that he expects it ; then, after two or three of those vapid sentences which do duty for conversation in such a crush, turns to a new- comer. Our friend from the Congo thinks she does not care for conversation and, if he be sensitive, that she does not care for him. Again he is introduced, — presented, I may say between dashes, is used here only for introductions to royalties — and again the English lady, young or old, does her best to be civil to him ; but her civilities, too, are of the same fleeting kind. It does not occur to her that this dark cousin from over the sea expects to exchange opinions with her on the Irish question, or to give her a full account of his views on the correlation of forces. She also turns away, and after one or two more such experiences he announces sadly that he is not a success in London society. He has not caught the note — that is all. The very women whom he thought rude to him took his measure, made aU allowances for his unacquaintance with customs necessarily new to him, liked him, and before they slept sent him nice notes to ask him to lunch next day or, more probably, next week. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 51 He is puzzled, but pleased, aud accepts and goes. What does he find ? He is welcomed cordially but without fuss ; if there be anything which English women dislike more than another, it is making a fuss. They do not gush over a new acquaintance or over an old one ; it is the avoidance of fuss and gush and sloppy compUments which has gained them a reputation for coldness of manner. The coldness of manner is simplicity of manner ; that and nothing else, and it is sim- plicity of nature which dictates the simple manner. Lunch may mean a party of twenty people, but whether twenty or two there is no ceremony. The ladies walk into the dining-room by themselves, the men straggle after and find their way to such seats as suit them. The talk is as easy as if you were sitting by a fire ; or more so. If the lunch is a small one the talk ripples about the table ; if large, you have to take your chance with the two fellow-creatures next you ; men or women, as chance, or your superior strat- egy, may have determined. Not even to these, or to either of these, wiU the cousin from the Congo have a chance to expound his notions on the correlation of forces, unless he can do it in half a dozen phrases. He may have to carry them back again to the tropics unexpounded ; at no enter- tainment of a purely social kind will he find hearers for these valuable views. If he has anything to say people will hear it with interest, on one condition : that it be said in the manner of the soci- ety amid which he moves for the time being. Society does not object to serious topics or even to the serious treatment of them. What it objects to is pedantry, pretension, dulness ; to that which is heavy as distinguished from that which is serious. It has preferences and strong preferences ; but it win endure much. What it will not endure is the professor who brings into its presence the solemnities of the lecture- room, or the man who arrives with a mission. I mentioned democracy and I shall have to mention it again. I refer to it at this point in order to add an anecdote which has no relation to what has gone before, but which 52 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. I fear may get into print otherwise if I hold it over too long. It is an English lady of high position who tells the story. Dining out the other night, she saw in the haU as she went in a servant who for a long time in earlier days had been butler to the late Lady Waldegrave, whom she had often visited. She spoke to him ; an act in no way remarkable among people between whom and their servants there is margin enough. At dinner there were ortolans, and this lady's neighbour asked whether she cared for them. " Oh yes," answered she. " I am fond of all delicacies. I would dine if I could, like ISTero, on nightingale tongues." As she finished the ortolan and the sentence she became aware that Lady Waldegrave's butler was leaning over her, in that re- spectful attitude proper to the British servant handing a dish, and he murmured, " I beg pardon, my lady, but Cicero says it was Vitellius." I have repeated this little anecdote to a number of per- sons who have had large opportunities of observing the manners and customs of the British butler. They one and all refuse to believe it. "If it had been in France it might be possible ; in England, never." Such is the comment of more than one expert. Yet it did happen and the sceptic must say with Tertulhan, It is true because it is impossible. The explanation of this gentleman's classical learning is sim- ple. He is supposed to have occupied his leisure — for he retired upon a pension — in the perusal of the classics in Eng- hsh versions : the sometimes respectable but generally wood- en translations supplied to the public under the name of the late Mr. Bohn. The amazing thing is, not that he should have known about Cicero and Vitellius but that he should have so far departed from the cast-iron etiquette of English service as to say anything while on duty that duty did not require. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 53 II. LOED BEACONSFIELD. LOED HOUGHTON. ME. HAYWAED. ME. CHAELES VILLIEES. ^ME. GLADSTONE. [London, August 8, 1888.] The men who spanned the conversational gulf between the last and the present generation were Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Houghton, Mr. Hayward, Mr. Charles Yilliers, Mr. Browning, and others less known to the general pubhc. Each of them deserves a full discussion but here I note only one or two points, and of some I wrote long since. Lord Beaconsfield, indeed, never passed in society for a great talker. It was not always that he chose to talk. There is a significant passage in one of his letters to his sister. He had gone into dinner with some one for whom he did not care, but this some one to whom he would not talk insisted on talking to him and so, sighs Disraeli, " I had not even the consolation of a silent stuff." When in the mood and com- pany for conversation, he was essentially modern. He de- livered no oration, poured out no flood of knowledge, was epigrammatic, sententious, brief. He was interesting when he chose, changed with the changing times ; a vigilant ob- server of social fashions ; always, as Gambetta said of him- self, a man of his own time. Perhaps he was even more so during the later years of his life than at the beginning. The times had come round to him. There was a long period during which Lord, Houghton and Mr. Hayward were rivals ; when each, like the Turk, could bear no brother near the throne. They had to bear it, however, for neither ever obtained an undisputed suprem- acy. Each of them did something to bring in the new man- ner ; together they did much. They met often at the same table ; seldom without a collision. The collision was not of the kind which expresses itself by throwing decanters at each other's head. A stranger need seldom have noticed 54: NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. that these two men dishked each other, or were talking against each other. But neither would suflfer his rival to be too long in possession of the ear of the table. Houghton had a voice which, in his younger days, must have been ca- ressing. Hayward's was hard, sometimes harsh. He has been known to growl out as his competitor quitted the room: "Time he did go — interrupting everybody all the evening." Hayward was by nature the more continuous and conten- tious talker of the two ; more arbitrary ; caring more to conquer than to charm. Houghton dehghted to captivate his hearers. The poet came out in his talk ; or rather the poetic nature. Hayward was peremptory; sometimes ty- rannical ; he knew what he knew, with an accuracy which brooked no denial ; which tolerated no inaccuracy in others. ISTo two men were more interesting together if their host, or still better their hostess, knew how to keep them in order ; as Lady Waldegrave, for example, did. Houghton started with position, wealth, some literary fame. Hayward fought his way up from a solicitor's office. Once on a level, society treated both of them just alike. Houghton Avas the greater favourite ; Hayward the more feared. With his knowledge, his courage, his determination to be heard, his conviction that nobody else so well deserved to be heard, he was the best illustration I ever knew of La Eochefoucauld's maxim : La confiance fournit plus d la conversation que V esprit. He was not, indeed, wanting in esprit of a certain sort. Of mere wit he had none ; of intelligence a high degree ; but his con- fidence in himself was superabounding. Whoever has that, and as much to justify it as Hayward had, may count on repeating his extraordinary success in the society of London. Mr. Charles Yilliers's very name, I suppose, may be un- known to Americans who have not read the history of the Free Trade controversy, in which he fought side by side with Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. He was brother to the fourth Earl of Clarendon, the well-known Foreign Minister, is eighty-six years old, and has sat in Parliament forWolver- ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 55 hampton since 1835. Of course he belongs to the old school, and somethnes he malies one regret that there should be a new. What can be more engaging than the ease and deli- cacy and refinement with which he recounts to you inci- dents of which he can say, 'tis sixty years since they hap- pened ? He has a memory still fresh, a manner such as men had when women did not spoil men's manners, a low clear voice, with an elegance of speech and an energy of statement that seldom go together. There remains to this generation one talker who may be hkened to Macaulay ; I mean Mr. Gladstone. To write about a living celebrity as freely as about one who already belongs to history is impossible ; it is equally impossible to give in a few sentences a complete account of Mr. Glad- stone's characteristics as a talker. I name him not as a type, but an anti-type. His manner belongs to a period that is past, if that can be said to belong to any period which is in fact entirely individual. If I liken him to Macaulaj?- it is because he also has, in a degree, that habit of monologue which Macaulay had, and with him other less famous per- sonages of his time. His talk is a stream ; a stream like the Oxus in Arnold's verse — Brimming and briglit and large. . . . Nor does anybody, like Horace's rustic, wait for it to flow out ; it is a stream you would like to flow on for ever. Macaulay I never heard; he had carried his talk else- whither before I first came to England. Mr. Gladstone I have heard often, and if Macaulay was at aU like him aU the jealous criticism of his contemporaries who survived him and who say he would now be thought a bore, is sheer nonsense. But there must have been points of contrast between the methods of these two great talkers, not less sharp than be- tween the men themselves. Koughly speaking, Macaulay passed his life among books ; Mr. Gladstone has passed his in affairs. Man of the world, in one sense, he is not, but pre-eminently a man of affairs — of English affairs; aU his 56 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. life long engaged iu the transaction of the weightiest pub- lic busiaess. His conversation reflects the habit of mind which all this continuing experience has formed. No one ever lived who knew the political history of his own time so well, and no English statesman ever had so many interests outside of statesmanship ; literary, rehgious, and the rest. There is no subject on which he will not talk. His mem- ory is the marvel of everybody who has been his associate or acquaintance. Scarce a topic can be started on which he has not a store of facts. He takes little thought of his audi- ence, or of what" may be supposed to interest them. His subject interests him, and it never occurs to him that it may not interest others. And he is quite right; in his hands, whatever it be, it is entertaining. He has been known to discourse to his neighbour through the greater part of a long dinner on the doctrine of copyright and of internation- al copyright. His neighbour was a beautiful woman who cared no more for copyright than for the Cherokees. She listened to him throughout with unfailing dehght. There was a critical moment in the history of Mr. Glad- stone's Government from 1880 to 1885, when the fate of his Ministry seemed likely to turn on the success or failure of the expedition for the rescue of Gordon. He was staying in a house in Scotland — it was the time of the third Midlothian campaign — and grave news had just come from the Soudan. Whoever listened to him at dinner would have said that the Prime Minister had never heard of the Soudan. The red sunsets of that summer were being discussed, and the scien- tific guess that they were caused by the Java earthquake of the year before. Off went Mr. Gladstone on earthquakes. The Dutch Government had sent out a commission of in- quiry, eighteen months had passed, the commission had made no report, and his impatience to be in possession of the report of the commission of the Dutch Government on the Java earthquake was uncontrollable. He wanted the facts ; he wanted the theory of this convulsion of nature ; he wanted the statistics of the loss of life and the destruction ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 57 of property ; they had been promised ; they had not been given ; did anybody know when they were likely to be giv- en or from what other source they could be obtained ? The cares of an empire sat so lightly on these Atlantean shoul- ders that, for half an hour, this problem of the Java earth- quake entirely possessed his mind ; that and that only was of concern to him, or to the human race in general. What choice have you but to give yourself up to the influence of an intellect so commanding, with this amazing power of be- ing totally absorbed in the one subject on which it is fixed for the time being? There is but one word for such talk; the fascination of it is irresistible. You may hear all sorts of stories about Mr. Gladstone and his talk ; not all of them good-natured, for society does its best to dislike him, and succeeds when he is absent. I will re- peat one which gives you another side of him. While Prime Minister, he appointed a certain well-known man to a certain difficult, post abroad requiring a great deal of special knowl- edge and personal acquaintance with the country and peo- ple ; all of which this young man had acquired in the course of several laborious years. Mr. Gladstone sent for his com- missioner to come and see him before he set out. He came, and next day a friend congratulated him on the impression he had made. " Mr. Gladstone says he never met any one who knew so much about the Caucasus." Lord X. laughed. " I was with him two hours and never opened my mouth." If you doubt that, I could tell you another which is the exact duplicate of it save that the person and the office to which he was appointed were wholly different. But the same thing happened. Mr. Gladstone talked all the time, and to the next friend he met remarked that he had never known anybody whose knowledge of mathematics was so complete as Mr. F.'s. Wherever he is he takes the lead, if he does not always monopolise the talk, which of course he does not. 'No doubt he is sometimes oratorical in private. It would be a fault in a lesser orator but you are only too happy to hear those stately sentences roll out and roU on ; 58 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. the eye flashing, the voice varying with every emotion ; of hardly less compass, and perhaps of even greater beauty, than on the platform. August 21, 1889. — An anonymous vrriter in one of the Eeviews has lately expressed his views on Mr. Gladstone's talk. He is known to be intimate with the Gladstone family, and it is this intimacy that makes his estimate of Mr. Glad- stone as a talker seem to others of the true Gladstonian faith so surprising. Few youths of his age have had better op- portunities of observing Mr. Gladstone than this writer. He is almost of the family. So far from depending upon casual meetings for his knowledge of his hero's method of conver- sation, he is with him constantly ; and he has been an au- ditor of many a confidential outpouring of that sometimes overburdened soul. Yet, if you hearken to other worship- pers at the Gladstonian shrine, he has misinterpreted the utterances of the Oracle. He might answer that the utter- ances of an Oracle are easy to misinterpret ; it is the charac- teristic of an Oracle to be vague, to be mysterious, to be perplexing, and to be open to conflicting exegesis. Here, however, we are concerned, not with the mystic sense of in- spired declarations from a tripod but with a question of manner. Does Mr. Gladstone talk as this singular admirer says he does ? It is true that he has no small talk ? Does he monopolise the conversation ? These are, so far as I can make out, some of the chief points on which this writer is alleged to have gone astray. The passage which gives most offence to the true Gladstonian is this : — " But for conversation, strictly so-called, Mr. Gladstone has no taste. He asks questions when he wants information, and answers them copiously when asked by others. But of give, and take, of meeting you half-way, and of paying you back in your own conversational coin, he has no notion. He discourses, he lectures, he harangues." Is this a true account ? The subject is one on which it is equally dangerous to affirm or deny anything too positively. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 59 Our reviewer probably is too sweeping. It is too much to say that Mr. Gladstone has no notion of conversational give and take. I should not myself like to be called upon to name the subject or method of which Mr. Gladstone has no notion. But I have given my impression of the matter be- fore now and it did not, if I recollect rightly, differ very much from the one we are considering except in degree. I do not understand the reason of the wrath poured out upon him. I have observed a rivalry among these gentlemen ere now ; generous and friendly but still a rivalry. Undoubted- ly Mr. Gladstone is consumed by zeal for subjects which in- terest him, and he is perfectly right in leaving out of ac- count the possibihty that they may not interest other people. They do interest other people, or rather — which is the real point — his talk about them interests other people. He talks with such fluent energy and such eloquence as to put out of sight and mind for the time being every other topic and idea than those present to his own mind. True, he dis- courses ; he lectures, he harangues, but nobody wants him to do anything else. I have heard him on many occasions when this was true. It does not follow that it is always true, or that he never hstens, or that he has no notion of dia- logue. The difficulty with the devotees is that they tolerate no criticism on their deity, and that each beUeves his own view of him to be the only right one. It is not enough to rever- ence. The genuflections must be uniform. There is an Es- tablished Church, and a liturgy, and a prescribed order of pubHc and private worship. He who deviates from it, or presumes to have a private opinion, or to sing his psalm of praise to his own tune, is no better than one of the pro- fane — ^let him be anathema. Such has been our author's fate at the hands of some who could be named, but shall not be. They would read him out of the Church, if they could, but they cannot. It has not yet been rumoured that Mr. Gladstone himself, susceptible as he is to exoteric or 60 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. unsympathetic criticism, has resented his admirer's indiscre- tion. Yet this daring person had gone so far as to say that Mr. Gladstone's appreciation of humour is not keen, and to hint that his substitute for it is a capacity for generous in- dignation against, among other things, cynicism. He illus- trates it by a half -told anecdote. " ' Do you call that amusing ? I call it devilish,' was the emphatic comment with which a characteristic story of Lord Beaconsfield was once received by his eminent rival." Now to judge of the generosity of this indignation one ought to know the characteristic story which called it forth, and the story was this. Lord Beaconsfield was a guest at the Royal Academy dinner which precedes the opening of their annual exhibition. He looked at the pictures before dinner and was heard to remark that they were extremely commonplace. In his speech at the dinner he expressed his delight at the exhibition as a whole, — adding that what had delighted him most of all was to see everywhere evidence of a high aim, and on so many pictures the stamp of imagina- tion. His neighbour reminded him of what he had said be- fore dinner. ""Well," answered the veteran politician, "I have always found that it answered best to praise people for the quality in which they are most deficient." It was a House of Commons answer ; cynical, no doubt, but adapted to the^urposes of debate. This it was which Mr. Gladstone denounced as devilish. He would make no allowance for the exigencies of conversation at a public table. He re- quires no allowance himself ; why should he concede it to others ? Why, in any case, to Lord Beaconsfield ? He has pronounced many eulogies upon that departed Tory in pri- vate, and one in pubhc. His admiration of his rival's extraor- dinary gifts was sincere but there was nothing in their re- lations during life to prevent Mr. Gladstone from using the word devilish on a suitable occasion. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. Ql III. ME. BEOWiaNG. LORD GEANVILLE. THE CUSTOMS OF PAETIC- TJLAE COTEEIES. [London, August 15, 1888.] Mr. Browning's name was one of those which. I mentioned as connecting links between former social generations and the present. He is not quite three years younger than Mr. Gladstone, and, Mke the statesman, the poet has the secret of perpetual youth. If you inquire in different companies you will hear different accounts of Mr. Browning as a talker. He is the opposite of Mr. Gladstone in this : that he allows his conversation to be influenced by the company. The statesman takes his own line across country. The poet will now and then amble through gates, and wait for a lead over a gap m a hedge, and even go round by the public highway. He is capable of talking as long, and with as much vigour, on that truly British subject, the weather, as the most unim- aginative of Phihstines. For his best talk he wants a fit audience. The audience may consist of only one but the one must be appreciative. Other things being equal he prefers, I fancy, more than one. Mr. Browning is, unlike Lord Tennyson, a diner-out. Lord Tennyson is a recluse ; seldom to be met in a London draw- ing-room. Hardly anybody is to be met oftener than Mr. Browning. Student, thinker, hard worker as he is, he con- trives to be a man of the world also. It depends on his host or hostess, or on their guests, in T^'hat character he appears. Their evening maybe spent with Browning the poet, or with Browning the metaphysician — some people say they find it hard in reading him to separate these two — or with Brown- ing the man of letters, of music, of art ; or, finaUy, with Browning the man of the world. They have, however, at least one thing in common — these various Brownings : each of them is a remarkable talker. If 62 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. you have the good luck to meet two of them, or even all of them, you may ponder a little over the problem of psycho-' logical identity. They are all alike in possessing a wonder- ful memory ; one of those memories which seem to do their work without any volition on the part of their owner; a memory on which things engrave themselves as deep as on tablets of brass but with the rapidity and natural ease of a photographic impression. Mr. Browning is a mine of knowl- edge ; knows with minute accuracy the history of literature, of art, of music, of many other things ; and knows by heart, I should think, all the verse that has ever been written. You will hear him when he is in the mood pour out quotations without number of verses by poets without name or fame. If you are lucky enough to hear him recite some of his own you will at once perceive how futile is the work of the com- mentator and expounder. The only commentator Browning needs is Browning. It would be easy to single out many other men of the day whose conversation is remarkable in one way or another. There is Lord Granville; he, too, has a hold on the past and on the present nor is there a better example of that elegant suav- ity of style which never becomes common, and is certainly less common now than it was. He has a finish of manner which is more French than English, a turn of the phrase too, both in public and in private speaking, to the neatness of which but few of his countrymen attain ; and with all this a sense of genuine humour which is just as English as the other quali- ty is French. Mr. Kinglake has almost withdrawn from so- cial life but there was a time when he and Lord Granville might have been almost bracketed together. And there are others ; some of them women, and some of the women fore- most of all. But of women, and of talkers who belong alto- gether to the present, I will, for the present, say nothing. To name any one man, or even any group of men or wom- en, as a type or as complete illustrations of the conversation of the day, is impossible. There is no longer an Autocrat of the Dinner-table. Dr. Holmes himself, whether at dinner or ENGLISH TALK AND TALKEKS. 53 breakfast, would have to share his beneficent despotism with somebody else. It is no longer the man who rules ; it is so- ciety. Nobody has all the talk and everybody has some. The individual withers and the world is more and more. The less numerous the company the less chance has any one talk- er of supremacy over the rest. Society becomes not merely democratic; it is communistic. Everything is put into a common stock and divided among the contributors. And the result is precisely what it would be if there were a redistri- bution of other property. The cleverest soon resumes his former share ; adding some of his neighbour's for the extra trouble. He conforms, nevertheless, to custom ; he carries no sceptre to assert or denote his rank ; he renounces all the ap- pearances of authority in order to preserve the substance ; he submits to be interrupted and interrupts nobody ; he waits his turn; he modulates his voice; he yields to others; he draws out others ; he does not argue ; to contradict he would be ashamed. His reward is that he escapes the almost in- evitable penalty of superiority ; the envy of his fellow-men. He is one of those uncrowned kings to whom Democracy pays the homage of unquestioning and unsuspecting obedience. The great increase in the number of those who, in one sense or another, may be said to belong to London society, has had the effect of splitting society into sets. Even amid this multitude, the law of attraction, of affinities, holds good. To say that Jones is in society is to say little ; what set does he belong to ? is the question that has to be answered. It be- comes difiicult, therefore, to generalise, whether about socie- ty or about the conversation of society. If there be anything true of aU sets, it is that each has cer- tain shibboleths of its own. Each speaks a language of its own, or at least has its own topics as well as topics which are more or less common to all. Nothing is more characteristic of society than that it takes so much for granted, but each coterie takes different things for granted; has a different slang, if such a word may be applied to the talk of those who dwell in these elysian regions. It is one of the current 64 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. slanders upon one section of New York society that the men talk of nothing but stocks. "Well, it is possible to dine out in London and hear of little but racing, which, as a form of gambling is not much better than stock-jobbing and as a subject of continuous talk soon becomes quite as wearisome. Hunting or shooting is sometimes discussed in a country house with not less pertinacity, and if you find yourself among mihtary men you may hear enough military and bar- rack-room gossip to last you for the season. There are certain kinds of " shop " which men and women permit themselves to talk. They tacitly assume that every- body else present knows all about their subject, or ought to know. If you do not know, so much the worse for you. Strong instances might be cited. There came to London some years ago a lady from Germany who had just married an English nobleman. She was well received ; every effort was made by his relatives and friends to do honour to the bride. She was asked by one of them to dine. The party made for her comprised an English lady of higher rank than her own, whom the host took in to dinner. The German lady sat on his left ; next her on the other side was a young English lord whose ideas of life are confined to steeplechas- ing ; opposite her was a well-known man about town, ca- pable only of such talk as flourishes in his own set, a very distinguished and entirely frivolous one. The talk during dinner was led by the English countess who went in with the host : a woman with a subject of her own — " shop," in fact — and a manner of her own; with force of character enough, and cleverness enough, to have her own way among a number of strong-willed and clever people. She conversed extremely well and delighted the company, but from the be- ginning till the hostess rose there was not an opening for the German bride. She was altogether " out of it," sat silent, perfectly composed, made no effort to force her Avay into a conversation in which neither she nor any stranger could have joined, and won the admiration of the party by her tact and good breeding. Her friends were aware that the dinner ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 65 was not such as gave her a chance. It was arranged at a clay's notice in the midst of the London season. But it will serve as well as any other example to show how exclusive good society may be toward those who are admitted into it. To be in it is one thing ; to be of it is quite another. The conversation, indeed, is seldom monotonous or on one topic only, but whatever the topic may be the talk is full of allusions, of unfinished sentences, of hints, of phrases and references that are simply incomprehensible to the outsider. It is like a family party ; you must know all the relations and all the family history, and all the pet names, and all the in- cidents of domestic life, before you can be on even terms with the rest. It changes from one year to another; the note changes ; last year's key will no more open this year's secret places than last j^ear's argot will pilot you along the Boulevards in Paris. Yes, and in London or anywhere in England amid London society, which generally spends more of the year in the country than in town, you want a pilot among the shoals and quicksands far more than in deep water. The art of silence is more subtle than the art of speech. There is a passage in one of Mr. Henry James's novels which is more significant, covers more ground, implies a deeper acquaintance with the English mind, than any oth- er single passage I know. An American banker in England and his son are conversing. An Englishman has been with them, and to him the father has addressed an observation of which the son disapproves. "Ah, father," says the son, " you have lived here a long time, and you have learned some of the things they say, but you have not learned the things they do not say." I commend that to you for meditation. And since I have mentioned an American authority so eminent as Mr. Henry James, I will end by saying that a better notion of what the best English talk is like may be had from his books than is to be gained elsewhere, unless you visit England. It is better than the talk in English novels because Mr. Henry James had the advantage of coming here II.-5 66 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. as an American. His observation was keener ; he noticed things which an English writer would not have noticed ; even if you suppose the English writer to have had equal advan- tages in other respects, and an equally wide knowledge of society ; which few, very few of them have, or ever had. IV. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN, ENGLISH AND AMEEICAN, ON CONVERSATION. [London, August 22, 1888.] " In this art of conversation," says Emerson, " woman is the lawgiver. If every one recalled his experiences he might find the best in the speech of superior women." And he adds : " ISTo one can be a master in conversation who has not learned much from women ; their presence and inspiration are essential to its success." Nowhere is this truth more true than in London society. We were discussing lately the now disused fashion of giving breakfasts, and some one ask- ed why they had gone out. "Can you doubt?" answered a social expert, "it is because women did not come to them." The luncheon has replaced the breakfast. It is just as in- formal, just as free from ceremonial, more convenient, and is more attractive because women are always among the guests and are more often than not the givers of the luncheons. It has been discovered that men do not talk their best when they are talking to men only. A dinner of men only is not liked ; if there are no women, the elegance, the true charm of society are wanting ; the talk becomes, or often becomes, the talk of the smoking-room ; it has neither the refinement nor the fascination which these beautiful beings impart to it. They possess the art of talking and the art, which is more rare, of making others talk. B esprit de la conversation con- siste hien moins d en monPrer ieaucoup qu^d en f aire trowoer aux autres. La Bruy^re might weU have added that this ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. Q>J esprit belongs pre-eminently to women, but his treatment of women is mostly from a different point of view. They have, it is known, tried the experiment of dinners from which men were excluded. It has seldom been repeated. They know each other too well ; such triumphs as are to be gained over women by women are barren. It is only the laurel that grows over the grave of a male victim that is worth wear- ing. The women whose names are most famous in the social annals of the last generation or two are women who have known how to gather men about them. Lady Palmerston was a political force. Lady Jersey's power was political and something more. Lady Waldegrave, often named as the last of those who have known how to make a drawing-room attractive, was more the head of a coterie than anything else, gifted woman though she was. ITot one of these was a brilliant talker ; it was their power of making others dis- cover in themselves an unsuspected fund of felicitous con- versation which, more than any other single power, secured them their supremacy. There are women in the London of to-day who have, pos- sibly, the same power ; certainly the same in kind if not in degree. But the circumstances are no longer the same. If a hostess asks a thousand or even two thousand people to a party, how is she to superintend their talk? It cannot be done. She is on duty at the top of the staircase. It is not tiU these huge gatherings have been once more reduced to manageable dimensions that a hostess can again bring to bear the magic of personal charm; can bring people to- gether ; can impress her individuality on the company ; can be a queen of society. There are queens in society still; but the crown is worn with a difference. There are queens and princesses in various sets; but of sets I am not now speaking. That women are the best letter-writers in the world has long been agreed, and exceptions like George Eliot only prove the rule. But, Z^on dit les choses encore plus finement qv^on ne pent les ecri/re ; and if women write the best letters why 68 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. should they not talk best ? It was once the fashion to praise George Eliot's talk and there have been, I believe, people who could read her letters. They were not letters, those pre- tentious, pedantic compositions ; each one plainly composed with an eye to future publicity. But they were curiously like her talk. Woman of genius as she was, she had no more genuine gift of talk than of poetry. In any case, she had no place in society, and her talk could never have been the fashion if she had. Her remarkable gifts were of use to her in the company of the devout who gathered weekly to listen to the oracle, but that was not society, it was a form of pub- lic worship, and we do not go to church or chapel to talk ; or, at least, we ought not. If George Eliot had chosen so to arrange her life as to bring herself within the pale of so- ciety, she might have been the female Macaulay of her time. That is to say, she had a full mind and she discoursed on many subjects for a long time without stopping, and without missing a date or misstating a fact. But the London world does not go to literature or science for patterns nor need it look afield for ornaments ; it has or- naments of its own. Many and many a man and woman of celebrity in other worlds has found the doors of this open to them, and has been often welcomed and often lionised. But they neither give the tone nor set a fashion. They are not to be left out of account in estimating the forces which are operative in Mayfair, but neither are they to be over-valued for this particular purpose. Take the late Mrs. Procter. She had, as George Eliot had not, a considerable acquaint- ance in society and was asked out; there was no reason in her case, as in George Eliot's there unhappily was, why she should not be. She talked well though too bitterly ; had a gift of satirical comment and a store of disparaging anec- dotes which amused those who knew her, and terrified them. But of Mrs. Procter's influence there is not a trace. Take another woman, who is living and shall be name- less. She is accompUshed, thoughtful, studious, clever be- yond doubt, both in talk and with the pen. She has written ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. g9 successful books ; her name is known ; as she enters a roon^ people who have not seen her before look round. She is the intellectual superior of many of the women of the world whom she meets ; and they are her superiors in every quality essential to success in society. They have the note, and she has not. " I am in a panic if I am asked to take her in to dinner," said a man, himself gifted and clever. " I know I shall have to discuss solemnities all through dinner and din- ner is not the time for solemnities." Society, in truth, is the greatest despot on earth. It will not conform ; it demands conformity from those who are admitted into it. The woman who has written novels that have sold is not the lawgiver whom Emerson had in mind. To do her justice, she does not want to give laws ; she brings into this new world what she has to bring; gives of her best ; wonders at first, or after the first moment of curiosity about her is past, that her contributions are not more to the purpose ; ends by perceiving the real truth. She has been asked in the hope that she may either amuse her hostess and the company, or may prove to be of the company. If she is neither one nor the other she is dropped, unless per- chance she has the wit to be the first to discover this want of congruity, and to take herself out of the uncongenial at- mosphere which she has been invited to breathe. There is in these days such a thing as a doctrine of evo- lution and of heredity. It is not often applied, if ever, to such subjects as society, but it is applicable. Society in England consists — in part, not wholly — of persons whose ancestors were in society before them. Generation by gen- eration they acquired social aptitudes, that of conversation among others ; of the conversation best suited to social cir- cumstances. Custom is second nature ; then may not nat- ure, queried Pascal, be only a first custom? It became a custom to exchange remarks easily, naturally ; seldom pro- found, not often witty, sometimes clever, sometimes duU. But the habit of an easy flow of talk was estabhshed. Peo- ple met on easy terms. They did not talk for victory, nor 70 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. for display. They might be silent if they chose and no criticism upon them was the result of this silence. They did not raise their voices nor tune their minds in too high a key. A drawing-room was not an arena, a dining-table not a stage ; these people met at both for intercourse, for pleas- ure, for many objects, but not for indiscriminate competi- tion. So long has this habit lasted, so many generations have, unconsciously perhaps but decisively, fixed the standard, that an outsider admitted for the first time necessarily betrays himself to be an outsider; heredity has done nothing for him. Tact, quickness of perception, the art of conforming, must stand to him in the place of those ancestors who failed to transmit to him qualities they did not possess. He must talk as other people talk or hold his tongue.^ The least ar- rogance, the least self-assertion, the least hint of a notion on his part that he is present in an apostolic spirit or is im- pelled to supply any deficiencies he may observe in others, is fatal. It is one of the virtues of heredity that it not only nourishes by transmission, but suppresses. He who possesses these inherited intuitions may or may not number among them a genius for putting his thoughts into fascinat- ing speech. What he is certain to possess is the power of saying nothing at the right moment. The repose which stamps the caste of Yere de Vere is a repose of mind as well as of body. The presence of American women in London society has had an influence on conversation as it has on other things. Youth and beauty and cleverness are often to be found in the same person ; it would be wonderful if they were not to be found in the same group. The American girl who mar- ries in England has begun life earlier than her English cous- in. She has met men, and even talked to them while yet unmarried ; a thing which few English girls venture to do. She has probably lived in Paris; part of her education is French ; she knows three of the great capitals of the world ; her ideas are not bounded by the horizon of Mayfair. She ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 71 is fresh, original, independent. She cannot always be clever but she has been taught to think for herself, and never was there a more apt pupil in that science. Above aU, perhaps, she was not born into a respect for rank, or even for royalty, and she strikes therefore at once that note of equality which is essential to social success — in London as much as anywhere in the world — as well as to intellectual freedom. It was always said that the secret, or one secret, of American popularity in royal circles lay in this American freedom from the purely conventional notion about royalty which prevails in England. A girl from New York talked to the Prince of Wales as if royalty had no more rights than republicanism. She spoke her mind, as she expected the Prince to speak his. I do not know that he always did but he was delighted by the girl's frankness. It is many years since he began to covet American society, and there has never been a time when there was not some one American woman, or more than one, who, in the cur- rent phrase of London, had to be asked if you wanted the Prince. I say nothing of other aspects of the matter. It is the question of conversation, and of the influence of Ameri- can women on the conversation of London society, which alone concerns us at present. Of course, these young girls and these young married ladies who had found out how to amuse His Boyal Highness, found imitators. How to amuse His Eoyal Highness is one of the social problems of the United Kingdom; a single solution of the problem is not enough. It is a never-ending series of novel answers to this ever-recurring conundrum which have to be discovered or invented by somebody. The English ought to be grate- ful to their American kinswomen for helping them to so many. I am not sure that they are. V2 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. V. LORD KOSEBEEY. LOED EANDOLPH OHUECHILL. SIE WILLIAM HAECOUET. [London, August 29, 1889.] It is easy to take conspicuous figures on the two front benches of the two houses of Parliament, and explain to the public their virtues and vices as talkers. The process may- be made to extend from one end to the other of each of these four long sofas. So of another bench; perhaps a more dignified one ; and so of persons whose names are for ever in the public eye; sometimes to the pubhc inconven- ience. A writer who should wish to continue the subject might well be content to glean where others have reaped. He might take Lord Kosebery in one House, or Lord Kan- dolph Churchill in the other. Either of these two still youthful legislators — each of them just in the forties — is as admirable in private discourse as in public. I do not men- tion them by way of comparison ; nothing is easier or less profitable than comparisons ; Plutarch has drawn one set of parallels and Johnson another, and the rest may well wait till a successor to one or the other of those great masters appears. The verdict to be given in every case must be a general verdict. Individual prepossessions and prejudices ought to be put aside. If praise or blame be awarded on purely person- al grounds the personal motives ought to be set out ; or, if a writer has one opinion and the world another, this diver- gence also ought to be admitted. Society is an elastic word, and for such purposes as talk and talkers must be held to in- clude not only those who are always to be seen but those also who are sometimes to be seen. There are names that would not be recognised by the frivolous ; but I undertake to mention no one who does not at times enter some one of the magic circles within whose outer circumference are in- cluded so many various sets and cliques and coteries. Neither Lord Eandolph OhurchiU nor Lord Rosebery is ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 73 often to be met in those social entertainments known as drums or parties or balls, nor does any one of these functions offer an occasion for creating a reputation for good talk. The dinner-table, the drawing-room, the smoking-room, the country-house, sometimes the club, sometimes the covert-side — this is where talk is to be heard, and it must be remem- bered that no talk is good unless it is good for the particu- lar place or occasion when it is heard. Lord Rosebery has a manner of his own, and more man- ners than one, but he always has urbanity and always light- ness of touch. It is said he dislikes to be known as a stu- dent. If that be so he has only to hold his peace, or even to talk in some company of persons to whom a knowledge of books cannot fairly be imputed. His racing friends, I im- agine, might teU you that he has no more literature than they themselves, or most of them, have. Even in other sur- roundings he would never be taken for a bookworm. An accomplished man of letters, with a turn for paradox, once said that a man who really reads seldom talks of books ; he gives you results. Well, Lord Rosebery sometimes talks of books because he is a buyer of them, but as a rule you become aware of his love for them only by ever-recurring, but al- ways, as it were, incidental evidences of his familiarity with one or two very large classes of literature. He knows the political history of the last two centuries as few men know it ; as men who are inside politics know the political history of to-day. He knows the memoirs, the biographies, the occasional literature of this long period; and knows the men who have been the governing men of their time. This knowledge appears when wanted; not otherwise ; and Lord Eosebery's use of his acquirements is skilful enough to be called a fine art. He has wit of a kind that might be described, not too untruly, as American ; dry, quiet, abounding in surprises, and springing from an imagi- native use of the matter before him. He has a saturnine sweetness of manner that amounts to charm. He is ready — Artemus "Ward himself would not in his case complain of 74 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. the slowness of the British intellect — and yet what he says has the air of having been thought out. He has the art of introducing new topics without dislocating the general con- versation. All these qualities, and all the others which I omit because a sketch is not an inventory, are set off by high good-humour subdued to the tone of the occasion; the note is never forced. There are those who think him merciless in retort. But it is hard to satisfy everybody. There is a difficulty in giving any account, or at least any brief account, of Lord Randolph Churchill's talk. There are several Lord Randolphs and each has a conversational style of his own. You might meet him at dinner, as you might have met Lord Beaconsfield, and depart with the belief that the young Tory leader was, like the older one, taciturn. It is perfectly conceivable that, if he felt his neighbour antipa- thetic to him, he might take refuge in silence. Yet hke Lord Palmerston, who found conversation with a prize-fight- er an intellectual stimulus, Lord Randolph will often be at his best when you least expect it. One of the most original women in London has but one topic, or at most two; she concentrates on racing and on purely social subjects the powers of a mind certainly superior to the minds of many men about her. She has been heard to say that she is nev- er in such good form as when with Lord Randolph. Exact- ly the same thing might be said of persons entirely different from this racing lady ; their conversational gifts are most available when he is there to call them out. How if it be a rare art to talk well one's self, it is a rarer to make others talk well, and Lord Randolph has them both. Nothing comes amiss to him except that stupidity against which it was of old discovered that the gods themselves fight in vain. He will talk with a gallery or without, and equally well in either case. Nobody is more rapid, spar- kling, pointed. There is no sense of effort. The diction is racy and finished : the memory never at fault ; the habit of seeing things as they are, and of fitting words to facts, has become a second nature. When you think you have taken ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 75 his measure, he flashes out in a new character ; the secret of the unexpected is his ; his f ertiUty in difficulties is delight- ful ; he is never at the end of his resources or of his epigrams, or of his animation and high spirits. Lord Eandolph and Lord Eosebery are, in one sense, each the conversational complement of the other. If you assume them to be equal, the two together are more than twice as good as each separately ; perhaps neither is ever so excellent as when he meets the other. They are old friends, they talk with unrestricted freedom each to the other, exchange repartees that are as amiable as they are keen ; each with evident delight in the exploits of the other, while the com- pany of good talkers about them are not less delighted to Hsten to the pair. It is not easy to find a better talker than either singly ; to find two who can go equally well in double harness would be still less easy. A third is Sir WiUiam Harcourt, certainly one of the full- est and most energetic of talkers. " You never know how good he is," said one of his colleagues, "till you have sat next him in the House. He bubbles over with good things." It is the fashion to say that his speeches are laboured and his jokes ponderous. If it were true of his pubhc deliver- ances, and I do not think it is, it cannot be true of his pri- vate talk. Nobody says more good things to the square inch ; they are spontaneous and irrepressible and irresistible. Half and more than half the speeches in the House of Com- mons are conversational ; it is only on great occasions that the House will stand anything else, and these colloquial de- liverances might fairly be reckoned on the credit si^e of Sir William's account ; he is always ready and always effective. But there is no need to go beyond the dinner-table or the intercourse of purely private life. He is ready to meet all comers ; his lance always in rest. He delights in banter, in chaff, in excursions into many different fields. His knowl- edge is various, his mind one that attacks many subjects with equal alacrity and frequent success ; and no man excels him in retreat from a position that cannot be held. 76 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. VI. MR. BALFOUE. — ME. CHAMBEELAIN. A GEOUP OF JOUENALISTS. [London, August 31, 1889.] " The -word," said a lady whose word in such matters, and in others, is law, " which describes Mr. Balfour's talk is charm. It is not common in women ; it is so rare in men that you can count the instances on your fingers." Well, if a man may presume to judge where a woman has given her verdict, charm is not too strong a word. It is charm of character first of all, or of nature, or of temperament, or whatever the right word be. No two men are at the mo- ment more opposed than he and Mr. John Morley, and if anything could tempt me to break my resolution not to make comparisons it would be to draw a parallel between these two. But I will not. Mr. Balfour's, too, is a mind which has undergone a train- ing far more austere than have most men's in these modern days. He is an omnivorous reader — of everything but news- papers, into which he never looks, and that act of self-indul- gence by itself might serve as a guide to his character. He has read widely in many directions ; speculative very lai-ge- ly, and because of this metaphysical tendency it used to be said that he would never take to practical politics. Ask our Irish friends what they think about it now, and whether they consider Mr. Balfour's politics practical or otherwise. Of him, as of Lord Eosebery, it is to be said that his reading betrays itself by results. It comes out in his talk, of course ; a full mind shows itself to be full. What Matthew Arnold delighted to call play of mind is equally striking in his dis- cussion of any subject, in his approach to it, in the attitude he takes up, in his choice of position, as it were, and in the leisurely survey of his object from a distance, and from sev- eral sides. If a single other word besides charm has to be fixed upon ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. -77 as descriptive of these intellectual processes and deliverances, perhaps leisureliness would be the one. Nothing so vulgar as hurry is to be seen ; yet the conclusion may come, and often does come, swiftly ; a kind of lightning-stroke, follow- ing unexpectedly on a half indolent inspection of the whole matter. He can be acute and decisive when he chooses; peremptory, too, and hit straight and hard ; another point on which the Irish in the House may be called as witnesses. The conversation that occurs between them and the Chief Secretary at question time, day by day, is often a very brill- iant example of dialogue, and sometimes of dialectics. Perhaps you would like him better at table, or on the lawn of a lazy afternoon. Then Mr. Balfour would appear to you as a man who had many kinds of weapons in his armoury ; a great range of subjects, a flashing humour, and kindly persuasiveness, and nervous polished diction, within reserve, not to be often brought out, a wit almost scornful in its touch, and a power of deadly repartee. Of that affecta- tion, whether of cynicism or anything else, which has been imputed to him, he has, so far as I have seen, no taint or trace. It is a mind which looks out clear -eyed upon the world as it is, and truthfully, which likes truth in others and in himself, and with at least as much hatred of shams as Carlyle believed he himself had. I have heard Mr. Bal- four talk in various circumstances. Like everybody else he talks better at some times than at others, but never can I remember to have heard a note that rang false or hollow. He is a master of pure and delicate Enghsh ; colloquial English nevertheless, with nothing in his language to sug- gest the book in breeches, or primness of any kind, or pretence. Mr. Chamberlain can hardly be left out of the list. He lacks flexibility, but he talks with the precision and energy of one of those machines which his beloved Midland capital is so proud of producing. A machine, however, is usually adapted to one special purpose, and Providence has not con- fined Mr. Chamberlain's activities to a single area, so that 78 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. the analogy is not quite accurate. He is sometimes thought more peremptory and more positive than those who are con- tent to accept the ordinary London code of conversation. Be that as it may, he is acute, ingenious, confident, and ca- pable of stratagem in private as in public. If he does not choose to conform to all the conventionali- ties of the society which he entered later than most men, he shows himself loyal to the provincial world in which he was brought up ; it is still the world for which he cares most, nor is provincial a word of reproach. His own town, his own people, the ideas and customs and opinions of his local friends and his constituents — these are all powerful with Mr. Chamberlain, now as when they were all he had to consider. It is natural, therefore, that the range of his talk should be less wide than if he had enlarged his interests and studies earlier in life. People in London will not chop poli- tics for ever; they care less for them, or at any rate, say less about them, than is sometimes supposed. For the munici- pal affairs which hold so large a space in the mind of the ex-Mayor they care nothing at all, just as he in turn cares nothing at all for so many of the matters which make up the staple of dinner-table talk in Mayfair. When, however, he became a considerable figure in public life he became a figure in society. If he had wished to adapt himself to these new circumstances he had every ad- vantage. But Mr. Chamberlain has an unbending character and he does not accept all the overtures made to him or readily adopt that which is new. This hmitation upon his methods of speech is evidently voluntary ; he prefers his own path and walks resolutely in the familiar beats. ISTo doubt he could branch out into others and make himself heard in fresh woods and pastures new. But the "West End of London owes something to him ; among other things, a more accurate acquaintance than it would otherwise have had with the social peculiarities of the Nonconformist com- munity, and with the laws of social intercourse as they are understood in Birmingham. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 79 Journalism is not without men who can talk as well as write. "Who has not heard of Mr. Sala, or who that ever heard him did not wish to hear more of him ? Conventional he is not, nor does he care to be. He is himself, which is more important; one of those individualities who make room for themselves wherever they go. The voice may be in a louder key than that of the average young man of the period ; the manner more positive ; or nonconformity carried sometimes to a point where it seems defiant. It may not lead to imitation but it compels an admiring respect. Mr. Sala is copious, fluent, convinced, and the most accurate man who ever told an anecdote. His stock of anecdote is as in- exhaustible as the balance of the Eothschilds at their bank- ers, and he draws upon it freely. You cannot start a topic on which he has not a story ready ; always to the point, illustrative, and worth telling ; told, moreover, in a way that makes you think a bad story good — ^that is one of Mr. De- pew's secrets also ; — plenty of mother-wit, too, and power of seeing things for himself, and of making you see them. He has two rivals, each as unlike him as they are to each other ; Mr. Burnand and Mr. Archibald Forbes. The genial editor of Punch, as it is the fashion to call him, does not carry geniality to the point of suppressing a good thing be- cause it is also sharp. But his sincerity is proved by his surprise that the victim should take it ill ; his conviction that the rest of mankind exist in order to be joked about, whether in Punch or in private. This peculiarity is per- fectly consistent with good fellowship ; I never heard any- body question for a moment that Mr. Burnand was a good fellow, or doubt that his interest in the impalement of his subject is altogether scientific. He is genial from top to toe ; inside and outside ; his laugh is genial, his voice is genial, the grasp of his hand is genial. Everybody takes pleasure in meeting him, and takes his chance with the rest of what may turn up ; of puns, for choice, and if some one else anticipates his pun, or spoils his joke, or turns it against him, Mr. Burnand's geniality is proof even against the con- 80 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. versational calamities which to less richly gifted men are intolerable. Mr. Archibald Forbes has a more masculine and serious style ; as befits one who has known battles and sieges, and taken part in campaigns. His diction is most remarkable. You have heard him talk in America, and recognised in it the quality which is so difficult to describe — the something or other which sounds like a warning to get out of the way. If you do not get out of the way you might as well be in the path of a locomotive, or of a cavalry charge. Mr. Forbes has spent much of his life in the saddle, and acquired the habit of riding straight. He is as picturesque as he is forci- ble : he says what he has to say in words such as no other man would use, yet in his mouth they seem, and are, per- fectly natural. They go to the mark like bullets; and sometimes leave a mark like a bullet. It is when he is challenged or provoked that this happens — when war is de- clared. For in time of peace he is peaceful, and fires noth- ing but blank cartridges. But you can hear the roll of mus- ketry even when the bullets have been omitted ; and it is still impressive. It is Mr. Forbes's military and semi-mili- tary life and training which have made him what he is, but they do not make other men what he is, nor do many sol- diers gain from war the style of steel which is his, or the luxuriant vocabulary of which he has complete possession and control. VII. SOCIETY TALK. THE PEINCE OF WALES. — LOED EOWTON. — LOED CHAELES BEHESFOED. — SIR HENEY CALCEAET. SIE HENEY WOLFF. — SIE FEEDEEICK LEIGHTON, AND OTHER ARTISTS. ART TALK AND TALKERS. [London, September 7, 1889.] It would be pleasant to choose other names out of the political world, men of character and accomplishments, like, for example. Lord Carnarvon, whose talk is remarkable for ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 81 its refinement and fulness. But the political is very far from being the only world, and no matter how rapid the glance, you must look farther afield to get anything like a notion of social London as a whole ; though to attempt any account of social London as a whole is far beyond the scope of these letters. Society has weights and measures of its own for conversa- tion, as it has for other points of conduct. There are many men whose talk would make no figure in print ; who have neither learning nor trenchant wit ; who give themselves, so far as one can see, no particular trouble to amuse their fel- low-men ; whose company is nevertheless sought ; whose po- sition seems to have been gained by their power of making themselves agreeable. Why are they not to be thought good talkers? So much depends on circumstances. They would not shine, certainly, at a meeting of the Eoyal Society any more than some Fellows of that illustrious body would shine in purely social spheres. Their position, or the position of some of them, is semi- public. They are known to everybody who enters a Lon- don drawing-room. Perhaps I may name three examples : Colonel Oliver Montagu, whose talk lacks neither vigour nor audacity ; Colonel Oliphant, whose conversational courage rivals that of his brother officer, with a dash of originality ; Major Seymour "Wynne Finch, with his dry humour and his singular power of saying precisely what he wants to say. Lord Kosslyn belongs to a rather earlier period; he had shining gifts had he cared to make any serious use of them. And there is a group of interesting persons, known to other and less interesting persons as " the souls," a name Avhich, for some reason, they feel disuicUned to accept though it by no means implies that they have not bodies too. They are clever, individual ; some of them, perhaps, disposed to repeal and re-enact with amendments some part of the general body of social statutes. Questions of the sort we are discussing ought never to be answered positively without some help from the better half II. -6 82 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. of society. A woman's perceptions are worth more than a man's best judgment, and what a woman thinks about any- social problem may be decisive if you can only find out. So in your interest as weU as in my own I asked one of these radiant, swift - glancing creatures whom she thought good talkers in a purely social sense. She named at once some of those who have been named already. " But who inter- ests you, whom would you choose, if you could choose, to take you into dinner ?" She considered a second — it was really but a fraction of a second — and gave me the names of three men. They be- long so entirely to private life that to repeat them might be an indelicacy, and the mere names would mean nothing in America. But I had got what I wanted. Her point of view was the same ; she, too, thought and felt that there is a kind of talk which is in no way dependent on celebrity, and a kind of social success which is mainly conversational and has to be accounted for on principles quite different from those on which general reputation is based. If the art of saying the right thing to the right person at the right moment be good conversation — and it might be hard to define it better — the Prince of Wales must be put high upon the list. He would be surprised to find himself there, for nobody makes less pretence to inspiration, or learning, or many other things which sometimes enhance the attractiveness of good talk yet are not of its essence. He has knowledge of a very useful kind, for he knows more than any one else of the matters in which society is most in- terested, and he has that sixth sense which tells a man what to avoid, and his full share, also, of that kindly common sense and shrewd perception which must be the basis of the best social intercourse. Lord Rowton was long known as Mr. Montagu Corry and Lord Beaconsfield's private secretary ; a position which of itself implies rare qualities, though perhaps the power of talk is less essential to it than the power of silence. " Mon- ty " Corry had, and has, both. If it were not for fear of ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 83 Mr. Phelps's epigram I should say of Lord Eowton that he is one of those men who never make a mistake, never say the wrong thing; never forget who are present nor who their fourth cousins are; never say a thing to give pain; and know how to say one that will give pleasure. His so- cial knowledge is boundless : his perception of what ought to be said and his power of saying it neatly, amiably, and cheerfully at all seasons, something entirely his own. It need not be alleged that he takes equal pains to talk well in all companies ; there is nothing that suggests effort ; the flow is natural, as from a cool fountain, and the stream clear. That is not the image one would choose for Lord Charles Beresford who has a renown in private life not less than in public ; an Irishman who belongs to the days when Irish wit and Irish humour had lost none of their gloss. " Any- body can see I came out of a bog," he said of himself one morning, when his humour had been a trifle more riotous, than usual. Is Ireland a bog, or is a bog the natural home of the son of a Marquis ? Lord Charles brought with him, wherever he came from, an assortment of stories which would have made his reputation, if his own sayings had not been better than those he repeated from other people. Never was a man since Jim Bludso more careless in his talk, and that he is " an awkward hand in a row " the Nile campaign proved, and the performances of the Condor in the harbour of Alexandria. If you ask what that has to do with conversation, the answer is that Lord Charles Beres- ford's talk is an epitome of his life, though his own exploits are the last thing he is likely to discourse upon. He is all of a piece ; serious talk and the most roaring farce go hand in hand ; the condition of the Navy one moment, and a joke that convulses the company the next. He is, in a word, one of the few men whose force and fun add a real zest to hfe in London. Much of what I say of Lord Charles might be said of his brothers, Lord Marcus and Lord WiUiam. Those who know all three will dispute with you which of the three 84: NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. is the cleverest, or quickest, or most amusing. Lord Charles is, of course, by far the most widely known. Lord WilUam has been many years in India, and Lord Marcus devotes much of his life to the turf . Can any reader of Greville's Memoirs doubt that Greville was a good talker when he chose to be ? The Greville of to-day, though I never heard that he is writing memoirs, is Mr. Henry Calcraft.' His social currency is as constant as any man's can well be ; he has the authority which comes from sureness of judgment ; he has good humour, he talks with simplicity, without any straining for effect, without any pretence, without visible ambition to shine, and with uniform success. If there be one thing which society ab- hors more than another it is a want of simplicity. The man who asserts himself or his opinion too vehemently, or is too anxious to put out his neighbour, does but obscure such merits as he may possess. If you wanted an example of the style which is here hked you might well study with advantage Mr. Henry Calcraft's method. One other name ought to be mentioned. Sir Henry Drum- mond Wolff, who touches life at a good many points. He was once, as Mr. Balfour was, of that Fourth Party in the House of Commons which Lord Kandolph Churchill led; then he plunged into diplomacy, was Lord Salisbury's spe- cial envoy to Constantinople, and is now Minister to Persia, as all the world knows, for did he not bring over the Shah and superintend his proceedings while here ? The Shah is gone but Sir Henry still lingers, and the air is fuU of the laughter for which his stories are responsible. A born ' story-teller, perfected by practice ; a diplomatist in society, as well as in foreign affairs. The benevolent shrewdness of his face, the softness of voice, the silken manner, the under- tone which he prefers, as if the secret were not to go be- yond you, and the worldly wisdom of his talk, are aU so ' Now Sir Henry Calcraft, K.C.B. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 35 many proofs of professional skill and of personal qualities. There is something in diplomacy, perhaps the most essential part of it, which eludes description. So there is in the di- plomatist's talk ; he seems to be keeping something back in his most expansive moments ; it is like Miss Kate Vaughan's dancing, there was never as much of it as her public wanted ; expectation remained unsatisfied. That, too, is an art; a judicious mixture of pleasure and disappointment, and it is one which Sir Henry Wolff has studied and prac- tised with tantahsing success. In the parts he prefers he has no superior, and he always has a surprise in store. There is no one whom a recent critic has dealt with more roughly than Sir Frederick Leighton, and there is no one with whom mere roughness is of less avail. For I take it, the aim of this critic's rather random guesses at truth is the truth ; a real likeness, and not a daub, is what he wants to produce. Well, Sir Frederick Leighton's style in public speech is too florid for the average taste, so much may be freely admitted. There is too much ornamentation and too little simplicity. But this writer's criticism is not upon Sir Frederick as an orator ; it is Sir Frederick the talker whom he lampoons, and it is not fair to infer from the elaboration of the platform that a man's ordinary speech is also elabo- rate. Sir Frederick's is not. He talks extremely well, and with Little or none of that artificiality which is sometimes noticeable in his after-dinner discourses. He is one of the most accomplished men in England, and his talk shows it, but does not show it too plainly. It is not ambitious, not too eloquent, not unctuous, to quote once more one of our Eeviewer's offensive adjectives — he uses but too many of them. Sir Frederick has animation and variety, no doubt, but is it an error to depart at times from the commonplace? Must a man whose mind is full make believe that it is emp- ty ? Should an artist suppress his love for art or hide his knowledge of it ? Are we to be grateful to those only who are content to be correct ? Sir Frederick is, in fact, flu- ent and various ; he starves neither his own mind nor his 86 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. hearers, and the narrow vocabulary which suffices for a dis- cussion of the weather is not the one he prefers. The world of art contains others besides Sir Frederick Leighton Avho talk weU. Perhaps, as a rule, they all talk best on their own subject — most men do, and " shop," which people profess to dislike, is often the most agreeable and profitable kind of discourse. Mr. Alma-Tadema is an ex- ample ; he discusses art with a clear intelligence which makes it comprehensible to the outsider, and he has the largest repertory in London of first-rate American stories. Mr. Du Maurier is an artist in talk as well as an artist who talks. Mr. Lowell has been known to rank him among the best of the few whose conversation insures the success of a dinner. His French blood tells ; he has a precision of meth- od which is French, and a sense of color, and a natural apti- tude for presenting his ideas to the public in the sparkle of champagne, or of telling a story so that the point of it shall penetrate the dullest brain. And Mr. "Whistler — who that ever heard Mr. "Whistler wiU forget him ? He has narrative, he has repartee, he has orig- inality, and he has unbounded courage and just confidence in his own powers. Nobody is so explosive, or fills the room so entirely full of his own talk, or disposes more decisively of an intruding opponent, or turns on him more suddenly. A clever phrase once drew from a bystander the response, "I wish I had said that." Mr. Whistler's retort came like lightning, " You will say it, Oscar, you will." Not less in- dividual was his answer to a flatterer who remarked to him, " After all. Whistler, there are only two painters, you and Velasquez."—" Why drag in Velasquez ?" Mr. Whistler, as we long since learnt, has a mastery of the pen not less than of the brush. His notes to his own pictures are almost as much a joy as the pictures themselves. Pie sends, at intervals, to his favoured organs in the Lon- don press, brief, crisp, spicy, little letters, which shine all the more brightly for being set in surroundings which are some- times less bright. There is one apropos of a certain col- ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 87 oured cartoon for Christmas in a certain weekly of the so- ciety species. " Surely," says Mr. Whistler, " you might have helped the people who scarcely distinguish between the orig- inal and impudent imitation to know that this faded leaf is not from the book of Carlo Pellegrini, the master who has taught them all what they can never learn." There is a want of proportion in this sweeping judgment, but it none the less remains true that Carlo Pellegrini's work, known by the familiar signature " Ape," has not in our day been equalled in the best qualities of humorous portraiture ; satir- ical sometimes, subtle, grotesque, perhaps, and not always free from a degree of exaggeration which caricature does not demand. I am not comparing Pellegrini with Mr. Ten- niel. Mr. Tenniel stands apart and unapproachable but Pel- legrini has wrought in a different vein. VIII. DE. ETISSELL. ME. KINGLAKE. ME. FE0m)E. [London, October 9, 1889.] There is another who should have been named when jour- nalists were first considered, Mr. "W". H. Eussell, formerly of TTie Times, the veteran whose splendid services date back to the Crimean War and perhaps farther. I never heard that he was first cousin, or even nephew, to any Duke, nor do I know much about his family except that he is Irish ; an Irishman of a type which needs only to be more common to make the whole race likeable, as so many of them, and all the best of them, are. Dr. Eussell — he is Dr. by virtue of an honorary de- gree of LL.D. — has clung to his brogue through all his long residence elsewhere than in Ireland ; it is an accent rather than a brogue, soft as the air of a summer morning, and one grace the more in talk which is full of graces. He and his talk have long been known to everybody in London. He was long since adopted into the Prince of Wales's set, but the favour 88 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. of the Prince left Him as it found him, unaffected, talking without strain or ambition, as if he could not help it, as a bird flies. The true Irish humour is his, not less racy for being refined; the secret of telling a good story so as to malce it seem better is his ; and the gift of retort is his ; his also the kindness of nature which prefers to put a button on his foil rather than wound a friend or a foe. It might be hard to say who surpasses him in cheerfulness or in piquan- cy. You will hardly ever hear him named except as " Bil- ly" Eussell, a familiarity which denotes nothing but affec- tion. Dr. Eussell has been called the contemporary historian of the Crimean War ; he was rather the critic and censor of those who conducted the war. The historian is Mr. King- lake, as we all know; the friend and panegyrist of Lord Eaglan, and at one time a notability of London society, from which of late years he has withdrawn. A generation has grown up which knows him not, nor perhaps did he ever care deeply for society which had nothing beyond mere smart- ness, nor would he ever enter into that competition for celeb- rity in which men of less delicacy found pleasure, and won various kinds of social renown. His most intimate friend was perhaps Hayward, who as- serted his own authority with unfaihng energy to the end. Mr. Kinglake admired him without imitating him in the least. He was content to wait his turn ; he would not claim it, but when it came he took it, and he was sure of attention as soon as his low, firm voice was heard. He liked a few friends rather than many, and even when he talked and the whole table listened there was something confidential in his method. He wore a Damascus blade but kept it for the most part sheathed. It was only when challenged, or when an in- justice was offered to somebody else than himself, that you saw the flash of this polished and glittering steel, and who- ever felt its point or edge did not care for another experi- ence. The first volume of his history and the chapter on the ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 89 Emperor of the French show what he could do when pro- voked, and how he hated an impostor. His spoken style was, of course, less elaborate, but hardly less finished, and such was his reserve of character that you had to know him well before you discovered how many were his resources and gifts. His retirement from society and from London is due, I grieve to say, to a long illness. Of Mr. Froude, again, the London world has not seen much of late years. He has preferred to spend his time at the antipodes, and among the West India islands, and to put his impressions of them into print. I might remark that his two books of travel are conversational, and discuss them from that point of view ; but it could not be done briefly, and I will say only with reference to the West Indies that I have lately met a traveller of great experience who, hav- ing been over the whole ground this last winter, declares that the West Indian complaints against Mr. Froude are en- tirely groundless — that his book is as accurate as it is pictu- resque and delightful. These last two adjectives describe Mr. Froude's talk'; not fuUy, but so far as they go, exactly. He has the power of making others see things as he sees them ; the power of im- parting his delight in them, the power of so describing ob- jects that the description produces on others the impressions that the objects themselves produced upon him. It is not a common gift, and it is not all. Mr. Froude possesses, alike in print and in speech, the incommunicable secret of style. He has solved one of the Uterary problems of the ages, and answered in his own way an unanswerable riddle. None need ask again whether the sustained style or the short sen- tence be the true mould in which to cast his thoughts. Eead Mr. Froude, or listen to him, and the result is the same ; you perceive that he so employs the short sentence as to pro- duce the sustained effect which the long one aims at — the easy movement, the unbroken flow, the rhythm, the never- failing charm. Alone he possesses it. Whether he himself 90 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. knows precisely how this enchantment is caused may be doubted, and the closest student may despair of detecting it by his analysis, and still more of re-creating it for his own purposes. When you hear him talk the beauty of the spoken sentences gains from the tone of voice, and from the glance of the eyes, which a woman once described as too beautiful for a man. The tone of conviction is unmistakable. In this age of unbelief, or of non- belief, there remains clearly in Mr. Fronde, as in M. Kenan, a foundation of firm faith in certain things ; neither of them has'ever shaken off the influence of his early religious training and studies. "I was born a priest," said M. Eenan, " and a priest I shall die." To see how lasting is the mark of ecclesiastical and theological reading in Mr. Froude, you have only to turn to any vol- ume where he has to discourse on such matters — the Oxford Counter -Reformation, for. example — or to listen to him when he talks on them. Orthodox he is not, but orthodoxy has little to say to a profoundly religious soul. It is char- acteristic of him to care deeply about subjects for which he cares at all. The gossip of Mayfair is not one of them, yet the butterflies of Mayfair have not a more airy touch than he, even when he brings serious matters into social converse. He can be instructive without becoming pedantic; pours out knowledge in floods, and does not lecture ; is a man of the world when in the world, and neither professor nor pedagogue — no, nor a fanatic with a mission to preach to all comers on all occasions — this last, perhaps, the most tire- some of all three. And for a final word on Mr. Froude, of whom as a talker there are so many words that ought to be added, let us have recourse once more to Swift, and say that he has sweetness and he has light. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKEES. 91 IX. LORD WOLSELEY. PEOFESSOE HUXLEY. ME. W. S. GILBEET. [London, October 16, 1889.] As I look over the long list of names I drew up, I see I have not half exhausted my catalogue. It were easy to keep to representative men, or to choose one out of many who might stand for a class. It is easier stUl to be desul- tory, and perhaps more profitable. Whichever method you prefer, you will admit that a man who is unique ought not to be forgotten, especially when England's Only General is also one of her most animated talkers. Lord Wolseley is indeed unique, in at least one other thing than generalship ; he is the most outspoken man in the Kingdom. London so- ciety, to be sure, does not err on the side of reticence ; aU kinds of things are blurted out sooner or later. Opinion is iree and people speak their minds, secure in the behef that they will not be quoted, though what they say may be quoted. Lord "Wolseley, more than any other man I can think of or ever heard of, is the incarnation of frankness. There is no subject on which he will not say his say in any com- pany ; no man on whom he will not express his real opin- ion, in the presence of any number of his fellow-men. He is a soldier who will talk either war or politics. While a campaign lasts he is as secret as becomes a strategist respon- sible for success or failure ; once it is over, you may hear from him the most astonishing disclosures of the causes of either. He has an engaging manner and an inexhaustible fluency ; no man is better fitted to shine, yet you perceive that to shine is the last thing he thinks of, and, in fact, he does not go much into general society. It is because he has something to say on so many matters, and this perfect fearlessness in saying it, that his conver- sation is successful. The blue eyes flash, there is an alert 92 NOTES OX SOCIAL LIFE. energy in his manner which seems fitting to a warrior on the war-path; his store of anecdote and reminiscence is vast, his convictions are free from any taint of uncertainty, and he agrees with Lord Beaconsfield in regarding invective as sometimes an ornament of debate. He has been known to write a letter from the Nile to a school-girl, in which the burden of just responsibihty for the delay in sending the re- lief expedition to Gordon was laid squarely on the shoulders where it belonged. He has been known to repeat the same accusation on his return home in a dozen diiferent compa- nies, and to all comers, and with every circumstance of pub- Ucity, as if he intended it to reach the ears of him whom, he thought guilty ; as no doubt it did. Yet he can be courtier as well as censor, and there have been perhaps few examples of more dexterous and ready tact than Lord Wolseley's at the Queen's dinner -table at Balmoral, on his return from Tel - el - Kebir. The Queen drank his health ; a compliment of the most marked and unusual kind. What was he to do? What did etiquette permit or require ? There was no precedent, and the solici- tude of the company was painful. To propose Her Majes- ty's health in return seemed an assumption of equahty as between subject and sovereign. Lord Wolseley rose ; his face, I imagine, a shade paler than usual. "I beg your Maj- esty's permission," he said, " to offer a toast to the health of my gallant comrade in arms. His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, whose services and whose courage have alike been conspicuous in Egj'pt." They say the Queen was so delighted with this compliment to her son that Lord Wolseley's place in the favour of his Commander- in - Chief was higher than before, and has ever since been maintained. Men of science are commonly believed to talk best on their own ground, and most of them do talk but indifferent- ly well on general subjects. They are, perhaps, too much absorbed in abstruse studies to cultivate social graces. That ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 93 is true enough of some ; not true of Professor Huxley, for example, who does not find the two characters — man of science and man of the world — incompatible. He has been too hard a worker to give much time to society, and in these days, when he has a little more leisure, he hves much out of London. But he formerly dined out, and there are many talkers of renown who could, if they would, tell you the re- sults of their encounters with him. There used to be Sun- day evening dinners and parties in Marlborough Place, to which people from many other worlds than those of ab- stract science were bidden ; where talk was to be heard of a kind rare in any world. It was scientific at times, but subdued to the necessities of the occasion ; speculative, yet kept within such bounds that Bishop or Archbishop might have listened without offence ; political even and still not commonplace ; literary without pretence, and when artistic free from affectation. There and elsewhere Mr. Huxley easily took the lead if he cared to, or if challenged. Nobody was more ready in a greater variety of topics, and if they were scientific it was almost always another who introduced them. Unlike some of his comrades of the Poyal Society, he was of opinion that man does not live by science alone, and nothing came amiss to him. All his life long he has been in the front of the battle that has raged between Science and — not Peligion, but Theology in its more dogmatic form. Even in private the alarm of war is sometimes heard, and Mr. Huxley is not one whit less formidable as a disputant across the table than with pen in hand. Yet an angry man must be very angry indeed before he could be angry with this adversary. He disarmed his enemies with an amiable grace that made de- feat endurable, if not entirely dehghtful. If he was relent- less in argument he never laid aside his conciliatory manner, and many a confident person has been astonished to find himself at the mercy of an opponent whose most fatal thrusts were delivered with a smile. He was, at any rate, always himself and always the same in aU companies. The 94 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. most accomplished of the Queen's daughters said of him, " I Hke to talk with Mr. Huxley because he talks to me exactly as he would to any other woman." This single standard of deportment is rare ; rarest of all, alas ! in the presence of royalty. I make no attempt to describe Mr. Huxley's method in handling scientific subjects in conversation. Nor need it be described for it has the same quality, the same luminous style of exposition, with which his printed books have made all readers in America and England familiar. Yet it has more than that. You cannot listen to him without think- ing more of the speaker than of his science, more of the sohd, beautiful nature than of the intellectual gifts, more of his manly simplicity and sincerity than of all his knowledge and his long services. Mr. Gilbert may be named as one of those men of letters who talk as they write. This does not mean that he talks like a book ; of all compliments the most doubtful that can be paid to a writer ambitious of social distinction. Mr. Gil- bert's social ambitions are understood to be limited ; he does not care for society, much as society cares for him. He pre- fers friendships, close intimacies, the continued companion- ship of a small circle of chosen associates. Those are the circumstances in which he is at his best, unless it be, as I have heard one of his friends maintain, when he is conduct- ing a difficult rehearsal at the Savoy Theatre. Then it is that his Enghsh is most direct, forcible, and to the point ; as becomes one of the most accomplished of stage managers, or — for the French phrase is the more accurate and ex- pressive — of metteurs en scene. But perhaps that is not con- versation ; it is something between exhortation and com- mand ; between the pulpit orator and the cavalry colonel. Meet him in private hfe and you become aware that the peculiar quality of humour which may be called Gilbertian is not forced but natural. It is natural to him to see things upside down, and to turn them inside out, and to look round corners. The view he takes may be right or wrong ; it is, ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 95 at any rate, Ms own. He is individual if not original, and perhaps original is not too strong a word for the quaint con- ceits with which he enlivens the conversation and the com- pany. He once summed up his own philosophy of dining out in the remark, that it is not so much what is on the ta- ble as on the chairs that matters. One who had listened to him said that nothing short of legal evidence would con- vince him that Mr. Gilbert had not written Alice in Won- derland. There is legal evidence that somebody else wrote it, but when you have turned over the pages of that clever creation, you may well fancy that you hear the dry, quiet voice of Mr. Gilbert. It is audible, at any rate, in every sentence of the rippling and often sparkhng dialogue, to which Sir Arthur Sullivan has set his not less sparkling music. Sir Joseph Porter and the Lord High Executioner are amusing, but Mr. Gilbert is more amusing than they, and considerably more rational. X. THE DUKE OF BEBFOED. SIE ANDREW GLAEK. — SIE CHAELES EUSSELL. — ME. lEVINQ. [London, November 12, 1889.] The Duke of Bedford's name has appeared incidentally in the course of these letters on talk. It may well appear otherwise than incidentally wherever good talk is discussed, for the Duke has many titles to distinction. He has culture of a kind becoming every day more rare ; of the kind which was common in the last century among the classes, frequent down to the last generation, now unhappily passing out of fashion. He is one of the few to whom Latin verse seems an easy and appropriate ornament of conversation. The least sense of effort or display is fatal; the Duke has neither. It comes trippingly off his tongue. Mr. John Morley uses a phrase which shows into what disrepute this once elegant 96 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. practice has fallen. He speaks of the "trick" of Latin quotation, in which Sir Eobert "Walpole had both neatness and facility. Mr. Morley is a scholar, with httle or nothing of the Philistine about him. Radical as he is, he has a feel- ing for whatever was interesting in ancient times — every- thing earlier than day before yesterday is now ancient. Yet even Mr. Morley disparages the gift with which he credits his hero. Younger men than the Duke of Bedford may still be heard to use the classical tongues in private talk. Sir George Trevel^^an is one. University professors need not be cited ; they quote Greek, as did George Eliot. But the Duke is not dependent on the wit of others, or on the resources of languages which the world is agreed to call dead. If he had been so fortunate as to have his own way to make in the world, he would have been heard of other- wise than as the Lord of Woburn Abbey. The shyness, or whatever it is which leads him to shun society, might have worn off. He might have §hone in debate, or at the bar, or wherever a mind of singular acuteness, singularly well fur- nished, should have chosen to exercise itself. As it is, he is heard of, and his talk is heard, but too seldom. He is thought to care little for any kind of fame, or any 'applause from his fellow-men. He passes for cynical ; his wit is caustic ; his wide learning has made him distrustful of human nature ; his kindliness of character is held in check ; his jest sparkles and scorches too. Withal, the Duke's spoken discourse has the flavour of that Madeira of which some is still to be found in America and nowhere else ; dry, delicate, with an aroma hardly perceptible except to a trained palate, but penetrating and potent. If you look about among the doctors for a good talker you will easily come upon Sir Andrew Clark. "Whom the other doctors would select as their representative I know not. Perhaps the best is he who talks best at the bedside, and not at the dinner-table. But Sir Andrew's name is closely connected with Mr. Gladstone's, and he is, I suppose, the, only man living who could say that he had silenced Mr. ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 97 Gladstone. He kept that irrepressible energy dumb for ten days, and Mr. Gladstone afterward described them as the most intolerable ten days of his life. If you do not talk much yourself, it is something to be the cause of silence in others. But Sir Andrew can and does talk. He has the hard head of a Scot ; capable of many things beside medicine ; dwelling from choice on the more abstruse matters that en- gage human interest, and delighting in the tougher prob- lems, not of physic only, but of metaphysic. To hold a company of diners-out in a smart house in London by dis- course on these subjects is no mean feat, but it is not beyond Sir Andrew Clark's power. He has been known to enter in such circumstances upon an analysis of the most difficult chapter in Professor Drummond's rather difficult book on Natural Law in the Spiritual World, and to complete it at the end of ten minutes of unbroken exposition, which secured the unbroken attention of his after-dinner audience. And he can perform feats of talk which require dexterity rather than strength ; nay, if he were not of Caledonian origin, it might probably be said of him that he had humour. The lawyers? From time immemorial they have been story-tellers, and the bar-mess has a secular reputation for boisterous anecdote, and for banter without gloves on. A change has occurred. They were once a, society by them- selves in London, as well as on circuit ; lived in Bloomsbury, and gave each other legal dinners, and thought not of en- tering the general world, still less of mixing with society that could be called smart. It was hardly before the last generation that the revolution was effected. The late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn— certainly one of the best talkers of his day — dwelt in Mayfair, and entertained the angels of that earthly paradise. The present Lord Chief Justice is content with a mansion in Tyburnia ; but that, too, is far removed from Bedford Square, and there is nothing in the conversation of Lord Coleridge to suggest that he was ever the associate of Mr. Serjeant Ballantine. Sir Henry IL-7 98 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. Hawkins is a man of the world, if there be one on the Bench, and he too is an inhabitant of Mayfair and may be heard announcing, in his softly authoritative way, the state of the odds against the favourite in the next great race. And there are many others. But I imagine Sir Charles Eussell is better known to you by reputation than any other great lawyer of the day ; bet- ter than the Attorney-General himself, of whom it is said that he opens law books and none others — and that you would fix upon Sir Charles as a type of the legal talker. He is not, however ; he is too individual to be a type. He does not disdain all social intercourse, nor refuse to dine out, nor is he above going to races. But it may be said, on the whole, that the conversations he carries on with reluctant witnesses in court are his most brilliant performances. It is in these that his slight peremptoriness of manner serves him best, and that his very remarkable dramatic gifts prove most useful to him. In society he seems preoccupied ; he does not put his whole soul into the business as he does in court. But meet him where you may you wiU think him well worth listening to, and be in no doubt as to what is meant by any of his clear-cut sentences. The very splendour of his suc- cess at the bar has made it difficult for him to be equally splendid in society. It is not long since an eminent judge said of Sir Charles Eussell that there was no precedent for the position of primacy to which he had attained ; no time when any one advocate so much excelled his rivals in so many different branches of legal practice. If that be so, it would be unreasonable to ask him to reserve the best of his talents for private intercourse. Mr. Irving is, by common consent, at the head of the pro- fession of acting, and an actor who could not talk would in- deed be a curiosity. ISTo man has been more talked of ; few have been the cause of — not of silence, like Sir Andrew Clark ■ — but of more good talk in others. Whether Mr. Irving cares to talk himself, depends. It depends, for example, on ENGLISH TALK AND TALKERS. 99 the company ; if that be not to his mind he too, like Lord Beaconsfield, to whom one has so often to recur, can be taci- turn. But those innumerable suppers and dinners at the Lyceum have not all passed off without adding something to the social fame of the host ; sometimes they have added much. He may be at his best in discourse upon the drama ; there is no subject on which he knows more, and there is no one who knows more on the subject ; or, on the practical side of it, so much. If you wish him to discuss it you must press your wish ; he seems to think it a topic of which the non- dramatic world may have too much ; an error of over-modest judgment on his part. When you hear him talk to fifteen hundred friends together from before the curtain on a first night, you perceive that he has the secret of good conversa- tion. Some of these allocutions may be prepared; the best of them are not, but flow freely from the head and heart of the speaker, and reach the hearts of the fifteen hundred friends by the most direct road. The method is strictly con- versational, and there is none better. So is it on the in- frequent occasions when Mv. Irving is to be heard at one of his own dinners. If the late Lord Houghton were alive he could relate to you an experience of his own. He proposed Mr. Irving's health in a manner altogether unique ; laudatory so far as to satisfy merely conventional requirements ; but in aU that related to Mr. Irving's acting of the character of Othello — the success of which we were there to commemorate — criti- cal, and even condemnatory. I daresay Mr. Irving had ready a speech in reply to the expected panegyric. He had to throw it under the table and improvise another then and there. It was done with entire readiness, with unruffled good-nature, with an absolute unf orgetf ulness of the courtesy imposed on Mm as host, and with the most destructive effect. Lord Houghton was one of the best of after-dinner speakers in the conventional style. On that occasion he met his match, and more than his match. When Mr. Irving sat down 100 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. Lord Houghton lay buried, like the guests of Heliogabalus, beneath flowers — the flowers of a rhetoric that was none the less overwhelming for its elaborate politeness. On gen- eral topics Mr. Irving is not perhaps copious, but he talks to the point ; his mind is made up ; he knows precisely what he wishes to say and what not to say, and he has in private a finished neatness of articulation which he sometimes em- ploys on the stage. THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND, AND HOW IT HAPPENS THAT SHE IS KNOWN IN ENGLAND. [Noveiriber 17, 1888.] A EECENT marriage has all at once made her again a topic of discussion in England. She has long been a grievance to the British Mother but the British Mother does not, as a rule, write the leading editorials in the British Press. She may sometimes inspire them. She inspired, possibly^ the elaborate essay which appeared the other day in a leading Conservative journal. Had she actually written the essay it would have been certainly shorter, and probably less absurd in theory. The subject was once dealt with by a British Mother, a lady clever enough and with character enough to have been an American; a real leader in that society of which the conservative writer has an incomplete knowledge — the best society of London. The American invasion was in full tide of success and this lady was asked what she thought of American girls. " They are sad poachers," was her answer. She had expressed in four words what the av- erage British Mother who belongs to the Classes had been thinking for years. In America, I suppose, the sohcitudes of the British Moth- er must seem excessive. They can hardly be understood in a country whose social organisation is so unhke that of Eng- land. The American girl asks little or no help from her mother in choosing a partner for hfe. The English girl has always been dependent upon her mother to get her a hus- band. You do not hear in London of a girl's coming out. 102 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. You hear of her being brought out. If the girl does not marry during her first or second season, it is the mother who is pitied. "Lady X. has hacked those daughters of hers about London the last three years, and got rid of only one of them." That is the sort of remark you may hear. It is brutal in form but the Englishman is too often brutal in form; perhaps secretly prides himself on being so; is ashamed of seeming so good a fellow as he really is. Brutal or not, it expresses a truth. Lady X. has started out on a campaign and failed. She has toiled, schemed, and intrigued to find husbands for her girls, and has not found them. Per- haps the very men she had fixed on for her own oifspring have married Americans. Do you wonder that she is sore ? The girls seem to have less interest in the business than the mother. They seldom have the air of being on active serv- ice. They are not asked to take part in the manoeuvres. They have only to look pretty — if they can, poor things, — to dance with the right man and not to go down to supper with the wrong one ; not to spoil mamma's game, not to " spoon " with the penniless A. when the eligible B. with money needs but a look or a word to bring him to the point. Their role is passive. The mothers would be horrified if they saw their daughters thinking and acting for themselves. So, I suppose, would the eligible young men ; perhaps not the ineligible, for their chances would be improved if the girls were given their heads, and if by chance they knew what to do with them when they had been given. It is of the aver- age girl I speak ; any one who knows London knows many who have little in common with the average. No doubt there has been a change of late but the change is itself due, in some degree, to American influence. The Enghsh girl has been encouraged to copy her American cousin. AIL copies are mistakes, and this is a greater mis- take than most others. Their only use, as La Rochefoucauld says, is to bring out the faults of the original. And it is the faults, not the merits, that are copied. Probably the Amer- ican girl has faults. I speak of her as a type, not as an THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. 103 individual ; the individual is always charming. Nor is the American girl, as girl, very well known here. It is after she has ceased to be girl and become a wife, and the wife of an Enghshman, that she has been most studied in London. It is not in London or on English soil that she has done most of her poaching. If you were content with superficial causes, it might be enough to trace the causes of the American con- quest to the new passion of the young Englishman for Amer- ican travel. Twenty years ago hardly anybody went ; the young Englishman of position who had seen " the States " was the exception. Now he is, if not the rule, common enough to make a rule for himself. He goes to America, sees the American girl, is captured or captures her, and brings her back to the old home. If you run down the list you will find that most Anglo-American matches have been made on American soil ; with some notable instances to the contrary. Opportunity is much but it is not everything. If the trav- elling Briton had not found the American girl attractive, he would not have married her. "Why did he find her attract- ive — more attractive than the girl he left behind him ? The portrait of her in the Conservative journal is neither recog- nisable nor of a kind to explain in the least the Briton's in- fatuation. Logic is out of place in these matters, but it is not necessary to be absolutely illogical, and if you reduce this article to a false syllogism it reads thus : Englishmen like to marry romantic girls ; the American girls are prosaic ; therefore the Englishmen marry American girls. The Brit- ish Mother knows better than that. She will give you a dozen reasons offhand. If she happen to be in a bad temper she will declare they are forward hussies. She would give her fingers if her own girls knew how to be forward in the same sense. Yery likely she will tell you that her own girls are as pretty, as well-bred (she will say better), as well-dress- ed, as weU-taught, as well a dozen other things, as the Amer- icans. It is not all quite accurate but we can afford to ad- mit it, and the retort is the more crushing, " Why then do the young Englishmen prefer the Americans ?" 104 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. Each has his own reason, good unto him, but the reason which underhes all the others is social, not personal. The relations between the sexes in youth are ten times more nat- ural, genuine, and right in America than in England. Life does not begin with the English girl on her coming out. She is still in the nursery or the school-room, is still the bread- and-butter miss, still the nonentity, still the shy, silent, un- formed creature she was. She is not sure of herself, or of anybody else. She has no conversation, or none that does not require drawing out, and the young Englishman is not good at drawing out. She knows that she has been taken to market, and her sensations on entering society cannot be very different from those of the white slave on the auction- block in the East. She has been taught to be timid. Opin- ions, ideas, initiative of her own, the meeting on equal terms with youngsters in black coats and white ties, any kind of frank or friendly intercourse, any knowledge of the world or of life — all these things are to her forbidden. She is what her mother and governess have made her; as her mother before her was made by her mother and governess. Her in- capacities are hereditary; her notions are purely conven- tional ; Mrs. Grundy is the Deity who rules over her Uni- verse. She is monotonous, and men like variety. She is a chrysalis, and to a chrysalis even a butterfly is preferable. She is the raw material of a charming woman, and it is not every young Briton who feels himself competent to complete her education or willing to let others complete it. He often hung back, long before he heard of America. When he went there he found a girl who had everything the English girl had, and something beside. The American did meet him on even terms — as a rule much more than even, for she is as superior to the average young Englishman as to the average English girl. Her intelligence, quickness, freshness, animation, fulness of character, often her brilliancy, always her individuahty, were perfectly novel to him and perfectly delightful. Is it so wonderful that he liked her better than her doll-cousin in this damp island, and married her ? THE AMERICAN GIEL IN ENGLAND. 105 I once knew, or rather I still have the honour of knowing, " an American girl who has become an English woman by marriage. She was good enough to talk over this question with me. She knew both sides of it, and both sides of the Atlantic perfectly. " The girls have the best of it at home," Said she, " and the young married women in England. The right thing to do is to be born in the States, and marry here." 1 said — " You mean that the American girl has as much freedom as the English wife." " So has the American wife, but that is not the point. With us in America, as you know, the girl gets all the atten- tion from the men ; in London society the girl is nowhere and the young wives are the attraction. Men will not be bored to talk to girls." With her testimony may be compared that of a young Englishwoman, married, pretty, extremely clever, titled, and in the best set of the best society. The company had been discussing a new Anglo-American union, and there were the usual wonderings what there was in these girls from beyond the sea that bewitched the best men who went over there. Lady X. listened and reflected and said in her sunny way, " Well, the best of them do beat us." These two stories together contain as much of the philos- ophy of the whole business as the journalist can be expected to supply. They are texts on which a long sermon might be preached ; too long for to-day. " But the American girls have the most money," growled the British Mother on one occasion. Sometimes they have, and when they have it is again the social system in which they hve that bestows it on them. If English fathers per- sist in sacrificing their daughters to their sons, what else can be expected? In the great famihes, of course, the younger sons fare not much better, as a rule, than the daughters. If there is a title the estate must be kept together to support it. If there is none, it must be increased in hopes the title may come. In the middle classes, with whom this particular 106 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. marriage question concerns itself but little, the rule still is to give more to the male than to the female progeny, save when the upper middle class daughter is to be bartered for a title. Primogeniture or not, few of the great famiUes would be as great as they are had not eldest sons from time to time married fortunes acquired in trade. But what remains to the others? A duke's daughter with £10,000 is thought rather well off. Anybody with twice that is a good match ; and a girl with half a million is a prize for which a genera- tion of young patricians compete. The growl about mon- ey is therefore merely a growl. The English have money enough ; they could give it to their daughters if they liked ; perhaps, as a last resource against the flowing tide from America, they will enlarge their portions. There would be one result, and one only. They would have then to invent a fresh reason to account for the continuing attractiveness of the American girl. II. SOME OF THE SECEBTS OF HEE SUCCESS ABEOAD AND SOME OF THE RESULTS. [London, November 24, 18S8.] The one thing which first gave the American girl her firm foothold in English society was, perhaps, the one thing about her which is most distinctively American — her sense of equality. She made, no doubt, some mistakes on first enter- ing London drawing-rooms and — which is a much more try- ing business to the novice — English country houses. But the most fatal mistake of all would have been to miss the note, the prevailing note, of a societj'^ novel to her, and that she never made. She was, and she felt herself, the social equal of those whom she met, and her bearing was such that others perceived it instantly. There was neither self-asser- tion nor — if possible a worse fault — self-depreciation. I be- heve a notion prevails in parts of America — I have seen it THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. 107 in print — that persons of high rank in England expect a show of humihty from those of lesser rank or of no rank at all. It seems to be supposed — even in places no more re- mote from the Atlantic coast than Kentucky — that it is here the custom to approach a duke on bended knees, and that the Heir Apparent is not to be addressed otherwise than grovelling on the earth. To dispel these illusions is not in the power of any one writer but I will nevertheless venture to say that they are illusions. Eoyalty may be left out of the question because royalty is a caste apart, and intercourse with royalty has, I admit, an etiquette of its own, though not an etiquette which need burden the soul of the best Eepubhcan. Let us keep to non- royal society, and of this it may be said emphatically that the note is a note of equality. Certain forms of speech are used to people of rank, as to people of no rank. Lord Salis- bury is as much Lord Salisbury as Mr. Smith is Mr. Smith. Beyond that, I know of no distinction ; nor why any man should be more deferential to a duke than to a common- er. Society exists and holds together by virtue of equality. There are differences of all kinds — of wealth, of intellect, of distinction in public life, of superior virtue, as well as of rank. But the meeting of all these various excellences be- comes possible only when all agree tacitly to meet, for social purposes, on even terms. We perfectly understand that in America ; to suppose a different state of things here, merely because there are degrees of rank, is absurd. The best proof of the absurdity is the fact that rank alone gives no social distinction, and that some of those whose position in society is highest are of the lowest rank. "Whether the American girl perceived all these things at once or not, matters little. She is quick and keen-sighted to a degree that amazes her leisurely English cousin, but her demeanour was determined by other considerations. She knew herself as good as the best. She was not born to think the Squire and his relations better than herself. It hardly oc- curred to her that other people might be taking her measure 108 KOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. while she was taking theirs ; still less that there could be human beings who would expect deference from her. She had been used to deference from others all her life— from men, that is. From them she expected it still, but the no- tion that there were men to Avhom it could be due never crossed her mind. And so she glided serenely into this ex- alted company, and took her own place as if it had always belonged to her, and kept it with ease — the ease with wliich genius does the things natural to it ; without effort and with- out timidity. Genius is not too large a word; the social qualities of these captivating countrywomen of ours cannot be summed up in any term less ample and comprehensive. One of the direct results of the presence of so many Amer- ican wives in Enghsh society is to make it livelier. This may seem a bold thing for an American to say but I am, in fact, only quoting what I have heard the English themselves say, and say often. As the word is ambiguous I will use it, with one exception, in the good sense only. The exception need only be indicated. In the highest section of society there is a fast set, and there have been Americans who, on their annexation or even before it, have preferred to join this fast set. The capacities, natural and acquired, of the Amer- ican woman are such that, if she chooses to be fast, she can hardly help being faster than her fast English friends. If she prefers doubtful forms of amusement, she will be more doubtful, and more amusing, than anybody else. If practi- cal jokes are the fashion, hers will be the most practical and ingenious of all. If bear-fighting be the rage in the highest quarters, she will " bear-fight " — for the custom has brought forth a new verb — with the best. "When the craze is for poker it is natural she should excel at her national game, but she was just as daring at baccarat — sometimes called " bac " — which does not trace its origin to the wild West. I need not multiply instances nor dwell on my one exception. Nor will I dwell on the rule. I apprehend that the most disappointed and desperate British Mother, with her quiver fullest of arrows that will not go off, would not deny to the THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. 109 American this quality of liveliness. She complains of it, and her complaint is a confession. Some of the indirect results of the American conquest in England are not less curious than the direct. It has to some extent modified the relations between young English- men and young EngUshwomen. There came a moment when it dawned on the English girl that she was losing her hold on the men. It need not be supposed that this ever took the form of a definite conviction in her own mind, still less that she formed a definite resolution in consequence. Social changes proceed more subtly than that; by grada- tions often imperceptible ; almost always delicate. But the marriageable young man of the period showed less and less inclination for marriage ; less and less inclination for the so- ciety of the marriageable young woman. He avoided op- portunities of meeting her. He made it a favour to go to a ball, and a still greater favour to dance when he got there. Mr. Du Maurier had an illustration a year or two since. One young fellow complains indignantly to another that his host- ess had tried to get him to dance with a girl before supper — -"before she had fed us," to adopt his own elegance of speech. He would not go to what he called " tea fights." He expected entertainments to be arranged, wholly or chief- ly, for the gratification of what he believed to be manly tastes. If one of his associates — he would call him a "pal" — married, he was wont to remark that " poor Dick had been run to earth at last," and that " he was very near get- ting away but she was too many for him at the post." He gave up the affectation of seeking j^'oung ladies' society. The young ladies thereupon began to seek his. As he would not conform to their tastes, they conformed to his. I hope it will be understood that I am speaking of a very limited class when I say they ran after him ; but of that linyted class it is true. They adopted his slang ; they copied his manner ; they imitated his habits. The talk of the turf, of the hunting-field, of the stable and kennel, sometimes even of the smoking-room, was to be heard from pretty young 110 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. lips ; their owners sometimes all unconscious of the horrors they were perpetrating. They tolerated far worse things than they practised. The young men came to understand that they need put little restraint on themselves in the com- pany of these young ladies. Therefore it was that the man- ners of this generation of smart young Englishmen deterio- rated. Nobody denies that they have deteriorated. It is not the men's fault, or not altogether their fault. The blame must be put on the fair shoulders of the young wom- en who permitted and encouraged the hcense which now characterises their male companions. Rightly or wrongly, they supposed that men's society was not to be had on other terms ; and as men's society must be had, what were they to do ? They had tried the poetry which the writer whom I quoted before thinks characteristic of the English girl, and not characteristic of the American girl. They had played the part of the simple, blushing maiden ; and played it as only those to the manner born could play it. They found, or their mammas found for them, that it was no longer to the taste of the persons whom they were bound to please. If they fell back on prose, are they to be blamed ? There are still waU-flowers enough for those who like them ; with all the charms of ingenuousness, of untouched freshness, of the most admirable ignorance of the world. The enchanting creature of whom English poets have sung for ages is not extinct ; she is only a httle out of fashion with the young man of the period. Her more enterprising sister comes to the front ; or perhaps it should be said, to the footlights. One last thing I will say on this subject, though not with- out some fear. It is of the American Girl Abroad that I have been vsrriting. I should not presume to say anything about her at home to those who know her much better than I can, on her native pavement. But I may be allowed to ask whether peradventure she may not gain something, as well as give much, abroad ? Europe, after all, is older than the United States. The difference is not important geologi- cally; socially it must count for something. She enters a THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. m world abounding in variety and charm. We Americans laugh sometimes at the sohdity of the English, their matter- of-factness, their want of vivacity and of lightness in hand. It is possible to say much against them, and to say it truly. It would be possible to paint a picture of Enghsh society as it exists which would be simply appalling. Every stroke would be truthful and the picture as a Avhole false. For with all its shortcomings in taste, in tact, in morals, in cult- ure, in conduct, English society is admirable. Its sterling qualities may be a little obscured to-day, a little brighter to- morrow, but there they are. Such a body of settled opinion on social subjects, such a code of social law, such numbers of well-bred men and women, so many delightful houses in town and country, such hospitality — where else are they to be found ? There is no society better than the best in Amer- ica but there is a great deal more of it, and there is much which is very unlike anything in America. It is not pos- sible that all this should not influence the fair American who enters these open doors. It does influence her. The American is, perhaps, at her best here. She has gathered honey from the gardens of two continents. I once heard a friend say, a person of authority in these delicate matters, that there was a type which was unapproachable — the girl who is born into the best society of America, who spends some years of her mature girlhood abroad, and who lives her married life in England. He might have had two or three women in his eye. I daresay he had. But whether he had or not, his opinion is worth quoting,— yes, and in the f uU flush of American success abroad, worth considering, too. 112 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. III. WHAT OUE ENGLISH FRIENDS HAVE LATELY BEEN SATING ABOUT HEE AND HEE ENGLISH HUSBAND. [London, Febi-uary 16, 1889.] If I return to her it is not because of her irresistible fasci- nations, still less to offer anything in reply to such English critics as try to iind flaws in her perfections. It would be enough to apply to the American Girl what Webster said of Massachusetts : " She needs no defence. There she stands ; look at her." If I have any object it is to give you a brief account of the present state of the English mind on this burning question and of what has been said, so far as it is striking or profitable. She has been talked about in London during the last few months more, I think, than ever before ; certainly more in the papers. It was, as I said in a letter written in Novem- ber, a recent marriage which all at once made her again a topic of discussion. The recent marriage is now an old story yet the mind of the Englishman is not at ease. Still less is the mind of the EngMshwoman at ease ; the English Mother least of all. The invasion continues. The American Girl still wends her way across the Atlantic ; stiU enters the open doors of Mayfair ; stiU dazzles all beholders ; still figures to the eye of the English Mother and her shrinking daughters as the most formidable of competitors in the English mar- riage market. So formidable is she, indeed, that she is but iU described by the coarse word competitor. She does not compete ; she is competed for. The literature of the subject is becoming large. The daily and weekly press contribute to it and the monthly magazines have begun to print articles on it ; the quarterlies may yet follow, and then nothing will remain to enhance the dignity and consequence of this fair creature but a book about her. Or one thing more may remain. The Arch- THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. II3 bishop of Canterbury may protest against her, as he did against the pubhcation of an American journal in London on Sunday. Who knows that it may not occur to this excel- lent prelate that the American Girl disturbs divine service ' on Sunday? She is too handsome or too well dressed, and the men look at her instead of their prayer-books, and so upon her well-shaped head may fall some of the archiepis- copal thunder which has lately roared in the ears of a too enterprising American editor. I have read most of what has appeared, or most of what I have seen, yet I cannot say that much of it is interesting, or instructive, or even amusing. Some of it is controversial. There were comments on my views and on many other views. Yet the subject is hardly one in which controversy is of avail. It is inquiry, observation, investigation, the power of seeing things as they are, and the opportunity of seeing them, which will avail, if anything will. I said some- thing about the English girl as well as the American ; it was difficult to write at all without making one of those comparisons which are proverbially odious. This one proved odious ; especially, which I thought odd, to the provincial critic. I hasten to assure him that it was not the provincial English girl whom I had in mind when I wrote. It is my misfortune not to know her; or to know her less than I should like to. I am ready to beheve, if he likes, that noth- ing I said is in the least descriptive of the young lady from Manchester. Thus shall controversy be avoided. It is, as might be expected, a British Matron whose con- tribution to this inquiry has been most valuable, or rather two British Matrons ; one in print and one in private. I will give each answer in its order. The English girl herself has, thus far, said nothing. She is true to her character and training. No more does the American Girl. I wish she would. I feel how inadequate are, and must be, all merely masculine attempts to deal with the subject. I am sure we aU leave out what is essential and characteristic. If the American Girl herself would but give us an autobiography ; 11— 8 114 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. or what would not be less entertaining, some of those vivid glimpses of other girls which, in private life, sometimes il- lumine the most casual conversation. Be it perception or be it intuition, it would in either case be delightful. If the English girl would but take the liberty of thinking for her- self, and seeing for herself, and speaking out her own mind on this exciting topic, she too would be delightful and in- structive. I know English girls who could do it if they would. I have heard them, and that reminds me to remind my Manchester friend that I said from the first that the ex- ceptions to the shyness and timidity which are traits of so many English girls are numerous and admirable. The retort of the British Matron was an ingenious one. It seems obvious enough, as so many other good things do, after you have heard them. It is not, says this intrepid woman, that Englishmen prefer American girls to Enghsh, but that the American girl prefers English to American hus- bands. I do not quote her. I summarise her. She well says that it is an explanation which no American would dream of offering. He knows too well what the conse- quences would be, and knows too much about the facts. Our British Matron offers it as a conjecture, or as an infer- ence, if anything so logical as an inference may be imputed to a British Matron. At any rate, it is original, it is novel, it is striking, and it is so good an answer from the British point of view that, if you do not know well the dehberate- ness of the British mind, you may wonder that it should never have been made before. It is when she comes to details that she betrays the weak- ness of her cause. She asks us to believe that the upper class young Englishman is better dressed, better bred, and a finer looking animal than the average New Yorker or Californian or — will our dear Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes take notice? — or Bostonian. After all, this is only borrowed from an Amer- ican. Emerson said that the English were the best of actual races ; but Emerson said it forty years ago, before the Amer- ican athletic period had set in. In borrowing, moreover, the THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. US matron has played a trick. Observe the perfidy of felnmine argumentation. She shps in " upper class " before English- man, and " average " before American, so that she is really contrasting the best of the Englishmen, physically speaking, ■with the average American. This runs through the ^vhole of her catalogue of alleged superiorities. The upper class Englishman is, if you believe her, better educated " from a woman's point of view," more companionable, more a man of the world, and, lastly, understands woman better than the average American. She grants all that has been said about the deference paid to women in America and puts it all aside with the blunt assertion that women all the world over like men to be masterful, that Englishmen are, as husbands or wooers, more masterful than Americans, and therefore the American girl likes the Englishman best. The other answer of the other British matron is British to the core. I give it as I heard it but I decline all responsi- bility for the answer, or for the consequences. "The plain truth is," said this English lady, "that with two exceptions every Englishman who has married an Amer- ican has married money. I do not say he has married for money, but the girl has had money, and the Englishman whom she has married has been in almost every case a man who could not have married without it." This formidable retort is not, at any rate, inspired by jeal- ousy or by the mortification of bafiied hopes or by anger at successful rivals. The author of it is a lady who has mar- ried her own daughters and married them well. Her atti- tude toward this question is, therefore, as impartial as any Englishwoman's can well be. She knows society; has known it for forty years as few women have known it. The social lore of London is at her finger tips. Her opinion will go as far as anybody's. But the same rejoinder will suffice for her and for the oth- er British matron ; the one who confided her views to the large type of a Sunday paper. They both assume a state of things which does not exist. They generalise from particular 116 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. instances. The American Girl is considered as a candidate. I have said already that she is not a competitor. Pier ap- pearance in the English marriage marlc et is purely accidental and exceptional. Each marriage must be judged on its mer- its. Take them all together and they are too few to supply material for any induction whatever. " We are in some dan- ger of panic in this country in regard to the American girl," observes one English writer : metropohtan this one, not pro- vincial. It may be so, and panic is a bad counsellor. It tends for one thing to multiply the number of the enemy. There are in England between thirty and forty millions of people. There are in the United States more than sixty mill- ions. How many Anglo-American marriages have there been; marriages in the class which alone is under discus- sion ? Are they a hundred in all ? Nobody who knows London would think of saying that the number is large. A few American women are Avell known in London society. It may be said of most of them that to be known is to be admired. I am not going to cross my matronly friend's t's for her in print, but privately I went so far as to ask her whether she thought that her two American wives who were moneyless were less admired be- cause they were moneyless. She did not think so. Of course there are, in fact, more than two. It does not from our point of view signify how many there are. It is enough to say that some of them have won signal triumphs without money and that with the most splendid successes of all mon- ey has nothing whatever to do. It does not strike one as overcreditable to the English husband of the American wife to urge that it was the dowry, and not the wife, he cared for. He might ask to be spared a defence of that sort. But he has a reply ready. He can point to the social con- quests of his wife ; to the position she won on her arrival and has maintained since. London society never asked whether she had money. If she had those personal quali- ties which insure social success she was welcomed ; if she had not, her miUions would be of little use to her. The bus- THE AMERICAN GIRL IN ENGLAND. II7 band is but one step ; it is what follows upon marriage, it is the influence of the American girl after marriage upon Eng- Ush society, that has to be explained. Neither of the two English ladies whom I have been quoting explains it in the least. I dealt with the money answer in my first letter and I repeat that when our English friends have said all they can about dollars, they have still to account for the continu- ing attractiveness of the American Girl. DUBLIN CASTLE. I. PEESONAL EEMINISCENCES OF LOED ABBEDEEN's VICEEOYALTT. [London, August 6, 1886.] The departure of the Viceroy of Ireland and Lady Aber- deen from Dublin on Tuesday gave rise, as you know, to a demonstration of the most striking character. I should have liked nothing better than to witness it; as I could not, I avaU myself of it as an occasion for reviving some memories of a visit to Dublin last March. I went on no political er- rand but spent ten days in the Castle with the Lord-Lieu- tenant and Lady Aberdeen, and saw something of the Vice- regal state kept there and something of their relations with the people about them. Those are the two matters on which, leaving politics and other vexed questions for the most part untouched, I offer you my reminiscences. I had permission to do this at the time ; a permission the more indispensable because I shaU touch on life within as well as without the Castle. The name of Dublin Castle is famous in two hemispheres, and conjures up visions of towers and battlements, of draw- bridge and portcullis, and aU the manifold magnificence of mediaeval architecture. I fancy most people expect to find it a second Tower of London. Arriving in Dublin very early on a March morning, I drove to it in a cab — not a car but a ramshackle four-wheeler which might have come by train and boat from London. Presently I found myself climbing a hill up which ran street-cars on a rather steep gradient. DUBLIN CASTLE. ng My driver turned sharp to the left; we passed through a gate which opened to admit us and entered a square sur- rounded on all sides by brick buildings, nowhere more than three stories high and everywhere singularly dingy and even dirty. Opposite the gate was a broad low porch beneath which the cab, to my amazement, pulled up. This Dubhn Castle? Impossible. The sight of a sentry pacing up and down and two or three policemen lounging about the doorway did not convince me. I put the question to one of them, much to the amusement of my charioteer. " Yes, sir, this is the Castle." Then I wondered how we got in without being challenged, knowing that after a certain hour at night and before a certain hour in the morning no one is admitted without the password. My driver did not look a man Ukely to be entrusted with such a talisman. However, I was expected, and orders had been given, and the guard had taken me for granted on seeing the luggage on top of the cab. If any doubts lingered they were dispelled by the appearance of a servant whom I had seen in Scot- land, and who saved the police the trouble of putting any questions had they been so minded. But I went to my room in much perplexity, which I finally solved by the comforta- ble conclusion that the cabman had brought me in the back way, and that I should soon see the true Castle and court- yard in its real splendour. Alas, I had already seen it. I had come in by the main entrance. During the next ten days I often Avent in and out and sometimes sauntered along the four sides of that hum- ble parallelogram, and to the last it seemed strange that this third-rate barracks should really be Dublin Castle. The one good thing about it is the lower yard where you may see a round tower of ample size, and the exterior of the chapel ; neither of them very fine, but neither of them ignoble. Of the interior of the Castle the most one can say is that it is comfortable. The main staircase owes such effect as it has to its panelhng of rifles and sabre-stars and other war- like decoration. The throne-room is of good proportions, 120 NOTES ON S0CL4.L LIFE. moderate in size, blazing with gilt furniture ; the throne it- self gilt beneath a crimson and gilt canopy. St. Patrick's Hall is the only room Avith pretensions to splendour. Lord Spencer in his time redecorated it in white and gold, and hung between its gilt pilasters some of the surplus banners and insignia of the Knights of St. Patrick. There is noth- ing in any way remarkable about the ordinary reception- rooms. The main drawing-room is long and narrow and looks on the dingy courtyard and is not much better fur- nished than the sitting-room of a good English hotel, which seldom approaches the standard of opulence common to sec- ond-rate hotels in America. This, however, is all that the Government of Great Britain thinks itself able to afford for the representative of the Queen. Time was, and not long ago either, when there was but one set of furniture for Castle and Yiceregal Lodge together. When the Viceroy moved, he had his choice between camping out in the Castle or camping out in the Lodge while the furniture was jour- neying from one to the other. It is in these paltry circumstances that the state and splen- dour of a Viceregal establishment have to be kept up, and are kept up. From the moment you enter to the moment you quit the Castle you are never allowed to forget that you breathe the atmosphere of a Court. The Viceregal household is on a great scale. The Viceroy has twelve aides-de-camp, of whom three at least are always on duty and always in uniform. There is a Controller, a Chamber- lain, a Chaplain — a long list of ofHcials of whom you shall hear more presently ; and they have, or most of them have, real duties to perform. It may be hoped that the Physician- in-Ordinary, and the Surgeons-in-Ordinary, and especially the Surgeon-Dentist-in-Ordinary, have sinecures. There is a Court Circular in which the movements of the Viceroy and those about him are daily chronicled, including arrivals and departures at the Castle and names of the guests who had the honour of being included, as the phrase goes, in the Viceregal dinner party ; exactly as at Windsor, or Osborne, or Balmoral. DUBLIN CASTLE. 121 The Yiceroy is addressed as His Excellency ; his consort is, by courtesy, Her Excellency. In speaking to him the household and the stranger say "Sir," — an appellative which, common as it is in America between equals, is in England never employed except in speaking to the Prince of "Wales, or some other male royalty ; or as a mark of sub- ordination in rank, military or other ; or as between stran- gers ; or by servants. It used to be understood among those who were staying in the Castle that we performed our duty and recognised oiu- fealty to a sufficient extent if we each said " Sir " to His Excellency once a day in private. In conversation in which outsiders took part the " Sir " was used strictly. It came from the lips of the ladies as weU as the gentlemen. Other marks of ceremony and of royal state were numer- ous. "Whenever His Excellency — he was never spoken of and never addressed as Lord Aberdeen — entered the room, everybody rose and remained standing till told to be seated, for which a gesture sufficed. It was the same at luncheon, to which the Yiceroy always came late; the whole table rose. The ceremony at dinner was elaborate. The com- pany assembled in one of the drawing-rooms. "When all were there, and not before, the doors were thrown open by an aide-de-camp who announced sonorously, " Their Excel- lencies ;" the "Viceroy and his consort entered together, the ladies curtseyed and the gentlemen bowed as he passed, the "Viceroy at once gave his arm to the lady highest in rank, and with her marched in to dinner. Lady Aberdeen follow- ing next on the arm of the greatest male personage present. This order of precedence was not altered even when roy- alty or royal kin came within the Castle walls. The Vice- roy, being the personal representative of Her Majesty, can- not derogate from his place. His precedence was one of the difficulties that stood in the way of the visit of the Prince of "Wales to Ireland. The Prince was not willing to take rank after Lord Spencer, nor was Lord Spencer willing he should. It required a special and reluctant dispensation 122 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. from the Queen to enable the then Yiceroy to yield up for the time being the Viceregal throne to the Heir- Apparent. But when Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, dined at the Castle, the Viceroy walked out before him; and after dinner the Prince went round and took his seat by the Viceroy's side — I thought with a certain hesitation. At dinner the host and hostess sat sometimes side by side, sometimes opposite each other. On occasions of particular ceremony, like the dinner on St. Patrick's eve, they sat side by side. It was His Excellency who after dinner gave the signal for rising ; then Her Ex- cellency curtseyed to His Excellency and went her way ; each lady followed in due order of precedence, each curt- seying to the Viceroy as she passed, who resumed his seat when the last had gone ; then the men sat down again and things went on as at an ordinary dinner-party. You per- ceive that the Eegal or Viceregal dignity appertains in strictness to the Viceroy only, and not to his consort, who in all matters of etiquette is his inferior, and perhaps sub- ject — curtseys to him, for instance, as the other ladies do. The ladies curtseyed I cannot say how many times a day, but certainly in the morning and again on saying good- night. All this sounds, I suppose, very stiff and a good Eepubli- can might be excused for thinking compliance with such forms wearisome. In fact, though they take time in de- scribing they take little in transacting, and the day passes amid Viceregal conventionalities very much as it passes in less august surroundings. They occur, after all, only at in- tervals, and though they must not be forgotten they soon become easy. Lord and Lady Aberdeen had experience of this long be* fore they went to Dublin. He for five years in succession had been Her Majesty's Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland. That is a function of no long duration but of dignity in many respects not less than the Viceroy- alty itself. During a fortnight in each of the five years DUBLIN CASTLE. 123 Lord and Lady Aberdeen had dwelt in Ilolyrood Palace, held drawing-rooms and levees, and there as in Dublin Lord Aberdeen Avas the personal representative of the Sovereign. I had spent a week in Ilolyrood with them, and the state they there kept up Avas perhaps in some points more royal than in Dublin. There is a difference between holding Court in Ilolyrood Palace and holding Court in Dublin Castle. Ilolyrood is really a palace, and though the Queen reserves a suite of rooms once tenanted by herself and Prince Albert, which no one is permitted to occupy, the great reception-rooms are open and are spacious enough to deserve the epithet pala- tial. We used to sit down to dinner 130 in the long picture gallery, all at one straight table ; the longest I should think in Great Britain. The Lord High Commissioner had the singular title " His Grace," like an archbishop, and the more singular quality that, though his mission was ecclesiastical and his daity duty to preside over the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, he was never to be seen out of uni- form. He had his aides-de-camp and went in state. Lady Aberdeen, too, had what she had not in Dublin, two ladies- in-waiting. In Edinburgh as in Dublin, the Aberdeens — ^if I may use a colloquial phrase — were thought to have filled their great part with such lavish splendour as few of their predecessors had attained to ; perhaps none. They had, at any rate, acquired the art of being at ease and of putting other people at their ease, even on the steps of the throne. These narratives of courtly etiquette are not, certainly, the most attractive part of what I have to say about the Aberdeens in Dublin, but etiquette is the frame in which their lives were set and the effect of the picture is never quite the same if the frame be wanting. So I go on, leav- ing to another letter what I saw of the relations between the Viceroy and the people of Dubhn. Perhaps I should also offer to my readers, enamoured as I know them to be of Kepublican simplicity, my apologies for presuming to discourse on what they might think solemn frivolities. If, 124 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. however, I am read by only half those who yearly besiege the American Minister in London for presentation at Court, I shall have a considerable audience. Presentation at the Ticeregal Court, indeed, is a privilege much sought for by the Irish ; not by all classes but by all those who are on the border line between the classes and the masses. One such spectacle I beheld. The great festi- val of the year at the Castle is the full-dress ball on the 17th of March in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, Ko Yiceroy, be he the veriest Tory in the Kingdom, omits this compli- ment to the patron saint and the patinotic susceptibiUties of the Irish people. In times past the Irish nobihty and gen- try of both parties have thronged the Castle on such oc- casions. 'Now passion runs too high, the nobihty see with dismay the Home Pule flag flying over their own head- quarters, and most of them were absent. It is hard to blame them ; the struggle is for them one of life and death ; of prosperity or ruin, to say the least. Neither among the Viceregal party staying in the Castle nor at the ball on the 17th were there more than two or three nobles whose names signified much, in a political sense, to the country or to their own order. Their Excellencies — to adopt for a moment the Court Circular style — entered the Throne Room shortly after ten o'clock, accompanied by His Serene Highness, General Piince Edward of Saxe- Weimar, K.C.B., Lady Fanny Mar- joribanks, Lady Victoria Hamilton, the Earl of Granard, K.P. and the Countess of Granard, the Earl of Belmore and his daughter Lady Florence Corry, the Earl and Countess of Eanfurly, the Earl and Countess of Wicklow, Lady Eva "Wyndham Quin, Lady Florence Bourke, Lord Carew, the Hon. Lady Eidley, Lady Hayter, and two or three others. Her Excellency's train was borne by the Pages of Honour, Lord Haddo (her son) and Master Hamilton. The Sword of State was borne by Sir Eobert Hamilton, K.C.B., the Un- der Secretary — the same Sir Eobert Hamilton about whom there has recently been so much discussion. Sir Bernard DUBLIN CASTLE. 125 Burke, C.B., Ulster King-at-Arms, was the OfBcer of State in attendance. Then came His Excellency's private secre- tary, Colonel Turner, the State Steward,.Yiscount Castle- rosse, the Controller, Colonel Caulfield, the Gentleman-Ush- er, Major Boyle, the Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, the Gentlemen-in-Waiting, and many more of&cials than I can enumerate. The Yiceroy took his place in front of the throne, stand- ing, Lady Aberdeen beside him ; the great officers above mentioned and the "Viceregal party grouped in proper order and placed on either side. Then the door to the left was thrown open and there began a slow procession of the ladies who were to be presented. So rigid is the rule, none might appear at the ball unless this ceremony had at one time or other been gone through with. Those now appearing were the belated ones who had failed to attend at one of the regular drawing-rooms. Nay, even the ladies who had been staying in the Castle for a week as guests had to undergo this formality. "When Lady Fanny Marjoribanks had been presented by the Countess of Granard and Lady Hayter by Lady Fanny Marjoribanks, the turn of the outsiders came. They advanced along the farther side of the room oppo- site the throne. At the angle an official — I am afraid I have forgotten which — awaited each trembhng maiden or matron, took from her the card on which was written her name, read it out, passed it and her on to his colleague near- er the throne who repeated the name to the "Viceroy. Ar- rived in front of His Excellency, the debutante sank to the floor in the lowest curtsey she could manage, the Lord-Lieu- tenant held out his hand to raise her — a support which to some of them was plainly welcome, and even needful — and, as she came up, kissed her lightly on the cheek. Blushes came and went on the faces thus touched by the Viceregal lips or moustache, and I even thought I saw a faint flicker of colour on Lord Aberdeen's face as he bestowed this salute on the ladies best known to him. But it had to be done, and among the fine young officers on d\xij that night there 126 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. would have been plenty of volunteers ready to relieve their Viceregal master, had he sought relief. Then the young ladies — they were mostly young — curtseyed once more to Her Excellency, and so passed on. From their coming in to their going out not more than two minutes had elapsed and the drawing-room was over in less than half an hour. The procession was then re-formed and the Lord-Lieutenant and suite and guests proceeded to the ballroom. The scene in St. Patrick's Hall Avas, notwithstanding the absence of so many who are wont to be present, a very pret- ty one to behold. The company had drawn to either side, leaving an open space along which advanced the glittering Viceregal column. The Lord - Lieutenant was in f uU uni- form ; dress coat of dark blue or green, colour nearly invisi- ble beneath its massive embroideries of gold, white breeches, cocked hat ; altogether a costume which showed to advan- tage the handsome dark face with its full but closely trimmed black beard and flashing eyes and well-set figure. Lady Aberdeen was in St. Patrick's blue, neck and shoulders blazing with gems. The officers of the household were in full uniform or full Court dress, and the rule was the same for every one else. As an American I was allowed to be present in ordinary evening dress, by favour of a courtly fiction based on the theory that this was the dress which Americans would wear at a reception by the President. The myriad hues of all this gorgeous raiment were the more dazzling against the white walls, and the spectacle al- together one of the most picturesque anywhere to be seen. The one thing wanting was that Irish beauty of which one has heard so much. The peasant beauty could not, the beauty of gentle birth would not, come. There were deli- cious exceptions but the majority of the Irish women failed to justify the fame of their country for loveliness. The ball began with a country dance which the Viceroy and Lady Aberdeen led ofP, and then was very like other balls till four o'clock next morning. But here, as on every public occa- sion, the Viceroy, when not dancing or talking, sat apart. DUBLIN CASTLE. 127 There was a dais at one end of the hall and a throne on the dais, and from time to time Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant resumed his place. Lady Aberdeen sat beside him ; every- body else Avho went np into their presence stood. Not the least peculiar performance of the evening was the proces- sion. There were, I suppose, a thousand people at the ball, far more than the ballroom could hold, and they scattered through the supper-room and other reception-rooms of the Castle and the corridors. Toward one o'clock in the morn- ing the entrance procession was re-formed. The Yiceroy and Lady Aberdeen and their household and guests walked through the rooms, people ranging themselves as they passed, and gazing, and plainly perceiving that they were looking, if not on royalty, yet on a personage who shone with a light directly reflected from royalty. IL LOED Am) LADY AEEEDEEK AND THE lEISH PEOPLE. [London, August 10, 1886.] Much remains to be said of the social and ceremonial life of the Castle — much more than I can ask you to find space for. Lord Aberdeen entered upon his Yiceroyalty about the middle of February 1886, when nearly half the ordinary period of residence in the Castle had already passed. Cus- tom ordains that the Viceroy shall spend but two months out of the twelve in the Castle ; the other ten months he is at the Viceregal Lodge in Phosnix Park. It is during his residence at the Castle that the official receptions, drawing- rooms, dinners, and other entertainments are given. The splendours of twelve months are compressed into two. In Lord Aberdeen's case they were still further compressed into about five weeks. He found means to do at least as much in five weeks as other viceroys have done in nearly twice that time. One of the oldest residents in Dubhn, a man 128 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. distingiiished in the University and in society, told me that during his forty years' experience he had never known so much accomphshod in the way of entertaining at the Castle as by Lord and Lady Aberdeen. I used the word society. I suspect society in Dublin is dependent on the Castle to an extent unknown in other capitals. When I asked another old resident what social hfe in Dublin, outside the Castle, was like, he gave a sur- prising answer, " There is none." And he went on to say, "How should there be? there is no money. Country so- ciety is a thing apart. In Dublin itself there may be two or three persons with fortunes of £10,000 a year; not a dozen with £4000. A professional income of £2000 or £3000 is thought handsome." Yet there are fine houses in Dublin and the people who live in them have the air of liv- ing at their ease. One which I visited had rooms of noble proportions, decorated and furnished with a taste which would put to shame many a mansion in Belgravia or May- fair. Balls, parties, the usual gaiety of a city of 300,000 people, seem nevertheless to be little known. Trinity Col- lege itself would furnish no mean contingent. The garrison would certainly supply another. It cannot be cultivated and agreeable men or women who are wanting. But the Castle absorbs all. "When the Castle shuts its gates and the season comes to an end, the people of Dublin, like people in London from October to May, have probably much agree- able intercourse. It is, of course, only in a social sense that the Castle can be said to be closed during ten months of the year. It re- mains from January to January the great bureau of Irish administration, where all the civil authority (that of the National League excepted) has its source and centre. If the Viceroy is at the "Viceregal Lodge, and the Chief Secretary attending in his place in Parliament, the Under Secretary is there, and he it is who transacts the multitudinous business of which the Castle, as it is ever present to the Irish mind, is the seat. DUBLIN CASTLE. 129 The Yiceroy is under the sway of strict etiquette in social matters. He can give invitations. He cannot accept them. He is never to be seen in society outside the Castle waU, or except as a figure in a pageant. He drives or rides, and al- ways with an aide-de-camp and other escort. One day he proposed a walk. The hour was fixed and I asked where we were going. " Oh," answered His Excellency, " you know I am not allowed to walk except in the Pound." I did not know it. It was a new ghmpse, if not of the divinity that doth hedge a king, of the unbending punctiho which fences ia the life of a Yiceroy in Ireland. You have heard of the Pound. It is a grass plot of an acre or so in the rear of the Castle, the other sides enclosed by high stone walls next to which runs a gravel walk. I had heard the wife of a former Lord-Lieutenant describe the weariness of her daily promenades in this place. That was at a time when the peril of assassination was hourly, but even now there was, it seemed, no extension of Yiceregal privilege. The Pound was supposed to be a place of safety. But on two sides, at least, lofty houses look down on it, buildings which the masses tenant. It is not beheved that Lord Aberdeen has been in danger but, as I walked with him round and round and round this walled space, it was impossible not to think how easily and surely a bullet would find its way from one of those upper windows on either hand. Lord Spencer used to walk there, and so did Lady Spencer in the days when murder was in the air. I daresay the po- hce knew something about these overlooking garrets and had taken their precautions. Nor was Lord Spencer the man to spend much time in this prison pastime of pacing a yard, pinioned in a circle. His way was to drive soberly out of Dublin to the open, where horses waited for him and his aides-de-camp, and away they went across country. By a curious coincidence, when the Meath hounds were out Lord Spencer used to fall in with the hunt and join it, and the flowing beard of the Red Earl would be visible from II.— 9 130 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. afar as he sailed along, always in the first flight. A bold rider and a good one, and ready to risk the chance of a shot any day for a gallop. More than once has he been known to give his escort the slip and his horse the rein, and not . come back from his truant trip over the turf till they, and many besides them, had lived through anxious hours. Lord Aberdeen, too, is a good horseman, and when the all but un- relaxing pressure of social duties would let him used to have his gallops far outside of Dublin. Inside the city neither the Lord - Lieutenant nor Lady Aberdeen was ever to be seen without some obvious marli of their station. The Viceregal turn-out is known to every- body there : a huge, heavy, open landau, on high springs, with four horses, and postilions and outriders ; an aide-de- camp always on the front seat inside (in the Spencers' time with his hand never off his revolver). A car of detectives went first, mounted police followed, then came the Viceregal equipage, an escort closed the procession. Never shall I forget the first drive I took in these circum- stances with Lady Aberdeen. The experiment of a Home Eule Viceroyalty was still in an early stage. I had heard in London reports of the Viceroy's popularity and of hers but they were vague reports, and nobody in London knew what the attitude of the people of Dublin — of the masses — really was. Precautions were observed, though the escort had been diminished in number, and the old state, of course, was still kept up. As we drove through the gateway and past the guard-house, the guard turned out and presented arms to Her Excellency. Once out in the street, the scene became extraordinary. Not a working man, not a loafer, not a beggar, who did not pull off his hat or his cap in salu- tation to Lady Aberdeen. Wherever she drove, evidences of respect and affection followed her. If the carriage stopped, a little crowd gathered and there were cheers for " the Countess," as they called her by choice. Ragged little boys hailed Her Excellency with a whoop of delight and turned innumerable cart-wheels for pure love. The car-drivers gave DUBLIN CASTLE. 131 her the road. People came running out of shop doors and tilled the windows to see her drive past — a sight they had seen daily for a month. Sometimes a nosegay was tossed into the carriage. One day an old man crouching at the corner of a street scrambled to his feet and came to the salute as the carriage reached him ; he had evidently been a soldier. If the Yice- roy or Lady Aberdeen were expected at a particular place, there was always a crowd, and the crowd always had its homage to offer in some shape. All this you might take for granted since the great explosion of popular goodwill at their farewell last week. But in March it was novel, and even startling. JS^othing I had to tell when I came back to London surprised people so much as these demonstrations of personal regard. The same people, or the same classes of people, showed nothing but ill-will to Lady Spencer ; a woman whom the Irish would have adored as they adored Lady Aberdeen, had circumstances been favourable in those days to adoration. This favour and goodwill which Lord and Lady Aberdeen enjoyed spread itself like a beautiful halo on those about them. One morning I was to drive with her and two ladies of the Yiceregal party to see a parade and review of the Dublin police at their barracks. As we stood in the portico one of the ladies proposed to me to walk. She was dressed, not for walking, but for driving ; costume of velvet and sables. I knew the police barracks were in a poor quarter and I must say I hesitated. It was difficult to guess what sort of recep- tion a lady — So richly clad as she, Beautiful exceedingly — might meet with in the by-streets of Dublin. Had it been London I should have told her plainly it would not do. No woman in that attire could have safely walked even the slums of "Westminster hard by the Palace. I remembered, too, the rather appalling story told me of an English lady who. 132 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. while a visitor at the Castle not many years ago, had tried a short cut through a bad quarter, and had narrowly escaped after much insult and some pelting with mud and with vege- tables of no market value. However, after a pause which I hope was imperceptible, I said I should be delighted and we set out on foot. IsTeither of us knew the way. "We plunged almost at once into a dismal neighbourhood. "We met no pohceman and hardly one man or woman well dressed. I asked for the road from half a dozen men whose united wardrobes would not have got a loan of as many shillings from the most patriotic pawnbroker. The answers were not always instructive — my ear is a dull one for the Dublin brogue — but always civil. "We came presently to St. Patrick's Cathedral, not far from which, and in f uU view, runs a street which must be the Pet- ticoat Lane of Dublin. It was Saturday, the market day of the poor, and the street was filled from doorway to curb and from sidewalk to sidewalk with booths, with pedlers, with a closely-packed multitude of buyers and sellers, cos- termongers and their barrows, fruit, fish, crockery, wares of many kinds. Nothing would satisfy my companion but a stroll through this street. The crowd was so dense that neither we nor anybody else could walk quickly. The Dublin rough was there and the masses in their most picturesque variety, male and female. If it had been London, I repeat, I am certain we should never have got through. The velvet and sables would have been transferred, to shoulders much less shapely, and we should have had a practical personal application of Mr. Chamberlain's doctrine of ransom. Being in Dublin, amid a grim squalor and a blank hopeless poverty which beats anything I ever saw in London, we came through triumph- antly. Not a word was said to either of us, nobody begged, people stood aside to let us pass, and we were not even stared at ; we found nothing but the most entire courtesy from one end to the other. The explanation was simple. All these people perceived instantly that this lady must be DUBLIN CASTLE. I33 a guest at the Castle, and whoever was a friend of the Aber- deens would find friends, and friends only, in the streets of DubUn. Thus early in their reign had the Yiceroy and Lady Aberdeen found their way to the affections of the Irish peo- ple. They owed part of their popularity to the fact that they were there as ambassadors from Mr. Gladstone, already a convert to Home Kule. Their intimate friendship with him and loyalty to his policy were well known. Another part they soon conquered for themselves. They used to say they did not see how anybody could live a week in Dublin without being a Home Euler. Others have tried it and found it possible. But the warm sympathies of Lord and Lady Aberdeen went out at once to this sympathetic people. The part Lady Aberdeen played is not a new one to her. In Scotland, in London, or in Dublin, her energetic benevo- lence is the same ; possibly in Dublin and as the wife of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland she found more play for it. I do not think there was a day while I was in Dublin that Lady Aberdeen was not visiting a hospital, or opening a bazaar, or giving away medals, or engaged in some work of active charity. She had the most practical notions about encour- aging Irish industries. The garden party at the Viceregal Lodge, where every guest was bidden to dress in Irish fab- rics, was the best known of her efforts in this direction. The Dubhn shopkeepers could teU you of many others. There were, I should think, few Irish industries and no Irish charities that did not profit by her efforts and expenditures, and the manner in which her help was given doubled the value of it. Probably the manner was as much as the mat- ter, with people whose sensibilities are so keen as are those of the Irish. There was at this time much distress in Dublin. I suppose there always is but in March it had become acute. The Viceroy and Lady Aberdeen wanted to do something to re- lieve it ; and the question was. What ? Strictly, the subject 134 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. was a municipal one, and the relations between the Castle and the Mansion House were then what they had long been ; there were none. The Lord Mayor of Dublin had never pre- sented himself at a levee nor held any communication with the Lord-Lieutenant. The attitude of the ISTationalist party was still one of observation ; not to say suspicion. The an- tipathy to the Castle was too deep rooted to be forgotten in a month. Etiquette forbade the Yiceroy to make advances ; perhaps policy, or it may be politics, stayed the steps of Lord Mayor Sullivan. What Lord Aberdeen did in this dilemma was worthy of a diplomatist, and of something better than a diplomatist. He caused it to be made known unofficially to Mr. Sullivan that if he would call together a meeting of representative men without distinction of party, he, the Yiceroy, would attend and do what he could in aid of the movement thus set on foot. The Lord Mayor welcomed the suggestion and acted at once. The meeting was held at the summons of the Lord Mayor. In accordance with Lord Aberdeen's wish, nothing was said of the part he had taken in proposing it but it was announced that the Viceroy would be present. He was present and made a speech, and a fund was started to which he contributed, and the movement took the usual course, with many benefits to the poor of Dublin. Nobody knew more than that the Viceroy had helped. The Lord Mayor had the credit of the whole, as it was meant he should, and it was not from either of the Aberdeens that I heard the true account of the matter. This was the meeting at which Lord Aberdeen was said to have shaken hands with Mr. Michael Davitt ; a fact, if it be a fact, on which there was much angry comment. Mr. Davitt was certainly there on the platform with the Vice- roy and made a speech, which I heard with disappoint- ment. But I cannot say whether the handshaking occurred. iTor does it much matter. When the Lord -Lieutenant of Ireland and the ex -convict and actual agrarian agitator had stood on the same platform and spoken for the same DUBLIN CASTLE. I35 cause, they had, as Victor Hugo would say, shaken hands morally. Other murmurs there have been against the Yiceroy, not unlike this about Mr. Davitt. Needless to say his rule has not been to the taste of the Irish landlord. The landlord party have always said that the late Viceroy had abdicated in favour of the National League. Lord Aberdeen had the title and the pay ; Mr. Parnell governed. They scrutinised his acts jealously. They complained that he tolerated open disloyalty; listened to serenades where the band played " God Save Ireland," and did not play " God Save the Queen," and where the crown had been torn off the harp. He accepted addresses from the municipahty which dehght- ed to call itself " rebel Cork," and from Limerick while still in open defiance of the courts and the law. When he went away last week there were Fenian emblems, no Union Jacks, and many American flags. These are but samples of the complaints, and the absence from the Castle of most of the Irish nobles, to which I referred in a previous letter, empha- sised them. It could not be otherwise. No one pretends that Ireland is a united nation. Whoever has a part to play in Ireland must take one side or the other, and there never was any doubt that the flag which the late Viceroy hoisted was the flag of Home Eule. It was not Lord Aberdeen but Mr. Gladstone who, having to choose whether he would govern Ireland or let Mr. Parnell govern it, elected for the latter alternative. The Viceroy played the part assigned to him. No man could have been a better ally to the Prime Minis- ter. He administered his great office with tact, with the courage of his opinions, with business-like ability, with un- questioned energy and devotion, with the splendour befitting the representative of the Queen. Lord Aberdeen went to Ireland almost unknown to the Irish people. If they knew anything about him, it was that he was a Scot and a Presbyterian ; two qualities not well calculated to commend him to a population of Irish and 136 NOTES ON SOCIAL LIFE. Koman Catholics. He is, however, in some sense, a Celt, and so there may have been some mysterious race sympa- thy between him and his subjects. Nobody found that out, however, tiU he had lived among them, and till he had left Ireland respected and beloved as no Viceroy has been since Lord Fitzwilliam. NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. THE QUEEN DUEING A CABINET CRISIS. THE EFFECT OF HEE ABSENCE FEOM LONDON WHILE A MINISTET IS FOEMING. [London, June 12, 1885.] The absence of the Queen from London at the beginning of such a crisis as the present was unfortunate and incon- venient. Her delay in returning marks in only too signifi- cant a way her royal indifference to public opinion. The moment of a change of Ministry is one of those when the power of the Crown may be exerted most visibly — must in fact be exerted, whether visibly or not, and must be strength- ened in the general opinion precisely in proportion to the conspicuousness with which it is exerted. When Mr. Glad- stone had to announce to the House of Commons the resig- nation of his Ministry, he wrapped it up in courtly and con- stitutional ambiguities of which no man is more completely master ; to which no man is more completely slave. All he would say was that he had felt bound to address a dutiful communication to Her Majesty. Everybody knew what he meant, and knew that a very considerable political author- ity had all at once passed into the hands of the Queen. The Queen might accept Mr. Gladstone's resignation. She might refuse to accept it. She might do neither, but caU upon him for further explanations. I say further, because ex- planations of course accompanied the resignation, and made part of the dutiful communication first addressed to the Queen. If she accepted it, she might then send for anybody she liked to form a new Administration. Her discretion 140 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. is, in a sense, absolutely unfettered, or fettered only by the obligation to take a prudent course and to consult the in- terests of the country, with due regard to the possibilities of pohtics. She might ask one of Mr. Gladstone's colleagues to take up the burden. It was for a moment supposed she had actually summoned Lord Hartington to Balmoral with a view to proposing it to him. Nobody has forgotten that, when Lord Beaconsfield resigned in 1880, the Queen sent for Lord Hartington and Lord Granville before falhng re- luctantly back on the man she most disliked. She could not force Lord Hartington or Lord Granville to take office but she could, and did, give them the chance. That shows how real her power at such a moment is. In a nice balance of parties, or sections of the same party, her royal choice would be decisive ; as decisive it was between Lord Palmerston and Lord John Euasell. She could fairly elect in this pres- ent crisis between Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford North- cote, and though it is very improbable that the latter could form a Ministry he might like the comphment of being asked to try. But in order to avail herself to the full of this constitu- tional authority in the formation of a new Government, the Queen ought to be in London. The inconvenience, to use the mildest word, arising out of her residence in a remote Highland castle, is enormous. She is not even to be reach- ed by railway ; whoever travels to the royal presence must post on from Ballater-to Balmoral. Prince Bismarck lately told the world how much he preferred oral to written com- munications in important business. But here is Mr. Gladstone, to whom his doctors absolutely forbid a journey over the long 600 miles which lie between London and Balmoral, who must send a written statement, and a full one, of the reasons which have led him to place his resignation in the hands of Her Majesty. It is a case, if ever there was one, for talking things over. So obvious and so cogent are the reasons which demand the Queen's presence in or near London, that it was assumed on Tuesday that she must come south at once. But THE QUEEN DUEING A CABINET CRISIS. 141 no. Mr. Gladstone's messenger raced off to the Highlands ; is now racing back again ; and a conversation of some sort is meanwhile carried on by telegraph between the Sovereign and her Prime Minister. Yesterday, after three days' delay, urgent public business growing all the while more urgent. Lord Sahsbury was sum- moned to Balmoral ; started last night, and is at this mo- ment travelling at full speed through a country alive with reminiscences of Mr. Gladstone's wonderful progress last summer and autumn ; reminiscences which Lord Salisbury, considering his errand, may turn over in his mind with some grimness of cynical humour. The Kedistribution Bill is hung up. The question of peace or war with Eussia is hung up. The issues of order or disorder in Ireland, the momen- tous alternative between coercion and conciliation, are wait- ing to be determined. All Europe is astir with excitement over this English crisis. Old alliances are crumbling, new combinations of the great Powers are forming, or at least are being discussed, along every wire between every capital on the continent. Every Cabinet and every Chancery in Europe is on the alert. But all England and all the rest of Europe are kept in suspense because it does not suit an ex- cellent lady with a taste for Highland air to quit the fast- nesses of Aberdeenshire and come within hailing distance of her capital and her Cabinet. From the most selfish point of view she ought to be here. The Queen's absence from London is a standing grievance of the Londoner. She cannot endure London but she might endure it for a few days. She hates coming to Windsor be- cause next week is Ascot week and Ascot is so near Wind- sor Castle that the noise of racing revelries by night and by day only a few miles off disturb, or are deemed to dis- turb, the royal repose. But if she would come to London for a week, live in Buckingham Palace, give a dinner or two, and drive about London in an open carriage, she might en- hance considerably both her personal popularity and the prestige of the Crown. All London would see for itself that 142 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. the Queen was, for that week, the centre of power and the sole source of Ministerial authority. The defect of the Eng- lish is a defect of imaginative power. What they do not see with their eyes they only half believe. Honarchy at a dis- tance, invisible, acting by messenger and telegram, is noth- ing like so impressive to this people as monarchy in the per- son of a woman, respected and beloved, visible in the streets, and visited at every hour by the greatest men in England anxious to take the commands of their royal mistress.. That is something which would be remembered for a generation. Crowds would fiU St. James's Park and cluster about the tall railings of the palace, watch for the Queen, and cheer her as she went about. Half the world would beheve that Lord Salisbury received his commission by the spontaneous selection of his Queen. The other half would know that in the end it is circumstances, the choice of the Commons, the final wish of the party, and not the predilection of a woman, which determine his accession to power. But the acclama- tion of even half the world is worth having. There seems no doubt that the Queen Avishes Mr. Glad- stone to keep office and does not wish the Tories to come in just yet. It is understood that her first answer to Mr. Glad- stone's first message — by telegraph and by rail — was a re- monstrance against his resignation. She sees as clearly as anybody the reasons Avhich make the acceptance of office by the Conservatives an act of political imprudence, and why the Liberals are delighted to go out. But as Mr. Glad- stone insists she sends for Lord Salisbury, and the result of his journey cannot be known till next week. Meantime Mr. Gladstone is believed to have told the Queen that, whatever his own wishes might be, he is no longer in a position to carry on the government of the country. Noth- ing would induce some of his colleagues to continue in office ; no majority can be had in the House without them ; no Min- istry without Mr. Gladstone himself could command a ma- jority. It is open to the Queen to urge that any Tory Cab- inet whatever must be under a similar disability. The reply THE QUEEN DURING A CABINET CRISIS. 143 to that is that the Tory Cabinet will be a Cabinet of Affairs, existing, so far as the House of Commons is concerned, on sufferance; neither able nor incUned to enter upon any scheme of legislation or carry any measure to which the Liberals are opposed. I confess I think it doubtful whether a leader of Lord Salisbury's temper will accept such a role as this with entire acquiescence in the plain necessities of the case. But even Lord Salisbm:'y must do what he can and not what he would. He will have a free hand, once he gets rid of Parhament, in foreign affairs, which both to him and to the Queen are of paramount interest. The two wiU talk it over this even- ing. But one of two things will happen. Either the Queen must come to London (Windsor also is London for practical purposes) or she must give Lord Salisbury a blank cheque, to use Mr. Goschen's phrase, for the composition of his Cab- inet. It is possible for an incoming Prime Minister to make one journey to Balmoral. It is not possible for him to re- peat it every time a question arises as to the distribution of offices. The news to-day is that the Queen will return early next week. That will be in time for the completion of the new Ministry ; not in time to take full advantage of the sit- uation for herself and her throne. THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. [London, January 21, 1886.] It is a bleak day with a bitter wind blowing, and under- foot the streets present that particular combination of melt- ing snow and thick mud which London is most proud of. There comes not a ray of sunshine to enliven the scene or to encourage loyalty. The Queen is to open Parliament in person. Not for six years has she transacted this ceremony ; not since that February in 1880 when her beloved Lord Bea- oonsfield stiU held the office of Prime Minister which he was so soon to lay down. Absit omen cry the Conservatives ; not without reason and but too vainly. The Gladstone Ministry has come and gone in the interval, and the parti- sans of Mr. Gladstone remark wrathfuUy that it is only for a Tory Government that the Queen will show herself to her faithful Commons and more faithful Barons at the beginning of a parliamentary session. Within and without the House of Lords the ceremony is so splendid that it seems a pity Her Majesty will not oftener undertake it. Once a year would not pall on the pubhc, nor has London so many spectacles as to grow easily weary of them. There is a great turn-out of people for this, in spite of the weather. I had been warned (needlessly as it proved) to be early in my place at the House, and came through St. James's Park just before noon. The Queen was to leave Buckingham Palace at half -past one. Along the roadway by which she was to drive people were collecting in groups. OPENING OP PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. 145 I found as I came into "Whitehall that barricades had been stretched across just above the Horse Guards, the building through which the Queen and her escort were to enter the street. Early as it was, these defences were already garri- soned by mounted police and pohce on foot. The public had not been allowed to pass in carriages since half-past eleven. But the Guards were not very vigilant. They let you go by at sight of a piece of white paper, not taking the trouble to scrutinise it. So I drove on through the barriers and between ranks of helmeted constables of whom, alto- gether, some four thousand must have been on duty, with sundry battaUons of Household Troops to lend them a hand should the need for it arise. From the Horse Guards to the Peers' entrance of Parliament Houses is a short quarter of a mile. At four intervals the police were formed across the road and were turning back the unprivileged, but in every case I found the back of my card answer all the purposes for which the engraved front was designed. If a man had time and looked about him or if, being unhappily only too famihar with the scene, he gave a moment to reflection, he would be aware that every inch of this ground is historical. Here have been enacted some of the most splendid and some of the most sorrowful deeds in English history. The driver goes not a whit the slower for all that. He pulls up neither for the tragic past nor for the picturesque present, nor for the police, until we have left St. Margaret's and Westminster Abbey on one hand, and find in front of us a string of car- riages at the gateway of the House of Lords. At the door more police. A civil officer announced that no one could enter before twelve. The hour struck as he spoke, but stiU he said they must wait for orders before ad- mitting us. The military spirit ruled ; the police is half mil- itary in its organisation, and in these doubtful days, with fresh rumours of dynamite filling the air, is more alert and more precise than ever. Presently appeared the handsome, anxious face of Mr. Inspector Denning, who rules supreme in and about the Houses of Parliament. I heard afterward II.— 10 146 NOTES ON PAELIAMENT. he had just come from a search of the vaults and other suspicious places in this vast labyrinth. Pie looked keenly at the little group of people who had gathered at the door, each with his card in hand ; seemed to make up his mind that none were in Eossa's pay, half recognised one or two of us, and gave the word that we were to go in. The porch beneath which we had been standing was the Peers' En- trance. It had been curtained for to-day with gaily striped awnings ; a shelter only too sure to be needed in the midst of the sleet and snow which hung in the air. The awnings stretched on either side for a dozen yards, and from beneath them you looked across the broad space to Henry the Sev- enth's chapel and the whole fabric of the Abbey ; while to the right rose the Victoria Tower. Within gleamed the scarlet and gold of the officers to whose command were in- trusted the halls and corridors through which the Queen was presently to pass. Once inside and advancing along the endless corridors of this vast palace, you are in the hands of a solemn type of functionaries ; or rather many types. They are, I suppose, doorkeepers and ushers, but I should not like to commit my- self to any specific designation of any one of them. The majority were clad in black coats, with wlfite ties, black breeches, and Mack stockings. About the waist of each hung a metal badge, which was sometimes of silver and sometimes of gold — on the surface. They proved a less con- fiding race than the police. As I went on I was repeatedly asked to show my ticket, and on approaching the inner sanct- uary a close examination of it took place ; I was so early that no similar card, apparently, had come under the notice of the gray-haired office-bearer who stood at the last door- way. "What's this?" he asked. I replied with humility that it was an order of admission to the House of Lords, proceeding from the office of the Lord Great Chamberlain and signed by the Deputy Great Chamberlain. Satis- fied on this point, the gray- haired one next scanned me sternly from head to foot but presently relaxed the sever- OPENING OF PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. I47 ity of his gaze and motioned me to go on, and I went upstairs. " North Gallery," said my card, and knowing this to be the gallery which faced the throne in the Peers' Chamber I thought myself sure of a good view. Being one of the first to arrive I reckoned also on a seat ; but had reckoned with- out my host. My host, if I am so to style him, is a great official and if I am his guest it is, I must own, a little against his will. A friend to whom I owe many thanks, whose in- fluence and even authority are great, had applied in my be- half for a place. He was met at once with the objection that I had been present on the last similar occasion. A great book was opened and there was the record of guests or spec- tators in 1880, and my name was pointed out. The fact was undeniable and threatened to be damning. It seemed to operate like proof of a previous conviction at the Old Bailey. Promises which my friend volunteered of future good con- duct on my part, and a pledge never again to be seen in such company, were aU unavailing. It was unheard-of that a ticket should be issued twice in succession to the same per- son. The book was closed ; the negative, he said, was final. But later, and under some kindly pressure, this austere offi- cial relented, so here I was in the JSTorth Gallery, with rows of vacant benches to choose from, it seemed, but seemed \vrongl3^ The benches and every single seat in the gallery were reserved for ladies. The spirit of gallantry and of gen- tle consideration for the gentler sex had seized upon the of- ficial mind. Mere men were tolerated but only on condi- tion of standing behind the women. If we had been in court or evening dress we should have looked like so many footmen in attendance on their mistresses, but we had been mercifully permitted to come in morning dress. As our nar- row pew filled I found myself in excellent company, a dig- nitary of the Church, the President of the Eoyal Academy, the private secretary to Lord Salisbury, and others. It is only quarter past twelve and we have at least two hours to wait. But there is always something going on, 148 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. and there is always the hall itself to look at. In the bright- est sunlight that ever falls upon London it is but a gloomy room. Not a ray of white light enters it. The lofty Gothic windows are filled with painted glass ; perhaps some of the worst painted glass ever seen. The walls and roof are pan- elled in oak of a deep colour that would be effective if it were due to age and not to the stainer. The flat, groined ceiling — if groined be a permissible word as applied to a flat surface — is plentifully gilded, as are the throne, the bal- cony railings, and bits of the woodwork here and there. Frescoes there are also, but gold leaf and frescoes alike have undergone the inevitable corrosion and tarnish of this cli- mate and they are, at best, but a duU relief to the brown monotony they were meant to set off. In this dilemma the upholsterer has been called in, and this ingenious person has covered the floor with crude green and the benches with leather of a red that is neither cherry nor crimson but the hue of curdled blood ; the sickening red in which Tintoretto has painted the wounds of his martyrs. What is tolerable on canvas in the half -hidden gashes of quivering flesh is in- tolerable when spread over bald surfaces of smooth and shin- ing leather. There must be half an acre of it when the room is quite empty. To make the matter worse, the few peers scattered about the benches are robed in scarlet; the dais is covered with a fabric of Indian looms, a dye beauti- ful in itself but killed by the flaunting colour to which it is opposed. By the time the British uniform, of a scarlet more brilliant than the peers' robes, has appeared upon the scene, the conflict of tints that will not blend becomes distressing to the eye. The magenta hues of the windows and the nameless reds of the ladies' gowns add to the confusion, and it is not till a throng sufHcient to hide the benches has as- sembled that anything like harmony of tone is diffused through the room. The proportions of the hall are good. The decoration in wood will not, indeed, bear studying in detail. There is a perpetual repetition of the same motif; the same design OPENING OF PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. 149 recurring in every panel with wearisome monotony. The panels and crockets, the corbels, the mouldings, the treat- ment of shaft and muUion and rib, are marked by the same poverty of invention, the same incongruous application of Grecian theories to Gothic decoration. All the strength, the severe simphcity, the rigid adherence to a uniform model which suits the classic orders, are alien from every species of true Gothic, and betoken the feebleness of thought and want of individual freedom in the workman who has to deal with a style that becomes meaningless when it ceases to be various. The woodwork behind you as you sit in the gallery is carved into crosses, each cross of the same dimen- sions, and the hmbs of each are inscribed with the le- gend, " God save the Queen." To right and left, as far as you can see, this poor conceit is repeated. For aught I know it covers the whole side of the haU, and the other side, and the ends. Her Majesty cannot really need so many in- vocations to preserve her from evil. For variety's sake you are inclined to add that blunt one from the prayer-book, " Grant her in health and wealth long to live." For the purposes of this ceremony the usual arrangements of the House have been disturbed. The veil in front of the throne has been withdrawn. The Peers' seats, aU but the front row, are assigned to ladies ; who, however, have to surrender a railed-off corner next the throne to the diploma- tists. The woolsack, in front of the throne — a broad sofa without back or arms — is left to the Princesses. Two simi- lar sofas in rear of this and at right angles to it are for the judges. The front bench below the diplomatic corner is for the bishops. The ladies have the side galleries, except a space devoted to " foreign gentlemen," and the whole of the Stran- gers' Gallery and the tribunes at either side of it. The press tribune is strictly kept for the press. As the seats in the side and end galleries were not reserved by name or number, holders of tickets for those places came early and there was some competition for good positions. The press- ure for admission was very great ; yet while on the Minis- 150 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. terial side every seat was filled, on the Opposition side there remained quite fifty vacant places. It may be that the Op- position Peeresses are too good Liberals to care to swell a triumph in which the Sovereign is made to appear as the ally of the Tory party. Early as it was, the chamber below us wore already an air of animation. Functionaries in quaint garments were moving busily hither and thither. On the right of the throne, near one-third of the benches were filled with ladies and every minute more were arriving. The eight sun-burn- ers of gas pendant from the flat-ribbed ceiling were ablaze, but even with the help of the dim light which found its way through the stained glass of the outer windows the place was none too well illuminated. On either side of the throne rise two tall candelabra, whose scores of candles remain unlit. The sanguine said more gas would be turned on when the Queen came, but they were too sanguine, and none was. There was no gloom, there was only an absence of the lu- minousness wanted to set off to the height the lavish gilding, the gorgeous frescoes, the endless magnificence of innumer- able costumes. The galleries were filling more rapidly than the floor. All the ladies in front of us in this North Gallery were in court dress like those below ; nothing wanting but the train, and some scrupulous ones wore trains also; of which they had much difficulty in disposing beneath the narrow benches. Feathers in the hair were compulsory, as at a drawing-room, but this rigour was not enforced as at a drawing-room, where any one offending in the least particu- lar of the specified raiment would be ruthlessly held back by stern chamberlains from the royal presence. I saw perhaps half a dozen f eatherless ladies in front of me. "Wraps were kept on. The temperature of the chamber was not many degrees above freezing. The Queen is known to be unable to bear heat and has a fancy for open windows and thorough draughts in the coldest weather. The ushers who swarm about the doorway to the left of the throne meet each lady as she arrives. One of them in- OPENING OF PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. 151 spects her card, examines the plan with which he is equipped, and solemnly conducts the high-born dame to her seat. You may have a look at them as they pass beneath the gallery. They are in full dress, or what passes for full, but as yet the fulness of it is hidden beneath a cloak. You remark that many of them seem to have been carefully drilled for this appearance. They advance with a measured step and col- lected air ; their trains sweeping the floor three yards be- hind them. There have been disrespectful foreigners who said that the English women do not walk well. The disre- spectful foreigner would have had to reconsider his opinion had he been present on this occasion. Not all but many of these admirable creatures have a marked dignity of gait. It is, to be sure, rather more commonly dignified than graceful, but it is sometimes both. One of the most beautiful women in England walks up the aisle with an undulating ease of movement, a careless yet firm step, an indolent grace, and with it all a natural distinction of manner, which are more often found in the women of Southern Europe than here in this island of the North. On the opposite side sits another beauty of an un-Enghsh type to whom the diplomatists are paying court, whose vivacity and rapidity of talk and gest- ure are such that she passes for French with those who do not recognise her. There are other beauties but I saw none of those who are, or once were, ill - naturedly called professional. Presently arrive three judges and twice as many bishops ; all robed. The judges are in scarlet and ermine, and wear wigs. Now the judicial wig is a suflBciently imposing head- gear when the judge is on the bench and the spectator re- gards him from below. Yiewed from above, it bears a close resemblance to a beehive. The bishops are also in scarlet and ermine, with some arrangement in black and white un- derneath. The two archbishops, he of Canterbury and his brother of York, are here ; the latter a prelate who owes preferment, not to his suppleness of soul or his gifts as a courtier, but to his intellectual abihty. They are both talk- 152 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. ing with the diplomatists ; of whom there are no two aUke in dress or demeanour, as there are no two who do not stand for ahen races and represent nations or sovereigns of the widest divergence. Most splendid of them all is the Persian Minister, a Prince and the envoy of a Prince. His dark face is set oflE by a uniform resplendent with barbaric pearl and gold, with a jewelled sword pendant from a sash whose brilliant green is only one of a dozen colours that only an Oriental would dare wear together. So subtly are they contrasted and subtly harmonised that they no more quarrel with each other than the verdure of the trees quar- rels with the azure above, or either of them with the sun- light. There are two men whom nobody recognises ; a tall soldier in plain blue and red, and another of less height, the front of whose long coat is a mass of silver embroidery down to his knees, with a broad red sash across it from shoulder to waist. The Ambassadors and Ministers are, in- deed, the finest sight of all ; no such mass of glowing and various colour anywhere else to be seen. Their uniforms are heavy with gold and prismatic in hue, some of them glittering with gems. The American Minister came in good time, and in his plain evening dress was much the most con- spicuous figure amid his bedecked and dazzling colleagues. Dress him how you might, his figure and easy dignity of manner would attract attention anywhere. Opposite gathered a little later a group of royalties. The Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of Cambridge sat together on the front Opposition Bench, while at the end in his peer's robes stood the Prince of Wales leaning over the rail and talking to a lady who sat behind his brother. I use the terms Ministerial and Oppo- sition benches but there is of course no political significance in the distribution of people to-day. The Peers, ministers excepted, have proved their gallantry by giving up nearly the whole of their own seats to their wives and daughters or other Peers' wives and daughters ; or to ladies who for the time being pass as wives and daughters of Peers. One OPENING OF PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. 153 of the latter told me that she was invited to the last open- ing by a noble lord now deceased, famous among other things for the coolness with which he set aside all such rules and regulations, whether of his own house or of gener- al society, as did not suit his own convenience. As they en- tered, an official asked him, with deference but firmness, who was the lady. "My daughter." The official knew that he had no daughter, but the answer was decisive, and they passed together on to the sacred floor. To-day most of the ladies as they arrive are shown to the benches on the right of the woolsack, and there find such seats as they can. But the seats on the opposite side are reserved. I can see from my perch cards on each but I do not know on what principle, if on any, some are so much more favoured than others. The favoured ones arrive naturally later than the less favoured, and some do not arrive at all, for among these dames remain seated to the last some of the squires Avho had gone to chat with them. The Peers lounge in one by one. They are not easy to recognise in the queer scarlet dressing-gowns they caU their robes. The upper part of the gown has bars of white fur edged with gold lace ; the number of which increases, I be- lieve, with the rank of the wearer. It were hard to say who looked most queerly in this disguise; whether Lord Houghton's kindly-cynical countenance or Lord Eosebery's sculptural young face — cynical and kindly this too — seemed to be more hardly treated. Lord Granville came as late as possible. The Duke of Bedford was one of the first, but the Duke like many of his colleagues postponed to the last the awful moment of robing. They wandered about the House in morning dress till shortly before the royalties were expected. In the end, less than a hundred Peers took their seats. As their seats on this occasion would hardly hold more, the absentees cannot be much blamed. There is one point in which to-day's proceedings resem- bled those of an American political convention. They open- ed with prayer. I ought to have mentioned it earlier, for it 154 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. occurred Ipng before the Queen came and long before the royalties whom I have already named had appeared. But one cannot always be chronological. The prayer came mid- way between the opening of the doors to the throng of sightseers and the approach of Her Majesty. This indeed is, in theory, like any other sitting of the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor took his seat at one o'clock instead of four or five, and the Bishop of Southwell read prayers. After which matters went on as before. But I must cut short the story of these preliminary incidents, remarking only that the two hours during which I looked on had not a dull moment in them. The decorous vivacity of the scene never grew still, save when the loud and slightly harsh tones of the bishop imposed silence on everybody else. The music of low voices filled the chamber, the ripple of laugh- ter was unceasing ; every moment entered some great per- sonage. Celebrities were ever visible ; great ofiicers of the royal household, great Ministers of State, great ex-Ministers, Peers great by rank and some of them by character and serv- ices ; women Avhose beauty or other renown has filled a kingdom for years past ; some of them not unknown across the Atlantic. There was, moreover, an Anglo-American con- tingent and also an American ; one American lady whose charm of manner and gracious presence London has rather lately learned to admire ; another for some years an orna- ment and an idol of English society ; a type of beauty, dis- tinction, originahty, intelligence ; to whom the homage of English and American alike is offered. The Princess of "Wales is absent. Some of us remember her appearance six years ago on a similar occasion when she entered the chamber with the Prince, the whole audience rising. She is still visible to the mind's eye as she was then, radiant in her youthful loveliness, sparkling with diamonds, perfectly dressed, perfect in every movement. So deliberate was the pace that you had ample time to note how admira- bly this lady had been bred for the part she had to play ; how complete was her composure ; how clear and untroubled OPENING OF PARLUMENT BY THE QUEEN. I55 the glance of the eye ; how winning the smile ; what an en- tire absence there was in the face of anything like self-con- sciousness ; how natural was her expression and how easily her glance took in the whole assembly ; how quietly she ac- cepted the silent homage of her future subjects ; being all the while, if one dare say so, perhaps just conscious of the admi- ration offered to the woman. The Prince conducted her then to the woolsack, greeted her with a scarcely perceptible bow as she took her seat, and established himself comfortably in the chair to the right of the throne. If the Queen left Buckingham Palace at half-past one she is due on the throne at two o'clock. She is ordinarily punct- uahty in person, and all was in readiness for her some ten minutes before the hour boomed from Big Ben. The Peers in their strange robes of scarlet, ermine barred, crowded the cross benches and the two longitudinal front benches on either side. The judges formed a compact square of red gowns and gray wigs just in front of the woolsack, on which the Lord Chancellor, with his short figure and face that for ever reminded you of Mr. Toole, stiU laughed and nodded right and left. Every seat in the open side and end gal- leries was filled with ladies, a few attaches of embassies and legations excepted. As the hour drew near, the Prince of "Wales quitted the lady to whom he had been talking, as- cended the dais, and took the seat on the right of the throne to which he is heir. There he waited, motionless. The hush grew deeper, the last murmur of lingering conversation died away, and still we waited. The door on the left behind the throne was closed, but through that on the right could stiU be seen a cluster of scarlet uniforms. Once or twice the door to the right opened, but only to close, and twice Sir Francis Seymour, Master of Ceremonies -to the Court, entered and crossed and quitted the chamber. At ten minutes past two came a blast of trumpets. The Queen had arrived at the outer entrance. The whole com- pany rose. The Prince rose and remained standing. A mo- ment later, the door to the right opened, and amid perfect 156 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. stillness, broken only by the involuntary rustle of silk and the never silenced stir of a multitude, the head of the rajj-al procession was seen advancing, pursuivants and heralds in quaint attire leading the way. The age of chivalry is not gone ; it survives, if in nothing else, in costume. These liv- ing relics of another and more picturesque civilisation move as if the weight of armour still burdened their limbs. It is not the cuirass but the tabard wrought in strange device; the corselet has gone, but the doublet and mantle are here with rampant lion and leopard couchant, the royal arms of England and Scotland and I know not what else emblazoned in velvet and silk, in or, argent, and gules. Eouge Dragon and Eouge Croix, Portculhs and Bluemantle, head the pro- cession. The middle ages are walking in. The feudal sys- tem is here in person, and all you have read of tournaments and court pageants is masquerading before you. To mention anybody out of his order or not to menticm him at all is, I fear, a sort of petty treason ; but, on the oth- er hand, a knowledge of precedence and of heraldic myste- ries and official titles is the acquisition of a lifetime. I can only Jumble together such as I happened to know or have heard of. And the best of these great people did not all know their business. They had to bow to the Prince on the left as they entered, to the Princesses on the right, to the Duke of Edinburgh, to the Duke of Connaught, to the Duke of Cambridge, and I know not to whom else. Long before they had completed these obeisances the heads of some of them began to swim, and royalty was cheated of some of its due genuflections. But greater people are behind, whom equerries attend. The Controller of Her Majesty's Household, ISTorroy King of Arms, Clarencieux King of Arms are here ; the Gentle- man Usher of the Black Rod follows him, who precedes the Earl Marshal of the Eealm. The Cap of Maintenance is car- ried by the Marquis of Winchester, high privilege to which he hath ancestral right as Premier Marquis of England. The Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council are rear- OPENING OF PARLIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. 157 guard to the Cap and advance-guard to the Sword of State, borne by the Marquis of Salisbury as Prime Minister. He wields this gilt but formidable weapon as if he would gladly lay it down ; not as Lord Beaconsfield bore it, upright in his two hands straight before him, pride in his port and with profound enjoyment of the pageant wherein he was so great a figure. These and many other great personages streamed in, so far as one could see, in no particular order, but each in shining raiment or uniform of blazing scarlet and gold, and grouped themselves about the throne. The Queen appears. Her Majesty moves slowly through the door with that astonishing dignity of bearing which nigh fifty years of sovereigntjr have bestowed upon her short stout figure. She acknowledges the grave greeting of her lieges by scarcely more than a glance of the eye. The head bent slightly, perhaps, but I am not sure. I thought she had grown gray since last I saw her, and that the lines of the temples and about the mouth were cut deeper than ever. It can never have been more than a comely face, and there is nothing, strictly speaking, in its contour, and nothing in the figure, which can be called beautiful or noble. "What strikes you, nevertheless, is the air of authority and the air of stern sincerity which sits upon this royal brow, and marks the least gesture of the Queen. The sadness of the face is profoundly touching ; the firmness with which the burden — the all but intolerable burden — of her life is borne, appeals to your re- spect. She is here, they say, to mark once more her sympathy with the First Minister of the Crown. But politics are forgot- ten in such a presence ; and any criticism one has to offer is put decently aside so long as the woman and the Queen is here. Her Majesty is clad in deep black trimmed with ermine at the edges ; her gown, with low neck and long train, is better made than when she last walked through that door, near six years ago. On her head a diadem of brilhants ; on her neck glows a living light which flashes to the farthest end of the hail — the priceless Koh-i-noor. The Prince of Wales quits the chair by which he is standing, descends the two 158 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. steps of the dais, meets his royal mother, bows low, kisses her hand, and conducts her to the throne ; does it aU with considerable grace and irreproachable humility of demeanour. With the Queen is the Princess Beatrice in ruby velvet, whom, it seems, we are now to call the Princess Henry, and attending Her Majesty is the Mistress of the Kobes (Duchess of Buccleuch), and a Lady of the Bedchamber whom I can- not name. Other ofiBcers of the Household follow; the Lord Steward, the Master of the Horse, the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, the Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms ; but on none of them do any of us bestow many glances. We are all watching the Queen as she mounts the two steps and seats herself on the throne, where the royal robes of crimson velvet and white silk em- broidered in gold, which she ought to wear, are hanging. When she has taken her seat the royal robes do certainly look as if they were part of the attire of the occupant of the gilt arm-chair. The procession clustered about the Queen. The Princess Beatrice stood beside her mother on the right, the Duchess of Buccleuch behind, and in their company two sons of the Prince of Wales, Prince Albert Yictor, in Hussar uniform, and Prince George. The scene was at its height of brilliancy ; is more brilliant, I think, than any other anywhere now to be witnessed; brilliant with colour, with the beauty of women, with gems, with rank, with great names, with historic associations. Cloaks and wraps had dropped off as the company rose, and wonderful was the gleam of white shoulders sparkling with youth and Avith precious -stones when this transformation was wrought. Many of these great ladies were in black, but there were gowns of sky blue and white and rose colour and many another dehcate or splendid tint, and the jewels they wore would have more than ransomed all the Kings and Queens still on European thrones. A blaze of colour was everywhere, scarlfet for once blended with crimson and crimson with ruby red, the black and gold harmonising the most discordant dyes. OPENING OF PAELIAMENT BY THE QUEEN. 159 There was a long pause, and the Queen motioned to her lieges to be seated. Then the silence was rudely broken. A messenger had gone to summon the Commons and soon there came a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and then appeared the Speaker with his Chaplain and Serjeant- at-Arms ; the three borne forward quite irresistibly by the crowd behind, and vainly striving to preserve an air of re- pose. They moved as if that mighty wind were thrusting them on — you have seen men in that attitude of being help- ed forward faster than they like. Behind them roared the multitude. They poured in upon this decorous audience- room as if they would take it by storm. But there is a bar- rier beyond which they cannot pass. They rage against it but it holds firm. To-day, as always. Her Majesty's faithful Commons are admitted only into a pen at the farther end of the room, holding perhaps a third of their number, all stand- ing. They have, however testified their devotion to Her Majesty by their extreme impatience to arrive in her presence. When the storm had subsided and stillness had come again the Lord Chancellor turned to the Queen, knelt, and offered her a roll of paper, which she put aside. This is the Queen's speech. Obedient to her gesture he rose, unrolled the paper, and read it. We had all hoped the Queen would read it herself, which they say she does very well, but the fatigue of the day seems to be enough for her without that. Lord Halsbury makes himself easily heard, and we listen in dead silence. Nobody in this august presence of royalty on its throne dreams of applauding. Then the Queen rises ; all rise with or before her ; she descends, having Prince Al- bert Yictor by the hand. The Prince of Wales steps for- ward as if to accompany his mother, but after a few words she passes on alone. The procession which came with her in stately measure goes out as it best can, and there breaks forth again throughout the House of Lords the eager sound of voices impatient of twenty minutes' silence. The cere- mony was over ; Parliament had been opened by the Queen in person. 160 NOTES ON PARLUMENT. Leaving at once, I found myself at the corner of Palace Yard just as the Queen came by on her return journey. The carriage, and still more the three footmen in livery who clung behind, were magnificent ; so were the trappings of the six cream-coloured horses who drew the whole. Her Majesty showed her face — it is a rubicund, strong visage — cheerfully out of the window, and with the clank of trotting cavalry mingled the grateful sound of her cheering people. The next minute came a sound less grateful. Across the road leading to Westminster Bridge was a stout barricade of timber guarded by police, and behind it an angry mob, who groaned. They groaned loudly and more than once, and the Queen's face as she heard it flushed a deeper red. The same thing, I was told, happened at another point of the route. But I testify only to what I saw and heard. In another moment the carriages and troops had passed. NEW AND OLD PEERS. ■ I. LOED EOTHSCHILD AND LOED LIKGEN. [London, July 2, 1885.] The new Peerages and other honours bestowed by the departing Government on its supporters are perhaps less numerous than was expected. Some have been refused. Mr. Gladstone set the example by declining the Earldom which the Queen offered him. It was fitting that the Queen should offer it ; stiU more fitting that Mr. Gladstone should decline it. To accept a Peerage would be to abandon his leadership of the Liberals ; perhaps to imperil his unequalled popularity. His present position recalls a celebrated saying of Gambetta. A friend remarked that he had no title or cross or decoration, not even the Legion of Honour. Non^ answered the great Frenchman, mais fen clonne. So does Mr. Gladstone. The Eothschild Peerage is the one which is most talked about. If there are people who object to it, they are peo- ple who chng to old prejudices against the race to which Sir I^athaniel de Eothschild — to give him his old name once more — belongs. It must be admitted that there are such people, and some of them are to be found in the order which is now for the first time thrown open to a Jew. Their grumbling need not detain us. I do not doubt that Mr. Gladstone, though the strictest of Churchmen, rejoiced in the offer he was able to make to the head of the Eothschilds, aU the more because of his alien faith. He is in such roat- II.-ll 162 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. ters, or at least in this matter, a Liberal first and a Church- man afterward. Nobody disputes the fitness of this gift on personal grounds. Sir Nathaniel de Kothschild has been the chief of the house for some ten years. He inherits his English bar- onetcy from his uncle, Sir Anthony, who took it with special remainder in. default of male issue to his nephews, the sons of Baron Lionel. The services rendered by the firm of Messrs. N. M. Eothschild and Sons to the Government are matters of notoriety. The million sterling they advanced for Egypt is one of the latest, but perhaps the most remark- able. They lent it on the expression of a wish by the Eng- hsh Ministry, or rather by Lord Granville ; one more in- stance of the curious relations between the English and Egyptian Governments. The loan has not been paid off ; was, indeed, renewed once more after the accession of the present Ministry. Sir Nathaniel's father was the first Jew to sit in the House of Commons; the hero of that long contest which ended in the triumph of free principles over narrow bigotry. Events move rapidly in these days yet it is not quite easy to convince one's self that less than thirty years ago a Jew had no place in the House of Commons. The oath required was " on the true faith of a Christian." Baron Lionel omit- ted these words ; the House decided the omission to be fatal to his claim. In 1858 a special resolution moved by Lord John Kussell cancelled the obnoxious phrase. Eight years later came the law by which the oath for both Houses was made identical. Sir Nathaniel himself is the official head, one may say, of the Jewish community. He is President of the United Syna- gogue and of the Jews' Free School. He has never with- drawn himself in any way or in the slightest degree from the fullest communion and association with his own people, nor made the least concession to the stale prejudice against his race and his faith. The Kothschilds are not of the an- cient priestly lineage which counts for so much among the NEW AND OLD PEERS. 163 Jews. The place they fill they have conquered ; not inher- ited. Perhaps that would not be their least recommenda- tion to Americans. Another thing will recommend Sir Nathaniel de Eoths- child to Americans. He was one of the few Enghshmen who foresaw the triumph of the Union in the Civil "War. At the moment when things looked blackest, he invested the whole of his personal fortune in American securities. He was then a young man of twenty-three ; his father alive ; his position not even, I think, that of partner in the firm whose fortunes he has since directed and enlarged. "With a just pride in his name, he takes no territorial designation but will be known hereafter as Lord Eothschild. His reception was a historical scene. The Earl of Eose- bery, who married Lord Eothschild's cousin, and Lord Car- rington, were the supporters of the new Peer. Nothing of the strictest Jewish ceremonial in the taking of the oath was neglected. Lord Eothschild put on his three-cornered hat, produced a Hebrew Bible of his own, and swore upon that. Never before did the Peers of England look on while one of their number took the oath covered, or took it on an- other book than that which Christendom accepts. The oc- casion was thought so interesting that both parties to the ceremony wanted to keep a memento of it, and both fixed on the Hebrew Bible. Lord Eothschild gave it up grace- fully, and it is deposited, I suppose, in the archives of the House ; whatever they may be. You perceive that Sir Na- thaniel de Eothschild has elected to drop the particle. His title is Baron Eothschild ; a modification of the family name as it has always been borne in England. Probably none of his creations pleased Mr. Gladstone more than that of Sir Ealph Lingen, who becomes a Peer. Sir Ealph Lingen's claim to distinction consists in his guardian- ship of the Treasury, of which he has been permanent secre- tary since 1869. Of the bureaucracy of permanent clerks who reallj'' govern this country, he is perhaps the chief. The Treasury is supreme over everything except the House of 164: NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. Commons ; grants and withholds money ; supervises every expenditure ; prevents much, limits what it does not prevent, and asserts in all sorts of ways the power of the purse, and of the purse-bearer. Sir Ealph Lingen is the impersonation of this system. Mr. Gladstone has been known to eulogise him as one of the greatest living benefactors of his country. He is a ferocious economist ; parsimonious with public mon- ey ; looking upon the chief of each spending department as a public enemy, against whom he defends the public treas- ury. Be his services greater or less, he has his reward. II. LOED IDDESLEIGH. — LOED SALISEUET. — LOED CAENAEVOIf. [London, July 12, 18S5.] The ceremony of introducing a freshly made Peer to the House of Lords is, in ordinary cases, slightly comic. The red robes which his new lordship wears are gorgeous and historically correct ; yet they seem to have been lent for the occasion by Mr. D'Oyly Carte, and they suggest lolanthe and the Savoy Theatre. You look twice to make sure wheth- er the tenant of the woolsack is the real Lord Chancellor or Mr. George Grossmith. The supporters of the novice — there are two of them — have been irreverently likened to the tame elephants which coax the wild elephant into captivity. The business is, however, done rapidly. The oath is administered with a speed and precision worthy of the New York Custom House. I happened to see the new Earl of Iddesleigh and his two tame friends leave the House and Avalk through the Princes' Chamber after they had transacted this little piece of pageantry — I had all but written pantomime. The two tame friends were Earl Beauchamp and the Earl of Devon. T^hey were all on their way to the disrobing room and very glad they looked to have the business over. Of the pride you might have expected to see in Lord Id- NEW AND OLD PEERS. 165 desleigh's port there was none. In the circumstances, pride is not the feeling likely to be uppermost. He was there by no will of his own, but by the will of a much more wilful man. Lord Eandolph Churchill. His robes were a perplex- ity if not a distress to him. His look was appealing, and seemed to deprecate the curiosity which attended his retreat. He would have liked to escape unobserved. A little later I saw him in the House itself. There he sat on the Front Bench between Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Eichmond. It was an unusually full house. The new Prime Minister was to make his statement, and something in the nature of a dress debate was expected. The Prince of Wales occupied his customary corner on the first cross bench ; the Duke of Cambridge next him. Peeresses crowded the gallery ; the steps of the throne were not less crowded. If there was any part of the chamber which looked empty it was the quarter where the Liberal peers sit ; there are not enough of them to fill the seats to which they are entitled. Amid all the glitter and animation of this scene the figure of the new Lord Iddesleigh was pathetic. He was ill at ease, dejected, and I thought aged. The Sir Stafford North- cote who has so long been a familiar personage in the other House never, perhaps, gave the beholder the impression of buoyant energy. In his best days his pace was a little slow ; he seemed to wake up reluctantly from the repose which is permitted to the eminent occupants of the seats on either side the table. His repose will now be much less often dis- turbed. He seemed aware of this, and had settled himself as for a long nap. There was something, too, of that same desire of escaping notice which I had seen as he stole through the Princes' Chamber. He wore his hat far down over his eyes ; from the diplomatic gallery where I sat hardly anything of his face was visible ; only the tilted beaver, and the long yellow- ish-gray beard, with a bit of nose in between. It was the first time the bold man had covered himself in this gilded chamber, thronged with men bearing half the most ancient 166 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. names and greatest titles in England. An American pres- ent, to whom all this was novel, asked Lord B. why the Peers kept their hats on their heads. "Because they have no- Avhere else to put them," was the prompt answer. Lord Id- desleigh's head was down between his shoulders ; the yellow- ish-gray beard showed white against the black coat; the chest was hoUow ; the hands lay loose and flat on the un- crossed legs. As he cautiously turned his head, and seemed to be inspecting his new abode and the possessors of it, his air was that of a man in doubt whether he might not be tliought an intruder. He seemed to say to the Peers, " Pray excuse me ; it is not my fault. I would not have come here if I could have helped it." His hat sat as uneasily on his brow as if it had been a coronet. At moments he was not quite sure he might not have forgotten to put off that bauble ; his hand wandered timidly to the hard brim to make sure. When he had convinced himself that no part of Mr. D'Oyly Carte's costume clung to him, there came over his face an expression of relief, and once more he relapsed into limp immobility. The melancholy of Lord Iddesleigh was the more marked by contrast with the demeanour of his neighbour and chief, Lord Salisbury. Nobody will ever accuse Lord Salisbury of timidity of manner. He has been Prime Minister but a few days, yet his bearing is that of a man who has ruled an em- pire with ease from his youth upward. Almost alone among the two or three hundred nobles present, he sits bareheaded. The afternoon sun streams down through the painted glass, and falls in many hues on the high capacious forehead. The forehead is broad at the base, narrowing as it rises ; a little bald at the crown of the arch, the long black hair touched with gray. It is odd that nobody should ever have remark- ed his resemblance to the common prints of Shakespeare. The face is wider, the jaw stronger, but the general contours of the two are very hke. There is no mistaking the power of this countenance. The dark eyes send out flashes from beneath the jutting brow. The only other light that comes from the austere features is NEW AND OLD PEERS. Ig^ the smile which, though humourous now and then, is always cynical. The mouth teUs you little or nothing from behind its screen of thick moustache and beard. He is a big man, deep-chested, of good stature, a trifle round-shouldered. The head is set too far forward ; a stoop makes it look still far- ther, and the arms hang away from the body. He is in black, and his frock-coat, slouching in fit and unbuttoned, helps to give him a clerical look. I never saw Lord Sahsbury nor heard him speak without being reminded of the pulpit. His powerful, resonant, but not very deep voice has none too much flexibihty of tone. His dehvery is measured, his gest- ure seldom expressive. To-day, more than ever, he chooses his words and shades off phrases that begin as if they were meant to be abrupt. He knows very well that all Europe is listening and that every sentence will be studied in every chancellerie of the Continent. I think it must be said that his speaking is less effective as a Minister than as a leader of the Opposition. He is by nature and temperament a critic; likes attack better than defence ; delights in invective, understands it, and is, on the whole, the greatest master of it among the public speakers of the day. He puts a restraint on himself which is obvious as he says that his present business is not to find fault with the way in which things have lately been managed abroad, but to accept the conditions provided for him. The excellent Conservatives who sit behind him hardly know what to make of this prudent temper in their chief. They are used to hear his trumpet ring defiance ; this afternoon there is hardly a note which is not of peace, and they forget to cheer. Some of them look as if they were wondering whether it was for this that the Tories have come into office — that Lord Salis- bury should say ditto to Mr. Gladstone. He does not quite do that but he justifies the predictions of the friends who foretold that he would astonish the country by his modera- tion. Curiosity is by no means satisfied when Lord Salisbury sits down, for he has left Lord Carnarvon to deal with the whole 168 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. Irish question. The new Viceroy takes off his white hat, steps forward to the table with a cheerful air, and begins without hesitation one of the most difficult speeches any man had ever anywhere to make on any subject whatever. His talk is nothing less than to announce the abandonment of coercion. That means the direct contradiction of everything every Conservative speaker has been saying about Ireland for the last five years. Lord Carnarvon goes through it with jaunty resolution, and quite succeeds in not seeming to be aware that he has been deputed by his party to renounce so many of their past professions. An intellectual face, amiable, alert in manner, slight in figure, flexible of mind, ready of speech, and — if I may quote the very realistic ob- servation of a friend — a target not easy to hit. It is an odd destiny which sends an accomplished man of the world like Lord Carnarvon, with his academic habits of mind, to be the "Viceroy of Ireland. If it be true that the Ticeroyalty is shortly to be abolished, he as weU as any other may prepare the way for this change. It would not be fair to judge of his oratorical powers by the performance of to- day. The task is too difficult. Lord Salisbury himself has shrunk from it. The majority are out of sympathy with their leaders. Lord Carnarvon cannot but feel that he has his audience against him. But he goes on to the end with the same hghtness of manner ; cheered, if not by those about him, by the reflection that he has smoothed the path he has to tread to-morrow in Dublin. THE BISHOPS AS LEGISLATORS, Am) THEIE ATTITUDE TO THE DECEASED WIFe's SISTEE. [London, July 29, 1883.] The Peers last night threw out the Deceased Wife's Sis- ter Bill by a majority of five against the third reading. The step is an extraordinary one from all points of view. It is customary to regard the second reading of a bill as the deci- sive stage. If the second reading is carried the principle of a measure is affirmed, and its opponents thereafter confine their efforts to impairing the efficiency of it by "amend- ments " in committee. Through this latter process this bill had passed, not unscathed. Sundry compromises, on which I need not now dwell, had been agreed to by Lord Dal- housie, or had been forced upon him, and according to all the ordinary rules of warfare the friends of the bill had a right to consider it safe. But between the second reading and the report, various things had happened. I described the other day the at- tacks which the Church press had made upon the Bishops, and the reproach they had incurred among the most bigoted of their flocks on account of what was thought the luke- warmness of their resistance to this " incest bill." Less pub- licly, but not less effectively, pressure had been put on the lay Peers, of whom many are peculiarly susceptible to cleri- cal influence. The result of aU this was that Lord Beau- champ in behalf of the Duke of Marlborough gave notice that the rejection of the bill would be moved. The notice had an appearance of fairness. Time enough was given to lYO NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. rally the supporters of the measure, if time were of the es- sence of this question. But the hostility of the Church is more energetic and is better organised for au emergency than the friendship of the Dissenters who are its leading supporters. The band of 165 who carried the second read- ing were dispersed over the kingdom. Some had gone to the Orkneys, some were in Ireland, some were at the New- castle races. Lord Dalhousie's management has been ex- cellent throughout and his efforts to recall them were ener- getic. Enough of them returned to make the division again one of the largest known in the history of the House of Lords. But the result was as above stated. The Bishops of course turned the scale. But for their seventeen votes against it, the measure would have passed, and they have therefore contrived to raise again in a sin- gularly definite form the question, Why Bishops have seats and votes in one branch of the Legislature. The historical answer we all know but the historical view is not to-day the most important one. Time was when, with a majority of Englishmen, it was sufficient to say that a thing always has been, or has been for a long time. They assumed that it was rightly so and ought to remain so. That spirit has given Avay to a very different one. If the Bishops were wise they would not give occasion for this sort of inquiry. Wise they may be in matters spiritual, but as children of this world they have a way of doing uncommonly foolish things. They have taken a very conspicuous part in oppos- ing a bill on which a great many people have set their hearts. They are unanimous against it. They have suc- ceeded in throwing it out by purely episcopal votes. The majority, the very large majority, of the House of Commons is known to be for the bill. Who and Avhat are the Bishops of the Church of England that they should be able to defeat the known will of the elected representatives of the people of England ? They are clergymen, and the office of clergyman is deemed in the House of Commons too holy to be profaned by contact THE BISHOPS AS LEGISLATORS. 171 with the business of l&w-makmg. A clergyman, cannot be a member of the House of Commons, but in the so-called Upper House he can and does sit. CaUing him a Bishop does not make him the less a minister of religion. He is in point of law the nominee of the Crown. In point of fact he is the nominee of the Prime Minister. Some of the men who formed last night's majority were made Lords Spiritual by the late Lord Beaconsfield ; some by his predecessors ; a few by Mr. Gladstone. They are a clique inside a chque ; paid partisans of a Church which does not number a major- ity of Englishmen as members, in a Chamber which is a relic of hereditary privilege. The argument for abolishing the legislative authority of the House of Peers is a very strong one. It becomes irresistible if the prerogatives of the Lords Temporal are, as we are told, indissolubly bound up with those of the Lords Spiritual. People will not stand such an anomaly for ever. So long as the Bishops are merely cler- ical they are tolerated. If they become obstructive they will be swept aside. Yesterday they were both clerical and obstructive. As a spectacle they are unique. The House of Lords is not com- monly what would be called an imposing body. The cham- ber is an imposing one, if you like, but its red benches are usually tenanted during the sittings of the House by half a dozen or possibly on special occasions by twenty gentlemen, mostly middle-aged or past middle age, whose proceedings reach the uttermost depth of dulness. The able men among them display abhity on great occasions but it is for great occasions that they reserve their abilities. A section of the house on the right of the Lord Chancellor and behind the front Ministerial Bench is assigned to the Bishops. It is gen- erally empty. Last night it was nearly full. There sat some seventeen elderly persons in episcopal robes, their puffed lawn sleeves suggesting in a rather curious way that a fem- inine element, not youthful either, had somehow found its way into the house. Look at their faces. The stamp of their profession is on them. Nobody would say that these 172 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. are men of the world, or men of business, or men of affairs. Talie one or two of the least prepossessing. The pinched lips, the eyes mostly too near together, the skin drawn tight- ly over cheek and chin, the sloping corners of bitter mouths, the air of sanctimony, the air of always posing before the world as superior beings with a divine mission and a divine sanction for acts sometimes certainly not human — all this and much more you may see, the most casual observer may see, as he glances at this phalanx of spiritual legislators. Good men, of pure lives in their vocation, and useful as ec- clesiastical administrators they all are, I freely grant. But their whole teaching, their studies, their lives of pastoral la- bour, have utterly unfitted them for the business of law-mak- ing, and it is this unfitness of which I read the signs in their faces and bearing. Intolerance is branded on almost every brow. A Bishop could hardly be a Bishop if he were not intolerant. His vow binds him to recognise but one church out of many, and outside of the pale of his one church no- body has any rights that he, as a functionary of the Church, is bound to respect or permitted to respect. What sort of persons are these to intrust with authority over the inter- ests of a whole community, made up of members of many churches and of no church at all ? The Bishop of Lincoln is speaking as I go in ; notoriously one of the least hberal of his order. It needs only to shut one's eyes to fancy one's self in a cathedral or, I will add without meaning to be rude, in a conventicle. The tone is unctuous — there is no other word for it. The manner is the manner of the pulpit. He conforms to the custom of the place in addressing his audience as "my lords," but my lords sounds in every ear as " my beloved brethren." His argument — but of argument he has none, or none that is cal- culated to reach any ear less spiritualised and unpractical than his own. He was firmly convinced that this bill was an infraction of the Divine law. Marriage was grounded on Holy Scripture and maintained by the Christian Church. Its laws had been unhappily banished by the secular powers THE BISHOPS AS LEGISLATOKS. 173 of Germany and America, but had found a refuge and asy- lum in England and a shelter in their lordships' House. Ger- many and America had made terrible havoc in these Divine laws and were reaping a miserable harvest from their own acts. To follow their example so far as to pass this bill, would affect, affirmed this Bishop of Lincoln, the national institutions of England; nay, its results might be felt in their lordships' House, and even by the monarchy itself. Hence in the Divine name he raised his voice against a meas- ure sure to be followed by visitations of Divine punishment. That, I do assure you, is a fair account of the closing por- tion of this Bishop's speech ; the only portion I heard. Did you ever read anything more grotesque, considered as a speech meant to influence legislation on a subject fully within the competence of a legislator ? After him, amid loud cries of " Divide, divide," rose the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Temple. His name was once the ral- lying cry for the Liberalism of the Church of England, lie was one of the authors of Essays and Reviews. When he was made Bishop the Church shook to its centre. All the forces of bigotry within and without, consecrated and un- consecrated, strove against him, anathematised Iiim. But Bishop he none the less became, and" during the twenty years that have since passed he has been busily engaged in burning what he once adored, and vice versa. He withdrew his essay. He recanted, not aU at once but by degrees, his radicalism. He bought his peace by concessions of what had once been matter of principle with him, and of con- science. He had once, for example, been willing that the hus- band should marry his deceased wife's sister. He now stood up to declaim against his doing it. Processes of spiritual change are always interesting and one would have been glad to hear how it came about that Dr. Temple had been con- verted from a friend into a foe of this measure. But all we were allowed to know about the matter was this : that every successive year of study had always wrought the convic- tion deeper and deeper in his mind that there was a Divine 174 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. purpose in the matter. His account of the principle on which the marriage law depended was equally mysterious. The principle is the consecration of the family: the purpose was to defend and guard the household, "to consecrate the circle within which there should be the warmest, the strongest, the deepest affection, but not the very slightest touch or breath of passion," — not even, I suppose, between husband and wife themselves. Within this Shaker circle they are to live, de- clared the Bishop, as the angels in heaven. I will do the Lords the justice to say that a smile ran round the benches as this episcopal wisdom gushed forth. I have not room to quote more of it but Dr. Temple's proposition of a conse- crated, charmed, passionless circle would practically keep a governess out of the house or, for aught I can see, a house- maid or cook as well. The instant response of the Liberal press to this demon- stration is a proposal to exclude the Bishop from the House of Lords. It is likely enough that an agitation for this pur- pose may before long take some practical shape. I heard one Liberal member say that such a proposal would get a large vote in the House of Commons at once. I heard an- other say he was now ready to vote for Disestablishment. A Liberal Peer who stands by his order declared with no little bitterness that yesterday's proceedings were a blow struck at the legislative existence of the Lords. And the Lords, as everybody knows, are likely some day to be a much-needed bulwark between the Church and Disestablish- ment. In whatever way you look at it the Bishops have done a foolish act — foolish with reference to their own in- terests and the interests of their Church. They have not defeated the measure. They have only delayed it. They would all admit that it is certain to pass sooner or later. But in order to postpone the inevitable another twelvemonth and to indulge themselves in a demonstration of hatred against Dissent, the Bishops have made the question of their own position a burning one, and have brought a fresh dan- ger upon the Church they govern. MR SPEAKER I. [LoKDON, Feh-imry 26, 1884.] The ceremonies accompanying the retirement of Sir Hen- ry Brand from the Speakership of the House of Commons are much more than ceremonies. The formal resolutions, the formal speeches of the Prime Minister and of the Leader of the Opposition, the formal votes of the House, are pene- trated with a sentiment of sincerity only too rare on such occasions. Sir Henry Brand has been Speaker for twelve years. During all that time he has had the confidence, the respect, and for the most part the loyal support of the body over which he has presided. Members change but the House of Commons is always the House of Commons. In estimating the closeness of the relations between the House and its chief officer, it is al- ways to be remembered that he is Speaker of the whole House — not of a section. Sir Henry Brand was not the choice of a party, or of a majority, but of the entire and unanimous body of members. The Speakership is not yet, whatever it may become, a party office, nor are its duties discharged in a partisan spirit as — I suppose it may be said without offence — they are in America. In the American sense, or in a sense corresponding to the American practice, there are no Committees of the House of Commons, and the Committees are appointed in a totally different way. The Speaker here, in one word, does not organise the machinery of legislation in the interests of a party. Designated he may 176 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. be, as Mr. Arthur Peel has now been, by the majority; by the Government, that is, for the time being. But when Mr. Arthur Peel takes the chair he ceases to be a Liberal or Whig. He forgets who named him to the House. He wUl, it is hardly too much to say, never do an act in the special or selfish interest of his old political associates. He is there to guide the deliberations of the House and to carry its wishes into effect. This may help to explain the solemnity of the leave- taking between the House and Mr. Speaker, as he has for centuries been called. Two other causes go to the forma- tion of this peculiar and touching sentiment. The Speaker is, after aU, not so much the chief officer of the House as its chief servant. His authority is derived from the House and exercised in its name. He derives nothing from statute and little, comparatively, from the existing rules and orders of the House itself. His power has slowly broadened down from precedent to precedent. The law by which he acts is largely unwritten ; it survives in practice and tradition. He has absolutely none of the arbitrary control possessed by the President of a continental Chamber. If he tried to do any- thing against the sense of the House itself, he would simply fail. It is the chief merit of Sir Henry Brand — and this is the other cause of the favour he has won — that he has recog- nised to the full the subordinate and ministerial character of his position. His loyalty has been beyond reproach. At the same time he has had most difficult services to perform. It is during his tenure that the character of the House has undergone, by no fault of his, a considerable trans- formation. The constituencies have been gradually sending up a class of men unlike those formerly returned, and though the old type may still prevail the infiltration of the new ele- ment is yearly more extensive, its influence more insidious. Obstruction has reared its horrid form ; has been born and reached a stature as menacing as it is ugly. Mr. Gladstone, who loves to envelop his meaning in a cloud of generalities, declared that the functions, always arduous always grave. ME. SPEAKER. I77 which are intrusted to the hands of Mr. Speaker, had risen during Sir Henry Brand's occupation of the chair to a point both of gravity and diificulty entirely beyond what his prede- cessors have had to encounter. The Irish, he meant, you have had always with you ; and now you have Lord Ran- dolph Churchill. These functions, moreover, have become much graver. The new rules have put new power into the Speaker's hands, and laid a heavier responsibility upon him. And Mr. Gladstone well added that but for Sir Henry Brand's skill and tact, but for his courage and firmness, but for the acuteness he has brought to the solution of the mul- titude of questions presented to him, matters would have been much worse than they are. All that applies justly to the general conduct of business by Sir Henry Brand, but it applies most directly and com- pletely to his dealings with Irish obstruction. Nobody who saw the Speaker and the House in any of the crises they have lately passed through will soon forget the spectacle. Mr. Parnell has revived our memories of it, were they ever so rusty. The Irish leader, with entire politeness and full acknowledgment of the Speaker's personal courtesy, felt bound to dissent from the proposed resolution of thanks to Sir Henry Brand because, in Mr. PameH's view, the Speaker exceeded his authority in suppressing obstruction. He and his followers consider that certain official actions of the Speaker aided in producing grievous misfortune and wrong to Ireland and inflicting much injustice and hardship upon many individuals in Ireland. In plain terms, Mr. Parnell believes that the Coercion Act and the New Pules could not have been passed had not the Speaker intervened to stop the organised resistance of a small minority to the wiU of the House and the constituencies. To a certain extent Mr. Parnell is right. He had a scheme, very carefully and elaborately worked out, for blocking all leo-islation in the interests of order whether in Ireland or in the House of Commons. It proceeded on the theory that the House would allow a knot of obstructives to use the 11.-13 178 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. power of the House permanently and in a particular way for preventing all business they did not like. He believed he could protract debate and repeat dilatory motions tUl the patience of the majority gave way and the Ministry aban- doned a measure which had the support of their own follow- ers and of the Opposition as well. He was rudely unde- ceived on that memorable morning when, after three days' continuous sitting, Sir Henry Brand rose to declare his opin- ion that it was the sense of the House that the debate had lasted long enough, and that the question be now put. Mr. Parnell's plans crumbled at that one firm word, and he nat- urally lays upon the Speaker's shoulders the blame of all that followed. Yet in that, as in his other acts, the Speaker was again only the servant of the House. His course was not resolved on till after full consultation with men capable of expressing the sense of the- House. H it had not been done in that way it would have been done in some other. I know of nothing which more signally indicates the failure of Mr. Parnell's policy than his incapacity to measure the forces he arrayed against him. He was right enough in thinking he could do a good deal of mischief by obstruction, and make himself exceedingly disagreeable, and offend the House of Commons by scenes of vulgarity and disorder. But when it comes to a question of paralysing permanently the legislation of Great Britain by one man's obstinacy, the limit of serious politics has been reached. None the less does Sir Henry Brand deserve the honour all right-thinking men then awarded him. Certainly he as- sumed a grave responsibility. There was no precedent, ex- cept in a sense I will explain in a moment. There was no rule or order of the House. There was no vote conferring on him a special authority to silence rebellious Irishmen. JSTo motion had been made — any motion could have been obstructed and would have been useless. Precedent existed only in the sense that made it the general duty of the Speaker to do the will of the House. The responsibility, the peril, consisted in rightly ascertaining and firmly exe- MR. SPEAKER. 179 cuting the ■will of the House. If Sir Henry Brand had made a mistake he would have had to retire from the chair with discredit. He made no mistake, and he reaps to-day something like a full measure of the honourable recognition and gratitude which he earned by an act of wise and patriotic courage. The final suppression of Irish obstruction on the occasion which Mr. Parnell had in mind I did not witness. It took place at nine in the morning, and naturally the intention of the Speaker to take the step was not confided to the public, nor was it known in the House when he would interpose or precisely what he would do. Purposes of that sort are not disclosed in advance. But I had been in the House the even- ing before, and many evenings before that, when obstruction was going on, and had seen how the Speaker bore himself and how he confronted the diflficulties which beset him. Hitherto, I confess, I had thought him wanting, if wanting at all, in peremptoriness. His patience almost passed the limits of human endurance. The Parnellites taxed their in- genuity in devising fresh forms of insult within and beyond parhamentary hcense. They were violent, angry, abusive, insubordinate, often defiant of the authority of the Speaker, always contemptuous of the general wish of the House. Neither their language nor their appearance can be de- scribed without using words of strong import, or without very elaborate periphrases. The Speaker found himself in the presence of a conspiracy, and of conspirators. "What he had to meet was nothing less than a deliberate plot, not only to stop business and to reduce the House to legislative impotence, but to degrade it, to make it an object of public derision. Sir Henry Brand treated the men engaged in this odious scheme with a considerate courtesy that never faltered. Mr. Parnell himself is a witness to it. I have seen the Speaker rise a hundred times to repress disorder in the Irish camp. I never once saw him show the least sign of impatience or temper. His suavity of manner, the smooth inflection of his 180 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. voice, the sweet deliberateness of speech, were just as mark- ed in the midst of an Irish tempest as when the barometer stood at fair all over the House. He was a model of the demeanour which a presiding officer should cultivate. In him it seemed to require no cultivation. It was natural, easy, spontaneous, and altogether amiable. His knowledge of the rules and his perception of the temper of the House at a given moment were alike sure, nor did all his softness of de- portment detract from the dignity proper to his office or from the general splendour and stateliness which attend the position of Speaker. Mr. Parnell withdrew from the House after making his brief and decorous protest. Most of the Irish members fol- lowed. When the vote on the resolution of thanks was taken Mr. Biggar and Mr. Harrington cried out No, but un- der the stringent orders of their chief made no attempt to force a division. When the Speaker rose to acknowledge the resolution, which he did with grace and deep feeling and simple words, the House uncovered. Mr. O'Brien alone sat sourly with his hat on. These exceptions served to mark the unanimity of the House. It is understood that Sir Henry Brand will be called to the Upper House and will receive a pension. The dignity of the Peerage would in any case ac- crue to him on the death of his brother. Lord Dacre. The pension he has well earned by faithful and useful service, prolonged after it was known to be dangerous to his health. II. [London, February 21, 1884.] Sir, I have it in command from Her Majesty to acquaint this House that she has been informed of the resignation of the Chair by Sir Henry Brand, and that she gives leave to this House to pro- ceed to the election of a new Speaker. Such are the words in which the Prime Minister of Eng- land yesterday, Pebruary 26, 1884, signified to the House of MR. SPEAKER. 181 Commons that they were at liberty to make choice of a pre- siding officer. There is a piquancy in this antique flavour of the days of Tudors and Stuarts when the control of the Sovereign over the Legislature was in many points substan- tial and direct. The words are now a form, but a form which has a historical interest, and from which nothing would induce a man of Mr. Gladstone's temperament to de- part. In this, as in other matters, the form outlives the fact. It is conceivable, but only just conceivable, that the Queen might interpose an objection to any possible Speaker whom the House should prefer. If she did, it would not be an- nounced publicly. The matter would be arranged between herself and the Prime Minister ; as in the case of Cabinet appointments where she still retains, and sometimes exer- cises, a power of objection. We are far from the days when the House of Commons accepted a Speaker at the dictation of the Crown, but it would be interesting to know what would happen if Her Majesty withheld the leave she grant- ed yesterday and if the House nevertheless proceeded to an election. Other points in yesterday's proceedings will be found not less quaint. "When four o'clock came, instead of the usual announcement of " Mr. Speaker," the cry of " Mace " was heard from the officers. The Sergeant-at-Arms appeared bearing the heralded Mace. The House is not capable of constituting itself completely without a Speaker. Captain Gossett placed the awful symbol not on, but under, the ta- ble. The Clerk of the House, Sir Erskine May, took his usual place. There were no prayers. Every seat was filled. The Clerk rose and silently pointed at Mr. Gladstone, and it was in answer to this mute appeal that the Prime Minister ut- tered the words I have quoted at the beginning of this let- ter. There were a few cheers as he took his seat and the Clerk then pointed, still opening not his mouth, to Mr. Whit- bread who had been selected to propose Mr. Arthur Peel to be Speaker. Mr. Whitbread, though not an old man, is one of the Nestors of the House. Born in 1830, he was elected 182 KOTES ON PARLIAMENT. for Bedford in 1852 and has ever since sat for that constitu- ency. On matters of precedence and procedure there is no authority higher than Mr. Whitbread's. He spoke for not more than ten minutes and wholly avoided technicalities but his speech is a whole manual of conduct for the Chair. One striking passage I quote. Referring to Mr. Gladstone's re- mark yesterday that the office has no counterpart elsewhere, Mr. "Whitbread continued : — If the oiEce is singular in its duties, so it is in the sources from—which its authority is derived. No resolutions inscribed on our journals, no standing orders, no powers by statute, could for one moment avail the Speaker vcho had lost the confidence of this House. His whole authority is based upon that confidence. It is a confidence which the greatest and freest assembly in the world has delighted to repose in the Speaker. And as it has been in the past, so I doubt not it will be in the future ; and if, as some think, troublous times are in store for us in Parliament, I feel confident that the great body of the House will renew from day to day their confidence in the Speaker, and that the measure of that confidence will only be the need that shall arise. The whole speech was in this tone of dignity and wisdom, skilfully set to catch the sympathies and suffrages of the whole House. He well said of Mr. Peel that, though he had not been eager to thrust himself upon the attention of the House, those who knew him best were those who had the strongest confidence in his success. And he concluded with the words : " I beg to move that Mr. Arthur Peel do take the Chair of this House as Speaker." Mr. Eathbone, a Liverpool merchant, seconded the motion in a speech stiU briefer than Mr. Whitbread's. Then Mr. Arthur Peel rose. Probably no man in circumstances so delicate ever made a better speech : modest, firm, in parts almost eloquent, free from every effort at display, penetrated with a sense of the re- sponsibility about to be laid on him, inspired throughout by right feeling and high principle. He was under no illu- sions, he said, as to the presentation of his name while so MK. SPEAKER. 183 many on both sides of the House were better fitted for the place. I inow very well, sir, how mucli I am indebted above all things — it would be unnatural in me if I did not avow it in the face of this House of Commons — for the favour which the House has thus far shown me, to the fact that I am the son of a statesman whose history and whose labours are identified with the history and the debates of this House, whose public services are indelibly written in the records of his country, and whose name is warmly cherished in a multitude of British homes. In terms not less graceful he referred to the example of his predecessor, Sir Henry Brand, as one which he could only hope to imitate by help of the House itself. He ap- pealed to that aid without which he would be powerless in- deed; " without which the best Speaker who ever sat in that Chair would be bereft of all power and authority — I mean the moral support, assistance, and co-operation of this House." He pledged himself to but one thing, perfect impartiahty, and he sat down " humbly submitting himself to and placing himself in the hands and at the disposal of this House." This House indicated its sense of the quality of his speech by cordial cheers from the Conservative not less than from the Liberal benches. Then Mr. "Whitbread, who sat behind the lower corner of the Front Eench with Mr. Arthur Peel be- side him, took the new Speaker by the hand and led him down to the open floor, Mr. Eathbone following. It is to be noted that, though a motion had been duly made and sec- onded, no motion was put to the House. It was known there was to be no opposition. The Tories had considered the question of putting a candidate in nomination, and had decided in full party caucus at the Carlton Club that noth- ing was to be gained by a demonstration doomed in advance not only to defeat but to discredit. If there had been an opposing candidate a division must somehow have been taken, but it seems to be considered that the Clerk of the House is only competent to put a motion to the House in pecuhar 184 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. and pressing emergencies. So engrossing is the authority of the Speaker — and, it may be added, so impersonal is it — that Sir Henry Brand on Tuesday himself put to the House the resolution of thanks for his services and the resolution for an address to the Crown in his own behalf. Standing on the steps of the Chair Mr. Arthur Peel then — after an Irish interruption had been repressed by the House — acknowledged the great honour done him in calling him to the Chair, promised to do his best, and ended by say- ing ; " I humbly and respectfully thank the House for its in- dulgence and I pray for its generous support." The election "was then complete. The new Speaker took the Chair. The Sergeant- at-Arms advanced. Making a low obeisance, he took the Mace from the supports by which it hung below and placed the precious bauble in its wonted position; the House cheering loudly and long. There was, however, still something to be added. An oc- casion so solemn as the choice and installation of a new Speaker could not be permitted to pass without a personal ratification, as it were, of the act by the voice of the Leader of the House. Mr. Gladstone rose to offer the new Speaker his congratulations. Again the express renunciation and disavowal of anything like party purpose was heard, l^ot, said the Liberal chief, as leader of a party but as Leader of the House did he speak ; or in his own more ample words, " on account, not of my connection with Party, but of the share attaching to my position in the regulation of the busi- ness of the House for the convenience and advantage of aU its members." And in this character he tendered to the new Speaker his own congratulations and those of the House. He would not have been himself if he had not added a eulo- gy on Sir Eobert Peel — Sir, I may without impropriety, I think, say that to me it affords no common gratification to witness and to assist in the elevation to so high a position of the son of a man whose follower I have been, and for whose name and character down to this late hour of my life I retain an unbroken and undiminished veneration. MB. SPEAKER. 185 Once more Mr. Gladstone defined the duties and essential qualities of the Speaker, much as he had defined them in parting from Sir Henry Brand. To Sir Henry Brand Mr. Gladstone had expressed his gratitude for fulfilhng these duties and displaying these qualities. To Mr. Arthur Peel he spoke in the language of hope and expectation. This is the sixth Speaker under whom Mr. Gladstone has served. The number is thought great here, and covers a period of more than fifty years. In America, where Speakers come and go with Houses of Representatives every two years, the fewness of the terms included in such a lapse of time will mark as well as anything else the unhkeness between the two offices of the same name. At the end came another formula of ancient days : " It is my duty to acquaint the House in closing that I have received the command of Her Majesty [it must have been by telegraph] to signify her pleasure that the Speaker whom the Commons have elected be presented to-morrow at two of the clock, in the House of . Lords, for Her Majesty's royal approbation." Safe to say that Her Majesty's royal approbation will be gracefully giv- en. But it is to be observed that Mr. Peel took the Chair, and that the Mace was put upon the table, before Her Maj- esty's pleasure had been officially made known. Sir Stafford l^orthcote joined in the congratulations offered by Mr. Glad- stone, and Conservative assent is perhaps not less important than royal approbation. The Tory leader, however, gave it to be understood that his acquiescence in the election of Mr. Peel was limited to the duration of the present Parliament. Ceremonial aU this, you will possibly say, and not worth treating at such length. What are the minute formalities of parliamentary life in England to the American who has a parliamentary life of his own, with a written Constitution and written Statutes at the back of it ? Who cares for the fresh rehearsal of musty mummeries ? Well, I hope some of us care even for the historicalside ; for the continuing tradi- tions of six hundred years on which our own Parliament and all our legislative procedures are closely modelled. But 186 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. whether "we do or not, there is something in these elaborate proceedings of Monday and Tuesday which is simply charm- ing ; something besides the survival of early forms which we may presume in these Darwinian days would not have sur- vived but for their surpassing fitness. Amid the vulgar and violent contentiousness of recent sessions of Parliament, here, at any rate, is one scene of calm dignity, of real beauty in its perfect decorum, of admirable feeling throughout the whole House. There is something in the acts and words of these two days which ennobles public life. It may have to give way to-morrow to the usual turbulence and hateful ani- mosities, but I nevertheless avow my delight in it while it has lasted. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE CONSTITUENCIES. [London, March 10, 1884.] Me. Heebeet Spencee has been asked to allow himself to be put in nomination as a Liberal candidate for Leicester and has declined in a letter which has two points of great interest. The first is the state of his health, which Mr. Spencer declares to be such that the discharge of parliamen- tary duties would be impossible to him. He has not dined out for nearly a year because he cannot stand the excite- ment of a dinner-party. At his best he can write, or rather dictate, but three hours a day, and if he undertook the la- bours of a parliamentary life, with its long night sittings, he would have to give up all his other work. This work he re- gards as far more important than listening to debates and giving votes, and he does not think he should be doing right in exchanging one for the other. This brings Mr. Spencer to his second point, and to the very striking criticism he makes on the present value of Par- liament and on the influence of members of the House of Commons. The common estimate of both he declares to be too high. The member has come to be much more than in past times subject to his constituents. The House as a whole is more subordinate to public opinion. Then follows this pregnant paragraph : — ' It is becoming a common remark that we are approaching a state in -which laws are practically made out of doors and simply regis- tered by Parliament ; and if so, then the actual work of legislation 188 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. is more the work of those who modify the ideas of the electors than of those who give effect to their ideas. So regarding the matter, I conceive that I should not gain influence, but rather should lose influence, by ceasing to be a writer and becoming a representative. There is no gainsaying this, nor is it easy to exaggerate the importance of the change to which Mr. Herbert Spencer is by no means the first to call attention. The relation of the member to his constituents was once a relation of inde- pendence ; in many cases complete, in all considerable. The nominee of a great landlord who owned a pocket borough might owe a certain deference to his patron, but none what- ever to the people he was supposed to represent. If, as was common enough in the last century, he simply bought his seat, he was under obligation to nobody. While Burke sat for Wendover he was his own master. When he went to Bristol he found after a time that the prejudices of a great constituency required from him sacrifices of principle which he scorned to make, and he parted from Bristol in letters and speeches relating to the Bristol election with which members of Parliament in these days would do well to be better acquainted than they are. The exacting temper of modern constituencies can hardly be said, though it is sometimes said, to date from the Re- form Bill of 1832. The idea of the mandate is a French importation. The French elector has turned the French deputy into a mere delegate. Suspicion, jealousy, and a de- mand for subservience to the wishes of the constituency on every measure in which it takes an interest, are the charac- teristics of the French electorate. The deputy, if he be a Eadical, accepts not only a mandate but an imperative mandate. Both the word and the thing have made their way across the Channel. The English working man has taken lessons from his French colleague. The English trades unions, though as a rule they have held aloof from general pohtics, have educated their members in the dogma of implicit obedience, and their members have applied it THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE CONSTITUENCIES. 189 and imposed it upon candidates for parliamentary represen- tation. Then came the Caucus, and with it a wide exten- sion of the doctrine that would-be members must make terms with those who have the power to accept or reject them as candidates. Loyalty to party no longer suffices. They must take specific pledges, and the fulfilment of those pledges is rigorously exacted. To make matters worse, ev- ery petty organisation in the interest of a particular crotch- et appears on the scene, catechises each candidate, and with a noble disregard of every interest but its own concedes or withholds its suffrages just as the victiijp promises or refuses to obey its dictation. The result is that by the time an or- dinary candidate reaches the poU there is hardlj?^ a question on which he remains a free agent. There was less of this intolerable buUj^ing at the last general election, and for this reason: That election turned on one question, Will you support Mr. Gladstone ? It is one of the most striking in- stances in political history of the beneficial influence of a great individuality. The English nation wanted Mr. Glad- stone to rule over them, and wanted a House of Commons which would give him a general support. Minor questions were lost sight of, and men reserved their liberty on such questions. But this was only an eddy in the current. The general direction of the stream was not changed nor its force much abated. What Mr. Spencer says of the actual work of legislation is said more cautiously. The control of pubhc opinion and its direct action on the business of legislation, though con- siderable, are not complete. The state of parliamentary subservience is a state which he does not describe as pres- ent, but approaching. He does, however, believe that the influence of the writer, of him who modifies ideas, is supe- rior even now to that of the nominal legislator who merely gives effect to those ideas. In his own case, he is perfectly right. It is not possible to conceive of Mr. Herbert Spencer as wielding in the House itself anything like the influence he wields outside of it. His indirect infiuence is aijd must 190 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. be far greater than any possible authority he could acquire in the House itself. Very likely he had in mind the mem- orable precedent of the late John Stuart Mill. While Mill sat for Westminster he made every attempt to modify his habits in order to secure a hold upon the House. He was assiduous in attendance. He went through all the drudg- ery of legislation with touching fidelity to a sense of duty. He accepted every obligation imposed upon him. He strove for the ear of the House. When he found himself a failure as a speaker, he changed his meth6d. The majority on both sides listened to him at first with respect. They never re- laxed for a moment the inflexible demand which the House always makes, that an outside reputation, no matter how splendid, shall justify itself inside and adapt itself to the canons of success which the House has estabhshed on its own account. MiU puzzled his hearers and they finally left him. He used to speak to empty benches and was. seldom or never fully reported in the papers. On the course of a debate or the result of a division there were a hundred men in the House, most of them with not a tenth of Mill's intel- lectual power, who had ten times more influence than he. There is no reason to suppose that Mr. Herbert Spencer would succeed where Mill failed. A more recent and hardly less instructive example is sup- plied by the experience of Mr. John Morley. He can speak, and speak well, and is Hkely enough in the end to attain to the exceptional and curious kind of oratorical excellence in- dispensable to a good House of Commons speech. Yet he has all but totally sacrificed, at least for a time, the influ- ence he wielded as journalist on the immediate conduct of the gravest questions of public policy. Mr. Spencer has in mind, it is evident, not so much the kind of sway which the journalist exercises over the public and over Parliament, as his own more remote and more per- manent influence as a philosophical writer seeking to mould opinion on the causes of things, and to establish principles by which conduct in matters of detail shall be guided. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE CONSTITUENCIES. 191 But, whichever point of view he selected, the decrease in the originating power of the Legislature and in its intellect- ual independence is equally striking. In the long run, it is true. Parliament has done the work demanded of it by its masters. Once the Crown, then an aristocratic oligarchy, then the upper middle classes to whom the first Reform Bill transferred the balance of power, and now the working classes — each in succession succeeded well enough in getting its will expressed in a legislative form. But Mr. Spencer is considering not so much the general result of parliamentary activity from period to period as the course of legislative events from session to session, and there is not much criti- cism to be made on his account of the condition of affairs, so considered. There is, however, a great deal more to be said on this subject that Mr. Spencer has thought proper to say in a let- ter which merely assigns in general terms some of his rea- sons for decUning the request to stand for Leicester. If he would pursue the subject he would certainly trace the causes of the decay in parliamentary prestige which he perhaps laments. Among those causes he would not omit the terri- ble publicity under which the House now transacts its busi- ness. A little more than a hundred years ago it was an of- fence to publish the debates. A few privileged people in London knew what was going on. Little was known else- where. If a member outraged the feelings or the principles of his constituency, if he sold himself to the King or joined the Bloomsbury gang, he might not be found out for a long time. The votes were not published. To-day every impor- tant division list is known within twenty-four hours all oyer the country. The supervision of electors over members is constant and extends, or may extend, to every detail of their conduct. It is not every constituency which is meddlesome, or every member who is pliant, but year by year this sur- veillance becomes closer. Mr. Spencer would probably dwell with equal emphasis on another function of journalism in its relations to the Legislature, and that is its habit of debating 192 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. great questions in advance. English journalisni is so well informed, and conducts its discussion of high matters so se- riously, that it is no uncommon thing for members to find much of the ground covered before they have a chance to be heard. And that does not enhance the dignity of their position. Behind these and the hke objections which would keep Mr. Herbert Spencer out of Parliament lies another, not less potent. His views of what Parliament ought to do differ widely from those of any party now in existence. He holds the chief business of legislation to be " an administration of justice such as shall secure to each person, with certainty and without cost, the maintenance of his equitable claims." Mr. Spencer is usually a careful writer but he cannot quite mean that legislation and administration are the same thing, or that a Legislature is to be a Court of Justice and nothing more. Perhaps we may suppose that a word or two has dropped out, and that he holds the business of the Legislar ture to be to secure or provide for this free and infallible administration of justice. That the House of Commons is absorbed in the doing of things which Mr. Herbert Spencer holds should not be done at all, we knew before. His views might almost be summed up in the statement that the main business of a Legislature is not to legislate. A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OP COMMONS. THE FUSTAL DEBATE ON THE MOTIOIS^ FOE THE SECOND BEADING [London, June 8, 1886.] A STEANGEE arriving yesterday at four o'clock in the after- noon would have thought it a joke had any one told him that the occasion was one of unparalleled excitement and in- terest. There was the Speaker, robed and wigged as usual, in the chair, the clerks were at the table, business was pro- ceeding, but on the benches of the House not twenty mem- bers were to be seen. He might have remarked that the strangers' gallery and the Speaker's gallery were crowded, but that is not uncommon on an ordinary night. If he had known that ere this sitting ended the House of Commons was to say Aye or No to the most momentous question of the period — to give or to deny Home Eule to Ireland — he would have said that, if the EngHsh take their pleasures sad- ly, they perform grave business in the most light-hearted way. There was, in fact, but a single indication inside the House of the greatness of the occasion, but that one, though easily overlooked, was decisive. In the little frame at the back of each seat was a member's card. The card signified that its owner had come down to the House before prayers, had been present, actually or constructively, at that ceremony, had de- posited his hat, and so he had secured the seat which the card retained for him. And not one of the little frames Avas II.— 13 194 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. empty, except behind seats reserved for Ministers or great persons. The oblong bits of white card, which gave the green benches the look of a curiously constructed chess-board, sig- nified that presently the House would be thronged to its ut- most capacity. For the moment, it is private biU business that is going on, and the owners of all these cards are in the lobby, the libra- ry, the smoking-room, or squiring dames on the terrace. The Speaker transacts this routine business in a business-like way, ready, decisive, unfaltering. But he wiU be seen at his best later in the evening when, amid the interruptions that beset orator after orator, Mr. Speaker Peel enforces order and re- stores the dignity of debate by Avhat can only be described as the dignity of his own presence. When he has to call an offending member or a riotous party to order, his voice rings out with military sharpness, and the Irishmen themselves are not slow in paying heed to his authority. But for the pres- ent he is doing the ordinary duty of the presiding officer of what Englishmen are fond of calhng the greatest paiiiamen- tary assembly in the world. The word which best describes him is urbanity. As the question time comes on, the House slowly fiUs. The front Opposition bench has long been crowded before Minis- ters begin to arrive. The Irish quarter is densely populated while yet the Liberal and Tory domains are like a Western Settlement. It is a belief among the older members that the Parnellites never leave the House ; certain it is that they are never absent nor their ranks ever thin when work is to be done. Their discipline is the admiration and the despair of Liberal and Tory Whips alike. If Mr. Parnell is not himself very punctual in attendance he is the cause of punctuality in the Parnellite phalanx. The martinet colonel of a fighting regiment is not stricter at roll-call than the champion of Irish liberty. Famihar faces begin to light up both sides of the House but they are allowed to come without much audible welcome. The Tories have no greeting for their leader. Sir Michael Hicks -Beach, nor for his leader, Lord Randolph A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 195 Churchill. But it was noticed that Lord Eandolph was the bearer of a monster petition. It was assumed that the pe- tition was against Home Eule, and the Tories saluted the great roll of paper with the usual but not always apt cry of " Hear, hear !" Then came a laugh when Lord Ean- dolph, in his best House of Commons manner, announced that his petition was from 40,000 of the Lord's Day Eest Association who object to the opening of museums on Sun- days. The first real cheer was at a quarter to five for Mr. Go- schen, who is to resume the debate. Mr. Gladstone's arrival a minute or two later was the signal for an outburst that started from the Parnellite benches, was caught up by the Ministerialists opposite, and presently seemed to kindle even in Tory breasts a spark of enthusiasm for their great adver- sary. The acoustic properties of the House are peculiar and it is not always easy to say where the cheers come from or where they end. Time was when the matter was simple. Tories on one side, Liberals on the other, and few mistakes made by either. But the House has become a House of groups ; on Mr. Speaker's left, Tories above the gangway, ParneUites below ; while on the right are huddled togeth- er Ministerialists, Hartingtonians, Chamberlainites, Eadicals, Waverers, in inextricable confusion. Mr. Gladstone has under his arm a red despatch box which presently is found to contain the copious notes of his speech, and in his hand that jar of yellow, and no doubt " judicious," mixture, which is irreverently known in the House as his pomatum pot. A white rose in the button-hole of his black frock-coat looks hardly whiter than his face, on which falls the strange fight that enters the chamber from the stained windows close to the carved oaken cornice. The chemical composition of these ghastly rays, whatever it be, produces upon the human countenance an effect like electric illumina- tion. Complexions streaked with sharp gray shadows are to be seen all over the House. By and by a soft yellow ra- diance streams through the glass panelling of the ceiling. 196 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. puts out the deepening dusk of the afternoon, and restores to most of these faces a more cheerful look. But nothing from the outside can warm the pallor of Mr. Gladstone's countenance, though more than once you wiU see, as the debate goes on, a flush of angry carmine come into his cheeks. He advances swiftly along the narrow lane between the clerks' table and the bench whence stretch out the innumer- able legs of his colleagues, who seem to compose a centipede Cabinet. The Liberal leader's step, if less elastic than of yore, is firm and quick, his air confident if not buoyant. The pose of the head, which has sunk deeper than it once was between the shoulders, is still a pose of beautiful dignity ; the head, I almost think, more unapproachably magnificent, the whole bearing more august, than ever. Eight or wrong, never was he so great as in his loneliness of to-day, when friends have fallen off from him, when his political associ- ates are arrayed against him, when he is fighting all but single-handed, when the comrades who once stood by him have set lance in rest against their old chief, when there is only the single white plume of Navarre to which his hosts can rally. If he wins this battle he may well say " Alone I did it," — but he is not to win it, and so one must be content to declare that if unconquerable courage, if conduct and re- source, if matchless dexterity and a power of debate to which no rival has attained, could win, Mr. Gladstone would indeed have won. Lord Hartington slips past unnoticed from behind the Speaker's chair, but presently going out is cheered as he re- turns. He is perhaps the one man who through all this dif- ficult business has earned the respect of all parties and es- caped the censure of all. Anybody might do as much by concession, by compliance, by compromise. Lord Harting- ton has broken with his leader, divided his party, disappoint- ed keen hopes, brought to wreck a great policy, adhered in- flexibly to his principles. But he has so borne himself as to extort admiration from those who most deplore his course, — A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 197 even from Mr. Gladstone. No man doubts his sincerity or his simplicity of aim ; none ever imputed to him the least in-- directness of method or selfishness of motive. He, if any- body, is a representative of class, as Mr. Gladstone would say, and if class had no unworthier representative, the spirit of class would be a reproach to no man. Mr. Chamberlain walks in from the opposite door, gets a noisy welcome from the Tories, a quieter one from his friends below the gangway, and nothing but black looks from the Irish. He has done the Irish less harm than Lord Harting- ton ; he takes with him a less numerous following into the lobby, but he is detested by Mr. Parnell's company of patri- ots as no other man is detested. Calumny rains down on him, and not from Irish skies alone. The true Gladstonian — the idolater — who can speak with kindly regret of Lord Harting-ton, whitens with anger when he names Mr. Cham- berlain. I think he has had hard usage and I have faith in his sincerity, but I set down the facts as they are. He faces friend and foe with unrufiled serenity of mien ; a smile just softens the outline of his smooth cheek as the music of the cheers reaches him ; and of the black looks he is, or he seems, blissfully unconscious. He would not be Mr. Chamberlain without his orchid, any more than Mr. Gladstone would be Mr. Gladstone without his rose or his shirt collars. Stranger still is it to mark the welcome of the Tories to Mr. Bright, for whom their cheers rise high. Singular days are these upon which we have fallen when Tory applause heralds the approach of every Liberal, save one, whom Lib- erals have delighted to honour, and when the Liberal party in the House of Commons consists of Mr. Gladstone and a certain number of ciphers after his name. Mr. Bright has not spoken, wiU not speak; has no longer, they say, confi- dence enough in his nerve to address the House in a great debate and in antagonism to the great leader he stOl dearly loves. He has made his contribution to the cause he believes in by letter — a letter which, as much as any one influence, sent the waverers finally into the No lobby. It is pathetic 198 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. to see his snow-white head and closed lips. He takes his place next Mr. Chamberlain on the second bench below the gangway, above or below which are grouped nearly all the Liberal leaders who have declined Mr. Gladstone's Home Eule Shibboleth. Mr. Trevelyan is one of them. His deep- set, eager eyes look out from a fringe of white hair that be- longs not to his years. "We all know what long agony and loyal service it was that gave the look of premature age to a man still in the prime of life and of his fine abilities. Questions, which are often exciting, are so dull to-day that the murmur of talk is never stilled on the floor below us, and members come up to the galleries to chat with friends whom they have recognised. There is no such muster of spectators as on the first night of this long debate. JS'o Koyalty over the clock ; the Royalties are at Ascot, where the sport is more to the mind of the Eoyal Highness who, were he here, would be seated over tlje clock. A Peer whom none of us knows sits in his place. The Peers themselves are mostly at Ascot ; their benches are pretty full but late- comers still find places. The foremost figure among them is the Eed Earl, who owes his picturesque name to a faint hue of flame colour in his yellowish brown beard — Earl Spencer. The stamp of the patrician is on him, — no man so quiet in manner, none of quite the same personal distinction; none, I fancy, who relishes less the adulation now poured on him from the lips that used to reek with calumny and curses. His successor in the Viceroyalty of Ireland, the young, black-bearded, glittering-eyed, popular Earl of Aberdeen, sits not far off. The Earl of Dalhousie is in the row behind them; he, at any rate, a convinced or convincible Home Ruler so long ago as when he was Lord Eamsay and Liberal member for Liverpool ; not so very long ago either, as the fresh youthfulness of his sympathetic and sincere face testi- fies. At one time or another during the long evening the Duke of K'orfolk is visible ; visible also is that remarkable person Lord Brabourne, who accepted a peerage from Mr. Gladstone only to find his conscience compelling him to A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. I99 vote steadily against his creator, and to wear his coronet, as Lord Eosebery told him in the House of Lords, as a crown of thorns. He has lately taken Mr. Chamberlain under his ill - omened patronage, and Mr. Sexton, who is capable of epigram, christened this noble author of nursery tales Mr. Chamberlain's fairy godmother. If you look at his face you wiU not think the point of the epigram blunted by the change of sex. All these and many more are on the left of the clock, which is exactly opposite the Speaker. On the right, in the diplomatic and special galleries, celebrities are select rather than numerous. The tall figure of Count Hatzfeld, the Ger- man Ambassador, looks down on Count Corti, his colleague from Italy, whom he completely dwarfs. Into this front row came later, not long before Mr. Gladstone rose, a slight, gray-haired, keen-eyed, wrinkled, delightful and admirable little man, about whom whispers began at once to circulate. I suppose there were few men who did not recognise the piquant personality of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, for some weeks past the person to be met most frequently in the greatest variety of places in aU London. I had noticed in the lobby the genial face of Mr. Burnand but saw him in none of the three galleries accessible to the stranger. jN"or even on so great a night as this could I discover any one else who could be named as a distinguished stranger. I can look past Count Hatzfeld's broad shoulders or over Count Corti's head, and over the countless heads of honour- able members below, to the gallery where the ladies pres- ent ought to be visible but are not. Between them and the House is still the close grating which, for some reason inap- preciable by the non-parliamentary mind, the Commons per- sist in maintaining. I have never heard that the open gal- leries in the Lords, where the Peeresses gather for a dress debate in dazzling raiment, impaired the political virtue or the business efficiency of the Upper Chamber. Perhaps the Commons are more susceptible or less confident. Behind the bars of the cage one sees dimly certain forms, or certain 200 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. patches of colour, the flash of a jewel or the gleam of bright eyes ; but to recognise the owners of them is impossible. ISTor is there much time to mourn over this deprivation. "While we have been gazing the House has filled ever fuller, the droning answers to tiresome questions have ceased; a hush has come over the multitude. A clear voice is heard from the far end of the chamber saying, " Government of Ireland Bill," and a moment later Mr. Goschen is up. It was a quarter past five when Mr. Goschen rose from his seat at the corner of the third bench above the gangway on the Ministerial side. Lord Hartington sat just in front of him at the corner of the second bench. The full muster of Ministers, Cabinet and other, crowded the front bench to its utmost capacity, and' nowhere in the House was there a vacant seat. The steps of the gangway had their occupants, so had the steps of the Speaker's chair, and on either side of that canopied throne — for such it is — stood clusters of hon- ourable members who must perforce stand since the archi- tectural wisdom of Parliament has not thought fit to pro- vide seats for more than two-thirds of the whole House. Mr. Gladstone settled himself well back in his place ; his head went down into his chest and his shoulders came up to make acquaintance with his head. The lines of his face grew harder, the eyes closed — it is his habit in the House to seem to sleep when he is widest awake, most alert, vigilant, and bent on compassing the destruction of his enemy. And he well knew that he was about to listen to a rigourous and searching criticism of the measure from the purpose and scope of which he had sworn not to depart by a hair's-breadth ; a criticism he must presently do his best to answer. Mr. Goschen is not a debater who would be accepted by the population of Arkansas as what is there called, I believe, a splendid speaker. But he is a debater, and if you have regard only to intellectual or argumentative power, a debater of almost the first order. It matters little that his voice lacks smoothness, his manner something of the persuasive A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 201 elegance which captivates an audience; the first few sen- tences are enough to convince you that he is in possession of his subject and of the House. He wastes no time in pass- es of ceremony, his sword goes straight at the heart. " On what is this House going to vote ?" If you watch Mr. Glad- stone you will see a slight upward movement of the head as though the suddenness of the thrust had taken him by sur- prise. " The Prime Minister was indignant the other day when he was told he was going to reconstruct his bill." The Prime Minister disentangled his head from his shoulders, and shook it. " I thought it looked like indignation," plead- ed Mr. Goschen. The Old Parliamentary Hand saw his chance and was on his feet before the orator had finished his sentence. Turning away from Mr. Goschen and leaning across the table toward Lord Kandolph Churchill, Mr. Glad- stone exclaimed, " That is rather a gross error. "What the right honourable gentleman thinks looked like indignation was an eager repudiation by me of the cool statement that I had promised to reconstruct the bill." It was Lord Ean- dolph who had. made the cool statement. The Irishmen cheered — many a time ere the evening is over will they cheer the Liberal leader whom, as Mr. Chamberlain reminded them the other day, they have covered with insults. Mr. Goschen, amused to see the fire he had drawn turned upon Lord Randolph, who received it with a twirl of his moustache, waited till the cheers had died away ; then his remark, "I see the distinction," woke the laughter of the House, to whom the refinements of Mr. Gladstone's mind have long been a proverb. But it was not to end so. Mr. Goschen has the House of Commons gift of thinking on his feet and of fashioning his retorts to the need of the moment. " The House will see, then, that the Prime Minister has not promised to reconstruct his bill. Some honourable members thought he had but we now have a distinct statement that he has not. I fear my right honourable friend has lost a vote by that answer, but that of course is indifferent to him." He pressed the point. Mr. Gladstone's uneasiness increased 202 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. and again he turned to the speaker with a gesture that might mean anything. " "Well," said Mr. Goschen, " are the Government going to stand by their bill or are they not ?" And as Mr. Gladstone abandoned the field, his relentless ad- versary pursued : " This comes of voting not upon the bill but upon explanations." This is but the first of many incidents in the speech and in the debate most of which I shall have to pass, in silence. There is nothing which the House delights in more than such passages at arms, and most of all when Mr. Gladstone joins in the fray. Few are the members who stand up to him, and among those few, fewer still whose courage is jus- tified by their abilities or by their success in such enterprises. Mr. Goschen is one of the few. There were three of these skirmishes during his speech ; in none of them had he to re- treat ; in two at least out of the three, the honours of the field remained with him. As he pressed point after point, the restlessness of the Prime Minister increased ; the speech was framed to the address of men whose votes were doubt- ful, and it was clearly telling. These, too, or most of them, I must pass over ; whoever still wants a summary of this debate must seek it elsewhere. All I have to offer you is a record of impressions, of what seemed to a spectator most striking or most characteristic. Throughout, the Irish did their best to bring about the discomfiture of Mr. Goschen. I think they would admit that in no instance did they succeed. - Mr. Parnell's band is admirably disciplined for many purposes but it is, with well- known exceptions, a band of parliamentary novices who can- hot be prevented from making false points. When Ulster was mentioned an Irishman cried with triumph in his tone, " Which Ulster ?" — " Oh," answered Mr. Goschen in his most affable manner, " if honourable members ask what I mean by Ulster, I mean precisely the Ulster with regard to which the Prime Minister spoke on the first reading." Sir William Harcourt was one of those who by gesture or exclamation pretty frequently interrupted his late colleague in the earher A GKEAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 203 stages of the evening. ■ "When Mr. Goschen came to refer to Mr. Gladstone's unhappy manifesto about classes, he quoted a Ministerial amplification of the remark — that the classes who opposed Home Rule were the " swaggering classes." " Well," observed Mr. Goschen, " among these classes are many Congregational ministers. Mr. Spurgeon is one of them. I want to know, do honourable members think Mr. Spurgeon a better representative of the swaggering classes than, for example, my right honourable friend the Chancel- lor of the Exchequer." Sir "William Harcourt had to endure to hear this and many other hard sayings underscored by laughter and cheers from all parts of the chamber. "What made all these retorts so effective was the fact that in each case they were germane to the matter in hand, and were but the embroidery of a discourse which from beginning to end was 'a close argument on the biU and the policy of the bill. Mr. Goschen's is a mind to which the evasion of a difficulty is impossible ; he wiU meet it fairly, dispose of it if he can, or be disposed of by it, as the case may be. Fallacies he holds in abhorrence. All his life long he has dealt with facts and principles ; his one aim is to get on even terms with them. He holds the House easily; amuses it often, confronts opposition with unfailing temper and readiness of resource, and sits down at the end of an hour and a half with an ap- peal to the traditions of Parliament to which no party in Parliament would have been, until Avithin recent years, in- sensible. The cheers which followed Mr. Goschen were echoed in shriller notes when Mr. Parnell was seen on his feet. The eighty-five, or perhaps eighty, obedient servants by whom he is surrounded possess collectively — by some caprice of nature, capable no doubt of scientific exposition — a voice set in a singularly high key. It is a convenience to all those who have part in the proceedings of the House, for an Irish cheer is instantly distinguishable from every other cheer. Their greeting to Mr. Parnell is taken up on the Ministerial bench- es, with an effect at least as peculiar as that of Tory salu- 204 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. tations to Mr. Chamberlain or Mr. Bright. Moments elapse before the cries grow still. The greater part of the com- pany are yet under the influence of Mr. Goschen's conclud- ing sentences. Members are discussing eagerly, briefly, the effect of his speech ; whose votes it will win or shake. The Irish all the while are lifting high their voices — higher and ever higher, and it is not till this din has died away that the Speaker is heard. It may interest you to know that the Speaker calls on the Irish leader as Mr. Pdrnell ; accent on the first syllable. The uncrowned king of Ireland would hardly be described by his warmest admirer as kingly in his appearance and mien. To us who look down on him from the gallery over the clock he seems under medium height ; but this may be due to optical laws which the National League has not yet repealed. Nice customs, we know, curtsey to great kings. The Court Circular is witness to the truth of it when a Drawing Eoom is held, and the Clothes question becomes a question of State. I therefore record the fact that Mr. Par- nell wore an unusually long black frock-coat, buttoned from waist to the brown beard which has now grown full and bushy and curhng. Mr. Gladstone's shirt coUars are histor- ical ; Mr. Punch has made them so. Mr. Parnell's collar scarcely rises to historical proportions : it is of the kind known as a turnover and but the faintest rim of linen emerg- es above the collar of his coat or beyond the sleeves for which his tailor has been something too liberal in cloth. This penury in linen is perhaps a protest against Belfast. He stoops a little, and the stoop enlarges one's view of that anterior portion of the skull which the ravages of time have left unprotected by hair. Not once does he turn his face full to our gallery. It is the Speaker, the Tories on his right, the Ministerialists or Eadicals opposite, who have that front view of his visage which we in the other direction vainly desire. At most, it is a profile to us ; straight-featured, high-browed, square in the temple ; mouth and jaw all buried in beard and moustache. Altogether, a cold, masterful face ; colder still, A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 205 and more masterful still, when more of it was visible and the beard shorn off as formerly. The slight figure is all but motionless all through the speech. The gestures are few and inexpressive. The voice has hardly a touch of pathos in it, even when its owner means to be pathetic and declares that he and his cannot and wiU not part with a single Irishman. Its best quality is clearness, which would be more effective if it were less monot- onous. Of oratorical quality Mr. Parnell is devoid ; never did any man deliver to an eager universe so many harangues so totally deficient in passion, in rhetoric, in sympathy, in persuasiveness. It matters little what they are deficient in ; they are listened to ; studied as the voice of an oracle is stud- ied. Mr. Gladstone said of Mr. Parnell that he and Palmer- ston — at another time he added Mr. Chamberlain's name also — were the only men he had known in the House of Commons who said precisely what they meant ; never more and never less. This precision in Mr. Parnell's case is the easier, to-day at any rate, since he reads the greater part of his speech from a loosely written manuscript, carefully fastened at the left up- per corner that no leaf may be displaced in delivery. The manner in which it is delivered is dry, hard, despotic ; the edicts of no crowned king could be more absolute in tone. Here beyond question is a man who knows what he wants, and means to have it. As sentence after sentence falls in measured deliberation from those hidden lips, you cannot but think that his coldness is the coldness of contempt. He is speaking to a body of men whom he has ef ten denounced as an alien legislature ; whom he has defied, whose rules he has broken, whose laws he has trodden under foot, whose most cherished traditions he has mocked at, whose dignity he has brought down ; and who in return have cast him out from among them, only to let him come back seven times strong- er than before. Between him and them is a feud ; a race feud if not a blood feud. He faces his foes to-day in a new attitude. The greatest of them is his foe no longer but his 206 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. ally. The Liberal party and Liberal leader have capitulated. Parhament itself has silently made terms with an adversary grown too powerful for the nursery discipline it used to apply. Of course he feels the change. ' Presently the Arctic mood melts a little. Mr. Parnell has done with his figures about Ulster and his statistics of the four provinces, and his geographical demonstrations of the impossibility of carving out minorities for protection. He turns upon the right honourable member for "West Birming- ham with an anger which is certainly human, if not inhuman. He reproaches Mr. Chamberlain with a bitterness in which the steadiness of his voice at last shakes. He turns upon the Tpries in a temper there is no mistaking ; he means mischief to his old — or rather his recent — allies, and he condenses into a couple of sentences a charge of Tory complicity in Home Eule, which sets the roof ringing with Ministerial cheers. Finally, there comes into his voice a note which impresses the House as a note of sincerity, when he proclaims his behef that this settlement would be accepted by Ireland as a final settlement. N"or does any one doubt that the emotion with which the ex-prisoner of Kilmainham recites the catechism of coercion is a genuine emotion. His prediction that Ireland must be left to govern herself or must be governed as a Crown Colony meets with a grim reception from the House in general. Cover it up as he may, John Bull takes it as a threat, and the murmur which greets it deepens into a growl. Mr. Gladstone sat up during Mr. Parnell' s speech and listened to each word as it dropped ice-cold from Mr. Par- neU's lips. A masterly exposition he called it later, and Mr. Gladstone's judgment in this matter is no more to be im- pugned than the phrase he selected to express it. With the exception I have noted, it was a speech adapted success- fully to a particular purpose ; a statement of certain propo- sitions, a proifer of certain assurances, essential in the judg- ment both of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell to the further progress of the Home Eule cause. But there are two men A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 20Y in Mr. Parnell — three, no doubt, according to Dr. Holmes, but two are enough for the moment. There is an orator and a poor one ; a political leader and a very great one. I shall not be thought partial to Mr. Parnell, nor am I. My account of him as he stood and spoke in the House on Mon- day is not partial. It is impartial. But I have this to add. His mediocrity in mere speech-making is the most convinc- ing proof of his genius in council. His leadership rests on something very different from commanding stature or from that copious fluency of rhetoric which is the cheapest of Irish talents. It is because Mr. Parnell has known how to guide a peo- ple that the House now listens intently, as Mr. Gladstone listens, to these halting sentences. The manner is almost embarrassed. The firmness of purpose so characteristic of Mr. ParneU is scarcely indicated. The voice falls at the end of a phrase ; the action as a whole is the action of an ama- teur. As Mr. Gladstone has done him the honour to borrow his principles, he borrows in return — it is npt much — Mr. Gladstone's curious trick of touching a particular spot on his head with his thumb. "With every word in writing be- fore Mm he seems to be feeling his way from one end of a sentence to the other, and looks furtively out on his auditory to see how they take it. For such traits, interesting as they are to the observer, the House cares little or nothing. This proud assembly of Englishmen know well that the Irishman who is struggling with difficult diction to make known his win is, if not their master, a power with whom they must treat as with an equal. If they could forget the past with its conflicts and its tragedies they would, I think, feel that Mr. Parnell is speaking his real conviction. But to forget the past is not easy. Mr. ParneU himself cannot forget it, and he sits down knowing that other words than those of conciliation abide in the memory of his hearers. Between the sitting down of Mr. Parnell and the rising of the next important speaker, there is a dreary interval. It is 208 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. known in House of Commons phrase as the dinner-hour, and lasts from eight to ten o'clock. It is consecrated to bores, to nonentities, to honourable members who rather than not speak will speak when nobody listens. They have their uses, for the debate must be kept going, and the orators who discourse to empty benches may solace themselves with the conviction that they are performing a public duty though a humble one. Perhaps they also gratify their constituents, and the representative of their constituents. The arrange- ment is a most convenient one for members of the House. They go home to dine, or dine out, or dine with comfort in the House itself, certain that for two hours they will not be wanted. For the unhappy stranger within their gates it is a cruel business. He must keep bis seat or he loses it. If he is in the diplomatic or perhaps in the Speaker's gallery he may, by favour of the doorkeeper, be absent ten minutes and devour a sandwich in the lobby. When he comes back he will probably find the friend who has promised to keep his seat engagpd in an animated controversy with two or three claimants. It comes to this, in short, that to hear the beginning and end of a great debate you must be content to remain in the gallery from four in the afternoon till two next morning. Our purgatory was shortened by the beneficent interven- tion of Mr. Cowen of Newcastle. Mr. E. E. Kussell of Liv- erpool was another unexpected friend and bravely delivered in a desolate chamber a really excellent speech, worthy of an audience. Mr. Cowen is a celebrity ; a sort of spoiled child. He has made a reputation in the House by a num- ber of careful rhetorical compositions, which he delivers with as much passion as if they proceeded from an immediate im- pulse of uncontrollable inspiration. I heard him on Monday for the first time. It is the fashion to call him eloquent. Mr. Gladstone, grateful in these distressing circumstances for every sort of support, called him eloquent. A pane- gyric from Mr. Gladstone may well satisfy Mr. Cowen. He speaks with a strong Northumbrian accent difficult to follow A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 209 ■when heard for the first time. He is energetic in action and has a powerful voice and a gift of announcing common- places about eternal justice with the fervour of novelty. At times his diction is picturesque ; more often it is labour- ed, artificial, false. I said of Mr. Goschen that in the re- moter parts of Arkansas he would not be thought a splen- did speaker. Mr. Cowen I think would. But to my mind the pubhc declamation of memorised passages glowing with emotion that must come, if at all, straight from the heart, is like the recitation of those written prayers which a Church of England clergyman delivers with such interesting unc- tion. I do not wish to be irreverent, but I was bred a Puri- tan and I cannot escape from the feeling that such perform- ances are theatrical. Mr. Cowen none the less filled and ani- mated the House, and his harangue came to an end amid applause not inadequate for the most admirable comedian. A more dranjatic incident was to follow. As Mr. Cowen sat down, a tall, dark, handsome figure was seen standing on the left of the table. Tory cheers rose high and the Tory leader is ready to close the debate for the Opposition. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach is supposed to owe his leadership of the Tories in the House to the nomination of Lord Eandolph Churchill, whom men think a more fiery and resolute spirit. He is not an orator whom the House delights in for the sake of his oratory merely ; is, nevertheless, a very capable de- bater and man of business, and to-night is about to prove himself something more. So far as the general debate is concerned he rises to the occasion, and begins a good speech with prepossessing ease of manner and firmness of tone. But what the House is on tiptoe to hear is his answer to Mr. Par- neU's charge of Tory complicity in Irish Home Pule. He does not keep us waiting long.- A brief review of the relations between Mr. Parnell and the Ministerialists is fol- lowed by a reference to past insinuations against the Tories, " which I think," says Sir Michael, " have been sufiiciently answered by Lord Salisbury." Is that all he has to say to Mr. Parnell ? asked members. No, not all. " To-night," con- II.— 14 210 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. tinues Sir Michael, " a more definite statement than I have ever heard before has come from the honourable member for Cork." The Irish cheer, but the rest of the House is in- tent on what is coming. The Conservative leader picks up from the table before him a piece of paper and reads from it, very slowly and clearly : " I think he stated that the de- mand for power to protect Irish industries was made at a time when he had every reason to suppose that, if the Con- servative party had been successful at the polls, they would have offered him a statutory Parliament." Then he turned round to Mr. Parnell, waited, and as Mr. Parnell made no sign, asked, "Is that correct?" Mr. Parnell rose, nodded, and added in a tone which signified that Sir Michael had wilfully omitted it : " With power to protect Irish indus- tries " ; whereupon Irish and Ministerial cheers, as if the Tory leader had been caught. Louder Tory cheers followed Sir Michael's still more significant repetition of the words. The House is quick at such moments and everybody saw that the repetition was what Sir Michael wanted to empha- sise the point. Then : " That, I suppose, would be a more agreeable proposition to the honourable member for Cork than the present bill ?" An awkward query, but the speak- er again turns to the Irish quarter, pauses for his answer, and finally gets a reluctant assent from Mr. Parnell ; upon which followed the question, " "Why then does he not vote against the measure now before the House ?" — a sally greet- ed by bursts of laughter, derisive and other. Waiting till these had subsided Sir Michael proceeded : " That is not all. I must for myself and my colleagues state in the plainest and most distinct terms that I utterly and categorically deny that the late Conservative G-overnment had any such intention." The uproar was prodigious. Shouts of " Parnell " from every quarter, ungovernable delight of the Tories at the de- nial by their leader of a story long current and commonly credited. Mr. Parnell hesitated and consulted Mr. Sexton who sat next to him. But the shouts continued. Lord Ean- A GEEAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 211 dolpli Churchill, without rising, was conspicuous among those who cried "Parnell," and there by the table stood Sir Mi- chael Hicks-Beach, silent and with an air of having the whole night before him, pohtely expectant. Mr. Parnell struggled to his feet, a round of cheers greeted him. Sir Michael re- sumed his seat, and amid dead silence the Irish chief launch- ed this question : " Does the right honourable baronet deny that that intention was communicated to me by one of his own colleagues, a Minister of the' Crown V Cheers of ex- pected triumph saluted this interrogatory ; again followed by a hush as Sir Michael once more got to his feet and an- swered firmly, " Yes, sir, I do," to the noise of a still more triumphant roar from the benches behind him. But he pres- ently spoiled the effect by an apologetic " To the best of my knowledge and belief," which elicited cries of " Oh, oh !" " If any such statement," continued the undaunted Sir Mi- chael, " was communicated by any one to the honourable member, I am certain he had not the authority of the Cabi- net to do so." Whereupon from every quarter of the House, now thrilling with excitement as thrust and parry followed each other swiftly in this duel, came cries of " Name, name, name." Members turned their eyes on Lord Eandolph as if it were his name they expected to hear. But Lord Eandolph was seen half up from his place beside Sir Michael, vehe- mently challenging Mr. Parnell with voice and gesture to answer. The storm grew wilder, the House echoed with the ever-repeated challenge for a name, and still Mr. Parnell re- mained speechless. At last Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, cool, smiling, facing round full on the surging mass of Irish below him whom the hesitation of their leader puzzled and en- raged, took up the appeal. " WiU the honourable member do us the pleasure to name to the House " The rest of the sentence was lost in a hurricane of hurrahs from the Tory benches. Answer of some sort Mr. Parnell saw he must vouchsafe ; Mr. Healy and Mr. O'Brien with hot faces were plainly telling him he must, and Sir Michael blandly sank into his seat as Mr. Parnell finally rose. There was a 212 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. spot of red on the one cheek visible to us in the gallery, and the words came from between the teeth : " The right hon- ourable baronet has asked me a question which he knows is a very safe one. (" Oh " and laughter.) I shall be very glad to communicate the name of his colleague when I receive his colleague's permission." Now there is in such matters a weU-understood unwritten law of the House of Commons that accusations like Mr. Parnell's are not to be made unless the accuser is prepared to stand by them. On Liberal not less than on Tory benches it was felt that Mr. ParneU had failed to comply with this law. The verdict of the whole House, the Irish quarter of course excepted, went instantly and unmistakably against him as he made this reply. Silence — the silence of disap- pointment and chagrin — fell upon the Liberals. The Tories roared themselves hoarse with delight. The only man who seemed perfectly unmoved was Sir Michael Hicks -Beach, and the smile never departed from his countenance as he re- plied to Mr. ParneU : " Insinuations are easily made, but proof is a very different thing ; and I have observed that the code of honour of honourable members below the gangway stops at the point where proof becomes necessary." With this stinging epigram the incident ended, leaving Sir Michael Hicks-Beach master of the position. Eightly or wrongly the House, the whole House, awarded him the victory of the moment. He proceeded with his speech but everything seemed an anti-climax after such a combat. Probably he never spoke so weU ; certainly never before had he so well satisfied his party. During the last few sentences of the Tory leader, Mr. Gladstone, foreseeing the end near, opened the red despatch box, arranged his papers, said a last word to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and took his first sip from the pomatum pot. He has been restless for some minutes ; Old Parlia- mentary Hand as he is, it is a nervous business to speak to such a House as this, on such an occasion as this. I doubt whether he does not think that the supreme moment of his A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 213 life has come. He is deadly pale. He cannot satisfy him- self about the disposition, of his coat sleeves which, like Mr. ParneU's, are too long. He has taken a reef in his shirt col- lar but the most patriotic Ulsterman could not accuse him of showing too little linen. Mr. Gladstone is the one Eng- lishman in the House who arrays himself like an American. He is in morning dress while his waistcoat is of the evening and shows three black studs amid the rather troubled ex- panse of his shirt-front. He wears a black tie very care- lessly fastened. It does not matter what he wears. The head is the head of a ruler of men, and his subjects hail his rising with long peals of acclamation of which any ruler might be proud. We all hsten for the first tones of the voice, — half the effect of his speech will depend on Avhether he is in good voice or not. The first sentences emerge a little huskily, then the throat clears, and thence to the end the changing tones came at wiU ; no key in this organ of many stops failed to respond with the right note to the touch of the master. He began quietly enough but with more solemnity than is his wont. It was plain that he had strung himself to the performance of a great task. His opponents may say what they like, the House of Commons is a different body when Mr. Gladstone is addressing it. To the lofty spirit, the en- nobling influence, of the orator many of them are insensi- ble ; it none the less exists. The playfulness of fancy in the exordium surprises but every word goes to the mark ; and as the words are numerous that is saying much. Agree with him or not, you feel that he does approach his subject as no other man approaches it ; with an elevation of view not at- tained by his rivals, if rivals he have ; in a spirit of seeming disinterestedness even when the contest is a contest of party ; with a grandeur that is all his own. He disclaims all thought of reproach on the conduct of the late Ministry. His disclaimer provokes laughter which those of us who are not Tories think unmannerly. I-Iis face flushes as the jeers reach him across the table, and he 214 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. answers with a proud gesture : " If they do not hke to do me that justice I shall not ask it." But again and again he had to endure this laughter ; sometimes, I must say, his own au- dacity encouraged it. He was more than once in that strange mood of mental refinement which the House has come to regard as a proper subject of merriment. He drew perceptible or imperceptible distinctions with equal confi- dence. "When he is not too serious about them it is a de- light to watch these intellectual gymnastics. He traversed Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's statement of what he called sim- ple facts. " I will not say his simple facts are pure fictions because that would hardly, perhaps, be courteous. But they are as devoid of foundation as if they had been pure fiction " — a piece of sportive casuistry which Mr. John Morley re- ceived with a delighted toss of the head and a broad smile. There are no two minds in the House which have had more training in the use of words for the purpose of dehcate discrimination. Mr. John Morley is still young and may pause on the perilous path which Mr. Gladstone has pursued till it has led him to dizzy heights. I wonder whether he ever read Doudan's remark on another great artist in lan- guage, Victor Hugo — il a tellement joue avec les mots quHl en est devenu Vesclave. It came into my head as I listened to Mr. Gladstone ex- pounding to an open-mouthed House the distinction between a person who, having promised that a biU should be recon- structed, is bound to reconstruct it, and a person who has not promised that a bill shall be reconstructed, and is free to reconstruct it, but not bound to. The logical validity of the distinction did not protect it from the laugh of a House which remembered perfectly the passionate " Never, never !" which he was now explaining away. After a few minutes spent in trying his muscles in this way, on he went to higher flights and excursions into wider fields. If while under the fascination of the orator's voice and manner you can keep your mind clear, you will admire the structure of the speech as a work of art. He passes A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 215 easily from the personalities and controversy of the opening to a statement of his position with reference to the biU, and what the House was to vote on. He broadened his previous concessions by not a single inch and won not a single vote from the waverers. Ulster was touched with no better suc- cess — hope of success in such matters he had abandoned — but it served as an easy transition to the historical argu- ment which was the burden of the whole discourse, and per- haps, for the immediate purpose of the evening, a little over- burdened it. A reference to the Colonies offered him the opening he wanted for an attack on Mr. Chamberlain ; one of the sensations of the debate. It took the form of elabo- rate banter, good-humoured and harmless on the surface, very bitter in substance. Mr. Gladstone delivered it with an ap- pearance of affectionate interest in the political ingenuity of his younger friend ; with a variety of intonation and feline gesture which amused the House in general and gratified to the core the resentment of the Parnellites against the Eadi- cal leader. His attack on Lord Salisbury as the author of a policy of coercion which compelled Mr. Gladstone to admit that his own scheme had a rival in the field, foreshadowed the policy of the coming campaign and exasperated the Tories. Eut this and everything else was forgotten in the perora- tion. With a sustained splendour of diction and dignity of thought and feeling, Mr. Gladstone held the House for per- haps a quarter of an hour completely in his grasp. As sen- tence followed sentence, each in the same lofty key, each seeming to reach the oratorical climax which still receded farther and farther, the hearer thought each sentence must be the last. But on and on went the orator, his voice more melodious, his manner more impressive, his eloquence even more pathetic. He silenced his Tory opponents. Not one of them cared to lose a note of that incomparable voice as it rose and fell in musical cadence amid the deep hush that had come upon the House. The oldest member had heard noth- ing equal to this ; the youngest cannot hope that it will ever be heard again. 216 NOTES ON PARLIAMENT. Mr. Gladstone began his speech at half-past eleven, spoke tiU four minutes past one, and resumed his seat amid a tu- mult of cheers which for some minutes prevented the Speak- er from putting the question. The House could not regain its composure. The feelings which the great orator had stirred came from the depths of human nature, and the agi- tation would not be calmed. He had spoken, and he knew it, for a lost cause. He knew the division was going against him ; everybody knew it, but the faith in future triumph overmastered the certainty of immediate defeat. Nay, such was the enchantment of that last quarter of an hour that, to many of his followers, defeat no longer seemed possible ; they were sure that men who doubted must have been converted. A member of the Government who sat in the next gallery leaned over to me and in the flush of this new-born faith asked, " Will you have a sovereign even on the division ?" I could not well refuse. If there were one man in the multitude who seemed im- pervious to all this enthusiasm it was the Speaker, who pres- ently put the question. The Ayes answered with a great shout, prolonged into a cry like nothing the House ever be- fore heard. The Noes responded. " The Ayes have it," said the Speaker. Thei'e was the usual dissent ; the division bells rang ; the question was again put, and the House was cleared for the division at ten minutes past one on Tuesday morning, July 8, 1886. The excitement, the anxious strain, the sus- pense of the next fifteen minutes were to be imagined rather than seen, or to be seen only by reading the faces of the men who had most at stake. The House filled again slowly. When Mr. Marjoribanks, the junior teller of the Government, was seen to come in, it was Icnown that the Ayes must be fewer than the Noes, and a murmur ran along the benches. It was only the signal of a result certain beforehand. The murmur grew as the clerk handed the paper with the figures to Mr. Brand who, with Mr. Caine, told for the Opposition. Mr. Brand read out the figures : "Ayes to the right 311, Noes to the left 341." The Tories burst into wild cheers. The A GREAT NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 217 Liberals answered faintly. A moment later a dense, compact throng of men with angry faces were seen on their feet, fronting the Tories above the gangway, and the Irish were, to use their own language, hurhng back defiance upon their foes. Confusion and tumult reigned; the most discordant cries came from all quarters ; for some minutes all thought of order or decorum was lost ; honourable members had be- come boys, and behaved like boys, some of them bad boys. Presently Mr. T. P. O'Connor called for three cheers for the Grand Old Man, and then three groans for Mr. Chamberlain. This last outbreak of anger brought a smile to the heretofore impassive face of the Kadical leader ; well he knew that such a demonstration could injure nobody but those who took part in it. The scene lacked no element of excitement, but I imag- ine most eyes turned to the Treasury Bench where sat Mr. Gladstone, visibly affected by the greatness of the majority against him. He had counted on ten, or twenty as a possi- bility; the majority of thirty was a blow that staggered him. The noble head was brought low by the shock ; the face grew ashen white. The formal motion which it was his duty to make had to be written for him and read, and the hand which held the written paper shook, and the voice shook, and the figure was the figure of a man who had sud- denly aged. E^ot even the loyal greetings of loyal friends could bring back into his wearied face the light of delight in the battle, or the joy of the personal triumph he had won and of the political triumph he stiU expects to achieve. PAGEANTS. A LONDON SUNDAY, WITH TEOOPS FROM EGYPT TO HELP KEEP IT. [London, October 23, 1882.] Until I read some of the comments on the welcome of Sunday to the troops returning from Egypt, I had no ade- quate notion of the power and influence of this Government. " A planned thing," cries the organ of halfpenny Eadical- ism, in its shrillest treble. Well, a Government capable of planning all that, is a very remarkable Government indeed. Half a million people of all classes and conditions, five miles of streets hned with shouting multitudes, every open space packed, every window and balcony filled, the East End of London joining hands with the West, Wapping with May- fair, Whitechapel with Belgravia ; Conservatives and Liber- als, fishwives and fine ladies, all ages and both sexes — in short, all London pouring into the streets, and startling the quiet air of Sunday with one long outburst of irrepressible enthusiasm — that is what this omnipotent Government planned. It is such bitter, stupid spite as this squeal about planned things which makes one think, at times, that some of the people who call themselves Eadicals have taken leave of their senses. They were opposed to the war in Egypt. They persuaded themselves, I daresay, that a great body of opinion in England was opposed to it. They are astounded and dismayed by the sudden rush of popular approval on Friday and on Sunday. And this is how they seek to ac- count for it — " a planned thing." If ever a pubhc manifestation was spontaneous, this was 222 PAGEANTS. spontaneous. It is not necessary to argue such a matter. Anybody capable of believing the contrary may be left to believe it. He would believe the Government could plan a new solar system. On Friday it was not even known which of two routes the troops would take. The result Avas that both routes were thronged with spectators. On Sunday, while Piccadilly from the top of St. James's Street to Hyde Park Corner was densely peopled on both sides, a rumour was suddenly started that the troops were going round the other way, by the road from Marlborough Gate to Bucking- ham Gate. In a moment the crowd broke up and rushed nearly across St. James's Park, only to find they had been deceived, and rushed madly back again ; too late, most of them. The arrival was fixed for three at Knightsbridge Barracks, on the south side of Hyde Park. At one, I walked past the upper end of the park. It was simply black with people hurrying across to Knightsbridge. In every street as I went on were squads of men and women, and sometimes a whole procession of them, making for some favourable point of sight. By the time I had got to St. James's Street, more than an hour before the troops were expected, it was already dif- ficult to make one's way either on foot or driving. The pavements were given up to an immovable body of specta- tors. The police kept more or less clear just so much space in the roadway as would allow two vehicles to pass each other. The clubs were full, steps, doorways, windows, bal- conies ; and ladies in all of them. This was one of those little things that showed how high the current ran. No London club admits ladies as guests or visitors. On great occasions the committees hold solemn meetings and pass a solemn vote that on such a day, between such hours, and in such and such parts of the club-house, ladies may be admit- ted. For Sunday's spectacle, though the Government had had time to plan it, there had been no time to hold commit- tee meetings ; none had been held, nobody gave leave for a single lady to come in, and the fair intruders swarmed aU A LONDON SUNDAY. 223 over all the club buildings of St. James's Street and Pall Mall. ■ An obliging servant found me a corner in a balcony com- manding a fuU view of the whole of this " celebrated emi- nence," and all the way down to St. James's Palace at the bottom. It had been raining hard but had cleared off. Half of the people one saw were drenched. They had been at their posfs for hours. A friend who came in said he had driven up, an hour before, from the Mansion House in the City and that there also, and all along the route, the crowds had been standing for hours. By two o'clock the police abandoned the notion of keeping any part of the street clear. Piccadilly, into which we could look, was blocked. St. James's Street was a solid mass. It is as wide as Broadway, perhaps wider. Looking down the broad slope about half-past two over the heads of the people on foot, among whom half a dozen mounted police seemed caught and vainly struggling, you saw aU at once at the very bottom a white helmet and red jacket flash against the gloomy background of the old pal- ace which gazes up the street. The sound of far-away cheering broke out and rolled upward. A minute later the Life Guards were in sight, and what a sight ! This is what London has turned out for ; this is the magnificent specta- cle, the plumed troop, the royal banner, and all the quality, pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war. Stretching along the middle of the dense concourse of peaceful people in their Sunday clothes of decorous black, you can see a mere thread of scarlet. That is the Pirst Life Guards, or so many of them as are here to be welcomed ; an average of one Life Guard to each thousand admirers. These few troopers, hemmed in and compassed about by a black mob, thnist hither and thither, swaying half across the street as they slowly chmb the hill, their ranks once or twice all but bro- ken in by the rush of eager friends — this is what the Gov- ernment have " organised." As they drew nearer and passed along beneath the bal- 224 PAGEANTS. cony, the spectacle became still more extraordinary. The whole squadron is of 100 men at most. The horses are in wretched plight, all ribs and ragged coats. The men are hollow-cheeked but look hard and fit nevertheless, Avith their bronzed faces and firm seats in the rusty saddles. Their uniforms are red serge jackets, stained and ill-fitting, their legs swathed in long bandages in place of smart boots — im- provised gaiter-leggings, I should say — with dirty pith hel- mets, no gloves, a dirty blanket rolled on the pommel of the saddle, hardly anything about them shining or clean except their spurs and the blades of their swords. A man who had seen these same dragoons march up that same street three months ago, and who knew naught of what had befallen since, might safely be challenged to say who and what this motley company of cavalry might be. Irregulars from the Cape, he would very likely answer. The Life Guards of three months ago — -with whose appearance, it is worth not- ing, everybody in this multitude is perfectly familiar — are the most splendid troops in Europe ; unrivalled in the phy- sique of the men, the brilliant perfection of their equip- ments, the size and strength and condition of their horses. And this is what six weeks' campaigning has brought them to. Such as they were, they were enough to set London cheer- ing as it cheers only now and then in a generation. And there was something to note beside cheering. Look at the escort which guards the Guards, the serried ranks of men marching with them, closing in on them, and themselves every moment broken in upon by fresh bodies from the crowd. The crowd is of all sorts; roughs, gentlemen, shop- boys, anything you hke. They are all stroking the shaggy hides of the horses, trying to shake hands with the men, pat- ting these tall warriors on the legs and wherever they can reach them. I saw one man offer to carry a trooper's sword. The offer was kindly taken but rejected. Ladies in the bal- conies were waving handkerchiefs, of course ; but they were also crying, which is less of course. When they passed A LONDON SUNDAY. 225 in front of us, a band of forty instruments was playing. Hardly a note was to be heard for the cheering. And this was on a Sunday. I had heard men asking each other whether, inasmuch as it was Sunday, people would think it right to cheer ! Perhaps our halfpenny Eadical friend, when he has got tired of his " planned " theory, will explain these occurrences on some other. It would be easier to account for so much wild delight of welcome to these returning heroes if they had left more of their number behind them. But the losses of the Household Cavalry, as everybody knows, have not been heavy. They have been, if one may say so, almost ludicrously few in number. The cavalry distinguished them- selves at Kassassin and elsewhere but they did it at shght cost to themselves. Of hard fighting, as Europe understands that phrase, there has been httle or none. The best thing that can be said for these men — and it is enough — is that they did well what was given them to do. But Kassassin was very far indeed from being Balaclava. Undoubtedly the papers are right in saying, as they almost all do, that the reception proves the popularity of the war. It proves also that people are satisfied with the military management of it. If Mr. Gladstone were capable of the more than Machiavellian ingenuity ascribed to him, he could not have hit upon a device better calculated to strengthen his Government than to march some soldiers from Egjrpt through the streets of London just as the autumn session of Parlia- ment opens. I have heard it said, and it is perfectly conceiv- able, that the Conservatives have considerably modified their scheme of attack on the Government since witnessing these scenes of Friday and Sunday. But it proves more than the popularity of this Egyptian war. It proves how popular any war is, or any successful war. Mr. Henry Eichard may preach peace till Domesday ; he cannot preach out of the soul of the Englishman his pas- sion for war. The Manchester school has never educated and never will educate him into forgetting how he has won, 11.-15 226 PAGEANTS. and how he must keep, his Empire. To the average Briton this war in Egypt is an imperial war, a war for the safety of India, and as such he approves it with all his heart. He does not care much about the Khedive or the Control, and not even the continued efforts of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt have made Arabi a hero to him, nor yet very hateful to him. He likes Mr. Gladstone better because a war has been fought under his ministry. It was plain to be seen how things were going last July. The roar that filled London to-day is only one more echo of Sir Beauchamp Seymour's guns before the forts of Alexandria. The scenes of this afternoon were on a great- er scale than those that were to be witnessed on that memo- rable Tuesday of July, in the same streets, when men's faces were hghted up with the joy of hearing once more the sound of British cannon. But the spirit of the two days is the same, and the lesson is the same. A ROYAL EEVIEW. THE TEOOPS FROM EGYPT AND THEIE 'WELCOME HOME. [London, iVbwemJe)- 21,1882.] Feom sunrise to half -past twelve on Saturday, London was in despair. It Avas the morning of the royal review of the troops who had come back from Egypt ; and St. James's Park, where the review was to take place, and the streets through which the army was afterward to pass, were swallowed up in a fog. By dint of much groping and stumbling about, peo- ple had got to their places on the stands in the rear of the Horse Guards and the Admiralty by noon. But once there they seemed little better off than if they had stayed at home. The prayers and entreaties in answer to which tickets had been grudgingly forthcoming might as well have been spared. The public, in truth, had been treated badly. Pro- vision had been made for certain favoured classes. The two large stands were calculated to hold the whole body of Peers, members of the House of Commons, the Diplomatic Corps, sundry miUtary and naval bodies of distinction, some official people and their friends, and such others as could bring a cer- tain amount of influence to bear on the authorities. The press was provided for much on the principle which governs the arrangements in Parliament, where London and a few leading towns in the country are admitted and the rest of the universe is ignored. Even ambassadors had but scant cour- tesy. They might take members of their embassies and their families ; nobody else. As for the general public, cer- tain spaces on the ground were allotted to early comers. If 228 PAGEANTS. you liked to pass through the gates before ten and stand till toward one you had a chance of a place; otherwise not. But, as I was saying, when the hour came the fortunate few were more miserable than the unfortunate many. They had tak- en much pains to see the spectacle and the only thing clear was that, as a spectacle, the review would be a failure. From the Treasury buildings, which look straight on the Horse Guards Parade and thence all across St. James's Park, the prospect at uoon was utterly dismal. The Parade itself was just visible, and a few shivering figures moving uneasi- ly over the ground. The stands could be seen, and rows of people huddled together. Opposite them you could half make out a dim line of what seemed to be mounted troops, and the belief that this dim line might be the Life Guards was confirmed by an occasional neigh and the impatient stamp of unseen hoofs. A black knot of indistinguishable humanity just below us proved, when a puff of wind for one moment made a rent in the fog, to be the Indian contingent. 'Now and then we caught a glimpse of the flagstaff in the centre of the ground from which the royal standard was sup- posed to float, and at intervals a mounted staff -officer tore past on a shadowy steed. But of the long lines of troops we knew to be somewhere drawn up, of the broad expanse of park and lake, of trees and stately mansions bordering the park, and of the great palace straight before us, not a sign was to be seen. "We chatted gloomily together, looked upward to the spot in what ought to be the sky where we imagined the sun might break through, discussed the state of the wind, and jested in bitterness of spirit about " Queen's weather." The Queen was to leave Buckingham Palace at half-past twelve and she is known to be a miracle of punctual exact- ness. As the Horse Guards clock boomed the half-hour we listened for the guns, but no sound of guns was to be heard. I believe that in fact none were fired though they were promised. Every two or three minutes that we looked at our watches the fog seemed to grow thicker, and the delay A ROYAL REVIEW. 229 was inexplicable. But at twenty minutes to one a strain of " God Save the Queen " was borne eastward, and a moment later the sound of distant cheering made it certain that Her Majesty was really approaching. Presently, from the dirty white sea of stifling vapour below and beyond us, came the noise of mounted troops in motion. Through that impene- trable curtain of fog the tramp of horses, the crunching of frosty gravel beneath iron hoofs, the clank of sabres, the sharp word of command, the hissing of wheels as they rolled slowly along the flinty road, all the confused murmur of some great mass in movement, reached us with a distinct- ness ever increasing. The mass in movement, whatever it might be, remained totally invisible. "We all stood as if in a dream, listening to the stir of we knew not what ghostly procession. Her Majesty and her escort had to drive down the slope of the Mall to the southernmost end of the Parade, turn sharply to the left, and so straight back again to the saluting point in the centre. The whole of the escort and staff passed us fifty yards away, unseen. As the royal carriage swept round the angle the fog parted, and we saw the Queen, the Prince of Wales riding on her right hand, the Duke of Cam- bridge on the left. A ray of sunhght glanced on them, and fifteen seconds later the clouds broke, the fog dissolved, the sun shone out in splendour, and the scene came into view all in one magical moment. Just beneath us stood the Prime Minister, with his family and friends, in a private stand erected in the garden of his official residence. Across the Parade to the west the Life Guards, as we had guessed, were in line, the red and white and gold and black of their splendid uniforms and steeds shining out in the sudden flood of light, and set off against a background of trees, the outhne of whose leafless branches was softened by the still clinging mist. Beyond them slept the smooth surface of the water, and beyond that again rOse a more distant and shadowy belt of tall shrubbery. To the right stretched the line of soldiers, with ghnt of sunlight 230 PAGEANTS. flashing back from every point and boss and broad surface of polished steel and gold. In the centre, the royal standard streamed out with the rising breeze and beneath it, sitting in her carriage and bowing to the cheers of the multitude that encircled her, was the Queen. The headquarters staff were gathered about her, brilliant with every hue, foreign uniforms mingling with the scarlet of England ; and the blue of the navy gathered in one mass. Half the beauty and chivalry of the land are here. The Princess of Wales is in the carriage next to the Queen ; princesses by the half-dozen hard by ; the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh ; the Crown Princess, Avho ought to have been named first and who will one day be Empress of Germany ; minor royalties too nu- merous to mention. And they have all the Generals of the army of Egypt to stand guard over them. But almost before any of us know it the march past has begun, the escort of the Queen breaking up and reforming beyond the standard, and moving past between the royal carriage and the two great stands. Sir Garnet Wolseley rides at the head ; slender in figure, easy in the saddle, sword drawn, the keen dark eye flashing from beneath the heavy silver-haired and white-plumed brow. The Queen — I believe it is an honour without precedent ^rose from her carriage seat, and stood as her conquering General passed and saluted. Mr. Gladstone rose and stood bareheaded till the soldier who has been fighting his battles — for his also they were — in Egypt had ridden by. But, well known as Sir Garnet is to all that select throng in the stands, the cheers for him come faint and few. One writer says there was a " complimentary hush," which may be re- spectfully dismissed as nonsense. The explanation is, I think, that the suddenness of his appearance took people complete- ly by surprise. I know that in our party of some forty men and women Sir Garnet's approach was hardly noticed tiU he was close under us, and the Prime Minister's uncovered gray head was seen. It does not much matter. He had cheering to his heart's content a little later in the streets. And his A KOYAL REVIEW. 231 Generals and othei* staff-officers were cheered ; Willis and Macplierson and the rest. The troops followed without delay. First the Naval Bri- gade swung past with a step more like French Zouaves than English sailors ; perhaps the most popular body of all, both for their hard and good service in Egypt and because they were sailors. Then General Sir Drury Lowe at the head of the Cavalry Brigade ; the head of that decisive dash in Cairo Avhich saved the capital of Egypt from the dismal fate of Alexandria. He may be set down in company with Sir Eve- lyn Wood as the two favourites of the hour, next after their chief. But bodies of men held the general eye more than any individuals, no matter how distinguished. This Parade Ground of which everybody complained as too small is, in fact, quite large enough for the most effective display. From the extreme north to the extreme south there is just room for a battalion of eight companies formed in columns of com- panies, half - company front ; the front varying from the eighty men of the Eoyal Marine Infantry to the thirty of any of the mixed corps. Cavalry, artillery, marines. Guards, and Line Eegiments went past, each in their turn, with a swift precision and steadiness which it does not need a mili- tary eye to pronounce admirable. If one must choose be- tween them, the Eoyal Marines, with their unequalled breadth of front, were most perfect in marching ; the Grenadier Guards^ whose companies did not exceed seventy -five or eighty men, in wheeling. The marching drill of the artillery is probably the best in the world, and the Life Guards, whether for physique, equipment, mount, or movement and manoeuvre, are certainly without an equal anywhere. As a mere spectacle, in fine, this review is of the highest quality. It lacks nothing but multitude and mass. In all, there are but 5000 troops and the whole pass before the Queen in less than an hour. If the pipeclay people had had their way the review would have ended then and there, and the spectators would not much have exceeded the soldiers in number. But pipeclay for once was overruled, and when the 232 PAGEANTS. column had marched past the royal standard, and past the little company of the chosen few admitted to the sacred pre- cincts, and past the Prime Minister (who certainly stood bareheaded quite half the time), and had wheeled to the right, and again to the left into Birdcage Walk, it then took its way into the streets and through the vast concourse of its feUow-subjects and citizens who filled the "West End with their welcome. There I cannot follow it. Those who wit- nessed the scene in the main thoroughfares, in Piccadilly, St. James's Street, Pall Mall, Charing Cross, and Whitehall, report that the enthusiasm which took on so decorous and grave a form in the park broke out in rolUng volleys of in- cessant cheers. The police say a million of people were in the streets. Half an hour after the last uniform had gone down St. James's, that street, as I saw for myself, was still thronged with people, who were still cheering. THE LAW COUKTS. [London, December 4, 1882.] The Londoner deems himself fortunate in that he has been permitted to gaze on two royal pageants within little more than two weeks. Dear to his heart is the Queen, and any ceremony which tempts the Queen to quit her seclusion and show herself to her lieges of London delights him. And yet it has to be said that he is not himself a very skilful person in the decorative part of these ceremonies. The royal re- view of last Saturday fortnight was but little enlivened by any popular decking of houses, a single street only, St. James's, showing much colour, and that not very harmoni- ous. To-day, the opening of the Eoyal Courts of Justice drew people into the streets by scores of thousands. Her Majesty Avas to drive all the way from Paddington to Tem- ple Bar, a distance of full three miles. For the last mile her course lay through the most thronged and central portion of London — through Pall Mall and Trafalgar Square and the Strand. There Avas every opportunity for adorning houses. The French on such an occasion manage to make Paris a marvel of varied beauty in colour and in design. Perhaps the Englishman is too serious ; certainly he lacks the gift of taste in such matters. All you could see in Pall Mall were a few balconies and window-sills draped in red cloth. The public buildings were bare. Neither the "War Office in PaU Mall nor the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square had a single touch of colour nor a yard of cloth. Somerset House, in the Strand, where nearly every private building was garnished with some pat- 234 PAGEANTS. tern of drapery, stood out stern and gray and cold in the hard light. Of the Strand itself, where loyalty and an eye to business combined to cover the shop fronts with gay trap- pings, it is to be said that the effect was tawdry. The high- est ideal and model of the Strand shopkeeper in the matter of embellishment is the pink-and- white bridecake of the local confectioner. The greatest effort had been made where money was to be made. The tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who came out to see strange sights rose high about the doors of the temples of St. Martin and St. Mary and St. Clement Dane, gorgeous with crimson and blooming with bright faces and gay dresses. The police were everywhere in masses but the London policeman, though a big, fine fellow, is not a thing of beauty, nor his uniform conceived with an eye to lighting up a landscape. The scar- let of the Grenadier Guards in squads at intervals came out in bright bands, and the Life Guards Blue at some of the chief street crossings were, as they always ai'e, magnificent, but few. Her Majesty has herself to thank if people will not take some trouble. She drives on such occasions between the double lines of her adoring subjects at a smart trot. They have come from far and near, by train and omnibus, and on foot. They have stood waiting for hours. The Queen flashes by, with a kindly nod to the multitudes on either hand, and it is all over. The escort is but a couple of squadrons of Life Guards, and there is nobody else in the carriages whom anybody would turn a corner to look at. In Pall Mall Her Majesty was received with something that came very near to that queerly complimentary hush which greeted Lord Wolseley as he rode past the stands of select spectators on the Horse Guards parade last Saturday fortnight. In the Strand, where the populace has given itself rendezvous, the cheering, I am told, was hearty. But the interest of the day centres in the great hall of the new Law Courts, not in the streets. There it is that the opening ceremonial is to take place, and there it is that THE LAW COURTS. 235 everybody to whom fate, in the person of the First Com- missioner of Works, had allotted a ticket, arrives at an early hour of Monday morning. For days we had all been read- ing long accounts of the new buildiugs; almost as long as the delay in completing them. I have not space for a sin- gle word about anything save what I saw of the ceremony itself, and save this also, — that an occasion when the Judges and the Ear of England say farewell to the courts where for six hundred years and more justice has been admin- istered is really a memorable occasion. In these new build- ings, of vast extent and gloom, and intricate structure and inconvenience, and prodigal costliness, ah the courts, with all their array of judicial and forensic splendour, are hence- forward to be held. Sanguine persons say law is to be cheaper and quicker ; but in these hazardous forecasts of a halcyon future only the boldest will venture to follow them. Noon was the hour appointed for the Queen's arrival ; at eleven every guest was warned to be in his or her seat. Certainly more than half the company were there at half- past ten. The hall where they are assembling — the great hall of which one has been hearing as the glory of nine- teenth century Gothic — wiU certainly disappoint you at the first glance. It has the proportions of a huge cathedral nave, but a nave is only the central aisle of three or five, opening, moreover, laterally between its piers, with tran- septs, and perhaps a lantern, and the choir reaching beyond, its height broken by clerestory and triforium above the col- umns. But this hall is one solid stretch of stone from end to end, nearly 300 feet in length, 80 feet high, and less than 50 in width. To such proportions, in such circumstances, the eye cannot accustom itself. This morning it seems nar- rower, probably, than it really is. Eanges of seats have been put up along both walls, rising in six or seven tiers, leaving between them a central avenue some 15 feet wide. At intervals stand the Yeomen of the Guard, in quaint Eliz- abethan uniform, and there are bannerets corresponding each one in colour to one of the tickets which have been 236 PAGEANTS. issued. You see at once in which block your seat is and the 1800 guests find their way to their places without con- fusion. Disciphne, however, is not so strict but that you are al- lowed to stroll up and down the aisle and have a look at the celebrities. The dais at the upper end is still unpeopled, but elsewhere there are plenty of brave men and fair wom- en worth regarding. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, the First Commis- sioner of Works, has distributed cards in a catholic spirit. Time was when, except diplomatists and in this case the Bar, nobody would have been asked but persons of rank and fashion ; or perhaps of great political eminence. Eank and fashion are here to-day but not in overpowering num- bers. Men of science and of letters, artists, warriors, jour- nahsts, are present in numbers. Almost the first face I rec- ognise is the strong one of Professor Huxley looking out from beneath a cocked and plumed hat. He is clad in uni- form, while Professor Tyndall who sits near him is in even- ing dress. Levee dress for those who have it, evening dress for those who have not, said the explicit printed note ac- companying one's cards. But every man entitled to wear uniform of any sort wears it. Professor Huxley was once in the navy and is now an official of the Home Office. Mr. Browning is not far off. Sir William Gregory is rejoicing in Arabi's escape from the halter. Mr. Frank Hill, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Chenery, Mr. Greenwood, Mr. Edward Dicey are among the journalists. The president of the Koyal Academy, Sir Frederick Leighton, a striking figure in his velvet court suit, and Mr. Millais, hardly less striking in white tie and swallow-tail, are there as representatives of Art ; and I suppose others. I have since read in some newspaper that the white tie and swallow-tail are the national costume of America; the proof being that Mr. Lowell wore them. Everybody re- marked him and remarked on him ; the truth being that or- dinary evening dress is levee dress for the American Minis- ter, who is permitted by the State Department to assume THE LAW COURTS. 237 velvet coat and silk stockings only when he enters the pres- ence of the Sovereign at a Drawing Koom. He was con- spicuous, as he always is, amid the dazzling uniforms of his colleagues ; of whom the German Ambassador, Count Mun- ster, with his gigantic stature, the Austrian, Count Karolyi, in Hungarian costume, the Turk, the Japanese, and the Madagascar envoys attract most attention. Lord Granville comes in later, with Lady Granville by his side, and the broad blue ribbon of the Garter en smitoir across his chest. Lord Wolseley is vastly sought after, and one effect of his known or supposed presence is that almost every man in a red coat is pointed out in turn as the victor of Tel-el-Kebir. Mr. Henry Irving excites a veritable sensation as he saun- ters up the aisle in company with Miss Ellen Terry ; his re- fined face and faultless attire showing the man of the world. It pleases Miss EUen Terry to clothe her tall figure in a gray ulster which sweeps the ground, surmounted by a hat which looks hke nothing so much as a feminine edition of the Beef -eaters' just in front of her. Lord Eosebery, in radiant apparel which I suppose may be his uniform as Lord Lieutenant, sits among the diplomatists and by Mr. Lowell's side. Music has sent her envoys. Sir Julius and Lady Bene- dict and Mr. Arthur Sullivan, with his fresh honours bloom- ing all over him. The Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley occupies a front bench midway between door and dais. JSTor has Law neglected her sister professions. Medicine walks up the haU in the genial person of Dr. Priestley, whom I may perhaps call the Fordyce Barker of London, and Surgery sits on a back bench by the name of Sir James Paget. The Church has of course an important part to play; some of her best dignitaries are here, and we shall hear a sonorous prayer from the Archbishop of York. Members of the House of Commons are to be seen ; they are not so numerous as they would hke to be, but Sir Henry Brand, the Speaker, stands for the whole body. Presently came the Lord Mayor in state, with Mace and Sheriffs and Common Councilmen, and I know not what other civic 238 PAGEANTS. functionaries; advancing proudly to the sound of music more martial than civic. Scores of others I must leave unnamed, for all at once the dais fills with dignitaries before whom everybody trembles, or ought to tremble. The Judges appear, and with them, or perhaps before them, the still more awful individuality of the Lord Pligh Chancellor of England. He and the Lords Justices are in robes of black and gold ; the Judges in scar- let and ermine, the Archbishop of York in full canonicals, as befits the " surpliced merchant" whom Emerson's piercing vision saw in the prelate of the Church of England. Com- ing in a moment later by a side door opening on the dais, appears a figure all black and gold like the Lords Justices, but with a head of which no Lord Justice of them all can boast the like, whether for depth and breadth of brow, or sweeping arch at the temple, or deep flashing eyes, or Web- ster - like features ; massive, powerful, noble. There is but one such head in England and it belongs to Mr. Gladstone, though what he is doing in this judicial masquerade none of us at first can make out. A wise man by and by tells us that as Chancellor of the Exchequer he has a right to a seat on the Bench, and to this dress, which suits him none the worse that it gives him a certain ancient or perhaps foreign, say Yenetian, air. This judicial concourse on the platform adds much to the splendour of the company, hitherto want- ing a little in colour, or not so much wanting in colour as in mass of colour. The ladies are all m morning dress, mostly with wraps of dark velvet and fur ; and the bari-isters, of whom a whole section is grouped opposite the diplomatic body, are anything but gorgeous in their horse -hair wigs and black gowns of stuff or silk. Over all, most happily, streams a December sunlight. The day is one more example of Queen's weather. The rays which fall aslant through the great south window over the entrance bring out every tint and hue and every shimmer of gold, and illumine a scene which is long to live in the memory of those present, and long to adorn the annals of England. THE LAW COURTS. 239 Just before twelve Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, who all the morn- ing had been moving about in execution of endless duties, mounted the platform hastily, and summoned the Judges to foUow him. They moved slowly down the whole length of the haU. to the entrance to meet the Queen. At five min- utes past noon Her Majesty entered, unheralded by cheers, so far as we could hear, from the outside, and instantly the parade began ; the procession advancing in appointed order ; the whole company on the benches rising and standing in perfect silence. The Builders walked first; then the sur- viving Architect; next the Attorney - General (Sir Henry James) and the Solicitor - General (Sir Farrar Herschel). Then came the whole body of the Judges ; not so far ele- vated above human interests as to refrain from using their eyeglasses ; some of them, from time to time, nodding in a quite human way to their friends. Mr. Gladstone is with them; Sir "William Harcourt also, perhaps the tallest per- sonage in the haU, unless Count Munster be his equal. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Selborne) followed by himself, the Mace going before, and his train-bearer coming after. Then the first Commissioner and Mr. Bertie Mitford. Then the Lord Steward (Earl Sydney) and the Lord Chamberlain (Earl of Kenmare) came side by side, as chief officers of the Eoyal Household. Next, walking by herself, came a little, short, stout wom- an dressed in deep black, with a round, broad, high-coloured face, sad in expression yet Avith a look of command, and bowing with grave politeness to right and left. That is the Queen of England. People remarked with regret that she had thought it needful, out of respect to the memory of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to clothe herself in mourning deeper than usual. But that is a point on which, as on most others, the Queen is a wilful woman. For no ceremony, for no rejoicing, private or public, will Pier Majesty lay aside her weeds. She wears black at the weddings of her sons and daughters, or black and white; and no patch or line of colour is suffered to-day to light up the sombre gloom of her 240 PAGEANTS. raiment. With all the disadvantage of unsuitable dress and short stature, she moves up the long aisle with an ease and dignity of demeanour which may well be called queenly. Everybody bows low, and bows again to the Princesses and Princes Avho follow close after. The Princess Christian and Princess Beatrice walk together ; then the Princess Mary of Teck by herself, as if she wanted all the space this not wide avenue affords. Then come the Prince of "Wales, the Duke of Gonnaught, and the Duke of Albany, the three brothers abreast, each in scarlet uniform oddly enveloped in the black bencher's go'^vii, of which too many are to be seen elsewhere on other shoulders. The Duke of Cambridge, blazing in scarlet and gold, and the Duke of Teck with his brand-new medal and colonelcy, followed hard after. The Princess of Wales is absent, to the general regret ; and this solemnity lacked the grace which her presence and beauty and sweet- ness and gentle distinction of manner would have given it. When all these royal and noble and judicial personages had taken their places on the dais, the Queen seated herself for a moment, then rose and remained standing. The Pirst Commissioner Avithout delay and in a few words offered Her Majesty the key of the building. The Home Secretary, standing at the Queen's right hand, received it. Then Her Majesty, speaking in a voice of which the clear strong tones were audible to the farthest end of the hall, said — "My Lord Chancellor, I deliver into your charge with this key the care of these Courts of Law. I trust that the uniting together in one place of the various branches of Judi- cature in this my Supreme Court will conduce to the more efficient and speedy administration of justice to my subjects, and I have all confidence that the independence and learn- ing of the Judges, supported by the integrity and abOity of the other members of the profession of the law, wiU prove in the future, as they have been in times past, a chief security for the rights of my Crown and the liberties of my people." I cannot aver that we heard all the words, but this haU is not designed for acoustic effects. 'No more could we hear THE LAW COURTS. ' 241 the Lord Chancellor's reply, which was quite ten times as long as the Queen's address ; nor yet the prayer offered by the Archbishop of York. What we all did hear was the single sentence pronounced by the Home Secretary : " I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to de- clare this building open." And the blast of trumpets which followed might have waked the dead. What else passed was in pantomime ; addresses presented by the Prince of Wales on behalf of the Inns of Court, and by the Lord Chancellor on behalf of some other legal body ; petition by the Attorney - General that the proceedings of this day be entered on the records of the Supreme Court, and gracious assent by Her Majesty; presentation to Her Majesty of the Judges. Then, with many low bows and all but prostration of the judicial body before the throne, the Judges vanish past the Queen; the Princes vanish; the Queen herself vanishes ; and the Royal Courts of Justice are open henceforward and for ever. II.— 16 THE PEOPLE'S PALACE, AND THE OPENING OF IT BY THE QtTEBN. [London, May 15, 1887.] It was half-past two on Saturday afternoon when I start- ed to drive from St. James's Street to the People's Palace, in Mile End Eoad, far in the east of London. As I wanted to see the whole, or nearly the whole, route, I went straight to Oxford Street. General traffic was to have been stopped at two but from the top of Bond Street to Tottenham Court Eoad, Oxford Street was a tangled mass of carriages, vans, omnibuses, and cabs, so that it took half an hour to do the half-mile and my cabman more than once advised me to get out of it and try some other way. But beyond Tottenham Court Eoad the thoroughfare was in possession of the police and encumbered only by foot-passengers, who seemed to think a hansom cab an intruder and to believe that the pavements had been swept and garnished with gravel for their exclusive benefit. At every corner a policeman sig- nalled to the driver to turn off into a side street, but the sight of a bit of cardboard printed in pink softened the se- verity of his views and we were allowed to go on. In Mile End Eoad our troubles began again and another half-hour had to be spent over the last half-mile as over the first. Street cars and every kind of miscellaneous vehicle were struggling and grinding along this broad avenue. Long be- fore we reached it, we had become part of a file of carriages and hansoms, all bound for the Palace. In the confusion this file became double and treble, and one passed and re- THE PEOPLE'S PALACE. 243 passed and was again passed by one's friends and competi- tors in the race — a very slow race^for the entrance. Alto- gether it was ah hour and three-quarters before we arrived. The distance, I suppose, is six miles. Police arrangements at either end were anything but good and I have no idea how Mile End Koad was cleared for the Queen, as cleared it must have been. But all this delay mattered nothing ; it only gave one a better view of the long spectacle of decorated streets and the multitudes who were out to see the Queen. There are people who say — some of the papers say- — that the adorn- ments were poor. "What did they expect ? It was a sunny afternoon and, for my part, I cannot remember to have seen London so gay. No single effort, perhaps, was a very won- drous one. No building was ornamented at great cost or with originality of design or treatment, or owed much to the suggestions of art. It was the profusion of decoration, the wealth of colour, the variety, the apparently endless suc- cession of flaunting flags and strips of bunting and embroid- ered and bemottoed banners and clusters of union-jacks, that made the general effect so fine. Here and there floated far above the rest the Eoyal Standard of England, with its field of gold and of crimson, its lions and leopards and blazonry of the throne. The detail was not much to boast of ; the bird's-eye view from almost any point was fine, and from certain points was magnificent. Holborn and Holborn Via- duct were superb. The slope of the broad street, the stretch of open space on either side the Viaduct, lent themselves to picturesque treatment. Like all the route, Holborn is a street of shops and warehouses and banks and pubhc buildings. It would have been too much to expect that some of the tradespeople, who are the majority, should not have seized the occasion to advertise their loyalty and their wares to- gether. They did. Some of these displays were offensive but probably did more harm to the displayers than to any- body else. The people who had come out to see the Queen open their 244 PAGEANTS. Palace were themselves a wonderful siglit. Their good tem- per was as good as that of a French crowd on a fete day; and more cannot be said. The style in which they opened their ranks for carriages to pass was proof enough of their amiability. The East End certainly beat the West for numbers and, I hear, for enthusiasm when the Queen drove past. So did it in the quantity if not quality of its embel- lishments. Festoons of many-hued papers often did duty for cloth of gold and silk and satin and velvet which more pros- perous people put forth. But they had done all they could, had given and striven out of the abundance of their hearts rather than of mere riches, and they had their reward. There was really nothing to equal Whitechapel. You might not think Holborn very sumptuous in its luxury, after all ; you were sure to feel that in the tinsel and bits of red rag which hung on the front of mean little shops in the east there was something genuine, nay, pathetic. There, if any- where, is the home of Democracy, even of Eepublicanism and Socialism, and perhaps of Anarchy itself, though there is extremely little of any one of them in any political sense or usable for any political purpose. But these hard-work- ing, simple folk, in the midst of their grim poverty or des- perate struggle for existence, have a sentiment of loyalty which no Republican need contemn. A man must be loyal to something. If a Queen be his ideal of wliat is noblest or greatest in this world, in Heaven's name let him be loyal to her. There is much to be said about the People's Palace and the Beaumont Trust and Mr. "Walter Besant, whose dream has taken this solid and splendid shape, but I must leave it and limit myself to notes of what I saw and heard. The Queen's Hall is much praised. It is a gift, and I for one will not look it in the mouth. I prefer to assume that the people are not to be asked to derive their notions of art from all this garishness of gilding, and crude color, and ar- chitectural features where the sham classic contends with the commonplace. Enough that it is roomy, and that the THE PEOPLE'S PALACE. 245 music of a numerous choir and the tones of a woman's voice were equally audible and clear in all parts. Doors to be shut at four, said one's card, and no person to be admitted after. This was alarming in its peremptori- ness, yet at quarter-past four they were still wide open and people streamed in till five ; the hour fixed for the Queen's coming. First of the royalties to arrive was the Duke of Cambridge, gorgeous in his Field Marshal's panoply ; with him the Duchess of Teck and her daughter. Princess Victoria. The platform at that moment was in sole possession of Lady Sahsbury. Nowise disconcerted, the Prime Minister's wife stood aside for the Duke to mount, then entered into cheery talk with the gray warrior, without the preliminary curtsey which His Koyal Highness expected. A few — not very many — celebrities were visible. Professor Huxley's square, wise, swarthy face, with eyes of gray fire beneath a crown of gray hair, looked down from the east gallery ; the saucy visage of a pretty young woman, who resembled him slight- ly, by his side. Sir Arthur and Lady Hayter were in the centre ; Lady Eosebery sat in front in dark lilac. The Prince and Princess of Wales came at quarter to five, cheers accompanying them. The Princess was in a gown of black velvet, whereof the corsage and skirt were slashed into crimson lozenges. She has long passed for the best- dressed and best-mannered woman in England, nor was it to-day that any one would dispute either title with her. Her beauty is only the more noticeable for that tall young wom- an of twenty in a dun-coloured, studiously simple frock, who is her daughter. The Prince, like the Duke, figures as a Field Marshal, and both have the blue ribbon of the Garter. Talk goes on everywhere; on the platform and about it, and salutations are exchanged freely; Prince and Princess recognising friends and acquaintances right and left. If either bows or nods to a lady, a low curtsey is returned; not an easy thing to manage from a crowded bench but it has to be done, and it is surprising how well it is done. It is ten minutes past five when the trumpet is heard out- 246 PAGEANTS. side that heralds the coming of the Queen. The whole audi- ence, floor and galleries alike, rise. Doors are flung open ; choir and leader wait breathless, and before we who are near the platform catch any glimpse of the head of the procession, "God Save the Queen "breaks forth. It is a stately wel- come but the music silences the cheers which, I fancy, would have been more musical still to the royal ear. Nobody re- gards the group of men who lead the way ; the one wish of these thousands inside, as of the hundreds of thousands out- side, is to see how the Queen looks. The first comment I heard was from a lady near whom I stood — a beautiful American in black Avhom I would name if I dared. " The Queen has got a new bonnet," cried she. This new bonnet was black, with something white or light gray in it ; her gown all black. She moved slowly and, I thought, wearily and not strongly. Never had I seen the rubicund face of English Majesty so near the usual complexion of the Eng- lish woman. She looked not precisely pale but wan. The short, rotund figure had all its singular dignity of old, but less than its old vigour and activity. ■ Once more I had to admire, whether I would or no, the royal bearing so royally maintained by a woman to whom nature has denied the physical gifts which are thought to go with distinction of deportment, but on whom birth and fifty years of sovereign- ty have bestowed a manner quite matchless. The cheers broke out as the song died away, but less spontaneously than if men had had their way with their own voices at the beginning; and the Queen acknowledged them with be- nignity. There was the usual pause. The Prince, who had met his mother at the top of the steps to the platform, talked to her for a minute while the functionaries arranged themselves ; then the ceremony began. There was an address, of course, and a long one ; read by Sir Edmund Currie. The Queen answered in a voice which soon found its right pitch and was heard in all corners of the hall. Madame Albani's singing of " Home, Sweet Home " was a welcome part of the THE PEOPLE'S PALACE. 247 programme. The presentations to Her Majesty which fol- lowed were gratifying to the presentees and amusing to those of us who were near enough to watch closely what went on. Each man had his own way of getting up on the dais, his own way of bowing^ his own way of retreating; each more confused than the other, Mr. Besant excepted. The novelist's nerves were strengthened by a hearty cheer which greeted his name, and his alone. The knighting of Mr. Jennings seemed an inspiration of the moment. Some- body was hurried off for Sir Patrick Grant's sword. Mr. Jennings had not been told what to do, and there was now no time for rehearsal; so he bowed, and knelt, and rose again, and knelt again, to the word of whispered command from some useful official ; and rose, at last,' Sir John to the end of his days. This knighthood feat accomplished, the Queen's work in the haU was done. As she quitted her station she shook hands with Lady Eosebery, Lady Salis- bury, and Lady Stanley of Alderley, whose reverences in return were things to see, and so went out eastward, the cheers of her lieges once more rising as she moved among them and disappeared in the blinding light of an opened door through which we caught sight of another concourse of people, and heard the noise of another loyal welcome. She was to lay, and I suppose did lay, the corner-stone of some other new people's building. Leavingthe hall by a side door I went round to the main entrance to see the Queen's departure. The courtyard was filled with troops, with the royal carriages, as it is the fashion to call them, with royal red footmen, with police, and with a few visitors who wanted, as I did, a closer look at Her Majesty. A company of the Grenadier Guards in their bearskins formed the outer hedge; no troops like them, for show ; not many for fighting. There they stood, erect, motionless, every button and gunbarrel shining in the sun, scarlet jackets shining, faces shining ; alert, nerves all on edge, an immovable wall of drilled humanity ; a segment of that immortal thin red line which Kinglake saw at the 248 PAGEANTS. Alma, and which stretches pretty well round the world. Plumed officers moved in their stiff, military way up and down, vigilant, keen-sighted ; all their credit staked on the absolute perfection of every detail of soldierly equipment presently to be scrutinised, though only for one passing in- stant, by two of the sharpest pairs of martinet eyes in Eu- rope, belonging to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge. If there be speck or spot on a single private's jacket, his life is not a happy one. There will be a growl from the Horse Guards to the colonel, descending thence in ever-deepening wrath to the unhappy mortal m the ranks who wore the unclean garment. More dazzling still, to the civilian's eye, are the squadron of Life Guards who form Her Majesty's escort ; helmeted, cuirassed, jack- booted, all steel and scarlet and white leather breeches and black sheep- skin, bestriding, statue-like, sleek, strong black chargers; giants on giant steeds ; the prim perfection of holiday horse- men. Yes, but when those long blades leave their steel scabbards, you will see notches where steel has met other steel, and if you look at the butts of the carbines which hang straight up and down ready to the hand on the right rear of the saddle, every one is dented thick and deep with the honourable scars of service in the field. The Queen was not long in coming, preceded as always by the glittering company who were to fill the four car- riages in front of her; equerries, ladies in waiting, lords in waiting. Gold Stick in waiting, the old Field Marshal, Sir Patrick Grant, the young Duke of Portland, Master of the Horse, Princes, all birds of the most rare plumage. They hurry down the steps and bundle themselves into their car- riages with scant ceremony. Their immediate business is to be out of the way, that the Queen may not have to say, as Louis XIV did — or did not, the sceptical Fournier says not — " I was near being kept waiting." The police, sturdy, faithful souls, looked slightly scandalised as they beheld these great people in gold lace scampering off across the gravel — women too, and two Duchesses at that ; only they THE PEOPLE'S PALACE. 249 could not be said to scamper. A Duchess-in-waiting must, at moments, be content to part with a little of her ducal dignity. The Queen's carriage was an open dark-blue landau, large and heavy, on C springs, panels emblazoned with the royal arras, no box, rumble behind, drawn by four black bays groomed to a nicety, with harness and trappings on which the Sadler's art had said its last word ; showy, almost gaudy. The two postilions in black jackets and white breeches were boys to look at, but might be of any years ; nothing is so uncertain as the age of a human t)eing who has to do with horse-flesh. When this equipage drew up at the foot of the red-carpeted platform, there began a series of curiously elab- orate preparations. A footman, a dismounted outrider, and Clark, Highland gillie in semi- succession to the late John Brown, were none too many for the work that had to be done. Skids were got out and the off hind wheel was blocked fore and aft, lest the impatient team start while Majesty is getting in. The harness is looked over, strap by strap and buckle by buckle, rapidly but surely. Clark lets down the steps of the landau, gets in, arranges the wraps, clears the back seat, dances about to make sure of the springs, finally jumps up and down on the lower step to make sure of that also. He is not a feather-weight but nothing gives. This finished, the Queen appears at the door. The Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward are showing her the way ; the former. Lord Lathom, a marked figure with his stream- ing full gray beard. Her Majesty is leaning on the arm of the Prince of Wales, and leaning heavily. Her coming and going have been made easy to her by a gangway draped in the eternal red cloth; otherwise just like the railed-in gang- way provided for passengers who step ashore from a Channel steamer. Her Majesty seems not to notice the similarity. The police, I must say, appeared to be under no alarm what- ever about the Queen's personal safety. The half-dozen spec- tators of this scene were allowed to stand within a couple of 250 PAGEANTS. yards. Nothing would have been easier than to do mischief, if mischief had been in anybody's mind, as happily it was not. The Queen walked very slowly and heavily down her gangway ; the Lord Chamberlain waving his long wand and retreating sideways before her. Clark stood by the open carriage-door. Her Majesty seemed unaware of the little group looking on ; she had passed out of the hall and beyond the gaze of strangers, as she thought, and had dropped for one moment the mask she had worn inside. The eyes were lustreless, the muscles of the face had relaxed ; its paleness was more than ever noticeable ; the features weary ; there was something that looked like a touch of Hi-temper at some incident that had not gone to her liking. Not a word was spoken ; there was no cheer ; nothing broke the deferential silence of the courtyard but the stamp of horses' feet and the clank of steel. The murmur of the multitude came from outside, but no cheer, for to them the Queen Avas not yet visible. She set her foot on the step of the carriage, but the effort was too much for her, and she had to be helped in by the Prince on one side and Clark on the other. The venerable figure stumbled in somehow ; demeanour not at that moment an object of consideration. Once in^ the Queen rearranged all the wraps Clark had arranged for her. It was a minute before matters were to her taste. Meantime, Princess Chris- tian and Princess Beatrice were waiting. When their moth- er had settled herself on the back seat in solitary grandeur, the two daughters entered, then with a bang the door closed. Clark clambered into the rumble. Colonel Byng rode up to his place just behind the door, the outriders started on, and the huge vehicle with its royal freight got under way. The Guards presented arms ; it was done as one man, or rather as by a machine. The Life Guards wheeled and formed up ; for one moment the courtyard was all glitter and animation ; steel clashed and plumes waved and horses curveted against their bits, and the gravel shrieked under the wheels. A faint cheer rose from the few on the platform, hats were THE PEOPLE'S PALACE. 251 raised, Her Majesty bowed sadly. In another moment all had melted away, as if it had been a fairy scene. The court- yard was empty, and from beyond its high walls came a roar of human voices as the people once more hailed their Queen. THE JUBILEE. [London, June 21, 1S81.] . A CEEEMONY without fault or flaw, wanting in no element of dignity or circumstance of pomp. Such is the summary of this great day from beginning to end. The pageant is over, the Jubilee is over, the Queen has gone to the Abbey and returned to her palace, and not one mishap or mistake has marred the royal progress or royal return. I speak of what I have seen and heard, and of that only, the ceremony in the Abbey and the return procession from its best point, a house at Hyde Park Corner. Take both together, take the day as a whole, take the Abbey and the streets, the proces- sion inside and the procession outside, and there have been few spectacles more splendid or impressive. I do not mean that if the Queen had been opening a hos- pital or laying a corner-stone, the mere splendour of escort or glitter of trappings would have been more remarkable than many others. But this is an occasion which appeals to the imagination as well as to the eye ; to the historic sense not less than to visible effect. Something, no doubt, might have been added. The Queen would have gratified her subjects had she worn the crown and royal robes. Another battal- ion or two of Foot Guards and Life Guards would not have been amiss, had not precedent, that musty mother of mischief, prevented. But what this vast multitude in the streets saw was ample to call forth admiration, as the mere presence of the Queen was adequate to provoke every possible demonstra- tion of loyalty. London was astir at daylight, Avaking gratefully to a blaze THE JUBILEE. 253 of sunshine, and had descended into the streets long before its usual hour of breakfast. The pohce took no lesson from yesterday when the populace on foot and the classes in car- riages blocked every inch of the route along which the pro- cession was to move to-day. They adhered to the letter of their orders which tolerated traffic till half-past eight this morning, though hours before, London was not only awake but in motion toward the Abbey. Open at nine, close at ten, were the orders of those who had the ordering of the matter. Meaning to be early, I drove into Piccadilly at Hyde Park Corner at half-past seven. It was already a hopeless block. A police pass gave a right of way wherever it was physically possible for a carriage to move. It was for a long time per- fectly useless. A line of vehicles was allowed to come west- ward, while vehicles going eastward were in five ranks and either at a standstill or advancing now and then at a foot pace. To cut a long story short, it took an hour and a quarter to get from Apsley House to St. James's Street, not over half a mile. The delay mattered nothing. There was time enough, and Piccadilly was itself a spectacle. Nowhere were dec- orations so numerous, so costly, so effective, or so original. Lord Rothschild's home was worthy of his name. Apsley House did not disgrace the memory of "Wellington. Baroness Burdett-Coutts's dwelling was as rich as its benevolent own- er. Devonshire House had enlivened its gloomy courtyard and its wall, fronting for a hundred yards on the street, with a gaily decorated stand, and covered its terraces with flow- ers. Sir Algernon Borthwick's house was the most artistic of all. Here Byron once lived, and to-day it looked like the home of a poet, as well as of one of the most successful jour- nalists of his time. From pavement to roof the front of this mansion was hung with wreaths and bouquets of flowers. Lavish expense and good taste had gone hand in hand. So had they elsewhere. If the cunning fancy of the French were lacking, the loyal Briton sought to make up by abun- dance for every deficiency of taste. No house that did not 254 PAGEANTS. array itself in cloth of many colours ; many that were rich with velvet, with tapestries, with Oriental fabrics, with pen- dant baskets of roses, with ilags of all nations. Arches of tri- umph spanned many a street. Loyal mottoes and salutations were written in broad • letters of gold wherever you went. At the bottom of St. James's Street rose tall, solid columns on either side, in white and gold. Waterloo Place was a for- est of fanciful structures that filled but did not darken its broad spaces. The Queen, in one word, drove all the way from Constitution HUl to "Westminister through one long avenue of lovely colour. Far more lovely to her, no doubt, was the loyalty which expressed itself in cheers from the immense multitude who had come abroad to welcome her. To enter the Abbey out of these gay streets and hurrying crowds was like entering another world. Certainly it was a shock to be shown along passages and staircases freshly built of deal, and to see men wearing hats far inside this sa- cred fabric. But once inside, all sense of sacrilege vanished. Too much has been said about the desecration of the Abbey. Possibly to-day it looked slightly amphi theatrical, with tiers upon tiers of crimson seats rising from the mosaic pavement to the clerestory, and against the east window almost to the groined roof itself ; but if I have joined in any protests against what has been done in the Abbey I retract them. What has been done was well done. The architect of this great church certainlj'^ never foresaw that it would be used for a jubilee celebration. Ifo building could be worse adapted for spectacular purposes, yet nothing could be more clever than the way in which the difficulties have been overcome. Not everybody saw well, but everybody saw something. The long hours during which we waited were not dull hours ; there was ever something to study, ever something fresh to see. Moving about was impossible. Once in your seat you kept it, whether you were peer or journahst. Jour- nahsts were, let me say, treated at least as well as peers, and saw as much or more. If anybody had cause to complain among the great ones of the earth, it was the diplomatists. THE JUBILEE. 255 Their gallery opened into the south transept, and to witness the procession they had to look round a huge pier at the an- gle of the transept and the choir. The Colonials, mostly in scarlet, fared bettei\ The peers were not in their robes but they and all the officials were either in uniform or court dress ; so that wherever the eye turned there was a bewil- dering variety of colour. Just before ten o'clock, when I reached my place, the Abbey seemed already almost full. The doors were far from closing at ten. as announced. There were' arrivals till past eleven. The diplomatists, peers, Members of Parlia- ment, and Lord Salisbury came late. The Lord Chancellor, with the mace duly borne before him, was already in. his seat. Peeresses, once threatened with exclusion, were as numerous as peers, and far more ornamental. Two at least could carry their memories back to fifty years ago. The Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley was then present by the Queen's invitation. The Duchess of Cleveland had been one of the Queen's bridesmaids and one of the bearers of her train at the coronation in 1837. Both were in the Abbey to-day. Ministers and ex -Ministers were numerous. Mr. Gladstone, I was told, was in his seat but I saw him not. Sir "William Harcourt I saw, resplendent in green and gold, and Mr. Smith, and a score of others. People looked in vain for those men of letters and science to whom this reign owes so much distinction. Mr. Browning I know was not asked ; nor Mr. Arnold, nor Professor Huxley. The only man of first rank in literature I really saw was Mr. Lecky, the historian ; crowds of unknown and unknowable persons were visible. Friends of officials, six hundred of Dean Brad- ley's to begin with, were in the two best galleries in the building, rising in rear of the sacrarium. The Americans present were few. The American- Minister was there and Mrs. Phelps, and Mr. and Mrs. Henry White. Mr. Blaine was invited, and so was Mr. Lowell, but both preferred to see the procession outside. General Lawton, American Min- ister to Austria, was in the Abbey. 256 PAGEANTS. Minor royalties began to arrive at half-past ten. Minor officials of the royal household met them at the screen and gravely led them to their appointed seats. The vacant choir stalls filled slowly. Up and down the vacant aisle in the centre restless beings in blue and gold, more gold than blue, paced incessantly. The first real sensation was the coming of the Oriental princes. Never when seen separately had they appeared such dazzling creatures as now, when in a group and clad in such embroideries as the Western world has seldom gazed on, and bedecked in jewels that would more than ransom all the European kings now on English soil. They are princes of such lineage and such antiquity as put to blush the most ancient of Europe, yet they are not thought worthy of a place by the side of so modern a monarch as he of the Belgians. They are all conducted to the choir stalls and there sit meekly ranged against the wall at the back. Other royalties arrive but are not now to be catalogued. The real Kings and Queens make us wait for them — the Kings of Saxony, of Denmark, of the Hellenes, of the Bel- gians ; all, indeed, of those known as Her Majesty's royal guests, who form that separate procession which leaves the palace in advance. They are due at a quarter to twelve ; they arrive at a quarter past. They march serenely up the aisle amid what seems cold civility but with every outward form of reverence. Not one is allowed on the dais ; all either pass into the choir stalls or seat themselves in gilt chairs in the railed space before the altar. Noon came but no Queen. As her guests who had but just settled into their places had left Buckingham Palace half an hour before her, she could not be expected before half-past twelve. So the gentle hum of talk and light laugh- ter went on again all over the building. It was twenty-five minutes to one o'clock when, after one false signal which brought the spectators to their feet, came a blast from the Queen's state trumpeter which told of her arrival at the west door of the Abbey. The white bands of choristers in the galleries on either side of the choir rustled THE JUBILEE. 257 up, and the whole vast audience rose with them and remained standing. Only the Kings and Queens in the sacrarium kept their seats, not caring to rise tiU the Queen was actual- ly visible. Then came a pause, and the minutes glided by. The vice-chamberlains and other gold laced officers of the royal household grouped themselves at the entrance to the choir. Then they stood suddenly apart and the head of the royal procession showed itself, the ecclesiastics first. A dozen canons, minor and major, formed a guard of honour to the Lord Bishop of London, the Lord Archbishop of York, the Dean of Westminster, and the Lord Archbishop of Can- terbury. These episcopal and archiepiscopal dignitaries were arrayed in gorgeous robes of dark velvet and gold, strangely fashioned and monastic. More strange were the heralds in tabards, who came after. Then followed a long array of great officials, then Hereditary Princes, Hereditary Grand Dukes, Serene Highnesses, Imperial Highnesses, and Koyal Highnesses. Whispers of admiration greeted the tall, well-set figure, brilliantly uniformed in white, of the Crown Prinqe of Germany. These personages walked three abreast, the last of the trios being the Duke of Connaught, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Edinburgh. Then came, preceded by the Lord Steward and Lord Chamberlain walking bravely backward, the Queen. Alone of all that glittering procession Her Majesty was plainly dressed, in a gown of black and gray in broad stripes, a bonnet that looked like another crown of gray hair, and the blue ribbon of the Garter from left to right across her broad shoulders. She moved, as ever, with a beautiful state- liness which well expressed her royal authority ; her face gravely radiant, her eyes turned right and left as, with her unequalled demeanour, she acknowledged the salutations ad- dressed to her from either side. The bishops, great officers, hereditary dukes and princes aU passed to the right or left of the dais Avhere stood the coronation chair over which the coronation robes had been thrown, and passed on to the sa- crarium, or entered the dais at the side. The Queen alone II.-17 258 PAGEANTS. kept on, unswerving to right or left, and reached the broad steps left untrodden by all but the royal feet, which she mounted slowly with some help from the Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain, and so arrived near the throne. There she stood for one instant before seating herself, and with one sweeping movement of head and body signified her royal recognition of the homage this wonderful company offered her. That was the most brilliant moment of all- kings, queens, peers of England, commons of England, am- bassadors, ministers, princes, princesses, and sovereigns, do- ing honour in person or by deputy to this sovereign of Eng- land, All were standing, all heads were bent, the music was still echoing through the arches, and cheers were still faint- ly heard from the street. It was the meridian hour of her reign, and the spectacle one on the like of which no living soul has looked before. The sunlight streamed in upon the Queen and the people, and the gray walls and dim arches of the Abbey were all glowing with myriad hues — with scarlet and gold, with delicate tints of silks and the more delicate bloom on the wearers' cheeks. Jewels flashed, and swarthy Oriental faces for once lighted up. When the Queen sank into her gilt chair this multitude remained standing, as if under a spell, till she had twice signed to them to be seated. Of the service which followed I can only say it was a serv- ice of thanksgiving, in which prayer and musical praise had each its due part. The picturesque figure of the Archbishop of Canterbury framed itself against the altar. His Grace's head was literally set in a halo of gold, like a mediteval saint, for he happened to stand precisely in front of the large gold dish which rested edgewise on the sacred shelf. The relig- ious resources of the Church of England were all invoked to express in the Queen's behalf her gratitude for the fifty years of her honoured, beneficent, and admirable reign. The Dean of Westminster had his due share, perhaps the organist and choristers more than their share. When the last note had died away, there came the most THE JUBILEE. 259 affecting scene of all. The Queen's sons, daughters, and other kin by blood or marriage, who were grouped about her on the dais, came up, one by one, to her. The Prince of "Wales came first, bowed low and kissed his mother's hand. She, as he rose, kissed him on both cheeks. Prince after prince performed this affectionate reverence, each re- ceiving the Queen's salute in return, though on one cheek only. The princesses followed, one by one, curtseying to the ground. The Crown Princess of Germany came first, then the Princess of Wales, then Princess Christian and Princess Beatrice, who impulsively kissed her mother's hand a second time as she rose from her lowly obeisance. It was such a glimpse of domestic life and domestic love as the world rarely gets in royal circles. This pretty little episode over, the procession was re- formed. The Queen moved slowly down the aisle of lofty arches and bending heads, and so departed from our sight beneath the screen which divides the choir from the outer nave. Then came the question. Was it possible to get away from the Abbey and reach Hyde Park Corner in time to see the return of the procession? With some good fortune and much kindly official help, the question answered itself Yes ; so that long before the first horseman appeared I was on a balcony which gave a superb view of Piccadilly and the Green Park in all the freshness of an English June. The great arch on Constitution Hill just opposite the house was crowded with human beings. All the space which the po- hce did not keep clear for the procession was covered with solid humanity. St. George's Hospital was one great dis- play of windows filled with men and women. There must have been a hundred thousand people in sight. The sun beat down fiercely on all these heads. Never all day has there been a cloud in the sky any more than a cloud on the Jubilee. Good humour has been universal. I have spent hours in the streets, beside those in the Abbey and else- where, and heard never an angry word. All these packed multitudes of people had waited patiently on foot for hours, 260 PAGEANTS. and waited patiently still. They gaze up with admirable temper at these comfortable balconies. It is past two when a mounted policeman brings promise of the Queen. A troop of the First Life Guards comes not far behind him. I have left myself neither space nor time for describing in detail the cortege which now passed before us. Yet it was a thing as remarkable in its way as the ceremony in the Abbey. The cavalry, if not numerous, for the Queen will allow herself only a field ofiicer's escort, is perfection. The long line of mounted headquarters' staff is more gorgeous still. The royal carriages conveying the royal suite seem to be the most magnificent of equipages till the Queen's own carriage appears. But before the Queen herself, comes the feature of the features of this procession, the mounted princes, who form Her Majesty's real escort. Again, as in the Abbey procession, her three sons are next to her. The Prince of Wales rides in the middle, the Duke of Edinburgh on the right, and the Duke of Connaught on the left. They bestride horses which are only surpassed by the Duke of Portland's black hunter, who has just gone before and in whom connoisseurs dehght. And again passes the knightly and manly figure of the German Crown Prince, clothed all in white; a chivalrous apparition. The bronzed face of the Duke of Connaught is kindly greeted by the crowd, but the Prince of Wales re- ceives most of the applause. So did he, say my friends, when he rode by the first time. But the Queen is nigh. There is no mistaking those eight cream-coloured horses whose cream colour is almost invisible beneath their trappings. Each horse is led, the coach is all gold and blazonry, the harness is heavy with gold, crimson tassels are hanging heavy from the horses' necks, and the footmen behind the carriage are armoured in gold lace. The whole turn-out is splendid beyond compare to uncriti- cal eyes. The critic declares that the cream-coloured horses will not keep step, and pronounces them brutes, but no crit- icism matters. The Queen is inside this decorated chariot, THE JUBILEE. 261 the Crown Princess of Germany and the Princess of Wales being on the front seat, and now for the first time to-day I hear the thundering cheers of the street. All these people have seen her and cheered her before but they cheer with an unwearied and truly British enthusiasm. The Queen's face is shining with delight as I never saw it before. She looks ten years younger and happier than a month since when the West End and East End together turned out to greet her. Cheers follow cheers in volleys and all hats are off. Thei'e are cheers even from these balconies where fashion sits in all her cold loveliness and bored indifference. The Queen looks up to the balconies as she passes, recognises on all of them friends, bows straight at them, passes on and away and round the broad curve which takes her to the arch, enveloped and encompassed with this marvellous mu- sic of the human voice in multitudinous masses. We all gaze after her as she and the Princesses and the gilt coach and cream-coloured horses disappear beneath the arch. They reappear to us again on the other side of it. The whole procession goes flashing by; gleams of gold come through the trees, a touch of scarlet, a tossing mane, a fair face, a mounted prince perhaps ; then the rear-guard of those incomparable horsemen, and it is all over. Over, but not forgotten, nor to be forgotten by any of the millions who have been happy enough to behold a pageantry admirable in itself, and trebly memorable for its meaning to a people in whom loyalty to a beloved Queen is a hving force. THE QUEEN'S GARDEN PARTY. A JUBILEE FESTIVAL IN THE GEOUNDS OE BUCKINGHAM PALACE. [London, June 29, 1889.] Of the 5000 guests at the Queen's Garden Party, the greater number saw the beautiful grounds of Buckingham Palace for the first time. Few Londoners, indeed, had any notion of their extent. The palace externally is one of the least impressive palaces anywhere to be seen. Americans who have visited London are familiar enough with the big edifice which stands in the angle where St. James's Park and Green Park meet, and looks stifily up the Mall. It has more the air of a barracks than of a Queen's abode. Nor is it, save at odd moments, a Queen's abode. Her Majesty's persevering refusal to live in Buckingham Palace during any portion of the year, except for a night or two nights now and then, is one of the standing grievances of her loyal sub- jects in London. She spends her time at "Windsor, at Os- borne, at Balmoral, at Aix-les-Bains ; anywhere but among the cockneys. And so it comes to pass that even those fortunate mortals who go to court know little of the resi- dence in which the court is held. A long wait in distant anterooms and a hurried rush through the throne-room offer little opportunity for gazing on the landscape hidden behind the palace, and behind the high stone walls which exclude the vulgar. The hours named on the Lord Chamberlain's card were from five to seven but it was announced that the gates of the palace would be open at four. There were four en- THE QUEEN'S GARDEN PARTY. 263 trances, and even with four entrances 6000 persons could hardly arrive in much less than an hour. So at four, car- riages were already setting down ; at half -past four, many hundreds were in the grounds. It is a long ramble from the arrival door to that by which you emerge on the ter- race; a ramble through endless corridors, past the great quadrangle, through sundry rooms ; gi'ave officials at every angle and doorway to see that you go straight. The corri- dors are narrow ; the rooms are, if I dare say so, dingy ; the quadrangle is in gloom even on this sunny afternoon. All the more striking is the contrast when you have passed all this and reached the broad gravelled terrace to the rear. So surprising is the first effect that you almost forget to no- tice how very beautiful it all is. The lovehness of an Eng- lish private park in the leafy month of June in the heart and centre of London — what can be more astonishing than that? Tents and many -coloured marquees are pitched on the far side. Boats are floating on the little lake, manned, rather incongruously, with rowers in the royal scarlet. An irreverent republican, who cared for such things, might call it unseamanlike. The blue of Her Majesty's blue -jackets would surely do for the crews of these pleasure craft. Oars- men in red look like royal footmen impressed for the occa- sion. So quiet are these waters in ordinary times that they are the chosen home of wild fowl. There are trees which seem monuments of a primeval forest; gentle slopes and broad stretches of turf, and a sky above which it is not mere politeness to call blue. Every moment there are new-comers. Every woman has arrayed herself in her best, and innumerable are the lovely costumes and lustrous hues of silk and soft fabrics. As for the men, they, like the women, were told to come in morn- ing dress, and they are, with few exceptions, in a uniform array of tall black hats (not white) and frock coats, and trousers of such shade and pattern as the dull or lively fancy of the wearer has dictated. The number of really well- dressed women is extraordinary; is perhaps ten times greater 264 PAGEANTS. than it would have been ten years ago. The garden fagade of the palace is a fitting background to the scene; not hke the front, an unworthy architectural effort at a royal resi- dence. And it is seen, as I said, almost for the first time by a company which includes almost everything that is most distinguished in English society. By five o'clock the gardens were full, not crowded, and the Queen arrived not long after. Her Majesty came in by a side gate at the north of the palace, out of view from the terrace. Instantly there was a movement and murmur, such as the apparition of royalty of any degree seldom fails to oc- casion. The talk and laughter were not silenced, but they went on in a lower tone. People moved slowly down the terrace steps by which it was perceived the Queen would pass, and more rapidly from other more distant parts. "What you saw was this. In front of the approaching Majesty of England came, firstly, a kind of bodyguard composed of the equerries and other gentlemen in attendance on the many royalties present. They parted the dense throng as the cut- water of a ship parts the sea. It was a sea of human beings, which ebbed and flowed and surged about, but ever with a certain gentleness of motion. If any of these superior per- sons felt impulses of impatience, they restrained them. This division of the gaily-dressed throng, partly on the urgency of the equerries and partly by the ready good manners of the people themselves, was on both sides spontaneous and improvised. There had been no rehearsal. But it had this striking efl'ect, that the Queen was now seen to be advancing through ordered ranks of her subjects. These ranks formed and melted away and reformed themselves continually, and during all the time that the royal progress lasted. It was all very easy, and at the same time very stately and effective. The group of royalty comprised all the Queen's guests — King of Denmark, King and Queen of the Belgians, King of Saxony, King of the Hellenes, Prince and Princess of Wales, the beautiful Grand Duchess Serge of Eussia, the beautiful Crown Princess of Portugal, a beautiful Eussian Countess ; THE QUEEN'S GARDEN PARTY. 265 with many moro beautiful and famous women than I can find room to name. They moved in a sort of open order ; every- body clearly visible as he or she passed. The Prince of Wales was in close attendance on his mother. The public or semi- public appearance of the Queen is still a thing so rare that it is she who, more than aU the other royalties, fixes the at- tention and gaze of this silent multitude. I believe I shall not mislead the future historian if I say that Her Majesty wore the same bonnet as when she went in splendid proces- sion to Westminster Abbey, and wore the same sober attire, minus sundry ribbons and orders. There is a current belief that the gowns of the Queen of England are made, and have for some five-and-twenty years been made, by a dressmaker who plies the art and mystery of her calling in a little shop in the httle town of Windsor, beneath the Castle walls. I know not how this may be but I do not think any enthusi- asm of loyalty would lead the most devoted of her subjects to say that the impressiveness of the Queen's presence is due in any considerable degree to dress. It does not matter what she wears. I have said it so often that it is mere repe- tition to remark on the singular, the absolutely unique, dis- tinction of her bearing and manner. To-day it is put to a test perhaps more diificult than in any ceremony the public have witnessed. She cannot but be aware that she is the point on which every eye is fixed, and since full half the company are women, full half these eyes are critical in the extreme. The whole proceeding has a certain air of intima- cy. The Queen submits herself at close quarters to the most scrutinising inspection. That unwritten law of etiquette which prohibits the rest of the Avorld from staring at royal- ty has, for this afternoon, been repealed. The gaze is re- spectful, and no doubt it falls to the ground when eye meets eye. But it is none the less an ordeal through which Her Majesty passes, with a composure that certainly does seem perfect unconsciousness. She bows to right and left as she discovers acquaintances and friends. Far in front of her, and along the whole of the two hues which open before her, 266 PAGEANTS. all hats are of course off. Every woman curtseys as the Queen draws nigh ; and as for the men, their heads are bent low. At every few steps the Queen signifies her wish to speak to some one, or perhaps it is but to recognise some one, and receive from him or from her the silent salute which courtly punctilio prescribes, if the Queen does not speak. It happens pretty frequently that the Prince points out a per- son of distinction, or a friend, and upon the nod of his moth- er brings him up. Perhaps it may be trying to the person of distinction to enter the glare and fierce light of that open space, but it has to be done. Lord Granville is one, the Duke of Argyll another, then the Ambassador of Eussia. The whole circuit of the garden is made in this way. The royal tent, not far from the gate, is reached after a journey which, to those who know the Queen's dislike of walking, is a great surprise. This tent has been guarded all the after- noon by that picked company of Indian troops who were such a figure in the Jubilee procession. Each soldier is a representative of some native corps, and fine fellows they are ; in uniforms which for splendour and picturesqueness beat everything European. When the Queen has entered the tent these swarthy warriors silently draw their swords, and the steel flashes and their eyes flash as if this guard- mounting were something more than a parade. They allow, as it were half reluctantly, those whom the Queen sum- mons, and she summons many, to pass ; but few not sum- moned would care to come within the sweep of those glit- tering blades. While the Queen is thus resting in her pavilion the Queen's guests are scattered all over the grounds. What is called tea is served in the other tents and marquees. A great deal of this tea comes out of champagne bottles, and a friendly official in tones of whispered awe tells me that it is '74 cham- pagne. All the buffets are crowded, yet the greater num- ber of guests prefer to stroll over the soft turf, and the mur- mur of talk is everywhere. The animation of the scene is as striking as its brilliancy ; from every group comes a THE QUEEN'S GARDEN PARTY. 267 chorus of admiring wonder at the beauty of the gathering, the perfection of all the arrangements, the spirits the Queen is in, the easy splendour of the whole ceremony. Toward seven, the Queen leaves her retreat, resumes the procession again, makes the circuit of the park precisely as when she came, and departs as she had entered, amid quiet demonstra- tions of delighted loyalty, not the less effective because sub- dued. The guests linger ; it is far past the hour when peo- ple were bidden to go before the last groups break up and the Queen's Garden Party, which for three hours had grati- fied the most fastidious, becomes a pleasant memory. ,. JUBILEE NOTES, with some pathetic instances of what befell the queen's eotal guests. [LoNDOK, June 29, 1887.] Me. Habey Fueniss in this week's Punch has a good- natured caricature of the Lord Chamberlain, headed "Well- earned Eepose." Lord Lathom is yawning on the edge of the bed he is nearly ready to enter, and exclaims, "My last sovereign gone ! l^ow I want a little change." His last sov- ereign is not yet gone, hardly anybody is gone, and Lord Lathom must wait a while before he can " go to bed for a fortnight." JSTo more arduous task than his has of late fallen upon any mortal. The Lord Chamberlain's functions are always delicate, sometimes difficult ; never before so delicate or difficult as in these Jubilee days. I do not pretend to de- fine the duties of his great office, or to distinguish between those which devolve on him and on the Lord Steward, the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, or on other officers of the Koyal Household. The Duke of Portland, for example, who is Master of the Horse, was responsible for the turn-out of horses and carriages in the Eoyal Procession on Jubilee Day. The Lord Chamberlain was responsible for the Abbey ar- rangements. ISTo one man is responsible for everything, and the duties have been heavy enough when distributed. There is this to be said, however, that the pageantry and state ap- pertaining to the celebration of Her Majesty's Jubilee have been well ordered throughout. In few or none of those mat- ters which came under the public eye, has there been any JUBILEE NOTES. 269 mistake of importance ; there has been a completeness of in- telligent organisation most creditable to all concerned. The Lord Chamberlain's office has a trained permanent staff who get their share of the honour ; Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane the head of this staff. Beneath this smoothly polished and glittering surface there has been nevertheless a certain amount of friction. It is impossible there should not have been. The situation was perfectly novel. Her Majesty's guests from, abroad num- bered not less than forty -three persons ; all of them Kings or Queens, or Princes and Princesses, or Imperial Highnesses, or Hereditary Grand Dukes and Duchesses, or something equally magnificent. It would pass the wit of man to give to each and all of these superior personages, at each critical moment of their stay, his or her precise position, or the pre- cise degree of deferential distinction which each might con- sider to be his or her due. There have been mistakes, there have been heart-burnings, once or twice there came near be- ing a scene ; once there actually was something that might be called a scene, which I will mention presently. As for the actual order of precedence between these highly titled mortals, that is settled. Not all the highly titled ones, I have been told, acquiesce in the settlement, but the Queen herself drew up the list, and as she drew it up it appears al- most daily in the Court Circular. These last two words do not signify the name of a newspaper but the daily record of the doings of the court, prepared by a court official, revised and edited by the Queen, and sent out for publication in the general press. The Prince and Princess of Wales have a Court Circular of their own, dating from Marlborough House. In ordinary times, a paragraph or two suffices for such accounts as Queen and Prince desire to be made known. ISTow, it stretches to two or three columns. Such friction as there has been seems to have arisen, in most cases, from a want of harmony between continental and English notions of etiquette. The continental theory of these high matters is the more strict and strait of the two, 270 PAGEANTS. and the laxity on some points here prevailing has been sharp- ly criticised by the foreigners. But this difference was not the cause of the most appalling of all the little social catas- trophes which occurred. This was at the State Banquet given by the Queen in St. George's HaU at Windsor Castle, on Saturday evening. Surely there if anywhere, and then if ever, it might be supposed that things would have been rightly ordered. The Queen received her royal guests in the utmost state. St. George's Hall was opened for, I think, the first time since the death of the Prince Consort. The scene is described by some of those who were present as the most dazzling of the many that the last week has witnessed. Yet some of the Queen's guests — it is almost too dreadful to relate in print — went in to dinner in the wrong order, and sat at table out of their proper places. Let one instance suffice. The future King of Bavaria, Prince Ludwig, found himself some half-dozen places below the Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, who was I know not how many degrees higher in the social scale than he ought to have been. How he got there I do not undertake to explain, but there he was, and the outraged Majesty of Bavaria had to be appeased with after-dinner apologies from the regretful Majesty of Great Britain itself. Time was Avhen lesser offences have brought on war between great states. This time, happily, there will be no war. Such misadventures might have been avoided by a clever Master of the Ceremonies, or even by the simple expedient, sometimes practised in high society, of putting names by the plates and sending guests in to din- ner by roll call. But Kings and Princes are supposed to know their places without being told ; so are Ambassadors, and so perhaps did on this occasion the too ambitious Count Karolyi. But the Ambassadors present are said to have been grieved because their wives had not been asked. Ambassadors, indeed, are persons of susceptibilities that require much soothing. Their sensibilities were ruffled at the Eoyal Ball given at Buckingham Palace last Friday ; that ball to which all the Queen's royal guests were bidden JUBILEE KOTES. 271 but which the Queen herself did not attend. It has been the custom to reserve certain seats at the upper end of the room for the diplomatic body and their wives. It became necessary on Friday to assign these places to those in at- tendance upon the royalties, and lower seats were reserved for the diplomatists. The official responsible for this change forgot to explain it, or to make known to the incoming Am- bassadors that other quarters had been provided for them. Eesult, alarm and danger among them, and presently a pro- cession of distressed diplomatists was organised, and they solemnly marched out of the room. Their departure was observed ; consternation reigned for a moment, then Sir Francis Seymour — he is the Queen's Master of Ceremonies — rushed after the retreating body with explanations, excuses, entreaties ; finally brought them triumphantly back, and in- stalled them where they belonged. And there was no war this time either. An English editor who should print such narratives as these would be sent to the Tower at once. Do not, there- fore, because they are not published here doubt that the events I describe really occurred. Many other things oc- curred. The royalties of the Continent have learned that less divinity doth hedge a King in England than elsewhere. They live at home in exhausted receivers ; an empty circle ever surrounding them, within whose magic ring no unbid- den mortal enters. They discover here, to their horror, that intrusion into this sacred space is possible. They are pressed upon ; sometimes, alas ! have even been pushed about. Lady Salisbury's Foreign Office party, though only the elect were invited, proves that the elect can be curious about royalties, and disagreeable to them. The King of Saxony remarked that evening, in a tone which must be left to the imagination of the reader, that it was the first time in his life he had had his toes trodden on. If these august beings go to a ball they find that others than themselves are allowed to dance while they were dancing. " Oh, what a surprise !" cried they, and forthwith ceased their giddy whirl. Such occurrences invite 272 PAGEANTS. glowing description and more glowing comment, but I pass on. Of all humiliations that befeU the foreigners — for it is thus, I am sorry to say, that the royalties of other lands are spoken of — the most painful was in Hyde Park at the chil- dren's picnic. That, however, is too long a story for the end of a letter and I close with a shorter one, less tragical than some of those which I have been narrating. The heroine of this last incident is the Queen of the Sand- wich Islands ; the American Queen, as some Britons are pleased to call her. Her presence did not, I fear, cause un- mixed joy to all concerned. There seemed to be an un- worthy doubt whether she was a real Queen, or how much of a Queen she was, and how she was to be treated. " Are we to curtsey to her ?" queried one great lady. That knotty question was answered in the affirmative at the first dinner given her by the Hawaiian charge d'affaires. An Ambassa- dor's wife set the example, and everybody else's wife followed it. When she went to a ball her hostess met her, not quite perhaps at the bottom of the stairs but considerably more than half-way down. At parties she was granted a space to herself. At her hotel — for she was lodged in a hotel — other carriages were mercilessly swept aside for hers. It was set- tled that she was to form part of the procession, though per- haps a little by herself. An escort of the Ninth Lancers was provided. At this the queenly soul of this sovereign of the Sandwich Islands revolted. She declined the Ninth Lancers and insisted on the Life Guards. When the Empress of In- dia heard of this, her mind was made up. A woman who could demand an escort of the Household Troops must be a real monarch, and Her Majesty Queen Victoria straightway received in private audience her sister of Hawaii, and kissed her on both cheeks. There can be no true Eepublican who does not know that this is a royal salute, and reserved for royalties whose genuineness is beyond dispute. THE NAVAL REVIEW. I. WHAT POETSMOUTH AND I'HE SOLENT LOOKED LIKE BEFOEE THE QUEEN CAME. [London, July 23, 1887.] There were many ways of seeing the ]^aval Eeview, or of trying to see it ; really to see it, there was one, and that was from on board one of the ships which accompanied the Queen. The multitudes who lined the shores of the Solent saw something ; those on well placed ships and yachts a lit- tle more ; those in the procession all that could be seen. The most unlucky spectator beheld more than he can de- scribe. Good fortune and the kindness of a friend gave me a place on the Helicon^ which followed in the procession next after the Admiralty yacht. The party of which I was one left London at half -past nine Saturday morning, reached Portsmouth at noon, embarked at once, disembarked at half- past nine in the evening, got back to London at one o'clock Sunday morning. In the interval, we had witnessed the greatest naval spectacle the world has known. It would be easy enough to fill half a dozen columns with the experi- ences of the day ; it is not easy to select out of the mass of one's memories and impressions the few that a distant audi- ence may be supposed to care about. So I fall back on the golden rule of writing about what interested the writer, and that briefly, or not briefly, as chance shall ordain. A soft fresh breeze greeted us as we stepped out of the train and on the pier ; the sun shone brightly on bright faces. II.— 18 274 PAGEANTS. Eight opposite in the dock lay perhaps the most famous ship in the world, the Victory. If we had time we might go on board and they would show us the very spot where Nelson fell. But there is no time, so we marched swiftly across the huge Euphrates, the Lords' ship for to-day, and on board the smart little Helicon, which I make out to be a despatch boat. It was in this hurried movement that I be- held Mr. Murat Halstead of Cincinnati, in the novel, not to say startling, character of a British peer. There he was; his strong, kindly face not less ruddy, his hair and mous- tache a little whiter, than when I last saw him ; as good a nobleman as the best of them, for his title, too, came by birth. If I dared say how it was that the great Ohio journal- ist became thus transformed into a pillar of the throne and an ornament to the English aristocracy, my tale would be more surprising still. But I dare not. And, after all, a ticket for the Euphrates is not precisely a patent of nobility. The deck of the Helicon is a study in nationalities. The flower of European (and American) diplomacy is here, with exceptions. The tall figure and shrewd, pleasant face of the German Ambassador is missed ; the Austro-Hungarian Am- bassador is on the Continent ; many minor envoys are else- where than at Portsmouth. But the Turk is visible in the slender person of Eustem Pacha, whose wrinkled face looks out astutely from beneath the inevitable fez. He is not a Turk, he is an Armenian, but he does the work of the Turk. The Ambassador of Erance, M. "Waddington, and Madame Waddington, are on the upper deck. You would never guess him to be Erench ; he has the appearance and bearing of an Enghsh country gentleman of the best type ; the very cut of his whiskers is English, and as for his speech it is just as fluent in one tongue as the other, and you in New York would be sure to remark that he had an English accent. You might be in doubt about his birth — he is half Enghsh as his wife is all American — but you would be in no doubt that he is a personage ; has played, and is still playing, a great part with great abilities. Count Bylandt, the Nether- THE NAVAL REVIEW. 275 lands Minister, is not far off, talking with that animation and genial manner wliich never fail him. The American Minister and Mrs. Phelps are the centre of a group — I hard- ly ever saw them when they were not — and Mr. and Mrs. White of another ; and Senator Hawley has been introduced to Madame Waddington ; and Commander Chadwick, our naval attache, is deep in discussion about guns with an officer of the Helicon. Governor M'Lane has come over from Paris to see the review, a piece of energy notable enough in a Minister no longer young but youthful in spirit and temper. Mr. Currie, who represents us in Spain, makes the third American Plenipotentiary, so that the United States are probably in greater force than any other country. As Ave have not a ship of war in the harbour to fly our flag, it is something that we should have men capable of defending it, if need be. I cannot complete the catalogue of the Heli- con! s passengers. There are other Ministers, and perhaps a hundred diplomatists of lesser rank. By and by the Eussian Ambassador, M. de Staal, comes off from the Isle of Wight where he has been the guest of the Duchess of Edinburgh ; as popular a man as if Eussia and England were the best of friends. And there is the Archduke , I really forget his name, but he is brother to the Emperor of Austria-Hun- gary, and he has the longest and straightest moustache on the ship and a superior manner. With aR this and much other human freight on board, the Helicon steams slowly down the harbour. The Victory is left behind, she and her two consorts, the St. Vincent and the Duke of Wellington, who lie astern and ahead of Nelson's immortal vessel, and serve her as a kind of guard of honour. Not a ship of the fleet outside that can rival either of these old three-deckers in pure beauty of line or dignity ; not one that is ever likely to gather about her ugly hull such a heri- tage of human interest and tender and glorious memories as this chief and central ship of the three. I wondered they did not once more set the Victory in motion ; tow her out if need be, hke the palsied veteran she is ; put her at the head 276 PAGEANTS. of these squadrons as an inspiration ; nail to the mast what to a Briton mnst be her holy flag; set every threadbare sail ; and find, if they can, an English Holmes to chant her fame. Once away from the inner harbour, the scene opens before us suddenly and brilliantly. The first glimpse of the fleet is a surprise, every fresh view of it is another. I am sure ev- erybody's first impression must have been the same. It is a holiday fleet, and the ironclad squadrons of fighting ships are somewhere in the background. The fantastic gaiety of the sight, the beauty of it, the festive and even fugitive air of the whole, are what astonish us all. There is a cry of admira- tion and delight on board. We steam straight for the east- ern end of the fleet, the order and array of which are as yet undistinguishable to us. The noonday sun is above, the bright blue sky is cloudless, clouds of little yachts are hurry- ing over the emerald waters beneath ; an infinite expanse of sea stretches to the east before us, Avhere the emerald green deepens, and so on to the horizon, where it melts into pur- ple. Eight ahead are the towering spars of such ships as the Agincourt and Minotaur, early experiments in the art of clothing ships witli iron; ships stiU, and not nondescript monsters ; sliips with long straight hulls, with masts and yards ; trim, shipshape, smart-looking from taffrail to bow- sprit and from the water line to the royal masthead. They and all the rest were dressed in flags of many colours ; dressed, as the picturesque sailor phrase is, rainbow fashion, from the flying jibboom to foremast-head, and thence from masthead to masthead, and so down from the mizzen to the quarter-deck. The breeze is just strong enough to keep all the flags flying well out ; their motion is like the motion of a bird glittering in plumage; myriads of them; of every sliape and hue and pattern. No sesthetic craze has vexed the soul of the sailor. He dyes his bits of bunting as bright as he can get them, dazzling reds and yellows and blues and greens that cut into each other as sharply as steel. The sail- ors have not taken the least thought of harmonies or con- THE NAVAL REVIEW. 277 trasts. They have flown their flags broadly out as they came, as nature scatters her flowers and with the same re- sult, a beauty that owes nothing to design and everything to chance, and with all the varied loveliness of a tropical for- est. Far as you can see, these flags are fluttering ; blazing in 3'our eyes from the ships we pass, glimmering faintly against the sky miles away; the flush of sunrise and the delicate fading glow of sunset ; the autumn tints of American woods in the foreground, softening in the distance to the iridescent opal of a moonlight sea. It is an enchantment and an illu- sion. AH the grimness of war is gone ; it is a spectacle to put upon a stage, with the world for audience ; a scene for Kings and Queens and aU the sovereigns of a great Eepublic to gaze on. The foreigners — for it is ever thus that our cousin John Bull refers to ships or men who are not of his island — the foreigners were not less gaily dressed than the home divi- sion, but in very different fashion. Their flags run up and down the halliards and shrouds, so that the Iphigenie and the Dutchman whose name in English is Silver Cross, pre- •sent to the eye a succession of triangles in many colours. It is pretty, but stiff. Neither ship is meant to set forth the strength of her native land. They are old-fashioned frigates or corvettes, and the Iphigenie is a training vessel for French midshipmen. To-night she will be a hotel for the Ambassador of France and Madame "Waddington, for whom, when the time came for them to quit the Helicon, the Iphigenie sends a smartly manned twelve-oared gig. Not far off from her hes a long, low black steamship with fine lines, a slightly sprung bowsprit, a yellow funnel, and a good sized American flag drooping lazily over her stern. She car- ries at her main peak a union jack some eighteen inches square, at her fore what I suppose to be the private pennant of the New York Yacht Club, and a sort of burgee which I do not make out at her mizzen. These four flags and no more. Naked and unashamed, there she lies, privileged to anchor in the waters jealously reserved for foreign men-of- "278 PAGEANTS. war, the only yacht to -whom this favour has been shown, and the only craft in the Solent to-day not covered with flags. Her owner is Mr. Vanderbilt of ISTew York, and many are the comments on the singular taste he displays, and the singular way in which he acknowledges the cour- tesy shown him, and shown him alone, by the Admiralty. Some mistake of course — nobody could wilfully be guilty of such a piece of bad manners as this. The captain had no orders, and Mr. Vanderbilt forgot, and nobody else would take the responsibility of his forgetfulness, and so the one vessel that appeared under American colours appeared as an offender against that unwritten law which exacts from guests a certain degree of civility to their hosts. Before all the sharp things this eccentricity provokes have been said, there comes suddenly between the Helicon and the Alva the most singular sight of the day. The handsome tar who is heaving the lead from the HeUcon^s paddle-box is heard to mutter that the real sea serpent has arrived at last. The real sea serpent is a narrow wash of water travelling twelve miles an hour, breaking as a wave breaks on the beach ; something that looks like a funnel, and is, project- ing from the surge ; a black line hardly visible at its edges. This is the new ISTordenfeldt submarine torpedo, and quite the wickedest looking piece of marine architecture to be seen, or not seen, to-day. We have passed, before chancing on this phenomenon, the whole fleet, the whole range of anchored troop-ships and merchant steamers. The yachts lie far to the north ; so do the torpedo boats and gunboats, which we shall see at our leisure erelong. But we keep straight on toward Osborne, and presently the Helicon lets go her anchor a half-mile from shore, and a cable length from the Enchantress, and there it is she is to wait for the coming of the Queen. THE NAVAL EEYIEW. 2T9 II. THE COMING OF THE QUEEN. HEE NAVAL COTTET. HEE EETUEN. [London, My 23, IBS'?.] The Helicon lay at anchor an hour or two off the green shores of the Isle of "Wight, with the towers of Osborne in sight. Lunch was set out on the quarter-deck which, like the rest of the ship, was covered with awnings. The naval idea seems to be to shut in the deck and shut out the view. Flags were hung all about, with the result that we could see nothing else and the quarter-deck looked like the stage of a theatre. Lunch over, this screen of bunting was taken down but not the awning on either deck. Captain Chad- wick was sent on an embassy to the commander of the Heli- con to ask him to furl it, but the answer was that it could not be done without an order from the admiral. The fleet had been ordered to spread awnings and the Helicon Avas one of the fleet. So we peeped out as best we could from beneath the canvas, and were allowed to sit on the paddle boxes from which everything could best be seen. Naval etiquette made itself, in fact, most hospitably unobtrusive. Three o'clock came and went, and no Queen. Her Maj- esty has departed of late from that almost- ostentatious punctuality which she once delighted to observe. The Vic- toria and Albert, the Queen's yacht, lay not far from us ; the JEnchanl/ress to the left. The big white troop-ships were steaming slowly in our rear, ready to come into position when the procession should be formed. Sundry steamers and yachts were cruising about. They had no business there, but the naval police of the harbour was presently to prove how futile were aU efforts to keep the countless small craft in bounds. It was half-past three, or nearly that, when the Alberta was first seen shooting past the big Osborne, and fly- ing the royal standard which told us that the Queen was on board. The Osborne soon followed, the Prince of Wales 280 PAGEANTS. a Tvell-defined figure on her deck, in all the glories of a new admiral's uniform. He had been made an admiral for this occasion. But the Duke of Cambridge — was he an admiral too ? Some wise men explained that his uniform was that of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House ; whatever it was, the critical company which looked on showed itself pleased with this astonishing transformation. The Prince and the Duke in red or in black are familiar to everybody, but the blue and gold on these chiefs of Her Majesty's land forces some- how suggested H.M.S. Pinafore. "When the Alberta was nearest, the most striking figure on her deck was that High- land gillie, Clark, who succeeds in some measure to the state and authority of the late John Brown. His kilt of Stuart tartan causes him to be taken for some great military officer, but I do not think he yet bears a commission. The Queen herself was visible at moments, coming out from behind the funnel, or from the pilot-house. But to- day the usual order of things was reversed. The Queen was there to see rather than to be seen. She was not the chief figure in this pageant, save by courtesy and precedent. The ships, the shores, the harbour, the immeasurable multitude of spectators — they, and not the elderly Avoman in black, were what we all went out to see. A glance was as much as most of the Helicon party bestowed on Her Majesty. People w^re more interested in picking out their own friends on the Osborne, or on the lofty decks of the more distant JEuj>hrates, or on the Enchantress. This last ship had a pas- senger list which read like a page of the Court Guide. Half the pretty women in London were there, and one beautiful American, perhaps more than one, but one I saw. There are others on other ships, the Helicon included, nor is there in these days any smart gathering where the beautiful American is not. As for the Queen, to whom we devote too little attention, what signifies^ her presence to all the world is the royal standard, Avhich flies from the masthead of the little Alberta. "Watch it, and you will see the little Alberta steam softlj'' alongside the big Victoria and Albert, THE NAVAL REVIEW. 281 iu which the Queen is to review her fleet. A few minutes later and the gold and crimson of the royal standard flutters down from the masthead of the Alberta, and reappears at the same instant, only larger and in ampler field and folds, from the mainmast-head of the Viotoria and Albert. Then we know that the review is about to begin. The fleet has waited long ; the vast company on sea and shore longer still ; and welcome to all was the firing of the signal gun from the flagship of Admiral Sir George "WiUes, the Inflexible, which announced that the Queen and the Queen's yacht were reaUy in motion. It was miles away still, so far away that to us, still clinging to these quiet wooded shores and lookmg on Avhile the procession formed, the gun was inaudible. The Galatea first, as pilot, then the Victoria and Albert, then the little Alberta, after which fol- lowed the Osborne, the Enchantress with her pretty women, the Helicon with the diplomatists, then the Euphrates with the Peers of the Eealm and Mr. Halstead, the Crocodile Avith the Commoners of England, the Malabar with the Colonials and Indians, and the Assistance with the Enghsh Press. The big ships swung slowly into line, beautifully handled, and no time was lost from the moment the Queen's yacht had slipped her moorings. The fleet lay far in the sunlight, a rosy cloud on an azure sky, distant, dreamhke, not a fleet but a garland of colours floating in the air. All at once, from the foreign ships of war which were half a mile nearer to us than the first Eng- lish vessels, came puffs of fleecy smoke. The French, not to be matched in ceremonial politeness, were the first to salute the coming of the English Queen. No sound could be heard, and when the white folds unrolled themselves far beyond, and flashes of flame shot out, and we knew that the whole fleet was saluting, the silence remained unbroken. For all the ear told you, it might have been a phantom fleet. The Queen held steadily on; her escort followed steadily. It was something past four o'clock as we neared the easternmost end of the squadron. Approaching from 282 PAGEANTS. the north-east we never saw the full array till we had pass- ed between the flotilla of gunboats and torpedo boats on one side, and the northern line of ships on the other. The strength of England is di-awn up in four columns of ships. To the north, next to Portsmouth, all the smaller craft, and some of the deadlier, in five divisions. South of them, two lines of the great ironclads ; south of them again, the troop- ships. We come first upon the Arethusa, then the Calypso — in all near twenty, in the northern line. What everybody looks at most curiously is the Devastation, which the Ajax two days ago came so near sinking, and the Ajax, which so nearly sank her unoffending consort. The yards, or in ships that have no yards, the decks, are manned ; the British tar now and here to be seen in his perfection ; clean, trim, well dressed; mostly in blue jackets and white trousers, though some reverse this arrangement of colours ; standing at the diz- ziest heights with firm foothold on the rounded yard, hands joined; everything so spruce and drilled that you wonder whether they are men or marionettes. Cheering too, we are told, but as the Helicon is the fifth ship in the procession, and the cheering is only for the elderly woman in black on that black and gold yacht six cables' length ahead of us, we hear none of it. Once the Queen has passed, the cheers die away, and the blue jackets save their breath ; perhaps for the next jubilee. The guns fell silent long before the Queen came near ; Her Majesty, it is understood, cannot abide the smell of gunpowder ; or perhaps it is the noise she cannot abide. There is no smoke, or almost none ; long since the volumes of white cloud have drifted to leeward. The ships are at anchor but thin lines of what looks like steam, steal- ing out of their smoke-stacks, show that fires are alight and these black hulls are not so inanimate as they seem. The coal that is smouldering down in their ugly bowels is of the smokeless kind ; nothing is to be allowed to come between the Queen and her naval nobility. There is not a spot upon the brilliancy, the incomparable THE NAVAL EEVIEW. 283 brilliancy, of the whole scene. As we steam on, it changes like a kaleidoscope. These vast hulls are never seen for two seconds together at the same angle. The garlanded masts of the Bladk Prince and the Agincourt, the Minotaur and the Monarch, group themselves into bouquets, ever changing in form ; into wreaths and festoons ; into forests of flowers ; into swaying lines of infinitely lovely curve ; into rainbow belts. The grim, armoured, turreted, gun-carrying structures from which all this beauty springs skyward are, for the most part, as ugly as anything that floats can be — distorted, misshapen, clumsy. They are monsters of such hideous mien as to be hated need but to be seen. The goddess of beauty took flight when they were conceived, but she has returned for this day only, and reigns triumphant above their decks. Some are less hideous than others ; the older they are, the more they are hke real ships, and the less like workshops of Yulcan. They do, at any rate, give the most peaceful beholder the notion of warhke power, of sleeping energy, of irresistible might, of terrible engines of destruc- tion and defence, as they are. I have not a word to say on their merits as machines, or on the naval controversies with which England is forever echoing, nor on the vexed question whether the InflexiUe would blow the Collingwood out of water, or be herself sunk finally beneath the waves Britan- nia rules. Here on the Helicon is Captain Chadwick, whose business it is to impart to the Navy Department in "Wash- ington a decisive opinion on all these matters, and he is com- petent to do it, and some day you may hear all about it from him. Mine is only the story of a holiday and a spectacle. And yet, when once we have passed the eastern end of the fleet and turned and steamed back from the buoy far out to sea, whither the Queen leads us, it is something more than the splendour of a spectacle, unsurpassed in all elements of beauty, which impresses the most careless of us. We steer straight for the entrance of what I can only call an avenue of armoured ships. Half a mile wide, four miles 1 long, this avenue consists of ships which, no matter what 284 PAGEANTS. you may think of each separately, together are majestic. It was deemed a mistake to anchor the fleet that the Queen might sail through. I doubt whether any evolutions of ships in action could be so impressive to the sight and the imagination as these motionless vessels in their ordered sym- metry of position. Line of battle or dress parade, or what- ever you like to call it, they are magnificent, and no sover- eign ever passed amid such an array of naval force. The sea king's daughter is in her right place amid these new kings of the sea. Just opposite the Monarch the Helicon slowed down, then came to a fuU stop ; then suddenly came the order, " Let go the starboard anchor." The Queen was but half-way through, three or four ships ahead, near the Hercules. What had happened ? "We had seen signalling but nobody in our party on deck knew what it meant. It is not long before the officers of the Helicon let us into the secret. Her Maj- esty has anchored and summoned on board the Victoria and Albert the commanders of the great ships amid which she lies. This queenly caprice had its inconvenient side. The programme of the day is upset, the spectacle is cut in two. The completeness of this royal progress — and no monarch ever made one more royal — is impaired. Some hundreds of thousands of people find all at once that their arrangements and expectations about getting on shore or returning to Lon- don have gone to naught. Everybody is puzzled ; a good many people are vexed, and say so. The diplomatic corps, whose ruffled sensibilities had been appeased by the compli- ment of a special ship and a place in the procession, once more bethink themselves that they have a grievance. One other result, I beheve, of this delay was the ultimate disap- pearance of the Helicon from Her Majesty's suite, for in the end she did not follow the Queen back to Osborne, but on some urgent ambassadorial plea obtained a dispensation, and quitted the line at the moment most convenient for putting M. and Madame Waddington on board the Iphigenie. Yet, when all the grumbhng has been done, there was THE NAVAL REVIEW. 285 perhaps no incident of the day which so brought home to those who beheld.it the reahty of the Queen's position and power. Of her own motion, and at her own womanly wish, she arrests in one moment the progress of this great pageant. At her command, the captains of this invincible fleet quit their ships and, in the quaint official phrase, repair on board the Queen's yacht, to receive the message which their royal mistress had it in mind to address to them. Their mistress, you perceive, she is ; her command is a command to be obeyed, and is obeyed. The Queen is, as it were, enthroned on the deck of this holiday yacht ; these mighty ships of war about her are for the day but so many courtiers, complaisant to their mistress's merest whim. Nor was there a prettier sight in its way than to see these epauletted, gold -laced and cocked -hatted gentlemen fleet -captains speeding past in their steam pin- naces, arriving from every point of the compass and from every ship in the fleet ; aU gathering about the Queen's yacht, and about the Queen on deck. We had, at any rate, time enough to gaze on it, and more than most of us wanted. Most impatient of all were the Lords on the Euphrates astern of us. While the Queen held her sea-court, these cor- oneted supporters of her throne were pouring over the white sides of their troop-ship into tugs, and pufiing off to the dock. When the Euphrates once more lifted her anchor she was literally a peerless vessel. It was long past six when the Queen and her yacht and escort again got under way. The sun was close to the hori- zon, the Solent a blaze of molten gold. The interrupted procession resumed and completed its passage through the stately aisle of ships. As the Queen reached the western end, the guns broke out in a parting salute, and as the Heli- con was still in the midst of the fleet we had the full bene- fit of the cannonade. The yards had been manned again on every ship ; the music of cheering men mingled with the music of the guns; the Queen vanished amid the up- roar and smoke ; the review was over. The sunset signal 286 PAGEANTS. followed not long after, and in an instant came a transfor- mation as striking as anything we had seep, all day. Down went flags and pennons. The rainbows fluttered a moment against the sky, and melted out of sight. The hundred ships of the fleet were stripped in a second of their finery, and there they lay in all their natural naked ugUness or beauty, still motionless, monsters of the deep, bulwarks of England; black battlements of iron and steel. The sky grew black above them, and the waters black beneath them, ere the Queen's yacht found her anchorage at Cowes or the Queen stepped ashore on her island home ; and the last we saw of the naval review was the first gleam of the illumina- tions through the gathering darkness that fell upon sea and land. MISCELLANIES. PRESIDENT GAEFIELD IN ENGLAND. [LosDON, September 22,1881.] It was about four o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, English time, that President Garfield died. An hour later the news was here, and some of the London papers pub- lished it in a few late copies of their morning edition. It was known in the provinces at the same moment, and pub- lished in the same way. Before I say anything about the feeling it evoked in high places and with the general public, I should like to mention what occurred where I was stay- ing, — in Whitby, a fishing town and smaU seaport, which is also a watering-place, on the north-east coast of Yorkshire. At this season Whitby is the rendezvous for herring-fishers, and its little harbour is crowded with boats hailing from ports aU the way from Pentland Firth to Penzance ; Pen- zance itself sending a large contingent. The fishermen are a simple folk, leading a hard Life, untaught, and as free from any concern or share in the general affairs of the world as any body of men that could be got together. But when they heard that President Garfield was dead they one and aU hoisted their bits of flag at half-mast, and so kept them during the day. They held no meeting, passed no resolu- tions. I suppose not a man among them could have made a speech or drawn up a formal declaration of sorrow. They acted with no concert of any kind. Their way of life makes them all rivals and often enemies. Hartlepool has nothing to say to Lowestoft, Sunderland quarrels with Arbroath, and Whitby itself keeps but iU terms with any of its many guests. But somehow they agreed for this once. The boats II.— 19 290 MISCELLANIES. that lay in the river above the bridge next the railway sta- tion, were the first to hang out their signal of grief. Those in the port below soon followed. Not long after, without anybody being able to say how the news spread, the fleet at anchor outside the harbour one by one ran up their ensigns, hauled them half down, and there made them fast for the day. Amid the innumerable demonstrations of sorrow to be seen and heard these last two days all over England, I know of none which more truly indicates the essentially popular character of the regret which the President's death has excited. It is certain that somehow or other a conviction had be- come general among what are caUed the lower classes in England that the President of the great commonwealth be- yond the Atlantic was one of themselves. They do not read biographies in book shape, nor many newspapers, but one or two of the facts of President Garfield's fife had fil- tered down through the reading classes to the classes who do not read. The fact that one who had climbed so high was of humble birth was the fact which had become most Avidely known and which, among those of humble birth, had given rise to a feeling of extremely close sympathy. It would hardly have been the same thing if he had been an Englishman. The Enghshman prefers to give his vote for a " gentleman." The lower his place in the social scale the more strenuously he supports the distinctions which keep him down. But he has heard of the American Eepubhc as a place where a career is open to talent and character, irre- . spectively of birth. He is inconsistent enough — that is, human enough — to rejoice in it, and to take a kind of pleas- ure in such a proof of it as President Garfield's rulership af- forded. It was the same in President Lincoln's case. It was the same, to take a widely different illustration, in Gari- baldi's ; whose reception here had precisely the same qual- ity of purely popular sympathy which is now felt and .ex- pressed for a murdered American President. PRESIDENT GARFIELD IN ENGLAND. 291 Much of it was to be seen -when the shot was fired. Ifc has grown ever since steadily wider and deeper. An Eng- lish friend who was shooting ten days ago over a Yorkshire moor told nae that, as the scattered line of sportsmen were pushing through the heather in silence, a gamekeeper some yards away turned and asked, " Can you tell me, sir, how President Garfield is ?" There on that lonely hillside, three thousand miles and more distant from the sufferer, in the early morning, beneath a sun which was not yet shining upon the President, breathing an air he never breathed, this York- shire peasant, who had lived his life without so much as hearing the President's name till a few weeks before, who knew not the letters of which it was formed, who knew about grouse and guns and dogs and the weather, and nothing else whatever, whose interest in life never went be- yond the stone hut in which he slept and ate, and the stretch of furze-clad upland which hfted itself against the western sky ; he, like the fishermen, had come to think or to feel that, somehow or other, the hfe or death of that far-away martyr concerned him too. It is easy to say that beneath the shooting - jacket and the jersey beats the same human heart. ISTo doubt it does. But what was it that set it beat- ing, in unison with so many milhons of others like it, with sympathy for the President ? Lord Palmerston said he nev- er knew what fame was till he heard of the Tartar mothers on the steppes of Kussia in Asia frightening their children into quiet with some queer travesty of his dreaded name. Yorkshire is not so remote as Eussian Asia, indeed, but the friendly concern of the gamekeeper was perhaps a truer measure of real fame than the ignorant terror of the Mus- covite mother. The President who lay dying would have valued such a proof of the universality of the interest in him not less than those expressions of it — certainly not less genuine — which came from much higher quarters. The English pass, and rightl}'' so, for being a people of great reserve. They do not readily nor willingly exhibit their feelings. They are incapable of making a parade of 292 MISCELLANIES. grief, and almost incapable of allowing the natural signs and expressions of it to be seen in public. They are almost wholly devoid of that pliability of nerve which in other races serves to transmit sensibihty to the surface, and signify in the numerous ways familiar to those Avho have lived among people of Latin origin that they are under the in- fluence of a strong emotion. Twice only have I seen in England any outburst of feeling marked enough and gen- eral enough to indicate that for the moment this reserve of character had been broken through and this restraint over- borne. The first was when the Prince of Wales was believed to be dying. The second was when it was known that President Garfield had been shot. Ever since that 2d of July the sympathy first shown and the anxiety about his condition have been sustained ; to a less degree, of course, than with you, but to a degree and in a manner which are, if possible, even more remarkable than with you. For if an Englishman have, beside this reserve, one characteristic more marked than another, it is that of indifference to what goes on in the world outside these islands. I do not say so in a critical way ; still less as a censure. It is simply that his life is a very f uU one, and he is preoccupied with his own affairs. This indifference he maintains, as a rule, not with reference to foreign nations only. It is just as difficult to rouse him about the affairs of outlying parts of his own em- pire as about foreign countries. He cares no more, ordina- rily, about Canada than about Constantinople ; rather less, I should say. It takes a mutiny to make him remember that India exists, or did, till Lord Beaconsfield taught him that the flutter of a Cossaclc pennon on the Oxus was a menace to Calcutta. When a great European war occurs, he reads the morning telegrams with curiosity. Then he goes about his business. If you were here in 1870, you must have remembered that nobody talked to you in a railway carriage about a battle. No Englishman would so far mas- ter his constitutional shyness and constitutional indifference as to accost a stranger on such a topic, or few would. PRESIDENT GARFIELD IN ENGLAND. 293 Bat during the eighty days of President Garfield's slow advance to death, I have seen almost every day some new proof that Englishmen looked upon his fate as a matter of domestic concern. The stranger in the railway carriage did ask you how the President was getting on. The shopkeeper asked you. The boatman on the pier asked. The boatman's wife asked. I hardly ever got a letter — even a business let- ter — in which something was not said about the President. I have the honour of knowing a venerable lady eighty-one years old. She begged me to bring her, every day, news of the President, not satisfied with what the newspapers told her. I said over and over again that I could tell her noth- ing that was not told more fully in pi'int. No matter ; she wanted to hear it from American lips. The newspapers print, of course, what their customers want to read. They have continued to publish details of the President's progress, less copious, naturally and necessarily, than yours, but often exceeding a column in length, transinitted by cable. "When- ever a crisis in the patient's condition came, the despatches were always fuller, and commonly accompanied by an edi- torial article, inteUigent and profoundly sympathetic. This is true not only of the great London papers nor of the great provincial papers only, but of aU the papers, great and small, which I have seen, and as I have been a good deal out of London I have seen many. It is true of papers of every shade of opinion, political or religious or scientific. As you know, the medical organs busied themselves continually about the medical symptoms. In all their comments there has been, so far as I know, hardly a word that the nearest friend of the President, or the most patriotic and sensitive American, need wish unsaid. That is a strong statement but is not made heedlessly. I cannot express too strongly what I feel about the language of the English press with reference to this matter. If we have retained any memory of any injury to us from that source in times past, it ought to be blotted out. You know what the press has been. You have had an 294 MISCELLANIES. almost daily record of its tenor; and the transatlantic cables, which often do so much mischief, have done a real service in echoing from side to side the words in which Enghsh and Americans have signified their feelings. What has been said here since the fatal news came is so admirable, so suffused with sincere emotion, so penetrated with fraternal sentiments toward the nation whose illustrious head has departed, that I could wish to see all those articles collected and preserved. They ought to form part of the national archives. Many of them will be transmitted to "Washington by our Minister. But there ought to be at least one complete collection in the Congress Library, if not in the State Department. What I may call the mere physical facts of journalism are hardly less striking than their sympathetic concord. First of all. The Times appears in mourning. Never before, so far as I know, or as anybody whom 1 can ask knows, has that striking tribute been paid to any person not English. It has been universally spoken of as a most singular and remark- able occurrence. It may seem less so to your readers, who do not reflect on the extraordinary cogency of precedent and custom in this country. They are nowhere more cogent than in the office of The Times, but they have been broken through to do honour to the memory of an American Presi- dent. More than two pages of the issue of Wednesday are occupied with this one topic ; of which three columns are telegraphic and two editorial. The other papers, with much less space, devote almost as much to the President, none of them having less than two leaders on the subject. The manager of one great journal said that, whether in or out of the newspaper world, he had known no such excitement and no such pressure of public interest since the Prince of Wales's illness. That, as you see, is the only standard of compari- son from whichever side you look at this memorable dem- onstration. Heretofore, and especially of late years, when an English journalist desired to express his goodwill to America, he has been in the habit of referring to Americans as of Anglo- PRESIDE^'T GARFIELD IN ENGLAND. 295 Saxon descent, as his kin beyond the sea, or perhaps as his cousins. All these phrases to-day have dropped out, and you read instead, of the absolute community of race and senti- ment between England and the United States. Cousinship has given place to brotherhood. "We claim," said the lead- ing Conservative journal of England in words as eloquent as they are pathetic, " to stand side by side with our broth- ers across the Atlantic on this sad occasion, to feel all they feel, to suppress aU they would rather suppress, and to un- derstand and share every emotion through which they are passing." And again : " Whether it was our business or not, we have made it our business. Grief is of no nationality; but ties of blood and kindred can set up a common current of sorrow ; and it is only on occasions like the present that the people of the two countries learn how closely allied and how intimately related they really are." On such a subject as this the press may be trusted to speak for the country, but it is very far from being the only mouth- piece of the people of England. The Queen is still the head of the State. Her messages, and most of all that last out- burst of womanly and wifely sympathy with the President's wife, are, and will remain, household words in America. I can only repeat what I told you some weeks ago, that those about the Queen describe her as passing agitated days, of- ten talking of the President and Mrs. Garfield, impatient for the bulletins, and anxious for better news when a bad despatch arrived. Again and again she has broken through the etiquette that hedges a Queen to send her own messages, in her own name and in her own handwriting, to Mr. Lowell and to Mrs. Garfield. Yon may take it upon the best au- thority that the Queen's frequent manifestations of concern are not only spontaneous, which anybody can see, but that they are the expression of a feeling which has been the pre- occupation of her life for these eighty days. Letters arriving at the American Legation and elsewhere from distinguished and undistinguished Englishmen, are all in the same tone. Almost without exception they deplore 296 MISCELLANIES. a personal loss. The resolutions of town councils, of conven- tions, of all sorts of assemblies all over the land, bear marks of a similar feehng. An American who sees and hears what is going on may be permitted to speak more plainly than the English themselves speak. President Garfield, they tell us, endeared himself to the English nation by his fortitude, and he and his wife and mother were soon beloved in England. That perfect picture of patience, heroism, and domestic hap- piness touched every English household. It won the admi- ration of a great people because they saw in it what they most honour, but seldom speak of, in themselves, the capacity for facing pain and death, blended with the softer virtues of the fireside and family circle. The finest of actual races, said Emerson of the English. And their hearts went out to the President, in whom they recognised one of themselves, not less an Englishman for being an American ; a man ap- pointed to vindicate, first to themselves and then to the rest of the world, the equal worth of the parent race at home and the children abroad. MR. GLADSTONE ON WASHINGTON, AND ON THE DESTINY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES. [London, January 17, 1885.] The letter which this accompanies is sent for publication by Mr. Gladstone's permission. A brief note on the circum- stances which gave rise to it majj- perhaps prove interesting, and for that, too, I have his leave, as well as the consent of the friend under whose roof the incident occurred. The date was last September, the place a country-house in Scotland.' The reasons, or some of the reasons why I have held back the letter till now are, I suppose, obvious enough. One may hope that by this time the effervescence of the Presidential campaign has pretty well subsided. A conversation had been, started by one of the company on the subject of reverence for great men. The question was asked, " Do we in these days feel and show as much rever- ence for noble character as was felt and shown formerly ?" Some one said, " No, and the reason is that such characters are fewer than they used to be ; the standard is not so high ; men have as much reverence in their nature, but there is less to call it forth." Mr. Gladstone dissented at once. " If," he said, " you look back over the period within the memory of the oldest of us, you will find it rich in men who deserve and Avho have re- ceived the deep respect and reverence of their contempora- ries. To take but one example, there is Cobden. I do not ■ Brechin Castle, where Mr. Gladstone was then staying with the late Lord and Lady Dalhousie. 298 MISCELLANIES. know that there is in any period a man whose pubho career and life were nobler or more admirable than Cobden's." Then, interrupting himself, and looking across the table to me, Mr. Gladstone said — " Of course I except Washington. "Washington to my mind is the purest figure in history." Mr. Gladstone added a sentence or two -which I need not repeat, as the full expression of his opinion about Washing- ton will be found in his own letter. All those present ex- cepting myself were Englishmen and all of them, it is a pleasure to say, agreed with Mr. Gladstone. The morning after this, there was a report in the papers of a meeting in favour of Imperial Federation, and as we walked along the gallery to the brealcfast-room, Mr. Glad- stone asked what was thought in America on that subject. I answered as well as I could, and finally said there was a matter in which we, I thought, were more directly and deep- ly interested, and that was the promotion of a good un- derstanding among all English-speaking people the world over. " Ah, there," exclaimed Mr. Gladstone, " I am heartily with you. The future of the world belongs to us, to us who are of the same blood and language, if we are true to our- selves and to our opportunities, not of conquest or aggres- sion, but of commercial development and beneficent influ- ence." For a fuller account of his opinions, I refer the reader again to Mr. Gladstone's letter, and have only to add that, thinking what he said on these two subjects would interest Americans, I subsequently wrote to ask if I might repeat it. " Yes," was his answer, " in such words and as pubhcly as you please ;" and at the same time came the letter in which he restates his views on both subjects. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, OcioJc?' 4, 1884. Dear Me. Smalley — I was unwilling to answer your let- ter hastily, and I therefore postponed writing for two or MR. GLADSTONE ON WASHINGTON. 299 three days, but I find this does not in any degree relieve me from my dilemma. The first point raised by you is, indeed, one that can be briefly disposed of. When I first read in detail the Life of "Washington, I was profoundly impressed with the moral ele- vation and greatness of his character, and I found myself at a loss to name among the statesmen of any age or country many, or possibly any, who could be his rival. In saying this I mean no disparagemelit to the class of politicians, the men of my own craft and cloth ; whom, in my own land, and my own experience, I have found no less worthy than other men of love and admiration. I could name among them those who seem to me to come near even to him. But I will shut out the last half century from the comparison. I will then say that if, among all the pedestals supplied by history for public characters of extraordinary nobility and purity, I saw one higher than all the rest, and if I were re- quired at a moment's notice to name the fittest occupant for it, I think my choice, at any time during the last forty-five years, would have lighted, and it would now fight, upon "Washington. The other subject is one on which I hardly like to touch in a few lines, for the prospect it opens to me is as vast as it is diversified, and it is so interesting as to be almost over- whelming. Mr. Barham Zincke, no incompetent calculator, reckons that the English-speaking peoples of the world an hundred years hence will probably count a thousand millions. Some French author, whose name I unfortunately forget, in a re- cent estimate places them somewhat lower ; at what precise figure I do not recollect, but it is like 600 or 800 miUions. A century back, I suppose, they were not much, if at all, be- yond fifteen millions ; I also suppose we may now take them at a hundred. These calculations are not so visionary as they may seem to some ; they rest upon a rather wide induction, while the best they can pretend to is rough approximation. But, as I 300 MISCELLANIES. recollect, it -was either Imlay, or one of those with ■whom the name of that creature is associated, that computed, a cen- tury back, the probable population of the American Union at this date ; and placed it very nearly at the point where it now stands. What a prospect is that of very many hundreds of millions of people, certainly among the most manful and energetic in the world, occupying one great Continent, I may almost say two, and other islands and territories not easy to be count- ed, with these islands at their head, the most historic in the world. In contact, by a vast commerce, with all mankind, and perhaps still united in kindly political association with some more hundreds of millions fitted for no mean destiny. United almost absolutely in blood and language, and very largely in religion, laws, and institutions. If anticipations such as these are to be realised in any con- siderable degree, the prospect is at once majestic, inspiring, and consolatory. The subject is full of meaning and of power ; of so much meaning that the pupil of the eye re- quires time to let in such a flood of light. I shall not at- tempt, after thus sketching it, to expound it. It would be as absurd as if a box-keeper at a theatre, when letting in a party, should attempt to expound the piece. I hope that some person more competent and less engaged than myself will give this subject the study it deserves; taking his stand on the facts of the last century, and the promise, valeat quantum, of the coming one. I cannot but think as well as hope that a good understanding, in the future near and far, among English-speaking peoples, though it may not be a matter of certainty, yet is beyond the ne- cessity of going a begging, so to speak, for recommendations from any individual, earnestly and with my whole heart as I, for one, should recommend it. Clearly if the Enghsh-speaking peoples shall then be any- thing like what we have now been supposing, and if there shall not be a good understanding among them, there wiU have been a base desertion of an easy duty, a gran rifiuto, MR. GLADSTONE ON WASHINGTON. 30I such, as might stir another Dante to denounce it, a renuncia- tion of the noblest, the most beneficial, the most peaceful primacy ever presented to the heart and understanding of man. On the other hand, great as it would be, it would demand no propaganda, no superlative ingenuity or effort ; it ought to be an orderly and natural growth, requiring only that you should be reasonably true and loyal to your traditions, and we to ours. To gain it wiU need no preterhuman strength or wisdom : to miss it will require some portentous degen- eracy. Even were it a day-dream it would be an improving one, loftier and better than that which prompted the verse super et Garamantas et Indos Proferet imperium ; jacet extra sidera tellus, Extra anni solisque vias, because it implies no strife or bloodshed, and is full only of the moral elements of strength. — Believe me, dear Mr. Smalley, very faithfully yours, "W". E. Gladstone. ENGLAND AND AMERICA. THE AMEEICAIT CONSTITUTION. ENGLISH AND AMEEICAN DEMOCEACY. [London, February 4, 1888.] It is extremely difficult for an American who has never lived in England to comprehend how little the Enghsh know about the Constitution and Government of the United States. That they should be familiar with details is not to be expected, but they are for the most part equally unaware of principles and of the fundamental provisions of this instru- ment. The American Minister has undertaken to enlighten them by an exposition in the February number of The Wine- teenth Cenimry. How far he will succeed is a question. They have had means of information before now. It is the will to use these means that seems wanting. Professor Dicey has a chapter on the subject in his learned treatise on the Law of the Constitution of England. Sir Henry Maine has another in his excellent book on Popular Government. Both are accurate in the main, and as interesting as they are instructive. But they do not seem to sink into the English mind. Mr. James Stephen, son of Mr. Justice Stephen, has reprinted the American Constitution and sells it to aU comers for twopence, in the hope of diffusing among his country- men some useful knowledge of it. I fear his efforts have met with little success. The most extraordinany mistakes are made by the most eminent men in England ; the most extraordinary questions are put. I have been asked whether the Constitution of the ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 303 United States is in writing ; whether the President is elected for life ; whether the Constitution and Declaration of Inde- pendence are the same thing; Avhether the President can issue paper money of his ovf n authority and make it legal- tender ; whether he can repeal an Act of Congress ; whether an Act of Congress or a State law is of higher authority ; whether an amendment is binding on a State which with- holds its assent to it ; whether the President apjDoints the State Governor. And once, an Englishman of position wrote to ask whether I thought it possible that a copy of the Con- stitution of the United States could be found in the British Museum. Lord Salisbury held that the Supreme Court, hav- ing been applied to for the purpose of enforcing the provi- sions of the Constitution, could not deliver judgment accord- ing to their consciences " because the soldiers of President Lincoln, appearing at their doors in arms, so terrified them that they perverted the laAV to suit the design of the Execu- tive." I quote from Mr. Blaine's Twenty Years of Congress. Lord Palmerston declared in Parhament that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward had the power of making war if they could secure the sanction of the Senate. The late Lord Derby in- sisted that the President and Congress together had no power in case of rebellion to suspend the habeas corjpus. Lesser personages have propounded even more extraor- dinary doctrines, but the lesser personages need not be named. Mr. Bagehot, in his book on The English Constitution, en- larged on the enormity of the power exercised by President Lincoln at the beginning of the Civil War. He can hard- ly be quoted too often as an example of what an instruct- ed Englishman is capable of believing about the United States : — It has been held that the President has power to emit such (paper) money without consulting Congress at all. The first part of the late war was so carried on by Mr. Lincoln ; he relied not on the grants of Congress, but on the prerogative of emission. It 304 MISCELLANIES. sounds a joke, but it is true nevertheless, that this power to issue greenbacks is decided to belong to the President as commander-in- chief of the army ; it is part of what was called the " war-power." This was written deliberately in December 1866, by one of the most enlightened of English political thinkers, pub- lished, republished in book form in 1867. It is only fair to Mr. Bagehot's memory to say again that, spite of this in- credible blunder, the English part of his work is of the very highest value. Lastly I will quote Mr. Goldwin Smith, whose habitual ac- curacy, reinforced by long residence in America, might be expected to guarantee him against error on a point at once fundamental and elementary. In the January number of The Nineteenth Century Mr. Goldwin Smith brings a grave charge against the Supreme Court : — Without political motives, it could hardly have decided that the Legal-Tender Currency Act, which forced a creditor to receive pay- ment in paper so depreciated that he lost 50 per cent of the debt, was not a breach of the article of the Constitution forbidding any legislation which would impair the faith of contracts. Perhaps Mr. Goldwin Smith will tell us which article of the Constitution forbids such legislation to Congress. It would be easy to multiply such illustrations, but these are more than enough to show how much such an article as Mr. Phelps's is wanted. He has rightly devoted the first part of it to a brief account of the history of the Constitution, and to a recapitulation of its provisions. Americans as well as Englishmen will be glad to see the observations on it which this distinguished jurist promises for another paper. Mr. Phelps himself remarks that it is probable that very few, even among the best instructed Englishmen, have a clear or accurate conception of the Government of the United States as it actually exists. But for the diplomatic polite- ness exacted of him by his position and popularity, he might have said more. The exceptions are to be sought among ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 305 the few men, like those I have named above, who are jurists and who happen to have made a special study of the subject. It is conceivable that Mr. Phelps's article may have been suggested by the multiphcity of questions addressed to the American Legation on elementary points of Constitutional knowledge. Among the statesmen of England, few indeed trouble themselves to acquire a working knowledge of a system under which their kin beyond the sea have thriven. England has been going through, since 1832, a succession of political revolutions. She has thrice remodelled her fran- chise and always by extension, always in obedience to demo- cratic tendencies and demands. Power, broadly speaking, passed from the aristocracy to the middle classes in 1832; in 1867-68 and far more decisively in 1884, the working classes, first the artisan and then the agricultural labourer, succeeded to that splendid heritage. What could have been more useful to reformers during this period of transition than an accurate acquaintance with the workings of democ- racy in America ? But they did not acquire it, and they are groping their way to-day through a series of difficul- ties with little help from the experience or wisdom of the United States. The indifference of the English to precedents which have been estabhshed elsewhere than within the United Kingdom is one reason for this continuing and contented ignorance of the American Constitution. But there is another, the influ- ence of which is perhaps not less potent, though more sel- dom avowed. The men who have the ear of the masses in England are naturally men who have promoted political re- forms, and who are eager to promote other reforms. They are Eadicals, and they wish to get to the root of things as rapidly as possible. They look upon the existing Constitu- tion as embodying a mass of abuses of which they desire to get rid. They want to run the legislative machine at full speed. They are utterly impatient of checks, of moderation, of enforced deliberation upon great Constitutional changes. A leading Eadical, whose name I should like to tell you but 11.-20 306 MISCELLANIES. must not, asked me not very long ago to explain to him the process by which an amendment to the United States Con- stitution is carried. I did so, and as I enumerated and de- scribed the different delays and legislative obstacles that had to be encountered and overcome, his face lengthened, and finally flushed, and he said, " You need not suppose we shall adopt any such system as that in England. There are too many iniquities which we want to abolish, and abolish at once." And it is true that Parliament may pass an Act revolutionising the fundamental law of the Kingdom be- tween midnight and two o'clock in the morning. Once passed, it is law ; Constitutional law ; a new article of the Constitution of the Kingdom; requiring no ratification, ref- erable to no tribunal, subject to no judicial consideration, practically impossible of repeal, since revolutions do not go backward, and the strongest opponents of a reform are com- pelled not only to acquiesce in it, but to carry it out when they come into power, and often to propose fresh legislation to make it more efficient. I will undertake to say that any political leader who should seek to engraft upon Parha- mentary procedure any modification analogous to the Amer- ican procedure in amending the fundamental law, would forthwith be denounced as a reactionary. Pie might not be told he was a Tory, because the Tories are rapidly becom- ing democratic reformers. But he would be warned that he was obstructing urgent reforms, that he distrusted the people, probably that he was a partisan and tool of the classes. The English eulogist of the American system must be con- tent to be called a Conservative. So, sometimes, must the American who judges things English by an American stand- ard. Sir Henry Maine, who has little faith in the sort of democracy which English Kadicals propose to themselves as an ideal, is the admirer and eulogist of American democ- racy. So, as I pointed out at length last week, is Mr. Froude. They both see that the distribution of wealth in America is, as weU as the deliberation upon change enforced by the ENGLAND AND AMERICA, 307 Constitution, one cause of American conservatism. For the present, however, we may be content if we can get the Eng- lish to understand something of our Constitutional doctrine and practice. If Mr. Phelps can induce them to study that, he will indeed have done them a service. THE LANSDOWNE WASHINGTON. [London, October 23, 1889.] " The only original painting I ever made of Washington, except one I own myself." These are the words in which Gilbert Stuart refers to the portrait of "Washington painted for the Marquis of Lansdowne. The one he then owned himself is the famous one now in the Boston Athenaeum. It has always seemed odd to the patriotic American that the other of the only two original Stuart portraits of Washing- ton should have been painted for an Enghshman, albeit a friend to America. But there is, I believe, authority for saying that Lord Lansdowne wished it as a memento of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, of which he may be considered the author. The portrait has had an odd history, part of which is known, and the end of it is that it has now passed into the possession of a living Englishman, not less friendly to America than its first owner, and has found what must be considered a permanent resting- place in England. It hangs in the dining-room of Lord Kosebery's house in Berkeley Square, a minute's walk from that other house in the same square where lived the Lord Shelburne — less well known as the Marquis of Lansdowne — for whom the picture was painted. I leave it to other Americans to comment, or even, should they see fit, to mor- alise, on these facts. The facts relating to the picture and its history are themselves interesting enough to be worth restating, in a form which I will try to make clearer than they were to me when I first looked them up. With respect to the origin of the picture Mr. Mason's THE LANSDOWNE WASHINGTON. 309 account ' is sufBciently clear, and I abridge from him. Lord Shelburne, whose goodwill to America and admiration for Washington are familiar to Americans, sent Stuart a com- mission in 1795 or 1796. "When it was known," says Mr. Mason, " that Stuart was to paint such a picture, Mr. and Mrs. William Bingham expressed a strong desire to be at the charge and to be permitted to present it to the Mar- quis." Stuart hesitated, but yielded. A commission is a commission, and the intervention of the Binghams between the patron and the artist is the first of the curious circum- stances which mark the history of the picture from first to last. The reason of his yielding seems plain. Mrs. Bing- ham could get Washington to sit to Stuart, and Stuart him- self could not. The Binghams were interesting figures. The husband was then Senator from Pennsylvania, and her wealthiest citizen. The wife, Anne Willing, was distinguished in Phil- adelphia by her beauty, elegance of manners, and magnifi- cent hospitality. Stuart painted her portrait, and she figures among the celebrities of the Eepublican Court of the day. Her daughter married three years later that Alexander Bar- ing who, as Lord Ashburton, negotiated the Webster-Ash- burton treaty. When Stuart first went to Philadelphia in hope of painting Washington's portrait, he carried with him a letter of introduction from John Jay. Washington sat to him in the winter of 1795, but the picture did not satisfy the artist, and Stuart, by his own testimony, destroyed it, or "rubbed it out." It might well be in these circumstances that Washington did not care to sit again. This is matter of conjecture, or rather of inference. Mr. Mason tells us nothing, but the document he quotes makes the inference as to Mrs. Bingham natural, if not irresisti- ble. The document in question is invaluable. It estabUsh- es beyond question not merely the authenticity of the Lans- downe portrait, but its henceforth unquestionable claim to ' Tlie Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart, by George C. Mason. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879. 310 MISCELLANIES. originality, and, with one existing exception, to exclusive authenticity and originality. In other words, there is in existence but one other portrait of Washington by Stuart for which Washington sat. It is needless to say that a portrait with a pedigree is worth in- finitely more than one without, and that a pedigree support- ed by documentary evidence is most valuable of all. Such a pedigree there is to the Lansdowne portrait, but before I give it I win explain how it came into existence. The pict- ure, having been duly painted by Stuart, reached London and Lord Shelburne, and remained Lord Shelburne's prop- erty till his death in 1805 as Marquis of Lansdowne. After his death, his pictures were sold by auction, and the Stuart Washington was bought by Samuel Williams, an English- man, for a sum stated by Mr. Mason at $2000. The exact figure was £540 : 15s., as may be seen by a reference to the Life of MolleTcens, i. 404. While Williams owned it, Stuart, looking through his papers in search of a Washington auto- graph, came upon the original letter from Washington to himself, making an appointment to sit for this very picture. The letter is given by Mr. Mason, but he evidently had not seen the original, and he gives it inaccurately. The original is before me, in Washington's best handwriting, filling half one side of a half sheet of rather small quarto letter paper, and is as follows : — Sir, I am under promise to Mrs. Bingham, to set for you tomorrow at nine o'clock ; and wishing to know if it be convenient to you that I should do so, and whether it shall be at your own house, (as she talked of the State House) I send this note to you, to ask infor- mation — I am Sir Your obedient Servt Monday \ GO. WASHINGTON. Evening [ 11th ApllV96. Immediately below this letter, upon the same side of the same half -sheet, is a memorandum, the body of which is, I THE LANSDOWNE WASHINGTON. 311 think, without doubt in the handwriting of Timothy Will- iams, brother to Samuel "Williams ; the signature Stuart's, very tall, tremulous, ragged, decipherable with some effort, but unmistakable; even without the attestation of three credible witnesses. It is Timothy Williams who adds the N. B. signed T. W., and the whole is as follows : — In looking over my papers to find one that had the signature of Geo. Washington, I found this asking me when he should sit for his portrait, which is now owned by Samuel Williams of London. I have thought it proper it should be his especially as he owns the only original painting I ever made of Washington except one I own myself. I painted a third but rubbed it out. I now present this to his brother Timo. Williams for sd. Samuel. Boston 9th Day March 1823. GT. STUART. Attest I. P. DAVIS. W. DUTTON. L. BALDWIN. N. B. Mr. Stuart painted in ye winter season his first portrait of Washington, but destroyed it. The next portrait was ye one now owned by S. Williams ; the third Mr. S. now has — two only remain as above stated. T. W. Now from Washington's own. letter, and from the mem- oranda on the same page by Stuart and by Williams, it ap- pears clearly that : — 1. Washington sat three times to Stuart; first in the winter of 1795 for the picture which Stuart rubbed out; second, in April 1796, for the Lansdowne full length ; third, for the portrait now in the Boston Athenaeum. 2. Two, and only two, original portraits of Washington by Stuart, for which Washington sat, are now in existence ; the Lansdowne and the Athenaeum, of which the Lansdowne was the first. 3. AH other portraits of Washington by Stuart, of what- ever degree of merit, are copies by Stuart from one of these two originals. These conclusions will not, I fear, be welcome to owners 312 MISCELLANIES. of some of these copies, some of which are very fine pictures. "Welcome or not, I do not see how they can be challenged without first disposing of Stuart's own declaration that the Lansdowne portrait is "the only original painting I ever made of "Washington except one I own myself," and except the later picture now in the Boston Athenseum, and the ear- lier one of 1795, which Stuart himself " rubbed out." Mr. Mason prints the document without criticism — without eluci- dation, also. The Timothy "Williams note, which settles the order of the painting, was obviously written from Stuart's statement at the time. Now to complete the history of the Lansdowne picture. It created, says Mr. Mason, a great sensation when it reached England, and Lord Lansdowne in acknowledging the receipt of it said of "Washington, " If I was not too old I would go to Yirginia and do him homage." Heath engraved it, with Lord Lansdowne!s consent, which ought never to have been given, though Mr. Bingham must share with him the blame of the transaction for Bingham omitted till too late to tell Lord Lansdowne that Stuart wished to reserve his copyright. Lord Lansdowne dying in 1805, "WiUiams became the owner in the way stated above. Then "WiUiams became bankrupt and his creditors disposed, of the picture by a lottery, in which forty tickets were sold at fifty guineas apiece. Mr. Delaware Lewis won it ; an English M. P. , with American connections. His uncle Mr. "William D. Lewis, of Philadel- phia, induced him to lend the portrait for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 18Y6, and it was there on view all that summer, but in the British section ; then it came back to England. Mr. Lewis died three years ago, and the pict- ure is now Lord Eosebery's. It is a picture, and not a portrait merely. "What was said of it when in America I know not, nor whether anywhere full justice has been done to it as a work of art. It is pos- sible enough that there are particular points in which, as a likeness, the Gibbs or the Vaughan picture, neither of them an original, may be preferred to this. But a picture is to THE LANSDOWNE WASHINGTON. 313 be considered as a whole, and where is there any picture of Stuart's comparable as a whole to this ? He was careless of accessories, say his critics, but the accessories are here such as the portrait demanded. The tall figure, tall as in life, stands well out from the background ; a drawn curtain with a landscape seen through the window ; a table on his right with inkstand and quill pens, the cloth half lifted, a volume underneath lettered Constitution and Laws of the United States, a rich carpet on the floor. He has just risen from a carved armchair, covered in dark -red velvet; the escutch- eon of the Union in the centre of the woodwork at the top. There he stands with firm foothold on the solid earth, clothed soberly and richly in the costume of the period; dark -brown or black velvet coat and breeches, black silk stockings, lace cravat and lace ruffles, very delicately paint- ed ; ghttering silver buckles in his shoes. The right arm is stretched out, half raised with grace, the gesture natural; the left holds just below the hilt a silver mounted sword — sword said to have belonged to the Count de Noailles, given by him to Stuart to be painted into this picture ; melted af- terward into teaspoons by good Mrs. Stuart, who could not bear the weapon in the house; and no doubt wanted the spoons, the thrifty soul. The attitude is free from constraint ; no hint of the sub- ject sitting or standing to be painted. Custis thought the legs — -he calls them limbs — too short; some one less tall than "Washington posed for them ; Alderman Keppel, says one account; the Count de ISToailles, according to another. The hands were Stuart's own, says Custis, and they also are too small. It may be so ; it matters little. The legs are, at any rate, well shaped, the hands have character. The face is turned as in the Athenaeum portrait, so often engraved ; more of the left side visible than the right, but the lines less sloping, and the whole a stronger countenance. The feat- ures are drawn with greater energy ; the eyes darker, with more light and life. Stuart's gifts as a colourist are here to be seen, perhaps, at their best ; he has used carnations freely. 314 MISCELLANIES. and the shadows that set off the lights are bold. Clearly, he has sought for the character of the man he was de- picting; and as clearly has found it. This is no mere transcript of the mere actual facts of feature or complexion. The eyes gaze out from the canvas as those of a man who " saw life steadily and saw it whole." There is authority, and the habit of command, in attitude and expression alike. As Constable said to the friends whom he had gathered to see the copy of this picture, " There is the man " ; and it is, as they answered with one accord, " the man himself." Thus, and not otherwise, he stood and looked. This august benignity was his. This is the man who made us one peo- ple and independent; this the firm, wise, just, patient and admirable leader whom we revere. It is, on the whole, the most interesting picture in the world to an American, and to look on it he must come to England. THE LONDON KIOTS. I. HOW THET BEGAN, WHAT WAS DONE, WHO IS EESPONSIBLE. [LoNDOK, February 9, 1886.] A NTJMBEE of men computed at 8000 were occupied yes- terday afternoon in London in giviag a practical illustration of Mr. Chamberlain's theory of ransom. Starting from Tra- falgar Square, they marched westward through Pall Mall, St. James's Street, and Piccadilly, to Hyde Park. As they went they smashed windows, broke open and plundered shops, and restored to themselves a portion of their rights in the shape of watches worn by such capitalists as hap- pened to come in their way. Once in Hyde Park they at- tacked carriages, broke them in pieces, beat the liveried me- nials base enough to do service for wages, insulted ladies who were driving, and stripped men. They then held a short meeting and made speeches. Then they quitted the Park by Stanhope Gate, marched through Dean Street to South Audley Street, sacked it, passed through Grosvenor Square, breaking the windows on their line of advance, sacked North Audley Street, and reached Oxford Street la- den with plunder. The shops in Oxford Street had been closed, and as they are protected by iron shutters, were not easy to rifle without better preparations than Mr. Chamber- lain's disciples had been able to make on the spur of the moment. So, after wrecking what they could, they slowly dispersed. The quarter through which this procession took its way is 316 MISCELLANIES. the wealthiest and most fashionable of London. Pall Mall has been called a street of palaces ; most of which are clubs. St. James's Street, slightly less splendid but even more aris- tocratic, is the site of some of the best clubs in London. Piccadilly consists partly of expensive shops, partly of clubs, partly of private houses inhabited by the cream of society. South Audley Street is of mixed composition lilie Piccadil- ly. Grosvenor Square is the centre of Mayfair. The time occupied by the movement and incidental operations of this multitude was from two to three hours. During the whole of that time they were in absolute possession and unchecked control of the West End of London. If they did not carry any further than they did Mr. Chamberlain's doctrine of restitution, it was because they did not choose to ; because, perhaps, of the moderation which is characteristic (some- times) of men animated by a high purpose ; or because, as one or two speakers regretfully remarked, of imperfect or- ganisation ; or possibly because, from a want of those habits of reflection which are among the privileges of a leisured class, these victims of the existing social order did not fully realise their strength and the advantages of their position. As I have mentioned Mr. Chamberlain's name I ought perhaps to explain that he was not on this occasion present in person. He made no speech either in Trafalgar Square or in Hyde Park, and took no part in any of the proceed- ings. Whether any of the speeches were to his taste, I can- not say. That the acts which followed were not may be taken for granted. The restitution which he favours is to be accomplished by process of law ; confiscation by act of Parlia- ment, and not by the more rough-and-ready methods adopt- ed yesterday. He must, however, begin to be aware that the man who lets loose a new idea on the community cannot al- ways direct in person the application of it, or exercise any control whatever over the methods which the more ardent of his followers may see fit to put in practice. That is not a limitation upon his responsibility for preaching the doc- trine, the probable consequences of which he was bound to THE LONDON RIOTS. 317 consider before he gave it to the public. The crash of the windows in St. James's Street was the echo of Mr. Chamber- lain's speech in Birmingham. Society, he said, owes some- thing more than toleration in return for the restrictions it imposes on men's liberty of action. It may be so, but it is hard that the ransom of property in general should be levied on a few jewellers of Piccadilly. Not Mr. Chamberlain, however, but, as I said. Socialists of a more advanced type were the orators of yesterday. Of these, Mr. John Burns and Mr. Hyndman were the chief. They appeared on the scene in opposition to a demonstration of the unemployed working men of London, who had called a meeting in Trafalgar Square to lay their grievances before the public. The Socialists whom Messrs. Burns and Hynd- man represent desire, no doubt, that the distress of the un- employed shall be relieved. But it must be relieved accord- ing to the gospel of Socialism, or not at all. The working men must not ask for charity ; they must not ask for fair trade ; they must not ask or accept anything under the pres- ent organisation of society. They must fill their mouths by agitation for a new social order, or let them stay empty. You may or may not remember to have heard something about the Social Democratic Federation. This is a body of which Mr. John Burns and Mr. Hyndman are leading mem- bers. Mr. "WilMam Morris is, or was, a member, but there has been a split in the Socialist camp, and whether Mr. Hyndman or Mr. Morris be the seceders, and which is the true church, and who belongs to it, are questions I cannot answer. But the Social Democratic Federation undertook to break up the meeting of the Unemployed, and to substi- tute for it a meeting of their own. Both meetings were held. The working men said their say and went quietly home. The Sociahsts, unable to capture Trafalgar Square, effected a change of base to the steps and porch of the IsTa- tional Gallery, looking down on the Square, and from this coign of vantage spoke to the city and the world. They spoke with great violence. Mr. Burns expressed the 318 MISCELLANIES. opinion that hanging was too good for landlords and capital- ists. Mr. Hyndman invited his hearers to look at the clubs in Pall Mall Tvhere rich men were sitting in comfort, care- less whether the poor starved or not. He cried shame on those before him for not resisting oppression. They should stand together as working men against the plundering class- es, and demand, not charity, but the land and machinery of England, which was theirs because their labour made it val- uable. This, you perceive, is stated more crudely and per- haps more broadly than Mr. Chamberlain's doctrine of ran- som, but the idea at the bottom of each is the same. Mr. Burns became cruder still when he remarked that the next time they met it would be to sack the shops. His hearers, as you already know, accepted the general pohcy, and thought to-day a better time than to-morrow to execute it, as no doubt it was. He declared himself a revolutionist. By way of indicating the sort of revolution he had in mind, he displayed a red flag, the folds of which were broad enough to cover Mr. Hyndman also. " Unless we get bread they must get lead," was another sentence which showed what was working in Mr. Burns's mind. And so,'with the red flag flying and Mr. Burns borne on their shoulders, and Mr. Hyndman more modestly embosomed in the throng, this army of social reformers took up its march westward ; with the results I have stated above. The social reformers were simply the roughs and rufiians of London. I am sorry to say I saw only the ground swell of this storm. Neither Mr. John Burns nor Mr. Hyndman had been good enough to announce in the papers their intention of reforming society with brickbats. As for demonstrations, they have been so numerous and futile as to fall into con- tempt, and one demonstration is very like another, and after you have seen a dozen you do not care so much about the thirteenth. But I saw some of the traces these amiable en- thusiasts had left behind them. The windows of the first club I went into were among those which had been reform- ed by Mr. Hyndman's phalanx. The hall-porter showed me THE LONDON RIOTS. 319 a stone which had come from the hand of some martyr to the present inequahty in the distribution of wealth. The famine-stricken wretch had found strength enough in his despair to drive it through two thicknesses of sohd plate glass. I asked the porter if they had tried to get into the club. " Oh no, sir ; the stones all came from the middle of the crowd." A friend told me he had been out in the thick of it and had met Lord Salisbury on his way from Downing Street to his house in Arlington Street, which would naturally have taken him too through the thick of it. The late Prime Minister had turned a deaf ear to his suggestion that he should not come in contact with the people who were then amusing themselves by practical protests against the wear- ing of tail hats. But when a police officer in plain clothes told him he could not be responsible for his safety if he went afoot, he yielded. Long before this you have asked yourself what the po- lice and other authorities responsible for order were about. That is a pertinent question to which nobody has supplied an answer. " They had no notice," is the official plea. Did they expect, as I said just now, that Messrs. Burns and Hyndman would advertise in the public press that they were, going to wreck the "West End of London? But they had notice ; ample notice. The meeting of the Unemployed was called for two o'clock. Long before two the Socialists had taken possession of the ground, and a fight was threatened. Police enough were sent to turn the Burns-Hyndman party out. From that time on, the threats I have quoted were proclaimed from the steps of the National Gallery. Every- body saw that mischief was afoot. Only the police saw it not and were deaf to all warnings. Trafalgar Square is within the proverbial stone's throw of Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropohtan Police, 12,000 strong. When the procession started under Burns's leadership, the red flag flying, it was four o'clock in the afternoon and broad dayhght. It was nearly five before they had reached 320 MISCELLANIES. Hyde Park ; then there was a meeting, then a fresh start for fresh scenes of riot and plunder. What were the police doing all this time ? What were the Government doing ? Where was the new Home Secretary, Mr. Childers, of Au- stralian memory ? There is a telegraph in every police sta- tion. Why were no bodies of police concentrated ? What were the cavalry doing in Knightsbridge Barracks ; where they have been kept against the protest of the neighbour- hood expressly to be at hand when wanted? These are questions, and there are many others, which will presently be put in Parliament and elsewhere, and to which somebody will have to find some sort of response. All I can say is that the London public holds the police directly responsible for disorder of which they might have prevented a great part. II. THE SCENE ON TTTESDAT. THE POLICE AND THE HOME OFFICE. [London, February 10, 1886.] The spectacle of Tuesday was even more extraordinary than that of Monday. On Monday the West End of Lon- don had been for two or three hours in the power of a mob, and the authorities excuse themselves by saying they had no notice. That is denied, but whether true or not it is cer- tainly true that the notice given on Monday was ample for Tuesday. But even on Tuesday the authorities either could not or would not protect the town. Between one and two o'clock I drove through Oxford Street from the Marble Arch to Eegent Circus— the best part. The first shops I passed were closed, and I began to think that the wreckage was greater than had been reported. I went on and savf shutters up on both sides the street, and on nearly every shop. The street itself was filled with vehicles. The pave- ments were crowded. A certain number of policemen were visible. In Eegent Street it was the same. Then I turned THE LONDON RIOTS. 321 back and came to ISTew Bond Street, a narrow thoroughfare down the Avhole length of which you can look from the Ox- ford Street end. It was a street of barred and guarded buildings. Here, however, as in the other streets, one or two in every ten shops were wide open, mostly shops which offered little temptation for plunder ; . stationers, Berlin-wool dealers, and the like. It was a curious comment on the starvation theory — it was even humourous — that a great proportion of those open were provision merchants and bakers. Another not less striking fact is given in a letter published this morning. Sir Andrew Fairbairn writes that he had a visit on Tuesday from his tailor, who came to apologise for not sending home a suit of clothes promised for Monday afternoon. The man Avho was finishing the suit gave up working at two o'clock to join the demonstration of the Unemployed. In Piccadilly the scene was similar. Along every pave- ment oozed masses of people; there were more than you see on a holiday. The 9th of February is not a holiday, yet many of these people looked like sightseers. They were gazing about, inspecting the damage where damage had been done ; talking and laughing ; often chaffing the casual pohceman, who, for his part, took the chaff kindly and wore his usual stolid, good-natured look. Not a few of the pe- destrians were roughs. The wind came from the east and had brought with it a smoky fog, rather thick, which settled down and never lifted during the day. The East End re- formers had come with the fog. "What had happened ? Another riot in the night, or early morning ? I put the question more than once. No, nothing had happened since Monday afternoon. The West End shopkeepers, it seemed, were simply suffering from panic. They had had a fright the day before, some of them had lost a good deal of property, they had lost all confidence in the police, they were unable to protect themselves, and so they had put up the shutters and were sitting behind their counters, praying or swearing according to their moods. II.-si 322 MISCELLANIES. The bolder had the doors open and the gas hghted inside, but I did not see that much reward in the shape of active business attended this displaj^ of courage. The gas glared on the pale faces of clerks, and on full shelves and empty floors ; of customers there were almost none. A paralysis had fallen on the retail trade of this great quarter. So, with suitable reflections on the courage of Barere's " nation of shopkeepers," I went on to my broken-windowed club. There I heard, with incredulity at first but finally came to know as a fact, that the West End had put up its shutters at the bidding of the police authorities. It was not the shopkeepers who were most wanting in courage. Yes, it is literally true that the police authorities avowed themselves incapable, after twenty -four hours' notice, of protecting the streets of the metropolis. They had sent word on Tuesday morning all over Mayfair and Belgravia, Kensington and South Kensington, Tyburnia and Bayswater and Notting Hill, that the shops had better be closed soon after mid-day. I was told by a friend and apologist for the Chief Commissioner, Sir E. W. Henderson, that the riot of Monday was one in which Scotland Yard could not act without orders from the Home Ofiice. I cannot say I quite believe this story ; but whatever the routine may be, a strong man in presence of danger would have broken through it. As for the Home Office, it may be sufficient to say that the present head of it is Mr. Childers. His ap- pointment was one of the recent surprises which Mr. Glad- stone sprung upon the public. He certainly never was put there from any expectation that in an emergency he would show energy, or the qualities of a man of action. While the regenerators from the East End were pillaging the West End, Mr. Childers was in Edinburgh looking after his re- election. The permanent clerk in charge of the Home Of- fice is Mr. Godfrey Lushington, a man of marked ability in the red tape department, saturated with the tradition, uni- versal in the public oifices, that no permanent oflBcial can be expected to take any sudden responsibility or initiative. THE LONDON RIOTS. 323 There was some hesitation in the tone of the press on Tuesday morning about the pohce. There is none this morning. " The dominant sentiment," observes The Times, "is one of profound indignation at the culpable and almost criminal neglect of their primary duties by those responsible for the administration of the police. . . . No condemnation can be too severe for an exhibition which is mildly described as one of utter incapacity." If they were taken by surprise at first, for which again there is no excuse, they made no effort to repair their blunder on Monday. Within fifteen minutes after Burns and Hyndman had started their pro- cession westward, the riot had begun. It lasted two hours, and not a policeman stirred. I have no doubt whatever, from the accounts of friends who saw the performance, that a couple of hundred policemen across the top of St. James's Street could have stopped the rioting then and there. If Sir E. Henderson lost his head, there was time enough for some competent officer to organise a defence for Tuesday against the anticipated renewal of the invasion. They had, however, but two ideas at Scotland Yard. One, as we have seen, was to beseech the shopkeepers to barricade their shops. The other was to keep Trafalgar Square clear, or rather to clear it after the mob had once more assembled about two o'clock yesterday. AU yesterday morning, in fact, the Social Democrats of Shoreditch were streaming toward the scene of their tri- umph on Monday. Before this they were everywhere, but they had no leaders. The heroes of Monday, Burns, Cham- pion, Williams, and Hyndman, were, you may suppose, in hiding, quaking with the fear of arrest. Nothing of the sort. They were engaged in correspondence with Mr. Cham- berlain, or receiving reporters of the daily press ; imparting to both their satisfaction with Monday's proceedings, ex- plaining the demands they had still to make, and the meth- ods by which they proposed to continue the work of social reorganisation they had so well begun. Their interesting fol- lowers, meantime, were left without a guide. They collected. 324 MISCELLANIES. unopposed at first, in Trafalgar Square. When they had become an all but unmanageable mob, the Scotland Yard people, two hundred yards away, woke up. The police had some difficulty in clearing the square, but they cleared it. They are fine fellows when well handled, and do their work in a workmanhke way. But, like the mob, they are defi- cient in leadership. Meantime, the wildest reports were fiy- ing over London. The news-agencies lent themselves to the business of spreading panic. I read two or three despatches on a club bulletin-board to the effect that the police were vainly trying to take possession of Trafalgar Square, but that the mob when driven from one spot burst in at another amid yells and cheers, — in short, a battle was going on and the police seemed to be getting the worst of it. There was no truth in these despatches, but there was a demand for sensation which these enterprising agencies felt themselves bound to supply, regardless of consequences. I went down to the scene of this conflict only to find the square patrolled by squads of police, and no mob visible. I asked an inspector if they had had a hard fight. " No, sir, there has been no fight. There were a good many here, and I thought them a rougher lot than yesterday, but we were ready for them and they made no stand." If any of these legends have reached New York, this will help you to reduce their proportions. The business is grave enough without exaggerations. It is grave because, for one thing, the mob have gained confidence in themselves and the pub- lic have lost confidence in their natural protectors. The guardians of order had the worst of it on Monday, and they propagated a needless panic on Tuesday. There will be the usual inquiry. The tradesmen have already held a meeting and resolved to memorialise the Home Office. It is as if a sacked town should address a petition for help to a general who had run away. But the Home Office will have to stand a fire of questions in Parliament from which it will not be able to run away. Parliament is not in session, and will not be for a week, by which time some of the indignation wiU THE LONDON RIOTS. 325 "have had time to cool. Mr. W. H. Smith, late of Lord Salis- bury's late Government, told the tradesmen over whom he presided last night that he had met Mr. Childers at the levee held yesterday — how d apropos ! — by the Prince of Wales, and warned him of the parliamentary wrath to come. Per- haps the best chance of getting somebody crucified lies in the possibility of making party capital out of this first de- plorable failure of a Liberal Government in the first duty of government. III. THE CITY SCAEE. THE PUBLIC. THE MINISTEES. — THE POLICE. [London, February 11,1886.] Another day of panic in London, and this time not con- fined to the "West End. The headquarters of the scare were in Scotland Yard, which, by a curious coincidence, is also the headquarters of the police. Once more the police confessed their helplessness in the presence, not of a mob, but of the rumour of a mob. A despatch came from Deptford saying that a body of rioters were iHar^ctJiig toward the city. At once the police sent out warnir i jsi close shutters and doors. The public, as before, rightl#'^fc«c]rpreted this as meaning that the police did not con^der |Rfefa3§lves able to protect shops and houses from pillage. Srhat Englishmen should protect themselves would once ha^#3 been their first thought, but seems now to be neither their first nor their last. They gave themselves up to the craven mipod of which the .police set them the example. North and south of the Thames spread the terror. By early afternoon the city, and the great districts which stretch to the south of it, were given over to the sway of sheer panic. An the way from Westminster to the " Elephant and Castle," all through Southwark and Lambeth and far beyond both, the shops were shut. The streets took on that dismal air which had made the West End the day before look like 326 MISCELLANIES. a city under siege. If the Plague had again been raging in London, men could not have shown more fear or the houses worn a more melancholy look. It was the same in the city itself, in the heart of London and England, about the Bank, along Cheapside and Cornhill, where every foot of ground is strewn thick with heroic memories of those days when the merchants of London readily flung down the yardstick and seized the pike. For the brave souls of other days, the mod- ern substitute is the revolving shutter. Ironclad ships at sea; ironclad shops on land; but where are the hearts of oak? These, as Lord Tennyson has told us, are the days of ad- vance, Avith Peace sitting under her olive and slurring the days gone by — you know the rest, but for olive the matter- of-fact chronicler has to put a less romantic reading. It is safer in the circumstances to keep to plain prose, and the most frigid narrative of events is more impressive than all the rhetoric that can be spun about them. Business in the city was for a great part of Wednesday at a standstill. The Bank of England was garrisoned by the Guards. That sin- gle fact is enough to paint the perplexity of men's minds. The Bank is itself a iorlafess, four-square, wholly apart from all other buildings, with a| ingle gateway easily defensible by a dozen men. It is thei, astom to keep a squad of troops there at night, and, they are withdrawn in the morning. Now, the forcd is doubled and is on duty day and night. The like has not been 'ione since the threatened Chartist attack of 1848. London is always full of men, armed and drilled. I have seen no calculation of the number, but if you reckon the Household Troops, the garrisons within call at "Woolwich, Aldershot, "Windsor, and other places hard by, then add to them the Yolunteers, all enregimented and brigaded, and the police, the total must be reckoned by scores of thousands. There is cavalry, there is artillery, there is infantry. And with aU this at hand, London allows itself to be frightened by the rumoured approach of a few thousand blackguards THE LONDON KIOTS. 327 from Deptford, without arms, without organisation, without a leader. It is enough to make one begin to doubt whether the fighting days of England are not over. She is proving every year that they are not. Her soldiers fight as well as ever ; but civic courage in London is a thing of the past or of the future. If the police are to be censured, so also are the Govern- ment. It is their business to restore the confidence which they and those under them have for the time destroyed, i hey have taken steps to subdue a rising. They have taken none to allay the public anxiety. There are troops in bar- racks with magistrates ready to read the Kiot Act if called upon. But there has been no proclamation, no public sign or printed assurance that precautions had been taken ade- quate for the peril. People are left to draw inferences, and they rightly infer from the warning to close their places of business that the authorities have no confidence in them- selves. Yet tliere is no kind of evidence of any rising which a troop of cavalry would not scatter in ten seconds. " It is not a riot," said De Liancourt to Louis XVI ; " it is a revo- lution." If Mr. Gladstone had a De Liancourt at his elbow he would tell him this is not a revolution. JSTor, since Mon- day, even a riot. But there are some five millions of people Uving in hourly dread of disorder, pillage, and nobody knows what ; all because there is no responsible Minister who will assure them that they can and shall be protected. It is not an auspicious beginning for a new Ministry. There has al- ways been a notion that the Liberals were less firm in deal- ing with such difiiculties than the Tories. Mr. Childers, the new Home Secretary, is primarily responsible, but no mem- ber of the Cabinet can escape his share of responsibility for allowing London during three days and nights to consider itself deserted by its defenders ; or doubting Avhether it was deserted or not. "^o display of force was wanted. An as- surance that the force was at hand and would be used was wanted. None has come, and the failure to give it has ex- asperated London against this Ministry. 328 MISCELLANIES. What has come instead of such an assurance is a corre- spondence between the SociaUst leaders and a Minister of the Crown. Mr. Chamberlain has committed some grievous errors ; few more grievous than when he consented to par- ley with Messrs. Burns, Champion, Hyndman, and "Williams. They asked for an interview, which he refused, declining to recognise their claim to represent the Unemployed. Then, with an illogical impulse characteristic of Enghshmen, he offered to receive any communication in writing, and to give it full consideration. The Socialists were delighted. A correspondence would serve their turn even better than an interview. They wrote a letter in the third person, omitting all conventional civilities, demanding to know what Mr. Chamberlain, as President of the Local Government Board, would do in order to find Avork for the hundreds of thousands of starving men in London and other parts of the country. These Socialists are not wanting in the qual- ity vulgarly called cheek, but I do not believe they expected Mr. Chamberlain to tell them what he would do. They ex- pected a refusal and meant to make another grievance out of the refusal. But they got their answer. The President of the Local Govei-nment Board thought it consistent with his duty as an adviser of the Crown to explain to the lead- ers of Monday's mob that he was making inquiries into the existing distress, and that certain means of relief through the Boards of Guardians would be adopted. The law offi- cers of the Crown, meantime, have been making inquiries into the conduct of Mr. Chamberlain's correspondents, and have advised that they be prosecuted for seditious language and inciting to riot. It will generally be thought that this last inquiry is likely to be even more useful than those which Mr. Chamberlain is to enter upon. This, however, is an episode. The average Londoner is much more concerned to know when he is to be allowed to resume business than whether Mr. Chamberlain is meditat- ing another plunge into some deeper gulf of Socialistic radi- calism than he has yet fathomed. He keeps his curses for THE LONDON EIOTS. 329 Sir Edmund Henderson and Mr. Childers ; there will be time enough to attend to Mr. Chamberlain by and by. For it has to be said that yesterday was almost as much a lost day to business and pubhc tranquillity as Tuesday. Shops were generally open in the "West End, but of customers there was a plentiful lack. Neither the fog nor the roughs had disap- peared, and as night came on the fog grew more dense and the roughs more numerous. At various points the gather- ings were formidable in numbers, but in no single instance did they resist the police. More windows were smashed, some foot-passengers were molested, robberies were not in- frequent. The timidity of the respectable classes took on a new form; they began to be. afraid to venture into the streets at all. The fog offered a welcome pretext for stay- ing at home. I dined out, arrived late,,and found the draw- ing-room nearly empty and my hostess on the point of going down to dinner. She showed me a pile of notes and tele- grams from her guests, excusing themselves at the last mo- ment, mostly on the ground that the coachman had refused to take his horses out. The police seemed more demoralised than ever. There were two at the Alexandra Gate, Hyde Park. My hansom was stopped. As the Albert Hall is near and concerts are often given there and the traffic requires regulating, this is a common incident, and I waited a minute most patiently. Then, as the road seemed clear, I respectfully asked the man in a helmet whether we might proceed. " You must wait your turn, sir," — very gruffly. " But the street is empty." He seemed to wake up out of a daze, looked about him and motioned to the driver to drive on. Yery likely he had been kept up aU night and was sleepy, — such are the means but too commonly taken by the authorities to increase the effi- ciency of the police force. One other was taken on Monday which deserves notice. As the mob advanced along PaU MaU, leaving behind it variegated patterns of window-glass, a distinguished dweller in St. James's Place, just round the corner, asked a police inspector what he meant to do. " ISToth- 330 MISCELLANIES. ing," was the answer ; " our orders are not to interfere with the procession." Very good orders so long as the procession was peaceable, but when it became riotous and destructive the police orders remained precisely the same. February 12. — One point about the riot of Monday ought to be clearly made. The mob was chiefly composed of the criminal classes. The testimony to that is overwhelming, and the talk of the continental press about a social revolu- tion is sheer nonsense. But the Socialists have shown their colours. Hyndman, Burns, and the other Trafalgar Square speakers knew perfectly well what sort of men they were talking to. They welcomed the brigands of the East End as allies. So does Mr. "William Morris, poet, upholsterer, and social revolutionist all in one. Mr. Morris has made a speech and written a letter since Monday. All knowledge is useful, and I am glad to learn that the Social Democratic Federa- tion is Mr. Hyndman's concern, while Mr. Morris is the lead- ing spirit of the Socialistic League. It appears, therefore, that when the split between these two apostles occurred, Mr. Hyndman was clever enough to keep possession of the exist- ing organisation, while Mr. Morris had to go out in the wil- derness and found a new Utopia by himself. The poet, however, bears no malice and thinks all Social- ists should work together. He has, it is pleasanter to ob- serve, moments of sanity and good sense. It was difficult, he said, to talk to a man about first principles without mak- ing him think that he should go at once and change the present state of things by force. The obvious remedy for this danger — not to talk socialistic first principles to ignorant men — seems not to occur to Mr. WiUiam Morris. Monday's occurrences he thought lamentable. A moment later, he ex- pressed his belief that these lamentable occurrences could produce nothing but good in the long run. He wants the whole fabric of injustice on which modern society is based to be dissolved, and he foresees that "very rough things might have to be gone through before this object was at- TCE LONDON ElOTS. 33I tained." Yes, Mr. Morris, very rough ; and roughest of all on those who try to attain this object. The author of The Earthly Paradise might find himself in unpleasant relations with the police some hours before society is entirely dis- solved and a new Garden of Eden ready for tilling. " I say distinctly," writes Mr. Morris, " that a starving man has a right to the loaves in a baker's shop." He is aware that his taking them " regularly " might cause mis- fortune, but he does not say to whom. The lawyers might insist that a man who advised another to commit a crime was an accessory before the fact. Mr. Morris would no doubt excuse hunself, as he excuses the other Socialist agi- tators whose harangues occasioned those " accidents " which befell on Monday. It is not the agitators who are responsi- ble for the acts of the mob they hounded on to wreck and pillage ; it is, says Mr. William Morris, " that society which has forced these unfortunates to be what they are." Their friends plead insanity in excuse for their acts. But what can be pleaded in behalf of Mr. William Morris ? THE LONDON MOB. "WHAT OCCTJEEED IN TEAFALGAE SQTJAEE OIT SUNDAY AFTER- NOON, THE THIET5ENTH OF NOVEMBEE. [LosDON, November 14, ISSY.] Yesterday's proceedings iri Trafalgar Square were of an interesting kind. The mob of London, for the first time lately, tried their strength against the authorities, and a great many persons went to see the contest. It was not long after three when I reached Trafalgar Square. This name is used in two senses. The Square covered by Sir Charles Warren's proclamation is one. The streets and open spaces on all sides of it are another, and are often included when the Square is spoken of. Thus it is equally true to say that on Sunday afternoon no person entered Tra- falgar Square except as a prisoner, and that it was at one time thronged by a multitude which must have been a hun- dred thousand strong. The first view was a striking one. Strong bodies of mounted police were drawn up at the an- gles of the Square ; others were moving about, already find- ing some difficulty in clearing their way through ever thick- ening crowds. The south side of the Square, which is open and on a level with the sidewalk, was held by a line of poHce four deep, elbows touching. On the other three sides two ranks were thought sufficient, and in places a single line of helmets was all you could see. The streets to the east and west rise rapidly, so that on the north the level of the Square is some twelve or fifteen feet below the street. Steps lead THE LONDON MOB. 333 down Into it, and strong bodies of police were at the steps. To the south a great space stretches away down into Char- ing Cross and "Whitehall. In all, seven thoroughfares con- verge upon the Square : Pall Mall East, Cockspur Street, Whitehall, Northumberland Avenue, the Strand, Duncannon Street, St. Martin's Lane ; not counting the lesser ones. It is the central spot of London for traffic from the four quar- ters of the Metropolis. The National Gallery with its treas- ures is on the north; great hotels, clubs, banks, rich shops surround it; a roaring tide of vehicles and foot-passengers streams past it in aU directions, from early morn tiU long after midnight. Here it is that rascaldom has chosen its rendezvous for weeks past. The "unemployed" have taken it for their headquarters, much to the injury, inconvenience, loss, and danger of the employed. They are mostly unemployed in the sense that they would refuse every honest employment if offered them. They are largely idlers by profession ; roughs, criminals, with, at their head, agitators to whom agi- tation is a trade ; others to whom it is a means of notoriety and of entry into pubhc life in some form or other. They had disturbed and distressed this whole quarter of London. Alarm had spread, trade had fallen off, the public peace had been broken again and again, the public safety was threatened day by day. Sir Charles Warren, Chief Com- missioner of Police, a strong man, had forbidden these as- semblies a fortnight ago. Mr. Henry Matthews, Home Secretary, a man perhaps less strong, overruled Sir Charles and again allowed them. Deputations and remonstrances beset him. The question was taken before the Cabinet, the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was invoked, the legal right to stop meetings was discovered to exist, the Cabinet overruled its erring colleague Mr. Henry Matthews, and resolved in the general interests of the public to pro- hibit future gatherings. Upon this, the roughs and radical clubs, Avhich are largely Sociahst and Anarchist in their composition and aim, took 334 MISCELLANIES. issue. They resolved in defiance of the authorities to meet in Trafalgar Square on Sunday. It became Sir Charles War- ren's business to prevent them ; hence the singular scene of yesterday. The innumerable windows that look on the Square were filled with spectators. The streets, pavements, steps of St. Martin's Church, the whole space between the Square itself and the buildings on every side, were thick with people. They were most dense toward Whitehall and toward the Strand ; not so dense, however, at this time as to prevent walking. I left my hansom and went about on foot for half an hour, in among these passionate partisans of the right of public meeting and of free speech. Certainly their speech was free enough. Every policeman who came within earshot was greeted with curses. Those refinements and delicacies of language in which the worser sort of cock- ney is fluent, were to be heard on all sides. Unhappily, they will not bear transferring into print. Groans rose when- ever the mounted oflBcers bore down on a group. At first, things were comparatively quiet, but it soon became clear to the heads of the force that the crowd was one which it would not do to trifle with. The tactics employed to prevent mischief were simple and effective. JSTowhere was any formidable group allowed to rem'ain long undisturbed. Sidewalk committees were not much meddled with, nor the audience which had turned the steps of St. Martin's Church into an amphitheatre. If an effort were to be made to break into the Square, it would pretty certainly come from the south side. Square and pave- ment were there on a level, and the space in front allowed great masses to collect. So there, and east toward the Strand a.nd west toward Cockspur Street, the police were busiest. The work was done mainly by mounted men, of whom three hundred were on duty. Half a dozen or a dozen charged to- gether, and nothing stood long before them. The pace was not fast ; they came at a half trot or half canter, yet there was none too much time to get out of the way. They did not want to ride down anybody, but to disintegrate every THE LONDON MOB. 335 compact body of men, and that they did. It Avas a scram- ble ; sometimes you saw men down, but they were always up again. The raised refuges in the centre of the roadway seemed to offer safe footing to the interested spectator. They soon, however, became rallying places for the bolder spirits, the improvised leaders of the mob. The police saAV this and rode straight at them. 'Nov was there any good place to see, on foot, much of what was going on, except close at hand. I looked at my neighbours in these melees and I cannot say I liked them. There were decent people enough in the crowd, but they were in the minority and powerless. Most of them disappeared after the first few charges, and sought some less exposed point of observation. The rough of Lon- don was in the ascendant, with his dirty Avhite face and his dirty brown raiment, and his general air of being on ill terms with mankind. -He caught at the reins of the horses, and struck at them with fists and sticks, and at their riders. IS'early every collision that I saw was between these gentry and the mounted police. I never saw a policeman, mounted or on foot, strike the first blow. All that indiscriminate clubbing which the beaten rioters or their friends complain of occurred, if it occurred at all, somewhere else. I spent two hours in the Square. When I had had enough of it on foot I took a turn on top of an omnibus, and then two or three more, and found the knifeboard a very good place to see from. Then I got into a hansom and drove about. The police kept the traffic going, and seemed glad of the help that omnibuses and cabs gave them in breaking up knots of people. I saw nearly everything there was to be seen except Mr. Cunninghame Graham's attempt to enter the Square, which ended, according to his own account, in a broken head to him and no other harm whatever. My experience of mobs has been extensive, and I say this, that I have seldom seen one more dangerous than this of Sunday, and never saw the police more forbearing. All the afternoon Sir Charles "War- 336 MISCELLANIES. ren's men had to endure insults of many kinds. At moments the Square was blue with curses, and sometimes the hooting came aU at once from every part of the huge multitude. The defenders of law and order were enveloped in an at- mosphere of groans. As a body, they kept their temper. It .would be too much to say that a policeman here and there did not lose his. Policemen — I am aware the observation is not original — are but human beings. You cannot expect all the Christian virtues at all times in all circumstances at twenty shillings a week ; nor do you always want them. But the London police are fine fellows, and they showed on Sunday the stuff they are made of. Their discipline, their steadiness, their long suffering under the grossest provoca- tion, and their courage, were alike admirable. Many a time I saw a dozen of them in the very midst of a throng of yell- ing ruffians who outnumbered them fifty to one. Only two or three times did I see a baton drawn or used. They were of course used much oftener, but I can only testify to what I saw. The arrangements for the day were as nearly as possible without a fault. Sir Charles "Warren saw to every- thing himself, and he handled his police with the precision of a soldier. I should think no such operation had ever been more complete. The coming of the Life Guards showed how grave Sir Charles Warren thought the situation. A regiment of them had been drawn up since noon on the Horse Guards Parade, out of sight. They were there for eventualities, but it was hardly supposed they would be wanted. The rule is here never to let a soldier be seen, if it can be helped. Often and often they are ready when the public knows nothing of it, hears nothing, sees nothing. A thrill went through the vast multitude when they caught their first glimpse of these splendid troopers. They are popular, and they were cheered. When they began to take part in the defence of the Square and of order, they, like the police, were hissed and hooted. Some of the hisses were evidently for the magistrate in plain clothes who rode at their head ; E.iot Act in his pocket all THE LONDON MOB. 33Y ready to read ; word of command from him all ready to be given. Once given, those long straight swords would have left their scabbards, and deadly work begun. They passed up the east side of the Square half-company front, filling the roadwaj^, sweeping it clear of the riff-raff who swarmed from curb to curb. But the riff-raff swarmed back again as soon as they had passed. So it went on for another hour. Bound and round went the cavalry, wheeling Avith beautiful precision, finally dividing, one troop facing about and the two moving then in opposite directions. Meanwhile the Grenadier Guards came, formed up on the north side, facing the National Gallery ; two companies of them ; more in barracks behind the Gallery. There was a sharp, quick rattle of rifle butts on the stone pavement, and the sharper order to fix bayonets. The mob answered with a sullen yell. They saw the game was up. They were a hundred thousand ; troops and police together not a twen- tieth of that. But the temper of the rough was what the Briton in his peculiar dialect calls nasty ; not fierce, or not fierce enough for real fighting. There was no thought of standing up against the military. Hand to hand tussles went on with the police. No man, that I saw, lifted hand or heel against a soldier. The gray dull afternoon w,as growing swiftly darker ; the lamps were Ughted. The story came in from the outposts at Wellington Street, at Parliament Street, in Pall Mall, in "Waterloo Place, in the Haymarket, in Shaftesbury Avenue, that the processions had been met and broken in pieces. There was no chance of a meeting, nor, thought Sir Charles War- ren, of another effort to enter the Square. So he gave the order to clear the streets and hold them. Tactics were changed ; broken groups were no longer allowed to re-form ; the dense masses grew less dense; open spaces appeared once more. The evening closed in on a wonderful scene ; an angry mob slowly, angrily dispersing ; the serried, solid ranks of police and Foot Guards still holding their ground ; cavalry in continual motion. The yellow light from the II.— 23 338 MISCELLANIES. lamps flashed on steel and scarlet as those irresistible horse- men still wheeled and tramped about and about the Square, and hoofs rang on the stone pavement, and steel rang against steel. It was not a sight to be forgotten by anybody who saw it ; not by spectator nor by mob, and the lesson the mob learnt, I imagine, was that not they but the authorities are masters. None more salutary could be taught in London. It was taught at no cost of life. JSTo right, whether of public meeting or public speech or procession, has been sacrificed. Eights and laws are to-day what they were yesterday. What has been sacrificed, if that be the word, is the right of the disorderly and the fanatical to imperil order, to obstruct the streets, to break the peace. That, and that only. II. IN TEAFALGAE SQUAKE AND HYDE PAEK. [London, November 21, 18ST.] An afternoon spent in search of a riot that does not occur is unexciting but was not altogether uninteresting. I shall trouble you with only a few notes on it, and those in the nature of asides. Of course, it ^s easy to underrate a danger which has been averted. The very completeness of Sir Charles Warren's preparations has robbed him of some of the credit which is his due. If he had left a loophole, the mob would have found their way in. As they did not, their friends in the press, or rather their friend in the pres"s, says they never meant to, and a good deal is alleged about the respectability of the gathering in Hyde Park. Well, that is a matter on which everybody may judge for himself. I saw respectable men both in Trafalgar Square and in Hyde Park. Some of them had police badges on their two arms, and were drawn up in line. They were the special con- stables. Others had no badges. Others again were the roughest of the rough. I asked a sergeant of police what THE LONDON MOB. 339 he thought of the company. " Plenty of them mean mis- chief, sir," -was the answer. No doubt they did, and no doubt the dangerous element was large enough to have made the afternoon a hot one, had the men who slouched sullenly about the Square seen their way to a safe rush. But it be- comes more and more probable that the previous Sunday had taught them a lesson. Another officer told me they expected an attack after the Hyde Park meeting had broken up. I looked about a little and I confess I saw no probability of it. Once more Sir Charles Warren, who is fertile in resources, had changed his plans. The cordon of police and military, which kept the Square the Sunday before, had been withdrawn. The face on the south was open ; so were the steps to the north. The base of Nelson's column alone was so guarded as to prevent approach to it. No chance for a sudden spring on to that convenient platform. Some 2000 special constables were inside the Square, so disposed as to fill the greater part of it. To carry the Square, the 2000 would have to be elbowed out. People were allowed to enter and walk about, but never to collect in groups or even to stop, unless to talk with some friend among the specials. There was no such gathering in the adjacent streets and spaces as the Sunday before. The Coldstream Guards were in barracks behind the National Gallery. The Life Guards were drawn up, also out of sight, in St. James's Park. The Coldstreams had, I was told, forty rounds per man of buckshot cartridge. Buck- shot is a form of moral suasion to which the rioter objects strongly. On the whole, I thought Trafalgar Square hkely to be dull, and went off to Hyde Park. By this time it was half -past three. A fog hung over streets and park, not thick, but enough to make objects at a little distance indistinct. Hyde Park Corner was quiet enough. Policemen lounged about listlessly. The reserves here, too, were kept out of the way till wanted. So I drove on to the Marble Arch, where I found a more animated scene. Masses of people had gathered. The mud was thick 340 MISCELLANIES. under foot inside the gates, but curiosity was waterproof, and thousands of sightseers were waiting, more or less pa- tiently, to see what the day might bring forth. They had nothing to do with the meeting or meetings of the day. Those were going on in the belly of the park, out of sight in the mist ; not quite out of hearing. A muffled roar was audible; the murmur rising sometimes to the inarticulate growl which comes from a multitude in motion. A super- intendent of police was in charge of the proceedings at Mar- ble Arch ; an alert, cheerful, intelligent oificer, not averse to talk with a stranger of inquiring mind. I asked — " Is the meeting a very large one ?" "A good many people, but nothing to what we often have of a summer afternoon." " Will there be any trouble ?" " Not in the park, sir." "Will they go to Trafalgar Square after the talking is over ?" " ISTo, they won't disperse for another half-hour, and then it will be too dark. They will never try it on when such daylight as there is is gone." " Win anything happen here at the Arch ?" " Oh no, sir. We are too strong for them, and they know it. Besides," pointing over his shoulder, "there are 1000 specials in Great Cumberland Place. You can't see 'em, but there they are." • " Then the day will end quietly ?" " We think so, but you can never be sure. Most of that crowd down by the trees will come out this way. We can look after them very well here, but once they get into the streets I can't say where they may go, or what they may do." It was evident that this officer knew what he was talking about, would not boast, but was sure he had the upper hand of the ccmailU consigned to him. I went on into the park. There was a swarm of people aU about, but nowhere dense. It is a quarter of a mile or more from the Arch to the spot THE LONDON MOB. 34.I where the champions of free speech had pitched their tents. Their tents, on this occasion, were wagons, wagonettes, and vans. I counted eight of these. They had banners, but were in no sense an army. There was obviously no disci- phne, and not much cohesion. People straggled about aim- lessly. Half, or more than half, were spectators, as I was. There were women and even children. Men with tall hats were the exception. Most of those who usually wear tall hats had preferred putting on for the day the less ambitious pot hat. They had their coats well buttoned up and bore sticks (English for the American cane), and a look of forti- tude on their faces as if prepared for the worst. Now and then came a rush; some part of one of the many groups suddenly dissolved, and a ragged column swooped down on a few quiet persons within easy reach; who, however, re- treated promptly, so that the ragged column spent its en- ergies in air, and its breath in vain curses. The wagons and wagonettes and vans were almost within earshot of each other. The red and blue banners, some of them gold-tas- selled and fringed, bore such devices as " Justice to Ireland and no Coercion." The Fawcett Liberal Club was there; strange use to which strange men (and women) had put an honoured name. And there were many more. The police had so far patronised these performances as to allow the platform-vehicles to drive over the turf, and establish them- selves wherever they or their occupants liked. Such scraps of speeches as I heard were pure fustian. Perhaps I was too late to hear Mr. O'Brien's clothes, or the wrongs of Ireland in general, discussed. It was Socialism and Anarchy these orators were spouting, and spouting, so far as I could see, to no purpose Avhatever. Their heroics fell flat. It was remarkable to see with what apathy these audiences heard that they were the victims of the bloated capitalist. The elements of a revolution were not to be found here. The roughs cared nothing for talk ; a row, with a chance of immediate redistribution of the wealth nearest to their hands, Avas what they were on the look-out for. 342 MISCELLANIES. When some fiery resolution was put and carried, there was a waving of hats, and a few hoarse cheers struggled through the smoky mist. But there was no heart in the business. The figures of gesticulating men on wagons loomed mis- shapen in the fog. You thought you were looking on at a dull pantomime. The Avhole business was grotesque. Samples of public opinion, of a kind, are often to be col- lected from a crowd like this, which numbered perhaps twenty to thirty thousand at its centre. But this was a sleepy crowd ; at any rate a silent one. There was little talk, and none that was profitable. I spent an hour on the ground, and visited each of the eight or nine separate meet- ings about the eight or nine wagons. I cannot recall a re- mark worth repeating ; not a word interesting to any ration- al human being, or even amusing. There were very few police ; my friend the superintendent wisely kept his men away, and had them all in hand near the Arch. But men seemed afraid of each other ; distrustful, as if the man next you might be a policeman in plain clothes, ready to take down your incautious words and straightway hale you to Bow Street for sedition. As a demonstration in behalf of free speech, the thing was a melancholy failure. I went back to the Marble Arch. There, as the afternoon drew on and the moment ap- proached when, if ever, the departing mob would come into collision with the police, the throng had grown bigger. The same men were standing on the same wet spots ; others on other wet spots had added themselves to the original crowd. The police had drawn together. The mounted pohce sat motionless on motionless horses by fours. I wanted to ask more questions of my friend the superintendent, but could not see him. Half an hour later I drove back in a hansom, just in time to see the processions emerging from the park, with their red and blue banners gold tasseUed and fringed, to beat of drum and bassoon. Like the processions of the un- employed these last weeks, they were escorted by mounted constables, and had the air of being in custody, and of know- THE LONDON MOB, 343 itig they were. They marched with that shuffling step pecul- iar to men whom on either side a guardian of public order attends, whether they will or no. Some of the guardians of pubhc order are not without a sense of humour, and faint traces of a grin were discernible on their hardy, set faces. The procession was a long one. I sat in my hansom and looked on without impatience ; but the driver, finding no en- tertainment in this spectacle of men monotonously marching past, suddenly touched his horse with the whip. The ani- mal plunged forward, right into the middle of the Padding- ton Patriots. They parted and we passed through, and I saw the faint grin on the faces of the mounted constables growing suddenly less faint. One of them was so careless of the feelings of his interesting clients as to laugh outright at the disorder into which they were thrown. He looked at the driver as if he recognised in him an ally ; a volunteer in the service of public order. At the same moment the super- intendent rode up. He saw what had happened, and he too laughed, and recognising his acquaintance of an hour before, nodded, as if to say, " You see I was right." And he was, and to him and his comrades, and to his chief. Sir Charles Warren, the public of London owe perhaps a good deal more than they know. AT WESTMINSTER. A LOOK INTO THE HALL AND THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. [London, January 28, 1885.] A VISIT to Westminster at this moment is a pilgrimage. No American is likely to forget the rush of ancient memo- ries which dimmed his vision as he first stood in Westminster Hall. Let him go there now, and no matter how familiar, how hackneyed the place has become to him, I will answer for it he shall find it more impressive than ever. The approach to it is the approach to a fortress. Palace Yard has closed its gates, save one, and policemen are guarding that solitary entrance. All the way from Westminster Bridge past the clock-tower and the court, past Westminster Hall, past the great front which stretches thence to Victoria Tower, and so on to the river and along the bank and terrace to the bridge again, there is a living wall of helmeted pohce. I was with a party including one young lady, but as we stopped at the open gate, I noticed at once a movement of police toward us. My pass was scrutinised, and we were told to go on to the south entrance. There we were handed on to other police inside the door, on the staircase and on the platform beneath the painted window in the Hall. A wooden railing runs across the platform, shutting out even those who have got admission thus far. One of the police- men at this railing carries the letter to Inspector Denning and comes back with word that we may go in. Such are the precautions taken for the moment. It was a dull morning and the Hall would have looked AT WESTMINSTER. 345 gloomy enough at best. In fact, it had a singular air of having gone through a siege. The dust of ages shaken down from the arches had covered walls and floor with a grime like the stain of powder. Every window was shattered ; the glass wholly gone from most, the painted lattice at the south excepted. Through rents in the roof, far above the huge blackened beams, struggled the gray light of a January morning in London. The outer doors were barred. Along the bare walls, inside as well as out, paced the ever-present police. And there in the right-hand corner, below the broad stone steps which lead down to the floor and main spaces of the great Hall, was the deep wound which the dynamite had left. A group of people stood about it, as about a grave, bend- ing over and peering in, as if the foundation stones would give up the secret of the havoc that had been wrought. Part of it was already boarded over, but there remained visible the two yawning gaps where the dynamite had torn its way downward through solid granite, and ground in pieces the not less solid brick archways below. There to the right was the door leading to the crypt ; the door through which the policeman Cole had brought in his hands the box of dynamite, with its hghted and hissing fuse. ISTot much to see — only so many cubic feet of shattered stone and crum- bled brick, and so many squares of broken glass that would have to be set. Not much to say about it, perhaps. It is only one more outrage, but the dynamite happens to have spent its force on one of the most venerable buildings in the world; as dear to Americans as to Englishmen. Perhaps, after all, it is no great wonder that the echo of the explosion in Westminster was heard in Washington itself. Then, under the escort — I had almost written in the cus- tody — of Inspector Denning, w^e went up the stone stairs, through the long chamber where strangers waiting for ad- mission to the sittings of the House are kept, through the outer lobby and the passage between it and the inner or real lobby of the House of Commons, to the spot where the 346 MISCELLANIES. second explosion occurred. At every door stood two police- men, who stared hard at us, as if even the company of their own chief officer was not quite a sure guarantee that we had a right to enter. But they said nothing and we passed in. The scene of the second explosion is on the left of the in- ner lobby, but Mr. Denning took us first to the right, to point out the exact spot corresponding to that where the dynamite is supposed to have been placed on the opposite side. The entrance to the House is in the centre. On either side, narrow passages with a step or two conduct to the seats under the Speaker's and distinguished strangers' galleries ; where peers and other favoured personages may sit almost on a level with the members of the House itself. It was in the narrow passage to the left that the explosion took place ; with the effect of making the passage less narrow ; tearing away the walls, scooping out the floor, and rending the arches on which it rested. "Workmen were clearing away the rubbish. A platform had been laid down, on which we could advance till we stood on the central site of the out- rage. The House of Commons itself was in full view. Eenches that had been torn up lay about ; broken timbers and frag- ments of all kinds strewed the place. Mr. Denning asks us to look at the clock with its hands still marking 2.14, the moment of the explosion ; at the uprooted cross bench, at the injury done to Mr. G-ladstone's seat opposite the corner of the clerk's ^table, at the marks on the Speaker's chair ; and the other now familiar objects of interest. But it was the general aspect of the place which told us more of the story than all the details we could inspect. This actual chamber is not very old, but it is none the less the chamber in which sits the oldest free legislative assem- bly known to the world. The site is historic. Every Amer- ican knows what has happened here, and knows that this outrage was committed upon the home of a Parliament which, for five out of its six centuries of life, belongs to us. The marks of the explosion were over it all ; roof, walls, and AT WESTMINSTER. 347 floor had suffered. The actual structural damage is not very huportant, though it wiU take many weeks, and some thou- sands of pounds, to make good. Eut to the eye of the vis- itor on that morning, the chamber was a wreck. If you care for a minute description of the damage done, and of the ap- pearance the House of Commons presented on Sunday morn- ing, you must read the many columns which the London press devote to the story. Nobody lays stress on the mon- ey loss ; it is considerable, but it is nevertheless trivial in the estimate of everybody. By the date fixed for the opening of the next session the chamber will be again to all appear- ance in good order. It was evident from the account then given us, and from what we learned elsewhere, that the two explosions were meant to be simultaneous. But I am not sure that it is easy to realise what that means, until you have stood in the lobby and seen as Avell as heard what would have happened if the plan of the dynamitards had been carried out. A large par- ty of sightseers would have been in the chamber but for the alarm given by the explosion in Westminster Hall. Anoth- er large party would have been in the lobbies, and in or over the staircase where the second case of dynamite was placed. Nothing but the courage and devotion of the policeman Cole saved these lives. If he had not seized the parcel on the staircase, carried it into the hall and thrown it down, many people must have been within reach of the dynamite in the chamber, and many more of the dynamite in the stair- case. His heroism has had its meed of honour, but his cool intelligence not honor enough. I asked an expert in explo- sives what a man in presence of such circumstances ought to have done. " Exactly what Cole did," was his answer. " If he had been an expert himself, he could not have done bet- ter. To prevent the explosion was impossible ; it was only possible to carry the infernal machine to the nearest open spot where it might do least damage." " He of course risked his life," I said. " It is a miracle he was not blown to pieces," 348 MISCELLANIES. "was the answer. And he added, " If one of the cowards who brought in the dynamite had been willing to run a tenth part of the danger Cole faced, he could have blown the place to fragments." Cole is doing well, so is Cox, the other policeman who was with him. He has been thanked by the Queen and by the heads of the force, and the Queen is to give him the Albert medal ; which is to a civilian what the Victoria cross is to a soldier. It is the habit of some writers always to say that a panic has been created by a dynamite outrage. I should like to ask these imaginative persons what are the signs from which they infer panic. To ordinary eyes they are not visible ; nor even to eyes which look for them. Interest there is, in- dignation there is, and a kind of deep anger which the dynam- itard takes very good care to keep out of the way of. The demeanour of the multitude in Westminster on Saturday afternoon was of a character that might well inspire panic in the guilty. The thousands of honest artisans and decent folk of every class who looked through the railings of Pal- ace Yard would have made short work of anj'" scoundrel caught red-handed. They felt the gravity of the occasion, but it is nonsense to talk of their being frightened. So of those who were to be met in the streets. More men than usual stopped and bought papers, and read them as they went along. But it is hardly an indication of abject terror to want to know the news. If you turn to the papers themselves there is nothing to show that the writers who discuss the subject have lost their heads. The tone is dignified and firm. There is ample rec- ognition of the brotherly feeling and the human feeling shown by the telegrams from the United States; shown, certainly, none too soon. The accounts have been copious. It was known here at once that Mr. Bayard had introduced a resolution in the Senate, and Mr. Edmunds a bill to stop free trade in outrage and murder. The declarations of the press of New York were known ; then the debate in the Senate. AT WESTMINSTER. 34.9 Perhaps I may add that I have talked with some of the men whose duties bring them into daily peril of death. They are perfectly aware of the danger they confront, and they accept it as part of the duty they have undertaken to do. They rather envy Cole his opportunity. Not a word was said which sounded hke flinching. I have talked, too, with other men in different positions, who are more directly menaced. Some of them have been targets for the last two or three years. That is a long time to bear the strain on the nervous system produced by the knowledge that they were singled out for assassination. But their nerves are still in good order, or, at any rate, under perfect control. It seems to me impossible to admire too much such heroism as this. MR. GLADSTONE'S OPINIONS OK AMEEICAN BAEBAEISM, ON FEEE TRADE, ON PEOVIDENCE, ON THE DEVIL, ON PEOTECTION, AND ON ME. POTTEE. [London, April 19, 1890.] ""When the barbarism, of American protection ceases to oppress the country," writes Mr. Gladstone (on a recent post- card), " we may hope that the present plan " — the pending Copyright Bill — " will take a form worthy of so great a na- tion." It is difficult to see what Mr. Gladstone supposes to be gained by these spurts of strong language. They are, however, becoming more frequent with him. AH the world — aU the Civilised World — is now familiar with his use of such extreme terms as baseness and blackguardism to express the means by which Pitt carried (and befouled — another Gladstonism) the Act of Union. " Barbarism," applied to the settled policy of a nation which he himself calls great, which is friendly to his own country, and which has shown itself singularly forgiving to him, is hardly less beyond the pale. Suppose any of us chooses to talk about the barbar- ism of Free Trade which oppresses England ? Have we ad- vanced a step in the controversy ? Is anybody convinced or converted ? Or suppose Mr. Blaine had adopted that tone in his Duel article in the JVorth American Eeview ? If he had, he might even then have pleaded Mr. Gladstone's example, for the Eng- lish statesman thought it within the hmits of fair discussion to suggest that American Protection was an impostor and a swindler. Other language might be quoted were it worth MR. GLADSTONE'S OPINIONS. 351 while. Mr. Gladstone's tone is throughout in singular con- trast to Mr. Blaine. The American seems to me to have the advantage in manner as in substance, and there is a marked contrast between the grave courtesy of Mr. Blaine and the intensity of Mr. Gladstone. Their controversy never at- tracted much notice here. I asked many people when I came back from America what had been said about it, and the answer was always the same, that nothing had been said because nothing was known. Neither in public nor in pri- vate was so remarkable an encounter thought important enough to be understood. The explanation is that the minds of Englishmen in general, hke Mr. Gladstone's, are not open to argument on the subject of Free Trade. They have given up, in whole or in part, Moses and the Pentateuch, but they cling to Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations, and the Millennium began for them with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Otherwise, it might have been interest- ing to see what rejoinder the Free Trader would have made to Mr. Blaine's answer to Mr. Gladstone, and whether he would have admitted frankly that Mr. Gladstone had the worst of it in argument, be the merits of the case what they might. And if any Enghshman could be induced to admit to himself that there is something to be said for Protection, he might see how clearly and strongly Mr. Blaine has stated the historical case, and how admirably he has summed up the whole subject from the American point of view. May 14. — Mr. Gladstone has now made a speech on Free Trade containing at least three allusions to American Pro- tection, and in no one of these three does he this time ac- cuse us of either immorality or barbarism. It is, in point of civility, a considerable advance upon some of his recent dis- courses to us. But on the general question of Free Trade in America, the English Free Trader seems in doubt. He says in one passage: — " I had hoped that we might look with some favourable expectation to the great strength and activity and clear con- viction among the Free Trade party in the United States of 352 MISCELLANIES. America, and the accounts we hear give rise to the belief that in no long time it will become triumphant at the poUs." We have all heard that song sung before, to the same tune and from the same lips. Btit here is another : — " You must not forget that in other countries Protection is gaining ground. It is gaining ground in America." These two passages are both from the same speech. Per- sons of plain minds may find some difficulty in understand- ing how both of them can be accurate. The belief that the Free Trade party in America will in no long time become triumphant at the polls, and the belief that Protection is gaining ground in America, may seem hard to reconcile. But to Mr. Gladstone all paradoxes are merely apparent. He would explain away this one, as he has many others, with that unfailing, cheerful ingenuity of which the Old Parliamentary Hand is an acknowledged master. It re- minds one of the memorable period in 1886, when he de- clared his Home Eule and Land Purchase bills inseparable. It presently became convenient to separate them, and to throw overboard Land Purchase in the vain hope of saving the rest of the Home Eule cargo. Challenged, Mr. Glad- stone answered, " Oh yes ; but when I said they were insep- arable I meant inseparable at the moment." The speech is an interesting review of the history of Free Trade, and the more interesting from the note of melancholy which runs through it. " Do not," exclaims Mr. Gladstone, almost tearfully, " do not let us conceal from ourselves that this country is almost at the present time the solitary citadel of Free Trade." He pursues the same topic with the mourn- ful avowal that " Free Trade has passed through its vai-ious phases. It had a period of struggle ; it had a period of tri- umph ; and after its triumph it has now a period of danger." With an apology for the introduction of such depressing rem- iniscences on such an occasion, Mr. Gladstone admits that much ground has been lost by the doctrines of Free Trade within the last twenty-five years. It is a great and heavy disappointment, he exclaims sorrowfully. If ot only in Amer- MR. GLADSTONE'S OPINIONS. 353 ica but in the English colonies has Protection a foothold. Not only in the colonies, but on the Continent, Protection is stronger to-day than it was before Cobden set up his pulpit on his new Mount Sinai. In effect, Mr. Gladstone admits that on this question the Civilized "World is against him. On the Irish question, as you know, it is for him, or he be- lieves it to be for him. When it is for him, he attaches the highest value to it and appeals to it triumphantly on all oc- casions. "When it is against him, he brushes it aside almost contemptuously — pityingly, at any rate, and with that lofty confidence in himself and his country which is one secret of the success of both. " I do not wish to inflate national vanity. I do not wish to say that we are wiser or better* than others. But I do say that it often happens in the counsels of Providence that each nation, or some particular nation, is appointed to work out great social, political, or economical problems for the world at large." "Well, when Mr. Gladstone once begins to expound what he calls the counsels of Providence there is nothing more to be said ; or not much more. His knowledge of them is prob- ably unrivalled ; those who are on less intimate terms with the Authority to which he appeals can but listen. You per- ceive that when the Civilised World fails him, he falls back on the Other World. Perhaps it is a little hard on the Pro- tectionist to be compelled to silence while the doctrine of Divine Eight is thus suddenly transferred from the Mon- archy to the arid domain of Political Economy. It has failed to support the Throne, for the Throne rests on an Act of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone seems to think that it will serve as a buttress for the Cotton Mill, and keep the rickety fab- ric of Free Trade from tumbling about the ears of its proph- ets. Yet the maxim that Cotton is King has grown some- what musty, and it will not be easy to revive it by help of obsolete dogmas borrowed from the kingship of older times. With the Deity on the side of Free Trade, the Devil, of course, is on the side of Protection ; the antithesis is inevi- II.— 33 354 MISCELLANIES. table. Mr. Gladstone does not leave it to inference or con- jecture. He tells us that " the Devil is wiser than of yore, and Protection is bolder than of yore." Dr. Johnson once remarked, in his placid way, that the Devil was the first "Whig. Mr. Gladstone no doubt believes that the Devil was the first Protectionist; and all but says so. It would be just as easy for the Protectionist as for the Free Trader to assume this tone, and to announce ex cathedra that his own doctrine is heaven-born, while that of the Free Trader pro- ceeds from a warmer clime. But not much is gained by as- sumptions of this sort on either side. In the present case Mr. Gladstone's is interesting because it is Mr. Gladstone's. Anything that lights up a corner of his mind is interesting. The increasing wisdom of the Devil and the increasing boldness of Protection are made visible to Mr. Gladstone's eye by the new attempts to protect persons as well as things. He used in the old days to sit in the seat of the scorner and ask, " Why don't you apply this policy to persons ?" And now the Protectionists do. The Australian colonies protect themselves against the Chinaman, who is either pro- hibited or heavily taxed upon his importation. "That is protection pure and simple." Yet Mr. Gladstone is "not sure what is the state of the law in the United States, or whether the incursion of the Chinese, as it is called, is sim- ply resented, or whether it is barred by any kind of legisla- tive restriction or tax on entry." He has not paid us the compliment of studying the history of American policy even when it makes, as he thinks, against us and for him. It is even more curious that he seems never to have heard of the American contract law. If he had, it would have supplied him with an exact and eloquent comment on his own scoffing question, " "Why don't you apply it to persons ?" and on the other scoffing questions which he used to ask at the same time and in the same spirit — ""Why was it that the wealthy classes of the country, when they controlled the legislation of the land, did not lay heavy duties on the importation of Italian singers? Why was it that Enghsh MR. GLADSTONE'S OPINIONS. 355 vocalists, not perhaps quite so harmonious, were not entitled to protection?" If some of his American admirers would but send Mr. Gladstone a copy of the existing statute with an account of its practical working, he would, I doubt not, be grateful to them, and would use it in his next speech on this text of the increasing wisdom of the Devil. It would not be respectful to. conclude without a word on Mr. Thomas Bayley Potter, in whose honour Mr. Gladstone's discourse was delivered. Mr. Potter has been for near a quarter of a century honorary secretary of the Cobden Club. He is a kind of residuary legatee, also, of the great Apostle of Free Trade ; one of the few living depositaries of the true faith as it was declared to him by the Master. A meeting was convened to present an address to him in recognition of his services and of his discipleship. Lord Granville presided and Mr. Gladstone spoke. The tributes to Mr. Potter were brief but sufficient. " He has," said the orator, " particular- ly by his succession at Rochdale, and by the zeal, earnest- ness, and wisdom he has shown in the choice of means, established a connection between his own name and that distinguished statesman, philanthropist, and economist such as, I think, no other living man can claim." We know some- thing in America of the Cobden Club. "We have known of its efforts to spread the gospel of Free Trade among the heathen ; a word synonymous in Mr. Gladstone's mind with Protectionist. We are duly grateful for the zeal shown in our behalf, and we do not pretend to measure the value of the missionary spirit by so vulgar a standard as that of mere success. The wish to evangelise is its own justification; whether by faith or otherwise. Mr. Potter is the Cobden Club ; the impersonation of that singular organisation. It is not his fault if we have not found salvation, or if the seed he has sown has fallen on stony ground. THE CHANNEL TUNNEL, AUD ME. GLADSTONE AS CHAMPION OF THE TUNNEL AND CONVERT OF SIE EDWAED WATKIN. [London, June V, 1890.] When Mr. G-lad stone is unmuzzled on foreign affairs, his best friends are not free from anxiety. He was unmuzzled on Thursday in the House of Commons, and once more de- livered his soul on the Channel Tunnel. It was a half-hour speech, and it is all but inconceivable that it should have been made by a man who has governed the British Empire • or that anything should have been left of the British Em- pire if it had really been governed in accordance with the doctrines laid down in his speech. ISTo Empire could long exist were its affairs conducted on the principles which Mr. Gladstone has announced. The word principle is not ac- curate ; sentiment comes nearer to expressing the fact ; im- agination or fancy nearer still. The whole of Mr. Gladstone's argument for the Channel Tunnel rests on one single foundation ; on his belief that there is no danger of the invasion of England by France. If you take away that belief the argument crumbles, and the foundation is, at best, of sand. He is so sure of the goodwill of France that he is ready to leave England at her mercy. No doubt he thinks the danger from the tunnel overrated, even admitting that any attack from France is to be apprehended. But that is a matter on which military opinion is better than his. There is a risk, be it greater or less, and whatever it may be, Mr. Gladstone is willing to run it ; wiUing, in other THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 357 words, to expose his country to a peril which the highest authorities think considerable, and all because he has per- suaded himself that the French are friendly. If the Ger- mans could also persuade themselves that the French are friendly they might, on the same principle, dismantle Metz and disband their army. But it will be some time before a German Gladstone appears on the scene. The intolerance of his attitude toward those who differ from him is strongly marked in this speech. He is for the tunnel, and he deems opposition to it, " particularly on the score of danger, to be not only unnecessary, not only un- warrantable, but ridiculous." Those are hardly the terms on, or in, which grave public questions are discussed in this country ; or in other parts of the Civilised World, whose opinion is more valuable to Mr. Gladstone than that of Eng- land. Nor is it usual for an English statesman to hold up England to the contempt of Europe. "I am ashamed of the attitude of this country in the face of France," says Mr. Gladstone, and he speaks in another passage of the position of England in respect to France as a humihating position. The counsels of military prudence are derided as an unrea- soning panic. Are the army and navy of Great Britain the offspring of unreasoning panic ? Is Mr. Gladstone ashamed of his country because of her troops and forts? But he has of late fallen so deeply into the habit of disparaging the Kingdom of Great Britain that some new definition of pa- triotism must be devised if his language is to be called patri- otic. His friends deplore it and even his opponents do not delight in it ; certainly not those of them who put patriotism before party. " He can convince," said the late Mr. Forster, " most peo- ple of most things and himself of anything." We see what he says about French friendship for England. No doubt he has convinced himself that this friendship exists, and is gen- eral among the French people, and of a lasting character. Any man may convince himself of the same thing if he will avoid reading French papers and close his ears to the periodi- 358 MISCELLANIES. cal explosions of enmity which occur in the French press, and if he will in addition reject the testunony of the best- informed. In the same Avay he has convinced himself that the people of England are not opposed to the tunnel. That is his belief " at this moment." The belief of those who have means of knowing, and of those who weigh evidence, is that a great majority are opposed to the tunnel. Mr. Gladstone himself admits that there has been a change of opinion. His way of describing the growth of public dis- like to this scheme is to say that "we have travelled some stages toward barbarism in this matter." He has, however, his own way of determining public opinion ; his own view of what is entitled to respect and what is not. " If you could get at the feeling of the sensible population of this country — and by that I do not mean only the people who agree with me, but the mass of the working population — I believe it would be found that they look upon the oppo- sition to the Channel Tunnel on the ground of danger as an almost preposterous opposition." That is interesting in several ways and several proposi- tions are deducible from it. First, the sensible population of this country consists of those who agree with Mr. Glad- stone — not of them only, but of them in the first place. Probably most men in public life look upon agreement with themselves as a test of good sense. But they do not, as a rule, say so in public. Second, not only those who agree with Mr. Gladstone are sensible, but the mass of the work- ing population are sensible. We know, however, that Mr. Gladstone believes himself to be supported by the mass of the working population; so that this addition to the cate- gory of sensible people is not a large one. If we leave out the question of agreeing with Mr. Gladstone, we arrive at a third general proposition, namely, that the sensible popula- tion of this country consists of the mass of the working population. This, again, is but the old doctrine of the Mass- es and their superiority to the Classes, on which Mr. Glad- stone since 1885 has preached many a sermon. Consider THE, CHANNEL TUNNEL. 359 what the Masses in this country are: uneducated, or still very imperfectly educated, with little experience or training in public life of any kind ; without those aptitudes for it de- rived from heredity ; without knowledge ; the prey of the political agitator, the ready dupe of the least scrupulous and most violent journalism; governed by appeals to passion, to sentiment, to class interest. On the other side are culture, industry, capacity, the habit of governing, the habit of tak- ing reasoned views, the inherited traditions of many gener- ations of rulers. All these Mr. Gladstone sets aside. The sensible population of this country is the ignorant popula- tion ; that is what it now comes to. Sir Edward Watkin, the chief promoter of the tunnel, is not, at any rate, one of the ignorant. He belongs, perhaps, in a class by himself. He is an able man of business ; al- most too able. He went in for the tunnel because he thought there was money in it. His railways, or one of his railways, the South Eastern, would be enriched by a tunnel. He has been beaten. The House of Commons for the fourth time this week has rejected his tunnel bill. Mr. Gladstone was head of the Government by which, on one occasion, if not on two, the defeat of the bill Avas secured. It cannot be needful to add that Mr. Gladstone has nevertheless per- suaded himself of the entire consistency of his conduct, first in opposing, then in supporting, the tunnel. When he was Prime Minister he killed the bill, but " not a word was spoken adverse to the principle of the bill !" Now that he is in Opposition he upholds the principle of the measure which he throttled in office. Sir Edward "Watkin is not the man to trouble himself about distinctions or tergiversations of this kind. Consistency and inconsistency are nothing to him. He has converted Mr. Gladstone on the Channel Tun- nel, as Mr. Parnell converted him on Home Eule, and the process of conversion appears to proceed on much the same lines in each case. " Any references," says Mr. Gladstone, " to my inconsis- tency or to my capacity to express myself in the English 360 MISCELLANIES. language are certain to draw forth cheers from the forces marshalled on the Ministerial benches." Inconsistency is a large subject, and so is the English lan- guage. One of them at a time is perhaps enough, and we may proceed with the latter. Mr. Gladstone complains of criticisms on his use of English. Twenty minutes later, in the same debate and in the course of the same speech, oc- curred the following episode. Mr. Gladstone was speaking on the Channel Tunnel, and answering Sir Michael Hicks- Beach. He said — "The right honourable gentleman points out that we have no conscription in this country. I did not expect to hear a Minister of the Crown in this country casting a long- ing eye on that system." Is it then a right use of the English language to talk of hearing a Minister casting a longing eye ? That, however, may be a slip of the reporter and not of the orator. Mr. Gladstone perhaps said " see." Whichever it was, Sir Mi- chael rose to deny the accusation. He said, " I denounced the system of conscription as strongly as any member of this House could do." Mr. Gladstone rejoined, " I do not think the explanation of the right honourable gentleman makes any difference !" There were Ministerial cries of "Oh! Oh!" Is it possible not to join in them? Between his own statement that a Minister casts a longing eye on conscription, and the Minister's statement that he de- nounced conscription, Mr. Gladstone cannot see any differ- ence. It may be well to tm'n to some other subject. IMPEKIALISM, A2ro THE IMPERIAL VIEWS OF ME. JOHN MOELEY, OF HEIGHT, OF FOESTEE, AIJD OF ME. GLADSTONE. [London, Jpril 26, 1890.] " It has been my fortune," said Mr. John Morley at Eoch- dale on Wednesday, "to know some great men, but the greatest man I have known is still alive." Mr. Morley was speaking in celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr. T. B. Potter's representation of the borough of Eoch- dale in the House of Commons ; but it is not supposed that the allusion was to the hero of the day. Mr. Gladstone seems to be meant. The fascination which the elder has exercised over the younger man has long been known, and is easily explicable. Mr. John Morley is, or till lately has been, a man of books and ideas. Mr. Gladstone is a man of affairs, who has led the House of Commons and governed England, and done other considerable things in politics of a domestic kind. The ascendency of the practical over the theoretical politician is in the nature of things. Many other reasons might be given. Mr. Morley is far from being the only considerable personage on whom Mr. Gladstone has laid a spell. But the scholar who finds himself in contact rather late in hfe with realities might still do well to preserve that sense of proportion and that mental balance which his stud- ies taught him, or should have taught him. A superlative is ever a dangerous weapon; often damaging to him who uses it and to him on whom it is used. It is Mr. Morley's real nature to be critical ; he has a fine 362 MISCELLANIES. judgment when he chooses to use it, and a sobriety of mind which only deserts him under the pressure of some strong enthusiasm, or perhaps fanaticism. He could not well speak at Eochdale without having something to say of Bright. He even had something new to say, and said it with that ef- fectiveness and trenchant energy characteristic of him when deep feelings are roused. Bright, he thought, had certain essential qualities of the orator, and something more. " He had the glory of words, and nobody in this century, not Canning, not Erskine, not Brougham, not an orator of this century had so understood the true genius of our glorious Enghsh tongue ; its freedom, its massive simplicity, its dig- nity." The tribute is striking, odd as is Mr. Morley's choice of great English orators of the century. Brougham was ar- tificial, Erskine forensic, Canning spoke for the day, and not one of them really belongs in the first rank. ISTo one of the three could be said to have much of that moral fervour Avhich Bright had, "beating like a pulse behind these ef- fects of art " ; a fine phrase followed by an image finer still. " Mr. Bright set a great stream of moral ideas flowing, like the Gulf Stream itself, through politics, enriching discussion, nourishing it, and making it alive." Far less happy was Mr. Morley in his defence of what Sir Michael Hicks -Beach, in a phrase which his critic perhaps envied him, called the cowardly parochialism of the Eadi- cal school, and especially of the Manchester Eadical school. Mr. Morley calls it the creed of an enlightened national in- terest. It has been defined — Lord Palmerston defined it — as a pohcy based on the calculation of selling the most Brit- ish goods abroad. Mr. Morley will not believe it to be "played out"; this doctrine of non-intervention. It is only played out in the sense, he declares, " that it has been accept- ed by, incorporated in, and embraced by the pohtical system which is accepted and practically worked upon by states- men of all political parties." A sanguine view. Has Mr. Morley forgotten the guarantee of Belgium by that idolised greatest man he ever knew ? JSTothing is so unsafe in English IMPERIALISM. 363 politics as a generalisation, unless it be a prediction. Mr. Morley assumes the mantle of the prophet, too, and pro- claims in the sympathetic ears of the cotton -spinners of ■Eochdale that "the fate of any Ministry which does inter- vene in the struggles of Continental Europe is, from that day forth, sealed." Well, it is probably true that the working man of the day has been a good deal debauched by the peace -at -any -price talk of which he has heard so much from so many men of the Eadical school. He has been taught tbat peace means thriving trade and high wages and cheap bread, and all the other ideals of his artisan millennium. He has not had time to clear his mind of the nonsense that comes to him with the stamp of what he has rashly accepted as inspired au- thority. Perhaps nothing short of a national crisis would clear it. Then, whether the crisis had its origin on the Con- tinent or elsewhere, it might be found that the Eadical arti- san was an Englishman at bottom ; an Englishman before all, with an Enghshman's innate love of fighting and inborn inability to take anything but an Englisli view of his crisis. And so it might happen that, in that possible future, his voice would be as loud for war as it has ever been — and it has often been — in the not distant past. Why is it that men like Mr. John Morley sometimes talk and write as if they cared little about the Empire ? Their tone is, I must say, not unlike the tone which was but too common in the Northern States before the Eebellion. There were in those days men of culture wbo thought tbemselves good citizens, Avho yet cared little or nothing for the Union. We all remember that time. Many and many a man did not know that he cared for the Union till he was called upon to fight for it. The situation in England is not iden- tical, for England has long been an Empire and loyalty to the throne is of old date. It was perhaps to Cobden, and in some measure to Bright, and in greater measure to lesser men than either, that England was indebted for the birth and growth of an anti- imperial sentiment. It dates from 36i MISCELLANIES. about the time when the great modern fortunes were begin- ning to take their rise in trade and industry. The Man- chester cotton - spinner thought cotton -spinning of more importance to mankind than the politics of Europe. The prosperity of the middle classes demoralised them. They could not look without horror upon any policy or any pro- posal which might imperil the continuance of their business. It meant something more to them than cotton -spinning; it was money - spinning. They took narrow views,, and their leaders sometimes took narrow views. There are passages in Bright' s speeches Avhich his greatest admirer can hardly read without shrinking. He illumines by his genius doc- trines which in another would have to be called sordid. Mr. John Morley has been spoken of by some indiscreet friends as if he were the Bright of to-day. There are hard- ly two men more unlike, but Mr. John Morley has imbibed from various sources something of the anti- imperial spirit which was the least admirable trait in Bright's public char- acter. The gospel of selfishness is not the highest religion, even when preached by a man of genius. It is not at all the same thing as that enlightened devotion to one's own country which we call patriotism. It is not enlightened. Mr. Morley is not at heart, I believe, in favour of the Man- chester doctrine but he sometimes talks as if he were. He sneers, or aU but sneers, at Imperial Federation. " I know," he says, "some friends of ours are very unhappy because the colonies and the mother country do not rally to what they call Imperial Federation. I do not prejudge the ques- tion. I wait until I hear what Imperial Federation means." Exactly in that tone spoke the leaders of one section of the North about the Union. Some of them went farther, and called it a covenant with hell. Possibly enough. Imperial Federation is not a policy ca- pable of a scientific definition. Ho formula has been devised for it, nor have the aspirations of the cool-headed and far- sighted men whose names are identified with it ever been expressed with perfect precision. It may be none the worse IMPERIALISM. 365 as a policy for that. Certain it is that these men are not visionaries nor dreamers, nor has Imperial Federation any- thing to do with Home Kule. Mr. Morley did not hke the late Mr. Forster, but he would have admitted that he, if anybody, was a practical man, and he Avas one of the earliest advocates of Imperial Federation. Yes, and of something more; of an understanding between all branches of the English-speaking people. Lord Eosebery is President of the Federation League, and nobody, I think, has ever im- puted to him a want of sufficient regard for what is practi- cal in public life. The scepticism of Mr. Morley finds some support, probably, in the attitude of Mr. Gladstone. But Mr. Gladstone has been alike unhappy in foreign and m co- lonial policy. He has never discussed either imperial or in- ternational affairs in a tone that has won confidence ; still less has he inspired respect abroad. You cannot offer a greater affront to the Gladstonian worshipper than to ques- tion him about Egypt or South Africa. The very name of the Soudan or the Transvaal is an offence to this amiable, but not usually too wise, idolater. iN'ot without instruction on this subject is a brief episode of to-daj'^. There has been a Federation meeting at Leeds, and the resolutions of this meeting were sent to Lord Salis- bury and to Mr. Gladstone. The Prime Minister answers that he is deeply sensible of the importance of the movement, and that its objects are such as Her Majesty's Government and, in his belief, statesmen of all parties have earnestly at heart. What is Mr. Gladstone's answer ? A brief acknowl- edgment of the resolution and the letter containing it, with an assurance that he has taken note of the particulars there- in described ! Such is Mr. Gladstone's Imperialism ; not ex- actly, it would seem, " the dominant passion of his life," as it is of his friend Lord Eosebery's. Is it then to be said that to Mr. Gladstone also the interests of the Manchester cotton-spinner seem paramount ? If it were possible to refer to the political relations be- tween Great Britain and Ireland in a historical spirit, and 366 MISCELLANIES. without arousing anybody's passions, they too would supply a lesson on Imperialism. Mr. Morley handles the subject freely, of course. How do you suppose he meets Mr. Bright's resistance to what he thought a policy of Disunion ; to Home Eule, in short ? Mr. Bright, he tells his Eochdale audience — Bright's own townsmen, among whom he had lived all his life — " had never in any large sense had the training of great official responsibihty, such as has for fifty years weighed upon the other old man !" It is a most unhappy answer. If Mr. Bright's opinion on Ireland is not to have weight be- cause he had not held great office for a long period, what is Mr. Morley's title to authority ? And if the great official responsibility which weighed upon " the other old man " for fifty years led to Khartoum and Majuba Hill, does that prove the possessor of it inf alhble ? Is that official training by itself — for if Mr. Morley means anything he must mean that — is it by itself a thing to convince the civilised world of its author's sagacity in dealing with an Imperial issue even more momentous than the issues which ended in those appalling disasters ? THE NEW FEDEEAL IDEA. [London, Januwry B, 1889.] Me. Caenegie's letter in censure upon a recent offence of mine invites a reply. Like the good Scotchman he is, or was, Mr. Carnegie cannot bear to see the Scotch Home Rule move- ment mentioned as one of the influences tending to break up the British Empire. I should be glad to oblige him by saying that it is not, but I cannot. He seems to me to avoid meeting one of the strong- points against his view. The Scotch Home Rulers who Avrote to Mr. Gladstone described their movement as a movement to restore self-government to Scotland. In like manner clamoured the Southern States which seceded, or tried to secede, from the Union in 1861. They, too, wanted self-government; in their sense. Such a phrase in the mouths of these Scotchmen, can only mean, as I said, the repeal of the Act of Union of 1Y07. Tliey do not limit their aspirations. They do not speak of local self-gov- ernment. They want to see Scotland once more an inde- pendent kingdom. If they do not want that, they use words very loosely. In any case, they must be judged by the words they use and not by those which Mr. Carnegie may think they ought to have used. I am losing, in his opinion, my faith in the Federal idea. I do not think so, but I admit that I am losing — if I ever had it — my faith in slovenly pohtical analogies. It is easy to say that Scotland and Ireland and "Wales ought to have each the same rights which an American State has. I wiU not stop to ask why they ought. The one point on which Mr. Carnegie takes issue is the effect which Home Eule, on 368 MISCELLANIES. what he thinks the American State pattern, would have on the integrity of the British Empire. He insists that the Empire would be strengthened. That is matter of opin- ion and of prophecy. Pie may be right. Prophets sometimes are. All I wish to press upon him, and upon others who agree with him, is that he and they are proposing to break up the British Empire as it exists, and has long existed, and to put together a new one. Their new one may be a better and stronger than the old ; or it may not. In either case, it win be a new one. The question between us is not what he supposes. He is not for the Empire as it is. He is for an- other. He is himself one of the influences that are actively at work to disintegrate the existing political fabric. He is not satisfied with it. He wants to improve it. And to im- prove it, he would begin by pulhng it to pieces. He would break with the past. He quotes and requotes the American States, and their relation to the National Government. He would adopt that system as his model for Great Britain and Ireland. History is against him. The American States were separate, and independent, and sovereign. They sur- rendered each some part of their rights to form a Union, to provide for the common defence, and for other good and sufficient and well-known reasons. No wiser act was ever done. But where is the analogy between this act and the proposal to split an empire into fragments, in order to feder- ate the fragments? The Federal principle implies the pre- existence of distinct communities, each independent. There are none such in the British Empire. Whether there ought to be or not, is not the question. "We have to deal with things as they are. And with things as they are, there is no room for the application of the Federal idea, and no an- alogy, not even the remotest, to be drawn from the Ameri- can Commonwealth. NOTES ON EARLY HOME RULE. [London, Fehmary 12, 1886.] The riots are over for the present. The scare which on Tuesday was general and on "Wednesday universal, faded away on Thursday, and to-day is half forgotten in a new excitement. It need not be supposed that the authors of it are either forgotten or forgiven. The impression has been too deep for that, and though the chief of police and the Home Office seem to have found their heads, the fact that they lost them for three days wiU long survive in the memories of London. The riots and things connected with the riots had indeed driven all other subjects out of men's minds, and women's too. The Ministry itself, with its mysterious Irish policy or adumbration of a policy, has been forgotten, or remem- bered only because it proved unequal to the business in hand here in the streets of London. The failure is not thought of good omen for that other business across the Irish Chan- nel which Mr. Gladstone is bent on attempting. Mr. Charles Russell, the new Attorney-General, has been re-elected for South Hackney by an increased majority. Mr. John Morley is trying to get himself re-elected for Newcastle, and will al- most certainly succeed. He has been maldng speeches which, in ordinary times, would have been studied eagerly, and which even now are read attentively by those who must. In the very midst of this short canvass, Mr. Morley had to rush off to DubUn to be sworn in as Chief Secretary. Irish business was at a standstill for want of a duly sworn Chief Secretary to sign papers. The Times, which wages war on II.— 24 370 MISCELLANIES. Mr. Morley the Anglo-Home Euler, is full of admiration for Mr. Morley the individual, and truly describes him as giv- ing proof of energy and endurance which perhaps even Mr. Gladstone has never surpassed. He was speaking at New- castle on Monday night, was summoned to Dublin on Tues- day, reached Dublin and was sworn in on Wednesday, left the same night, regained Newcastle Thursday noon, and on Thursday night was addressing 3000 electors in the Town Hall with his usual force and piquancy of speech. Mr. Morley's speech at Newcastle deserves notice even amid the crash of broken windows in London. There are one or two passages in it of interest to those of our Irish- American friends who seem to be expecting without deep distress the early break-up of the British Empire, and the complete independence of Ireland. The new Irish Secretary goes farther in the direction of Home Eule than any other Englishman, of influence or position in politics. He now repeats what he had said before, that separation between Great Britain and Ireland would be a disgrace to England and a disaster to Ireland. That is his first condition pre- cedent to all talk about Home Eule. The second will be no more palatable. " I for one," says Mr. Morley, " will never be a party to placing a minority and the property of a minority at tlie mercy of a majority in case they should be inclined to deal lawlessty with them." ' This is perhaps a broader proposition than that in which Mr. Morley affirmed the necessity of an act to protect the Irish tenant from con- fiscating the property of his landlord. When he said that, he had the landlord only in mind. He now seems to be thinking of Ulster also. Nor wiU Mr. Parnell like this indication of the policy of his new allies. Mr. Morley's speech must mean, that Mr. Gladstone has made up his mind to deal with the land first. There is to be no Home Eule for Ireland till the Irish land- lord has been guaranteed against spoliation. Mr. Parnell ^ The precise duration of time expressed by tlie word "never" is difficult to define. NOTES ON EARLY HOME RULE. 371 has publicly announced that he will allow nothing to come before the measure for giving Ireland a Parliament of her own. A collision between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell at this point can only be averted by one or the other giving way. Both are very obstinate men. Both have behind them forces stronger than themselves, which they must obey. Behind Mr. Parnell are his paymasters, the Irish- Americans. Behind Mr. Gladstone are, first the Liberal party, and sec- ondly the English people. The meeting of these opposing bodies will offer to the impartial spectator a spectacle of in- terest.' It is agreed on both sides, let me add, that any safeguard for the landlord worth having must be secured before an Irish Parliament gets the chance of dealing with him and his estates. The latest declaration on this subject comes from an authority whose competency will not be disputed, Mr. Michael Davitt. To Mr. Davitt the agrarian question is everything, just as to Mr. Parnell the Parliament question is everything. Yet they agree in desiring to see a Parlia- ment granted before the land question is settled. Mr. Davitt is frankness itself on this subject. He would give the land- lords nothing, and he therefore labours to reserve their claims for a Legislature sitting in Dublin. " Guarantees? By aU means. "We will give as many guarantees as they like, and they will not be worth the paper they are written on." Mr. Agar EUis has sent to a Conservative paper a story curious in itself and curious also as a confirmation of the present belief that Mr. Gladstone is going to buy out the landlords before he gives Mr. Parnell his Parhament. I may as well quote this, though I quote at second hand, and from a Liberal journal. Mr. Agar Ellis says :— I have come across the following episode in the formation of the present Government. An advanced placeman, A, an Irishman, was offered a high place at Court by Mr. Gladstone. " Not for worlds," '■ The meeting has taken place, and it is not Mr. Parnell who has given way. 372 MISCELLANIES. says A ; " I cannot back up Home Eule." " Oh," says Mr. Glad- stone, " we shall not get to Home Rule for six months, as we have to prepare the way with a settlement of the land question, etc. Why not join me for six months, and then resign if Home Eule is mooted?" "Under those circumstances," says the impecunious Peer A, I shall have much pleasure in joining you ; but, to quiet my con- science, I must have a note to say that I have made my protest and may resign when Home Rule is proposed." — "By all means," says Mr. Gladstone ; and the note was written. To me this seems like holding the candle to the . This, says our Liberal friend and organ, is obviously unau- thentic gossip. It is, on the contrary, a true story. I do not vouch for every word of Mr. Agar Ellis's version, but it agrees substantially vrith the account which I heard, and I heard it from the hero of the story himself. The note from Mr. Gladstone is in existence and may some day be published ; indeed, it was written to be pubhshed should cir- cumstances require A's resignation. THE MOEALS OF TRADE. I. ME. EUSKIn's opinion AND SOME OTHEE OPINIONS AND SOME FACTS. [London, January 14, 1888.] " Abe we ceasing to be English ?" queried a worthy Police Magistrate the other day. It is not quite clear what pro- voked this embarrassing question ; whether the fact that a prisoner carried a revolver, or that the crowd ran away when, he tried to use it on a police inspector. Mr. EusMn is ready with an answer. There are few questions, perhaps none, for which he has not an answer ready. " We are not ceasing," replies the great art writer, " because for the last thirty years at least we have ceased to be English." And he proceeds to explain in a series of antithetical epigrams what the un-English or anti-Enghsh changes of the last thirty years at the least, really are. One of them, I grieve to say, concerns the Great Eepub- lic. " Once," cries Mr. Kuskin, " we imported from America neither meat nor manners." It is to that great English or- gan of the great English lower middle classes. The Daily Telegraph, that this deliverance is entrusted. The great English organ of the great English lower middle classes takes it for a text, and expounds the text after its man- ner ; a manner of which it has, in journalism, a monopoly. " American manners," pleads our champion — champion for the nonce — " are not all evil." This may not seem a bold de- fence but we are bound to suppose it kindly meant. " Eng- 374 MISCELLANIES. lish visitors note that a lady can travel alone through the States and find help and chivalrous defence from every man she meets." Nay, more, Boston has been described by a Kansas visitor as a place where respectability stalks un- checked. And there are thousands of American cities, both East and West, open to the same Western reproach. Mr. John L. Sullivan also stalks unchecked through Boston ; yes, and through London, and so Mr. Euskin's allusion may be, suggests our stalwart defender, to the prominence in London of Yankee pugilists. Mr. Kuskin chooses to seclude himself from society and his authority on manners is impeachable. If he would quit the solitudes of Brantvvood more often, and visit London, and not confine his visits to picture-galleries, he might have something to say of American manners more pleasing to the Americans themselves, and more true. He would hear English women acknowledging their debt to their fair American cousins. There are American women in London who have lent grace and delicacy and animation to the society of which they make part, and sometimes the most lively part. American manners ? Where are there any better, will Mr. Euskin tell us ? But the American part of this discussion is only an epi- sode. Mr. Euskin's indictment against his own country is a sweeping one, and he puts in the front of it — or as his first count, if the lawyers insist upon it, — swindling. " Swindling was not formerly the method of English trade " — in other words, swindling is now the method of English trade, and that is why the trade has ceased to be English. This is a point on which the shopkeepers' organ ought to be strong- est, but it hardly does more than meet Mr. Euskin with a negative. Even the negative is presently quahfied ; and in a curious sentence : " We do not believe that there has been any increase of swindling out of proportion to the spread of trade and the augmentation of wealth." What is this but saying that the spread of trade implies and involves the spread of swindling? The lawyer who holds a brief for his client, as does this middle-class organ for the shopkeepers. THE MORALS OP TRADE. 375 is not going to admit his client's guilt. But I suppose few who know anything practically of English trade customs would deny that Mr. Kuskin is right, and that swindling in its various commercial forms has increased, is increas- ing, and ought to be diminished. The manufacturing and trading world in England act but too faithfully on Mr. Bright's melancholy maxim that adulteration is only a form of competition. "ISTo long continued National industry or trade can be built on a basis of deceit," says the shopkeepers' organ. The answer is, they can and are. There is the oft-quoted case of the Manchester cotton goods. They still command the markets of the world. They are notoriously adulter- ated, but the first thing which the markets of the world now require is cheapness, and if half your cotton is size cal- ico can be sold cheaper than if it were all cotton. Then if everybody cheats, what choice has the buyer who would pre- fer to pay an honest price for honest goods ? I was told last year that the last great house in Manchester which had held out against this form of competition had given in. They had to elect between abandoning the business and adulterat- ing their goods to meet their rivals' prices, and they elected for adulteration. The only thing the British manufacturer does not adulterg,te is his profits. What was it that gave the Stores their great vogue in London? Cheapness had something to do with it ; the cer- tainty of getting honest goods had at least as much. Both point the same moral. The whole retail trade of London was rotten. The buyer was charged enormous prices for what he did not get ; for shoddy instead of cloth'^ for chic- ory instead of coffee ; for sloe-leaves called tea ; and the like throughout. A certain number of men Avith fixed and gen- erally narrow incomes undertook to do their own trading, buy genuine goods of wholesale merchants — for there are still genuine things to be had at a price — and sell to their comrades at a profit large enough to cover expenses and pay fair interest on the capital employed. Out of this modest 376 MISCELLANIES. beginning have grown the great concerns known as the Civil Service Stores, the Army and Navy Stores, and others. Their turn-over amounts to millions yearly, and every pound of it is proof that the trade it superseded was a rascally trade. If I were not afraid of offending just susceptibilities, I might add that it was also free trade. It is under the flag of Cobden, and in the name of the coming millennium, that English trade has reached that condition which one of the foremost of English writers calls swindling. What would Mr. Ruskin have said if, before he published his splenetic letter, he had seen the official report of the tor- pedo expedition of last May ? He hates torpedoes, and he may rejoice over the mishaps of the torpedo boats, English though they be. There were twenty-four of them. They started on a trial cruise in the morning. They steamed back again in the evening ; all that were left of them. Sixteen were left, eight had been disabled; exactly one -third of what was called a first-class torpedo fleet. Engines broke and broke down. Crank-brasses were fused, wire cable part- ed, the top of a feed pump blew off, main valves leaked, pro- peller blades snapped, boilers exploded. Perhaps exjaloded is not the scientific term ; " the boiler furnace crown came down, the engine-room and stoke-hole staff were scalded, and three men subsequently died." It does not signify much to the three dead men whether you call it an explo- sion or the collapse of the furnace crown. What does it aU mean ? " Merely," says a cynical Eng- lish commentator, "that machinery in the manufacture of which we are unapproachable — at least such is our boast — gave way in all directions." Add to this pretty catalogue ten delays or accidents from defective steering gear, one collision, one attempt to navigate over the rocks. And how do you suppose the English, who have a turn for philosophy, console themselves ? Why, that bad as they are their rivals are probably worse. Infective iron, brittle steel, bad work- manship, imperfect designs — all these exist in the English Navy. Let us hope they exist among our neighbours, too. THE MORALS OF TRADE. 3^7 responds the indomitable Briton. Does he think they exist W'ith the Germans, for example? The arithmetical state- ment of this torpedo expedition is simple indeed. There were in all, and during rather less than a fortnight, twenty- seven accidents to nineteen boats. The last few years in England have been marked by one long wail over depression of trade. I wonder, has it occur- red to any of the traders or manufacturers to ask themselves whether thex'e was any moral cause for this depression? Nothing is more depressed than agriculture. The farmer loses money because he cannot grow wheat at a profit; America, Eussia, Hungary, India, undersell him. Is that the only reason ? Everybody knows there are others, but I heard only the other day a great landowner say that one reason why his farmers got no better crops out of the land was that the chemicals they used were impure and inefii- cient. But nature will not be cheated, and she steadfastly refuses to accept sulphates and the other drugs with which she is dosed, at their market value. She takes them at their real value, and she gives back in proportion to what she actually receives. Wherever you turn you hear similar ac- counts, and Mr. Kuskin's lament over the decay of British honesty in trade is not the first, and is very far indeed from being the last, that will be raised. II. THE LONDON TRADESMAN: HOW HE DOES BUSINESS AND HOW HE DOES THE AMEEICAN. [London, November 20, 1889.] The cry of the tradesman for Eair Kent has been met by a cry from the consumer for Fair Prices and Full Weight. So much might have been foreseen. The customer is a worm, but he turns at last. He is tired of paying too much and not getting what he pays for. He begins with coals ; 378 MISCELLANIES. I put it in the plural because he does. Your true John Bull never orders coal to be put on the fire, but coals. He writes to one of his favourite organs to complain that the coal mer- chant gives him short v^eight. The innocent soul ! As if there had not been for years a Coal King in London which charges what it likes for coal. "Whether it robs the consumer by putting a dollar a ton on the price or by taking off a few hundred -weight, makes but little difference to the victim. He is robbed as eif ectually in one way as the other. A Lon- don Coal Merchant says the cheating by weight is done only, or mainly, by dealers of an inferior sort. Another says you may order coals from any five merchants and four out of the five will be short weight, and you will be lucky if the fifth is not short too. The remedy ? There is none, or no practical remedy. There is a law which has every merit but that of accom- plishing its end, which is to prevent dishonesty. The law says that coal shall be delivered in sacks each containing two hundred-weight, and ten of these sacks go to the ton, and you have only to count them from the dining-room win- dow. Sometimes the confiding householder does count, finds there are ten sacks, and retires happy in the belief that he has the ton of coals he has paid for. But it is now explained that some sacks are made narrow, and some are not filled, and the sack test is iUusory. But they may be weighed. The carman is by law commanded to carry scales, and to weigh each sack if the sceptical customer shall require it. But his scales, alas ! are constructed with cunning in the in- terest of the seller, and not of the buyer, and even if they be honest scales it is not everybody who can tell whether the weighing be honest. K"or does the British householder like to stand on the pavement and superintend these opera- tions, and be jeered at by a sidewalk committee. It is be- lieved that a sidewalk committee can be collected in London more quickly, and in greater numbers within a given time, than anywhere else in the world. This discussion became interesting from the moment the THE MORALS OF TRADE. 379 coal merchants took part in it. There are jealousies in the coal trade ; even members of the Ring are not at all content, and there must be merchants, big or little, outside the Eing who know Something of what is done inside. One of these gentlemen declares that the buyer does not get more than thirty-eight hundred-weight for every forty hundred-weight purchased and paid for. He could teU of worse things, and hints at other revelations which for the present he withholds. Then a " coal agent " appears on the scene. " There is," says the coal agent, " a piquancy about this confession coming from so authentic a source, which is seasonable as well as charming ; and as coal this winter will undoubtedly be dear- er than it has been for ten years," — why, he appeals to the merchant to unravel the mystery, and promises to do so him- self if the merchant does not. The excellent coal agent is, it appears, a coUiery manager, and is prepared to indicate " several ways " in which the pub- lic is mulcted. This sounds well. The colliery owners and managers are understood to be of opinion that the coal mer- chants get far more than their fair share of the profits of the coal business. They must know how it is done and there seems no good reason why they should not tell. Then the big coal merchants who ape respectability are on ill terms with the guerrillas of the trade who sell by the sack off " trollies " in the street, and with other merchants Avho sell by circular, offering coal at prices which of themselves im- ply cheating. Well, there is an adage that when certain people fall out certain other people come by their own, and the public lives in hope ; vague, no doubt, and faint, and oft- deferred, but still it is hope. And meantime, a poor wretch of a carman has be^n charged with stealing coal from his employer and committed for trial. When taken into cus- tody he only said, " They all do it." When the employer is in custody, too — I do not mean this particular employer, but the coal merchant in general — beautiful disclosures may be expected. Coal is to be dearer than for ten years past, says the ex- 380 MISCELLANIES. pert above quoted. It is not long since we were told it was to be cheaper, and one reason given for this coming cheap- ness was the abohtion of the Coal Dues. I do not know a more perfect example of the absurdities in which economic pedantry lands its professors than what has happened with reference to the Coal Dues of the Port of London. These Dues have been levied down to the present year. The ped- ants cried out against them ; they were in flagrant violation of the Gospel of Free Trade, and a tax upon one of the nec- essary commodities of life, and the poor were taxed, and I know not what else. There was a clamour, and the poli- ticians on both sides, for one was no whit better than the other, took up the cry — it was a catching cry — and the poor hstened greedily when they were told coal was to be cheap- er, and so finally off went the duty on coal. It amounted, with the wine dues which were swept away at the same time, to something like £400,000 a year, and the London County Council in its first financial year found its budget reduced to that extent. "What is the result ? Every dollar of the abolished coal dues has gonp into the pockets of the Coal Eing, and the public, while paying just as much as be- fore for coal, has the pleasure of paying also the additional taxation required to make good the deficit due to the aboli- tion. But the pedants and the politicians have had their way, and Free Trade is once more vindicated, and every- body is happy, especially the Coal Ring. There ought to be, say the reformers, a body of coal in- spectors. There are milk inspectors already. They peram- bulate London, stop what milk-cart they will : and may then and there compulsorily test the milk on its way to the milk drinker. MiUi-dealers have inspectors of their own, to stand between them and their distributing servants. Yet, with aU this, I never heard that the quality of London milk was reck- oned to be very high, or that the pump had been altogether put down, or that dairymen took prizes for virtue. The milk inspection, however, with the help of science and lac- tometers and suitable fees to the inspectors, does some good THE MORALS OF TEADE. 381 if not all the good it might, and some similar proportion of good and some approach to the standard, not of ideal hon- esty but of the honesty of the market-place, might be at- tained by a similar or better system of inspecting coal. When that has been done there will be still something left for the reformer and the champion of honesty to at- tempt. There is a short letter in another journal, headed by a suggestive editor " The Morals of Trade," asking plain- tively whether it might not be well for buyers to look into other matters than coal, and he tells this instructive little anecdote : — A young man, who has quite recently been behind the counter in a large provision shop, told me this morning that when he was sell- ing bacon his firm expected him to make a profit out of short weights, at the rate of one shilling for each eight pounds of bacon sold. Tea, sugar, coffee, and many other things are notoriously not always what they pretend to be, nor is the pound always a pound. The plain truth is that the London tradesman is not content with honest profits, no matter how large. He grows fat on dishonest profits. He and your servants are in collusion to rob you, and rob you they do and will, spite of any scrutiny or supervision possible to enforce. It is no novelty. There is a kind of tradition that the British man- ufacturer and the British merchant, at some unknown past period, prided themselves on making honest goods and sell- ing them honestly. A great authority, perhaps the greatest in such matters, once told me his opinion on this subject. There never was, in his opinion, a foundation for this tradi- tion. There was, perhaps, a time when things were not so bad as now, but never a time when adulteration and fraud were not habitually and generally practised. The matter touches individual Americans rather closely because Americans buy largely in the retail shops of Lon- don. The American trader or merchant can, I presume, be trusted to look after himself. But how is the American trav- 382 MISCELLANIES. eller, who visits London for the first time, to Icnow how he is dealt with ? He may not even know that he is known as an American, but he is. There is not a clerk in any shop in the West End of London who does not detect him the mo- ment he sets foot inside the door. It is not merely his speech that betrays him ; he is identified by his dress, his manner, his way of looking about him, and a hundred other notes of differentiation. Whether his accent or his apparel be better or worse than his British cousin's is not the point. The point is that they are unlike, and so unlike as to be instant- ly recognisable by the least expert of shopwalkers or coun- ter-jumpers. What does it signify whether he is recognised or not ? It signifies this, that an extra price is at once put on for his benefit. There are shops in London where they have two regular and authorised scales of charges ; one for the Eng- lishman, another and a much higher one for the American. Some of the West End tradesmen who go in for American custom have reduced it to a system. - It is systematised rob- bery. The American is supposed not to know the value of what he is buying, or not to care ; it matters nothing to the shopkeeper whether it be ignorance or indifference ; up goes the price and the American pays, as the phrase is, through the nose. In other shops, the two tariffs, Enghsh and American, may not be enacted by the proprietor himself, but the clerk is expected to vary his demand according to the nationality of the customer, and does. ISTot in vain is the British net spread in sight of the American bird. He is addressed specifically through the advertising columns of the London press, and the American fiag may be seen flying over shops in various parts of London. The American, I must say, has himself, and especially herself, to thank for some of the extra attention bestoAved on him or her, and for some part of the extra prices charged. We have invited extortion, and all the London tradesman has done is to ac- cept the invitation with alacrity. THE MORALS OF TRADE. 333 III. WITH SOME FUKTHEE DISCLOSITEES OF THE CUSTOMS NOW PEE- VAILING IN LONDON. [London, November 27, 1SS9.] It would be interesting to know why The Daily TelegrapJi SO suddenly dropped the " short weight in coals " question, upon which it entered with zeal. Not, I imagine, because the supply of correspondence gave out. There were letters from coal merchants and coal agents and coal merchants' Tictims ; I need not add coal consumers, for that would be the same thing. Some of these promised further revelations but there have been none. Nor, when a shaft is thus sunk through different social strata, does the supply ever fail quickly. This journal, which daily prints at the head of its editorial columns the wholly erroneous assertion that it has the largest circulation in the world, has, at any rate, a very considerable circulation among the shop-keeping and coal- selling class, and a very considerable advertising patronage from both. Can it be that this patronage and the abrupt suppression of these exposures of coal-dealing frauds stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect ? Other journals have, however, found room to pubhsh let- ters, one or two of which contain internal evidence that they were meant for the D. T., as our friend with nothing like the largest circulation in the world is commonly called. "A London Coal Merchant " computed the yearly loss to Lon- doners by the cheating of street coal merchants at £160,000. But now comes "A London Coal Factor" with a fresh cal- culation that the robberies in " other branches of the trade " amount to the stiU more, or still less, respectable sum of £360,- 000. Do " other branches of the trade " mean the big coal merchants, or some of them? I suppose we shall never know. This is not the first agitation of the kind nor will it 384 MISCELLANIES. be the last, but who will venture to say that a day will come when there shall be no more cheating in coals ? The topic has widened, and esplanations of particular forms of cheating by particular sorts of London tradesmen are now succeeded by a general discussion of the Morals of Trade. It is not a descriptive title. Those who know most about it sum up the Morals of Trade in the remark that there are none. It is not the morality, but the immorality, of trade which calls forth all these letters and leading articles. The coal-dealers do not stand alone in fraudulent dealing. Fraud is the rule, the admitted rule, and if there be a ques- tion it is whether to this rule there be any exceptions. As you look through the comments of the most judicial and conservative of journals, you see constantly such phrases as "dishonesty of the vendor," "immorality of the dealer," "this particular form of plunder," and many more. They aire general phrases, and of general if not universal applica- bility. The accusations are sweeping, the evidence is abun- dant, the demonstration convincing in the absence of either denial or counter-evidence. And that is so remarkable; there is neither counter-evidence nor denial. A whole body of dealers are put in the\ dock ; the whole corporation of London tradesmen, of all sorts and descriptions in every de- partment of business, and not one of them ventures to say that the indictment is ill-drawn, or that the witnesses who support it are untrustworthy, or tliat he himself ought to be excepted from the general verdict of guilty. It was, I imagine, the poor wretch of a carman in the police court who said all that could be said, when he plead- ed, " They all do it." The London Tradesman has, in fact, set up a new code of his own, and the commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Steal," no longer avails against the Custom of the Trade. It is the custom of the trade which accounts for the enormous profits of trade. The disclosures about the building of the school-houses of the London School Board come at a convenient moment; of themselves they constitute an eloquent chapter of the his- THE MORALS OF TRADE. 385 tory of the morals of trade. Builders are engaged in a form of trade which has given rise to scandals before now, and the Jerry Builder earned an evil name for himself as soon as London began to stretch into the fields, and men, some of them living, ceased to shoot snipe over the swamp now known as Belgravia. When the London School Board began building, they gave their contracts, it must be presumed, to firms of repute. "What is the result ? Mr. Lobb, at the last meeting of the Board, asked the chairman of the Works Com- mittee this question : " Is it not a fact that grave irregularities have taken place, and inferior materials been used in the construction of our schools by some of the thirteen firms who have received up- ward of £2,000,000 in payment of their contracts ; and that some of the firms .have sublet some of their contracts and paid wages below the minimum rate ?" The chairman of the Works Committee said, " My answer to both questions must be in the affirmative." The dialogue went on, and it came out that one school had been shored up to prevent its falling, and that another " exceedingly well designed school has been thoroughly ruined in the course of erection." The builders had not chosen to follow the terms of the specifications, the whole of the brickwork had been done with inferior mortar, burnt and half-burnt clay had been used instead of sand, there were hollow Joints in the walls, no cement had been used for the parapets or gable walls, the chimneys all needed repointing, the Portland stone was full of sandholes, fractures, and broken edges, the roofs were not covered according to contract, the gutters and sky- lights leaked, the plumbing was defective in eveiy particu- lar, the painting defective, wet rot had set in from want of proper foundation for the flooring, the plaster was falling off, and the wall-paper hanging from the walls. These are but samples of the defects revealed, and inquiry by the pubhc press has since brought to light others not merely scandalous, but distressing. "We are only upon the fringe of the discoveries," said Mr. John Lobb, whose share in IL-25 386 MISCELLANIES. pushing these disagreeable investigations is one very credit- able to him. The danger to the lives of school children from the tum- bling down of scamped school-houses is possibly remote. The danger to life and health from bad plumbing and drain- age is near, and is pressing enough to induce The Daily Tele- graph to run the risk of actions for libel in order to meet it. Xot the least odd part of the business is the fact that the existence of grave defects was suspected two years ago, that a committee was appointed and took two big volumes of evidence, and the result of their inquiries was published but made no impression because it was treated as an electioneer- ing squib. One part of this electioneering squib showed that the foun- dations of some schools were insecure, and that one had no foundation at all, while another school, erected over a series of running cesspools, had poisoned the five children of the caretaker in charge of it. An attempt to publish the evi- dence produced two actions for libel by the firms of builders concerned, both still untried, and the two big volumes were suppressed for fear of more. The history of these volumes reads like a chapter of Pickwick. The Board possess one copy, which any aggrieved ratepayer may consult if he likes ; if he wants one for himself he must apply to the printers, who are themselves defending one of the two actions for libel brought by the aggrieved builders. They decline to sell. They have, however, sold three copies, all to persons who are cautiously described as " interested parties." The Board has not yet found the courage to circulate the report among its constituents. Meanwhile, the question, or one of the questions with Avhich both the Board and its ratepaying constituents are confronted is this : How much of the £4,500,000 which the school - houses have cost has gone fraudulently into the pockets of the Jerry builders ? That is a matter of finance. The matter of health is even more serious. Drainage is not a new subject. Sanitary science has reached a stage when THE MORALS OF TRADE. 3gY it is humanly possible to carry the germs of typhoid else- where than into schoolrooms and bedrooms. But the builders of some of the board schools have not grasped tliis element- ary proposition. It pays better to lay pipes without joints, some of them running the wrong way, some of them discharg- ing into the soil, some of them leading nowhere, some of them cracked, and whole systems of them left unventilated. Be- fore you can attract attention to such matters you must keep a headline standing for days in the papers, " Poisoning the Children." After some days of inquiry the expert announces that about three-fourths of the London School Board build- ings are badly constructed. And Mr. Jennings tells us that it has "long been known" that the Board Schools are in many instances mere breeding-places of fever. He beheves that the cases may be numbered by hundreds. Again I say, all this concerns the sixty or seventy thou- sand Americans who yearly come abroad. They do not go to Board Schools but they hve in hotels and lodgings, to the construction of some of which the British Builder and Con- tractor and Plumber have applied the same moral principles which have made so many of the Board Schools mere fever traps. The Public Buildings of London are so many by- words for unhealthiness. Mr. Eitohie, president of the Lo- cal Government Board, has just been telling the Plumbers' Company at dinner that if they will come to his room, at the House of Commons, the foul smells wiU drive them away in five minutes. A Lord Justice of Appeal is ill from the poisonous atmosphere of the Law Courts, and his colleagues declare they have complained for years unavailingly. The Plumbers and the Tradesmen are in the same boat ; the same morality prevails in Building as in Business ; and the Ketail Trade of London is a matter which does interest a great proportion of that tourist army of Americans which yearly visits London. Most of them buy something in Lon- don. They probably believe they can buy better goods and cheaper than at home. I do not know what they can buy at home, but it is only fair to warn them that the one maxim 388 MISCELLANIES. ■which, the London tradesman recognises as the foundation of his morahty and the law of his dealings is caveat emptor. Let the buyer look out for himself. To make a fortune, and to make it quickly, is his one object in life ; after him the deluge. To estabhsh a business, to deserve a reputation for fair dealing, to hand down an honourable name to his de- scendants or successors — such ambitions as these, if they ever existed, have ceased to exist. The Sweater has come to the front, and he sweats his customers as well as his working men and women. The quality of his wares has gone down and his prices have gone up. They have gone up higher for Americans, as I explained the other day, but have gone up for everybody and stayed up. The quality has deteriorated in the very goods which were once supposed to be the pride of the English market ; fabrics of woollen and cotton and leather and steel, and of other metals. I wiU take a humble illustration. Where in London can you buy a paper of good pins ? I do not know. Perhaps the whole social structure of this kingdom does not depend on pins ; something else holds it together, but the illustration, humble as it is, is a good one, and it is typical. You may repeat the question about a hundred other articles of universal necessity, and the answer will be the same. The trade of London is rotten from end to end. Whether the manufactures of England are any better than the morals of her merchants is, to say the least, an open question. From the pins that soften to the finger, to the 110-ton guns that burst in the firing, the road is a long one, and it is strewn at every step with similar examples ; with the wrecks of great reputations, and with monuments of systematic and almost, if not quite, universal dishonesty. LONDON IN AUGUST, WITH BRIEF NOTES ON THE MISEKT OF IT AND THE MEANS OF ESCAPING IT. [London, August 24, 1889.] Theee are people who profess to like London in August. Mr. Henry James is one of them ; but then Mr. Henry James has a partiality for London which would exclude him from any jury that had to render a verdict on any question con- cerning the metropohs. He likes the fog, the soot, the mud, the four-wheelers, the street architecture of London, and there is probably no month in the year which he would not rather pass in London than anywhere else in Europe, whether town or country. He is more cockney than the cockneys. But the people whose opinion is law in London are not cockneys, or not many of them. They come to town for the session or the season — ^the terms are by no means convertible — and when the object for which they came is attained, or the full period of their residence has expired, they depart, and Lon- don during the remainder of the year is to them but a mu- nicipal expression. Those who cannot get away stay on and grumble ; aU. but Mr. Henry James, who never grumbles. If there be any human being whose lot is not a happy one at this time, it is a Minister or any minor member of the Government, condemned by the conditions of his oflBcial existence to toil on in the House of Commons, where Irish members pitilessly spin out the session. It is one of the joys of Opposition — there are many others — to get away to moor or mountain while the salaried oiScial is chained to his oar 390 MISCELLANIES. on the front bench. Mr. Herbert Gardner has beaten the Government on the Tithes Bill and gone gleefully off to Homburg, but the beaten Government has to remain and try not to be beaten on other bills. Ministers would all be dead men were it not for the Saturday to Monday in the country still left to them. Things are, on the whole, or- dained in a merciful spirit. Hosts and hostesses may still be found near enough to London to make visiting possible to those who must be on duty again at the early beginning of the week. Few do so much good to their fellow -men as these beneficent beings. The radius of hospitality meas- urable from "Whitehall is a wide one. Weary legislators think nothing of 100 miles by rail to spend Sunday, or 200 ; they and others have been known to go almost as far for a dinner. I met one of these much-enduring men last Sunday at a house not far from the East Coast ; one of the hardest- worked of Ministers. He was actually rejoicing over the defeat of his own Government. If you asked me I should say they all rejoiced over it, so eager are they to throw off the yoke and escape for good from London. My friend is not the exception which proves the rule ; he is the rule to which there is no exception, unless it be the Prime Minister himself. Lord Salisbury's power of work carries him easily along where others stumble and groan ; moreover, he lives at Hatfield and not in London at this time, and Hatfield, though within half an hour of Downing Street, is a red brick Elizabethan paradise of green fields and peaceful se- clusion. Probably Lord Salisburj'' grieves for the disaster which delights his colleagues ; it matters little to him whether Parliament adjourns in August or September. Or, if it matters, it is because he is a Minister of that temper which regards the House of Commons as a necessary nuisance; a hindrance to the real business of governing into which the heir of all the Cecils puts his whole soul, and so he rejoices when it adjourns itself out of the way. The Tithes Pill, or LONDON IN AUGUST. 39I a new bill such as Sir William Harcourt invited Ministers to bring in, would have meant at least another fortnight of angry contention in the House of Commons. " Do you suppose any of us wanted that ?" queried my Ministerial friend. He asked the question blandly, as if but one answer were possible. We sat on the lawn in the blaze of such a sun as never finds its way through the canopy of perpetual smoke that hangs over London. His House of Commons manner had disappeared ; the activity of a mind continually on the strain had subsided ; he looked tired, and the lines of the strong face had relaxed. There was nobody to worry him with questions, and so — for that is the secret of conversation — he poured out his soul. If you had listened you might have heard why it is that House of Commons work prolonged into the late summer makes such drafts on the energies of a strong man. Into each day are crowded two fuU days of duties. Depart- mental work is quite enough of itself to get through, but when three o'clock in the afternoon comes the House begins, and from then tiU midnight there is not a moment that a Minister can call his own. He is in charge of bills of his own, he has questions to answer to the House, he must be ready to lend a hand to any of his colleagues in difficulty, he must be familiar with the whole course and conduct of the general business of the Government, he must be ready to take part in any debate that arises ; and debates arise as often as not out of the ground, with no warning. During all this and much more, messengers from his Department are coming and going, or permanent officials look in for con- sultation ; and in his room in the House, or in the lobby, or behind the Speaker's chair, decisions have to be taken, often of the gravest importance. The toil is incessant, the burden of responsibility, which is heavier than any mere labour, is never lifted. Perhaps, on the whole, he may be excused for not regretting the Tithes Bill and the extra fortnight of parliamentary toil and trouble. Mr. Henry James lounges in his cool library in the far west of Kensington, and com- 392 MISCELLANIES. poses at leisure an elegant panegyric upon London in Au- gust. It is plausible, but it is not the record of the life of the galley-slave who sits on the Ministerial front bench of the House of Commons. " I never," said the fugitive Minister, " escape from the Department. Wherever I go a box follows me. They say the Permanent Oiiicial governs this country. I wish to goodness he did. He makes me govern it. The only chance is to go abroad ; they do not send the box after me when I am abroad. But they will not let me go abroad." The breeze blew across the lawn, straight from the sea that lay between us and the Continent f6r which the worn Minister longed. The sunlight fell on his strong, tired face, he lay back in his chair, the softly spoken sentences ended in si- lence. Books lay about on the outdoor table, he would open none of them; the one thing he cared for was the absolute rest which that lovely Sunday morning had brought him. He Avould talk, but, after his first outburst, of anything but politics or business or London, and what was as striking as anything else was the fact that to him London in August summed up all there was in his life that was odious. In that phrase, every trouble and horror were embraced. In his present idleness was summed up every dehght ; the calm of the country after the fever of the House ; the lazy pleas- ure of talk for which nobody made an effort ; the true re- pose of a clever woman's company, clever enough to sup- press her cleverness for the time. It is, or it seems, the worse for men in this position that so many others in the front rank of political life have long since got away, and are grouse-shooting in Scotland, or yacht- ing at Cowes, or killing time at Homburg. If there be one place more than another where London life is for the pres- ent to be lived over again, it is the bustling German springs by the Taunus Mountains. The magnet which draws the world of London thither is supposed to be the Prince of Wales, and no doubt for many people he is the all-powerful attraction. This year, however, he went later than usual. . LONDON IN AUGUST. 393 The Naval Eeview at Portsmouth kept him, and business at Osborne kept him, and Cowes kept him ; Cowes, where for a Aveek or so the set that surrounds him holds its rendez- vous; and perhaps would hold it, even were he not there. Even Princes do not always have their own way, you per- ceive. If you wish to know why, you have but to ask the first oracle of society you meet in Homburg ; for I presume you are, or have been, or will be, in Hombui^g. I sometimes hear from there ; amiable friends take pity on me, knowing that to one still in town every word from elsewhere is de- lightful and refreshing. Ifothing could be more instructive than the social chronicles which come thence by post. But whatever else one's friends say, or do not say, one item of intelligence reappears with unfailing regularity ; the place is full of Americans. There are those who yield, as the English yield, to the influence of the presence of the Prince of Wales, and others who go because they like it, or because they know that the place is thronged by the brill- iant creatures of both nationalities whom other brilliant creatures desire to meet. Like seeks like. Mr. Depew, though I think he secretly agrees with Mr. Henry James about London, finds a fortnight of Homburg necessary to the com- plete restoration of the health he never loses. If his New York friends are anxious about him, they will be anxious no longer when they hear that he has been lunching with the Prince of "Wales. Eor facts of that kind, however, the post is too slow, and you will have read it before you can read this letter. But not the other fact that he found Lord Eosebery al- ready established in Homburg, " and discovered that pedes- trianism with him while he is taking the cure works quite as well for me as if I had swallowed the whole of the Eliza- bethan waters and got outside the entire contents of the Louisen spring." You will have no difficulty in recognising the authorship of that sentence. Lord Eosebery, if he needs a cure at Homburg, which I doubt, needs it as an antidote to the London County Council. Presiding over that singular 394 MISCELLANIES. body of parochial patriots means governing not them only, but London, and the governing of London is not a hght task, even for a man who has been Foreign Minister and in that capacity done his share of governing the rest of the world. He once described his tenure of Downing Street to a Scotch audience as a period of penal servitude. What phrase he will think descriptive of his slavery in Spring Gardens I know not. With these two exceptions, the list of Homburg visitors contains few very serious names. Sir Charles Eussell's is one ; whether the Duke of Cambridge be another is a ques- tion for the British Army, which he commands, to answer. Lord Spencer is a third. Not far off is the Empress Freder- ick in her Schloss; no doubt about her being serious and taking serious views of things. Her view of the ISTaval In- spection at Portsmouth, and of the visit of her son to her mother, is so extremely serious that neither can be mentioned in her presence ; they are prohibited topics of conversation. Women of less exalted rank may not, I suppose, be named ; the tribute that is their due must be anonymous. Homburg is nothing except as a suburb of London, and in a letter de- voted to London in August Homburg could not well be omitted. The last of August is already upon us, and the last of the Homburg season with it or soon after it ; but the JMetropolitan August lasts well through September and there are people who will teU you, in defiance of the calendar, that it does not really end till next spring. A SCENE IN THE TOWER. [London, April 20, 1889.] More Americans, it is said, than Englishmen of this gen- eration have visited the Tower of London, but how many- have visited it by night ? It is by night that it is really im- pressive ; so much more so than by day that, if it were not for distressing the hundreds of thousands who think they know how it looks, I should say they have never really seen it. I went there to dine a few evenings since, not wdth the ghosts who haunt the place, but with a number of young warriors who are altogether alive, and long, I hope, may be ; gallant sons of gallant sires. Their regiment is in garrison at the Tower ; against imaginary foes, you may think, but that is not quite so. In the event of a serious rising of the London mob, the Tower is the first place that would be at- tacked, for the Tower is something more than a noble his- torical relic ; it is an armoury ; and, being an armoury, is necessarily still a fortress, and is never without a garrison capable of giving a good account of any foes likely to try its mettle. The instinct of the mob would take them here for arms ; the arms once seized, the Bank of England would be their next objective point. The battahon of Guards now in possession are there for a year. Every visitor wiU re- member the spacious barracks which are, I suppose, the most modern of all structures within the ancient moat and walls, and there they make their home. Your hansom is allowed to drive' in after hailing the gate but you will notice that a soldier marches in front, partly as guide and partly because it is a fortress into which you have 396 MISCELLANIES. penetrated, and past eight o'clock. You go at almost a foot pace down the hiU, and then to the left along the inner road parallel with the Thames, between grim granite walls where the gloom grows darker, through grim gates, beneath grim archways ; the burden of this mass of masonry lying heavier on your soul at every step ; the very shadows weighing on you ; and the sky on this clear night — for it is clear outside • — seen by glimpses, looking infinitely more remote than the usual London heavens, which are for the most part a canopy of smoke, as it were, just over your head. Presently, out you come into the barrack-yard and a blessed expanse of air and evening light. Three hours later as I said good-night, my host stopped me. " There is something you would like to see, and it is just time. Come along." As we went out an oificer of the Guards rushed by in full uniform, sword ringing against the stone steps, huge bearskin helmet and all the rest, and cried out to us, " You will be late if you don't hurry," and away he went at the double-quick across the moonht parade. It was rather soon after dinner for a constitutional but we followed, and found the guard already turned out under the gallery by the Bloody Tower. A moment later appeared a little squad of men, one of them in a flowing scarlet robe with a lighted lantern, coming up the steep slope that leads from Traitors' Gate. The sentry challenged sharply— " Plait ! Who goes there ?" The warder halts and answers — " The keys." " Whose keys ?" " Queen Victoria's keys." " Pass, Queen Victoria's keys." The warder in the flow- ing scarlet robe with the hghted lantern, foUqwed by his lit- tle squad, starts off again, but halts again and cries aloud — " God save Queen Victoria.'.' The guard comes to the present, the officer brings his sword to the salute, officer and men respond in chorus three times, with a kind of cheeer — A SCENE IN THE TOWER. 397 "Amen, Amen, Amen." Again the warder sets out, passes, turns square to the left and vanishes; he and his flowing scarlet, and his lantern, and his little squad. He is carrying the keys of the Tower to the Governor of the Tower. It was but a minute. The guard are dismissed, the oflftcer marches leisurely off. My friend and I are left there. Only a minute ; yet that selfsame ceremony has been transacted on that same spot, at that same hour, every night for something like eight hundred years. Back through all those crowded centuries of English story you hear nightly that challenge ring out ; nightly that blessing invoked on King or Queen, with, I suppose, an in- terval when Oliver Protector got the benefit of it ; nightly the clash of steel which tells the Constable of the Tower that all is well ; and nightly those keys have made their singular journey into the hands of the- King's Lieutenant. A CHANNEL CEUISE. I. THE WHITE STAE STEAMSHIP " TEUTONIC " AND HEE GUESTS. [Steamship " Teutonic," August 5, 1889.] Steictly, this ought to be a letter on the Naval Eeview — it is a piece of naval pedantry to call it a Naval Inspection — and Her Majesty's Fleet should be seen in the foreground. But it is of no avail to alter the perspective of things, nor can it really be altered, and there is a practical reason for not trying in the fact that I did not see the Eeview. It served, however, as the pretext for our voyage from Liver- pool, and gave us four or five very pleasant days, and is to be mentioned respectfully. We saw — those of us who were on board this ship — the most imposing spectacle of all, the arrival of the German Emperor, and if we did not inspect the fleet in his company were ourselves inspected by him in circumstances of much splendour ; and the whole of that ad- mirable scene at Spithead lay spread out before us for two days and more, while we were at anchor, first between the forts and afterward off Osborne. However, I have no other object in view in this and a following letter than to write about what interested me as it occurred, and I will begin with the ship herself. All ships are interesting ; and by the time this reaches you the Teutonic will, I imagine, be the most interesting visitor you ever had. No ship ever ac- quired so early in her existence the celebrity which already belongs to the new White Star liner. The Teutonic is the latest expression of that spirit of rest- A CHANNEL CRUISE. 399 less improvement which has characterised the "White Star directors from the start. It is not too much to say of them that they have led the way in almost everything. They cut down the length of the Atlantic passage, and forced their rivals to build faster ships, and at length to beat them. They certainly were the first to grasp the fact that an Atlantic liner is both a ship and a hotel, and that the average pas- senger hkes not only to get to his port but to get there com- fortably. At least one of the earlier lines clung for some time to the belief that a passenger was only a parcel to be safely delivered as labelled, and to the old sea-dog notion that meantime he was a nuisance on board ship and to be treated accordingly. That day is perhaps past, but a tradi- tion in this country dies hard, and it descended from the captain to the steward and its influence is still felt, I am told, in the cabins of that conservative company. It never had a place in those of the White Star, and that is one of the reasons why the ships of this hne earned at the beginning, and have kept ever since, a reputation for comfort and civility. The comfort has become luxury on the Teutonic. No ship that floats can be compared with her in the splendour of her fittings, none in the facilities she offers the voyager for the thorough enjoyment of his Atlantic journey. A single fact will indicate to the experienced traveller the idea that is up- permost in the minds of those responsible for her. She car- ries no more first-class passengers than she can dine all at once in her dazzling white and gold saloon. If you have ever crossed on one of those ships whose passengers are so numerous that they have to lunch and dine in relays, you will appreciate the difference. Again, great numbers of the staterooms are two-berthed only ; many of them with but a single berth, and solitude in your own cabin — the greatest of all ocean luxuries — may be had at a reasona- ble rate. If you do not care about mere cost you may have a single stateroom on deck for 120 guineas or a suite of rooms, parlour included, for three or four times that mod- est sum. 400 MISCELLANIES. You will have, in any case, tlie use of the delightful libra- ry. There is no greater novelty or more useful one than this ; a room perhaps 30 by 20 feet on the promenade deck, with windows on four sides, elegantly fitted with tables and writing-desks and lounges and book-cases. The decoration of this, as of the great saloon below, is as elaborate as it is tasteful. Taste reigns everywhere, and is stamped on the carvings of oak which panel the ship, on the leather which lines the smoking-room — another innovation in point of size and splendour — on all the cabins and staterooms, whether simple or gorgeous. Ivory and gold, mouldings and tracery of the Renaissance, enamels, figures in relief. Oriental tints in stuffs and carpets, stained glass, are used as freely and effectively as if for a country house in the heart of Bucking- hamshire or Kent. The promenade decks, 250 feet long and some 20 feet wide on either side of the deck houses, are un- broken by any of those marine obstacles which spoil walk- ing. They are roofed for part of their length and lighted by electricity ; and thus, at one blow, two of your chief enemies at sea, wet and darkness, are vanquished. You may be on deck at all times and in almost all weathers. I touch only on what most struck me as I wandered over this magnificent vessel, and I say nothing of her purely marine or technical merits except that she is the largest ship afloat — if that be a merit — that her tonnage is expressed in five figures, that she is built of steel, that she is driven by two sets of triple ex- pansion engines and twin screws, and that in design as well as in decoration she is the last word that the naval architect has lettered. And she is an armed merchant cruiser, built under Admiralty inspection ; the first of her kind, and an object of much naval interest. The company is hardly less remarkable than the ship. There are, or will be when we arrive at Portsmouth, nearly 300 passengers ; all guests of the Company. It is what the dramatic writers on first nights call a representative assem- bly ; and in a wider sense than theirs. The ship is full of celebrities, and they are not only celebrities of society and A CHANNEL CKUISE. 401 of the professions. Here are some of the foremost of those Englishmen who make England what she is to-day ; the men who create and organise her commerce and business. Mr. Ismay, of course, is here; the soul and the brain of the White Star Company. There is a company and there are directors, but, as one of them remarked, " Whatever Ismay says we all say — he does it all." That man with the broad shoulders and quiet, resolute manner, and keen eyes that see everything on deck at once, and strong, brown-bearded face, bronzed like one of his captains — that is " Ismay " ; an incar- nation of energetic, wide-reaching ability. To manage this company would be enough for most men but Mr. Ismay is a director of the London and North-western Eailway Com- pany, and wiU some day, if he likes, be chairman of it and control aU its 60,000 men and its hundred millions of capi- tal. Two or three other directors of that great company are here, Mr. Stephen, Mr. Fletcher, perhaps more, and with them its general manager, Mr. George Eindlay, who has lately found time to , write a book about the road he gov- erns so well, and Mr. Webb, the locomotive superintendent, creator of the great works at Crewe, reputed the ablest man in England in his line. Here too are representatives of other steamship lines ; Mr. Spence of the Inman, and Mr. Williamson of the Cunard ; so that if the Teutonic has any secrets to reveal, her rivals stand a good chance of knowing what they are. But no se- cret is kept in these days of intense competition. The ISTavy and Admiralty both sent delegates. Mr. White, the chief naval constructor, has a chance to compare his work with that of the great mercantile builders of Belfast, themselves present in the genial persons of Sir Edward Harland and Mr. Wolff. Two First Lords of the Admiralty visited us at Portsmouth ; the ex-First Lord of earlier days, Mr. Childers, and the present head of the British Navy, Lord George Hamilton, in a tall silk hat and frock coat, which is the uni- form of this great departmental chief for all purposes of the Keview. No two men could offer a more marked contrast, II.-26 402 MISCELLANIES. and the contrast is typical of the spirit in which they admin- ister the department. Mr. Childers is a venerable gentleman with a flowing, snowy beard, who seems to belong to the pe- riod of three-deckers and sailing ships. Lord George Ham- ilton, slight, youthful, alert, accomplished, has seen the Navy grow under his management with a rapidity heretofore un- known, bursting its old bands and bonds of red tape, tram- pling on traditions, intent only on putting and keeping afloat a force at least equal to that of any two other European Pow- ers, or any two who can conceivably combine against Eng- land. His best ally, though most candid friend and critic, Lord Charles Beresford, is not far off ; probably the most popular officer in the Navy, certainly one of the best officers of his own rank ; full of humour and of good humour, and with devil enough to take a ship anywhere and do anything with her. Mr. Forwood is another Admiralty official of renown, and Sir Gerald Fitzgerald another. Cabinet Ministers, past and present, are not wanting ; Mr. Eitchie, not the least of them, that black-haired, black-eyed, erect, rather soldierly figure, with a piercing glance and en- ergetic movement, author of the new local government of this country Avhich has already revolutionised its municipal life and is big with still bigger revolutions. Lord George Hamilton, of course, is a Cabinet Minister, and so is Sir Mi- chael Hicks-Beach ; the only one of his colleagues whose per- sonal friendship for Lord Eandolph Churchill is believed to be political as well. A silent man, slightly reserved in man- ner, but with such resource when Leader of the House of Commons, and cool capacity for emergencies, as not every leader possesses. Mr. Chamberlain comes on board at Spit- head, Mrs. Chamberlain with him, and thenceforth they sit in corners and talk to each other. They do not, at any rate, talk to Mr. John Morley who arrives by the same tender, minus his luggage, lost on the journey from London ; spends a night and morning with us ; discourses gravely to Mr. De- pew and others, and departs ; perhaps in search of his miss- ing portmanteau. There are a dozen M.P.'s beside, Mr. ■ A CHANNEL CKUISE. 403 William Lowther and Mrs. Lowther, the kindly owners of one of the pleasantest houses in London ; Mr. Jackson, a sort of watchdog of the Treasury, like the late Mr. "Wash- burne of Illinois ; Mr. "Williamson, Sir George Baden Pow- ell and others who legislate, wisely or unwisely, for their country. Of journalists I count less than half a dozen; hardly enough to justify the remark which a Liverpool lady was good enough to address to me about the company being so mixed, " because so many of the Press had to be asked, you know." Mr. Lucy is well known to you ; perhaps he ought to have been put among the M.P.'s ; he is Mr. Punch's " Toby M.P."; but he is too good a man to be spared from his proper profession. Mr. KusseU, of The Liverpool Post, and Mr. Lovell, of The Liverpool Mercury, are competitors but seem very good friends. The London papers are hardlj'- represented at all ; an omission from which you may see how little pains Mr. Ismay has taken to advertise his ship. He has preferred to ask his friends, or the friends of the line. There are, naturally, a good many Liverpool people ; notably a group of extremely pretty Liverpool girls, with a great deal to say for themselves. Lord and Lady Staiford are among those who embark at Liverpool ; who will some day be Duke and Duchess of Suth- erland. Lord Stafford is a co-director with Mr. Ismay on the London and North-western. "When Lady Stafford is named the question recurs once more. What and how much may be said in print of a lady who is not a public person- age, unless to be an ornament of society is to be a public pei-- sonage ? She has already been described in an English pa- per as the beautiful daughter of Lord Kosslyn, and the yachting costume she wore is alleged to be the despair of those Liverpool girls for whom a train is put on to take them to London in the morning, in time to try on then- gowns, and return in the evening for dinner. Beyond this indis- creet quotation I will not go. What I could say of all these and others about whom the American Girl, I know, is curious. 404 MISCELLANIES. shall be said to her in private, on her personal application, and not otherwise. Sir Charles Tupper is, I think, the only Canadian, Sir Frederick Leighton the only Eoyal Acade- mician, Sir Henry Loch the only Colonial Governor ; all three men of real distinction. And there are many more ; too many to dwell on, and I will not oifer you a mere cata- logue of names. Mr. Depew shall be named, however, be- cause he is too well known in America to need a single word, and because I shall have to quote him further on. Such was the company with which, on that sunny Thursday morning, the Teutonic steamed down the Mersey and set out on a voy^,ge destined to be from beginning to end delightful. II. AT PORTSMOUTH.' — -THE FLEET.- DINNEE. — THE IMPEEIAL VISIT TO THE " TEUTONIC." . [London, August 6, 1889.] We left Liverpool about eleven Thursday morning ; we dropped anchor in the Solent about one Friday afternoon. If I should spin you a true sailor's yarn about the two voy- ages my letter would be interminable, and I must ask you to take for granted most of what most delighted us as we steamed up and down the Welsh and English coasts. I have told you who were on board. I leave you to judge whether there was good talk, and a good time generally. We found out for ourselves by experience how comfortable the ship was, and how free from the annoyances which commonly beset the voyager. With the engines doing seventy revolu- tions and the log reading twenty knots an hour, the vibra- tion was hardly felt ; at less speed it was not felt at all, and we had been under way for ten minutes before we knew the vessel was moving. Very different that from the shiver which the first turn of the screw sends through most ships. There was light and air everywhere ; the White Star tradi- A CHANNEL CEUISE. 405 tions of thorough ventilation have been carried out more com- pletely than ever before. The stewards' service was good and quick, and the service of the ship, I mean the duties per- formed on deck by her crew, singularly noiseless. It was possible to sleep while decks were washed down. The hos- pitality of the Company to its guests was constant from be- ginning to end of this thoughtfully arranged cruise. It was blowing fresh as we neared the Isle of Wight Fri- day noon, but Captain Parsell and Mr. Ismay elected to take the inside passage by the ISTeedles. Of course we all wanted to go through the great fleet, and we were much obliged to our masters for letting us do it, and accepting the risk of handling so big a ship in such a crowd of vessels on such a morning. We should have felt still more deeply indebted had we known it was to be our only Eeview, but that oc- curred at that time to nobody. So on we went, to the gen- eral delight, everybody on deck, the sun shining as it shone for us every day and all day long, the coming unlucky to- morrow excepted ; the shores of the lovely island all of a gleaming green, the Solent water in a foam of fluid emerald, and sparkling white caps racing past us. We saw at once, as we saw often after, that we were ourselves part of the show. Glasses were levelled at the great ship as she moved along the armour-clad line; yachts sped toward us from every quarter, excursion steamers paid us visits every ten minutes, often looking as if they would come aboard with- out leave or hcense. The great ship steered on her course, regardless of all this admiration, passing between the two northernmost lines of the fleet not more than a cable's length off any of them. There lay the glory and greatness of England : two miles of floating fortresses in three parallel lines ; near a hundred of them in all, and almost as many different types as ships. We had a raking look at the whole as we drew near. The fleet lay foreshortened ; a clump of masts and hulls filling the great harbour with their measureless bulk and immeas- urable strength. The most powerful fleet that ever floated ; 406 MISCELLANIES. any one of a score of them could have blown the navies of the world out of water some thirty years ago. Nay, Lord Charles Beresford, who knows all about it, tells us that the four- inch rifled guns of the Teutonic herself would have sunk all JSTelson's ships in half an hour. Perhaps, when you come to close quarters, you need the help of the imagination in contemplating these uncouth monsters. Ships they are not, or some of them are not — only floating platforms for protected guns — but whether it be imagination, or whatever else, the impression you get of silent strength is tremendous. The first we pass are torpedo boats ; low, black, treacherous craft, with no more visible beam to them than the edge of a knife. With a good glass you can read on their sterns the very apt and suitable names they bear : the Spider, the Sand- fly, the Serpent, and many more. There are forty of them in aU ; one which Prince George of Wales commands, racers all of them, all supposed to do their eighteen or twenty knots an hour, which they can sometimes in smooth water, not in rough, being then too much occupied in turning somersaults. Of other ships there are no less than fourteen classes ; three classes of battle-ships, three of cruisers, a single sloop, three gun-vessels, gunboats, and the rest. They lie in what to a landsman seems disorder ; though the lines are straight as pencil and ruler could draw them. Each two-mile-line is of mixed classes ; smart cruisers like the Aurora succeeding the torpedo boats, themselves succeeded by first-class battle-ships like the Howe, the Ajax — a brute, say the sailors — and the Rodney, at the far end toward the sea ; mere masses of wood and iron, a jumble of turrets and armoured decks and yawn- ing muzzles of sixty-ton guns, and black bulwarks ; officers moving to and fro in strange places, bluejackets usurping the quarter-deck, everything unlike what our boyish days beheld. The Teutonic dropped her anchor between the two curious chequerboard forts, painted in black and white squares, which guard, or are supposed to guard, the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. It was not long past one o'clock; the voyage A CHANNEL CRUISE. 407 from Liverpool had been performed in twenty-six hours un- der easy steam ; neither now nor on the return journey were all the fires lighted, or the engines asked to do all they could. An adventure befell us early Friday afternoon. As the Ex- mouth training brig sailed past, her deck crowded with boys, an officer was knocked overboard from the quarter-deck by the boom. A life buoy was flung him, to which he swam, but as he drifted down to us with the strong tide it was seen that he was losing strength fast, and a cry for help was heard. I stood on the upper deck amidship and the next thing I saw was the figure of a man plunging down into the water close under the stern. It was the first officer of the Teutonic, Mr. M'Kinstry, who had seen the peril, waited cool- ly till the drowning man had come near, then taken a header from the taffrail, thirty feet or so above the water, reached him, and held him up till the boats came and rescued both. A gallant dive, we aU thought, and Mr. Ismay told us this was the second time this officer had saved a life in the same way. The Emperor was timed to arrive at four o'clock. Long before that, the Solent was alive with yachts and steamships, all standing out to sea to meet him. The Prince of "Wales in one of the royal yachts was seen approaching soon after three. He, also, was curious about the Teutonic, and came slowly past. There was a glittering group on the upper deck of the Victoria and Albert, the Prince conspicuous in his Admiral's uniform, with a flat, white, gold-bordered cap. The two hundred boys of the Indefatigable whom we had on board were sent into the rigging, what there is of it — a pretty sight in their white sailor jackets and blue trousers — and cheered while their musical comrades played "God Save the Queen." The port-rail was a cluster of human beings, aU cheering, and all hats went off as the Prince went by. His white cap was lifted in recognition of this triple sa- lute, but only for a moment, for he was busy surveying the ship and her guests with his field-glass, and made out some 408 MISCELLANIES. faces, and nodded and told his suite and staff. So away he went, and left us for an hour nothing to do but to discuss him and his yacht, which all the knowing ones say is old- fashioned. Even a landsman can see that her high square stern is not of to-day. But it will be older stiU before any Minister musters courage to ask Parliament for a new one. She is the point of attraction for the moment ; a score of yachts are tacking past her, close aboard, and there is not an excursion steamer which does not give her fares a good look at the Prince. While she lies waiting for the arrival of the Emperor she is completely surrounded, and the loyal Briton seems quite as anxious for a stare at the Prince, whom he knows well, as at the Prince's nephew, whom few of them have ever seen. It is five o'clock when the imperial guest of England comes fairly within ken of a good glass; he and his fleet. They are visible in this clear air some miles away ; at first a confused cluster. Then, minute by minute, objects detach themselves from each other, and presently you become aware that the German Emperor is approaching English shores under the escort of his German fieet all in line abreast ; the two yachts, his own and the Prince's, also abreast, and a lit- tle ahead. It is a stately and splendid spectacle ; none finer to be seen. These ten or twelve great German ironclads keep their line abreast as true as if they were a German regiment moving up the Ilnter den Linden in parade order ; distances between the ships exactly equal; their speed the same to a turn of the screw. It is an escort worthy of an Emperor. As we lie there between the forts, looking out to sea, this mighty squadron bears straight down on us ; stretching from port to starboard perhaps half a mile, steaming slowly; seeming, so long as you do not glance back at that vast fleet behind us at anchor, as invincible as it is majestic. But while the Germans are yet a mile away to seaward a signal flutters up on the English Admiral's ship, and the Enghsh fleet begins saluting. There comes a rush of flame and A CHANNEL CRUISE. 409 white smoke, and a roar of guns all along the triple hne. I thought again of that sombre day in Berlin a year ago last March, when the old Emperor went to his grave ; then, too, English cannon in these same waters, as in many more dis- tant seas all over the globe, were heard in homage to a Ger- man Kaiser. The Teutonic had anchored almost in the pathway of this Imperial procession; so near that if the German ships had kept their formation in line abreast they would have passed both ahead and astern of the great steamer that lay broad- side to them. She was, in fact, in the exact spot where she ought to be. For an hour the German line was drawn across the horizon between us and the open sea ; Emperor and ships drawing steadily nearer and looming larger. Then, half a mile away, the order changed ; the ships fell into sin- gle column astern instead of abreast, and so passed under the quarter of the Teutonic not two cables' length away; the two yachts still leading and still abreast, neither taking precedence of the other. "We could see the Emperor in his English Admiral's uniform, and Prince Henry, his brother, and I thought I made out the tall figure of Count Herbert Bismarck. The ships Avere in full dress ; their bulwarks lined with sailors, marines drawn up on the decks. Sailors and ma- rines stood like statues, erect, stiff, immovable, and extremely German. IS.0 Enghsh bluejackets were ever quite so rigid as this ; it is not their way. Enghsh bulwarks, too, are lined, and English yards are manned, but with living figures, not bronze or marble like these singular visitors who bring with them, as it were, a manner more military than naval ; a hint of pipeclay, and of that ramrod which Heine long since said the Prussian soldier looked as if he had first been thrashed with and then swallowed. Thus heralded and thus attended, the Emperor moved on ; he and his ships in full view of the English fleet, itself in full view ; and they van- ished from our sight after passing the English lines, in the smoke of their own answering guns ; answering the guns of 410 MISCELLANIES. the fleet, I suppose, and saluting their hostess the Queen at Osborne. The dinner of ceremony on the Teutonic, in which the ship's health and her owners' healths were to be drunk, was fixed for the same Friday evening. Guests who were to come down from London were to join at six. It was eight before they came alongside, and we spent the interval in wondering whether the South Western Kailway had given up trying to get its trains through. However, to be not more than two hours late on that line is to be in good time, and WQ sat down a little before 8.30. " ~Eo dressing," was Mr. Ismay's order, so ladies appeared in every possible variety of costume, from the yachting cap and fascinating shirt and tailor-made gown to demi-toilette and, in one case, full even- ing undress. It was a pretty scene. Every seat in the saloon was filled and never, I think, was any ship's saloon thronged with a more interesting collection of people, nor ever in a more splendid setting. Of course there were speeches, not one of which am I in a position to ask you to read, nor would I if I could. Speeches, after-dinner speeches above aU others, are made to be heard, not read. "We hstened in a spirit of docility to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton, rather wondering that so great an official could make so genial a speech ; to Mr. Ismay, wondering again whether he had not missed an evident vocation for Parlia- ment and the platform; and to Mr. Graves, his partner, whose rhetoric was in a higher key than any other, and need- ed to be for he had to propose a toast in which Canada came before the United States and Sir Charles Tupper was sum- moned as a prelude to Mr. Chauncey Depew. Sir Charles felt the uncertainty of the situation and wait- ed for his American colleague, but the American was even more retiring than the Canadian, and Sir Charles had to rise first. He spoke gracefully, in the deprecatory, almost apolo- getic, tone of one who felt that his position was not easy. There was much curiosity to hear Mr. Depew, whose fame A CHANNEL CKUISE. 4II has preceded Mm but who had not, I think, spoken in Eng- land before that night. He chose to appear in his most humourous manner. During the first half of his discourse he was dry, sententious, quaint, pointed, deliberate, giving full time to his English audience to master this novel American appeal to their perceptive faculties. Every hit told, every phrase was finished ; the gravity of the speaker unrufiled while his hearers laughed ; nothing could have been better. If the speech had a fault, it was that Mr. Depew did not make allowance enough for the difference between English and American ; at moments he seemed hardly aware that his listeners and hosts were EngUsh ; even the scream of the National bird was once heard faintly. But what is to be ob- served is this, that no man spoke thereafter, either that night or at the speech-making luncheon with which we wound up three days later, without quoting Mr. Depew, or referring to him and his speech, or fathering some joke of his own on our American orator. That perhaps is the best compliment to be paid him. The next day was to be, for us, a day of disappointment. It was the day fixed for the Eeview, but neither Eeview nor Inspection was destined to occur. It proved to be an ugly morning of rain and wind and driving clouds, with plenty of sea running. The few yachts that had got under way were lying down to the breeze and the smaller ones rolhng heavi- ly, though the decks of the Teutonic were level. Would the Emperor venture out from Osborne? was the question which agitated us all the morning ; and the other question, whether we should stay where we were or go aboard the Admiralty yacht, the Enchantress, or the Tamar, the ship assigned to peers and diplomatists and lesser guests. Lord George Ham- ilton had asked a number of friends to the Enchantress. Mr. Depew and I had cards for the Tamar, and both these vessels would follow the royal yachts throughout the inspection, while the Teutonic remained at her anchorage. In the end, we elected to stay where we were, and when the Enchantress party came back after lunch with the news that the review 412 MISCELLANIES. had been put off, we did not think they had had the best of it. The postponement was, nevertheless, a mistake. The weather cleared toward five o'clock; there was no more rain, the sun came out, the sea was nothing, and it would have been just as well to avoid sending a hundred thousand people, half of whom had come from London, home dis- appointed. Those who, hke us, were safe on board a good ship and had no railway journey before us likely to take half the night, cared little. But the pubhc cared, and the public, which had been brought to Portsmouth from half over England, were entitled, we all thought, to a little more consideration, even had an Admiral or two, or even a Prince or even an Emperor, got a wet jacket or a taste of salt sea spray. On the Teutonic, as I said, we cared little, though we knew that to us postponement meant missing the spec- tacle altogether. Our ship was under engagement to sail for New York on the Wednesday, and could not tarry at Ports- mouth till the royalties thought the weather good enough. The wet and squally day passed quickly. There was always a dry lee deck under cover, and Mr. Ismay bethought him- self of a dance, and a dance there was after dinner, and the group of pretty Liverpool girls accepted the dance in full compensation for the inspection which they were not to see. One more incident, and I bring this long story to an end. The Teutonic, it appeared, was an object of Imperial as well as of popular curiosity. It was known that the German Emperor was to visit the ship. Mrs. Grundy, the British Mrs. Grundy who looks after sea as well as land, could not tolerate the notion of an official ceremony on Sunday but did not seem to care if a private tour of the squadron took place. So it was settled that the Emperor and the Prince of "Wales should come on board Sunday afternoon at three o'clock. All the early afternoon there was a flutter of pleas- ant expectation on the ship. Glasses were levelled at Os- borne ; the least sign of movement on shore or among the German fleet was noted ; in the groups that were always collecting and dispersing not much else was talked of. A CHANNEL CRUISE. 413 Alone amid this agitation the Captain of the Teutonw walked the deck with undisturbed composure. Said a passenger to him — " "Why are you not excited like the rest of us ?" " Well," answered the stout sailor, " God Almighty is not coming aboard." Three o'clock came and went and still no royal yacht was to be seen, nor was she visible till nearly half-past ; by which time remarks were to be heard about Imperial punctuality. The Alberta, a smaller and handier craft than the Osborne or the Victoria, brought the party. She slowed down on our port quarter, and lowered her steam-launch. The Ger- man Imperial standard is lowered from the masthead of the Alberta, and hoisted on the launch, which had to pick her course amid a crowd of boats too numerous for the one pohce-launch to clear out of the way. Lord George Ham- ilton had already arrived on the Teutonic to help receive these guests ; with him were Mr. and Mrs. Ismay, Mr. "Wolff, one of the builders, Captain Parsell, and others in a group by the port gangway. Eed cloth covered the rail and deck, and the Indefatigable boys were drawn up in a half-moon, while on the deck above were collected all that goodly company to whom the ship had been a home since last Thursday or Friday, and not a few friends besides, who had come off from Cowes or from their yachts. Yachting costume was the rule, for both women and men, but Sir Frederick Leigh- ton still wore his soft gray felt and Mr. Chamberlain thought it right to signify his new zeal for the Throne by donning a black frock coat and tall hat. There was among all the Teu- tonic party no other so loyal as he, if black frock coat and taU hat be indeed proofs of loyalty. The Emperor came up the steps first, the Prince of "Wales following close, and both were met with cheers and music, and saluted with the lifting of hats from the upper decks. The bluejackets stood with bare heads. Lord George bowed, Mr. Ismay bowed, Mrs. Ismay curtseyed. The Emperor just raised his white cap, and just bent his head, in response 414 MISCELLANIES. to all these obeisances. The Prince shook hands all round, as his custom is with those whom he knows and does not dislike. The ceremony on the main deck lasted but a moment. There were one or two other presentations, and another boat- load of non-uniformed notabilities arrived from the Alberta while the royal party still lingered by the gangway. Tlie inspection began at once, the whole suite following, but the word had gone round that others were to keep their places, and we did. Even Mr. Chamberlain did not stir. There was a long pause. The visit to the main and lower decks took a quarter of an hour or more ; then the Emperor and Prince and Mr. Ismay and Prince Henry of Prussia, and the rest, came up the companion-way amidships, and found them- selves all at once amid the three or four hundred men and women on the promenade deck. They came forward where most of these had assembled, knowing that the guns on the forecastle were sure to be looked at. Mr. Chauncey Depew was among the crowd ; in the rear of it, for Mr. Depew, like all Americans, is modest, and keeps in the background when he can. The Prince singled him out, went back a little to shake hands with him, and a brief dialogue occurred. " Fine ship, Mr. Depew." " Yes, sir ; Britannia rules the waves to-day." And the railroad man went on to intimate that she seemed likely to continue to do so. The Prince acquiesced in this view, and the relations between England and the United States, troubled for a moment by the seizures in Alaskan waters, are again excellent. "Wherever the Prince recog- nised a friend he shook hands with him ; sometimes sent for him ; sometimes talked for a minute or two ; once or twice presented some one to the Emperor. Lord Charles Beres- ford, Lord and Lady Claud Hamilton, Sir Frederick Leigh- ton, and many others, had these brief interviews. Our best look at the Emperor was to be had while he stood among us on the forecastle. He has grown stouter — or per- haps it is the English Admiral's uniform he wears which A CHANNEL CRUISE. 4^5 makes him look so— is, at any rate, thick-set, square-shoul- dered, deep-chested ; altogether a solid-looking young man, and his feet are planted solidly on deck ; the whole attitude soldier-like and not sailor-like, a soldier masquerading in sea- clothes. His left hand never leaves his sword hilt, which serves as a support to his shortened left arm. With the right he is gesturing to his staff as they examine the guns ; the gesture emphatic and expressive ; once or twice, I thought, expressive of impatience or, perhaps, of command. Evident- ly a peremptory person; swift and stern of speech, with clear notions that other persons, or at least other Germans, are here on this earth to do his bidding. The face is well- featured and strong; not quite handsome, but comely; all of a yellowish brown, till he lifts his cap, when you see the white forehead beneath. The long moustache is of yellow- ish brown, and so are the eyes, which look, as becomes an Emperor and other men, straight before him, and straight at you as he speaks to you. His glance is that of a soldier accustomed to keen inspec- tion of military details, seeing many things in a moment, with a sure perception of any speck or spot or button awry, or any other military iniquity. He looks at men as if he understood them and could read character when he thought it worth reading. The eyelids fall rather low in repose and are raised suddenly ; the eye beneath expands and wakes up and flashes if need be, and there is a gleam as of steel in the brown pupils. His whole soul is given to these guns ; they are new to him and those about him, and there is a rapid pulling of levers and opening and shutting of the breech and its machinery, till the imperial mind has taken it in complete- ly. Then he says to his staff, " We have no such gun as this ; see that we get one — and quick," a remark which, accord- ing to another witness, he made of the Teutonic herself and not merely of her guns. His bearing to those of his own party, though courteous externally, was so entirely that of a master as to recall the anecdote of Peter the Great of Russia, when he in his time 416 MISCELLANIES. came to England and visited an English man-of-war. He asked about punishments, and when he was told of keel- hauling, desired to see it in practice. It had to be respect- fully explained to his Imperial Majesty that there was not, at the time, any sailor on board who had become hable to this penalty. " Oh," said Peter, " that does not matter ; take one of my suite." And I found myself wondering which of these uniformed gentlemen the German Emperor would have told oflf for this service, had it occurred to him to wish it. But keelhauling is abolished. When the Emperor spoke to those not of his suite or race, he softened a little this austerity. To the English oificers. Sir Henry Ewart and others, in attendance upon him, he was amiable, they will tell you. " An out-and-out good fellow," said one of them. He had the same air of well-bred polite- ness to the officers of the company and of the ship. It was to be noticed, too, if you cared to look, that the attitude here maintained to the royalties was different from what is commonly seen on shore ; not less courteous but a shade less deferential. These men of the sea have a stiffer backbone than the landsmen. The officials of the White Star Line, or some of them, had the same civil independence of de- meanour. One I noticed in particular ; I should like to name him if I had asked his leave. He went over the ship in close com- pany with Emperor and Prince, and explained her to them as he had to her other guests ; in a clear, business-like, admi- rable way, in which the note of equality as from man to man was always to be heard. It could not have been better done but it was not in the manner of the customary courtier. A friend said to him — " You treat the Emperor and the Prince as if they were made of the same clay as the rest of us." " Yes, the Prince does his work well and I respect him, and I do my work, which is perhaps not less valuable than his, as well as I know how, and I respect myself too." If you can manage to guess who he is, you also will re- ■ A CHANNEL CRUISE. 417 spect him. He does not rate himself too high, nor could the most perfect tact have led him to adopt a tone better suited to the circumstances, or more acceptable to Emperor and Prince. They parted on the best of terms. The Emperor "who, as I said, shook hands with nobody on arriving, not with the First Lord of the Admiralty himself, shook hands heartily with Mr. Ismay on leaving. The name has slipped out unawares, and I will take the risk of letting it stand. This Imperial visit lasted perhaps an hour or more. The Emperor expressed to Mr. Ismay in strong terms his admi- ration of the ship ; the like of which neither he nor any one else had ever seen ; thanked him and so departed, amid the same pageantry and ceremonial and salutes as had greeted him when he came. The Prince of Wales was equally outspoken and cordial, or more so. As they stood in the gangway the Emperor motioned to the Prince to go first but the Prince held back, as if to give precedence to his Imperial nephew and visitor. A mistake in etiquette is the rarest thing in the world with him, but the naval rule is that the ofiicer of high- est rank leaves the deck last. Perhaps the Emperor knew best, or perhaps naval etiquette bends before Princes and Ger- man Emperors, and the gesture was but a meaningless civihty. Eightly or wrongly, down went the Emperor first and van- ished from sight, once more to reappear in the stern sheets of the smart steam-launch of the Alberta, and once again upon her decks, and then no more. Within half an hour of his going our anchor was up and we were oS. for Liverpool. II.— 37 THE PEIVATE SECRETARY. what he is and does ajstd me. e. "w. hamilton as me. Gladstone's chief of staff. [London, April 9, 1890.] Mk. E. "W". Hamilton "was formerly Mr. Gladstone's Pri- vate Secretary. He held that responsible post for some years, and if any man in England knows accurately and fully the inside history of one of the most important pe- riods of recent political history in England, it is Mr. Hamil- ton. A Prime Minister's Private Secretary is a kind of Deputy Prime Minister. He knows everything, and does a great deal ; is a sort of First Lieutenant to the Ship of State, and transacts no small part of that business which is done in the name of the commanding officer. He stands between the Prime Minister and the outside world — yes, and also some of the world which is not outside. Prime Ministers without Private Secretaries would be Mke a Gen- eral without a Staff. Mr. Hamilton was Chief of the Staff. It would be difficult in England to conceive of matters as working smoothly without the aid of these useful function- aries. Yet in Germany, or at any rate in Prussia, there was for a long time but a single Minister to whom Prussian thrift allowed so much as a single Private Secretary. An Enghsh Under-Secretary who had not a Private Secretary to himself would think himself hardly used. The Chancel- lor of the Exchequer has four. Yet there is a well-known definition, perhaps diplomatic in its origin and not depart- ■ mental, which describes a Private Secretary as one who has THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 4^9 somebody to write his letters for him. That was hardly true of Mr. Hamilton in the days when Mr. Gladstone used to receive 30,000 letters a year ; of which the Prime Minis- ter saw a certain proportion, read a certain other and lesser proportion, and answered in person a number smaller still. It would require an essay to set forth all the duties of this office ; like so many others in England, burdened with obli- gations and responsibilities far in excess of those implied by the mere name of it. In all countries there are, I imagine, private secretaries ; probably in no country so many as in England, and nowhere else intrusted with so much of the actual work of the office held by their chiefs, or brought so much into contact with the official and general world. Such a man must have tact, social gifts, power of continuous work, of getting up subjects, and of doing rapidly yet with preci- sion what he has to do ; entire familiarity with official busi- ness and with the world of men by whom it is done, and with the larger world which looks on while it is done. It is no light thing to determine who among the many visitors of each day shall see the Minister, and who may properly be content to have a brief interview with the secretary. It does not answer to make mistakes, whether in personal mat- ters or the writing of letters. There are letters which may be written by a secretary; others which must come from the Minister ; letters which may be in the third person and letters which must be in the first ; letters which may be in the handwriting of a secretary and signed by his chief ; oth- ers which must be penned from beginning to end by the chief. The variations are endless, and the art of saying the right thing in the right way is an art by itself ; and an art none too common. The structure of a sentence, the turn of a phrase, the happy use of a single word, the tone of a letter as a whole — what mighty issues may not turn on these niceties which so many people think it safe to neg- lect? The private secretary, at any rate, cannot neglect them. Mr. Hamilton was with Mr. Gladstone, I think, during the 420 MISCELLANIES. whole of his 1880 - 85 administration. During the first two years of this period Mr. Godley was his superior officer; during the rest Mr. Hamilton stood nearest to the Minister ; whose high opinion of his services is known. JSTevertheless, the Prime Minister left office in 1885 without appointing him to that office which is traditionally the reward of such services. He had a scruple ; some . departmental rule or custom stood in the way of his giving his friend what he thought due him. The Tories came in, and promptly cut the red tape; an act much to their credit when you con- sider that they did it for an opponent, and a great compli- ment to Mr. Hamilton, who thus returned to the Treasury, his proper official home, where he had been a clerk before Mr. Gladstone chose him to help govern the Empire. Not, however, to his old berth. He was promoted and decorated, and is now a C.B. and one of those Principal and Permar nent Clei'ks who carry on the financial business of this coun- try, with some casual and changing help from their Parlia- mentary chiefs. He still helps govern the Empire. The Treasury is, in fact, the Department which governs aU oth- er Departments ; controls their expenditure and so controls their policy. He was, I think, Mr. Goschen's right-hand man in that gigantic and most successful enterprise known as the Conversion of the Public Debt ; he has written a his- tory of it which is lucid and authoritative, and as interest- ing as any history of any financial matter can well be. He had much to do with the preparation of the Budget ; in other words, of the financial scheme of the year which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will present and expound to Parliament some day this month. So high is his reputation in his own Department that further promotion is no doubt in store for him. The Civil Service of this country being a Service and not a Temporary Hospital for invahd Politi- cians, the Treasury or the Foreign Office or any other of the great Departments offers an able man a career for life ; not a precarious employment for four years only. It may be, and often is, a very considerable and honourable career. THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 421 To be a clerk sounds humble ; in fact, the post may be a very great one, more powerful if not more conspicuous than that of the Parliamentary head of the office. Mr. Hamil- ton is not yet the permanent head of the Treasury but is likely enough to be some day. The present Permanent Sec- retary is Sir Eeginald Welby, K.C.B., a man of wide-reach- ing authority and ability. It is superfluous to describe him as a man of abihty ; he could not retain his present position if he were not a man of abihty, and of great knowledge and experience. He, too, has a private secretary. Social posi- tion, moreover, very commonly belongs to the men who hold these great official clerkships. Mr. Hamilton is one of those few men who know everybody and go everywhere and have a kind of social prestige difficult to describe, but beyond dis- pute. He came into this world some forty years ago, the son of a Bishop ; went to Eton and to Oxford, and has made the rest of his way in life by himself, as you see. Or rather, not by himself altogether, for such a man is always rich in friends and friendships and they in this country count for something. It will be a worse, not a better, day when they do not ; or when to belong to the Classes, as Mr. Gladstone calls them, shall disqualify a man for the public service. There is not, in fact, the least danger that any such day will ever come. The Classes are not in favour with Mr. Gladstone at this moment, nor he with them. They have declined to follow him, and whoever declines to foUow Mr. Gladstone when and where he is disposed to lead must expect to face a storm. Intelligence, culture, wealth, pohtical training, an authority which is more than lifelong and reaches back for centuries, may, nevertheless, hope to survive the displeasure of one man of great genius and of some impatience. Mr. Gladstone's invectives against the Classes are, after all, po- htical ; his hostility is not directed against the Classes as Classes, but against their stubbornness on one particular issue. Their devotion to the Act of Union and to the sal- vation of the United Kingdom in its present form brings 422 MISCELLANIES. down on them much the same kind of obloquy as enveloped the party, the great party, in the North, which from 1861 to 1865 stood for the Union of the American Republic and fought for it, and preserved and established for ever the fab- ric of the American Government. I do not know how I have been led into this political, or partly political digression. "What I had in mind to say was a single thing: that the recruitment in part of the Civil Service of this country from the Classes is of equal benefit to both ; and to the country at large. Mr. Hamilton, with whose name I make, perhaps, too free, seems to me an excel- lent example ; he is one of those men who help to bind all sections of the country together. Not belonging to any of the great governing families of England on the one hand, nor springing from the Masses on the other, nor, again, hav- ing any direct connection with the new Aristocracy of Fi- nance and Trade and Industry, he holds the position we have seen in the administration of the business of the Na- tion; a position of influence over all. As some singular notions about England prevail in various parts of the world, it is worth while to note that such a position now, more di- rectly than ever before, lies open to capacity and character ; just as social position is the natural reward of agreeableness of character. SAMUEL PEPYS. HIS MEMOEIAL IN ST. OLAVE's. MB. LOWELl's EULO&T. [London, March 19, 1884.] The heaviest penalty, said Mr. Lowell, now laid upon de- parted greatness is a statue. No doubt lie had in his mind's eye some of the recent London monuments to buried merit raised. The memorial to Pepys, in unveihng which our Min- ister made this remark, is, as he said, a mitigated burden upon the dead man whom it is meant to honour. There was no very urgent reason why Pepys should have a mural tablet set up over against his grave. His Diary is his best monument. However, it happens that the immortal gossip lies buried in the Church of St. Olave — a saint borrowed out of the Scandinavian calendar— and St. Olave has a rector of restless mind, and hence the memorial and the ceremony of yesterday. As Pepys had been Secretary to the JSTavy, the First Lord of the Admiralty was asked to make the chief speech, and consented. And as Pepys had furthermore writ- ten a Diary which his eulogist of yesterday described as de- void of literary merit, it was deemed right that one of the first living men of letters should make a second speech, and the invitation sent to Mr. Lowell was accepted. It happened, however, that Lord Northbrook could not come, and it was left to Mr. Lowell to represent the Eoyal Navy and the world of letters as well. The Kector of St. Olave's is a man for whom the Church ouo^ht to do something. It may be said of him that he mag- nifies his ofiice ; which is a good enough reason for giving 424 MISCELLANIES. him a better. He asked us to his church to listen to ad- dresses by Lord Northbrook and Mr. Lowell. The cards of invitation bore no hint of any other performance, but the Eector was good enough to begin the proceedings with the morning service of the Church of England. The memorial to Pepys may be said to have been not only " inaugurated," but consecrated. Pepys would probably have liked this. He used to go pretty regularly to church, and spend his time in looking about him for pretty women. He would have look- ed in vain yesterday. Of women there was no lack, but that truthfulness which the stern moralist insists on putting before politeness forbids one to say they were pretty. Pepys, however, would have seen other men looking at each other in some bewilderment at the exercises of religion going on about them on this week-day afternoon in streaming Lon- don's central roar. St. Olave's is one of many churches left stranded in the city. You enter it by a court bounded on two sides by warehouses, on the third by a lane leading out of Hart Street, which leads out of Mark Lane, one of the most famous business streets of London. One ought not to censure the Eev. Mr. Povah too harshly. He has been twenty-three year,s Rector of St. Olave's, and this was per- haps the first time he had seen his church filled. The temp- tation was irresistible. Pepys would have seen, moreover, the master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, the college to which he bequeathed the library he was so proud of, and by which he was best kept in remembrance tiU sixty years ago when his Diary was first deciphered and published. He would have seen the Deputy Master of Trinity House, of which he was an Elder Brother in his day. He would have seen the Master and Wardens of the Clothworkers' Company — mindful of the fact that Pepys had himself been master of that once worshipful organisation — wearing the fur-trim- med gowns which, I suppose, were worn in Pepys's time. He would have seen the Comptroller of the Household of the Duke of Edinburgh, side by side with the Envoy of a Ee- public the existence of which could not easily be explained SAMUEL PEPTS. 425 to the man in whose honour he was there. Prayers over, the Kector quitted his desk and took up a position in front of the choir, and made us a speech of his own. He related in a spirit of frank egotism his connection with the memo- rial ; how he had proposed it twenty years ago, and let it drop and taken it up again. After a while he stopped and Mr. Lowell was asked to begin. Mr. Lowell began, you perceive, under the double depres- sion of Lord Northbrook's absence and of the religious solem- nity which had just been transacted in his own presence. He is so practised a speaker that his embarrassment, if it existed, was concealed from everybody but himself. He read a letter from Lord Northbrook explaining that nothing but urgent business could have kept him away, and saying how anxious he was to give his testimony to the merits of Pepys as an Admiralty official; merits which he believed to be fairly stated in a contemporary account which he inclosed. Mr. Lowell did not know whether the account had been in print, nor who was the author of it; which makes it the better worth quoting : — Pepys was, without exception, the greatest and most useful Minis- ter that ever filled the same situations in England, the acts and reg- isters of the Admiralty proving this beyond contradiction. The prin- cipal rules and establishments in present use in these offices are well known to have been "of his introducing, and most of the offi- cers serving therein since the Eestoration of his bringing up. He was a most studious reporter and strenuous asserter of order and discipline. Sobriety, diligence, capacity, loyalty, and subjection to command were essentials required in all whom he advanced. Where any of these were found wanting, no interest or authority was capa- ble of moving him in favour of the highest pretender. Discharging his duty to his Prince and country with a religious application and perfect integrity, he feared no one, courted no one, and neglected his own fortune. Not the least interesting point in this striking testimony is that it should be accepted as true by Lord E"orthbrook, an able man of business in a Ministry exceptionally strong 426 MISCELLANIES. in able men of business. He is the present head of the great department with which Pepys was connected, and his opinion is decisive. It is none the less interesting to add that down to this day many of the forms and papers in use at the Ad- miralty are of Pepys's devising. He found the administra- tion of the navy a chaos. He left it an ordered and settled establishment of business. "When, however, Mr. Lowell came to the literary side of Pepys's character and fame, considering Pepys as the diarist whom the world knows, he seemed, if one may say so, afraid of his own liking for him. He laid the foundations of his final eulogy in an elaborate disparagement of the man and of the writer. He described him as the very type of what we now call a Philistine. He enumerated with pitiless particu- larity all the charges against him which can be collected out of his own confessions. He did a more cruel thing than that, for he quoted from the index to Mr. Wheatley's Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In the list of Pepys's offences as seen through Mr. Wheatley's spectacles. This makes it excusable for an old admirer of Pepys to interpose. I must say that I doubt whether Mr. Lowell, who knows the Diary almost by heart, has read Mr. Wheatley's book about it. There is no reason why he should have read it. The book is one of those short cuts to knowledge, meant for the busy or idle reader of these hasty days who thinks he has no time for literature in its full form and measure. It is put together in great part with scissors and paste. It is not an intelligent account of Pepys, nor sympathetic, nor accurate, nor literary. Mr. Wheatley's summary of Pepys's character, from the index to which Mr. Lowell borrowed his depreciatory titles, is more Philistine than anything in the Diary itself. This biographer's idea of serving up character is — he avows it himself — to make a catalogue of his victim's qualities, " giv- ing the bad ones first and then enumerating the good ones as a set-off." It is a purely mechanical process, of which the results are set forth in the index to which Mr. Lowell too trustfully betook himself. Mr. Wheatley ties a string of SAMUEL PEPYS. 427 adjectives to Pepys's name : " He was vain, ignorant, cred- ulous, and superstitious," — he was mean, he was generous, he was unfaithful to his wife, he was a coward, and so on. He says his charges against Pepys can be proved to be true. His idea of the nature of proof may be deduced from two instances. Pepys is to go down to posterity as a coward be- cause he once kicked a cook-maid. He is to be thought ig- norant of history because he expected to find an account of England's dominion on the sea in Domesday Book. This last is not a very formidable instance in itself, but if you turn to the passage in the Diary (December 21, 1661) you will find that after dinner, when " all very merry," Pepys " spoke to Mr. Falconberge to look whether he could out of Domesday Book give me anything concerning the sea and the dominion thereof." As the book existed only in manuscript, and was not printed till eighty years after Pepys's death, it is a little hard to found a general accusation of ignorance on the fact that Pepys asked somebody to look whether he could not find something in the manuscript not known to be there. When Mr. LoweU had once parted company with Mr. Wheatley his analysis of Pepys became just, and his account of the strange magnetism of the book, and of the affection all his readers have for Pepys, was in his best manner. He describes his narrative of those eventful ten years as a de- lightful picture, " or rather " (and the qualification is a pleas- ant example of Mr. Lowell's discrimination), " he left behind him the power in our hands of drawing for ourselves some of the most delightful pictures of the time in which he lived." In affirming that there is no book hke the Diary, Mr. Lowell but echoes the general verdict. I do not quite follow him in his doubt whether Pepys meant his Diary to be some day given to the world. The fact that he inadvertently left among his papers a key to the cipher in which his story of King Charles's escape was written (long after), is a slender support for such a doubt. The Diary was in more ciphers than one, and the pains that Pepys took to vary his " charac- ter " were endless. But the Diary itself, with its otherwise 428 MISCELLANIES. incredible frankness, will probably seem to most men, here- after as hitherto, the best proof that its author excluded from his own mind every thought of publicity. What Mr. Lowell calls the absolute sincerity of Pepys with himself is a sufficient refutation of this conjecture. " No imaginative faculty in Pepys !" cries his biographer. " If he had had the imaginative faculty," retorts Mr. Lowell with apt humour, " he could not have faced his own Diary." But then Mr. Lowell himself will not allow to Pepys's writ- ings any literary quality. Certain it is that Pepys's style is but too often slovenly, involved, cumbrous, slipshod, ungram- matical. It was largely the style of the period. It was also the style of a man setting down hurriedly (he often speaks of his hurry) the facts of the day's history for his own future reading and recollection, and for nobody's else. Not many men are careful of mere form in their notebooks and journals. Pepys, moreover, had but an imperfect ap- preciation of literature. His criticisms on books are often grotesque. If he had taken all the pains in the world with his writing, the average might not have been high. And yet from time to time his pages of famihar chat with him- self are illuminated by sentences of a force and solidity and pregnant directness of speech which the most literary of authors in these days might be glad to claim as their own. If Mr. Lowell seems exacting on such points as these, his general recognition of Pepys's merits is nevertheless ample and cordial. " If I were asked," said he, " what were the reasons for liking Pepys, I should be disposed to answer that they were as numerous as the days on which he made entries in his Diary." The value of his book, he said again, is simply priceless, and whatever weight be attached to the charges against the man, the tribute Mr. Lowell paid him was a tribute of affection. His eulogy outweighs a thou- sand times the passing memory of Pepys's peccadilloes. The chief thing to regret is that it was not in writing, and is nowhere well reported. I should like to add to it what I once heard Emerson say : " Bead Pepys ; it is the best his- SAMUEL PEPYS. 429 tory of England extant." The Philistine may remonstrate against such a judgment, and it is true he could no more find the long records of English reigns and Enghsh Parlia- ments in Pepys than Pepys found in Domesday Book the account he wanted of the dominion of the sea. But he would find what Emerson meant him to find ; the most mi- nute, most lifelike, most delightful record in existence of the life lived by the people of England, high and low, during ten years of the period when Pepys himself lived. There is some variety of opinion as to the right pronun- ciation of Pepys. It is commonly pronounced in London as if written Peps. Mr. "Wheatley tells us that in the lifetime of the diarist it was pronounced as if written Peeps, and that living members of the family give it the same sound. Mr. Lowell, with diplomatic impartiality, called it at times Peeps, and then Peps, and presently Peeps again, which was once more followed by Peps. Perhaps it does not much signify but usage in. such matters is the only law, and the present usage in England is certainly to say Peps. There is, I sup- pose, no reason why citizens of an independent republic should not pronounce the name each in his own fashion. ON BOOKS. [London, March 25, 1890.] The real interest of Mr. Gladstone's article on Books in the Nineteenth Century is not perhaps in its mechanical dis- cussion of the Housing of Them, but in what he says of Eooks themselves. As to the Housing, he has been contra- dicted, and contradicted on a matter which must go to his heart. He computed that a room 40 feet by 20 feet ar- ranged on his system will hold 20,000 volumes. Not so, says Mr. Cowper Eanyard, but only 8000. Mr. Gladstone is a financier and therefore famiUar with figures, and if he has made such a mistake as this it is remarkable. Perhaps he will favour Mr. Eanyard with a reply. It was, however, understood that Mr. Gladstone's account was not so much theoretical as descriptive ; not merely an estimate of what such a room might hold but a statement of what an exist- ing library actually does hold. On any other theory his paper lacks practical interest for the majority of book-own- ers. The majority of book-owners have not at their disposal a room 40 feet by 20 feet, and in a room of less size Mr. Gladstone's plan of setting cases at right angles to the walls would not answer. It would encumber the room and reduce it to that warehouse condition which Mr. Gladstone admits to be inconsistent with the notion of a library. His treatment of this part of his subject is, at best, utilitarian. ON BOOKS. 431 But the owner of books who is not also owner of a room 40 feet by 20 feet — what is he to do? What does Mr. Grladstone himself do in one of those town houses which he takes by the season ; often of modest dimensions ? "Within strict limitations of space, and under the necessity of dis- tributing your books through many rooms and cases, how are you to classify ? It is to be said that on this question of classification and arrangement, what Mr. Grladstone urges is much too vague to be useful. He tacitly admits that he is in presence of an insoluble problem. His one best dictum is put hypothetically — whether the arrangement of a hbrary ought not in some degree to correspond with and represent the mind of the man who forms it ? The library itself does, be the arrangement what it may. But a man who uses his books will arrange them for his own oouTenience ; with or without system or classification, as the case may be. If it be his fate to use a pen, and to use it upon many topics, he wiU surround himself first with books of reference, and sec- ondly with those books to which he turns most often for in- spiration of whatever kind. There is a |)assage in ISTicoU's Life of Macdonell which may serve as a hint to many a younger journalist than he. MacdoneU wrote usually with- out a break, but " sometimes he would get up, walk to the bookshelves, take down a volume and read a favourite pas- sage, sometimes aloud, sometimes to himself. He said a fine piece of prose from De Quincey, or Heine, or Euskin, or Landor, or Newman refreshed him." Curious how mod- ern the list is, but the habit was a good one, and he who practises it must have his authors within reach. He will probably have two or three of them on his writing-table. He will have others in other rooms of his house, and many others. For it is a radical fault in Mr. Gladstone's scheme that he assumes, or appears to assume, that aU. the books of a house- hold are to be assembled in a single room, which is not only to be called the library but is to have a monopoly. There are to be books here and nowhere else. It is a scheme which 432 MISCELLANIES. may be defensible for a country house, though there are country houses where the hbrary consists not of one room but of a whole series of rooms. The finest private library in England, the Althorp library, occupies almost the whole of the ground-floor. The Sunderland library was in a single room — a room nearly 200 feet long by only 30 feet broad — but where now is the Sunderland library ? It has endured that hard fate of dispersion which the Althorp, spite of some rumours to the contrary, is happily to be spared ; happily for its owner and happily for the public, and happily for ev- erybody but the covetous collector — all collectors are covet- ous — who has so long had his eye on one or another of its quite incomparable treasures. But these are not instances to the purpose. We are considering the humble book-lover with a small house and a few thousand volumes, and no one room in which they can all be stored. I think him so much the better off. He looks for society in his books, as Mr. Gladstone says, and he has their society everywhere beneath his roof, not in one room only. At times, Mr. Gladstone speaks of books with something of the enthusiasm of the true collector, or if it be not enthu- siasm it sounds hke sympathy. It is, nevertheless, doubtful whether he cares very much for books otherwise than for the purposes, of reading. There is not much in this article, or in any writing of his which I can recall to mind, to show that he possesses any special knowledge of books from the collector's point of view. Curiosities like the diamond edi- tions of the late Mr. Pickering or the miniature prayer-books of Mr. Frowde amuse him. Nay, he miakes a remark on one of them which is almost humourous. Pickering's Dante, says Mr. Gladstone, weighs less than a number of The Times.. With these exceptions, his thirteen pages might have been written by one to whom books are precious only for what they contain, and not for their rarity, or for their beauty, or for having belonged to famous owners, or for being original editions, or for any other of the many reasons which make many volumes dear to the true lover of books, in addition to, ON BOOKS. 433 and sometimes independently of, their literary worth. You cannot read a page of Mr. Andrew Lang's Library without seeing and feeling that Mr. Andrew Lang's appreciation of his printed possessions is more various and comprehensive than Mr. Gladstone's ; that Mr. Lang is a collector and that Mr. Gladstone is not. The truth of your perception will in no way be affected by the fact that Mr. Gladstone owns probably five times or ten times as many volumes as Mr. Lang. Each of them is an omnivorous reader. Mr. Lang can read Mr. Eider Haggard, and Mr. Gladstone can read anything. But Mr. Lang has sources of delight in his books on which Mr. Gladstone has never cared to draw. We ought to recollect, says the veteran, that a book con- sists, like man from whom it draws its lineage, of a boliy and a soul. It would have been a good remark had he not spoilt it by insisting that it is true of every book. There are so many books — nay, the great majority — which have neither body nor soul ; Avhich are not well written, nor well printed, nor well bound, and which have no right to exist, still less any right to be spoken of with respect, or to be in- cluded in any such generality as Mr. Gladstone gives us. It is this very indiscriminateness in his admirations which makes his testimony of such value on certain points. He is a utilitarian, but he never could have regarded printed books as Darwin did. There is a horrible passage in one of Dar- win's letters in which he describes himself as tearing in two a volume which he found inconveniently heavy. The book was not thus rent asunder with any thought of its parts be- ing reunited or bound ; it was left in fragments ; its dismem- berment was for ever, and there was no mitigating circum- stance in the barbarity of the act of the great naturalist. Yet even Mr. Gladstone is capable of proposing to pack his books upon shelves so constructed as to allow neither light nor air. He says "twelve inches is a fair and liberal depth for octavos," and he allows but nine inches for the average height of octavo shelving. This is to construct, not a Ubra- ry, nor even a warehouse for books, but a prison. II. -28 434 MISCELLANIES. The practical man, therefore, may claim Mr. Gladstone as a witness on his side ; I mean the man who esteems himseK practical, but is not. So much the more weighty is every word of testimony on the other side which can be extracted from this, as it were, unwiUing witness. He has, amid all his hard good sense, gleams of that love of the beautiful for its own sake, of which the utilitarian pure and simple has none. You may think him often wrong ; you can never think him commonplace. He protests with the ardour of genuine conviction against some of the commoner forms of vulgar errors about books. He would not have a costly bind- ing imposed, to use his own word, upon letter-press which is respectable journeyman's work and nothing more ; and he has the courage in him — with his devotion to whatever is ecclesiastical it is considerable — to name Bibles and books of devotion as examples. " The binding of a book," he contin- ues, " is the dress with which it walks out into the world. The paper, type, and ink are the body in which its soul is transcribed, and these three, soul, body, and habiliment, are a triad which ought to be adjusted to one another by the laws of harmony and good sense." It is less easy to follow him when he says that noble works ought not to be printed in mean and worthless forms, and that cheapness ought to be limited by an instinctive sense and law of fitness. If it were possible or practicable this doctrine might be thought sound, but what chance has it of being followed in these democratic days ? Cheapness and good printing do not go together. Are there to be no cheap Shakespeares ? Must the cheapness of the Bible be limited by an instinctive sense and law of fitness ? The greatest novel of the last two generations, if not the greatest in all English literature. Vanity Fair, has just been issued at a shilling. Would Mr. Gladstone confine the reader of fiction to the " shocker " or the " dreadful " at the same price ? He complains, and is right in complaining, that new books are too often issued at prices fabulously high. He sees that the effect of this system has been in England to drive buyers ON BOOKS. 436 out of the market ; they go to the circulating library and become borrowers instead of buyers ; with results not pleas- ant to consider. But Mr. Gladstone's remark is in the spirit of the Scotch clergyman who paid £4000 for a copy of the Mazarine Bible. Remonstrated with on his extravagance by a pious but thrifty parishioner, he answered, " Can any price be too high for the Word of God ?" We cannot, how- ever, all be Scotch clergymen. II. WITH FtTETHEE NOTES ON ME. GLADSTONE AND OTHEE BOOK- LOVEES. [London, March 26, 1890.] If Mr. Gladstone could be induced to read a page or two of ati author so frivolous as M. Alexandre Dumas the young- er, he would find a very good account in a very short space of the modern passion for book-collecting. I ask M. Dumas's pardon for calling him frivolous ; the word is not applicable to him, but I use it as I apprehend Mr. Gladstone might use it. Everything now seems frivolous to him which has not some obvious relation to the matter of Home Rule for Ire- land. M. Dumas, it is true, is the first of living dramatists, and something more. But if Mr. Gladstone could unbend so far as to discuss in the periodical press the proper dimen- sions of shelving for octavos, M. Dumas may be thought wor- thy of notice when he philosophises on that singular aberra- tion of the human mind which leads a considerable number of persons to regard books, primariljr, as bric-a-brac. True, Mr. Gladstone's lucubrations on libraries are of yes- terday, and M. Dumas's pages are fifteen years old, but to have lived fifteen years is not, after all, a demerit in a writ- ten composition. What the Frenchman had to say on this subject is to be found in his preface to a book Avhich the great Englishman probably never read, Manon Lesoaut. He 4:36 MISCELLANIES. might call it a damnable book. It is, nevertheless, in its kind, one of the masterpieces of French literature, and it is also a great favourite with the collector. The first edition ■was worth thirty guineas when M. Dumas wrote ; may soon, he thinks, be quoted at forty. It is doubtful whether M. Dumas was not referring to the first illustrated edition in two vols., 12mo, Amsterdam, 1753, a copy of which was sold in 1881 for nearly four times that sum. But why is it, asks he, that a book which a hundred years ago cost but ten francs should fetch a thousand francs to-day, while an edi- tion of a classic ten years old pubhshed at fifty francs can be had now for five sous ? The answer is cynical, but has truth enough in it to he worth Mr. Gladstone's considering. It is perfectly simple, says M. Dumas. As books are no longer read, whether in one edition or another, people naturally buy only those edi- tions which have become rarities or curiosities. " They buy the old editions because they are dear, and the new editions are cheap because they are not bought." There is sopie- thing in that which Swift would have hked ; Swift, who wrote of one of his own books to Stella : " Like a true author, I grow fond of it because it does not sell." The millionaire of to-day, says M. Dumas, has found a new way of spending his millions. It no longer suffices to be the possessor of a fine house, of carriages and horses, of a good cook, and of good pictures. He must be able to show his friends old por- celain and old furniture, old snuff-boxes, which belonged, if you believe the dealer, to Marie Antoinette or Madame de Pompadour, and original editions in the binding of the pe- riod. The millionaire of to-day, in short, without a collec- tion of some sort is not a millionaire, he is only a money- bags. The nobility of modern wealth dates from the day he began his collection ; that is the parchment deed of the parvenu. Mr. Gladstone would probably treat this variety of the species, to which he half imagines he himself belongs, with but scant respect ; nor does he deserve respect. He who ON BOOKS. 437 buys from ostentation is no true lover of books. Dr. John- son's rule for reading is also the rule for buying. Let him buy what he likes. His taste may or may not be correct, but time and experience will reform it ; at a cost which may surprise him. Meanwhile, he will have a good deal of pleas- ure, and he may even put on his shelves a book or two not altogether worthless. Charles Sumner, in the days long since when we wandered about Paris together, showed me one evening a httle parcel of books that he had bought. One of them was a worthless old volume in a costly modern bind- ing — the binding really fine had it only been on the right book. " "What you say is quite true," replied Sumner, " but it gives me pleasure and why should I not have it ?" An- swer to that there was none. He and Mr. Gladstone would, I daresay, have agreed. As I look over Mr. Gladstone's article again, sentences stand out from it which denote a truly admirable affection for his books; admirable whether the books deserve it or not. He assumes, he tells us, that his book-lover is one whose love is a tenacious, not a transitory love. He asks what man who really loves his books delegates to any other human being, as long as there is breath in his body, the office of in- ducting them into their homes. He disposes with a passing anathema of all such as would endeavour to solve their prob- lem or compromise their difficulties by setting one row of books in front of another. The library " must be dusted, must be arranged, should be catalogued. "What a vista of toil, yet not unhappy toil !" And there are other tender ex- pressions not unworthy to have come from a veritable col- lector. Yet Mr. Gladstone's innumerable American admirers and friends will not grieve to hear that what he says about books in their spiritual life is better said than all which relates to their material condition and environment. There are moments, or there is one moment, when his enthusiasm for them has proved potent enough to clarify his style; which, under this strange spell, becomes for this one moment 438 MISCELLANIES. almost epigrammatic. Seldom indeed does tlie great debater care to put his thoughts into portable form, or to give them that last pohsh of phrase which makes them quotable and memorable. There is, perhaps, nothing very novel in the thought of this passage; it is the form of it -which is so novel. " Books are the voices of the dead. They are a main in- strument of communion with the vast human procession of the other world. They are the allies of the thought of man. They are, in a certain sense, at enmity with the world. Their work is, at least, in the two higher compartments of our threefold life. In a room well fiUed with them, no one has felt or can feel solitary." Take those terse sentences out of their setting, and who would suppose they were by the author of Church and State, or of the last speech on Ireland ? "JSTo eulogy can be permitted me on books," he writes. "Why ? For the odd reason that they alrea,dy draw their tes- timonials from Cicero and Macaulay. The two passages from those two authors to which he refers in a foot-note re- late neither of them, in strictness, to books. Macaulay's is the well-known page in the beginning of the essay on Ba- con ; a panegyric upon authors, or upon the great minds of former ages ; rhetorical, artificial, laborious, its genuineness of feeling overlaid with ornament. Cicero's, in the oration for Archias, is a eulogy upon the pursuits of learning ; Ma- caulay has modelled part of his upon it. Both are famous passages but both together need not have fettered Mr. Glad- stone's tongue ; nor did they. Far more to his purpose would have been Milton's stately sentences out of the Areopagitica, which he, like everybody else, knows by heart. Burke's advice, in a letter to his son, may be less familiar, and has at least as much to do with books as either of the two which Mr. Gladstone names: " Reading and much reading is good. But the power of di- versifying the matter infinitely in yourjjwfn mind, and of applying it to every occasion that arises, is far better." Or, ON BOOKS. 439 if praise of reading is to pass as praise of books, what finer outburst than Gibbon's about his early and invincible love of reading, which he would not exchange for all the treas- ures of the Indies ? Perhaps the most sweeping of all en- comiums is Voltaire's : " I know many books which are tire- some. I know of not one which has ever done any real harm." If the old-fashioned hatred of the clergy to Vol- taire survives in any part of America, some of our clerical friends would make haste to answer that he himself is the refutation of his own dictum. Voltaire, at any rate, and in spite of the seventy volumes which are needed to comprise all he wrote, survives and will long survive. He, too, left one of those sayings which denote the true lover of books : " In closing a good book I feel as if I were losing a good friend." M. Dumas has gone a step beyond even Voltaire : II Tuy a de livres malsains que les Iwres mal fails, — a sen- tence which anybody who thinks it easy to preserve in Eng- lish the antithesis of the French may try his hand at trans- lating. He has himself supplied the needful and perhaps much-needed gloss on this daring text, adding that a master- piece is never dangerous, and is. always useful; "the whole secret is to know how to read it." Or, if our clerical friends reject Voltaire and Dumas, they may still listen to "Words- worth, and share his firm faith that books are a substantial world, pure and good, round which our pastime and our hap- piness will grow. The day of encyclopeedic learning, in Mr. Gladstone's be- lief, has gone by ; that sun set, he thinks, with Leibnitz. It seems an odd remark, if you consider that Leibnitz died in 1716, and that Diderot and d'Alembert did not publish the first volume of their great work till 1Y61. If Mr. Gladstone had in mind Bacon's saying, that he took all knowledge to be his province, the saying may be applied to others later than Leibnitz. Perhaps Lord Acton, to whom Mr. Glad- stone refers as the most effective and retentive reader among living Englishmen, might deserve to have his learning called encyclopaedic. Mr. Gladstone himself is encyclopaedic in at 440 MISCELLANIES. least this sense, that there have been, and still are, few de- partments of human knowledge which have not had the power of interesting him, and few subjects on which he is not ready to talk or write. He is as much at home among books as among the two groups of Liberals who once fol- lowed him in the House of Commons. Nay, he is more so. It is pleasant to think of the Parliamentary leader in a scene remote from Parliamentary wrangles. There are no Conserv- atives and no Radicals in that thronged library at Hawar- den ; only that company of the great dead Avith whom he communes at will. Cicero murmurs again in the ear of his modern rival his most musical periods. The austere gaze of Dante softens as it turns upon the Englishman who helped found an Italy of which the great Florentine never dreamed. Burke has a grim smile for the Tory who has avenged him on Pitt. And the benignant genius of all the literature of all times fills the very air which the statesman-student breathes. III. LOED EOSEBEEY ON THE EIGHT USE OF THEM. [London, March 29, 1890.] Following Mr. Gladstone's example. Lord Eosebery has been discoursing on books ; not, however, in a magazine or review, as is the manner of his chief, but to a meeting held in celebration of the opening of the new Battersea Library. As Lord Eosebery buys books and reads them, what he says on the subject is worth attending to. He began, neverthe- less, with a remark which few men who care for books will be likely to agree with. I quote it in full : — " The other day I was in a famous library — the most fa- mous library perhaps in the world — and I was placed in a room which contained all the choicest books in that library. There were all the broad margins and the vellum leaves and the historical bindings. There were the Aldines, and the ON BOOKS. 441 Oaxtons, and the first editions of the classics. There was everything that was most valuable and most sumptuous in the hook world, but I could not help reflecting that there was one thing wanting to give it real value as a working collection — something which would have been unutterably odious to the lover of these rare books, but which in these days is the real stamp, and the only stamp, of celebrity for literature — the thumb-mark of the artisan." There is something in that which fills the mind with ter- ror. Is this to be the result of the democratic and levelling spirit of the age ? The library of which Lord Eosebery is speaking is the Althorp Library, and he does not speak of it too highly. It is a matchless collection of books — match- less among private collections. It contains as many rare books, probably, as did the Sunderland Library, and unhke the Sunderland books the treasures of Althorp are in fine condition. Condition, almost as much as rarity, is a measure of value. But what, I ask Lord Eosebery, would be the con- dition of these precious volumes if they were adorned as he would have them, with the thumb-mark of the artisan? Whether he uses the phrase literally or metaphorically mat- ters nothing ; the result is the same ; it implies a misconcep- tion of the true purpose and function of such a library as Lord Spencer's. Lord Eosebery is incapable of such a mis- conception, but the Battersea artisans who listened to him are quite capable of it. They are even capable of taking the thamb-mark literally. Lord Eosebery is a Trustee of the British Museum. How would he relish a proposal that the locked glass cases of the King's Library in the British Museum should be thrown open, and each artisan left free to imprint his individual thumb-mark on their contents? "We may be quite sure he would resist such a proposal. The artisan would gain noth- ing, and the Museum and the world would soon lose some of their most beautiful and admirable possessions. The Muse- um guards its jewels jealously ; so does Lord Spencer his Al- thorp ; most rightly in both cases. So does the Lenox Library 442 MISCELLANIES. iti 'New York ; so does every great library in the world. The Bibliotheque Rationale at Paris is perhaps the most liberal of all in its rules and in its trustfulness of the public. But I should like to see the face of its accomplished and most cour- teous Director if it were proposed to him to allow general access to the missals and incunabula which enrich the most secret cloisters of the Rue Vivienne. Of two things, one. It is either worth while to preserve the loveliest and most ancient examples of the art of the printer, the illuminator, the binder, or it is not. If Lord Eosebery is ready to maintain that it is not, he may justify his very dangerous hint about the thumb-mark of the artisan. I know very well he will not maintain it, and the only al- ternative is to admit and to insist that these monuments of arts, some of which are lost and the rest now but imperfectly practised, shall be preserved under the strictest watch and entirely protected from thumb-marks, whether of the artisan or the millionaire. IV. THE EEADING OF THEM. THE THUMB-MAEK OF THE AETISAIT. [London, June 14, 1890.] Simultaneously with the opening of the Carnegie Library at Edinburgh comes one of those too frequent protests against all public libraries which sundrj'' Britons delight in making. There is still in this country a considerable class of persons who are opposed to educating the masses. They prefer their masters should be ignorant. They tell you that if facilities for culture are given, they are not improved ; neither the fa- cilities nor the masses. There are clergymen who think this attitude of opposition a useful one, and the Eeverend Dan Greatorex, who dates from St. Paul's Yicarage, Dock Street, London Docks, is one of them. He has been making a col- lection of statistics ; that, also, is an occupation in which this clerical mind finds pleasure. ON BOOKS. 44.3 He has studied the library question in Wolverhampton, ia Bolton, in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Sheffield, and in Liverpool. The results are rather curious. The whole issue of books from the public libraries of these six towns for the year 1887-88 reached the respectable number of 1,602,463 volumes. Out of this respectable total there were 1,282,741 volumes of fiction, leaving but 319,722 for all other kinds of literature.. Mr. Greatorex, to whom the reading of fiction appears to be an abomination, divides all hterature into two classes ; or perhaps three. Fiction and books of instruction are his two chief heads; the third being magazines. But though there are three, the antithesis is maintained, and fic- tion is clearly not, to his mind, instructive. Or to put it a little differently, all books are books of instruction except novels ; even sermons seemed to be classed as instructive. Then he sums up, in a fine critical and clerical spirit : " I make no comments. I leave your readers to form their own opinion as to the value of free libraries." That is a hand- some concession and Mr. Greatorex can hardly blame his readers if they avail themselves of it; even should their opinion prove to be a different one from his own. There are, indeed, readers so misguided as to think even fiction in- structive, as the statistics sufficiently show. Even without statistics the renown of Fielding and Thackeray is safe enough, and Dickens still has his admirers, and HaAvthorne wiU continue to be read ; a man greater in some respects than either the first or the third. He was an American, no doubt, but he had over Dickens this advantage, that he could write English; and did. If the Beverend Mr. Greatorex does not think him instructive, the blame is not, perhaps, wholly on Hawthorne's side. It might have been thought that some other clergyman vrould have come forward to announce his dissent from Mr. Greatorex's views, but none has ; or I have seen none. It is not necessary to assume that the whole body of the clergy of the Church of England are of his mind. But I fear it is true that this attitude of dislike to the education of the Eng- 4:44 MISCELLANIES. lish people under any other than purely clerical influences is a too common attitude. The clamour against libraries is but one expression of the clerical dislike of secular instruction. It is the spirit of Rome ; and there never has been a time when the spirit of Eome was wholly absent from the Church of England. Mr. Greatorex individually may not be impor- tant. I do not know whether he is or not, but of great dis- tinction he certainly has none. To us who look on from the outside he is only important as a type. He is a representa- tive man ; a representative, not of the more liberal and ad- mirable section of the English clergy, but of that section which is occasionally referred to as the country parsons. These excellent but sometimes narrow-minded ministers of the Gospel are less numerous than they were ; but they are still numerous. Their voice is heard now and again, as it was when, for example, Assays and Reviews came out, and Dr. Temple (who has recanted) and Dr. Jowett (who has not) were bracketed together as heretics, and perhaps infidels. It was found, after a while, that the outcry against these gentle- men did not prevent one of them from becoming Bishop of Exeter, and then of London, or keep the other out of the Vice-ChanceUorship of Oxford ; Lord Salisbury himself ap- pointing the Master of Balliol to that honourable post. They made their next fight in 1870 on the education ques- tion ; and half won their battle. "When the movement for Free Libraries became, as they thought, menacing, they re- sisted it to the best of their ability, and with some success. For a while, they took their stand on financial grounds. Their appeal was to the pocket. They pointed out to the ratepayers that they were to be saddled with fresh rates — taxes, we should say — and would be asked to pay for books which other people were to read. That they would be the better for not reading them was, if not altogether an after- thought, a later form of the argument against libraries. It has been diligently pressed and in many forms. Mr. Greato- rex happens merely to be one of the latest who have pressed it. So it is that he obtains an immortality of twenty-four ON BOOKS. 445 hours. But Tvhdiher it be he or another, the fact that there are such as he in the church is one to be kept in mind. Americans have to consider that in this mother country of ours, late in the nineteenth century, there is a strong body of Greatorexes who honestly beheve that reading is bad un- less they may prescribe the course, and that libraries are mischievous because too many works of fiction are taken out. The opening of the Carnegie Library at Edinburgh gave Lord Eosebery an opportunity to reconsider his views on the thumb-mark of the artisan. Or perhaps it is to be said that his critics are invited to reconsider their views of his views. A " licentious Press " has criticised him ; there is nobody whom it will not criticise. Licentious or otherwise, it has misunderstood him, he now tells us. "We did not un- derstand what he meant. When he deplored the absence of the thumb-mark from the early printed volumes in Lord Spencer's noble library, he did not mean " a black thumb- mark such as one occasionally saw in a book with something of the same sensations as Robinson Crusoe when he saw the footprint of Friday in the sand — with alarm and dismay — but that tear and wear caused by finger and thumb, which was almost an ennobling mark on any book by any author." And again he says that by the thumb-mark of the artisan he meant that these books of the free libraries were not to be preserved behind glass doors, but to die in the service of mankind. These are Lord Eosebery's revised and reconsidered views. The first thumb-mark was one which he did not find at Althorp, and the prosaic — which seems to be the same thing as licentious — critic found himself distressed by the sugges- tion that on the incomparable treasures of that admirable collection of rare and lovely books there ought to be visible the touch of any hand, be it artisan's or of those rich men whom Mr. John Burns, Lord Eosebery's "honoured col- league," derides as " West End loafers." If there were a fault in Lord Eosebery's too picturesque phrase, it was that 446 MISCELLANIES. he did not make it clear to the prosaic mihd that when he said Althorp he meant Battersea. If we had only grasped that, we should all have agreed with him ; or all but Mr. Greatorex and the country parson. Lord Eosebery has every right to discourse on books, or every right but one. He is a reader and a collector, yet he cannot quite bear to hear himself described as the latter ; or not without a gentle protest against the extravagances and beautiful insanities of the collector. "Almost a vice," he says, speaking of that purest of all passions, the passion for fine books. If it be a vice let us all be vicious together; with Lord Eosebery to keep us company. I will quote him this time, at any rate, accurately ; or as accurately as the reporter wiU allow. " The collecting of rare books," says the owner of Mentmore and the Durdans and Dalmeny, with a collection of rare books in each, " is a virtue very nearly akin to vice. It is a virtue on which the closest watch must be kept, lest it lapse into a moral disease." And it appears from the next sentence that the moral disease to be dreaded is a form of idolatry ; the collector makes idols of his books. He does well to idolise them, and until he idolises them he is not really a collector. Nobody need object to Lord Eose- bery's remark about the virtue which is akin to vice. The book-lover's merit, the proof and test of his devotion to his books, begins only when he recognises that his passion is a guilty one, and when he pursues it for that reason, or in spite of that reason, with the greater zest. COURT SCENES. I. WHAT THE COUET LOOKS LIKE. [London, February 27, 1889.] Not the Court of St. James, but of Sir James ; the only- one which for the moment really interests the British pub- lic. The pressure to get into it is very great. The pressure, once you have got in, is not less great. Sir James Hannen is the presiding judge, Mr. Henry Cunynghame is, for purposes of admission, the presiding authority. Mr. Cunynghame has done his diflBcult work well, and the first proof of it is his rec- ognition of the American Press, and his award of reserved seats for the trial to some leading American journals. He has the largest correspondence in the kingdom. When a critical hour approaches, applications for seats pour in by the hundred. Perhaps two or three in a hundred can be granted. A lady, well known in London society, asked him last week to dinner. His answer ran as follows, " Dear Lady X., I am sorry to say that all places have been allotted up to next Tuesday, but I enclose two cards for that day." It is a pity to spoil a good story, but Mr. Cunynghame alleges that he did not read Lady X.'s note, which he assumed to be a re- quest for admission to the court, and looked at the signa- ture only. Last Friday occurred an incident of another kind. A di- plomatist of distinction and his wife presented themselves at the door of the court just before half-past ten, the hour of 448 MISCELLANIES. opening. They held Mr. Justice Hannen's order for admis- sion, but were refused admission. The court was full. A message was sent to Mr. Cunynghanie. He declared he could do nothing. Then a friend went to him : " Surely you can- not exclude the Minister of and his wife, with cards from Sir James Plannen." — "No," answered Mr. Cunyng- hame, " I do not exclude them. If you can find Mrs. • a seat they shall come in at once." — " She shall have mine," was the answer, and they came in. If such difficulties occur to diplomatists, what can common mortals expect ? The late Home Eule Viceroy of Ireland occupied a seat in the wit- ness-box, behind Mr. Richard Pigott, all Friday morning. This court-room is, in truth, but ill adapted for the hearing of a great cause. It is known as Probate Court No. 1; the court in which Sir James Hannen ordinarily sits for ordinary business in divorce. Like every English court which I ever saw, it is a miracle of inconvenience ; for the legal profession quite as much as for the public. Tradition rules supreme. The comfortable tables and chairs with the ample space of the American courts are unknown. Counsel are huddled together on one narrow bench, with a narrow desk or shelf in front. The two opposing leaders sit next each other ; the solicitors by whom they are instructed and their clients on a lower bench in front of them with no shelf. Consultations must often be overheard, let counsel try as hard as they will not to hear what comes from the camp of the enemy. Access to these seats and exit from them are equally difficult. All the business of the bar is transacted under physical obstacles which any good architect not trammelled by legal preju- dices would sweep away. The judges sit on a raised and canopied platform behind little pulpits, midway between floor and ceiling. They perhaps hear ; they are themselves heard only by an effort. The witness-box — Enghsh for the Ameri- can stand — is ingeniously placed where the witness must turn his back either on the judges or on the jury, when jury there is, and must speak sideways either to judge or counsel. So little daylight finds its way in that the electric light COURT SCENES. 4.4.Q ■ is turned on during a great part of what is astronomically called the day. I now know why Justice is blind. Her eyes were long since burnt out by those incandescent elec- tric arcs. There are shades, but the shades are so designed as to protect the roof and the roof only. Not a single ray is intercepted as it flashes into t^e faces of bench, and bar, and public. The ventilation is not less remarkable than the lighting. It is a clever combination of the greatest num- ber of draughts with the greatest possible stuffiness. To breathe this poisonous atmosphere six hours a day, and escape without a headache, is as good a proof as a man could ask of the soundness of his constitution. There are not a few journalists who have, I hear, sat out the whole trial thus far, and seem not much the worse for it. The judges and officials are, perhaps, the only other persons who have done as much. Counsel come and go. There are, on both sides, so many of them that all are seldom present at once. The walls are of gray stone, gray but hung with no scar- let, nor is there anywhere any attempt at decorative splen- dour of any kind. As the scene of a great state trial it is paltry and poor. The imagination has to do its work un- aided: no help is to be had from accessories or surround- ings. The English pride themselves on being practical and business-like. The last place to which even these homely adjectives can be applied is this court-room; or, for that matter, the Law Courts as a whole ; not uncommonly, and altogether rightly, referred to as Street's Folly. The late Mr. Street was the architect of this edifice, a man of great and misdirected abilities, with a craze for applying the prin- ciples of pointed architecture to uses for which they are not suited. The memory of this trial will remain as long as anything remains, but he who visits or revisits the hall in which it was transacted will find nothing in the structure to lift him from the level of commonplace. The usher can but tell htm that on this chair sat Mr. Justice Hannen, on this bench Mr. Parnell, on this other Sir Charles Eussell and Sir II.-29 450 MISCELLANIES. Eichard "Webster ; here were the spectators, here the press. If he told the whole truth he would add that the representa- tives of the press, with that good nature for which they are remarkable, allowed the space reserved for them to be often encroached upon by the general public. In theory, the public was to be present through the press. In fact, it wanted very much to come itself and did come ; the ladies most of all. There is a ladies' gallery proper, and a general gallery. The ladies filled their own — less than a dozen of them crowded it — and overflowed into the general gallery, and into the body of the court, and into the press seats. Some came daily, or almost daily, while the more ex- citing episodes of the trial lasted. The seats in the body of the court, on one side or the other of the judges, were most coveted of all, and a succession or procession of men and women of various kinds of distinction have passed through them the last few days and are, as I said, part of the memo- ries of the period, and do something to redeem the poverty of the place. The American colony has not been unrepresented ; the American Girl herself has been seen once, if not oftener. For a while, the court was crowded with Unionists con- vinced of the genuineness of the Parnell letters, and, I think, too distressed to reappear when belief in their genuineness had to give way to the reluctant conviction that they were utter fabrications. Much might be said about the process of conversion which society has undergone on this subject ; with what amazement, what stubborn resistance, what closing of the eyes and ears to facts that stared her in the face and thundered from the housetops, what agony and tears and wretchedness as the fatal fact took possession of her mind, no person can easily describe. COURT SCENES. 451 II. THE THKEE JUDGES. THE ATTOENET-GENEEAL. SIE CHAELES EUSSELL. [London, March 1, 1889.] Sir James Hannen is the central figure of this strange scene. You might take him as a type of the Enghsh judge of the highest class. The bar, who are the best critics of the bench, regard him as one of the strongest judges now living ; a lawyer who is not merely learned, but lucid, patient, capa- ble of grasping both principles and facts, never losing his way in any of the legal labyrinths which he has daily to tread. To say that he is impartial is to say what is assumed of every Enghsh judge. Seldom indeed has the uprightness of an English judge been questioned tiU party necessities, or supposed necessities, sought for a political bias in a judicial record ; sought and found it not. Since this long trial began, his face has gradually assumed a permanent expression of patient benignity. If ever man's patience was tried, Sir James Hannen's has been tried. Sol- emn as the business before him is, it has at times been te- dious ; at many times and for long together. The tedium has left its mark on these fine features. The benignity is still there, but it is a more patient benignity than before. You can see that he has nerved himself to a great task of endur-- ance, of long suffering, yet with the mind ever on a strain ; ever watchful, ever ready to intervene upon the appeal of counsel, and sometimes without it. There is resignation in the very folding of the hands over the judicial note-book when, as happens often, the pencil stops and the notes are interrupted. Counsel might, if they would, take this as a signal, but they will not. They plod on, regardless of the broad judicial hint addressed to them. Counsel were, perhaps, at first, especially Sir Charles Eus- seU, slightly misled by the kindliness of Sir James Hannen's 452 MISCELLANIES. manner. It was not long before they felt the iron firmness beneath. Again and again did Sir Charles try a fall with Sir James ; never to his advantage. Against this imperturb- able smoothness of solid strength, the waves beat in vain. Sir Charles has a temperament not at all moments entirely within his control — just a touch of the irritability that so often goes with genius. He is used to having his own way, even with a strong judge, and he endures with evident chaf- ing the rebuke which he occasionally invites. It is charm- ing to see Sir James administer it ; so gentle is he, so judi- cial, and so unmistakably the master in his own court. His two colleagues need hardly be mentioned. Both are able men ; neither feels called on to take an active part in these proceedings. Mr. Justice Day is credibly affirmed to have uttered but three audible words in open court since last October. There are those who say he sleeps ; an undoubted calumny. The pile of books, of printed reports of the evi- dence, of printed documents in the chair beside his, grows ever higher. On Thursday last he upset them ; the first real sensation he has created. Mr. Justice Smith is less of a lay figure. He has been known to put a question to a witness. I have heard him do this more than once. He, like Mr. Lockwood, Q. C, is a draughtsman, and on Friday, the day after Mr. Justice Day upset his pile of books, he spent some part of the morning in furtively sketching Mr. Richard Pigott. Both these subordinate members of the court are consulted, when occasion arises, by the presiding judge. Once or twice there has been a prolonged subdued discus- sion between them, due, I thought, to the fact that the right and left hand supporters of Sir James were agreeing against him on some awkward point of law. I do not doubt they collapsed ere the end came. A long, long row of counsel sit facing the three judges ; the interval of space betweeen bench and bar being filled by persons and personages who must be considered later, if it all. The counsel stretch from one side of the court to the other and the row is double ; leaders in front, juniors behind. COURT SCENES. 453 I think we must pass over most of them. The two supreme- ly interesting ones are the two leaders, one on either side ; the Attorney-General for The Times, and Sir Charles Kus- sell for Mr. Parnell. You may speak of the former as the Attorney-General, or as Mr. Attorney, by which odd title he has from time immemorial been addressed, or as Sir Eichard Webster, or more briefly, as Sir Eichard. To this string of aliases may be added the more familiar one of Dick Web- ster, by which you sometimes hear his learned friends speak of him in private. Perhaps they who know him least use it most. A distinguished artist who has been in court complained of the Attorney -General as commonplace. "He looks too much like other men," said this fastidious observer. Well, there are points of resemblance, no doubt ; two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth ; other points also. It is, nevertheless, a strong and strongly marked face, not to be mistaken by the most careless for any other face in court. My artist friend has Home Eule sympathies; probably he supposes them to be opinions, and so Sir Eichard, being on the wrong side in politics, falls short of the aesthetic tests applied to him in art. He is, or was, believed to be in training for the Lord Chan- cellorship, and he has, whether for that or some other rea- son, acquired a slightly ecclesiastical cast of countenance; as if in memory of the early days when Lord High Chancellors were ecclesiastics, or, possibly, in tribute to the churchman- like qualities of such more recent keepers of Her Majesty's conscience as the late Lord Cairns and the present Lord Sel- borne. He is a good lawyer, a good advocate, widely expe- rienced at the bar, where his practice equals the best; expert in all causes of business and commerce. In this particular cause, which has to do with neither, the Attorney- General seems a httle, if only a little, out of place or, in the French phrase, out of his own country. He conducts it as he would conduct an action on a bill of lading or a promissory note. He is too able a man not to do all the legal part of it thor- 454 MISCELLANIES. oughly well, but the political, and what may be called the popular part of it, escape him. Now that the letters are known to be forgeries. Sir Eich- ard Webster is made to bear his full burden of blame for them, and is savagely attacked by the more unmannerly part of the Home Kule press. I suppose his mistake was in not looking beyond the four corners of his brief. Such, how- ever, is the habit of the English bar ; a habit that springs from the strict distribution of duties between the two. dis- tinct branches of the legal profession. But that is too large a subject to enter upon in the midst of a sketch. It is only with the Attorney-General in court, and as part of the court and of the scene at which we are looking, that I have any- thing to do. In all but the supreme moments he is excellent. In ex- amining witnesses, in arguing points of law, he is punctual, clear, methodical, above all cheery. He kept this air of blithe contentment even while Pigott was going to pieces before his eyes. He kept it under the mortification of Mr. Mac- donald, and even while Mr. Soames was avowing under what conditions of wooden indifference he had accepted the story, first of Mr. Houston, then of Pigott. He subdued it . only when he came into court on that memorable Wednesday morning to read out the confession and meagre self-inculpa- tion of his clients. Ordinarily his voice rings like a beU. He is never at a loss for a word, which is perhaps the reason why the unflattering adjective which our Home Eule artist applied to his face might be more truly applied to his diction. Khetoric, for that matter, is now thought a superfluous thing at the English bar. But nobody is ever at a loss to know exactly what the Attorney-General means, and he has a gift of bringing out from a witness a clear statement of facts by the clearness of his questions. He has, withal, that unfailing dignity of deportment which becomes the Eirst Law Officer of the Crown, and with it, on occasion, a certain peremp- tory decisiveness, an air and tone of authority, a visible de- termination to have his own way, and a very considerable COURT SCENES. 455 success in getting it, which may be held to justify the attempt. Sir Charles Russell is a much more difficult topic than the Attorney-General. The most prejudiced opponent would never think of calling him commonplace. What he does he does in a way of his own, whether it be examining a witness, or taking snuflf, or trying the strength of his will against Sir James Hannen's. He has plunged into this cause with his whole heart and soul. He is a conyinced Home Euler, and he cares at least as much for the political side of it as for the professional. That is one secret of the continued colUsions occurring be- tween him and the Attorney-General, and between him and Mr. Justice Hannen. The advocate and the Home Eule member for South Hackney are both here in court, and both equally concerned for Mr. Parnell. Private friendship and regard for the Irish leader have also something to do with the matter. I have seen and heard many of these col- lisions. In no one of them did Sir Charles come off victor, yet in almost any of them he was to be seen at his best, from at least one point of view. For this great advocate is also a very good actor, and he often seems aware that he is playing to a far greater audience than that which crowds this nar- row court-room. "My Lords," burst out Sir Charles last "Wednesday, " so convinced am I of the iniquity of these proceedings that I am determined to bring it into the light of day, whether it be pleasing to your lordships or whether it be not." Sir James Hannen leaned a little forward and an- swered softly, " Sir Charles, that observation is not addressed to this tribunal ;" with an emphasis on " this" ; then after a slight pause, " or, if it is, it ought not to be." The rebuke was as severe as it was gentle, but Sir Charles was far too much in earnest to feel it, or to show that he felt it, and on he went in 'his appeal to court and to public. His is a nature so sympathetic that it creates sympathies. The Attorney-General read out that sorry apology of The Times in a mechanical way — professional, no doubt — that 456 MISCELLANIES. might have robbed a much more adequate statement of its value. Had the duty devolved on Sir Charles, the stiff, cold, selfish phrases would, I am sure, have seemed graceful and generous. Listen to him when he is moved. The voice vi- brates. The heart beats. The face flushes and the eye kin- dles. There is something more than a lawyer. There is a man. The cool, waryj adroit, experienced advocate is full of manly impulses. The Attorney-General is all muscle. Sir Charles all nerves. The one addresses the intelligence or the reason, and that only ; the other appeals to everything that is human. No small part of Sir Charles Eussell's renown has come to him from his cross-examinations. No man is so dreaded. He dazzled the court, some weeks ago, by conjuring the let- ters out of a reluctant witness's pocket, and the secret out of his soul. I have watched these processes as I sat in court, and sought for the principle on which they are conducted. I doubt whether there be any one principle, or any one spring on the touching of which he relies. His cross-examinations are so many studies in psychology; so many exercises in mental philosophy ; moral, too. If j^ou want to know what is inside a room, you get inside to see. That is what Sir Charles does with his witnesses ; enters into them, which to him seems simpler and neater than turning them inside out. Here it is, also, that his sympathetic temperament stands him in such good stead. Sympathy is the beginning of un- derstanding and of insight. He can take all tones to a wit- ness, and does. He knows how and when to cajole and threaten ; to coax, convince, and terrify. His methods are as various as the witnesses on whom they are tried. I sup- pose I shall have to say something presently about Pigott, and that will be as good an opportunity as any other of see- ing Sir Charles Eussell at his best. COUET SCENES. 457 III. SIE CHAKLES EUSSELL AS CROSS-EXAMINING COUNSEL AND OTHERWISE. [London, March 13, 1889.] It seems an ill time, now that Pigott is in a suicide's grave at Madrid, to be making sketches of him as he appeared in the witness-box under cross-examination. It is either too late or too soon. To forget him is impossible. Should he ever again become — as it is more than possible he may — the topic of the hour, those of us who were in court will see as plainly as ever that heavy, flushed face, turning green be- neath its red, the muscles tying themselves into knots, the pale gray eyes injected and turbid, the mouth relaxed, the chin as if disjointed ; the whole unhappy person of this strange base figure suffering physically some of the mental or per- haps moral torture, which Sir Charles Eussell constrained him to endure. The range of the cross-examination, all in- complete as it had to be left, was not the least astonishing thing about it. Sir Charles was by turns cool and hot, stern and playful, business-like and tragic, now addressing the wit- ness in his most colloquial tone, anon thundering at him as if from the judgment seat, wheedling him one moment, men- acing the next, first persuading, then perplexing, then land- ing his victim in the palpable and visible centre of his laby- rinthine maze of lies. Sir Charles has attitudes of his own as he cross-examines. The stiff uprightness and strictly conventional demeanour of the Attorney-General, strictly observed through all moods and phases, are not for him. He stood erect for one minute at the beginning as he put his famous request to Pigott to take a piece of paper, and pen and ink, and write down the words, the fatal words, which he would give him. But he is never erect for long. If he has a choice of positions, it is with his right foot on the bench — I do not mean the judicial 4:58 MISCELLANIES. bench — his right elboTV leaning either on the knee or on the shelf in front, the right hand raised and holding his gold eye- glass toward the witness. This might seem ungainly were it not for the flowing robe of silk which envelopes his figure and softens the angularities it assumes. Eobeless, he might seem wanting in respectfulness to the judges in this freedom of pose. But the robe redeems whatever needs redeeming. Now and again he takes snuff, and the huge bandanna he unfolds at the finish of this operation is like a blood-red ban- ner of war. He drinks early in the morning a large tum- bler of some medical mixture for his throat. This too is red, . unlike Mr. Gladstone's, which, whether in the House of Com- mons or on the platform, is always yellow. The gold eye- glass is in constant use, sometimes for reading, more often as a help to the peremptory gesture, which is as character- istic of him as anything. For peremptory he is, as I have had to say daily for a fortnight past. Whether Sir Charles be cross-examining or whatever he be doing, he is seldom long without coming somehow into collision with somebody. Between him and his chief enemy. Sir Kichard "Webster, collisions are to be expected, but surely Sir Charles might have avoided some of those with Mr. Justice Hannen, which were even more frequent. Lord Eosebery, in search of some sufficient com- pliment for Mr. Parnell's champion, spoke at the Eighty Club dinner last week of " that court over which I had al- most said Sir Charles Kussell presides." It is just as well he did not quite say it. Never once has Sir Charles returned with any trophy in reward of his many raids upon the bench, and Sir James Hannen's supremacy in his own court, chal- lenged again and again, remains complete. He, and he alone, presides. He both reigns and governs. I imagine Sir Charles would be readiest of all to own it, when once the glow and joy of battle are over. The witnesses who have successfully stood up against him are few indeed. One I remember early in the case ; an Irish peasant brought down to swear to some outrage of which he COURT SCENES. 459 had been the victim. His peasant cunning was perhaps a match for the acuteness of the great lawyer. There used to be little skirmishes like this — "."Were there any pohce present when jowc house was at- tacked?" "Any pohce?" " Yes." " Were they present ?" " That is what I ask of you." " Present when ?" " When your house was attacked." " When was my house attacked ?" And so it went on until Sir Charles dropped him in comic despair. The redoubtable Major Le Caron was another, or was commonly thought to be. But an eminent lawyer who sat through that cross-examination told me that he thought it could not have been better done. " Cross-examination," he remarked learnedly, " is but a blunt weapon against a wit- ness who is master of his subject, and who is telling the truth. Le Caron's story was probably all true in substance ; it was the inferences to be drawn from it which were so formidable, and those must be dealt with in argument, not by questions." One of Sir Charles's arts is to make a witness retell his story in such a Avay that the retelling of it shall bring out the absurd or incredible or invented characteristics of it. He delights to convict a witness out of his own mouth. This strategy he practised upon Pigott, but Pigott, it must be said, went to pieces completely when first confronted with his own letters to Archbishop Walsh, which he believed had been returned to him and by him destroyed. Prom that first shock of guilty surprise he never recovered. That is one of many mysteries which have never been cleared up, and now, I suppose, never will be. Nothing could be more adroit than the use Sir Charles made of the letters. He put the first into Pigott's hands, telling him to identify but not read it. I will not do more than give one example of the 4:60 MISCELLANIES. method, and that I abridge. The method was simply to read to Pigott a sentence or part of a sentence of Pigott's own letter, base a question on it, lead him to deny or affirm something, and then read out the next sentence, which, di- rectly contradicted what the witness had just sworn to. Thus:— "Did you know before the publication of them that grave charges were to be made against Mr. Parnell by The Times V "No." " You swear that ?" " I do." " No mistake about that ?" "None." " Is this your letter ?" "Yes." "The date?" "March4, 188T." " Three days, is it not, before the first article appeared ?" "Yes." Then follows the reading of the first part of the letter in which Pigott writes to Archbishop Walsh that he knows |;hat certain proceedings are in preparation to destroy the Parnellite party in Parliament. Then another twist of the rack. " "What were these proceedings ?" " I do not recollect." " Turn to My Lords and repeat that answer." " I do not recollect." " Did you refer to the forged letter ?" "No." " Listen to this sentence from your own letter to the Arch- bishop : ' The proceedings referred to consist in the pubKca- tion of certain statements purporting to prove the complici- ty of Mr. Parnell himself and some of his supporters with murders and outrages in Ireland.' " And so it went on, sentence by sentence ; each contradic- COURT SCENES. 461 tion of Pigott's oath in the witness-box coming from Pigott's written statement to Archbishop Walsh. Such a method, the young practitioner may say, is obvious when once you have got your witness in the box, and his letter before you. WeU, let the young practitioner, having had his way made plain for him, try it on the next occasion. It was, and it often is, the distinction of Sir Charles Eussell so to make use of a method both simple and familiar as to derive from it the most original results. It was by the variety and ever- changing ingenuity of a continuing, yet never the same, pro- cession of questions that he extracted from Pigott at the end, with the same unfailing certainty as at the beginning, the self- same self-contradictions. If you are in a position to watch Sir Charles Kussell's face during these contests, you will perceive that he often wears a mask ; sometimes two masks. He has not the one resource which seems sufficient to the Attorney- General; the one unvarying manner of cheerful complacency; the phlegmatic self-confidence which Sir Eichard assumes as so much armour. Over his sensitive face expression foUows expression ; not always, nor perhaps often, answering to the real mood in which he approaches his witness, but repro- ducing to the eye of the individual in the box the mood which he is desired to believe in for the time being. As I sat on Sir Charles's left, a little behind him, I could see him turn every now and then to his learned friends, Mr. Lockwood, or Mr. Eeid, or Mr. Asquith. The left side of his face denoted what he wished to convey to his colleagues, while the right side, still in the witness's view, continued to impress upon his trustful nature the same belief in the same mood as at first. The whole countenance is curiously fiexible. The emotions have a more direct action than usual upon the muscles. The eyes are both sympathetic and searching, the mouth is flexible, the long, straight nose is fiexible; what Sir Charles Eussell's nose is capable of ex- pressing is past description. The face, set in his barrister's wig as in a frame, looks out upon the world from large, 462 MISCELLANIES. pale -blue, inquiring eyes, like the portrait of some great jurist of the great days of the English bar. Take away the wig and bands, strip him of his silk robe — a process to which he would strongly object^array him in the ordinary cos- tume of modern civilisation, meet him in society, listen to the fluent and accurate talk, sometimes argumentative, al- ways fuU, you will think him as modern as anybody, a man of the world as well as of affairs, rather too much used to having his own way, not at aU the spoiled child of fort- une but the architect of his own fortune. On the whole, one of the most interesting and strenuous personalities now to be met, and within such limits as the law imposes upon those who accept the law as a mistress, a man of genius also. Sir Charles Kussell's fame as a cross-examiner seems, in America, a little to overshadow that fame as an all-round lawyer which really belongs to him. His position is per- fectly understood in England, both by the legal profession and the public. There is no place where mere briUiancy is less valued, perhaps less understood, than at the Englisli bar; nor is it by brilliancy, whether in cross-examination or oth- erwise, that Sir Charles has made his reputation; If he is unequalled before a jury, he is as certainly unsurpassed be- fore the judges sitting in Court of Appeal and caring for nothing but law and the dry light of legal reason. He has been in many a sensational cause ; causes of Mbel, of divorce, and the like. But he laid the foundation of his renown in work of a very different kind, in commercial causes and in purely legal arguments, with no witness to dissect and no jury to dazzle or perplex. In business of that kind he has two or three rivals at the common law bar — Sir Eichard Webster, Sir Henry James, I hardly know who else. But give him a great case, social or political, in which human passions are deeply stirred, and he stands alone. COUKT SCENES. 4g3 IV. SOME OF THE COTmSEL, ONE SOLICITOR, AND SEVEEAL CLIENTS. [London, March 14, 1889.] If there be any other of the counsel beside Sir Charles Eussell and the Attorney-General who have made a mark in this commission — there are several of mark otherwise — it is Mr. Asquith. His cross-examination of Mr. Macdonald struck the popular fancy, and was approved by the profession. He is a young man, I think a Yorkshireman, with much of the shrewdness which natives of that horse-dealing and horse- racing county are supposed to possess. He was a Balliol scholar, and afterward Fellow of Dr. Jowett's great college, has been some twelve years at the bar, and sits in Parlia- ment for East Fife. Whether in the House or in court, he is a cool hand ; youth does not always imply timidity, and Mr. Asquith's boyish face is not wanting in confidence. No- body in court looks so young. His actual age is thirty-six or thirty-seven. Needless to say that few men at the Eng- hsh bar are -heard of so early as that. He is the man to whom Sir Charles turns oftenest ; it is, perhaps, Mr. Asquith who, in the energetic phrase of the bar, devils for him. He is always ready with a reference, a quotation, a paper, any- thing that must be had on the spur of the moment, and when letters or documents are to be read out in court it is Mr. As- quith who reads them. Such is the advantage of not being a Q.C. like Mr.Lockwood or Mr.Eeid. Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Eeid, being Mr. Asquith's seniors, ought to have been mentioned first, but once outside the court it is, I hope, permissible to revolt against the stiffness of leo-al etiquette. Nor have I much to say about Mr. Reid, except that he is always called Bob Eeid, is a Scotchman, an M.P., a Home Eule Liberal, and a successful lawyer. All that might be said of twenty other men. I am so much at a loss how to make Mr. Eeid interesting to you, good lawyer 464 MISCELLANIES. and good fellow as he is, that I go on to Mr. Lockwood, an- other Q.C. and M.P. and Home Kule Liberal. His first claim to notice is outside his profession. He draws, and his sketches of people and scenes in court during the trial must be some hundreds in number. They are cari- catures or, if not always caricatures, seize the comic or hu- mourous or pleasant side of the subject. Many a dreary day has been enlivened by the handing about of these products of Mr. Lockwood's ready pencil. Neither solicitors nor cli- ents seem to object ; perhaps the prejudice which would for- bid a lawyer to be anything but a lawyer is decaying, as so many other prejudices, and not prejudices only, are in this country decaying. I think it should be said that he is a member of Brooks's. To be a member of Brooks's — Mr. Chamberlain's " Whig temple " — is in England much the same thing as if in Boston you had an ancestor in the May- flower, and had attended divine service in the Old South Church for many generations. But not even the dull de- corum of Brooks's has subdued the flow of Mr. Lockwood's spirits. He has a tongue as well as a pencil, and his genial, broad, strongly marked, irregular face is a record of innumerable jokes of his own which he has made, and of other people's which he has enjoyed. It is a face well known to those who go to first nights ; known in society also. Yet none of all these things, not art, nor the theatre, nor mother wit, nor a liking for the company of his fellow-men and women, has kept him down at the bar. His practice is large, his reputa- tion great, and he has a way of conducting a case in court that is all his own. In one very famous case, I heard Mr. Lockwood cross-examine the chief witness and thought it a fine perfonnance ; adroit, acute, perfidious in the good cross- examining sense ; for his amiable good nature in putting a treacherous question might deceive Major Le Caron himself. Sir Henry James, who sits by the , side of Sir Kichard "Webster, has thus far taken but little share in the conduct of this cause in court, and, if all reports be true, has put but COURT SCENES. 465 little heart into it. Eumour says that the Attorney -General wished to retire before the Commission opened, and leave the whole matter in Sir Henry James's hands. Sir Henry thereupon said that if the Attorney-General went, he would go too. This would have left Mr.Walter in the hands of Mr. Murphy, Q.C., a barrister of good standing and capacity in the ordinary business of the courts, but not at all the man for a great state trial. So they both stayed on, and both are supposed to regret it. Sir Henry is anybody's equal at the bar, whether as lawyer or advocate ; cool, learned, logical, impressive, with great powers of work and of statement ; in all ways a strong man. Tou cannot look at his strong face and doubt it, or doubt his self-reliance in emergencies. Mr. Murphy belongs to another order ; Mr. Soames, I fancy, se- lected him. Mr. Atkinson, an Irish barrister, might interest you, were there time. An expression of acuteness presides over his well-cut face, the hues of which are visible through a closely-trimmed brown beard, and he has some of that Irish humour which occurs in these melancholy days so seldom. Few names have been heard oftener in this inquiry than Mr. Soames, yet few men were less fitted by nature and habit to become public characters. A dogged, plodding kind of man, with a somewhat perplexed, uncertain face ; wistful, pugnacious, square in the forehead and jaw ; the eyes wa- tery, red-lidded, weak with over much reading of letters and papers, forged and otherwise ; slow of apprehension and, as now appears, not sure. He makes confident, over-confident, answers to the questions put him as he stands in the witness- box. To the last, he seemed to beheve that the letters must somehow be genuine and that he, as solicitor to his unhappy chents, had done all that should have been done to test their genuineness. He is the type of the respectable family solicitor in this country; painstaking, humdrum, steady-going; the slave of routine and precedent and custom ; capable of leading his II.— 30 466 MISCELLANIES. client by the most strict and irreproachable professional methods gently down to the bottomless pit of such utter wreck and disaster as has befallen in this business of the forged letters. Sir Charles Eussell asked him toward the end of one of his many re-cross-examinations whether, after Pigott had told him he should break down, and after he knew Pigott had been coquetting with the virtuous Mr. La- bouchere, — whether he then made any inquiry into Pigott's character or antecedents, or whether he took any steps to test the truth of the story about finding the letters in Paris — black bag, and all the rest of it. " None," answered Mr. Soames, with entire self-complacency. There is, I presume, nothing in the rules and regulations of the Incorporated Law Society which obliged him to, and there can be no doubt that Mr. Soames believes to this mo- ment that he has managed the case of The Times with all the prudence and shrewdness and worldly good sense which could be expected of a duly qualified solicitor. In ordinary business matters he is sagacious and expert. In contact with a scoundrel like Pigott, he proved himself credulous and with- out resource. Of the sixty or seventy defendants in this cause not many are to be seen in court. Mr. Parnell comes pretty often ; mild Mr. Justin McCarthy has been observed in the well. Mr. Davitt is a regular attendant, Mr. Healy puts in an oc- casional appearance ; one of the Harringtons is here, the other being prevented from attending, for the present, by circumstances over which he has no control. Mr. O'Brien is also the victim of circumstances. Mr. Biggar is not a vic- tim, but in search of one, and presents himself to witness after witness in the austere light of cross-examiner. It can- not be said that he succeeds in this character, nor has Sir Charles liussell modified his own method on acquaintance with Mr. Biggar's. It is perhaps of doubtful advantage to put irrelevant questions with the object of causing annoy- ance to the witness. COURT SCENES. 467 Sometimes it causes annoyance to the questioner also. There was one day an Irish tenant who had been threaten- ed and shot at for disobedience to the orders of the League. " When," asked Mr. Biggar, with his habitual chuckle, " did you first begin to be afraid of your life ?" — " When you first came into the place and made a speech against me," answer- ed the sturdy farmer. It was either in this or a similar case that the genial member for West Cavan had promised that if anybody were prosecuted for murdering a " land-grabber," money should be found for his defence. The cause of Home Eule is but ill served by champions of this sort, and one of the mysteries which surround Mr. Parnell is his acceptance of help from these singular sources. Mr. Biggar's harsh face and harsh voice and harsh manner express well enough his delight in what is cruel. But I suppose Mr. Parnell is not in aU things a free agent. He must work with such tools as lie ready to his hand. Mr. Healy is one of them, but then Mr. Healy is a capable, sharp person, and would be a much abler one if he could keep his temper under control, or if he did not take pleasure in rhetoric of a vituperative kind — in calling names, as the boys say. I saw him but once in court ; a dark, dapper young man, of moderate height — the only thing moderate about him — and slender figure ; with a protruding forehead and protruding eyes, partly hid by an eyeglass. He is not unlike what M. Henri Kochefort was twenty years ago ; the upper part of his face especially, and the suggestion of being ready at any moment for an encounter with anybody about anything. More even than M. Eochefort, Mr. Healy has an air of being on the lookout for a skirmish, with the warlike de- meanour of the bantam cock on his own dunghill. Colonel John Hay's line, " peart and chipper and sassy," might have been written to describe him. Pleasant and amusing in private life, say those who know him, but in public his mis- sion is to make things disagreeable for the base and brutal Saxon, and he fulfils it with a persevering conscientiousness 468 MISCELLANIES. which earns him the admiration of his own countrymen. It is in this last sentence that may be found the secret of much which is a perpetual puzzle to the English. The Irish M.P. plays to the Irish gallery, not to the English, or even to the American. Mr. Healy on the one occasion when I saw him in court, tried a fall with Mr. Justice Hannen, and got it. But in that he fared no worse than Sir Charles Kussell him- self. V. Without much regard to order I collect into one chapter a number of notes relating to other remarkable persons or to incidents which are of permanent interest. February 27. — Pigott's flight and confession were known yesterday. To-day, the Attorney- General rose amid pro- found silence to say what his clients would do with refer- ence to the letters. Sir Eichard "Webster's manner was sol- emn, not to say funereal. He was presently observed to be reading his statement. He read it from beginning to end with wooden decorum, without one single inflection of hu- man feehng in his voice. When he came to the withdrawal he uttered with extreme deliberation this astonishing sen- tence, " We ask permission to withdraw from your lordships' consideration the question of the genuineness of the letters submitted to you, the authenticity of which is denied, and which we feel, after the evidence that has been given, we are not entitled to say are genuine." Was that all ? We listened for more, but beyond a formal expression of his client's sin- cere regret that they had published the letters, nothing more came. People looked at each other, and asked each other again incredulously. Can that be all? There was, indeed, a denial that his clients had any share in that foul conspiracy which Sir Charles Eussell yesterday alleged. Beyond that, nothing ; except a challenge to full inquiry. Down sat the Attorney-General, having missed, we all thought, one of the COURT SCENES. 469 best opportunities that ever any man had to do an obvious duty in a manly, honourable way. The whole foundation of The Times' s calumny on Mr. Parnell was Pigott. Pigott's testimony had crumbled into dust. There exists not one atom of evidence even tending to support the authenticity of the letters, nor one ray of doubt that Pigott forged them. Yet all The Timeis con- ductors can make up their minds to confess in court is that they are not now entitled to say the letters are genuine. "Well might Sir Charles Pussell protest he had hoped for a stronger statement than that. He restrained the expression of his disappointment to that single phrase, but added two things of importance : First, his clients mean to find out whether Mr. Houston really went into this business on his own account. Second, would not the Court at once express their opinion on the letters. " I ask," said Sir Charles, in a voice which shook with emotion, " that he who has suffered for such a length of time from this grievous accusation, who has suffered what may be conceived but cannot be described, may be relieved from it by your lordships." Their lordships, to whom emotion is unknown, made an- swer that Sir Charles Pussell might at once call such wit- nesses as he chose, to the question of the letters. When they had been heard, their lordships would consider wheth- er they would make a special report. " My lord, we thank your lordships," was the answer, in a voice still none too steady; and amid a thrill which ran through the cora-t, Sir Charles called Mr. Parnell. Mr. Parnell rose, pulled off his brown overcoat, stepped into the box, took the oath, and waited for the first ques- tion. He might weU have thought, as he stood there, that the eyes of half the world were on him. Over and over again has it been said during the last year that Mr. Parnell never would enter the witness-box. But there he was, care- fully dressed, all that was visible of him, in a black frock coat, with his pale, determined face, his unmoved and un- movable manner, and not a trace of exultation, unless perhaps 470 MISCELLANIES. in the flashing of his dark eyes. He seemed the coolest person in court — far cooler, certainly, than his counsel or friends. A letter was handed him, the so-called facsimile letter. " Is that your signature ?" " It is not my signature." " Is the body of the letter in the handwriting of any per- son you know ?" " It is not." "Is it in the handwriting of Mr. Henry Campbell, your secretary ?" "It is not." " Did you ever write any such letter ?" " I never wrote any such letter." " Or did you ever authorise any such letter to be written ?" " I never authorised any such letter to be written. I nev- er heard of any such letter tiU I saw it published in The Times." Each of these answers came from Mr. Parnell's hps quietly, his voice not raised, his hands resting on the box. The de- nial was made with a simplicity and sincerity that would have convinced everybody, had there still remained any- body to be convinced. Letter by letter. Sir Charles took the witness through the same process of circumstantial and express contradiction, till all the letters that bore Mr. Par- nell's name had been exhausted ; then Mr. Egan's, then Mr. Davitt's, then Mr. O'Kelly's. " I know their handwritings," said Mr. Parnell. " All these letters are fabrications." Yarious details were gone into, all of them interesting, none of them vital. What was vital, what was accepted as decisive, was Mr. Parnell's plain denial that he wrote the letters. Sir Charles sat down, and the Attorney - General rose. Mr. Parnell turned his face to him quietly as ever, no trace of defiance in his bearing, nothing but cool readiness for whatever might be coming. All that came was Mr. At- torney's announcement that he had no question to ask Mr. COURT SCENES. 471 Parnell. The examination was over. Mr. Parnell had been in the witness -box and out of it, and the ordeal, if ordeal there was, was at an end for the time. March 1. — "Witnesses and counsel said their last word on the letters at a quarter to one this afternoon. The special inquiry ordered or allowed by the Court at Sir Charles Eus- sell's request, on this branch of the case, proved much short- er than was expected. The morning was not exciting, but interesting. A legally important procession of witnesses known to fame filed through the box. Mr. O'Kelly, M.P. for Eoscommon, came first — a rugged -looking gentleman, bronzed, seamed, grizzled, and energetic, with the record of an adventurous, rough fife writ roughly all over him. He denied the authorship of a letter signed by him, wasted no words, was asked no question by the enemy, and stepped briskly down. Mr. Henry Campbell, having returned from that fruitless search for Pigott on which Mr. Parnell had, perhaps heed- lessly, sent him, followed Mr. O'Kelly. He had but a mea- gre audience as he entered the box ; a rather short, very dark, square-faced, square-shouldered, compact young gentle- man, who gave you the impression of a despatch-box stuffed with secrets which the rack would not persuade him to re- veal. He answered Sir Charles Eussell with ready pre- cision, brief and business -hke throughout, as if words were money not to be squandered. He knew Mr. Egan's hand. None of the alleged Egan letters were written by Mr. Egan. He knew Mr. Parnell's hand. None of the alleged Parnell signatures were Mr. Parnell's. He knew his own hand, and swore that he wrote the body of no one of the letters once supposed to be his. Two only were imitations ; one rather good, thought Mr. Henry Campbell. The Attorney-General asked him two or three friendly, or perhaps neutral, ques- tions, then dismissed him. To him succeeded Mr. Davitt, whom Lord Salisbury would certainly call a black man, with his black, close, curling hair. 472 MISCELLANIES. black, bushy eyebrows, black eyes, and black beard, all look- ing the blacker for the ruddy complexion they set off. Mr. Davitt walked in with a determined air, ready to face all comers with his single arm, and not quite sure whether even Sir Charles Eussell might not need to be sternly dealt with. But everything passed peaceably. Mr. Davitt denied that he wrote the forged letter attributed to him, and so depart- ed. Marked was the contrast between Mr. Davitt, with his defiant air, and mild Mr. Justin McCarthy, who might pass for a member of the Peace Society, amiably beaming on the court through gold spectacles, and thick, gray hair. His name had been mentioned by Mr. Soames in connection with Pigott, and he came to swear that he had never in his life seen Pigott. He swore it and vanished. A hum of expectation arose as Mr. George Lewis's name was called, and that renowned and dreaded lawyer glided into view. He has laid aside the outer garment of sables which he commonly wears, and stands up in a brown frock- coat, brown waistcoat, a smart scarf fastened with a scarf- pin of sapphire set in diamonds, a gift from the Prince of Wales. JSTo more interesting face was to be seen in the court, with its blended expression of kindliness, refinement, and penetrating intelligence. There are more secrets un- der that high, full forehead, than in all the pigeon-holes of Downing Street. One of his dark-brown eyes holds a glass which, when he turns to the judges, he respectfully drops. The hair, the sweeping moustache, the whiskers, are all gray, yet he somehow looks a young man. There is not a hint of age in the glance, which is luminous rather than piercing, or in the slight, upright figure, or in the soft, clear, deliberate voice. He tells again the story of the interview with Pigott at Mr. Labouchere's house ; how it came about ; how open it was — Mr. Lewis's brougham was standing at the door for an hour — how he extorted from Pigott the confession of the forgery ; how he refused to bargain with him, or promise him either money or immunity. Mr. Justice Hannen lis- tened with his most approving smile, which broadened when COURT SCENES. 4^3 Mr. Lewis declared that he had been convinced from the first that this man was a forger, and treated him accordingly. After Mr. Lewis, Mr. Labouchere, the unique Mr. Labou- chere, whose connection with this case is that of a volunteer ; sometimes, perhaps, slightly intrusive ; but Mr. Labouchere, whether in this or any other case, is sure to be plausible. He can play many parts. That which he elects to play this morning is the part of candour, even of simplicity. He ap- peared as a lover of pure truth and justice, the champion of persecuted patriots. He had, somehow, contrived to divest his features of their habitual cynical astuteness. He has thin gray hair, closely trimmed gray beard, carnations bloom- ing in his cheeks ; eyes like black beads, restless, glittering, question-asking eyes, which have a tell-tale trick of revolv- ing in their orbits when their owner is considering in what precise words facts can be most advantageously put before the public. When he addresses the judges his manner com- bines the saintliness of the Salvation Army with the easy familiarity of the green-room at Drury Lane. His account of what happened differs little in substance from what we have heard, but in Mr. Labouchere's mouth his adroit handling of Pigott becomes an act of deep piety. Offer him money to swear the letters were forgeries ? Nev- er ! The offer was for documents, and it was Pigott who named the sum. Surprised that Pigott should come to you ? Certainly not ! Nothing that Pigott could do or say would surprise me. "When Sir Charles sat down the witness glanced, I thought nervously, at the Attorney-G-eneral, but the Attor- ney-General shook his head and Mr. Labouchere stepped nimbly out of the box. Him, too, Mr. Justice Hannen re- garded steadily as he spoke, and there were moments when his benignant look hardened into an expression of judicial severity. Mr. G-eorge Augustu^ Sala's appearance was an event. Enveloped in an astrachan ulster, he strode into the box and bowed to the Court. People gazed hard at his gnarled, dark, reddish -brown face, not a muscle of which betrayed any 474 MISCELLANIES. consciousness of this inspection. He stood there, a British oak with all its nodosities, like Dr. Johnson, and some of its burly strength. He was a model witness. His entire tes- timony, save one sentence, which he expanded for a reason you will see, was packed into five words. " Did Mr. Labouchere send for you to his house on Sat- urday last ?" " Yes." " Did you find Mr. Labouchere in his hbrary with a gen- tleman you had not seen before ?" Mr. Sala paused. A queer look came into his face, and he rephed slowly in a harsh, strong, husky tone — " I found Mr. Labouchere in his library with a person I had not seen before." " Did you hear Mr. Labouchere's account here in court ?" "Every word." " Was it correct ?" " Every word." " Nothing from me, Mr. Sala," said the Attorney-General ; and down went Mr. Sala, after another obeisance to their lordships, by common consent one of the heroes of the day. May 5. — So possessed are the Tories by the spirit of scep- ticism — of political not of religious scepticism — that they en- tirely refuse to credit the current report that Mr. Parnell was moved to tears by Sir Charles Eussell's eloquence in court. Mr. Parnell, they say, is not an emotional person, and, if he were, is not very likely to weep over a pathetic narration of the misfortunes of Mr. Davitt. He and Mr. Dav- itt are supposed to be as far as ever from agreeing about Irish policy. They are on civil terms ; hardly more. Mr. Davitt regards Mr. Parnell as a leader who ought to follow, while to Mr. Parnell Mr. Davitt, certainly during some por- tions of his career, has seemed almost a mutineer. What is true, I believe, is that during a portion of the Davitt passage of this great speech Mr. Parnell covered his face with his hands. The rest is conjecture. COURT SCENES. 475 Equally sceptical are they about Sir Charles Eussell's own tears at his own peroration. Whether he shed actual tears, or not, does not perhaps greatly matter, except to history, which now takes note of everything that is personal. Moved he certainly was; deeply moved, I judge. He had reached the close of a great effort in a great cause, in which his own feelings were wholly engaged, both as advocate and Irish- man. The strain had been very great, his temperament is a nervous one, his susceptibilities are those of his race ; he was at the crisis of his own career and, perhaps, of the Irish cause. I can offer you no direct testimony ; it was my mis- fortune not to hear him. But he, too, as he sat down, bur- ied his face in his hands, and the spectators of this scene in- ferred the tears. Sir Charles is, beyond question, a person of very considerable dramatic gifts. Whether he employed them on this occasion, or whether the tears welled up irre- sistibly, may be left an open question. Both theories may very well be true. The actor, too, has his emotions, and many times I have seen him, or at least her, when after a great scene the eyes ran over. This closing scene of the opening for the defence was, at any rate, historic, and the truth is worth knowing. Since this was written I have asked a friend Avho was present what it was that really happened. My friend is, hke the Tories, by nature sceptical. He answered, "I can- not say whether Sir Charles shed tears or not. All I can say is that I saw him dash them away." And he reproduced the gesture with which it was done. INDEX. INDEX. Aberdeen, i 424 et seg. • its appearance to a stranger, 436. The fifth Earl of, i 424 et seg. Earl of, and the Irish people, his popularity, ii 130-133; favour and goodwill towards, 131 ; how he skil- fully relieved distress in Dublin, 133, 134 ; and Mr. Michael Davitt, 134, 136 ; the Irish landlord, 135 ; his flag, ib. ■ official capacities, 135, 136 ; sympathy with his subjects, 136. See also 198, and under Dublin Castle. ■ Countess of, i 428, 430 ; in St. Pat- rick's Hall, ii 126 ; and entertainment at Dublin Castle, 1 27 ; a drive with, from Dublin Castle, 130, 131; evi- dences of respect and affection for, 131; her popularity, audits cause, 133; energetic benevolence, ib.; practical notions as to Irish industries, ii.; and the relief of distress in Dublin, 133, 134. See also under Dublin Castle. Acton, Lord, his reading, ii 439. Actors and actresses, and London society — the social church and actresses, Ii 31, 32 ; how regarded in New York, 32 ; no rule for admission or exclusion, ib. ; Mrs. Kendal and the Queen, 32 ; Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft and royalty, ib. ; the Prince of "Wales, and the admission of actresses into society, 33, 34 ; Ma- dame Grisi and the silken rope, 33 ; Madame Patti, her relations with soci- ety, 34; Madame Sarah Bernhardt, «6.; Col. the Hon.W.F. Cody, 34, 35; play- ers of the Comedie Fran9aise, 35 ; M. Coquelin and London circles, ib. ; the feeling as to, in Paris, 35, 36 ; Mr. Dix- ey, 36 ; Miss Ada Rehan, ib. ; Mr. Ir- ving, 36, 37 et seg. ; Mr. Hare on the social^ recognition of actors and ac- tresse3,46; their gifts and qualitieS|i6. Actresses, and their relations to Bishops and society in general^ Miss Ellen Terry and American ladies, ii 41 ; list of guests at dinner-parties in London, 42 ; American criticisms, ib. ; difficulty of explaining what will exclude any woman from London society, 43 ; their similarity to other women, ib. ; man- ner, 44 ; brilliant instance of assimila- tion, ib. et seg. Adulteration and a Manchester firm, ii 375. Agincourt, the, ii 276 et seg. Ailesbury, Maria, Marchioness of, and the mourning for the late German Emper- or, ii 30. Aitken, Miss, i 250. Ajax, the, ii 282 et seg., 406. Albani, Madame, ii 246. Alberta, the, ii 279 et seg., 413 et seg. Alexandria, bombardment of, and Mr. Bright, i 116-119 ; ii 83, 226, 231. Alice in Wonderland, ii 95. AUibone, Dr., and Browning and Long- fellow, i 315. AUingham, Mr.,i 257 Alma-Tadema, Mr., and the discussion of art, ii 86 ; American stories, ib. Althorp Library, the, ii 432, 441, 445, 446. ■ ^foa, the, ii 278. Ambassadors, Foreign, at London, i 224 ; and their places at the Royal Ball at Buckingham Palace, ii 270, 271. 480 INDEX. America, Discourses in, i 292. America and England, see England and America. and Count H. von Bismarck, i lY ; friendship of Prince Bismarck for, 2Y, 28 ; traditional policy of Prussia tow- ards, 28 ; the national costume of, ii 236 ; and see United States. American mail service, i 81 ; artists and English art, 34Y et seq. ; women, their success in London, ii 16; an, his dic- tum as to London society, 21; the, and the dress of her English cousin, 28; ladies and Miss Ellen Terry, 41 ; crit- icism of a dinner-party, 42; barbarism, Mr. Gladstone on, 350 ; manners, Mr. Ruskin on, 373, 374. girl, the, in England, her knowledge of life, ii 70, 71 ; and the note of equal- ity, 71 ; a grievance, 101 ; the essay upon, in a Conservative journal, 101, 103 ; her success, opinion of an Eng- lish lady on, ib. ; choosing a partner, 101 ; copied by English girls, 102 ; pe- riod when she has been studied in Lon- don, 103 ; causes of her conquest, ib. ; why the Englishman marries her, ii. ; opinion of the British mother, ib. ; dif- ference of training between the Eng- lish and the, 104 ; opinion of an, on the right course, 105 ; testimony of a young Englishwoman, ib. ; and money, 105, 106; her foothold in English society, 106 ; quickness and keensightedness, 107; ideas on deference, 108 ; i-esults of her presence in English society, 108, 109 ; her capacities in relation to fast- ness, 108 ; the unapproachable type, 111 ; continuanceof her invasion, 112; literature on the subject, and its char- acter, 112, 113; desirability of having the opinion of both the American and the English girls, 113, 114; the retort of two British matrons, 113-115 ; the answer, 115, 116; danger of panic, 116 ; number of Anglo-American mar- riages, ib.; the money aspect of the question, ib. ; the English husband's reply, ib. See also English girl, the. Legation, the, in Paris, i 326, 327 ; in London and the mourning for the late German Emperor, ii 31. ■ American Senate, the, and sympathy with Mr. Bright's family and country- men, i 144. Americanism and the English, i 219. Americans, the, and the hereditary prin- ciple, i 450; their political life, in what bound up, ib,; and the seeing of London society, ii 19; their ideas of the English, 111. Ampthill, Lord, i 329. Anderson, Miss Mary, i 330. Anglo-Indians, the, and Lord Kipon, i 214. Argyll, the Duke of, i 70, 71, 330 ; ii 266. Arklow House, i 19. Arnold, Matthew, and the Germans, i 5 ; Hayward's work in literature, 272 ; a painful memory of, 289 ; his paper on Civilisation in the United States, its tendency, ib. ; quoted, 290-293 ; object of his visit to America, 291 ; his expectations, ib. ; feelings as to America, ib. ; tilings by which Amer- ica will judge him, 292 ; his character and genius, tributes to, 293 ; fame and reputation, i6.; books, 293, 294 ; read- ers, 294; ideas and phrases, «6.; place and influence in English literature, 294, 295, 302 ; and French meaning of sense of form in literature, 295 ; his definition of merits of French style, i6.; criticism, j6.; master, i6.; style, ib. ; poetry, 295, 296 ; religious or theological influence, 296; hand- ling of political topics, ib. ; freedom in writing of persons, «6. ; epithets, ib. ; attempt to explain the Trinity, 297; circumstances in life, «6.; services to education, ib. ; assault on the Dissent- ers, 298; and the Charity Commission- ership, ib. ; his performance of duties, ib.; abandonment of poetry, «6.; place in English society, 298-300; in the world of letters and art, 300; death, the secret of, 301 ; manner, j6,; chief function, a. ; talk, a.; friendship and qualities, 302 ; and Browning, 313 ; on beauty, 317; also 72, 116, 121, 172, 261 ; ii 66, 76, 265. Art and art criticism, the standard of, in France, i 338. talk and talkers, ii 86. Ascot, the Royal Enclosure, ii 28 ; de- scription of a lady at, 28, 29 ; also 16, 141, 198. Ashley, Lord, see Shaftesbury, The Earl of. Asquith, Mr., ii 461 ; his history and de- scription, 463. Aurelius, Marcus, see Renan. INDEX. 481 Bagehot, Mr.,. and the American Presi- dent's power to emit money, ii 303, 304. Balfour, Mr. Arthur J., his position in the Government, 1171; qualities, \18, 119 ; parentage and political history, 179, 180; experience in the Scotch Secre- taryship, 180; opinion of, by politi- cians ib. ; his nerve and courage, 181 ; and the Irish Secretaryship, 181, 182 ; his character and capacities, 182 ; talk described by a lady, ii 76 ; training and reading, ib. ; and practical poli- tics, ib. ; his leisureliness, 77 ; other qualities, ib. ; his hatred of shams, ib. ; English, ib. ; also i 171 ; ii 84. Balliol College, i 321, 322. The Master of, i 72, 321 ; ii 444 ; and see Jowett, Prof. Ballot Act, the, i 101. Balmoral, 1 227 ; ii 140, 141, 143. Bancroft, Mr. and Mrs., their .Reminis- cences, il 32. Barnbougle Castle described, i 391, 421. Barrot, M., his translation of Carlyle's JiVench Revolution, i 258. Battersea Library, the, i 440, 446. Bayard, Mr., ii 348. Beach, Sir Michael Hicks-, and tlie Tories, iil94; his leadership, 209; speech and passage-at-arms with Mr. Parnell, ib. el seq.; a stinging epigram, 212; also 1181,182; ii 360, 362, 402. Beaconsfield, Earl of, his reception at a Guildhall banquet, 55 ; appearance, ib. ; and commonplace civilities, 56 ; his actions during dinner and while speaking, ib. ; voice, ib. ; knowledge of the art of speaking, ib. ; as a talk- er, i 57 ; his style, ib. ; want of frank- ness, 58 ; what he says to the English people, ib. ; criticism on his speech, 58, 59 ; his reference to the murder of the English envoy at Cabul, 58 ; gen- uine qualities, 58, 59 ; sudden change in his appearance, 59 ; scene at his departure 59, 60 ; his departing assur- ance, 60; and the Earl of Carnarvon, 147, 148 ; the British fleet, 148 ; his assumption of indifference, 152; and Lord Randolph Churchill, 170; Mr. Fawcett, 238; Mr. Mill, 239; in the House, ib. ; and Mr. Hayward, 276 ; on Lord Houghton, 279 ; and his own Eng- lish, 312, 313 ; Lord Lytton, 330 ; tlie characteristic of English painting, 349, 350 ; the education of his party, 377 ; II. -31 at Lord Salisbury's mansion, ii 15 ; the Royal Academy, his praise for a defi- cient quality, 60; and the Sword of State, 157 ; also i 13, 27, 71, 134, 153, 157, 172, 175, 329, 344, 396; ii 5, 8, 74, 82, 92, 99, 140, 144, 171, 292. Beauchamp, Earl, ii 164, 169. Bedford, Duke of, his distinction, ii 95 ; his culture, its nature, ib.\ great possi- bilities, ib. ; temperament, wit, learn- ing, kindliness of character, and jest, 96 ; spoken discourse, its flavour, ib. ; also 6, 153. Beresford, Lord Charles, his humour and versatility, ii 83 ; also 402, 406, 414. Lord Marcus, ii 83, 84. Lord William, ib. Berlin, Congress of, 1878, i 13. Berliners and Prince Bismarck, i 26. Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, her relations with London society, ii 34 ; a brilliant instance of assimilation, 44, 45 ; her talk at the dinner table, 45 ; in the drawing-room, ib. ; chief topic, ib. ; on a Parisian actress in London, 45, 46. Besant, Mr. Walter, ii 244, 247. Bibliothfeque Nationale (Paris), its liber- ality and trustfulness, ii 442. Biggar,Mr.,1153; 11180,466,467. Billot, General, French envoy, described, i 14,15. Bingham, Mr. William, ii 309 et seq. Mrs. William, ii 309 et seq. Bingley Hall,i 128. Birmhigham and Liberalism, i 99; Radi- calism, 114, 115; also 127, 133, 142, 143, 168, 171, 175, 183, 186, 187, 191, 192, 195, 197,1206, 207, 402 ; ii 78, 206, 317,443. Town Hall, i 113; an audience in, 206. Bishops, the, as legislators, ii 169; attack upon them by the Church press on their resistance to the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, ib.; the result of their op position, 169, 174; their position de- fined, 171; appearance in the Lords, 171, 172; effect of their teaching, stud- ies, and lives on law-making, 172 Bishop of Lincoln, liis tone, and his argument against the Bill, 172, 173; Bishop of Exeter, his account of the principle on which marriage law de- pended, and its effect upon the Lords, 174; their proposed exclusion from the House of Lords, ib. 482 INDEX. Bishops and actresses, ii 42 et seq. Bismarck, Count Herbert vom, bis posi- tion in tlie German Empire and Eu- ropean politics, i 12; in societj', ib. ; and Lord Eosebery, 13; his friends and reputation in London, ib.\ in Berlin, 13; at The Hague, 14 ; personal appear- ance, and resemblance to the Prince, 15; impression o£ interview with, ib.; his aptitude forworlt, 16; private sec- retary in English sense, ib. ; on Mr. Pen- dleton, 17; America, j'i.; subjects of a conversation with, ib.\ his resemblance to Napoleon, 18 ; future in Europe, i5.; fidelity to his father, 27. Prince, his public appearances, i 3; mental and physical characteristics, 6, 7; dress, 7, 8; reception in the Eeichstag, 8; voice and reading, 8, 9, 10; faith in God, 8; faculty of speech, 9; action while speaking, 10; manner of his departure from the Keichstag, 10; and the Netherlands, 14; his Eng- lish, 15; training of his son, 15, 16; use of men, 16; conduct of foreign affairs, ib.\ official position, ib.\ and America, 17; his dismissal, its mean- ing and European opinion, 19; opinion of eminent diplomatist on the Prince's retirement, i6.; and the French press, 20; conjectures and reasons for his resignation, ib.; his majority in the Reichstag, ib.\ relations with the Em- peror on Socialistic policy, 20, 2 1 ; views borne out by the elections, 21; real issue between the Prince and the Em- peror, ib.; his prophecy, ib.; the truth as to his dismissal, 21; his successor, 22; acknowledgment of his services, 23; sacrificed to the Emperor's am- bition, 24; direct issue between the Chancellor and the Emperor, ib.; the Prince's preference for resignation, 25; Germany solidified under his responsi- bility, jii.; his leave-taking of the Em- peror, 26; loyalty, ib.; last interview, nature of the, ib.; his steadfast friend- ship for America, 27; on the Southern Confederacy, 27, 28 ; his action in Samoa, 28; description of the Labour Conference, 32; opinion of the cartoon in Punch, 33; Carlyle on, 256; on po- liteness, ii 12 ; also i 29, 30, 224, 401. Blackwood, Sir S. A., on Mr. Fawcett, i 85, 86; his responsibility, 87, 91. Blaine, Mr., and Protection, his tone and Mr. Gladstone's, ii 351, 352 ; also 255, 303. Blake, William, i 246. Blanc, M. Louis, his purity, criticisms, and theories, i 43; attitude, ib.; and Opportunism, 44; his activity, ib.; private virtues, 44, 45 ; financial ex- perience, 45 ; gift to M. Pagnerre, 45 ; the apologist of Eobespierre, 46 ; his books, study of England, and letters, 46,48,49; life in London, 47 ; resent- ment against Bonapartist empire, ib. ; keynote to his public character, ib. ; bent of his mind, 48 ; his gospel, ib. ; theory of his socialism, ib. ; his sym- pathetic nature, ib. ; faith in the peo- ple, 49 ; charges against him, ib. ; his manner, politeness, conversation, and temperament, 49, 50; his funeral, de- scription of, 50, 61 ; and Carlyle's French Revolution, 259, 269 ; also 36, 200, 279, 333. Blowitz, M. de, i 307, 308. Blunt, Mr. Wilfrid, ii 226. Rev. G., i 264, 268. Boehm, Sh- J., excellence of his statue of Darwin, i 80 ; also 77, 144, 264-267. Books, the Housing of, ii 430 ; their classification and arrangement, 431 ; fault in Mr. Gladstone's scheme, 431, 432; how he speaks of, 432; his af- fection for, 437 ; on tlie voices of, 438 ; Mr. A. Lang and, 443 ; the body and soul of, ib. ; Darwin and a heavy volume, ib. ; packing of, ib. ; vulgar errors about, 434 ; and cheapness, ib. ; collecting, 435, 446 ; old editions, 436 ; Swift and one of his own, ib. ; Dr. Johnson's rule for reading, 437 ; Charles Sumner and binding on, ib. ; Burke, Gibbon, and Voltaire on read- ing and books, 438, 439 ; and Words- worth, 439 ; Lord Eosebery, 440 et ■leg. ; the thumb-mark, 441, 445. Borthwick, Lady, her parties, ii 15, 17; Sir Algernon, ii 253. Boston, its respectability, ii 374, 464. Athenaeum, the, ii 308 et seq. Bowles, Mr., i 344. Brabourne, Lord, and his crown of thorns, ii 198, 199; Mr. Sexton's epigram on, 199. Bradford, i 94; Liberal Association of, and Mr. Forster, 94, 95 ; Caucus, 98 ; also 105, 169. INDEX. 483 Bradley, Dean, ii 255. Bi'aud, Sir Henn\ see Hampden, Vis- count. The Hon. H. R., ii 216. Breoliin, i 434 et seq. Castle, 1 436, 437 ; ii 297. Bright, John, idol of Birmingliam, i 113 ; his agreement with his constituents as to Reform Bill, 114; simplicity of his manner, ib. ; personal appearance, 115; sincerity and mission, ib. ; dominating element, 116; photograpli, «6. ; inter- view with, after bombardment of Al- exandria, ib. ; his attachment to Mr. Gladstone, 117 ; abhorrence of the bombardment, 117, 118; determina- tion as to office, 117; hatred of war, 118,119; patriotism, 119; reading and general culture, 119; love of Milton, 119,120; objection to Shakespeare, 120 ; knowledge of the Bible, ib. ; and George Wither, 121 ; his knowledge of Ireland and Free Trade, ib. ; con- trasted with Mr. Gladstone, 121, 133, 402 ; his English style, 121 ; and mod- ern poets, ib. ; sympathy between, and Mr. Whittier, 122 ; his repetition of " Snowbound," ib. ; and Mrs. Procter, 123 ; in London society, ib. ; his feel- ing as to lawyers, ib. ; curious exacti- tude, ib. ; disregard of conventionali- ties,124; talk, its qualities, 125; Views on India, ib. ; and Free Trade, 123,126; his seriousness of thought, 126; on Mr. Gladstone's services to his country, ib,; bis home life, «6. ; nature, 127; relig- ious mood, ib. ; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 128 ; his welcome in Bingley Hall, ?6. ; emotion, ifi.; pathos, 129 ; purity of his diction, ib. ; his methods of preparation, 129-131 ; a lesson in oratory, 131 ; liow regarded by the House, 131 ; his powers as a debater, 131, 132; a famous peror.a- tion, 132; his dislike of parade, 133; his oratorical qualities, ib. ; what the English people owe to him, 134 ; and the London press, ib. ; opinions on, of the English press, 135 ; the Tories and, 136 ; his services to America, 136, 137 ; tribute to, in the House of Com- mons, 137-140 ; his relations with Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain, 139- 143; Mr. Shaw - Lefevre's reminis- cences, 143; portr.Tits, 143, 144; cari- cature by Carlo Pellegrini, 144; si- lence of the American Senate, 144, 145; and Browning, 317; poetry, ii. ; at the Home Rule debate, ii 197, 198, 204; and an anti-imperial sentiment, 363 et seq. ; and Home Rule, 366 ; adulteration, 375 ; also 1 38, 100, 172, 175,206,402; ii 54. British Museum, the, and Louis Blanc, i 47 ; Trustees of, and Darwin's me- morial, i 77; ii 441. Broglie, Due de, and M. Garabetta, i 35 ; his speech in the Assembly, 36, 37 ; denunciation of, by Ganibetta, 40, 43. Brougham, Lord, i 129, 133 ; ii 362. Browning, Robeit, his love for Carlyle, i 268; and Mrs. Procter, 304; his strength and cheeriness, 309; talk, 309, 310; preference for port wine, 310; freedom from vanity and irrita- bility, 310,311 ; degrees, 311; at Lord Rosebery's dinner to the Shah, ib. ; his simplicity.and genuineness, ji.; at the Shakespeare Society, ib. ; his feel- ing as to Browning Societies, ib. ; their effect upon his place in literature, 312; his patience with American so- cieties, ib. ; impatience at being con- sidered difficult, 312, 313; and Mat- thew Arnold, 313'; his loyalty and sincerity, ib. ; poetry and Coleridge's law, 314; choice of words, a6.; want of dignity in expression, 314, 316,319 poetic force, 316 ; in Dr. Allibone's Dictionary, ib. ; his popularity, ib. death, apologetic tone of London pa- pers after, 315, 316; readers, 31' and the classes and masses, ib. ; his recruits, 317; tried by Matthew Ar. nold's law, ib. ; his fearlessne3S, ib. sense of beauty, ib. ; what he gave, 317, 318 ; his defiance of syntax, 318 poetical shorthand,,«6. ; splendid qual- ities,«6.; deficiencies,319; also 72, 77, 245, 257, 264, 266, 283 ; ii 63, 236, 255 Societies, i 311, 312; in America 312,317. Bruyfere, Jean de la, and women, ii 66,67. Buckingham Palace, described, ii 262 et seq. Burke, Edmund, and the sacrifice of ' principle to a constituency, ii 188 ; on reading, 438; also i 34, 114, 133,171; ii 440. Burnand, Mr, (editor of Punch), his geni- ality and sincerity, ii 79 ; conviction as to joking, 79, 199. 484 INDEX. Burns, Mr. John, on landlords and capi- talists, ii SlY el seq. ; his declaration, 318; also i 158, 159; ii 445. Bylandt, Count de, i 224 ; ii 274, 275. Bn-on, Lord, and Mr. Hayward, i 271; "also 303 ; ii 253. Cabinet crisis, the Queen during a, ii 189 et seq. the, in Germany, i 16. Cadogan, Earl, dinner-party at Cadogan House, ii 10. Caine, Mr. W. S., i 146 ; ii 216. Cairns, Lord Chancellor, his appearance at a Guildhall banquet, i 54, 55 ; ii 453. Calcraft, Sir H., his social currency and authority, ii 84 ; humour and simplic- ity, ib. Calder, West, i 371 et seq. Oallan,Mr., 1 153. Cambridge, H.R.H. the Duke of, and the mourning for the late German Emper- or, ii 30; also 152, 156, 165, 229, 240, 245, 248, 280, 394. University of, and Darwin, i 71, 310. Campbell-Bannerman, Mr., i 182. Campbell, Mr. Henvy, ii 470 ; described, 471. Canada, Dominion of, i 147, 196 ; ii 410. Canning, ii 362. Canterbury, The Archbishop of, his atti- tude at the unveiling of Darwin's me- morial, 1 78 ; significance of his pres- ence, ib. \ and tiie American Girl in England, ii 112, 113; also i 150; ii 257, 258. Caprivi, General von, his capabilities, i 22. Carlyle Memorial, the, simplicity of the ceremony at unveiling tlie, i 264 ; the company, 264, 265 ; Prof. Tyndall's ad- dress, happiness of its conception, 265, 266 ; his reference to Emerson, ib. ; a description of the statue, 266,267 ; the inscription, 266 ; excellence of the site, 2G7 ; to whom the statue is due, 267, 268; estimates of Carlyle's teaching by Conservatives and Liberals, 269 ; French opinion, ib.-\ two estimates of Carlvle, ib. Thomas, and Sterling, i 64 ; Mr. Mill, 238 ; invitation to tea with, 249 ; his house, 250, 251 ; cordial greeting, 251 ; questions as to Mr. Emerson, ib. ; disregard of weather, ib. ; rapid Avalk- ing, 251, 252; discourse on London and Londoners, 252 ; regard for Amer- ica, and first remuneration as an au- thor, 252, 253 ; idea of American ar- mies and commanders, 253 ; questions, their diversity, 253, 254; face, laugh, and gestures, 254 ; pipe, 255 ; talk af- ter tea, iS.; and Prince Bismarck, 256; . the houses he visited, 257 ; how re- garded in Chelsea, ib. ; his friends, ib. ; disregard of conventionalities, ib. ; ad- miration for Dickens, ib. ; on novels and mental relaxation, 258 ; his French Revolution,, loss of manuscript of, ib. ; how known to the French, ib. ; its un- translatableness, ib. ; and M. Louis Blanc, ib. ; his meeting with tlie Queen — a breach of etiquette at, 260 ; and Dean Stanley, ib. ; his views as to bur- ial in Westminster Abbey, ib. ; ideas about poetry, ib. ; contempt for form, 261 ; exercise, »6. ; travels in Germany, 262 ; dyspepsia, ib. ; perseverance, ib. ; circumstances, ib. ; income from writ- ings, ib. ; Mr. Haywai'd's criticism oil, 276 ; his eulogy on Lord Houghton, 282 ; and reverence for great men, 285 ; the Basil Montagu letters, 305 ; his own prose, 312; on Lord Palmer- ston, 354 ; also 35, 116, 203, 204, 294; ii 77. See also Carlyle Memorial, the. Carlyle, Mrs., i 257. Carnarvon, Earl of, quoted, on Lord Id- desleigh, i 107, 108 ; and the survival of letter.^, 108; his place in public life, 116, 147; statesmanlike qualities, 147 ; and an intercolonial railway, ib. ; his services sought by Mr. Disraeli, 148 ; Minister for the Colonies, ib. ; his resignation of the Vice-royalty of Ireland, ib. ; descent, 149 ; culture, ib.'\ religious tolerance, ib. ; care for religious observances, 150; general estimate of his character and qualities, 151 ; his talk, ii 80, 81 ; speech on the abandonment of coercion, 167, 168; appearance and qualities, 168; odd destiny as Viceroy of Ireland, ib. ; i 212. Carnegie Library (Edinburgh), the, ii 442, 445. Mr., and the Scotch Home Rule movement, ii 367 ; the integrity of the British Empire, 368; his model for Great Britain and Ireland, ib. ; and the analogy of the American States, 368. INDEX. 485 Caron, Major Le, ii 459 et seq. Castelar, Seiior, i 401. Caucus, the, in England, i 94 ; and mem- bers of Parliament, ii 189. Chadwick, Commander, ii 275 et seq. Oliamberlain, Mr. Joseph, his opinion ot Mr. Forster's Education Act, 196; on Mr. Bright, 140 ; opinions as to friend- ship between, and Mr. Bright, 142 ; on Lord Hartington, 159; politics and Socialism, 183-188; his importance in the Liberal party, 1 84 ; defects, 185; compared with Mr. George, ih. ; on the ransom of property, ib. ; law, 186 ; protests against his gospel, 187 ; his mission to Washington, 188 ; and the Irish, «6.; his open-mindediiess, 189; Radicalism, ib. ; fault as a leader, ib. ; official repntation, 190; Mr. Glad- stone's opinion on, 190, 191 ; his man- ner of reoeiTing an attack, 191 ; as a debater and speaker, ib. ; personal appearance, descent, and social posi- tion, 191, 192, 197; firmness of his convictions, 192 ; and the Queen, ib. ; at the Devonshire Club, 19.3-198; compared with Lord Granville, 195; his intimacy with, and difference from Lord Hartington, ib. ; resemblance to Pitt, ib. ; talk, its defect, ii 77, 78 ; . precision and energy, 77 ; other quali- ties, 78 ; loyalty to the provincial world, ib. ; character, ib. ; what the West End of London owes to him, ib. ; and Mr. Parnell's patriots, 197; his serenity, ib.; fairy godmother, 199; doctrine of restitution, 316; and the Socialists, 328; also i 138, 152, 166, 159, 160, 206, 207, 273, 298 ; ii 7, 132, 201, 204, 206, 215, 217, 315 et seq.; 402, 413, 414, 464. Champion, Mr., ii 323 et seq. Chancellor of the Exchequer, the, and his secretaries, ii 418. Channel Cruise, A — The Teutonic de- scribed, ii 398 et seq. ; a shipful of ce- lebrities, 400 et seq. ; the glory and greatness of England, 405 ; impression produced, 406 ; torpedo boats, ib. ; the ships described, ib. ; Prince of Wales, 407 ; German Emperor and his fleet, 408 ; English salute, ib. ; a disappoint- ment, 411. Tunnel, Mr. Gladstone's argument for the, ii 356 ; his attitude to oppo- nents, 357; conviction as to French friendship, 357 ; belief as to feeling ot the sensible population of England on the question, 368, 359 ; his consis- tency, 359 ; reason for Sir E. Watkin's support of the Bill, i6. Chaucer and two Cabinet Ministers, i 108. Chelmsford, Lord, i 53. Cheyne Roiv,Chelsea,described, i 249,250. Walk, described, i 250. Childers, Mr. H. C. E., i 73 ; his business and arithmetical capacities, 197; and the London Riots, ii 320 et seq. ; de- scribed, 402. Choato, Mr. T. W., 1 123. Chriiiianisme, Histoire des Origines du, i 334. Church of England, the, and the Educa- tion Act of 1870, i 101, 102 ; the spirit of Rome, ii 444. of Scotland, H. M. Lord High Com- missioner to the, ii 122 ; General As- sembly of the,. 123. Churchill, Lord Randolph, triumph of, i 110; a party man. Ill ; how regarded by his party, 161 ; his place in the House, ib.; scene as he rises to speak, 163, 164; a debating sentence, 164, 165; palpable hit, 165; his styles, voice, and gesture, 66 ; capacity for leadership, ib. ; and thfe new Democ- racy, 167; his public career and speech- es, 167-172 ; and the study of oratory 171 ; his speech at Canford Manor de- scribed, 172, 173 ; invective, 174 ; the Dartford and Gordon speeches, 174, 175 ; his criticisms on Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain, ib. ; Manchester speech, 175, 176; mastery of subjects, and intellect, 176; inconsistencies, iJ. ; probable conclusion of an American on his speeches, 177 ; his conversa- tional styles, ii 74; and an original woman, ib. ; his art of making others talk well, ib. ; diction and memorj', ib. ; fertility in difficulties, 75 ; con- versational complement, ib. ; petition against opening Museums on Sund.ars, 195 ; also i 179 ; ii 84, 166, 177, 201, 209,211,212,402. Civil Service, the, and the Classes, ii 423. Clarendon, Earl of, i 326, 327 ; ii 54. Clark, Sir Andrew, i 301; his power of putting to silence, ii 96, 97 ; capabili- ties, 97; analysis of a difficult chap- ter, ib. ; talk, its dexterity, 97, 98. 486 INDEX. Classes, the, and Mr. Gladstone, ii 421 ; and the Civil Service, 422. Clemenceau, M., his definition of the German Emperor, i 20, 21. Cleveland, a former Duchess of, and Sir F. Leighton, ii 40. President, and Mr. Lowell, i 217. Duchess of, ii 255. Coal Dues, result of their abolition, ii 380. Cobden Club, the, and America, ii 365. Richard, Mr. Gladstone on, ii 297, 29S ; an anti-imperial sentiment, 363 ; alsoi 134,139; ii 54, 353,376. Cockburii, the late Lord Chief Justice, ii 97. Cody, Col. the Hon. W. F., his eclipse, ii So. Coercion jict, the, i 97, 102 ; ii 177. Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice, i 228 ; ii 97. Samuel Taylor, his definition of prose and poetry, i 314; authority, i6. ; law and Browning's poetry, 314, 316; also 223, 276, 303. Colmer, Mr., i 196. Commons, House of, appearance of the members, i 5 ; its reverence for Mr. Bright, 131; iribute to him in the, 137-140 ; and Mr. Mill, 238, 239 ; the constituencies — Mr. Spencer and the influence of members, ii 187 et seq.; the actual work of legislation, 189; his definition of legislation, 192; rela- tion of the member to his constitu- ents, 188 ; temper of modern constitu- encies, ib. ; the mandate, ib. ; trades unions and the education of members, 188, 189; the Caucus, 189; their re- sult on the candidate, ib. ; Mr. John Stuart Mill and his liold upon the House, 190; Mr. Morley, his sacrifice, ib. ; decrease in the powers and inde- pendence of the, 191 ; its masters, ib. ; causes of decay of parliamentary pres- tige, ib. ; supervision of members, ib. ; effect on, of journalism, 192; after the dynamite explosion, 345-347. A great night in the, on second read- ing of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill; inside the House, 193 et seg. ; the fill- ing of the House, and reception of the various leaders, 194 et seq.; acoustics of the, 195 ; a House of groups, ib. ; Mr. Gladstone's arrival, ib. ; his ap- pearance, 195, 196 ; speech, 213 et seq. ; Lord Hartington, 196,197; Mr.Cham- berlain, 197; Mr. Bright, 197, 198; Sir G. Trevelyan, 198 ; the Peers' benches, ib., the diplomatic and special galler- ies, 199; ladies' gallery, ib. ; Mr. Go- schen's speech, 200 et seg.; a passage- at-arms, 201, 202 ; Mr. Parnell, 203 et seg. ; the dinner-hour, its convenience and inconvenience, 208; Mr. E. R. Rus- sell, ib. ; Mr. Cowen, 209 ; Sir Michael Hicks-Beach,and Mr.Parnell, ib.et seg.; a storm, 211 ; law as to accusations, 212 ; effect on, of Mr. Gladstone's ad- dressing it,213 ; the result of the vote, 21 &, et passim. Comedie Fran9aise, the players of, and London society, ii 35,46. Confireiuei d'Angleterre, i 334. Covffresx, Twenty Years of, ii 303. 'Connaught, H. K. H. the Duke of, ii 32, 92, 152, 156, 240, 257 et seq. Constable, John, i 350; ii 314. Constitution of England, Law of the, ii 302. Contes Drolatigues (Balzac's), i 339. Conversation, the, of to-day, impossibil- ity of naming a type of, ii 62 et seg. ; Emerson on,and woman, 66; and men, ib. ; nature of, at a dinner of men, ib.; and famous women, 67; George Eliot, 67, 68 ; women and the superintend- ence of, 67 ; Mrs. Procter, her influ- ence on, 68 ; on solemnities at dinner, and an accomplished woman, 68, 69 ; the novel - writing woman and, 69 ; conditions to be observed in, by an outsider, 70; influence on, of Ameri- icau women in London, 70, 71. Coquelin, M., and London circles, ii 35 ; in Paris, 36. Cornwall, Barry, i, 304. Corry, Mr. Montague, i 59 ; and see Row- ton, Lord. Court Circulars, ii 269. Coveiit Garden Theatre, its appearance during the mourning for the late Ger- man Emperor, ii 26, 27. Cowen, Mr. Joseph, and the Tynesiders, 1 211, 212; his reputation in the House, ii 208 ; accent, voice, and dic- tion, 208, 209. Crimean War, the, i 131, 139; ii 87, 88. Croker, John Wilson, i 47. Cunynghame, Mr. Henry, and an invita- tion to dinner, ii 447. Currency, Commission on, i 178. 487 Carrie, Sir Philip H. W. (Permanent Un- der Secretary, Poreigii Office), recep- tion at residence of, i 19. Dalhousie, Earl of, i 434 et seq. ; and tlie Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, ii 169, 170. Dalkeitli described, i S69, 370. Dalmeny Parit described, i 390, 421 et seq. Darwin Memorial Statue, unveiling of, nature of the ceremony, i 76 ; unani- mous response to request for subscrip- tions, 76, 77 ; choice of assemblage, 77, 78 ; attitude of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 78 ; significance of his presence, ib. ; shortness of the cere- mony, 78, 79 ; Prof. Huxley's address, 79, 80. Prof. Huxley and the burial of, i 69 ; precautions, 69, 70; the funeral de- scribed, 70 et seq. ; eminence of the company, 70-72 ; significance of his burial in Westminster Abbey, 70, 71 ; and the Church of England, 71 ; mean- ing of Lord Salisbury's homage, ib. ; his "century," 71, 72; Tory homage, 72 ; notable absentees, 73 ; nature of the service, 74, 75 ; his triumphs, 75, 323 ; treatment of a heavy volume, ii 433. Davitt, Mr. Michael, and the Earl of Ab- erdeen, ii 134, 135; the Irish land- lords, 371 ; described, 471, 472 ; also 466 et seq., 470. Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, see Bishops, the, as legislators. Delane, Mr. (late editor of The Times), liis courage during illness, i 61 ; vaca- tions, 61, 62; quoted, 62, 66; at As- cot Heath, 62, 63 ; and The Times, 63, 64 ; his credit for the editing of the paper, 64 ; quantity of his work, ib. ; course as to advocacy of measures, 65 ; letters, early customs, activity, and su- pervision, ib. ; and Mr. Dana's rejec- tion by the Senate, 66 ; correction of mistakes and sense of justice, 66, 67 ; inconsistency, 67 ; a typical English- man, ib. ; his editorial rule and consid- eration for subordinates, ib. ; resem- blance to Prince Bismarck, ib. ; rela- tions with Mr. Walter, 68, 272. Democracy, the new, i 167. Denning, Mr. Inspector, ii 145, 344-346. Depew,Mr. Chauncey, and Heath House, ii 17 ; at Homburg, 393 ; his speech on board the Teutonic, 411 ; and the Prince of Wales, 414 ; also 79, 402, 404. Derby, Earl of, 1 108, 148 ; on Lord Hart- ington,i 169. the late Earl of, and the suspension of the habeas corpus by the American Congress, ii 303. Seronda, Daniel, i 243. Devastation, the, ii 282. Devil, the, Mr. Gladstone on, ii 363, 354. Devon, Earl of, ii 164. Devonshire Club, i 181 ; dinner at, to Mr. Chamberlain described, 193-198 ; it.s composition, 193 ; Lord Hartington ou the, ib. ; a remarkable group, 194 ; the speeches, 197, 198. Dickens, Charles, and Carlyle, i 257 ; also 304 ; ii 443. Dinner of men, the conversation at a, ii 66. Diplomatic personages, their position, ii 17. Disraeli, Mr., see Beaconsfield, Earl of Dissenters, the, and the Education Act of 1870, i 102. Divine right, the principle of, how regard- ed by Americans and Europeans, i 29, 30 ; and the Germans, %b. Dixey, Mr., and London, ii 36. Dore, Paul Gustave, his death and the English press, i 338 ; reputation, ib. ; knowledge of England, ib. ; standing as a painter in France, 339 ; illustra- tions, ib. etseq. ; and the admiration of the multitude, 340 ; his devotion to his art, ib. ; rapidity, ib. ; money, ib. • life and art, 340, 341 ; ambition as to his- torical painting, 341 ; faults, ib. ; sense of colour, ib. ; pictures, how regarded by the French, ib. ; patriotism, ib. ; in London, ib. ; his knowledge of English, 342 ; manner and conversation, ib. ; love of adventure and fatigue, ib. ; of scenery, 343 ; his physique and habits, ib. Dublin, the departure of the Viceroy from, ii 118; a resident in, on enter- tainment at the Castle, 127; relation of society in, to the Castle, 128; its social life, ib. ; a walk with a lady in a dismal neighbourhood of, and the ex- planation of the courtesy exhibited, 131, 132 ; Lady Aberdeen' in, 133 ; re- lief of distress in, and Lord Aberdeen and Lord Mayor Sullivan, 133, 134; also i 103, 148. Sec also Dublin Castle. 488 INDEX. Dublin Castle — The departure of Lord and Lady Aberdeen, ii 118; what the name suggests, ib. ; the approach, 118, 119 ; the interior and throne-room, 119, 120 ; St. PatrleliL's Hall, 120; atmosphere of the Castle, ib. ; Viceregal household, ib. ; Court Circular, ib. ; Viceroy, how- addressed, 121 ; marks of ceremony and royal state,?*.; precedence, 121, 122; their Excellencies' previous ex- perience at Holyrood Palace, 122, 123 ; difference between holding Court at Holyrood and, 123 ; a Presentation at the Viceregal Court described, 124- 126; a Viceregal kiss, 125, 126; scene in St. Patrick's Hall, 126, 127; the dresses described, 126 ; the ceremony, 125, 126; the ball, 126, 127; length of the Viceroy's stay in, 127; what he accomplished in the way of entertain- ment, ib. ; Dublin society and depend- ence on tiie, 128; its relations to Dublin, 128 ; tlie bureau of Irish administra- tion, ib. ; the Viceroy and etiquette, 129 ; and the Pound, ib. ; the Pound described, ib. ; tlie Viceregal turn-out, 130; a drive from, witli Lady Aber- deen, 130, 131 ; reason for the popu- larity of their Excellencies, 133; the Nationalist party and the, 134 ; the Viceroy's flag, 133 ; his administration of his ofiSce, ib. ; sympathy between him and his subjects, 136. See also Aberdeen, Earl and Countess of. Dumas, M. Alexandre, and book-collect- ing, ii 435 et seg. Edinburgh, its loveliness and pictu- resqueness, i 381, 387, 388, 417, 418. Edmunds, Mr., ii 348. Education Act, 1870, the, its history and principle, i 101 ; opposition to, 102 ; Dissenters and concessions of the, to the Church, 96 ; also 94, 96, 148. Egypt, i 422, 441 et seg. See also Lon- ■ don Sunday, a; and Review, a Royal. Egyptian war, the, how regarded by the average Briton, ii 226. Eighty Club, the, and Mr. Parnell, ii 11. Eliot, George, her surroundings, i 241 ; standard of judging her novels, iJ>. ; newspaper eulogies on, ib. ; her re- gard for society, 242 ; relations with Mr. G. H. Lewes, 242-245 ; his influ- ence over her, and its effect upon her work, 242, 244 ; her sensitiveness, 242 ; obligations to Mr. Lewes, ib. ; and the writing of Daniel Deronda, 243 ; her defects, ib. ; mind and knowledge, ib. ; society and her offence against conven- tionality, 244 ; difference from Georges Sand, 244; feelings entertained for her, 244, 245 ; and lionising, 245 ; lier passion for music, ib. ; a music partv, ib.; her commentary on Queen Mary at the Lyceinn, 246 ; personal appear- ance, 246, 247 ; Radicalism, 246 ; talk, 247 ; moods, ib. ; talk and letters de- scribed, ii 68, 96. Ellis,Mr,Agar,his curious story,ii 371,372. Embassies, the, in London and hospital- ity, ii 18. Emerson, quoted, i 124; and Carlyle, 251-253, 256; tributes to, by Prof. Tyndall, 266, 266 ; and Lord Hough- ton's verse, 281, 282 ; on the influence of writing, 311, 312 ; Daniel Webster, 401 ; and conversation and women, ii 66, 69; on the English race, 114; Pepys, 428 ; also i 131, 249, 292, 304, 318 ; ii 238, 296. Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Mr. Lowell, 1218, 219. ' Enchantress, the, ii 278-281, 411. Encyclopjedic learning and Mr. Glad- stone, ii 439. England,;oass?J7».. and America — State of English knowledge as to Constitution and Gov- ernment of the United States, ii 302 ; extraordinary mistakes and questions, 302, 303 ; Lord Salisbury's dictum as to the Supreme Court of the United States, 303 ; Lord Palmerston's decla- ration as to the power of making war, ih. ; the late Lord Derby and the sus- pension of the habeas corpus by the Congress, ib. ; Mr. Bagehot's blunder as to the President's power of emit- ting paper money, 303, 304 ; Mr. Gold- win Smith's error concerning Constitu- tion, 304 ; Mr. Phelps's article on the Constitution of the United States, ib. ; a reason of the ignorance regarding tlie Constitution, 305 ; a leading Rad- ical and the American system in Eng- land, 305, 306; Sir H.Maine and Amer- ican democracy, 306 ; Mr. Froude and American Conservatism, ib. Church of, her divines, and Darwin's theory, 1 71, 78; also 76, 260, 323; ii 173, 258. INDEX. 489 England, Letters on (Louis Blanc's), i 46. England, The Bank of, ii 326. Englkh Constitution, Tlie, ii 303, 304. English Embassy in Paris, contrasted with the American Legation, i 32Y. girl, the, and a matrimonial hunt, ii 101, 102 ; difference between her training and that of tlie American, 104 ; her incapacities and notions, ib. ; the money question, 105 ; her relations with the marriageable young man, 107 ; and the deterioration of man- ners, 109, 110; the part they played, 110; desirability of having her opin- ion on the American girl in England, 113. See also American girl, the. talk and talkers — Conversation and styles, ii 47 et seq. ; Lord Macauiay, ib. ; Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Hough- ton, Mr. Hayward, Mr. Charles Villiers, and Mr. Gladstone, 53 et seq. ; Mr. Browning, Lord Granville, and the cus- toms of particular coteries. 61 et seq.; conversation, influence of English and American women on, 66 et seq. ; Lord Rosebery, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Sir William Harcourt, 72 et seq. ; Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberhiin, and a group of journalists, 76 et seq. ; Soci- ety talk, the Prince of Wales, Lord Rowton, Lord Charles Beresford, Sir H. Calcraft, Sir H. D. Wolff, Sir F. Leighton and other artists. Art talk and talkers, 80 et seq.; Dr. Russell, Mr. Kinglake, and Mr. Froude, 87 et seq. ; Lord Wolseley, Professor Huxley, and Mr. W. S. Gilbert, 91 et seq. ; Duke of Bedford, Sir A. Clark, Sir Charles Rus- sell, and Mr. Irving, 95 et seq. English societ)', its sterling qualities, ii 111 ; settled opinion, social law, well- bred men and women, delightful houses, and hospitality, ib. defect of the, ii 142 ; and grave business, 193. Englishmen and Germans, political and personal relations between, i 12 ; Free Trade, ii 351. Erskine, Lord, i 173 ; ii 362. Essai/s and Reviews, authors of, and pro- motion, 1 320, 321 ; its effect to-day, 322; radicalism, ib. ; authors, ib. ; also ii 173, 444. Etiquette, continental and English notion of, ii 269, 270. Europe, the first soldier of, i 6 ; and France, opinion of, on Prince Bis- marck's retirement, 20 ; the German Emperor, 22 ; her homage to Prince Bismarck, 23; and the fall of Bis- marck, 26. Evans, Miss, see Eliot, George. Exeter, Bishop of (Dr. Temple), and the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, ii 173. Factokt Acts, the, i 286. Falkland, Viscount, i 150. Farrar, Archdeacon, i 70, 71, 78. Fawcett, Prof., his constitution, i 81 ; opinion of his character and abilities, ib.; his general characteristics, 81, 82; services to India, 82; usefulness, ib.; and woman's suffrage, i6.; female clerks, ib.; proportional representation, 83 ; his blindness, and its effect upon him, ib. ; Professor of Political Econo- my at Cambridge, ih. ; Brighton and Hackney, i6.; his position in the House, 84; Postmaster - General, «6. ; reason for his exclusion from the Cabinet, ib.; his unconquerable nature, ib. ; sports- man, 84, 85; effect of his blindness upon his conversation, 85 ; an awk- ward mistake, ib. ; in the Post-OfSce, ib. ; truth as to his administration, 86, 87; and the American mail service, 87-89; the steamship ring, 87, 88; Lord Beaconsfield, 238. Liberal Club, the, ii 341. Mrs., i 84. Federal idea, the new, and Mr. Carnegie, ii 367 et seq. ; what the Federal prin- ciple implies, 368. Finch, Major Seymour Wynne, his hu- mour and precision, ii 81. Findlay, Mr. George, ii 401. Forbes, Mr. Archibald, his style and diction, ii 80 ; picturesqueness and straightforwardness, ib. ; vocabulary, ib. Forster, W. E., and the Caucus, i 94 his political history and work, ib. ; am the Liberal Association of IJradford, 94, 95 ; characteristiof of his speech es, 95; his strength as a statesman, ib.; and the Dissenters, 96; Mr. Cham- berlain and the Education Act, ib. his foresight, ib. ; share in household suffrage, 97; efforts for Ireland,. ?6. resignation of the Irish Secretaryship, ib. ; straightforwardness, 97, 98 ; case against the Gladstone Government, 490 INDEX. 98 ; oneness with the Liberal party, ib. ; death, 99 ; questions in which lie took part, ib. ; his services to the American cause, 100 ; bent towards Imperial questions, ib. ; in favor of Imperial Federation, 100, 101 ; his contributions to Reform and share in measures, 101 ; Education Act of 1870, its history and principle, ib. ; opposi- tion to it, by Church of England and Dissenters, 102; history of his Irish Secretaryship, 102-105 ; plot for his murder, 103 ; his retort to the Irish at Bradford, 103, 104 ; tranquil cour- age, 104 ; attack on Mr. Parneil, ib. ; hated by the Irish, ib. ; his conscien- tiousness, ib. ; patriotism and good qualities, 1 105 ; speeches and elo- quence, ib. ; general estimate of his character, ib. ; and Imperial Federa- tion, ii 365. Fourth Party, story of the, i 110, 111 ; also 168, 179. Fourtou, M. de, i 36. Fowler, Mr., of Wolverhampton,! 197. Fox, Charles James, his culture and Whiggery, i 108, 111. France, the "greatest service "to, i 34; and the works of Gustavo Dore, 338 et seq. ; the good will of, to England, and the Channel Tunnel, ii 356 et seq. ; also i 327, 329. Franchise Bili, the, and Americanisation of English institutions, i 446 ; how re- garded in Scotland, 447 ; its general features, 450 ; effect, 451. Franklin, iSenjamin, 1 277. Frederick, The Empress, of Germapy, ii 394. the Great, i 28. Frederick the Great, History of, i 261. Free Libraries, the attitude of the clergy towards, ii 442 et seq. Trade, i 236; Mr. Gladstone on, ii 361, 352 ; and Mr. Bright, i 125. French Assembly at Versailles in No- vember 1877, description of, i 35-40; excitement in the, 36. • Embassy in London, the, its exclu- siveness, ii 17. Liberals, motto of, i 42. French Revolution (Carlyle's), the, i 253, 258. History ofthe{homs Blanc's), the author's financial experience with the, i 45 ; Charles Sumner's opinion of the first volume, 45, 46 ; where written, 47. Friertds flip's Garland, i 296. Froude, Mr. J. A., and Carlyle, i 257 ; his books and talk, ii 89 ; power over oth- ers, ib.; secret of style, ib.; tone of conviction, 90 ; ecclesiastical and theo- logical reading, ib. ; knowledge, ib. ; as a talker, ib. ; and American conserva- tism, 306 ; also i 265, 305. Furniss, Mr. Harry, his caricature of the Lord Chamberlain, ii 268. Furnivall, Mr., and the Shakespeare So- ciety, i 311; Browning, ib.; defined, 317. Gambetta, Leon, his common sense, i 34; and compromise, ib.; Opportunism,i6.; his own eulogy and summary of his character, ib.; work, 35; and Messrs. de Broglie and Fourtou, ib. ; his step to oust the Ministry, ib. ; possible ar- rest, 35, 36 ; his attitude towards the Due de Broglie, 37 ; appearance in the Assembly, ib. ; effect of his voice on the audience, ib. ; his apostrophe to the Duke, 38 ; action while speaking, ib. ; coolness, 39 ; impression of the speech, 39, 40; his constructiveness, 40 ; ambition, ib. ; effect of his death, 41 ; Bismarck's tribute, ib. ; his poli- cy, ib. ; and the Socialistic Communism of France, ib. ; effect of his career, 41, 42 ; and the Legion of Honour, ii 161 ; also i 44, 401 ; ii 36, 53. Garden Party, the Queen's — Buckingham Palace, described, ii 262 et seq. ; the terrace, 263 ; dresses, ib. ; company, what it includes, 264; the Queen, her arrival, ib. ; bonnet, 266 ; presence, its impressiveness,iA.; composure, i6.; de- parture 267 ; a royal group, 264, 265 ; the Prince of Wales, 264 ; royal tent, 266 ; Indian troops, ib. ; tea, curious, ib. ; animation of the scene, ib. Gardner, Mr. Herbert, ii 390. Garfield, President, in England, ii 289 ; a spontaneous tribute at Whitby, ib. ; the conviction of the lower classes, 290 ; genuine interest of a Yorkshire gamekeeper, 291; and English: re- serve, 291, 292 ; how Englishmen looked upon his fate, 293 ; sympathy of the press, 293 et seg. ; tribute of The Times, 294 ; claim of a Conserva- tive journal, 295 ; sympathy of the INDEX. 491 Qusen, ib. ; cause of his endearment to the nation, 296, Garfield, Mrs., ii 295. Garibaldi, General, ii 290. Garrick Club, the reason of its forma- tion, ii 38. Gaul and Scot, historical intimacv of the, i 372. George, Mr. Henry, and social ethics and progress, i 32; Mr. Chamberlain, 18.5, 435,436. German rule, question as to the suprem- acy in, i 21 ; papers and truth, 25, 26 ; writer, a, on Darwin, 71 ; bride, a, and an English dinner-party, ii 64, 65. Crown Prince, ii 257, 260. Emperor, the late, mourning for — London in blaclc, ii 25, 26 ; society and the Queen's wish, 26 ; a shop- girl's idea, ib. ; caricature in Regent Street, ib. ; rule of dress, ib. ; aspect of Covent Garden, 26, 27 ; of Hyde Park, 29 ; dressing of the men and women, ib. ; and Court officials, 29, 30 ; the Lord Chamberlain, 30 ; a spirit of rebellion, ib. ; and Lady Ailesbury and the Duke of Cambridge, ib. ; good ex- ample of the diplomatists, ib. ■ and the American Legation, 31. Emperor, and Social questions, i 20 ; definition of, by M. Clemenceau, 20, 21 ; his command of the Social army, 21 ; and the responsibility of minis- ters, 21, 24; his choice of Bismarck's successor, 22 ; characteristics, 22, 23 ; the inspiration of his action, 23 ; his resolve to rule alone, ib. ; a force in international polities, 24 ; a peril to his country, 27 ; his understanding as to Count Bismarck, ib. ■ and an Eng- lish gig, 29 ; notions of divine right, ib. ; and a Tory journal, 30 ; ridicule on, ib. ; European distrust of his poli- cy, 31 ; his unlimited infallibility, ib. ; effect of his policy, 32 ; his capabili- ties, 33 ; how he is regarded, ib. ; his opinion of Mr. Tenniel's cartoon in Punch, ib. ; infatuation, ib. ; and his flifet, ii 408 d seq.'; appearance of the sailors and marines, 409 ; his inspec- tion of the Teutonic, 412 et seq. ; man- ner and bearing, Hi et seq. Parliament, and efficiency, i 5, 6 ; Crown, efficiency of, 6. Germans, defect of, and Matthew Arnold, i 5 ; and political training, ib. Germany, importance of its State busi- ■ ness, i 16 ; danger of the new rule in, 21; perils besetting, 27 ; also 262; ii 31, 64, 173, 357. Gibbon on reading, ii 439. Gilbert, Mr. W. S., his social ambitions, ii 94 ; preferences, ih. ; humour, its nat- ure, ib. ; philosophy of dining out, 95 ; and Alice in Wonderland, ib. Gladstone, Mr. W. E., as a convert, i 32 ; his eulogy on Mr. Eorster, 104 ; and the Treaty of Washington, 106 ; his influ- ence on Lord Iddesleigh, 107, 108 ; and classical quotations, 108; his attach- ment to Mr. Bright, 117; contrasted with Mr. Bright, 121; liis English style, ib. ; Mr. Bright on his services, 126 ; his public speaking, 133 ; tribute to Mr. Bright, 138-140, 144 ; opinions on his eulogy of Mr. Bright, 141, 142 ; un- der fire, 154; as Achilles, 156; in a Suakim debate, 163-166; his advo- cacy of an unsympathetic cause, 175 ; observation on Lord Kosebery and Mr. Balfour regarding books, 178; on so- cial position of Mr. Chamberlain, 192; his dissertations upon autonomy, 202, 203 ; on Lord Spencer, 212 ; and Mr. Mill, 238 ; Mr. Hayward, 272, 273 ; his promise of the Charity Commissioner- ship to Matthew Arnold, 298 ; speech at a municipal reception, 394 ; descrip- tion of meeting in the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, 395-400; his oratory, 397 ; egg-flip, ib. ; nature of the speech, 398 ; his face, 398, 400 ; voice, 398, 414 ; re- view of the situation, 399 ; compared with Mr. Daniel Webster, 401 ; Mr. Wendell Phillips, ib.; M. Gambetta, ib. ; Mr. Bright, 402 ; in the House of Commons, ib. ; and the member for Northampton, 403; his discursive style, ib. ; personality, ib. ; warning to the House of Lords, 404 ; second address in the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, 409, 410 ; great meeting in the Wa- verley Market, described, 410-417; speech,[tovvhatdevoted,414; the scene in Princes Street, 417, 418 ; Mr. Glad- stone and the Buccleuch following, 419 ; movements atDalmeny, 421 ; and Mr. Parnell, ii 3 ; his public and private life, 6 ; at a non-political house, 4, 5 ; and the Bulgarian atrocities, 5 ; his old friends, 6 ; opponents and his social at- mosphere, 14 ; compared with Macau- 492 INDEX. lay, 55 el seq. ; as a talker, ih. ; his hab- it of monologue, ib. ; what his conver- sation reflects, 56 ; marvellous memory, ib. ; on copyright, ib. ; the Java earth- quake, 56, 57 ; stories about his talk, 57; his mannerio private, ifi.; ananouy- mous writer's opinion, 58 et seq.; his zeal, 59; energy and eloquence, ii. ; anecdote as to his non-appreciation of humour, 60 ; his ten days' silence, 97 ; announcement of his resignation to the House, in 1885, 139; telegraphic con- versation with Her Majesty, 141 ; re- tention of office wished by the Queen, 142 ; his message regarding his posi- tion, ib. ; partisans and opening of Par- liament by the Queen in 1886, 144 ; ac- ceptance of a peerage, what it would involve, 161 ; on the Speaker's busi- ness capacity, 177; and the old and new Speakers, 184, 185 ; his eulogy on Sir Robert Peel, 184; individuality, beneficial influence of, 189 ; at a royal review, 229 ; the opening of the Law Courts, 238 ; his fascination over Mr. Morley, 361 ; and foreign and colonial policy, 365; Imperial Federation, «6. ; the Irish landlords, 371 ; the Irish peer, 871,372; his Private Secretary, Mr. Hamilton, 418 et seq. ; letters, 419 ; and the Classes, 421 ; on Books and Libra- ries, 430 et seq., and see under Books ; and encyclopa;dic learning, 439 ; also, i 13, 82, 84, 118, 126-128, 134, 136-138, 152, 155, 164, 165, 167-169, 173-176, 184, 187-189, 190, 191, 194, 196, 210, 239, 296-298, 310, 311, 321 ; ii 7-9, 16, 42, 133, 135, 167, 171, 181, 182, 225, 226, 255, 322, 327, 366, 458. Gladstone, Mr.W. E., in 1879— Reception in Scotland, i 355, 356 ; the-absence of preparation, 356 ; on political demon- strations in Scotland, ib. ; at Edge Hill, 357 ; between Edge Hill and Carlisle, ib. ; Preston, Lancaster,Carnforth, and Penrith, 357, 358 ; the Liberals of the fforth of England and, 368 ; at Car- lisle, 358, 360; sense of pohteness of a Carlisle crowd, 359 ; Galashiels, 360, 361 ; his appearance, 361 ; scene in- side and outside the Waverley Station, 362, 363. Meetings — His position among Eng- land's worthies, 364, 365; intellectual and physical power, ib. ; speeches — their magnitude, 365, 366 ; nature of the assemblies, 366 ; scene in the Mu- sic Hall described, 366-369 ; Ushei-a of the White Rod, 367, 368 ; a pain- ful discipline, 368 ; his emotion, 369 ; meetings in Corn Exchange, Dalkeith, 369, 371 ; West Calder, 371, 376 ; Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, 376-381 ; high price of seats, 376 ; effect of the speeches upon the audiences, ib. ; a fine audience, 377 ; Scotch and English au- diences, 377, 378 ; scene in the Grass- market, 379 ; description of Mr. Glad- stone's speech, 380 ; his position as a financier, 380, 381 ; meeting in Waver- ley Market, description of, 381 et seq. In 1884— His popularity, the Tories on, 385 ; journey from Hawarden, 385, 386; message to Scotland, 386; the scene in Princes Street, 386, 387, 389 ; his relaxation of mind, 390; drive from Dalmeny described, 390-393; admiration for Dalmeny Park, 391. Beyond Midlothian — At Haddo House, 423 et seq. ; his graciousness of manner, 428 ; on the state of his voice, 429 ; his admiration for Lord Aberdeen, ib. ; at the institute and orphanage in Haddo, 430, 431 ; tree- planting, 431, 438; in Aberdeen, 431, 432; Brechin, 432-434; at Brechin Castle, 434-439 ; and the House of Lords, 436 ; his understanding of ti'ees and woodcraft, 438. Politics — His parliamentary tactics, 440; and the Franchise Bill, 440, 441 ; his foreign record, 441 ; speeches on Ireland and Egypt, ib. et seq. ; his shrewdness of treatment, 442 ; lead as to Egypt, and Scotland, 443. His Journey — Its. influence on the Franchise and the House of Lords, 445 et seq. ; his crowning work, 446 ; gospel, J6. ; fixity of purpose, 448; personal influence, 449 ; references to the House of Lords, 449, 450 ; and the hereditary principle, 450; what he has done in Scotland, 451 ; and political changes, ib. His Home Rule Bill, debate dk sec- ond reading of — His arrival in the House, ii 195; dress, 195,213; coun- tenance, 195, 196 ; pomatum pot, 195, 212 ; step and air, 196 ; pose, ib. ; at- titude during Mr. Gosehen's speech, 200 ; in a passage-at-arms, 201, 202 ; shirt-collars, 204 ; on precision, 205 ; INDEX. 493 his opinion on Mr. Parnell's speecli, 206 ; appearance on rising to spealc, 212,213; speeoh,desoribed,213 etseq.\ a splendid peroration, 215 ; Iiis ap- pearance after tlie vote, 217 ; on Pres- ident Wasliington, 297 etseq. ; Cobden, 297, 298 ; tlie future of tlie Englisli- speaking race, 298. His Opinions — On American bar- barism, 349; Free Trade, 351, 352; Providence, 353 ; the Devil, ib. ; Pro- tection, 354; Mr. Potter, 355; the Channel Tunnel, 356 et seq. ; Imperial- ism, 361 rf seq. Gladstone, W. E., Government, i 98, 102. Mrs., and social gatherings, ii 14 ; also, i 360,382, 397, 417, 427, 432, 439. Glyn, The Hon. and Rev. Edward, i 430. Ood and the Bible, i 296. ■ Gordon, General, 1 98, 168, 175, 444; il 56, 92. Gosohen, Mr. G. J., his epithet for Mr. Morley, i 199-201 ; debating powers, ii 200,201; directness, 201; passage- ■ at-arms with Mr. Gladstone, 201, 202 ; gift, 201; and the Irish, 202; a pal- pable hit, 203 ; his mind, its quality, ib.; hold on the House, J6. ; also i 152, 159,171; ii 143,195. Graham, Mr. Cunninghame, his attempt to enter Trafalgar Square, how it end- ed, ii 335. Granville, Earl, his personal appearance and claim to political renown, i 194; after-dinner oratory, 197; delicacy in handling difficult matters, 198; his suavity of style in talk, ib. ; also ii 140,162,237,266,355. Grassmarket, Edinburgh, the, and Mr. Gladstone's visits, i 379, 394, 395, 408. Graves, Mr., ii 410. Greatorex, the Rev. Dan, and the library question, ii 442 et seq. Greeley, Mr., i 125. Grimston, Mr., and the cost of telegrams, i 90. Grisi, Madame, and the silken rope, ii 33. Grosvenor House, ii 11. Guildhall, Banquet, a, i 52 ; reception of various personages, 53-55; heralds and titles, 53 ; etiquette, 57. Gull, Sir W., i 77. Haddo, Park, i 423 et seq. House, i 423 et seq. ; described, 424 et seq. Hades, Epic of, i 121. Halsbury, Lord, ii 159, 255. Halstead, Mr., of Cincinnati, ii 274, 281. Hamilton, Mr. E. W. (formerly Mr. Glad- Stone's Private Secretary), i 387 ; and political history of England, ii 418; his official career, 419 et seq. ; reward- ed by the Tories, 420 ; and the Con- version of the Public Debt, ib. ; his prospects and social prestige, 421 ; and the recruitment of the Civil Serv- ice from the Classes, 422. Lord George, described, ii 402, 410 et seq. Hampden, Viscount (Speaker of the House of Commons, 1872-84), senti- ment of sincerity on his retirement, ii 175 ; his term of office, how re- garded by the House during, ib. ; his choice, ib. ; office, its nature, ib. ; au- thority, 176, 177, 184 ; chief merit and loyalty, 176 ; gravity and difficulty of his functions during his occupation of the chair, 177; his beneficiar influ- ence, ib. ; dealings with Irish obstruc- tion, ib. ; opinion as to the sense of the House, 178 ; grave responsibility, ib. ; considerate courtesy to conspira- tors, 179 ; model demeanour, 180 ; knowledge of the rules and percep- tion of the temper of the House, ib. ; his successor, proceedings in the House at the election of, ib. et seq., 237. Hannen, Sir James, how regarded by the English bar, ii 451 ; his benignity and patience, ib. ; kindness and firmness, 451,452; supremacy in his own Court, 458 ; also 459, 468. Hanover, House of, prejudice against, i 12. Harcourt, Sir W. Vernon, nature of his talk and speeches, ii 75 ; his banter and knowledge, ib. ; and Mr. Gosohen, 202, 203; also i 138, 146, 164, 175; ii 7, 8, 239, 241, 255. Hare, Mr., and the social recognition of actors and actresses, ii 46. Harland, Sir Edward, ii 401. Hartington, Marquis of, on Mr. Bright, i 140; his political methods, 152-155; treatment of opponents, 162; imper- turbability, 153 ; indifference, ib. , in- sensibility to abuse, ib. ; speech at Car- diff, 154 ; renouncement of personal abuse, 155; secret of the universal confidence in him, 157; his disinter- 494 INDEX. estedness, z6. ; ofBcial history, i6.; char- acter of his speeches, ib.; his integrity, ib. ; duties, 158 ; and Newmarket, ib.; dinner on his return home, 159; re- marks of Unionists on, 159, 160; at the Devonshire Club, 193; his rela- tions with Mr. Chamberlain, 195 ; char- acter and abilities, 198, 196; and the Home Rule question, ii 196, 197, 200; also i 138, 164 ; ii 1, 140. Hatfield, ii 390. Hatzfeld, Count, ii 199. Hawkins, Sir Henry, it 97, 98. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and English wom- en, 1218; 11443. Hayter, Lady, the character of her par- ties, Ii 5, 10, 124,125,245. Hayward, Mr, Abraham, and social re- nown, 1 270 ; his celebrity and con- temporaries, ib. ; history and work, 270-272; Essays, 271; 'authority on literary epochs, 271 ; and Byron, ib. ; his style, its merits, 272 ; papers, ib. ; vej's de societe, ib. ; a politician, ib. ; his relations with Mr. Gladstone, 272, 273; genius for society, 273 ; influence and authority, ib. ■ success, its beginning, 274 ; memory, ib. ; cultivation of con- versation, ib. ; directrfess, ib. ; at Straw- berry Hill — an anecdote, 275 ; his an- tipathies, ib. ; fearlessness, 276 ; and Lord Beaconsfleld, ib.\ his criticisms on Carlyle, ib. ; conduct to Mr. Mill, 277 ; sense of propriety, ib. ; generosity, ib. ; the author's first meeting with, 277, 278 ; his anecdote, its profusion, 278 ; personal appearance, ib. ; and Lord Houghton, 283 ; on Matthew Arnold and the fashionable world, 299 ; his rivalry with Lord Houghton, 11 54 ; talk, ib. ; manner, ib. ; confidence, 54, 88. Healj', Mr., described, ii 467 et seq. ; also 1 153; 11466. Heath House, 11 17. Heine, Heinrich, on the Prussian soldier, ii 409. Helicon, the, ii 273 et seq. Henderson, Sir E. W., ii 322, 323, 329. Highclere Castle, i 149, 160. Hill, Sir Rowland, and the Post-Office, i 90, 91. Holienstiel-Schwangau, the, i 313. Holborn, ii 243. Hoi I, Mr. Frank, his portrait of Mr. Bright, i 144. Holland House, Little, 1 349. Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, il 62, 114; in the House of Commons, 199, 207. Holyrood Palace, drawing-rooms and lev- ees at, 11 123. Homburg, and the Prince of Wales, ii 392 et seq. ; Americans, 393 ; visitors, 394. Home Office, the, and the Loudon riots, 11 322 et seq. Rule Bill, 1886 (Mr. Gladstone's), see Commons, House of. Early, Notes on — Things for- gotten, ii 369 ; Mr. Morley's speech at Newcastle, 370 et seq. ; landlord and tenant, ib. ; Mr. Parnell's announce- ment, 370, 371 ; Mr. Davitt and the Irish landlords, 371 ; " Guarantees," ib. ; Mr. Agar Ellis's stor}', 371, 372. Rulers and the Queen, ii 12, 13. Hooker, Sir J., i 70, 77. Hoppin, Mr., 1 52. Houghton, Lord, his dining with Louis Philippe and Louis Blanc, 1 279 ; his demeanour, ib. ; occupations and trav- els, 280 ; home, ib. ; freedom from insularity, 280, 281 ; last sojourn in Rome, 280; acquaintanceship, i6. ; lit- erary work, 281 ; biography of Keats, ib. ; and needy writers, 282 ; his hope- fulness about others, ib. ; and a lei- surely time, 283 ; his mental powers and equipment, ib. ; political speeches and oratorical fame, 284 ; breakfasts, 284, 285; love for celebrities, 284; and Carlyle, 285 ; Mr. Irving, ii 99, 100 ; his rivalry with Mr. Hayward, 53, 54 ; voice, 54 ; talk, ib. ; also 1 77, 245, 264, 266 ; ii 153. Hugo, Victor, 1 201 ; ii 133, 214. Humour, sense of, and Germans and French, i 30. Hutchinson letters, the, 1 277. Huxley, Professor, i 69, 70, 73 ; quoted on the triumphs of Darwin, 75 ; his address at unveiling of Darwin's Me- morial, 79-80; on himself, 191; and social graces, ii 93 ; the dinners and parties in Marlborough Place, talk at, described, ib. ; and the conflict be- tween Science and Theology, 93 ; his grace of disarmament, ib. ; concilia- tory manner, ib. ; a royal compliment, 94 ; method as to conversation on sci- entific subjects, ib. ; nature and manly simplicity, ib. ; also i 77, 79 ; ii 236, 245, 255! INDEX. 495 [yde Park, during the mourning for the late German Emperor, ii 2Y ; descrip- tion of a lady in the Park, 28 ; on Sunday morning, 29 ; also ii 338 et seg. lyndman, Mr., and the clubs in Pall 'Mall, ii 318 et seg. DDESLEIQH, Earl of, nature of his biog- raphies, i 106 ; and the Treaty of Washington, ib. ; his social qualities, ib. ; scholarship, 107 ; Edinburgh ad- dress, ib. ; influence upon him of Mr. Gladstone, ib. ; and classical quota- tions, 108 ; his personal appearance, 109 ; qualities, 109 ; reputation in the House, 110; lack of pugnacity, i6. ; capability for legitimate opposition, 111; deficiencies, ii. ; Foreign Office administration, «6. ; verdict of his coun- trymen, 112; and finance, 381; his two tame friends, ii 164; his place and appearance in the House, 164- 166; also i 69, 1\, 416, 433; ii 140, 186. Ibert Bill, the, i 214. 'lias in I/uce, i 253. :mlay. Captain Gilbert, and the popula- tion of the United States, ii 300. imperialism and the views of Mr. Mor- ley, Mr. Bright, Mr. Forster, and Mr. Gladstone, ii 361 et seg. [ndia, constitutional government in, and English Radicals, i 215 ; and England, 216; also 126,231; ii 226, 292. [ndies, the West, ii 89. Infallibility, i 31. [nvermark, i 438. IpMgenie, the, ii 2Y7. [reland. Viceroy of, see Dublin Castle ; and also Aberdeen, Earl of. Irish people, the, and Lord Aberdeen, see Dublin Castle. the, in Bradford, and Mr. Forster, il04. Secretary, axiom of English politics as to, i 181 ; how regarded by Parnell- ites, 181, 182. University Bill, 1873, i 83. Irving, Mr. Henry, his place in the dra- matic profession, ii 36, 37; work in removing society distinctions, 37 ; the position of affairs at his appearance, . ib. ; his gifts, ib. ; role, ib.\ social re- nown, ib.\ and the Prince of Wales, ib. ; excellence of the Lyceum dinners and suppers, 37, 38; distinguished character of the company, 38 ; his experiments, ib. ; merit, 39 ; and Mrs. Jeune, 39, 40 ; his professional posi- tion, 98 ; knowledge of the drama, 99; and good conversation, ib. ; his meth- od, ib. ; and Lord Houghton, 99, 100 ; his directness on general topics, 100 ; articulation, ib.\ also i 57 ; ii 237. Isaiah, i 116,335. Ismay, Mr., of the White Star Company, described, ii 401, 403, 410, 413, 416 et seg. Jackson, Dr. (Bishop of Loudon, 1869), i 321. Mr.,ii 403. James, Mr. Henry, i 304; a significant passage in a novel of, ii 65 ; bis books and the best English talk, ib.; and London in August, 389 et seg. Sir Henry, his career and appear- ance, i 196 ; standing at the bar, ii 465 ; feeling in the Pigott case, 466 ; alsoi 138,160; ii 239,462. Java earthquake, the, and Mr. Gladstone, ii 56. Jefferson, Thomas, i 204, 208. Jennings, Mr., his Preface to Lord Ran- dolph Churchill's Speeches, i 168-171. Jesus Christ, i 286, 336, 336, 339., Jesus, Vie de, i 332 «i seg. Jeune, Mrs., her influence on the devel- opment of social intimacies, ii 39 ; her parties defined, ib. ; visiting list, 40 ; her house, i6. Johnson, Dr., and the first Whig, ii 354 ; his rule for reading books, 437 ; also i 202,292,318; ii 72,474. President, i 234. Journal des Debats, Le, and Prince Bis- marck, i 20. Journalists, a group of, ii 79 et seg. Jowett, Prof., and the Vice-Chancellor- ship of Oxford University, i.320; his appointment and liberalism in the University, A; as heretic, ii.; his pro- fessorship, 321; and Dr. Arnold, ib.; his fame as a scholar, 322 ; an exam- ple of the conservativq influence of humane studies, ib. ; his contribution to Essays and Reviews, 323 ; popular- ity, 324; personal appearance, 324, 325; also 300; 11444,463. Jubilee, the account of, ii 252; London astir, ib ; the police, 253 ; a hopel^s block, ib.; the decorations, described, 4:96 INDEX. 253, 254 ; an avenue of colour, 254 ; Westminster Abbey, ib. et eeg.; jour- nalists, diplomatists, and colonials, treatment of, 254, 255 ; the arrivals, 255, 256 ; minor royalties, 256 ; Ori- ental Princes, ib. ; real Kings and Queens, ib. ; the Queen's arrival, ib. et seq. ; ecclesiastical dignitaries, 257 ; great officials, ib. ; royalties, ib. ; the Queen, her dress and bearing, ib. ; horses, 260; a brilliant moment, 2oS; the service, ib. ; an affecting scene, 258, 259 ; the return, 259 et seq. Jubilee Notes — Tiie Lord Chamberlain, his functions on Jubilee days, ii 268 ; freedom from mistakes, 268, 269 ; su- perior personages and their precise po- sition, 269; etiquette, continental and English notions of, 269, 270; Prince Ludwig out of place, 270; ambassa- dors, their susceptibilities, ib. ; the royalties of the continent and intru- sion, 271 ; King of Saxony and his toes, ib. ; foreigners and humiliation, 272 ; Queen of the Sandwich Islands and her escort, ib. ; a royal salute, ib. Karolti, Count, ii 17, 237, 270. Kassassin, ii 225. Kendal, Mrs., and the Queen, ii 32. Kinglake, Mr., and Mr. Hayward, ii 88; his voice and method, ib. ; spoken style, 89 ; also i 283, 304 ; ii 247. Koh-i-noor diamond, the, ii 157. Konigsberg, the German Emperor at, i 29, 31, 33. LAB0t70HERE, Mr., i 175; in the witness box, ii 473 ; his part, appearance, and manner, ib. Labour Conference at Berlin, i 21 ; and German Socialists, 31, 32. Lancashire, i 100. Lancaster, Duchy of, Chancellorship of the, i 117. Land League, the, i 97, 102, 103, 104, 212. Landowners, the, and Mr. Mill, i 238. Lang, Mr. Andrew, and books, ii 433. Lansdowue, Marquis of, and the portrait of Washington, ii 308 et seq. Lathom, Earl of (Lord Chamberlain), caricature of, in Punch, ii 268 ; his functions, ib. ; Jubilee arrangements well ordered, ib. ; also 12, 249, 260, 257, 258, 262. Latter Day Pamphlets, i 255. Lauenburg, Duke of, i 22 ; see Bismarck, Prince. Law Courts, the, opening of, absence of decoration at, ii 233 ; effect in the Strand, 233, 234; reception of Her Majesty in Pall Mall and the Strand, 234 ; where the interest centres, ib. ; the hall described, 235 ; the company, 236, 237 ; Judges, 23C ; Lord Chan- cellor, ib. ; Lords Justices, ib. ; Mr. Gladstone, 238, 239 ; tlie procession, 239, 240 ; the Queen, her dress, ib. ; speech, 240; royalties, ib.; panto- mime, 241. Lawyers, change in the social condition of, ii 97. Lecky, Mr., i 78, 257, 264, 266 ; ii 255. Leighton, Sir E., his style in public speech, ii 85 ; talk described, 85, 86 ; also, i 245 ; ii 147, 236, 404, 413, 414. Lescaut ATanon, ii 435. Lewes,Mr.G.H.,his relations with George Eliot, i 242-244; iniluenoe over her, and its effects upon her writings, ib. ; estimate of himself and his work, 243 ; appearance, 246 ; unpopularity, 247. Mrs. G. H., i 242-244. Lewis, Mr. George, his appearance before the Parnell Commission, ii 472. Liberal, an English, on Scotch Liberal- ism, i 378. Club, Edinburgh, i 386 et seq. headquarters, tlie, in Midlothian, 419 e< seq. Liberals, the, and Mr. Mill, i 238, 239. Library (Mr. Andrew Lang's), ii 433. Lincoln, President,ihis maxim, i 177; trib- • ute to, 203 ; also 204 : ii 290, 303 et seq. Bishop of, and the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, ii 172. Lingen, Lord, his claim to distinction, ii 163; Mr. Gladstone's eulogy on, 164; his qualities, ib. Loch, Sir Henry, ii 404. Lockwood, Mr., ii 452, 461 ; his carica- tures, 464 ; appearance, practice, and reputation, ib. London, fashion of breakfasts in, i 285 ; Sunday in, ii 17 ; in black, 25, 26 ; and racing, 64. in August, Mr. Henry James's par- tiality for, ii 389 ; a member of the Government, condition of, in, ib. ; an advantage of Opposition, ib. ; the ra- dius of hospitality, 390 ; weary legis- INDEX. 497 lators, ib. ; a hard - worked Minister and defeat, ib. ; his opinion of, 391 ; Lord Salisbury, 390; House of Com- mons worlc, prolonged, its effect on energy, 391 ci seq. London Mob, the: Nov. 14,188'? — Trafal- gar Square, appearance of, ii 332 ; the "unemployed," their composition, 333; legal right to prevent meetings, ib. ; spectators, 334; speech of the mob, t6. ; tactics to prevent mischief, ib. ; by whom the worlc was done, ib. ; a scramble, 835; the London rough, ii.; his temper, 337 ; police, their forbear- ance and admirable qualities, 336 ; Sir C. Warren's arrangements, 336 ; the military, ib. et seq. ; a wonderful scene, 337 ; salutary lesson, 338. Nov. 21, 1887 — Sir C. Warren's preparations, 338 ; nature of the gath- erings in Hyde Park and in Trafalgar Square, ib. ; change of plans, 339 ; the precautions in Trafalgar Square, ib. ; scene at the Marble Arch, 339, 340 ; an intelligent officer, 340 ; the cham- pions of free speech and their tents, 341, 342; speeches, 341; what the roughs wanted, ib. ; the business and the crowd, 342 ; a failure, ib. ; the po- lice and the procession, 342, 343. Riots, the, Monday, Feb. 8, 1886— A practical illustration of the theory of ransom, ii 316 ; action of the riot- ers, ib. ; description of the district compassed by the ' procession, ib. et seq. • the orators, 317 el seq. ; social reformers — what? 318; some traces of the riot, ib. ■ the responsible au- thorities — their plea, 319; view of the London public, 320 ; character of the mob, 330. Tuesday — Appearance of the streets, 320 et seq. ; a curious comment, 321 ; the West End shopkeepers, ib. ; paral- ysis of trade, ib. ; police admission of incompetence, 322 ; Mr. Childers, ib. ; the tone of the press, 323 ; the ideas at Scotland Yard, ib. ; heroes, liow occupied, ib. ; wild reports, 324 ; the scene of the conflict, ib. ; decision of the tradesmen, ib. Wednesday — A day of panic, 325 ; business suspended, 326 ; the Bank of England, ib. ; civic courage, 327 ; cul- pability of the Government, ib. ; the Socialist leaders and Mr. Chamberlain, II.— 33 328 et seq. • a renewal of the riot, 329 ; the respectable classes, ib. ; demorali- sation of the police, ib. London School Board, disclosures as to schoolhouses of the, ii 385 et seq. Society, tlie political influence of, i 273 ; its boycotting of Mr. Gladstone, ii 3 et seq. ■ Lady Hayter's party, 5, 10 ; feeling of London society towards Mr. Gladstone not of recent origin, 5 ; relations between him and society in 1878, 5; a parallel found after 1832, 6 ; social intercourse and political foes, 7 ; the society journal, 8 ; Lady Spencer's Home Eule party, 9, 10; Lady Cadogan's party, 10; the West- minster - Spencer episode, ib. ; the Queen and social disputes, 12, 13 ; so- cial geography of London, 14 ; small gatherings, ib. ; Lady Salisbury's re- ceptions, 15 ; Lady ]3orthwick's par- ties, ib. ; Lady Rothschild's, ib. ; com- parison of, with that of last half of eighteenth century, 16; from Epsom to Ascot — the gospel of invitations, 16-21; parties, lists of, 18; publici- ty, ib. ; extraordinary feature of social life, ib. ; importunity for admission to parties, 19-21 ; Whips' Lists, 20; So- cial Mentor, functions of the, 21 et seq. ; invitations, requests for, defined, 22 ; mourning for the German Em- peror and the clothes question in gen- eral, 25-31 ; actoi-s and actresses, their relations to, SI et seq. ■ actresses, with reference to Bishops and society in general, 41 et seq. Sunday, a, the return of troops from Egypt, how accounted for by the Radicals, ii 221 ; the nature of the manifestation, 221, 222 ; spectators, ib. ; clubs, ib. ; the Life Guards, 223 ; appearance of the men and horses, 224; their physique and equipment, ib. ; the crowd, ib. ; what the recep- tion proves, 225 ; its effect upon the Conservatives, ib. Londonderry, Marquis of, and politics, i 13; ii 12. Londoner, the, and decoration, ii 233. Long, Mr. George, his sketch of Marcus Aurelius, 1 333, 334. Lords, House of, the ceren?ony of intro- ducing a new peer to the, its comic nature, ii 164 ; see also Parliament, the opening of, by the Queen, et passim. 498 INDEX. Lowe, General Sir Drury, ii 231. Mr., see Slierbroke, Viscount. Lowell, Mr. J. R., and Eiiglislimen, i 218 ; his popularity, its causes, ib. ; Ameri- canism, 218, 219 ; a daring sentence, 218 ; his service to Englishmen as to America, 220; reputation as a talker and after - dinner speaker, ib. ; Bir- mingham address on Democracy, ib. ; fitness for the post of Envoy, ih. ; J'Ac Times on his departure, 221 ; his stay in England, 221,222; introduction to the Queen, 222, 223 ; universal regret at bis departure, 223 ; on Browning's poetry, 309 ; departed greatness, ii 423 ; at the unveiling of the Pepys Memorial, 425 et seg. ; on Pepya's lit- erary character and fame, 426 ; liis analysis, 427 ; on his merits, 428 ; also, i 70, 72, 123, 198, 227, 229, 296, 804; ii 86,236,237,256,295. Lowther, Mr. and Mrs. William, ii 402, 403. Lucy, Mr., ii 403. Ludwig, Prince, out of place at dinner, ii 270. Luncheon, the, why it lias replaced the breakfast, ii 66. Lushington, Mr. Godfrey, ii 322. Lyceum Theatre (London),, dinners and suppers at the, ii 37, 38 ; also i 330 ; ii99. Lyons, Lord, and the English Embassy in Paris, i §26. Lytton, Earl of, and the English Embas- sy in Paris, i 326; his political mis- takes, 328 ; proficiency in French, ib. ; diplomatic career, 329 ; personal ap- pearance, politeness, and conversation, ib. ■ panegyric on Miss Anderson, 330; Lord Beaconsfield's instructions to, on his departure for India, 330, 331 ; his last appearance in public life, 331. Macaulat, Lord, as a talker, ii 47 ; con- sensus of opinion on his conversation, 48; opinion of a talker on, ib.; his prodigious memory, iJ.; compared with Mr. Gladstone, 66 et seg. ; also i 275 ; ii 438. McCarthy, Mr. Justin, his tribute to Mr. Bright, i 140; also ii 10, 466, 472. M'Kinstry, Mr., his gallant dive, ii 407. M'Lane, Governor, ii 275. MacMahon, Marshal, and a coup d'elai, i 35. Maine, Sir Henry, ii 302 ; and American democracy, 306. Manchester cotton-spinner, the, and Eu- ropean politics, ii 364. Manners, Lord John, and free telegram addresses, i 91. Marc-Aurelc et la Fin du Monde Antique, i 334. Marquise de Caux, see Patti, Madame. Matthews, Mr. Henry, ii 333 et seg. Maurier, Mr. Du, as an artist in talk, ii 86. Mazarine Bible, the, and a Scotch clergy- man, ii 485. Metropolitan Museum, New York, i 347 et seg. Michelet, M., on Carlyle's method, i 269. Midlothian Campaigns, two, i 355 et seg. Milk inspectors and the quality of Lon- don milk, ii 380. Mill, John Stuart, at Avignon, i 232 ; his kindness, ib. ; appearance, 232, 233 ; interest in America, 233 ; wide range of ills inquiries, 234-236 ; his anxiety for the oneness of the American Re- public, 235 ; common sense and per- ception, ib. ; acquaintance with poli- tics in India, ib. ; questions detailed, ib. ; on Free Trade, 236 ; in London, ib.; his feelings for London and the English, 236, 237; real home, 237; suitability for, of the French climate, ib. ; a botanist, ib. ; his love of scenery, ib. ; poetical capacity, ib. ; emotional nature, ib. ; talk, ib. ; variety and ac- curacy of his knowledge, 238; his par- liamentary career, ib. ; liow regarded by political parties in the House, 238, 239 ; his elocution, voice, and delivery, 239 ; discussion of complicated details, ib. ; place ill the House, ib. ; election for Westminster, ib. ; character of the constituency, ib. ; in Trafalgar Square, 240; his speeches, t6. ; popularity with the working classes, ib. ; hold upon the House of Commons, ii 190 ; also i 203, 204, 268, 277. Millais, Sir John, his portrait of Mr. Bright, i 143, 144; also 245; ii 236. Milnes, Richard Monckton, see Hough- ton, Lord. Moltke, Count von, described, i 6, 256. Montagu, Basil, i 305. Col. Oliver, his talk, ii 81. Montesquieu and the English, i 166. Morley, Mr. John, his qualities in the House, i 163 ; compliments to Mr. M. x^ xji^ jO.. 4yy Balfour, 178; opinion of, by politi- cians, 180; and the epithet of "St. Just," 199, 200; his austerity, .201 ; stainless character, ih. ; virtues >ancl friends, ib. ; anecdote concerning, 201, 202 ; his reading, 202 ; talk, ib. ; com- pliment to, by an opponent, ib. ; his logic and methods, ib. ; discussion of current affairs, ib. ; conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home Rule, ib. ; quoted on Irish history, 203 ; his intellectual training, and the authors who influ- enced him, 203, 204; dissimilarity of his teachers, 204 ; and Newcastle, 212 ; Latin quotation, ii 95, 96 ; his iuflii- ence as a journalist, 190 ; and great men, 361 ; Hr. Gladstone's spell on, ib. ; liis real nature, 361, 362 ; on Mr. Bright, 362 ; his odd clioice of Eng- lish orators, ib. ; defence of the Man- chester Radical school, ib. ; and the guarantee of Belgium, ib. ; the Em- pire, 363 ; Imperial Federation, 364, 365 ; liis unhappy answer to Mr. Bright's reason for resistance to Dis- union, 366 ; energy and endurance, S'ZO ; on separation, ib. ; landlord and tenant, ib. ; also i 1% 188, 163-165, 213; ii 76, 214, 236,402. Morris, Mr. L., i 121. Mr. William, ii 317; and the Social- ists, 330, 331. Morton, Mr. (late American minister in Paris), and the funeral of Louis Blanc, i 51, 326, 327. Mrs., i 326, 327. Munster, Count, i 63, 224 ; ii 237, 239. Murphy, Mr., ii 465. Music Hall, Edinburgh, Mr. Gladstone in, i 366, 371. Nagrgji, Mr., i 166. Niipoleon III, and the Southern Confed- eracy, i 27, 47. National League, the, and the Viceroy, ii 135 ; also i 193, 212 ; ii 128, 204. Naval Review, the, and the ways of see- ing it, ii 273; a study in nationalities, 274 ; old three-deckers, 275 ; the first glimpse of the fleet, 276; theAgincourt and Minotaur, ib. ; an enchantment and an illusion, 277; foreign ships, «6.; an American offender, 278; theNord- enfeldt torpedo, jj.; naval idea of the view, 279 ; a Highland gillie, 280 ; the Queen, si. ; signal gun, 281 ; salute, ib. ; full array, 282 ; British tar, ib. ; a kaleidoscope, 283; appearance of the ships, ib. ; a mistake, 284 ; queen- ly caprice, ib. ; the Queen's position and power, 285 ; parting salute, ib. ; a transformation, 286. Newbury, Lord Carnarvon's monument to those who fell in battle of, i 150. Newcastle, political influence of, i 211 New Club, Edinburgh, i 419. Newman, Cardinal, and Infallibility, i 31. Newmarket, i 158. New York and foreign criticisms, i 289 ; dress in London, ii 28 ; society and stocks, 64 ; girl, a, and the Prince of Wales, 71. Noi-denfeldt torpedo, the, ii 278. North American Review, the, ii 350. Northbrook, Earl of, at Dalmeny, i 422; and Samuel Pepys, ii 423 et seq. Northumberland, Duke of, i 55. O'Brien, Mr., ii 180. O'Kelly, Mr., ii 470 ; described, 471. Oliphant, Mr. Laurence, his books, i 306 ; attractiveness, experiences, and man- ner, ib. ; talk, 307 ; in London society, ib. ; his qualities, ib. ; and M. de Blow- itz, 307, 308; Tlie Times, 307; his conversational courage, ii 81. One Ash, i 126. Oxford University and Darwin, 1 71 ; and Dr. Jowett, 3»20. Palmerston, Lady, her power, ii 67. Viscount, his epigram on Mr. Bright, i 119; and conversation with a prize- fighter, ii 74 ; on the power of making war in the United States, 303; his definition of the Manchester Radical school, 362; also i 124, 132, 162, 191, S20, 364; ii 140,205,291. Panmure House, i 437, 438. Parcels Post, the, i 87. Paris, the social chaos in, i 327, 328 ; dress in London, ii 28 ; also i 49, 50, 51. Parliament, the opening of, by the Queen, in 1886 — The weather, ii 144; the Gladstone partisans, their remark, ib. ; ceremony within and without the House of Lords, ib. ; precautions, 146 ; his- torical ground, ib. ; military spirit, ji.; the vaults, 146; Peers' Entrance, «6. ; usher.s, 146, 150; official scruples, 147; the North Gallery, ib. ; hall, described, 148, 149 ; conflict of tints, 148 ; ar- 500 INDEX. rangements of the House, 149; ap- pearance of the chamber, 150 ; its light and temperature, ib. ; the ladies, their dignity, 161 ; a beautiful woman, ib. ; an un-English beauty, ib. ; the Judges and Bishops, ib. ; Archbishops, ib. ; Persian Minister, 152; Ambassadors and Ministers, ib. ; American Minister, ib. ; a group of royal ties, ib. ; the Peers, their gallantry and appearance, 152, 153; resemblance to an American po- litical convention, 163 ; vivacity of the scene, 154 ; American ladies, ib. ; Prin- cess of Wales, ib. ; the royal proces- sion, 156; ofiScials, 156, 157; Cap of Maintenance, ib. ; Sword of State, 15'7 ; the Queen, her appearance and dress, ib. ; the Prince of Wales, ib. ; House- hold officials, 158; a brilliant scene, ib. ; the arrival of the Commons, 159 ; the Queen's speech, ib. ; the royal car- riage, 160; an angry mob, ib. ; and see Commons, House of. Parnassu.'! (Emerson's), i 131, 281. Pamell, Mr., his contest with Mr. Fors- ter, i 97 ; on Mr. Forster's administra- tion, 104 ; and the Eighty Club, ii 3 ; the Speaker's authority, 177 et seg. ; the Coercion Act, ib. ; his scheme lor blocking legislation, theory of, ib. ; and the forces against him, 178 ; the Speak- er's courtesy, 179 ; and punctuality in his following, 194; his band, its char- acter, 202 ; peculiarity of their cheer, 203; his appearance, 204; collar, ii. ; face and gestures, 206 ; voice, ib. ; pre- cision, ib. ; speech, described, ib. el seg. ; reproach of Mr. Chamberlain, 206 ; prediction as to the future of Ireland, how received, ib. ; genius in council, 207 ; leadership, ib. ; manner and ac- tion, ib. ; position, how regarded by Englishmen, ib. ; passage-at-arms with Sir M. Hicks-Beach, 210 et seg. ; dec- laration as to an Irish Parliament, 371; in the witness-box, "469; the Tories and his emotion, 474; also i 103, 140, 148, 174, 180, 181, 188, 191, 210, 212 ; ii 10-12, 135, 359, 449, 466, et seg. ^ Parnellites, the, and the Irish Secretary- ship, i 182; Earl Spencer, 209, 210; their attendance in the House, 194. Parochial, German analogue for, i 6. Parsell, Captain, ii 405, 413. Particularist, a, defined, i 5. Pascal, Blaise, i 82; on style, 315; and nature, ii 69. Fast and Present, i 255. Patti, Madame, her relations with soci- ety, ii 34. Pattison, Eev. Mark, i 321. Peel, Mr. Arthur, his position on taking the Speaker's cliair, ii 176 ; election to the Speakership, 181 etseg. ; speech, quoted, 182; reference to liis prede- cessor and appeal to the House, ib. ; also 193 et seg. ; described, 194. Peers, the, and the Deceased Wife's Sis- ter Bill, ii 169. old and new — Lord Kothschild and Lord Lingen, ii 161 et seg. ; Lord Id- desleigh. Lord Salisbury, and Lord Carnarvon, 164 et seq. Pellegrini, Carlo, the late, i 144 ; his gift of caricature, 344 ; secret, «6. ; sketch- es, their English character, ib.; and regular work, 345 ; his position, ib. ; fidelity to facts and keenness of per- ception, ib. ; geniality and conversa- tion, 346 ; work, ii 87. Pembroke Lodge, i 260. Pendleton, Mr., 13; his reputation and position in Berlin, 17. People's Palace, the, opening of, by the Queen — A tangled mass, ii 242 ; the decorations, 243 ; Holborn, ib. ; the people, ib. ; Whitechapel, 244 ; the Queen's Hall, ib. ; royalties, 245 ; ce- lebrities, ib. ; the Queen, her dress and bearing, 246 ; departure, 247 et seg. ; carriage, 249 ; Highland gillie, ib. ; ap- pearance, 250; the ceremony, 246; Grenadier Guards, 247 ; Life Guards, 248, 250 ; the Lord Chamberlain, 249, 260 ; deferential silence, 250. Pepys, Samuel, his memorial, ii 423 ; best monument, ib. ; what he would have seen at the unveiling of, 424 ; a con- temporary account of his merits, 425; Mr. Lowell on, ib. et seq. ; Mr. Wheat- ley's book on, 426 ; his style, appreci- ation of literature, and criticisms, 428 ; Emerson on, 428, 429 ; the pronunci- ation of the name, 429. Pepys, Samuel, and the World He lAved In, a short cut to knowledge, ii 426. Persia, Shah of, and Earl Ilussell, i 250 ; also ii 84. Peter the Great, of Russia, and punish- ments, ii 415,416. Phelps, Mr. E. J., 1 222 ; his diplomatic INDEX. 501 precedence, 224 ; position at the For- eign Office, 225, 226 ; in London, 226 ; his reception at Buckingliam Palace, 227 ; at the Mansion-House, ib. ; his qualities as a speaker, 228 ; 77ie Times pn his speech, 228, 229 ; truth as to his departure, 229 ; as diplomatist, ju- rist, and orator, ib. ; his personal qual- ities and patriotism, 230; scene at Waterloo Station on his departure, ib. ; at the Century Club dinner, ib. ; his invitation to Osborne, ib. ; his aphor- ism. Sir R. Webster on, 231 ; and the Constitution of tlie United States, ii 302, 304 et seq.; also i 196; ii 255, 275. Phelps, Mrs., i 227, 230 ; ii 255, 275. Phillips, Mr. Wendell, i 164; and per- sonalities, 176; his gifts, 401. Pigott, Richard, ii 452 et seg. ; under cross-examination, 457. Pitt, William, on public speaking, i 130, 133 ; Mr. Gladstone on, ii 360, 440. Plunkett, Captain, his order to the Youghal police inspector, i 181. Political Economy, Mill's, and Free-Trade and Protection, 236, 236. Ponsonby-Fane, Sir Spencer, ii 269. Popular Government., ii 302. Portland, Duke of, ii 248, 260, 268. Portsmouth, ii 273 et seq. Post-Office, Mr. Fawcett in the, i 85-89 ; its present efficiency, 86 ; without Mr. Fawcett, 89-93 ; and cheap telegrams, 89 ; officials and the new tariff, 91 ; and the public convenience, 92; its despotism, 92, 93. Potter, Mr. Thomas Bay ley, tribute to, by Mr. Gladstone, ii 365. Priestley, Dr., ii 237. Princes Street (Edinburgh), i 363 et seq.; 417,418. Private Secretary, the, defined, ii 418, 419 ; in Germany, 418 ; requisites for tlie office of, 419. Probate Court, the, during the Parnell Commission, admission to, ii 447 ; a good story, ib. ; diplomatist's difficul- ty, 447, 448 ; the court - room, 448 ; light and ventilation, 449 ; architect, ib. ; public, 450 ; American colony, ib. ; Sir James Hannen, 451 ; Mr. Jus- tice Day and Mr. Justice Smith, 452 ; the counsel, ib. ; Sir Richard Wpbster, 453 et seq. ; Sir Charles Russell, 455 et seq. • a rebuke, ib. ; cross-examina- tion of Pigott, 457 et seg. ; a skirmish, 459; Mr. Asquitli, 463 et seq.; Mr. Lockwood, ib. ; Sir Henry James, 464, 465 ; Messrs. Murphy, Atkinson, and Soames, 465; the clients, 466; the- withdrawal of the case, 468 ; the pro- test, 469; the last word, 471 et seg. Procter, Mrs., i 123 ; her list of famous men and women, 303, 304 ; hand- writing, 303 ; qualities, 304, 305 ; dev- otees, 304 ; memory, ib. ; and Mr. George Smith, ib. ; Carlyle and Froude, 306 ; her nature, ib. ; skill, ib. ; talk and influence, ii 68. Protection, Mr. Gladstone on, ii 354. Proudhon, M., i 186. Providence, Mr. Gladstone on, ii 353. Prussia and the United States, i 27, 28. Punch, Mr. Tenniel's Cartoon, i 33, 162; ii 79, 268. Pusey, Dr., i 374. Queen, tlie, and Mr. Bright, i 134; and Lady Spencer, 211 ; Carlyle, 269, 260; social disputes, ii 12; composition of the guests at Windsor, ib. ; and the mourning for the late German Emper- or, 25 ; tlie admission of actresses to any courtly function, 32 ; Lord Wolse- ley, 92. during a cabinet crisis, her absence from London inconvenient, ii 139 ; in- difference to public opinion, ib. ; course as to Mr. Gladstone's resignation, ib. ; discretion, extent of, 139, 140; and Lord Beaconsfield's resignation in 1880,140; her constitutional author- ity and her presence in London, ib. ; telegraphic conversation witli the Prime Minister, 141 ; the questions in abeyance, ib. ; feeling in Europe, ib. ; her absence, how regarded by the Lon- doner, 141 ; feeling as to Ascot week, ib. ; presence in London, its effect, ib. ; wishes as to Mr. Gladstone, 142 ; al- ternative, 143 ; opening of Parliament by the, in 1886, 144 et seq. ; and heat, 150; the Speaker, 180; at a royal re- view, 228 et seg. ; opening of the Law Courts by, 233 et seq. ; her preference for black, 239, 246 ; opening of the People's Palace by, 242 et seq. ; the Jubilee, 262 et seq. ; her Garden Party, 262 et seq. ; State Banquet, 270 et seg. ; Ball, 270 ; at the Naval Review, 279 et seq. ; and President Garfield's death. 502 INDEX. 295 ; the policeman Cole, 348 ; also i 73, 192, 222, 223, 227, 230, 423; ii 122, 160, 185. Radziwill, the Palnis, i 4, 14. Keay, Lord, in the Waverley Market, i 412,413. Eeform Bill, 1832, state of society after, ii 6, 7. Kehan, Misa Ada, and London Society, ii 36. Eeiehstag, the, i 3; the hall described, 4; appearance of the members, 5; centre of political power not in the, ib. ; an assembly of amateurs, ib. ; the air of the President, 6; message from the Emperor to, 8 ; cheering in, 9 ; and the resignation of Prince Bismarck, 26. Eenan, Ernest, on Marcus Aurelius, i 332 ; his manner, ib. ; effect of the address, ib. ; his popularity, ib. ; personal ap- pearance, 332, 333; refinement, ib.- polite stoicism, ib. ; reception, ib. ; mode of addressing an English audi- ence, ?6.; portrait of Marcus Aurelius, 334; and methods of criticism, ib.' his gratitude, how expressed, 335 ; on the work of Jesus Christ, 335, 336 ; date of origin of Christianity and its devel- opment, 336; his style and learning, ib.; also 322; ii 90. Review, a royal — London in despair, ii 227 ; bad treatment of the public, ib.; arrangements for the press, ib. ; pros- pect at noon, 228; the Queen, 222 et seq. ; a magical moment, 229 ; tlie Life Guards, ib. ; headquarters staff, 230; a royal company, ib. ; Viscount Wolseley, ib.; Mr. Gladstone, ib. etseg. ; the march past, 231 ; pipeclay over- ruled, 231, 232; enthusiasm in the streets, 232. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, i 350. Richard, Mr. Henry, ii 225. Ripley, Dr., and Mr. Blight, i 124. Eipon, Marquis of, dinner to, at the National Liberal Club, i 214 ; his qualities, ib. ; and the Indians, ib. ; his administration in India, ib. ; and Radi- cal orators, 215 ; his opponents, ib. Ritchie, Mr. C. T., on the Teutonic, ii 402. Eochefort, M. Henri, and Gambetta, i 41; ii 467. Eochef oucauld, Duo de la, i 275, 327, 328 ; ii 54, 102. Rosebery, Earl of, and Germany, i 13 ; at Birmingham, 205; his position as to England, Scotland, and the Cabinet, 206 ; welcome, 207 ; constructive pow- er and repartee, ib. ; a remarkable phrase, ib.; his charm of manner, persuasiveness, secret of success, def- inition of Liberalism, and oratorical endowments, 207, 208; his popularity and ability as a speaiier, ib. ; speech for the Greeks at Willis's Rooms, 379 ; prospect, 380 ; and the Corn Exchange audience,405; his standing with Scotch audiences, 406 ; oratory, 406,415; dec- laration as to the House of Lords, 406 ; in Waverley Market, 415; voice, its power, ib.; quaintness of view, 416; sentence on the House of Lords, ib. ; his conversation, ii 73 ; his manner and urbanity, ib.; gives results, ib.; and books, ib. ; his knowledge of po- litical history, ib. ; use of his acquire- ments, ib. ; wit, ib. ; and new topics, 74 ; his retort, ib.; his tenure of Down- ing Street, 394 ; on books, 440 et seq. ; and the thumb-mark, 441, 445 ; book- collecting, 446 ; also i 98, 144, 230, 266, 311, 362 et seg. ; ii 13, 76, 153, 163, 199, 237, 308, 312, 365, 458. Rosslyn, Earl of, his gifts, ii 81. Rothschild and Sous, Messrs. N. M., their services to the Government, ii 162. Baron Lionel, ii 162. Lady, her house and parties, ii 15. Lord, his services and peerage, ii 162 ; his father and the House of Commons, ib. ; position in the Jew- isli community, ib. ; and tlie triumph of the Union in the American Civil War, 163 ; scene at his reception, ib., 253. Rotten Row, and the people who fre- quent it, ii 27 ; migration northward, ib. Rowton, Lord, ii 12; his accuracy, 82; social knowledge and perception, 83; his talk, ib. Royal Academy, the, i 349 ; ii 60. Family, the, and Darwin's funeral, i73. Institution, the, M. Renan at, 332 et seq. Ruskin, Mr. John, and Carlyle, i 257; Edinburgh, 418; anti-English changes in trade, ii 373 ; his authority im- INDEX. 503 peaohable, 3*74 ; indictment against England, ib. ; also i 350, 421. Kiissell, Dr. W. H. (late of The Times), his talli and Iiisli humour, ii SI ; and the Prince of Wales, ib. ; his retort, 88 ; kindness, ib. ; and the Crimean War, 87, 88 ; his sobriquet, 88. Earl, i 162, 257 ; ii 140, 162. ■ Mr. E. R., ii 208, 403. Sir Charles, his reputation, ii 98 ; and social intercourse, ib. ; his con- versations in Court, ib. ; demeanour in society, ib. ; legal position, ib. ; col- lisions with Sir Jf. Hannen, 451, 452; individuality, 455 ; a rebuke to, ib. ; his nature, ib. ; manner when moved, 456; cross-examinations, ii. ; meth- ods, ib. ; examination of Pigott, 456, 457 ; mixture, 457 ; peremptoriness, ib.; skirmish with an Irish peasant, 459 ; art, ib. ; method with Pigott, 460 ; mask, 461 ; flexibility of countenance, ib. ; renown, its foundation, 462 et seq. ; protest, 469 ; examination of Mr. Par- nell, 469, 470 ; emotion, 474, 475 ; also 369, 394. Sacktille incident, the, i 230. Sailors and royalties, ii 416. Sainte-Beuve, and Matthew Arnold, i 295. St. George's Hall, (Windsor Castle), State banquet in, ii 270. St. Germain, the Faubourg, i 327, 328. Sala, Mr. George Augustus, i 296 ; his unconventionality, ii 79 ; voice and manner, ib. ; general qualities, ib.; stock of anecdote and mother-wit, ib. ; rivals, ib. ; a model witness, 473, 474. Salisbury, Marchioness of, at the Guild- hall, 54 ; her receptions, ii 15 ; her Foreign Office Party and the elect, 271 ; also 8, 18, 245, 247. Marquis of, meaning of his pres- ence at Darwin's funeral, i 71 ; and the black man, 165 ; Lord R. Church- ill, 170 ; impression made by, in Bir- mingham, 205, 207; his mansion in Arlington Street, ii 15 ; summoned to Balmoral, 141 ; and a Cabinet o"f Af- fairs, 143; the Sword of State, 167; his bearing, 166 ; resemblance to Shakespearian prints, ib. ; personal appearance, voice, delivery, and gest- ure, 166, 167; critical temperament, 167; prudent temper and the Conserva- tives, ib. ; and the Supreme Court of the United States, 303 ; Imperial Fed- eration, 365; also i 53, 74, 148, 169, 179, 184, 230, 320, 322, 396, 406, 434, 448, 450; ii 8, 13, 107, 140, 142, 165, 168,209,255,319, Samoa, Prince Bismarck and the United States, i 28. Sand, Georges, and George Eiiot, i 244. Sandringham, ii 13. Sandwich Islands, H.M. the Queen of the, and her escort, ii 272 ; a royal salute, ib. Sartor Re-mrtus, i 253, 255, 276. Saxony, King of, at the Foreign Office, ii 271. School Boards, i 101. Scotch, tlie, and Mr. Gladstone, i 355 ei seq. ; their good manners, 426 ; Home Rulers, the, what they want, ii 365. Scotsman, 77ie, 1421; and Mr. Gladstone's discussion of Egypt, 444. Sexton, Mr., his epigram on Lord Bra- bourne, ii 199. Seymour, Sir Francis, ii 155, 271. Shaftesbury, Earl of, his geniality, i 286 ; amusing anecdote regarding the, ib. ; striking appearance, ib. ; resemblance to the first Earl, 287 ; creed, charac- ter, and philanthropy, ib. ; tliorough- ness of his work, 288. " Shaf tesburys, the three Lord," i 297. Shakespeare,William, why Bright did not read him, i 120. Society, the, i 311. Shaw-Lefevre, Mr. G., and taxed telegram addresses, i 91 ; his reminiscences of Mr. Bright, 143 ; ii 236, 239 et seg. Shelburne,Lord, see Lansdowne, Marq\iis of. Sherbrooke, Viscount, i 147; and Mr. Mill, 238. Sixpenny telegram system, doubtful ad- vantages of the, i 89. Smith, Mr. George, and Mrs. Procter, i 304. Mr. Goldwin, and Congress legisla- tion regarding faith of contracts, ii 304. Mr. W. H., his tribute to Mr. Bright, i 138; also 71,137,171,240; ii 12, 255,325. Soames, Mr., liis appearance and quail- ties, ii 454, 465, 466. Social Mentor in London, functions of tlie, ii 21 et seq. ; the Unaslied, ib. ; defiiiition of the Masculine Mentor, 504 INDEX. 22 ; bia mission, 23 ; and the young mau of tlie period, ib. ; liis battalions, ib. ; and tbe masher, 24 ; his power, responsibilities, and influence, ib. ; an OTei'-confident hostess and two Men- tors, 24, 25 ; his tactics, 25 ; the Fe- male Mentor, ib. Socialism, and the German Emperor, i 20,21; effortof German, 32; and Mr. Chamberlain, 183, 189. Socialists, the, and Mr. Cliamberlain, ii 328. Society, communistic, result of, ii 63 ; Sliibboleths of sets of, ib. ; and con- formity, 69 ; in England, of what it consists, ib. ; conditions to be observed by an outsider, 70 ; what it includes, 72; its weights and measures for con- versation, 81; talk, ib. et seg.; non- royal, its note, 107; and see London Society. Speaker, Mr., his functions and Mr. Gladstone, ii 176, 177; an Irish ob- struction, 177 et seg. ; an official inti- mation regarding his election, 180; his mace, 181 ; proceedings at his elec- tion, ib. et seg.; Mr. Whitbread on his authority, 182; the Tories and a candi- date for the office, 183 ; the ceremony of his election, its interest for America, scene of calm dignity^ 185, 186. See also Hampden, Viscount; and Peel, Mr. Arthur. Spencer House, ii 3. Countess, and the Queen, i 211; her Home Rule party, ii 8 ; how re- ' garded by society, 9 ; its object, ib. ; questions raised by it, 10 ; and the Irish People, 131. Earl, in Ireland, i 209 ; and thePar- nellites, 209, 210 ; his courage, capaci- ty, and qualities as a ruler, 210; reward, 210, 211 ; knowledge of Ireland, 212; Newcastle declaration for Home Rule, its effect, 213 ; generous view of the Irish, ib. ; dictum on separation, ib. ; the interest of his speech, ib. ; and London Society, ii 3 ; his reception of the Prince and Princess of Wales in Ireland, 13; indifference to a social slight, 13, 14; and St. Patrick's Hall, 120; the Pound in Dublin Castle, 129; the Meath hounds, ib. ; at the Home Rule debate, 198; also i 73, 74, 153; ii 441, 446. Mr. Herbert, his feelings towards Darwin, i 72 ; refusal to be nominated for Leicester, ii 187 et seg. ; on the in- fluence of Members of the House of Commons, ib. ; actual work of legisla- tion, 189 ; definition of the chief busi- ness of legislation, 192 ; also, i 78, 294. Spencer, Mr. Robert, ii 3 ; at the Cadogan party, 10 ; and the Duke of Westmin- ster, 11, 12 ; the Eighty Club banquet to Mr. Parnell, 11. Spurgeon, Rev. Mr., ii 203. Staal, M. de, i 224 ; ii 275.. Stafford, Marchioness of, ii 403. Stair, Earl of, his vocation for the plat- form, i 409; success, its secret, 410; diction, ib. ; straightforwardness, ib. Stanhope, Mr. E., i 163. Stanley, Dean, and the resting-place of English heroes, i 71 ; and Carlyle, 259, 260; monument to Prince Louis Na- poleon, 260. Dowager Lady, of Alderley, and the Carlyle Memorial, i 264, 267 ; ii 237, 247, 255. Stephen, Mr. James, and the American Constitution, ii 302. Sterling, Mr., his leaders in The 7\ines, i 63 ; and Carlyle, 64. Stores, the reason of their institution, ii 376. Strawberry Hill, i 275. Street, Mr., ii 449. Stuart, Gilbert, and the Washington por- trait, ii 308 ct seg. Suakim debate, a, i 161-166. Sullivan, Mr. T. D., ii 134. Sir Arthur, ii 95, 237. Sumner, Mr. Charles, and Louis Blanc's History of the French Hevolulion, i 46, 46; lis, 114; book.s, ii 437. Sunderland Library, ii 432, 441. Sweden and Darwin's Memorial, i, 76. Swift, Dean, quoted, i 124; on Boling- broke, 257, 258 ; and one of his own books, ii 436 ; also, i 276 ; ii 90. TainEj M., his portrait of St. Just, i 200 ; changed view of French Revolution, 201, 322. Talk, change in the fashion of, ii 471 ; topics, how treated, 48 ; Hayward's phrase, 49 ; a foreigner, his difficulty as to modern society in London, ib. ; women, their senses and safeguards, ib. ; the male foreigner at an even- INDEX. 505 tag party, 49-51 ; his introduction to an Englisli lady, 50; at lunch, 51; fuss and English women, ib. ; what Society objects to, ib. ; anecdote of au English butler, 52. Talker, a woman's opinion of a good, ii 82. l^elegraph, The Daih/, and American manners, ii 373, Z14 ; the coal ques- tion, 383 ; its circulation, ib. Temple, Dr. (Bishop of Loudon), and hia appointment to the Bishopric of Exe- ter, i 321, 322 ; ii 257, Hi. Temps, Ze, and Prince Bismarck's resig- nation, i 20. Tenniel, Mr., his cartoon of "Dropping the Pilot," i 33 ; other cartoons, 162, 164 ; ii St. Tennyson, Lord, i 121, 246; andCarlvle, 261; 364; ii 326. Terry, Miss Ellen, and American society, ii41; 237. Teutonic, the, what the White Star liner is like, ii 398, 399; library and deco- rations, 400 ; a shipf ul of celebrities, ib. ; her promenade decks, ib. ; ton- nage, composition, and engines, ib.; the absence of vibration, 404 ; venti- lation, ib. ; her service and hospitality, 405 ; guns, 406 ; the voyage from Liv- erpool, 406, 407; an adventure, 407; the Prince of Wales and the, 407, 413 et seq. ; a point of attraction, 408 ; tlie dinner of ceremony, 410 ; a pretty scene, ib.; the speeches, 410, 411 ; a disappointment, 411; dance, 412; a cool captain, 413 ; the visit of the German Emperor, 412 et seq. ; his manner and bearing, 414 et seq.; ad- miration of the ship, 417. Teutons, a Frenchman on the, i 30. Thackeray, W. M.,hi3 gains in America, i 291; 304; ii 443. Thoughts (of Marcus Aurelius), i 334 et seq. " Thunderer," the, i 63. Times, The, i 61 ; its pre-eminence in Europe, 63; advance, 64; Mr. Delane and, 63-68 ; and the Post-Office, 86 ; on Mr. Lowell's departure, 221 ; and President Garfield, ii 294 ; the London riots, 323 et seq. ; Mr. Morley, 369, 370 ; ■ilso i 272, 273, 307 ; ii 87, 453 et seq. ; 459. Tissot, M., his caricature, i 345. Toby, M. P., i 162 ; ii 403. Tories, the, and Mr. Mill, i 238. Torpedo expedition, the, ii 376. Torquemada, i 200, 201. Tower, the, a scene in, ii 395 ; its im- pressiveness by night, ib. ; importance, ib. ; a grim walk, 396 ; " Queen Vic- toria's keys," ib. Trade, the Morals of — Mr. Euskin and anti- English changes, ii 373 ; swin- dling, 374 ; what the spread of trade implies, ib. ; Mr. Bright and adulter- ation, 375 ; the Manchester cotton goods, ib. ; Stores, reason for their institution, 376 ; the torpedo expedi- tion, ib. ; depression of trade, the moral cause for, 377 ; bad crops, a landowner's reason for, ib. ; the Lon- don tradesman, his cry for Fair Rent, how met, ib. ; the Coal Ring in Lon- don, 378 ; the remedy ? ib. ; jealousies in the coal trade, 379 ; colliery own- ers and managers, and the profits of coal merchants, ib. ; the Coal Dues, abolition of, its result, 380 ; milk in- spectors and the quality of London milk, ii. ; an instructive anecdote, ib. ; systematic robbery, 381 ; traditional honesty, what foundation for, ib.; how Americans are affected, 381, 382; two scales of charges, 382; the American, and extortion, ib. ; The Daily Tele- graph, its abandonment of the coal question, 383 ; cheating by street coal merchants, computation of loss by, ib. ; the rule, 384 ; accusations and evidence, ib. ; a new code, ib. ; dis- closures as to schoolhouses of London. School Board, ib. et seq. ; investiga- tions of a Committee, how treated, 386 ; the financial and sanitary view, and how the matter affects Americans, 386, 387; state of the Public Build- ings of London, 387 ; the Retail Trade and the Americans, ib. ; maxim of the London trader, 387, 388; the Sweater, 388 ; deterioration and dishonesty, ib. Trades unions, the, and members of Par- liament, ii 188, 189. Trafalgar Square, meetings and riots in, ii 315 et seq. ; 332 et seq. Transvaal, the, ii 365. Trevelyan, Sir G. 0., and classical lan- guage in private talk, ii 96 ; at the Home Rule debate, 198; also i 152, 164, 178, 181, 182. Triple Alliance, danger of weakening the, i 22. 506 INDEX. Tub, Tale of a, i 278. Tupper, Sir Chavles, ii 404, 410. Turner, J. M. W., i 316,350. Tyndall, Prof., i 257 ; at the unveiling of tlie Carlyle Memorial, 264-266 ; ii 236. Ulster, ii 202, 206. Union, the Act of, 1707, ii 367. United States, the, and Prussia, i 2S ; Carlyle's regard for, 252, 253 ; que3- tions as to, 253, 254 ; Matthew Ar- nold, 289-293 ; notion in, as to per- sons of high rank in England, ii 105 ; also i 51, ioO, 136, 144, 188, 190, 196- 198, 203, 204, 21.5, 218, 221, 222, 225, 226, 231, 236, 262, 338, 347, 378, 446, 451; ii 96, 110, 111, 116, 121, 173, 175, 185, 275, 294, 295, 298, 302 etseq., 308 et seq., 348, 351 et seg., 377, 410, 414. Vandeebilt, Mr., ii 278. Vaniti/ Fair, Thackeray's, ii 434. Mr. Bowles's, i 344. Victory, the (Lord Nelson's), ii 274 et seq. Villiers, Mr. Charles, i 283, 326 ; his talk, its qualities, ii 54, 55 ; memory, 55. Voltaire, on books, ii 439. Waddington, Madame, in London, ii 17; 31, 274 ctseq Monsieur, i 224; ii 17, 30, 31, 274 et aeq. Waldegrave, Countess, i 275 ; ii 52 ; de- scribed, 67. Wales, Prince of, and Home Rulers, ii 13; Earl Spencer, 13, 14; exclusion of actresses from society, 33 ; his interest in the theatre and knowledge of dra- matic art, lb. ; and iMr. Irving, 37 ; a New York girl, 71; American society, ib. ; bis amusement, ib. ; talk, its op- portuneness, 82 ; knowledge of society, ib. ; common sense and perception, ib. ; visit to Ireland and precedence, 121, 122; at the opening of Pavliament, 1886, 152 et seq.; the Nai-al Review, 407, 408 et seq. ; also i 3, 73, 77, 79, 134, 227, 389, 426 ; ii 34, 87, 121, 165, 229, 240, 245 et seq., 257 et seq., 269, 279, 280, 292, 294, 472. ■ Princess of. ii 33 ; in the House of Lords in 1880,154, 155; also i 3, 134, 227, 389, 426 ; ii 34, 230, 240, 245, 259 et seg., 269. Walter, Mr., his relations with Mr. De- lane, i 68 ; qualities, ib. Ward, Mr. Leslie, his understanding of caricature, i 345. Warren, Sir Charles, and the London riots, ii 332 et seg. Washington, President, Mr. Gladstone on. ii 297 et seq. ; also i 204 ; ii 309 et seq. the Lansdowne, its true history, ii BOSetseq.; origin, 308,309; authentic- ity and originality, 309, 310; pedigree, 310 et seq.; Washington's letter, ib.; the conclusions to be drawn from the letter, 311; the picture described, 312 et seq. Treaty of, i 106. Watkin, Sir Edward, and the Channel Tunnel, ii 359. Watts, Mr. G. F., E.A., his generosity in lending his pictures to the Metropoli- tan Museum, New York, i 347 ; risks of their transit, 347, 348 ; his goodwill to America, 348 ; pictures, their ulti- mate destination, ib. ; work, its nature, ib.; principle and ambition, ib. ; pict- ures, portraits, and house, 349 ; " Love and Death," " Time and Death," 349,351; aim, 349; poetic beauly, 350; and an English school of art, ib. ; what the American artist will learn from, 351; his fellow-artists, 352 ; method, perception, and sense of colour, ib. Waverley Market, Edinburgh, Mr. Glad- stone in the, i 381 etseq. ; 412 et seg. Station, i S6l et seg. Webb,Mr., ii401. Webster, Sir Richard, quoted on Mr. Phelps, i 231 ; his appearance, de- meanour, and legal qualities, ii 453 et seq.; wooden decorum, 468 ; also 98, 449, 450, 453, 455 et seq. Daniel, i 174; and Mr. Gladstone, 401; Theodore Parker, «6.; on Massa- chusetts, ii 112. Welby, Sir Reginald, ii 421. Westminster, nature of its constituency, i 249. Abbey, description of Mr. Darwin's funeral in, i 69 et seq, ; the Dean's as- sent to the proposal, ib. ; precautions, 69, 70; nature of its neighbourhood, 70 ; also ii 252 et seq. Hall after the dynamite explosion, the approach to, ii 844 ; a wall of po- lice, ib. ; the appearance of the Hall and the effect of the dynamite, 344]. INDEX. 507 345 ; scene of the second explosion, and its marks in the House of Com- mons, 846 ; the policeman Cole, the re- sult of his courage and devotion, Sil ; writers and panic, 348 ; the demeanour of the people,!*.; tone of the papers,i4.; dangerous duties, how regarded, 349. Westminster, Duchess of, and society, ii 11. Duke of, ii 6 ; and Mr. Robert Spencer, 3, 10-12; his London resi- dence, his social importance, 11. Wheatley, Mr., his summary of Pepys's character and charges against him, ii 426. Whetham, Sir Charles, i B3. Whips' Lists, the, and London parties, ii 20. Whistler, Mr. J. McNeill, his varied con- versational powers, ii 86 ; retort and answer to a flatterer, ib. ; notes to his pictures, ib. ; letters, ib. ; and Carlo Pellegrini, 87. Whitbread, Mi-., and precedence and pro- cedure, ii 181,182; on the Speaker's authority, 182 ; nomination of Mr. Peel, 182 ci seg. Whitby, ii 289, 290. Whitechapel, ii 244. White, Mr. Henrv, at the Devonshire Club, i 196. Star Line, the directors of, their spirit of improvement, ii 398, 399. Whittier, John G., and Mr. Bright, i 122, 123, 317. Willing, Anue, see Bingham, Mrs. Will- iam. Wither, George, i 121. Wolff, Sir H. DrummonJ, i 179 ; his po- litical history, ii 84 ; story-teller, ib. ; his professional skill and personal qualities, 85 ; reserve, ib. ; 401. Wolseley, Viscount, his outspokenness, ii 91 ; his talk, what it embraces, ib. ; astuteness, ii. ; manner and fluency, ib. ; reason of his success in conver- sation, ib. ; his anecdote and remi- niscence, 92 ; view as to invective, J6. ; letter to a school girl, ib. ; resource at the royal dinner-table, ib. ; described, ii 230; also i 180, 181; ii 17, 234, 237. Women, and conversation, ii 66 ; famous, of the last generation, 67 ; as letter writers, ib. ; and influence upon con- versation, ib. ; an accomplished woman and solemnities at dinner, 68, 69 ; American, their influence on conversa- tion in London, 70. Wood, Sir Evelyn, i 53; ii 231. 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