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AULD LANG SYNE 
 
 BY 
 
 y .. 
 
 The Rt. Hon. Professor F. MAX MULLER 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE "SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE," ETC. 
 
 IV/ TH A PORTRAIT 
 
 New York 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 
 1898 
 
Copyright, 1898, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 
 TROW DIRECTORT 
 
 PRINTING AND eOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 
 
PREFACE 
 
 What are you to do when you are sent away by 
 your doctor for three or four weeks of perfect rest ? 
 You are made to promise that you will lie perfectly 
 fallow, take no books and allow no proofsheets to 
 reach you. A very eminent German professor, the 
 late Dr. Neander, the famous Church historian, 
 solved the difficulty in his own way. He had 
 faithfully promised his physician that he would 
 take no books with him to Karlsbad, but had at last, 
 as a great favour, obtained permission to take at 
 least one work with him on his journey. On the 
 morning of his departure the doctor wished to say 
 good-bye to his patient, and calling at his door saw 
 a cart laden with heavy folios. “ But, dear pro- 
 fessor,” he said, with considerable surprise and 
 displeasure, “you had promised me to take no 
 books with you.” “ Yes, doctor,” the professor re- 
 plied, “ but you allowed me one work, so I thought 
 I might take the Fathers with me to Karlsbad.” I 
 might have done the same, if I had taken the “ Rig 
 Veda ” only, or the Sacred Books of the East with 
 
VI 
 
 Preface 
 
 me, but my conscience would not allow it, so that I 
 found myself in small lodgings at an English wa- 
 tering place with nothing to do all day long but 
 to answer a number of accumulated letters and to 
 read The Times, which always follows me. What 
 was I to do ? Doctors ought to know that to a 
 man accustomed to work enforced rest is quite as 
 irritating and depressing as travaux forces. In 
 self-defence I at last hit on a very simple expedient. 
 I began to write what could be written without a 
 single book, and taking paper, pen and ink — these 
 I had never forsworn — I jotted down some recol- 
 lections of former years. The fancy took me, and 
 I said with Goethe : — 
 
 Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten — 
 
 and after a day or two I was so absorbed in my 
 work, if work it could be called, that I said again 
 with Goethe : — 
 
 Ihr drangt euch zu ! Nun gut, so mogt ihr walten. . . . 
 
 Of course I had to leave many a gap in my sketch 
 of Auld Lang Syne. Dates, even names, would 
 now and then leave me in the lurch, and as I had 
 no means of verifying anything, I had to wait till 
 I was settled again among my books and letters 
 and papers at home. But though I corrected some 
 glaring anachronisms and some mistaken names, I 
 
Preface 
 
 Vll 
 
 could leave my MS. very much as it had been writ- 
 ten down in my temporary exile, and I can there- 
 fore vouch for its truth so far that it is an exact 
 copy of the negative developed by long exposure 
 in my memory. Whether it is accurate, who can 
 tell ? I know from sad experience that my mem- 
 ory is no longer what it was. All I can say is that 
 the positive copy here published is as true and as ex- 
 act as the rays of the evening sun of life, falling on 
 the negative in my memory, could make it. Though 
 I have suppressed whatever could possibly have 
 given offence to any sensible person, however sen- 
 sitive, I have not retouched the pictures of my 
 friends* or acquaintances, nor have I tried, as is 
 now so much the fashion, to take out all the lines 
 and wrinkles so that nothing remains but the 
 washed-out faces of angels. 
 
 AVhat I give here is but a small portion of the 
 panorama of life that has passed before my eyes. 
 Of myself there is but little, for the spectator or 
 interpreter in a panorama should remain imseen 
 and in the dark. It is a pleasure to him, though 
 often a sad pleasure, to see once more what he has 
 seen before, to Hve the old time over again, to look 
 once more at dear faces, once so full of love and 
 life, to feel the touch of a vanished hand, and hear 
 a voice that is still. 
 
 As we grow old it is our fate to lose our friends ; 
 
VUl 
 
 Preface 
 
 but the friends we have lost are often nearer to us 
 than those who remain. Will they never be quite 
 near to us again? Stars meet stars after thou- 
 sands of years, and are we not of more value than 
 many a star ? 
 
 F. MAX MULLER. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Musical Eecollections 1 
 
 Litebaky Eecollections — 
 
 1 40 
 
 n 86 
 
 ni 120 
 
 IV. 164 
 
 Eecollections of Eoyalties — 
 
 1 205 
 
 II . 245 
 
 Beggaks . . , . ■ 289 
 
 Index . 321 
 
AULD LANG SYNE 
 
 MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 The man that has no music in himself, 
 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 
 
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night. 
 
 And his affections dark as Erebus. 
 
 Let no such man be trusted. 
 
 Thus wrote Shakespeare; but with aU due re- 
 spect for the immortal bard, he was wrong for 
 once. Did not my dear friend, Arthur Stanley, 
 hate music, and was he not to be trusted ? Were 
 his affections dark as Erebus? 
 
 True it is, music gives us a new life, and to be 
 without that life is the same loss as to be blind, 
 and not to know the infinite blue of the sky, the 
 varied verdure of the trees, or the silver sparkle of 
 the sea. Music is the language of the soul, but 
 it defies interpretation. It means something, but 
 that something belongs not to this world of sense 
 and logic, but to another world, quite real, though 
 
 1 
 
2 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 beyond all definition. How different music is from 
 all other arts ! They all have something to imitate 
 which is brought to us by the senses. But what 
 does music imitate? Not the notes of the lark, 
 nor the roar of the sea ; they cannot be imitated, 
 and if they are, it is but a caricature. The melo- 
 dies of Schubert were chosen, not fi’om the Prater, 
 but from another world. 
 
 For educational purposes music is invaluable. 
 It softens the young barbarian, it makes him use 
 his fingers deftly, it lifts him up, it brings him 
 messages from another world, it makes him feel 
 the charm of harmony and beauty. There is no 
 doubt an eternal harmony that pervades every 
 kind of music, and there are the endless varieties 
 of music, some so strange that they seem hardly to 
 deserve to be called a gift of the Muses. There is 
 in music something immortal and something mor- 
 tal. There is even habit in music ; for the music 
 that delights us sounds often hideous to unedu- 
 cated ears. 
 
 Indian music is thoroughly scientific, based on 
 mathematics, and handed down to the present age 
 after many centiiries of growth. But when we 
 hear it for the first time, it seems mere noise, 
 without melody, *svithout harmony, without rhythm. 
 The Maoris have their own music too, but send a 
 New Zealander to hear a long symphony of Beet- 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 3 
 
 hoven, and, if he can, he will certainly run away 
 long before the finale. 
 
 In a lesser degi-ee it is the same with us. Beet- 
 hoven’s compositions were at first considered wild 
 and lawless. Those who admired Mozart and 
 Haydn could not endure him. Afterwards the 
 world Avas ediTcated up to his Ninth Symphony, 
 but some of his later sonatas for pianoforte and 
 violin were played by Mendelssohn and Da^dd in 
 my hearing, and they both shrugged their shoul- 
 ders, and thought that the old man had been no 
 longer quite himself when he wrote them. We have 
 grown into them, or up to them, and noAV many a 
 young man is able to enjoy them, and to enjoy 
 them honestly. I remember the time when Schu- 
 mann’s songs were published at Leipzig, and the 
 very same songs which now delight us were then 
 by the best judges called curious, strange, interest- 
 ing, promising, but no more. Yes, there is habit 
 in music, and we are constantly passing through a 
 musical education ; nay, the time comes Avhen our 
 education seems finished, and Ave can learn and 
 take in no more. I have passed through a long 
 school. I began with Haydn, Mozart, and Beet- 
 hoven, lived on with Mendelssohn, rose to Schi;- 
 mann, and reached even Brahms ; but I could 
 never get beyond, I could never learn to enjoy 
 Wagner except now and then in one of his lucid 
 
4 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 intervals. No doubt this is my fault and my loss, 
 but surely the vulgus profanum also has its rights 
 and may protest against being tired instead of be- 
 ing refreshed and invigorated by music. Would 
 Mendelssohn have admired Wagner? Would Beet- 
 hoven have listened to his music, would Bach 
 have tolerated it ? Yet these were musicians too, 
 though perhaps not sufficiently educated. To be 
 honest, a great deal of Wagner’s music seems tii*e- 
 some to me, and I do not see why it should ever 
 end. 
 
 My musical education began very early, so early 
 that I cannot remember ever passing through any 
 drudgery. As long as I remember I could play, 
 and I was destined to become a musician, till I 
 went to the University, and Mendelssohn advised 
 me to keep to Greek and Latin. I was bom and 
 brought up in Dessau, a small German town in an 
 oasis of oak-trees where the Elbe and the Mulde 
 meet, a town then overflowing with music. Such 
 towns exist no longer. 
 
 When I went to school at Dessau, this small 
 capital of the small Duchy of Anhalt - Dessau 
 counted, I believe, not more than ten or twelve 
 thousand inhabitants. Everybody knew every- 
 body. As a boy I knew not only the notables 
 of Dessau, I knew the shops and the shopmen, 
 the servants, the day-labourers {Tageldhner) who 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 5 
 
 sawed and split wood in the street, every old 
 woman that sold apples, every beggar that asked 
 for a Pfennig — mark, not a penny, but the tenth 
 part of a penny. It was a curious town, with one 
 long street running through it, the Cavalier strasse, 
 very broad, with pavements on each side. But 
 the street had to be weeded from time to time, 
 there being too little traffic to prevent the grass 
 from growing up between the chinks of the stones. 
 The houses had generally one storey only ; those of 
 two or three storeys were mostly buildings erected 
 by the Duke for his friends and his higher officials. 
 Many houses were mere cottages, consisting of a 
 ground floor and a high roof. Almost every house 
 had a small mysterious looking-glass fastened out- 
 side the window in which the dwellers within could 
 watch and discuss an approaching visitor long be- 
 fore he or she came within speaking distance. It 
 was the fashion not only to white- wash the plastered 
 walls of houses, but to green- wash, or to blue-wash, 
 or to pink- wash them. All this is changed now ; 
 few people remember the old streets, with distant 
 lamps swinging across to make darkness more vis- 
 ible at night, and with long waterspouts frowning 
 down on the pavement like real gurgoyles, and not 
 frowning only, but during a thunderstorm pouring 
 down buckets of water on the large red and green 
 umbrellas of the passers-by. 
 
6 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Dessau was then a very poor town, but a Iceta 
 paupertas reigned in it ; everybody knew how 
 much everybody else possessed or earned, and no 
 one was expected to spend more than was justi- 
 fied by his position. We can hardly understand 
 now with how little people then managed, not 
 only to live, but thoroughly to enjoy the highest 
 pleasures of life. My grandfather, who was the 
 Duke’s Prime Minister, received, I believe, no 
 more than two thousand thalers (£300) salary, 
 though there may have been additional allowances 
 for rent, carriages and horses. But there was a 
 curious mixtm’e of simplicity of life and enjoy- 
 ments of the highest kind. I remember in my 
 grandfather’s house delightful social gatherings, 
 musical and literary performances. I remember 
 Mozart’s “ Don Juan,” Beethoven’s “ Fidelio ” be- 
 ing performed there, the latest works of Goethe 
 and Jean Paul being read and appreciated with a 
 cup of tea or a glass of wine. A more select cir- 
 cle enjoyed their Shakespeare, their Dante, their 
 Calderon in English, Italian, and Spanish. I re- 
 member my grandfather (the sou of Basedow, the 
 reformer of national education in Germany) in his 
 Court uniform, driving to Court in his carriage 
 and pair, servants in full livery, everybody making 
 room for him and bowing deep on each side, hat 
 in hand- And when he came back from Court, 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 7 
 
 was it not a real holiday for his grandchildren to 
 turn the pockets of his uniform inside out — the 
 pockets were lined on purpose with soft leather — 
 to see what bonbons and cakes he had brought 
 home for us from Tafel — i.e., dinner at Court ? Al- 
 most my first recollections come from my grand- 
 father’s house. My mother, after the very early 
 death of ray father, who died before I was four- 
 years old, had gone back to live at her father’s 
 house. This was a very common arrangement 
 then. Two or three generations often lived to- 
 gether in the same house, and among the better- 
 families the house was looked upon as a common 
 home, descending from father to son and grand- 
 son. There was a large garden stretching out be- 
 hind the house, which was our playground. Our 
 neighbours’ gardens were separated on each side 
 from orrr own by a low hedge only. Next door to 
 us was the house of a soap and candle maker, and 
 I still remember the disagreeable smells on the day 
 when soap was boiled and candles were drawn. 
 People talked across the garden hedge to their 
 neighbours, arrd all the affairs of the town were 
 discussed there. Our neighbour on the right side 
 took lodgers, and one of them was a young man 
 who had come to Dessau to study music under F. 
 Schneider, and at the same time to give music 
 lessons. He had been a theological student, but 
 
8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 had umyesattelt (changed saddles), and now tried 
 to support himseK as best he could at Dessau. 
 He often talked to me across the garden hedge (I 
 was only five years old). One day he lifted me 
 across into his own garden, and asked whether I 
 would like to learn the pianoforte. I, of course, 
 said yes, and he then bade me promise to come to 
 him every day for half an hour, but not to say a 
 word to my mother or to anybody else. The bar- 
 gain was struck; I kept my music quite secret, 
 till, after about half a year or so, I sat down at my 
 gi-andfather’s pianoforte, and to the amazement of 
 everybody played some easy pieces of Mozart or 
 Diabelli. Of course the young theological student 
 — his name was Kahle — ^was engaged at once to be 
 my music-master. He charged five Groschen (six- 
 pence) for a lesson, and I made very rapid prog- 
 ress. My mother was very musical ; she had a 
 splendid alto voice, and was often invited to sing 
 the solos at the great musical festivals in Germany. 
 My aunts, too, sang very well, and as a little boy I 
 could sing all the songs which they sang, and well 
 remember being put on a table to sing Handel’s 
 great arias, “ Schnell wie des Blitzes Strahl,” etc. 
 Dessau at that time was steeped in music. 
 
 The reigning Duke kept a first-rate orchestra, 
 and at the head of it was Friedrich Schneider, a 
 well-known composer of the old school, a cantor. 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 9 
 
 like Bach, but also Ducal Capellmeister, and the 
 head of what was then called a musical school, 
 now a conservatorium. This school was fre-^ 
 quented by students from aU parts of Germany, 
 and it has produced some excellent musicians and 
 well-known composers. There were public con- 
 certs given regularly every fortnight at a very low 
 charge, and there were rehearsals twice a week, at 
 which a few people only were allowed to be pres- 
 ent. I was one of the few, and every Tuesday 
 and Friday after school I sat there for an hour or 
 two hearing the very best music excellently per- 
 formed, and being deeply impressed, nay, awed by 
 old Schneider, who stormed at the players when a 
 single note went wrong, and used language which 
 I was not allowed to repeat. He was a character. 
 A small, square man, with greyish hair flowing 
 down to his shoulders, his black eyes full of fire, 
 and sometimes of fury. He was very fond of his 
 glass of wine, which had given to his whole face, 
 and particularly to his nose, a glowing ruddy com- 
 plexion. He brooked no opposition from any- 
 body, and he was the terror of all the young mu- 
 sicians who showed themselves at Dessau. His 
 orchestra had such a reputation at that time that 
 some of the greatest celebrities considered it an 
 honour either to have their compositions per- 
 formed or to be allowed to sing or play at his con- 
 
lo Auld Lang Syne 
 
 certs. I remember Paganini, Sonntag, Spolir, 
 
 Mendelssohn (then quite a young man), and many 
 more passing through their ordeal at Dessau. 
 Mendelssohn’s visit left a deep impression on my 
 mind. I was still a mere child, he a very young 
 man, and, as I thought, with the head of an 
 angel. Mendelssohn’s was always a handsome 
 face, but later in life the sharpness of his features 
 betrayed his Jewish blood. He excelled as an or- 
 gan player, and while at Dessau he played on the 
 organ in the Grosse Kirche, chiefly extempore. I 
 was standing by him, when he took me on his 
 knees and asked me to play a choral while he 
 played the pedal. I see it all now as if it had 
 been yesterday, and I felt convinced at that time 
 that I too {anch' io) would be a musician. Was 
 not Weber, Karl Maria von Weber, my godfather, 
 and had he not given me my surname of Max ? 
 My father and mother had been staying with 
 Weber at Dresden, and my father had undertaken 
 to write the text for a new opera, which was nev- 
 er finished. Weber was then Avriting his “Frei 
 schiitz,” and my mother has often described to me 
 how he would walk about the whole day in his 
 room composing, not before the pianoforte, but 
 with a small guitar, and how she heard every mel- 
 ody gradually emerging from the twang of his little 
 instniment. Both his wife and my mother were 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 1 1 
 
 expecting their confinement, and it was arranged 
 that if the children should be boys, they should 
 be called Max, if girls, Agathe. We were both 
 boys, and Weber’s son. Max Maria von Weber, be- 
 came a distinguished traveller, a most charming 
 writer, and at last an influential financier in the 
 Austrian service. He stayed with me several times’ 
 at Oxford, and we exchanged notes about our re- 
 spective fathers. He published a life of his father, 
 which has, I believe, been translated into English. 
 
 Old Schneider was kind to young Mendels- 
 sohn, whenever he came to Dessau ; they were 
 both ardent admirers of Handel and Bach, but 
 the more modern and romantic compositions of 
 the young composer did not quite meet the ap- 
 proval of the severe Maestro. Schneider was ter- 
 ribly outspoken, and apt to lose his temper and be- 
 come violent. He once had a most painful scene 
 with Madame Sonntag, or rather with Count- 
 ess Something, as she was then. First of all, he 
 thought very little of any composer whose name 
 ended in ini or ante, and he would biit seldom 
 yield to the Duke and Duchess when chey wished 
 now and then to have some of Rossini’s or Mer- 
 cadante’s music performed by their own orchestra. 
 But when the Italian Countess ventured to speak 
 to his orchestra and to ask them for a ritardando 
 
 of her own, he flourished his baton and broke out : 
 
 » 
 
12 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 “Madame,” he said, “you may sing as you like, 
 but I look after of my orchestra,” and there was 
 an end of it. 
 
 Life went on, and what time I could spare from 
 school work, perhaps too much, was given to mu- 
 sic. There was not an air or a symphony of 
 Beethoven’s which at that time I could not have 
 hummed from beginning to end, and even now I 
 often detect myself humming, “ Ich bin’s, du bist’s, 
 O himmlisches Entziicken ! ” Who does not know 
 that duet between Fidelio and Florestan ? Much 
 of that humming repertorio has remained with me 
 for life, though I cannot always teU now where an 
 Allegro or Adagio comes from. It comes without 
 being called, I cannot drive it away when I want 
 to be quiet. I hum the bass, I whistle the pic- 
 colo, I draw out the notes from the violoncello, I 
 blow the trumpet, in fact I often feel like Queen 
 Bess, “ And she shall have music wherever she 
 goes.” 
 
 When I was about eleven or twelve, old Schnei- 
 der allowed me to play with accompaniment of 
 the full orchestra some concertos of Mozart, etc. 
 This was a great event in my quiet life, and every- 
 thing looked as if music was to be my profession. 
 When afterwards I went to the Nicolai School at 
 Leipzig, the school at which Leibniz (not Leib- 
 nitz) had been educated, I lived again in the 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 13 
 
 musical house of Professor Carus. His wife sang 
 sweetly ; his son, my old friend, Professor V. 
 Carus, was an excellent viohn player, a pupil of 
 David. I myself began to play the violoncello, 
 but without much success, and I joined a chorus 
 under Mendelssohn, who was then director of 
 the famous Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig. 
 We often had to sing anything he had composed 
 and wished to hear before performing it in public. 
 As a friend of my father and my mother, Men- 
 delssohn was always most charming to me, but 
 he did not encourage my idea of a musical career. 
 The fact was I had not time to serve two masters. 
 I could not practise and study music as it ought to 
 be practised and studied without neglecting Greek 
 and Latin, and, as life became more serious, my 
 mind was more and more drawn to the thoughts 
 of antiquity, to Homer and Cicero, and away from 
 the delights of music. I heard excellent music at 
 the house of Professor Carus. I stiU have an old 
 slip of paper on which Mendelssohn, Liszt, David, 
 Kalliwoda and Hiller wrote their names for me 
 one evening after they had been playing quartettes 
 at Professor Carus’s house. (See page 14.) 
 
 I even ventui-ed while at Leipzig to play some- 
 times at public concerts in the neighbourhood. 
 But when I began to look forward to what I should 
 make of my life, and how I should carve out for 
 
H 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 myself a useful career, I saw that music was out 
 of the question. There was another consideration 
 which determined my choice. There was much 
 deafness in my family. My mother became deaf 
 
 when she was still quite young, my grandmother, 
 several of my imcles and cousins, all had lost their 
 hearing, and this induced me, young as I was, to 
 choose a profession which would be possible even 
 if I should share the same misfortune. I could 
 not think of medicine, or law, or the Church — so I 
 said to myself, keep to Greek and Latin, try to be 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 15 
 
 a scholar. A professorship was my highest ambi- 
 tion, but I thought that even if that should fail, I 
 might find a quiet Benedictine cell somewhere, and 
 support myself by my pen. So music had to step 
 into the background, not altogether, but so as not 
 to interfere with more serious work. No, music, 
 though somewhat slighted, has remained a true 
 and faithful friend to me through life. I have en- 
 joyed music until very late in life when I began to 
 feel satisfied, and would much rather hum a sym- 
 phony to myself than hear it played, often not half 
 so well as I remembered it at Dessau, at the Ge- 
 wandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, and at the mar- 
 vellous Conservatoire Concerts in Paris. These 
 were the perfection of instrumental music. Never 
 has any other performance come near them. It 
 was difficult to get a ticket. People used to form 
 qmne and stand the whole night in order to secure 
 the next morning an ahonnement for the season. 
 To buy a ticket was beyond my means, for when 
 I was at Paris I had entirely to support myself. 
 But a friend of mine took me to the Conserva- 
 toire, and I often sat in the corridor without see- 
 ing the orchestra, listening as if to organ music. 
 It was perfect. Every instrument of the orchestra 
 was first-rate — the players had mostly passed 
 through the same school, the conductor was an old 
 man with a German name which I forget. Was it 
 
i6 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Habeneck? He reminded me of Schneider, and 
 certainly his orchestra marched like a regiment of 
 soldiers. 
 
 And besides being a constant source of the 
 highest enjoyment to me, music has often helped 
 me in my pilgrimage through life. Both in Paris 
 and later on in London, many a house was open to 
 me which would have remained closed to a mere 
 scholar. Musicians also always took an interest in 
 the son of the poet, Wilhelm Muller, whose songs 
 had been set to music, not only by Schubert, but 
 by many other popular composers. I well remem- 
 ber, when telling Jenny Lind whose son I was, 
 how she held up her hands and said : “ What ? 
 the son of the poet of the ‘ Miillerlieder ’ ! Now 
 sit down,” she said, “ and let me sing you the 
 ‘ Schone Miillerin.’ ” And she began to sing, and 
 sang all the principal songs of that sad idyll, just 
 moving her head and hands a little, but really act- 
 ing the whole story as no actress on the stage 
 could have acted it. It was a perfect tragedy, and 
 it has remained with me for life. Stockhausen also 
 (who, as I saw too late, has just been celebrating 
 his seventieth birthday) once sang the “ Winter- 
 reise ” to me in the same way, but as I had to ac- 
 company him I had only half the pleasure, though 
 even that was great. 
 
 How many memories crowd in upon me ! I 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 17 
 
 heard Liszt when I was still at school at Leipzig. 
 It was his first entry into Germany, and he came 
 like a triumphator. He was young, theatrical, and 
 teiTibly attractive, as ladies, young and old, used to 
 say. His style of playing was then something 
 quite new — now every player lets off the same 
 fireworks. The musical critics who then ruled 
 supreme at Leipzig were somewhat coy and re- 
 served, and I remember taking a criticism to the 
 editor of the Leipziger Tagehlatt which the writer 
 did not wish to sign with his own name. Men- 
 delssohn only, with his well-tempered heart, re- 
 ceived him with open arms. He gave a matinee 
 musicale at his house, aU the best-known musicians 
 of the place being present. I remember, though 
 vaguely, David, Kalliwoda, Hiller ; I doubt 
 whether Schumann and Clara Wieck were pres- 
 ent. Well, Liszt appeared in his Hungarian cos- 
 tume, wild and magnificent. He told Mendelssohn 
 that he had written something special for him. 
 He sat down, and swaying right and left on his 
 music-stool, played first a Hungarian melody, and 
 then three or four variations, one more incredible 
 than the other. 
 
 We stood amazed, and after everybody had paid 
 his compliments to the hero of the day, some of 
 Mendelssohn’s friends gathered round him, and 
 said: “Ah, Felix, now we can pack up (‘jetzt 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 konnen wir einpacken ’). No one can do that ; it 
 is over with us ! ” Mendelssohn smiled ; and 
 when Liszt came up to him asking him to play 
 something in turn, he laughed and said that he 
 never played now ; and this, to a certain extent, 
 was true. He did not give much time to practis- 
 ing then, but worked chiefly at composing and 
 directing his concerts. However, Liszt would 
 take no refusal, and so at last little Mendelssohn, 
 with his own charming playfulness, said : “ Well, 
 I’ll play, but you must promise me not to be 
 angry.” And what did he play? He sat down 
 and played first of all Liszt’s Hungarian Melody, 
 and then one variation after another, so that no 
 one but Liszt himself could have told the differ- 
 ence. We all trembled lest Liszt should be of- 
 fended, for Mendelssohn could not keep himself 
 from slightly imitating Liszt’s movements and 
 raptures. However, Mendelssohn managed never 
 to offend man, woman, or child. Liszt laughed 
 and applauded, and admitted that no one, not he 
 himself, could have performed such a bravura. 
 Many years after I saw Liszt once more, at the 
 last visit he paid to London. He came to the 
 Lyceum to see Irving and Ellen Terry act in 
 “Faust.” The whole theatre rose when the old, 
 bent Maestro appeared in the dress circle. When 
 the play was over, I received an invitation fi’om 
 
Musical Recollections Hj 
 
 Mr., now Sir Henry, Irving to join a supper party 
 in honour of Liszt. I could not resist, though I 
 was staying with friends in London and had no 
 latch-key. It was a brilliant affair. Rooms had 
 been fitted up on purpose with old armour, 
 splendid pictures, gorgeous curtains. We sat 
 down, about thirty people ; I knew hardly any- 
 body, though they were all known to fame, and 
 not to know them was to profess oneself unknown. 
 However, I was placed next to Liszt, and I re- 
 minded him of those early Leipzig days. He was 
 not in good spirits ; he would not speak English, 
 though Ellen Terry sat on his right side, and, as 
 she would not speak German or French, I had to 
 interpret as well as I could, and it was not always 
 easy. At last Miss Ellen Terry turned to me and 
 said : “ Tell Liszt that I can speak German,” and 
 when he turned to listen, she said in her girlish, 
 bell-like voice : “ Lieber Liszt, ich liebe Dich.” I 
 hope I am not betraying secrets ; anyhow, as I 
 have been indiscreet once, I may as well say what 
 happened to me afterwards. It was nearly 3 a.m. 
 when I reached my friend’s house. With great 
 difficulty I was able to rouse a servant to let me 
 in, and when the next morning I was asked where 
 I had been, great was the dismay when I said that 
 I had had supper at the Lyceum. Liszt had 
 promised to come to stay with me at Oxford, but 
 
20 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 the day when I expected him, the following note 
 arrived from Amsterdam, probably one of the last 
 he ever wrote : — 
 
 
 A few weeks after, I saw his death announced in 
 the papers. 
 
 And thus Liszt left the stage. I saw his en- 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 21 
 
 trance and his exit, and when I asked myself, 
 What has he left behind ? I could only think of 
 the new school of brilliant executionists of which 
 he may truly be called the founder and life-long 
 apostle. I confess that, though I feel dazzled at 
 the impossibilities which he and his pupils per- 
 form with their ten fingers, I often sigh for an Alle- 
 gro or an Andante by Haydn and Mozart as they 
 were played in my young days with simplicity and 
 purity on very imperfect instruments. Players 
 now seem to think of themselves only, not of the 
 musical poets whose W'orks they are to render. 
 Mendelssohn, Clara Wieck (Madame Schumann) 
 even Moscheles and Hummel acted as faithful 
 interpreters. On listening to them, exquisite 
 as their execution was, one thought far more of 
 what they played than how they played. That 
 time is gone, and no one has now, or will ever have 
 agsiin, the courage to bring it back. If one wants 
 to enjoy a sonata of Haydn one has to play it 
 oneself or hum it, because the old fingers will not 
 do their work any longer. 
 
 And Mendelssohn also, w'hom I had known as a 
 young man, said good-bye to me for the last time 
 in London. It was after the first performance of 
 his “ Elijah ” in 1847. He too said he would come 
 again next year, and then came the news of his 
 sudden death. I saw him last at Bunsen’s house, 
 
22 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 where he i)layed at a matinee, musicalc always ready 
 to please and oblige his friends, always amiable 
 and charming, even under great provocation. Only 
 once I remember seeing him almost beside himself 
 with anger, and well he might be. He possessed a 
 most valuable album, with letters, poems, pictures, 
 compositions of the most illustrious men of the 
 age, such as Goethe and others. The binding had 
 somewhat suffered, so it was sent to be mended, 
 and I was present when it came back. It was at 
 his sister’s house, Fanny Hensel’s, at Berlin. 
 Mendelssohn opened the album, jumped up and 
 screamed. The binder had cut oft' the blue skies 
 and tree-tops of all the Italian sketches, and the 
 signatures of most of the poems and letters. This 
 w'as too much for Felix, he was for once infelix. 
 Still, happy and serene as his life certainly was, 
 for he had everything a man of his talents could 
 desire, there were bitter drops in it of which the 
 world kneAV little, and need not know anything now. 
 There are things we know, important things which 
 the world would be glad to know. But we bury 
 them ; they are to be as if they had never been, 
 like letters that are reduced to ashes and can 
 never be pi'oduced again by friends or enemies. 
 
 He was devoted to his sister Fanny, who was 
 married to Hensel the painter, an intimate friend 
 of my father. When I was a student at Berlin, I 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 23 
 
 was much in their house in the Leipziger Strasse, 
 and heard many a private concert given in the 
 large room looking out on the garden. Mendels- 
 sohn played almost every instrument in the or- 
 chestra, and had generally to play the instrument 
 which he was supposed to play worst. When he 
 played the pianoforte, he was handicapped by be- 
 ing made to play with his arms crossed. All the 
 celebrities of Berlin (and Berlin was then rich in 
 celebrities) were present at those musical gather- 
 ings, and Mendelssohn was the life of the whole. 
 He was never quiet for a moment, moving from 
 chafr to chair and conversing with eveiybody. 
 
 Boeckh, the great Greek scholar, lived in the 
 same house, and Mendelssohn had received so 
 good a classical education that he could hold his 
 o^vn when discussing with the old master the cho- 
 ruses of the Antigone. Mendelssohn was, in fact, 
 a man teres et rotundiis. He was at home in clas- 
 sical literature, he spoke French and English, he 
 was an exquisite draughtsman, and had seen the 
 greatest works of the gi-eatest painters, ancient 
 and modern. His father, a rich banker in Berlin, 
 had done all he could for the education of his 
 children. He was the son of Mendelssohn the 
 philosopher, and when his son Felix had become 
 known to fame, he used to say 'odth his slightly 
 Jewish accent : “ When I was young I was called 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 25 
 
 the son of the great Mendelssohn ; now that I am 
 old I am called the father of the great Mendels- 
 sohn ; then, what am I?” Well, he found the 
 wherewithal that enabled his son, and his other 
 children too, to become what they were, all worthy 
 of their great grandfather, all worthy of the name 
 of Mendelssohn. 
 
 Felix was attached to both his sisters, Fanny 
 and Rebekah (Dirichlet), but he was more partic- 
 ularly devoted to Fanny (Hensel). They had been 
 educated together. She knew Greek and Latin 
 like her brother, she played perfectly, and com- 
 posed so well that her brother published several 
 of her compositions under his own name. They 
 were one spirit and one soul, and at that time 
 ladies stHl shrank from publicity. Everybody 
 knew which songs were hers (I remember, for in- 
 stance, “ Schoner und Schdner schmiickt sich die 
 Flur ”), and it was only later in life that she began 
 to publish under her own name. I give the begin- 
 ning of a song which she wrote for my mother. 
 The words are my father’s, the little vignette was 
 drawn by her husband, who was an eminent artist 
 at Berlin. 
 
 The struggles which many, if not most men of 
 genius, more particularly musicians, have had to 
 pass through were imknovTi to Felix Mendelssohn 
 Bartholdy. Some people go so far as to say that 
 
26 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 they miss the traces of those struggles in his char- 
 acter and in his music. And yet those who knew 
 him best know that his soul, too, knew its own bit- 
 terness. His happiest years were no doubt spent 
 at Leipzig, where I saw much of him while I was 
 at school and at the University. He was loved and 
 admired by everybody ; he was undisputed master 
 in the realm of music. He was at first unmarried, 
 and many were the rumours as to who should be 
 his bride. News had reached his friends that his 
 heart had been won by a young lady at Frankfurt ; 
 but nobody, not even his most intimate friends, 
 knew for certain. However, one evening he had 
 just returned from Frankfurt, and had to conduct 
 one of the Gewandhaus Concerts. The last piece 
 was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I had sung 
 in the chorus, and found myself on the orchestra 
 when the concert was over, the room nearly empty, 
 except his personal friends, who surrounded him 
 and teased him about his approaching engagement. 
 His beaming face betrayed him, but he would say 
 nothing to anybody, till at last he sat dowm and 
 extemporised on the pianoforte. And what was 
 the theme of his fantasy ? It was the passage of 
 the chorus, “ Wer ein holdes Weib emmgen, mische 
 seinen Jubel ein.” That was his confession to his 
 friends, and then we aU knew. And she was in- 
 deed “ ein holdes AVeib” when she arrived at Leip- 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 27 
 
 zig. One thing only she lacked — she could not 
 express all she felt. She Avas soon called the 
 “ Goddess of Silence ” by the side of her de\'oted 
 husband, who never could be silent, but was always 
 bubbling over like champagne in a small glass. 
 They were a devoted couple, not a whisper was 
 ever heard about either of them, though Mendels- 
 sohn had many friends, the gi’eatest of all being his 
 sister Fanny. With her he could speak and ex- 
 change whatever Avas uppermost or deepest in his 
 heart. I have heard them extemporise together 
 on the pianoforte, one holding with his little finger 
 the little finger of the other. Her death was the 
 heaviest loss he ever suffered in life. He Avas so 
 imaccustomed to suffering and distress that he 
 could never recover from this unexpected blow. 
 Nor did he sm’Auve her long. She died on the 
 14th of May, 1847 ; he followed her on the 4th of 
 November of the same year. 
 
 During most of the time when Mendelssohn cel- 
 ebrated his triumphs as director of the GeAvandhaus 
 Concerts, young Robert Schumann was at Leip- 
 zig, but he was little seen. Mendelssohn, so bright 
 and happy himself, Avished to see the whole Avorld 
 around him bright and happy, and Avas kind to 
 everybody. The idea of jealousy was impossible 
 at that time in Mendelssohn’s heart. Neither could 
 Schumann, as a young and rising musician, have 
 
28 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 thought himself then to be in any sense an equal 
 or rival of Mendelssohn. But there are natures 
 which like to be left alone, or with a very few inti- 
 mate friends only, and which shrink from the too 
 demonstrative happiness of others. It is not envy, 
 it often is modesty ; but in any case it is not pleas- 
 ant. Schumann was conscious of his own strength, 
 but he was still struggling for recognition, and he 
 was also struggling against that adversity of fort- 
 une which seems to decree poverty to be* the lot 
 of genius. There was another struggle going on, 
 a struggle which is generally fought out in pri- 
 vate, but which in his case was carried on before 
 the eyes of the world, at least the musical world 
 of Leipzig. He was devoted to a young piano- 
 forte player, Clara Wieck. But her father, a great 
 teacher of music, would not allow the marriage. 
 He had devoted years of his life to the musical 
 education of his daughter, and then, as she was 
 just beginning to earn applause for herself and her 
 master, as well as the pecuniary reward for their 
 combined labours, a young musician, poor, and 
 not yet recognised, wished to carry her off. Par- 
 ents have flinty hearts, and the father said “ No.” 
 Many a time have I watched young Schumann 
 walking alone in the neighbourhood of Leipzig, 
 being unexpectedly met by a young lady, both 
 looking not so happy as I thought that under the 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 29 
 
 circumstances they ought. This went on for some 
 time, till at last, as usual, the severe or flinty- 
 hearted father had to give way, and allow a mar- 
 riage which certainly for many years was the reali- 
 sation of the most perfect happiness, till it ended 
 in a terrible tragedy. There was the seed of mad- 
 ness in the genius of Schumann as in that of so 
 many really great men, and in an access of mania 
 he sought and found rest where Ophelia sought 
 and found it. 
 
 I did not see much of Schumann, nor of Madame 
 Schumann, in later life, though in concerts in Lon- 
 don I often admired her exquisite rendering of her 
 husband’s compositions. I only recollect Schu- 
 mann as a young man sitting generally in a corner 
 of the orchestra, and listening to one of his works 
 being performed under Mendelssohn’s direction. I 
 remember his very large head, his drooping eyes ; 
 I hardly ever remember a smile on his face. And 
 yet the man must have been satisfled, if not happy, 
 who could vT.-ite such music as his, Avho could 
 write, “ Wohlauf noch getrunken den funklenden 
 Wein ! ” and he lived to see his OAvn creations ad- 
 mired more even than those of Mendelssohn. He 
 lived to see his critics turned into admirers; in 
 fact he educated his public, and gained a place for 
 that thoughtful, wistful, fairy-like music which is 
 peculiarly his own. 
 
3 ° 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Many celebrated musicians stayed at Leipzig 
 during Mendelssohn’s reign. I remember Mosch- 
 eles, Thalberg, Sterndale Bennett, Clara Novel- 
 lo, young and fascinating, and many more. An- 
 other friend of Mendelssohn who stayed some 
 time at Leipzig was Ferdinand Hiller. We heard 
 several of his compositions, symphonies and all 
 the rest, performed at the Gewandhaus Concerts 
 under Mendelssohn’s direction. In his life there 
 was, perhaps, too little of the dira necessitas that 
 has given birth to so many of the masterpieces of 
 genius. He might, no doubt, have produced much 
 more than he did ; but that he was striving to the 
 very end of his life was proved to me by an inter- 
 esting letter I received from him about a year be- 
 fore his death. His idea was to write a great ora- 
 torio, and he wanted me to supply him with a text. 
 It was a colossal plan, and I confess it seemed 
 to me beyond the power of any musician, nay, of 
 any poet. It was to be a historical drama, repre- 
 senting first of all the great religions of the world, 
 each by itself. We were to have the hymns of the 
 Veda, the Gathas of the Avesta, the Psalms of the 
 Old Testament, the Sermons and Dialogues of 
 Buddha, the trumpet-calls of Mohammed, and, 
 lastly, the Sermon on the Mount, all of them to- 
 gether forming one mighty symphony in which no 
 theme was lost, yet all became in the end an ac- 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 3 » 
 
 companiment of one sweet song of love domina- 
 ting the full chorus of the ancient religions of the 
 world. It was a grand idea, but was it possible to 
 realise it ? I was ready to help, but before a year 
 was over I received the news of Hiller’s death, 
 and who is the musician to take his place, always 
 supposing that he could have achieved such a 
 World Oratorio ? 
 
 It was in the last year of his life that Mendels- 
 sohn paid his last visit to England to conduct his 
 last oratorio, the “Elijah.” It had to be per- 
 formed at Exeter Hall, then the best place for 
 sacred music. Most of the musicians, however, 
 Avere not professionals, and they had only bormd 
 themselves to attend a certain number of rehears- 
 als. Excellent as they were in such oratorios as 
 the “ Messiah,” which they knew by heart, a neAv 
 oratorio, such as the “ Elijah,” was too much for 
 them ; and I well remember Mendelssohn, in the 
 afternoon before the performance, declaring he 
 would not conduct. 
 
 “Oh, these tailors and shoemakers,” he said, 
 “ they cannot do it, and they will not practise ! I 
 shall not go.” However, a message arrived that 
 the Queen and Prince Albert were to be present, 
 so nothing remained but to go. I was present, 
 the place was crowded. Mendelssohn conducted, 
 and now and then made a face, but no one else 
 
32 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 detected what was wrong. It was a great success 
 and a great triumph for Mendelssohn. If he 
 could have heard it performed as it was per- 
 formed at Exeter Hall in later years, when his 
 tailors and shoemakers knew it by heart, he would 
 not have made a face. 
 
 It was at Bunsen’s house, at a matinee musicale, 
 that I saw him last. He took the liveliest inter- 
 est in my work, the edition of the Rig Veda, the 
 Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans. A great friend 
 of his, Friedrich Rosen, had begun the same work, 
 but had died before the first volume was fin- 
 ished. He was a brother of the wife of Mendels- 
 sohn’s great friend, Klingemann, then Hanove- 
 rian Charge d’Affaires in London, a poet many 
 of whose poems were set to music by Mendels- 
 sohn. So Mendelssohn knew all about the Sacred 
 Hymns of the Brahmans, and talked very intelli- 
 gently about the Veda. He was, however, sub- 
 jected to a very severe trial of patience soon after. 
 The room was crowded with what is called the 
 best society of London, and Mendelssohn being 
 asked to play, never refused. He played several 
 things, and at last Beethoven’s so-called “ Moon- 
 light Sonata.” All was silence and delight ; no 
 one moved, no one breathed aloud. Suddenly in 
 the middle of the Adagio, a stately dowager sit- 
 ting in the front row was so carried away by the 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 33 
 
 rhythm, rather than by anything else, of Beetho- 
 ven’s music, that she began to play with her fan, 
 and accompanied the music by letting it open and 
 shut with each bar. Everybody stared at her, but 
 it took time before she perceived her atrocity, and 
 at last allowed her fan to collapse. Mendelssohn 
 in the meantime kept perfectly quiet, and played 
 on; but, when he could stand it no longer, he 
 simply repeated the last bar in arpeggios again 
 and again, following the movements of her fan ; 
 and when at last the fan stopped, he went on 
 playing as if nothing had happened. I dare say 
 that when the old dowager thanked him for the 
 great treat he had given her, he bowed without 
 moving a muscle of his inspired face. How dif- 
 ferent from another player who, when disturbed 
 by some noise in the audience, got up in a rage 
 and declared that either she or the talker must 
 leave the room. 
 
 And yet I have no doubt the old lady enjoyed 
 the music in her own way, for there are many 
 ways of enjoying music. I have known people 
 who could not play a single instrument, who could 
 not sing “ God save the Queen ” to save their life, 
 in eloquent raptiu’es about Mendelssohn, nay, 
 about Beethoven and Bach. I believe they are 
 peiiectly honest in their admiration, though how 
 it is done I cannot tell. I began by saying that 
 3 
 
34 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 people who have no music in them need not be 
 traitors, and I alluded to my dear friend Stanley. 
 He actually suffered from listening to music, and 
 whenever he could, he walked out of the room 
 where there was music. He never disguised his 
 weakness, he never professed any love or admira- 
 tion for music, and yet Jenny Lind once told me 
 he paid her the highest compliment she had ever 
 received. Stanley was very fond of Jenny Lind, 
 but when she stayed at his father’s palace at Nor- 
 wich he always left the room when she sang. One 
 evening Jenny Lind had been singing Handel’s 
 “ I know that my Eedeemer liveth.” Stanley, as 
 usual, had left the room, but he came back after 
 the music was over, and went shyly up to Jenny 
 Lind. “ You know,” he said, “ I dislike music ; 
 I don’t know what people mean by admiring it. I 
 am very stupid, tone-deaf, as others are colour- 
 blind. But,” he said with some warmth, “ to- 
 night, when from a distance I heard you singing 
 that song, I had an inkling of what people mean 
 by music. Something came over me which I had 
 never felt before ; or, yes, I had felt it once be- 
 fore in my life.” Jenny Lind was all attention. 
 “ Some years ago,” he continued, “ I was at Vien- 
 na, and one evening there was a tattoo before the 
 palace performed by four hundred drummers. I 
 felt shaken, and to-night while listening to your 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 35 
 
 singing, the same feeling came over me ; I felt 
 deeply moved.” “ Dear man,” she added, “ I 
 know he meant it, and a more honest compliment 
 I never received in all my life.” 
 
 However, unmusical as Stanley’s house was, 
 Jenny Lind, or Mrs. Goldschmidt as she was then, 
 often came to stay there. “ It is so nice,” she 
 said; “no one talks music, there is not even a 
 pianoforte in the house.” This did not last long 
 however. A few days after she said to me : “ I 
 hear you have a pianoforte in your rooms at All 
 Souls’. Would you mind my practising a little ? ” 
 And practise she did, and delightful it was. She 
 even came to dine in College, and after dinner she 
 said in the most charming way : “ Do you think 
 your friends would like me to sing ? ” Of course, 
 I could not have asked her to sing, but there was 
 no necessity for asking my friends. In fact, not 
 only my friends listened with delight to her sing- 
 ing, but the whole quadrangle of All Souls’ was 
 black with uninvited listeners, and the applause 
 after each song was immense, both inside and out- 
 side the walls of the College. 
 
 Stanley’s feeling about music reminds me of an- 
 other music-hater at Oxford, the late Dr. Gaisford, 
 the famous Dean of Christ Church. It was he 
 who put my name on the books of “ The House,” a 
 very great honour’ to an unknown Geiman scholar 
 
 
3 ^ 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 on whom the University, at his suggestion, had just 
 conferred the degree of M.A. What the Dean’s 
 idea of music was may best be judged from his 
 constantly appointing old scouts or servants who 
 were too old to do their work any longer as bed- 
 makers to be singing men in the Cathedral choir. 
 The Dean’s stall was under the organ, and one 
 day in every month, when “ The voice of Thy 
 thunder was heard round about, and the light- 
 nings shone upon the ground, and the earth was 
 moved and shook withal,” a certain key in the or- 
 gan made the seat on which the Dean sat vibrate 
 under him. On that day, before he left the 
 Cathedral, he invariably thanked the organist. Dr. 
 Corfe, for the nice tune he had played. 
 
 Music, in fact, was at a very low ebb at Oxford 
 when I arrived there. The young men would have 
 considered it almost infra dignitatem to play any 
 instrument ; the utmost they would do was now 
 and then to sing a song. Yet there was much love 
 of music, and many of my young and old friends 
 were delighted when I would play to them. There 
 was only one other person at Oxford then who was 
 a real musician and who played well. Professor 
 Donkin, a great mathematician, and altogether a 
 man sui generis. He was a great invalid ; in fact, 
 he was dying all the years I knew him, and was 
 fully aware of it. It seemed to be quite admissi- 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 37 
 
 ble, therefore, that he, being an invalid, and I, be- 
 ing a German, should “ make music ” at evening 
 parties ; but to ask a head of a house or a profess- 
 or, or even a senior tutor, to play would have been 
 considered almost an insult. And yet I feel cer- 
 tain there is more love, more honest enjoyment of 
 music in England than anywhere else. 
 
 And how has the musical tide risen at Oxford 
 since those days ! Some of the young men now 
 come up to college as very good performers on the 
 pianoforte and other instruments. I never know 
 how they learn it, considering the superior claims 
 which cricket, football, the river, nay, the classics 
 and mathematics also have on their time at school. 
 There are musical clubs now at Oxford where the 
 very best classical music may be heard performed 
 by undergraduates with the assistance of some 
 professional players from London. All this is due 
 to the influence of Sir F. Ouseley, and still more 
 of Sir John Stainer, both professors of Music at 
 Oxford. They have made music not only respect- 
 able, but really admired and loved among the 
 undergraduates. Sir John Stainer has been inde- 
 fatigable, and the lectures which he gives both on 
 the science and history of music are crowded by 
 young and old. They are real concerts, in which 
 he is able to illustrate all he has to say with the 
 help of a well-trained choir of Oxford amateurs. 
 
38 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 As to myself, I have long become a mere listener. 
 One learns the lesson, whether one likes it or not, 
 that there is a time for everything. Old fingers 
 grow stiff and will no longer obey, and if one knows 
 how a sonata of Beethoven ought to be played, it 
 is most painful to play it badly. So at last I said : 
 “ Farewell ! ” The sun has set, though the clouds 
 are roseate still ■«dth reflected rays. It may be that 
 I have given too much time to music, but what 
 would life have been without it ? I do not like to 
 exaggerate, or say anything that is not quite true. 
 Musical ears grow sensitive to anything false, 
 whether sharp or flat. But let us be quite honest, 
 quite plain. Is there not in music, and in music 
 alone of all the arts, something that is not en- 
 tirely of this earth ? Harmony and rhythm may 
 be under settled laws ; and in that sense mathema- 
 ticians may be right when they call mathematics 
 silent music. But whence comes melody ? Surely 
 not from what we hear in the street, or in the 
 woods, or on the sea-shore, not from anything that 
 we hear with our outward ears, and are able to im- 
 itate, to improve, or to sublimise. Neither history 
 nor evolution will help us to account for Schubert’s 
 “ Trockne Blumen.” Here, if anywhere, we see 
 the golden stairs on which angels descend from 
 heaven to earth, and whisper sweet sounds into 
 the ears of those who have ears to hear. Words 
 
Musical Recollections 
 
 39 
 
 cannot be so inspired, for words, we know, are of 
 the earth earthy. Melodies, however, are not of 
 this earth, and the greatest of musical poets has 
 truly said ; — 
 
 Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. 
 
LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 I 
 
 I AM the son of a poet, and I have tried very hard 
 all my life not to be a poet myseK, if poet means a 
 man who tries to make his thoughts dance grace- 
 fully in the chains of metre and rhyme. In my 
 own very prosaic work I have had to suffer all my 
 life from suppressed poetry, as one suffers from 
 suppressed gout. Poets will, no doubt, protest 
 most emphatically against so low a view of their 
 art. They assure us that they never feel their 
 chains, and that they are perfectly free in giving 
 expression to their thoughts in rhyme and metre. 
 Some of the more honest among them have even 
 gone so far as to confess that their best thoughts 
 had often been suggested to them by the rhyme. 
 Platen may be quite right when he says ; 
 
 Was stets und aller Orten sich ewig jting erweist 
 1st in gebundenen Worten ein ungebundener Geist. 
 
 {What proves itself eternal in every place and time 
 Is an unfettered spirit, free in the chains of rhyme.) 
 
 True, very true. You may get that now and then, 
 but in our modern languages it is but seldom that 
 
 40 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 41 
 
 thought soars up quite free on the wings of rhyme. 
 Many and many a thought sinks down because of 
 the weight of the rhyme, many and many a thought 
 remains altogether unspoken because it will not 
 submit to the strait jacket of the rhyme ; many 
 and many a poor thought is due entirely to an ir- 
 repressible rhyme ; and if some brilliant thoughts 
 have really been suggested by the rhyme, would it 
 not be better if they had been suggested by some- 
 thing else, whether you call it mind or soul ? The 
 greatest masters of rhyme, such as Browning in 
 English or Riickert in German, and even H. Heine, 
 often fall victims to their own mastery. They spoil 
 their poems in order to show that they can find a 
 rhyme for anything and everything, however gro- 
 tesque the rhyme may be. I remember once be- 
 ing bold enough to ask Tennyson what was the 
 use or excuse of rhyme. He was not ofiended, but 
 was quite ready with his answ^er : “ Rhyme helps 
 the memory,” he said — and that answer was as 
 honest as it was true. But what is useful for one 
 purpose, for the purpose of recollecting, may be 
 anything but useful for other purposes, it may be 
 even hurtful, and in our case it has certainly 
 proved hurtful again and again to the natural fiow 
 and expression of thought and feeling. 
 
 Nor should I venture to say a word against 
 Platen’s gehundene Worte. It was only the very 
 
42 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 necessity of finding a word to answer to time which 
 led me to speak of chains of rhyme. Gebundene 
 Worte are not necessarily rhymed words, they are 
 measured words, and these are no doubt quite 
 natural and quite right for poetry. Metre is meas- 
 ure, and metrical utterance, in that sense, was not 
 only more natural for the expression of the highest 
 thoughts, but was probably everywhere more an- 
 cient also than prose. In every literature, as far as 
 we know, poetry came first, prose second. Inspired 
 utterance requires, nay produces, rhythmic move- 
 ments not only of the voice (song and prosodia), 
 but of the body also (dance). In Greek, chorus 
 means dance, measured movement, and the Greek 
 choruses were originally dances; nay, it can be 
 proved that these dancing movements formed 
 really the first metres of true poetry. Hence, it 
 was quite natural that David should have danced 
 before the Lord with all his might. Language it- 
 self bears witness to the fact that the oldest metres 
 were the steps and movements of dancers. As the 
 old danpes consisted of steps, the ancient metres 
 consisted of feet. Even we ourselves still speak of 
 feet, not because we understand what it means, but 
 simply because the Greeks and Romans spoke of 
 feet, and they said so because originally the feet 
 really marked the metre. 
 
 The ancient poets of the Veda also speak of feet. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 43 
 
 and they seem to have been quite aware why they 
 spoke of metrical feet, for in the names of some of 
 their metres we still find clear traces of the steps 
 of the dances which accompanied theii’ poems. 
 Trishiuhh, one of their ancient metres, meant three- 
 step; Anushtubh, the later Sloka, meant by-step* 
 or Reigen. The last syllables or steps of each line 
 were called the Vritta, or the turn, originally the 
 turn of the dancers, who seem to have been allowed 
 to move more freely till they came to the end of 
 one movement. Then, before they turned, or while 
 they tmmed, they marked the steps more sharply 
 and audibly, either as iambic or as trochaic, and 
 afterwards marched back again Avith greater free- 
 dom. Hence in ancient Sanskrit the end or turn 
 of each line was under stricter rules as to long and 
 short steps, or long and short syllables, whereas 
 greater freedom was allowed for the rest of a line. 
 Thus Sanskrit Vritta, the turn, came to mean the 
 metre of the w’hole line, just as in Latin w'e have 
 the same word versus, hterally the turn, then verse, 
 and this turn became the name for verse, and re- 
 mained so to the present day. There is no break 
 in our history, and language is the chain that holds 
 it together. A strophe also was originally a turn- 
 ing, to be followed by the antistrophe or the return, 
 all ideas derived from dancing. The ancient San- 
 * See M. M., “ Vedic Hymns,” S.B.E., vol. xxxii., p. 96. 
 
44 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 skrit name for metre and metrical or measm-ed 
 speed was A'/mndas. The verb Khand would cor- 
 respond phonetically to Latin scandere, in the sense 
 of marching, as in a-scendere, to march upward, 
 to mount, and de-scendere, to march downward, all 
 expressing the same idea of measured movement, 
 but not of rhyme or jingle. These movements were 
 free and natural in the beginning; they became 
 artificial when they became traditional, and we find 
 in such works as the Sanskrit Vritta-ratnakara, 
 “ the treasury of verse,” every kind of monstrosity 
 which was perpetrated by Hindu poets of the Ke- 
 naissance period, and perpetrated, it must be con- 
 fessed, with wonderful adroitness. 
 
 But I must not tii-e my friends with these metri- 
 cal mysteries. What I want them to know is that 
 in the most ancient Aryan poetry which we possess 
 there is no trace of rhyme, except here and there 
 by accident, and that everywhere in the history of 
 the poetry of the Aryas, rhyme, as essential to 
 poetry, is a very late invention. It is the same in 
 Semitic languages, though in Semitic as well as in 
 Aryan speech, in fact, wherever grammatical forms 
 are expressed chiefly by means of terminations, 
 rhyme even in prose is almost inevitable. And 
 this was no doubt the origin of rhyme. In lan- 
 guages where terminations of declension and con- 
 jugation and most derivative suffixes have retained 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 45 
 
 a full-bodied and sonorous form, it was difficult 
 to avoid the jingle of rhyme. In Latin, which 
 abounds in such constantly recurring endings as 
 orum, arum, ibtis, amus, atis, amini, tatem, tatihus, 
 inihus, etc., good prose writers had actually to be 
 warned against allowing their sentences to rhyme, 
 while poets found it very easy to add these orna- 
 mental tails to their measured lines. 
 
 There can be little doubt that it was the rhymed 
 Latin poetry, as used in the services of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, which suggested to the German 
 converts the idea of rhymed verses. The pagan 
 poetry of the Teutonic races had no rhymes. It 
 was what is called alliterative. In the German 
 dialects the accent temained mostly on the radical 
 syllable of words, and thus served to shorten the 
 terminations. Hence we find fewer full-bodied 
 terminations in Gothic than in Latin, while in later 
 Teutonic dialects, in English as well as in German, 
 these terminations dwindled away more and more. 
 Thus, we say Di' chter when the Romans would 
 have Dicta' tor, Pre' diger for prcedica' tor, cha' ncel 
 for cance' lla. In order to bind their poetical lines 
 together the German poets had recom-se to initial 
 letters, which had to be the same in cei-tain places 
 of each verse, and which, if pronounced with 
 strong stress or strain, left the impression of the 
 words being knitted together and belonging to- 
 
40 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 gether. Here is a specimen which will show that 
 the rules of alliteration were very strictly observed 
 by the old German poets, far more strictly than by 
 their modern imitators. The old rule was that in 
 a line of eight arses there should be two words in 
 the first and one in the second half beginning with 
 the same letter, consonant or vowel, and always in 
 syllables that had the accent. Here is a line from 
 the old “ Song of Hildebrand,” dating from the 
 eighth century : — 
 
 Hiltibraht job Hadhubrant Hiltibraht and Hadbubrant 
 Untar harjum tuam, etc. Between hosts twain, etc. 
 
 Riickert has imitated this alliterating poetry in 
 his poem of “ Roland ” ; — 
 
 Roland der Ries 
 Ina Ratbbans zu Bremen 
 Stebt er im Standbild 
 Standbaft und wacbt. 
 
 Kingsley has attempted something like it in his 
 “ Longbeard’s Saga,” but with much greater free- 
 dom, not to say licence : — 
 
 Scaring the wolf cub, 
 
 Scaring the born-owl, 
 
 Shaking the snow-wreaths 
 Down from the pine boughs. 
 
 But to return to our modern poetry and to the 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 47 
 
 poets whom I have known, and of whom I have 
 something to teU, does it not show the power of 
 tradition if we see them everywhere forcing their 
 feet into the same small slippers of rhyme ? And 
 who would deny that they have achieved, and still 
 are achieving, wonderful feats ? — tours de force, it 
 is true, but so cleverly performed that one hard- 
 ly sees a trace of the force employed. No doubt 
 much is lost in this process of beating, and ham- 
 mering, and welding words together (a poet is 
 called a Reimesclimied, a smith of rhymes, in Ger- 
 man) ; much has to be thrown away because it 
 wiU not rhyme at all {silver has been very badly 
 treated in English poetry, because it rhymes with 
 nothing, at present not even with gold), but what 
 remains is often very beautiful, and, as Tenny- 
 son said, it sticks to the memory. One wishes 
 one could add that the difficulty of rhyme serves 
 to reduce the number of unnecessary poets that 
 spring up every year. But rhyme does not 
 strangle these numerous children of the Muses, 
 and it is left to our ill-paid critics to perform 
 every day, or every week, this murder of the inno- 
 cents. 
 
 It may not seem very filial for the son of a poet 
 thus to blaspheme against poetry, or rather, against 
 rhyme. WeU, I can admire rhymed poetry, just 
 as I can admire champagne, though if the wine 
 
48 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 is really good I think it is a pity to make it 
 mousseux. 
 
 H. Heine, who certainly was never at a loss for 
 a rhyme, writes, at the end of one of his maddest 
 poems, “ Die Liebe ” : “ O Phoebus Apollo, if 
 
 these verses are bad, I know thou wilt forgive me, 
 for thou art an all-knowing god, and knowest quite 
 well why for years I could not trouble myself any 
 longer with measuring and rhyming words ! ” And 
 he adds : “I might, of course, have said all this 
 very well in good prose.” He ought to know, but 
 there will not be many of his admirers to agree 
 with him.* 
 
 I hardly remember having ever seen my father, 
 and I came to know him chiefly through his poetry. 
 He belonged to the post-Goethe period, though 
 Goethe (died 1832) survived him. He was born 
 in 1794, and died in 1827, and yet in that short 
 time he established a lasting reputation not only 
 as a scholar, but as a most popular poet. His best 
 known poems are the “ Griechenlieder,” the Greek 
 songs which he wrote during the Greek war of in- 
 dependence. Alas ! in those days battles were won 
 by bravery and the sword, now by discipline and 
 repeating guns. These Greek songs, in which his 
 love of the ancient Greeks is mingled with his ad- 
 miration for heroes such as Kanaris, Mark Boz- 
 
 * Autobiographie, p. 224 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 49 
 
 zaris, and others who helped to shake off the 
 Turkish yoke, produced a deep impression all 
 over Germany, perhaps because they breathed the 
 spirit of freedom and patriotism, which was then 
 systematically repressed in Germany itseff. The 
 Greeks never forgot the services rendered by him 
 in German}^ as by Lord Byron in England, in 
 rousing a feeling of indignation against the Turk, 
 and as the marble for Lord Byron’s monument in 
 London was sent by some Greek admirers of the 
 great poet, the Greek Parliament voted a shipload 
 of Pentelican marble for the national monument 
 erected to my father in Dessau. 
 
 My father’s lyrical poems also are well known 
 all over Germany, particularly the cycles of the 
 “ Schdne Miillerin ” and the “ Winterreise,” both 
 so marvellously set to music by Schubert and 
 others. He certainly had caught the true tone of 
 the poetiy of the German people, and many of 
 his poems have become national property, being 
 sung by thousands who do not even know whose 
 poems they are singing. As a specimen showing 
 the highest point reached by his poetry, I like 
 to quote his poem on Vineta, the old town over- 
 whelmed by the sea on the Baltic coast. The 
 English translation was made for me by my old, 
 now departed, friend, J. A. Eroude : — 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 VINETA. 
 
 I. I. 
 
 Aus des Meeres tiefem, tief- 
 em Grunde 
 
 K 1 i n g e n Abendglocken 
 dumpf und matt, 
 
 Uns zu geben wunderbare 
 Kunde 
 
 Von der scbonenalten Wun- 
 derstadt. 
 
 II. 
 
 In der Fluthen Schoss 
 hinabgesunken 
 
 Blieben unten ihre Triim- 
 mer stebn, 
 
 Ihre Zinnen lassen goldne 
 Funken 
 
 Wiederscheinend auf dem 
 Spiegel sehn. 
 
 III. 
 
 Und der Schiflfer, der den 
 Zauberschimmer 
 
 Einmal sah im hellen Abend- 
 roth, 
 
 Nach derselben Stelle schiflft 
 er immer, 
 
 Ob auch rings umher die 
 Edippe droht. 
 
 From the sea’s deep hollow 
 faintly pealing, 
 
 Far-off evening bells come 
 sad and slow ; 
 
 Faintly rise, the wondrous 
 tale revealing 
 
 Of the old enchanted town 
 below. 
 
 II. 
 
 On the bosom of the flood 
 reclining 
 
 Ruined arch and wall and 
 broken spire, 
 
 Down beneath the watery 
 mirror shining 
 
 Gleam and flash in flakes of 
 golden fire. 
 
 ni. 
 
 And the boatman who at 
 twilight hour 
 
 Once that magic vision shall 
 have seen. 
 
 Heedless how the crags may 
 round him lour. 
 
 Evermore will haunt the 
 charmed scene. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 51 
 
 IV. 
 
 Aus des Herzens tiefem, tief- 
 em Grunde 
 
 Klingt es mir, wie Glocken, 
 dumpf und matt : 
 
 Ach ! sie geben wunderbare 
 Kunde 
 
 Von der Liebe, die geUebt 
 es hat. 
 
 V. 
 
 Eine schone Welt is da ver- 
 sunken. 
 
 Ihre Triimmer blieben 
 unten stehn, 
 
 Lassen sich als goldne Him- 
 melsfunken 
 
 Oft im Spiegel meiner 
 Traume sehn. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Und dann mocht’ ich tau- 
 chen in die Tiefen, 
 
 Mich versenken in den 
 Wiederschein, 
 
 Und mir ist als ob mich 
 Engel riefen 
 
 In die alte Wunderstadt 
 herein. 
 
 IV. 
 
 From the heart’s deep hol- 
 low faintly pealing, 
 
 Far I hear them, bell-notes 
 sad and slow, 
 
 Ah! a wild and wondrous 
 tale revealing 
 
 Of the drowned wreck of 
 love below. 
 
 V. 
 
 There a world in loveliness 
 decaying. 
 
 Lingers yet in beauty ere it 
 die ; 
 
 Phantom forms across my 
 senses playing. 
 
 Flash like golden fire-flakes 
 from the sky. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lights are gleaming, fairy 
 bells are ringing. 
 
 And I long to plunge and 
 wander free 
 
 Where I hear those angel- 
 voices singing 
 
 In those ancient towers be- 
 low the sea. 
 
52 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 That the poet did not consider rhyme an essen- 
 tial element of poetry, he has shown in some of 
 his assonantic poems, such as : 
 
 Alle Winde schlafen 
 Auf dem Spiegel der Flut ; 
 
 Kiilile Schatten des Abends 
 Decken die Miiden zu. 
 
 Luna hangt sich Schleier 
 TJeber ihr Gesicht, 
 
 Schwebt in dammernden Traumen 
 Ueber die Wasser bin. 
 
 Alles, alles stille 
 Auf dem weiten Meer, — 
 
 Nur mein Herz will nimmer 
 Mit zur Buhe gehn. 
 
 In der Liebe Fluten 
 Treibt es her und bin, 
 
 "Wo die Stiirme nicht ruhen, 
 
 Bis der Nacben sinkt. 
 
 Though my father was a great admirer of 
 Goethe, he seems to have incurred his displeasure 
 and to have been brought into personal collision 
 with the grand old poet. Goethe had translated 
 some modern Greek songs ; it may be, as my father 
 thought, without having fully mastered the diffi- 
 culties of the spoken Greek language. My father 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 53 
 
 published a complete translation of Fauriel’s col- 
 lection of Greek popular poetry,* and Goethe did 
 not like comparisons between his work and that 
 of anybody else, least of aU of quite a young poet. 
 “ Die schone Miillerin ” also may have seemed to 
 Goethe an encroachment on a domain peculiarly 
 his own. In fact, when my father, with my mother, 
 went to Weimar to pay theii’ respects to Goethe, 
 his Excellency was somewhat stiff and cold. My 
 mother, also, had evidently not been sufficiently 
 careful and respectful. She was the granddaugh- 
 ter of the famous pedagogue Basedow, the refontner 
 of national education all over Germany, who had 
 been a friend of Goethe in his youth. Goethe 
 speaks of him in his poem, “Prophete rechts 
 (Basedow), Prophete links (Lavater), das Welt- 
 kind (Goethe) in der Mitten.” And he also 
 complains bitterly of Basedow in his “ Dichtung 
 und Wahrheit,” as being never without a pipe in 
 his mouth, and as lighting his pipe with most of- 
 fensive tinder — Stinkschioamm, as Goethe calls it. 
 My mother, when asked by Goethe, “ Was fiir eine 
 geborene ” she was (What had been her maiden 
 name ?), could not resist the temptation, and re- 
 plied, laughing : “ Your Excellency ought to scent 
 it ; I am the granddaughter of Basedow.” Hap- 
 
 * “Neugriechische Volkslieder,” gesammelt von C. Fauriel, 
 iibersetzt von Wilhelm Muller, Leipzig, 1825. 
 
54 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 pily my mother was very beautiful, and was par- 
 doned the liberty she had taken. Still, the rela- 
 tions between my father and Goethe always re- 
 mained rather strained, and all that I find in his 
 album is a medallion portrait of Goethe with the 
 following lines, dated 7th November, 1825: — 
 
 Meinen feyerlich Bewegten 
 Mache Dank und Freude kund ; 
 
 Das Gefiihl das Sie erregten 
 Schliesst dem Dichter selbst den Mund. 
 
 He was on much warmer terms with the poets of 
 the Swabian school, Uhland, Schwab, Justinus 
 Kernel’, etc. In the year before his death, 1827, 
 he spent some time with them in Wurtemberg, and 
 in many respects he may be reckoned as belonging 
 to their school. The verses which Uhland wrote 
 in my father’s album have often been quoted as a 
 curious prophecy of his early death. It seems 
 that some conversations which he had with the 
 Seherin of Prevorst * when staying in Justinus 
 Kerner’s house near Weinsberg, had filled him 
 and his friends with misgivings. Uhland’s lines 
 were : — 
 
 Wobl bluhet jedem Jahre 
 Sein Frubling, siiss und licbt, 
 
 Auch jener gi’osse, klare — 
 
 Getrost, er feblt dir nicht ; 
 
 * See J. Kerner, “ Die Seherin von Prevorst,” 1829. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 55 
 
 Er ist dii' noch beschieden 
 Am Ziele deiner Bahn, 
 
 Du abnest ibn bienieden 
 Und droben bricbt er an. 
 
 Zu freundlicber Erinnerung an. 
 
 L. UhiiANd. 
 
 Stuttgart, den 13 Sept., 1827. 
 
 Justinus Kernel- himself also wrote some lines in 
 which he alludes to the apparition of spiiits. His 
 rooms, as my mother assured me, were always full 
 of them, and they all seemed on the most familiar 
 terms with the other inmates. 
 
 Nicbt wie Geister, nein ! wie Sterne 
 Kamt ibr freundlicb in der Nacbt, 
 
 Ja, so emst und mild wie Sterne 
 Hat uns euer Bild gelacbt 
 Oft wenn scbweigt der Welt Getiimmel 
 Wird’s so treten in den Himmel 
 Den die Lieb uns angefacbt. 
 
 Justinus Keener 
 und seine Hausfrau, 
 Friedericke. 
 
 Weinsberg, 7, 15, ’27. 
 
 am Tage euerer niicbtlicben 
 Erscbeinung. 
 
 I once came myself in personal contact with Uh- 
 land, the head of the Swabian school of poetry, 
 when he was already an old man. He came to 
 Leipzig when I was a student there, and stayed at 
 
56 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 the house of Professor Haupt, the famous Latin 
 and German scholar. Uhland was a very shy and 
 retiring man, and had declined every kind of pub- 
 lic reception. However, the young students would 
 not be gainsayed, and after assembling in the af- 
 ternoon to consider what should be done to show 
 their respect to the German poet and the liberal 
 German politician, they marched off, some 600 or 
 800 of them, drew up in front of the house where 
 they knew Uhland was staying, and sang some 
 of Uhland’s songs. At last Uhland, a little, old, 
 wrinkled man, appeared at the window, and ex- 
 pected evidently that some one should address 
 him. But no arrangements had been made, and 
 no one ventured to speak, fearing that at the same 
 time two or three others might step forward to ad- 
 dress the old poet. After waiting a considerable 
 time, the position became so trying that I could 
 bear it no longer ; I stepped forward, and in a few 
 words told Uhland how he was loved by us as a poet, 
 as a scholar, and as a fearless defender of the rights 
 of the people, and how proud we were to have him 
 amongst us. We then waited to hear him speak, 
 but he could not overcome his shyness, and sent a 
 message to ask some of us to come into his room 
 to shake hands with him. Even then he could say 
 but very little, but when he knew that I was the 
 son of his old friend, Wilhelm Muller, he was 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 57 
 
 pleased. To me it was like a vision of a bygone 
 age when I looked the old poet in the eyes, and 
 whenever I hear his song, “ Es zogen drei Burschen 
 wohl iiber den Ehein,” or when I read his beau- 
 tiful ballads, I see the silent poet looking at me 
 ■with his kind eyes, unable to use meaningless 
 words, but simply saying “ Thank you.” 
 
 Another poet who w^as a friend and admirer of 
 my father, and whom I saw likewise like a vision 
 only passing before me, was Heinrich Heine. He 
 w^as yoimger than my father (1799-1856), and evi- 
 dently looked up to him as his master. “ I love 
 no lyric poet,” he wrote, “excepting Goethe, so 
 much as Wilhelm Muller.” I found a letter of his 
 which deserves to be preserved. Alas ! the whole 
 of my father’s library and correspondence was 
 destroyed by fire, and this letter escaped only be- 
 cause my mother, a great admirer of Heine’s 
 poems, had preserved it among her own books. 
 Here is the letter, or at least parts of it. The 
 original was sent about the years 1841-43, when I 
 was a student at Leipzig, to Brockhaus’ Blatter 
 fur lAtterarische Unterhaltung, but the original was 
 never returned to me. It has often been quoted 
 in histories of German literature, and I give the 
 extracts here from Gustav Kai’peles’ “ Heinrich 
 Heine’s Autobiographie,” Berlin, 1888, pp. 149, 
 150 
 
58 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Hamburg, 7th June, 1826. 
 
 I am great enough to confess to you openly that my 
 Small Intermezzo metre * possesses not merely accidental 
 similarity with your own accustomed metre, but probably 
 owes its most secret rhythm to your songs — those dear 
 Miiller-songs which I came to know at the very time when 
 I wrote the Intermezzo. At a very early time I let Ger- 
 man folk-song exercise its influence upon me. Later on, | 
 
 when I studied at Bonn, August Schlegel opened many j 
 
 metrical secrets to me ; but I believe it was in your songs | 
 
 that I found what I looked for — pure tone and true sim- I 
 
 plicity. How pure and clear your songs are, and they are 
 all true folk-songs. In my poems, on the contrary, the 
 form only is to a certain extent popular, the thoughts be- 
 long to our conventional society. Yes, I am great enough 
 to repeat it distinctly, and you will sooner or later And it ' 
 
 proclaimed publicly, that through the study of your seventy- 
 seven poems it became clear to me for the first time how j | 
 
 from the forms of our old still existing folk-songs new jj 
 
 forms may be deduced which are quite as popular, though 
 one need not imitate the unevennesses and awkwardnesses 
 of the old language. In the second volume of your poems 
 the form seemed to me even pirrer and more transparently 
 clear. But why say so much about the form ? What I 
 yearn to tell you is that, with the exception of Goethe, 
 there is no lyric poet whom I love as much as you. | 
 
 * The metre used in his volume of “ Tragodien nebst einem i 
 
 lyrischen Intermezzo,” Berlin, 1823. I possess a copy of it 
 with Heine’s dedication : “ Als ein Zeichen seiner Achtung und 
 mit dem besonderen Wunsche, dass der Waldhornistdas lyrische 
 Intermezzo seiner Aufmerksamkeit wurdige, iiberreicht dieses 
 Buch der Verfasser.” 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 59 
 
 Another fragment of the same letter occui’s on 
 page 195 (951), Here Heine, referring to his 
 North Sea poems, writes : — 
 
 The “North Sea ” belongs to my last poems, and you can 
 see there what new keys I touch, and on what new lines I 
 move along. Prose receives me in her wide arms, and in 
 the next volume of my “ Reisebilder ” you will find in 
 prose much that is mad, bitter, offensive, angiy, and very 
 polemical. Times are really too bad (1826), and whoever 
 has strength, freedom, and boldness has also the duty 
 seriously to begin the fight against all that is bad and 
 puffed up, against all that is mediocre, and yet spreads 
 itself out so broad, so intolerably broad. I beg you, keejj 
 well disposed towards me, never doubt me, and let us grow 
 old together in common striving. I am conceited enough 
 to believe that when we are both gone my name will be 
 named together with yours. Let us therefore hold to- 
 gether in love in this life also. 
 
 I never came to know Heine. I knew he was 
 in Paris when I was there in 1846, but he was al- 
 ready in such a state of physical collapse that a 
 friend of mine who knew him well, and saw him 
 from time to time, advised me not to go and see 
 him. However, one afternoon as I and my friend 
 were sitting on the Boulevard, near the Rue Rich- 
 elieu, sipping a cirp of coffee, “Look there,” he 
 said, “ there comes Heine ! ” I jumped up to see, 
 my friend stopped him, and told him who I was. 
 It was a sad sight. He was bent down, and dragged 
 
6o 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 himself slowly along, his spare greyish hair was 
 hanging round his emaciated face, there was no 
 light in his eyes. He lifted one of his paralysed 
 eyelids with his hand and looked at me. For a 
 time, like the blue sky breaking from behind grey 
 October clouds, there passed a friendly expression 
 across his face, as if he thought of days long gone 
 by. Then he moved on, mumbling a line from 
 Goethe, in a deep, broken, and yet clear voice, as 
 if appealing for sympathy : — 
 
 “ Das Maulthier sucht im Diistern seinen Weg.” 
 Thus vanished Heine, the most brilliant, spark- 
 ling, witty poet of Germany. I have seen him, 
 that is all I can say, as Saul saw Samuel, and 
 wished he had not seen him. However, we travel 
 far to see the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, 
 of Nineveh and Memphis, and the ruins of a mind 
 such as Heine’s are certainly as sad and as grand 
 as the crambling pillars and ruined temples 
 shrouded under the lava of Vesuvius. “ Fine 
 schone Welt ist da versunken,” I said to myself, 
 and I went home and read in Heine’s “ Buch der 
 Lieder.” “ Du bist wie eine Blume,” “ Ich babe 
 im Traum geweinet,” “ Ein Tannenbaum steht ein- 
 sam.” “ Yes,” I said, “ snow-white lilies spring 
 from muddy ponds, and small mushrooms are said 
 to grow on fresh-fallen snow.” 
 
 Few poets in Germany have been or are still so 
 
Literary Recollections 6i 
 
 admired and loved as Heine, but few poets also 
 have been so viciously maligned as Heine. So- 
 ciety, no doubt, had a right to frown on him, but 
 against such calumnies as were heaped on him by 
 envy, hatred, and malice, it is well to remember 
 some of his last lines : — 
 
 Hab’ eine Jungfrau nie verfuhret 
 Mit Liebeswort, mit Scbmeicbelei, 
 
 Icb hab’ auch nie ein Weib beruhret, 
 
 Wusst’ ich, dass sie vermahlet sei. 
 
 Wahrhaftig, wenn es anders ware, 
 
 Mein Name, er verdiente nicht 
 Zu strahlen in dem Buch der Ehre, 
 
 Man diirft’ mir spucken in’s Gesicht. 
 
 That is strong language and evidently meant as 
 an answer to his spies and enemies. But why will 
 people always spy into the most uninteresting 
 part of a poet’s life? Why are they bent on 
 knowing on what terms Dante stood to Beatrice, 
 Petrarch to Laura, Goethe to Frau von Stein, 
 Heine to George Sand. Volumes have been writ- 
 ten on their intimate relations, and yet whom does 
 it concern, and what can it teach us ? Let the 
 dead bury their dead. 
 
 Whilst at Leipzig as a young student I still im- 
 agined myself a poet, and from time to time some 
 of my poems appeared, to my great joy, in the lo- 
 
62 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 cal papers. I even belonged to a poetical society, 
 and I remember at least two of us who in later 
 times became very popular writers in Germany. 
 One was a Jew of the name of Wolfsohn, whose 
 play, “ Only a Soul,” giving the tragedy of a Kus- 
 sian peasant girl, proved a great success all over 
 Germany, and is still acted from time to time. 
 He died young. Another, Theodor Fontane, is 
 alive, and one of the best known and best loved 
 novel-writers of the day. He was a charming 
 character, a man of great gifts, full of high spirits 
 and inexhaustible good humour. He began life 
 in a chemist’s shop, and had a very hard struggle 
 in his youth, which may have prevented his grow- 
 ing to his full height and strength. He might 
 have been another Heine, but the many years of 
 hard work and hopeless drudgery kept him from 
 soaring as high as his young wings would have 
 carried him. I remember but little of his poetry 
 now, there remains but the sense of pleasure which 
 I derived from it at the time. Now and then, as it 
 happens to all of us, a few' long-forgotten lines rise 
 to the surface. In a political poem of his, I re- 
 member a young Liberal being w'arned with the 
 following words : — 
 
 Sonst spatzierst du nach Siberien 
 
 In die langen Winterferien, 
 
 Die zugleicli Hundstage sind ! 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 ^3 
 
 And I have never forgotten the last lines of his 
 beautiful poem, “ Die schdne Rosamimde,” where 
 he says of the King : — 
 
 Ihn traf des Lebens grosster Schmerz : 
 
 Der Schmerz um dieses Leben ! 
 
 All young poets in Germany were then liberal 
 and more than liberal, all dreamt and sang of a 
 united Germany. But being thirty years ahead of 
 Bismarck, they were unmercifully sent to prison, 
 and often their whole career was ruined for life. 
 Living much in that society, I too, a harmless boy 
 of eighteen, was sent to prison as a person highly 
 dangerous to the peace of Europe. The confine- 
 ment in the academic career was not very severe, 
 however, except in one respect. From time to 
 time one was allowed to go out, provided one kept 
 on good terms with the attendants. But the seri- 
 ous thing was that as one became a popular char- 
 acter aU one’s friends came to visit one, and they 
 expected of course to be hospitably entertained. 
 The consumption of beer and tobacco was consid- 
 erable, and so was the bill at the end of my politi- 
 cal incarceration. More of that perhaps by-and- 
 by. Nearly all the political poetry of that time, 
 much as it then stirred the people, is now forgot- 
 ten; even the names of the poets are known to 
 but few, though they have found their way into the 
 
64 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 various histories of German literature. I remem- 
 ber as one of the best, Herwegh, who came to 
 Leipzig when I was a student, and who, of course, 
 was feted by the Burschenschaft at a brilliant sup- 
 per. Much beer was drunk, much tobacco was 
 smoked, many speeches were made. The police 
 were present, and the names of all who had taken 
 part were entered in the Black Book, mine among 
 the rest. Herwegh was a real poet, unfortunately 
 he spent nearly all his poetical genius on political 
 invective. How well I remember his poem in 
 which every verse ended with the w'ords : — 
 
 Wir haben lang genug geliebt, 
 
 "Wir wollen endlich hassen ! 
 
 But there were some poems of his which well 
 deserved a longer life. One began with the words : 
 “ Ich mbchte hingehen wie das Abendroth.” Very 
 beautiful, but my memory does not serve me 
 further, and my copy of his poems has vanished 
 from my library like many other volumes which I 
 lent to my friends.* 
 
 * As many of my unknown friends have come to my assist- 
 ance and sent me Herwegh’s poem I feel bound to give it here 
 in its entirety : — 
 
 STROPHEN AUS DER EREMDE. 
 
 Ich mochte hingeh’n wie das Abendroth, 
 
 Und wie der Tag mit seinen letzten Gluthen — 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 65 
 
 I well remember tlie pleasure wbicb Herwegh’s 
 poems gave me, but the words themselves are gone. 
 It is the same with so many of our recollections. I 
 can still feel the intense delight, the hushed rever- 
 
 O ! leichter, sanfter ungefiihlter Tod ! — 
 
 Mich in den Schoosz des Ewigen verbluten. 
 
 Ich mochte hingeh’n wie der heitre Stern, 
 
 In vollstem Glanz in ungeschwachtem Blinken ; 
 
 So stille und so schmerzlos mochte gern 
 Ich in des Himmels blaue Tiefen sinken. 
 
 Ich mochte hingeh’n wie der Blume Duft, 
 
 Der freudig sich dem schonen Kelch entringet 
 
 Und auf dem Fittig bliithenschwangrer Luft 
 
 Als Weichrauch auf des Herrn Altar sich schwinget. 
 
 Ich mochte hingeh’n wie der Thau im Thai, 
 
 Wenn durstig ihm des Morgens Feuer winken; 
 
 O wollte Gott, wie ihn der Sonnenstrahl, 
 
 Auch meine lebensmiide Seele trinken ! 
 
 Ich mochte hingeh’n wie der bange Ton, 
 
 Der aus den Saiten einer Harfe dringet ; 
 
 Und, kaum dem irdischen Metall entfloh’n, 
 
 Ein W ohllaut, in des Schdpfers Brust verklinget. 
 
 Du wirst nicht hingeh’n wie das Abendroth, 
 
 Du wirst nicht stille, wie der Stern, versinken, 
 
 Du stirbst nicht einer Blume leichten Tod, 
 
 Kein Morgenstrahl wird deine Seele trinken. 
 
 Wohl wirst du hingeh’n, hingeh’n ohne Spur, 
 
 Doch wird das Elend deine kraft erst schwachen 
 Sanft stirbt es einzig sich in der Natur, 
 
 Das arme Menschenherz muss stuckweis brechen. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ence with which I looked the first time at Raph- 
 ael’s Madonna di San Sisto, and looked at it again 
 and again whenever I passed through Dresden. 
 But whether the colour of the Virgin’s dress is 
 red or blue I cannot tell. I dare say it is all there, 
 in the treastu’e-house of my memory. Nay, some- 
 times it suddenly appears, only never when I call 
 for it. What is forgotten, however, does not seem 
 to be entirely forfeited ; it can be gotten again, and 
 it probably forms, though unknown, the fertile soil 
 for new harvests : that which thou sowest is not 
 quickened except it die. 
 
 Another famous political poet whose acquaint- 
 ance I made when he was an old man was Moritz 
 Arndt. His poetry was not very great, but the 
 effect which he produced by his “ Was ist des 
 Deutscheu Vaterland ” has been, and is still, per- 
 fectly marvellous. If Bismarck finished the unity 
 of Germany, Arndt laid the foundation of it, and 
 in the grateful memory of the people his song Avill 
 probably be remembered long after Bismarck’s 
 diplomatic triumphs have been forgotten. I shall 
 never forget old Arndt, for, old as he was, he gave 
 me such a grip of the hand that I thought the 
 blood would squirt from my nails. 
 
 Lesser poets and writers whom I knew at that 
 time, while I was a student at Leipzig, were Karl 
 Beck, of Hungarian extraction, Robert Blum {fu- 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 67 
 
 silU at Vienna by Windischgratz, 9th November, 
 1848), Herlossohn, Kiihne, Laube, and several more 
 whose names I could find in Histories of German 
 Literature, or the Conversations-Lexicon, but no 
 longer in the camera obscura of my memory. And 
 yet some of theii* poems were really beautiful, full 
 of high thoughts and deep feeling. But the world 
 does not recognise a poet of one poem, or even of 
 ten or twenty. In order to be a poet a man must 
 produce hundreds of poems, volume after volume, 
 good, bad, and indifferent. Nor is there here any- 
 thing like the survival of the fittest. Although 
 ever so many of Schiller’s or Goethe’s poems have 
 become old and antiquated — few will deny this — 
 yet no one is satisfied with a selection of the best, 
 few people would ever agree as to which are the 
 best. We must take them all or none. In that re- 
 spect the ancient poets are certainly much better 
 off. What is left of Tyi-taeos or Sappho, or of 
 Horace and Catullus, can be carried in our waist- 
 coat pocket, nay, in the folds of om’ brains ; and 
 though even here sifting might increase enjoyment, 
 yet we can take in whatever there is without sink- 
 ing under the burden. But who can remember 
 Goethe or Wordsworth or Victor Hugo, aye, who 
 has time even to read all their verses, so as to 
 mark, learn, and inwardly digest them ? 
 
 In towns like Paris and London, if a poet once 
 
68 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 succeeds in attracting attention, and gathering 
 some male and female admirers around him, the 
 very atmosphere which he breathes, the wide sur- 
 vey of humanity which he commands, strengthen 
 and inspire him. No one becomes an Alpine 
 climber who has no Alps to climb, and many a 
 poetical soul languishes and withers if confined 
 within the walls of a small proAoncial town. I 
 have known very ordinary mortals who when they 
 came to write for a great and influential newspaper 
 became inspired like the prophetess on the Del- 
 phic tripod, and wrote well, while their ordinary 
 writings remain feeble. I have known poets in 
 small provincial towns who became changed after 
 they had changed their provincial public for the 
 public of a large capital. I remember a dear cousin 
 of mine at Dessau, Adolf von Basedow, who was 
 my playfellow when we were children, and remained 
 my true friend all through life. He had a quite 
 exceptional gift for occasional poetry, and later in 
 life he wrote many things without ever being able 
 to find a proper publisher. Some of his plays were 
 acted and proved successful on neighbouring stages, 
 but he never received that response which inspires 
 and nerves a poet for higher efforts. He was very 
 modest, nay, almost shy, and in these days humility, 
 however charming in the man, is not likely to open 
 the road to success. Now that he is gone, there are 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 69 
 
 all his poetical productions laid aside and soon to 
 be forgotten, while some of the poetry we are asked 
 to admire in these days is far inferior to those fallen 
 leaves. He was an officer and went through the 
 whole of the Franco-German war, having, like so 
 many others, to leave his wife and children at home. 
 He returned home safe, but his health had suf- 
 fered, and he never was himself again. I have sel- 
 dom known a more high-minded and truly chival- 
 rous character, content with the small surroundings 
 in which he had to move, but never making the 
 smallest concession to expediency or meanness. 
 He was proud of his name, and whatever we may 
 think of the small nobility in Germany, their 
 manly pride keeps up a standard of honour with- 
 out which the coimtry would not be what it is. 
 We may laugh at their courts of honour and their 
 duels, arising often from very trifling causes, but 
 in our age of self-seeking and pushing we want 
 some true knights as the salt of the earth. 
 
 While I w^as at the University at Leipzig I w'ell 
 remember meeting Robert Blum in literary circles. 
 He certainly was not a poet, but when required he 
 could speak very powerfully and wield his pen 
 with great efiect. Never shall I forget the horror I 
 felt when I heard of his execution at Vienna. No 
 doubt there was danger when the mob broke into 
 the Kaiserburg, shouting and yelling, and when 
 
70 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Prince Mettemich said to the Emperor, who had 
 asked him what this hideous noise could mean, 
 “ Sire, c’est que Messieurs les democrates appellent 
 la voix de Dieu.” But for all that, to shoot a mem- 
 ber of the German Parliament then sitting at Prank- 
 furt was an outrage for which Austria has had to 
 pay dearly. Still more cruel was the execution at 
 the same time of a little helpless Jew, Jellineck, 
 whom I had known as belonging to a small class 
 reading Arabic with Professor Fleischer at Leip- 
 zig. Kobert Blum may have been a dangerous man 
 in the then state of German political excitement, 
 but Jellineck w'as nothing but a perfectly harmless 
 scholar, and if he was found guilty by a court- 
 martial, it could only have been because he could 
 never express himself intelligibly. If he had been 
 killed in the streets of Vienna like many others, all 
 one could have said would have been, “ Qu’allait-il 
 faire dans cette galere ? ” but to shoot a harmless 
 student after a short court-martial was no better 
 than lynching. There has been a Nemesis for all 
 that, as Austria knows too well, and what would 
 the world be without that invisible Nemesis ? 
 
 With every year my own work became more and 
 more prosaic, and yet more and more absorbing. 
 Neither at Berlin nor afterwards at Paris, had I 
 time or inclination to make new friends or cultivate 
 literary society. ■ Berlin never was rich in poets or 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 71 
 
 poetry ; Paris also, when I was there in 1844, and 
 again in 1847 and 1848, had no names to attract me. 
 Lamartine had some fascination for me, and I man- 
 aged to see him and hear much about him from a 
 common friend, Baron von Eckstein. This German 
 Baron was a well-known character in Paris between 
 1840 and 1850, a German settled there for many 
 years, a Roman Catholic, much mixed up, I be- 
 lieve, in small political transactions, and a con- 
 stant contributor to the Augshurger Zeitung, at that 
 time the Times of Geimany. He was a man of 
 wdde interests, a student of Sanskrit, chiefly at- 
 tracted by the mystic philosophy of the Upanishads 
 and the Vedanta. "When he heard of my having 
 come to Paris to attend Burnouf’s lectures and 
 to prepare the first edition of the “Rig-veda,” 
 he toiled up to my rooms, though they were au 
 cinquieme and he was an old man and a martyr 
 to gout. He was full of enthusiasm, and full of 
 kindness for a poor student. I was very poor then ; 
 I hardly know now how I managed to keep my- 
 self afloat, yet I never borrowed and never owed 
 a penny to anybody. I disliked giving lessons, but 
 I worked like a horse for others, copying and col- 
 lating manuscripts at the Bibliotheque Royale. I 
 lived like a Hindu Sannyasin, but, as Heine said, 
 
 Und ich hab’ es doch ertragen — 
 
 Aber fragt mich nur nicht wie. 
 
Auld Lang Syne 
 
 72 
 
 Baron Eckstein’s eyes were too weak to allow 
 him to copy and collate Sanskrit manuscripts, and 
 I gladly did it for him. I recollect copying for 
 him, among other texts, the whole of the Aitareya 
 Brahmana in Latin letters. I still possess a copy 
 of it. He paid me liberally, and he often invited 
 me to lunch with him at his cafe, which was wel- 
 come to a young man of good appetite, who had to 
 be satisfied with wretched dinners at the Palais 
 Royal, but not at Vefour’s or the Trois Freres 
 Proven9aux. Being the Paris correspondent of the 
 leading German paper, the Baron was on friendly 
 terms with many of the political and literary celeb- 
 rities of the time. I believe he was in receipt of a 
 literary pension from the French Government, but 
 I do not know it for certain. He offered to intro- 
 duce me to George Sand, to Lamennais, to the 
 Comtesse d’Agout (Daniel Stem), to Lamartine, 
 Victor Hugo, and others. But I shut my eyes and 
 shook my head ; I had no time then for anything 
 but the Veda, and getting ready for the great bat- 
 tle of life that was before me. I am sorry for it 
 now, but, without self-denial, we can never do any- 
 thing. 
 
 When the Febmary revolution came, Baron 
 d’Eckstein was very active. His friend Lamar- 
 tine was then in the ascendant, and through him 
 he knew all that was going on. No revolution, I 
 
Literary Recollections 73 
 
 believe, was ever made with so little preparation. 
 There was no conspiracy of any kind. A night or 
 two before the contemplated banquet to Ledru 
 RoUin, Lamartine was asked by his friends, Eck- 
 stein being present, whether he would accept office 
 under the Duchesse d’Orleans, provided she was 
 proclaimed Regent in the Chamber. He laughed 
 as if it were an idle dream, outside the sphere of 
 practical politics, as we now say, but he accepted. 
 The Duchesse and her friends counted on him, 
 and his prestige at that time was so great that he 
 might have carried anything. But no one knows 
 his own prestige, and when the moment came, 
 when the Duchesse d’Orleans was present in the 
 Chamber and Lamartine was expected to speak, 
 there was confusion and fright; some shots had 
 been fired in the Assembly, the name of the Re- 
 pubKc had been shouted, the Deputies broke up, 
 and the Duchesse had to fiy. Never was kingdom 
 lost with so little excuse. I saw the whole so- 
 called revolution from my windows at the corner 
 of the Rue Royale and the Boulevard de la Made- 
 leine. I may have to describe what I saw at some 
 other time. At present I am thinking of the poet- 
 statesman only, of Lamartine and his brilliant 
 speech from the balcony of the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 Whatever Lamartine was, a poet, a dreamer, an 
 aristocrat, he had the spirit of noblesse in him, 
 
74 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 and that spirit prevailed at the time. It was due 
 to him, I believe, that capital punishment was then 
 abolished once for all for political offences. Sin- 
 ister elements came to the surface, but they had 
 soon to hide again. I remember another speaker 
 at the Hotel de Ville, speaking after Lamartine in 
 support of the abolition of every kind of title and 
 privilege, and, before aU, for the abolition of the 
 nobility. He was eloquent, he was furious, and 
 after he had summed up all the crimes committed 
 by the French nobility and laughed at those who 
 had gi'own rich and powerful by the "misdeeds of 
 their noble ancestors, he finished up in a loud 
 voice, “Soyons ancetres nous-memes,” a sentiment 
 loudly applauded by the unwashed multitudes who 
 aspired to take the place of the ancetres whom 
 they had just heard execrated from the balcony 
 of their terrible Hotel de Ville. 
 
 All the walls in the streets where I lived were 
 then chalked with the mysterious words, Liberte, 
 Egalite, Fraternite. Not far from my house there 
 was a tobacconist’s shop, called Aux trois blagues, 
 with three tobacco pouches painted over the win- 
 dow. My friend, the tobacconist, was an arista, so 
 he left the trois blagues and simply wrote under- 
 neath, Liberte, Egalite, Fraterniti. 
 
 But I must not forget another poet, the greatest 
 German poet I have ever known, and of whom I 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 75 
 
 saw a great deal at Berlin before I migrated to 
 Paris, I mean Riickert. It is strange how little 
 his poems are known in England and France. He 
 has never had an apostle, nor would a mere herald 
 do him much ser%dce. He was a poet somewhat 
 like Wordsworth, who must be laid siege to, not 
 till he sun-enders, but tiU we surrender to him. If 
 he is known at all in England, it is through his 
 lyric poems, which have been set to music, as they 
 deserved to be, by Schumann. Who has not heard 
 “Du, meine Seele, du, mein Herz,” one of the 
 grandest songs of our age ? But, alas ! either the 
 words are mm'dered in a translation which would 
 break the heart both of the poet and the composer, 
 or the German words are often pronounced so 
 badly that no one can tell whether they are Eng- 
 lish or German or Sanskrit. Riickert was one of 
 the richest poets. There is hardly a branch of 
 poetry which he has not cultivated. I say culti- 
 vated on pui’pose, for his poetry was always a 
 work of art, sometimes almost of artifice. He was 
 not equally successful in all his poetical composi- 
 tions : particularly towards the end of his life he 
 disappointed many of his admirers by his dramatic 
 attempts. He is like Wordsworth in this respect 
 also, that one cannot enjoy all he writes, yet in the 
 end one comes to enjoy much that has been put 
 aside at first, because it comes from him. 
 
76 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 I may be prejudiced, yet a poet whose verses 
 Goethe repeated on his deathbed is not likely to 
 be overrated by me. These are the verses which, 
 we are told, Goethe murmured before he ex- 
 claimed, “ More light, more light ! ” and passed 
 away : — 
 
 UM MITTERNACHT. 
 
 Um Mitternacht 
 Hab’ ich gewacht 
 Und aufgeblickt zum Himmel, 
 
 Kein Stern am Sterngewimmel 
 Hat mir gelacht 
 Um Mitternacht. 
 
 Um Mitternacht 
 Hab’ ich gedacht 
 Hinans in dunkle Schranken ; 
 
 Es hat kein Lichtgedanken 
 Mir Trost gebracht 
 Um Mitternacht. 
 
 Um Mitternacht 
 Nahm ich in Acht 
 Die Schliige meines Herzens ; 
 
 Ein einz’ger Puls des Schmerzens 
 War angefacht 
 Um Mitternacht. 
 
 Um Mitternacht 
 Kampft’ ich die Schlacht 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 77 
 
 O Menscbheit, deiner Leiden ; 
 
 Nicht konnt’ ich sie entscheiden 
 Mit meiner Maclit 
 Um Mitternacht. 
 
 Um Mitternacht 
 Hab’ ich die Macht 
 In deine Hand gegeben : 
 
 Herr uber Tod und Leben, 
 
 Du haltst die Wacht 
 Um Mitternacht. 
 
 If I had a strong personal liking for Eiickert 
 it might be excused. He was really an Eastern 
 poet, rich in colour, but equally rich in thought. 
 
 The fi3»t poems of his I knew in my youth were 
 his “ Oestliche Eosen.” My father reviewed them 
 (“ Vermischte Schriften,” vol. v., p. 290). He de- 
 clared he might have judged them by one let- 
 ter, the letter K, which in Eoman times meant 
 condemnation, but which in Eiickerfs case would 
 give to his “ Oestliche Eosen ” their right title of 
 “K-ostliche Eosen.” One of Eiickert’s greatest 
 works, a real treasury of meditative thought and 
 mature wisdom, was his “Weisheit des Brah- 
 manen,” and this also appealed, no doubt, strong- 
 ly to my own personal tastes. His translations 
 of Oriental poetry, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, are 
 perfect masterpieces. They often take away one’s 
 
78 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 breath by the extraordinary faithfulness and mar- 
 vellous reproduction in German of plays on words 
 and jingle of rhymes that seemed to be possible 
 once, and once only, whether in Persian, Arabic, 
 or Sanskrit. I may have been influenced by all 
 this, and still more by my personal regard for the 
 poet, but for all that I should strongly advise all 
 who care for poetry, and for German poetry, to 
 judge for themselves, and not to be disheartened if 
 they do not strike gold on the first pages they open. 
 
 To know Kiickert personally was a treat. I 
 had heard much about him before I made his ac- 
 quaintance, when I was a student at Berlin. The 
 Duchess of Anhalt-Dessau, my own peculiar duch- 
 ess, had in her youth been much admired by the 
 Crown Prince of Pmssia, afterwards Frederick 
 William IV. She was herself a Prussian princess, 
 a daughter of Prince Frederick Ludwig Karl of 
 Prussia, who died 1796, and of a Princess of Meck- 
 lenburg-Strelitz, who after the death of her husband 
 married the Duke of Cumberland, and became 
 Queen of Hanover. This princess, a lady of great 
 natural gifts, highly cultivated and well read, was 
 personally acquainted with some of the most dis- 
 tinguished men in Germany. Even in the narrow 
 sphere in which she had learnt to move and act in 
 Dessau, she did much good in trying to discover 
 young men of talent, and assisting them in their 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 79 
 
 studies. She bad always been very gracious to me, 
 and even as a boy I was often invited to play w'itb 
 her d quatre mains at the Castle. I saw’ her for the 
 last time after I bad begun my Oriental studies at 
 Leipzig, and before I w'ent to Berlin. She told me 
 then that she herself bad known a little Sanskrit, 
 that she and the young Crown Prince of Prussia 
 bad learnt the Sanskrit alphabet, and bad corre- 
 sponded in it, to the great annoyance of people 
 wLo opened or read all letters that w’ere not meant 
 for them. “ When you go to Berlin,” she said, 
 “ you must see Riickert, but do not be frightened. 
 I w^as myself most anxious to see him. The King 
 invited him to dinner, together w ith a number of 
 bis illustrious menagerie. I asked the King where 
 Riickert was sitting, the poet of ‘ Frauenliebe ’ and 
 ‘ Liebesfriibling.’ ‘ Look there,’ the King said. 
 ‘ That broad-shouldered boor with his elbow^s on 
 the table, eating a hunk of bread, that is your 
 poet ! ’ And a desilhisionnement it was,” she said. 
 “ Still, I was proud to have seen him and to have 
 talked to him.” So I w’as prepared. 
 
 Frederick William IV. had tried hard to attract 
 a number of the most eminent men in Germany to 
 Berlin. Berlin by itself is not attractive, and it 
 seemed as if the men who w^ere then best known 
 in Germany had chosen the South, rather than the 
 North, for their residence. The Brothers Grimm 
 
8o 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Schelling, Cornelius and many more were tempted 
 to Berlin by large salaries, and among them was 
 Kiickert also, not so much the Oriental scholar as 
 the poet. He went to Berlin, after long hesitation 
 and misgivings, and announced lectures on Arabic, 
 Persian, and other Oriental languages. But he 
 could not brook the restraints of official life. He 
 had a little Landgut, Neusess, near Coburg, and 
 thither he felt so strongly drawn during the sum- 
 mer that he soon appealed to the Minister of Pub- 
 lic Instru6tion for leave of absence during each 
 summer. This was most graciously granted by the 
 King, but soon after followed a petition for leave 
 of absence during a particularly severe winter. 
 This too was granted, though the Minister ventured 
 to say : “ But, my dear Professor, if you are always 
 absent during the summer semester, and now ask 
 for leave of absence during the winter semester 
 also, when do you mean to lecture ? ” Nor was 
 this all. When I called on the Professor to enter 
 my name for his lectures on the “ Gulistan,” a 
 Persian poem, he received me very coldly. He 
 was indeed the broad-shouldered giant whom the 
 Duchess had described to me. He wore a long 
 dressing-gown, and his hair, parted in the middle, 
 was hanging wildly about his temples. 
 
 “ Why do you want to learn Persian ? ” he said. 
 I humbly explained my reason. “ It is no use yom’ 
 
Literary Recollections 8i 
 
 learning Persian,” he continued, “if you do not 
 know Ai’abic.” To this I was able to reply that I 
 had studied Arabic for a year under Professor 
 Fleischer at Leipzig. However, the Professor was 
 not to be foiled. He wanted to get away to Neu- 
 sess, but at the same time to be able to satisfy the 
 Minister that he had done his duty in offering to 
 lecture. “ You know,” he said, “ tres faciunt colle- 
 gium. I cannot lecture for one.” This was unan- 
 swerable, according to German academical eti- 
 quette. So I bowed, and went into the highways 
 and hedges to secure the help of two commilitones. 
 Accompanied by them, I invaded the Professor 
 once more in his den. All three of us told him 
 that we were most anxious to learn Persian. 
 
 One of them actually did wish to learn Persian, 
 and became afterwards a very distinguished scholar. 
 He was then called Paul Botticher, but he is best 
 known by his later name, Paul de Lagarde, a man 
 of extraordinary power of work and an enormous 
 accumulation of knowledge. When Riickert saw 
 there was no escape, he yielded, at first not with a 
 very good grace ; but he soon became most delight- 
 ful. We were really working together, and when 
 he found out that I was the son of his old friend 
 Wilhelm Miiller, nothing could exceed his kindness 
 to me. At first he often confessed to his pupils 
 that he had forgotten his Persian, but with every 
 6 
 
82 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 week it seemed to come back to him. Nothing 
 more was said about Neusess, and the fields and 
 meadows and woods that he had to desert for our 
 sakes. Whatever may have been said about Riick- 
 ert as a professor, he was more useful in his infor- 
 mal teaching than many learned professors who 
 year after year read their lectures to large admir- 
 ing audiences. 
 
 “ I cannot teach you Persian,” he used to say, “I 
 can only tell you and show you how to learn it. I 
 learnt everything I know by myself, and so can 
 you. We will work together, but that is all I can 
 do.” It was astounding to see how this giant had 
 worked, all by himself. No one at that time 
 thought, for instance, of studying Tamil. He 
 showed me a copy of a complete Tamil, or was it 
 Telugu, dictionary in folio, which he had copied 
 and largely added to. He had studied Chinese too. 
 He was far advanced in Sanskrit and Zend, and in 
 Arabic and Persian he had probably read more, 
 though in his own way, than many a learned pro- 
 fessor. Such an honest student as Riickei’t was 
 could do more good to his pupils in one hour than 
 others by a whole semester of lecturing. And this 
 is the secret of the success of German professors. 
 They take their pupils into their work-shops, they 
 do not keep them standing and gaping at the show- 
 window. Thus the immense advantage which Eng- 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 83 
 
 lish Universities enjoy in being able to combine 
 professorial with tutorial teaching, is made up for 
 to a certain extent by the devotion of the German 
 professors, who give up their time in their semi- 
 naries and so-called societies for the benefit of stu- 
 dents wLo want to learn how to work, and do not 
 wish to be simply crammed for examinations. 
 They make friends of their pupils, their pupils are 
 proud to do much of the drudgery work for them, 
 while they remain for life their grateful pupils and 
 afterwards their loyal colleagues. After term was 
 over, there was, of course, no holding Riickert in 
 Berlin, but he invited me to see him at Neusess, 
 which a few years afterwards I did. 
 
 There I found the old man working in his farm- 
 yard like a real peasant, pitchforking manure 
 into his cart, and carting it off to the fields. He 
 was delighted to see me, and when he had washed 
 his hands he came into his study to shake hands, 
 and to talk about the work on which I was then 
 engaged. Eiickert was a scholar with whom one 
 could discuss any question quite freely. Even if 
 one had to differ from him, he was never offended 
 by contradiction. When we could not agree he 
 used to say : “We wall leave this for the present, 
 and discuss it another time.” He told me, among 
 other things, how' my father had saved his life. 
 
 The two young men were travelling together 
 
84 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 on foot in Italy. Italy was at that time, in the 
 beginning of the century, the cynosure of every 
 German student, and of every German poet. 
 Goethe had described it, and they all wanted to 
 follow in Goethe’s footsteps, and pass their “ Wan- 
 der jahre ” in the “ Land wo die Citronen bliihn ! ” 
 How they did it with a few thalers in their 
 pockets we can hardly understand, but it was 
 done. 
 
 Eiickert and my father were travelling on foot, 
 and they had often to sleep in the poorest osterias. 
 In these wretched hovels they got more than they 
 had bargained for, and one fine morning, after get- 
 ting out into the fresh air, they saw a lake, and 
 my father jumped in to have a bath. Eiickert 
 could not resist, and followed. But he could not 
 swim, the lake was deeper than he had thought, 
 and he was on the point of drowning when my 
 father swam towards him and rescued him. “I 
 wrote my first epic poem then, in the style of 
 Camoens,” said Eiickert, with a loud chuckle, 
 “ and I called it the ‘ Lousiade,’ but it has never 
 been published.” After this visit I lost sight of 
 Eiickert, as of many of my German friends. But 
 I stiU possess the manuscript of a metrical and 
 rhymed version of the Sanskrit poem the “ Meg- 
 haduta, the Cloud Messenger,” which I made and 
 afterwards published (in 1847), and which con- 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 85 
 
 tains a number of corrections and suggestions 
 made by Riickert in pencil. “ I translated it my- 
 self,” he said to me, “ but I shall not publish my 
 translation now.” 
 
 During my stay in Paris, as I remarked, there 
 was no time for poets or poetry. I had to sit 
 up night after night to copy and collate Sanski’it 
 MSS., and I shall never forget how often I 
 screwed down my green-shaded lamp in the morn- 
 ing and saw the sun slowly rising over the Boule- 
 vard, and lighting up the arch of the Porte St. 
 Martin. I lived au cinquieme in a corner house of 
 the Boulevard de la Madeleine, in a house which 
 exists no longer, or at all events has been very 
 much changed, so that on my last visit I could not 
 find my windows again. 
 
LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 II 
 
 When I liad settled iu England in 1847, my 
 literary acquaintances began afresh. I have had 
 the good fortune of being on more or less intimate 
 terms with such poets as Kingsley, Clough, Mat- 
 thew Arnold, Tennyson, Browning, and with poets 
 in prose such as Froude, Buskin, Carlyle, and I 
 may add, in spite of the Atlantic, Emerson, Low- 
 ell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. I knew other 
 writers such as Macaulay, ALrthur Helps, Arthur 
 Stanley, Frederick Maurice, Dr. Martineau ; I may 
 add even the names of Faraday, Lyall, Sedgwick, 
 Thirlwall, Grote, Whewell, Bichard Owen, Dar- 
 win, Huxley, among my personal acquaintances or 
 friends. 
 
 Kingsley was married to one of my wife’s aunts. 
 She was one of six most remarkable sisters, all 
 married except the eldest and, I believe, the most 
 gifted, whp had devoted her life to the education 
 of her younger sisters. Besides Charles Kings- 
 
 86 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 87 
 
 ley, the husbands of the other sisters were Froude, 
 the historian ; Lord Wolverton, of high standing 
 in the financial world as the head of the house of 
 Glyn, and the valued adviser of Mr. Gladstone in 
 his earlier financial reforms ; R. Mertyns Bird, an 
 illustrious name in the history of India as the 
 organiser of the North-Western Provinces; and 
 “ S. G. O.” 
 
 How soon popularity vanishes! There was a 
 time when everybody knew and spoke of “ S. G. 
 O.” He was Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne, 
 an influential writer on political and social sub- 
 jects, a frequent contributor to The Times during 
 the Crimean War, a man of great force and inde- 
 pendence of character. He was a giant in stature, 
 and extremely attractive by his varied knowledge 
 in different branches of physical science. He was 
 a well-known microscopist, and when it was 
 wanted, a doctor, a nurse, a surgeon, a dentist. 
 However, he was not a poet, like his two brothers- 
 in-law. He was an active clergyman, a sanitary 
 reformer, a ready helper wherever poor people 
 were ready to be helped. These five men, the 
 husbands of five remarkable sisters — of whom one, 
 Mrs. Bird, is still living at the age of ninety-six 
 (she died this year), and not only living, but alive 
 to all that is interesting in the world, and full of 
 good works — represented a power in England. 
 
88 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 “ S. G. O.” moved in a sphere of his own, and sel- 
 dom came to Oxford. But Kingsley and Froude 
 soon became my intimate friends. 
 
 If I call Froude a poet it is because, as I ex- 
 plained before, I do not consider rhyme as essen- 
 tial to poetry. But for really poetical power, for 
 power of description, of making the facts of his- 
 tory alive, of laying bare the deepest thoughts of 
 men and the most mysterious feelings of women, 
 there was no poet or historian of our age who 
 came near him, I knew him through all his phases, 
 I knew him first when he was still a fellow of Exe- 
 ter College, I was at that time often with him in 
 his rooms in High Street, opposite to St. Mary’s 
 Church, when he was busy writing novels, and I 
 well remember passing an evening with him and 
 trying to find the right name for a novel which 
 afterwards appeared under the title of “ Nemesis 
 of Faith.” I saw him almost daily while his per- 
 secution at Oxford was going on, gaining strength 
 every day. He had to give up his fellowship, on 
 which he chiefiy depended. I will not repeat the 
 old story that his novel was publicly burnt in the 
 quadrangle of Exeter College, The story is inter- 
 esting as showing how quickly a myth can spring 
 up even in our own life-time, if only there is some 
 likelihood in it, and something that pleases the 
 popular taste. What really happened was, as I 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 89 
 
 was informed at the time by Fronde himself, no 
 more than that one of the tutors (Dr. Sewell) spoke 
 about the book at the end of one of his College 
 Lectures. He warned the young men against the 
 book, and asked whether anybody had read it. 
 One of the undergraduates produced a copy which 
 belonged to him. Dr. Sewell continued his ser- 
 monette, and warming with his subject, he finished 
 by throwing the book, which did not belong to 
 him, into the fire, at the same time stirring the 
 coals to make them bum. Of what followed there 
 are two versions. Dr. Sewell, when he had fin- 
 ished, asked his class, “ Now, what have I done ? ” 
 “You have burned my copy,” the owner of the 
 book said in a sad voice, “ and I shall have to buy 
 a new one.” The other version of the reply was, 
 “ You have stirred the fire, sir.” 
 
 And so it was. A book which at present would 
 call forth no remark, no controversy, was discussed 
 in all the newspapers, and raised a storm all over 
 England. Bishops shook their heads, nay even 
 their fists, at the young heretic, and even those 
 among his contemporaries at Oxford who ought to 
 have sympathised with him, and were in fact quite 
 as unorthodox as he was, did not dare to stand up 
 for him or lend him a helping hand. Stanley 
 •alone never said an unkind word of him. The 
 worst was that Froude not only lost his fellowship, 
 
90 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 but when he had accepted the Headmastership of 
 a college far away in Tasmania, his antagonists 
 did not rest till his appointment had been can- 
 celled. Froude unfortunately was poor, and his 
 father, a venerable and well-to-do Archdeacon, was 
 so displeased with his son that he stopped the al- 
 lowance which he had formerly made him. It 
 seems almost as if the poverty of a victim gave 
 increased zest and enjoyment to his pursuers. 
 Froude had to sell his books one by one, and was 
 tiying hard to support himself by his pen. This 
 was then not so easy a matter as it is now. At 
 that very time, however, I received a cheque for 
 £200 from an unknown hand, with a request that 
 I would hand it to Froude to show him that he 
 had friends and sympathisers who would not for- 
 sake him. It was not till many years later that I 
 discovered the donor, and Froude was then able 
 to retmm him the money which at the time had 
 saved him from drowning. I should like to men- 
 tion the name, but that kind friend in need is no 
 longer among the living, and I have a feeling that 
 even now he would wish his name to remain un- 
 known. This is by no means the only instance of 
 true English generosity which I have witnessed. 
 But at the time I confess that I was siu-prised, 
 for I did not yet know how much of secret good- 
 ness, how much of secret strength there is in Eng- 
 
Literary Recollections 91 
 
 land, how much of that real public spirit, of that 
 chivalrous readiness to do good and to resist evil 
 without lifting the vizor, Froude had a hard 
 struggle before him, and, being a very sensitive 
 man, he suffered very keenly. Several times I re- 
 member when I was walking with him and friends 
 or acquaintances of his were passing by without 
 noticing him, he turned to me and said ; “ That 
 was another cut.” I hardly understood then what 
 he meant, but I felt that he meant not only that 
 he had been dropped by his friends, but that he 
 felt cut to the quick. Persecution, however, did 
 not dishearten him ; on the contx’ary, it called 
 forth his energies, and the numerous essays from 
 his pen, now collected under the title “Short Stud- 
 ies on Great Subjects,” show how he worked, how 
 he thought, how he followed the course that seemed 
 right to him without looking either right or left. 
 Bunsen, who was at the time the Prussian Minis- 
 ter in London, and had heard from me about 
 Froude, took a deep interest in him, and after 
 consulting with Ai'chdeacon Hare and Frederick 
 Maurice, suggested that he should spend a few 
 years at a German university. I was asked to 
 bring my young friend to Carlton Terrace, where 
 Bunsen received him with the truest kindness. 
 What he tried to impress on him was that the 
 questions which disturbed him required first of all 
 
92 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 a historical treatment, and that before we attempt 
 to solve difficulties we should always try to learn 
 how they arose. Froude was on the point of going 
 to Germany with the assistance of some of Bun- 
 sen’s friends when other prospects opened to him in 
 England. But frequently in later life he referred 
 to his interview with Bunsen and said, “ I never 
 knew before what it meant that a man could drive 
 out devils.” 
 
 I confess I was somewhat surprised when 
 Froude suddenly told me of his plan of writing a 
 History of England, beginning with Henry VIII. 
 
 My idea of a historian was that of a professor 
 who had read and amassed materials during half 
 his life, and at the end produced a ponderous 
 book, half text, half notes. But, hazardous as the 
 idea of writing a History of England seemed to 
 me for so young a man, I soon perceived that 
 Froude had an object in writing, and he certainly 
 set to work with wonderful perseverance. Few of 
 his critics have given him credit for what he did 
 at Simancas and at the Kecord Office in London. 
 
 I have seen him at work, morning and evening, 
 among piles of notes and extracts. I know how 
 the pages which are such pleasant light reading 
 were written again and again till he was satisfied. 
 
 Often I had to confess to him that I never copied 
 what I had once written, and he was outspoken /< 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 93 
 
 enough to tell me, “ But you ought ; and you will 
 never write good English if you don’t.” He 
 learnt Spanish, French, and German, so as to be 
 able to read new and old books in these lan- 
 guages. He always kept up his classical read- 
 ing, and translated, as far as I remember, several 
 Greek texts from beginning to end. To these he 
 aftei’wards referred, and quoted from them, with- 
 out always, as he ought, going back again to the 
 original Greek. 
 
 It is not for me to say that he did not make 
 mistakes, and that he was not weak in some 
 branches of historical knowledge. I cannot deny 
 that in his translations also there are mistakes, 
 arising from haste rather than from ignorance. 
 But who has ever examined any translation from 
 any language, without finding signs of what seems 
 carelessness or ignorance ? Four eyes see more 
 than two. We have translations of Plato and 
 Aristotle in Latin and in almost every language 
 of Europe. The text has been critically examined 
 for hundreds of years, and every difficult passage 
 has been explained again and again. But is there 
 any one translation which could be called immac- 
 ulate ? Was not even the last translation of Plato 
 which is so deservedly popular, characterised by 
 the late Rector of Lincoln, in the well-known 
 words of a French writer, as trh helle, mats peu 
 
94 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Jidhle ? Now, while the true scholar, when exam- 
 ining a new translation, rejoices over every new 
 happy rendering, the ill-natured critic, particularly 
 if he Avauts to display his own superior knowl- 
 edge, can easily pick out a number of passages 
 where a mistake has been made, or where he 
 thinks that a mistake has been made, and then 
 proceed to show that the very best Greek scholar 
 of the day does not know “ what every schoolboy 
 ought to know,” etc. There are many passages in 
 Greek and other authors that admit of more than 
 one translation. If the translator adopts one and 
 rejects another, the game of the critic is easy 
 enough : he has only to adopt the rejected ren- 
 dering, and his triumph is secured. If that is so 
 in Greek, how much more is it the case in trans- 
 lating passages from faded documents written in 
 antiquated Spanish, nay, even letters of Erasmus 
 written in his peculiar Latin, or statutes in Nor- 
 man-French. 
 
 Translation is a difficult art, and scholars, par- 
 ticularly those who know the language from 
 which, or the language into which, they translate 
 as well as their own, consider a good translation 
 almost impossible. I have had some experience 
 in translating, and I know something of the treat- 
 ment which translators may expect from conceited 
 critics. The Sacred Books of the East, translated 
 
Literary Recollections 95 
 
 by myself and a number of friends, the best 
 scholars I could find, have not escaped that kind 
 of pedantic criticism. Impartial and honest 
 critics have recognised the difficulties under which 
 scholar’s labour in translating, often for the first 
 time, ancient texts, whether Greek or Sanskrit. 
 It is easy enough to translate a text, after it has 
 once been translated ; it is easy even to improve 
 in a few places on the translations of the first 
 pioneers. But to translate for the first time an 
 ancient text, badly edited or not yet edited at all, 
 is a totally different thing, and those who under- 
 take it have a right not only to the indulgence, but 
 to the gratitude of all who come after them. No 
 one in our sphere of studies would call himself a 
 scholar who has not edited a text never edited be- 
 fore, or at least translated a text that never was 
 translated before. There are some critics who 
 think they have done their duty if they can dis- 
 cover a few^ flaws in a translation, though they 
 cannot even appreciate the labours and the brill- 
 iant though silent discoveries of a first translator. 
 The work that has to be done by a first translator 
 of an ancient text is often the work of a real de- 
 cipherer. He has to grope his way through Egyp- 
 tian darkness like the first interpreter of an Egyp- 
 tian or Babylonian inscription. He cannot help 
 making mistakes. But though we know now how 
 
96 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 often even a Champollion (died 1832) was mis- 
 taken, do we not feel ashamed if we read what 
 another most eminent Egyptologist and Coptic 
 scholar, Amadeo Peyron (died 1870), the head of 
 the Egyptian Museum at Turin, said of Champol- 
 lion ? “I have known Champollion,” he said, 
 “ the so-called decipherer of hieroglyphics, very 
 well, from his first visits to our Museum. I took 
 him for an ordinary swindler, and his publications 
 have afterwards confirmed me in my views. His 
 philological labours have remained to me unsolved 
 riddles.” * 
 
 I have lately had another experience. I had to 
 revise my translation of Kant’s “ Critique of Pure 
 Eeason,” and I was surprised to see how many pas- 
 sages there were which I had to alter, not because 
 I did not know either German or English, but be- 
 cause in many places a translation can only be 
 approximately faithful ; and it is only a happy 
 thought that enables us now and then to approach 
 nearer to the German original, though in that case 
 often at the expense of the English idiom. 
 
 In the case of Eroude, we must remember that, 
 whatever he wrote, he had to meet not a single 
 critic only, but a whole army. As far as one 
 could see, a kind of association had been formed 
 for the suppression of his “ History.” Those who 
 
 * See Brugsch, “ Mein Leben,” p. 104. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 97 
 
 were behind the scenes know how certain of his 
 rivals and enemies actually banded themselves to- 
 gether, as if against a common enemy. Now, I re- 
 member seeing in Fraser's Magazine, then edited 
 by Froude, a review of Green’s “ History of the 
 English People,” with pages and pages of mistakes 
 in names, in dates, in facts. Yet, the same writers 
 who delighted in picking holes in Froude’s His- 
 tory ” from week to week, from month to month, 
 from year to year, kept up a constant chorus of ap- 
 plause for Green’s “ History of the English Peo- 
 ple ” — no doubt rightly so ; but why not mete the 
 same measure to others also ? One of his review- 
 ers openly confessed that if he took the trouble of 
 reading a book carefully, he could not afford to 
 review it in one paper only, he had to vn-ite at 
 least five or six articles to make it pay. This 
 ^pov8o(f>ovia, as it was called, went on year after 
 year, but, strange to say, Froude’s work was not 
 killed by it ; on the contrary, it became more and 
 more popular. In fact, together with his other 
 works, it enabled him to live independently and 
 even comfortably by his pen. Things have come 
 to such a pass that, if we may trust the experi- 
 ence of publishers, nothing sells so well as a well- 
 abused book, while laudatory notices seem to pro- 
 duce little or no effect. The public, it seems, has 
 gro^vn too wise. Even such powei-ful adjectives 
 7 
 
98 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 as epoch-making {Epoclie-machend), monumental 
 and even pyramidal, fall flat. Epoche-machend has 
 too often been found out to mean no more than 
 Foche-machend {Poche in German means claque), 
 and mommiental has once or twice proved a mis- 
 print for momental or momentary. Few scholars 
 would agree with M. Le Bon that “works of his- 
 tory must be considered as works of pure imag- 
 ination, as fanciful accounts of ill-observed facts.” 
 This is a French exaggeration. But neither are 
 books of history meant to be mere chronicles. 
 History is surely meant to teach not only facts, 
 but lessons also ; and, though historians may say 
 that facts ought to speak for themselves, they will 
 not speak without a vales sacer. I am the last 
 man to stand up for an un scholarlike treatment of 
 history, or of anything else. But as I do not call 
 a man a scholar who simply copies and collates 
 MSS., makes indices or collects errata, I doubt 
 whether mere Quellenstudium will make a histo- 
 rian. Quellenstudium is a sine qua non, but it is 
 not everything ; and whereas the number of those 
 who can ransack archives and libraries is large, the 
 world has not been rich in real historians whom 
 it is a delight to listen to, such as Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, Livy and Tacitus, Montesquieu, Gib- 
 bon, and, may we not add, Macaulay and Froude? 
 None of these historians, not even Gibbon, has 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 escaped criticism, but how poor should we be with- 
 out them ! 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, when he was writing his 
 “ History of the World ” in the Tower of London, 
 overheard two boys quarrelling over the facts of an 
 incident that had happened the day before; and he 
 said to himseK : “ If these two boys cannot agree 
 on an event which occurred almost before their 
 own eyes, how can any one be profited by the 
 narration which I am writing, of events which 
 occurred in ages long past ? ” The answer which 
 the critical historian would give to Raleigh would 
 probably be : “ Go and examine the two boys ; find 
 out their home, their relations, their circumstances, 
 particularly the opportunities they had of seeing 
 what they profess to have seen ; and try to dis- 
 cover whether there was any bias in their minds 
 that could have made them incline towards one 
 side rather than the other. Give all that evi- 
 dence, and then you are a real historian.” But is 
 that true, and were any of the great historians sat- 
 isfied with that? Was not their heart in their 
 work, and is the heart ever far from what we call 
 bias? Did not Herodotus, in describing the con- 
 flict between Greece and Asia, clearly espouse the 
 cause of Greece ? I know he has been called the 
 father of lies rather than of history ; but he has 
 survived for all that. Did not Thucydides through- 
 
lOO 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 out his history write as the loyal son of Athens ? 
 Was Tacitus very anxious to find out all that 
 could be said in favour of Tiberius? Was even 
 Gibbon, in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire,” quite impartial? Ranke’s “ History of the 
 Popes,” may be very accurate, but for thousands 
 who read Macaulay and Froude is there one who 
 reads Ranke, except the historian by profession ? 
 History is not written for historians only. Macau- 
 lay wrote the history of the English Restoration 
 as a partisan, and Froude made no secret on which 
 side he would have fought, if he had lived through 
 the storms of the English Reformation. If Ma- 
 caulay had been one of the two boys of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, he would probably not have discovered 
 some of the dark shadows on the face of William 
 III. which struck the other boy ; while some crit- 
 ics might possibly say of Froude that in drawing 
 the picture of Henry VIII. he may have followed 
 now and then the example of Nelson in the use of 
 his telescope. Still, in describing such recent pe- 
 riods as the reign of Henry VIII., historians can- 
 not, at all events, go very far wrong in dates or 
 names. Froude may have been wrong in embrac- 
 ing the cause of Henry VIII. and accepting all the 
 excuses or explanations which could be given for 
 his violent acts. But Froude is, at all events, hon- 
 est, ill so far that nq one can fail to see where his 
 
Literary Recollections loi 
 
 sympathies lie, so that he really leaves us free to 
 decide what side we ourselves should take. 
 
 When the historian has to analyse prominent 
 characters, and bring them again full of life on the 
 stage of history, is it not the artist, nay the poet, 
 who has to do the chief work, and not the mere 
 chronicler? In Froude’s case the difficulty was 
 very great. The contemporary estimates of Henry’s 
 character were most conflicting, and without taking 
 a line of his own, without claiming in fact the same 
 privilege w'hich Henry’s contemporaries claimed, 
 whether friends or foes, it would have been impos- 
 sible for him to create a character that should be 
 consistent and intelligible. There was nothing too 
 fiendish to be told of the English king by the 
 Papal party, and yet we cannot help asking how 
 such a caitifif, as he is represented to have been by 
 Roman Catholic agents, could have retained the 
 love of the English people and secui’ed the ser- 
 vices of some of the best among the noblemen and 
 gentlemen of his time ? If we take upon ourselves 
 to reject all reports of Royal Commissioners in 
 Henry’s reign as corrupt and mendacious, would 
 it be worth while to write any history of the Eng- 
 lish people at all ? It is, no doubt, an ungrateful 
 task to whitewash a historical character that has 
 been besmirched for years by a resolute party. 
 Yet it has to be done from time to time, from a 
 
102 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 sense of justice, and not from a mere spirit of op- 
 position. Carlyle’s heroes were nearly all the 
 best-abused men in Christendom : Frederick the 
 Great, Cromwell, and Goethe. Every one of these 
 characters was lying, as Carlyle said himself, under 
 infinite dung; yet every one of them is now ad- 
 mhed by thousands, because they trust in Carlyle. 
 It was the same Carlyle who encouraged Froude 
 in his work of rehabilitating Bluff King Hal, and 
 we ought, at all events, to be grateful to him for 
 having enabled us to know all that can be said by 
 the king’s advocates. If Froude wrote as a par- 
 tisan, he wrote, at the same time, as a patriot, and 
 if a patriot sees but one side of the truth, some 
 one else will see the other. 
 
 Can we imagine any history of our own times 
 written from the pole star, and not from amid the 
 turmoil of contending parties? Would a history 
 of the reign of Queen Victoria, written by Glad- 
 stone, be very like a history 'vmtten by Disraeh ? 
 However, these squabbles of reviewers about the 
 histories of Macaulay and Froude are now almost 
 entirely forgotten, while the historical dramas 
 which Macaulay and Froude have left us, remain, 
 and Englishmen are proud of possessing two such 
 splendid monuments of the most important peri- 
 ods of their history. Macaulay’s account of Will- 
 iam III. remained unfinished, and it is character- 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 103 
 
 istic of Fronde tliat, if I understood him rightly, 
 he gave up the idea of finishing the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, because, as an Englishman, he was dis- 
 appointed in her character towards the end of her 
 reign. 
 
 I saw much of Froude again during the last years 
 of his life, when he returned to Oxford as Regius 
 Professor of History, having been appointed by 
 Lord Salisbury. “ It is the first public recognition 
 I have received,” he used to say. He rejoiced in 
 it, and he certainly did credit to Lord Salisbm-y’s 
 com’ageous choice. His lectures were brilliant, 
 and the room was crowded to the end. His private 
 lectures also were largely attended, and he was on 
 the most friendly and intimate terms with some of 
 his pupils. 
 
 There is no place so trying for a professor as Ox- 
 ford. Froude’s immediate predecessors, Goldwin 
 Smith, Stubbs, and Freeman, were some of the best 
 men that Oxford has produced. Their lectures 
 were excellent in every respect. Yet every one 
 of them had to complain of the miserable scant- 
 iness of their audiences at Oxford. The present 
 Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Stubbs, in his “ Seventeen 
 Lectures on the Study of Mediaeval and Modern 
 History” (1886), states what may sound almost in- 
 credible, that he had sometimes to deliver his lect- 
 ures “to two or three listless men.” The same 
 
104 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 may be said of some of the best lectures delivered 
 in the University. The young men are encour- 
 aged in each college to attend the lectures deliv- 
 ered by the tutors, and are given to understand 
 that professorial lectures “ do not pay ” in the ex- 
 aminations. These examinations are chiefly in the 
 hands of college tutors. Professor Stubbs was not 
 given to complain about anything that might seem 
 to concern himself, yet he confesses that “ some- 
 times he felt hurt that in the combined lecture list 
 he found the junior assistant tutor advertising a 
 course on the same subject, or at the same hours, 
 as his own.” Nay, he goes so far in his modesty 
 as to say : “ It may be better that there should be 
 a dozen or flfteen college lecturers working away 
 with large classes, when I have only a few stray 
 men,” but the real friends of the University would 
 hardly think so. As things are at present, it has 
 been said, and, I believe, truly said, that nearly all 
 professorial lectures might be abolished, and the 
 studies of the undergraduates would go on just 
 the same. Oxford suffers in this respect from a 
 real embarras de richesse. The University is rich 
 enough, though by no means so rich as it was for- 
 merly, to keep up a double staff of teachers, pro- 
 fessorial and tutorial. It supports sixty-five pro- 
 fessors, readers, and lecturers, and probably four 
 or five times as many tutors. Many of the tutors 
 
Literary Recollections 105 
 
 are quite equal to the professors, nay, it may be, 
 even superior to them, but the most popular tu- 
 tor, whose lectures, when in college, were crowded, 
 has to be satisfied with two or three listless men 
 as soon as he has been raised to the professoriate. 
 Froude’s lectm-es formed an exception, but even 
 this was quoted against him. 
 
 Froude was not only the most fascinating lect- 
 urer, but the most charming companion and friend. 
 His conversation was like his writings. It nev- 
 er tired one, it never made one feel his superior- 
 ity. His store of anecdotes was inexhaustible, 
 and though in his old age they were sometimes 
 repeated, they were always pleasant to listen to. 
 He enjoyed them so thoroughly himself, he 
 chuckled over them, he covered his eyes as if half 
 ashamed of telling them. They are all gone now, 
 and a pity it is, for most of them referred to what 
 he had actually seen, not only to what he had 
 heard, and he had seen and heard a good deal, 
 both in Church and State. He knew the little 
 failings of great men, he knew even the peccadilloes 
 of saints, better than anybody. He was never ill- 
 natured in his judgments, he knew the world too 
 well for that, and it is well, perhaps, that many 
 things which he knew should be forgotten. He 
 himself insisted on all letters being destroyed that 
 had been addressed to him, and from a high sense 
 
io6 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 of duty, left orders that his own letters, addressed 
 to his friends, should not be divulged after his 
 death. Though he left an unfinished autobiogra- 
 phy, extremely interesting to the few friends who 
 were allowed to read it, those who decided that 
 it should not be published have acted, no doubt, 
 wisely and entirely in his spirit. 
 
 My friend Charles Kingsley was a very differ- 
 ent man. He was a strong man, while Froude 
 had some feminine weaknesses, but also some of 
 the best feminine excellencies. His life and his 
 character are well known from that excellent bi- 
 ography published by his gifted widow, not much 
 more than a year after his death. This Life of 
 hers really gave a new life to him, and secured a 
 new popularity and influence to his writings. In 
 him, too, what I admired besides his delightful 
 character was his poetical power, his brilliant yet 
 minute and accurate descriptions of natxrre, and 
 the characters he created in his novels. With all 
 the biographies that are now published, how Httle 
 do people know after all of the man they are asked 
 to love or hate ! In order to judge of a man, we 
 ought to know in what quarry the marble of which 
 he was made was carved, what sunshine there was 
 to call forth the first germs of his mind, nay, even 
 whether he was rich or poor, whether he had what 
 we rightly call an independence, and whether from 
 
Literary Recollections 107 
 
 his youth he was and felt himself a free man. 
 There is something in the character of a man like 
 Stanley, for instance, which we have no right to 
 expect in a man who had to struggle in life like 
 Kingsley. The struggle for life may bring out 
 many fine qualities, but it cannot but leave traces 
 of the struggle, a certain amount of self-assertion, 
 a love of warfare, and a more or less pronounced 
 satisfaction at having carried the day against all 
 rivals and opponents. These are the temptations 
 of a poor man which do not exist for a man of in- 
 dependent means. It is no use shutting our eyes 
 to this. Every fight entails blows, and wounds, 
 and scars, and some of them remain for life. 
 Kingsley seems to have had no anxieties as a 
 young man at school or at the University, but 
 when he had left the University and become a 
 cmate, and, more particularly, when he had mar- 
 ried on his small curacy and there w'ere children, 
 his struggles began in good earnest. He had 
 often to write against time ; he had to get up sub- 
 ject after subject in order to be able to write an 
 article, simply that he might be able to satisfy the 
 most troublesome tradesmen. He always wrote at 
 very high pressure ; fortunately his physical frame 
 was of iron, and his determination like that of a 
 runaway horse. People may say that he had the 
 usual income of a country clergyman, but Avhy will 
 
io8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 they forget that a man in Kingsley’s position had 
 not only to give his children an expensive educa- 
 tion, but had to keep open house for his numerous 
 friends and admirers ? There was no display in 
 his quiet rectory at Eversley, but even the sim- 
 plest hospitality entails more expense than a small 
 living can bear, and his friends and visitors ranged 
 from the lowest to the highest — from poor work- 
 men to English and foreign royalties. As long as 
 he could wield his pen he could procure the neces- 
 sary supplies, but it had to be done with a very 
 great strain on the brain. “ It must be done, and 
 it shall be done,” he said ; yes, but though most 
 of his work was done, and well done, it was like 
 the work of an athlete who breaks down at the 
 end of the day when his victory is won. People 
 did not see it and did not know it, for he never 
 would yield, and never would show signs of yield- 
 ing. When, towards the end of his life, a canonry 
 was offered him, first at Chester, then at Westmin- 
 ster, he felt truly grateful. “ After all,” he said to 
 me, “ these stalls are good for old horses.” His 
 professorship at Cambridge was really too much 
 for him. He was not prepared for it. Personally 
 he did much good among the young men, and was 
 certainly most popular. At Cambridge as a pro- 
 fessor he did his best, but he had hardly calcu- 
 lated Quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent. 
 
Literary Recollections 1 09 
 
 Anyhow, the work soon became too much even for 
 his iron constitution, aud he was glad to be re- 
 lieved. The fact is that Kingsley was all his life, 
 in everything he thought and in everything he 
 did, a poet, a man of high ideals, and likewise of 
 unswerving honesty. No one knew Kingsley, 
 such as he really was, who had not seen him at 
 Eversley, and among his poor people. He visited 
 every cottage, he knew every old man and old''* 
 woman, and was perfectly at home among them. 
 His “ Village Sermons ” gave them just the food 
 they wanted, though it was cmious to see every 
 Sunday a large sprinkling of young officers from 
 Sandhurst and Aldershot sitting quietly among the 
 smock-frocked congregation, and anxious to have 
 some serious conversation with the preacher after- 
 wards. Kingsley was. a great martyr to stammer- 
 ing, it often was torture to him in a lively conver- 
 sation to keep us all waiting till his thoughts 
 could break through again. In chm’ch, however, 
 
 * whether he was reading or speaking extempore, 
 there was no sign of stammering ; apparently 
 there was no effort to overcome it. But when we 
 walked home from church he would say : “ Oh, let 
 me stammer now, you won’t mind it.” 
 
 He was not a learned theologian, his one idea 
 of Christianity was practical Christianity, honesty, 
 purity, love. He was always most courteous, most 
 
1 lO 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 willing to bow before higher authority or greater 
 learning ; but when he thought there was any- 
 thing wrong, or mean, or cowardly, anything with 
 which he, as an honest man, could not agree, he 
 was as firm as a rock. 
 
 His favourite pursuits lay in natural science. 
 He knew every flower, every bird, every fish, and 
 every insect in his neighbourhood, and he had im- 
 "Toibed a belief in the laws of natiu’e, which rep- 
 resented to him indirectly the thoughts of God. 
 When, therefore, after a long continuance of 
 drought, the bishop of his diocese ordered him to 
 have a special prayer for rain, he respectfully and 
 firmly declined. He would pray for the good gifts 
 of heaven, offer thanks to God for all that He was 
 pleased to send in His wisdom, but he would not 
 enter into particulars with Him, he would not put 
 his own small human wisdom against the Divine 
 wisdom ; he would not preach on what he thought 
 was good for us, for God knew best. He had no 
 difficulty in persuading his farmers and labourers 
 that if they had any trust in God, and any reverence 
 for the Divine wisdom that rules the world, they 
 would place all their troubles and cares before Him 
 in prayer, but they would not beg for anything 
 which, in His wisdom. He withheld from them. 
 “ Thy will be done,” that was his prayer for rain. 
 There was great commotion in ecclesiastical dove- 
 
Literary Recollections 1 1 1 
 
 cotes, most of all in episcopal palaces. All sorts 
 of punishments were threatened, but Kingsley re- 
 mained throughout perfectly quiet, yet most deter- 
 mined. He would not degrade his sacred office 
 to that of a rain-maker or medicine-man, and he 
 carried his point. “ In America we manage these 
 things better ! ” said an American friend of Kings- 
 ley. “ A clergyman in a village on the frontier 
 between two of om* States prayed for rain. The 
 rain came, and it soaked the ground to such an ex- 
 tent that the young lambs in the neighbouring 
 State caught cold and died. An action was brought 
 against the clergyman for the mischief he had 
 done, and he and his parishioners were condemned 
 to pay damages to the sheep farmers. They never 
 prayed for rain again after that.” 
 
 Kingsley incurred great displeasure by the sup- 
 poi-t he gave to what was called Christian Social- 
 ism. His novel “ Alton Locke,” contained some 
 very outspoken sentiments as to the ten-ible suffer- 
 ings of the poor and the duties of the rich. Kings- 
 ley, Frederick Maurice, and their friends, did not 
 only plead, but they acted ; they formed societies 
 to assist poor tailors, and for a time the clothes 
 they wore showed but too clearly that they had 
 been cut in Whitechapel, not in Regent Street. 
 Poor Kingsley suffered not only in his wardrobe, 
 but in his purse also, owing to his having been 
 
1 1 2 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 too sanguine in his support of tailoring by co-op- 
 eration. 
 
 However, his books, both in prose and poetry, 
 became more and more popular, and this meant 
 that his income became larger and larger. 
 
 Publishers say that novels and sermons have the 
 largest market in England and the colonies, and 
 Kingsley provided both. All went on well : even 
 his being stopped once in the middle of a sermon 
 by a clergyman who had invited him to preach in* 
 his church in London, but did not approve of his 
 sermon, did not hurt him. He had many influen- 
 tial friends ; both the Queen and the Prince of 
 Wales had shown by special marks of favour how 
 much they appreciated him, and he had a right to 
 look forward to ecclesiastical preferment and to a 
 greater amount of leisure and freedom. One unex- 
 pected cloud, however, came to darken his bright 
 and happy life. Some people will say that he 
 brought it upon himself, but there are certain 
 clouds which no honest man can help bringing 
 upon himself. He, no doubt, began the painful 
 controversy with Newman. Having seen how 
 much misery had been caused among some of his 
 own dearest friends by the Komanising teaching 
 under the auspices of Newman and Pusey, he 
 made the mistake of fastening the charge of dis- 
 honesty, half-heartedness, and untruthfulness on 
 
Literary Recollections 1 13 
 
 Newman personally, instead of on the whole Ro- 
 man Catholic propaganda in England from the 
 time of Henry VIII.’s apostasy from the Roman 
 Church to that of Newman’s apostasy from the 
 Church of England. I shall not enter into this 
 controversy again. I have done so once, and 
 have been well punished for having ventured to 
 declare my honest conviction that throughout this 
 painful duel Kingsley was in the right. But 
 Kingsley Avas clumsy and Newman most skilful. 
 Besides, Newman was evidently a man of many 
 friends, and of many able friends who knew how 
 to wield their pens in many a newspaper. 
 
 In spite of having taken a most unpopular step 
 in leaving the national church, Newman always 
 retained the popularity which he had so well 
 earned as a member of that Church. I have my- 
 self been one of his true admirers, partly from 
 having known many of his intimate friends at Ox- 
 ford, partly from having studied his earlier works 
 when I first came to England. I read them more 
 for their style than for their contents. If New- 
 man had left behind him no more than his ex- 
 quisite University sermons and his sweet hymns he 
 would always have stood high among the glories 
 of England. But Kingsley also was loved by the 
 people and surrounded by numerous and powerful 
 friends. It must be due to my ignorance of the 
 8 
 
114 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 national character, but I have certainly never been 
 able to explain why public sympathy went so en- 
 tirely with Newman and against Kingsley; why 
 Kingsley was supposed to have acted unchival- 
 rously and Newman was looked upon as a martyr 
 to his convictions, and as the victim of an illiberal 
 and narrow-minded Anglican clique. Certain it is 
 that in the opinion of the majority Kingsley had 
 failed, and failed ignominiously, while Newman’s 
 popularity revived and became greater than ever. 
 
 Kingsley felt his defeat most deeply ; he was 
 like a man that stammered, and could not utter at 
 the right time the right word that was in his mind. 
 What is still more surprising was the sudden col- 
 lapse of the sale of Kingsley’s most popular books. 
 1 saw him after he had been with his publishers to 
 make arrangements for the sale of his copyrights. 
 He wanted the money to start his sons, and he 
 had a right to expect a substantial sum. The sum 
 offered him seemed almost an insult, and yet he 
 assured me that he had seen the books of his pub- 
 lishers, and that the sale of his books during the 
 last years did not justify a larger offer. He was 
 miserable about it, as well he might be. He felt 
 not only the pecimiary loss, but, as he imagined, 
 the loss of that influence which he had gained by 
 years of hard labour. 
 
 However, he was mistaken in his idea that he 
 
Literary Recollections 1 1 5 
 
 had laboured in vain. Immediately after his death 
 there came the most extraordinary reaction. His 
 books sold again in hundreds of thousands, and his 
 family received in one year a great deal more from 
 his royalties than had been offered him for the 
 whole copyright of all his books. People are more 
 willing now to admit that though Newman may 
 have been right in his “ Apologia pro Vita Sua,” 
 Kingsley was not wrong in pointing out the weak 
 points in Newman’s character and in the moral and 
 political doctrines of the Roman Catholic system, 
 more particularly of the Jesuits, and the dangers 
 that threatened his beloved England from those 
 who seemed halting between the two Churches, the 
 one national, the other foreign, the one reformed, 
 the other unreformed. 
 
 There was another occasion when Newman’s and 
 Kingsley’s friends had a sharp conflict at Oxford. 
 When the Prince of Wales was invited to Oxford 
 to receive his honorary degree of D.C.L., he had, 
 as was the custom, sent to the Chancellor a list of 
 names of his friends on whom he wished that the 
 same degree should be conferred at the same time. 
 One of them was Kingsley, then one of his chap- 
 lains. When his name was proposed a strong 
 protest was made by Dr. Pusey and his friends, no 
 one could understand why. Dr. Pusey declared 
 distinctly that he did not mean to contest Kings- 
 
ii6 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ley’s orthodoxy, but when asked at last to give his 
 reasons, he declared that Kingsley’s “ Hypatia ” 
 was an immoral book. This was too much for Dr. 
 Stanley, who challenged Pusey to produce one sin- 
 gle passage in “ Hypatia ” which could be called 
 immoral. On such conditions Shakespeare could 
 never have received an honorary degree from 
 the University of Oxford. I still possess the copy 
 of “Hypatia” which Stanley examined, mark- 
 ing every passage that could possibly be called* 
 immoral. It need hardly be said that there was 
 none. Still Dr. Pusey threatened to veto the de- 
 gree in Convocation and to summon his friends 
 from the coimtry to support him. And what could 
 have been done to prevent an unseemly scandal on 
 such an occasion as a royal visit to Oxford ? Dr. 
 Stanley and his friends yielded, and Kingsley’s 
 name was struck out from the Prince’s list, and, 
 what was still worse, it was never placed again on 
 the list of honorary doctors such as might really 
 have reflected honour on the University. If ever 
 the secret history of the degrees confeiTed honoris 
 causa by the University of Oxford on truly eminent 
 persons, not members of the University, comes to 
 be written, the rejection of Kingsley’s name will 
 ' not be one of the least interesting chapters. 
 
 Kingsley’s death was a severe blow to his coun- 
 try, and his friends knew that his life)* might have 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 117 
 
 been prolonged. It was a sad time I spent with 
 him at Eversley, while his wife lay sick and the 
 doctors gave no hope of her recovery. He him- 
 self also was very dl at the time, but a doctor 
 whom the Queen had sent to Eversley told him 
 that with proper care there was no danger for him, 
 that he had the lungs of a horse, but that he re- 
 quired great care. In spite of that warning he 
 would get up and go into the sick-room of his wife, 
 which had to be kept at an icy temperature. He 
 caught cold and died, being fully convinced that 
 his wife had gone before him. And what a funeral 
 it was ! But with all the honour that was paid to 
 him, all who walked back to the empty rectory felt 
 that life henceforth was poorer, and that the sun 
 of England would never be so bright or so cheerful 
 again, now that he was gone. Though I admired — 
 as who did not ? — his poetical power, his brilliant 
 yet most minute and accurate descriptions of nat- 
 ure, and the lifelike characters he had created in 
 his novels, what Ave loved most in him was his 
 presence, his delightful stammer, his downright 
 honesty, and the perfect transparency of his moral 
 nature. He was not a child, he was a man, but 
 unspoiled by the struggles of his youth, unspoiled 
 by the experiences of his later years. He was an 
 English gentleman, a perfect specimen of noble 
 English manhood. 
 
ii8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Having been particularly attached to his young 
 niece, my wife, he had at once allowed me a share 
 in his affections, and when other members of her 
 family shook their heads, he stood by me and bade 
 me be of good cheer till the day was won, and she 
 became my wife. That was in 1859. Here are 
 some verses he had addressed to his two nieces, 
 to my wife and to her sister, afterwards Mrs. Theo- 
 dore Walrond (died 1872) : — 
 
 TO O • * *. 
 
 A hasty jest I once let fall — 
 
 As jests are wont to be, untrue — 
 
 As if the sum of joy to you 
 
 Were hunt and picnic, rout and ball. 
 
 Your eyes met mine : I did not blame ; 
 You saw it : but I touched too near 
 Some noble nerve ; a silent tear 
 Spoke soft reproach and lofty shame. 
 
 I 
 
 I do not wish those words unsaid. 
 Unspoilt by praise or pleasure, you 
 In that one look to woman grew. 
 
 While with a child, I thought, I played. 
 
 Next to mine own beloved so long ! 
 
 I have not spent my heart in vain. 
 
 I watched the blade ; I see the grain ; 
 
 A woman’s soul, most soft, yet strong. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 119 
 
 A FAEEWELL. 
 
 My fairest child, I have no song to give you ; 
 
 No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey : 
 
 Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you 
 For every day. 
 
 Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever. 
 
 Do noble things, not dream them, all day long : 
 And so make life, death, and that vast for ever 
 One grand sweet song. 
 
 In the original, as written down in her album, 
 there is a third verse between the two : — 
 
 ril tell you how to sing a clearer carol 
 Than lark who hails the dawn on breezy down, 
 
 To earn yourself a purer poet’s laurel 
 
 Than Shakespeare’s crown. 
 
LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS 
 III 
 
 Knowing both Kingsley and Fronde very inti- 
 mately, I soon came to know many of their friends, 
 though my residence at Oxford kept me clear from 
 the vortex of literary society in London. In some 
 respects I regretted it, but in others I found it a 
 great blessing. It requires not only mental, but 
 considerable physical strength to stand the wear 
 and tear of London life, and I confess I never 
 could understand how some of my friends. Brown- 
 ing, Tyndall, Huxley, M. Arnold, and others, could 
 manage to do any serious work, and at the same 
 time serve the Moloch of Society to whom so many 
 men and women in London offer themselves and 
 their children as willing sacrifices year after year. 
 They had not only to dine out and lose their even- 
 ings, but wherever they went they had to shine, 
 they had often to make speeches, long speeches, 
 at public dinners, they came home tired and slept 
 badly, and in the morning they were interrupted 
 
 120 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 121 
 
 again by letters, by newspapers, by calls, then by 
 meetings and committees, by the inevitable leav- 
 ing of cards, and, lastly, there was with many of 
 them their official work. Society is a voracious 
 animal, and has deprived the world of much that 
 can only be the outcome of quiet hours, of contin- 
 uous thought, and of uninterrupted labour. These 
 men must have had not only the brain, but the 
 physical constitution also of giants, to survive this 
 constant social worry. 
 
 A quiet dinner with a few friends is pleasant 
 enough, and a certain amount of social friction 
 may even be useful in keeping us from rusting; 
 nay, a casual collision with a kindred spirit may 
 sometimes call forth sparks which can be turned 
 into light and heat. But to dress, to drive a few 
 miles, then to be set down, possibly, between two 
 strangers who have little to say and much to ask, 
 and who, if ill-luck will have it, may not even be 
 beautiful or charming, is a torture to which men 
 like Browning and M. Arnold ought never to have 
 submitted. An afternoon tea is a far more rational 
 amusement, because people are not kept chained 
 for two hours to one chair and two neighbours, 
 but can move about and pick out some of their 
 friends whom they really wish to talk to. Even 
 a luncheon is more bearable, for it does not last 
 so long, and one may find a chance of talking 
 
122 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 to one’s friends. But dinners are tortures, sur- 
 vivals of the dark ages for which there is no longer 
 any excuse, and I believe that more people, and 
 good people too, have fallen victims to dinners, 
 public or private, than have broken their necks in 
 the hunting field. 
 
 I had hoped at one time that the aesthetic phase 
 through which English society was passing, would 
 have put an end to, or would at least have modi- 
 fied, these social gobblings. Surely it is a most 
 unbeautiful sight to see a number of people, young 
 and old, with or without teeth, filling their mouths 
 with mutton or beef, chewing, denticating, masti- 
 cating their morsels, and then washing them down 
 with wine or water. No doubt it can be done in- 
 offensively, or even daintily, but is it? Eastern 
 ladies know how to throw small morsels of food 
 into their open mouths with their fingers, and 
 Eastern poets describe this performance with rapt- 
 ure. Chinese poets become eloquent even over 
 chop-sticks as handled by their fair ones. But for 
 all that, the Hindus seem to me to show their good 
 taste by retiring while they feed, and reappearing 
 only after they have Avashed their hands and face. 
 Why should we be so anxious to perform this no 
 doubt necessary function before the eyes of our 
 friends? How often have I seen a beautiful face 
 distorted by the action of the jaw-bones, the tern- 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 123 
 
 pies forced out, and the cheeks distended by ob- 
 stinate naorsels. Could not at least the grosser 
 part of feeding be performed in private, and the 
 social gathering begin at the dessert, or, with men, 
 at the wine, so as to have a real Symposion, not a 
 Symphagion ? But I am on dangerous ground, and 
 shall broach no further heresies. 
 
 Life at Oxford has many advantages. Of course 
 our London friends tell us that we are mere pro- 
 vincials, but that is a relative expression, and, any- 
 how, we enjoy life in peace. It is true we have 
 not shaken off the regular society dinners alto- 
 gether, but no one is offended if his friends tell 
 him that they are too busy to dine out. And Ave 
 still have oiu’ pleasant small dinners or luncheons 
 of four, six, at the utmost eight people, when you 
 can really see and enjoy your friends, and not only 
 roast beef and port. In former years, when I first 
 came to Oxford, it was different, but then the evil 
 was chiefly confined to heads of colleges and halls, 
 and there were even then exceptions, where you 
 dined to meet a few friends, and not simply to lay 
 in food. 
 
 One of my earliest dinners I remember at Ox- 
 ford was to meet Thackeray. Thackeray was then 
 wilting “ Esmond,” and a Mr. Stoddard — a fellow 
 of St. John’s College — asked me to meet him at 
 dinner. We were only four, and we were all very 
 
124 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 mucli awed by Thackeray’s presence, particularly 
 I, not being able as yet to express myself freely 
 in English. We sat silent for some time, no one 
 ventured to make the first remark, the soup was 
 over, and there was a fine John Dore on the table 
 waiting to be splayed. We were hoping for some 
 brilliant sally from Thackeray, but nothing came. 
 At last Thackeray suddenly turned his large spec- 
 tacled eyes on me and said: “Are you going to 
 eat your own ancestor ? ” I stared, everybody else 
 stared. At last we gave it up, and Thackeray, 
 looking very grave and learned, said : “ Surely you 
 are the son of the Dorian Muller — the Muller who 
 wrote that awfully learned book on the Dorians ; 
 and was not John Dore the ancestor of all the 
 Dorians ? ” There was a general, “ Oh, oh ! ” but 
 the ice was broken, and no one after this horrible 
 pun was afraid of saying anything. AU I could tell 
 Thackeray was that I was not the son of Otfried 
 Muller, who wrote on the Dorians, but of Wil- 
 helm Muller, the poet, who wi’ote “ Die Homer- 
 ische Vorschule,” and “Die Schone Mulleriu,” and 
 as to John Dore being our ancestor, how could that 
 be ? The original J ohn Dore, so I have been told, 
 was il Janitore, that is, St. Peter, and had no wife, 
 as some people will have it, or at least never ac- 
 knowledged her in public, though he was kind to 
 his mother-in-law. All this did not promise well. 
 
Literary Recollections 125 
 
 yet the rest of our little dinner party was very 
 successful ; it became noisy and even brilliant, 
 
 Thackeray from his treasures of wit and sar- 
 casm poured out anecdote after anecdote ; he used 
 plenty of vinegar and cayenne pepper, but there 
 was always a flavour of kindliness and good-nature, 
 even in his most cutting remarks. I saw more of 
 him when he came to Oxford to lecture on the 
 Four Georges, and when he stood for Parliament 
 and was defeated by Cardwell and Charles Neate. 
 After one of his lectures, when I expressed my 
 delight with his brilliant success, “Wait, wait,” 
 he said, “ the time will come when you will lecture 
 at Oxford.” At that time my English was stiU 
 very crumbly ; there was no idea of my staying on 
 in England, still less of my ever becoming a pro- 
 fessor at Oxford. 
 
 Thackeray’s novels were a great delight to me 
 then, and some have remained so for life. StiU, 
 there is a fashion in all things, in literature quite 
 as much as in music, and when lately reading “ The 
 Newcomes ” I was surprised at the meagreness of 
 the dialogue, the very dialogues for which we felt 
 so impatient from month to month when the book 
 first came out in numbers. Still one always recog- 
 nises in Thackeray the powerful artist, who, like a 
 Japanese painter, will with a few lines place a living 
 man or woman before you, never to be forgotten. 
 
126 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 I am sorry I missed seeing and knowing more 
 of Charles Dickens. I met him in my very early 
 days with a friend of mine at some tavern in the 
 Strand, but did not see him again till quite at the 
 end of his career, when he was giving readings 
 from his novels, and knew how to make his audi- 
 ences either weep or laugh. Still I am glad to have 
 seen him in the flesh, both as a young and as an 
 old man. However wide apart our interests in life 
 might be, no one who had read his novels could 
 look on Dickens as a stranger. He knew the heart 
 of man to the very core, and could draw a picture 
 of human suffering with a more loving hand than 
 any other English writer. He also possessed now 
 and then the grand style, and even in his pictures 
 of still life the hand of the master can always be 
 perceived. He must have shed many a tear over 
 the deathbed of poor Joe ; he must have chuckled 
 and shouted over Mr. Winkle and Mr. Tupman 
 gorug out partridge shooting. Perhaps to our taste, 
 as it now is, some of his characters are too senti- 
 mental and simpering, but there are few writers 
 now who could create his child-wife. It alw'ays 
 seemed to me very strange that my friend Stanley, 
 though he received Dickens among the great ones 
 of Westminster Abbey, could not, as he confessed 
 to me, take any pleasure in his works. 
 
 But though I could not spend much time in 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 127 
 
 London and cultivate my literary acquaintances 
 there, Oxford itseK was not without interesting 
 poets. After all, whatever talent England possesses 
 is filtered generally either through Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge, and those who have eyes to see may often 
 watch some of the most important chapters in the 
 growth of poetical genius among the young imder- 
 graduates. I watched Clough before the world 
 knew him, I knew Matthew Arnold dm’ing many 
 years of his early life, and having had the honour 
 of examining Swinburne I was not siu’prised at his 
 marvellous pei-formances in later years. He was 
 even then a true artist, a commander of legions of 
 words, who might become an imperator at any 
 time. Clough was a most fascinating character, 
 thoroughly genuine, but so oppressed with the 
 problems of life that it was difficult ever to get a 
 smile out of him ; and if one did, his round niddy 
 face with the deep heavy eyes seemed really to 
 suffer from the contortions of laughter. He took 
 life very seriously, and made greater sacrifices to 
 his convictions than the world ever suspected. He 
 was poor, but from conscientious scruples gave up 
 his fellowship, and was driven at last to go to Amer- 
 ica to make himself independent without giving up 
 the independence of his mind. With a little more 
 sunshine above him and around him he might have 
 grown to a very considerable height, but there was 
 
128 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 always a heavy weight on him, that seemed to ren- 
 der every utterance and every poem a struggle. 
 
 His poems are better known and loved in Amer- 
 ica, I believe, than in England, but in England also 
 they still have their friends, and in the history of the 
 religious or rather theological struggles of 1840-50 
 Clough’s figure will always be recognised as one 
 of the most characteristic and the most pleasing. I 
 had once the misfortune to give him great pain. I 
 saw him at Oxford with a young lady, and I was told 
 that he was engaged to her. Delighted as I was at 
 this prospect of a happy issue out of all his troubles, 
 I wrote to him to congratulate him, when a most 
 miserable answer came, telling me that it all was 
 hopeless, and that I ought not to have noticed what 
 was going on. 
 
 However, it came right in the end, only there 
 were some years of patient struggle to be gone 
 through first ; and who is not grateful in the end 
 for such years passed on Pisgah, if only Jordan is 
 crossed at last? 
 
 Another poet whom I knew at Oxford as an un- 
 dergraduate, and whom I watched and admired to 
 the end of his life, was Matthew Ai-nold. He was 
 beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet 
 full of dreams and schemes. His Olympian man- 
 ners began even at Oxford ; there was no harm in 
 them, they were natural, not put on. The very 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 129 
 
 sound of his voice and the wave of his ann were 
 Jovelike. He grappled with the same problems as 
 Clough, but they never got the better of him, or 
 rather he never got the worse of them. Goethe 
 helped him to soar where others toiled and sighed 
 and were sinking under their self-imposed burdens. 
 Even though his later life was enough to dishearten 
 a poet, he laughed at his being Pegasus im Jodie. 
 Sometimes at public dinners, when he saw himself 
 surrounded by his contemporaries, most of them 
 judges, bishops, and ministers, he would groan over 
 the drudgery he had to go through every day of his 
 life in examining dirty schoolboys and schoolgirls. 
 But he saw the fun of it, and laughed. What a 
 pity it was that his friends, and he had many, could 
 find no better place for him. Most of his contem- 
 poraries, many of them far inferior to him, rose to 
 high positions in Church and State, he remained 
 to the end an examiner of elementary schools. Of 
 course it may be said that, like so many of his lit- 
 erary friends, he might have written novels and 
 thus eked out a living by pot-boilers, as they are 
 called, of various kinds. But there was something 
 noble and refined in him which restrained his pen 
 from such work. Whatever he gave to the world 
 was to be perfect, as perfect as he could make it, 
 and he did not think that he possessed a talent for 
 novels. His saying “No Arnold can ever write a 
 
130 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 novel ” is Avell known, but it has been splendidly 
 falsified of late by his own niece. He had to go 
 to America on a lecturing tour to earn some money 
 he stood in need of, though lie felt it as a dira ne- 
 cessitas, nay, as a dire indignity. It is true he had 
 good precedents, but evidently his showman was 
 not the best he could have chosen, nor was Arnold 
 himself very strong as a lecturer. England has 
 not got from him all that she had a right to ex- 
 pect, but whatever he has left has a finish that will 
 long keep it safe from the corrosive wear and tear 
 of time. 
 
 When later in life Arnold took to theological 
 studies, he showed, no doubt, a very clear insight 
 and a perfect independence of judgment, but he 
 had only a few spare hours for work which in or- 
 der to be properly done would have required a 
 lifetime. Yet what he wrote produced an effect, 
 in England at least, more lasting than many a 
 learned volume, and he was allowed to say things 
 that would have given deep offence if coming from 
 other lips. His famous saying about the three 
 Lord Shaftesburys has been judged very differently 
 by different writers. As a mere matter of taste it 
 may seem that Arnold’s illustration of w'hat he 
 took to be the common conception of the Trinity 
 among his Phibstine friends was objectionable. 
 Let us hope that it was not even true. 
 
Literary Recollections 131 
 
 But Arnold’s intention was clear enough. He 
 argued chiefly against those who had called the 
 Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass “ a degrading 
 superstition." He tells them they ought to dis- 
 cover in it what the historian alone, or what Ar- 
 nold means by a man of culture, can discover ; 
 namely, the original intention of the faithful in 
 thus interpreting the words of Christ (St. John, 
 vii., 53) ; “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except 
 ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His 
 blood, ye have no life in you.” It was in protest- 
 ing against this narrowness that he reminded his 
 Protestant friends of the weak joints in their own 
 armour, particularly their too literal acceptation 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity.* And I doubt 
 whether he was altogether wrong when he charged 
 them with speaking of the Father as a mere in- 
 dividual, or, as he expressed it, a sort of infinitely 
 magnified and improved Lord Shaftesbury with a 
 race of vile offenders to deal with, whom his nat- 
 ui’al goodness would incline him to let off, only his 
 sense of justice would not allow it. And is it not 
 true that many who speak of Christ as the Son of 
 God take “ son ” in its common literal sense, or, 
 as Arnold expressed it, imagine “ a younger Lord 
 Shaftesbury, on the scale of his father and very 
 dear to him, who might live in grandeur and 
 * “ Literature and Dogma,” 1873, pp. 305, seq. 
 
132 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 splendour if he liked, but who preferred to leave 
 his home to go and live among the race of offend- 
 ers, and to be put to an ignominious death, on the 
 condition that his merits should be counted against 
 their demerits, and that his father’s goodness 
 should be restrained no longer from taking effect, 
 but any offender should be admitted to the bene- 
 fit of it, simply on pleading the satisfaction made 
 by the son ” ? Finally, when he points out the ex- 
 tremely vague conception of the Holy Ghost as a 
 person and as an individual, does he really exag- 
 gerate so very much when he says that He is with 
 many no more than “ a third Lord Shaftesbury, 
 still on the same high scale, who keeps very much 
 in the background and works in a very occult 
 manner, but very efficaciously nevertheless, and 
 who is busy in applying everywhere the benefits 
 of the son’s satisfaction and the father’s good- 
 ness ? ” Nay, even when he goes on to say that 
 this is precisely the Protestant story of justifica- 
 tion, what he wants to impress on his Protestant 
 readers is surely no more than this, that from his 
 point of view there is nothing actually degrading 
 in their very narrow view, as little as in the com- 
 mon Roman Catholic view of the Mass. What he 
 means is no more than that both views as held 
 by the many are grotesquely literal and unintelli- 
 gent. 
 
Literary Recollections 1 33 
 
 People wlio hold such views would be ready 
 to teU you, he says, “ the exact hangings in the 
 Trinity’s council chamber.” But, with all that he 
 is anxious to show that not only was the original 
 intention both of Roman and English Catholics 
 good, but that even in its mistaken application it 
 may help towards righteousness. In trying to im- 
 press this view both on Protestants and Roman 
 Catholics, Ai'nold certainly used language which 
 must have pained particularly those who felt that 
 the picture was not altogether untrue. However, 
 his friends, and among them many high ecclesias- 
 tics, forgave him. Stanley, I know, admired his 
 theological writings very much. Many of his 
 critics fully agreed with what Arnold said, only 
 they would have said it in a different way. There 
 is a kind of cocaine style which is used by many 
 able critics and reformers. It cuts deep into the 
 flesh, and yet the patient remains insensible to 
 pain. “ You can say anything in English,” Ar- 
 thur Helps once said to me, “ only you must know 
 how to say it.” Arnold, like Carlyle and others, 
 preferred the old style of surgery. They thought 
 that pain was good in certain operations, and 
 helped to accelerate a healthy reaction. 
 
 The only fault that one may find with Arnold, 
 is that he did not himself try to restore the orig- 
 inal and true conception of the Trinity to that 
 
134 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 clear and intelligible form whicb he as an historian 
 and a man of culture could have brought out bet- 
 ter than any one else. The original intention of 
 the Lord’s Supper, or the Mass, can easily be 
 learnt, as Arnold has shown, from the very words 
 of the Bible (St. Luke, xxii., 20) : “ The cup is 
 the new testament in my blood.” But the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity requires a far more searching 
 historical study. As the very name of Trinity is 
 a later invention, and absent from the New Testa- 
 ment, it requires a thorough study of Greek, more 
 particularly of Alexandrian philosophy, to under- 
 stand its origin, for it is from Greek philosophy 
 that the idea of the Word, the Logos, was taken 
 by some of the early Fathers of the Church. 
 
 As the Messiah was a Semitic thought which 
 the Jewish disciples of Chi'ist saw realised in the 
 Son of Man, the Word was an Aryan thought which 
 the Greek disciples saw fulfilled in the Son of God. 
 The history of the divine Dyas which preceded the 
 Trias is clear enough, if only we are acquainted 
 with the antecedents of Greek philosophy. With- 
 out that background it is a mere phantasm, and 
 no wonder that in the minds of uneducated peo- 
 ple it should have become what Arnold describes 
 it,* father, son, and grandson. Living together in 
 the same house, or possibly in the clouds. To 
 
 * “ Literature and Dogma,” p. 143. 
 
Literary Recollections 135 
 
 make people shrink back from such a conception 
 is worth something, and Arnold has certainly 
 achieved this, if only he has caused hundreds and 
 thousands to say to themselves : “ We never were 
 so foolish or so narrow-minded as to believe in 
 three Lord Shaftesbuiys.” 
 
 For some reason or other, however, the “ three 
 Lord Shaftesbuiys ” have disappeared in the last 
 edition of “ Literature and Dogma ” and have been 
 replaced by “a Supernatural Man.” Froude, who 
 was an intimate friend both of Arnold and of Sir 
 James Stephen, told me that the latter had warned 
 Arnold that the three Lord Shaftesburys were 
 really actionable, and if Arnold hated anything it 
 was a fracas. In the fifth edition they still remain, 
 so that the change must have been made later on, 
 when he prepared the cheap edition of his book. 
 Anyhow, they are gone ! 
 
 Arnold was a delightful man to argue with, not 
 that he could easily be convinced that he was 
 wrong, but he never lost his temper, and in the 
 most patronising way he would generally end by : 
 “ Yes, yes ! my good fellow, you are quite right, 
 but, you see, my view of the matter is different, 
 and I have little doubt it is the true one ! ” This 
 went so far that even the simplest facts failed 
 to produce any impression on him. He had fallen 
 in love with Emile Burnouf’s attractive but not 
 
136 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 very scliolar-like and trustworthy “ Science de la 
 Religion.” I believe that at first he had mistaken 
 Emile for Eugene Burnouf, a mistake which has 
 been committed by other people besides him. 
 But, afterwards, when he had perceived the differ- 
 ence between the two, he was not at all abashed. 
 Nay, he was betrayed into a new mistake, and 
 spoke of Emile as the son of Eugene. I told him 
 that Eugene, the great Oriental scholar — one of 
 the greatest that France has ever produced, and 
 that is saying a great deal — had no son at all, and 
 that he ought to correct his misstatement. “ Yes, 
 yes,” he said, in his most good-humoured way, 
 “but you know how they manage these things 
 in France. Emile was reaUy a natural son of the 
 great scholar, and they call that a nephew.” This 
 I stoutly denied, for never was a more irreproach- 
 able p^re de famille than my friend and master 
 Eugene Burnouf. But in spite of all remon- 
 strances, Emile remained with Arnold the son of 
 Eugene ; “ For, you see, my good fellow, I know 
 the French, and that is my view of the matter ! ” 
 If that happened in the green wood, what would 
 happen in the dry ! 
 
 We had a long-standing feud about poetry. To 
 me the difference between poetry and prose was 
 one of form only. I always held that the same 
 things that are said in prose could be said in 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 137 
 
 poetry, and vice versa, and I often quoted Goethe’s 
 saying that the best test of poetry was whether it 
 would bear translation into prose or into a foreign 
 language. To all that, even to Goethe’s words, 
 Arnold demurred. Poetry to him was a thing by 
 itself, “not an art like other arts,” but, as he 
 grandly called it, “ genius.” 
 
 He once had a great triumph over me. An 
 American gentleman, who brought out a “ Collec- 
 tion of the Portraits of the Hundred Greatest 
 Men,” divided them into eight classes, and the 
 first class was assigned to poetry, the second to 
 art, the third to religion, the fourth to philosophy, 
 the fifth to history, the sixth to science, the seventh 
 to politics, the eighth to industry. Arnold was 
 asked to Avrite the introduction to the first volume, 
 H. Taine to the second, myself and Eenan to the 
 thii’d, Noah Porter to the fourth. Dean Stanley to 
 the fifth, Helmholtz to the sixth, Proude to the 
 seventh, John Fiske to the eighth. 
 
 I do not know whether Arnold had anything to 
 do with suggesting this division of Omne Scihile 
 into eight classes ; anyhow, he did not allow the 
 opportunity to pass to assert the superiority of 
 poetry over every other branch of man’s intellect- 
 ual activity. “ The men,” he began, “who are the 
 flower and glory of our race are to pass here be- 
 fore us, the highest manifestations, whether on this 
 
Auld Lang Syne 
 
 138 
 
 line or tliat, of the force which stirs in every one 
 of us — the chief poets, religious founders, philos- 
 ophers, historians, scholars, orators, warriors, 
 statesmen, voyagers, leaders in mechanical inven- 
 tion and industry, who have appeared among 
 mankind. And the poets are to pass jfirst. Why ? 
 Because, of the various modes of manifestation 
 through which the human spirit poms its force, 
 theirs is the most adequate and happy.” 
 
 This is the well-known ore rotundo and spiritu 
 profundo style of Arnold. But might we not ask. 
 Adequate to what? Happy in what ? Arnold him- 
 self answers a little farther on : “ No man can 
 fully draw out the reasons why the human spirit 
 feels itself able to attain to a more adequate and 
 satisfying expression in poetry than in any other 
 of its modes of activity.” Yet he continues to call 
 this a primordial and incontestable fact ; and how 
 could we poor mortals venture to contest a primor- 
 dial and incontestable fact? And then, limiting 
 the question “ to us for to-day,” he says, “ Surely 
 it is its solidity that accounts to us for the superior- 
 ity of poetry.” How he would have railed if any 
 of his Philistines had ventured to recognise the 
 true superiority of poetry in its solidity ! 
 
 Prose may be solid, it may be dense, massive, 
 lumpish, concrete, and all the rest, but poetry is 
 generally prized for its being subtle, light, ideal. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 ’39 
 
 air-drawu, fairy-like, or made of such stuff as 
 dreams are made of. However, let that pass. 
 Let poetry be solid, for who knows what sense 
 Arnold may have assigned to solid ? He next falls 
 back on his great master Goethe, and quotes a pas- 
 sage which I have not been able to find, but the 
 bearing of which must depend very much on the 
 context in which it occm’s. Goethe, we are told, 
 said in one of his many moods ; “ I deny poetry 
 to be an art. Neither is it a science. Poetry is 
 to be called neither art nor science, but genius.” 
 Who would venture to differ from Goethe when 
 he defines what poetry is? But does he define it? 
 He simply says that it is not art or science. In 
 this one may agree, if only art and science are de- 
 fined first. No one I think has ever maintained 
 that poetry was science, but no one would deny 
 that poetry was a product of art, if only in the 
 sense of the Arspoetica of Horace, or the Diclit- 
 Tcunst of Goethe. But if we ask what can be meant 
 by saying that poetry is genius, Goethe would 
 probably say that what he meant was that poetry 
 was the product of genius, the German Genie. 
 Goethe, therefore, meant no more than that poetry 
 requires, in the poet, originality and spontaneity 
 of thought ; and this, though it would require some 
 hmitation, no one siu’ely would feel inclined to 
 deny, though even the authority of Goethe would 
 
140 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 hardly suffice to deprive the decipherer of an in- 
 scription, the painter of the “ Last Supper,” or 
 the discoverer of the bacilli of a claim to that 
 divine light which we call genius. 
 
 Arnold then goes on to say that poetry gives 
 the idea, but it gives it touched with beauty, 
 heightened by emotion. Would not Arnold have 
 allowed that the language of Isaiah, and even 
 some of the dialogues of Plato, were touched with 
 beauty and heightened by emotion though they 
 are in prose ? I think he himself speaks some- 
 where of a poetic prose. Where, then, is the true 
 difference between the creations of Isaiah and of 
 Browning, between the eloquence of Plato and of 
 Wordsworth ? 
 
 Arnold has one more trump card to play in or- 
 der to win for poetry that superiority over all the 
 other manifestations of the forces of the human 
 spirit which he claims again and again. I have al- 
 ways been a sincere admirer of Arnold’s poetry, 
 still I think there is more massive force in some of 
 his prose than in many of his poems ; nay, I be- 
 lieve he has left a much deeper and more lasting 
 impression on what he likes to call the Zeitgeist 
 through his essays than through his tragedies. 
 What then is his last card, his last proof of the 
 superiority of poetry? Poetry, he argues, has 
 more stability than anything else, and mankind 
 
Literary Recollections 141 
 
 finds in it a surer stay than in art, in philosophy, 
 or religion. “ Compare,” he says, “ the stability 
 of Shakespeare with that of the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles.” 
 
 Poor Thirty-nine Articles ! Did they ever claim 
 to contain poetry, or even religion? Were they 
 ever meant to be more than a dry abstract of theo- 
 logical dogmas? Surely they never challenged 
 comparison with Shakespeare. They are an index, 
 a table of contents, they were a business- Hke agree- 
 ment, if you like, between different parties in the 
 Church of England. But to ask whether they will 
 stand longer than Shakespeare is very much like 
 asking whether the Treaty of Paris will last longer 
 than Victor Hugo. There is stay in poetry pro- 
 vided that the prose which underlies it is lasting, 
 or everlasting ; there is no stay in it if it is mere 
 froth and rhyme. Arnold always liked to fall back 
 on Goethe. “What a series of philosophic sys- 
 tems has Germany seen since the birth of Goethe,” 
 he says, “ and what sort of stay is any one of them 
 compared with the poetry of Germany’s one great 
 poet ? ” Is Goethe’s poetry really so sure a stay 
 as the philosophies of Germany ; nay, would there 
 be any stay in it at all without the support of that 
 philosophy which Goethe drank in, whether from 
 the vintage of Spinoza or from the more recent 
 crues of Kant and Fichte? Goethe’s name, no 
 
142 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 doubt, is always a pillar of strength, but there is 
 even now a very great part of Goethe’s “ Collected 
 Works ” in thirty volumes that is no longer a stay, 
 biat is passe, and seldom read by any one, except 
 by the historian. Poetry may act as a powerful 
 preservative, and it is wonderful how much pleas- 
 ure we may derive from thought mummified in 
 verse. But in the end it is thought in its ever- 
 changing life that forms the real stay, and it mat- 
 ters little whether that thought speaks to us in 
 marble, or in music, in hexameters, in blank verse, 
 or even in prose. Poetry in itself is no protection 
 against folly and feebleness. There is in the world 
 a small amount of good, and an immense amount 
 of bad poetry. The former, we may hope, will 
 last, and will serve as a stay to all who care for 
 the music of thought and the harmony of lan- 
 guage ; the twaddle, sometimes much admired in 
 its time (and there is plenty of it in Goethe also), 
 will, we hope, fade away from the memory of man, 
 and serve as a lesson to poets who imagine that 
 they may safely say in rhythm and rhyme what 
 they would be thoroughly ashamed to say in sim- 
 ple prose. Nor is the so-called stay or immortal- 
 ity of poetry of much consequence. To have bene- 
 fited millions of his own age, ought surely to sat- 
 isfy any poet, even if no one reads his poems, or 
 translations of them, a thousand years hence. 
 
Literary Recollections 143 
 
 Denn wer den Besten seiner Zeit genug 
 
 Gethan, der bat gelebt ftlr alle Zeiten * 
 
 It is strange to go over the old ground when he 
 wdth whom one travelled over it in former times is 
 no more present to answer and to hold his own 
 view against the w'orld. There certainly Avas a 
 great charm in Arnold, even though he could be 
 very patronising. But there w'as in all he said a 
 kind of understood though seldom expressed sad- 
 ness, as if to say, “ It Avill soon be all over, don’t 
 let us get angry ; w'e are all very good fellows,” 
 etc. He knew for years that though he was strong 
 and looked very young for his age, the thread of 
 his life might snap at any moment. And so it did— 
 felix opportunitate mortis. Not long before his death 
 he met BroAvning on the steps of the Athenaeum. 
 He felt ill, and in taking leave of BroAAming he 
 hinted that they might never meet again. BroAVTi- 
 ing was profuse in his protestations, and Arnold, 
 on turning away, said in his airy way : “ Now, one 
 promise, BroAvning: please, not more than ten 
 lines.” BroAvning understood, and Avent away Avith 
 a solemn smile. 
 
 Arnold was most brilliant as Professor of Poetry 
 at Oxford, from 1857 to 1867. He took great pains 
 in Avi'iting and delivering his lectures. He looked 
 
 * Schiller’s “ Wallenstein,” Prolog, vv. 48, 49. 
 
144 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 well and spoke well. Some of his lectures were 
 masterpieces, and he set a good example which was 
 followed by Sir Francis Doyle, 1867-77, well 
 known by his happy occasional poems, then by 
 John Shairp from 1877 to his death, and lastly 
 by Francis Palgrave from 1885-95. The best of 
 Arnold’s lectures were published as essays ; 
 Shairp’s lectures appeared after his death, and 
 have retained their popularity, particularly in 
 America. Palgrave’s lectures, we may hope, will 
 soon appear. They were full of most valuable in- 
 formation, and would prove very useful to many 
 as a book of reference. I have known no one bet- 
 ter informed on English poetry than my friend 
 Palgrave. His “ Golden Treasury ” bears evidence 
 of his wide reading, and his ripe judgment in se- 
 lecting the best specimens of English lyric poetry. 
 One had but to touch on any subject in the history 
 of English literature, or to ask him a question, 
 and there was always an abundance of most val- 
 uable information to be got from him. I owe him 
 a great deal, particularly in my early Oxford days. 
 For it was he who revised my first attempts at 
 writing in English, and gave me good advice for 
 the rest of my journey, more particularly as to 
 what to avoid. He is now one of the very few 
 friends left who remember my first appearance in 
 Oxford in 1846, and who were chiefly instrumental 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 145 
 
 in retaining my services for a University wLicli 
 lias proved a true Alma Mater to me during all 
 my life. Grant (Sir Alexander), Sellar, Froude, 
 Sandars, Morier, Neate, J ohuson (Manuel), Church, 
 Jowett, all are gone before me. 
 
 Here are some old verses of his which I find in 
 my album : — 
 
 An English welcome to an English shore 
 
 Such as we could, some four years since we gave thee, 
 
 Not knowing what the Fates reserved in store 
 
 Or that our land among our sons would have thee ; 
 
 But now thou art endenizen’d awhile 
 Almost we fear oui- welcome to renew :* 
 
 Lest what we seemed to promise, should beguile. 
 When all we are is open to thy view. 
 
 But yet if aught of what we fondly boast — 
 True-hearted warmth of Friendship, frank and free, 
 Suiwive yet in this island-circling coast. 
 
 We need not fear again to welcome thee : — 
 
 So may we, blessing thee, ourselves be blest, 
 
 And prove not all unworthy of our guest. 
 
 What happy days, what happy evenings we 
 spent together lang syne ! How patient they all 
 were with their German guest when he first tried 
 in his broken English to take part in their lively 
 and sparkling conversations. Having once been 
 
 * This was written in 1851, and here in 1897 that Welcome 
 has never ceased to be a blessing to me. 
 
146 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 received in that delightful circle, it was easy to 
 make more acquaintances among their friends who 
 lived at Oxford, or who from time to time came to 
 visit them at Oxford. It was thus that I first 
 came to know Euskin, Tennyson, Browning, and 
 others. 
 
 Euskin often came to spend a few days with his 
 old friends, and uncompromising and severe as he 
 could be when he wielded his pen, he was always 
 most charming in conversation. He never, when 
 he was with his friends, claimed the right of speak- 
 ing with authority, even on his own special sub- 
 jects, as he might well have done. It seemed to 
 be his pen that made him say bitter things. He 
 must have been Sony himself for the severe cen- 
 sure he passed in his earlier years on men whose 
 honest labour, if nothing else, ought to have pro- 
 tected them against such cruel onslaughts. Grote’s 
 style may not be the very best for an historian, but 
 in his Quellenstudium he was surely most conscien- 
 tious. Yet this is what Euskin wrote of him : 
 “ There is probably no commercial establishment 
 between Charing Cross and the Bank, whose head 
 clerk could not have written a better History of 
 Greece, if he had the vanity to waste his time on 
 it.” Of Gibbon’s classical work he spoke with 
 even greater contempt. “Gibbon’s is the worst 
 English ever written by an educated English- 
 
Literary Recollections 147 
 
 man. Having no imagination and little logic, he 
 is alike incapable either of picturesqueness or wit, 
 his epithets are malicious without point, sonorous 
 without weight, and have no office but to make a 
 flat sentence turgid.” I feel sure that Euskin, such 
 as I knew him in later years, would have wished 
 these sentences unwritten. 
 
 He was really the most tolerant and agreeable 
 man in society. He could discover beauty where 
 no one else could see it, and make allowance where 
 others saw no excuse. I remember him as diffi- 
 dent as a young girl, full of questions, and grateful 
 for any information. Even on art topics I have 
 watched him listening almost deferentially to 
 others who laid down the law in his presence. 
 His voice was always most winning, and his lan- 
 guage simply perfect. He was one of the few 
 Englishmen I knew who, instead of tumbling out 
 their sentences like so many portmanteaux, bags, 
 rugs, and hat-boxes from an open railway van, 
 seemed to take a real delight in building up their 
 sentences, even in familiar conversation, so as to 
 make each deliverance a work of art. Later in 
 life that even temperament may have become 
 somewhat changed. He had suffered much, and 
 one saw that his wounds had not quite healed. 
 His public lectures as Professor of Fine Art were 
 most attractive, and extremely popular at first. 
 
148 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 But they were evidently too much for him, and on 
 the advice of his medical friends he had at last 
 to cease from lecturing altogether. Several times 
 his brain had been a very serious trouble to him. 
 People forget that, as we want good eyes for see- 
 ing, and good ears for hearing, we want a strong, 
 soTUid brain for lecturing, 
 
 I have seen much of such brain troubles among 
 my friends, and who can account for them ? It is 
 not the brain that thinks, nor do we think by means 
 of our brain; but we cannot think without our 
 brain, and the slightest lesion of our brain in any 
 one of its wonderful convolutions is as bad as a 
 shot in the eye. 
 
 If ever there was an active, powerful brain, it 
 was Buskin’s. No doubt he worked very hard, but 
 I doubt whether hard work by itself can ever upset 
 a healthy brain. I believe it rather strengthens 
 than weakens it, as exercise strengthens the muscles 
 of our body. His was, no doubt, a very sensitive 
 nature, and an overwrought sensitiveness is much 
 more likely to cause mischief than steady intellect- 
 ual effort. And what a beautiful mind his was, and 
 what lessons of beauty he has taught us all. At 
 the same time, he could not bear anything unbeau- 
 tiful ; and anything low or ignoble in men revolted 
 him and made him thoroughly unhappy. I re- 
 member once taking Emerson to lunch with him, in 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 149 
 
 his rooms in Corpus Christi College. Emerson 
 was an old friend of his, and in many respects a 
 cognate soul. But some quite indifferent subject 
 turned up, a heated discussion ensued, and Bus- 
 kin was so upset that he had to quit the room and 
 leave us alone. Emerson was most unhappy, and 
 did aU he could to make peace, but he had to leave 
 without a reconciliation. 
 
 It is very difficult to make allowance for these 
 gradual failures of brain power. 
 
 Again and again I have seen such cases at Ox- 
 ford, w’here men were clearly no longer themselves, 
 and yet had to be treated as if they were ; nay, 
 continue to exercise their old influence till at last 
 the crash came, and one began to understand what 
 had seemed so strange, and more than strange, in 
 their behaviour. I believe there are as many de- 
 grees of insanity as there are of shortsightedness 
 and deafness, and the line that divides sanity from 
 insanity is often very small. I have had to watch 
 the waverings of this line in several cases, and it is 
 enough to upset one’s ovti equilibrium to have to 
 deal with a friend who to-day is quite like himself 
 and quite like ourselves, and the next day a raving 
 lunatic. My predecessor at Oxford, Dr. Trithen, 
 half Eussian, half Swiss by birth, and a man of ex- 
 traordinary gifts and wonderfully attractive, went 
 slowly out of his mind and had at last to be sent 
 
150 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 to an asylum. But even then he wrote the most 
 reasonable and touching letters to me on all sorts 
 of subjects, though when I went to see him he was 
 quite unapproachable. Fortunately he died soon 
 after from brain disease, but who could say what 
 w'as the cause of it ? Nothing remains of him but 
 the edition of a Sanskrit play, the Vii'acharitra. 
 
 But his knowledge of Sanskrit and all sorts of 
 languages, his peculiar power of mimicry in imitat- 
 ing the exact pronunciation of different dialects, 
 and his knack of copying Oriental MSS. so that 
 one could hardly tell the difference between the 
 original and the copy were quite amazing. He 
 might have grown to be another Mezzofanti if the 
 fates had not been against him. He was the very 
 type of a fascinating Russian, full of kindness and 
 courtesy, sparkling in conversation, always ready 
 to help others and most careless about himself ; 
 but there always was an expression in his corus- 
 cating eyes which spoke of danger, and foreboded 
 the tragedy which finished his young and promis- 
 ing life. 
 
 Painful as these intellectual breakdowns are, 
 they are not half so painful as when we see in oiu’ 
 friends what is at fii'st called mere vTongheaded- 
 ness, but is apt to lead to a complete deterioration 
 of moral fibre, and in the end to an apparent ina- 
 bility to distinguish between right and Avrong, be- 
 
Literary Recollections 151 
 
 tween trutli and falsehood. In the former case we 
 know that a slight lesion in one of the ganglion cells 
 or nerve-fibres of the brain is sufficient to account 
 for any disturbance in the intellectual clock-work. 
 The man himself remains the same, though at 
 times hidden from us, as it were, by a veil, and we 
 feel towards him the same sorrowful sympathy 
 which we feel towards a man who has lost the use 
 of his eyes or his legs, who cannot see or cannot 
 walk. We know that the instruments are at fault, 
 not the operator. But it is very difficult to make 
 the same allowance in cases of moral deterioration. 
 Here instruments and operator seem to be the 
 same, though, for all we know, here too the brain 
 may be more at fault than the heart. A well- 
 known oculist maintained that the peculiarities, 
 or what he called the distortions, in Turner’s latest 
 pictures were due to a malformation in the mus- 
 cles of his eyes. He actually invented some spec- 
 tacles by which everything that seemed ill-propor- 
 tioned in Turner’s latest productions came right 
 if looked at through these corrective lenses. May 
 not what we call shortsightedness, conceit, vanity, 
 envy, hatred and malice — all, as it seems, without 
 rhyme or reason — be due in the beginning to some 
 weakness or dimness of sight that might have 
 been corrected, if treated in time, by those who 
 are nearest and dearest to the sufferer ? This may 
 
152 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 seem a dangerous view of moral responsibility; 
 but, if so, it can be dangerous to tbe sufferer only, 
 not to those who ought to sympathise, i.e. to feel 
 and suffer, with him. To me it has proved a solu- 
 tion of many difficulties during a long and varied 
 intercourse with men and women ; the only diffi- 
 culty is how to make these invalids harmless to 
 themselves. 
 
 Ruskin’s influence among the undergraduates at 
 Oxford was most extraordinary. He could per- 
 suade the young Christ Church men to take spade 
 and wheelbarrow and help him to make a road 
 which he thought would prove useful to a vil- 
 lage near Oxford. No other professor could have 
 achieved that. The road was made, but was also 
 soon washed away, and, of course, Ruskin was 
 laughed at, though the labour undergone by his 
 pupils did them no doubt a great deal of good, even 
 though it did not benefit the inhabitants of the 
 village for any length of time. It was sad to see 
 Ruskin leave Oxford estranged from many of his 
 friends, dissatisfied with his work, which neverthe- 
 less was most valuable and highly appreciated by 
 young and old, perhaps by the young even more 
 than by the old. His spirit still dwells in the 
 body, and if any one may look back with pride and 
 satisfaction upon the work which he has achieved, 
 it is surely Ruskin. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 >53 
 
 Another though less frequent visitor to Oxford 
 was Tennyson. His first visit to our house was 
 rather alarming. We lived in a small house in 
 High Street, nearly opposite Magdalen College, 
 and our establishment was not calculated to receive 
 sudden guests, particularly a Poet Laureate. He 
 stepped in one day dming the long vacation, when 
 Oxford was almost empty. Wishing to show the 
 great man all civility, Ave asked him to dinner that ‘ 
 night and breakfast the next morning. At that 
 time almost all the shops were in the market, which 
 closed at one o’clock. My wife, a young house- 
 keejAer, did her best for our honoured guest. He 
 was known to be a gourmand, and at dinner he was 
 evidently put out when he found the sauce with 
 the salmon was not the one he preferred. He was 
 pleased, however, with the wing of a chicken, and 
 said it was the only advantage he got from being 
 Poet Laureate, that he generally received the liver- 
 vfing of a chicken. The next morning at breakfast 
 we had rather plumed ourselves on having been 
 able to get a dish of cutlets, and were not a little 
 smprised when our guest arrived to see him whip 
 off the cover of the hot dish, and to hear the ex- 
 clamation : “ Mutton chops ! the staple of every 
 bad inn in England.” However, these were but 
 minor matters, though not without importance at 
 the time in the eyes of a young wife to whom Ten- 
 
154 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 nyson had been like one of the Immortals. He 
 was simply delightful and full of inquiries about 
 the East, more particularly about Indian poetry, 
 and I believe that it was then that I told him that 
 there was no rhyme in Sanskrit poetiy, and vent- 
 ured to ask him why there should be in English. 
 He was not so offended as Samuel Johnson seems 
 to have been when asked the same question. The 
 old bear would probably have answered my ques- 
 tion by, “You are a great fool, sir; use your own 
 judgment,” while Tennyson gave the very sensible 
 answer that rhyme assisted the memory. 
 
 It is difficult to define the difference between an 
 Oxford man and a Cambridge man ; but if Kuskin 
 was decidedly a representative of Oxford, Tenny- 
 son was a true son of the sister University. I had 
 been taught to admire Tennyson by my young 
 friends at Oxford, many of whom were enthusias- 
 tic worshippers of the poet. My friends often 
 forgot that I had been brought up on German 
 poetry, and that though I knew Heine, Eiickert, 
 Eichendorff, Chamisso, and Geibel, to say nothing 
 of Goethe, Schiller, Burger, and even Klopstock^ 
 their allusions to Tennyson, Browning, nay, to 
 Shelley and Keats, often fell by the wayside and 
 were entirely lost on me. 
 
 However, I soon learnt to enjoy Tennyson’s 
 poetry, its finish, its delicacy, its moderation — I 
 
Literary Recollections 155 
 
 mean, the absence of all extravagance ; yet there " 
 is but one of his books which has remained with 
 me a treasure for life, his “In Memoriam.” To 
 have expressed such deep, true, and original 
 thought as is contained in each of these short 
 poems in such perfect language, to say nothing of 
 rhyme, was indeed a triumph, Tennyson was 
 very kind to me, and took a warm interest in my 
 work, particularly in my mythological studies. I 
 well remember his being struck by a metaphor in 
 my first Essay on Comparative Mythology, pub- 
 lished in 1856, and his telling me so. I had said 
 that the sun in his daily passage across the sky 
 had ploughed a golden furrow through the human 
 brain, whence sprang in ancient times the first 
 germs of mythology, and afterwards the rich 
 harvest of religious thought. 
 
 “ I don’t know,” he said, “ whether the simile is 
 quite correct, but I like it.” I was of course very 
 proud that the great poet should have pondered 
 on any sentence of mine, and stiU more that he 
 should have approved of my theory of seeing in 
 mythology a poetical interpretation of the great 
 phenomena of nature. But it was difficult to have ' 
 a long discussion with him. He was fond of utter- 
 ing short and decisive sentences : his yes was yes 
 indeed, and his no was no indeed. 
 
 It was generally after dinner, when smoking his 
 
156 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 *l)ipe and sipping his whiskey and water, that Ten- 
 nyson began to thaw, and to take a more active 
 part in conversation. People who have not known 
 him then, have hardly known him at all. During 
 the day he was often very silent and absorbed in 
 his own thoughts, but in the evening he took an 
 active part in the conversation of his friends. His 
 pipe was almost indispensable to him, and I re- 
 member one time when I and several friends were 
 staying at his house, the question of tobacco turned 
 up. I confessed that for years I had been a per- 
 fect slave to tobacco, so that I could neither read 
 nor write a line without smoking, but that at last 
 I had rebelled against this slavery, and had en- 
 tirely given up tobacco. Some of his friends 
 taunted Tennyson that he could never give up to- 
 bacco. “ Anybody can do that,” he said, “ if he 
 chooses to do it.” When his friends still con- 
 tinued to doubt and to tease him, “ Well,” he said, 
 “I shall give up smoking from to-night.” The 
 very same evening I Avas told that he threw his 
 pipes and his tobacco out of the window of his 
 bedroom. The next day he was most charming, 
 though somewhat self-righteous. The second day 
 he became very moody and captious, the third day 
 no one knew what to do with him. But after a 
 disturbed night I was told that he got out of bed 
 in the morning, went quietly into the garden. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 157 
 
 picked up one of his broken pipes, stuffed it with 
 the remains of the tobacco scattered about, and 
 then, having had a few' puffs, came to breakfast, all 
 right again. Nothing was said any more about 
 giving up tobacco. 
 
 He once very kindly offered to lend me his 
 house in the Isle of Wight. “ But mind,” he said, 
 “ you Avill be watched from morning till evening.” 
 This was in fact his great grievance, that he could 
 not go out Avithout being stared at. Once taking a 
 walk with me and my wife on the downs behind 
 his house, he suddenly started, left us, and ran 
 home, simply because he had descried two strang- 
 ers coming towards us. 
 
 I was told that he once complained to the Queen, 
 and said that he could no longer stay in the Isle of 
 Wight, on account of the tourists who came to stare 
 at him. The Queen, with a kindly irony, remarked 
 that she did not suffer much from that grievance, 
 but Tennyson, not seeing what she meant, replied . 
 “No, madam, and if I could clap a sentinel wher- 
 ever I liked, I should not be troubled either.” 
 
 It must be confessed that people were very in- 
 considerate. Rows of tourists sat like sparrows 
 on the paling of his garden, waiting for his ap- 
 pearance. The guides were actually paid by sight- 
 seers, particularly by those from America, for 
 showing them the great poet. Nay, they went so 
 
Auld Lang Syne 
 
 158 
 
 far as to dress up a sailor to look like Tennyson, 
 and the result was that, after their trick had been 
 found out, the tourists would walk up to Tenny- 
 son and ask him : “ Now, are you the real Tenny- 
 son ? ” This, no doubt, was very annoying, and 
 later on Lord Tennyson was driven to pay a large 
 sum for some useless downs near his house, sim- 
 ply in order to escape from the attentions of ad- 
 miring travellers. 
 
 Why should not people be satisfied with the 
 best that a poet is and can give them, namely his 
 poetry ? Why should they wish to stare at him ? 
 Few poets are greater than their poetry, and Ten- 
 nyson was not one of them. Like all really great 
 men, Tennyson disliked the worship that was paid 
 him by many who came to stare at him and to 
 pour out the usual phrases of admiration before 
 him. Tennyson frequently took flight from his 
 intending Boswells, and he was the very last man 
 to appreciate the “ II parle” by which in Paris all 
 conversation was hushed whenever Victor Hugo 
 was present at a dinner and spoke to his neigh- 
 bour, possibly only to ask him for the menu. 
 
 People have learnt after his death what a posses- 
 sion they had in Tennyson. He may not rank 
 among the greatest poets of England, but there 
 was something high and noble in him which re- 
 acted on the nation at large, even though that 
 
Literary Recollections 1 59 
 
 influence was not perhaps consciously realised. 
 Anyhow, after his death, it was widely felt that 
 there was nobody worthy to fill his place; and 
 why was it not left empty, as in the Greek army, 
 where, we are told, a place of honour was reserved 
 for a great hero who was supposed to be present 
 dm’mg the heat of the battle, and to inspire those 
 who stood near his place to great deeds of valour ? 
 
 Bro^vning was neither of Cambridge nor of Ox- 
 ford, but his genius was much more akin to Oxford 
 than to Cambridge, and towards the end of his life, 
 particularly after his son had entered at Balliol 
 College, he was very often seen amongst us. Though 
 he was not what we call a scholar, his mind was 
 saturated with classical lore, and his appreciation 
 of Greek poetry, Greek mythology, and Greek 
 sculpture was very keen. He could not quote 
 Greek verses, but he was steeped in the Greek 
 tragedians and lyric poets. Of course this clas- 
 sical sympathy was but one side of his poetry. 
 Browning was full of sympathy, nay, of w'orship, 
 for anything noble and true in literature, ancient 
 or modern. And what was most delightful in him 
 was his ready response, his generosity in pouring 
 out his own thoughts before anybody who shared 
 his sympathies. For real and substantial conver- 
 sation there was no one his equal, and even in 
 the lighter after-dinner talk he w’as admirable. His 
 
i6o 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 health seemed good, and he was able to sacrifice 
 much of his time to society. He had one great 
 advantage, he never consented to spoil his dinner 
 by making, or, what is still worse, by having to 
 make, a speech. I once felt greatly aggrieved, sit- 
 ting opposite Browning at one of the Koyal Acad- 
 emy dinners. I had to retuim thanks for literatm’e 
 and scholarship, and was of course rehearsing my 
 speech during the whole of dinner-time, while he 
 enjoyed himself talking to his friends. When I 
 told him that it was a shame that I should be made 
 a martyr of wLile he was enjoying his dinner in 
 peace, he laughed, and said that he had said No 
 once for all, and that he had never in his life made 
 a public speech. I beheve, as a rule, poets are not 
 good speakers. They are too careful aboirt what 
 they wish to say. As dinner advanced I became 
 more and more convinced of the etymological 
 identity of honor and onus. At last my turn came. 
 Having to face the brilliant society which is al- 
 ways present at this dinner, including the Prince 
 of Wales, the Ministers of both parties, the most 
 eminent artists, scientists, authors and critics, I 
 had of com’se learnt my speech by heart, and was 
 getting on very well, when suddenly I saw the 
 Prince of Wales laughing and saying something to 
 his neighbour. At once the thread of my speech 
 was broken. I began to think whether I could 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 i6i 
 
 have said anything that made the Prince laugh, 
 and what it could have been, and while I was 
 thinking in every direction, I suddenly stood 
 speechless. I thought it was an eternity, and 
 I was afraid I should have to collapse and make 
 the greatest fool of myself that ever was. I 
 looked at Browning and he gave me a friendly nod, 
 and at that moment my grapple-irons caught the 
 lost cable and I was able to finish my speech. 
 When it was over I tui-ned to Browning and said : 
 “ Was it not fearful, that pause ? ” “ Far from it,” 
 
 he said, “it was excellent. It gave life to your 
 speech. Everybody saw you were collecting your 
 thoughts, and that you were not simply delivering 
 what you had learnt by heart. Besides, it did not 
 last half a minute.” To me it had seemed at least 
 five or ten minutes. But after Browning’s good- 
 natured words I felt relieved, and enjoyed at least 
 what was left of a most enjoyable dinner, the only 
 enjoyable public dinner I know. 
 
 The best place to see Browning was Venice, and 
 I think it was there that I saw him for the last 
 time. He was staying in one of the smaller pal- 
 aces with a friend, and he was easily persuaded 
 to read some of his poems. I asked him for his 
 poem on Andrea del Sarto, and his debvery was 
 most simple and yet most telling. He was a far- 
 better reader than Tennyson. His voice was nat- 
 
i 62 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ural, sonorous, and full of delicate shades ; while 
 Tennyson read in so deep a tone, that it was like 
 the rumbling and rolling sound of the sea rather 
 than like a human voice. His admirers, both gen- 
 tlemen and ladies, who thought that everything he 
 did must be perfect, encouraged him in that kind 
 of delivery ; and while to me it seemed that he 
 had smothered and murdered some of the poems I 
 liked best, they sighed and groaned and poured 
 out strange interjections, meant to be indicative of 
 rapture. 
 
 There is a definiteness in Tennyson’s poetry 
 which makes it easy to recite and even to declaim 
 his poems, while many of Browning’s composi- 
 tions do not lend themselves at all to viva voce 
 repetition. There is always a superabundance of 
 thought and feeling in them, and his mastery of 
 rhyme and rhythm proved a temptation which he 
 could not always resist. One often wished that 
 some of Browning’s poems could have passed 
 through the Tennysonian sieve, to take away all 
 that is unnecessary in them, and to moderate his 
 exuberant revelling in language. Still his friends 
 know what they possess in his poetry. When 
 they are sad, he makes them joyful ; when they 
 exult, he tones them down ; when they are hun- 
 gry, he feeds them ; when they are poor, he makes 
 them rich ; and, like a true prophet, he knows how 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 163 
 
 to bring fresh water out of the rocks, out of the 
 commonest events in. our journey through the 
 desert of life. It is a pity that his poetry does 
 not lend itself to translation. Perhaps he is too 
 thoroughly English, perhaps his sentences are too 
 labyrinthine even for German readers. Anyhow, 
 Browning is known abroad much less than Ten- 
 nyson, and if translatableness is a test of true 
 poetry, his poetry would not stand that test well. 
 
 To have known such men as Tennyson and 
 Browning is indeed a rare fortvme. It helps us 
 in two ways. We are preserved from extravagant 
 admiration, Avhich is always stupid ; and, on the 
 other hand, we can enjoy even insignificant verses 
 of theirs, as coming from our friends and lighting 
 up some corner of their character. There are 
 cases where personal acquaintance with the poets 
 actually spoils our taste for their poetry, which we 
 might otherwise have enjoyed ; and to imagine 
 that one knows a poet better because one has once 
 shaken hands with him, is a fatal mistake. It 
 would be far better to go at once to Westminster 
 Abbey, and spend a few thoughtful moments at 
 the tombs of such poets as Tennyson or Brown- 
 ing, for there, at all events, there would be no 
 disappointment. 
 
LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 IV 
 
 Authoks complain, and in many cases complain 
 justly, of the large number of letters and visits 
 which they receive from unknown friends and dis- 
 tant admirers. I myself, though the subjects on 
 which I write are not exactly popular, have been 
 sitting at the receipt of such custom for many 
 years. It is difficult to know what to do. To an- 
 swer all the letters, even to acknowledge all the 
 books that are sent to me from India, Australia, 
 New Zealand, from every new sphere of influence 
 in Africa, from America, North and South, and 
 from the principal countries of Europe, would be 
 physically impossible. A simple knowledge of 
 arithmetic would teach my friends that if I were 
 only to glance at a book in order to give an opin- 
 ion, or say something pleasant about it, one hour 
 at least of my time in the morning wovld certainly 
 be consumed by every single book. Every writer 
 imagines that he is the only one who writes a let- 
 ter, asks a question, or sends a book ; but he for- 
 
 164 
 
Literary Recollections 165 
 
 gets that in this respect everybody has as much 
 right as everybody else, and claims it too, unmind- 
 ful of the rights of others, and qriite unconscious 
 that the sum total of such interruptions would 
 swallow up the whole of a man’s working day. 
 And there is this further danger : however guard- 
 ed one may be in expressing one’s gratitude or 
 one’s opinion of the merits of a book, one’s letter 
 is apt to appear in advertisements, if only far 
 away in India or the Colonies ; nay, we often find 
 that the copy of a book was not even sent us by 
 the author himself, but with the author’s compli- 
 ments, that is, by an enterprising publisher. 
 
 However, there is a compensation in all things, 
 and I gladly confess that I have occasionally de- 
 rived great advantage from the letters of my un- 
 known friends. They have sent me valuable cor- 
 rections and useful remarks for my books, they 
 have made me presents of MSS. and local publica- 
 tions difficult to get even at the Bodleian and the 
 British Museum, and I feel sure that they have 
 not been offended even though I could not enter 
 into a long correspondence with every one of my 
 epistolary friends on the origin of language or the 
 home of the Aryan race. My worst friends are 
 those who send me their own writings and wish 
 me to give an opinion, or to find a publisher for 
 them. Had I attempted to comply with one half 
 
i66 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 of these requests, I could have done nothing else 
 in life. What would become of me if eveiybody 
 who cannot find a publisher were to write to me ! 
 The introduction of postcards has proved, no 
 doubt, a great blessing to all who are supposed to 
 be oracles, but even an oracular response takes 
 time. Speaking for myself, I may truly say that 
 I often feel tempted to write to a man who is an 
 authority on a special subject on which I want in- 
 formation. I know he could answer my question 
 in five minutes, and yet I hardly ever venture to 
 make the appeal, but go to a library, where I have 
 to waste hours and hours in finding the right book, 
 and afterwards the right passage in it. Why 
 should not others do the same? 
 
 And what applies to letters applies to personal 
 visits also. I do sometimes get impatient when 
 perfect strangers call on me without any kind of 
 introduction, sometimes even without a visiting 
 card, and then sit down to propound some theory 
 of their own. Still, taking all in all, I must not 
 complain of my visitors. They do not come in 
 shoals like letters and books, and very often they 
 are interesting and even dehghtful. Many of 
 them come from America, and the mere fact that 
 they want to see me is a compliment which I ap- 
 preciate. They have read my books, that is an- 
 other compliment which I always value ; and they 
 
Literary Recollections 167 
 
 often speak to me of things that years ago I have 
 said in some article of mine, and which I myself 
 have often quite forgotten. 
 
 It strikes me that Americans possess in a very 
 high degree the gift of sight-seeing. They possess 
 what at school was called pace. They travel over 
 England in a fortnight, but at the end they seem to 
 have seen all that is, and all who are, worth seeing. 
 We wonder how they can enjoy anything. But 
 they do enjoy what they see, and they carry away 
 a great many photographs, not only in their albums 
 but in their memory also. The fact is that they 
 generally come well prepared, and know beforehand 
 what they want to see ; and, after all, there are 
 limits to everything. If we have only a quarter 
 of an hour to look at the Madonna di San Sisto, 
 may not that short exposure give us an excellent 
 negative in our memory, if only our brain is sensi- 
 tive, and the lens of our eyes clear and strong? 
 The Americans, knowing that their time is limited, 
 make certainly an excellent use of it, and seem to 
 carry away more than many travellers who stand 
 for hours with open mouths before a Raphael, and 
 in the end know no more of the picture than of the 
 frame. It requires sharp eyes and a strong will to 
 see much in a short time. Some portrait painters, 
 for instance, catch a likeness in a few minutes ; 
 others sit and sit, and stare and stare, and alter 
 
i68 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 and alter, and never perceive the real character- 
 istic points in a face. 
 
 It is the same with the American interviewer, 
 I do not like him, and I think he ought at all 
 events to teU us that we are being interviewed. 
 Even ancient statues are protected now against 
 snap-shots in the museums of antiquities. But 
 with all that I cannot help admiring him. His 
 skiU, in the cases where I have been under his 
 scalpel or before his brush, has certainly been ex- 
 traordinary, and several of them seem to have seen 
 in my house, in my garden, in my library, and in 
 my face, what I myself had never detected there, 
 and all that in about half an hour. I remember 
 one visit, however, which was rather humiliating. 
 An American gentleman (I did not know that he 
 was interviewing me) had been sitting with me for 
 a long time, asking all sorts of questions and mak- 
 ing evidently a trigonometrical survey of myself 
 and my surroundings. At last I had to tell him 
 that I was sorry I had to go, as I had to deliver a 
 lecture. As he seemed so interested in my work I 
 naturally expected he would ask me to allow him 
 to hear my lecture. Nothing of the kind ! “ I 
 
 am sorry,” he said, “ but you don’t mind my sitting 
 here in yotu’ library till you come back ? ” And, 
 true enough, there I found him when I came home 
 after an hour, and he was delighted to see me 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 169 
 
 again. Some months after I had my reward in a 
 most charming account of an interview with Pro- 
 fessor Max Muller, published in an American jour- 
 nal. This power of observation which these inter- 
 viewers, and to a certain extent most American 
 travellers, seem to possess, is highly valuable, and 
 as most of us cannot hope to have more than a few 
 hours to see such monuments as St. Peter or Santa 
 Sophia, or such giants as Tennyson or Browning, 
 we ought to take a leaf out of the book of our 
 American friends, and try to acquire some of their 
 pace and go. 
 
 And then, America does not send us interview- 
 ers only, but nearly all their most eminent men 
 and their most charming women pay us the com- 
 pliment of coming over to the old coimtry. They 
 generally cannot give us more than a few days, or 
 it may be a few hours only; and in that short 
 space we also have to learn how to measure them, 
 how to appreciate and love them. It has to be 
 done quickly, or not at all. Living at Oxford, I 
 have had the good fortune of receiving visits from 
 Emerson, Dr. Wendell Holmes, and Lowell, to 
 speak of the brightest stars only. Each of them 
 stayed at our house for several days, so that I 
 could take them in at leisure, while others had to 
 be taken at one gulp, often between one train and 
 the next. Oxford has a great attraction for all 
 
lyo Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Americans, and it is a pleasure to see how com- 
 pletely at home they feel in the memories of the 
 place. The days when Emerson, Wendell Holmes, 
 and Lowell were staying with us, the breakfasts 
 and luncheons, the teas and dinners, and the de- 
 lightful walks through college halls, chapels and 
 gardens are possessions for ever. 
 
 Emerson, I am grieved to say, when during his 
 last visit to England he spent some days with us, 
 accompanied and watched over by his devoted 
 daughter, was already on the brink of that mis- 
 fortune which overtook him in his old age. His 
 memory often failed him, but as through a mist 
 the bright and warm sun of his mind was always 
 shining, and many of his questions and answers 
 have remained engraved in my memory, weak and 
 shaky as that too begins to be. I had forgotten 
 that Emerson had ceased to be an active preacher, 
 and I told him that I rather envied him the op- 
 portunity of speaking now and then to his friends 
 and neighbours on subjects on which we can sel- 
 dom speak except in church. He then told me 
 not only what he had told others, that “ he had 
 had enough of it,” but he referred to an episode in 
 his life, or rather in that of his brother, which 
 struck me as very significant at the time. “ There 
 was an ecclesiastical leaven in our family,” he said. 
 “My brother and I were both meant for the min- 
 
Literary Recollections 1 7 1 
 
 istry in the Unitarian community. My brother 
 was sent by my father to Germany (I believe to 
 Gottingen), and after a thorough study of theology 
 was returning to America. On the voyage home 
 the ship was caught in a violent gale, and all hope 
 of saving the ship and the lives of the passengers 
 was given up. At that time my brother said his 
 prayers, and made a vow that if his life should be 
 spared he would never preach again, but give up 
 theology altogether and earn an honest living in 
 some other way. The ship weathered the storm, 
 my brother’s life was saved, and, in spite of all en- 
 treaties, he kept his vow. Something of the same 
 kind may have iufluenced me,” he added : “ any- 
 how, I felt that there was better work for me to 
 do than to preach from the pulpit.” And so, no 
 doubt, there was for this wonderfully gifted man, 
 particularly at the time and in the place where he 
 lived. A few years’ study at Gottingen might 
 have been useful to the younger Emerson by show- 
 ing him the track followed by other explorers of 
 the unknown seas of religion and philosophy, but 
 he felt in himself the force to grapple with the 
 gi’eat problems of the world without going first to 
 school to learn how others before him had grap- 
 pled with them. And this was perhaps the best 
 for him and for us. His freshness and his cour- 
 age remained undamped by the failures of others. 
 
1?2 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 and the directness of his judgment and poetical 
 intuition had freer scope in his rhapsodies than it 
 would have had in learned treatises. I do not won- 
 der that philosophers by profession had at first 
 nothing to say to his essays because they did not 
 seem to advance their favourite inquiries beyond 
 the point they had reached before. But there were 
 many people, particularly in America, to whom 
 these rhapsodies did more good than any learned 
 disquisitions or carefully arranged sermons. There 
 is in them what attracts us so much in the an- 
 cients, freshness, directness, self-confidence, un- 
 swerving loyalty to truth, as far as they could see it. 
 He had no one to fear, no one to please. Socrates 
 or Plato, if suddenly brought to life again in 
 America, might have spoken like Emerson, and 
 the effect produced by Emerson was certainly like 
 that produced by Socrates in olden times. 
 
 What Emerson’s personal charm must have been 
 in earlier life we can only conjecture from the 
 rapturous praises bestowed on him by his friends, 
 even during his lifetime. A friend of his who 
 had watched Emerson and his work and his ever- 
 increasing influence, declares without hesitation 
 that “ the American nation is more indebted to his 
 teaching than to any other person who has spoken 
 or written on his themes during the last twenty 
 years.” He calls his genius “the measure and 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 173 
 
 present expansion of the American mind.” And 
 his influence was not confined to the American 
 mind. I have watched it gi'owing in England. I 
 still remember the time when even experienced 
 literary judges spoke of his essays as mere decla- 
 mations, as poetical rhapsodies, as poor imitations 
 of Carlyle. Then gradually one man after another 
 found something in Emerson which was not to be 
 found in Carlyle, particularly his loving heart, his 
 tolerant spirit, his comprehensive sympathy with 
 all that was or was meant to be good and true, 
 even though to his own mind it was neither the 
 one nor the other. 
 
 After a time some more searching critics were 
 amazed at sentences which spoke volumes, and 
 showed that Emerson, though he had never writ- 
 ten a systematic treatise on philosophy, stood on 
 a firm foundation of the accumulated philosophic 
 thought of centuries. Let us take such a sentence 
 as “ Generalisation is always a new influx of divin- 
 ity into the mind — hence the thrill that attends.^' To 
 the ordinary reader such a sentence can convey 
 very little ; it might seem, in fact, a mere exagger- 
 ation. , But to those who know the long history 
 of thought connected with the question of the ori- 
 gin of conceptual thought as the result of cease- 
 less generalisation, Emerson’s words convey the 
 outcome of profound thought. They show that he 
 
174 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 had recognised in general ideas, which are to us 
 merely the result of a never-ceasing synthesis, the 
 original thoughts or logoi underlying the immense 
 variety of created things ; that he had traced them 
 back to their only possible source, the Divine Mind, 
 and that he saw how the human mind, by rising 
 from particulars to the general, was in reality ap- 
 proaching the source of those divine thoughts, and 
 thus becoming conscious, as it were, of the influx of 
 divinity. Other philosophers have expressed sim- 
 ilar thoughts by saying that induction is the light 
 that leads us up, deduction the light that leads us 
 down. Mill thought that generalisation is a mere 
 process of mother- wit, of the shrewd and untaught 
 inteUigence ; and that, from one narrow point of 
 view, it is so, has been fully proved since by an 
 analysis of language. Every word is a generalisa- 
 tion, and contains in itseK a general idea, the so- 
 called root. These first generalisations are, no 
 doubt, at first the work of mother- wit and untaught 
 intelligence only, and hence the necessity of con- 
 stantly correcting them, whether by experience or by 
 philosophy. But these words are nevertheless the 
 foundation of all later thought, and if they have 
 not reached as yet the fulness of the Divine Lo- 
 goi, they represent at least the advancing steps by 
 which alone the human mind could reach, and 
 will reach at last, the ideas of the Divine Mind. 
 
Literary Recollections 175 
 
 Thus one pregnant sentence of Emerson’s shows, 
 when we examine it more closely, that he had seen 
 deeper into the mysteries of nature, and of the 
 human mind, than thousands of philosophers, call 
 them evolutionists (realists) or nominalists. Evolu- 
 tionists imagine that they have explained every- 
 thing that requires explanation in nature if they 
 have shown a more or less continuous develop- 
 ment from the moneres to man, from the thrills of 
 the moneres to the thoughts of man. Nominalists 
 again think that by ascending from the single to 
 the general, and by comprehending the single 
 under a general name, they have solved all the 
 questions involved in nature, that is, in our com- 
 prehension of nature. They never seem to re- 
 member that there was a time when all that we 
 call either single or general, but particularly all 
 that is general, had for the first time to be con- 
 ceived or created. Before there was a single tree, 
 some one must have thought the tree or treehood. 
 Before there was a single ape, or a single man, 
 some one must have thought that apehood or that 
 manhood which we see realised in every ape and 
 in every man, unless we can bring ourselves to be- 
 lieve in a thoughtless world. If that first thought 
 was the concept of a mere moneres, still in that 
 thought there must have been the distant perspec- 
 tive of ape or man, and it is that first thought alone 
 
176 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 wliicli to tlie present day keeps the ape an ape, and 
 a man a man. Divine is hardly a name good enough 
 for that first Thinker of Thoughts. Still, it is that 
 Divinity which Emerson meant when he said that 
 generalisation is always a ne^ infiux of divinity 
 into the mind because it reveals to the mind the 
 first thoughts, the Divine Logoi, of the universe. 
 The thrill of which he speaks is the thriU arising 
 from the nearness of the Divine, the sense of the 
 presence of those Divine Logoi, or that Divine 
 Logos, which in the beginning was with God, and 
 without which not anything was made that was 
 made. Evolution can never be more than the 
 second act ; the first act is the Volition or the 
 Thought of the universe, unless we hold that 
 there can be effect without a cause, or a Kosmos 
 without a Logos. 
 
 Such utterances, lost almost in the exuberance 
 of Emerson’s thoughts, mark the distinction be- 
 tween a thoughtful and a shallow writer, between 
 a scarred veteran and a smooth recruit. They 
 will give permanence to Emerson’s influence both 
 at home and abroad, and place him in the ranks 
 of those who have not lived or thought in vain. 
 When he left my house, I knew, of com’se, that we 
 should never meet again in this life, but I felt that 
 I had gained something that could never be taken 
 from me. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 177 
 
 Anotlier eminent American who often honoured 
 my quiet home at Oxford was James Russell Low- 
 ell, for a time United States Minister in England. 
 He was a Professor and at the same time a poli- 
 tician and a man of the world. Few essays are so 
 brimful of interesting facts and original reflections 
 as his essays entitled “ Among my Books.” His 
 “ Biglow Papers,” which made him one of the 
 leading men in the United States, appeal naturally 
 to American rather than to Cosmopolitan readers. 
 But in society he was at home in England as much 
 as in America, in Spain as well as in Holland. 
 
 I came to know him flrst as a sparkling corre- 
 spondent, and then as a delightful friend. 
 
 Here is the letter which began our intimacy : — 
 
 Legacion de LOS Estados Unidos 
 DE Amerioa en Espana. 
 
 18th Jan. 1880. 
 
 I read with great satisfaction what you wrote about jacfe.* 
 One is tempted to cry out, with Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, 
 “ How now, ye pampered jades of Asia ! ” One thing in 
 the discussion has struck me a good deal, and that is, the 
 
 * I had written some articles in The Times to show that when 
 we meet with jade tools in countries far removed from the few 
 mines in which jade is found, we must admit that they were 
 carried along as precious heirlooms by the earliest emigrants 
 from Asia to Europe, by the same people who carried the tools 
 of their mind, that is the words of their language, from their 
 original homes to the shores of the Mediterranean, to Iceland, 
 to Ireland, and in the end to America. 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 crude notion which intelligent men have of the migration 
 of tribes. I think most men’s conception of distance is 
 very much a creature of maps — which make Grim Tartary 
 and England not more than a foot apart, so that the feat of 
 the old rhyme — “ to dance out of Ireland into France,” 
 looks easy. They seem to think that the shifting of hab- 
 itation was accomplished like a modern journey by rail, and 
 that the emigrants wouldn’t need tools by the way or would 
 buy them at the nearest shop after their arrival. There is 
 nothing the ignorant and the poor cling to so tenaciously 
 as their familiar household utensils. Incredible things 
 are brought every day to America in the luggage of em- 
 igrants — things often most cumbrous to carry and utterly 
 useless in the new home. Families that went from our 
 seaboard to the West a century ago, through an almost 
 impenetrable wilderness, carried with them all their do- 
 mestic pots and pans — even those, I should be willing to 
 wager, that needed the tinker. I remember very well the 
 starting of an expedition from my native town of Cam- 
 bridge in 1831, for Oregon, under the lead of a captain of 
 great energy and resource. They started in waggons in- 
 geniously contrived so as to be taken to pieces, the body 
 forming a boat for crossing rivers. They carried every- 
 thing they could think of with them, and got safely to the 
 other side of the continent, as hard a job, I fancy, as our 
 Aryan ancestors had to do. There is hardly a family of 
 English descent in New England that doesn’t cherish, as 
 an heirloom, something brought over by the first ancestors 
 two hundred and fifty years ago. And besides the motive 
 of utility there is that also of sentiment — particularly 
 strong in the case of an old tool. 
 
 Faithfully yours, J. K. Lowell. 
 
Literary Recollections 179 
 
 Lowell’s conversation was inexhaustible, his in- 
 formation astonishing. Pleasant as he Avas, even 
 as an antagonist, he would occasionally lose his 
 temper and use very emphatic language. I w^as 
 once sitting next to him when I heard him stagger 
 his neighbour, a young lady, by bursting out with : 
 “But, madam, I do not accept your major pre- 
 miss ! ” 
 
 Poor thing, she evidently w'as not accustomed 
 to such language, and not acquainted wdth that 
 terrible term. She collapsed, evidently quite at 
 a loss as to w’hat gift on her part Mr. Lowell 
 declined to accept. 
 
 Sometimes even the most harmless remark about 
 America would call forth very sharp replies from 
 him. Everybody knows that the salaries paid by 
 America to her diplomatic staff are insufficient, and 
 no one knew it better than he himself. But Avhen 
 the remark was made in his presence that the 
 United States treated their diplomatic representa- 
 tives stingily, he fired up, and discoursed most 
 eloquently on the advantages of high thoughts and 
 humble living. His cleverness and readiness in 
 writing occasional verses have become proverbial, 
 and I am glad to be able to add two more to the 
 many jeux d' esprit of this brilliant and amiable 
 guest. 
 
i8o 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Had I all tongues Max Muller knows, 
 
 I could not with them altogether 
 Tell half the debt a stranger owes 
 Who Oxford sees in pleasant weather. 
 
 The halls, the gardens, and the quads, 
 
 There’s nought can match them on this planet. 
 Smiled on by all the partial gods 
 Since Alfred (if ’twas he) began it ; 
 
 But more than all the welcomes warm. 
 
 Thrown thick as lavish hands could toss ’em, 
 
 Why, they’d have wooed in winter-storm 
 One’s very umbrella-stick to blossom ! 
 
 Bring me a cup of All Souls’ ale. 
 
 Better than e’er was bought with siller. 
 
 To drink (Oh, may the vow prevail) 
 
 The health of Max * and Mrs. Muller ! 
 
 Abundant as was his wit in the true sense of 
 that word, his kindness was equally so. After he 
 had written the above verses for wife, my yoimg 
 daughter* Beatrice (now Mrs. Colyer Fergusson) 
 asked him, as young ladies are wont to do, for a 
 few lines for herself. He at once resumed his pen 
 and wrote : — 
 
 O’er the wet sands an insect crept 
 Ages ere man on earth was known — 
 
 •(“ Professor ” I would fain have said, 
 
 But the pinched line would not admit it, 
 
 And where the nail submits its head. 
 
 There must the hasty hammer hit it !) 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 i8i 
 
 And patient Time, while Nature slept, 
 The slender tracing turned to stone. 
 
 ’Twas the first autograph : and ours ? 
 Prithee, how much of prose or song. 
 
 In league with the Creative powers. 
 Shall ’scape Oblivion’s broom so long ? 
 
 In great haste, 
 
 FaithfiUly yours, 
 
 J . It* XjOwKiilj. 
 
 SJfth June, 1886. 
 
 I lost the pleasure of shaking hands with Long- 
 fellow during his stay in England. Though I have 
 been more of a fixture at Oxford than most pro- 
 fessors, I was away during the vacation when he 
 paid his visit to our University, and thus lost See- 
 ing a poet to whom I felt strongly attracted, not 
 only by the general spirit of his poetry, which was 
 steeped in German thought, but as the translator 
 of several of my father’s poems. 
 
 I was more fortunate with Dr. Wendell Holmes. 
 His arrival in England had been proclaimed be- 
 forehand, and one naturally remained at home in 
 order to be allowed to receive him. His hundred 
 days in England were one uninterrupted trium- 
 phal progress. When he arrived at Liverpool he 
 found about three hundred invitations waiting for 
 him. Though he was accompanied by a most active 
 
i 82 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 and efficient daughter, he had at once to engage a 
 secretary to answer this deluge of letters. And 
 though he was past eighty, he never spared him- 
 self, and was always ready to see and to be seen. 
 He was not only an old, but a ripe and mellow 
 man. 
 
 There was no subject on which one could touch 
 which was not familiar to the Autocrat of the Break- 
 fast Table. His thoughts and his words w^ere 
 ready, and one felt that it was not for the first 
 time that the subject had been carefully thought 
 out and talked out by him. That he should have 
 been able to stand all the fatigue of his journey 
 and the constant claims on his ready wit seemed to 
 me marvellous. I had the pleasure of showing 
 hiin the old buildings of Oxford. He seemed to 
 know them all, and had something to ask and to 
 say about every one. 
 
 When we came to Magdalen College, he wanted 
 to see and to measure the elms. He was very 
 proud of some elms in America, and he had actu- 
 ally brought some string with which he had meas- 
 lU’ed the largest tree he knew in his own country. 
 He proceeded to measure one of our finest elms in 
 Magdalen College, and when he found that it was 
 larger than his American giant, he stood before it 
 admiring it, without a single word of envy or dis- 
 appointment. 
 
Literary Recollections 183 
 
 I had, however, a great fright while he was stay- 
 ing at our house. He had evidently done too 
 much, and after our first dinner party he had 
 feverish shivering fits, and the doctor whom I sent 
 for declared at once that he must keep perfectly 
 quiet in bed, and attend no more parties of any 
 kind. This Avas a great disappointment to myself 
 and to many of my friends. But at his time of 
 life the doctor’s warning could not be disregarded, 
 and I had, at all events, the satisfaction of sending 
 him off to Cambridge safe and soimd. I had him 
 several days quite to myself, and there were few 
 subjects which we did not discuss. We mostly 
 agi’eed, but even Avhere we did not, it was a real 
 pleasure to differ from him. We discussed the 
 greatest and the smallest questions, and on every 
 one he had some wise and telling remarks to pour 
 out. I remember one long conversation while we 
 were sitting in an old wainscoted room at All 
 Souls’, ornamented with the arms of former fel- 
 loAvs. It had been at first the library of the col- 
 lege, then one of the fellows’ rooms, and lastly a 
 lecture- room. We were deep in the old question of 
 the true relation between the Divine and the Human 
 in man, and here again, as on all other questions, 
 everything seemed to be clear and evident to his 
 mind. Perhaps I ought not to repeat what he said 
 to me when we parted: “I have had much talk 
 
184 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 with people in England ; with you I have had a 
 real conversation.” We understood each other, 
 and wondered how it was that men so often mis- 
 understood one another. I told him that it Avas 
 the badness of our language, he thought it was the 
 badness of our tempers. Perhaps we were both 
 right. With him again good-bye was good-bye for 
 life, and at such moments one wonders indeed how 
 kindred souls became separated, and one feels 
 startled and repelled at the thought that, such as 
 they were on earth, they can never meet again. 
 And yet there is continuity in the world, there is 
 no flaw, no break anywhere, and what has been 
 will surely be again, though how it will be we can- 
 not know, and if only we trust in the Wisdom that 
 pervades and overshadows the whole Universe, we 
 need not know. 
 
 Were I to write down my more or less casual 
 meetings with men of literary eminence, I should 
 have much more to say, much that was of deep in- 
 terest and value to myself, but Avould hardly be of 
 interest to others. I felt greatly flattered, for in- 
 stance, when years ago Macaulay invited me to 
 see him at the Albany, and to discuss with him the 
 new regulations for the Indian Civil Service. This 
 must have been in about 1854. I Avas quite a 
 young and unknown man at the time, but I had 
 already made his acquaintance at Bunsen’s house. 
 
Literary Recollections 185 
 
 where he had been asked to meet Herr von Eado- 
 witz, for a short time Prime Minister in Prussia, 
 and the most famous talker in Germany. It was 
 indeed a tournament to watch, but as it was in 
 English, which Kadowitz spoke well, yet not well 
 enough for such a contest, Macaulay carried the 
 day, though Kadowitz excelled in repartee, in 
 anecdotes, and in a certain elegance more telling 
 in French than in English. 
 
 I went to call on Macaulay in London, well pro- 
 vided as I thought with facts and arguments in 
 support of the necessity of Oriental studies, which 
 I knew he had always discouraged, in the prepara- 
 tion and examination of candidates for the Indian 
 Ci\il Sei'\dce. He began by telling me that he 
 knew nothing of Indian languages and literature, 
 and that he wanted to know all I had to say on the 
 real advantages to be derived by young civilians 
 from a study of Sanskrit, I had already published 
 several letters in Tlie Times on the subject, and had 
 carried on a long controversy Avith Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan, afterwards published in a pamphlet, en- 
 titled “ Correspondence relating to the Establish- 
 ment of an Oriental College in London.” 
 
 Macaulay, after sitting down, asked me a number 
 of questions, but before I had time to answer any 
 one of them, he began to relate his own experi- 
 ences in India, dilating on the difference between a 
 
i86 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 scholar and a man of business, giving a full ac- 
 count of his controversy, while in India, with men 
 like Professor Wilson and others, who maintained 
 that English would never become the language of 
 India, expressing his own strong conviction to the 
 contrary, and relating a number of anecdotes, show- 
 ing that the natives learnt English far more easily 
 than the English could ever learn Hindustani or 
 Sanskrit. Then he branched off into some dispar- 
 aging remarks about Sanskrit literature, particu- 
 larly about their legal literature, entering minutely 
 into the question of what authority could be as- 
 signed to the Laws of Manu, and of what possible 
 use they could be in determining lawsuits between 
 natives, ending up with the usual diatribes about 
 the untruthfulness of the natives of India, and their 
 untrustworthiness as witnesses in a court of law. 
 
 This went on for nearly an hom’ and was very 
 pleasant to listen to, but most disappointing to a 
 yoimg man who had come well primed with facts 
 to meet all these arguments, and who tried in vain 
 to find a chance to put in a single word. At the 
 end of this so-called conversation Macaulay thanked 
 me for the useful information I had given him, and 
 I went back to Oxford a sadder and I hope a A\dser 
 man. What I had chiefly wished to impress on 
 him was that Haileybury should not be suppressed, 
 but should be improved, should not be ended, but 
 
Literary Recollections 187 
 
 mended. But it was easier and more popular to 
 suppress it, and suppressed it was, so that in Eng- 
 land, which has the largest Oriental Empire in the 
 world, there is now not a single school or seminary 
 for the teaching of Oriental languages, whereas 
 France, Italy, Prussia, Austria and Russia have all 
 found it expedient to have such establishments and 
 to support them by liberal grants. Everybody 
 now begins to see that these governments are reap- 
 ing their rewards, but in England the old argument 
 remains the same: “We can always find interpret- 
 ers if we pay them well, and if we only speak loud 
 enough the natives never fad to imderstand what 
 we mean.” 
 
 This is no doubt much the same as what Mr. 
 Layard meant when he explained to me how he 
 managed to keep his diggers in order: “I speak 
 English to them ; if they do not understand I 
 shout at them,” he said ; “if they won’t obey, I 
 knock them down ; and if they show fight, I shoot 
 them down.” No doubt this was an exaggeration, 
 but it certainly does not prove the uselessness of a 
 thorough knowledge of Oriental languages for those 
 who are sent to the East to govern millions, and 
 not to shout at them, or to knock them down. 
 
 Another true friend of mine was Arthur Helps, 
 the author of “Friends in Council,” and for a long 
 time clerk to the Privy Council. He often paid 
 
i88 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ns a visit on his way to or from Blenheim, where he 
 used to stay with the then Duke of Marlborough. 
 He had a very high opinion of the Duke’s ability 
 as President of the Council, and considered his 
 personal influence most important. “ At the time 
 of a change of Ministry, you should see the mem- 
 bers of the Cabinet,” he said. “ People imagine 
 they are miserable and disheartened. The fact is 
 they are like a pack of schoolboys going home for 
 their holidays, and scrambling out of the Council 
 Chamber as fast as ever they can.” 
 
 Once when he came to stay with us on his re- 
 turn from Blenheim, he told me how the Duke had 
 left the day before for London, and that on that 
 very day the emu had laid an egg. The Duke had 
 taken the greatest interest in his emus and had 
 long looked forward to this event. A telegram 
 was sent to the Duke, which, when shown to Mr. 
 Helps, ran as follows ; “ The emu has laid an egg, 
 and, in the absence of your Grace, we have taken 
 the largest goose we could find to hatch it.” 
 
 Helps was a most sensible and thoroughly honest 
 man ; yet the last years of his life were dreadfully 
 embittered by some ill-advised speculations of his 
 which brought severe losses not only on himself, 
 but, what he felt far more keenly, on several of his 
 friends whom he had induced to share in his under- 
 taking. 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 189 
 
 I missed tlie pleasure of knowing Lord Lytton. 
 But this illustrious writer, Lord Lytton, or in 
 eai’Ker daj-s. Sir Lytton Bulwer Lytton, whose 
 “Last Days of Pompeii” had been the delight of 
 my youth, paid me a great and quite rmdeserved 
 compliment by dedicating to me one of his last, if 
 not his very last work, “ The Coming Race,” 1871. 
 The book w^as published anonymously, and as it 
 was dedicated to me, I tried very hard to discover 
 the author of it, but in vain. It was only after 
 his death that Lord Lytton’s authorship became 
 known. The book itself could hardly be called a 
 novel, nor was there anything very striking or sen- 
 sational in it. Yet, to the honour of the English 
 public be it said, it was discovered at once that it 
 could not be the work of an ordinary writer. It 
 went through edition after edition, and, to the 
 great delight of the anonymous author, was re- 
 ceived with imiversal applause. Vril was the 
 name given by the author to the fluid which in 
 the hands of a Vrilya was raised into the mighti- 
 est agency over all forms of matter, animate or in- 
 animate. It destroyed like the flash of lightning, 
 yet, differently applied, it replenished or invigo- 
 rated life. With it a w^ay could be rent through 
 the most solid substances, and from it a light was 
 extracted, steadier, softer, and healthier than from 
 all other inflammable materials. The Are lodged in 
 
Auld Lang Syne 
 
 190 
 
 the hollow of a reed, and directed by the hand of 
 a child, could shatter the strongest fortress, or 
 cleave its burning way from the van to the rear of 
 an embattled host. All this reads almost like a 
 prophecy of the electric fluid in its application to 
 engines of war and engines of peace, but its name 
 now survives chiefly in the powerful and invigorat- 
 ing fluid extracted from beef, and advertised on 
 every wall as Bo-vril — unless I am quite mistaken 
 in my etymology. 
 
 There are many more of the most eminent men 
 in England from whom I have received kindness, 
 and with whom, even as a young man, I had some 
 interesting intercourse. But I become more and 
 more doubtful whether I can trust my memory, 
 and whether, in writing down my recollections, I 
 am doing my friends full justice. When I gave 
 my flrst lectures at the Eoyal Institution (in 1861), 
 I came into frequent contact with Faraday. He 
 was then what I thought an old man, and though 
 it was quite beyond my power to estimate his 
 greatness, he was one of those men who at once 
 gave one the impression that they are really great. 
 There was dignity and composure in his conver- 
 sation, and at the same time a kindly welcome in 
 his dark bright eyes which made one feel at home 
 with him from the very first meeting. Though 
 the subject I had to lectm-e on was quite new to 
 
Literary Recollections 191 
 
 him, he took the liveliest interest in my lectures. 
 I told him how disappointed his assistant had 
 been — I believe his name was Anderson or Robert- 
 son — when he offered me his services for my lect- 
 ures, and I had to teU him that I wanted nothing, 
 no gas, no light, no magnets, that there would be 
 no experiments, not even diagrams to pull up and 
 do\sTi. “O yes,” said Faraday, “I know how he 
 teUs his friends that he does all the hard work at 
 nay lectures, all the experiments, but that he lets 
 me do the talking.” He seemed much amused 
 when I told him that I had had just the same ex- 
 perience, and that one of my compositors was fully 
 convinced that he was really responsible for my 
 books, and told his feUow-compositors that I could 
 not have brought out a single book without him. 
 
 Faraday sat patiently through most, if not all of 
 my lectures, and it was a pleasure to look at his 
 face beaming with intelligence. "When I lectured 
 for the first time on the Science of Language, I 
 had in the beginning to clear the ground of many 
 prejudices, and amongst the rest, to dispose of 
 what was then almost an article of faith — namely, 
 that all the languages of the world were deidved 
 from Hebrew. I gave a whole lecture to this ques- 
 tion, and when it was over, an imposing old lady 
 came up to shake hands with me and to thank me 
 for the beautiful lectuie I had delivered. “ How 
 
192 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 delightfiil it is to know,” she continued, “that 
 Adam and Eve spoke Hebrew in Paradise, and 
 that all the other languages of the world, English 
 not excepted, have come out of Hebrew and out of 
 Paradise.” I really felt very much humiliated, 
 and when Faraday came up I told him what had 
 happened. “ Oh, you must not be discouraged,” 
 he said, “ I hardly ever lecture on chemistry with- 
 out an old dowager coming up to me with an in- 
 credulous smile and saying : ‘ Now, Mr. Faraday, 
 you don’t really mean to say that the water I 
 drink is nothing but what you call oxygen and 
 hydrogen? ’ Go on,” he said, “ something will al- 
 ways stick.” 
 
 I certainly had splendid audiences ; all the best 
 men of the town were there. But brilliant as my 
 audiences were — they included A. P. Stanley, 
 Fredk. Maurice, Dean Milman, Bishop Thirl wall, 
 Mill, Lady Stanley, even royalty honoui’ed me sev- 
 eral times — the old habitues of the Royal Institu- 
 tion were not easy to please. The front row was 
 generally occupied by old men with hearing-trum- 
 pets, old Indians, old generals, old clergymen, etc. 
 A number of ladies came in with their newspaper 
 and unfolded it before the lecture began, and 
 seemed to read it with their eyes while their ears 
 wei-e supposed to follow my arguments. One’s 
 self-conceit is sometimes very much tried. After 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 193 
 
 one of my lectures I saw one of the old East Ind- 
 ians led out by his son or nephew, who shouted 
 in a loud voice into his father’s ear, “ That was a 
 splendid lecture, was it not ? ” “ Yes,” said the 
 
 old man in a still louder voice, “ very interesting 
 — very; didn’t understand a single word of it.” 
 Such is reputation. On another occasion the same 
 deaf and loud-voiced gentleman was heard to tell 
 his neighbour who I was and what I had done. 
 “ Yes,” he shouted, “ I know him ; he is a clever 
 young man. And we have appointed him to do 
 some work for us, to publish the old Bible of 
 India. We have also made him our examiner for 
 the Civil Service of India. A clever young man, I 
 assure you.” 
 
 That is how I rose in the estimation of the Lon- 
 don world, and how Albemarle Street became 
 crowded with fashionable carriages, and people 
 could hardly find places in order to hear all about 
 Aryan roots and our Aryan ancestors, and our 
 common Aryan home somewhere in Asia. 
 
 It was in the same Royal Institution that I first 
 raised my voice against the thoughtless extrava- 
 gances of the so-called Darwinian School, and this 
 at a time when it required more courage to express 
 a doubt on any Darwinian theories than to doubt 
 the descent of all languages from Hebrew. As to 
 Darwin himself, I had expressed my admiration of 
 13 
 
194 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 him in my very first course of lectures, and I had 
 more particularly tried to show how the idea of 
 evolution, or development, or growth, or whatever 
 name we like to use instead of the name of history, 
 had at all times been the guiding principle in the 
 researches of the students of the “ Science of Lan- 
 guages.” Our object had always been to discover 
 how languages came to be what they are, to study 
 the origin and growth, or more truly the history of 
 language. If we spoke of the development or evo- 
 lution of language {EntwicTcelung) it was simply in 
 order to avoid the constant use of the same word. 
 We comparative philologists had, in fact, been 
 talking evolution for more than forty years, as 
 M. Jourdain had been talking prose all his life, 
 without being aware of it {sans que fen susse 
 rien). But we never went into raptures about 
 that blessed word “ evolution,” or about the 
 passage from the homogeneous to the heteroge- 
 neous. 
 
 What I, from my own point of view, valued 
 particularly in Darwin’s philosophy was the tech- 
 nical term of Natural Selection. Logically it was 
 not quite correct, for, say what you like, selection 
 presupposes a selector. Without a selector there 
 is no selection, and unless we speak mythologically, 
 we cannot speak of Nature as a selector. I should 
 have preferred, therefore. Rational Elimination, 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 195 
 
 looking upon Reason, or the Good of Plato, as the 
 power that works for good or for fitness in all that 
 survives or is not crowded out. But with this re- 
 striction Natural Selection was the very term we 
 wanted to signify that process which is constantly 
 going on in language — “excluding caprice as well 
 as necessity, including individual exertion as well 
 as general co-operation, applicable neither to the 
 unconscious building of bees nor to the conscious 
 architecture of human beings, yet combining with- 
 in itself both these operations, g,nd raising them to 
 a higher conception.” * Natm-al selection was the 
 very term we wanted for a true insight into the so- 
 called growth of language, and it was Darwin who 
 gave it us, even though for our o^vn purposes we 
 had to define it more strictly. 
 
 I gave Darwin full credit for having discovered 
 and popularised this new “ category of thought,” 
 but the constant hallelujahs that were raised over 
 the discovery of Evolution showed surely an ex- 
 traordinary ignorance of the history of philosoph- 
 ical thought in Europe. Darwin himself was the 
 very last person to claim evolution as a discovery 
 of his own ; but is there a single paper that has 
 not called him the discoverer of Evolution? He 
 knew too well how, particularly in his own special 
 field of study, the controversy whether each so- 
 
 • “Lectures on the Science of Language,” vol. ii., p. 343. 
 
196 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 called genus or species had required a separate act 
 of creation, had been raging for centuries. He re- 
 membered the famous controversy in 1830 at the 
 French Institute, between Cuvier and Geoflfray 
 Saint-Hilaire, and Goethe’s equally famous re- 
 marks on the subject. It would seem as if Dar- 
 win himself had originally been under the spell of 
 the old idea that every species, if not every indi- 
 vidual, required a special act of creation, and he 
 describes, if I remember rightly, the shock it gave 
 him when he saw for the first time that this idea 
 had to be surrendered. It was evidently con- 
 sidered to be the orthodox view of creation, 
 though I do not know why ; nay, it seems to be 
 so still, if we remember how the present Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury was represented as unfit to 
 wear a mitre because he believed in evolution ; that 
 is, as I should say, in his senses. I myself, on the 
 contrary, was given to understand at the time by 
 my unorthodox friends that my want of belief in 
 evolution was but a survival of my orthodox opin- 
 ions. I was much puzzled before I could under- 
 stand why I was looked at askance, till in one of 
 the reviews I was told in so many words that if I 
 did not believe in evolution, I must believe in the 
 theory of special creations, or in nothing at all. 
 Even Tyndall, dear honest Tyndall, told me one 
 day at the Royal Institution that it was no use my 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 197 
 
 kicking against the pricks, and I then had an op- 
 portunity of telling him my mind. “ When some 
 substance is brought you,” I said, “ don’t you first 
 of all analyse it to find out what it consists of, 
 before you use it for any further experiments? 
 Well, that is really Tvhat a student of language 
 does. When you bring him a word like evolution, 
 the first thing he asks for is an analysis or defini- 
 tion. That may often seem very discourteous, but 
 it cannot be otherwise in any decent laboratory 
 of chemistry or thought. Now if evolution is 
 meant for an action, you cannot have an action 
 without an actor, whether his action is direct or in- 
 direct. Of course you will say that we all know 
 that, that it is mere childish logic ; but, if so, w*e 
 should not imagine that we can neglect this child- 
 ish logic with impunity, that we can have a success- 
 ful experiment without first wiping our crucibles 
 clean. If, on the contrary, evolution is to be 
 taken in the sense of a process excluding an actor 
 or evolver, this should be clearly stated, and in 
 that case the more familiar word ‘ growth ’ would 
 have been far preferable, because it would not 
 have raised unfounded expectations. But even 
 growth means very little unless it is authenticated 
 by history step by step. 
 
 “ If then you tell me that there is growth, not 
 only from the sperm to men like you and me, not 
 
198 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 only from an egg to a caterpillar, from a caterpillar 
 to a chrysalis, and from a chrysalis to a butterfly, 
 but likewise from inorganic to organised matter, 
 from plants to animals, from reptiles to birds, 
 from apes to men, I have not a word to say against 
 it. I know you to be an honest man, and if you 
 can assure me that there are historical facts, real, 
 visible facts, to support this transition from one 
 species to another, or even from one genus to an- 
 other, I trust you. It would be simple arrogance 
 were I to doubt your word, within your own 
 special sphere of study. You have seen the tran- 
 sition or connecting links, you know that it is not 
 only possible, but real, and there is an end of it. 
 Only allow me to say that from a philosophical 
 point of view there is nothing new in this concept 
 of growth, or, as you call it, evolution. You 
 would never say that Lamarck had been the dis- 
 coverer of growth in nature, neither has it any 
 definite meaning to me when you say that Darwin 
 was the discoverer of evolution. I can understand 
 enough of Darwin’s ‘ Origin of Species ’ to enable 
 me to admire his power of observation and his 
 true genius of combination. I can see how he has 
 reduced the number of unnecessary species, and 
 of unnecessary acts of so-caUed special creation ; 
 and that possibly he has traced back the whole of 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms to four begin- 
 
Literary Recollections 199 
 
 nings, and in the end to one Creator. Darwin did 
 not go beyond this, he required four beginnings 
 and one Creator. It was left to his followers to 
 carry out his principles, as they thought, by elim- 
 inating the Creator, and reducing the four begin- 
 nings to one. If you think that aU this rests on 
 well ascertained facts, I have nothing to say ex- 
 cept to express my sm*prise that some men of 
 great learning and undoubted honesty are not so 
 positive as to these facts as j'OU are. But with the 
 exception of a Creator, that is, a subjective Au- 
 thor of the universe, all this is really outside my 
 special province, and I could afford to be silent. 
 Only when Darwin maintains the transition from 
 some highly developed animal into a human be- 
 ing, I say. Stop ! Here the student of language 
 has a word to say, and I say that language is 
 something that, even in its most rudimentary 
 form, puts an impassable barrier between beast 
 and man.” 
 
 Soon after, when I had been asked to give a 
 new course of lectm*es at the Royal Institution, I 
 had selected this very point, the barrier which 
 language forms between man and brute, for my 
 subject, and as Darwin’s “ Descent of Man ” was 
 then occupying the thoughts of philosophers, I 
 promised to give a course of lectures on “ Dar- 
 win’s Philosophy of Language.” Entertaining, as 
 
200 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 I did, a sincere admiration for Darwin, I felt that 
 it would have been even discourteous to attempt 
 to be courteous to such a man by passing over in 
 silence what he had said on language. This kind 
 of courtesy is most offensive to a true man of sci- 
 ence. Otherwise nothing would have been easier 
 than to find antagonists for my purpose, begin- 
 ning with Epicm’us and ending with Mr. H. 
 Wedgwood’s “Etymological Dictionary of the 
 English Language ” (second edition, 1872). It so 
 happened that the author of that dictionary was a 
 friend of Darwin’s, and had easily persuaded him 
 that interjections and imitations of natural sounds 
 formed the material elements of all human speech, 
 and that, as certain animals barked, and mocking 
 birds and parrots imitated sounds which they 
 heard, there seemed to be no reason whatever why 
 animals in a few millions of years should not have 
 invented a language of their own. This naturally 
 fell in with Darwin’s own views and wishes, and 
 though he always spoke with great reserve on the 
 subject of language, yet he would have been more 
 than hnmam if he had surrendered his conviction 
 of the descent of man from some kind of animal 
 on account of this, as his friend had assm’ed him, 
 so easily removable barrier of language. Given a 
 sufficient number of years, he thought, and why 
 should not bow-wow and pooh-pooh have evolved 
 
Literary Recollections 
 
 201 
 
 into “ I bark ” and “ I despise ” ? The ,fact that 
 no animal had ever evolved such words could not 
 be denied, but it could be ignored, or explained 
 away by evidence clearly showing that animals 
 communicated with each other; as if to communi- 
 cate were the same as to speak. My object in my 
 lectures (published at the time in Longman's Mag- 
 azine) was to show that no such transition from 
 pooh-pooh to / despise is possible ; nay, that even 
 the first step, the formation of roots, that is, of 
 general concepts out of single sounds, that is, sin- 
 gle percepts, is beyond the power of any animal, 
 except the human animal. Even now it is only 
 the human baby or puppy that can learn to imi- 
 tate human language, and what is the mere learn- 
 ing of a language, compared with the creation of 
 language, which was the real task of those human 
 animals that became men ? In all the arguments 
 which I used in support of my theory — a theory 
 no longer controverted, I believe, by any compe- 
 tent and independent scholar and thinker — I never 
 used a single disrespectful word about Mr. Dar- 
 win. But for all that I was supposed to have 
 blasphemed, again not by Mr. Darwin himself, but 
 by those who called themselves his bulldogs. I 
 was actually siispected of having written that no- 
 torious article in The Quarterly Revieio which gave 
 such just offence to Darwin. Darwin himself was 
 
202 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 above all this, and I have his letter in which he 
 
 • * 
 
 writes, 5th January, 1875: — 
 
 I have just read the few first pages of your article in 
 Tlie Contemporary Review, and I hope that you will permit 
 me to say that neither I, nor my son, ever supposed that 
 you were the author of the review in the Quarterly. You 
 are about the last man in England to whom I should have 
 attributed such a review. I know it was written by Mr. 
 M., and the utterly false and base statements contained in 
 it are worthy of the man. 
 
 But what was better still, Mr. Darwin gave me 
 an opportunity of discussing the facts and argu- 
 ments which stood between him and me in a per- 
 sonal interview. Sir John Lubbock took me to 
 see the old philosopher at his place, Down, Beck- 
 enham, Kent, and there are few episodes in my 
 life which I value more. I need not describe the 
 simplicity of his house, and the grandeur of the 
 man who had lived and worked in it for so many 
 years. Darwin gave me a hearty welcome, showed 
 me his garden and his flowers, and then took me 
 into his study, and standing leaning against his 
 desk began to examine me. He said at once that 
 personally he was quite ignorant of the science of 
 language, and had taken his facts and opinions 
 chiefly from his friend, Mr. Wedgwood. I had 
 been warned that Darwin could not carry on a 
 
Literary Recollections 203 
 
 serious discussiou for more than about ten min- 
 utes or a quarter of an hour, as it always brought 
 on his life-long complaint of sickness. I therefore 
 put before him in the shortest way possible the 
 difficulties which prevented me from accepting the 
 theory of animals forming a language out of inter- 
 jections and sounds of nature. I laid stress on the 
 fact that no animal, except the human animal, had 
 ever made a step towards generalisation of per- 
 cepts, and towards roots, the real elements of all 
 languages, as signs of such generalised percepts, 
 and I gave him a few illustrations of how om- 
 words for one to ten, for father, mother, sun and 
 moon had really and historically been evolved. 
 That man thus formed a real anomaly in the 
 growth of the animal kingdom, as conceived by 
 him, I fully admitted ; but it was impossible for 
 me to ignore facts, and language in its true mean- 
 ing has always been to my mind a fact that could 
 not be wiped away by argument, as Little as the 
 Himalayas could be wiped away with a silk hand- 
 kerchief even in millions of years. He listened 
 most attentively without making any objections, 
 but before he shook hands and left me, he said in 
 the kindest way, “ You are a dangerous man.” I 
 ventm’ed to reply, “ There can be no danger in our 
 search for truth,” and he left the room. 
 
 He was exactly the man I had imagined, mas- 
 
204 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 sive in his forehead, kind in his smile, and hardly 
 bent under the burden of his knowledge or the 
 burden of his years. I must give one more of his 
 letters, because my late friend Romanes, who saw 
 it in my album, seems to have entirely misappre- 
 hended its meaning. He saw in it a proof of Mr. 
 Darwin’s extraordinary humility. I do not deny 
 his humility, it was extraordinary, and, what is 
 more, it was genuine. All great men know how 
 little they know in comparison with what they do 
 not know. They are humble, they do not only 
 wish to appear so. But I see in Darwin’s letter 
 far more of humour than of humility. I see him 
 chuckling while he wrote it, and though I value it 
 as a treasure, I never looked upon it as a trophy. 
 
 Down, Beckenham, Kent, 
 \Uh Oct., 1875. 
 
 Mt Deab Sir, 
 
 I am greatly obliged to you for so kindly 
 sending me your essay, which I am sure will interest me 
 much. With re.spect to our differences, though some of 
 your remarks have been rather stinging, they have all been 
 made so gracefully, I declare that I am like the man in the 
 story who boasted that he had been soundly horsewhipped 
 by a Duke. 
 
 Pray believe me, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Charles Darwin. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF ROYALTIES 
 
 I 
 
 By royal I do not mean kings and emperors only, 
 or queens and empresses. I should have very lit- 
 tle to tell of them. But royal, as is well known, has 
 a wider meaning. The families of all reigning 
 sovereigns, whether grand dukes, dukes, princes, 
 landgraves, electors, etc., are royalty, nay even cer- 
 tain mediatised families, families that have ceased 
 to’ be reigning, and which are very numerous on 
 the continent, claim the same status, and may 
 therefore intermarry with royal princes and prin- 
 cesses. Princes and princesses may also marry 
 persons who are not royalty, but in that case the 
 marriage is morganatic — a perfectly good and legal 
 form of marriage both from an ecclesiastical and 
 civil point of view, only that the children of such 
 marriages, though perfectly legitimate, cannot suc- 
 ceed to the throne : in many cases no great loss to 
 them. It has been my good fortrme to see a good 
 deal of royalty during the whole of my life. I say 
 
 205 
 
2o6 
 
 Auid Lang Syne 
 
 good fortune on purpose, for, witli all the draw- 
 backs inherent in Court life, royal persons enjoy 
 some great advantages. Their position is assured 
 and well defined. It requires no kind of self- 
 assertion, and wherever they appear, they have no 
 equals, no rivals, and hardly any enviers. They 
 know that their presence always gives pleasure, 
 and that every kind word or look from them is 
 highly appreciated. They seldom have any in- 
 ducement to try to appear different from what they 
 are, or to disguise what they think or feel. What 
 is the use of being a bishop, Stanley used to say, 
 except that you can speak your own miud ! The 
 same applies to crowned heads, and if some of 
 them, and it may be some bishops also, do not 
 avail themselves of this privilege, it is surely their 
 own fault. No doubt, if a bishop wants to become 
 an archbishop, he has to think twice about what 
 he may and what he may not say. But a king or 
 a prince does not generally want to become any- 
 thing else, and as they w'ant nothing from any- 
 body, they are not likely to scheme, to flatter, or 
 to deceive. Whatever people may say of the at- 
 mosphere of courts and the insincerity of courtiers, 
 the sovereign himself, if only left to himself, if 
 only seen in his own private cabinet, is generally 
 above the vitiated atmosphere that pervades his 
 palace, nor does he, as a rule, while speaking Avith 
 
Recollections of Royalties 207 
 
 perfect freedom himself, dislike perfect freedom in 
 others. 
 
 Of course there are differences among royalty 
 as well as among commonalty. Some sovereigns 
 have become so accustomed to the daily supply of 
 the very cheapest flattery, that the slightest di- 
 vergence from the tone of their courtiers is apt 
 to startle or to offend them. Still most human 
 .beings like fresh air. 
 
 And have we not known persons who display 
 their mitres and shake their crosiers before our 
 faces, far more than kings their crowns and their 
 sceptres ? There is a whole class of people in or- 
 dinary life who have become something, and who 
 seem always to be thanking God that they are not 
 as other men are. They have ceased to be what 
 they were, quite unaware that even in becoming 
 something, there ought always to be or to remain 
 something that becomes or has become. They 
 seem to have been created afresh when they were 
 created peers, temporal or spiritual. 
 
 But we must not be unfair to these new creations 
 or creatures. I have known bishops, and arch- 
 bishops too, in England, who, to their friends, al- 
 ways remained Thirlwalls or Thomsons, and in the 
 second place only Bishops of St. David’s or Arch- 
 bishops of York. My friend Arthur Stanley never 
 became a dean. He was always Stanley ; Dean of 
 
2o8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Westminster, if necessary. If he had been what 
 he ought to have been, Archbishop of Canterbuiy, 
 he would never have ceased to be A. P. Stanley, 
 his chuckle would always have been just the same, 
 and if his admirers had presented him with a mitre 
 and crosier, he would probably have put the mitre 
 on his head sideways, and said to his friends what 
 another bishop is reported to have said on a sim- 
 ilar occasion : “ Thank you, my friends, but a new 
 hat and an alpaca umbrella would have been far 
 more useful than a mitre and a crosier.” With re- 
 gard to royal personages, they have the great ad- 
 vantage that they are to their business born. They 
 have not become, they were born royal. I was 
 much struck by the extraordinary power of obser- 
 vation of a French friend of mine, who, when in 
 1855 the Queen and the Empress Eugenie en- 
 tered the Grand Opera at Paris together, and were 
 received with immense applause, turned to his 
 neighbour, an Englishman, and said : “ Look at 
 the difference between your Queen and our Em- 
 press.” Tfiey had both bowed most graciously, 
 and then sat down. “Did you not observe,” he 
 continued, “ how the Empress looked round to see 
 if there was a chair for her before she sat down. 
 But your Queen, a born Queen, sat down without 
 looking. She knew a chair must be there, as sure- 
 ly as she is Queen of England.” 
 
Recollections of Royalties 209 
 
 There must be something to hedge a king. 
 While most people have to move in a crowd, and 
 hold their own even in a mob — and it is difficult to 
 move with ease when you are hustled and pushed 
 — royal persons are never in a crowd, and have 
 never to adopt a position of self-defence or self- 
 assertion. Still there is a difference between royal 
 persons also. Some of them with all their dignity 
 manage to hide their crown in everyday life ; others 
 seem always conscious that it is there, and that 
 they must not condescend too low, lest it should 
 tumble from their head. 
 
 My first acquaintance with royalty was at Des- 
 sau, my native town. Much has been written to 
 ridicule the small German princes and their small 
 Coui-ts. And it cannot be denied that the eti- 
 quette kept up by the courtiers, and the nobility, in 
 some of the small capitals of Germany is ludicrous 
 in the extreme. But there is in the sovereigns 
 themselves an inherited dignity, a sentiment of 
 noblesse oblige, which demands respect. The reign- 
 ing Duke of Anhalt - Dessau was to us boys a 
 being by himself, and no wonder. Though the 
 Duchy was so small that on one occasion a trouble- 
 some political agitator, who had been expelled from 
 the Duchy, thi’eatened to throw stones and break 
 the Duke’s windows as soon as he had crossed the 
 frontier, to us children Dessau was our world. 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 AVlieu I was a child, the town of Dessau, the cap- 
 ital of the Duchy, contained not more than 10,000 
 or 12,000 inhabitants, but the Duke, Leopold Fried- 
 rich (1817-1871), was really the most independent 
 sovereign in Europe. He was perfectly irrespon- 
 sible, a constitution did not exist, and was never 
 allowed to be mentioned. All appointments were 
 made by the Duke, all salaries and pensions were 
 paid from the Ducal chest, whatever existed in the 
 whole Duchy belonged, or seemed to belong, to 
 him. There was no appeal from him, at least not 
 in practice, whatever it may have been in theory, 
 n more money w'as wanted, the Dukes, I believe, 
 had only to issue a new tax, and the money was 
 forthcoming. And with all that one never, or 
 hardly ever, heard of any act of injustice. The 
 Duke was rich, nearly the whole of the Duchy be- 
 longed to him, and he had large landed property 
 elsewhere also. Taxation was low, and during years 
 of war and distress, taxes were actually remitted by 
 the Dukes. The only public opinion there was, 
 was represented by the Duke’s own permanent 
 civil service, and certainly in it tradition was so 
 strong that even the Duke, independent as he was, 
 would have hesitated before going against it. 
 
 But the Duke himself was a splendid example 
 of uprightness, fairness, and justice. He belonged 
 to one of the oldest reigning families in Europe. 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 21 1 
 
 The Hohenzolleru, and even the Hohenstaufen, 
 were but of yesterday compared with the glorious 
 ancestors of the Ascanian princes. They did not 
 actually claim descent from Ascanius, the son of 
 Aeneas, nor from Askenas, the grandson of Japhet, 
 though some crazy genealogists may have done 
 so ; but there is no flaw in their pedigree from the 
 present Duke to Albrecht the Bear, Markgrave 
 of Brandenburg in 1134. Some people would 
 probably say that he belonged to a totemistic 
 age. The Duke whom I knew, and who died in 
 1871, was the eighteenth successor of this Al- 
 brecht the Bear, and though his possessions had 
 been much reduced in the course of centuries, he 
 knew what was due from him to his name, and to 
 the blood of his ancestors. He never forgot it. 
 He was a tall and very handsome man, very quiet,' 
 very self-contained, particularly during the later 
 part of his life, when his increasing deafness made 
 any free intercourse between him and his friends 
 and officials extremely difficult. He worked as 
 hard as any of his ministers, and no wonder, con- 
 sidering that everjdhing, whether important or 
 not, had finally to be decided by him. As he had 
 been much attached to my father, and as my 
 grandfather was his president or prime minister, 
 he took some interest in me when I was a boy at 
 school in Dessau, and I can remember standing 
 
212 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 before him and looking up to him in his cabinet 
 with fear and trembling, although nothing could 
 be kinder than the handsome tall man with his 
 deep voice and his slowly uttered words ; he seemed 
 to move in an atmosphere of his own, far removed 
 from the life of his subjects. The ducal castle at 
 Dessau was a grand old building, a quadrangle 
 open in front, with turrets that held the staircases 
 leading up to the reception rooms. Some of his 
 ancestors had been highly cultivated men, who 
 had travelled in Italy, France, and England, and 
 had collected treasures of art, which were after- 
 wards stored up in the old Palace (Schloss) at 
 Dessau, and in several beautiful parks in the 
 neighbourhood that had been laid out a hundred 
 years ago after the model of English parks. The 
 orange trees (Orangerie) in those parks and gar- 
 dens were magnificent, and I do not remember 
 having seen such an abundance of them anywhere 
 else ; but they suddenly began to wither and die, 
 and even replanting them by their heads and let- 
 ting the roots grow as new branches does not 
 seem to have saved them. 
 
 The Duke and his highly cultivated Duchess 
 were the little gods of Dessau. They seemed to 
 live on their own Olympus. Everything depended 
 on them ; everything, such as theatre, concerts, or 
 any public amusements, had to be provided out 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 213 
 
 of their private purse. No wonder that the peo- 
 ple looked up to them, and that whatever they 
 did was considered right, whatever they said was 
 repeated as gospel. 
 
 Scholars are just now writing learned essays as 
 to whether the idea of the apotheosis of Augustus 
 came to the Romans from Greece or from Egypt, 
 or whether it may be a survival of fetishism. It 
 may have had a much more homely origin, how- 
 ever. To the common people in the villages 
 round Dessau, I feel sure that the Duke was little 
 shoid of a god, provided always that they knew 
 what was meant by a god. He might not have 
 created the world, even Divus Augustus was not 
 credited with that tour de force; but there was 
 nothing else, I believe, that the peasants would 
 have thought beyond the power of their Duke. 
 To us children also, the Duke, the Duchess, and 
 all the members of the Ducal family, were some- 
 thing quite different from the rest of the world, 
 and some of these impressions of childhood of- 
 ten remain for life. When their carriage passed 
 through the streets, everybody stood still, took 
 off his hat, and remained bareheaded till they had 
 passed. There was nothing servile in all this, 
 as little as there is in a Frenchman signing him- 
 self Votre tres-oheissant servitetir, for no one ever 
 thought at that time that it could be otherwise. 
 
214 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Nor am I at all certain that this outward respect 
 for a sovereign is a mistake, for in honouring their 
 sovereign, people after all but honour themselves. 
 Whether he is supposed to be a sovereign by the 
 grace of God, or by hereditary right, or by the 
 voice of the people, he represents the country and 
 the people ; he is their duke, their king, their em- 
 peror, and if they wish to see him honoured by 
 others, they must not fail to honour him them- 
 selves. When I saw the other day a king passing 
 through the streets of his own capital, and no one 
 touching his hat, I thought, “ What a low opinion 
 these people must have of themselves.” Even as 
 boys at school we felt a pride in our Duke, and, 
 though we knew scraps only of the glorious his- 
 tory of his ancestors, we knew how they had borne 
 the brunt of the battle in all the greatest episodes 
 of the history of Germany. 
 
 Little is said of these numerous small princi- 
 palities in the history of Germany, but without 
 them German history would often be quite imin- 
 telligible, and Germany would never have had so 
 intense a vitality, would never have become what 
 it is now. No doubt there was also an element of 
 danger in them, particularly during the first half 
 of this century, when as members of the German 
 Confederation they could band together and sup- 
 port either Austria or Prussia in their fatal rivalry. 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 215 
 
 They were the horses, as Bismarck said, har- 
 nessed to the chariot of Germany, some before 
 and some behind, and pulling in different direc- 
 tions, so that it was impossible to advance. But 
 that danger is past, thanks chiefly to Bismarck’s 
 policy, and for the future the smaller principalities 
 that have escaped from his grasp will form the 
 most useful centres of intellectual life, nor are 
 they likely now to be absorbed by Prussia, if well 
 advised. There was a time during the Austro- 
 Prussian war in 1866 when everybody expected 
 that Anhalt, being almost an enclave of Prussia, 
 would share the fate of Hanover, Nassau, and the 
 Electorate of Hessia. The reigning Duke had the 
 strongest sympathies for Austria. But he had a 
 clever minister, who showed him that there were 
 only two ways open to him under the circum- 
 stances, either to abdicate of his own free will, and 
 make as advantageous an arrangement with Prus- 
 sia as possible, or to say yes to whatever demand 
 was made from Berlin. He chose the latter alter- 
 native, and it is reported that it was of him that 
 Bismarck said : “ I know what to do with my ene- 
 mies, but what to do with my friends, I don’t.” 
 
 I cannot resist the temptation of giving here a 
 short sketch of the really glorious history of the 
 duchy and the Dukes of Anhalt, such as it was 
 known to us as boys. Nor should it be supposed 
 
2i6 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 that I exaggerate the importance of my native 
 duchy. I doubt, indeed, whether there is any 
 reigning house now that can produce such a 
 splendid record as Anhalt. If it has remained 
 small and lost much of its fonner political in- 
 fluence, that is due chiefly to a law of inheritance 
 which prevailed in the ducal family. Instead of 
 making the eldest son the ruler of the whole 
 duchy, it was the custom to divide the land among 
 all the princes. Thus instead of one Duchy of 
 Anhalt there were four duchies, Anhalt-Dessau, 
 Anhalt-Cothen, Anhalt-Zerbst, and Anhalt-Bern- 
 burg, some of them again subdivided. From time 
 to time the duchies were reunited, and so they are 
 at present, the last of the collateral branches hav- 
 ing died out in 1863, when they were imited once 
 more into one duchy. 
 
 If we go slowly back into the past, and that 
 seems to me the real task of the historian, we 
 shall find that there is no critical epoch in the 
 history of Germany, and of the history of the 
 world, where we do not meet with some of the 
 princes of the small Duchy of Anhalt, standing in 
 the vexy front of the fight. I only wonder that 
 no one has yet attempted to UTite a popular his- 
 tory of the foixr principalities of Anhalt, in order 
 to show the share which they took in the histoiical 
 development of Germany. I have tried to refresh 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 217 
 
 my memory by readiiig a carefully written manual, 
 “Anlialt’s Gescliiclite in Wort und Bild,” by Dr. 
 Hermann Lorenz, 1893, but instead of quoting his 
 opinion, or the opinions of any historians, as to 
 the personal merits and the historical achievements 
 of the princes of Anhalt, whether as warriors or as 
 rulei’s, I shall try to quote, wherever it is possible, 
 the judgments pronounced on them by some of 
 their ow n contemporaries, whose names will cany 
 gi’eater weight. 
 
 The beginning of the nineteenth century was 
 dominated by Napoleon’s invasion and almost 
 annihilation of Germany. Dessau was then ruled 
 by Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz (1740-1806). 
 He had done an immense amount to raise both 
 the material and the intellectual status of his 
 people, and had w’^ell earned the name he is still 
 known by, of “ Father Franz.” Many of the 
 princes of that time were far in advance of the 
 people, and they met, as he did, with considerable 
 difficulty in overcoming the resistance of those 
 whom they wished to benefit by their reforms. 
 The yovmg prince of Dessau had travelled in Hol- 
 land, England, and Italy. He avoided France, 
 which he said was dangerous to young princes, 
 and yet he w^as enlightened enough to erect a 
 monument to Rousseau in his beautiful park at 
 Wdrlitz. He loved England. “ In England,” he 
 
2i8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 used to say, “ one becomes a man.” Nor did he 
 travel for pleasure only. While in England, he 
 studied agriculture, architecture, gardening, brew- 
 ing, and various other manufactures, in order to 
 introduce as many improvements as possible 
 among his own people. In Italy he studied art, 
 both ancient and modem, under Winckelmann, 
 and this great antiquarian was so delighted with 
 the young prince and his companion that he spoke 
 of their visit as the appearance of two young Greek 
 gods. At that time it was stiU possible to buy 
 old classical statues and old Italian pictures, and 
 the young prince gladly availed himself of his op- 
 portunities as far as his financial resources would 
 allow, and brought home to Dessau many valuable 
 specimens of ancient and modem art. These he 
 arranged in his various palaces and museums, all 
 open to the people, and in the beautiful parks and 
 gardens which he had created after English models 
 in the neighbourhood of his capital. After a hun- 
 dred years some of these parks, particularly that 
 of Wdrlitz, can vie with some of the finest parks in 
 England. Like the neighbouring duchy of Wei- 
 mar, Dessau soon attracted visitors from aU parts 
 of Germany. Goethe himself and his enlightened 
 patron, the Duke Karl August, were often the 
 guests of the Duke of Dessau, and Goethe has in 
 several places spoken in rapturous terms of the 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 219 
 
 beauties of Wbrlitz, and the charm of the Duke’s 
 society. Wieland, Lavater, Matthison, and other 
 celebrities often passed happy days at Dessau as 
 guests of the Duke. 
 
 But after Duke Franz had spent all his life in 
 embellishing his land and inspiring his subjects 
 with higher and nobler ideals, the Napoleonic 
 thunder-cloud, which had long threatened Ger- 
 many, burst over his head, and threatened to de- 
 stroy everything that he had planted. After the 
 battle of Jena in 1806 Prussia and the whole of 
 Germany were at the mercy of the great French 
 conqueror, and Napoleon, with his army of 100,- 
 000 men, who had to be lodged and fed in every 
 town of Germany through which they passed, ap- 
 peared at Dessau on 21st October, 1806. The old 
 Prince had to receive him bareheaded at the foot 
 of the staircase of his castle. My mother, then a 
 child of sis, remembered seeing her own grand 
 and beautiful prince standing erect before the 
 small and pale Corsican. The Prince, however, in 
 his meeting with the Emperor, was not afraid to 
 wear the Prussian order of the Black Eagle on his 
 breast, and when he was asked by Napoleon 
 whether he too had sent a contingent to the Prus- 
 sian army, he said, “No, sir.” “Why not?” 
 asked the Emperor. “ Because I have not been 
 asked,” was the answer. “ But if you had been 
 
220 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 asked ? ” continued the Emperor. “ Then I should 
 certainly have sent my soldiers,” the Prince re- 
 plied ; and he added : “ Your Majesty knows the 
 right of the stronger.” This was a not very pru- 
 dent remark to make, but the Emperor seems to 
 have liked the outspoken old man. He invited 
 him to inspect with him the bridge over the Elbe 
 which had been burnt by the Prussians to cover 
 their retreat. He demanded that it should be re- 
 built at once, and on that condition he promised to 
 grant neutrality to the duchy. Nay, before leav- 
 ing Dessau in the morning he went so far as to 
 ask his host whether he could do anything for 
 him. “ For myself,” the Prince replied, “ I want 
 nothing. I only ask for mercy for my people, for 
 they are all to me like my children.” 
 
 The next critical period in the history of Ger- 
 many is that of Frederick the Great, marked by 
 the Seven Tears’ War (1756-1763) and the estab- 
 lishment of Prussia as one of the great Powers 
 of Europe. 
 
 Here again we i&nd a prince of Anhalt as one of 
 the principal actors. The instrument with which 
 Frederick the Great won his victories was his 
 weU-drilled army, and the drill-master of that 
 army had been Leopold, Eiirst zu Anhalt, the 
 Field-Marshal of Frederick’s father. At the head 
 of his grenadiers and by the side of Prince Eu- 
 
 
Recollections of Royalties 221 
 
 gene, Prince Leopold of Dessau had won, or 
 helped to win, the great battles of Hdchstadt, 
 Bliudheim (corrupted to Blenheim), Turin, and 
 Malplaquet in the War of the Spanish Succession, 
 and had thus helped in establishing against the 
 overweening ambition of Louis XIV. what was 
 then called the political equilibrium of Europe. 
 The Prussian Field-Marshal was known at the 
 time all over Germany as the “ Alte Dessauer,” 
 and through Carlyle’s “ Life of Frederick the 
 Great” his memory has lately been revived in 
 England also. Having completely reorganised 
 the Prussian army and having led it ever so many 
 times to brilliant victories, he was for Prussia in 
 his time what Bismarck was in our own. But 
 after the death of Frederick I. and Frederick Will- 
 iam II., Frederick II., or the Great, disliked the 
 old general’s tutelage and dismissed him : much 
 as Bismarck has been dismissed in our own time. 
 The young King wrote to the old Field-Marshal 
 quite openly : “ I shall not be such a fool as to 
 neglect my most experienced officers, but this 
 campaign (in Silesia) I reserve for myself lest the 
 world should think that the Prussian King cannot 
 go to war without his tutor.” His old tutor was 
 very angry, but he did not rebel, and in a State 
 like Prussia, Frederick the Great was probably as 
 right as the present Emperor in saying “ Let one 
 
222 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 be King.” However, after Frederick had once 
 established his own position as a general, he re- 
 called his old tutor, and in the second Silesian 
 War it was the brave warrior who stormed the 
 heights of Kesselsdorf at the head of his old 
 grenadiers, and won one of the most difficult and 
 most decisive victories for his King. The King 
 after the battle took off his hat before his tutor 
 and embraced him in the sight of the whole ar- 
 my. The inscription placed on the Field-Mar- 
 shal’s monument at Berlin, probably composed by 
 the King himself, is simple and true: “He led 
 the Prussian auxiliary forces victoriously to the 
 Rhine, the Danube, and the Po ; he took Stral- 
 sund and the island of Eiigen. The battle of Kes- 
 selsdorf crowned his military career. The Pms- 
 sian army owes him its strict discipline and the 
 improvement of its infantry.” The successors of 
 Frederick the Great have never forgotten what 
 they owe to the “ Alte Dessauer,” and I doubt not 
 they may be counted on in the future also as the 
 stoutest friends and supporters of the illustrious 
 house of Albrecht the Bear, the first Markgrave of 
 Brandenburg. 
 
 If stronger testimony to the military genius of 
 the Old Dessauer were wanted from the mouth of 
 his own contemporaries, it might easily be quoted 
 from the despatches of Prince Eugene. That 
 
Recollections of Royalties 223 
 
 great general freely admits that the Prince’s troops 
 surpassed his own in courage and discipline ; nay, 
 he adds, “ the Prince of Dessau has done wonders 
 in the battle of Turin.” The Emperor of Austria 
 endorsed this judgment, and added, “ that he had 
 earned immortal glory,” and he conferred on him 
 the title of Serene Highness. 
 
 So much for the eighteenth century. If now we 
 look back to the seventeenth, the century of the 
 Thirty Years’ War, we find Anhalt the constant 
 trysting-gi’ound of the two parties, the Catholic 
 and the Protestant Powers, and we see the princes 
 of Anhalt again and again at the head of the 
 Northern or Protestant armies. The Elbe often 
 divided the two, and the bridge over the river 
 near Dessau was contested then as it was dming 
 the Napoleonic wars. Well do I remember, when 
 as a boy I went to the Schanzenhaus, a coffee- 
 house on the way to the new bridge over the Elbe, 
 how it was explained to me that these Schanzen 
 or fortifications were what was left of the works 
 erected by Wallenstein : just as I learnt at a later 
 time that my own house at Oxford called Park's 
 End, was so called not because it stood as it does 
 now at the end of the Park, but because what is 
 now called the Park was originally the Parks, i.e., 
 the parks of artillery erected by Cromwell’s army 
 against the walls of Oxford. The right name of 
 
224 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 my house should therefore have been not Park’s 
 End, but Parks’ End. A more merciless war than 
 the Thirty Years’ War was seldom waged ; vil- 
 lages and whole towns vanished from the ground, 
 and many tracts of cultivated land, particularly 
 along the Elbe, were changed into deserts. Yet 
 during all that time the Anhalt princes never 
 wavered. When the Elector of the Palatinate, 
 Frederick II., had been proclaimed King in Bo- 
 hemia in 1619, his commander-in-chief was Prince 
 Christian of Anhalt. WJien after years of slaugh- 
 ter Gustavus Adolphus came to the assistance of 
 the Protestant Powers in Germany and won the 
 decisive battle of Liitzen, one of Prince Christian’s 
 sons. Prince Ernest, fought at his side and died 
 of his wounds soon after the battle. The memory 
 of Gustavus Adolphus has been kept alive in 
 Dessau to the present day. He has become the 
 hero of popular romance, and as a schoolboy I 
 heard several stories told by the common people 
 of his adventures during the war. There stands a 
 large red brick house which I often passed on my 
 way from Dessau to Worhtz, and which is simply 
 called Gustavus Adolphus. The story goes that 
 the Swedish king was in hiding there under a 
 bridge while the enemy’s cavalry passed over it. 
 
 One more century back brings us to the time of 
 the Reformation, and once more among the most 
 
Recollections of Royalties 225 
 
 prominent champions of the Protestant cause we 
 see the princes of Anhalt. The very cradle of the 
 Reformation, Wittenberg, was not far from Dessau, 
 and the reigning family of Anhalt was closely con- 
 nected by marriage with the Saxon princes of the 
 house of Wettiu, the chief protectors of the reform- 
 ing movement in Germany. Prince Wolfgang of 
 Anhalt was present at the Diet of Worms, in 1521, 
 and again in 1529, at the Diet of Speier. He 
 openly declared in favour of ecclesiastical reform, 
 and he extended his patronage to Luther when he 
 came to preach at Zerbst. This was at that time 
 a most dangerous step to take, but the young 
 prince was not to be frightened by Pope or Em- 
 peror, and at the Diet of Augsburg he was again 
 one of the first princes to sign the Augsburg Con- 
 fession. During the momentous years that fol- 
 loAved, the Anhalt princes were willing, as they de- 
 clared, to risk life and wealth, land and throne, 
 for the Gospel. Nor was this a mere phrase, for 
 Prince Wolfgang, when he found himself sur- 
 rounded at Bern burg by the Imperial army, chiefiy 
 Spanish, had in good earnest to fly for his life and 
 remain in hiding for some time. W^hen he was 
 able to return to his duchy, he devoted his remain- 
 ing years to repairing, as much as possible, the 
 ravages of the war, and he then retired into pri- 
 vate life of his own free will, leaving the govern- 
 15 
 
226 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ment to his three cousins, and ending his days as 
 a simple citizen in the small town of Zerbst. 
 Let me quote once more the judgment passed on 
 him by the most eminent of his own contempo- 
 raries. Luther and Philip Melanchthon have 
 spoken in no uncertain tone of the merits of the 
 Anhalt princes during the most critical period of 
 the Reformation. Of Prince Wolfgang Melanch- 
 thon said : “ No one will come again, equal to him 
 in authority among princes, in love towards 
 churches and schools, in zeal to maintain peace 
 and concord, and in readiness to give up his life 
 for his faith.” Of Prince George, called the Gott- 
 selige, Luther is reported to have declared : “ He 
 is more pious than I am, and if he does not get 
 into heaven, I too shall ceidainly have to remain 
 outside.” Nay, even his antagonist, the Emperor 
 Charles V., confessed that he knew no other per- 
 son in the whole of his empire who could be com- 
 pared in piety or ability to Prince George of An- 
 halt. Who knows of him now outside the limits 
 of the Duchy of Dessau ? but it is all the more the 
 duty of his descendants to keep his memory fresh 
 as one of that small band of men who have done 
 their duty. 
 
 So much for the princes of the house of Amhalt 
 during the period of the Reformation. No other 
 reigning family could produce a brighter escutcheon 
 
Recollections of Royalties 227 
 
 during the troubles of the sixteenth century, and we 
 saw how that escutcheon was preserved bright and 
 brilliant during the centuries that followed, the 
 seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth. If the title 
 of Grand Duke does not depend on the number of 
 square miles, surely no family has deserved that 
 title so well as the ducal family of Anhalt. 
 
 Beyond the sixteenth century, the history of Ger- 
 many tells us little of the private character of the 
 Anhalt princes, but we may look forw'ard to new 
 information which the Ducal Ai’chives will yield if 
 examined, as they have been of late by competent 
 historians. Much useful work has been done during 
 the last twenty-two years by a historical society es- 
 tablished at Dessau. A Codex Anhaltinus has been 
 published and much light has been thrown on 
 transactions in which some princes of Anhalt had 
 taken a prominent part. If during the time of the 
 Crusades the names of the Ascanians are but sel- 
 dom mentioned, there was a good reason for it. 
 Bernhard of Clairvaux himself, wise man as he was 
 with all his fanaticism, had persuaded them to turn 
 their arms against the heathen on the eastern bor- 
 ders of Germany, rather than against the heathen 
 who had conquered the Holy Land. Slavonic tribes, 
 particularly the Wends and Sorbs, who were still 
 heathen, were constantly threatening the eastern 
 parts of the German Empire, the very ramparts of 
 
228 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 civilisation and Cliristianity, and it was felt to be 
 absolutely necessary to drive them back, or to in- 
 duce them to adopt a civilised and Christian mode 
 of life. In 1134 Albrecht, commonly called Al- 
 brecht the Bear, had been invested by the Emperor 
 Lothar with the Northern Mark, or the Mark 
 Brandenburg, as his fief, in order to defend it as 
 best he could against these Slavonic inroads. This 
 Albrecht the Bear is the ancestor of the reigning 
 Dukes of Anhalt, the present duke being his nine- 
 teenth successor. It was the same Mark Branden- 
 burg which was afterwards to become the cradle of 
 Prussia and indirectly of the German Empire. Al- 
 brecht’s influence was so great at the time that, 
 after the death of the Emperor Lothar, he suc- 
 ceeded in caiTying the election of the Emperor 
 Konrad III., the Hohenstaufen, against the Welfic 
 party, who wished to raise the Duke of Bavaria, 
 Henry the Proud, to the Imperial throne of Ger- 
 many. The Emperor rewarded Albrecht’s services 
 by taking the Duchy of Saxony away from the 
 Welfic Duke of Bavaria, and bestowing it on him. 
 This led to a bloody war between the two claim- 
 ants, and ended in the defeat of Albrecht. But 
 though deprived again of his Saxon fief, Albrecht 
 proved so successful in his ovm mark against the 
 Sorbs and Wends that be received the title of 
 Markgrave of Brandenbm’g, and as such became 
 
Recollections of Royalties 229 
 
 one of the Electors of the German Empire. All 
 those fierce fights against the Slavonic races on the 
 western frontier of Germany are now well-nigh for- 
 gotten, and only the names of towns and rivers re- 
 main to remind us how much of what is now' Ger- 
 man soil, between the Elbe and Oder, had for a 
 long time been occupied by Slavonic tribes, uncivil- 
 ised and pagan. Albrecht had really inherited this 
 task of subduing and expelling these enemies from 
 German soil from his father, Count Otto, who was 
 the grandson of Count Esiko of Ballenstadt (1050). 
 All these princes and their knights had to spend 
 their lives in settling and defending the frontiers 
 or marks of Germany, or of what had been German 
 soil before the southward migrations of the Ger- 
 man tribes began. They held their fiefs from the 
 Gennan Emperors, but were left free to do what- 
 ever they deemed necessary in the defence of their 
 strongholds (burgs) and settlements. The first of 
 the Saxon Emperors, Henry I. (919-936), was 
 called the Burgenhauer, because he encouraged all 
 over Germany the building of strongholds which 
 afterwards grew into villages and towns, and thus 
 led gradually to a more civilised life in the German 
 Empire. Wherever it was possible churches were 
 built, bishoprics w'ere founded, monasteries and 
 schools established and supported by liberal grants 
 of land. A great share in this Eastein conquest 
 
230 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 fell to the Counts of Anhalt, and their achievements 
 were richly rewarded by the great Saxon Emper- 
 ors, Henry I. and Otto the Great. There can be no 
 doubt that these bloody crusades of the German 
 Markgraves against their pagan enemies in the 
 East of Europe, though less famous, left more last- 
 ing and more substantial benefits to Germany than 
 all the crusades against the Saracens. 
 
 I shall carry my historical retrospect no far- 
 ther, but it may easily be imagined how this long 
 and glorious history of the princes of the house 
 of Anhalt made a deep impression on the minds 
 of the young generation, and how even as boys 
 we felt proud of our Duke. Though the be- 
 lief in heredity was not then so strong as it is 
 now — and I must confess that even now my own 
 belief in acquired excellencies being inherited is 
 very small — yet standing before omr Ascanian* 
 
 * Ascania seems to have been the Latin rendering of Asgaria, 
 ■which appears on the map as Ascharien, and is now called Asch- 
 ersleben. It must have been very tempting for a mediaeval 
 Latin scholar to see in Asgaria or Ascharia a trace of Ascanius, 
 the son of Aeneas. Old local names, however, are difficult to 
 explain, particularly if they occur on German soil that was for- 
 merly occupied by Slavonic tribes, because the Germans often 
 mispronounced and then misinterpreted Slavonic names. It is 
 easy to guess, but often difficult to prove their original form 
 and meaning. If, as seems but fair, we admit a German origin 
 for Asgaria or Ascharien, it is most natural to see in it a mod- 
 ification of the well-known word As-gard., i.e., the home of the 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 231 
 
 Duke, the descendant and representative of so 
 many glorious ancestors, one felt something like 
 
 gods. As (or ass), plus-aesir, was a name of the gods in Old 
 Norse ; in Gothic it would have been, as Grimm has shown 
 (“ Deutsche Mythol.,” p. 22), Anses, and this is found in sev- 
 eral proper names such as Ansgar*, AS. Oscar, god-spear. The 
 Swedish aska, lightning, thunder, if it stands for as-ekja, meant 
 originally the driving of the god, i. e . , of Thor, thunder being 
 supposed to be due to the rattle of his chariot. Proper names 
 such as Asbjorn, Asmodr display the same element. Asgard is 
 the abode of the gods, by the side of Mitgart, the abode of men, 
 or the earth, and would have supplied a very natural name 
 either for a sanctuary or for any place sacred to the gods. But 
 though our way seems easy from Asgard to Asgaria, Ascania, 
 Ascharien and even Aschersleben, and though in Esics also, the 
 name of a Prince of Asgaria, we may recognise a derivation of 
 As, meaning divine or beloved by the gods, Gottlieb, there is 
 another word that may put in a claim on Askanius if that was 
 not a more learned corruption of Asgaria. For Askr in German 
 mythology (Grimm, /.c., p. 327) is the first man, and means 
 ashtree, and from him the Iscaevones, mentioned by Tacitus, 
 derived their name (Grimm, 7.C., p. 324). According to tradition 
 the first King of the Saxons also was called Aschanes, and he is 
 said to have sprung from a rock in the midst of a wood (Grimm, 
 7.C., p. 537). We must admit therefore the possibility that our 
 Ascanius was a German word Aschanes, and in that case had 
 nothing to do with As, aesir, the ancient gods of the Scandina- 
 vians. Having met with these various traces of the gods as the 
 names of men and places in Anhalt, one feels tempted to see 
 in the An of Anhalt too a remnant of the same name. Anhalt 
 is explained as the place ane holt, without wood, but as it seems 
 to have stood in the very midst of a wood, or an der halde, near 
 the precipice, this derivation is not very likely. Others take it 
 
232 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 the awe which one feels Avhen looking at an oak 
 that has weathered many a storm, and still sends 
 forth every year its rich green foliage. It was a 
 just pride that made even the schoolboys lift their 
 caps before their stately Duke and his noble Duch- 
 ess, and I must confess that something of that 
 feeling has remained with me for life, and the title 
 of Serene Highness, which has since been changed 
 to Royal Highness (Hoheit), has always sounded 
 to my ears not as an empty title or as inferior to 
 Royal Highness or even Majesty, but as the high- 
 est that could be bestowed on any sovereign, if he 
 had deserved it by high ideals, and by true seren- 
 ity of mind in the storms and battles of life. 
 
 As to myself, if as a boy I was not quite so 
 much overawed by the inhabitants of the old 
 stately palace at Dessau as my friends and school- 
 fellows, it was due perhaps to their personal kind- 
 
 in the modern sense of Anhalt, a firm hold or safe refuge. All 
 this is possible, but it is likewise possible to take An for Ans, 
 so that Anhalt might have been the wood or grove of the gods. 
 We must not lay too much stress on the loss of the s, particu- 
 larly if by a popular etymology Anhalt had been made to convey 
 the meaning of support or stronghold. All these are and can 
 only be guesses, and certainty could only be gained, if at all, 
 from old historical documents giving the original forms of all 
 these names and trustworthj' indications as to how they arose. 
 The whole question is one for the historian rather than for the 
 philologist, and I gladly leave it to them to solve the riddle if 
 they can. 
 
Recollections of Royalties 233 
 
 ness to our family, and likewise to a strange event 
 that happened while I was stUl very young. The 
 reigning Duke had three brothers and only one 
 son, and in the absence of male heirs it was sup- 
 posed that the duchy would have gone to Prussia. 
 One of his brothers had married a Countess von 
 Reina, and their children therefore could not suc- 
 ceed. The other brother was man’ied to a Hessian 
 princess, and they had no sons. But for that, they 
 would possibly have succeeded to the throne of 
 Denmark, as it was only due to the resignation of 
 the elder in favour of her younger sister that this 
 younger sister, the mother of the Princess of 
 Wales, became Queen of Denmark, and her hus- 
 band King. Both the ducal family and the whole 
 coimtry were anxious, therefore, that the only re- 
 maining brother of the Duke should marry and 
 have children, when suddenly he announced to the 
 world that he had fallen in love with a young lady 
 at Dessau, a cousin of mine, and that no power on 
 earth should prevent him from marrying her. 
 There was a considerable flutter in the dovecotes 
 of the Dessau nobility ; there was also a very just 
 feeling of regTet among the people, who disliked 
 the idea of a possible amalgamation with Pnissia. 
 Everything that could be thought of w'as done to 
 prevent the marriage, but after waiting for several 
 years the maniage was celebrated, and my cousin, 
 
234 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 as Baronne von Stolzenberg, became the Prince’s 
 (morganatic) wife, and sister-in-law of the reigning 
 Duke. The Prince was a handsome man, and ex- 
 tremely good-natured and kind, there was not an 
 atom of pride in him. They lived very happily 
 together, and after a few years they were re- 
 ceived most cordially even by the old Duke and 
 his relations. In this way the doings and sayings 
 of the Duke and the ducal court became less hid- 
 den behind the mysterious veil that formerly 
 shrouded Olympus, and one began to see that its 
 inhabitants were not so very different after all 
 from other human beings, but that they acted up 
 to their sense of duty, did a great deal of good 
 work unknown to the world at large, and were cer- 
 tainly in many respects far more cultivated and far 
 more attractive than those who were inclined to 
 sneer at the small German courts, and to agitate 
 for their suppression. 
 
 What would Germany have been without her 
 small courts? Without a Duke Charles Augustus 
 of Weimar, there would probably have been no 
 Wieland, no Herder, no Goethe, and no Schiller. 
 It is not only plants that want sunshine, genius 
 also requires light and warmth to bring it out, and 
 the refining infliience of a small court was no- 
 where so necessary as during the period of storm 
 and stress in Germany. It cannot be denied that 
 
Recollections of Royalties 235 
 
 some of these small courts were hotbeds of cor- 
 ruption of every kind. I remember how in my 
 younger days the small Duchy of Anhalt- Cothen, 
 for instance, suffered extremely from maladminis- 
 tration during the reign of the last Duke, who 
 died without heh'S, and had no scruples in impov- 
 erishing the country, and suppressing all oppo- 
 sition, however legitimate. He was a sovereign by 
 divine rights, as much as the King of Prussia, and 
 with the assistance of his ministers he could alien- 
 ate and sell whatever he liked. He actually estab- 
 lished a public gambling house on the railway 
 station at Cothen. In the third Duchy of Anhalt, 
 that of Anhalt- Bernburg, the reigning Duke was 
 for a time almost out of his mind, but no one had 
 the power to restrain or to remove him. The min- 
 isters did all they could to prevent any public 
 scandal, but it was not easy to prevent, if not a 
 revolution — that would have been difficult on so 
 small a scale — at least a complaint to the German 
 Diet, and that might have become serious. Many 
 were the stories told of the poor Duke and be- 
 lieved by the people. Like all coui-t stories they 
 went on growing and growing, and they were re- 
 peated “ on the highest authority.” One day, it 
 was said, the Duke of Bernburg had been read- 
 ing the history of Napoleon, how he had decorated 
 a sentinel, and made him an officer on the field of 
 
236 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 battle. The Duke, so we are told, carried away by 
 his enthusiasm, rushed out of his room, embraced 
 the sentinel, fastened some medal on his breast 
 and said : “ Thou art a captain.” The soldier, not 
 losing his presence of mind, said to the Duke : “ I 
 thank your Serene Highness, but would you 
 please give it me in writing ? ” The Duke did, 
 and nothing remained for his ministers but to 
 grant to the private the title and the pension of 
 a captain, and to let him wear the small medal 
 which the Duke had given him. I confess I could 
 never come face to face with the fortunate captain 
 or find out his whereabouts. Still to doubt the 
 truth of the story would have been considered the 
 extreme of historical scepticism. Another time 
 the Duke’s enthusiasm was fired by reading an 
 account of a wild-boar hunt in the neighbouring 
 duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, which had been attended 
 by a number of princes from all parts of Germany. 
 He summoned his Prime Minister and told him, 
 “ I must have wild boars in my forests. Turn out 
 a herd of pigs, they Avill do quite as well.” This 
 command too had to be obeyed, and the extraor- 
 dinary part of it was that in a few years these 
 tame pigs had completely reverted to their wild 
 state, probably not without some intermarriages 
 with neighbouring wild boars, and the Duke of 
 Bernburg could invite the Duke of Dessau and 
 
Recollections of Royalties 237 
 
 other princes to hunt wild boars in the Hartz 
 mountains, as well as in the forest of Dessau. 
 Again I cannot vouch for the tmth of the story, 
 but I have been assured by competent authorities 
 that such a return from the tame to the savage 
 state is by no means incredible. Very soon after 
 this exploit, however, the ducal race of Bernburg 
 became extinct, and the three duchies now form a 
 happy union under the old name of Duchy of An- 
 halt. 
 
 The year 1848 came at last, and everything was 
 changed. There were emeutes in the streets of 
 Dessau, and when one of my uncles, the General 
 commanding the ducal army, was telling his men 
 that they would have to fire on the people, he re- 
 ceived a message from some of them to say that 
 they would willingly fire on anybody outside the 
 town in the open, but not in the streets, because 
 they might smash their own fathers’ windows. 
 This respect for window-glass served, however, an- 
 other good purpose. When my uncle, in default 
 of a large enough prison, had to confine a number 
 of people in the Duke’s hothouses, they were as 
 quiet as lambs, because here too they were afraid 
 of breaking the glass. In spite of this innate re- 
 spect for glass and established authority, much 
 mischief was done at Dessau in 1848. Splendid 
 old oaks in the ducal forests were cut down, the 
 
238 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 game was killed by hundreds, and a new constitu- 
 tion was proclaimed. There was a chamber, I be- 
 lieve there was even a desire for a House of Peers, 
 if Peers could be found ; there were two respon- 
 sible ministers, and the Duke had to be satisfied 
 with a Civil List. 
 
 The Duke bore all this with wonderful serenity, 
 but the Duchess died, I believe, from anxiety and 
 nervous prostration. In 1848 even Dukes and 
 Duchesses were hustled, and this was more than 
 she could bear. She had done all that was in her 
 power to make herself useful in her exalted posi- 
 tion, and she deeply felt the ingratitude of those 
 whom she had helped and befriended in former 
 years, and who had joined the opposition. She 
 told me herself that she had once to walk out on 
 foot from her palace with an umbrella, because 
 every one of her four carriages had been ordered 
 by the Prime Minister, the Second Minister, the 
 wife of the Prime, and some friend of the Second 
 Minister. This Second Minister was a young man 
 who had left the University not many years before, 
 and was practising at Dessau as a lawyer. Of 
 course, there was great joy among his former Uni- 
 versity friends ; many were invited to Dessau, and 
 as there was an abundance of old wine in the 
 castle, the gates of the ducal cellar, so I was in- 
 formed, were thrown open, and the thirsty young 
 
Recollections of Royalties 239 
 
 students soon reduced the store of wine to \vhat 
 they thought more reasonable dimensions. Some 
 of the Rhenish wines in that cellar were more than 
 a hundred years old, so old that but a few bottles 
 were fit for drinking. A thick crust had formed 
 inside the bottles, and only one or tw'o glasses of 
 wine were left. But what was left was consid- 
 ered so useful as medicine in certain illnesses that 
 any doctor was allowed to prescribe and order 
 bottles of it from the ducal cellars. My uncle, the 
 Commander-in-chief of the small Anhalt army, had 
 been through all the Napoleonic wars, had marched 
 twice into Paris, and was such a Franzosenfresser, 
 that, fond as he was of wine, he w^ovdd never touch 
 French wine, least of all French champagne. He 
 lived to a very considerable age, he celebrated his 
 silver, his golden, his diamond, and his iron (sixty- 
 five years) wedding, and danced at his diamond 
 wedding with his wife and one of the bridesmaids. 
 He was my godfather, and as he had made the ac- 
 quaintance of his wife at my christening, he never 
 called me by any other name but “ mein Wohl- 
 thater,” my benefactor. As he had been at the 
 battle of Jena (1806) with the Emperor William, 
 then a mere cadet in the Prussian army, and after- 
 wards through many campaigns, the Emperor 
 treated him to the very end of his life as his per- 
 sonal friend. Once every year he had to go to 
 
240 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Berlin to stay with the Emperor, and talk over old 
 times. He was about five years older than the 
 Emperor, and almost the last time he saw him the 
 Emperor said to him : “ Well, Stockmarr, we are 
 both getting old, but as long as you march ahead, 
 I shall follow.” “ Yes, your Majesty,” Stockmarr 
 replied, “and as long as you are behind to sup- 
 port me, I hope we shall get on and bring our 
 shares up to par.” “ Oh, Stockmarr,” the Em- 
 peror replied, “you are not a courtier. K you 
 knew what the courtiers say to me, you would 
 have said, ‘ Oh, your Majesty, your Majesty, your 
 shares will rise to at least Ifi per cent, premium.’ ” 
 General Stockmarr told me the story himself, and 
 it gave me a new idea of the old Emperor’s hu- 
 mour, and his insight into the character of his 
 surroundings. 
 
 Kind-hearted as the Duke of Dessau was, there 
 were certain things that he could not stand. As 
 his deafness grew upon him his chief amusement 
 was shooting and driving about in his open car- 
 riage through the beautiful oak-forests that sm- 
 round Dessau. There are long avenues through 
 the old oak-forests like bowers formed by the low- 
 er branches of the trees, so that one can see the 
 deer a mile off. Here the old Duke was to be 
 seen almost every day. The common people had 
 many endearing names for him, and when they 
 
Recollections of Royalties 241 
 
 saw his carriage from a distance they shouted 
 Ha Kimmet, and the whole village was soon gath- 
 ered to see their kind old Duke passing. He 
 knew every tree, every stone, every road. In a 
 wood not far from Dessau there was a large boul- 
 der, dropped there by a passing iceberg long be- 
 fore the time even of Albrecht the Bear and Count 
 Esiko. One day, as he was passing by, the Duke 
 missed the stone and drove straight to the next 
 village to find out who had dared to move it. 
 The Schulze of the village stood trembling before 
 the Duke, and had to confess that as the road had 
 had to be mended, the village commune had de- 
 cided to blast the old useless stone and to break it 
 up for that purpose. The Duke declared that it 
 was his stone, that they had no right to touch it, 
 and that they must replace it. That was, of 
 course, an impossibility, without going back as far 
 as the Glacial period. But the peasants had to 
 go on searching all over the neighbourhood till at 
 last they found two similar boulders, not quite so 
 large as the original stone of offence, still, large 
 enough to cause them much trouble and expense 
 in transporting them to their village. This was 
 their punishment, and from it there was no ap- 
 peal. The two new stones may now be seen in a 
 public park near Dessau, dedicated to the mem- 
 ory, one of Bismarck, the other of Moltke. 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 The sound of the Duke’s carriage was well 
 known, not only in the town, but, as the people 
 said, even by the deer in the forest. Other car- 
 riages might pass and the deer would not budge, 
 but as soon as the Duke’s carnage was heard ap- 
 proaching they would all scamper away. The 
 fact was that no one was allowed to shoot in the 
 large ducal preserves except the Duke himself. It 
 was a very great favour if he allowed even his 
 brothers or his best friends to accompany him 
 now and then. 
 
 Some of his forests were stocked with wild 
 boars. These animals were quite tame while they 
 were being fed in winter, but in summer they 
 would attack the horses of a carriage and become 
 really dangerous. If they could break out by 
 night, which happened not unfrequently, the peas- 
 ants would find next morning whole fields of 
 com ploughed up, trampled down, and destroyed. 
 Large damages had to be paid by the Duke, but 
 he never demurred as long as he was unshackled 
 by his two responsible ministers. After 1848, 
 however, not only was the amount to be paid for 
 damages considerably reduced by his ministers, 
 but the Duke was told that this pig-preserving 
 was a very expensive amusement, and that it 
 might make him veiy unpopular. The Duke 
 knew better. He knew the peasants liked his 
 
Recollections of Royalties 243 
 
 boars, and still more the ample damages which he 
 paid, but he did not like the advice of his minis- 
 ters. So whenever any mischief had been done 
 by the boars, the peasants ran after his carriage in 
 the forest and told him how much they had lost. 
 In his good-nature he used to say : “ I will pay it 
 all, let me know how much it is ; only do not tell 
 my ministers.” 
 
 After a time things settled down again at Des- 
 sau, still the old state of things could never come 
 back. The three duchies of Anhalt-Dessau, Cd- 
 then, and Bernburg with its beautiful Hartz 
 mountains, when united, formed a more consider- 
 able principality, and it was thought necessary to 
 have a regular parliament to control its finances, 
 and watch over its legislation. Everything as- 
 sumed a grander air; the Duke, who since the 
 days of the Old Dessauer had been Serene High- 
 ness (Durchlaucht), now became Highness (Ho- 
 heit), which is supposed to be a step higher than 
 Serene Highness (Dtu-chlaucht), though I cannot 
 see how language could ever produce a finer title 
 than Serene Highness. The railway, which as the 
 Berlin jokers said, had led to the discovery of 
 Dessau, brought it at all events close to Berlin, 
 Leipzig, Magdeburg, and the great Continental 
 net of railways. People from all parts of Ger- 
 many came to settle in the quiet, beautiful town 
 
Auld Lang Syne 
 
 244 
 
 on the Mulde ; the Elbe had been made navigable 
 nearly as far as Dessau, and the port near the 
 Walwitzberg became an important commercial 
 centre for export and import. 
 
 Whenever I pay a visit to Dessau I find the town 
 more and more enlarged and much improved. The 
 old lamps that swung across the streets are gone, 
 the gurgoyles frown no longer on large red and 
 green umbrellas ; there are gas lamps, and there 
 are waterworks, and cabs, and tramways. The 
 grass is no longer allowed to grow in the chinks of 
 the pavement. The old Duke is gone, and the old 
 people whom I knew as a boy are gone too. The 
 wild boars are still there, but they are no longer 
 allowed to break out of bounds. Old men and 
 women are still seen sawing wood and cutting it up 
 in the street, but I do not know their faces, nor 
 the faces of the old women from whom I bought 
 my apples. I look at every man and woman that 
 passes me, there is not one whose face or name I 
 know. It is only Avhen I go to the old cemetery 
 outside the town that old names greet me again, 
 some very dear to me, others almost forgotten dur- 
 ing my Wanderjahre. No doubt the present is bet- 
 ter, and the future, let us trust, will be better still ; 
 but the past had its own charms ; our grandfathers 
 were as wise as their sons and grandsons, and pos- 
 sibly they were happier. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF ROYALTIES 
 
 II 
 
 My first and very pleasant contact with Royalty 
 had taken place at Dessau, while I was a school- 
 boy. When afterwards I went to the University 
 of Berlin, the Duchess of Dessau had given me 
 an introduction to Alexander von Humboldt, and 
 while I was in Paris, working at the then Biblio- 
 theque Royale, Humboldt had used his powerfxil 
 influence -with the King, Frederick William IV., to 
 help me in publishing my edition of the “Rig 
 Veda” in Germany. Nothing, however, came of 
 that plan ; it proved too costly for any private pub- 
 lisher, even with Royal assistance. But when, 
 after having pubUshed the first volume in England, 
 under the patronage of the East India Company, 
 I passed some weeks at Berlin, in 1850, collating 
 some of the Vedic MSS. in the Royal Library 
 there, I received a message from Humboldt that 
 the King wished to see me. 
 
 Frederick William IV. was a man of exceptional 
 245 
 
246 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 talent, nay, a man of genius. I had heard much 
 about him from Bunsen, who was a true friend and 
 confidant of the King, ever since they had met at 
 Eome. I had seen some of the King’s letters to 
 Bunsen; some of them, if I remember rightly, 
 signed, not by the King’s name, but by Gongru- 
 entia Incongruentium, probably from his imagining 
 that the different opinions and counsels of his va- 
 rious friends and advisers would find their solution 
 in him. This idea, if it was entertained by the 
 King, would account for the many conflicting sides 
 of his character, and the frequent changes in his 
 opinions. I presented my volume of the “Big 
 Veda” to him at a private audience. He knew all 
 about it, and had so much to tell me about the old- 
 est book of mankind, that I had hardly a chance to 
 say anything myself. But it was impossible to lis- 
 ten to him without feeling that one was in the 
 presence of a mind of very considerable grasp and 
 of high and noble ideals. 
 
 A few days after this audience I received an in- 
 vitation to dine with the King at Potsdam, and 
 Humboldt wrote to me that he would take me in 
 his carriage. 
 
 But a curious intermezzo happened. While I 
 was quietly sitting in my room with my mother, 
 a young lieutenant of police entered, and began to 
 ask a number of extremely silly questions — why 
 
Recollections of Royalties 247 
 
 I had come to Berlin, when I meant to return to 
 England, what had kept me so long at Berlin, 
 etc. After I had fully explained to him that I 
 was collating Sanskrit MSS. at the Royal Library, 
 he became more peremptory, and informed me 
 that the police authorities thought that a fortnight 
 must be amply sufficient for that pui’pose (how I 
 wished that it had been so), and that they re- 
 quested me to leave Berlin in twenty-four hours. 
 I produced my passport, perfectly en regie ; I ex- 
 plained that I wanted but another week to finish 
 my work. It was all of no avail, I was told that 
 I must leave in twenty-four hours. I then col- 
 lected my thoughts, and said very quietly to the 
 young lieutenant, “Please to tell the police au- 
 thorities that I shall, of course, obey orders, and 
 leave Berlin at once, but that I must request them 
 to inform His Majesty the King that I shall not 
 be able to dine Avith him to-night at Potsdam.” 
 The poor young man thought I was laughing at 
 him, but when he saw that I was in earnest he 
 looked thunderstruck, bowed, and went away. All 
 this seems now almost incredible even to myself 
 while I am writing it down, but so it w'as. Nor 
 was the explanation far to seek. One of my 
 friends, with whom I had been almost every day, 
 was Dr. Goldstiicker, a young Sanskrit scholar, 
 who had been mixed up with political intrigues. 
 
248 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 and had long been under strict surveillance. I 
 was evidently looked upon as an emissary from 
 England, then considered the focus of all political 
 conspiracies ; possibly my name had been found 
 in the Black Book as a dangerous man, who, when 
 he was about eighteen, had belonged to a secret 
 society, and had sung Arndt’s song, “Was ist des 
 Deutschen Vaterland,” before Bismarck sang it in 
 his own way. It was not long, however, before 
 another police official appeared, an elderly gentle- 
 man of very pleasant manners, who explained to 
 me how sorry he was that the young lieutenant of 
 police should have made so foolish a mistake. He 
 begged me entirely to forget what had happened, 
 as it would seriously injure the young lieutenant’s 
 prospects if I lodged a complaint against him. I 
 promised to forget, and, at all events, not to refer 
 to what had happened in the Koyal presence. 
 
 Humboldt and I drove to Potsdam, and I had a 
 most delightful dinner and evening party. The 
 King was extremely gracious, full of animated con- 
 versation, and evidently in the best of humours. 
 While the Queen was speaking to me, he walked 
 up to us, bowed to the Queen, and said to her, not 
 to me, “S’il vous plait, monsieur.” With this 
 sally he took her arm and walked into the dining- 
 room. We followed and sat down, and during the 
 whole dinner the King carried on a conversation 
 
Recollections of Royalties 249 
 
 in a voice so loud that no one else ventured to 
 speak. I watched the King, and saw how his face 
 became more and more flushed, while he hardly 
 touched a drop of wine during the whole of din- 
 ner. 
 
 After dinner we all stood, and the King walked 
 about from one to the other. 
 
 Humboldt, who was at that time an old man, 
 about eighty, stood erect for several hours like all 
 the rest. When we drove home it was very late, 
 and I could not help remarking on the great sacri- 
 fice he was making of his valuable time in attend- 
 ing these court functions. 
 
 “WeU,” he said, “the HohenzoUem have been 
 very kind to me, and I know they like to show 
 this old piece of fmniture of theirs. So I go 
 whenever they want me.” He went on to say how 
 busy he was with his “ Kosmos,” and how he 
 could no longer work so many hours as in former 
 years. “ As I get old,” he said, “ I want more 
 sleep, four hours at least. When I was young,” 
 he continued, “ two hours of sleep were quite 
 enough for me.” I ventui*ed to express my 
 doubts, apologising for difi“ering from him on any 
 physiological fact. “It is quite a mistake,” he 
 said, “ though it is veiy widely spread, that we 
 want seven or eight hours of sleep. When I was 
 your age, I simply lay down on the sofa, turned 
 
250 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 down my lamp, and after two hours’ sleep I was 
 as fresh as ever.” 
 
 “ Then,” I said, “ your Excellency’s life has 
 been double the life of other people, and this ac- 
 counts for the immense amount of work you have 
 been able to achieve.” Humboldt was never mar- 
 ried and, I was told, had never been in love. But 
 I did not tell him what was in my mind, that un- 
 der such circumstances his life had really been 
 four times that of ordinary mortals. 
 
 “ Yes,” he said, “ I have had a long span of life 
 to work, but I have also been very much helped 
 by my friends and colleagues. I know,” he con- 
 tinued, “ I have been abused for not building my 
 own stoves for making chemical experiments ; but 
 a general, in order to make great conquests, must 
 have colonels, captains, lieutenants, and even pri- 
 vates under him.” And those who served under 
 him and assisted him had certainly no cause to re- 
 gret it. He helped them whenever he could, and 
 his influence at that time was very great. To be 
 mentioned in a note in his “ Kosmos ” was for 
 a scholar what it was for a Greek city to be 
 mentioned in the catalogue of ships in the 
 “ Iliad.” I could not resist telling him in strict 
 confidence my little adventure with the police 
 lieutenant, and he was highly amused. I hope he 
 did not teU the King; anyhow, no names were 
 
Recollections of Royalties 251 
 
 mentioned and the poor lieutenant of police, who, 
 of course, had only done what he was told, may, 
 long ago I hope, have become a president of 
 police, or some “grosses Thier.” When I left 
 Humboldt I felt I should not see him again, and 
 the old man was moved as much as I was in 
 saying good-bye. These old heroes had very 
 large and tender hearts. After all, I was only one 
 out of hundreds of young men in whom he took 
 an interest, and I happen to know that his inter- 
 est was not only in words, but in deeds also. He 
 was by no means what we should call a rich man, 
 but I know that he sent young Brugsch, after- 
 wards the great Egyptian scholar, Brugsch Pasha, 
 a handsome sum of money to enable him to 
 finish his studies at the University of Berlin, 
 though no one at the time heard anything about 
 it. 
 
 I did not see Humboldt again, nor Frederick 
 William IV. Long before this time it had become 
 clear that King William IV. was not what he im- 
 agined himself to be — the congruence of all the 
 incongruent elements then fermenting in Prussia 
 and Germany at large. There can be little doubt 
 that towards the end of his life his mind, or rather 
 his judgment, had given way. His mind, I be- 
 lieve, remained lively to the very end ; but, in a 
 State like Prussia, the Government without a 
 
252 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 clear-sighted King is like a runaway engine with- 
 out its driver. It may keep to the rails for a time, 
 but there is sure to be a smash at the end. The 
 King had parted with one friend after another. 
 His own brother, the Prince of Prussia, after- 
 wards the first German Emperor, fell into dis- 
 grace, and had in the end to leave the country and 
 take refuge in England. The name by which he 
 was known in the family was not flattering. He 
 was a soldier, clear-headed and straightforward. 
 His whole heart was in the army, and when he 
 afterwards came to the throne, he wisely left 
 everything else to his responsible ministers, after 
 he had once learnt to trust them. The army was 
 the pride of his life, and to see that army ordered 
 out of Berlin, and not allowed to restore order in 
 the streets of the capital, had nearly broken his 
 heart. He was intensely unpopular in 1848. His 
 own palace was taken possession of, and, in order 
 to preserve it from pillage, a large inscription was 
 put on the walls, “ National Property.” I was not 
 in Germany that year, but I heard much from my 
 friends there — v. Schloezer, Ernst Ciartius, and 
 others — all personal friends of the Prince and 
 Princess of Prussia. The Prince was not even al- 
 lowed to command his own, the Prussian army, in 
 the Schleswig-Holstein war, then just beginning ; 
 and the following letter, written in London, and 
 
Recollections of Royalties 253 
 
 addressed to one of liis comrades, shows how 
 deeply he felt it : — 
 
 Mit welchen Gefiihlen habe icb gestem Euren Sieg bei 
 Schleswig vernommen ! ! ! Gott sei Dank dass unser alter 
 Wafieni-ubm auch gegen einen ebrlichen Feind sich be- 
 wiihrt hat ! Sage doch Deinen Untergebenen, wie gliick- 
 lich ich ware iiber diese Siegesnachricht : wie der Geist, 
 der Euch zum Siege fiihrte, der alte preussische war, der 
 vor nichts zuriickschreckt. Wie beneide ich Dir das 
 Gluck, diese Lorbeeren geerntet zu haben. Du weisst, 
 wie nahe es daran war, dass ich sie mit Dir hatte theilen 
 konnen. Wie waren dabei alle meine Wiinsche in Erfiil- 
 lung gegangen: Truppen meiner beiden lieben Corps 
 gefiihrt zu haben, im Ernst - Kampfe ! — Es sollte nicht 
 sein !— Aber ich kann es nicht verschmerzen, da die Mog- 
 lichkeit vorhanden war ! Nun, Gott wird es doch wohl 
 noch einst so fiigen, dem wir ja Alles anheim stellen 
 miissen. Wer kann und muss es wohl mit mehr Designa- 
 tion als ich ! Er priift mich schwer, aber mit einem 
 reinen Gewissen erwarte ich den Tag der Wahrheit, damit 
 ich dem neuen Preussen meine Kiafte widmen kann, wie 
 dem alten, wenngleich das Herz trauern muss, iiber den 
 Fall des alien, Preiissen, des Selbstandigen. Lebe wohl 1 
 Gott schiitze Dich ferner und erhalte Dich den Deinen, 
 die sehr besorgt sein miissen. Ich kenne die Verluste 
 noch nicht, mir bangt etwas vor ihnen. 
 
 Ewig Dein treuer Freund, 
 Wilhelm. 
 
 London, d. 29. 4. 48. 
 
 I was at that time in London, and often with 
 Bunsen at the Prussian Legation in Carlton 
 
254 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 House Terrace. There was a constant succession 
 of couriers bringing letters from Berlin. On one 
 occasion a sub-editor from The Times ofl&ce rushed 
 in and said : “ Well, another one is gone, the King 
 of Bavaria ! ” He did not see that the Bavarian 
 minister, Baron Cetto, was in the room, and thus 
 received this very informal notification of his 
 sovereign’s fate. It was known that the King had 
 remained at his palace, but that the Prince of 
 Prussia had left Berlin. For several days no one 
 knew where he was. I was quietly sitting on the 
 sofa with Bunsen (27th March, 1848, 8 a.m.) dis- 
 cussing some question of Vedic mythology, when 
 a servant came in and whispered something in 
 Bmasen’s ear. Bunsen rose, took me by the arm 
 and said : “ Make haste, run away.” I did so, 
 and as I ran out of the door I rushed against the 
 Prince of Prussia. I hardly knew him at first, for 
 he was not in uniform, and had no moustache. 
 In fact, I saw him as few people have ever seen 
 him. He stayed in London for many weeks at 
 the Prussian Legation, where I met him several 
 times, and, honest and hardworking as he was all 
 through life, he did not waste the time in Bun- 
 sen’s house, nor did Bunsen lose the opportunity 
 of showing the Prince how well a free and pop- 
 ular form of government could be carried on with 
 due respect for order and law, and with love and 
 
Recollections of Royalties 255 
 
 devotion to tlie tlirone. This London episode of 
 the Prince’s hfe has borne ample fruit in the hey- 
 dey of the German Empire, and he by whom the 
 seed was sown has but seldom been remembered, 
 or thanked for the good work he did then for his 
 sovereign and for his country. 
 
 There was no sovereign more constitutional 
 than the King of Prussia at the beginning of his 
 reign. He surrounded himself with enlightened 
 and liberal-minded ministers, and never interfered 
 with their work. Having been brought up to look 
 upon his brother as a great genius, he was very 
 humble about his own qualifications, and he even 
 thought for a time of abdicating in favour of his 
 son. This, however, would not have suited Bis- 
 marck’s hand. When the Prince of Prussia came 
 to the throne, he stipulated one thing only with 
 his ministers : they must give him a free hand to 
 strengthen the army ; for all the rest he would 
 follow their advice. And so he did for several 
 years. But when they failed to keep their prom- 
 ise, and to get Parhament to pass the necessary 
 military budget, he parted with them and invited 
 Bismarck to form a new ministry in 1862. This 
 was the beginning of the political drama which 
 ended at Sedan, if indeed it ended then. 
 
 I had heard much from my friends Roggenbach, 
 Schloezer, and E. Curtius about the Princess of 
 
256 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Prussia (afterwards the Queen of Prussia, and the 
 first German Empress), and my expectations were 
 not deceived when I was presented to her dm’ing 
 her stay in England in the spring of 1851. She was 
 grand dame, highly gifted, highly cultivated. She 
 wanted to see everything and know everybody 
 worth kno^ving in England. It was she who went 
 to Eton to see a cricket match played. She had 
 heard much about it, and was most anxious to watch 
 it. After the game had been going on for a good 
 quarter of an hour, she turned impatiently to the 
 Provost, and asked : “When are the boys going to 
 begin? ” She had evidently expected some kind of 
 fight or skirmish, and was rather disappointed at 
 the quiet and businesslike way in which the boys, 
 who were on their best behaviour, threw the ball 
 and hit it back. However, at that time everything 
 Enghsh, even the games, was perfect in the eyes 
 of the Germans, and nothing more perfect than the 
 Princess Koyal, when she had been won by the 
 young Prince of Prussia in 1857. The Princess of 
 Prussia never forgot people whom she had once 
 taken an interest in, and I had several interesting 
 interviews with her later on — at Coblentz in 1863, 
 at Baden in 1872. I confess I was somewhat taken 
 aback when, after dinner, the Empress took me by 
 the hand, and stepped forward, addressing the 
 whole company present, and giving the ladies and 
 
Recollections of Royalties 257 
 
 gentlemen a full account of what this Oxford pro- 
 fessor had done for Germany during the Franco- 
 German war by defending their cause in The Times. 
 All I could reply was that I had done little enough, 
 and that I could not help saying what I had said in 
 The Times, and that I was proud of having been 
 well abused for having spoken the truth. 
 
 Whatever disappointments she may have had in 
 life, she lived long enough to see the fulfilment of 
 her patriotic dreams ; she wore the Imperial crown 
 of Germany, and she saw in the Crown Prince 
 Frederick the fulfilment of all that a mother can 
 dream of for her son. One wishes that she had 
 died a year sooner, so as to be spared the terrible 
 tragedy of her son’s illness and death in 1888. 
 
 That son, our Princeps juventutis, had been edu- 
 cated by my friend Ernst Curtius, and was on most 
 friendly terms with many of my German friends. I 
 made his acquaintance when he came to Oxford as 
 a very young man in 1857. He brought George 
 Bunsen and two friends with him, and I took rooms 
 for them at the Angel Hotel, which stood where 
 the Examination School, the so-called Chamber of 
 Horrors, not stands. For several days I took the 
 Prince to all the Colleges and to some of the lect- 
 ures, even to one of the public examinations. No 
 one knew him, and we preserved the strictest in- 
 cognito. He quickly perceived the advantages of 
 17 
 
258 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 the English university system, particularly of the 
 college life and the tutorial teaching. But he saw 
 that it would be hopeless to attempt to introduce 
 that system into Germany. Though at that time 
 everything English was admired in Germany, he 
 was clear-sighted enough to see that it is better to 
 learn than simply to copy. The weak point in the 
 German university system is that, unless an under- 
 graduate is personally known to a professor, he re- 
 ceives very little guidance. He generally arrives 
 from school, where he has been under very strict 
 guidance, without any choice as to what he really 
 wishes to learn. He then suddenly finds himself 
 independent, and free to choose from an immense 
 menu {Index lectionum) whatever tempts his appe- 
 tite. Most German students, when they leave 
 school, have not only a natural curiosity, but a real 
 thii’st for learning. They have also a feeling of great 
 reverence for the professors, particularly for the 
 most famous professors in each university. They 
 often select their university in order to hear the 
 lectures of a certain professor, and if he is moved 
 to another university they migrate with him. In the 
 strictly professional faculties of medicine, law, and 
 theology, there is no doubt a certain routine, and 
 students know by a kind of tradition what lectures 
 they should attend in each semester. But in the 
 philosophical faculty there is little, if any, tradi- 
 
Recollections of Royalties 259 
 
 tion, and looking at my book of lectui’es, attested 
 by the various professors at Leipzig, lam perfectly 
 amazed at the variety of incongruous subjects on 
 which I attended professorial classes. Unless they 
 were all properly entered and attested in my book 
 I could not believe that at that time (1840-41), 
 when I was only seventeen years of age, I had really 
 attended lectures on so many heterogeneous sub- 
 jects. In this respect, in preventing waste, the 
 college or tutorial system has, no doubt, many ad- 
 vantages, but the young Prince saw very clearly 
 that what is called in Germany academic freedom 
 cannot be touched, that the universities could not 
 be changed into schools, if for no other reason, be- 
 cause it would be impossible to find the necessary 
 funds to inaugurate the college system by the side 
 of the professorial system. All that coidd possibly 
 be done would be to establish a closer relation be- 
 tween professors and undergraduates, to increase, 
 in fact, the number of seminaries and societies, and 
 to make it obligatory on each professor to have 
 some personal intercourse with the students who 
 attend his lectures. 
 
 The Prince’s incognito was carefully preserved at 
 Oxford, though it was not always easy to persuade 
 his attendants not to bow and take off their hats 
 whenever they met the Prince. The very last day, 
 however, and just before I asked for the bill at the 
 
26 o 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 hotel, one of his A.D.C.’s forgot himself, bowed 
 very low before the door of the hotel, and stood 
 bareheaded before the Prince. The hotel-keeper 
 smiled and came to me with a very knowing look, 
 telling me of the discovery he had made. He was 
 very proud of his perspicacity ; but I am sorry to 
 say that the discovery had its painful influence on 
 the bill also, which, under the circumstances, could 
 not be helped. 
 
 What struck the Prince most at Oxford was the 
 historical continuity of the University. I reminded 
 him of the remark which Frederick William IV. 
 made when at Oxford : — 
 
 “Gentlemen,” he said, “ in your University every- 
 thing that is young is old, everything that is old is 
 young.” “ We cannot do everything,” the Prince 
 used to say, “but we shall do our best in Ger- 
 many.” Though the Prince was still very young, 
 he could at times be very serious. There had act- 
 ually been rumours, as I have said before, that his 
 father, always one of the most humble-minded men, 
 would abdicate in favour of his son, who was very 
 popular, while the father at one time was not, and 
 the thought that he might soon be called upon to 
 rule the destinies of Prussia and of Germany was 
 evidently not unfamihar to him. How different 
 was his destiny to be ! What terrible events 
 had happened before I saw much of the Prince 
 
Recollections of Royalties 261 
 
 again ; for though I saw him in his own happy 
 home life at the Neue Palais afc Potsdam in 1863, 
 it was not imtil after the Prusso-Austrian and 
 Pranco-German wars that I had again some real 
 personal intercourse with the Prince at Ems in the 
 year 1871. He had sent me a very kind letter im- 
 mediately after his return to Berlin from Paris. 
 Even Bismarck had sent me a message through his 
 private secretary that he was proud of his new ally. 
 I had defended the policy of the German Emperor 
 in The Times, simply because I could not keep si- 
 lent when the policy of Germany was misrepre- 
 sented to the people of England. 
 
 Here is the Prince’s letter, which I received in 
 May, 1871 
 
 Berlin, Mai 1871. 
 
 Ich habe mit aufrichtigem Danke und ganz besonderem 
 Interesse Ihre “ Letters on the War” entgegengenommen, 
 welche Sie die Freundlichkeit batten, mir zu iibersenden. 
 
 Mit der einmuthigen Hingebung unseres Volkes wahrend 
 der grossen Zeit die wir durchkampft, steht im schonsten 
 Einklang die patriotische Haltung welche unscre deutschen 
 Briider, oft unter den schwierigsten Verhiiltnissen und mit 
 Opfer aller Art bewahrt und durch die sie sich fiir immer 
 einen Anspruch auf die Dankbarkeit des Vaterlandes er- 
 worben haben. 
 
 Dass die Erfahrungen, welche die Deutschen in England 
 wahrend unseres ruhmvollen Krieges gemacht, nicht im- 
 mer erfreulich waren, ist mir ireilich bekannt, Griinde der 
 verschiedensten Art kamen zusammen um eine Verstim- 
 
262 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 mung zu erzeugen, die hiiben und druben von alien ein- 
 sichtigen und patriotischen Mannern gleich schmerzlich 
 empfunden ist. 
 
 Meine feste und zuversichtlicbe Hoflfnung bleibt es aber 
 dass dieselbe bald jenem herzlichen Einvernehmen wieder 
 Platz machen wird, welches die Natur unserer gegenseiti- 
 gen Beziehungen und Interessen verlangt. Dieses Ziel 
 woUen wir verfolgen, unbeirrt durch Aufregungen und 
 Eindriicke des Augenblicks, uberzeugt, dass es fiir das 
 Gedeihen beider Lander ebenso heilsam wie fiir den 
 Frieden Europa’s unerlasslich ist. 
 
 Sie haben Ihi-erseits niemals aufgehort in diesem Geiste 
 thatig zu sein und es ist mir deshalb Bediirfniss, Ihnen 
 meine dankbare Anerkennung fiir Ihr erfolgreiches Wir- 
 ken hierdurch auszusprechen. 
 
 Ihr wohlgeneigter 
 
 Friedrich WiLHEiiM. 
 
 At Ems tlie Prince was the popular hero of the 
 day, and wherever he showed himself he was en- 
 thusiastically greeted by the people. He sent me 
 word that he wished to see me. When I arrived 
 the antechambers were crowded with Highnesses, 
 Excellencies, Generals, all covered with stars and 
 ribands. I gave my card to an A. D. C. as simple 
 Max Muller, and was told that I must wait, but I 
 soon saw there was not the slightest chance of my 
 having an audience that morning. I had no uni- 
 form, no order, no title. From time to time an 
 officer called the name of Prince So-and-So, Count 
 So-and-So, and people became very impatient. 
 
Recollections of Royalties 263 
 
 Suddenly the Prince himself opened the door, and 
 called out in a loud voice, “ Maximiliane, Maxi- 
 miliane, kommen Sie herein ! ” 
 
 There was consternation in the crowd as I 
 walked through, but I had a most pleasant half- 
 hour with the Prince. Once when I began to 
 bubble over and tried to express, as well as I 
 could, my admiration for his splendid achieve- 
 ments in the war, he turned away rather angrily, 
 and said, “ Na, sind Sie denn auch unter die 
 Schmeichler gegangen ! ” I wrote a sonnet at the 
 time, which I find among my old papers : — 
 
 IN EMS AM 19. JULI 1871. 
 
 DEM KEONPKINZEN VON DEUTSCHLAND. 
 
 Wie jungen Most von altem Holz umschlungen 
 Fiihlt ich mein Bint, das sich im Herzen riihrte, 
 
 Als es den Druck der Heldenhand verspiirte, 
 
 Die Deutschlands Schwert so ritterlich geschwungen. 
 
 Oft bort icb’s scbon gesagt und auch gesungen, 
 
 Wie Dich dein Stern von Sieg zu Siege fuhrte, 
 
 Doch fiihlt ich nie, wie sich’s fiir Dich gebiihrte, 
 
 Das Herz so ganz von Lieb und Stolz durchdrungen. 
 
 Einst sah ich in der Jugend schonen Hiillung 
 In Dir die Zukunft Deutschlands sich entfalten, 
 
 Die neue Zeit erstehen aus der alten : — 
 
 Heut stand vor mir die herrlichste Erfiillung — 
 
 Ein deutscher Fiirst, das Aug’ vol Treu und Adel, 
 
 Ein ganzer Mann, Held ohne Furcht und Tadel. 
 
264 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 This was followed by another sonnet at the 
 time of his death : — 
 
 DEM KAISER FRIEDRICH— 1888. 
 
 Wir warteten im Stillen lange Jahre, 
 
 Und Dimmer wankte unsres Herzens Glanbe ; 
 
 Wir sah’n im dunklen Griin die reiche Traube, 
 
 Und wnssten, welchen Saft sie uns bewahre. 
 
 Und jetzt ! O klaget nicht an seiner Bahre, 
 
 Wenn auch der Leib zerfallt zum Erdenstanbe, 
 
 Nie werde das dem blinden Tod znm Ranbe, 
 
 Was er gewollt das Hohe, Schone, Wahre ! 
 
 Dem edlen Geiste woll’n wir Trene halten, 
 
 In stiUem Dulden wie in kiihnem Wagen ; 
 
 Wir ehren ihn durch Thaten, nicht durch Klagen, 
 
 Und lassen unsre Liebe nie erkalten : 
 
 Was wir verloren, kann kein BUck ermessen, 
 
 Was wir gehabt, eas bleibe unvergessen. 
 
 The old Emperor was at Ems at the same time, 
 and so was the Emperor Alexander of Eussia. It 
 was a surprise to me to see these two Emperors 
 walking together in the crowd, and fetching their 
 glass of water at the spring, apparently without 
 any protection. The people did not much crowd 
 round them, but neither were they kept back by the 
 police officers. I asked one of the higher officials 
 how they managed to keep out any dangerous Poles 
 
Recollections of Royalties 265 
 
 or Frenchmen, who might have shot the two Em- 
 perors with a doiTble-barrelled pistol at any moment. 
 The place was swarming with people of every 
 nationality ; but he said that there was no one at 
 Ems who was not known. I confess it was a riddle 
 to me. The good old Emperor, who had heard of 
 my presence, asked me to dine, and he also thanked 
 me for my advocacy of Germany in The Times. 
 What a change since I ran against him in Bunsen’s 
 room ! Abeken, who during the war had been 
 Bismarck’s right hand, was there, and I learnt from 
 him that the famous Ems telegram had been written 
 by him, though, of course, inspired and approved of 
 by Bismarck. This is now well known, and has 
 become ancient history. Great as was the enthusi- 
 asm at Ems, it was heart-breaking to see the in- 
 valided soldiers, looking young and vigorous, but 
 without arms or legs, their only wish being to catch 
 a glimpse of the Emperor or the Crown Prince. 
 Some of them had been blinded in the war ; others 
 walked about on crutches, some with both arms cut 
 off, and using iron forks instead of hands and fingers. 
 All was done that could be done for them, and the 
 Emperor and the Crown Prince shook hands with 
 as many of them, officers or privates, as they could. 
 The Crown Prince had sent me word that he wished 
 to see me once more ; but his surroundings evidently 
 thought that I had been favoured quite enough, and 
 
266 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 our meeting again was cleverly prevented. No doubt 
 princes must be protected against intruders, but 
 should they be thwarted in their own wishes ? I 
 had another happy glimpse, however, of the Crown 
 Prince in his family circle, in 1876. 
 
 In the year 1879 the Crown Prince came once 
 more to Oxford, this time with his young son, the 
 present German Emperor, and accompanied by 
 the Prince of Wales. He had not forgotten his 
 former visit, when he was not much older than his 
 son was then, and he reminded me of what had 
 happened to us in the Examination Schools on his 
 former visit. The Prince had preserved the strict- 
 est incognito, but when we entered the schools his 
 appearance, and that of several foreign-looking 
 gentlemen, had attracted some attention. How- 
 ever, we sat down and listened to the exami- 
 nation. It was in Divinity, and one of the young 
 men had to translate a chapter in the Gospel of 
 St. John. He translated very badly, and the 
 Prince, not accustomed to the English pronuncia- 
 tion of Greek, could not follow. Suddenly there 
 was a burst of laughter. The Prince did not per- 
 ceive that it was due to a really atrocious mis- 
 translation. He turned to me and said : “ Let us 
 go ; they are laughing at us.” When we were 
 outside I explained to him what had happened ; 
 but it was really so bad that I must not repeat it 
 
Recollections of Royalties 267 
 
 here The passage was St. John, iv,, 9 : 
 ovv avTM 7) yvvr} ri ^a/j,apeiTC<;. 
 
 The young Prince, the present Emperor, who 
 was with his father, was very much pleased with 
 what he saw of Oxford, of the river, and of the life 
 of the young men. He would have liked to spend 
 a term or two at Oxford, but there were objections. 
 Fears of English influence had begun to show 
 themselves at Berlin. Several young ladies tried 
 their powers of persuasion on the young Prince, 
 who told me at the time, in true academic German, 
 “ In all my life I have not been canvassed so 
 much ” (In meinem Leben bin ich noch nicht so 
 gekeilt worden). 
 
 It is well known how warm an interest the 
 young Prince, now the German Emperor, has al- 
 ways taken in the success of Oxford, and for how 
 many years he has always sent his congratulations 
 by telegram to the successful, and now almost 
 charmed, Oxford crew\ 
 
 When the Crown Prince with his son and the 
 Prince of Wales honoured my College (All Souls’) 
 with their presence at luncheon, I remember pre- 
 senting to them three tumblers of the old ale that 
 is brewed in the College, and is supposed to be 
 the best in the University, very drinkable (siiffig), 
 but very strong. One year Avhen several men from 
 Cambridge were passing their long vacation at 
 
268 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Oxford (one of them was Lightfoot, afterwards 
 Bishop of Durham, another Augustus Vansittaxi;), 
 they were made free of all the common-rooms at 
 Oxford, and constituted examiners of the beers 
 brewed in the different Colleges. All Souls’ came 
 out at the head of the tripos, but there was to be a 
 new examination in the year following, and com- 
 petitors were invited to send their essays to F. M. 
 M., Professor of Comparative Palealeontology, at 
 All Souls’. I took a tumbler of the old ale myself 
 and drank to the health of “ The three Emperors.” 
 The Crown Prince did not see what I meant, and 
 asked again and again, “ But how so (Wie so) ? ” 
 “ The future German Emperor,” I said, “ the fut- 
 ure Emperor of India (the Prince of Wales), and, 
 in the very distant future, the third Emperor of 
 Germany.” The Crown Prince smiled, but an ex- 
 pression of seriousness or displeasure passed over 
 his face, showing me that I touched a sensitive 
 nerve. The Crown Prince was a curious mixture. 
 In his intercourse with his friends he liked to for- 
 get that he was a Prince, he spoke most freely and 
 unguardedly, and enjoyed a good laugh about a 
 good joke. He allowed his friends to do the same, 
 but suddenly, if any of his friends made a remark 
 that did not quite please him, he drew back, and 
 it took him some time to recover himself. He was 
 a noble and loyal nature. He knew Bismarck, he 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 269 
 
 knew his strong, and he knew his very weak, and 
 more than weak, points ; but such was his grati- 
 tude for what the old statesman had done for 
 Prussia and Germany that he never said an im- 
 kind word against him. I believe he would never 
 have parted with him, though he was quite aware 
 of the danger of a major domus in the kingdom of 
 Frederick the Great. History will have much to 
 say about those years, and will teach us once more 
 the old lesson — how small the great ones of the 
 earth can be. 
 
 Once more I met the Prince at Venice, when he 
 was enjoying himself with the Crown Princess and 
 some of his daughters. He was then incognito, 
 and he had the best cicerone in his learned and 
 charming wife. They worked hard together from 
 morning till evening. At last the people of Venice 
 found out who he was, and crowded round him to 
 that extent that he had to take refuge in the royal 
 palace. What struck me at the time was a sad- 
 ness and far greater reticence in the Prince. StiU, 
 at times, the old joyous smile broke out, as if he 
 had forgotten how serious life had become to him. 
 
 Again some years passed. The accounts of the 
 old Emperor’s health showed that his end was 
 drawing near, but at the same time began the dis- 
 quieting rumors about the Crown Prince’s health. 
 The Prince sent for me shortly after his arrival 
 
2yo Auld Lang Syne 
 
 in London, where he had come for the Queen’s 
 Jubilee, 1887. He looked as grand as ever, and 
 in his eyes there was the same light and life and 
 love, but his voice had become almost a whisper. 
 Nevertheless, he spoke hopefully, almost confi- 
 dently, and went through all the festivities like a 
 hero. Who will ever forget him on horseback in 
 the white uniform of the Prussian Curassiers, in 
 the midst of the sons and sons-in-law of the 
 Queen? I saw him once more at Windsor, the 
 day before he left for Germany. In the evening, 
 after dinner, he walked up to me and spoke to 
 me for a long time. His voice had regained its 
 timbre, and I felt convinced like himself that the 
 downward course of his malady was over, and that 
 the uphill Avork was now to begin. 
 
 After he had spoken to me for nearly half an 
 hour, one of his aides-de-camp came up to him, 
 and said : “ Not another word, your Eoyal High- 
 ness.” He shook my hand: I looked up to him 
 full of hope ; it was for the last time. He him- 
 self, I believe, retained his hopefulness to the 
 very end. The Greeks said : “ Those whom the 
 gods love die young.” When the Prince Consort 
 died, and when the Emperor Frederick died, one 
 felt inclined to say ; “ Those whom all men love 
 die young.” Five reigns have thus passed before 
 my eyes, those of Frederick William III., 1797- 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 271 
 
 1840 ; Frederick William IV., 1840-1861 ; Wil- 
 helm I., 1861-1888; Frederick IIL, 1888; Wil- 
 helm II., 1888 ; and if there is one lesson which 
 their history teaches us, and which everybody 
 should take to heart, it is that the wonderful work 
 which they have achieved is due to the hard work, 
 the determined purpose, and the persevering in- 
 dustry of these sovereigns. I did not know much 
 of the personal work of Frederick William III., 
 but, beginning with Frederick William IV. to the 
 present Emperor, I have had occasional glimpses 
 of theii’ private life, enough to show that none of 
 these men looked upon his place in life as a sine- 
 cure. In no case was their throne an easy chair. 
 Their bed was in very truth a bed of iron, not a 
 bed of roses. These sovereigns have been at 
 work day and night ; they have shared not only 
 in the triumphs, but in the privations and suffer- 
 ings of their army. I shall never forget, when I 
 was at Ems in 1871, passing the house where the 
 old Emperor resided ; and there in the first storey, 
 behind a green curtain, one could clearly see him 
 standing at his desk, with a lamp by his side, 
 reading and signing despatches, while everybody 
 else enjoyed the cool air of the evening, nay, long 
 after most people had gone to bed. The Emperor 
 Frederick, before he was Emperor, was unhappy 
 about one thing only, that he had not work enough 
 
272 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 to do, and if there a sovereign indefatigable in 
 the service of his country it is surely the present 
 King of Prussia, the German Emperor. I must 
 say no more, for I have made it a rule in these 
 Recollections not to say anything about living 
 persons, least of all royalties. Besides, through 
 all my life I have tried to follow the rule that 
 Buskin lays down for himself: “In every person 
 who comes near you look for what is good and 
 strong; honour that; rejoice in it, and, as you 
 can, try to imitate it.’’ 
 
 Though I did not see much of Prince Albert — I 
 am thinking of the time when he was still called 
 Prince Albert, and not yet the Prince Consort — 
 I heard much about him, partly from Bunsen, 
 who admired him greatly, partly through one of 
 his private secretaries, my old friend Dr. Karl 
 Meyer.* By this time the world knows not only 
 
 * Dr. Meyer was a most interesting character. He had been 
 for years in Bunsen’s house, formerly private secretary to 
 Schelling, the philosopher. He was a poet and a scholar, very 
 strong in Welsh, having spent many years travelling about in 
 Wales. He certainly was not cut out for life at court. After 
 leaving England he spent the last years of his life as reader to 
 the old Emperor of Germany ; a most faithful soul, and full of 
 varied information. Some of his occasional poems were beauti- 
 ful, his “ Bellone Orientalis ” a masterwork ; but they are all for- 
 gotten now. Dr. Meyer was devoted to the Prince, and much 
 that the world does not know of him, and never will know, 1 
 learnt at the time from Dr. Meyer. 
 
Recollections of Royalties 273 
 
 the nobilty of the Prince’s character, but the 
 strength of his intellect, his unceasing industry, 
 and his loyal devotion to his queen and country. 
 But there was a time when those Avho knew him 
 felt indignant, nay, fiuious, at the treatment which 
 he received in England. It would be well if that 
 page could be torn out of the history of England, 
 and as she who suffered most has long forgiven, if 
 not forgotten, who has a right to renovate dolores ? 
 Apart from all personal considerations, it seemed 
 a most extraordinary hallucination to imagine that 
 he who was the consort of the Queen should exer- 
 cise no influence on his wife. Human nature after 
 all is superior even to the English constitution. 
 One can imagine a political philosopher indulging 
 in so Utopian a theory as a marriage without in- 
 fluence, but that practical men, men of the world, 
 men of common sense, should have imagined such 
 a possibility — that English statesmen should have 
 imagined that a wife, because she was a Queen, 
 would never be influenced by her husband, will 
 hardly sound credible to future historians. I re- 
 member only one analogous case. When Lord 
 • John Russell was proposed as Secretary for For- 
 eign Affairs, several members of the Cabinet ob- 
 jected, fearing Lady Russell’s influence, and point- 
 ing out the danger of Cabinet secrets oozing out 
 through her indiscretion. Lord Palmerston lis- 
 18 
 
274 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 tened for a long time, and then turned to his col- 
 leagues and said : “ Well, I see one remedy only — 
 one of us must always sleep with them,” When 
 he saw blank consternation on the faces of his 
 colleagues, “ Well, well,” he said, “ we shall take 
 it by turns.” At a time when it was fully believed 
 that Prince Albert had been taken to the Tower 
 for high treason, no wonder that even a young 
 German student who spent his days in the Bod- 
 leian Library should have been attacked as a spy. 
 It was a passing madness, and the wonder is that 
 it passed without more serious consequences. 
 
 Prince Albert took a most lively interest in a 
 scheme which I had strongly advocated in The 
 Times and elsewhere, namely, that there should be 
 a school of Oriental languages in England, as in 
 every other country that has political and commer- 
 cial relations with the East. I pointed out that 
 for years France had maintained its Nicole des 
 Langues Orientales vivantes ; that Austria had its 
 Oriental School for the diplomatic service and for 
 the education of official interpreters ; that, long 
 before the Afghan disaster, there was a professor 
 teaching the Afghan language in the University of 
 St. Petersburg (and, I may add now, that Prussia 
 has a flourishing Oriental seminary in which even 
 African languages are taught by professors and 
 native teachers) ; but no one would listen to me 
 
Recollections of Royalties 275 
 
 except Prince Albert. The different offices, For- 
 eign Office, Horse Guards, Colonial Office, etc., 
 declared that interpreters could always be had, 
 and that the best way to secure their fidelity was 
 to pay them well. That others might pay them 
 better seemed never to have entered their minds. 
 Prince Albex*t saw clearly the disadvantage under 
 which England was labouring, nay, the danger that 
 threatened her trade and her general influence in 
 the East. He spoke to Lord Granville, and Lord 
 Granville wrote to me to make further proposals. 
 This I did ; but beyond that I decided I would not 
 go, for such was the feeling at that time, that the 
 name of Prince Albert and my own, as that of a 
 German scholar, would have been sufficient to 
 wreck the whole scheme. I remember writing at 
 the time to Prince Albert that we must w’ait till 
 “ Her Majesty, Public Opinion, became more fa- 
 vourable.” In the meantime, to speak of commer- 
 cial interests only, how much has England lost 
 by her unwillingness to incur an expense which 
 other countries have readily incurred, which the 
 people of England have a right to demand, and 
 which would not have amounted to anything like 
 the cost of a single man-of-war ! The Prince of 
 Wales took the same warm interest in the founda- 
 tion of an Oriental - school in London, as may be 
 seen from the speech he delivered at the Royal 
 
276 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Institution in 1890, when the scheme of a school 
 of Oriental languages was taken up by the Impe- 
 rial Institute, but even his persuasive eloquence 
 has hitherto proved ineffectual to realise a wish 
 that was so near his father’s heart, and of such 
 enormous importance to English interests in the 
 East. 
 
 As I think it right to abstain from recording my 
 recollections of royal persons still aHve, I must say 
 nothing of the stay of the young Prince of Wales 
 at Oxford ; but, among the many things which I 
 treasure in my memory, I may at least produce 
 one small treasure, a sixpence, which I won from 
 His Royal Highness at whist. I have always 
 been a very bad whist player, but good luck would 
 have it that I won a sixpence at Frewen Hall, the 
 Prince’s residence at Oxford. The Prince main- 
 tained that I had calculated my points Avrongly, 
 but not being a courtier, I held my own, and act- 
 ually appealed to General Bruce. When he de- 
 cided in my favour, the Prince graciously handed 
 me my sixpence, which I have kept ever since 
 among my treasures. I may speak more fully of 
 Prince Leopold, the late Duke of Albany, a deeply 
 interesting character of whom much was expected, 
 and in whom much has been lost. He was often a 
 gi-eat sufferer while at Oxford, but when he was 
 well, no one was so well as he was, no one looked 
 
Recollections of Royalties 277 
 
 more brilliant or more vigorous. His little din- 
 ner parties were charming. His tutor, Mr. (now 
 Sir) R. Collins, knew how to collect his guests, and 
 the Prince was the most excellent host. When- 
 ever I had some distinguished man staying with 
 me, a note was sure to come from the Prince, ask- 
 ing whether he might invite Emerson or Eroude, 
 or whoever it might be, and I well remember his 
 adding: “You may tell Mr. Eroude that I have 
 read the whole of his ‘ History.’ ” And so he had. 
 Being often confined to his bed he had read a 
 great deal, and was read to by his devoted tutor, 
 Sir R. Collins. How many fond hopes centred in 
 that life, and how anxious many of the best men 
 that Oxford has produced were to inspire him with 
 a love each of his own subject. Sanskrit, I soon 
 perceived, had no chance. But for a time astron- 
 omy was in the ascendant, then history, then art. 
 But there was always the danger to be guarded 
 against of the young student becoming too much 
 absorbed in any one subject, and losing that gene- 
 ral sympathy with learning and art which is so 
 desirable in a Prince. The Prince had a quick 
 eye for small weaknesses, but his kindness was 
 likewise extreme. I so well remember sitting by 
 him at dinner, and enjoying the most exquisite 
 real Johannisberger from the royal cellar. Prince 
 Metternich used to send every year some of the 
 
278 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 best of his crue to the royalties represented at the 
 Congress of Vienna, having received Johannisberg 
 from that Congress. Prince Leopold knew how to 
 appreciate the wines sent him from the royal cellar. 
 “ They like port better at Oxford,” he said to me, 
 “ but we shall keep to the Bheinwein.” It was 
 really a quite exceptional wine, the aroma of it 
 being perceptible even at the dinner-table. I 
 quoted some of my father’s drinking songs, “ Das 
 Essen, nicht das Trinken, bracht uns urn’s Para- 
 dies,” etc. Many delightful evenings were thus 
 spent in the Prince’s drawing-room. I often 
 played a quatre mains with him, fearing only to 
 touch and hurt his fingers, which was always most 
 painful to him. But to return to the Johannis- 
 berger. Long after the Prince had settled at 
 Boyton, I was staying with him, and at dinner he 
 said : “ Now we must drink the health of the 
 Princess of Wales ; it is her birthday. I have one 
 bottle left of the Oxford Bheinwein. I kept it for 
 you. It has travelled about with me from place 
 to place ; but there will be no more of it, it is the 
 last bottle.” 
 
 Once more the Piince was most kind to me un- 
 der most trying circumstances. I was to dine at 
 Windsor, and when I arrived my portmanteau was 
 lost. I telegraphed and telegraphed, and at last 
 the portmanteau was found at Oxford station, but 
 
Recollections of Royalties 279 
 
 there was no train to arrive at Windsor before 8.30. 
 Prince Leopold, who was staying at Windsor, and 
 to whom I went in my distress, took the matter in 
 a most serious spirit. I thought I might send an 
 excuse to say that I had had an accident and could 
 not appear at table ; but he said : “No, that is im- 
 possible. If the Queen asks you to dinner, you 
 must be there.” He then sent aU round the Castle to 
 fit me out. Everybody seemed to have contributed 
 some article of clothing — coat, waistcoat, tie, shorts, 
 shoes and buckles. I looked a perfect guy, and I 
 declared that I could not possibly appear before the 
 Queen in that attire. I was actually penning a note 
 when the 8.30 train arrived, and with it my luggage, 
 which I tore open, dressed in a few minutes, and 
 appeared at dinner as if nothing had happened. 
 
 Fortunately the Queen, who had been paying a 
 visit, came in very late. Whether she had heard 
 of my misfortimes I do not know. But I was very 
 much impressed when I saw how, with aU the de- 
 votion that the Prince felt for his mother, there 
 was this feeling of respect, nay, almost of awe, that 
 made it seem impossible for him to tell his own 
 mother that I was prevented by an accident from 
 obeying her command and appearing at dinner. 
 
 Oxford is an excellent place for seeing illustrious 
 visitors from aU parts of the world. It is the cyno- 
 sure of aU Americans, and it is strange to see how 
 
28 o 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 many travellers know all about the beauties of Ox- 
 ford, and seem often to be quite unaware of the 
 similar, nay, in some respects greater, beauties of 
 Cambridge. There is only one drawback. Most 
 travellers come to Oxford during the Long Vaca- 
 tion, and during the Long Vacation most professors 
 naturally go away. In that way I have missed see- 
 ing some people whose acquaintance I should have 
 highly valued. I thus lost the pleasure of showing 
 the late Emperor of Brazil the historical sights of 
 Oxford, being absent when he passed through. 
 He saw everything in a marvellously short time, 
 but then he was up sight-seeing at five in the morn- 
 ing. However, I made his acquaintance afterwards 
 in Switzerland. We were staying at an out-of-the- 
 way place at Gimmelwald, and one day about five 
 in the morning there was a loud knock at my bed- 
 room door. The whole wooden cottage trembled. 
 When I got up to see what was the matter, I saw my 
 friend Mr. Ralston, standing breathless on the stair- 
 case and saying, “ The Emperor of Brazil wants to 
 see you. He is staying at Interlaken, and has per- 
 suaded the Empress to stay another day to see you. 
 But you must get up at once and take a carriage 
 and drive to Interlaken.” I did so, and was with 
 the Emperor and Empress soon after breakfast. 
 The Empress and the gentlemen-in-waiting were 
 not in the best of humours on account of this un- 
 
Recollections of Royalties 281 
 
 expected delay in their journey. We had a long 
 and undisturbed talk in a private room. I was 
 sorry the Emperor would speak French, though, 
 having been at school in Switzerland, he spoke 
 German quite as well. He was full of questions 
 about Sanskrit hterature and the Vedic religion. I 
 was amazed at his knowledge, for he had actually 
 begun to study Sanskrit, and was fully aware of all 
 the difficulties that had to be met before we could 
 hope to gain an insight into the heart of the ancient 
 religion of the Vedic Rishis. He had a yoimg 
 German with him who acted as his tutor in San- 
 skrit, and likewise in Hebrew. It was very pleasant 
 to be examined by a man who really knew what 
 questions to ask, and who was bent on finding out 
 by himself what the “Rig Veda,” the most ancient 
 of aU the books in the world, really contained. Like 
 many others he seemed to expect too much, and I 
 had to teU him he must not be disappointed, and 
 that, though the Veda was certainly the oldest book 
 in the proper sense of that word, which had been 
 preserved to us in an almost miraculous manner, 
 still it bore already traces of a long gi'owth, nay, 
 even of a long decay of religious thought. If the 
 Vedic poets were different from what we expected 
 them to be, it was our fault, not theirs. They 
 showed us what the world was like in the second 
 millennium b.c., and if we thought that there was 
 
282 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 
 iu that millennium much that sounds childish and 
 absurd to us, it was well that we should know that 
 fact, and talk no longer of the mysterious or esoteric 
 ■wisdom of the East. Like most students, the Em- 
 peror wished to know the exact date of the Veda, 
 and I did not find it easy to explain to him that 
 where we have no contemporaneous history we can- 
 not expect an exact chronology. If some scholars 
 placed the Veda 5000 or 10,000 b.c., we should find 
 it difficult to refute them, but we should gain noth- 
 ing, it would be like one of the distant dates in 
 Egyptian and Babylonian chronology, a mere point 
 in vacuo. He was surprised when I confessed to 
 him that even the low date of about 1200 B.c., which 
 I had fixed upon, seemed to me too high rather than 
 too low, and that I should feel it a relief if anybody 
 could establish a lower date for at least some of the 
 Vedic hymns. I think the Emperor saw that in 
 spite of this inevitable uncertainty, the “ Rig Veda ” 
 would always maintain its unique position in the 
 history of religion, nay, of literature, being without 
 an equal anywhere, and allowing us an insight into 
 the growth of thought, such as we find in no other 
 literature. Whatever the antecedents of the Vedic 
 religion may have been, however rudely its original 
 features may have been effaced even before the be- 
 ginning of the Brahmana period, we can still see 
 here and there in the Veda some germ ideas, some 
 
 I 
 
Recollections of Royalties 
 
 283 
 
 thoughts requiring no antecedents, and in that sense 
 primitive, more primitive even than the thoughts 
 of Egypt, Babylon, and Nineveh, whatever their 
 merely chronological antiquity may have been. I 
 do not know how it happened — that from discussing 
 the ancient names of metals and the relative value 
 of gold and silver, as fixed, we do not know how, 
 in Egypt, Babylon, and afterwards in Greece, in 
 Italy, and the rest of the civilised world at aboiat 
 1 to 15 — our conversation drifted away into finan- 
 cial questions. Here I jnust have been betrayed 
 into uttering some financial heresy, possibly sa- 
 voui’ing of bimetallism, for I well remember the Em- 
 peror becoming rather impatient and saying : “ I 
 know all about that, and have studied the question 
 for many years. Let us return to the Veda.” 
 
 After a very pleasant luncheon we parted, and 
 soon after the Emperor lost his crown, as some 
 would have it, because he had given too much 
 thought and time to his studies instead of keeping 
 in touch with the leaders of the different parties 
 around his throne. However that may be, Brazil 
 has not been long before regretting her learned 
 Emperor. I heard afterwards that to the very end 
 of his reign, and even when in exile, the Emperor 
 kept his tutor and carried on his studies in San- 
 skrit and Hebrew. When at Stockholm in 1889, at- 
 tending the International Oriental Congress, under 
 
284 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 the auspices of the King of Sweden, I received a 
 letter from the Emperor of Brazil giving an ac- 
 count of his Sanskrit studies. I showed the letter 
 to the King of Sweden, Oscar II., himself a man 
 extremely well informed on Eastern literature, and 
 full of the warmest sympathy for Oriental scholars 
 and scholarship. He read the letter and sighed, 
 “ I have no leisure for Sanskrit,” he said. “ The 
 happy Emperor of Brazil has but one people to 
 govern, I have two.” c 
 
 I might go on for a long time with my royal 
 recollections, but it is, of comse, impossible to do 
 so when living persons are concerned. Most of 
 the royal persons with whom I was brought into 
 contact were eminent among their peers, but were 
 I to say what I think of them, I should at once be 
 called ugly names — courtier, flatterer, etc. Such 
 things cannot be helped, and the only excuse I 
 could, perhaps, plead as a circonstance attenuante 
 would be the reverence I imbibed vdth my moth- 
 er’s milk for my own Duke and my own Duchess 
 of Anhalt-Dessau. 
 
 There is only one more sovereign about whom I 
 may say a few words, the late Queen of Holland, 
 highly gifted as she was, and most charming in so- 
 ciety. She frequently came to England ; according 
 to the newspapers, as a friend and advocate of the 
 Emperor Napoleon. She was far too wise, how- 
 
Recollections of Royalties 285 
 
 ever, to attempt to play such a part at the English 
 court. But that she was much admired and won 
 the hearts of many people in London is certainly 
 true. She came to lunch with Stanley at the Dean- 
 ery. She had asked him to invite a number of lit- 
 erary men — Tennyson, Monckton Milnes (Lord 
 Houghton), Huxley, and several more. We were 
 waiting and waiting, but Tennyson did not appear. 
 Stanley suggested that we should not ■wait any 
 longer, but the Queen refused to sit down before 
 the great poet’s arrival. At last it was suggested 
 that Tennyson might be mooning about in the 
 Cloisters, and so he was. He was caught, and was 
 placed next to the Queen. The Queen knew won- 
 derfully how to hide her Crown, and put everybody 
 at their ease. She took the conversation into her 
 own hands, and kept the ball rolling during the 
 whole luncheon. But she got nothing out of Ten- 
 nyson. He was evidently in low spirits, and, sit- 
 ting next to him, I could hear how to every ques- 
 tion the Queen addressed to him he answered, 
 “ Tes, Ma’am,” “ No, Ma’am,” and at last, by a 
 great effort, “ Ma’am, there is a good deal to be said 
 on both sides of the question.” He then turned to 
 me and said in a whisper, but a loud whisper ; “ I 
 wish they had put some of you talking fellows next 
 to Regina.” 
 
 While I am finishing these “ Recollections of 
 
286 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Koyalties,” and sending the proof sheets to press, 
 the last echoes of the greatest triumph that has 
 ever been granted to royalty, which has ever been 
 celebrated by royalty, are vanishing from our ears. 
 May those royal recollections never vanish from 
 our memories! We need not, nay, we cannot ex- 
 aggerate their importance. Magnificent as the 
 pageant has been of the Diamond Jubilee of the 
 Queen of England, what was invisible in it was far 
 greater than what was so brilliantly visible in the 
 royal procession passing through the crowded 
 streets of London. Has there ever been an em- 
 pire like the British, not excluding the Babylon- 
 ian, the Persian, the Macedonian, or the Boman 
 empires ? Sixty years of one reign is not a mere 
 numerical expression ; no, it means permanent 
 vitality, unbroken continuity, sustained strength 
 and vigour, such as, I believe, have never been 
 witnessed in any reign during the whole history 
 of the world. 
 
 And England is not only the greatest, it is also 
 the freest, country in the world, so free that even 
 republics may well envy it its fresh and pure air ; 
 and yet was there ever among the vast masses, 
 rich and poor, a more universal outburst of hearty 
 loyalty to the Throne, of personal love of the sov- 
 ereign, than in the days of Queen Victoria’s Jubi- 
 lee? 
 
Recollections oF Royalties 287 
 
 It was said early in her reign by a royal and 
 loyal thinker that constitutional government was 
 then on its trial in England. So it was, but it 
 has come out triumphant, and stronger than ever. 
 Constitutional government under a royal protector 
 will henceforth be recognised as the most perfect 
 form of government which human ingenuity has 
 been able to devise, after many centuries of patient 
 and impatient search. Royalty has proved its 
 right to exist, and that under the sceptre of a 
 Queen who, if compared to other sovereigns, will 
 be famous not only for much that she has done, 
 but also for much that she has not done. Consti- 
 tutional government has proved its superiority 
 over any form of government by the triumph on 
 22 nd June. 
 
 If the people have been loyal to the Queen, how 
 loyal has the Queen been to her people ; if her 
 subjects have shared her joys and sorrows, how 
 warmly has she taken the sufferings of her people 
 to heart. Royalty has its dangers, and mankind 
 has suffered much from kings and emperors, but 
 the greatness of England during the last sixty 
 years has chiefly been due to the mutual esteem 
 and love of her people and their sovereign. The 
 world will know henceforth one at least of the 
 secret springs of England’s health and wealth and 
 strength — namely, the true sympathy that for 
 
288 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 years has knitted ruler and ruled together. Eng- 
 land has had great ministers and counsellors, but 
 ask those ministers, who for years has been their 
 truest and most trusted counsellor, and they will 
 not hesitate in their answer. No wonder that 
 England, celebrating the Sixty-years’ Jubilee of 
 her Sovereign, should have roused the admiration 
 — and it may be, the envy also — of other nations. 
 Let us hope that the admiration, so ungrudgingly 
 bestowed, may last, and that the envy, if any, may 
 pass away. “ Viel Ehr, viel Feind” is as true 
 here as elsewhere. Let other nations blame and 
 criticise, it is the highest compliment they can 
 pay. But let them ponder what Europe would 
 have been without England, what the world would 
 have been without the sceptre of the wise and 
 good Queen Victoria. 
 
 * 
 
BEGGARS 
 
 Often when I had related to my friends some of 
 my painful experiences with beggars and they 
 laughed at me, “ Wait,” I said, “ I shall have my 
 revenge ; and when I am unfit to do anything else, 
 I shall write a book about Beggars.” Now it has 
 sometimes happened to me of late that, when I 
 had sat down to do the work to which I have been 
 accustomed for so many years, I could not get on 
 at all, or if by a great effort of wiU I managed to 
 do something, it was of no use, and had to be done 
 again. I felt, therefore, that the time had come 
 for rest, or at all events, for a change of occupa- 
 tion, and, though I had not yet sufficient time to 
 spare for writing a whole book on beggars, I 
 thought I might jot down a few of my experiences, 
 not only as an amusement to myself, but possibly 
 as a useful lesson to some of my friends. seems 
 to me that my experience has been large, larger 
 than that of most of my acquaintances. Why, I 
 cannot tell ; but beggars, and extremely clever 
 beggars too, have evidently singled me out as an 
 easy prey. They seem to have imagined — in fact 
 
 IQ 289 
 
290 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 they told me so again and again — that I was a 
 rich man, and could well afford to help a poor 
 beggar. They little knew what a poor beggar I 
 was myself, and how hard I have had to work 
 through life to keep myseK afloat, and to live as I 
 was expected to live among my wealthy colleagues 
 at Oxford. They would have smiled incredulously 
 if I had told them how many hours, nay, how 
 many weeks, a scholar has often to do the hardest 
 drudgery without getting a penny for his work. 
 He has often to be thankful if he can find a pub- 
 lisher for what is the outcome of years of hard 
 labour. It is schoolbooks only that are remuner- 
 ative, or novels and sermons, and novels he has to 
 leave to his worldly, sermons to his unworldly, 
 fellow-labourers. 
 
 Some of my beggar acquaintances were so 
 clever and so well educated that they might easily 
 have made a living for themselves ; but, as one of 
 them told me when I thought I had made him 
 thoroughly ashamed of himself, and quite confi- 
 dential, they preferred begging to any other kind 
 of occupation. “ Talk of shooting partridges or 
 pheasants,” he said, “ talk of racing or gambling, 
 there is no sport like begging. There must always 
 be risk in sport, and the risk in begging is very 
 great. You are fighting,” my half-penitent inform- 
 ant said, “against tremendous odds. You ring 
 
Beggars 
 
 291 
 
 at the door, and you must first of all face a ser- 
 vant, who generally scrutinises you with great sus- 
 picion, and declines to take your name or your 
 card, unless you have a clean shirt and a decent 
 pair of boots. Then, after you have been admitted 
 to the presence, you have to watch every expres- 
 sion of your enemy or your friend, as the case may 
 be. You have to face the cleverest people in the 
 world, and you know all the time that the slight- 
 est mistake in your looks or in the tone of your 
 voice may lead to ruin. You may be kicked out 
 of the house, and if you meet with a high-minded 
 and public-spirited gentleman, who does not mind 
 trouble and expense, you may find yourself in the 
 hands of the police for trying to obtain money un- 
 der false pretences. No,” he concluded, “ I have 
 known in my time what hunting and shooting and 
 gambling are ; but I assure you there is no sport 
 like begging.” 
 
 What is one to do with such a visitor — in ap- 
 pearance, in manners, and in language, quite a 
 gentleman, or a ci-devant gentleman, a man who 
 has been at a university, and who, when asked, 
 will translate a page of Homer ta you very fair- 
 ly, who bears, of course, a noble name, and has 
 friends, as he gives you to understand, in every 
 university or at every com’t in Europe — what is 
 one to do with him, if not to accelerate his depart- 
 
2Q2 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ure by means of a small gift, for which he is gen- 
 erally very grateful ? But that is really the worst 
 one can do. For, on the strength of it, your noble 
 sportsman will at once go to other covers, to all 
 your friends, tell them that you have helped him, 
 describe your generosity, your room, your dog, 
 your cat, and thus among your unsuspecting 
 friends secure a fresh bag, dearer to him, if you 
 may believe him, than any number of pheasants 
 and partridges. 
 
 The information which these beggars possess is 
 quite astounding. They have stepped into my 
 room, and given me the most minute information 
 about my friends and relations in Germany, who 
 live in a small and b'ttle-known town, describing 
 their houses, their gardens, their dogs — every- 
 thing, in fact, to show that they had been on the 
 most familiar terms with them. This happened to 
 me some years ago when the organisation among 
 the foreign beggars in London was far more per- 
 fect than it is, or seems to be, at present. It may 
 be, of course, that they know that an old fox who 
 has been hunted again and again is difficult to 
 catch. Anyhow, I have not of late heard of any 
 such exploits as, unfortunately, I have had to suf- 
 fer from in former years. 
 
 It was after the Schleswig-Holstein war, in 
 about 1850, that one moming a young military- 
 
Beggars 
 
 293 
 
 looking man stepped into my room. He limped, 
 and told me lie had still a ball in his leg, which 
 must be removed. He presented himself as an 
 officer in the Danish Army — the only officer who 
 had joined the rebels, the Schlesvdg-Holsteiners — 
 and had been taken prisoner at the battle of Id- 
 stedt in 1850. He described most graphically 
 how he was confronted with his former Danish 
 comi’ades, how his epaulettes were torn off, how 
 his sword was broken, and he himself sent to a 
 military prison, previous, as he thought, to being 
 fusille for high treason. All this naturally ap- 
 pealed to my sympathy, and then he went on tell- 
 ing me, in the most confidential way, that when at 
 last sentence of death had been pronounced against 
 him, he knew quite well that it would never be 
 earned out, because the Queen of Denmark was 
 his dearest friend, and would never have allowed 
 such a thing. “ Give me some paper,” he said ; 
 “ I must wi’ite to my beloved Queen, and tell her 
 I am safe in England. She will be in deep dis- 
 tress till she hears of me.” He sat down and 
 wrote a letter, which he wished me to read. I 
 only saw the beginning of it: that was quite 
 enough ; it was in a style which only the most 
 devoted lover could have used. That letter was 
 stamped — I supplied the stamps — dropped into 
 the pillar-box, sent to Copenhagen, and must have 
 
294 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 been delivered to the Queen, though I doubt its 
 being preserved in the royal archives. And that 
 was not all. In a few days a letter came from 
 Copenhagen, delivered by post, which again I was 
 asked to read, but declined. I did not wish to 
 pry into State or Court secrets. But all this 
 showed, at all events, how cleverly the whole 
 scheme had been laid, so that a confederate could 
 send from Copenhagen a letter apparently written 
 by the Queen, in answer to a letter despatched to 
 her a few days before. I was completely taken in. 
 The young officer went to London to have the ball 
 extracted. I doubt now whether there was any 
 baU to extract. There he made many acquaint- 
 ances, and was helped by some very influential 
 people. I remember one, who afterwards rose to 
 the highest post in our Diplomatic Service, and 
 was at that time known among his friends as 
 never having a five-pound note in his possession. 
 He gave him <£10, and when I asked him : “ But, 
 my dear fellow, where in the world did you get 
 that ten-pound note ? ” he used, as was his wont, 
 very strong language, and said : “ I borrowed it 
 from the porter at my club.” This little comedy 
 went on for some time. The man himself must 
 have enjoyed his sport thoroughly, and he never 
 lost his presence of mind. I still think that he 
 must have been at one time in the Danish Ser- 
 
Beggars 
 
 295 
 
 vice, as he possessed very accurate information 
 about Danish officials and Danish affairs in gen- 
 eral, though in what capacity he served his coun- 
 try and his Queen has never been found out. His 
 ostensible correspondence with the Queen contin- 
 ued for some time. Even remittances arrived, as 
 we were told from his royal patroness, but most 
 of his fxmds were drawn, I am sorry to say, from 
 English pockets, and might have served some bet- 
 ter pui-pose. As far as I remember — for I am try- 
 ing to recall events that happened nearly fifty 
 years ago — a collection was made for our clever 
 adventurer, and he left England uninjured to look 
 for more dupes in the United States. 
 
 Though I might have learnt a lesson, I have to 
 confess that hardly a month passed without some- 
 thing of the same kind happening to me. Few 
 swindlers were so clever or had their schemes so 
 beautifully prepared as my Danish friend, but I 
 generally felt whenever I was taken in that I could 
 hardly have acted differently. Nay, when I mus- 
 tered courage to say “ No,” I often regretted it. 
 Let me give an instance. A gentleman steps into 
 your room, tells you that he has been robbed, 
 offers you his gold watch, and asks you to lend 
 him a pound to pay his bill at the hotel. What 
 are you to do ? I declined to advance any money, 
 particularly as my visitor behaved rather like a 
 
296 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 stru’dy beggar, and what was the consequence ? 
 He broke out into violent abuse, mentioned a 
 number of newspapers whose correspondent he 
 professed to be, and told me I should rue the day 
 when I had insulted him. And it was not a vain 
 threat. From time to time I received extracts, 
 not indeed from The Times or the Debats or the 
 Augsburger Zeitung, but from some obscure local 
 papers, with violent tirades against me as an ig- 
 noramus, as a Jesuit, as a German spy, as a hard- 
 hearted miser, etc. For all I know, the man may 
 have been in momentary distress, but was I to 
 open a pawnbroker’s shop in my house ? 
 
 There was a time, and it lasted for several 
 years, when a man, though he never tried his 
 hand on me, victimised a large number of my 
 friends. He called himself my brother, evidently 
 unaware of the fact that I never had a brother. 
 He must have taken the “ Clergy List,” for week 
 after week came letters from my friends, mostly 
 clergymen in London who had known me at Ox- 
 ford and who had been swindled by my brother. 
 
 Twice The Times was kind enough to print a 
 letter from me in large type to warn my friends. 
 It was of no use. I seldom went to London 
 without some friend coming up to me and asking 
 after my brother, or expressing himself thoroughly 
 ashamed of having allowed himself to be so stu- 
 
Beggars 
 
 297 
 
 pidly victimised by a common impostor. One 
 friend told me that he was so convinced that the 
 man was a swindler that he had him turned out 
 of the house. But then it struck him that after 
 all the man might really be my brother, who only 
 wanted a ticket to go to Oxford, so he rushed into 
 the street after him, apologised, and pressed a 
 sovereign into his hand. “ There were telegraphs 
 in those days, and why did you not telegraph to 
 me ? ” I said. But my brother went on unabashed. 
 He once called at the house of Lord W., telling 
 the old story of having been robbed, and wanting 
 a ticket to go to Oxford to see his dear brother. 
 Lord W. was not to be taken in so easily, but 
 Lady W., who came into the room and heard the 
 story, said to the young man : “ Perhaps you are 
 not aware that you are speaking to a very near 
 relation of your brother, who is the husband of my 
 niece ? ” The man never flinched, but was rush- 
 ing up to Lady W. to shake hands most affection- 
 ately and to embrace her, if she had not beaten 
 a sudden retreat. Lord W. was quite convinced 
 that the man was an impudent beggar, took him 
 to the front door, and told him to be gone. 
 “ Would you tell your servant to call a cab for 
 me,” he said, “ to go to the station ? ” A servant, 
 who was present, hailed a cab. “ Please to give 
 the man half a crown,” my brother said. The 
 
Auld Lang Syne 
 
 298 
 
 half-crown was given, and the man got away un- 
 harmed, having swindled one of the cleverest 
 financial men in London out of half a crown. 
 Only a few minutes after, my wife called at her 
 aunt’s house, and regretted that she was just too 
 late to make the long-desired personal acquaintance 
 of my lost brother. 
 
 After carrying on this business for more than 
 two years in England, and chiefly in London, the 
 place seems to have become too hot at last. He 
 vanished from the soil of England without ever 
 having called on his brother at Oxford, and the 
 next I heard of him was through some friends in 
 New Zealand, who had suffered as others had suf- 
 fered before in England. 
 
 The worst of such experiences is that they make 
 us very hard-hearted. One believes nothing that 
 a man tells one who comes begging to the door. 
 And yet how much of real misery there is ! It is 
 a problem which really seems to admit of no solu- 
 tion. Of course we must not expect angels to 
 come to us in the disguise of beggars. All beg- 
 gars are more or less disreputable ; not one of 
 them would venture to tell the true story of his 
 life. Yet they generally have something to say 
 for themselves, and they hardly know the mischief 
 they are doing by making it impossible for any 
 one with any self-respect to believe the old, old 
 
Beggars 
 
 299 
 
 stories wliicli they are telling. They say : “ What 
 can we do ? We must say something to appeal to 
 your pity, and the unvarnished tale of our life is 
 too long and too dry, and not likely to excite your 
 sympathy.” All this is true, but what is to be 
 done to alleviate or to cure this terrible evil of 
 poverty and beggary? Nothing really seems to 
 remain but to adopt the example of the Buddhists, 
 and give to the beggar a recognised status in 
 society. The Buddhists have no poor rates, but 
 whoever is admitted to the brotherhood has a 
 right to go round the village or town once or 
 twice a day, to hold out his begging bowl, and to 
 take home to his monastery whatever is given him. 
 No householder likes these Bhikshus or beggars 
 to depart from his house without having received 
 a gift, however small, while the Bhikshu himself 
 is not degraded, but enjoys, on the contrary, the 
 same respect which the begging friars enjoyed 
 during the middle ages. Even in later times we 
 hear in Scotland of the Gaberlunzie men, and else- 
 where of Bedesmen, Bluegowns, etc., all forming a 
 kind of begging fraternity, and having a recognised 
 position in society. 
 
 Free above Scot-free, that observe no laws. 
 
 Obey no governor, use no religion, 
 
 But what they draw from their own ancient custom, 
 
 Or constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels. 
 
 “Antiquary,” chap. xii. 
 
300 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 All this is extinct now, but the beggar is not ex- 
 tinct, and never will be, as we are told. What 
 then is to be done ? for we are all more or less re- 
 sponsible for their existence. It seems to me 
 that there is only one thing to be done, namely, 
 to give up, every one of us, whatever quotum of 
 our income we think right, and to hand it over to 
 such societies as take the trouble to find out for 
 us some not quite undeserving poor. Our Charity 
 Organisation Society does no doubt much good, 
 but it should have another branch, the members 
 of which should be understood to give, say, a 
 tenth part, or any other quotum of their annual 
 income for charitable pm’poses. Such a society 
 existed formerly. The members of it were not 
 subjected to any inquisitorial questions. They 
 simply declared that they would regularly devote 
 a tenth of their income to the alleviation of pov- 
 erty, and they were left perfectly free to do it 
 each in his own way. What has become of that 
 society ? The organiser and leading spirit of it 
 died, and no one seems to have taken it up again. 
 
 There is, however, one class of beggars and im- 
 postors more objectionable than any — people who 
 do not beg for money, but borrow, and never mean 
 to return either the money or any thanks. I have 
 known of a good many cases where young men 
 visiting Oxford and having made a few acquaint- 
 
Beggars 
 
 301 
 
 ances among tlie undergraduates, were invited to 
 dinner in college, and not only borrowed from 
 their yormg companions, but, introduced by their 
 young friends, ran up bills among the tradesmen 
 of the town, and then quietly slipped away, leav- 
 ing their friends to satisfy their creditors as best 
 they could. All this goes on, and it seems im- 
 possible to stop it. Even if now and then these 
 swindlers make a mistake, and place themselves 
 within the clutches of the law, what satisfaction is 
 it to keep them in prison for a month or two? 
 No one knows their real names. They are 
 boarded and fed at the expense of the country, 
 and enjoy a little rest from their labom’s. That 
 is all. They go in and come out of prison as if 
 nothing had happened, and all they have learnt in 
 prison is how to be more careful in future. 
 
 Who can doubt that there is much poverty and 
 suffering, even undeserved suffering, among the 
 poor, more particularly among poor foreigners in 
 London ? The Society for the Relief of Foreigners 
 in Distress does much, but that much is but like a 
 drop of milk in an ocean of salt water. The stories 
 of the applicants printed each year, and carefully 
 sifted by the committee, are simply heartrending. 
 And those who go to see for themselves often wish 
 they had never crossed the thresholds of these 
 hovels in which whole families live huddled up to- 
 
302 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 gether, hungry, sick, dying, dead. One feels ut- 
 terly hopeless and helpless at the sights one sees. 
 One might as well jump into the Atlantic to save a 
 sinking vessel and a drowning crew as attempt to 
 rescue this drowning humanity. 
 
 And the men, after all, can help themselves. 
 They can work, they may fight and beg, and even 
 steal, and be sent to prison. But what is the fate 
 of the poor unfortunate women ! 
 
 There is one more class of beggars, though they 
 would indignantly protest against such a name, who 
 have given me great trouble. They are gentlemen 
 who have something to sell and who are willing to 
 sell it to you as a great favour. In Oxford these 
 gentlemen have generally manuscripts to sell, an- 
 cient, valuable, unique. As I spent a good deal of 
 my time at the Bodleian Library, and was there 
 every day for several years as Oriental librarian, I 
 made some curious acquaintances. After some time 
 I never trusted a man who offered to sell scarce 
 manuscripts or unique books to the library. My 
 experiences were many, most of them painful. 
 Perhaps the most interesting was when we received 
 a visit from the famous forger, Simonides. Fort- 
 unately his fame had preceded him. There had 
 been a full account of his doings and misdoings 
 abroad, yet he arrived quite unabashed with a box 
 full of Greek MSS. I had warned our librarian. 
 
Beggars 
 
 303 
 
 the Rev. H. O. Coxe, and it was amusing to watch 
 the two when their pourparlers began. Simonides 
 — so called, not because he was a descendant of 
 the poet Simonides, but (with a long i) because his 
 ancestor was one Simon, a Jew — addressed the li- 
 brarian half in ancient Greek, half in modern Eng- 
 lish. He knew both equally well. His manners 
 were most engaging. The librarian was equally 
 polite, and began to examine some of the Greek 
 MSS. “These are of small value,” Simonides said, 
 “ they are modern. What century would you as- 
 sign to them ? ” The librarian assigned the thir- 
 teenth century to them, and Simonides fully 
 agreed. He then went on producing MS. after 
 MS., but claiming for none of them more than the 
 twelfth or tenth centmy. All went on most am- 
 icably until he produced some fragments of an 
 uncial Greek MS. The librarian opened his eyes 
 wide, and, examining them very carefully, put 
 some of them aside for fm’ther consideration. Be- 
 coming more and more confidential, Simonides at 
 last produced a real treasure. “ This,” he said, 
 “ ought to repose nowhere but in the Bodleian Li- 
 brary. And what century would you assign to it, 
 Mr. Librarian ? ” Simonides said with a smile and 
 a respectful bow. Mr. Coxe tmned over a few 
 pages, and, looking very grave, though never quite 
 without his usual twinkle, “ The second half of the 
 
304 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 nineteentli centuiy, sir,” he said, “ and now pack 
 up your MSS. and Apage (begone),” 
 
 Simonides did as he was told, and, with an in- 
 jured expression, walked away. Next day he 
 wrote a Greek letter to the librarian, bitterly com- 
 plaining about the Apage, and offering some more 
 MSS. for his inspection. But all was in vain ; too 
 much had been discovered about him in the mean- 
 time. He was certainly a most extraordinary man 
 — a scholar who, if he had applied his ingenuity 
 to editing instead of forging Greek MSS., might 
 have held a very high position. His greatest 
 achievement was, of com’se, the newly discovered 
 Greek text of the history of ancient Egypt by 
 Uranios. The man possessed a large quantity of 
 later Greek MSS. It seems that in the Eastern 
 monasteries, where he sold, he also acquired some 
 Greek MSS,, by what means we must not ask. 
 He tried several of these MSS. with chemicals to 
 see whether, as was the fashion during the middle 
 ages, the parchment on which they were written 
 had been used before, and the old writing scraped 
 off in order to get writing material for some le- 
 gends of Christian saints or other modern compo- 
 sitions. When that has been the case, chemical 
 appliances bring out the old writing very clearly, 
 and he knew that in this way some very old and 
 valuable Greek texts had been recovered. In that 
 
Beggars 
 
 305 
 
 case the old imcial writing comes out generally in 
 a dark blue, and becomes quite legible as under- 
 lying the modern Greek text. As Simonides was 
 not lucky enough to discover or recover an an- 
 cient Greek text, or what is called a Palimpsest 
 MS., the thought struck him that he might manu- 
 facture such a treasure, which would have sold at 
 a very high price. But even this did not satisfy 
 his ambition. He might have taken the text of 
 the Gospels and written it between the lines of 
 one of his modern Greek MSS., adding some start- 
 ling various readings. In that case detection 
 would have seemed much more difficult. But he 
 soared higher. He knew that a man of the name 
 of Uranios had written a history of Egypt which 
 was lost. Simonides made up his mind to write 
 himself in ancient Greek a history of Egypt such 
 as he thought Uranios might have written. And, 
 deep and clever as he was, he chose Bunsen’s 
 “ Egypt ” and Lepsius’ “ Chronology ” as the au- 
 thorities which he faithfully followed. After he 
 had finished his Greek text, he wrote it in dark 
 blue ink and in ancient uncial Greek letters be- 
 tween the letters of a Greek MS. of about 1200 
 A.D. Anybody who knows the smallness of the 
 letters in such a MS. can appreciate the enormous 
 labour it must have been to insert, as it were, be- 
 neath and between these minute lines of each let- 
 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 ter the supposed earlier writing of Uranios, so 
 that the blue ink should never encroach on the 
 small but true Greek letters. One single mistake 
 Avould have been fatal, and such is the knowledge 
 which antiquaries now possess of the exact changes 
 of Greek letters in every centruy that here, too, 
 one single mistake in the outline of the old uncial 
 letters would have betrayed the forger. 
 
 When Simonides had finished his masterpiece, 
 he boldly ofiered it to the highest tribunal, the 
 Royal Berlin Academy. The best chemists of 
 the time examined it microscopically, and could 
 find no flaw. Lepsius, the great Egyptologist, 
 went through the whole text, and declared that 
 the book could not be a forgery, because no one 
 except Uranios could have known the names of 
 the ancient Egyptian kings and the right dates of 
 the various dynasties, which were exactly such as 
 he had settled them in his books. The thought 
 that Simonides might have consulted these very 
 books never entered anybody’s mind. Great was 
 the excitement in the camp of the Egyptologists, 
 and, though the price demanded by Simonides 
 was shamefully extravagant, Bunsen persuaded 
 the then King of Prussia, Frederick William lY., 
 to pay it and to secure the treasure for Berlin. 
 Dindorf, the famous Greek scholar, had been en- 
 trusted by Simonides with the editing of the text. 
 
Beggars 
 
 307 
 
 and he had chosen the Clarendon Press at Oxford 
 to publish the first specimen of it. In the mean- 
 time rmfavourable reports of Simonides reached 
 the German authorities, and dming a new exam- 
 ination of the MS. some irregularities were de- 
 tected in the shape of the imcial M, and at last 
 one passage was discovered by a very strong mi- 
 croscope where the blue ink had run across the 
 letters of the modern Greek text. No doubt 
 could then remain that the whole MS. was a forg- 
 ery. Part of it had actually been printed at the 
 Clarendon Press, and I was able to secure six 
 copies of Dindorf s pamphlet, which was immedi- 
 ately destroyed, and has now become one of the 
 scarcest books in any library. After I had se- 
 cured my copy, I read on the first page /car 
 IBeav, which was intended for “ According to my 
 idea.” I went straight to the then Master of 
 BaUiol, Dr. Scott, of Greek Lexicon fame. I 
 asked him -whether he thought such an expression 
 possible before the fifteenth century A.D. He took 
 down his Stephanus, but after looking for some 
 time and hesitating, he admitted at last that such 
 an expression was certainly not quite classical. 
 Simonides had, of course, to refimd the money, 
 and was sent to prison, never to appear again in 
 the libraries of Europe. A number of his forg- 
 eries, however, exist in England, in public and 
 
3o8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 private collections ; among them portraits of the 
 Virgin Mary and some of the Apostles painted by 
 St. Luke, a copy of Homer with a dedication from 
 Perikles to the tyrant of Syrakuse, other Greek 
 MSS. written on paper made of human skin, etc. 
 His forged MS. of Uranios was such a masterpiece 
 that he was offered £100 for it, but he declined, 
 and I have never been able to find out what has 
 been the end of it. 
 
 Some years afterwards another forger of the 
 name of Shapira offered to the British Museum 
 some scrolls of parchment containing the text of 
 the Pentateuch from the hand of Moses. They, 
 too, were very closely criticised, and were exhib- 
 ited for some time at the Museum ; nay, a Com- 
 mission was appointed to report on the MS., for 
 which, very naturally, an enormous sum was de- 
 manded. It was perfectly well known, of course, 
 among Semitic scholars that writing for literary 
 purposes was unknown at the time of Moses, and 
 that the very alphabet used by the forger belonged 
 to a much later period. Poor Shapira, whose name 
 had already become notorious as connected with 
 the spurious Moabite antiquities, which he had 
 sold at Berlin, professed to be so dejected when 
 the fraud was discovered, a fraud, as he stated, not 
 committed by himself, but practised on him by 
 some Arabs, that he w'ent to Belgium, and there. 
 
 
Beggars 
 
 309 
 
 acccording to the newspapers, committed suicide ; 
 while some of his victims maintained that even 
 then the newspaper paragraphs on his suicide 
 were a forgery, and that he had retired from an 
 ungrateful world under the veil of a new name. 
 
 It is extraordinary how low a man may sink 
 who once takes to this kind of trade. A Greek 
 gentleman whom I knew, and who moved in the 
 very best society in London, who held a responsi- 
 ble position in a bank, where he was trusted with 
 any amount of money, roused the suspicions of 
 the authorities in the coin department of the Brit- 
 ish Museum. He possessed himself a very valu- 
 able collection of ancient coins, and was admitted 
 to all the privileges of a special student of numis- 
 matics. 
 
 Nearly all the employees of the British Museum 
 were his personal friends, and no one would have 
 ventured to doubt his honour. However, some 
 unique specimens of Greek coins disappeared, or 
 rather were found to be replaced by inferior speci- 
 mens. A trap was laid, and there remained little 
 doubt that he had transferred the better specimens 
 to his own collection, substituting inferior speci- 
 mens in his possession. At first no one would be- 
 lieve it, but an English jury found him guilty, and 
 he was condemned to five years’ penal servitude. 
 Great efforts were made by some of the Foreign 
 
310 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Ministers, and by the directors of the bank in 
 which he had been employed, and a pardon was 
 obtained for him on condition of his never return- 
 ing to England. When, however, inquiries were 
 
 made as to his behaviour in the hulks where he 
 
 • 
 
 had been detained in the meantime, it turned out 
 that this perfect gentleman had behaved there 
 worse than the lowest criminal, so that it was quite 
 out of the question to release him, and he was 
 kept to serve his full sentence. What may have 
 become of him afterwards, who knows ? But it 
 shows how scientific devotion can go hand in hand 
 Avith moral degradation, nay, can bhmt the con- 
 science to such an extent that exchange seems no 
 robbery, and even the abstraction of a book from 
 a pubhc or private library is looked upon as a 
 venial offence. MSS. have again and again disap- 
 peared from libraries, and have been returned after 
 the death of the scholar who took them, showing, 
 at least, a late repentance. But I have also knowm 
 of cases where MSS. seemed to have vanished and 
 suspicion fell on scholars who had consulted them 
 last, while after a time the MSS. tiumed up again, 
 having been placed in a wi’ong place in the li- 
 brary ; which, of course, in a large library is tanta- 
 mount to throwing them out of windoAv. 
 
 There was a well-known case in the same coin- 
 room of the British Museum, where, during a visit 
 
Beggars 
 
 311 
 
 of a number of gentlemen and ladies, it was ob- 
 served that a very valuable and almost unique 
 Sicilian coin bad disappeared. All the gentle- 
 men present in the room at the time had to be 
 searched, and no one objected except one. He 
 protested his innocence, but declared that noth- 
 ing would induce him to allow his pockets to be 
 searched. All the other visitors were allowed to 
 go home, but he was detained while the coin- 
 room was swept, and every corner searched once 
 more. At last the missing coin was found in a 
 c hink of the floor. 
 
 Every apology was made to the suspected per- 
 son, but he was asked why he had so strongly ob- 
 jected to being searched. He then produced from 
 his pocket another specimen of the very same 
 coin. “ I came here,” he said, “ to compare my 
 specimen, which is very perfect, with the only 
 other specimen which is thought to be superior 
 to mine, and almost unique in the world. Now, 
 suppose,” he added, “ that you had not found 
 your coin, and had found my specimen in my 
 pocket, would anybody have believed in my in- 
 nocence ? ” 
 
 Such cases will happen, though no doubt a man 
 must have been bom imder a very unlucky star 
 to come in for such a trial. In most museums 
 unique specimens are now never shown except 
 
312 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 under precautions which make such accidents, as 
 well as deliberate thefts, almost impossible. 
 
 After all the sad experiences which one has had, 
 it is perhaps quite right that we should shut our 
 ears and our house against all beggars, whether in 
 rags or in the disguise of gentlemen. But even 
 our servants have hearts, and though they have 
 orders not to admit beggars, they often are, or 
 imagine they are, better judges than ourselves. I 
 know that they sometimes give something where 
 their masters, rightly or wrongly, decline to do 
 anything. Physical suffering appeals to them, 
 though they also have learnt how beggars who ask 
 for a crust of bread throw away what has been 
 given them as soon as they leave the house. 
 
 I remember once my servant coming in and say- 
 ing : “ There is a poor man at the door, I believe 
 he is dying, sir ! ” I confess I did not believe it, 
 but I went to see him, and he looked so ill that 
 the doctor had to be sent for. The doctor de- 
 clared he was in the last stage of consumption, 
 and I was glad to send him to the Infirmary. 
 
 He was a poor tailor, a German by birth, but 
 who had lived many years in England and spoke 
 English perfectly well. Being weU taken care of, 
 he got better for a time. I went to see him and 
 tried to cheer him as well as I could. He was 
 surprised to see me, and said with a frown : “ Why 
 
Beggars 
 
 313 
 
 do you come to see me ? ” I said that he seemed 
 quite alone in the world, without any friends or 
 relations in England. 
 
 “ Friends and relations ! ” he said. “ I have 
 never had any in all my life.” 
 
 “You had father and mother? ” I said. 
 
 “No,” he answered, “I never had. I never 
 knew anybody that belonged to me. I was 
 brought up at a Government school for poor chil- 
 dren, was apprenticed to a tailor, and when I was 
 quite young sent to England, where I have been 
 working in different places for nearly twenty years. 
 I have never begged, and have always been able to 
 support myself.” 
 
 He told me the name of the tailor for whom he 
 had been working in Oxford, and I received the 
 most satisfactory account both from his employer 
 and from the men with whom he had been work- 
 ing. 
 
 “ Why do you come to see me ? ” he said again 
 and again. “ No one has ever been kind to me. 
 I want to die ; I have nothing to care for in this 
 world. The few things that belong to me I wish 
 to leave to the poor servant girl in the house 
 where I have last been at work, the little money 
 in my purse may go to the Infirmary. I know no 
 one else ; no one cares for me, or has ever cared 
 for me.” 
 
314 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Who can imagine such a life? Without father 
 or mother, without friends, without the sense of 
 belonging to anybody in the world, of ever being 
 loved or pitied by a single human soul. Even the 
 idea of a kind and loving Father in heaven had no 
 meaning for him. His one wish was to have done 
 with it all. It was no trouble to him to leave this 
 world and to cease from stitching. He could not 
 even express anything like gratitude. All he 
 could say was that it was so strange that any one 
 should care for him, and come to see him. He 
 passed away without suffering, anyhow without a 
 sound of complaint. Whatever he left was given 
 to the poor servant girl, who was equally surprised 
 that the poor tailor should have thought of her. 
 What an empty, purposeless life it seemed to have 
 been, and yet his, too, was a precious soul, and 
 meant to be more on earth than a mere sewing 
 machine. 
 
 Yes, now and then one can do a little good, even 
 to professional beggars ; but very, very seldom — 
 and it is right that such cases should be known and 
 remembered. The most difficult people to deal with 
 are educated young foreigners, who always came 
 to me with the same tale. Some of them were 
 hardened sinners, and had to end their visits to 
 Oxford and to the always open rooms of under- 
 graduates in college, with a visit to our gaol. L 
 
Beggars 
 
 315 
 
 have no doubt whatever that some of them be- 
 longed to good families, and had received an excel- 
 lent education. Some of them had run away from 
 home with a woman they had fallen in love with ; 
 others may have committed some crime, mostly 
 while serving in the army, and had tried to escape 
 punishment by deserting. But there were others 
 who had come to England to learn English, hoping 
 to support themselves by giving lessons, for as 
 soon as a foreigner arrives in England he imagines 
 that a dozen people are ready to learn his lan- 
 guage, which in many cases he is quite unable to 
 teach. I remember one of this class whom, by 
 mere accident, I was able to help. He came to me 
 in a ragged and very disreputable state. He told 
 me he was starving, and wished me to find pupils 
 for him at Oxford. Well, I managed with some 
 effort to get hold of him and shake him. He 
 showed that he knew Greek and Latin, and his 
 German was that of an educated man. “ My dear 
 fellow,” I said, “ how in the world did you sink so 
 low ? ” He s.aw that I meant it, and, with tears in 
 his eyes, told me his simple, and this time true, 
 story. He had been a teacher in a well-known 
 German watering-place, and, as he had several 
 English pupils, he was anxious to perfect himself 
 in English. He arrived in London without know- 
 ing anybody, and Avith but a small sum of money 
 
3i6 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 left. “ I don’t know what happened to me,” he 
 said ; “I must have had a very serious illness, and 
 I was told that for weeks I was in a delirious 
 fever. When I came to myself, I was in a miser- 
 able hovel occupied by a poor German family in 
 Whitechapel. I know nothing about them, nor 
 how I had fallen into their hands. But they had 
 taken me in ; they had nursed me, as I found out, 
 for several weeks ; and they now asked me to re- 
 pay what they had spent on me. My money was 
 gone ; I knew no one who would have sent me any 
 money from Germany. My Whitechapel friends 
 were kind to me, and at last they advised me, as I 
 knew Greek and Latin, to go to Oxford and Cam^ 
 bridge and beg. I did not like it at all ; but what 
 could I do ? I owed them the money, and I had 
 no means of earning anything in London. I was 
 starving, and my friends had little to eat and drink 
 themselves.” I believed his story, and this time I 
 had no reason to regret it. The master of a school 
 for boys near London had written to me to recom- 
 mend a German teacher as a stop-gap. I Avrote to 
 him, giving him a full account of my man, and 
 told him that he had experience in teaching, and 
 wished to stay for a time in England to improve 
 his knowledge of English. The master said he 
 would give him a trial. I told the young man to 
 get rid of every article of clothing he had on, and 
 
Beggars 
 
 317 
 
 had him clothed as well as I could before I sent 
 him off. He acquitted himself admirably at the 
 school, and his first thought was to pay the poor 
 Samaritans in Whitechapel for what they had done 
 for him. After a time he went back to Germany 
 to resume his work as a teacher of German at the 
 fashionable watering-place he had come from ; 
 and for several years I regularly received letters of 
 thanks from him, telling me how well he was getting 
 on in the world, that he was happily married, and 
 hoped that he would see me once more, though not 
 in England, but at his watering-place in Germany. 
 Here I had my reward. 
 
 During the first year I was in England I some- 
 times saw haiTowing scenes among the poor Ger- 
 man families stranded and wrecked in London. 
 These poor people fiocked to the Prussian Lega- 
 tion. Generally they could only see the porter. 
 If they were lucky, they saw a secretary ; and, if 
 very lucky, the Minister himself, Bunsen, came to 
 see them in the haU. Now and then I was sent to 
 find out what might be true in the heart-rending 
 stories they told. And often there was plenty of 
 truth in them. Father, mother, and children had 
 been tempted away from a small village in the 
 Black Forest or the Erzgebirge. They had been 
 told that England was made of gold and silver, 
 and that they had only to scratch the soil to get 
 
3i8 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 as much as they wanted and bring it home. They 
 believed it all, and when they saw the glistening 
 white chalk cliffs near Dover, they thought they 
 were all of silver. Then when they came to Lon- 
 don, the misery began, and began very soon. 
 They were hungry, the children were sickly, and 
 there was nothing for them to do to earn an 
 honest penny. Nothing remained but to eam dis- 
 honest pennies, and in this they were readily 
 helped by all the people around them. 
 
 I cannot tell the harrowing scenes I saw. Those 
 who care to know what is going on among the 
 poor German families in London should go them- 
 selves, and they would see more than they would 
 wish ever to have seen. One case I shall never 
 forget, and it is perhaps as well that people should 
 know these things. In one room on a miserable 
 bed there lay a poor girl, qiiite young, who had 
 given birth to a child. The child had fortimately 
 died. The people about her had been kind to her, 
 and done all they could be expected to do. But, 
 oh ! the sad, half-dehrious face of the dying moth- 
 er, for there could be no doubt that she was dying. 
 And what was her story ? As far as I could find 
 out from the women about her, she was the daugh- 
 ter of a German clergyman. A young Englishman 
 had come to their vicarage to learn German. He 
 had fallen in love with his pretty German teacher. 
 
Beggars 
 
 319 
 
 and the poor girl had fallen in love with him. He 
 had promised her marriage, and when she could 
 no longer hide her state from her parents she had 
 been persuaded by her lover to follow him to Eng- 
 land. In London he had left her with a small sum 
 of money at a little German hotel, promising to 
 come back as soon as possible after he had seen 
 his father. When the money which he had left 
 for her became low, she had been sent to a poor 
 German family. She never believed that he whom 
 she called her English husband had forsaken her. 
 Something, she felt sure, had happened to pre- 
 vent him from coming back to her. I hope she 
 was right. However, he never came ; she died, and 
 died in agonies, calling for him, for her child, for 
 her happy home in Germany, and with her last 
 breath and her last tears for her mother! She 
 never divulged any names. She died and was 
 buried with her child. 
 
 Can society do nothing for these poor victims ? 
 Can we only call them hard names — some of them 
 being the most gentle, the most loving, the most 
 innocent creatures in the world I Have we not 
 even some Pharisees left among us who will go 
 out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto 
 the last, instead of throwing a stone at her ? Who 
 is to solve this problem if not He who said : 
 “ Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no 
 
320 
 
 • Auld Lang Syne 
 
 more ” ? And she, the poor girl, was she really so 
 great a sinner ? She did not look so. And if she 
 was, had she not expiated her sin and been puri- 
 fied by the most awful sufiering ? She looked so 
 pure and innocent that Heine’s lines were con- 
 stantly coming into my mind : — 
 
 Mir ist’s als ob ich die Hande 
 Auf’s Haupt Dir legen soUt’, 
 
 Und beten dass Gott Dich behiite, 
 
 So fromm, so rein, so hold. 
 
 Poor girl ! I felt for her with all my heart, but 
 I had but few words of comfort for her. How dif- 
 ficult it is to judge. Love, youth, nature, and ig- 
 norance have to be reckoned with in our judg- 
 ments ; and society, which no doubt has to enforce 
 certain laws for its own protection, should distin- 
 guish at least between sins against society and 
 sins against God, before whom one untrue and un- 
 kind word, written or spoken, may weigh heavier 
 in the scales, for all we know, than the sin of 
 many a heart-broken girl. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abeken, 265 
 
 Albany, Duke of, 276-280 
 
 Albrecht the Bear, 211, 228- 
 
 230 
 
 Alliterative poetry, 44-47 
 Americans, 167, 169 
 Anhalt-Coethen, last Duke of, 
 235-237 
 
 Anhalt-Dessau, Duke of, 230, 
 
 231 
 
 Anhalt-Dessau, Duchess of, 
 78, 245 
 
 Arndt, Moritz, 66, 67 
 Arnold, Matthew, 86, 120, 
 128-142 
 Ascania, 280 n. 
 
 Basedow, 6, 53 
 Basedow, Adolf von, 68, 69 
 Beck, Karl, 67 
 Bedesmen, 299, 300 
 Beethoven, 3, 4 
 Begging, excitement of, 290- 
 292 
 
 Bennett, Sterndale, 30 
 Bernhard of Clairvaux, 227 
 Bikshus, 299 
 Bird, R. Mertyns, 87 
 
 Bismarck, 248, 261, 269 
 Blue-gowns, 299 
 Blum, Robert, 66, 69, 70 
 Boeckh, 24 
 
 Boetticher, Karl. See Le- 
 garde. 
 
 Brahms, 3 
 
 Brazil, late Emperor of, 280- 
 285 
 
 Brother, M. M.’s, 296-299 
 Browning, Robert, 41, 86, 120, 
 143, 159-162 
 Brugsch Pasha, 251 
 Bunsen, 306 
 Burnouf, Eugene, 136 
 Byron, 49 
 
 Cabltle, 86, 102, 103 
 Cetto, Baron, 254 
 Charity Organization Society, 
 300 
 
 Chorus = dance, 43, 44 
 Christian, Prince of Anhalt, 
 224 
 
 Church, Dean, 145 
 Clough, 86, 127, 128 
 Conservatoire, Paris, 15 
 Coxe, Rev. H. O., 303 
 
322 
 
 Index 
 
 Crown Prince (Emperor Fred- 
 erick), 257-272 
 Curtins, Ernst, 256 
 
 Danish officer begging, 293- 
 295 
 
 Darwin, 86, 202-204 
 Darwinian School, 194, 200- 
 202 
 
 David, 3, 13, 18 
 Dessau, 5, 6 
 Dickens, 126, 127 
 Dindorf, 306, 308 
 Donkin, Professor, 36 
 Doyle, Sir F., 144 
 
 Eckstein, Baron von, 72 
 Emerson, 86, 148, 149, 170- 
 177 
 
 Eugenie, the Empress, 208 
 Evolution, 194-200 
 
 Fakadat, 86, 191-193 
 Feet in poetry, 42-45 
 Fiske, John, 137 
 Fontane, Theodor, 61 
 Foreigners in distress. Society 
 for relieving, 302 
 Frederick the Great, 221, 222 
 Frederick William IV., 245- 
 247, 249, 251, 260, 270, 
 271 
 
 Froude, J. A., 49, 86, 88-106, 
 138, 146 
 
 Gaberlunzie men, 299 
 Gaisford, Dean, 35 
 George, Prince of Anhalt, 226 
 German girl dying, 318 
 German principalities, 215 
 German tailor, poor, 312-315 
 German teacher, poor, 315-317 
 Gewandhaus Concerts, 13, 16, 
 27 
 
 Gibbon, 98, 99, 146 
 Goethe, 48, 52-54, 76, 137-139, 
 141, 142, 218, 234 
 Goldstuecker, 247 
 Grant, Sir A., 145 
 Granville, Lord, 275 
 Greek coins, theft of, 309, 
 310 
 
 Grote, 86, 146 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 224, 225 
 
 Hatipt, Professor, 56 
 Haydn, 3 
 
 Heine, H., 41, 48, 57-62 
 Helmholtz, 137 
 Helps, Sir A., 86, 188 
 Hensel, Fanny, 22-25, 27 
 Herder, 234 
 Herlossohn, 67 
 Herodotus, 99 
 Herwegh, 64r-66 
 Hiller, 13, 17, 30, 31 
 Holland, late Queen of, 284, 
 285 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 86, 
 169, 181-184 
 Hugo, Victor, 72, 158 
 
Index 
 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, 
 245, 248-251 
 Hummel, 21 
 
 Hundred Greatest Men, 137 
 Huxley, 86, 120 
 
 jELLtNECK, 70 
 Johnson, Manuel, 145 
 Jowett, 145 
 
 Jubilee, the Diamond, 285- 
 288 
 
 Kallfwoda, 14, 18 
 Karl, August, Duke of Wei- 
 mar, 219, 234 
 Kerner, J., 54, 55 
 Kingsley, Charles, 47, 86, 
 105-119 
 
 Klingemann, 32 
 Keuhne, 67 
 
 Lagarde, Paul de, 82 
 Lamartine, 71-74 
 Lamennais, 72 
 Laube, 67 
 Lavater, 219 
 
 Leopold Friedrich, late Duke 
 of Dessau, 210-215, 233, 
 237, 243 
 
 Leopold Friedrich Franz, 
 Duke of Dessau, 217-220 
 Leopold, the old Dessauer, 
 220-223 
 
 Lepsius, 305, 307 
 
 323 
 
 Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, 
 268 
 
 Lind, Jenny, 16, 34, 35 
 Liszt, 16-21 
 Livy, 99 
 Longfellow, 181 
 Lowell, 86, 170, 177-181 
 Luther, 224-226 
 Lyall, 86 
 
 Lytton, Lord, 188-190 
 
 Macaulat, 86, 99, 102, 185- 
 187 
 
 Martineau, Rev. Dr., 86 
 Matthison, 219 
 Maurice, Frederick, 86, 193 
 Melody, 1, 27 
 
 Mendelssohn, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 
 18, 19, 21-27, 31-33 
 Metre, 42-45 
 Meyer, Dr. Karl, 273 n. 
 
 Mill, J. S., 192 
 Milman, Dean, 192 
 Morier, 145 
 Moscheles, 21, 30 
 Mozart, 3, 4, 8 
 
 Muller, Wilhelm, 16, 48-55, 
 56, 84 
 
 Napoleon, 219 
 Natural selection, 195 
 Neate, 125, 145 
 Newman and Kingsley, 113- 
 116 
 
 Novello, Clara, 30 
 
Index 
 
 324 
 
 Oriental languages, School 
 of, 275, 276 
 
 Orleans, Duchesse d’, 73, 74 
 Ouseley, Sir F., 38 
 Owen, Sir Richard, 86 
 
 Palgravb, F., 144, 145 
 Platen, 40-42 
 Poetry, 139-143 
 Porter, Noah, 137 
 Prince Consort, 271, 272-275 
 Prussia, Prince of, 252-256 
 Prussia, Princess of, 256, 257 
 Pusey and Kingsley, 116 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 99 
 Ranke, 100 
 Renan, 137 
 Rhyme, 40-48 
 Roggenhach, Baron, 256 
 Rosen, F., 32 
 Royal Institution, 193 
 Ruckert, 42, 46, 75-85 
 Ruskin, 86, 147-152 
 Russell, Lord John, 274 
 
 Sandars, 145 
 Sand, George, 72 
 Schiller, 234 
 Schloezer, 256 
 Schneider, F., 8, 10, 12 
 Schubert, 16, 49 
 Schumann, 4, 18, 27-30 
 
 Schwab, G., 54 
 Sedgwick, 86 
 Sellar, 145 
 Sewell, Dr., 89 
 “S. G. O.,” 88 
 Shaftesburys, the three Lord, 
 130-133, 135 
 Shairp, John, 144 
 Shakespeare, 141 
 Shapira, 308 
 Simonides, 303-308 
 Socialism, Christian, 111 
 Stainer, Sir John, 37 
 Stanley, Dean, 1, 34, 86, 107, 
 116, 137, 193, 208, 285 
 Stanley, Lady, 193 
 Stern, Daniel, 73 
 Stockhausen, 16 
 Stockmarr, General, 240 
 Strophe, antistrophe, 43 
 Stubbs, Dr., 104, 105 
 
 Taine, H., 137 
 Tennyson, 41, 47, 86, 152-159, 
 285 
 
 Thackeray, 124-126 
 Thalberg, 30 
 
 Thirlwall, Bishop, 86, 192 
 Thirty-nine Articles, 141 
 Translations, 93, 97 
 Trinity, doctrine of the, 130- 
 135 
 
 Trithen, Dr., 149 
 Turner’s pictures, 151 
 Tyndall, 120 
 
Index 
 
 325 
 
 Uhland, 54, 56 
 Uranios, Simonides’ forgery 
 of, 304r-308 
 
 Versus, 43 
 Vineta, 50 
 
 Wagner, 4 
 
 Wales, Prince of, at Oxford, 
 276 
 
 Weber, C. M., 11 
 
 W he well, 86 
 
 Wieck, Clara (Madame Schu- 
 mann), 17, 21, 28, 29 
 Wieland, 219, 234 
 William I., 265, 272 
 William II., 267 
 Winckelmann, 218 
 Woerlitz, 219, 225 
 Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt, 
 225 
 
 Wolfsohn, 62 
 Wolverton, Lord, 86