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PERSONAL REMEMBRANCES

SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK

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PERSONAL REMEMBRANCES

OF

SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK

SECOND BARONET

.Sometime ©ueen's itememftrancer

' Amicos habebat omnes bonos '
PhilelphuS, Vita Dantis

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

ILonUon
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1887

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
Queen opening Parliament — A Mormon meeting — Lord Derby's
Administration — Decyphering — Goldsworthy Gurney — Ventilation
of House of Commons — Duties of a Government — Babbage's
workshops — Lord Melville — Lyme Regis — Funeral of Duke of
Wellington — Publishers — E. V. B. — Ireland and the Jews — St.
Mark's, Chelsea — Examining at Law Institution — Spiritual impos
tures— Applethwaite — Learning to read — Robson — The Wigans —
Miss Horton — Tyndall — French play — Broadstairs — C. H. Towns-
end — Crystal Palace — Copley Fielding — Mr. Moore — Christ
Church — Weymouth — Lyme Regis again . . Page i

CHAPTER II
Fortunio at Tavistock House — Ossa on Pelion — Sir James Lacaita
— A clever canvasser — Ffaringford — Dinner to Thackeray — Mr.
Bellew — Vie de Marianne — Professor Thomson on heat — A cold
spring — Tunbridge Wells — Sir Edwin's dogs — George Dyer — Bad
French — Dinner in Albemarle Street — Babbage and burglars — A
" Day- Peerage " — Naval review — Dinner at the Albion — Palmer's
trial — Peace rejoicings — Illuminations — Ristori — The Frozen Deep
— Crinolines — Cardinal Wiseman — Thackeray's lectures — Jacob
Omnium — Professor Frankland — Chemistry of colours — Little
Holland House — A christening party — Sir Richard Pollock —
Changes in India — Emerson's Orations — Livingston — Definition
of a fluid  31

CONTENTS

CHAPTER III
The Comte de Paris — Buckle's lecture at the R. I. — Review of Buckle's
history — British novehsts — Toxophilite Society — Archers' Lodge —
Ford — A. Froude — W. Spottiswoode — H. A. Merewether — Phelps
as Sir Peter Teazle — New Friends — Russian scandal — Derby lot
teries — Lord Blackburn — Vintners' Hall — Lord Wynford's speech
— Smethurst's trial — Funeral of Macaulay — Sir Samuel Romilly —
J. W. Parker — Books to read — Fraser s Magazine — Fechter's
Hamlet — C. Kemble — Macready — Irving — Mounet Sully — Faure
— Literary Fund dinner — Miniatures at Windsor Castle — Flint
implements — Visits in Scotland — A Highland home — An elder of
the Free Kirk — A mistaken minister — Lord Brougham at
Brougham — Bonomi — Soane Museum — Death of Prince Con
sort  Page 68

CHAPTER IV
A domestic play-bill — Lord Dundreary — Antiquity of Man — Dinner
at R. M. Milnes' — Carlyle — Louis Blanc — Pitt and Bishop Tomline
— C. Kingsley — Prince of Wales's wedding — A distressed damsel —
"He has no children" — Max Miiller — ^Jenny Lind — Geology at
Freshwater — Napoleon III. — Archbishop Trench — Alfred Tylor
— Phelps as Falstafif — Bishop Wilberforce preaching — Prince of
Wales at Literary Fund dinner — Volunteer review — Bond's Horace
—Dublin— 7%« Ozw/— "Enoch Arden" — " Aylmer's Field" —
Trial of Miiller — Dinner to Berryer — A weekly journal — Writers
in the Reader — Financial difficulties — Curiosities of editing —
Mrs. Siddons — Tyndall's Ice Flower — A valentine — Lord Nugent
and Campbell — A funeral sermon — Kate Terry — Some office
work  . . 103

CHAPTER V
The Breakfast Club — First members — Access of offices and titles 
Ecce Homo — Portraits at South Kensington — National Portrait
Gallery — More on Ecce Homo — Reading of Merchant of Venice

CONTENTS

— Sir Joseph Banks — Twelfth Night — Anthony TroUope
— Writing by the calendar — Shakespeare and dogs — Sir Samuel
Baker — Bournemouth — The new Latin primer — Governor
Eyre — Want of courage in statesmen — Portland Prison — The
November meteors — Dislike to gas — Chief Baron's collar — Mask
of Shakespeare — Trinity Lodge — W. K. Clifford — Motley — Chief
Justice EUenborough — Death of Faraday — Switzerland — Fire in
the Haymarket  Page 140

CHAPTER VI
Montalembert — Castle Rummelsberg — A rejected voting paper —
The Rolls Chapel — Statues in Burlington Gardens — Omission of
Shakespeare — Representative figures — Leibnitz — Bacon — Goethe
— Franklin — Priestley — Lord Normanby — Stage law — Disraeli at
Literary Fund dinner — Sir Henry Holland — Merchant Taylors' Hall
— Bishops and barons — City toasts — Fire in York Street — The
Wigans — Wordsworth and Scott — Zurich — Peace congress — Fry
ston Hall — A brief dialogue — Mrs. Somerville — Privilege — Peel —
Clerical merriment — Lord Kingsdown's Reviiniscences — Campbell's
Life of Lyndhurst — Sir George Cartier — Dickens as a reader —
Political items — Cabinet Councils — The Ring and the Book — Error
to the House of Lords — Lyndhurst and W. Holmes — Voltaire —
Macaulay in Trinity CoUege Chapel — Statue of Faraday —
Frederick Locker .... ... . 1 70

CHAPTER VII
Caen — St. Lo — Avranches — A watch lost and found — Mont St. Michel
— A road adventure— French drivers — Hotel S. Romain — A case of
identity — Tennyson at Haslemere — Bedgebury Park — Dilettanti
Society — Avignon in Italy — Chloroform — Regnier — Brohan — W.
K. Clifford — Franco-German War — Funeral at Hanworth — CliffiDrd
Harrison — French company in London — Plays at Opera Comique
— Dejener at Crystal Palace — Speeches — Lord Dufferin — Lord
Granville — William Spottiswoode — Clovelly — Westward Ho —
Plays in Montagu Square— Mr. Evarts— A case of Latinity—
Greenwich time— Disraeli— Henry Irving— Fitzgerald at Wood-
bridge — Miss Bateman's Medea — Portrait by Ouless — The Ring and
the .Sm^— Saunders and Ottley— Sir WUliam BoxaU . 209

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII
Theatre Franijais — Stage whispers — Marion de I'Orme — Lowell — Mohl
— Renan — Funeral of Macready — Desclee in Frou-frou — Fourth of
July— Fontainebleau— J. F. Millet — Rooms in the Chateau —
Madame Mohl — Paris under the Commune — Burning of Hotel
de Ville— Convention of Cintra — Retirement of Baron Martin —
Dinner at Garrick Club — Victor Hugo — Garrick and Shakespeare
— Wendell Holmes — Sir W. H. Walton — Queen's Remembrancer
— Duties of the office — City quit rents — Civic hospitalities —
Guildhall banquet— Trial of the Pyx— Goldsmiths' Hall— A Dow
ager  . . Page 247

CHAPTER I
QUEEN OPENING PARLIAMENT
28//^ January 1852. — Babbage dined with
US, and we went to the Marionette Theatre at
the Adelaide Gallery. The piece was taken
from the story of the Bottle Imp, and all was
very cleverly managed. Babbage was de
lighted and very amusing, and was much in
terested in trying to find out how all the
movements of the puppets were given to them.
He was always good company when he threw
off his grievances, and was with people whom
he liked. '^d February . — Took J  , Fred, and Willie
Richmond to see the Queen going to open
Parliament, from the window of the room
belonging to the Masters of the Court of
Exchequer at Westminster. It was a cold
VOL. II B

2 A MORMON MEETING 1852
day, and I put my wig on the little boy's head
to keep him warm, in which he made a very
comical figure, at which the Queen looked up
and smiled.
13//I February. — Laurence Oliphant dined,
and to evening lecture at the Royal Institution.
It was given by Grove, and he treated of
electricity and magnetism, considered as states
of matter rather than as distinct fluids. He
showed some remarkable heating effects with a
battery of 500 cells. Afterwards to Mrs.
Barlow's. icjth February. — Dined Groves. Met
Lyells, Brodies, Derwent Coleridges, Herman
Merivales, Edward Romilly.
22d February. — With L. Oliphant to a
Mormonite meeting at a music hall in Theo
bald's Road. As strangers we were put in a
little gallery opposite to the platform. Many
persons addressed the meeting, some with ex
hortations, and others with spiritual experi
ences and relations of miraculous cures — all
extremely tedious and tiresome. Special notice
was taken of our presence, and we were told
of the time and of the place to which we could
go to be taught more of their mysteries. Bread

i8s2 LORD DERBY'S ADMINISTRATION 3
and wine, in celebration of the Lord's Supper,
was handed round to each person coming in,
on a tray like tea and cakes at an evening
party. We came away impressed with the
want of interest and the mean features of all
that we had seen and heard.
2Afth February. — Long talk with Mr.
Herries on the new Cabinet. It is not true
that the Chancellorship of the Exchequer
was offered to T. Baring. Palmerston is
very cordial with them. Lord Derby had
offered the Colonies to Mr. Herries, which he
declined. London, -^d March 1852.
My dear E. — A good deal has happened since I wrote
last. The Whigs have rotted out of office, rather than
been violently torn from it, and Lord Derby has formed a
Government, which was despaired of by his friends last
year. We are, of course, personally interested in the change,
as it affects Mr. Herries. He was most anxious to avoid
taking office at all, but has been forced to be where he is.
In his position and with his name it would have been
almost fatal to Lord Derby's plans if he had declined to be
one of his Cabinet. The Board of Control keeps him
out of the worry and fatigue of debate and interviews on
matters of party politics, but it is an office of dignity, and
just now of unusual importance, with reference to the
question of the East India Company's charter. Other
places of more prominence, but greater labour, were

DECYPHERING 1852

pressed upon him, but he chose to be what he is. — Yours
affectionately, W. F. P.
2btk March. — Babbage dined, and with us
to Royal Institution. Cowper lectured on
locks, with a description of the method pur
sued by Hobbs in picking Bramah's and
Chubb's locks. This was a favourite subject
with Babbage, and was akin to his love for
decyphering, to which he gave much valuable
time, and had a special dictionary prepared to
assist in it, in which words were classed accord
ing to the number of letters in them, and
arranged alphabetically, not only by the first,
but by all the succeeding letters in them. I
once invented a cypher and challenged Bab
bage to read it, but he declined to do so, on
the ground that decypherers only accepted
such challenges from persons of established
reputation in the pursuit. I was not a foeman
worthy of his steel.
yith March. — With Goldsworthy Gurney of
Bude to evening sitting of the House of Com
mons, to assist him in observing the ventilation
as conducted by Dr. Reid. His first introduc
tion to London was effected by Lord Lynd
hurst, and he was allowed to ventilate the

i8s2 GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY 5
Court of Exchequer at Westminster, where I
made his acquaintance and took much interest
in his proceedings. He had been a successful
ventilator of mines, and employed a jet of
high pressure steam to give motion to the
column of air in his up-cast shafts. Reid's
system, which had answered well in the limited
space of the temporary House of Commons,
occupied after the fire at the Houses of Parlia
ment until the new Palace at Westminster
was ready to receive them, broke down in the
larger building, and Gurney had been called in
to see if he could improve matters.
Finding that I knew something of the prin
ciples on which he acted, he wanted me to be
examined as a scientific witness before the
Committee of the House of Commons which
was sitting on the question of ventilation,
which I naturally refused to do. But I did
assist him in some experiments at the House,
and went with him on this occasion. He had
the Speaker's order to admit himself and a
friend to see everything connected with the ven
tilation, but Dr. Reid was furious at being
interfered with, and said he would not allow
another professional engineer to see his mode

6 VENTILATION OF HOUSE OF COMMONS 1852
of working the ventilation. The Speaker's
order was produced, and I calmed Reid's
apprehensions by telling him I was not a
rival. Gurney begged me to go alone with
Reid's foreman, who explained that the floor
and ceiling of the house were divided into
squares, and that any one of them could be
at pleasure made the inlet for fresh air, or the
outlet for the foul air. I asked to be taken at
once to the supposed inlet for fresh air, which
was in the ceiling, and bending over it was
nearly suffocated by the blast of foul air issuing
from it. Then to the outlet, where, on the
contrary, the fresh air was going in. This
was enough, and I reported the result to
Gurney, and then went to dinner at Sir Charles
Fellowes's, the discoverer of the Lycian Marbles
now in the British Museum, where we met Sir
George Staunton, Owen, Edward Forbes,
Hooker, and the Barlows. 59 Montagu Square,
Ith April 1852.
My dear E. — Many thanks for your kind thought of
me on Saturday. The birthdays and all other anniversaries
seem to come round faster and faster as one grows older
and the love of those who remember their recurrence is all
the more dear, as it must every year become more rare.

r852 DUTIES OF A GOVERNMENT 7
Such things are only remembered by very early friends,
whose number cannot be increased. I have lately been
looking into the present state of the Mormonite question.
Very tiresome and tedious on the whole, very humiliating
and very shocking in some of its parts, but presenting an
amount of vigorous enterprise and of success in the pro
pagation of their opinions which makes it rather a serious
affair. I doubt whether they will take permanent root in
Europe, except perhaps as emigration agents. But in
America the prospect of a new State claiming to be a
Theocracy, and disposed to treat their neighbours as the
Jews did the Canaanites, is full of wonder and alarming
interest. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
London, loth April 1852.
Dear E. — You want to know what good Lord Derby's
government has done. It has already elevated the stand
ard of political honour and morality to a height unknown
for years, and I trust it will make the administration of
this country what it ought to be, and what all government,
from that of the smallest nursery to that of the greatest empire,
must be if it is to be good for anything — namely, a wise
and firm, although responsible and liberal control of the
affairs of the country ; not a mere organ to receive impres
sions, invite opinions, and to exist by favouring one set of
clamourers in turn after another, without the power of
guiding, or the heart and courage to govern at all, but, on
the contrary, itself governed by every turn of faction, and
dismayed and perplexed by every difficulty in its way. Do
you remember Wordsworth's lines ? —
" We shall exult when they who rule this land
Are men who hold its many blessings dear ;

8 BABBAGE'S WORKSHOPS 1852
Wise, upright, valiant — not a servile band
... to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand." —
Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
Zth May. — To Cambridge to spend two
or three days with Thompson, now Greek
Professor, at his rooms in Trinity. I suppose
it was the first occasion of a lady staying in
College, except at the Lodge. But he had one
of the fine sets of rooms approached by the
gateway under the clock tower, which were in
all ways comfortable and commodious. We
had for diversion while our host was engaged,
a bagful of English poems competing for the
Chancellor's medal to read, as to which no
confidences can be divulged.
22d May. — To a morning lecture of Fara
day's. He called nitrogen an unpresuming and
negative element — indifferent to electricity —
and perhaps not a simple body.
16th June. — C. C. S. dinner at Blackwall —
F. Lushington presided.
2d August. — Went over Babbage's work
shops, in which the difference calculating engine
had been constructed, and saw the drawings
on paper for the analytical engine, which super-

i8s2 LORD MELVILLE 9
seded the former, but the construction of
which was never commenced. It was a strange
fortune for a man to have eclipsed himself, as it
were, in this way; and the deserted work
benches, lathes, and tools presented a dreary
and melancholy spectacle. There was no branch
of science to which Babbage did not make some
valuable addition, or upon which he did not
throw some light. But for his engrossment by
the calculating engines, and all the troubles and
annoyances to which they gave rise, Babbage
would probably have made great discoveries, and
would have been eminent as a physicist. Now
his name is chiefly known as that of an inventor
struggling with the government of the day for
recognition and reward, or rather for payment
and assistance, and for his squabbles with
other men of science. He was very generous
to the Swedish inventors of a calculating
machine, founded on his own, but with practical
improvements, and assisted them in every way.
Evening at Forster's, where were Dr. Elliot-
son, R. Browning, Broderip, Kenyon, W. S.
Landor. St. Julians, 2d September. — Mr. Herries
thinks that Lord Melville appropriated the

LYME REGIS 1852

^10,000 for which he was impeached for a
private purpose, meaning to restore it again, and
that it was restored. This was also the opinion
of Sir Robert Peel. Pitt suffered much from a
conviction of his friend's delinquency. Lord
Melville died at the house of the Lord Presi
dent Blair, to which he had gone to attend the
President's funeral, which was to take place the
next day. Lord Melville died suddenly in the
night, and on his table was found a letter
written by him describing the funeral as if it
had already taken place.
'ith September. — To Lyme Regis, to which
we were attracted in order to do homage to the
memory of Jane Austen, and to discover, if we
could, the very spot on the Lower Cobb where
Louisa Musgrove met with her accident in
Persuasion. We found comfortable quarters
over the shop of the principal bookseller, who
wanted to know if I was the author of The
Course of Time, and afterwards mentioned our
arrival to some of the residents, who came to
call on us in a very friendly and unworldly
manner. The varied scenery of the country
around gave plenty of occasion for walks and
sketching, in which one difficulty was to match

r8s2 FUNERAL OF DUKE OF WELLINGTON ii
from the colour-box the deep blue of the sea.
The scars of the great landslip at Dowlands
were not yet quite healed, and this was a
favourite resort, as were Uplyme and Char-
mouth ; and there were drives to Ford Abbey,
and walks to Sidmouth, Seaton, and Beer.
One day I walked to Whitchurch Canonicorum,
and was shown over the church by Palmer, the
parson (the author of Origines Liturgicce).
iith November. — We saw the funeral pro
cession of the Duke of Wellington pass along
Piccadilly from the rooms of Charles Herries,
over Truefitt's shop. I had a ticket for St.
Paul's, and might perhaps have got there in
time to see also the ceremony inside, but did
not try to do so.
22>th December. — Letter from Chapman and
Hall finally accepting the publication of my
translation of the Divina Commedia, on the so-
called half-profits arrangement, the iniquity and
delusion of which I did not so well understand
then as I do now. They brought out the book,
however, in a very handsome manner, with fine
paper and type, and went to considerable ex
pense for the illustrations, prepared on my
suggestion by George Scharf, and for their

PUBLISHERS 1852

being cut on wood by the eminent brothers
Dalziel. It had a fair sale ; but some years
afterwards one of those things happened
which could not have taken place in any other
business but that of publishers. They disposed
of the remaining stock, which was, of course,
half mine, without consulting me, and for a
short time the book was to be had at a very
reduced price. It is now difficult to procure,
and, as I am told, has become a scarce book.
St. Julian's, zqth December 1852.
My dear E. — Two notes from you have helped the
pleasure of being here. One of them did not arrive ex
actly as you intended on the morning of Christmas day,
but it did not lose any of its value on that account. I am
glad to know that you have been sharing in the golden
certainties of Australia. What a strange revolution in the
value of property ! I wish that all freaks of fortune may
be equally beneficial to you. The weather since we came
here has been extraordinary ; and the leafless landscape,
with the thermometer at 55°, and the greens of the grass and
the shrubs as bright as in the spring, is peculiarly beautiful.
There is, indeed, almost more colour than at other times —
the woods are full of warm red and purple tints, the old walls
and roofs of cottages are richly varied by lichens and
mosses of the brighest hue ; and in the garden-beds are left
plenty of fuchsias, salvias, hydrangeas, and other plants in
flower. Yesterday evening for a few minutes before sunset
the effect was most gorgeous ; the exceeding beauty

I8S3 E. V. B. 13
and delicacy of the complex tracery of branches was
seen distinctly to the smallest twig in the nearer trees.
There was almost the same feeling of admiration for suc
cessful elaboration and perfect execution that might have
been felt in looking at a picture of the subject. The
children have been much enjoying their time here, and the
variety of company in the drawing-room and housekeeper's
room is useful in diverting F  's attention from books,
in which he is apt to get too much immersed. — Yours affec
tionately, W. F. P.
London, \-jth February 1S53.
Dear E. — We were on Saturday at Madame Bunsen's,
at your uncle's old house in Carlton Terrace, now bought
for the Prussian minister at the Court of St. James. There
is a colossal bust of Frederick the Great on the staircase.
I suppose it has the largest cocked-hat and feathers which
ever figured in a work of art. The floor of the long draw
ing-room is inlaid with polished wood, and has no carpet.
Altogether the house is now very handsome, and all in
good taste. We had some people dining with us last week,
and among them a very charming and clever person, — the
E. V. B. of Child's Play, — which you may have seen in
Montagu Square. She is Mrs. Boyle, — a daughter-in-law
of Lord Cork, — and her husband has a living near Frome,
where Mr. Bennett is playing his fantastic tricks before high
heaven ; and we are much delighted with her, and regret
that we are not likely, from her residence in the country,
ever to see much of her. We met her at Eastlake's ; but
I fancy she and J  knew something of each other be
forehand, by Boxall's description of one to the other of them.
On Monday Master Walter will be three years old, and is

14 IRELAND AND THE JEWS 1853
going to entertain some of his young friends with a con
juror. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
iith April. — Evening at Mrs. Garrick
Moore's in Clarges Street. Faraday, Babbage,
Lyells, Mrs. Jameson, Lady Eastlake, John
Murray, Sir C. Fellowes, etc.
\<^th April. — Evening at Chauncey Hare
Townsend's. Dickens, Bunsen, F. Stone,
Millais, Derwent Coleridges, Samuel Laurence,
Dr. EUiotson, Leach, etc.
, 23^ April 1853.
Dear E. — You say that the Irish take a great interest
in the Jews. I wonder if this feeling is as old as Cromwell's
time, and whether it prompted him to his scheme of selling
Ireland to the Jews, and letting them build a national
temple in Dublin. Generally speaking, one would say that
the interest taken in the Jews anywhere is not so great as
the interest taken by them, and perhaps the want of scope
for the latter development of interest in Ireland may leave
room for the former. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
I ^th May. — With Boxall to Marochetti's
studio, in Onslow Square. Saw his figure of
Prince Arthur and head of Lord Lansdowne.
Introduced to Count Massimo d'Azeglio, who
was painting in one of the rooms.
2id May. — At dinner W. B. Donne, Sped-
ding, Lear, Copley Fielding.

1853 ST. MARK'S, CHELSEA 15

London, 2,^st May 1853.
Dear E. — We had L  O  dining with us the
other day. He does not seem to find Scots Law more to
his taste than our English commodity in that line. He
was full of " turning tables,'' and a great believer in all the
foolish things that are current about them. Perhaps you
would like to hear the most wonderful story on this subject.
It was during the late cold weather, when everybody was
suffering from influenza, that a table surrounded by a circle
of devotees was so much affected by their "vital influence "
that it actually gave a loud sneeze, and another table in the
same room immediately said, "God bless you !"
One day last week we were at a very pretty entertainment
at St. Mark's, Chelsea. It was the birthday of Christabel
Coleridge, and was celebrated by a child's party in the
garden. Fairy wands with flowers had been prepared for
the children, and they ran about in groups, or one by one,
like little Arcadians. Then there were many of the red-
coated boys from the Military School, with their juvenile
band to play marches and country-dance tunes, while the
boys and girls made merry round a May-pole. It was a
real children's party, with nothing unchildlike, or which
children could not or might not enjoy. F  was much
delighted. — ^Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
3^ y^^;^^.— Presided as one of the Masters at
the examination of articled clerks for admission
as attorneys at the Law Institution, and dined
with the Council. I was much dissatisfied with
the system under which the examination was at
this time conducted, when the candidates were

1 6 EXAMINING AT LAW INSTITUTION 1853
either simply passed or plucked, and there were
no means of recognising the credit due to those
who had distinguished themselves by their
answers. I wrote to Lord Campbell, as Lord
Chief Justice, on the subject, and received an
answer favourable to the adoption of honorary
distinctions, and this was the beginning of the
award of honours in these examinations, which
has since prevailed. At this or on some sub
sequent occasion I got from one candidate for
admission to practice as an attorney as answer
to the question, " Can a minor sue, or be sued,
on a promise to marry ?" — ¦" No, because mar
riage is not a necessary." To the question,
"What is a charter-party ?" came for answer, "A
charter-party is the party who charters a ship."
London, ^th July 1853.
My dear E. — On Friday we are to have the pleasure
of a visit to Macready for a week. His patient endurance
of the greatest sorrows that can befall a man has more
than ever endeared him to us, and we hope that our visit
may help to dispel some of the sadness which must always
remain in his house.
Touching the " moving tables," I suppose that Faraday's
letter printed in the Times has satisfied all sensible people
although I do see that a philosopher in Southwark thinks
his experiments "unfair.'" For the other folly of the day

i8s3 SPIRITUAL IMPOSTURES 17
which you mention, I wonder at you writing of it so seri
ously, for I have always thought the spirit-rapping business
one of the most culpable and degrading impostures ever
practised upon the superstitious and weak-minded, and
having upon its front all the indicia of fraud. Conceive the
abominable imposture of a supposed conversation with Sir
John Franklin ! I want no other spirits to assist me in the
comprehension of the mystery of " rapping '' than the spirit
of making money, which has been potent to transfer some
of that master-mover of all things from the pockets of
some fools to those of the pretenders to the art of conversing
with the dead. As to the particular explanation of how
the fraud is practised, I am no more bound to be able
precisely to explain it than how M. Houdin, or any other
amuser of the public, contrives to pour champagne, port,
and sherry out of the same bottle, or to extract an
inexhaustible supply of bouquets from the inside of a hat.
No doubt it involves some clever contrivances, enormous
impudence, and a good deal of close observation of
character and of what goes on in the room, and, above all, a
boundless reliance upon the gullibility of mankind, which is
the grand article in the stock in trade of all charlatans —
political, legal, psychological, or otherwise — and upon the
chapter of accidents and lucky coincidences, which probably
furnish them with their most successful hits. I have not
attended, and do not mean to attend, any of these perform
ances, which, besides their folly and fraud, are said to be
the dullest affairs possible. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
In the summer we paid a second visit to
Macready at Sherborne, and passed the greater
VOL. II c

1 8 APPLETHWAITE 1853
part of the autumn vacation in Cumberland.
We began with a visit to Mrs. John Spedding at
Oakfield, and thence passed to Mirehouse, then
belonging to Tom Spedding, and afterwards
went into a little hired cottage at Applethwaite,
nestled among the slopes of Skiddaw, and from
which there is a fine view, across Derwent Water,
of Borrowdale and the mountains beyond the
lake. It was an extremely wet season, but we
managed to get some good walks and drives,
and I made the ascent of Scaw Fell, getting a
glorious tea-dinner at Mr. Fisher's, of Seatoller,
on our return. Climbing among the English
mountains is a small affair, as to heights and
distances, when compared with similar work on
the Alps, but it has its advantages. The
scenery is beautiful, and great changes in it are
quickly attainable. Everything can be done
between breakfast and dinner, and there is risk
enough to require caution. The frequent wet
weather is a drawback, but without rain the
Lake Country loses much of its charm. The
streams are dry and silent, the water in the falls
merely slinks among the rocks, distant views
are destroyed, and it is not difficult to get re
conciled even to an almost perpetual rainfall.

i8s3 LEARNING TO READ 19
It was during this year that my second son,
W  , learned to read in a singular manner. H is
mother used to read out to him for half an hour
every day, before dressing for dinner, from Long
fellow's "Hiawatha." At the close of the reading
he would always ask for more, and his mother
would reply, " I cannot read any more now,
but if you like to take the book and look
at the words as I have read them to you,
you may do so." To this suggestion the boy
eagerly agreed, and by this process, at the
end of a fortnight, he could read the whole
of the poem with ease. He was then five
years old, but did not know his letters. This
is a curious instance of what may be done
by the enthusiasm of the learner to help a
teacher. wth October. — Dined with Brookfields. Mr.
Hallam (Mrs. B.'s uncle), Alfred and Frederick
Tennyson. 2i\st December. — Translation of the Divina
Commedia published.
\st Febmary 1854. — Dined with Boxall.
Richmond came in, and, talking of the effect
of dress in portraits, he remarked that the ruff
round the neck, as worn in the time of Queen

20 ROBSON— THE WIGANS— MISS HORTON 1854
Elizabeth, sets off the face, like the white
mount of a drawing.
14M February. — Dinner at home. Lady
Eastlake, Herman Merivales, Alfords, Ken
neth Macaulays, Groves, Charles Herries.
15/^ March. — To Olympic Theatre. Rob-
son in To Oblige Benson ; Mrs. Wigan in The
Bengal Tiger; Wigan and Miss Horton in The
First Night. Robson was now beginning a
career which was only too brief His intensity
was wonderful, but his efforts were incapable
of being long maintained. For a minute or
two in the burlesque of Medea he seemed
almost equal to Ristori. His range, however,
was limited, and he had reached his highest
mark before failing health obliged him to leave
the stage. Mrs. Wigan was a great artist,
knowing her business thoroughly, and with
real passion in her, to which she was qualified
to give the best expression. In Still Waters
Run Deep she was unrivalled. Wigan was a
good actor, and has not in his own line of
parts been equalled since. Miss Horton, now
and for long Mrs. German Reed, was a de
lightful singer, and was full of charm and of
great intelligence. Her Ariel, and Fool in

1854 TYNDALL

King Lear, under Macready's management, can
never be forgotten by those who saw her in
those parts.
\st April. — To Sherborne, to give a lecture
on Dante at the Literary Institution, in. which
Macready took so much interest, which has
been told of by my wife in her Macready
As I Knew Him — a book which exhibits him
to more truth and advantage than he has
shown himself in his own Reminiscences and
Diaries. In the following week Forster gave
a lecture on Strafford, which we remained to
hear. Afterwards Katie Macready came to
stay with us for some days.
1 2,th May. — At dinner Boxall and Tyndall.
I had made Tyndall's acquaintance at one of
the soirees given by the Earl of Rosse, as
President of the Royal Society, at his house in
Connaught Place. He had come up from
Manchester to give us a lecture at the Royal
Institution, and he, being then almost a stranger
in London, and standing alone in the room,
was pointed out to Sir Charles Fellowes and
myself, who were talking together. We were
at the time both managers of the Institution,
and finding no one to introduce us, we agreed

FRENCH PLAY 1854

to introduce each other, which we did. This
was the commencement of a long and affec
tionate friendship, of equal profit and delight
to my wife, my sons, and to myself
20th May. — Dined Forster's. Alfred Tenny
son, Boxall, Maclise, Spedding.
¦^d June. — To French play. Jean au Prin-
temps, Le Mariage Ford, La Joie fait Peur,
with Regnier, Lafont, Madame Allan, and
Mdlle. Luther. Madame Allan was an actress
of much distinction and of great tragic power,
who would have undoubtedly taken the place
she deserved but for the disadvantage of her
short stature and plain wide face. She held a
high position, nevertheless, wherever she ap
peared. Mdlle. Luther was a beautiful girl of
extraordinary sensibility, but unfortunately died
at an early age.
I Jith June. — Dined Dickens's. Macready
and his daughter Katie, Forster, James White,
Scott Russell, Chauncey Townsend, Dr. Elliot-
son, Miss Boyle. In the evening Miss Burdett
Coutts. Played at games.
\\th June. — Evening at Lady Eastlake's.
Story of Edwin Landseer being presented to
the King of Portugal, and his majesty saying,

854 BROADSTAIRS 23
"Ah! I am glad to see you. I always like
beasts." Albion Hotel,
Broadstairs, 21st June 1854.
My dear E. — You will be surprised at the above date
and place, but need not be alarmed, although we are
certainly here by the counsel of our ^sculapius. Little
W  has been unwell with some derangement of his small
interior, and Headland has strongly advised sea air, both for
him and F  . J  is always the better for it, and I
have been able to arrange a short absence from official duty,
and shall be glad to get a break after two months of
London and work, and to lay in a stock of health which I
hope may last until the long vacation begins. So I gave
up a Cambridge dinner to be held at Greenwich to-day, the
price of which, by-the-bye, just paid our coming here. We
took the boat to Margate yesterday, and here we are for a
week under the hospitable care of Mr. Ballard, at one of
whose open windows I am writing, with a most beautiful
shifting scene before me of sun and shadow, and green and
purple tints upon the sea. The boys are already better,
and of course are busily engaged upon some of the never-
ending, still-beginning excavations upon the sands, and in
throwing up works, and sinking cuttings of a less definite
kind than I should have expected from F  's precise
habits, for I cannot make out whether they are the bastions
of Silestria, or the Russian lines, or railway undertakings, or
canals. To-morrow, perhaps, they will get more into shape.
To-day they are what old Coleridge might have called
"abstract fruitions of sand digging." You know this place
and its grumbling ways, and you will not be amazed to
hear that Broadstairs is going to be ruined this year more

24 C. H. TOWNSEND 1854
than ever. What with income-tax, high prices, and people
going abroad, no one is expected to come here, and those
who do come are not to spend any money. As for Margate,
it is a doomed city as much as if Jonas had gone out and
denounced it. Indeed, the population who received the
steamboat on the pier was not larger than the arrivals by
it, and if we had been an invading force I think we
could have easily overpowered the small numbers who
held the pier. Broadstairs, therefore, complacently hands
over Margate and Ramsgate to utter bankruptcy. For
itself, thanks to the greater respectability, or rather the
"goodness " of the families who have nothing from the
butcher but " the primest joints " (and I suppose there can
be no higher standard of " goodness " and " respectabihty "),
Broadstairs hopes to struggle on, only with rather more
ruin than usual— but, so far as we are concerned, the ruin
is more likely to be on our side. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
2']th Jtme. — -Dined with Chauncey Hare
Townsend, Norfolk Street, Park Lane.
Bulwer Lytton and his son, Barlows, Der
went Coleridges, Miss Burdett Coutts, Lady
Goderich. 2()thjune. — To F- D. Maurice's third lecture
at Willis's Rooms, on learning and working. It
is a course of lectures to introduce a scheme
for a college for working-men, in which gentle
men are to be the teachers.
id July. — Dined with Derwent Coleridges

i854 CRYSTAL PALACE 25
at St. Mark's College, Chelsea. Was much
surprised to find certain reverend gentlemen
doubting the lawfulness of assisting Turkey in
a war with Russia, because the Turks are not
Christians. I never heard such an objection
made against helping animals in trouble, why
then should it be made in the case of human
beings who are in need of assistance ?
4th July. — Master's Club dinner at the
Trafalgar, Greenwich.
nth July. — To Crystal Palace at Syden
ham, driving down by the road. Certainly
very beautiful, and will be more so as the
plants grow. In the different Fine Art Courts,
the colouring is overdone. The decorators
seem to have gone mad with love for paint.
The Greek Court, with its noble casts from the
greatest statues of antiquity, is the finest thing.
The savages are trumpery. But the wonderful
fact of all is the eating and drinking ; not 40
but 400 may be seen feeding like one, and
for 2s., neither more nor less, you get your
fill of cold viands.
1 2,thjuly. — Dinner at Eastlake's. Cockerell,
the architect, Layard, Sir E. Landseer, John
Murray, Waagen. All the artists condemn

26 COPLEY FIELDING 1854
the excessive use of colour in the Crystal
Palace. Layard, however, said that the Nine
veh Court was not bright enough to please
him. I'jth July. — At dinner, Macready, Forster,
Spedding, Venables. The Duke of Newcastle
has given young Macready a Ceylon appoint
ment. loth August. — Dined with Boxall. Copley
Fielding came in afterwards. He is always
charming and good company.
11/^ August. — -Professor Tyndall dined with
us, and brought a magnetic toy of mice for
W  , and another of two men tumbling up
stairs to illustrate the principle of the centre of
gravity. This toy used to come from China,
but now comes from the headquarters of toy-
dom in Germany. Tyndall is full of English
poetry, and seems to like talking about it more
than of his science. He now stands at the
Royal Institution as the probable successor to
Davy and Faraday, and I expect will not prove
unworthy of them.
\bth August. — To Putney. Found Miss
Julia Moore at the station in a carriage with
Lady Bell. Pleasant drive round Richmond

1854 MR. MOORE 27
Park. On return found Sir Charles Lyell
and Lady Lyell, who dined. Mr. Moore is
a remarkable man. He is the brother of Sir
John Moore of Corunna, and now ninety-two
years old ; deaf and very blind, but able to enjoy
familiar society, taking an interest in all that is
going on ; kind and considerate to the people
around him, and able to derive his chief pleasure
from chess. Mrs. Moore is the daughter of Hen
derson the actor, who, though a younger man,
was a contemporary of Garrick's. She has often
sat upon Dr. Johnson's knee. A story was told
of an American lady-writer, who, meaning to
pay a compliment to Sir John Herschel on
being lately introduced to him in London, said,
"You are quite famous in America. My little
books have carried your name through all the
States." 22d August. — By South Western Railway
to Poole, and thence posting to Bournemouth,
where both hotels were full and no obvious
signs of lodgings to be had. The place is sur
rounded inland for three or four miles by flat
heaths, varied by thick plantations of fir. The
little town itself is composed of villa -like
houses, reminding one of some parts of St.

28 CHRIST CHURCH 1854
John's Wood, and a few shops. There is no
sea-side walk, no pier, and no shipping, and an
air of novelty and dependence on distant mar
kets for all necessaries. So we went on, or
rather backwards, to Christ Church, where was
a good old-fashioned inn, overlooking the fine
church, and with a distant view of the Isle
of Wight Needles, across green meadows
and a winding stream, one of the many
Avons in England ; and here we stayed for
the night.
2id August. — Saw interior of the church,
which is full of interest. A fine Anglo-Nor
man nave, restored thirty years ago ; a late
decorated chancel, and a very late perpendicular
lady-chapel- — all large. Just inside the West
door is a monument to Shelley, bearing also
the names of his wife and of his mother-
in-law, Mrs. Godwin, nde Wollstonecraft. It
has been recently erected by the present
Sir Percy Shelley, now living in the neighbour
hood. There is also a touching group by Flax-
man, to the memory of Lord Malmesbury's
mother, but unfortunately not in marble. Many
old tombs, monuments, and chapels ; and we

i8s4 WEYMOUTH 29
greeted kindly the hedge-hogs in the armorial
bearings of the Malmesbury family, whose
name is Harris — a corruption from Herries,
as that is from the old Italian Erizzo, which
furnishes the Rizzo, or hedge -hog. The modern
Venetian branch add an E to complete the
name in their coat-of-arms. On other shields
appears an heraldic rebus on the name
Harris — a hare holding in her mouth the letter
S — Hare-S.
Post back to the railway at Poole, and thence
by rail to Dorchester, and read in the Times the
account of the taking of Bomarsund. Post to
Weymouth ; much disappointed with the place.
Conceive a mile of Baker Street houses of the
dingiest hue, arranged in a semicircle round a
land-locked bay of dull sea, a row of bathing
machines, the biggest of which bears the inscrip
tion : " The machine of that good king, George
HI., the friend of the poor, and patron of Wey
mouth ; " a statue of the same monarch upon
a pedestal so large and so shaped that it looks
like a figure upon a French clock, and you
have a complete knowledge of Weymouth.
So, after a short stroll on the esplanade and
dining at an hotel, we took carriage, and

30 LYME REGIS AGAIN 1854
by nine o'clock found ourselves in Lyme Regis
again. W  was taken out a perfect lump
of sleep, and all the bustle of being carried into
the Cups Inn, and being put to bed, did not
wake him.

CHAPTER II
" FORTUNIO " AT TAVISTOCK HOUSE
Zth January 1855. — To Dickens's, Tavistock
House, to see a performance of an abridged
version of Planche's Fortunio, in which the
parts were chiefly taken by himself and his
children. Dickens appeared in the bills as
Mr. Passe. They were magnificently printed,
some on white satin. Afterwards dancing and
supper. 18/,^ January. — ^Dine Kenyon's. Fanny
Kemble, Forster, Henry Reeve, Harness,
Hardwicke, Mrs. Procter.
\st March. — Elected one of the auditors for
the ensuing year at the General Court of the
Equitable Life Assurance Society.
1 2th March. — Dine with Crabbe Robinson,
the Dousterswivel of early days. Met Boxall,
Donne, Harness, Dr. Skey.

32 OSSA ON PELION 1855
ii^th March. — Was elected a member of the
General Committee of the Royal Literary
Fund. 2Sth March. — Dined with B. L. Chapman
at the Blue Posts, Cork Street. Monteith,
Venables, Garden, Brookfield, W. Macpherson.
There were marrow-bones towards the end of
a very abundant dinner, and some one re
marked that this was heaping Ossa on Pelion.
London, ifh April 1S55.
Dear E. — I have been lately reading Trench's little
books, which I daresay you know. The lessons in Proverbs,
The Study of Words, and English Past and Present, which
last is recent, and, on the whole, perhaps the most interest
ing. All, however, are suggestive of much more than is
actually set forth in them, and deserve the extensive popu
larity which they enjoy. Of new books I really know none
of value. The circulating library and book-club system
enables publishers to bring out a certain class of works with
a prospect of profit ; but of these nine-tenths are, like the
razors in the old story, only made to sell, and, having gone
their round, read or not read, nobody cares or wishes to
hear anything more about them. I was put, at the last
meeting, on the Committee of the Literary Fund, and was
equally surprised and amused at some of the people who claim
relief as literary persons ; only one must not talk of being
amused when engaged in the business of relieving distress.
In truth, much of the so-called literature now produced is
rather damaging to the cause of real literature. Unless

i85S SIR JAMES LACAITA 33
the increase of readers is overtaken by an extension of real
education, the mischief will go on increasing. How few
people look at a book requiring any exercise of thought or
attention ! The appetite is fed on kickshaws and trifles,
and an unwholesome course of diet must operate injuriously
upon the constitution. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
16//^ April. — To Bricklayers' Arms Station
with tickets from James Byng to see the arrival
of Louis Napoleon and the French Empress in
London. At dinner W. H. Thompson, Sped
ding, Edward Fitzgerald.
London, 26M fune 1855.
Dear E. — We have had dining with us Lacaita, and I
am glad to have made his acquaintance. He is a Neapol
itan gentleman formerly an advocate at Naples, and the
widower of a Scottish lady (Carmichael), now resident
wholly in England, not exactly a political refugee, but of too
enlightened opinions to make his own country an agree
able place for him. He is an accomplished scholar, and
professes Italian at the Ladies' College in Harley Street.
He gave a Friday evening lecture on Dante at the Royal
Institution, in which he praised my translation highly — a
tribute the more valuable perhaps as I was not then per
sonally known to him. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
20th June. — Dined with the C. C. S. at the
Star and Garter, Richmond — a better place
than the houses at Blackwall or Greenwich,
VOL. II D

34 A CLEVER CANVASSER 1855
where the dinner has been formerly held.
It affords a pleasant stroll in the Park, such
as I had with Venables before dinner. Milnes
brought me home.
loth June. — Called on Willes at his chambers
in the Temple to congratulate him on his
appointment as a judge in the Common Pleas,
in succession to Maule. He showed me his fee-
book for 1854, with a total of more than six
thousand guineas, so that he loses income by
his promotion to the bench.
15//^ July. — Dined with Brookfields at
Mortiake. Henry Taylor, W. H. Thompson,
Alfred Wigans.
The autumn was partly spent in a visit to
Robert Hildyard, at Shanklin, in the Isle of
Wight. Hildyard told a good electioneering
story. Lord Stormont's agent at a Norwich
election found that an old friend and supporter
had taken £\ from the other side to vote
against him. He dilated to him upon the
wickedness of changing sides, and added that
he was a great fool too, for that he would have
had £'^ if he had stuck to his principles. The
inconstant voter was penitent, and the agent
went on to say, " But it's not too late for you to

i8ss FFARINGFORD 35
do the right thing. Give me that four pounds,
and here's a five pound for you," which was
a good stroke of business for his employers.
We afterwards took a house of our own at Vent-
nor, where we saw a good deal of James White,
author of more than one play, and of some of
the best things that have appeared in Black
wood's Magazine. Here we heard the painful
news of the death of Henry Lushington in Paris,
on nth August. One day we drove to Fresh
water, where Tennyson had not long taken up
his abode at Ffaringford, and spent the evening
with him and his wife. He read us out part of
" Maud," not then published, and before we left
them to go to our quarters at Plumbly's Hotel,
we were taken upstairs to see the beautiful sight
of their two handsome boys, Hallam and Lionel,
asleep in bed. We spent some hours the next
day at Ffaringford, and had the rest of " Maud "
read to us in the garden ; took an early dinner
with the Tennysons, and drove back to
Ventnor. There was a striking illumination of the
cliffs with Bengal lights at Bonchurch on the
anniversary of the battle of Alma, to celebrate
the fall of Sebastopol, which was not enhanced

36 DINNER TO THACKERAY 1855
by a simultaneous display of fireworks. After
our return to London we paid another visit to
Macready at Sherborne.
wth October. — Dinner to Thackeray at
the London Tavern on the occasion of his
going to lecture in the United States. There
were sixty people, and Dickens was in the
chair. Neither of the two principal speeches
was very felicitous. I sat between Douglas
Jerrold and Joseph Parkes, and found the old
lawyer and politician the better company of
the two, with all his recollections and varied
knowledge of life. In the bill of fare there
was turtle soup a la " Hobson Newcome" and
a la " bon voyage ; " there were omelettes
a la " Becky Sharp," and a salmi a, la
" Fotheringay." igth December. — Dined Eastlake's. Mul-
ready, Webster, Ward, Cope, Marshall, Knight,
and all painters except Panizzi and myself
2\st December. — Dined with Milnes. Sir
Colin Campbell, Colonel Sterling, Sir Francis
Doyle, Horace Mansfield, Brookfield, Cunning
ham, John • Mitchell, Kemble, W. Vernon
Harcourt, Captain Burton, Kinglake, Stephen
Spring Rice, Henry Phillips.

1856 MR. BELLEW 37
59 Montagu Square,
22rf February 1 856.
My dear E. — We went the Sunday before last to St.
Philip's Church in Regent Street, where Mr. Bellew is
preaching and making a sensation. The sermon was cer
tainly a striking one, both in manner and matter. He has
formerly taken lessons in elocution from Macready, who
asked us to go and hear him. Occasionally the recollec
tions of the master disturbed the effects intended to be
produced by the pupil, but he certainly deserves his popu
larity. Mr. Bellew has a remarkable head of black hair ;
old Mr. Repton, who read prayers, has a white and bald
pate. It was little W  's first time at church, and when
we came out Bobo, who is near-sighted, raised a question
whether the same gentleman had read prayers and preached,
and gave his own opinion that it was the same. W  ,
who had noticed the change from the surplice to the black
gown, and who modestly thought himself unfit to decide
the point, and perhaps was uncertain whether there might
not have been the same change in the head as in the
gowns, said, " But when he was downstairs he had a white
head." I have been reading Napoleon's letters to Joseph in the
English translation, which is extremely well done. They
give an additional touch of great value to the known char
acter of the man, and are full of the sort of wisdom that
was in him — thoroughly unscrupulous, but untiring in its
vigilance and perseverance to gain its end. His expres
sions of contempt for the French in his confidential com
munications with his Corsican brother are amusing. Well,
indeed, might he despise the people of whom he was making
tools for his own selfish aggrandisement.
I wonder whether you ever came across Marivaux's Vie

38 VIE DE MARIANNE 1856
de Marianne, which I have been lately enjoying. It is the
book which really is entitled to be called the first of the
modern novels. Beautifully written, with the most delicate
delineations of character, and a story of common life.
I think Miss Burney must have known it before she
wrote Evelina, parts of which seem to me to have been
adapted firom it, and every novel written since has, con
sciously or unconsciously, been indebted to it. There is a
description of the love of excitement and cruel indifference
to the sufferings of others, which was fearfully verified fifty
years afterwards in the scenes of the first Revolution,
although it is introduced apropos to a squabble between
a hackney coachman and his fare. There is a discussion
on the essentials of good manners and conversation which
exhausts the subject, and there is a very clever, true, and
amusing account of the reasons why stupid people get the
credit of being good, with little enough claim to it.
\st March 1856.
Dear E. — We had a remarkable lecture last night at
the R. I. from Professor Thomson, formerly of Cambridge,
and now of Glasgow. He derives all the motive power on
the earth's surface, in the first instance, from the heat of
the sun, which he describes as a force capable of accumu
lation in a latent form, and of development into activity in
various ways. For instance, is a horse in a mill, or drawing
a carriage, or otherwise, the source of power ? How did
the animal acquire his muscular strength ? From his food,
which was once grass or corn growing by the stimulus of
the sun's light and heat. Is the source of power a steam-
engine ? It is kept in motion by the expansion of steam,
caused by the heat of burning coal. This coal was once

i8s6 PROF. THOMSON ON HEAT 39
living vegetable matter, also, as in the case of the horse's
fodder, grown by the agency of the sun's heat. And so on.
The speculation is ingenious and true, if confined to the
sun's heat acting on the earth, but there is no more reason
for assuming heat in general to be the primordial cause of
motion than any other of the correlative forces — electricity,
galvanism, or motive force itself, with which it is now known
to be convertible. Starting from any one of these, it can
always be transformed into manifestations of some or one of
the others, and it would be an arbitrary proceeding to
give any priority to one over the others. Besides, the
theory altogether omits the force of gravity, which hitherto
has not been brought into such intimate relations with the
rest as they enjoy among themselves — that is, it fails to
show how the force of gravity depends on the sun's heat.
Nevertheless, in more advanced stages of knowledge this,
too, may turn out to be true.
We are casting about to get a week's country air at
Easter, and shall probably go to Tunbridge Wells. It
would be better to postpone this if we could until the
hotter weather begins to make a change from London more
desirable ; but we must take it when we can get it, and I
know of no pleasanter place within easy reach of London
than the Wells. Reigate is charming for a day or two, but
it has no resources in the event of rainy days.
You may be certain there will be peace. Russia wants
it, France wants it, and, of course, England — though quite
able to carry on the war, which the other powers are not —
will be glad of it. \-]th March 1856.
Dear E. — What you say about Sydney Smith's letters is
true. They are not always equal to his conversational re-

40 A COLD SPRING 1856
putation. But who can always be witty ? and why should
the survivors of celebrated men publish all their corre
spondence, as it is now so much the fashion to do ? It leads
to the printing of a great many dull letters, which only injure
the reputation of the writer, if it is to be affected by them
at all. Macaulay has lately received from the Longmans a
cheque for ^20,000 on account of his share of the profits
of the last two volumes of his History. It is the largest
sum ever paid to an author, and it is said that the publishers
have no reason to complain of their portion of the spoil.
We had a pleasant dinner at home last Wednesday,
comprising the Barlows, the Derwent Coleridges, John
Murray, the Dean of Hereford (of educational note). Lady
James (Sir Walter being absent at the Kent Assizes), and
Charles and Izzy Herries. Two or three men came in the
evening, of whom one was Lacaita, who is to give a lecture
on Dante this week at the London Institution, for which
I have lent him some of my editions and commentaries.
20th March. — To Tunbridge Wells. Miss
W  had taken good lodgings for us in
Clarence Terrace, in a sheltered position, but
overlooking the common. It was cold during
all our stay, and the country not yet got up for
the reception of company — the best things
locked up, the covers on the furniture, fires
not lighted, so to speak — yet the change from
London was useful. Truly a very early and
cold Easter. Winter's carriage stopping the

1856 TUNBRIDGE WELLS 41
way, in spite of the cries of " Miss Spring
coming out ! "
21 st, Good Friday. — To the church at the
top of the town. Mr. H  preached, and for
all he said to the contrary the congregation
might have gone away and violated every pre
cept of the Decalogue. I was told this was
always the case in his sermons — the incumbent
wishing to set his face against "works."
22,d, Sunday. — To the chapel by the Pan
tiles. This, I suppose, was built when the Wells
became fashionable in Charles II.'s time, and is
dedicated to King Charles the Martyr. It is a
square room, with a handsome panelled ceiling,
filled with movable seats below, and a gallery
round three sides, all in dark oak. Its arrange
ments would shock the modern ecclesiological
coxcombs. I liked its simplicity and conveni
ent adaptation to the purposes of a church. A
good service and a plain sermon from Mr.
Pope. ist April. — Dined with Forster; met Mac-
ready, Maclise, Bellew. A good story was told
of modern picture-dealers' frauds. Some years
ago Charles Landseer, the brother of Sir Edwin,
painted a picture called " Edgehill," which I

42 SIR EDWIN'S DOGS 1856
believe consisted of the figure cf a peasant girl,
or one or more figures, in the scene of the battle.
It was on the wall of the Academy Exhibition,
when some one, on the artists' day for varnish
ing, re -touching, etc., noticed a part which
wanted filling in. Sir Edwin good-naturedly
said he would put in a couple of dogs on the spot,
which he did, of course in a slight manner, and
the picture was much improved. The story got
wind, and the picture was afterwards sold at a
high price on the ground of the dogs by Sir
Edwin. Some time afterwards a dealer brought
to Sir Edwin a sketch of dogs, and asked him
to authenticate it as his. Sir E. said he could
not undertake to remember having painted
them, but said they looked like his. Lately the
present owner of the " Edgehill " picture, a
gentleman at Clapham, and who had paid a
large price for it, chiefly for the sake of the re
puted Sir Edwin's dogs in it, begged of him to
come and see it and confirm the tradition. He
went, saw the picture, and at once detected
what had been done : the dogs had been cut out
of the picture, replaced by a bad copy, and no
doubt were the dogs (mounted on a fresh can
vas) which had been shown to him. This is

1856 GEORGE DYER 43
supposed to be the cleverest case of dog-stealing
recorded. In the evening we saw a series of forty draw
ings by Maclise from the life of Harold, no
doubt suggested by the Bayeux Tapestry.
2d April. — Went over Cubitt's works at
Pimlico. In one place they were breaking up
as old iron the columns designed by Nash for
the Regent Street Quadrant — an instance of
the mutability of things. A morticing machine,
and one for executing mouldings in wood, were
curious. All parts of a house are made on the
premises — floors and doors, windows, grates,
gas-fittings, etc.
A^th April. — Lacaita called to propose a joint
edition of Dante, with notes in English. If
Murray will undertake it, which seems not im
probable, I should like this, as there is not ex
tant any good edition with reasonable and
equally distributed notes, and I have by me a
good deal of material.
Wednesday, gth April. — Committee meeting
at Literary Fund. Story of George Dyer, the
amicus redivivus of Elia, who, in a fit of absence,
walked out of Lamb's lodgings at Islington into
the New River. He was at one time a Baptist

44 BAD FRENCH 1856
minister, and while performing the rite of bap
tism by total immersion he fell into a reverie,
and held an old woman under water until she
was drowned.
Thursday, loth April. — -Dined with Robert
Bell, editor of a current issue of British Poets
(not the old Bell of that denomination). There
was Helen Faucit, the eminent actress, with
her husband, Mr. Martin. She is a quiet,
pleasant, and very ladylike person. Dr. Mayo,
Sir John Forbes, the physician, and Kaye, a
friend of Sir George's, known as a writer on
Indian affairs.
nth April. — Dinner at home. T. F. Ellis,
Garden, and others. Some stories were told
of bad French. One was the order given
to the chambermaid at an hotel to have the
sheets well aired, by saying to her, " Mettez
les drapeaux au feu." Another was a question
put on being shown over a glass-house for rais
ing grapes, " Usez vous aucun feu d'artifice ? "
and a third, " oreillers " for ear-rings.
i6th April. — Dined at John Murray's in
Albemarle Street. George, Lady Eastlake,
Elwin (editor of the Quarterly), Babbage, and
Mrs. Murray's brother from Edinburgh. The

i8s6 DINNER IN ALBEMARLE STREET 45
dining-room is on the drawing-room floor, as
the ground floor is occupied by "the shop."
It is hung with portraits. On the table was a
beautiful small silver vase, a present from Lord
Byron to old Murray. There are to be articles
on Ruskin in the forthcoming Edinburgh and
Quarterly, both condemnatory. It is a pity
that persons competent to the task have not
before now interfered to prevent so seductive
a writer from obtaining any authority in matters
of art. He is unprincipled in art, but has been
allowed to acquire an influence which has been
chiefly for rnischief, and it is probably now too
late to undo it. After dinner Babbage told
some of his favourite stories of successful bank
robberies. The associations of the place with
the name of our host tempted me to travesty
Pope's line —
" How great a burglar was in Babbage lost ! "
His main story is of an enormous loss by a
Scots bank. A couple of Scots lawyers
listened to the story with great composure ;
but next morning one of them, Murray's brother-
in-law, told George, who was sleeping at the
house, that most of the interesting facts which

46 BABBAGE AND BURGLARS 1856
gave a zest to the story, and almost made one
wish to have been one of the burglars, were
not true. I suggested that they had the story
from the bank, and that Babbage had it from
the burglars, who were likely to know most
about it. Saw the original MS. by Scott of his
review of the Life and Works of Home, the
author of Douglas, in the Quarterly — very
legible and distinct, and with very few altera
tions. Friday, iith April. — Evening at Royal
Institution; lecture by Bence Jones on "Ven
tilation," founded on some recent inquiries
officially made by him into the condition of
St. Pancras Workhouse. There was hardly
enough of novel matter to justify the choice
of the subject. He pointed out the sufficiently
obvious truth that the mere statement of the
number of cubic feet of air surrounding a per
son gave no correct indication of good or bad
ventilation. The amount of change taking
place in the surrounding air is the important
thing. A man might ultimately die for want
of air in the midst of St. Paul's Cathedral if
every crevice in the building could be hermeti
cally stopped ; for a time must at last arrive

1856 A "DAY-PEERAGE" 47
when he would have consumed all the oxygen
within the walls. On the other hand, a diver,
properly supplied with air, may remain as long
as he pleases in the narrow compass of his bell
or helmet. The only true test, therefore, for
sanitary purposes is to ascertain the amount of
vitiation of the air in a room by the expired
carbonic acid ; and the practical value of the
lecture consisted in the explanation of various
modes in which this measure could be
obtained. 22d April. — At dinner my father, Charles,
Henry, Forster. The Chief Baron offered me
a " day-peerage," if one may call it so, in the
shape of his ticket for the Transit to see the
Naval Review the next day with the members of
the House of Lords. Fortunately for myself
I declined it, and I did not share the troubles
of that noble company.
2 id April. — A holiday for me, as the Courts
did not sit on account of the review. Went
to the National Gallery to look again at the
new Paolo Veronese. It is hardly a first-rate
example of the master, and has been cleaned
and retouched in places ; but one cannot doubt
the wisdom of securing it at the price paid.

48 NAVAL REVIEW 1856
It is said that the French Government would
have given ^600 more than we have done.
2A,th April. — The judges who had been to
the review the day before, which they did not
see, came down to Court in a very bad humour,
and said they would never go a-pleasuring any
more. Up at 5.30 a.m. ; jostled at the Railway
Station ; detained on the line by the breaking
down of a train in front ; hustled at South
ampton ; kept waiting on the quay ; badly
fed on board ; too late to see the Review ;
fires let out, and no steam when it was time
to return ; four hours getting from Portsmouth
to Southampton ; arrived in London at 3 a.m.
the next morning ; no cabs at the station, etc.,
etc., etc. 1st May 1856.
Dear E. — You are mistaken in supposing that I am
connected with the  Review. I do happen to know
some of those who, as I suppose, contribute to it ; but I
am not in their councils or confidence, and 1 would always
rather not know whose articles I am reading. Like the
rest of the public, I am deluded by the anonymous we ¦
and I might not read things so quietly as I do if I knew
that it was only my acquaintance A. B., or my friend C. D.
or my favourite aversion E. F., whose opinions were in
print before me. Hence I am not concerned to meet your
comments; but I can forward them, if you please to the

i8s6 DINNER AT THE ALBION 49
person whom I believe to be the writer of the article which
has provoked them, and who is, I daresay, quite open to
argument on the alleged simplicities of technical theology,
and is no doubt competent to conduct it on that or any
other grounds. As far as one of its readers may wish, I
would rather the Review kept out of the fray of religious
controversy ; but as long as there are professed (so called)
religious journals, and a (so called) religious world (what a
contradiction of Christian truth !), it may be necessary for
some one occasionally to throw himself in the path of the
bullies and hypocrites who abuse the name of religion — to
expose their ignorance, rebuke their want of charity, and
protest against the bondage in which they would keep their
victims. W. F. P.
29^ May 1856.
Dear E. — -There has been a re-appearance of the
sisters of Horace Twiss, the eldest now with brevet ranks as
Mrs. Twiss, one talking of dear William's acting (meaning
Macready), and the other stoutly holding to the family
glories of Uncle Kemble (meaning John K.). There has
been for me a magnificent dinner of the directors of the
Equitable Insurance Office at the Albion Tavern, given to our
president, Sir Charles Morgan, one of those feasts to which
it is impossible to do justice, and where one was inclined to
dine off a slice of cold beef in perfect despair. There has
been a deal of talking and thinking about fireworks and
illuminations, and whether to illuminate or not. When I
left home this morning there was a modest V in position in
front of our balcony, to which the zeal of the boys had
added two toy flags, which fluttered in the breeze. George
comes up to us to dine and sleep, and I fancy we shall go
VOL. II E

so PALMER'S TRIAL 1856
to Lady Coltman's in Hyde Park Gardens, leave J  and
Bobo there, and then pass into the open park. Poor W 
must stay at home. Hyde Park Gardens is a little too far
off, but, on the whole, will not be a bad position. Charles
Herries has rooms in Piccadilly facing the Green Park, and
close to the space enclosed for the fireworks, but unfortu
nately all view is cut off by trees and the large shed erected
for the occasion. At present the day is cold and cloudy,
a duller Queen's birthday than I can remember. It is to
be hoped there will be no rain at night.
You have no doubt shared in the general interest in
Palmer's trial. His acquittal would indeed have been a
great public misfortune and failure of justice. It is remark
able that the case of Mrs. Dove, poisoned by strychnine at
Leeds, and no doubt suggested by Palmer's apparent pros
pect of impunity, should have furnished important evidence
towards the conviction of Palmer. The length also to
which the surrounding circumstances in evidence ran is a
new feature in a criminal trial, and must be considered as
owing to the increased publicity now given to facts extra
judicially, and which makes it necessary, for the ends of
justice, that they should be also legally brought before the
jury. Fifty years ago, I daresay, some of the- evidence
might have been thought hardly admissible, and would not
have been perhaps brought forward. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
2gth May. — The peace rejoicings. J 
and Bobo to Lady Coltman's house in Hyde
Park Gardens, where we mounted to the roof
and found Miss Herries and other ladies on chairs
in the front gutter, from which, as afterwards

i8s5 PEACE REJOICINGS 51
appeared, they had an excellent view of the fire
works. George and I went among the people in
the Park, and had a good standing place within
a few yards of the enclosure. The rockets and
other aerial displays were fine, but wanted
variety ; the wheels and other fixed pieces
were not large enough to produce much effect,
with the exception of the two fountains of fire
at the close, and some mines of squibs. The
display lasted so long that our servants, coming
out in two detachments, all saw as much as they
wanted of it. The rockets, etc., from the Green
Park and on Primrose Hill were well seen from
Hyde Park, and the finest effect was that of the
last blaze in Green Park as seen from Hyde
Park. I saw no accident from rocket-sticks,
and wonder there were so few reported the
next day. Returned to Lady Coltman's, where
there was some supper, and then escorted Miss
Herries to her resting-place in Norfolk Street,
and went down Bond Street, and home along
Oxford Street. The state of the streets was
wonderful. All the great ones fifled with a
motionless mass of carts, waggons, and carri
ages, and the footways crowded with people.
The best illuminations were at Lord Ward's

52 ILLUMINATIONS 1856
in Park Lane, and at the Turkish embassy in
Bryanston Square. In both of them the
windows and architectural lines of the building
were traced in light, giving the notion of
houses made brilliant for a festive occasion.
The ordinary devices, such as stars and crowns,
have no meaning in them. Seen from a dis
tance across the Park, Lord Ward's house
looked like a fairy palace, which, being a well-
known and familiar object to all of us, is always
selected for comparison. Got home about
half- past one, as most people did who were
on foot. Carriages did not get home tiU three
or four o'clock in the morning, and the next
day not a cab or hired carriage was to be had
until late in the afternoon.
id June. — To the Law Institution, Chancery
Lane, to preside, as one of the Masters of the
Exchequer, at the examination of articled clerks
for admission to practice as attorneys. I have
been endeavouring to improve the character of
the proceedings, and to introduce prizes or
certificates of merit for the best candidates.
On this occasion the other examiners agreed
to have a sort of rehearsal of what an exami
nation conducted with a view to awarding dis-

1856 RISTORI 53
tinctions should be, and marks were given for
answers on a rough scheme drawn up by me.
Dined at the Law Institution. Thesiger was
there, amusing as usual, and I walked away
with him.
2SthJuly 1856.
Dear E. — We have had a couple of lectures at Lord
Ward's Gallery in the Egyptian Hall on Dante and
Alfieri by Signor Arrivabene, who in the first quoted from
my translation with great praise. They were apropos to the
acting of Alfieri by Madame Ristori. We have seen her
three times — in Pia, Rosmunda, and Francesca — but un
fortunately not in Medea, which is said by most people to
be her finest part. She has fine voice, face, and figure,
much careful study, etc. etc., and in short has everything
but the very highest genius, which leads to total abnegation
of self while impersonating a character, and that (real or
apparent) forgetfulness of the stage and the audience which
constitutes the greatest power of a great actor. Such I
have seen in Rachel and Macready, but only in them. We
have had one delightful evening with Tennyson, who dined
alone with us.
Below is a punning epigram in Latin on the defence of
Kars, and its surrender under pressure for food, which may
amuse such of your party as may be able to construe it : —
Kars, September 1855.
Fama fame ; duo Victores ; nam defuit illic
Victus : ibi pariter cuique perennis honos.
I do not know who made it. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.

54 THE FROZEN DEEP 1857
ith January 1857. — To private theatricals
at Tavistock House. The principal piece was
The Frozen Deep, written by Wilkie Collins,
and in which Edward Pigott, Mark Lemon,
Dickens, Augustus Egg (the painter), and the
author himself took parts. The two daughters
of Dickens and Miss Hogarth, his sister-in-law,
were among the ladies who performed. The
scenery and act-drop were painted by Stanfield
and Telbin, the best artists in that line of the
day. All the arrangements were perfect, as
was always the case when Dickens managed
affairs. Every guest had an assigned place,
and the company were summoned from the
drawing-room, in which they assembled, to
the theatre in the order in which their seats
would be most conveniently reached. This
was, however, rather an awful affair, and was
like the summons from. a prison-room in Paris
to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror.
19th January 1857.
My dear E. — If you are still in want of books for your
club, I can recommend to you the Memoirs of Perthes, the
old German bookseller ; but probably your lists are already
completed. I have read Guizot's Life of Peel, unfortunately
in the English, and it is said to be very badly translated.

i8s7 CRINOLINES 55
I am disappointed in it. I don't know why Guizot should
be expected to write a good life of Peel, and I don't think
he has made the best of it. His authority is Hansard, and
no foreigner can understand our ways, so that, with the
exception of what relates to the Tahiti difficulty, in which
Guizot was himself concerngd as the French foreign minister
of the day, and which is accordingly treated at dispropor
tionate length, there is nothing of much original value in
the book. F  is to go at Easter to Dr. Hunting-
ford's school at Brook Green, Hammersmith.
We have much enjoyed a New Year's Day dinner at
Eastlake's, from which all the guests carried away some
little gift, and a day or two afterwards a dinner at Forster's,
who, with his wife, now occupies one of the larger houses
in Montagu Square. We had Macready to dine with us
alone on the 5th, and had a charming evening with him.
He is full of education, and has now got at work a school
intended to fill up that fatal gap which interrupts teaching
in the labouring classes whenever the child's labour begins
to be of any profit to the parents. And to effect this he
has, at his own expense, opened an evening school at Sher
borne, chiefly for the winter months, when there is time
left after the day's work is done. In this he teaches him
self, and is endeavouring to interest the gentry of the place
in it generally.
You may be amused by an anecdote of dress as now
worn. Mrs. A  and her young friend Miss G  ,
after the experience of the first of Faraday's recent lectures,
which were crowded with a large audience, always took off
their usual crinolines or hoops, or whatever is their proper
name, before they went to the Royal Institution. Think
of this — a piece of dress so monstrous that it cannot be
worn with comfort in a place where fashionable and full

56 CARDINAL WISEMAN 1857
audiences have assembled for the last fifty years. It is a
frightful disfigurement, bad enough in the drawing-room,
but still worse when used with a walking costume.
20th February 1857,
Dear E. — We have lately had Whateley's Bacon's
Essays, which is, however, hardly a circulating-library
book, nor a book to read much in at a sitting. Bacon's
very condensed and pithy sentences bear the dilution of
W.'s annotations, and the book will be useful as translating
into modern habits of thought, and as fortifying by modern
instances, the sayings of the old philosopher. I have also
read Sir Charles Napier's Baltic Campaign — of course a
defence of himself at the expense of everybody and every
thing else.
The night before last I was at Lady Spearman's in
Putman Square, and was there in company with Cardinal
Wiseman, who had been dining with them. It was strange
to see the burly form, the silk robes, the red skull-cap and
stockings, quietly moving about in a drawing-room full ot
ladies and gentlemen, and in nothing but the dress differ
ing from the other guests. He looked to me as if he had
just walked off the stage, and yet a living reality of a
strange enough kind. No Roman Catholics were present,
or one would have seen them go on their knees to his Emi
nence for his blessing. Just after he was gone in came
Mrs. A  with her young lady. Miss G  , who is a
R. C, and was much alarmed and relieved when I told
her what must have happened if the Cardinal had been
present when she arrived.
2 "jth February. — Lecture by Faraday at
Royal Institution on the Conservation of

1857 THACKERAY'S LECTURES 57
Force, containing some speculations on the
nature of gravity, and on the necessity for
supposing the existence of a gravitation ether.
Prince Albert was in the chair.
The following letter is from myself to
Macready, taken in duplicate by a manifold
writer sometimes used by me at this date.
24M April 1857.
My dear Macready — I dined yesterday with Kenneth
Macaulay and his wife. He was full of the amusement of his
election at Cambridge, and looking forward with delight to
being in the House of Commons again, where he had made
so good an impression during the short time that he sat for
Cambridge before. Thackeray was there. The four Georges
have been good friends to him, and many parts of the
country remain to be perambulated with them. When he
gives only two of the lectures in the same town he receives
fifty guineas for each, when all four, thirty or forty guineas.
Nearly a guinea a minute this on the highest rate of
remuneration. He spoke in some disgust of Mrs. Gaskell's
recent Life of Miss Bronte, not without personal reason. You
should read that book. It is a sad tragedy of ordinary life.
I took F  to school on Monday, and I have
since learned that he was at once put in a high class, and
I have every reason to hope that the place will suit him.
It is at Brook Green, Hammersmith, and his master is Dr.
Huntingford, an Oxford man, and a son, or rather, I suppose,
a grandson of the Bishop whose exercises used to engage
the attention of youth in my own school days. I had a
nice demonstration of filial loyalty from W  the other

S8 JACOB OMNIUM 1857
day. I was walking with the boys and we met Higgins
(Jacob Omnium, you know, and who is at least seven feet
high). When we parted from a talk with him, I told them
they had just seen the tallest man in London. " No," says
W  ; " I don't think he is taller than you are, papa !" —
Yours truly, W. F. Pollock.
a^th April 1857.
Dear E. — ^We of course had passed the name of De
Comines in review when we considered the claims of early
modern writers to the title of Father of Modern History,
and J  was inclined to suggest him. If the honour was
to be awarded for the first time I should rather give it to
Machiavelli, and I confess that I was ignorant that in fact
the title had been bestowed on any one. It is not alluded
to in the life of Philip de Comines either in the Penny
Cyclopcedia or Rose's Biog. Did. I should like to know
where it is that Arnold discusses the question.
I shall be very glad to contribute a few books on ele
mentary science to your proposed lending library, and I
will look out for the best. I daresay those on the sup
plemental catalogue of the S.P.G. are good. But what do
you mean by the exclusion of works of Fiction ? I can
well understand that Little Dorrit, or the latest novel in
three volumes, may not be good reading for the parochialists
of Moville ; but do you intend to proscribe Robinson Crusoe
and the Pilgrim's Progress, and all the class of excellent
and interesting tales, so many of which appear in the afore
said catalogue of the S.P.G. ? Do you wish to exclude all
works of imagination in prose and verse ? For if you do
you are certainly depriving yourselves of the best mode of
getting the people to become fond of reading. I know that
many very worthy persons have devoted much time, and

i857 PROFESSOR FRANKLAND 59
I fear not unsuccessfully, in propagating a belief that good
ness and stupidity are fast and inseparable allies, and the
consequence is that many people who have been plied with
dull and dreary tracts, on their first introduction to books
in any shape, conceive a total dislike to reading, from
which it is difficult ever to recover them. The statistics of
the large lending libraries all show that the favourite books
are the best works of imagination, and I cannot think that
you are doing a politic thing in rejecting them. The R. C.
clergy will find no difficulty in prohibiting the reading of
the £4 worth of tracts, but I think they would in prevent
ing their flocks from reading De Foe's masterpiece, or other
things I could name.
In this year Professor Frankland, F.R.S., at
the time Professor of Chemistry in Owen's
College, Manchester, favoured us with a course
of lectures at the Royal Institution on the
Relations of Chemistry to Graphic and Plas
tic Art, in which I took considerable interest,
and I wrote to him with an extract from one
of Gilpin's works which I thought germane to
his subject. The Royal Academy some time
after this date appointed a Professor of Chemis
try, but I am not aware that anything has been
done towards putting Gilpin's suggestion into
a practical shape. 59 Montagu Square, 2'!th April 1857.
My dear Sir — On the other side I send you the short
extract from Gilpin's work which I mentioned to you on

6o CHEMISTRY OF COLOURS 1857
Saturday. He was an amateur artist of creditable ability for
the period, and did much to promote a taste for the pictur
esque. His book appeared in 1786. The Royal Academy,
founded in 1768, had then been in the vigorous existence
of youth for some years, but neither then nor since has that
body — or, as far as I know, any individual painter — done
anything towards carrying out the suggestion. The book is
the account of a tour in England, the chief part being
devoted to the Lakes, and Gilpin and Gray may almost be
called the discoverers of their beauties. — I am, yours truly,
W. F. Pollock.
E. Frankland, Esq.
"Here (at Nuneham House, Oxfordshire, visited in 1772)
are two or three histories by Poussin, which, having turned
black with age, leave us to regret that so able a master,
though he was never perhaps an excellent colourist, should
have been so httle acquainted with the nature of colours.
The Flemish school, in general, seem to have had the best
preparations. But it might yet perhaps be useful in painting,
if the nature of pigments could be brought more to a certainty,
and that the painter, like the apothecary, had a sound dispen
satory to direct his practice." — From Observations on Pictur
esque Beauty, by William Gilpin, Prebendary of Salisbury.
2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1786. Vol. i. p. 25.
loth May. — Dined with Prinseps at Little
Holland House, to meet Tennyson, staying
in the house, also Holman Hunt, Lord and
Lady Goderich, Sir Edward Ryan, Spedding,
Coventry Patmore, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron.
This was the first of many pleasant visits at the

i857 LITTLE HOLLAND HOUSE 6i
same place, whether to dine or to spend some
time in the garden of an afternoon. It was a
fine old rambling house, since pulled down, and
Watts the painter lived in it, and had his studio
there. Many of the rooms were decorated by
him. There was a tradition that the duel in
which Captain Best shot Lord Camelford in
1804 "^3,8 fought in a field close to the house,
into which the wounded man was carried, and
that many years afterwards his pistol -case
was found, with one pistol discharged but
not cleaned, and the other still loaded. It
should always be remembered that Mrs. Prinsep,
one of the five remarkable daughters of Mr.
Pattle, member of Council in India, was almost
the first to discover the genius of Watts, one of
the greatest painters England has produced.
The beautiful Lady Somers, one of the Pattle
family, sat to Watts before her marriage, and it
was the exhibition of this portrait which intro
duced the name of Watts to the general public.
Mrs. Prinsep's sense of beauty, and her love for
it, gave a charm to her house and all its sur
roundings. Poets, painters, politicians, writers,
and Anglo-Indians of distinction were always to
be met there. With all its associations. Little

62 A CHRISTENING PARTY 1857
Holland House was a resort not to be for
gotten. 17M May 1857.
Dear E. — We performed our christening yesterday at
St. Mary's, Bryanston Square. The godfathers, F. D.
Maurice and Edward Herries, were present. At luncheon
afterwards there was a sponge-cake designed by F  , and
surmounted by a wonderful figure of the family crest — a
boar, which would have been equally disowned by heralds
and zoologists. In its general uncertainty of outline and im
becility of appearance, itrather resembledaconjecturalrestora-
tion of some extinct animal than anything which roams the
woods on the modern surface of the earth ; also, base (but
substantial) considerations of practical utility had induced
the artist to convert the arrow by which the savage beast
is transfixed into a means of support, and consequently the
arrow stood perpendicular in the centre of the body, with
its lower end or point thrust deep into the soil of cake
underneath. All this was much admired by a small party
of philosophers and artists who dined with us in the even
ing. Babbage and Professor Frankland of Manchester,
who is giving a course at the Royal Institution on the
application of Science to Art, Boxall and Oldfield of the
British Museum, whom I had asked to meet him, and give
him some information connected with their respective pur
suits. ijth June. — C. C. S. dinner at Star and
Garter, Richmond. Spencer Walpole presided.
i^th July. — Took the boys to see the Tower
and the Monument. In the Armoury we heard
the remark made by one of the sightseers that

i857 SIR RICHARD POLLOCK 63
the Crusaders were the chaps that fought against
Bonaparte at Waterloo.
The following letter was written to my
brother, now Sir Richard Pollock, K.S.I. :
Tunbridge Wells, 2-yl August 1857.
My dear Trim — I must not attempt to enter on any of
the general matters suggested by what has been doing in
India. I will only say how thankful we have been and are
that your lot has been in the safest part of the country, and
how proud that your previous exertions and well-deserved
influence with the natives have enabled you to do the good
service you have to the State at so critical a time. The
news received here yesterday, with the death of Sir H.
Lawrence, touched me with an acuter sense of sorrow than
all that had preceded it of disaster and horror. For I take it
that in a public sense he was about our best man, and I
know how well he has always appreciated your merits, and
that in him you have lost a good friend and master. Bar
nard's place, I suppose, may be supplied, but the death of
a commander in the midst of active operations must be
always more or less of a misfortune.
I trust that when the wreck is cleared away, and the good
vessel begins to be got to rights for the future prosperous
voyage which I doubt not lies before her, your position will
be altered, and for the better. It is impossible to suppose
that the absence of so many officers, as heretofore, on civil
employment should be recognised as an established element
in the order of things when the reconstruction of the Bengal
army takes place. Still less can I suppose that in the
determination of all such amphibious existences as yours,
which I take for granted must be made, you, and such as

64 CHANGES IN INDIA 1857
you, will be remitted back to the discharge of regimental
duty. It would be absurd to sequestrate such a man as
Edwardes, for instance, from the civil duties in which he
has gained such distinction, and in which he has so much
experience. The same of yourself and of many others.
Yet your places with your regiments must be filled up.
My notion, therefore, is that you will be transformed into a
pure civilian, in name as well as in fact ; and, as you have
already won your spurs before Moultan, I fancy you will
now give up your red coat without a sigh, and stick to the
pen as your chief implement instead of the sword. Tell
me how all this is likely to be. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
Tunbridge Wells, zdth September 1857.
My dear E. — ... We have had Tyndall with us for a
Saturday and Sunday. He was fresh from the Glaciers and
the top of Mount Blanc, which he had ascended with only one
guide, by special permission of the guardians of the moun
tains, on the ground of his being a working man of science,
and not a rich tourist in search of pleasure only. But it is
clearly a dangerous proceeding to go so badly attended,
and the usual number of guides is as necessary for the
safety of the party as it is desirable for their own profit.
— Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
Tunbridge Wells, 19^,^ October 1857.
My dear Tyndall — Thanks for your lines on Rich
mond and Park. Barring the grander features of mountain
and lake, I believe there is as much beautiful country within
an hour's reach of London as in any part of England, and
perhaps of all that is thus accessible Richmond presents
the choicest variety of charming scenery. Since your

i857 EMERSON'S ORATIONS 65
musings there, although not very many days since, autumn
must have made considerable havoc among the foliage.
Here the leaves are in a remarkable degree persistent, both
in colour and in attachment to their trees, but those on the
limes and others of early decadence have already surrendered
at discretion, and many a brown and yellow patch on the
green of the distant woods, and many a rustling swirl of
dry leaves at one's feet, remind one that the year is waning,
and help to reconcile us to the coming hibernation in
London. We are to leave the sweet nymphs and naiads of
these Wells on Friday, and the following day will see me at
drudgery again for the old hag Themis.
I thank you for the sight of the volume of Emerson's
Orations, which I have been reading with interest. It
is impossible not to admire that on " Emancipation,"
and next to it I like " Man the Reformer." There
are noble thoughts and fine writing in all of them, but
for the most part they seem to me too hazy and indefinite
for the highest truth and beauty. They are grandiose
and gigantic, but it is size without strength; more like
the unsubstantial forms projected on the mist in the
Brocken, than like a living Hercules able to kill the
real dragons which infest the world. They fail to give me
any feeling of effective power, and the same sense of
general indistinctness prevents me from recognising in them
much of such beauty — of a very high kind — as might exist
even in the absence of strength. As to some parts, of which
I am bound to say that I do very entirely disapprove, I will
not trouble you with any remarks upon them. I will return
you the volume from Montagu Square.
Mrs. Pollock sends her kindest regards, and W 
wishes particularly that you should know that he rides
without a leading rein, and that he has had two out of the
VOL. II F

66 LIVINGSTON 1857
three tumbles which are said to be necessary incidents on
the road to good horsemanship.
We are going to offer ourselves to dine with the Moores,
at Putney Heath, for Wednesday week. Perhaps we may
meet then, if not sooner. — Yours ever,
W. F. Pollock.
13M November 1857.
Dear E. — We have got Livingston's African book, which
is full of interesting matter, but is not very readable much at
a time, from the want of skill in the writing — a deficiency
which he admits to the fullest extent, and craves the mercy
of his readers, saying that he would rather go through
Africa a second time than write a book about it again. But
the volume furnishes abundance of most important and
novel information, and fills one with regard and liking for
the devotion, the true charity, the simplicity, and nobility of
the man. Wholly free, as it appears, from all prejudices of
sect or church, he went about his work in such a spirit as
is not, I am afraid, always shown in these enterprises, and
claims as his result just so much and no more than has
really been for the present effected. You will, of course,
see the book before long, so I will say no more about it.
St. Julian's, Sevenoaks,
2(>th December 1857.
My dear Tyndall — You were so kind as to call a few
nights since to ask about us. We were out, dining with
Forster, and we were sorry to have missed seeing you.
Now / can tell you authentically where we are, and that is
— here, a sentence which would be thought full of a deep
transcendental meaning if it was found in the writings of a
German metaphy sicker, but which to you, as chiefly a

1857 DEFINITION OF A FLUID 67
physicker, is only intended to mean what it does mean, and
from me, as neither, perhaps, if possible, means rather less
— the category of place, if you believe in place, that is, and
can conceive an absolute /;(fr£ more easily than' an absolute I.
Space being thus disposed of, I may now proceed to that
other perplexity. Time, which, whether you may take it to
be a function of space, or that of time, in a differential
series to be taken as integrated between limits from a central
zero to a plus and minus infinity extending both ways, yet
does assert itself in gross and palpable forms in clocks,
calendars, histories, astronomical cycles, and other tangi
bilities and substantialities, and cannot wholly be disregarded
in these mundane existences of ours, and so tell you that we
came here the day before yesterday, and shall remain, as I
suppose, until Thursday or Friday next, so that on Saturday
we may perchance see you meeting as juveniles round
Faraday's Lecture Table. Meanwhile here, and now, we
are far more cheerful than I could have expected, and in
the midst of a country looking perhaps more green than it
should do in Christmas week ; the boys well, and enjoying
the outdoor and indoor recreations of the place. W  the
other day came to his mother in much indignation at a scien
tific glossary, in which he had found " Solid, see Fluid," and
then turning to the F's, " Fluid, not solid," which, as he
justly complained, left him not much wiser than before.
Then he framed, quite by himself, his own definition of a
fluid as " stuff that you can't make a hole in,'' which is really
as good a one as could be given in so few words, as stating
one of the most obvious consequences of perfect mobility
among the particles. The said W  sends his love,
Mrs. Pollock desires her kindest regards, and I will wish
you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and so
farewell. — Yours truly, W. F. Pollock.

CHAPTER III
THE COMTE DE PARIS
^th January 1858. — I have been at the latter
lectures of Faraday's Christmas juvenile course,
which has been attended this year by the Prince
of Wales and the Orleans young men and boys.
At one of them, in describing the terror
occasioned by the early use of the electric shock
from the Leyden jar, Faraday read the very
words of Musshenbroek, its discoverer, who, after
taking it once or twice, wrote to a friend, the
Abb6 NoUet, " that he would not take it again —
no, not for the kingdom, of France! " At this the
Count of Paris touched his neighbour on the seat,
the Prince of Wales, and looked significantly
at him, as much as to say he would do that and
a good deal more for the kingdom of France.
He looks as if he might do something, and
has a resolute and strongly-marked countenance.

1858 BUCKLE'S LECTURE AT THE R. I. 69
59 Montagu Square,
Iith March 1858.
Dear E. — On Saturday we had a pleasant dinner here
with the Dean of Westminster (Trench), his wife, and
daughter — a handsome, pleasant girl — and others. It was
served, for the first time with us, h la Russe, and now I
only wonder that we have not done so before. It is the
greatest comfort to get rid of the carving on the table for a
large party. I have always liked it at other people's houses,
but there is still more reason for liking it at one's own.
Mr. Buckle is to lecture at the Royal Institution on
Friday. The demand for tickets is without precedent.
I read his book in the autumn with much interest. It is now
beginning to be found out, for no doubt his conclusions
put an end to all moral responsibility.
igth March. — Buckle gave his Friday even
ing lecture, on the influence of women on the
progress of knowledge, at the Royal Institu
tion. The place was crammed, and he spoke
without notes and in the most fluent manner
— a very remarkable discourse, the more wonder
ful because it was his first appearance as a
speaker in public, and his life has been that of
a secluded student of books, without the discip
line of school or university. But my indignation
was roused by hearing him attack the methods
of the Inductive Philosophy in the very place
where Davy and Faraday had lectured and
made their discoveries. I had read and noted

70 REVIEW OF BUCKLE'S HISTORY 1858
up the first volume of the History of Civilisa
tion very carefully while at Tunbridge Wells in
the previous autumn ; and before going to bed
I wrote to John Murray, in Albemarle Street,
offering an article upon it. After consulting with
the editor my proposal was accepted, and the
paper appeared in his next quarterly issue for
the following July. It appeared that none of the
scientific men of established reputation had cared
to undertake an exposure of the blunders and
fallacies contained in the book, on account of
the wide range of subjects covered by it, but I
thought I saw my way to a sort of general
skirmishing attack of light artillery which would
serve the purpose. It was amusing afterwards
to hear that Buckle said the review must have
been written by a very old man, and probably by
a clergyman ; and it was generally believed that
it was the work of the editor, assisted by a
committee of scientific men, who had severally
contributed to it. Altogether, I had every
reason to be pleased with the success of my
article, and with the attention it excited. After
wards I wrote for the same journal notices
of the first volumes of Carlyle's Frederick the
Second, and of Motley's History of the Dutch

1858 BRITISH NOVELISTS 71
Republic, the latter of which appeared under
the editorship of my old Cambridge friend,
Wifliam Macpherson. The editor declined to
insert a paper of mine on British Novelists,
written at his request, which he was good enough
to praise on other grounds, because too much
space was given to the novels of Richardson
and Miss Austen, and because I put Richardson
above Fielding, and therein differed from his
own opinion and that which he told me had
always been maintained in the Review.
This paper was at once accepted for Erasers
Magazine by John W. Parker, the son of the
publisher, who was then editing the magazine,
and was my first contribution to it.
iith April. — Breakfasted with Milnes. Met
Spedding, Monteith, Maine. Lady Theresa
Lewis says the Peelites are always putting
themselves up to auction and buying themselves
in again. I'jth May. — Dined with Venables at Oxford
and Cambridge Club. K. Macaulay, William
Vernon Harcourt, Chapman, Priaulx, Cook
(editor of Saturday Review), Garden, Brook
field, Sir Francis Doyle.
iph June. — Dined with J. W. Parker at his

72 TOXOPHILITE SOCIETY 1858
rooms over the publishing shop in the Strand,
at which he gives frequent men's dinners. Met
Theodore Martin, W. G. Clark, Alfred Tenny
son. Brought home proofs of " Hanworth,"
coming out in Fraser s Magazine.
I sth July. — Was elected a member of the
Toxophilite Society on Spedding's proposal.
I had previously been shooting in their grounds
in the Regent's Park, on his invitation, and
with tackle lent by him. I believe that at this
time Spedding, with his usual quiet persever
ance and tenacity of purpose, in a matter which
interested him, saved the Society almost from
extinction, as the number of members had fallen
very low. He was a constant shooter himself,
although he never attained a foremost rank in
his scores, and his presence and encouragement
were a rallying point of returning prosperity.
Most of the new members who joined at this
time were his friends, and when the subscriptions
were not enough to provide for the rent of the
ground and general expenses, he was most
generous in the share he took in supplementing
them. For many years the Archers' Lodge
was a favourite resort in the afternoon of my
wife and myself She also practised shooting,

i8s8 ARCHERS' LODGE T2,
and with so much success that a prize was
awarded to her on the first Ladies' Day on which
she shot ; and she afterwards took prizes at
Leamington and at the Grand National Meet
ing at Bath. Further distinctions were within
her reach ; but unfortunately she was persuaded
by an over-zealous friend to use a bow which was
too strong for her, and this, with excessive
practice, ruined her shooting. For myself it
never became more than a means of pleasant
open-air exercise and friendly intercourse. I
took it up rather too late in life, and did not at
this time know of the defect of astigmatism in
my eyesight, which made a correct aim very
difficult. When Sir William Bowman afterwards
discovered it for me, and prescribed the appro
priate glasses, I had almost ceased to frequent
the shooting ground. We had very agreeable
company there, among whom were Mules, of the
Tithe Commission Office, a man of fine character,
and a first-rate shot ; Wetherell, one of his col
leagues ; Sir Charles Hamilton, Bolton ; and
sometimes Ford, the champion, honoured us
with his presence. I never watched shooting
so good as that of Ford and Mules, and the
latter, of whom we saw a good deal, was a

74 FORD— A. FROUDE— W. SPOTTISWOODE 1858
thorough gentleman and good fellow. Ford's
Treatise on Archery is one of the best practical
books ever written on any subject, and Ford
was himself as excellent as his book. Ford's
treatise has been rewritten, with much valuable
matter added, by Mr. Butt, for many years
secretary to the Toxophilite Society, and
published in 1887, with a preface by C. J.
Longman, himself an archer of note. A little
later on Anthony Froude was a frequent at
tendant at the ground, as was William Spot
tiswoode, afterwards President of the Royal
Society, and both were good shots. Froude's
fondness for archery may be noted in his history
of Henry VI II.'s reign, when he treats of the
special legislative encouragement then given to
it. On fine summer days my wife generally
had a tea-table on the grass, to which our
friends resorted, and I think that all the mem
bers who then used to come to shoot were our
friends. To me the means of so easily getting
exercise in the open air were worth a great
deal as a matter of health ; and when I had a
new coat made, after I had been shooting for
three or four months, my tailor was astonished
to find how much my chest had increased in

1858 H. A. MEREWETHER 75
girth. I believe that the arrangement with the
Skating Club, by which they contribute to the
rent, and enjoy the use of the shooting lawn,
flooded with water during the winter months,
to become, in time of frost, a skating-rink, has
ensured the permanent prosperity of the Tox
ophilite Society. I took a great interest in
assisting to bring this about not long before
I ceased to be an active Toxophilite, and was
gratified by being made an honorary member.
We had among us also Sir Henry Ibbetson-
Selwin, who was a fair shot, and Henry Alworth
Merewether, the eminent parliamentary counsel,
was also one of us, and said one of his best
things on the ground. Our youngest son,
M  , was often there with us, and when a
little boy his pet name was Moss. Merewether
heard this and said, " I suppose you call him
Moss to show your lichen for him." Another
of his pleasantries was the advice he gave to a
disconsolate tourist at a Welsh hotel, who com
plained that he had only three days in which to
see all Wales, and wanted to ascend Snowdon
and Cader Idris, and did not see how he could
do both. Merewether said to him, " Don't you
see how it can be managed ? Go up Snowdon

76 PHELPS AS SIR PETER TEAZLE 1858
and come down Cader Idris." At the Tox
ophilite ground, soon after I succeeded to the
baronetcy, I lost a trifling bet or stake to
Merewether, and he said, " Put your bloody
hand in your pocket and fork out." Certainly
the practice of archery, as I knew it among
the Toxophilites, combined healthy exercise
and skill together with pleasant intercourse
and good fellowship in a very remarkable de
gree. I must not omit to mention that the
honorary secretaries in my time were Strong,
Richardson (then in charge of Archbishop
Tenison's chapel), and William Butt, and the
last in a variety of ways contributed much to
the prosperity of the Society, and the interests
of archery in general.
2'jth July. — F  was elected a King's
Scholar at Eton, with his name first on the
roll. Twelve were elected out of forty-five
candidates. igth November. — With Donne to see Phelps
in Sir Peter Teazle at Sadler's Wells Theatre.
It was a good and solid performance, like all
that he did. The character was thoroughly
understood by him, and was also well rendered,
which was not always the case with Phelps.

i8s9 "NEW FRIENDS" 77
He made Sir Peter not too old or too ridiculous,
and presented him as a gentleman who had not
lost his self-respect, nor the respect of the world,
by having made an unwise marriage. It was a
very different version of the part from that in
which Farren was so popular. Farren's Sir
Peter, with all its merits, was too senile, and
wanted repose and dignity. I like his son
better in it, whom I last saw in the play when
given by Mrs. Langtry at the Prince's Theatre
in Coventry Street in 1885 or '6, with an excel
lent cast.
In this year was published New Friends,
written by my wife for our son W  , as
Julian and his Playfellows had been for
F  . igth January 1859.
Dear E. — We were all at St. Julian's for a week at
Christmas, and, with four fine days out of six, spent a happy
time there. One evening we had great success in playing the
game of Russian scandal. An anecdote or incident (which
should be one not generally known) is written down on
paper, and then confidentially communicated to one mem
ber of the company, who in the same way repeats to the
next, and so on, until by this private course of tradition it
reaches the last person, who is then called upon to repeat
aloud what he has heard. The paper is then read, and it
is curious to note how entirely a story will almost always
get altered in its passage through eight or ten people.

78 RUSSIAN SCANDAL 1859
I suppose you have not yet read Carlyle's Frederick the
Second — a wonderful book with all its faults.
Did I tell you that the squaring of words has come up
again, and that Babbage has been applying some of his
deciphering appliances to the subject with very curious
results ?
I have offered a large reward to any one who can square
Bishop. I have done Rector, Curate, and Dean, but the
Episcopal bench has resisted my efforts. — Yours affec
tionately, W. F. P.
On one occasion the anecdote chosen for the
game of Russian scandal was a story of Follett
and my father coming away from a city dinner
and looking for their hats, in which Thesiger
was assisting, and, pointing to a hat, said to
Follett, " I can't find your Castor, but here is
Pollock's (Pollux)." It was duly transmitted
until it came to the turn of a lady (it was the
Dowager Lady Torrington) to send it onwards.
She confessed to the gentleman to whom she
had to repeat it that she only remembered it
was a story about some hats after dinner. He
said I only know of one such story, and it
must be that, and he accordingly sent on
his anecdote. At last it came out thus :
" The Duke of Rutland took Theodore
Hook's hat by mistake, and Hook said he

i859 DERBY LOTTERIES 79
was sorry it was not a good one." The point
of the second anecdote lay in Hook's saying,
" I wish I had as fine a beaver (Belvoir) as
your Grace." But this too was lost in trans
mission. i\th February.— ^2& elected a member of
the Athenseum Club.
2\th March. — Dined at John Murray's.
Dr. Cureton, Sir Justin Shell, Elwin (editor
of Quarterly), and Layard.
']th April. — Dinner at home. Dean of
Westminster and Mrs. Trench, Lacaita, John
Murrays, etc. In evening Thackeray, Babbage,
etc. 13^',^ April. — Dine with J. W. Parker. Sir
George Cornwall Lewis, Owen, Helps, Lord
Bury, etc.
1.5-/ June.- — I won a prize in the Derby
lottery at the Oxford and Cambridge Club with
Trumpeter, who ran third to Musjid and
Ticket-of-Leave. For some time he was the
favourite, and I stuck to him, because, by a
strange chance for me, I had named him.
Martin had been asked to do so, and begged
me to help him. Trumpeter's sire was Orlando,
and I thought of Scott's

8o LORD BLACKBURN 1859
" O ! for the voice of that wild horn
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
Which to King Charles did tell
How Roland brave and Oliviere,
And every paladin and peer.
At Roncesvalles fell"
in Rob Roy, as well as of Dante's
" Non sonb si terribilmente Orlando,"
and I suggested Trumpeter as the name, which
was adopted. My prize just served to recoup
me for many unsuccessful entries on similar
occasions at the Club and at the robing-room
at Westminster, where there used to be Derby
lotteries, and the Attorney-General of the day
always promised to enter a nolle prosequi if
any one was informed against for taking part
in them.
I ith June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond
— Horsman presiding.
2'^th June. — Colin Blackburn appointed a
judge in the Queen's Bench. I met him just
after he had been with Lord Campbell, and he
told me that when he offered him a judgeship
he at first declined it, believing that it was the
place of a County Court judge that was in
question, and with difficulty accepted the fact
that he was to fill a vacancy in the Superior

i8s9 VINTNERS' HALL 8i
Courts. It turned out an admirable appoint
ment, and Blackburn's subsequent elevation to
the post of a Lord Ordinary of Appeal in the
House of Lords was no surprise, but gave
general satisfaction.
tth July. — Dined at Vintners' Hall, at their
great annual Kenton festival. It was on this
occasion, or at some similar one in another year,
that I heard the most successful after-dinner
speech ever made. The late Lord Wynford,
son of the first peer so long Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas, was always the important
guest at this dinner. His father, when Ser
jeant Best, had won a great case when at the
bar as counsel for the Vintners' Company,
and their gratitude was kept up in the next
generation of the family. Before dinner Lord
Wynford told me of his difficulty in finding
something new to say in the speech which was
always expected from him, and begged me for
some hints. Of course I replied that he knew
the place and its ways far better than I did,
and that he had only to trust to the inspiration
of the moment and all would be sure to go well.
When his time came Lord Wynford went over
the usual story of his father's connection with
VOL. II G

82 LORD WYNFORD'S SPEECH 1859
the Company, and its traditional maintenance
with himself, and how he used to be brought
to dine in their hall when a boy, and he wound
up by saying : " As I grew older and was about
to enter upon life, my father said to me, 'John,
it is now my duty to give you some advice upon
your conduct. You will be exposed to many
temptations, you will often have to decide on
what is right and what is wrong, and to take
your course accordingly, and I have only one
rule to lay down for you. When you are in
doubt what to do, look at the Vintners' Com
pany, do as they do, and you will certainly do
right.' " This brought down thunders of ap
plause, and I congratulated Lord Wynford as
we were going away upon the immense hit
he had made.
I'jth August. — To the Old Bailey, where
Smethurst was being tried for the murder of
his wife before the Chief Baron. Towards the
end of the sitting an incident occurred which
strongly illustrated the tendency to laugh which
always exists in a court of justice, however
solemn and serious the occasion may be. It
was a very hot and close day, and my father
had made repeated demands for more fresh

1859 SMETHURST'S TRIAL 83
air to be admitted. At last the sheriffs told
him that they had come to the end of their
means of ventilation and could do no more.
" Then," said my father, "open the windows."
" The windows wiU not open, my lord," said the
sheriff. "Then break them," said the judge.
Upon which one of the ushers, armed with his
long white wand, went into the jury-box and,
mounted upon the back of another, began
thrashing away at the panes of glass in the large
window above the jury-box. Another usher,
similarly provided, and leaning as far forward
as he could from the gallery, while a second
man held him to prevent him from falling over,
began to attack the upper part of the window,
and the two men belaboured it as if they were
beating a walnut tree to bring down the
walnuts. The effect was irresistibly droll, and
for five minutes every one in court, including
the judge and the prisoner at the bar, was
convulsed with laughter. At last enough glass
was smashed to let in the desired amount of
fresh air, gravity was resumed, and the case
was proceeded with as if nothing had hap
pened. gth January. — To Lord Macaulay's funeral

84 FUNERAL OF MACAULAY i860
in Westminster Abbey. As a spectacle there
was nothing striking in it, and the service was
less affecting than I have felt it to be in the
open air, in churchyard or cemetery, when I
have chanced to witness the funeral of a total
stranger. Much of the service was chanted, and
what was read was well delivered by the Dean.
The occasion was interesting and solemn, but
the surrounding associations did not seem to be
altogether in unison with it. The interior of
the Abbey was unchanged, except for the open
grave, which, to me, looked almost as much out
of place as if it had yawned in the floor of a
drawing-room. The music, too, so unusual at
a funeral, seemed to belong to the ordinary
services of the building. Among the persons
assembled to do honour to the great man
we had lost from among us were so many
friends and acquaintances as to give the
occasion almost the air of a social gathering.
We were in the Abbey by twelve o'clock ; the
service began, as arranged, punctually at one ;
all was over, and we had looked into the grave
by two. I knew enough of Macaulay to have
personal feelings of admiration and regret
to mix with the general sorrow for his death.

i860 SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY 85
and the universal recognition of his claim to
sepulture among the great writers and jurists of
his country. While waiting for admission at
the door at Poet's Corner, we had some talk
with Charles Austin on the pretensions of
several persons then living to burial in the
Abbey on their decease. He mentioned John
Stuart Mill as the man best entitled to this
national honour, but I was not able to agree
with him ; yet I think that the reputation of
Mill stood higher at this time than it did to
wards the end of his life, or than it has stood
since his death.
nth February. — Came to dinner with us —
Tom Headlams, Eastlakes, Groves, Millais,
Edward Romillys, Barlows. Romilly has a
characteristic anecdote of Jeremy Bentham.
Sir Samuel Romilly once asked Bentham to
dinner to meet a common friend (George
Wilson) just returned from India. Bentham
always hated a third person in company, and
wrote in reply, " If nothing to say, why meet ?
If anything, why Wilson?"
2gth February. — Dined with Eastlakes, Fitz
roy Square. Lord and Lady Robert Cecil,
Delane, Malins, Lord Justice Turner.

J. W. PARKER i860

2dfth March. — At dinner Dean of West
minster and Mrs. Trench, John Murrays, Grant
Duffs, Dr. Watson, G. S. Venables.
2id May. — Dined with J. W. Parker. Theo
dore Martin, Boyd (A. K. H. B.), Buckle, Arthur
Helps, Canon Robertson, Smiles.
20th June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond
— Sir Arthur Buller in chair.
\(ith November. — Funeral of J. W. Parker
at Highgate Cemetery. Trench and Maurice
officiated. I in coach with Theodore Martin,
Helps, and Froude, who has nursed Parker most
tenderly during his last illness. The death of
Parker, who was the only son of the founder of
a publishing house which had rapidly attained
eminence, destroyed all hope of its continuance.
The father was too old to attend to the business
effectually, there was no other member of the
family to take it up, and the concern not long
afterwards passed into the hands of Longman &
Co., together with the proprietorship oi Fraser s
Magazine. Young Parker was a man of con
siderable intellect and attainments, and of a
most affectionate character. The firm made a
mistake, as publishers do, in declining to incur
any risk in the publication of Buckle's History

i86i BOOKS TO READ 87
of Civilisation, which they undertook only upon
terms of his bearing all expenses, and paying
them the usual commission on sales. This
turned out fortunately for the author, as the
book had a considerable commercial success.
25'^ February 1 861.
My dear E. — I have been much interested in reading
Olmsted's last book on The Slave States of America. It
puts the whole thing in a miserable and hopeless light,
even worse in its dull uniformity of degradation than the
horrors of Uncle Tom, heightened by the contrast of some
romantic touches of humane masters and happy slaves. The
man's reports of what he sees and hears are evidently most
truthful. His deductions appear to be sound and free
from prejudice. I have also read one of his former
volumes on Texas, and there is another on The Slave States
of the Sea-board, which I mean to read. Lighter and
more amusing reading has been furnished by two ladies of
the last century, Mrs. Delany and Mrs. Piozzi — the first a
very charming person, as one always knew her to be, al
though her letters, and everything about her, have been
given at somewhat excessive length by the editorial affec
tion of her great-niece, the present Lady Llanover. I have
nowhere met with better or more pleasing pictures of the
society of the days in which Sir Charles Grandison and Mr.
Thomas Jones flourished. Mrs. Delany's letters are not
very clever, but always readable and charming. There
are three fat volumes, and there must be at least as many
more to bring her down to the days of George the Third,
in which one became first acquainted with her through

88 "FRASER'S MAGAZINE" 1861
Miss Burney's Diary. As to Mrs. Piozzi, the more one
knows of her the less one likes her.
li^th March. — Dined Herman Merivales.
Met Sir Roderick Murchison, Henry Reeves,
William Longmans.
i^th March. — Dined with Froude, to meet
Arthur Helps and Theodore Martin as to
management of Fraser s Magazine during
Froude's absence at Simancas. Helps said that
Sir Thomas Phillips of Middlehill, who has a
celebrated collection of books and manuscripts,
is very reluctant to allow any one to see them.
The reason is that J. O. Halliwell, wl^ was
admitted to the house to consult the MS5., ran
away with his daughter. It was remarked
that he had been for spelling MSS. with an I
in it. I ']th March. — Little M  wanted to know
how a tulip could grow from a bulb, and asked,
" Where does the flower come from ? " I tried
to explain how it came up from where it lay
undeveloped down in the bulb. He thought for
a moment, and then asked, " Papa, was your
head ever at your feet ? " I repeated this to
Owen, who said he was much struck by the
physiological truth lurking in the question.

i86i FECHTER'S HAMLET 89
2id March. — To see Fechter in Hainlet
at Princess's Theatre. It was a strange but
interesting performance. Coming away, with
the recollection of the French remark on the
famous charge at Balaclava, I said to Boxall,
" C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est, pas la guerre."
It was a fine piece of romantic acting, but it
was hardly Shakespeare. Many of Fechter's
innovations and alterations seemed to have been
adopted only for the sake of breaking in upon
old traditions, and adding further novelties to
the sufficiently startling one of a foreigner
appearing in one of the greatest of English
plays with the training of the Parisian stage
and a strong French accent and method of
delivery. There were three acts instead of five,
a flaxen head of hair instead of a black one,
and continual deviations from the established
business of the piece as given in the English
theatre. But with all this, Fechter's representa
tion of Hamlet was a fascinating and instructive
one, melodramatic and occasionally distorted as
it was. He had a touch of genius, and he well
understood the exigencies and opportunities
of the stage, and carried off his defective pro
nunciation by his entire absorption in his part.

90 C. KEMBLE— MACREADY— IRVING 1861
I must always count him among my noteworthy
Hamlets. Charles Kemble was the first, seen
at the little theatre at Barnwell, in a long va
cation at Cambridge. He failed somewhat in
the reflective and passionate passages ; but was
excellent in the lighter scenes of the play.
Macready, although he too was not young
enough to look the part perfectly when I saw
him in it, combined nearly all the requisites for
giving the best effect to the character. He
could be passionate, philosophical, tender, gen
erous, gallant, courteous, hurnorous, and witty.
His scholarly education told especially in his
favour when sustaining the manifold part of
Hamlet, and it was the one which he loved the
best. "Beautiful Hamlet! farewell, farewell,"
was the entry made in his diary after he had
played the part for the last time. Irving's
Hamlet, too, is a thing to be greatly admired and
remembered, and it is the great part in which he
is seen to the greatest advantage, and by the
frequent performances of which he has, perhaps,
most contributed to the higher education of the
day, and to familiarising his crowded audiences
with the masterpieces of our stage. Except
these three, I know no other English Hamlet

i86i MOUNET SULLY— FAURE 91
in my time worth mentioning ; but on the
French stage, Mounet Sully's impersonation,
which I have not myself been fortunate enough
to see, has made a great impression by its
beauty, grandeur, and intellectual qualities.
Nor should Faure's appreciative acting of the
part, in addition to his merits as a singer in
the opera of Ambroise Thomas, be forgotten.
In pure melodrama, such as Don Cdsar de
Bazan, The Corsican Brothers, Riiy Bias, etc.,
Fechter was pre-eminently good. His Othello
was a failure, but his lago was not without
merit. igth April. — Dined John Murray's. Met
Motley and his wife ; Gleig, the chaplain-
general and military historian and writer ;
Cureton ; W. Macpherson, for some time
editor of the Quarterly, etc.
20th April. — Meeting at Lansdowne House
of members of Trinity College to further the
proposal of a statue of Lord Macaulay to be
placed in the college. The Chief Baron was
in the chair.
je^th May. — Literary Fund dinner at Free
masons' Tavern. The Due d'Aumale presided,
and made an admirable speech in English. I sat

92 LITERARY FUND DINNER 1861
with Laurence Oliphant, and was to have pro
posed the toast of "The Travellers," to which
he was to have responded. But it got very
late, people began to go away, and after having
satisfied each other that neither of us wanted
to speak, we went away before our toast was
reached. Next day, however, it appeared in
the report of the evening's proceedings in the
morning papers that Oliphant proposed the
health of "The Travellers," and that I, who
had hardly been out of England, returned
thanks. The reporters had evidently gone
away too, et voila comme I'on dcrit l' histoire.
2Zd May 1861.
Dear E. — I will answer your question first. The allu
sion to a modern instance of remuneration to the family of
an assassin — or, rather, would-be assassin — was to the case
of Cantillon, the man who wished to assassinate the Duke
of Wellington in Paris. Napoleon by his will, executed at
St. Helena,, left him a legacy in express approbation of his
intended murder ; and in the payment of the bequests ot
that will by recent French Governments, the representatives
of Cantillon have received the money left to him.
I spent my holiday on Whit-Tuesday in going to see
F  • at Eton. I saw his own little room for the first time,
and very comfortable it looked, with its small library of
prize books. We were joined by a boy who shares a
boat with him, and the two gave me a pull up the river, I

i86i MINIATURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE 93
steering them in a luxurious manner, and enjoying the
beauty of the day to the utmost on the water and with
their pleasant talk. Then we proceeded to the White
Hart to give my rowers some dinner, and then to the
Castle to see some of the curiosities of the Queen's library.
In going down I had made acquaintance with the librarian,
Mr. Woodward, a very agreeable gentleman, which resulted
in his asking me to come and see him, and bring the boys,
and before we parted we found we had several common
friends and acquaintances. The miniature collection was
the most interesting thing we saw. It begins with several
of Henry the Eighth, and comes down to the Queen's
children. A drawer full of young princes and princesses,
by Newton and Ross, was most charming. It was like a
bed of roses. There are also portraits of historical charac
ters, etc., very many more than we could look at in the
time at our disposal. There is a magnificent collection of
prints and drawings, filling one room, and forty thousand
volumes of books, comprising some typographical rarities.
The Prince spends a good deal of time in the library, and
it is hard to get him away from it. Message after message
comes to him as the dinner hour approaches, and some
times the last is that " Her Majesty is at table."
Equitable Life Office, Blackfriars,
ifth September 1 86 1.
My dear Father — I am able to answer your inquiries
about the " flint implements " better than I otherwise could
have done, by a curious enough series of coincidences. In
driving to the station this morning from St. Julian's I met
the postman, and got your letter from his bag. In the
same carriage with me on the railway was a gentleman just
come from abroad. We talked a good deal about France,

94 FLINT IMPLEMENTS 1861
and iron ships, and so forth, he having been at Cherbourg.
At last, and only a few minutes before arriving at London
Bridge, he said he had been looking at antiquities at Abbe
ville. Then I, remembering that many of these flint
weapons had been discovered in Normandy, in what geo
logists call "the drift," asked my new acquaintance if he
had seen any of them. He replied by taking a basket
from under the seat, which was filled with specimens,
although of a ruder kind than the one figured by you. I
had now only time to ask him for the name of the best
book or writer on the subject, and he put into my hand a
paper from the Transactions of the Royal Society, by Prest-
wich, and it was Prestwich himself whom I had been so
fortunate as to fall in with. Babbage, of whom in science
it may be said, nihil est quod non tetigit, etc., has written a
beautiful little paper on the subject, but dealing only with
the geological part of it. I have always felt much difficulty
in recognising all these objects as the results of human art.
The evidence is certainly strong from their appearance. It
is not easy to suggest how such regular fractures could be
produced, except by the application of well-directed blows
given with the design of imparting a particular shape. But
the very multitude of the flints staggers me. It looks as if
all the people could have done nothing else but make
them ; and I do not believe that any have yet been found
associated with other remains or vestiges of human exist
ence. Altogether the considerations suggested by these
discoveries are most interesting, and they must be taken as
pointing at least to the strong probability of an intelligent
race inhabiting the earth long, very long, before the earliest
periods hitherto assigned, even by geologists, to the appear
ance of man upon the face of the globe. — Yours affection
ately, W. F. P.

i86i VISITS IN SCOTLAND 95
1 2th September. — We left London for Scot
land, taking our youngest boy with us, to pay
visits to Arthur Malkin at Corryburg, some
miles south of Inverness ; to the Grant Duffs,
at Eden, near Banff; and to see Cowper, a
brother director at the Equitable, at Carlton
Hall, near Penrith, on our way home. In post
ing on from Dunkeld, beyond which the rail
road did not then go, we changed horses at
Blair-Athol, Dalancardoch, Dalwhinnie, Kin
gussie, and Bridge of Cam At Kingussie a
lady staying in the hotel sent her maid to ask
if she might see our boy in her room, and he
went to her for a few minutes. He told us
that she was in deep mourning, and had asked
his name and given him many kisses and
caresses. Probably the poor lady had recently
lost a child of her own, and it was a touching
incident, but remained unexplained. Corryburg, Inverness,
17^ September 1861.
My dear Father — We travelled yesterday from Dun
keld through a magnificent country. We had eighty-five
miles to post, and I suppose it is the only remaining piece
of road of such a length along which the mail still runs
behind four horses. I found the cattle good, and also the
carriages, which we had to change only three times. Mean-

96 A HIGHLAND HOME 1861
ing to start at six, and actually starting twenty minutes later,
we got here a few minutes after seven. We made a second
breakfast at Blair-Athol, and lunched at Kingussie. The
day was fine, a great rarity this year, as we hear of six weeks
of rain, and the rivers tell the same story. The Tay, the
Garry, the Spey, and the Findhorn, now before our windows,
are in glorious force, more full of water than for fifteen years.
The three first of these were our only companions yesterday,
for we saw nothing the whole distance but the mail which met
us. The size and space of the scenery through which we
passed produce a grand impression, and, as it is the last
such drive one is ever likely to have — passing rapidly, with
all the luxury of good posting, through a long succession of
varied and picturesque country — one is not likely to forget
it. The railroad, with all its monotony, is a bad substitute
when speed can be sacrificed to enjoyment.
We are here in a simple establishment in a real High
land home. The fuel in the sitting-rooms is wood. Our
mutton and grouse are roasted at a peat fire. We know of
no civilisation nearer than Inverness, seventeen miles off.
I am now going to assist our host in looking after some
grouse. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
There was an amusing occurrence one day.
Malkin's factor came from Argyllshire, where
he lived, and dined at the house. He was an
extremely zealous elder of the Free Kirk, and
was full of the hardship experienced by that
religious community in not being then able to
procure land for building churches, etc., from
the Duke of Argyll. He was delighted to find

i86i AN ELDER OF THE FREE KIRK 97
that I was well acquainted with the history and
merits of the Free Kirk movement, and especi
ally with the great Auchterarder case, on the
question of patronage, in which my father had
been one of the counsel when it was on appeal
in the House of Lords. He was still more
pleased to find that I entirely agreed with
him in believing that the private patronage of
church livings was entirely at variance with the
spirit of a Presbyterian Church, and that "the
harmonious call " to the charge of a parish
should be a real power of appointment in the
hands of the congregation. Then we went to
the question of sites for churches in Argyllshire,
and again I sympathised with him, and led him
on to say, with much warmth, that, if he were
a landowner, it would be against his conscience
to deny to any religious body the opportunities
of convenient public worship. To which I re
plied, " Then, if a Roman Catholic congregation
were in want of a site for a chapel, under similar
circumstances, you would of course be glad to
let them have it ? " — " No," said he furiously,
and striking his hand on the table, "that I would
not. They are idolators." After this he did not
seem to like me so much as he did before.
VOL. II H

98 A MISTAKEN MINISTER 1861
At Eden was told the story of the Scots
minister in a church where it was the habit to
give out the psalms to be sung line by line
from the pulpit, but who on a particular occa
sion desired to excuse himself from so doing,
as his sight was temporarily impaired. So he
said : " My eyes are dim, I cannot see,"
on which the precentor and congregation, taking
it for the first line of a psalm or hymn, sang
" My eyes are dim, I cannot see.''
The minister, rather disconcerted, and trying
to explain, said
" I meant to make apology,"
which was again sung by the congregation.
The minister, getting angry, said
" I only said my eyes were dim,"
again taken up and repeated in singing by
the congregation. The minister, exasperated,
bawled out " I did not mean to give a hymn,"
sung again by the congregation, and so on.
There was also mentioned a Scots minister's
prayer for the British navy: "Lord, be as a
wall of fire round the ships ! Be as a great

i86i LORD BROUGHAM AT BROUGHAM 99
rock in the midst of them ! May they be as im
movable as iron !" Not long afterwards I found
" the great rock in the midst " in the original
Joe Miller of 1730, in which a similar story is
told, but of an English bishop, which illustrates
at once the adaptability and the permanence of
jokes. Ccelu7n non animum, mutant.
From Carlton Hall I went to pay my re
spects to Lord Brougham at Brougham. I was
told that his hours were uncertain, and that his
attendance at the family meals was irregular,
but that my best chance of seeing him would
be to try to fall in with him on his return from
service in the family chapel to the house. In
this I succeeded, and I think he remembered
me ; but he seemed very feeble, his face was
of ashen gray, and he said only a few words.
He looked like a shadow of the past.
nth December.— -\ was appointed a trustee
of the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
It came about in this way. Among other
curious provisions made by Sir John Soane
in bequeathing his house and collections to
the nation, it was prescribed that the curator
should be an architect who had won a medal at
the Royal Academy, and that he should be

BONOMI 1861

chosen by that body and presented to the
trustees of the museum by the Royal Academy.
The Academy very wisely appointed Bonomi,
the well-known Egyptologist, who seemed made
for the place and the place for him ; but the
trustees had refused to induct him on the ground
that he did not fulfil the condition of being an
architect, never having actually practised his
profession, or done anything but design a park
lodge for a personal friend. Things were at a
dead lock ; there had been a strong feeling in
the matter among the trustees, and one or two
of them had resigned. At this juncture Hard-
wick, the architect, asked me to help him and
the others who were in favour of accepting
Bonomi's appointment by becoming a trustee,
and I consented. The opinion was then taken
of Sir Roundell Palmer, who advised that there
was no legal definition of the status of an archi
tect, and that Bonomi's professional education
and competence to act as such gave him a
sufficient qualification for the office of curator.
Accordingly he was duly admitted, and the
affairs of the trust went on as quietly as
ever. The house cannot be altered, and
the collections cannot be in any way increased ;

i86i SOANE MUSEUM lox
all that can be done is to take the best means
for their preservation, and the house, if left
intact, will some day, although with many pecu
liar arrangements, be a valuable specimen
of a London dwelling-house of the period.
The library and art collections are extremely
interesting. Among the books are a very
fine copy of the Landino Dante of 1481, with
all the engravings ; and copies of the first
four folios of Shakespeare, and some finely illu
minated MSS. The museum also contains
Hogarth's Rake's Progress and Election pictures,
a good Turner, and a large Canaletto, with
other pictures of mark. In my time as a trustee
the most important pictures were put under
glass — a sad necessity for works of art in Lon
don — and much was done otherwise for the due
preservation of the various objects in the
museum, including the placing of the great Bel-
zoni sarcophagus in a glass case. It would be
wrong to destroy the Museum as it exists by
transferring its contents to other public collec
tions, as much of its interest would be destroyed
by such a step ; and it is now made easily
accessible for the public, and is always open to
students.

ro2 DEATH OF PRINCE CONSORT i86i
59 Montagu Square, 22d Decetnber 1861.
My dear E. — I am writing at the close of the saddest
day I ever saw in London. The signs of general grief have
been everywhere seen and heard ; all the public offices have
been closed ; nearly all shops shut ; all faces wear an air of
sorrow and concern. The occasion is indeed one to justify
every expression of admiration, regret, and sympathy for the
Queen and her children ; and the general sadness contrasts
strangely with the preparations for Christmas festivities,
which, however, have been, in consequence, much
abridged. Posthumous praise has never been so well
deserved as in the case of all the encomiums which have
been written on the Prince Consort. He had himself told
Dr. Jenner that he knew he would not be appreciated until
after his death ; and there was truth in this, although for
many years past the unreasonable attacks upon him had
subsided, and all persons whose opinions were of value had
learned to recognise his excellent conduct on all occasions,
his great abilities, and his patient devotion to his duties.
From the beginning of the illness the physicians thought badly
of it, but it was not until the Friday in last week that people
in general became anxious. Indeed, except in London
circles with some special information, I suppose that the
fatal termination must have taken all the world by surprise.
Saturday was a time of intense anxiety. I suppose the
name was omitted in the prayers in all London churches on
the Sunday, and that gave the first information to many.
The accounts of the Queen have been good from the begin
ning. At the end of two days she sent for the Cabinet
boxes, and began to read papers and think of public work
again. Poor lady! No union in private life was distin
guished by more entire confidence, mutual reliance, and
affection. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.

CHAPTER IV

A DOMESTIC PLAY-BILL

in^th January 1862. — This evening we had
a juvenile entertainment at home of two acted
charades and a proverb. As our drawing-rooms
were not very ample, the play-bill was headed
with the line —
" Our room be magnified, but not our faults." —
Shakespeare ;
and I fear a great many worthy persons, among
whom was Faraday, spent some time to no
purpose in hunting for it in their Shakespeares.
This was the time when Fechter was playing
Hamlet with many innovations, and the bill
contained a notice that the last piece was
founded upon an illegible MS. discovered in
pulling down the ancient edifice of the drama.
" The Management," it went on to state, " de
sires to show itself sensible of the absurdity

104 LORD DUNDREARY 1862
and danger of following worm-eaten tradition ;
but the Play being new, it is difficult on this
particular occasion to exhibit the proper
amount of contempt for the established cus
toms of the Stage. For the novelty of the
Piece excludes the possibility of its beauty
having been injured by the representations of
a long and illustrious line of great Actors.
Wherever it has been possible, however, to cast
off the fetters of convention, this has been
done ; and the Audience will be pleased to
accept as a proof of this assertion the varying
size of the performers, and especially the fact
that the Heroine is a good deal taller than the
Hero." M. Prudhon was named in the bill
as the property-man. His famous saying, " La
propridte c'est le vol," was then being often
repeated. 2ith January. — To Haymarket Theatre to
see Sothern as Lord Dundreary in Tom
Taylor's piece of The American Cousin. The
part was made irresistibly droll and quaint by
the actor, who indeed had raised it to the place
of premier role from being only a secondary
one, to the extent indeed of almost displacing
everything else. The piece had an enormous

1862 '-ANTIQUITY OF MAN" 105
run, and for a long time Sothern appeared in
nothing else.
ifth February. — Drank tea with Faradays at
Royal Institution, and played at squalls. 1st March 1862.
Dear E. — There have been some interesting lectures at
the Royal Institution lately, the most striking of them being
one by Huxley on the presumed great antiquity of the
human species, which he is inclined to put much further
back than has been done by any previous speculations.
No moderate extension of the usually received period would
satisfy his demands, which rise to the figure of hundreds, or
even thousands of thousands of years. Sir Charles Lyell is
bringing out a book on the subject, which will no doubt
be chosen as a point of assault by those wise religionists
who think they can separate creation from the Creator, and
who choose to see danger to spiritual belief in every fresh
discovery in physical science, and fancy that Truth is not
at unity with itself, and that it can be in danger from
the varying phases of scientific theories of the material
universe. Lyell's book on the Antiquity of Man was
published in 1863, and a review of it appeared
in Fraser s Magazine, for which he was so
good as to thank me, saying that it had given
him more pleasure and satisfaction than any
other notice of the book.
igth March. — Dinner at home. Sir Walter
James and his daughter, now Mrs. Godley,

io6 DINNER AT R. M. MILNES' 1862
Brookfields, John Murrays, Froudes, William
Spottiswoodes. Afterwards came in, Moores,
Barlows, Dr. Watson, Theodore Martins, Hol
man Hunt, Woolner, S. Laurence, G. Scharf,
F. W. Gibbs, Maurices, Tom Hughes, Herman
Merivales, Grant Duffs, and Rawle, a Phila-
delphian lawyer.
loth April. — Dined with TyndaH at Royal
Society Club, and with him to Burlington
House to hear Warren de la Rue give the
Bakerian lecture on the eclipse of i860.
i\th May. — Dined Eastlakes. Lord and
Lady Cranworth, Lord and Lady Robert Cecil,
Lady Essex, etc.
loth May. — Sat next to Carlyle at Milnes's
round dinner table in Upper Brook Street.
Louis Blanc was there, on the other side of
the table, whom Carlyle described as a little
man looking as neat as if he had just come
out of a bandbox, and with no great commend
ation of his accuracy as an historian. Then
he asked if I would like to be introduced to
him after dinner. I answered rather emphati
cally, " No, thank you ! " which amused him.
Presently afterwards it happened that with the
same words I successively declined several

i862 CARLYLE— LOUIS BLANC 107
dishes and wines that were handed round, and
Carlyle remarked, " So it's always ' No, thank
you,' " and he got into one of his uncontrollable
and boisterous fits of merriment, laughing
enormously every time I repeated " No, thank
you." I could not help joining in the laugh,
until at last Milnes called out to us and wanted
to be admitted to share the joke, which of
course was impossible with Louis Blanc sitting
opposite to us, and so it passed. This was
one of the frequent instances of Carlyle's power
of enjoying fun, and no one who had often seen
him in this mood could bear to see him described
as the morose and ill-natured person he was
after his death made to appear to have been.
iith June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond.
G. S. Venables presided.
26//^ June. — Came to breakfast at home —
Lacaita, Froude, Woolner, Donne, Spedding,
young Everett, son of the sometime United
States minister in London, and himself now at
Cambridge, or just leaving it. Herman Meri
vale and the Franklins staying with us.
28/^ July. — W  was elected a King's
Scholar at Eton — No. 1 1 on a chosen list of
twenty-one, out of eighty-three candidates.

io8 PITT AND BISHOP TOMLINE 1862
1.5-/ August. — We had at breakfast Arthur
Stanley, Venables, Lacaita, Boxall, Knight
Watson, Spedding, and A. K. H. Boyd, the
Country Parson of Blackwood's Magazine.
ist September. — Went from St. Julian's to
lunch with Lord Stanhope at Chevening. He
showed me his Pitt relics, and made me very
happy by giving me a piece of his writing —
notes for a speech on some financial question,
made not long before his death. I asked Lord
Stanhope what had become of the silver ink
stand known to have been given by Pitt, when
on his deathbed, to Bishop Tomline. Lord
Stanhope said that he had learned its fate from
Lord Harrowby (at whose Cabinet dinner the
Thistlewood murder plot was to have been
executed), who was once dining with a party
at the bishop's when some one inquired about
the inkstand. The bishop at first put the ques
tion by, but was at last compelled to say that
he had exchanged it away to his silversmith in
part payment for some wine-coolers. Very
few relics of Pitt are in existence, and these
are at Chevening, or in the possession of
Pitt -Taylor, the County Court judge, and
author of the work on Evidence, who is a

1863 C. KINGSLEY 109
descendant of Pitt's father, the great Lord
Chatham. There was a very pleasant time in the
autumn of this year spent in the Lake Country.
First in a house taken at Grasmere, then on a
visit at Greta Bank, Keswick, and another to
the James Marshalls at Coniston, and ending
with some days at Rigg's Hotel, Windermere,
where Crabbe Robinson turned up in wonderful
vigour, and talked the whole of one evening to
us. He told us that Sara Coleridge said of
Wordsworth that he wrote like a poet, of Henry
Taylor that he looked like a poet, and of
Aubrey de Vere that he lived like a poet.
gth January 1863. — Dine with Froude, and
with him to Carlyle at Chelsea.
2i.!r^ January. — To visit Mr. Erskine (ex-
judge) at Eversley. The following day was
Sunday, and Kingsley officiated and preached.
It was surprising to find how entirely his usual
stutter disappeared when reading the prayers
and when in the pulpit.
2ith January. — ^To Huxley's lecture at
College of Surgeons. There was erected be
hind him the same series of skeletons which
used to appear during the time when Owen

no PRINCE OF WALES'S WEDDING 1863
was lecturing. A magnificent specimen of
Homo sapiens stood at one end, and between
this and the skeleton of a lemur were various
types of apes, anthropoid and otherwise. The
two lecturers drew very different conclusions
from them. Owen said. Look at that noble and
erect form of man and compare it with the
monkeys' skeletons passing through a process of
degradation down to the wholly grovelling and
quadrupedous lemur, and can any connection
be sustained between the first and the last ?
Huxley would say that it was impossible to
resist the conclusion that the lowest form had
gradually been developed into the highest. I
sat sometimes by Bishop Wilberforce at Owen's
lectures ; my companion at Huxley's was Bishop
Colenso. loth March. — Prince of Wales's wedding.
In the evening I went out with Tyndall
to see the illuminations. In Pall Mall, at
the bottom of the Haymarket, the crowd and
crushing were frightful. We were for some time
jammed against the lamp-post in the middle of
the roadway, without being able to move, and
sustaining a severe pressure. It must have
been very bad and dangerous for people not as

1863 A DISTRESSED DAMSEL in
tall and strong as we were. I had not been in
such a scene since the Queen's wedding-day,
when a dinner in celebration of the event was
given in the Hall of the Inner Temple, after
which I went out with Kenneth Macaulay. In
front of Northumberland House two opposing
torrents of people met, and there was a surging
vortex of struggling humanity, in which Kenneth
was helplessly torn away from me. The next
moment a young man of short stature begged
me to assist him in protecting his sisters from
the crowd, and I had only time to say I would
do what I could when another violent rush
separated us, and I found myself with the
distressed damsel on my hands. I got her out
of the thick of the people as soon as possible,
and we took refuge under the statue of Charles
I., where it seemed likely the brother might
come to look for her. Here we waited some
time, until my charge said she thought she had
better go home. Home might have been
Clapham, or Bow, or some distant suburb, and
I was glad to find it was no farther than
over Blackfriar's Bridge. So we walked quietly
in that direction along the Strand, till we got
as far as Somerset House. Then there were

112 "HE HAS NO CHILDREN" 1863
cries of " Oh, John !" and " Oh, Jemima !" The
damsel flew to her brother, who had been taking
home the other sister, and was now going in
search of the lost one ; the two disappeared,
without a word of thanks, and I went on my
way rejoicing at being safely relieved of my
responsibility, 1 6M May. — To see Macready at Cheltenham.
There was a discussion on the words " he has
no children," spoken by Macduff in the play of
Macbeth. Do they mean that Macbeth has no
children, and therefore no revenge against him
can be equal to the suffering he has inflicted upon
me (Macduff) by destroying mine ? Or, that
he (Malcolm) has none, and therefore cannot
understand my loss, and the insufficiency of any
revenge for it ? Or, is it spoken by Macduff of
himself, dwelling, in abstraction, upon his own
desolation, and not heeding what is said to him?
Macready preferred the last suggestion, as being
capable of the most effect on the stage, and
as conveying the most pathetic signification.
But is there another instance in Shakespeare
of such a use of the third person for the first }
2id May. — To Max Muller's last morning
lecture at the Royal Institution, and afterwards

i863 MAX MULLER 113
with him and the two Tylors to see Christie's
collection of anthropological antiquities, in
Victoria Street. H e spoke of modern mythology
as seen in the changes in the names of signs of
taverns. "The Plume of Feathers " becoming
" The Plum and Feathers;" " George Canning "
turned to " George and Cannon," but for this he
could give no authority ; Brazen-nose from
Brassinarium, the brewery upon the old site of
which the college stands. There was some
talk on the difficulty of tracing the origin of a
lie. Sometimes rationalism itself has its
mythology. The common story to explain the
eleven thousand virgins of Cologne is that there
was a virgin called " Undecimilla," but nothing
is forthcoming to show that there ever was a
person so called. Max Mulier was for deriving
barnacle -^oose. from Hi-bernicula, the goose
having come from Ireland ; but there is no
evidence of this. The resemblance of the
Lepas to a bird with feathers is enough to
account for the popular belief that the goose
came from the barnacle.
1st July. — To see Romeo and Juliet at
Princess's Theatre. A young French actress,
Stella Colas, was the Juliet — very pretty, clever,
VOL. II I

114 JENNY LIND 1863
and charming. She played the part so well and
looked it so admirably that her strong foreign
accent was forgotten, and it was one of the best
impersonations of the part I have seen. It had
the abandon of the South, which it is so diffi
cult for a Northern European or American to
assume, and there was the youth and the beauty,
which also cannot be artificially created, but
must naturally exist.
I sM August. — Dined with my brother
Charles, at Putney, and met Mr. and Mrs.
Goldschmidt {nde Jenny Lind), who were then
his neighbours. I was next her at dinner, and
happened to mention my love and admiration
of Sir Walter Scott's novels. She said she
could not abide them. I ventured to ask if she
had read them, and she said, "Yes; but they
do my soul no good," and turned her back on
me for a short time, but soon made it up again.
She had a soul indeed, whether improved or
not by Walter Scott, when one saw the acting
and heard the singing, which touched one to
the heart. Freshwater, Isle of Wight,
liith October 1863.
Dear E. — We remain here until Tuesday, when we go
to town for a couple of days, then to pay a four days' visit

i863 GEOLOGY AT FRESHWATER 115
in Sussex, and afterwards settle at home for the winter.
We have found Freshwater very agreeable. For society we
have had the Tennysons, the Franklins (he, the Colonel,
commanding the Artillery in the island; she, the Lucy
Haywood of Liverpool in former times, to whose father's
hospitalities and kindness we owe so much), and Mrs.
Cameron (wife of the legislative member of Council at
Calcutta, who succeeded Macaulay in that office), who has
been as kind and amusing to us as she is to all who have the
advantage of her friendship. There have also been visitors
to ourselves. We have had Tyndall, George, and Donne,
the last of whom only left us to-day. The weather was
stormy at first, and we are ending rather wildly, but, on the
whole, we have not had any serious inconvenience or
hindrance from it.
I am glad that one of the family at least felt the earth
quake, which did not affect this peaceful island, and F 
is to be congratulated on being the person to enjoy that
honour. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
The geology at Freshwater is very interest
ing, and the natural arrangements are like a
museum on a large scale, as there is so much to
be seen within a small compass, and it is all so
accessible. There are places where you can get
fossils out of the ground as easily as you could
take them from the drawers of a cabinet.
Thirty years ago this would have made me
supremely happy, and I find it still very enjoy
able.

ii6 NAPOLEON III 1863
At Freshwater we occupied the best part of
a farmhouse called Easton, with a good garden,
and all the attributes of a gentleman's house,
which was a charming residence ; and I made
several geological excursions with Keeping, a
most intelligent practical man, who collected
fossils and acted as guide. He was afterwards
an assistant in the Geological Museum at Cam
bridge, under Sedgwick, and was employed by
John Evans to go to Abbeville and watch the
finds of flint implements there. As he had
been a working quarryman, and did not
know a word of French, his presence gave
complete protection against all fraud and col
lusion. 12th November. — Edward Romilly told
me an anecdote concerning Napoleon III.
He was at Geneva with his mother a
year or two before the affair at Strasburg.
They were at the house of Mr. Haldemand
(Romilly's uncle), and Hortense complained
to him of her son's want of ambition.
"Vous voyez, il n'a pas un grain d' ambition.
Le voila qui dessine votre fontaine" (he was
drawing at the time). "C'est la simplicity
m^me."

i864 ARCHBISHOP TRENCH 117
59 Montagu Square,
20/// November 1863.
My dear E. — Trench's friends are as pleased as they
can be by his elevation to the archbishopric, involving as
it must his removal from London, and I think Ireland is
much to be congratulated on the acquisition of such a man.
The rumours that Stanley was to be appointed seem to have
served as a paratonnerre to carry off" some indignation that
might otherwise have been stronger against him, and he
appears to be accepted by all parties with something like
satisfaction. Counting him as an Irishman, he is said to
be only the fourth appointed to an Irish archbishopric since
the Reformation. The other Primate (a Beresford) was the
third, and the last Primate, Whateley, the second. Who the
first may have been I know not.
Have you yet seen Froude's two new volumes, beginning
the reign of Elizabeth ? I am just finishing them. They
are intensely interesting. The story of the end of the
wretched Darnley is admirably told. Occasionally the
reader may feel rather smothered in the dust of Simancas ;
but the temptation to make a large use of such a mine of
unexplored materials must have been strong. The review
of it by Milman in the Quarterly is good. — Yours affec
tionately, W. F. P.
12th January 1864. — Acted proverbs at 59
Montagu Square, in which the whole family
appeared. F  and W  , both now at
Trinity, under the names of Mr. Newcourt and
Mr. Trincolocamby.
nth February. — At dinner Alfred Tenny
son, Spedding, Tyndall, William Herschell.

II 8 .-VLFRED TYLOR 1864
I ^th February. — Dined with Woolner, with
whom Tennyson usually stayed at this time
when in London. Met him, Spedding, F.
Palgrave (with whom Tennyson used to stay).
A. T. read to us " The Aylmers," and " The
Lincolnshire Farmer," the names of which were
not then definitely fixed.
2ld February. — Dined with Theodore Mar
tins. Froude, Venables, Millais, Robert Bell,
Miss Jewsbury, Helps, Flower (the Mayor of
Stratford-on-Avon). loth March. — Dined with Alfred Tylor at
Stoke Newington, and went there with Emer
son Tennent. On the walls of the rooms there
were water-colour drawings by the Queen's
daughters, and on the drawing-table (but not
displayed for show) was an album with child
ren's letters from them and their brothers to
the Tylor family. I asked about it, and was
told that Tylor had married a daughter or
niece of Mr. Allen, the well-known scientific
and manufacturing chemist of Plough Court,
and that his wife had inherited from him a
friendship with the Royal Family commenced
between the Duke of Kent and Mr. Allen, who
was one of the Duke's executors, and had

i864 PHELPS AS FALSTAFF 119
a principal share in the management of his
money matters. This friendship had been
always kept up, and the births and marriages
in the Royal Family were always announced to
the Tylors. When the Princess- Royal came
over to England with her children, Tylor and
his people were summoned to see them at
Windsor, and all the usual incidents took place
of an old family connection. The Queen never
forgets friends, nor any duty of any kind.
^th April. — To Drury Lane with Tyndall
to see Phelps in Falstaff. Like every part
undertaken by him, it was thoroughly well
understood, but he could not give expression
to his intentions. Instead of the unction re
quired for the fat knight, all was as dry as
"the remainder biscuit after a voyage," and
the performance left one in a state of admiring
and regretful dissatisfaction at its failure.
59 Montagu Square,
10th May 1864.
My dear Father — I have sent to the Court of Ex
chequer the two last published volumes of Clark's Shake
speare, which he gave to me at Cambridge on Saturday for
transmission to you. We went to Cambridge to see F  ,
and found him very well and happy. He has pleasant
rooms in the New Court, looking out over the gardens of

120 BISHOP WILBERFORCE PREACHING 1864
Trinity Hall. Among his books are conspicuous your
Thucydides and Tacitus prize books, rejuvenescent in fresh
backs, and ready to welcome their successors. We dined
with Thompson (Greek professor) on Saturday, where we
met Adams the astronomer and others of less note. On
Sunday we breakfasted with F., and were much pleased
with his most intimate friends, who came to meet us. We
heard the Bishop of Oxford preach after evening service at
St. Mary's. It was a frightful sermon. He is engaged in
a crusade to uphold the dogma of everlasting damnation in
spite of the Privy Council. According to this Christian
divine, the tenet in question is the choicest morsel of
comfort in all religion ; to doubt it is, to question the good
ness and love of God in the tenderest point. It is the
foundation of all hope, the corner-stone of charity.
The face that one associates with courteous smiles and
polished talk was deformed by fury. Hatred of his theo
logical opponents glared from his eyes. His plump fingers
seemed to be clawing at them. His whole appearance was
transfigured to what one may conceive as that of an old
Dominican preaching the faith of the Holy Office.
" Humanity craved for it ; the expectation of endless
torment was always planted in the breasts of men. Even
heathen antiquity required it. It was the one sound point
in Paganism." As I listened, my eyes fell on the usual letters em
broidered on the pulpit-cloth — the I.H.S. — and I thought
they can mean no longer " Jesus Hominum Salvator," but
must be taken to stand for something else, which I will
suggest to you when we next meet, they seemed so little
to accord with what was being delivered from the interior
of the pulpit.
The judgment of the Privy Council has done much, but

i864 PRINCE OF WALES AT LIT. FUND DINNER 121
the spiritual liberties of England may not yet be quite out
of danger. I don't think the sermon was much liked by
the congregation, and the Bishop would hardly have dared to
preach it to the University congregation at the same place
in the morning.
I met the Bishop two or three days afterwards in London.
He said, " I saw you among my supporters at Cambridge
on Sunday." I ventured to reply, " I am always glad of
an opportunity of hearing your Lordship preach, but you
must not count me among your supporters on this occasion."
He rejoined, with his usual urbanity, "I know it well; I
was watching your face all the time." — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
iith May. — Literary Fund Dinner at St.
James's Hall — the Prince of Wales in the
chair. It was the first time that H.R.H. had
ever presided at a public dinner, and he ac
quitted himself with great ability and success.
The large hall was crowded with diners, and
the galleries were full of ladies. The list of
donations was, as might have been expected,
an unusually long one. As one of the trea
surers of the Fund, it fell to my lot to read it
out after dinner, and I was not sorry to be
interrupted by a message from the Prince to the
effect that enough had been given out, and that
the remainder need not be proclaimed. The
Prince's success as president on this occasion was

122 VOLUNTEER REVIEW 1864
largely due to the pains and trouble previously
taken by him to qualify himself to fill the post
well, and it was the commencement of a long
series of similar duties discharged by him in a
true spirit of benevolence and devotion to the
obligations of his station.
1st June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Charles Merivale in the chair. 2d June 1864.
My dear E. — We had a good sight of the Volunteer
Review in Hyde Park on Saturday, sitting in the second
row of spectators in the reserved seats, and at no great
distance from the place occupied by the Prince and Princess.
The best feature in the day's show was the large force of
artillery who marched past, 2000 strong, of various corps.
Colonel Creed commands one of the London battalions,
which is said to be the best, and his heavy guns looked
formidable enough as they rolled along. We thought the
Cambridge University Corps the best looking on the ground.
F  was with it, but we could not recognise him in the
mass as they went by. We go on Saturday (to stay till
Monday) to Kitlands, which ought to be in great beauty
now, and I hope the severity of the weather will have abated
somewhat by that time. One may like London, and yet
be glad to escape for a little into the pure green at this
season. i^thJune.—Cdjno. to breakfast. Lord Hough
ton, Venables, Spedding, Cowell, Charles Meri
vale ; and a fortnight afterwards came Sir

i864 BOND'S HORACE 123
Walter James, Froude, Aubrey de Vere, and
Mr. John Walter.
igth Jtme. — Breakfasted with Woolner, to
meet Alfred Tennyson and Spedding.
2gtk June. — Met Herbert Spencer, Sped
ding, R. Browning, G. H. Lewes, and Holman
Hunt at breakfast at Houghton's.
ilth August. — Evening with Carlyle at
Chelsea. He said his wife had read through
Browning's poem of Sordello without being able
to make out whether Sordeflo was a man, or a
city, or a book.
It was during the autumn visit at St. Julian's
in this year that my son W  , at home for
the Eton holidays, was reading the Ars Poetica
of Horace with me, in an edition with the notes
of Bond. One day he construed " Hie meret
aera liber Sosiis," "This book will gain money
at Sosii." I asked what he understood by
" Sosii." He rephed, "It was a city famous
for books ;" and on my surprise at this, he said,
with an air. of authority, " It is so in the notes."
I looked to the bottom of the page, found the
short note " Sosiis, bibliopolis" and saw how he
had been misled. Bi^Xiotro'Ki'i would indeed be
a very good word, if it had ever existed.

124 DUBLIN 1864
2']th August. — Spent day at Canterbury
from St. Julian's, with Canon Robertson. A
considerable work of restoration of the masonry
of the Cathedral was going on, and Robertson
told me that the soundest old stones were always
found covered with moss. This would make a
fine Conservative illustration. Easton Farm, Freshwater,
Isle of Wight, 12th October 1864.
My dear E. — Your last letter was very near reaching
me in Ireland, where I have been away from this place on
a short trip. I found my old recollections of Dublin many
years ago were very indistinct. The first sight of the streets
is disappointing, but the buildings and many of the street-
landscapes are fine, and it improves on acquaintance. Of
the inhabitants I saw little, but intended hospitalities were
rising in various directions, by which I should have been
glad to profit if there had been time. I was lucky in find
ing the Archbishop when I called at his town house in
Stephen's Green, which is in the hands of workmen, but
was unable to dine with him, as he asked me to do at Bray,
where he is now living. The travelling via Holyhead is
certainly magnificent. In going I dined at the Athenseum
at 7, left Euston Station at 8.45 p.m., and was seated at
breakfast in Dublin at 9 a.m., after a leisurely toilet. So in
coming back, I had an early breakfast in Dublin, and dined
at the usual time at the Euston Hotel. The time at Fresh
water has been pleasantly filled. We see a good deal of
Mrs. Cameron, the presiding genius of the place, and also
of the Tennysons ; and there are always interesting people

THE "OWL"

125

coming and going. Henry Taylor {Philip van Artevelde)
was here during my absence, I only seeing him arrive, and
spending his last evening in company with him, but J 
saw much of him. Yesterday I took Anthony TroUope a
walk to the Needles, and he is coming to us this evening.
While the boys were with us we had readings of Shakespeare's
plays, which were thought successful, and gave great delight
to our agricultural hosts. The walks about us are never-
ending in beauty and variety, and we have croquet on our
lawn for more indolent exercise. By the bye, I played part
of a game at the Under-Secretary's Lodge in the Phcenix
Park, and noted a diversity of manners and customs, as
illustrated by the different way of placing the hoops, and by
their having three sticks or goals instead of two, which
must make the game interminable. I saw most of the
numbers of the Owl. It had clever things in it, but was
light and flimsy — a sort of Punch for the upper classes
of London society. Punch made, as it were, with
noyeau instead of vulgar rum, and acidified with selected
superfine lemons, sweetened with the choicest crystals of
sugar-candy, and mixed with some less common element
than water, but less racy and potent than the ordinary
mixture. It had a great success, and sold well, although
the price was 6d. for four pages. Among the best
things in it were some imaginary despatches by Lord
Russell, attributed to O  . These involved no actual
breach of oflScial confidence, for he can have known nothing
officially, and nothing was revealed in them ; but he ought
not to have written them (if they were his), any more than
he should have written the papers in Blackwood and else
where which have procured his exclusion from ministerial
circles. He was too abrupt in his passage from the service
of the Government to that of the public as a magazine and

126 "ENOCH ARDEN"— "AYLMER'S FIELD" 1864
newspaper writer, and ought not to have written as
he did of his late employers. There is a respect and a
reticence which ought to survive, at least for some time, the
period of actual relationship between master and servant.
I hope Tyndall may come down to us for Saturday and
Sunday next ; but he is busy, and may not be able to
do so. 22d October. — Evening at Ffaringford. Ten
nyson read "Boadicea" and "The Lincolnshire
Farmer." The latter gains immensely by his
giving the words their proper accent, and
by the enormous sense of humour thrown
into it by his voice and manner in read
ing it. I asked Tennyson which he pre
ferred of the two poems, " Enoch Arden " and
"Aylmer's Field." He replied "Enoch Arden,"
which he thought was very perfect, and a beau
tiful story. "Aylmer's Field" had given him
more trouble than anything he ever did. At
one time he had to put it aside altogether for six
months, the story was so intractable, and it was
so difficult to deal with modern manners and
conversation. The Indian relative was intro
duced solely for the sake of the dagger, which
was to be the instrument of the lover's suicide.
2d November. — Tyndall showed me, in the
laboratory of the Royal Institution, the com-

1864 TRIAL OF MULLER 127
bustion of paper, deflagration of zinc, and heat
ing of platinum to redness by obscure rays
passing through iodine dissolved in sulphide of
carbon, and opaque to light — a very notable
experiment.
l^th November 1864.
Dear E. — Miiller's trial at the Old Bailey, and the dinner
given in the Middle Temple Hall to M. Berryer by the
English Bar, have been the chief matters of general interest
in which I have had any concern, and both are now
rapidly retreating into the past. I do not suppose that my
father ever appeared on a public occasion to greater
advantage than at the late trial. This is the general
opinion. His summing up was a perfect masterpiece,
and I regret that I did not hear it given in Court. I was
present during the first two days of the trial, but could not
afford to give a third day to it, and indeed the interest in
the case had quite ceased, so far as it depended upon any
doubt of the prisoner's guilt after the speech for the
defence had been made.
The bar dinner to Berryer was a great success, but I
fancy he does not deserve quite so high a place as an
advocate as the complimentary speeches of the occasion
gave him. His greatness was rather as a parliamentary
speaker than at the bar. But all honour is due to him as a
lingering remnant of free institutions in France, and I was
very glad to have been able to join in this tribute of respect.
It was at the dinner given to Berryer that
Cockburn, then Chief Justice of England, with
great eloquence attacked and destroyed the

128 DINNER TO BERRYER 1864
pernicious doctrine asserted by Brougham in
the heat of advocacy, on the trial of Queen
Caroline, that a counsel was bound to forget
everything except the interests of his client, and
he used the fine expression that an advocate
should wield the sword of a soldier and not
the dagger of an assassin. Brougham's saying
had not previously been publicly repudiated,
either from the bench or at the bar, and it had
almost passed into oblivion, but the time for
giving it this coup de grace was not gracefully
chosen, seeing that Brougham himself was
present at the dinner, and, owing to the nature
of the occasion, no less than to his own age and
infirmities, had to endure in passive silence the
punishment inflicted upon him by one so much
his junior. On returning to town at the end of
October from Freshwater, and on my first
appearance at the Athenseum Club, I fell in with
Tyndall and Huxley in the hall, and was told by
them that they were making arrangements for
the purchase of the Reader weekly journal, and
they wanted me to give some literary help.
Their object was to provide a better record than
then existed of the progress of science, and of
the labours and opinions of scientific men, with

1864 A WEEKLY JOURNAL 129
reports of the proceedings of scientific institu
tions, and space for correspondence. A limited
company was formed to become the proprietary
of the paper, and its affairs were to be managed
by a joint committee of editors and business
men. I promised such assistance as I could
give, and as we had to take over the paper
rather suddenly, I found I had, with little time
for consideration, to undertake the duties of
literary editor, but with the very able and experi
enced assistance of Macdonnell, who was already
acting as sub-editor. Tyndall and Huxley were
to be the scientific editors, with Lockyer to
assist them, and as much help from William
Spottiswoode as other work allowed him to
give ; but I do not remember that Tyndall ever
attended at the office of the paper. This was
very conveniently situated in Tavistock Street,
Covent Garden ; and during the brief time of
our connection with the paper I used to attend
there, late in the afternoon, twice or thrice a
week. We had a good business manager in
one of the Bohns, and the paper was well sup
plied with publishers' and other advertisements.
F. Galton looked after the geography and
travels, and Professor Cairnes undertook the
VOL. II K

130 WRITERS IN THE "READER" 1864
political economy. Llewellyn Davies was al
ready established as reviewer of theological
works. We found that the paper had been
over-printed, and that there had been a large
distribution of gratis copies. This was stopped,
and I am sorry to say that no gratitude for past
benefits was shown by any of the favoured
recipients, not one of whom became a sub
scriber. Considerable reductions were effected
in the cost of printing and other expenses
connected with the production of the paper,
but the other avocations of our business
men did not allow of their giving as much
attention to the concern as would have
been desirable. We had promises of support
from many people of mark. Tom Hughes
and J. M. Ludlow had been part proprietors
of the Reader in its previous stage. Sir
Theodore Martin, Aubrey de Vere, Sir Joseph
Napier, Donne, Grant Duff, Kinglake, Charles
Merivale, Tom Taylor, Francis Garden, W. G.
Clark, Aldis Wright, Edward and Albert Dicey,
John Ball, J. S. Mill, Watkiss Lloyd, Robert
Bell, and others, were anxious to support us, and
some of them actually contributed to the paper
and took shares in it. Houghton would not join ;

1864 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 131
he said in a letter to me that he had no money,
and did not see the want of a new periodical of
the kind, and feared that the existence of a large
proprietary would ensure all kinds of discontents
and differences. But he added that, although
he had written little since his last illness, he
would offer something for acceptance if he had
any energy left. The first number under the
new management appeared on Saturday, loth
December 1864, and we went on for three or
four months. It then plainly appeared that
without putting in more capital the paper would
not become a pecuniary success, and it was dis
posed of shortly to terminate its existence by a
suicidal act on the part of its new proprietor,
who allowed an article to be printed, the writer
of which showed that he was not aware of the
authorship of Dr. Johnson's famous preface to
his Dictionary. We had one general meeting of
proprietors, as I remember, at which complaint
was made of the space allotted to literary matter
in the paper, and it was John Stuart Mill who
stood forward in defence of the literary editor, and
pointed out that this was what really interested
the greatest number of readers, and tended most
to promote the sale of the paper. It was a

132 CURIOSITIES OF EDITING 1864
curious and unexpected experience for me to
find myself suddenly editing the department of
Belles lettres in a weekly paper, and taking part
behind the scenes of literary journalism. I
declined to receive any salary, and was in the
same boat with my friends as to taking and
losing by a share in the adventure. But I had
some amusement out of it, and after I got used
to the enormous weekly contingent of new
publications sent in for notice, became interested
in their due allotment to various hands. Our
prospectus had stated that every work of note
should be reviewed on its own merits, and that
equal favour would be shown to all, without
considering through what channel they might
come before the public. After this announce
ment it was diverting to have the manager
coming to me one day with the proof in his
hand of a review which I had marked for
insertion in the next issue, and saying, " Please,
sir, don't let this go in — at least not now. The
book is published by Messrs.  , and we
have two pages of advertisements from them
this week. It would do us harm with them."
Another time I had sent me a very gushing
notice of a child's book, written by a contributor

1864 MRS. SIDDONS 133
who knew the author, and beginning with " We
do not usually notice books of this description,
but the unusual merit," etc. Again came in the
manager to remind me that for the last three
or four weeks, as it was Christmas time, there
had been two or three pages of notices of
children's books, and begging me to modify the
little review of the book in question. This
was easily done, Mr. Bohn was made happy,
and so I hope were the author and the friendly
critic. 2ist November. — Dined Edward Romilly's.
Dean Milman told a story of an Irish lady at
the theatre when Mrs. Siddons was acting in
The Grecian Daughter. She was so much
affected as to attract notice, and a gentleman
said to her, " It is fortunate Mrs. Siddons is not
performing as Isabella, for if this moves you so
much, you would hardly be able to support that
at all." — " What !" replied the lady, "is she not
Isabella ? I thought she was, or I never would
have cried so much at it."
idth January 1865. — Came to dine T.
Hughes, W. Spottiswoode, Tyndall, Huxley,
F. Galton, James Spicer, Burges. This was a
Reader dinner.

134 TYNDALL'S ICE FLOWER 1865
14//^ February. — The following Valentine
appeared in the issue of the Reader for this
week : — THE ICE FLOWER
TO
PR-F-SS-R T-ND-LL.
l\th February 1S65.
Within the ice,
In strange device,
A sleeping beauty, I
Thy coming wait.
At happy date.
To bring my destiny.
When through my frame
The electric flame
Its radiant pulses sends,
I rise from death ;
Thy fervent breath
My glacial fetters rends.
To nature's lock
Which guards the block
Of ice, thy key applied.
My soul sets free.
Which turns to thee
In passion's melting tide.
I pant for you
At thirty-two
By Fahrenheit displayed ;
Or, should prevail
Another scale.
At zero, Centigrade.

i865 A VALENTINE 135
In pretty strife,
To start to life
My waking atoms stu' ;
Their motions fine
To thee incline,
My heart's thermometer.
Folded in frost,
In ice-depths lost, '
I droop in cheerless night ;
Under thy glow
My petals blow,
Ecstatic with delight.
No heavenly star
That shines afar
With my six rays can vie ;
The hexagon
Which you have won
Transcends geometry.
Imprisoned here.
With frozen tear
I weep my frigid fate :
Dissolved by you,
In raptures new
May I ne'er regelate.
Then come, my love.
You powers prove.
Let all your radiance shine ;
For evermore
On alp and shore,
I'll be your Valentine.
Note. — When the rays from an electric lamp are made to
pass through ice — " the ice appears to resolve itself into stars.

136 LORD NUGENT AND CAMPBELL 1865
each one possessing six rays, each one resembling a beautiful
flower of six petals." — Heat considered as a Mode of Motion, by
John Tyndall, F.R.S.
20th March. — Dined Houghton's. Met Sir
John Simeon, Stirling of Keir, Lord Crewe, F.
Locker, Planch6, Thom.
6th May. — At dinner Mrs. Cameron, Chief
Baron, Dr. De Mussy, Spedding. My father
told the story of the bet won from Campbell
the poet by Lord Nugent, which he had heard
from the winner himself. In a company where
both were, the talk turned on lines of poetry
consisting only of words of one syllable, and
some one expressed a doubt whether two such
lines were to be found together anywhere.
Lord Nugent at once quoted —
" By that dread name we wave the sword on high.
And swear for her to live — with her to die."
Campbell said he did not believe in the lines,
and asked where they came from. Lord Nugent
said, "From your 'Pleasures of Hope.'" — "How
do you know that ?" replied the poet. " I know
it all by heart," said Nugent. " I'll bet you a
guinea you can't repeat it," said Campbell.
" Done," said Nugent, and the two retired
into a window to decide the bet. After a little

i865 A FUNERAL SERMON 137
Campbell got tired, and said, " I give up ; I see
you know the poem; don't go any further." — "I
will win my bet fairly," said the other, " and
must go on unless you double the bet," upon
which Campbell pulled out his purse and
paid two guineas to the peer who knew
his own poetry so much better than he did
himself I ith May. — To Cambridge with Tyndall ;
to Red Lion ; dined with F  in his rooms.
i\th May. — To College Chapel, and heard
Whewell from his stall as Master preach what
was in effect a funeral sermon on his wife, Lady
Affleck. It was the most painful scene I ever
witnessed. Whewell had nerved himself for the
effort, and completed his discourse without
breaking down. But it was with the utmost
difficulty that others contrived not to give way
to their feelings of sympathy with him, and
there was a strong feeling of relief when all was
over. It was a terrible duty for a man to have
imposed upon himself Dined in hall, and
afterwards to Thompson's rooms, where was
Sedgwick. i^th May. — To Senate House with Tyndall,
and assisted him in arranging for the experi-

138 KATE TERRY 1865
ments to be shown in the Rede Lecture on
Radiant Heat.
7/// June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Montagu Butler presided.
2ist June. — To Twelfth Night at Olympic.
Kate Terry was charming in the double parts
of Sebastian and Viola. Certainly one of our
most accomplished actresses, with true poetry
in her and real devotion to her art.
22d June. — My wife gave a prize, a modera
tor lamp in a Greek vase, to be shot for at the
Toxophilite Ground. It was won by Arthur
Malkin. 24M June. — Breakfasted with me, F. D.
Maurice, E. Twistleton, Lacaita, S. Laurence.
22d July. — To William Longmans, Ashlyns,
Berkhampstead. In the house Froude and his
wife, Herman Merivale, and Mr. Doyle, the
artist of the H.B. caricatures, the authorship of
which was for so long a secret. I made some
allusion to them, but Doyle was impenetrable,
and plainly indicated his desire not to speak of
them. In the autumn we spent some pleasant days
with the Edward Romillys, at their beautiful
place of Porthkerry on the Bristol Channel, and

i86s SOME OFFICE WORK 139
were afterwards at Rydal Lodge, taken by us for
some time, and paid visits to the James Marshalls
at Coniston, and the Speddings at Greta Bank.
20th November. — Settled stamps for payment
of Court and Office fees at request of Treasury
with Master Hodgson for the Queen's Bench,
and Master Benett for Common Pleas.
2\th November. — The Carlyles dined with us.
Tyndall, De Mussy, Mrs. Cameron to meet
them. 18/^ December. — At dinner Anthony Trol-
lopes, Alfred Thesigers, Matthew Arnolds,
Miss Wynn.

CHAPTER V
THE BREAKFAST CLUB
igth January 1866. — Tyndall lectured at
R. I. on Radiation of Heat, the amount of
which depends on chemical constitution, and
not on colour. I fetched Carlyle from Chelsea
to hear the lecture.
ilth February. — To breakfast with Lacaita
at his rooms in Piccadilly, opposite Burlington
House. Met Sir John Acton, Arthur Russell,
Grant Duff. As we were breaking up to go away
we agreed to do it again, and to try and found a
new little club, to breakfast together at stated
intervals at each other's houses. A couple of
days afterwards the same party came to break
fast in Montagu Square, with the addition of
Sir Edmund Head, Sir John Lefevre, and
Froude, who had been asked to join us, and
"The Breakfast Club" was founded, with the

1866 FIRST MEMBERS 141
very simple rules that it should consist of not
more than twelve members, to breakfast to
gether on Saturdays, at half-past nine o'clock, and
as nearly as might be once a fortnight during
the sitting of Parliament. Choice of new mem
bers to be unanimous, and that distinguished
foreigners, not resident in England, might be
invited to the breakfasts of the club. We
met next time at Sir John Lefevre's house
in Spring Gardens, when Lord Dufferin was
invited to join us. Then at Grant Duff's in
Queen's Gate Gardens, and again at Sir
Edmund Head's in Eaton Square, when Bruce
(now Lord Aberdare) was elected a member ;
and at the following meeting at Froude's
house in Onslow Gardens, Sir John Simeon
was added to our numbers. On the last Satur
day in June all the members met at Lord
Dufferin's villa at Highgate, and breakfasted
al fresco under a tree in the garden. It was
at first intended that the conversation at the
breakfasts should chiefly turn on foreign litera
ture, but this understanding was soon dropped,
and the talk became general. Early in 1867
Sir Thomas Erskine May was invited to join
the club, completing the full number of twelve.

142 ACCESS OF OFFICES AND TITLES 1866
and from him and Sir John Lefevre we always
had, in addition to other subjects, the latest
news from both houses of Parliament ; but
party politics in general were, by a sort of tacit
agreement, excluded. A remarkable point in
the history of the Breakfast Club has been the
way in which great offices and titles came to
its members. Lord Dufferin was appointed
Governor-General of Canada, and afterwards
Ambassador to St. Petersburg, and Viceroy
of India. Grant Duff became Governor of
Madras, and Lord Reay (elected in 1879)
Governor of Bombay. The Marquis of Lans
downe (elected in 1872) became Governor-
General of Canada. Mr. Goschen became
Chancellor of the Exchequer after his election.
Lord Dufferin obtained a step in the peerage ;
Acton, Bruce, and Erskine May were created
peers ; and other honours have devolved upon
members of the club. 59 Montagu Square,
2'jih February 1866.
My dear Father — I have been hoping for some oppor
tunity of seeing you before the Circuit, but as your first
Commission day is to-morrow I must write to mention a
book which I think will interest you. It is called Ecce
Homo, and is published by Macmillan, now in a second edi-

1866 "ECCE HOMO" 143
tion, author unknown, but ascribed in turn to almost every
writer of celebrity. It is in many ways a very remarkable
book ; an attempt, so to speak, to construct an ci priori
scheme of Christianity, and then to show how it agrees
with the actual and historical scheme, without employing a
single term of technical theology, and written in a style
which is as noteworthy as the matter which it clothes.
I know you buy all books you read, whether you do or
do not read all books you buy, and I commend this book
to you in the knowledge and recollection of your custom,
feeling that, whatever may be your ultimate opinion on it,
you will not regret having made acquaintance with it.
I see the accounts of the Master of Trinity are a little
better to-day. In the event, however, of a vacancy, I trust
that the selection of the Crown may fall on the right man to
succeed him, who is unquestionably Thompson, now Regius
Professor of Greek. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
Hatton, 2%th February 1866.
My dear Fred — I shall order the book, and take it
with me on the Circuit. Some such book I have expected
for months. Astronomy put down the infallibility of Rome.
Geology and science must in like manner put down Bibli-
olatry, and something like a new system of belief must begin.
While science renders some outworks (supposed to be) of
faith untenable, it supplies others which give support to a
more enlarged belief in the goodness of the Creator and
the immortality of those who have been so formed as to
understand His works — to look back and forward, and in a
humble sense to comprehend enough to worship and adore.
Everything is a revelation, if we could read it aright, and
the history of the world (as we know it) is not at all incon-

144 PORTRAITS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON 1866
sistent with the Christian revelation viewed in the simplicity
of its first appearance. I have lately been looking again
into Pusey's last work, his Eirenicon. How he smites the
Romish Church ^^ hip and thigh," and puts together, in
strange contrast, the infallible nonsense and trash which
have gone forth from the pretended oracle of truth !
I was sorry to hear of Whewell's accident. He must be
past seventy, and at that age it is no trifle to have a con
cussion of the brain that suspends intelligence for twenty-
four hours and upwards. You had once a trifling concussion,
but it created only a momentary confusion ; you spoke and
recognised everybody, but you had forgotten your fall, and
could not conceive why you were in Guildford Street, etc. etc.
You had my library as a bedroom for about a week, and I
believe perfectly recovered ; but I should be afraid that
Whewell's fall may give rise to future mischief — ^Yours ever
.affectionately, Fred. Pollock.
2d March. — George Scharf lectured at the
Royal Institution on the Exhibition of National
Portraits at South Kensington held this year.
No man was better qualified to treat of this
subject, from his own knowledge of art and from
his special study of it in connection with por
traiture. The first collection of portraits
ended with the reign of James 1 1., and
was followed by a second, beginning with
the reign of William and Mary and coming
down to the year 1800; while a third in 1808
continued the series down to 1867, and con-

i866 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY 145
tained some older pictures which had not found
their places in either of the earlier exhibitions.
I was a frequent visitor, as I have since been
to the National Portrait Gallery, while it was
located in the same rooms at South Kensington,
and I contributed papers to Fraser s Magazine
in the form of dialogues on the pictures shown
in each year. I am pleased to know that my
friend Scharf considered them worthy of being
placed in his official library as Director of the
National Portrait Gallery, which I trust (writ
ing in 1887) may speedily find a permanent
and secure building for its reception. But in
the meanwhile I do not regret that the people
of the East End of London should have the
portraits for a time placed among them in their
temporary abode at Bethnal Green. For a
walk among them affords one of the most
useful and delightful ways in which both history
and biography can be learned, and is very
likely to create a taste for the study of these
subjects which might not otherwise exist.
Home Circuit,
Friday, 2d March 1866.
My dear Fred — In my way to the station (King's
Cross) I called at WilUs's on Wednesday and bought the
VOL. II L

146 MORE ON "ECCE HOMO" 1866
book. I am near the end of it. It is the most wonderful
and extraordinary work I ever met with. It is a view of
Christianity (without doctrine) from a particular point — the
most original and comprehensive that one can conceive —
startling at first by novelty and boldness, but beyond
measure attractive by its genius, and so full of the true
spirit and beauty of Christianity that if Festus had read it
instead of hearing St. Paul, he would have said. Altogether
thou persuadest me to be a Christian. I think it cannot
be written by a clergyman of the Church of England — I
should say by no "Professor of Divinity" in any form.
The author is a learned man, of great powers, able to deal
with very large questions, and still very accurate and suc
cessful in working out details. It is an astonishing produc
tion. It is not what I expected, but I must say far better.
Its goodness is even more attractive than its genius is over
whelming. Its great tendency is to prove the truth of
Christianity from the whole history of the world ; to show
that it is " the stone cut out without hands " which is be
coming a great mountain and filling the earth. I sat
yesterday till five, and got through half the business, and
shall easily finish to-day. — Yours affectionately,
Fred. Pollock.
Home Circuit,
yh March 1866.
My dear Fred — The writer of Ecce Homo seems to
me willing to throw a sort of veil over every vice and crime
as far as he can, and excuse (not justify) much of wrong
and evil by the habits and manners of the times in which
they occurred ; but I recollect nothing in the book that
would lead me to think he could have played the part of

1866 READING OF "MERCHANT OF VENICE" 147
Calvin in the tragedy of Servetus. Stern duty does not seem
to be the form in which moral excellence presents itself to his
mind ; but " doing good," " relieving the distressed,'' " car
ing for the poor and afflicted," " comforting the widow and
the fatherless," in short, promoting happiness by every kind
of self-denial and active humanity. I doubt whether he
will turn out to be what they call orthodox. Obviously
he puts (I think rightly) morality before doctrine, that is,
obedience to the laws of Christ (as given to his subjects)
from loyalty to his kingdom he puts before any opinion
about the constitution or the politics of Christianity. I
expect he will consider the office of Christ rather that of
Mediator than of scapegoat, who produced at-one ment
[reconciliation) but did not vicariously suffer punish-ment.
But I must conclude, with best love to J  and W  ,
not forgetting Moss, yourself, etc. F. P.
^th March.— We. had a reading of the
Merchant of Venice, in which my wife, Brook
field, young Herman Merivale, and W 
took the principal parts. My wife was the
Portia, and Brookfield, who is a born actor,
and should have played his part on the stage
rather than in the pulpit, good as he was there
also, made an admirable Shylock. There came
as audience the Belpers, W. M. Jameses,
Watsons, De Mussys, Robert Bells, Thack-
erays, F. D. Maurice, Spedding, G. Rich
mond, Edward Bunbury, Tyndall, and a few
others.

148 SIR JOSEPH BANKS 1866
nth March. — Drive to see Henry Taylors
at East Sheen.
ibth March. — Thompson, now in his right
place as Master of Trinity, and Spedding to
dinner. Hatton, 21st March 1866.
My dear Fred — Nobody knows the quantity of paper
I have wasted in my time. When I took my degree I had
fifteen or sixteen books of MS., of which one only (like
Job's messengers) remains. The rest are dispersed. I
agree with you as to the propriety of recording any fact or
truth in science. I remember Sir Joseph Banks told me,
above fifty years ago — If you find out a new mode of making
a blue colour, if the blue is not brighter or better, or the
mode cheaper, it is not worth notice. Secus in Science ;
then every new truth should be recorded. Till Newton
discovered the system of the world, conic sections were
interesting only from their beautiful geometry (it is lovely),
but it now turns out that the answer to all questions in
what Cambridge people call the branches turns on a conic
section. I should offer the matter to the Royal Society,
asking Professor Stokes, the secretary, if they wanted it, and
if they did, I would send it. I am not without hopes of
making out some proof. It would then be very interest
ing. The letter then goes on to discuss a property
of prime numbers, upon which the Chief Baron
was for some time much occupied.
I am amazingly delighted at F  's success, chiefly as
a proof of his general abiUty, and as showing that it is not

i866 "TWELFTH NIGHT" 149
mere book work, but that mental power, capacity to think,
and to think hard and well, is at the bottom of his success.
— Yours affectionately, Fred. Pollock.
12th April. — Reading of Twelfth Night.
Brookfield, Valentia Donne, F  , W  .
As Inspector of Schools in the Educational
Department of the Privy Council, Brookfield
used to set subjects for a short theme to be
written on a slate, to test the general intelli
gence of the pupils. In the year of the comet
of 1 86 1, he gave it as a subject, and got the
following from a girl : " Comets are very good
things ; they are beautiful to look at, and have
long tails. They are very useful in giving
people something to talk about, and we should
get on very badly without comets."
2ist April. — To dine and sleep at Anthony
TroUope's at Waltham. Here he lived for
some years in an old-fashioned red-brick house
of about William the Third's time, with a good
staircase and some large rooms in it, and stand
ing in equally old-fashioned grounds, which
served as the suggestion for the scene of my
first dialogue in Eraser's Magazine on the por
traits at South Kensington. There was a corps
de logis and two wings, one of which held the

I50 ANTHONY TROLLOPE 1866
Stables in which TroUope's hunters were lodged,
and the other was converted into an office for
the Post Office clerks who were under him
in his work of superintending the cross -post
arrangements of the eastern counties. The
Arthur Russells were in the house at the same
time with us, and there was a dinner-party of
neighbours, during which TroUope mentioned
his habit of regularly writing a certain fixed
amount of the novel in progress during two or
three hours of the early morning, and he named
the number of foolscap sheets of paper which
he filled every day. I at once, to his astonish
ment, said, " Then you must write so many
hundred words daily." — " How can you tell
that ?" he cried, for I was very nearly right in
my guess. I did not trouble the company at
the moment with the mystery of law stationers'
folios of seventy-two words — with which I
had to be familiar in taxing legal costs — but
explained to TroUope afterwards how easy it
was for me, knowing his handwriting, to make
a rough computation of the number of words
he would place on a sheet of paper of known
size. His manner of writing a novel was
thoroughly methodical. Before commencing

1866 WRITING BY THE CALENDAR 151
it he would settle its length, and assign so
many days to writing it, at so many words a
day. Every morning the appointed portion
for the day would be duly put on paper,
and the day marked out, in a section of
the calendar prepared for the purpose, as the
days are by schoolboys to show how nearly
their holidays are approaching. Without fail
or mistake the novel was always finished in
this way upon the exact date previously fixed
for its completion. TroUope's writing for the
press was very distinct and regular, and entirely
free from alterations or additions, etc. It seemed
to have flowed from his pen like clear liquor
from a tap. When he went, I think for the
first time, to Australia he asked me to correct
the proofs of one of his shorter tales — The
Golden Lion of Grandpere — but there was really
nothing for me to do.
Ilth June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
I in chair. Thirty dined — Lord Talbot de
Malahide, Houghton, Horsman, Spencer Wal
pole, Venables, F. D. Maurice, Tom Taylor,
Dean Alford, Robert Monteith, etc. F  's
first appearance at the dinner. It was the
time of the "Cave" in politics, out of which

152 SHAKESPEARE AND DOGS 1866
Horsman made much amusement. There
came an excuse from Tennyson couched as
follows : — " Dear P.
Can't come.
A. T."
id July. — Evening at the Deanery, West
minster. The Jerusalem chamber was open
to the company. Sir Henry Holland told me
that he once had a wager with Lord Nugent
about Shakespeare's mention of dogs. Lord
N. maintained that Shakespeare nowhere
showed any fondness for dogs. Sir Henry
said there were passages which showed the
contrary, but that he could not find them, and
paid his guinea to Lord N. I said that I
thought the description of his hounds by
Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream
could not have been written by a man who did
not care for dogs, and that Lord N. did not
deserve to win his bet. Then there is Launce's
dog introduced as a favourite, and nowhere
anything to show that Shakespeare did not
like" dogs.
gth July. — My father resigned his place as
Chief Baron, and a fortnight afterwards his

1866 SIR SAMUEL BAKER 153
baronetcy was gazetted ; and by a fortuitous
coincidence, in the same gazette in which it was
officially announced, my brother Charles's ap
pointment as one of Her Majesty's Counsel
appeared. nth July. — Dined J. E. Dorington's, Queen's
Square, Westminster. Met Samuel Baker, of
the Nile. I asked him about the British cap
tives in Abyssinia. He said they would never
be given up without a ransom. I replied,
" Then they do not accept the civis Romanus
sum, of Lord Palmerston in Abyssinia." He
said, " They care nothing about the civis
Romanus, but they would accept the sum."
12th July. — Henry Taylor at breakfast,
after dining and sleeping in Montagu Square.
Quoted from a report of the British Consul at
Porto Rico, on the condition of the Chinese
immigrant labourers : " They are worked hard,
but not treated like slaves ; and if ill-used, they
have their redress in their own hands — by cut
ting their own throats."
6th September. — To Bournemouth, where we
occupied a house for some weeks, rejoicing
much in the close neighbourhood of Sir Henry
and Lady Taylor and their family. Henry

154 BOURNEMOUTH 1866
Taylor once spent an evening with S. T.
Coleridge, in company with Charles Lamb.
There was a long argument between Coleridge
and Taylor, in which Taylor defended Maho-
metanism. In coming away, when they were
looking for their hats, Lamb said to Henry
Taylor, "You seem not able to find your
turban." Chaldon, Bournemouth,
l5</4 September 1866.
My dear Father — I have not yet seen the new Latin
Primer, but your mention of it, together with the buzz of
controversy going on in the newspapers, have induced me
to write for it. I have also written to Huntingford to in
quire if he knows whether it will be adopted in the public
schools, as I am responsible for M  's Latin a few
months longer, and if the drill is to be changed the sooner
we get out of the old into the new the better. This proves
an agreeable place. In form it is peculiar. It lies in a
sinus of land fronting a spacious bay of the sea — the view,
bounded on the E. by the Isle of Wight, looking right into
Alum Bay, and on the W. by the point which shuts out
Swanage. The town may be described as a resolvable
nebula or cluster of villas, each in its own garden. There
are no streets, rows, terraces, squares, crescent, or other
forms of continuous bricks and mortar. All the houses
are on a good scale — calculated for Dives, or his wife and
daughters, if afflicted with weak lungs. A few crumbs of
health are tossed to Lazarus, who is represented by twenty or
thirty patients in a convalescent hospital called the Sanatorium.
But for genteel Phthisis, with a large family and a limited

i866 THE NEW LATIN PRIMER 155
income, there is no provision. The place, however, is in
rapid development, and when the railroad reaches it no
doubt will lose its present plutocratic aspect. Some day
it will be one of the largest watering-places in England — a
kind of Cheltenham-super-mare.
I see that an experiment has been made of lighting Hyde
Park at night from a lime-light placed on a lofty pillar in
the middle. Anything is desirable that would obviate the
necessity of laying gas-pipes in that virgin soil, but the law
of the inverse square of the distance is unfavourable to
illumination from a single centre.
I spent the evening with Carlyle on the day that I had
been with you at the National Gallery. He mentioned
the letter you had written in reply to a request to join the
Eyre Defence Committee, to which there have not been
very many important adhesions. Sir James Clark has since
been added, and I suppose would not have suffered his
name to appear if it had been unacceptable to the Queen.
Henry Taylor is disposed to support Eyre in all he did,
including the extermination of Gordon; but what Eyre
now seems chiefly to want is to be saved from his more
indiscreet friends. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
Hatton, 16M September 1866.
My dear Fred — The new primer was, I understand,
patronised and adopted by all the great schools, public and
private. One system, no doubt, must be the best with
respect to every matter in the business of life ; but there
are many matters in which the best for any given individual
is that which he has been accustomed to, and the best (ab
stractedly) is not so much better as to make it worth chang
ing. This is true of many personal, social, and domestic
habits, and I should have thought it true of a Latin

156 GOVERNOR EYRE 1866
grammar, with reference to learning Latin. A grammar is
certainly not necessary to learn your own language, and
although I think more accurate scholars are made by the
grammatical than the Hamiltonian method, I think the
question which grammar should be used is not suffi
ciently important to disturb the teaching of thousands of
boys who are half-way through one grammar, and compel
them to take up another. I am sorry for Moss.
With respect to Eyre, I wish you had told me (if you
had anything to tell) what Carlyle said about my answer ;
but for the name of Carlyle on the committee, I think I
should have returned no answer at all. I think it is clear
that a judge of Westminster Hall would be quite out of
place on such a committee ; and as I had not left the
bench more than a few days when I was asked to join
it, I thought it scarcely decent to ask me ; but being still
a member of the Court of Appeal from Jamaica, I thought
it would be most indecent to say Yes, and I hope Carlyle did
not discommend my saying No. I am disposed to agree
entirely with Henry Taylon When such a community as
the white inhabitants of Jamaica are threatened with a
murderous extermination, the Governor, whose duty it is to
save them, must not be over-nice ; he must be sure that
his measures will succeed. Given that there was an exten
sive plot to produce insurrection (about which all seem
agreed, and there seems to be no doubt), and that the out
break was the beginning of its active development. Eyre
was justified in everything he did. A captain of a man-of-
war who observes a mutinous spirit in his crew is justified
in shooting the first man who disobeys him, and it is
humanity to put down mutiny by great severity. But there
is a pusillanimity in modern statesmen which is really fear
ful : people who honestly and sincerely think reform danger-

i866 WANT OF COURAGE IN STATESMEN 157
ous are afraid to say so. Instead of asking what it is
right to do, the question put is, " What will people say ? "
One of the great merits of Carlyle (he has many) is the
courage with which he states any opinion which he has
sincerely formed. I am glad to see what you say of Sir J.
Clark. One may take it for granted that he knows it will
not be offensive to the Queen, and how should it ? When
you are extinguishing a fire, ought you to be very nice
about wetting the bystanders ? This day week I enter my
eighty-fourth year, and I have every reason to be very thank
ful that so much is left of me. I think I may venture to
hope to share in the Equitable division of 1870. The affairs
of the world are becoming more interesting every day.
Since '5 2 America has put down civil war, and Prussia has
swallowed up North Germany. One cannot help asking,
" What'll be next ?" — besides having discovered that clay is a
noble metal, and that magnesium gives such a light. Love
to J  , etc.— Yours affectionately, F. P.
Bournemouth, 2(>th September 1866.
My dear Father — I am very glad to find that you
have quite decided not to sit at the Privy Council. I do
not think that the public has any reasonable claim upon you
for further services, and it would be very much in contra
diction to the considerations that had weight with those
who care for you in desiring your retirement that you
should not be relieved from all further official labour.
Carlyle's Life of Sterling will do more towards securing
Sterling's future reputation than any of his own remains.
He would not have been forgotten so long as any personal
recollection or tradition of him continued in force, but his
writings alone would not suffice to keep his fame alive.
He was very great in conversation, the most remarkable

158 PORTLAND PRISON 1866
person in that way whom I have known. The first time I
saw him he was in the chair at the dinner of a Cambridge
society to which I belong, and he then acquitted himself
with much eloquence, and made the occasion as interesting
as possible. His being in orders was a mistake. You '
will have seen from the Life that Hare was answerable for
this. He thought that by committing him to ordination
his orthodoxy would be secured. Sterling was far too able
and honest to be permanently secured within the desired
confines of thought by having to wear a black coat and
white tie, and fortunately did not take the next step, which
would have rendered it more difficult for him to fall back
into the ranks of the laity. W  and I made an excursion
yesterday to Portland, with an order from the Home Office.
The name procured much attention and courtesy from the
Governor of the convict prison, which is well worth seeing.
There is no horror, no romance in English prison life, no
dungeons, or crawling reptiles, or black bread. But the
enforced regularity of good food, cleanliness, and comfort,
with the silence and seclusion, must be appalling to the
criminal classes. We were told that the convicts now
come from a far lower class than formerly, in fact almost
entirely from the neglected dregs of the population, who
form the dangerous element in our large towns, and whose
existence is so great a disgrace to the country. They work
fairly — not as much as paid labourers — but enough to earn
the value of ^^50,000 per annum of wages at the usual
rate, which is so much saved to the public in their keep.
Roupell is the hon convict. He was in immediate attend
ance in the Governor's ante-room, as a sort of clerk. He
had to rise and make a profound salutation as we passed
in and out, wearing the same dress as the rest — which is
as absurd and grotesque as it is humiliating. This was the

i866 THE NOVEMBER METEORS 159
only really painful sight. The gangs at work in the quarries
looked well in health and not unhappy. The prison is on
the highest part of the rock, and we were allowed to return
by the incline down which the stone goes to the break
water. From this the view of Weymouth Bay and the
breakwater is very fine. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
']th November. — At dinner, Houghton,
Tyndall, MacGregor (canoe), Herman Meri
vale, Froude.
I ith November. — This was the day on which
the great shower of shooting stars was pre
dicted to appear. We had been dining with
the Martins in Eaton Square, but took care to
be at home in time to see the exhibition from
its commencement. At the appointed time the
first shooting star rose like a rocket from behind
the opposite houses. Every minute they be
came more and more frequent, until the whole
visible sky seemed sometimes to be full of
trains of light. It was a racing and chasing in
silence of rapid, fiery meteors, with sharp and
sudden darlings hither and thither, and wonder
ful combinations of splendid outbursts and
speedy extinctions, and all transacted with a
prodigious stillness in the midst of so much
visible commotion. At last, about twelve

i6o DISLIKE TO GAS 1866
o'clock, we thought we could vary the point
of observation with advantage, and see the
display better away from the street lights, if we
went up to the Toxophilite Ground in the
Regent's Park. Edward Herries was staying
with us, and, hastily putting on whatever wraps
and hats came first to hand in the hall, we
sallied forth with him in a state of considerable
emotion and excitement. In passing through
the streets on our way to the Park, it was
strange to note that no one was deriving
the same pleasure as we were from the
wonderfully grand and beautiful spectacle that
was being performed in the sky. Not a
window was open, not a person was on the
look-out in the streets. When we got to the
gate of the ground I began ringing the bell to
wake Percy, the gardener, who lived in the
lodge, to get him up to let us in. While I was
so occupied a policeman came up and asked
what we were doing, and I daresay that our
odd costumes and manner may have justified
some suspicions of our intentions. I answered,
" Oh, we are only come here to get away
from the gas lights," and the constable rejoined,
" So I thought. You don't look as if you were

1866 CHIEF BARON'S COLLAR i6i
the sort as likes gas." Further trouble and
explanation were saved by the appearance of
Percy with the key, and we were not asked
any more questions. By this time the meteors
had begun to diminish in numbers, but we
certainly did see them better away from the
gas, and returned home, after warming ourselves
by the stove in the Archers' Hall, by half-past
two, full of the joy of having witnessed the
magnificent sight of this memorable night
2d December. — My father gave me a portion
of the collar of S. S. worn by him as Chief
Baron — one of the knots and one S, to make
a pendant ornament for my wife, and one of
the portcullises, of which the chain contained
three, for myself. The whole collar was broken
up, and portions also given to other members
of the family. London, c)th December 1866.
My dear Father — J  tells me that you are much in
terested in the (so-called) mask of Shakespeare, now in the
keeping of Owen, and lately seen by you. I saw it, and
had the opportunity of examining it very carefully when it
first came to this country some years ago. It was then in
the possession of Konig, in his private residence at the
British Museum, having been sent there from Germany
with a view to its purchase by the British nation.
The only tradition which I remember to have heard
VOL. II M

1 62 MASK OF SHAKESPEARE 1866
mentioned as connecting the cast with Shakespeare, was
that it had at one time been in the collection of a German
savant, who was an admirer of S., and who believed it to
be a cast from his face. But, as far as I recollect, this did
not carry it very far back, and there was no trace of its
previous history or of how it got into this gentleman's
museum. As to the evidence presented by the thing itself,
it is, no doubt, a genuine cast from the human face, and
probably taken after death. It bears the probably contem
poraneous mark of the year in which S. died ; and the
external indications of brain-power are of a very rare and
high power. Nor are the features so unlike those whicli
are received as Shakespeare's as to exclude the possibility
of the cast having been actually taking from his face,
although there is no evidence (that I am aware of) of this
cast having been taken in England at all.
On the other hand, it must be remarked that many
persons besides S. died in 1 6 1 6, and notably Cervantes (both
on the 23d April 16 16), set. sixty-nine — an age to which
I should (from my recollections) be more inclined to refer
the original of the cast than to S., who died at fifty-two.
The features, too, might pass as well for Cervantes as for
S. But, without seeking for a possible original among the
illustrious deceased of 16 16, it must be borne in mind that
it was then usual for persons of condition to be represented
after death by funeral and monumental effigies, for which
purpose it would be desirable (as now for busts) to take a cast
from the face after death. It has always been held that the
bust at Stratford-on-Avon was founded on such a cast. This,
as you know, is very coarsely executed, probably by some
country stone-mason, but I do not think that any sculptor
would recognise the model for it in the German cast, after
making every fair allowance for divergence in execution.

i866 TRINITY LODGE 163
Such a cast, too, found in Germany is a priori more
likely to have been taken from some one on the Continent
than in England. In the absence of any pedigree, and of
any cogent confirmation from personal resemblance, the
case in favour of the mask's being a cast from S. rests only
upon its apparent genuineness as a cast taken from some
one after death in the year 16 16. It is, from the grandeur
of its conformation, more likely to have been taken from a
great man than otherwise, and the circumstance of its
careful preservation (unless handed down in a family, of
which there is no evidence) tends to show that it was con
nected with some well-known great man, and that man
may have been Shakespeare.
The cast created much interest at the time it was at the
British Museum, and was seen by all the Shakespearean
scholars and dilettanti, but without (as far as I know) pro
ducing any conviction that it really was what it was shown
for. We are going to Cambridge for a couple of days to stay
at Trinity Lodge, and shall see F'  receive some prizes
in Hall — for first class in College Examination, a Decla
mation cup, and for an English essay. — Yours affec
tionately, W. F. P.
\2th December. — -To Trinity Lodge, to stay
with the Master and Mrs. Thompson. Brook
fields also there. The following day was that
of the College Commemoration. In the morn
ing to chapel for the commemoration service, at
which Monro preached, and then to the hall
for the distribution of prizes, and to hear W.
K. Clifford deliver his oration as winner of the

1 64 W. K. CLIFFORD 1866
first Declamation prize. It was in this oration
that Clifford gave an apologue of the Trilobites,
who lived in a glimmering light at the bottom
of an ancient ocean, to illustrate the history of
scientific discovery and religious persecution.
An enterprising trilobite got to the surface,
saw the sun, and reported it as the source of
their light. He was at once put to death as an
innovator and a heretic. Afterwards another
trilobite went up at night, saw the moon,
and announced it as a second source of light.
The belief in the sun had in the meantime
become current and was tolerated, and at last
became an article of orthodox belief; but,
again, the moon was a novelty, and the new
discoverer was in his turn put to death.
In course of time, however, both sun and
moon got accepted, and a trilobite was
thought very ignorant who did not believe in
both of them.
I ^th January 1867. — Anthony Trollopes to
dine and sleep. At dinner W. Rathbone
Greg, Froude, Charles Herries. Next morn
ing when TroUope came down to breakfast,
after having been writing the novel then on
hand, as usual, he rather astonished us by

i867 MOTLEY 165
saying, " I have just been making my twenty-
seventh proposal of marriage."
^th June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Hardcastle in chair. Houghton, Sir Arthur
Buller, Spedding, F. Garden, etc.
nth June. — To Cambridge. Lunch No. i
at Trinity Lodge. To giving of medals, prizes,
etc., in Senate House. Lunch No. 2 with Vice-
Chancellor (Cartmel) at Christ's Lodge.
2\th June. — Dine with Venables at Oxford
and Cambridge Club. R. Monteith, F. Garden,
Sir John Simeon, Aubrey de Vere, W. Vernon
Harcourt, F. Lushington, Doyle.
nth July. — Dined with Theodore Martins.
Dean of Westminster and Lady Augusta Stan
ley, Froudes, Helps, R. Browning, Venables,
Col. Hamley, Mrs. Procter.
20th July. — Club breakfast at home. Motley
as a guest. He was again with us at the next
meeting of the Club at Erskine May's, from
which I took him to see the Record Office.
He was much gratified by the rapid production
at his request of a particular despatch of some
importance in the history of the American
war of independence, which he asked to see.
The same afternoon I had a walk with Carlyle,

i66 CHIEF JUSTICE ELLENBOROUGH 1867
when the conversation turned on the devotion
of Spedding's life to the study and rehabilitation
of Bacon. Carlyle said, "When I used to go
to the British Museum I always saw a round
white object over papers on a table, and this
was the head of him." Then he went on to say
that the importance of Bacon's place in the his
tory of science was much over-rated. In this I
agreed, and added that I thought Kepler's work
had not been sufficiently recognised in this
country. Carlyle looked at me with surprise,
and asked with some kind of scorn what I knew
about Kepler. I was able to let him see that I
was not altogether uninformed about Kepler,
and he became very gracious again.
id Augtist. — Stories of Lord Chief Justice
EUenborough. He once came rushing out
from a debate in the House of Lords and ran
against the Prince of Wales, for which he
apologised, " I beg your Royal Highness's
pardon, but I am responsible to my Creator
for the use of my time, and Lord Darnley is
speaking." Lord Westmoreland was on his legs in the
House of Lords, and, giving his opinion on the
question in debate, said, " My Lords, at this

i867 DEATH OF FARADAY 167
point I asked myself a question. . . ." Lord
EUenborough, in a loud aside, "And a d — d
stupid answer you'd be sure to get to it."
Ilth Atigust. — Motley came to dine. He
was very good at this time in coming to see
my wife, who was not well. On one occasion
I went downstairs to the house door with
him, and said, " You see I treat you with
diplomatic ceremony, in anticipation of your
coming to London as American minister."
He replied, " That is out of the question.
Vienna was all very well, but I have been
too many years away from America to be
thought of for London." I said, "We shall
see. 2^th August. — On this day died Faraday.
A great and good man gone. At the request
of Mrs. Faraday the account of his life, which
appeared soon afterwards in the Illustrated
London News, was written by my wife and my
self. After the publication of Dr. Bence Jones's
Life of Faraday there were articles upon it by
my wife in St. Paul's Magazhie for June 1870,
and by myself in Erasers Magazine for March
1871. dth September. — To Paris with Donne and

1 68 SWITZERLAND 1867
his daughter Valentia for a little tour in Switzer
land — Basle, Lucerne, Rigi, Pilatus, Griindel-
wald, Berne, Chillon, Neufchatel, Dijon.
London, lyh November 1867.
My dear Father — I have finished the Parkes -Meri
vale volumes, and one opinion excited is that the last editor
has hardly given time enough to his work. But there is
some excuse in the rather obsolete nature of the principal
subject of interest supposed to be connected with Francis,
and an enormous mass of papers, already mammocked and
much tumbled over, some of them over and over again, must
be very repulsive. Hayward is taking up the cudgels against
the Franciscan theory, and, no doubt, there is still plenty
of room for ingenious argument, although there is, as I think,
no reasonable moral doubt that Sir Philip Francis was the
man, remote as it still is from absolutely conclusive proof
If he succeeds in shaking the accepted belief, I shall then
come out with my theory that Junius was George the
Third. The recent publication of his letters to Lord
North has done much to set him up, and this will do more.
— ^Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
jth December. — The registering thermometer
outside a window, looking east, at the Athenseum
Club showed this morning a difference of
nearly a hundred degrees between the maxi
mum and minimum temperature of the night,
and the minimum was not far from the freezing
point. The great fire which destroyed Her

i867 FIRE IN THE HAYMARKET 169
Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket had
occurred during the night. A pane of glass
in a window of the drawing-room, a few
yards nearer to the source of heat, was
cracked.

CHAPTER VI

MONTALEMBERT

7//^ January 1868. — Dined with Merivales.
Kinglake, Leslie Stephen, Annie Thackeray.
Kinglake had an anecdote of Montalembert
and his tenants during an election under the
Second Empire in France. He desired them
to go and vote as he wished, against the
Government. They came back without having
voted. He asked, " Pourquoi n'avez vous pas
vot6 ?" — " Mais, Monsieur le Comte, il y avaient
des gensdarmes." — " Quest ce qu'ils ont fait ?"
" Rien, Monsieur le Comte." — " Qu'est ce
qu'ils ont dit." — " Rien, Monsieur le Comte."
"Mais pourquoi done . . . ?" — "lis y dtaient.
Monsieur le Comte."
ith January. — Dined with William Spot
tiswoodes. Goschen, Frederick Harrison,
Bonamy Price, etc.

1868 "CASTLE RUMMELSBERG" 171
2ist January. — Performance of Castle Rum
melsberg at 59 Montagu Square. This was
an original piece, founded on the German tale
of the Spectre Barber, written by my wife, and
"licensed" for performance by Donne, at this
time the Examiner of Plays in the Lord Cham
berlain's office. He was himself so kind as to
take a small part under the nom de theatre of
Mr. Bodham (his own second name). His
daughter Valentia played in the piece as Miss
Chamberlain ; the other characters were sus
tained by my wife and our sons.
6th February. — With a view to the better
ventilation of the lecture theatre at the Royal
Institution, I went over Spottiswoode's print
ing office and the lecture-room of the Chemical
Society at Burlington House, and made experi
ments in company with Frankland and De la
Rue. B. L. Chapman showed me, at the
request of Tennyson, a proposed contract with
Moxon & Co. for a library edition of his poems
in four volumes, which we determined to advise
him not to accept, as not being favourable for
him to the extent it ought to be.
loth February. — To Beresford Hope's Lon
don committee, on the contest with Cleasby for

172 A REJECTED VOTING PAPER 1868
the seat for the University of Cambridge
vacated by Selwyn's elevation to the bench.
22d February 1868.
My dear Father — You may be amused to hear that
your voting paper was not allowed to pass muster at the
polling at Cambridge, as you did not describe yourself as
Jonathan Frederick, under which names you appear on the
register. One vote, however, is now of no consequence.
The numbers at one o'clock to day were — Hope, 1789;
Cleasby, 1300 — so that winning looks easy.
22d Febr^lary. — Breakfast at Sir John
Lefevre's. Dufferin, Grant Duff, Lacaita, Acton,
Froude, Erskine May, Simeon, Bruce. Lady
Acton (grandmother of Sir John) is now alive,
aged eighty. Her husband was born in 1 730, the
same year in which Gibbon was born. He was
minister to the King of Naples. She was his
niece, and was sent for from England to marry
her uncle, under a Papal dispensation, in order
to continue the family. On her arrival at
Naples she remembers talking to an officer
who had been in the service of Louis XIV.
(who died in 1715), accompanying a Neapolitan
contingent to the French army.
23^ February. — To the Rolls Chapel to hear
Brookfield preach. He was always very de-

1868 THE ROLLS CHAPEL 173
lightful to listen to in the pulpit, and full of
varied illustrations from life and literature.
The chapel was an extremely quiet place to
go to, and at this time the pew of the Master
of the Rolls projected into it with an oriel
window, the sashes of which required to be
opened in order to hear the service and sermon.
It communicated with one of the rooms in the
house of the Master of the Rolls, and must have
afforded a luxurious way of going to church for
him to hear himself specially prayed for, as was
done at the Rolls Chapel in the Bidding prayer
before the sermon, used in that place as at the
Universities. After service, to lunch with the
Flowers at the College of Surgeons in Lincoln's
Inn Fields, and went over the Museum, for
which he is doing so much. Dined with Ber-
genroth at Ford's Hotel ; met Acton and W. C.
Cartwright, who afterwards wrote a life of Ber-
genroth, a remarkable, learned, and interesting
man, who, after some European adventures, had
a strange career as a sort of independent
sovereign in South America, and latterly had
been employed by our Record Office in historical
researches at Simancas. During his stay in
London he was an invited guest at the

174 STATUES IN BURLINGTON GARDENS 1868
Athenseum Club, and it was said that he and
Strzelecki used to spend a good deal of time
in fruitless conversation together, each trying to
discover the precise nationality of the other.
1st March. — Dine Sir John Simeon's.
Matthew Arnold, Bergenroth, Arthur Russell,
Mrs. Dunlop.
^th March. — Anthony Trollopes staying
with us. At dinner Sir Frederick and Lady
Rogers, Lacaita, Dr. De Mussy, Julia Moore.
']th March. — -At dinner Mrs. Cameron,
Arthur Russells, S. Laurence, Bergenroth,
Lecky. iQth March. — My father was at this time
much interested in the scheme for placing ap
propriate statues of eminent men on the front
of the new building for the London University
in Burlington Gardens, and I received the fol
lowing letter from him : — Hatton, 10th March 1868.
My dear Fred — I send you a printed paper giving an
account of twenty-two statues to be put up at the University
of London. I am shocked at Shakespeare being left out,
and Milton made to represent Law, Medicine, Arts, and
Sciences, he having nothing to do with any of the four.
I grieve to see Lucretius put in. Homer and Horace un
noticed. I object to Galen instead of Hippocrates, and
Priestley as a chemist instead of Sir Humphry Davy.

1868 OMISSION OF SHAKESPEARE 175
In a letter of the same date to Dr. Sharpey
he urged the claims of Sir Humphry Davy to
be represented, and pointed out that Cavendish
in England and Lavoisier in France were at
least the equals of Priestley, but that no one
but Faraday could at all be put in competition
with Davy. He strongly protested against the
omission of Shakespeare, as the mightiest
genius ever produced by England or any other
country, whose language and expressions are
unconsciously used by every one who speaks
English, whether in speeches in the senate or
familiar talk in the pot-house, and whose finest
passages have passed into household words.
A student at a university had better read
Shakespeare than the works of any or all the
twenty -two persons selected. If the proper
study of mankind is man, Shakespeare is worth
all other authors put together, but at the Uni
versity of London he is ignored.
I replied to my father ; — 59 Montagu Square,
loth March 1868. 10 P.M.
My dear Father — I agree with you that the subjects
selected for the statues at the new building for the U. of
London are not the right ones, but I think I can under-

176 REPRESENTATIVE FIGURES 1868
stand upon what grounds the choice has been made. Litera
ture, as unconnected with instruction, is probably not in
tended to be represented, but, even on this ground, Shake
speare should not have been excluded. The great poet of
the land, and the great founder of its modern language,
ought surely to be honoured in any place oi English education,
and as such should occupy the place now given to Milton.
Milton, as a representative of education, is on his own
merits entitled to be somewhere, in a very high place, but
not in the highest. He was a man of vast power and
accomplishment, and his views of education were far in
advance of his age. With Newton and Harvey one cannot
quarrel, and I suppose Bentham is right. I do not like all
the names in the next series. Aristotle — il maestro di color
che sanno — is right, and Plato, as representing a large part of
Greek philosophy. Lucretius, in a purely literary point of
view, is entitled to a distinguished, if not the first place in
Roman literature. But he was probably selected as the
author of the great exposition of the physical system of
Epicurus, contained in his De rerum natura, the value of
which is more and more being recognised, as it is found,
though dimly and vaguely, to coincide with some of the most ,
recent and advanced speculations in science. For Euclid
I would substitute Archimedes, one of the greatest natural
philosophers of any age, but not so much associated with
education as Euclid. I think with you that Hippocrates is
far worthier of honour than Galen, but perhaps he and
Pliny were selected to make an even balance of Greek and
Roman names. Pliny was a gossiping encyclopsedist,
credulous and altogether unscientific. His name, however,
is a familiar one, and without using it there would have
been a difficulty in finding three Roman names, if three
were to be used.

i868 LEIBNITZ— BACON— GOETHE 177
I should have much preferred some representation of
the Middle Ages, and to have taken Roger Bacon or
Albertus Magnus, both eminent teachers as well as writers
in their day.
But their names are not generally familiar, and
would have required explanation to most people. Yet, as
teachers, it can hardly be alien from the functions of the
U. of London to teach in stone who are the great men
who thought and taught in former times, and not merely
to accept as such the popular and best recognised
celebrities. In the next series, Cuvier, Leibnitz, and
Linnaeus must be accepted. Cuvier and Linn^us are the
modern successors to the greatness of Aristotle, and both
eminent as teachers as well as discoverers and organisers.
Leibnitz too, the subtlest and most varied intellect of
modern ages, needs no defence.
Bacon is of course there. He, in Tennyson (copying
Dante's Aristotle), is " The first of those who know," and he
also was a great teacher.
So was Adam Smith, as founder of the modern science
of Political Economy.
As to Locke, his name will never be forgotten, but some
worthier representative of mental philosophy in modern
times might be found, although it would be difficult to do so
without resorting to men still alive or recently dead, about
whom agreement could hardly be expected. In the last
group GaUleo and Descartes require no comment. Goethe's
claims to be considered as a natural philosopher are not so
generally known, but they are not trifling. He wrote an
original work on the metamorphoses of plants, which
materially assisted in forming the modern theory of
vegetable development, and had some share in advancing
the views now universally adopted of the uniformity and
VOL. II N

178 FRANKLIN— PRIESTLEY 1868
generality of the vertebrate type. In physical optics he
was less successful, and his Treatise on Colours is false
and fanciful. Except for his literary fame, he would
probably not be now much remembered as a physicist, but
I daresay the Committee were glad to be able to use a great
name, only why have they not been equally solicitous about
Shakespeare ? I would not have both Franklin and Priest
ley, but should prefer the substitution of Davy for one of
them. The Pope, as you know, never canonises a saint
who has been dead less than a hundred years ; a similar
rule is convenient in dealing with all reputations for the
purposes of permanent glorification. For this reason,
although I believe that Faraday was the greatest experi
mental philosopher that ever lived, yet sufficient time has
not elapsed since his death to enable general opinion to
solidify to the same conviction. But Davy's fame has
securely settled on its foundations, and, if not too late, a
strong effort should be made to place his statue on the new
building. Between Franklin and Priestley it might be
hard to decide : Priestley's labours were the most varied
and important, and Frankhn's eminence depends a good deal
on the non-scientific portions of his career. In Priestley
the dissenting minister and the politician may be forgotten,
but as one of the founders of the chemistry of gases his
name must always be remembered. — Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
The recommendations of the Committee
appointed for the purpose were, however, re
viewed by the Senate of the University of
London. Cicero was substituted for PHny,
Archimedes for Euclid, and Tribonian for

i868 LORD NORMANBY I79
Lucretius ; Laplace took the place of Des
cartes, Shakespeare that of Johnson, and
Dalton that of Priestley.
i\th March. — Dined W. M. James. Strang-
fords, Henry Reeves, Countess Teleki, Edward
Bunbury, De Mussy, C. Newton, Robert
Browning, F- Galton.
2Afth March. — Dined Lord Belper's. Sir C.
and Lady Lyell, Lecky, Spedding, Edward
Romillys, E. Twisleton, Sir Edward Ryan,
etc. 28^^ March. — E. Twisleton, who must have
been in Dublin at the time, told a story of
Lord Normanby, when Lord- Lieutenant, and
Norman Macdonald, whom he one day asked
to dine at the Castle on the same evening.
Macdonald, presuming on his friendship with
Lord Normanby, said he could not come as he
had friends coming to dine with him at home.
The Lord-Lieutenant asked who they were and
learned their names. In the course of the
afternoon Macdonald received notice from all
his expected guests, excusing themselves from
coming to him, as they were honoured with
commands to dine at the Castle. This was a
lesson in etiquette. Macdonald should have

STAGE LAW

accepted the invitation, and then have craved
under the circumstances to be permitted not to
obey it.
1.5-/ April. — Dinner at home. Sir John
and Lady Simeon, Henry Cowper, Mrs.
Brookfield, Speddings, Flowers, Lecky, Henry
Phillips. 6th April. — At dinner Palmer, the Oriental
scholar, prestidigitateur, and altogether wonder
ful person, and Forrest. There was some
talk about stage law : In No Thoroughfare — i.
Diamonds bought as a present, but not accepted
by the person for whom they were intended,
cannot be re-converted into money ; 2. Proof
of personal identity is complete by inspection of
a paper containing the names of persons who,
several years before, could have proved the
identity. I n The Hero of Romance, taken from
Le Jeune Homme pauvre, if an agent embezzles
money belonging to his employer, and lays it
out in the purchase of an estate ; after the
discovery of the fraud when both are dead,
the estate passes ipso facto from the heirs of the
agent to those of his employer.
26th April. — To see Tennyson, staying with
James Knowles at Clapham. Much talk about

i868 DISRAELI AT LITERARY FUND DINNER i8i
his future publishers. Evening at Lady
Simeon's. 2']th April. — Tennyson to lunch with my
wife. W. K. Clifford to dine.
30/^ April. — Dined with Knowles, Clapham
Common, going there with Tyndall. Tenny
son read from " Maud."
6th May. — Literary Fund Dinner. Disraeli
was in the chair. It was remarkable that he
made no allusion in his speeches to his ever
having been himself concerned with literature.
Venables, on my suggestion, made one of the
best speeches of the evening. No one of the
Committee except myself seemed to be aware
of his excellence as a speaker.
gth May. — Visit to Cambridge. Lunch with
W  ¦ in Trinity ; dine with J. W. Clark.
Evening to C. C. S. at Clifford's rooms. Next
day breakfast and lunch with F  , and dined
with Jebb. On Monday, breakfast with Forrest
in St. John's ; lunched with Clifford, where
Kingsley came in ; five o'clock tea at Trinity
Lodge ; dined with Jackson. Tuesday, break
fasted with Jebb ; lunched with Palmer in St.
John's, where was Kingsley ; and to town in
afternoon.

1 82 SIR HENRY HOLLAND 1868
26M May 1868.
My dear Fred — I have been looking over Ecce Homo
again. Some of it is fanciful, some feeble. When I first
read it I was surprised at the use he made of the Tempta
tion. He treats it all as real and literally true. No eminent
theologian has done this ; I think none. The notion of its
being a vision is what is generally adopted. I don't think
I ever heard a sermon about it. It involves that difficult
question which is a step farther than the origin of evil —
Who created the devil ? and why ? For myself, I do not
believe in any such existence, though he is mentioned in an
indictment for murder. He is a figure of rhetoric, nothing
more. A prosopopoeia of the bad and mischievous passions
of mankind. What would Carlyle say to this ? I should like
much to know. — Yours affectionately, Fred. Pollock.
2^thMay. — At dinner Boxall, Herman Meri
vale. Evening, Trenches, Speddings, Groves,
Thackerays, Venables, Babbage, Watsons,
Deutsch, S. Laurence, E. Bunbury, Moores,
Duckworths. 2d June. — Breakfast with Sir Henry Holland.
These breakfasts were always very interesting.
The hour was early, and the guests not more
than one or two. Sir Henry's talk was full of
anecdote and observations on men and manners.
When the ladies of his family left the room, he
would ask one to stay a little longer, and
continue his talk until about ten o'clock.

MERCHANT TAYLORS' HALL

Dined at Athenaeum with Tyndall, Hirst,
and Boxall, and afterwards to Carlyle at
Chelsea. 6th June. — Came to breakfast with me Lord
Lyttelton, Sir Walter James, Robert Monteith,
Aubrey de Vere, Frederick Locker.
nth June. — Dined Merchant Taylors' Hall.
It was the Election Day Dinner, and in connec
tion with their school a large number of bishops
were present, and among them Wilberforce,
then bishop of Oxford. The Duke of Welling
ton was to have returned thanks for the
usual toast of the House of Lords, and the
Bishop of Oxford for a toast of the Bench of
Bishops. But the Duke was prevented from
coming in consequence of an accident, and Lord
Leigh, the senior temporal peer present, was
substituted for him, and returned thanks
accordingly. When the toast of the Bench of
Bishops was reached my neighbour at dinner
said to me, "Now we shall have a good speech."
I replied, "I think you will not. A great mistake
has been made in asking a Baron to return
thanks for the House of Lords, when so many
Bishops are here who take precedence of him."
I was right, for the Bishop of Oxford in return-

1 84 BISHOPS AND BARONS 1868
ing thanks merely said, " On behalf of my right
reverend brethren and myself, I have to thank
the company for the honour done to us by
drinking our healths." Governor Eyre was
a guest at the dinner, and his name was down
on the list of toasts, and at that particular time
many persons did not wish to show approval of
his recent conduct of affairs in Jamaica by
remaining to take part in drinking his health.
There was accordingly a considerable rush to
get away in time to avoid it, in which I joined,
and just outside the hall I met the Bishop of
Oxford. In his genial way he held out both
hands to me and asked, " Don't you think I
was right ? It was for my order, and not for
myself, that I resented the slight put upon us."
I replied by saying that I had anticipated what
he would do, but that it was very hard upon the
innocent guests at large to deprive them of the
pleasure of listening to a speech from him, be
cause the officials of the company had made a
blunder. He said, " That could not be avoided,"
and we parted. Touching after-dinner toasts
in the city, I remember Sir Robert Inglis once
telling me that when an undergraduate at
Oxford he was in London after the Peace of

CITY TOASTS 185

Amiens, and dined at the Mansion House.
The company were invited by the Lord Mayor
to do honour to the then supreme authority in
France by drinking to the health of the " Three
Consuls." But the toast-master, less acquainted
with them than with certain things very well
known in the city, and of somewhat similar
sound, gave out as the toast " The Three
per Cent Consols." Another time he heard
the toast of "Henry the Eighth" given
out by the toast-master instead of " Henry
of Hayti," the sometime sovereign of that
country. i6th June. — Dined with Beresford Hope at
the Trafalgar, Greenwich, to celebrate his return
as member for Cambridge University. My wife
dined with the Archbishop of Dublin, where I
joined her.
1st July. — Dined with Macmillan at Garrick
Club. Met White (New York), George Grove,
Dallas, Lockyer, Townsend (Spectator), Dr.
Sadler (editor of Crabbe Robinson's Memoirs),
Abdy, Craigie.
id July. — Performance of an abridged ver
sion of She Stoops to Conquer at George Rich
mond's house, York Street. My wife was

1 86 FIRE IN YORK STREET 1868
Mrs. Hardcastle, and Fred Farrer made a
capital Tony Lumpkin. The play was acted
in the large room on the ground floor, which
was as full as it could be, but I was chiefly
" behind " and looking on from the side. About
the middle of the evening Richmond quietly
told me that the house had been on fire, that it
had been put out, and begged me to say
nothing about it. It was a warm evening and
the windows were all open, so that in one of the
bedrooms looking backwards a curtain had
been blown against the lighted candles upon
the toilet table in a window and had set light
to them. The blaze was seen from outside and
an alarm given, but all the servants were down
stairs busy, or trying to see the play. An
engine came to the front door and the firemen
rang and thundered at it, but actors and
spectators were all too much engrossed in
the performance to hear what was going on
outside. Richmond himself went up, got the
fire put out, and refused to admit the firemen,
and no one knew what had happened. It
was a remarkable exercise of good judgment
and presence of mind, for if the alarm
had been communicated to the actors and

THE WIGANS 187

audience a mischievous panic might have
followed. Hatton, (>thjuly 1868.
My dear Fred — Your July number is exceedingly
good (Eraser's Magazine, the last dialogue on the Portrait
Exhibitions). I do not consider this collection of portraits
the last. I think there will be one every year, or every
three or four, for those departed since the last, and stray
portraits which have not appeared before, of anybody and
any time. It is so agreeable a mode of refreshing one's
history, and improving one's biography, that having once
begun it will not cease. My last paper (on the Theory of
Numbers), as I learn from a letter of yesterday, is to appear
in the Philosophical Transactions. This' is very gratifying.
I wrote it since I was eighty-four, and I doubt whether
there be any production of so ancient a person in the whole
series. ... I have talked with some of my people about
The Spanish Gipsy. There is amazing power and genius
in it, but the story is so shocking and so utterly improbable,
if not absolutely impossible, that my feelings cannot bear it,
and my sense of truth and propriety rebels against anything so
untruthful to nature. — Yours affectionately,
Fred. Pollock.
ith July. — To see The Rivals at the Queen's
Theatre. Wigan was Sir Anthony Absolute,
a good performance ; and Mrs. Wigan made
a perfect Mrs. Malaprop, letting drop her
blunders in words with absolute unconscious
ness. To see her in her dressing-room after
the play.

1 88 WORDSWORTH AND SCOTT i863
I ith July. — Dine with De Mussys. Edward
Diceys, W. Spottiswoode, Benedict, W. R.
Greg, Benzons.
28//^ July. — Lady Cranworth, when Miss
Carr, set to music part of Wordsworth's ballad
of " Young Romilly," and he heard her sing it
at Lord Monteagle's house. The company
were curious to see what effect it would have
upon the poet. When the singing was over
Wordsworth went up to Miss Carr and all
he said was, "You have omitted a great deal
of my poetry in your musical recitation." This
I heard from Aubrey de Vere, who was present.
Wordsworth was much distressed at Scott's
misquotation from his " Yarrow,"
" The swans on sweet St. Mary's lake,"
instead of " The swan on still St. Mary's lake,"
as destroying the beauty and truth of the
imagery, and the propriety of the epithet. He
used to say that Scott had no real feeling for
nature, but that he would go out and collect
impressions and versify them, "but nature
cannot be inventoried in that way."
Dugald Stewart was once asked what was

1868 ZURICH

the earliest thing he could remember. He said
it was being left alone by his nurse in his cradle,
and resolving to tell of her as soon as he could
speak. gth September. — Left town for Switzerland.
The Henry Taylors kindly took charge of our
youngest boy, M  , on a visit to them at
Bournemouth, for the remainder of his holidays.
We went by Paris, Dijon, and Neufchitel to
Zurich. Hotel Bauer au Lac,
Zurich, 20th September 1868.
My dear Father — We give up our transalpine pro
gramme. The heat is too great to make it wise to rush
into greater. This is a charming if not a very invigorating
place — a large well-found hotel, where we have a room with
a balcony over the water, a shady garden, baths, boats, and
a fine town. Accordingly we are remaining here for a
week, and to-morrow go to Berne for a night, and on
Tuesday to Griindelwald, where we purpose to remain a
week at least, and where a letter addressed to the Hotel
I'Aigle, Griindelwald, will find us. We have as fellow-
guests here W. M. James, Q.C, and his people, well known
to us and agreeable. The Bishop of London has been
here for a night, returning from the baths of St. Moritz,
and one day Mrs. Horace Twiss sat next us at dinner, and
had many inquiries after you. She now seems to spend
a good deal of her time in foreign travel.
I have seen the famous falls of the Rhine at Schaff-
hausen and was disappointed. The hydraulic phenomenon

190 PEACE CONGRESS 1868
is grand, the volume of water far exceeding anything of
the sort in England — say, perhaps, as much as that of the
Tees at Durham when full, or more, but the banks at the
point are not beautiful, and the sight is spoilt by too much
showmanship. Above and below the falls the river is
beautiful, but at the falls not so. Above, the colour of
the water was exceedingly blue, like nothing to be seen in
the cold north. We have had the great pleasure of an
unexpected meeting with F  , who delayed his return for
a couple of days in order to see us. There is a Russian
lady here with a trunk five feet long, three feet wide and
deep, weighing 800 pounds, and which four men can hft
with difficulty. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
One day while at Berne we attended a Peace
Congress, and sitting, as spectators only, in a
gallery heard the most furious and warlike de
nunciations made-—" Bientot se levera le soleil
glorieux de la paix, et puis a tout despote, a tout
tyran, guerre a outrance, gue-r-r-re a mort," and
so forth, of which we soon had enough, but had
a franc's worth of amusement each in return
for our admission money. From Berne we
visited Fribourg, and wondered why it had
never been selected as the scene of a melo
drama. With the old covered bridge, the
forge, the suspension bridge, the river, the
walls and towers, and the railway, there might
be a magnificent display of scenery, with some

1868 FRYSTON HALL 191
tremendous effects. In Paris we saw some
good plays and operas. At the Fran9als there
was Paul Forestier, with that excellent actress
Favart, Delaunay, and Coquelin aind ; and on
another evening, for a lever du rideau. Iris,
followed by // ne faut jurer de rien, with Got
and Delaunay (in which Got's back is wonder
ful), and La Bataille de Dames. At the Opera
we saw L' Africaine, and Ambroise Thomas's
Hamlet, with Nillson as Ophelia, and Faure as
Hamlet. We dined very often at the Cafe Voisin,
an excellent restauraitt.
ijth October. — To Fryston. In the house
were the Duke of Wellington, Wentworth, and
Somerset Beaumont, Edmund Oldfield, Richard
Doyle, Moran, the United States Secretary of
Legation, and others. During the visit we twice
went into Leeds to see the Art Exhibition then
going on there.
14/^ November. — At the Athenseum. Willes
kindly promised to take one of my sons on
circuit with him as Marshal. He afterwards
took both F  and W  , to their great
advantage. The former learned a great
deal of law from him, and conceived a deep

192 A BRIEF DIALOGUE 1869
regard and respect for him personally, which
he has never failed to evince on all suitable
occasions, having lately (1887) dedicated
to his memory his Treatise on the Law
of Torts, rightly describing him as "a man
courteous and accomplished, a judge wise
and valiant." The premature death of Willes
was a great loss to the judicial bench and to
his friends.
2d December. — Tyndall showed me in the
laboratory of the Royal Institution the polar
isation of light by the particles (90 per cent
organic germs) floating in the air.
nth Jamiary 1869. — I dined with H. Meri
vales. Marquis of Lorne, Froudes, Benjamin
Moran (U.S. Sec. Leg.), Sir Louis and Lady
Malet, Mrs. Gray, Frederic Harrison.
I'^th January. — Took Augusta Ritchie to
hear Tyndall at the Royal Institution. In his
lecture he gave a theory accounting for the
blue light of the sky. A day or two afterwards
the following couplet was sent to him : —
'¦'¦Dialogue between Urania, the Mother of the Heavens, and
Celestine, the Nymph of the Blue Sky.
Urania. Tell me, sweet Celestine, what makes you pout ?
Celestine. O ! mother dear ! that Tyndall's found me out."

iS69 MRS. SOMERVILLE 193
Hatton, idth January 1869.
My dear Fred — Mrs. Somerville^ is indeed most
interesting, and especially in the first volume from p. 90
to p. 150, where she does extract something like law and
order. I had thought the spectrum one of the most pro
mising and interesting subjects that could excite and
reward a searcher after physical truths, but it appeared to
me that every rule was so eaten up by exceptions, and
every change of pressure, temperature, and light brought
so many changes and varieties of result, that one might as
well go to a heap of brickbats and endeavour to arrange
them in classes, orders, genera, and species. ... I begin
to think that the result of chemical investigation cannot be
reduced to a perfect system, any more than the vegetable
and animal forms can be arranged in a perfect set of
divisions of any sort. — Yours affectionately, F. Pollock.
The last remark in the above letter has
been much confirmed by the recent researches
and speculations of Lockyer, Crookes, and
Nordenskiold upon the constitution of the sup
posed chemical elements of matter. Some day
it will probably be proved that they have all
been evolved from a common origin, just as
the existing species of organic life have been
traced by Darwin to a common ancestry. Z'^d January i86g.
My dear Fred — Peel, I have no doubt, made a remark
1 On the Physical Sciences.
VOL. II O

194 PRIVILEGE— PEEL 1869
such as Pemberton 1 records, but my recollection of the
facts is this. The dispute between Denman (Chief Justice)
and the House of Commons arose between Peel's first and
second administration. We returned to office in September
1841. Follett and I had separately (without any com
munication with each other) come to the same conclusion,
which was not one of principle but of practice, viz. that
Denman was quite wrong, but that the mode of asserting
the right of the Commons was not by committing attorneys'
clerks who served process, or attorneys themselves who
ordered writs to be issued, or even the plaintiffs themselves,
but by plea and appeal to a Court of Error, which ultimately
would go to the High Court of Parliament, commonly
called The Lords, but in reality both Houses (though the
Commons never attend, as the lay Lords now do not), and
right would be done. Peel most handsomely in public
said he was bound by the opinion of his law-officers and
must surrender his own. Wilde, late Attorney-General,
was furious for committing everybody ; he was Pym, Follett
and I were two Hampdens ; a majority approved of our
moderation. Peel was very selfish ; he did not stick to his
friends as Castlereagh and Palmerston did. Frank Bonham
got into a sort of scrape about taking some shares in a
Company. Peel would not speak for him ; I think he did
not even vote. I and Follett spoke — certainly I did — and
the motion against Bonham was negatived. But who
reviewed an unpublished book ? Surely it was wrong ; you
might as well review a private letter if a few copies were
printed for the use of the famOy. . . . When I was first
appointed Attorney-General, the Solicitor-Generalship was

1 In the Memoirs of Lord Kingsdown (T. Pemberton-Leigh),
privately printed, and reviewed in the Edinburgh Review.

i869 CLERICAL MERRIMENT 195
offered to Pemberton before Follett ; he dechned it, it
was generally understood because it could not last.
Follett accepted it. Neither P. nor F. were Q.C.'s, and F.
not in Parliament. — Yours affectionately, F. P.
i\th January. — Brookfield came to lunch,
and told us how he had enlivened his colleagues
on a recent occasion, when he was present as
an Honorary Canon at a Chapter held in St.
Paul's to receive the Congd d'dlire for Jackson
as Bishop of London. There was a printed
programme of the proceedings, and it was
stated that members of the Chapter cited to
attend would be held contumacious, without
adding " if they did not appear." Some of the
clergy attempted to defend the omission by
reference to preceding words. Brookfield stood
up and protested against it. He was a poor
man, he said, and could not afford to be con
tumacious. Such mistakes were very serious ;
but such things did sometimes occur, and it
reminded him of a notice he had seen outside
a poulterer's shop in the Borough : " A lot of
live Ostend rabbits on sale. Any person
wishing to buy one will be skinned and trussed,
ready for roasting in five minutes." The
assembled divines had listened with gravity to

196 LORD KINGSDOWN'S "REMINISCENCES" 1869
this speech, which was very seriously delivered,
and sat silent for half a minute after it was
ended, and then broke into peals of laughter—
a merriment of parsons such as Dr. John
son would have disapproved. 59 Montagu Square, W.,
2ifh January 1869.
My dear Father — The writer of the notice of Lord
Kingsdown's Reminiscences in the Edinburgh Review is
Henry Reeve, the editor of the Review, who was the person
to whom the Pemberton family entrusted the memoirs for
private publication — if one may use such a contradictory
expression. I made Reeve's acquaintance many years ago
dining at Thackeray's, when he lived in Great Coram
Street. I see a review of Campbell's two posthumous lives
(Lyndhurst and Brougham) announced to appear in the
forthcoming Quarterly, but the book itself is not yet out.
I wonder whether any life of Campbell by Brougham is
left among the latter lord's papers.
I shall have a notice of Dean Milman's Annals of St.
Paul's in the next number of Fraser, which I will send you,
as I fancy you have not got the book itself If you had
the book it would be superfluous to read the review, which
is entirely drawn from it.
We dined yesterday at Grove's — I should think one of
the first occasions of their giving a dinner since the great
calamity in their family. We met Sir Henry Holland, and
F  and I are to breakfast with him to-morrow. He was
great about Campbell, whom he knew well. — Yours affec
tionately, W. F. P.

1869 CAMPBELL'S "LIFE OF LYNDHURST" 197
59 Montagu Square, W.,
2?ith January 1869.
My dear Father — I have got Campbell's posthumous
volume, but have only looked through it. Hayward's
review in the Quarterly deals severely with it, as it seems
to deserve. With all Campbell's bad taste, the Life of Lynd
hurst contains passages hardly to be expected even from
him, and one is surprised that they should have been
suffered to go forth. There is just pubhshed a collection
of biographical notices by Miss Martineau, collected from
the newspapers in which they appeared — short and not
always accurate, but shrewd and amusing, and generally
well-informed. The three chancellors — Brougham, Lynd
hurst, and Campbell — cut an equally bad figure. Last
night we went to drink tea with Carlyle at Chelsea. He
has returned pretty much to his old self, but was quiet and
subdued. Tyndall dined and went with us. Froude was
there. It might have been better to have had Carlyle
alone. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
gth February. — Dined at Fishmongers' Hall
with James Spicer, my friend and colleague in
the Direction at the Equitable Life Office. It
was a dinner conceived by Mr. Moore, the Master
of the Company, a well-known philanthropist, to
bring together some distinguished members of
the Church of England and some eminent Non
conformist ministers. Accordingly there were
present the Archbishop of York, and the
bishops of London, Oxford, and Peterborough,

SIR GEORGE CARTIER

the last of whom made a most amusing speech.
The Dissenters were represented by Binney,
Brock, and others, who seemed to enjoy it, but
did not quite know how to take it in the
speeches made by them after dinner.
I'^th February. — Dined with Spicer at his
country-house at Woodford. Sat next to Sir
George Cartier, for whose head a reward had
been offered after the Canadian rebellion of
1837, and who afterwards became a most loyal
minister of the Crown in the colony of Canada.
He could not easily speak English, and his
French was old-fashioned and slowly spoken.
He said there was no original French literature
in Canada except for the purposes of journalism,
as they got their books from France. But he
contended that Canadian French was better
than that now current in Paris, and that it was
the true representative of the Augustan age of
French literature in the time of Louis XIV.
This was the only occasion on which I ever
talked with a man still wearing his head on his
shoulders, but which he had once been in great
danger of losing. 59 Montagu Square,
2']th February 1870.
My dear Father — You will receive in a day or two

i869 DICKENS AS A READER 199
by book post three magazines for March — St. Paul's, Mac
millan, Fraser. This is a remarkable conjunction in the
literary firmament. These three magazines each contain
an article from this house. J  has one in St. Paul's
on Miss Austen and her novels, prompted by the recent
life of her, and another in Macmillan entitled " The French
Stage." In Fraser there is a paper of mine in review of
Faraday's life, which, if you have not read the book itself,
may help to give you a notion of it — ^Yours affectionately,
W. F. P.
']th March. — Dined Simeon's. Lord Chan
cellor O'Hagan, Monsells, Lecky.
i6th March. — To reading by Dickens at St.
James's Hall. He gave Boots at the Holly
Tree, the scene between Bill Sykes and Nancy,
and a bit of Mrs. Gamp. What an actor he
would have made ! what a success he must have
had if he had gone to the bar! His power of
reproducing a scene and bringing to the very
eyes of his audience its exact features and the
relative bearings of its composing parts has
never been equalled. This would have been
an invaluable quality in many cases at the bar.
He could always at a glance take in the con
tents and furniture of a room, and in this way
was able to astonish his friends by performing
some of the feats made famous by Houdin the

200 POLITICAL ITEMS 1869
conjuror. In the scene on the steps of London
Bridge from Oliver Twist the whole arrange
ment of the locality, and the positions of the
speakers and listeners, stood out in a kind of
reality when accentuated by the voice and
gestures of Dickens.
20th March. — At breakfast Charles Eliot
Norton, of Cambridge, Mass., U.S., and Aubrey
de Vere. Norton gave me his translation of
the Vita Nuova.
list March. — At dinner Mr. and Mrs. C.
Eliot Norton, Aubrey de Vere, the De Mussys,
Mrs. Brookfield, Oldfield, Froude, Lecky.
id April. — Breakfast Club at Sir John
Lefevre's in Spring Gardens. Dufferin, Bruce
(Home Secretary), Grant Duff, Simeon, Erskine
May, Arthur Russell, Froude. It was said that
the Irish in England were arming themselves
with revolvers, and that dep6ts of arms were
being formed in many towns. Subscriptions to
buy arms were made under the guise of
collections for the families of the Fenian
prisoners. " General " O'Neill, their best man,
was set aside for less able but more noisy
leaders. Feuds between "Hibernians" and
Fenians. The expedition against Canada from

1869 CABINET COUNCILS 201
the United States abandoned for this year.
Many rifles converted into breech-loaders
in America to be sent over to Ireland. The
proceedings at Cabinet Councils were described.
The Lord President nominally presided, and
would take the divisions, if any. Gladstone
sits in centre of table. Foreign affairs always
come first. There is no record of what takes
place, but the Premier always writes to the
Queen an account of each council. No one
is admitted to the room, but the junior Cabinet
minister goes to the door if anything arrives —
Goschen now does this. The likeness of Lord
Granville in Vanity Fair arrived in an official-
looking envelope directed to him, and was
delivered to him in Cabinet. It was handed
round, and for some moments suspended a dis
cussion on the Irish Church. Lord Granville
liked it well enough to order fifty copies.
Erskine May mentioned that he had seen a
note-book of the proceedings of Cabinet Coun
cils kept by Lord Sydenham (Poulett Thomp
son), now in the possession of Poulett Scrope.
It was very curious and interesting, often giving
the exact words used by Lord Grey and other
ministers.

202 "THE RING AND THE BOOK" 1869
Bright is said to be doing and acting his
new part of Cabinet minister well, is proud of
his black velvet suit (worn without a sword),
and looks well in it. He is much in request
by great ladies, and told some one who asked
him when he was going to speak in the late
Irish Church debate, " I have arranged with
the Princess Louise to rise at half-past ten."
In the afternoon talked with Browning
at the Athenseum about The Ring and the
Book. He said that he had at last secured
the ear of the public, but that he had done
it by vigorously assaulting it, and by telling
his story four times over. He added that
he had perhaps after all failed in making
himself intelligible, and said it was like
bawling into a deaf man's trumpet, and then
being asked not to speak so loud, but more
distinctly. i\th April. — A reading at 59 Montagu
Square, in which Mrs. Stirling and Brookfield
were so kind as to take part. We had scenes
from Much Ado about Nothing, the story of
Lefevre, beautifully given by Brookfield, and
Tennyson's " Poet's Song."' Some fifty people
came.

i869 ERROR TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS 203
15M April. — As one of the Masters of the
Court of Exchequer I attended the House of
Lords to take up the roll of proceedings in a
suit taken up in Error to the House of Lords.
This duty used formerly to be performed by
one of the Judges. It was an absurd business.
One had to make the usual three low bows in
approaching the bar of the House. Then one
was sworn to answer truly all questions, and
the Chancellor asked, " What have you got
there ?" To which reply had to be made,
" The roll in a cause of Smith against Jones
brought in Error before your Lordships."
Then one was asked if it was in the same state
as when received, which was a proper question
to a person bringing anything from abroad, but
not applicable when an official of the Court was
producing a document of which he was supposed
to have the custody, although, in point of fact,
the roll was not completed until it was wanted,
and was put into the Master's hand only a
minute or two before he handed it in to the
Clerk of the Parliament, who came down to
the bar to administer the oath and take posses
sion of the roll. All this was very sensibly
abolished by the Appellate Judicature Act of

204 LYNDHURST AND W. HOLMES 1869
1876. On this occasion I witnessed the quaint
ceremony of introducing a new peer (in the
person of Lord Lawrence), which is so curi
ously travestied, although with considerable
adherence to what actually takes place, by
Victor Hugo in L'hom,me qui rit. I must
have performed this function several times
during my tenure of the office of Master, and
was always reminded by it of the story of
Lyndhurst and W. Holmes. It was told as
having happened soon after Lyndhurst was
made a peer, and was known to be lamenting
that he had no son to succeed him, and at a
time when the Lord Chancellor used to leave
the woolsack and come down in person to the
bar to receive every bill brought up from the
House of Commons, for which he had a fee of
five guineas. Upon one occasion Holmes had
charge of the Bills from the Commons, and
had to answer the question, "What have you
got there ?" many times, always giving the
title of the Bill. At last the journeys from the
woolsack to the bar and back again grew
rather wearisome, and Holmes enlivened the
monotony of the proceedings by answering
the "What have you got there?" by saying

VOLTAIRE 205

" A bill to enable your Lordship to beget male
heirs." — "You bed — d!" said the Chancellor,
and regained his seat.
ith May. — At breakfast at Lacaita's. He
showed a book of impressions of seals which
had belonged to Voltaire. It was like a quarto
copy book, and contained a great number of
seals torn from letters with the names of their
owners written underneath. When he received
letters he used to compare the seals with those
in the book to ascertain from whom the letters
came, and unless he liked their writers he did
not open the letters.
Ilth May. — Dined at Donne's. He had
been at the Archbishop of Dublin's the day
before and met the Bishop of Oxford, who was
in great force, and telling stories in a way
rather to frighten Mrs. Trench. One was of
the contributions of a housemaid, accustomed
to live in high ecclesiastical places, to a know
ledge of the personal habits of her successive
employers. " The work is very different,
particular in filling and emptying of baths.
Now the Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce), he
have his bath regular every day. The Arch
bishop of Canterbury (Tait), he have his bath

2o6 MACAULAY IN TRIN. COLL. CHAPEL 1869
every day except Sundays ; but the Dean of
Westminster (Stanley) he never use only a wet
towel." Cambridge, i%th May 1869.
My dear Father — You may like to have an account
of the impression made on me by the Macaulay statue in
Trinity College Chapel, written from the spot, and I
accordingly avail myself of the writing facilities at the
Union for that purpose. The statue looks extremely well,
and is placed half way between the door and the screen.
The light falls well upon it, and it is praised by every one.
It is at present one of three sitting figures, and when
Whewell is added, also to be executed by Woolner, and
also to be sessile, it will be one of four — enough to draw
together at night, when not under observation, for a game
at whist, with Newton to look on and calculate the chances
of the odd trick, unless, indeed, they are less peacefully
employed, and Bacon endeavours to revenge himself on
Macaulay for his scurvy treatment of him in the Edinburgh
Review. We are going through a very agreeable series of
hospitalities, to terminate this afternoon, when we return to
town. W  is well, and reading as much as he can ; a
great favourite with every one. I hope you are quite
strong again. — Yours affectionately, W. F. P.
2 id May. — Moulton to lunch, and took him
to see Babbage and his workshops.
i6th June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Vernon Lushington in chair.
2 1st June. — Public meeting at the Royal Insti-

i869 STATUE OF FARADAY 207
tutlon to promote subscriptions for a memorial
to Faraday, with the Prince of Wales in the
chair. Dumas, the chemist, was present and
made a speech in French. The memorial ulti
mately took the form of a marble statue,
designed and partially executed by Foley, and
completed after his death by his pupil Brock.
It was intended for Westminster Abbey, and
Dean Stanley had selected for it almost the
only available space. But the religious scruples
of his widow and of Faraday's family would not
allow it to be placed either in the Abbey or in
St. Paul's, on the ground that he would not
have entered in his lifetime a place of worship
other than one belonging to his own peculiar
denomination. In fact, Faraday did decline to
attend the public funeral of the Duke of
Wellington, because he was buried in St. Paul's
Cathedral. The statue now stands very appro
priately in the hall of the Royal Institution,
where Faraday's work was done, and in whose
service he spent the greater part of his life.
26th June. — Came to breakfast W. C. Cart
wright, J. W. Clark, Herbert Spencer, Currey,
Holtzmann, F. Garden, Aubrey de Vere.
loth July. — To breakfast, Venables, Mr.

FREDERICK LOCKER

and Mrs. Cornish, S. Laurence, Kinglake,
F. W. Gibbs, Deutsch.
12th July. — Dined with Frederick Locker
in Victoria Street, to meet Tennyson, just re
turned from a tour in Switzerland with him.

CHAPTER VII
CAEN  ST. LO
In the autumn of 1869 we were in France
again, going by Newhaven, Dieppe, Rouen, and
Caen, to Avranches. At Caen one saw the
churches and other sights. As the central
town of an agricultural district, it reminded
me of Ipswich, with its similar shops and
narrow streets, but the streets were as noisy
and crowded as Cheapslde. At the theatre
Dejazet (set. 72) was acting her old part in
Les Trois Gamins, rather a sad sight, as she
only acts, poor woman, because she would
otherwise starve. She did not, however,
create much attraction, and the house was only
half full. The railway to Avranches was not
completed farther than to St. Lo, where we
had to spend some time, and I found the
butter market very amusing. The butter
VOL. II p

AVRANCHES 1869

seemed chiefly intended for the English market,
and was sold by English weight. We went on
to Avranches by a diligence, of which my wife,
my son W  , and myself occupied the coupd
immediately behind the driver, and heard all
the talk and gossip of the road. At one place
the driver was to have left a parcel for a notary,
which contained the printed placards of a sale
of land, the due circulation and posting of
which is, by French law, necessary to the
validity of the transaction. It was therefore
rather an important parcel, and the driver took
it with much care out of the box on which he
sat and placed it beside him, conveniently for
delivering, a little while before he came to the
notary's house. When he looked for it, it was
gone, and must have fallen off the seat. He
had to alight to announce the loss, about which
he talked all the rest of the way, thinking
of all the harm that might happen to him in
consequence, and chiefly fearing the vengeance
of the notary, " I'l pourrait bien me faire perdre
quelque belle succession." Avranches disap
pointed us. There is a magnificent view, in
which the chief object is Mont St. Michel,
but the town itself is mean and uninteresting.

i869 A WATCH LOST AND FOUND 21 r
Here W  became so unwell as to require
medical advice, and his mother went in person
to secure a doctor. On her way back to the
hotel she lost her watch with its appendages,
and, after consulting our landlord, orders were
given to the public crier or tambour to offer
a reward for the recovery of the watch. Every
one in the house immediately became interested
in the matter, and the most sympathetic ex
pressions were used. We went to sit in the
garden of the hotel, and presently heard
the crier going round the town, beating his
drum and making proclamation, sometimes
nearer and sometimes farther off. At the end
of an hour or two we were aware of a stir and
a sound of voices crying " C'est trouve, c'est
trouve." A little procession entered the garden,
with tambour at the head of it — three prettily
dressed girls, one of whom had found the
watch, and a following of the hotel servants
and idlers from the town. It was Sunday ; all
were decked in their best, and under the trees
in the garden it was like a scene in a ballet.
Tambour explained how the watch had been
seen and picked up by one of the girls —
farmer's daughters from the neighbourhood — as

212 MONT ST. MICHEL 1869
she was coming out of church. The watch was
restored, to the delight of the ''assistance',' and
the finder received a half napoleon, which was
evidently more than had been expected, for the
remark went round, " C'est un dot pour elle','
and some wishes were expressed that an
English lady would again lose her watch and
have it found with a similar result. At
Avranches we fell in with Anthony TroUope
and his wife, whom we joined again in a day or
two at St. Malo. My eldest son came to us at
Avranches, and with him and the present
Master of Caius College, Cambridge, and his
wife, I went to Mont St. Michel — a very
wonderful and beautiful thing. The bridge
was not then built which permanently connects
the island with the mainland, and we made
our way to it on foot, struggling against a
boisterous wind along a narrow stone causeway
which was practicable long before the sands
were sufficiently uncovered by the falling tide
to allow of our carriage's crossing them. We
had for a guide a most picturesque-looking
fellow, with a bronze skin and some floating
drapery, which made him look like a figure
from a picture by Nie. Poussin. He had been

1869 A ROAD ADVENTURE 213
in the French cavalry, and was full of stories
of his prowess in battle, and in saving lives
from shipwreck since he had been living at
Mont St. Michel, which seemed mostly lies,
but which he thought would go down with his
''monde',' as he called us. In returning, there
was a pool of water to be crossed to get to the
carriage. He caught up Mrs. Ferrers, as
Nessus might have laid hold of Deianira, and
I followed in humble pick-a-back, like ^neas
on the shoulders of Anchises. Ferrers and
F  were too proud for this, and went round
the pool. In driving back to Avranches there
was an adventure with a couple of men in
charge of a timber wain. The road was
narrow, and they were very surly in making
room for us to pass, and gave our carriage so
little room that one of our wheels touched one
of their horses, but did no harm, upon which
there was a storm of sacrds and so forth.
Presently afterwards our driver took a wrong
turn, and when we regained the right road
there were our friends with the timber wain
before us again, and resolutely refusing to let
us pass. If we had been in England, as we
were three men to two, we might have used

2i4 FRENCH DRIVERS 1869
our vis major and forced a passage, but in a
foreign country this might have got us into
trouble, and for some minutes we had to follow
the wain at a walking pace. Then, after taking
a good look at the men, I commenced a parley.
The elder man was a sullen -looking, oldish
man, and I saw no chance of success with him,
but appealed to the gallantry of the younger
one. I pointed out that he was keeping a lady
from her dinner, and punishing us all for the
fault of our driver, who was a countryman of
his own, and was not our servant. I might
have quoted to him the case of Laugher v.
Pointer, as to the legal immunity of the hirer of
a carriage from the consequences of an accident
due to the negligence of the driver when he
is a servant of the owner of the vehicle, but
thought it would be thrown away upon him.
But after a little coaxing and flattery of
the chivalry of the French nation, of which
in truth they really have mighty little, in regard
to women, I moved the young man to go and
speak to the other, and, with much reluctance,
they made way, allowed our carriage to pass,
and we reached the hotel at Avranches in
good time for dinner. Spending a night at

i869 HOTEL S. ROMAIN 215
Le Mans, then untouched by the horrors of
war, we made for Paris, where, for the first
time, we descended at the excellent little Hotel
S. Romain, Rue du Dauphin, since incorpor
ated into the Rue S. Roche, where the good
host, M. Belard, and his wife made us extremely
comfortable, as they have done on many sub
sequent occasions. There was a good deal of
play -going. We saw the charming Galli-
mari6 in La Petite Fadette, and Diane de Lys
with the incomparable Descl6e, at the Gymnase.
At the Fran^ais we saw the Menteur, with
Delaunay and Got, preceded by a perfect
recitation of Musset's Nuit d'Octobre given
by Favart and Delaunay ; and on another night
Julie, preceded by Le Cheveu Blanc, and
followed by Le Dernier Quartier, with Favart
(an actress whose fame has been rather unjustly
eclipsed by that of some of her successors),
Lafontaine, Reichemberg, and Febvre. On the
last occasion a thing happened which would
always prevent me from feeling certain in a case
of identity, unless I had actually spoken with the
person in question. We were sitting on the
side of the house in the front row of the balcon,
when I noticed, as I thought. Sir James

2i6 A CASE OF IDENTITY 1869
Hannen in a similar place exactly opposite to
us. I mentioned it to my wife and sons, and
said I would go round to speak to him at the
end of the act. I did so, but his seat was
vacant, and I went to look for him in the foyer,
and then, as the bell was ringing for the next
act, I went to the door behind his seat and, as I
thought, saw him returned to his place again. I
looked for him as we were leaving the theatre,
to no purpose. Two or three days afterwards
I met Hannen in London and mentioned I
had seen him at the Frangais, and we discussed
the play of Julie, which I fancied we had seen
together. I mentioned the piece which had pre
ceded it, and he said, "No, it was not that;" and
for a moment or two we could not make out
our disagreement. Then he named the date of
his seeing Julie, and it turned out that it was a
day or two before that on which we had seen
it, and that he had left Paris before the day on
which I was so positive that I had seen him at
the theatre. It would have been a very good
anecdote to tell to a jury in a defence turning
upon a supposed mistake of identity. In re
turning to London we were fortunate in having
the company of Tyndall, and of Professor

1869 TENNYSON AT HASLEMERE 217
Flower and his wife. An enjoyable visit to
Venables at his beautiful place of Llysdinam,
on the Wye, brought the long vacation to its
close, 59 Montagu Square,
Zth December 1869.
My dear Father — De la Pryme has sent me a cheque
for ;^6o odd, the balance of the Macaulay statue fund,
which I have paid over to the Literary Fund, according to
desire, as one of its treasurers. We shall have a Committee
meeting this afternoon, when a formal vote of thanks will
be passed and duly transmitted to Sir Charles Trevelyan, to
De la Pryme (who should, I think, be included), and yourself
I was on Saturday and Sunday on a visit to Tennyson
at his new house on the ridge of Blackdown, near Hasle
mere — a fine situation, occupied by a handsome and
commodious house just built for him by James Knowles.
He read me some of his forthcoming new poems.
Yesterday I dined in company with twenty people, a great
crowd and no company, and such an assemblage of big-
wiggery. Two Chiefs, a Lord Justice, a Vice-Chancellor,
a Baron, the Solicitor-General, an ex- Attorney-General, an
honourable Q.C, and an honourable utter barrister, a
Chief Commissioner, a surgical baronet, an Under-Secretary
of State, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, and a
marshal at each end of the table. But I had a pleasant
enough tete-a-tete with one of my next neighbours. — ^Yours
affectionately, W. F. P.
i8/>^ December. — To Bedgebury Park, on
visit to Beresford Hopes. Found there Lady

2i8 BEDGEBURY PARK 1869
Rolle, Cardwells, Gathorne Hardys, Sir E.
Cust, Venables, etc. We were driven to the
house from the station in one of Beresford
Hope's carriages, which had been taking to it
some departing guests, and so passed the lodge
of the Park without anything occurring to attract
attention. But the next day Sir E. Cust asked
me if I did not think it odd that a toll should
be taken from carriages entering the Park, and
one learned that a road lay across it which saved
going a long way round, and that this was a great
convenience to the neighbourhood. And as the
traffic made the repair of the road, which is of
some length, an expensive affair, it seemed fair
that the people who got the benefit of it should
contribute to its maintenance. Carriages bring
ing visitors to the house were not exempted
from paying toll, because it would be so easy
for unscrupulous persons to say at the lodges
that they were going to the house.
I ith and 14th January 1870. — Performances
in Montagu Square of Weather Permitting,
taken from the French La Pluie et le Beau
Temps, and Madame Celestine, an original piece,
in both of which my wife took part as Mrs.
Wilfred Montagu. F  was in the bill as

1870 DILETTANTI SOCIETY 219
Mr. F. Le Jeune, and W  as Mr. Walter
Montagu. M  Emilius made his first
appearance as Miss Emily Montagu in a female
part. Edith Richmond kindly helped us, appear
ing in the bills as Miss Edith Sheen.
1 2th February. — Dined with Montagu
Smith at Grosvenor Gate. Lord Chelmsford,
Chief Justice Cockburn, Baron Pigot, Loftus
Wigram, Karslake, Gifford, Edward Romilly,
C. Baron Kelly, F. W. Gibbs, Montagu Bere,
R. Burke.
22d February. — Dinner at home. Lord
Houghton, Master of Trinity, W. C. Cart
wright, G. S. Venables, Brookfield, Froude.
i^th March. — Dined Benzon's (Kensington
Palace Gardens). Motleys, De Mussys, Brown
ing, Leighton, Cartwright, etc.
id April. — Was elected a member of the
Dilettanti Society. This Society was founded
early in the last century, and has counted
among its members many eminent statesmen,
wits, men of letters and of fashion. Charles
James Fox and George Selwyn belonged to it.
Sir Joseph Banks became its secretary in the
same year as that in which he was elected
President of the Royal Society, and held both

220 AVIGNON IN ITALY 1870
offices together for nearly twenty years. Sir
Thomas Lawrence was at one time secretary,
and so was Mr. W. R. Hamilton for thirty
years. My immediate predecessor as secretary
(as I afterwards became) was Sir Edward Ryan,
the eminent Indian judge. Originally the
qualification for membership was that the
candidate had been met in Italy by the propos
ing member. Upon one occasion, however, a
candidate was elected who had been met at
Avignon — a place at the time certainly more
Italian than French in its associations. When
the mistake was discovered, in order to make
the election valid a special resolution was passed
" that, in the opinion of the Society, Avignon is
in Italy." But in order to prevent the estab
lishment of a dangerous precedent, a second
resolution was carried " that, in the opinion of
this Society, Avignon is the only town in
France which is in Italy." On the serious and
important work done and doing by the Society
of Dilettanti in the encouragement of the know
ledge of Greek and Roman art it is unnecessary
to dwell, as it is so well known from the
numerous publications published under the
auspices and at the expense of the Society.

1870 CHLOROFORM 221
']th April. — Concert at 5 Hyde Park Place,
where Dickens was then living ; Joachim, C.
Halle, Santley. This was the first return of
Dickens to general society after his separation
from Mrs. Dickens.
12th April. — At dinner Baron and Lady
Martin, Douglas Freshfields, Benzons, Anthony
Trollopes, Browning, Lecky, Valentia Donne.
2 id April. — My cousin George, the eminent
surgeon, extracted a particle of grit from my
left eye. The instinctive action of the eye to
protect itself was too strong to allow of my
remaining sufficiently quiet for this very trifling
operation, and I had to take chloroform. It
was like rushing into a railway tunnel to the
beats of a locomotive engine. During the few
moments of semi-consciousness which preceded
the return to ordinary existence, I seemed to
myself to have composed some great poem —
the subject of which was, however, never known
to me. 2']th April — Laurence Oliphant, just re
turned from the United States, dined with us.
He was full of the universal corruption prevail
ing in America — political, judicial, and com
mercial.

222 REGNIER— BROHAN 1870
ist May. — Dined with the Dilettanti Society,
and was admitted a member with all the quaint
and curious solemnities which are practised on
such occasions by the oldest surviving institu
tion of its kind in London.
yth May. — Came to breakfast Lord Edmond
Fitzmaurice, Cartwright, Venables, Hutton (of
the Spectator), Sidney Colvin, S. Laurence,
Spedding. 20^/^ May. — Dined De Mussys. Afterwards
to the Motleys, who have got Lord Yarborough's
fine house in Arlington Street.
28/^ May. — To French play at Princess's
Theatre ; saw Un Caprice and La Joi fait
Peur, in which Regnier was so great as the old
servant. The only other performer of note
was Madeleine Brohan. A few nights after
wards we saw them in Les Demoiselles de S. Cyr.
ith June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Helps president. Clifford staying with us, and
went with me. Clifford was one of the most
remarkable men of his time ; his intellectual
powers were prodigious ; in the highest regions
of mathematical science he had done much, and
would have certainly done more in extending
its powers and resources if his life had been

i87o W. K. CLIFFORD 223
prolonged. Whatever he did was done with
ease and perfect mastery. He seemed to play
with the infinite, and in the general relations of
life the same ease and a pervading brilliancy
existed. He had the rare quality of wit, and
the still rarer one in England, of gaiety. His
whole soul was full of love. He had few, if
any, personal dislikes, but had very marked
intellectual antipathies, to which he sometimes
too much gave way. He was a daring and
accomplished athlete in the gymnasium and a
good dancer, always ready to turn from more
serious occupation to fun and frolic. A friend
once called him "an inspired kitten," and the
name was at once adopted by many of his
intimates, 6th July. — Dine John Walters, Upper
Grosvenor Street. Met Lord and Lady A.
Churchill, Lord and Lady Cairns, Cardwells,
W. E. Forsters, Sir J. Hope Grant, Sir
Frederick and Lady Rogers.
"jth July. — Drury Lane Opera — Otello with
Nielson, Mongini, Faure, Gardoni.
gth July. — Came to breakfast E. Twisleton,
Kinglake, Townsend (of the Spectator), Deutsch,
George Darwin, Watkiss Lloyd.

224 FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 1870
I'-^th July. — With Houghton from the Athe
naeum to the House of Lords, and heard Lord
Granville make the announcement of war be
tween France and Prussia. The universal ex
pectation was that in a fortnight the French
would be at Frankfort, and would, for some
time to come at least, have the best of it ; and
that it would be long before the Germans could
take the field in great force.
22d July. — My father died at Hatton, aged
86 years and 11 months. In returning from
the funeral in Hanworth churchyard I was in
the same coach with my uncle Sir George
Pollock (the Field-Marshal), and my uncle Mr.
John Pollock, himself a very old man. In one
of the obituary notices of my father which had
appeared in the newspapers he was designated
as the son of " a flourishing saddler " at Char
ing Cross. Now, I knew that he had been
unable to keep my father at Cambridge, and
that he owed his continued residence at the
University to the generous kindness of Tavel,
his tutor at Trinity College. I asked my uncle
if his father had at any time been in good
circumstances. He said yes ; that he had the
business of the King, the Prince of Wales, and

i87o FUNERAL AT HANWORTH 225
the Royal Family, and that of the East India
Company, and of some cavalry regiments. His
connection with the Royal Family was unfor
tunate for him. When the Prince of Wales's
debts were paid by the nation on his marriage,
he owed him ;^3000. In discharging these
debts large reductions were made, and no
interest was allowed. Some tradesmen's bills
were cut down by fifty or sixty per cent. Ten
per cent only was struck off my grandfather's
bill, and the persons who attended to the matter
told him that they were sorry to have to do
this, as his charges were perfectly fair and
honest, but that they must take off something
in conformity with their general instructions.
2d November. — Dined with Lord Vernon,
to meet Mr. and Mrs. Parsons of Boston (he
a translator of Dante), Lacaita, the William
Vernons, and Professor Pierce, a distinguished
American mathematician.
loth November. — Evening with Carlyle at
Chelsea. Talking of the Franco-German war,
he called Napoleon the Third a copper captain,
who was breaking his addled goose's egg against
a rock of adamant.
2id November. — Dined Lord Justice James.
VOL. II Q

226 CLIFFORD HARRISON 1871
Met Madame Mohl, who came to breakfast with
us three days afterwards.
loth December. — Dined with James Knowles
at Clapham. Tennyson was there, and read to
us the sermon from "Aylmer's Field."
Epigram upon the Declaration of Papal In
fallibility at the CEcumenical Council in 1870 :
" Quando Eva morse, e morder fece il pomo,
Iddio per salvar I'uomo, si fece uomo ;
Ma il Vicario di Christo, Pio Nono,
Per far uomo schiavo, si fece Dio."
list January 1871. — At dinner Clifford
Harrison. He read Tennyson's " Brook" and
" Locksley Hall."
Tth March. — Reading at home by Lady
Pollock and Clifford Harrison, and Megan
Watts singing.
I ith March. — Elected to the Cosmopolitan
Club. 1 2th April. — Performance of Travellers'
Tales, adapted from Octave Feuillet's Le Vil
lage, and Lady Vivian at Home, in which
that remarkable and delightful person Alice
L' Estrange (afterwards Mrs. Laurence Oliphant)
took part.
'^th May. — To the Opera Comique Theatre

i87i FRENCH COMPANY IN LONDON 227
in the Strand, where the members of the
Comedie Frangalse, driven from Paris by the
siege, were now performing on their own
venture. The piece was // ne faut jurer de
rien, in which Got and Delaunay are seen at
their best. It was some time before people in
London got to know what they could now see
— the best French plays, with all the parts well
filled ; for only a few of the company came over,
and these were the most distinguished, such
as Bressant, Coquelin, and Favart, along with
those already mentioned. At first the theatre
was very moderately filled, but by the end of
their time it was always crowded.
The French company came to London on
their own account, knowing nothing of English
theatres, and unable to speak English. De
launay, with Thiron and others, was in lodg
ings in one of the small streets running out of
the Strand. One day they wanted some eggs,
but were unable to make the servant maid of
the house understand their wishes. They tried
drawing ovals in the air with their fingers, and
other signs, without effect. At last Thiron
began to crow like a cock and to flap his arms
like wings, in which the others imitated him ;

2 28 PLAYS AT OPERA COMIQUE 1871
then the mind of the damsel was opened, and
in a few minutes a dish of the desired eggs
was produced. It was very amusing to hear
Delaunay, when we came to know him after
wards, describe how "cette pauvresse" was
finally made to understand what was wanted.
2ist May. — Dean Stanley's funeral sermon
on Sir John Herschel, buried in the Abbey on
the preceding Friday.
22d May. — L' Aventurih^e, with Favart,
Bressant, and Coquelin, by the Comedie Fran-
9aise. This was the day on which the army of
Versailles entered Paris to put down the fright
ful insurrection of the Commune. On the 24th
the Tuileries were burnt, and the Theatre
Frangais was in the greatest danger of being
consumed. ith June. — Un Cas de Conscience, Mercadet.
loth June. — Dined with Charles at Putney,
and afterwards to Madame Viardot.
i4//z June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Tom Taylor presided.
i^th June. — Barbiere de Seville — Bressant,
Coquelin, Talbot.
24/;^ June. — Breakfast with Henry Cowper,
at his brother's house, 4 St. James's Square, in a

i87i DEJEfjNER AT CRYSTAL PALACE 229
large dining-room on first floor, looking into
a garden at the back of the house, and
hung with Vandyke portraits. Lord Dufferin
said that the young American ladies in London
were complaining of want of attention to
them in English gentlemen. " They don't
bunch us," meaning that they are not pre
sented with bouquets or bunches of flowers.
He mentioned the threat of a girl who had
been jilted, " I'll breach him."
ist July. — At breakfast Roden Noel, Lewis
Wingfield, G. F- Armstrong, James Knowles,
Holtzmann, W. D. Christie.
ith July. — Dejeuner given to the actors of
the Comedie Fran9alse at the Crystal Palace
upon their leaving London to return to Paris,
after their troubled and anxious but success
ful season in London. I was on the execu
tive committee, which had been appointed
at a meeting held at the Rolls House, on
the invitation of Sir W. D. Hardy ; but
Lewis Wingfield, Joseph Knight, Alfred
Thompson, and Mr. Cosens, who acted as
treasurer, were the persons most concerned in
securing the great success which crowned the
affair. The breakfast was held in the then

230 SPEECHES— LORD DUFFERIN 1871
existing tropical department of the Crystal
Palace, which was beautifully decorated, and it
was an afternoon of bright sunshine for the
subsequent adjournment outside for coffee.
Lords Granville, Dufferin, Houghton, Powers-
court, and Townshend sent their carriages to
bring down the guests by road, under the
care of Wingfield and Leighton (not yet Sir
Frederick), the latter of whom designed the
invitation card, the original of which was after
wards given to the Comedie, and is now framed
and kept among the treasures of the Theatre
Frangais. No one but the invited guests was
allowed to have a copy of this card. Dufferin
was in the chair, and made a charming speech
in French, proposing the health of the guests,
ending with : " N'oublions pas que dans, ces
migrations et ces excursions triomphales vous
suivez I'exemple de I'initiateur du drame primitif
en Grece. " ' Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis.' "
Got, the doyen of the company, returned thanks,
and proposed the memory of Shakespeare, to
which Alfred Wigan responded. Lord Gran
ville followed in a very happy vein, commencing

i87i LORD GRANVILLE 231
with " II ne faut jiirer de rien" — in allusion to
his previous uncertainty whether he should be
able to be present — and proposed the health of
the Chairman, to which he replied in English.
I had breakfasted in company with Dufferin in
the morning at Lord Acton's, and went down
with him to Sydenham. At the beginning
I sat with other members of the committee
in their allotted place, between Bancroft and
Du Maurier, and with Louis Viardot opposite.
Afterwards I was called up to take the place
reserved for Lord Lytton, between Talbot and
Delaunay, and had the pleasure of making an
acquaintance with the latter, which improved
into friendship in subsequent visits to Paris
and when he came again to act in London.
We went to Madame Viardot's in the evening.
gth July. — Afternoon at Little Holland
House. Tennyson, Story, Mark Pattison, Sir
H. Rawlinson, Watts, etc.
i6th July. — To Tennysons at Aldworth, for
a couple of nights.
iith Jtdy. — Dined De Mussys. Lord Justice
James, Sir J. Colvile, Grove, Leighton, Viardot,
Tourganieff. 21.5'^ July. — Afternoon party at W. Spottis-

232 WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE 1871
woode's in Grosvenor Place, to meet the
Emperor of Brazil. His acquaintance with
every one and everything was marvellous.
The only mistake one heard of his making
was in addressing Arthur Stanley as Dean of
St. Paul's instead of Westminster. The social
meetings at William Spottiswoode's house,
whether in town or at Combe Bank, were
always pleasant and well arranged. The
scientific element was naturally represented in
strength, but there was always a considerable
infusion of literature, art, and fashion. Spottis
woode himself was a heart of gold — ¦generous,
affectionate, and devoted to his friends, and to
the numbers of persons in his employment. A
career full of performance and great further
promise was too soon brought to a close, and
no man's loss could have been more deeply
lamented in the worlds of science and of
business, and by his many attached friends.
id August. — Visit to Wynne Finch's at
Voelas, Llanrwst. We spent several weeks
this autumn at Clovelly in the house of John
Mills, fisherman and boat-builder, whose work
shop on the way " down along " to Quay Pool
was a sort of succursale to our lodgings in wet

i87i CLOVELLY 233
weather. There is nowhere a more singular
and beautiful place than Clovelly — with its
village hung in a steep ravine, like a glacier in
a Swiss valley ; with its little pier, surrounded
by cliffs and woods ; with the drive called the
Hobby ; and with the unique grounds of the
" Court," full of the most varied kinds of sylvan
scenery, and where within a distance of a few
yards one may enjoy the finest sea prospects
or the most charming inland views and imme
diate surroundings. ' The people in the village
very friendly and simple, with a sprinkling
among them of retired sea captains, whose con
versations and the curiosities in their houses
gave a sort of foreign flavour to the place. At
this time the only inroads from the outer world
used to be steamboat excursions once or twice
a week from Ilfracombe or the Bristol Channel.
The tourists would land, pass in wonder up the
steep, narrow street, often making remarks as
if their language was not one understood by
the natives, and then rush back to their boat
on the ringing of a bell. The landlord of the
principal inn — also a farmer and boat-owner,
and much interested in many kinds of know
ledge — was a great character, and his wife's

234 WESTWARD HO 1871
collection of old china, originally obtained from
houses, cottages, etc., in the neighbourhood,
was a remarkable one. The people were all
much attached to their own village. One day
on returning from seeing Westward Ho, I said
to the driver, himself a bit of a character — a
sort of Sam Weller in his way — that I was
glad to get back to Clovelly. He replied, " I'm
glad to hear you say so, sir. For my own part,
I don't think anything of Westward Ho; I'd
rather be hanged at Clovelly than live at West
ward Ho."
i6th October. — At Royal Institution, look
ing over catalogue of books with Vincent, the
librarian, to ascertain what sets can be elimi
nated to make more space for additions, with
the least injury to the library. It is often diffi
cult enough to come to a satisfactory decision
in such cases, as I have also found when some
times similarly engaged when on the Library
Committee at the Athenseum. After one has
become thoroughly satisfied that a book or set
of books may go, one is sure to be told by the
librarian that they have been recently asked for,
and then they have, of course, to be retained.
A great many long sets of books were given to

i872 PLAYS IN MONTAGU SQUARE 235
the London Library. Even old directories and
court guides have their occasional value, and
might furnish information not obtainable other
wise. 2d November. — Dined with Knowles at Clap
ham, to meet Tennyson.
i<^th November. — Dined W. Spottiswoode's.
Lord Chancellor and Lady Hatherley, Goschens,
George Brodrick, W. Longman, Bowens.
2id November. — Dined Henry Reeves.
Froudes, Count Strzelecki, Sir Montagu Smith,
Justice Keatinge.
1st December. — To Lyceum. H. Irving in
Bells, and again on i8th.
i6th January 1872. — Performance at 59
Montagu Square of How will it End and
My Aunt's Devices. The first piece was
adapted by J. W. Clark from Un Cas de Con
science, and the second was altered from Les
Projets de ma Tante by Lady Pollock. The
principal performers were my wife and W  ,
but in How will it End, as announced in the
playbills, I made my first appearance for seven
years, under the name of Mr. Lemaitre, in a
small part in the first scene. J. W. Clark's
dialogue was extremely good, and the piece was

236 MR. EVARTS 1872
well acted by those to whom its success was
due — a difficult thing to secure with a serious
play in private theatricals.
igth January. — Mr. Evarts of New York
came to breakfast. He is now in Europe to
represent the United States Government be
fore the arbitrators on the Alabama claims
at Geneva. He is a spare man, looking about
forty or forty-five years old, and in face a little
like the first Napoleon. He has eleven children,
which he said was not unusual. As a counsel
he never has a fee of less than 250 dollars, or
;^50, for going into court. The ordinary fee
to the leading counsel in an ordinary case
equals ;^20, the junior being paid as an at
torney. He said that he never took part in
what is our attorneys' work, of getting up the
case, and that he could refer to his instructions
without knowing what was behind them in as
much conscientious ignorance as a barrister does
in England. His partners always collected the
evidence, and otherwise got up the cases and
drew the briefs. Sir Henry Holland afterwards
told me that he believed Evarts makes ten or
twelve thousand pounds a year ; and I gathered
from himself that in the States all fees have to

i872 A CASE OF LATINITY 237
be earned by working for them. Cases are
adjourned for the convenience of counsel, so
that they can actually attend to them in person.
There are not, as in England, any pickings of
fees paid for which no work is done, briefs
delivered, and fees paid, but not perhaps even
opened or read, and so on.
loth January. — Dined Henry Taylors at
East Sheen. Browning.
1st February. — Dined Sir Thomas Watson's.
Lord Chancellor and Lady Hatherley, Sir T.
Henry, Boxall, George Richmond, etc. An
unfortunate clergyman, bearing the same name
as our host, had been tried three weeks before
at the Old Bailey and convicted of murdering
his wife, but sentenced to confinement for life as
a lunatic. He had used the Latin words, " Ssepe
olim semper debere nocuit debitori," in an
exculpatory statement written by him, and Sir
T. Henry said that nothing had given Mr.
Watson so much pain in the whole proceedings
as having had his Latinity questioned. The
Chancellor said that Lowe had divided the
Cabinet upon it, and that he had voted in the
majority affirming it to be good Latin. The
Chancellor seemed very happy, notwithstanding

238 GREENWICH TIME 1872
the Collier affair, in which the course taken
by the Government is almost universally con
demned. Frank Doyle the other day said
that the division of responsibility between the
Chancellor and Mr. Gladstone in the recent
appointment, of Collier to the judgeship in the
Privy Council, so as to make each individually
innocent, reminded him of Sterne's story of
the Abbess of Andouillet and the novice when
dividing between them the pronunciation of the
naughty words used to make the obstinate mule
get on.
2d February. — To Cambridge with F  for
Commemoration Day dinner at Trinity. Airy,
the Astronomer Royal, spoke at immense length
in returning thanks on his health being given,
and some one remarked that Greenwich time
was more like eternity.
15//^ February. — Dined at Fishmongers'
Hall, and sat next my uncle, the Field-Mar
shal. He talked of his famous advance to
Cabul through the Kyber Pass, relieving Jel-
lalabad, and vindicating the honour and power
of England after the previous disasters, and said,
" I disobeyed orders, and might have been tried
by a court martial and shot for it if I had not

1872 DISRAELI 239
succeeded." This was the last time I saw
him. 2']th February. — To the Athenaeum to see
the procession pass of the Queen and Prince of
Wales to St. Paul's, to return thanks for the
Prince's recovery from his perilous attack of
typhoid fever. On such an occasion it is in
teresting to watch the filling of the open space
of Waterloo Place by the crowd. It is like see
ing a carpet laid down to cover a bare floor.
There was afterwards a great scramble for food
in the dining-room of the club.
gth March. — Breakfast at Grant Duff's.
Talk of Disraeli, his isolation in England, and
his regarding his life among us rather as a
drama than a reality. Once in the House of
Commons he spoke of Her Majesty's company
instead of H.M. Government Dufferin said
that in early life Disraeli was intimate with his
mother and her sisters, the Duchess of Somerset
and Mrs. Norton. At a grand reception given
by Disraeli at the Foreign Office, at which the
Prince and Princess of Wales were present,
after doing the honours to them he came up to
the Duchess of Somerset, and, pointing with his
thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the

240 HENRY IRVING 1872
Royalties, said to her, " It's as good as a play —
isn t It :
nth March. — Dined with Sidney Colvin at
Savile Club. Browning, F. T. Palgrave, Stop-
ford Brooke, George Howard.
Ilth March. — Mr. Vanderweyer told me an
anecdote of Talleyrand apropos to the misunder
standing about the Washington Treaty. At
a diplomatic conference he pointed to a sen
tence, and remarked, " I suppose this means so
and so." To which it was replied, " Cela va
sans dire ;" and Talleyrand rejoined, " Oui, cer
tainement, mais cela va mieux en le disant."
^th April. — To Leighton's studio to see the
portrait painted by him of Sir Edward Ryan for
the Dilettanti Society.
11/^ April. — To Lyceum. Irving in ^^//5-
and as Jeremy Diddler. He came into our box,
and we then made for the first time the per
sonal acquaintance of a man whose character
and good qualities endear him to all who
have the advantage of knowing him — generous
almost to a fault, considerate, and always study
ing the good of those with whom he has to do.
iith April. — Houghton, who is a believer
in the claimant in the Tichborne case, paid

1872 FITZGERALD AT WOODBRIDGE 241
me a sovereign, to be returned if he is not con
victed on the criminal charge of perjury.
\th May. — Visit to Grant Duffs at Hampden,
rented by him. The house has some interest
ing points about it, but there are no relics of
its great owner.
ith May. — Literary Fund Dinner, with the
King of the Belgians in the chair.
iith May. — Visit to Edward Fitzgerald at
Woodbridge. He has built himself a house —
the Little Grange — in the outskirts of the
town, but continues to live in his lodgings
over a gunsmith's shop in the market-place.
He put me up at his own charge at the prin
cipal inn. No man who has deserved so much
fame for his writings was probably ever so
modest and retiring. Our talk was chiefly of
old days and old friends — J. M. Kemble,
Thackeray, Spedding, Thompson, and others.
In the neighbourhood he is regarded as a
benevolent oddity.
2']th May. — Breakfast at Lord Acton's, 58
Lowndes Square. There was a story of an
Irish gentleman attending a levee at Dublin
Castle, when Lord Spencer first appeared
there as Viceroy, and was asked how he liked
VOL. II R

242 MISS BATEMAN'S MEDEA 1872
him, and said, "He's a deal too familiar; the
man never saw me before and knew nothing
about me, but he shook hands with me. I
think much more of Lord Abercorn. He only
looked at me over his beard, and treated me
like the dirt under his feet." Lyceum in even
ing — Miss Bateman in Leah. Tyndall with us.
ith June. — Breakfast Club at Erskine
May's. Bruce, H. Cowper, Grant Duff, Froude,
Sir J. Lacaita, Sir John Lefevre, Sir W. S.
Maxwell, Arthur Russell. Lord Dufferin was
elected an honorary member on being ap
pointed Governor - General of Canada, and
durine his administration of that office will
not be expected to give or attend breakfasts.
ith July. — Lyceum. First night of Medea,
in which Miss Bateman was very fine.
gth July. — First sitting to Ouless for my
portrait at his studio in Bloomsbury Square.
At the preceding private view of the Royal
Academy exhibition I was much impressed
by the excellence of a head in one of the
rooms, and found another portrait by the same
hand not far from it. Presently I fell in with
Boxall, and asked him if he knew anything of
Mr. Ouless, the painter of these two pictures.

i872 PORTRAIT BY OULESS 243
He said he knew him well, and that he was a
pupil of the Royal Academy of great promise.
I asked, "Would he paint me?" and Boxall
promised to give me an introduction to him
for that purpose. A few days after I went
accordingly to see Ouless, but when I men
tioned my wish he said he was not a portrait
painter ; of the two pictures I had seen one
was of his own father, and the other of an
intimate friend — both done to please himself.
He wanted to paint "history," and referred me
to a picture by himself — a scene from the
French Revolution, introducing Robespierre,
which had been exhibited the previous year,
of which he showed me a photograph. He
was sorry to disappoint any friend of Boxall's,
but he could not oblige me. We continued in
conversation for some time, and at last he said
he would make an exception in my case, and
pleased me very much by promising to paint
my portrait. He could not fix any price, as
he had never before accepted a commission for
a portrait, and this point was left to be decided
by Boxall. I gave Ouless nineteen sittings,
and the picture was well placed in the next
exhibition of the Royal Academy. As a piece

244 "THE RING AND THE BOOK" 1872
of fine colour I doubt whether he has since
surpassed it, and, as far as I know, Ouless has
never since painted anything but the excellent
portraits which led to his early election as
A.R.A. and R.A.
13/,^ July. — Came to breakfast Browning,
George Cayley, Holtzmann, etc. Browning
told us that he had recently been presented
with a contemporary portrait sketch of Count
Guido Franceschini, evidently taken from him
as he appeared on the scaffold for execution,
with the name and date — Conte Guido, etc.,
decapitato, etc. It had been bought at a sale
in London, and the purchaser thought that
it should belong to the author of The Ring
and the Book. He also told of Sheridan
Knowles a story often told of Count D'Orsay.
S. K. was complaining that he wanted to read
a certain book and could not get it. A friend
informed him of the existence of such things
as circulating libraries, and S. K. took out and
paid for a three months' subscription to Saunders
& Ottley. He went into the country and
stayed away more than three months, without
getting out a book from their library. Then
he went for a book, and was indignant at its

i872 SAUNDERS AND OTTLEY 245
being refused, on the ground that his subscrip
tion had expired. He said he had paid his
guinea and had got nothing in return for it,
and was furious. He was referred by the
clerk at the counter to one of the principals,
who explained the matter to him, but without
appeasing his wrath. S. K. said, " It's a con
founded swindle." The partner asked, " Do
you mean to be personal, sir ? " S. K., " No ;
on the contrary, if you are Saunders, d — n
Ottley, and if you're Ottley, d — n Saunders."
20th July. — Dinner at home, to meet Madame
de Mussy, her son and daughter, on a visit to
London. Boxall, Kinglake, Browning, Halle,
and Miss Halle.
22d August. — To Brussels, vid Ostend.
Bonn for a couple of nights. Heidelberg,
three weeks. Nuremburg, Prague, Dresden
for a fortnight. Home ist October, by Han
over, Cologne, and Ostend.
Ilth November. — Dined alone with Sir
William Boxall. He told me that his father
was an Excise collector at Oxford with a salary
of ^200 a year, out of which he allowed him ^50
a year to come to London and study art in or
about the year 181 7. He paid 8s. a week for

246 SIR WILLIAM BOXALL 1872
lodgings in the neighbourhood of Brunswick
Square, and used to dine at an eating-house
for 8d. or 9d. His sister was married to Mr.
Hickman, a silversmith and jeweller at Oxford,
whose shop was visited for orders by a traveller
from a firm in Clerkenwell. This man's
name was Edwards, and he had at one time
been a pupil of Banks the sculptor, but had
abandoned the study of art and taken to trade
at the time of the French Revolution in 1789,
under the belief that such changes were
about to take place in society as would destroy
all demand for works of art. Edwards on
one occasion saw a landscape drawing by
Boxall, was struck by its merits, and asked to
see the young artist. Boxall was at this time
seventeen years old, and had not liked any of
his father's plans for his future life. The
introduction to Edwards led to his becoming
a pupil at the Royal Academy, and determined
his career.

CHAPTER VIII
THEATRE FRANCAIS
^th March. — To Paris for a week. During
this visit on one afternoon I went over the
Theatre Frangais under the guidance of De
launay. The interior is more like that of a
comfortable private house than that of a London
theatre. The stairs from the artists' entrance
are carpeted, and the walls of the staircase are
hung with pictures. The foyer des artistes
is a large well-furnished room, also hung with
portraits of dramatic authors and actors. The
loges or dressing-rooms of the Societaires are
well-appointed and comfortable rooms. On the
stage there is a sort of movable alcove for the
performers to sit in who are engaged in the
piece, so as to be sheltered from any draught of
wind and close to their work. Any inconveni
ence, however, from the admission of too much

248 STAGE WHISPERS 1873
air is not likely to. occur at the Frangais. Close
to the stage also there is a small subsidiary green
room for the convenience of the performers in
making any adjustment in their costumes. The
footlights are of oil and not of gas, which gives
a peculiar softness to their light, and there is
less heat, so that the sort of curtain of hot air
which always dances over the footlights inter
feres less with perfect vision. On the stage
the old grooves for the scenery have not been
removed, but are not much in use. They
mark the various plans of the stage, and here
Delaunay, with only the pompier on duty and
myself for audience, showed the difference of
voice necessary to give effect to a stage whisper
at each plan. Near to the audience the stage
whisper was not much louder, although more
distinct, than an ordinary whisper in private life.
Retreating towards the back of the stage it
became louder and louder, so that at the very
farthest point from the footlights it was difficult
to believe, when standing close to the actor,
that it would be heard only as a whisper in the
house. The next evening we attended the
performance of Marion de I'Orme, with De
launay as the Marquis de Saverny, the "tout

i873 MARION DE L'ORME 249
jeune homm-e blond, sans moustaches" of Victor
Hugo's stage direction, which Delaunay con
tinued to be, with his inexhaustible youth and
vivacity for so many years after this date.
Mounet Sully, who transposed his names from
Sully Mounet when he became an actor, was an
admirable Didier. He was then commencing
his eminent career, and gave way, perhaps, too
much to some exaggerations, but showed all the
promise of future success which has since been
so amply fulfilled. Maubant was grand in the
part of the Marquis de Nangis, the old feudal
nobleman who brings his bodyguard of re
tainers with him to Paris from the country.
Favart was the Marion de I'Orme in this
magnificent representation of the most remark
able of Victor Hugo's historical dramas,
in all ways equal to the best traditions of
the place. Delaunay had kindly arranged that
all the performers should be in ^^ foyer during
the longest entre acte, and that we should see
them assembled. It was very fine to see all
the characters together, and as much at home
in their rich costumes as if they were their
usual clothes. Bressant, as Louis XIIL, stood
at the fireplace in his black suit, and looked

2 50 LOWELL— MOHL— RENAN 1873
SO dignified that I almost knelt on one knee to
do homage to him.
Mr. J. R. Lowell and his wife were at this
time living in Paris at the Hotel Lorraine,
in a street running parallel to the Rue du
Bac, and we were fortunate enough to see
something of them during our stay. The
hotel was frequented by members of the
Legitimist party, and by generally dining
at the table d'hote Lowell knew more about
them than most people, and from him I
learned a good deal which I could not other
wise have known. On one evening we dined
with M. and Madame Mohl, and there met
Renan and his wife, Brachet, and other people
of interest. When Renan and Mohl were
together they encouraged each other in the
brilliant conversation in which both excelled.
Renan's style in writing is beautiful, but yet not
equal to his talk. The impression made by the
two men was one not to be forgotten, and this
meeting led to friendships of much subsequent
profit and advantage. Renan had the most wit,
and his conversation abounded with passages
of luminous description, to which the strong
and sound sense of Mohl sometimes afforded an

i873 FUNERAL OF MACREADY 251
interesting contrast. They were fast and in
timate friends, and no difference of opinion ever
interfered to alter the nature of their inter
course. On our last night I dined with Dr.
De Mussy, while my wife and M  went to
see Brittanicus at the Frangals, taking with
them Madame Mohl, who was delighted in an
opportunity of going, for her husband hated the
theatres, and never went near them. I joined
them for the Femmes Savantes.
2\th April. — At dinner R. W. Emerson
and his daughter, Tyndall, Boxall, Clifford ;
and afterwards Henry Cowper and Laurence
Oliphant. On the following Saturday Emer
son came to the Breakfast Club at the house
of Bruce. id May. — Macready's funeral at Kensall
Green, from the Great Western Hotel, to
which his remains had been removed from
Cheltenham. The interment took place in his
family vault beneath the chapel, and as the
coffin sank slowly through an opening in the
floor one could not avoid being reminded of the
appliances of the theatrical stage — that stage
for which he had done so much, and which had
also done so much for him. Canon Fleming, one

252 DESCLEE IN FROU-FROU 1873
of his executors with myself, read the service
with touching emotion, and spoke a few appro
priate words before we separated at its close.
There was a large and sympathetic attendance,
representing the literature and dramatic art of
two or three generations, and no man, by his
private character and public services, better
deserved such a testimony to his worth.
12th May. — To Princess's Theatre to see
that charming actress Desclee in Frou-frou — a
part in which she has never been approached by
others who have attempted it. The natural
gaiety and heedless selfishness of the early part
of the character, driven into criminal indulgence
by unworthy suspicions and jealousies, was
given with consummate art. The grief and
remorse of the end were tragic indeed. We
afterwards saw her in Diane de Lys, which did
not afford so much opportunity for the display
of her powers.
gth June. — At dinner Joaquin Miller, Holtz
mann, J. W. Clark, young Herman Merivale.
I ith June. — C. C. S. dinner at Richmond —
Fitzjames Stephen presided.
2ith June. — Luncheon at home. Lady
Castletown, Madame Mohl, Clemens (Mark

i873 FOURTH OF JULY 253
Twain) and his wife, Joaquin Miller, G. S.
Venables, George Cayley.
id July. — Mrs. Macready came to dine,
and brought two manuscript volumes in quarto,
containing Macready's autobiography and one
of the diaries kept by him.
/ifth July.- — ^ Dined Houghton's, in Berkeley
Square. Motley, Lord Rosebery, Lord Crewe,
Mrs. Procter, etc. Being the anniversary of
American Independence, Houghton made some
remarks upon the occasion to Motley, who,
looking at Rosebery, who sat opposite to him
at table and looked much younger than his
real age, said, " Perhaps our young friend does
not understand what we are talking about ; "
and got for reply, " Oh ! don't I. It's all about
the bird of freedom, and that sort of bunkum."
Afterwards to Lady Augusta Stanley, and had a
beautiful moonlight view of the Abbey from the
roof of the cloisters.
2d August. — To Tennyson at Aldworth for
a couple of nights. He read " Vivien."
In this autumn some time was spent at
Fontainebleau, where we enjoyed the beautiful
and varied scenery of the forest, and the
gardens and interior of the Chateau. Some of

254 FONTAINEBLEAU 1873
the finest bits of sylvan landscape to be seen
anywhere exist round Fontainebleau. The
trees are magnificent, especially the beeches.
There are patches of heath, with birch trees
and pools of water, which remind one of similar
spots in the Highlands of Scotland. In other
places there are masses of rock, covered with
lichens of the richest colours, far surpassing
in size and beauty those of similar formation
to be seen at Fridge and Tunbridge Wells.
Sometimes there is a view of distant country,
and at other times one feels lost in the depths
of a thick forest. The provisions made to pre
vent strangers from losing their way are very
complete. There are sign-posts and arrow-
marks and " blazings " on the bark of con
spicuous trees, all arranged on a regular system,
so that one may stray farther than was intended,
but, by daylight at least, cannot fail to find the
way back to the town.
One day we drove to Barbison, the artist's
village on the outskirts of the forest, where
Jean Francois Millet lived and painted. We
had been told that he received visitors without
any introduction, and we rang at the door of
his house, one side of which was in the village

i873 J- F. MILLET 255
street, while a low-walled garden separated the
door of the studio from the roadway. The door
was opened to us by his wife, who said that
her husband would be able to see us at the end
of an hour. We strolled about, and returned
to find the great painter in blouse and sabots
in his painting-room, which more resembled the
rough workshop of a village carpenter than the
studio of an artist. Millet's manner was frank
and courteous, and he put aside his work to
receive us. His figure was erect and squarely
built, and he had a handsome face with large
gray eyes, a wide brow, a bright complexion,
and a true and winning smile. He showed us
all he had to show. There was a magnificent
unfinished picture, which he called " Le Coup
de Vent." It represented a huge oak uprooted
by a hurricane and in the act of falling, with a
man escaping from it ; a dark stormy sky, full
of the tragic passion of a beautiful country
suddenly struck by ruin and despair. The
question was asked, "Est-ce dans la foret ?"
Millet replied, " Madame, c'est partout" The
other subject in progress was that of a flock of
sheep feeding. Millet spoke of the quiet and
serene happiness which he wished here to re-

256 ROOMS IN THE CHATEAU 1873
present, but further conversation with him was
stopped by the arrival of another person, who
looked like a Jew picture-dealer, and talked
much nonsense about art. He remarked, " En
fin, Monsieur, j'ai la maladie des Millets ; " to
whichthepainterreplied,"Mais, Monsieur, prenez
done de la medicine ;" and we thought it best to
come away and leave the gentleman to take his
physic if he chose. By getting one day into
conversation with a certain M. Trapoz, who
had permission to paint in the Chateau, and had
a pass-key to all the rooms, we saw some of the
apartments which are not usually shown. In
this way we were admitted to the rooms of
Madame de Maintenon, those occupied by
Pope Pius VII. when a state prisoner of the
first Napoleon's, and the Galeries de Henri IL
and des Cerfs, in the latter of which the unfor
tunate Monaldeschi was executed by order of
Christina, Queen of Sweden, and where the
secret coat of chain-mail worn by him is to be
seen. Afterwards in Paris we enjoyed a good deal
of play-going. At the Frangais we saw Mounet
Sully and Sara Bernhardt in Phidre ; and
Thiron, Croizette, and Thomassin in the

i873 MADAME MOHL 257
pretty little piece L'dt& de St. Martin; and
Delaunay in L'Ecole des Femmes. We heard
and saw the Hamlet of Ambroise Thomas at
the Grand Opera, then in its old quarters. Rue
Lepeletier, with Faure, whom I always count
among the good representatives of Hamlet.
Two evenings were pleasantly spent in De-
launay's apartment at the top of the house. Rue
Luxemburg (since changed to Rue Cambon),
listening to readings by him from Alfred de Mus
set, one of which was of the Nuit d'Octobre.
After this we saw him in his great part in Le
Menteur, and on the same night had Got and
Favart in the Supplice d'une Femme ; and I was
introduced to Regnier in the foyer. At the
Gaiete there was an amusing melodrame called
Le Gascon, in which La Fontaine and his wife
acted. There was a third and a fourth evening
at Delaunay's, when he gave us one of his most
effective readings. He read La grande mere
of Beranger ; and also La Cigue and other
things of Beranger's. Our last evening in Paris
was spent at the Frangais to see Marivaux's
charming old piece of L'amour a hasard. Dur
ing this visit we had the pleasure of seeing a good
deal of Madame Mohl, and also of Lord and Lady
VOL. II s

258 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE 1873
Lytton, he then being the First Secretary in
the British Embassy. One evening in the well-
known rooms in the Rue du Bac, we were much
interested by the recital of M. Mohl's experiences
of Paris in the days of the Commune, during
which, and the subsequent siege from Versailles,
he was in Paris, and alone. He said that no
houses were burnt in which any one remained
to offer resistance. At the Ministere de la
Marine, in the Place de la Concorde, every
preparation had been made for its destruction
by petroleum, and it only remained to apply
the match. On the night of the intended burn
ing the only person in the building was a gouty
old concierge, who would not desert his post.
A pdtroleur presented himself, and said he had
orders to light the petroleum. The porter re
monstrated, and asked the man if he wished to
do so great a mischief The man replied.
No ; but he must obey his orders and earn
his day's pay. " How much do you get for
doing it?" — "Ten francs a day." — "Then I
will give you twenty francs not to do it." — " No;
I am an honest man, and must do my duty."
"Very well, then," said the porter, "you will
burn the building, but you will also perish in it

i873 BURNING OF HOTEL DE VILLE 259
yourself; I am not going to stay to be burnt,
and as I have the keys I shall lock the door as
I go out, and you will remain to die by your
own work." This moved the man, and he
said, " Give me the twenty francs and I will go."
And so the Admiralty of Paris was saved.
Mohl said there was never any plunder ; the
inhabitants of the houses to be destroyed always
had a few minutes' warning to leave and take
with them whatever they could. The Grand
Livre of the Public Debt was burnt in the
Ministere de Finance, but a duplicate existed,
and there was no inconvenience. The registers
of births and marriages were all destroyed by
fire at the Hotel de Ville, and a bureau was
opened to which all persons were invited
to come with the best materials they could
supply for their reconstruction. It is sup
posed that many children born out of wed
lock, whose legitimation was desired, were
put on the register as legitimate in this
way. Some marriages, on the other hand,
may have been purposely left without legal
registration. 11/,^ October. — Lunched at Athenseum with
Lacaita, Lord Justice James, Sir Francis

26o CONVENTION OF CINTRA 1873
Grant, Richmond, Ward, Herbert, come
from the funeral of Edwin Landseer in St.
Paul's. i^th October. — Edward Herries came to
dinner to say good-bye on returning to his
diplomatic duties in Rome. When he was
attached to the British Legation at Lisbon he
saw at Cintra the house shown as that in which
the famous Convention of Cintra was signed.
The table on which it was signed is to be seen
in the house, with the splashes of ink which fell
from the pen of the Duke of Wellington, then
Sir Arthur Wellesley. In point of fact, the Con
vention was not signed at Cintra, nor by the
Duke of Wellington. It was signed by Sir
Hew Dairy mple at Lisbon, and transmitted
home by him in a letter dated " Cintra," where
he was staying. Hence it came to be called the
Convention of Cintra, and the local legend was
invented, and the house and table provided to
support it. In the same way it may be strongly
doubted whether the table shown at Fontaine
bleau as that on which Napoleon the First
signed his abdication is a genuine historical
piece of furniture.
10th November. — At a special Managers'

i874 RETIREMENT OF BARON MARTIN 261
Meeting at the Royal Institution an address of
condolence was agreed to for the family of Sir
Henry Holland, our late President, and I was
requested to write it. We also unanimously
agreed to propose the Duke of Northumber
land as the new President.
id December. — Dined with Froude in On
slow Gardens, and with him to Westminster
Abbey to hear Max Miiller lecture on Missions
in the nave, and then to tea at the Deanery.
It was considered a daring innovation of
Stanley's to allow a layman to speak in the
Abbey. 31.5-^' January 1874. — Dinner at the Albion,
given by members of the Northern Circuit to
Martin on his retirement from the bench. Eighty-
five men were present. Pickering made an excel
lent chairman.
12th April. — Lunch with Sir Charles Lyell,
who was good enough to be pleased with a
review of mine in Fraser on his Antiquity of
Man. To W. K. Clifford's lecture at St.
George's Hall upon " Speculations on the Dura
tion of the Universe." Dined with Irving at
Garrick Club. Met Critchett, Bateman, Toole,
Lewis Wingfield, Monckton, Edmund Yates,

262 DINNER AT GARRICK CLUB 1874
Bancroft, Sir Baldwin Leighton, Hamilton Aide,
Levy i^Daily Telegraph). Toole had a story of
how he was once engaged to act for two nights
at Portsmouth. He found the town placarded
with bills, " Mr. Toole's first appearance in
Portsmouth." The next day it was " Mr.
Toole's farewell benefit." Bateman had one of
an indolent actor who, being told at rehearsal
to change his side of exit in one scene, was
heard grumbling to himself, "What! more
study." \th May. — George Grove called by appoint
ment from Macmillans to see Macready's remin
iscences and his diaries, afterwards published
by Macmillans for Mrs. Macready, under my
editorship. loth May. — To Paris. The next day took
to the Theatre Frangais my wife's present of
books for their library — Booth's reprint of the
first folio of Shakespeare, and the poetical works
of Byron and Henry Taylor. At night there
was the // ne faut jurer de rien, with the
splendid cast of Got, Delaunay, Talbot, Plessy,
Reichemberg ; and the next night the Sphinx,
in which Croizette's acting was making much
sensation ; and the following night La belle

1874 VICTOR HUGO 263
Poule, a first representation, with Sara Bern
hardt. i/{th May. — Dined with Delaunay. He and
Mdlle. Reichemberg recited a scene from
L'Ecole des Maris, and also from La Fontaine
and Beranger.
i^th May. — Dined Mohls. Met Renan,
Leon Say, Delaroches.
i6th May. — Called on Victor Hugo, 21 Rue
de Clichy, upon a letter of introduction from
Sidney Colvin. The poet was on the verge of
a ddmdnagement, and could not receive us in his
accustomed way. But it was no matter to us
that his reception rooms were dismantled ; in
deed it was all the better for us, as we had him
to ourselves, only Madame  being present
besides. He was at this time a man of a kingly
presence, very erect, dignified in movement,
and if his face was not positively handsome, it
was very powerful — his wide brow, flashing
eyes, and firm -set mouth announced genius
and determination ; and his voice was resonant
and capable of the most varied expression. He
was very courteous, taking care to include each
of us — we were three — in his conversation.
After some general talk he asked my wife, who

264 GARRICK AND SHAKESPEARE 1874
was seated beside him, whether she cared for
plays, and she spoke to him of the Theatre
Frangais, and of the performance of Marion
de I'Orme. This led him on to some inquiries
as to existing English actors, and he spoke of
Macready, whom he had seen in Paris, with
admiration. He then spoke of Garrick, and
asked my wife whether she had read much
about him, and seen all the portraits of him.
She said. Yes, the records of him interested
her, but she had a quarrel with him, as he had
chosen, for purposes of his own, to create a
new Shakespeare, and almost obliterate the
original text, and lead the public to worship a
false god. Victor Hugo was excited by these
observations, followed them with enthusiasm,
and now and then substituted some more
forcible word for the one used by my wife ; and
finally, taking her hand in his, he said, " C'est
absolument vrai. Madame, vous etes une femme
charmante." The conversation was carried on
in French, for the poet could not speak English ;
it was long and varied in subject, and on his
part eloquent and striking — hardly less so than
are his writings.
igth June. — Wendell Holmes (son of Oliver,

1874 WENDELL HOLMES 265
and the colonel who was reported as killed in
the American Civil War ; now a judge in his
own country, and an accomplished jurist)
came to sit by my side in Judges' Chambers
to see our practice. Afterwards I took him
to see the Inner Temple Library, the Middle
Temple Hall, and the Public Record Office.
He was much moved by the sight of Domes
day Book. The Americans seem to feel more
reverence for our antiquities than we do our
selves, and indeed Domesday is an unique
historical record. Wendell Holmes came with
his agreeable wife to breakfast with us a few
days afterwards.
i8^'^ December. — I was appointed Queen's
Remembrancer by Mr. Disraeli, in succession
to my good friend and colleague. Sir William
Henry Walton, who had held the post for seven
teen years, and retired from that and his Master's
place in the Court of Exchequer, in which his ser
vice had been much longer, carrying with him the
regrets and good wishes of all who knew him, and
receiving the well-earned honour of knighthood.
As one of the Commissioners whose labours
and recommendations led to the framing and
passing of the Common Law Procedure Acts of

266 SIR W. H. WALTON 1874
1852 and 1854, and one or two which followed
them, he did admirable service in giving most
important aid towards perfecting measures of
legal reform, in the subsequent working of
which there was nothing but success to be
recorded. This happy result was largely due
to the composition of the Commission, which
embraced judges, counsel, solicitors, and, in the
person of Walton, a most able and experienced
representative of the official experience, naturally
most conversant with the daily routine and prac
tice of Common Law business. It was thought
proper to pursue a different course in the pre
paration of the more recent Judicature Acts.
From the beginning the Common Law Pro
cedure Acts worked smoothly, with no increase
of costs to the suitors, with no excessive mul
tiplication of appeals, with no derangement
of the circuits, or interference with the due
despatch of business in London ; and their
success was firmly established in fewer months
than the years during which the Judicature
Acts have been in operation. With all the
merit which must be conceded to the latest
efforts of legal reform, in having remedied the
strange anomaly of having two sets of tribunals

1874 QUEEN'S REMEMBRANCER 267
not guided by the same rules of law, and of
opening the way to future simplifications and
further reductions of establishments and public
expenditure, it cannot be denied that they have
created many fresh evils in the process of
endeavouring to find a complete remedy for old
ones. The recent history of the ancient office of
Queen's Remembrancer, which dates at least
from the reign of Henry 1 1., is a curious
one. Up to the year 1823 it was held
by the Right Hon. Thomas Steele, who had
been one of Pitt's right-hand men, and was
long one of the secretaries of the Treasury.
It was not a sinecure, but the actual duties
were performed by deputy, and it may be pre
sumed that the bulk of the fees received went
to the titular holder of the office. Upon the
death of Steele in 1823 the office was conferred
upon Mr. Henry Vincent, then private secretary
to Mr. Herries at the Treasury, in the view, as
was understood, of its immediate modification,
but he continued to hold it with a fixed salary
until 1857. It was then provided by a special
Act regulating the office that it should hence
forth be held, to borrow an ecclesiastical phrase.

268 DUTIES OF THE OFFICE 1874
in commendam with a Mastership in the Ex
chequer ; the Master to be selected by the
Treasury, and to be remunerated by an addi
tional amount of salary. On the passing of the
Judicature Acts, when the three old Common
Law Courts were merged in one as the Queen's
Bench, it was provided that the office of Queen's
Remembrancer should be held by the Senior
Master for the time being, and so the matter
now stands.
I have so often been asked to tell what
are the duties of the Queen's Remembrancer
by ladies and others who do not study blue-
books and Acts of Parliament, that I may as
well now try to describe them. The Queen's
Remembrancer is at the head of the department
which has charge of all Revenue suits, formerly
belonging to the old Court of Exchequer, and
now transferred to the Queen's Bench. These
would comprise all proceedings by the Crown for
the recovery of income and assessed taxes, suc
cession, legacy, and probate duties, or for the
recovery of land or rents due to the Crown.
The preparation of the lists of sheriffs for the
counties of England and Wales, for use in
Court on the Morrow of St. Martin, and of

i874 CITY QUIT RENTS 269
the parchment rolls to be pricked by the
Queen, and other matters pertaining to the
execution of the office of sheriff, also belong
to the department of the Queen's Remem
brancer. It is the duty, too, of that officer,
as has been already incidentally mentioned,
to attend at the nomination of sheriffs
on the Morrow of St. Martin. There are
also some interesting duties to be performed,
but of a far less onerous and responsible
nature. He has to attend as the officer of the
Queen's Bench when the Lord Mayor
makes his appearance on the 9th of Novem
ber every year to take the declaration of
office, in recent times substituted for the
ancient oath. He also represents the old
Court of Exchequer upon the occasion of
the city of London doing suit and service,
in discharge of quit rents, for certain land and
tenements anciently held under the Crown —
a ceremony which was formerly performed in
open court before all the Barons, and in more
recent times before an abolished official called
the Cursitor Baron, but which now takes place in
the Queen's Remembrancer's room. The City
Solicitor produces horse-shoes and nails, which

270 CIVIC HOSPITALITIES 1874
he counts in respect of a forge which formerly
existed near St. Clement Danes in the Strand ;
and chops representative faggots with an axe
and a bill-hook. In respect of certain land in
Shropshire. Probably the ancient tenures were
by the actual services of shoeing one or more
of the king's horses annually, and of providing
a certain quantity of firewood for the king. It
is a very curious and interesting survival, and
is almost the only one of the actual rendering
of old feudal services. The flags annually sent
to the Queen from Blenheim and Strathfieldsay
are, of course, of the creation of modern times,
and belong to the species of tenure formerly
known as " Grand Serjeantry." I trust that I
was considered by the authorities of the city of
London to have properly discharged the duties
which brought me into connection with them,
and I shall always feel deeply grateful for the
hospitable return made to me by the constant
invitations with which I was favoured during
my time of office — to the Guildhall banquet on
Lord Mayor's day, to the dinner given to the
Judges at the Mansion House, and to other
municipal festivities. The dinner on the 9th
November in the Guildhall is one of the finest and

1874 GUILDHALL BANQUET 271
grandest entertainments that can be imagined,
with its hundreds of guests in full dress entertained
in that magnificent hall, and the unique interest
it has enjoyed for so many years in the presence
of the Ministers for the time being, and the
expectation that some indications of political
intentions will be afforded on the occasion.
The speeches which it was my good fortune
to hear made on these occasions by Disraeli
were admirable specimens of after-dinner speak
ing, and were delivered with an air of high
comedy about them which made them delightful
to listen to. But in the Guildhall, as in so many
smaller places where there is less excuse for it,
one had with most of the speakers to complain
of their not being audible. Now, I venture to
hold that every man who has to speak in public,
whether after dinner or on other occasions,
ought to take some amount of pains, by pre
vious exercise and instruction, to secure the
comfort of his audience by being easily heard,
and to save himself from the interruptions
and hints to stop which I have so often seen
ludicrously mistaken for applause. This is
within the reach of every one with the natural
gifts of speech, and who is free from vocal

272 TRIAL OF THE pyX 1874
weakness and defects, and it ought to be done,
or at least attempted.
Another very pleasant function incident to
the office of Queen's Remembrancer was that
of presiding at the annual Trial of the Pyx,
held at Goldsmiths' Hall. In former times
the trials of the purity of the coinage were
held at uncertain intervals, and at distances of
several years. All the specimen coins put into
the Pyx or box appropriated for the purpose
were then produced at Westminster, from the
Treasure-house in the Abbey, where the Pyx
was kept, and a jury of goldsmiths being sworn,
they assayed and weighed the gold and silver
coins, frequently under the presidence of the
Sovereign in person. Once Prince Rupert
presided, and from his fondness for scientific
pursuits he must have taken great interest in
the proceedings. During the last century, and
for the first half of the present one, the jury
were sworn before the Lord Chancellor for the
time being, or sometimes before an Archbishop.
Upon one occasion Mr. Pitt presided as Chan
cellor of the Exchequer. Under the provisions
of the existing Coinage Act the trial of the Pyx
now occurs annually at Goldsmiths' Hall, which

i874 GOLDSMITHS' HALL 273
offers all necessary conveniences for the pro
cesses of assaying and weighing the coins. The
appointment of the presiding officer rests with
the Treasury, and under the present system the
Queen's Remembrancer has always been the
officer so appointed. The precision to which
the purity of the gold and silver coinage, in
accordance with the prescribed standards, has
been brought is a marvel of accuracy; and
during all the time that I had to sign and re
turn the verdict of the Pyx jury to the Treasury,
it went on improving until there was no further
room for improvement. The day's proceedings
always closed with a very pleasant function of
civic hospitality in the form of a dinner in
Goldsmiths' Hall, where those who had
been at work during the morning had their
labours recognised by special toasts in their
honour, to which the chief officials of the Mint
were invited, and which was often graced by
the presence of the Chancellor of the Ex
chequer or other Ministers. In two or three
years one got to know all the usual guests and
many of the entertainers, and it became to me
one of the most truly festive and agreeable
dinners of the season. The year after I quitted
VOL. II T

274 A DOWAGER 1874
office the Goldsmiths' Company were so good as
again to ask me to this dinner, and I accepted
their invitation with great pleasure, to meet all
my old friends once more in the character of
Dowager Queen's Remembrancer.

THE END

Printed ^i- R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

; UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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