EMINENT PERSONS EMINENT PEKSONS BIOGKAPHIES REPRINTED FROM THE TIMES VOLUME III 1882 1886 3L0nHon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK AND I;e ^imc0 OFFICE, PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE 1893 All rights reserved PAGE CHAKLES EGBERT DARWIN ..... 1 GENERAL GARIBALDI ...... 12 DR. PUSEY . . . . . .42 THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY .... 65 LEON GAMBETTA ...... 80 PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF ...... 98 SIR GEORGE JESSEL ...... 110 THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD . . . .119 MR. CHENERY . . (fio^ry ' PV* oss and Self -Fertilisation of Plants (1876) and that on the Forms of Flowers (1878), and various papers in scientific publica- tions on the agency of insects in fertilisation, opened up a new field, which in his own hands and the hands of his numerous disciples have led to results of the greatest interest and the greatest influence on a knowledge of the ways of plants. Other works belonging to this category are those On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, Insectivorous Plants, and The Movements of Plants (1881), all of which opened up perfectly fresh fields of investigation, and shed light on the most intimate workings of nature. Mr. Darwin's influence in these, as in others of his works, has acted like an inspira- tion, leading men to follow methods and attain results which a quarter of a century ago were beyond the scope of the most fantastic dream. But perhaps the works with which the name of Mr. Darwin is most intimately associated in popular estimation, and indeed the works which have had the deepest influence on the tendencies of modern thought and research in those departments in which humanity is most deeply interested, are those bearing on the natural history of man. Nine years after the publication of the Origin of Species, appeared (1868), in two volumes, the great collection of instances and experiments bearing on the Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication. We have called this a collection of facts, and the same term might be applied, with greater or less exactness, to all the other works of Mr. Darwin. This is the characteristic Darwinian method. Years and years are spent in the accumulation of facts with open- minded watchfulness as to the tendency of the results. The expressed inferences in Mr. Darwin's works are few ; he piles instance on instance and experiment on experiment, and, almost invariably, the conclusion to which he comes seems but the expression of the careful and unbiassed reader's own thought. Nowhere is this more signally evident than in the work on Domesticated Animals and Plants. 8 EMINENT PERSONS The results which were brought out in those volumes were full of significance, while at the same time they afforded abundant occasion for the opponents of Darwinism to scoff and pour harmless contempt on the whole line of inquiry, forgetting or wilfully shutting their eyes to the fact that the results which Mr. Darwin showed were possible on a small scale bore no proportion to the gigantic efforts of nature through untold ages. The chapters on Inheritance in this work were full of signi- ficance, and seemed a natural transition to the work which followed three years later (1871) The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Even greater consternation was caused in many circles by the publication of this work than by the Origin of Species. And the reason of this is obvious. Not only did it seem directly to assail the amour propre of humanity, but to imperil some of its most deeply-cherished beliefs. With wonderful rapidity, however, did men of all shades of belief manage to reconcile themselves to the new and disturbing factor introduced into the sphere of scientific and philosophical speculation. All sorts of half-way refuges were sought for and found by those whose mental comfort was threatened, and, again, as before, there was little difficulty in finding a modus vivendi between two sets of doctrines that at first sight seemed totally irreconcilable. After all, what have the highest aspirations of mankind to fear from the investigations and speculations of a man who is capable of writing as Mr. Darwin does in the concluding pages of his Descent of Man 1 " Important as the struggle for existence has been, and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of man's nature is concerned, there are other agencies more important. For the moral qualities .are advanced either directly or indirectly, much more through the effects of habit, the reasoning powers, instruction, religion, etc., than through natural selection ; though to this latter agency may be safely attributed the social instincts which afforded the basis for the development of the moral sense. . . . For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, treats CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 9 his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstition. Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale ; and the fact of his having thus risen instead of having been aboriginally placed there may give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason permits us to discern it ; and I have given the evidence to the best of my ability. We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men, but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect, which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system with all these exalted powers, man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his low origin." Among scientific men themselves, among those who welcomed the Darwinian method and the distinctive doctrines of Darwin- ism, none of the master's works have probably met with more criticism than that on the Descent of Man. Not that the naturalists of the highest standing have any hesitation in accepting the general principles illustrated in the Descent of Man ; the ablest and most candid biologists admit that in that direction the truth seems to lie ; but that the various stages are so incomplete, the record is so imperfect, that before stereo- typing their beliefs it would be wise to wait for more light. The general conclusion is not doubted, but how it has been reached by nature is by no means evident. And in this connection we cannot do better than quote the words of Professor Huxley in the lecture already alluded to, and which, we are sure, Mr. Darwin himself would have endorsed with all his strength : " History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions ; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the Origin of Species with as little reflection, and, it may be, with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries twenty years ago rejected them. Against any 10 EMINENT PERSONS such a consummation let us all devoutly pray ; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally-held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. Now, the essence of the scientific spirit is criticism. It tells us that to whatever doctrine claiming our assent we should reply, ' Take it if you can compel it.' The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals." As a sort of side issue of the Descent of Man, and as throwing light upon the doctrines developed therein, with much more of independent interest and suggestiveness, The Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals was published in 1872. This is, perhaps, the most amusing of Mr. Darwin's works, while at the same time it is one which evidently involved observation and research of the most minute and careful kind. It is one, moreover, which shows how continually and instinctively the author was on the watch for instances that were likely to have any bearing on the varied lines of his researches. To attempt to reckon up the influence which Mr. Darwin's multifarious work has had upon modern thought and modern life in all its phases seems as difficult a task as it would be to count the number and trace the extent of the sound-waves from a park of artillery. The impetus he has given to science, not only in his own, but in other departments, can only find a parallel in Newton. Through his influence the whole method of seeking after knowledge has been changed, and the increasing rapidity with which the results are every day developed becomes more and more bewildering. To what remote corners in religion, in legislation, in education, in everyday life, from Imperial Assemblies and venerable Universities to humble board schools and remote Scottish manses, the impetus initiated on board the " Beagle " and developed at the quiet and comfortable home at Beckenham has reached, those who are in the whirl and sweep of it are not in a position to say. Under the immediate influence of the sad loss we can only state a few obvious facts and make a few quite as obvious reflections ; in time we may be able to realise how great a man now belongs to the past. That Mr. Darwin's work was not done nor his capacity for work exhausted was well enough seen in his recently-published work on Worms ; and with the help of his able and congenial sons, Mr. George CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 11 and Mr. Francis Darwin, we might have hoped for one or two more of the familiar green-covered volumes. Honours and medals were showered upon Mr. Darwin by learned societies all the world over ; from Germany, where his disciples, led by Hackel, have out-Darwined Darwin, he received a Knighthood of the Prussian Order of Merit. GENEKAL GARIBALDI OBITUARY NOTICE, SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1882 GENERAL GARIBALDI died at Caprera at half-past six o'clock last evening. The last hero of the heroic age of New Italy is no more the most popular, the most legendary, the most blameless ; the one who, had he, like Cavour, died at the opportune moment, would have been deemed absolutely without fault, and, therefore, superhuman and fabulous. As a consolation to the mediocrity of the common run of mortals, there was a weak side in Gari- baldi's nature. There was shade enough enhancing and relieving the light of the picture to make it lifelike. Men have spoken of the " ass's head linked to the lion's heart." Garibaldi could afford to acknowledge the correctness of the taunt ; but he was not accountable for the asinine part of his composition. Like all other men, he was the offspring of circumstance. He could not emancipate himself from the influences of his early training. His sympathies were too strong to resist the ascendency of his surroundings. He had all the lion's instincts ; not merely the headlong courage, but the far nobler qualities of the magna- nimity, the placability, the self-denial attributed to the idealised king of the animals. His impulses were all generous, his judgment naturally sound, his motives invariably upright, his conscience unerring. His deficiency was in good, stout self-reli- ance. He suffered the blanks which his imperfect education had left in his mind to be filled up by unsafe counsellors. He thought with other men's brains ; but he never was misled by bad advice to the extent of blinding himself to better suggestions. He was at all times amenable to reason, always ready, if not humbly to acknowledge an error, at least bravely to repair it. GENERAL GARIBALDI 13 All his deeds will bear criticism ; happy if he had spoken less and written nothing ! Garibaldi has not left the world without some account of his birth, parentage, and early life. Not a little of his great, naive, and enthusiastic character may be studied in those Memoires, of which his eccentric friend, Alexandre Dumas, published a free translation. He was born 22nd July 1807. He was a native of Nice, a city inhabited by a mongrel race, but himself sprung from a purely Italian family. The name of Garibaldi, common enough throughout North Italy, betokens old Lombard descent. He first saw light, as he states, in the very house and room where, forty-nine years before, Massena was born. His father, Domenico, had come from Chiavari, in the Riviera di Levante ; he gives his mother's name, Rosa Ragiundo. Garibaldi's father and grandfather were seamen, and he took to the sea as his native element, developing great strength and skill as a swimmer, an accomplishment which enabled him to save drowning men on several memorable occasions. For what book learning he had he seems to have been indebted to the desultory lessons of priestly schoolmasters under the direction of his mother. Of this latter he always spoke with great tenderness, acknowledging that "to her inspiration he owed his patriotic feelings," and stating that "in his greatest dangers by land and sea, his imagination always conjured up the picture of the pious woman prostrated at the feet of the Most High interceding for the safety of her beloved." In early life he embarked in his father's merchant vessel, a brig, and in that and other craft he made frequent voyages to Odessa, Rome, and Constantinople. Soon after the revolution- ary movements of 1831 he was at Marseilles, where he fell in with Mazzini, busy at that time with the organisation of " Young Italy " and with the preparations for an invasion of Italy by sea, which, upon Mazzini's expulsion from Marseilles, was attempted at Geneva, and directed against the Savoy frontier. The Savoy expedition turned out an egregious failure, the blame of which Garibaldi, on Mazzini's statement, throws on the Polish General Ramorino's treachery. Garibaldi himself, who had embarked on board the royal frigate "Euridice" to gain possession of that vessel by a mutiny of the crew, being off Genoa, and hearing of a plot to storm the barracks of the Carabinieri, landed in the town to join it ; but the attack upon 14 EMINENT PERSONS the barracks miscarried, and he, not daring to go back to his ship, saw himself irreparably compromised, fled to Nice, and thence crossed the Var and found himself an exile at Marseilles. Here he betook himself again to his sea life, sailed for the Black Sea and for Tunis, and at last on board the " Nageur," of Nantes, for Rio de Janeiro. In the commentaries before alluded to, Garibaldi gives the fullest particulars of the exploits by which he rose to distinction beyond the Atlantic during the twelve years elapsing from his leaving Europe in 1836 to his return to Italy in 1848. It is the romance of his career, and will some day be wrought into an epic blending the charms of the Odyssey with those of the Iliad a battle and a march being the theme of the eventful tale almost from beginning to end. Garibaldi took service with the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul, a vast territory belonging to Brazil, then in open rebellion and war against that Empire. He took the command of a privateer's boat with a crew of twelve men, to which he gave the name of " Mazzini," and by the aid of which he soon helped himself to a larger and better-armed vessel, a prize taken from the enemy. In his many encounters with the Imperial or Brazilian party the hero bought experience both of wonderfully propitious and terribly adverse fortune, and had every imagin- able variety of romantic adventure and hairbreadth escapes. He was severely wounded, taken prisoner, and in one instance, at Gualeguay, in the Argentine territory, he found himself in the power of one Leonardo Millan, a type of Spanish South- American brutality, by whom he was savagely struck in the face with a horsewhip, submitted to several hours' rack and torture, and thrown into a dungeon in which his sufferings were soothed by the ministration of that " angel of charity," a woman, by name Madame Alleman. Escaping from his tormentor by the intervention of the Governor of Gualeguay, Paolo Echague, Garibaldi crossed from the territories of the Plate into those of the Rio Grande, and faithful to the cause of that Republic he fought with better success, winning battles, storming fortresses, standing his ground with a handful of men, or even single-handed, against incredible odds, beating strong squadrons with a few small vessels, giving through all proofs of the rarest disinterestedness, humanity, and generosity, disobeying orders to sack and ravage vanquished GENERAL GARIBALDI 15 cities, and exercising that mixture of authority and glamour over his followers which almost enabled him to dispense with the ties of stern rule and discipline. At last, after losing a flotilla in a hurricane on the coast of Santa Caterina, where he landed wrecked and forlorn, having seen his bravest and most cherished Italian friends shot down or drowned, he fell in with his Anita not, apparently, the first fair one for whom he had a passing fancy with whom he united his destinies, for better for worse, in life and till death, in some off-hand manner, about which he is reticent and mysterious. Anita turned out almost as great and daring and long-enduring a being as her heroic mate, and was by his side in all fights by land and sea, till the fortunes of the Republic of Rio Grande declined, when, after giving birth to her first-born, Menotti Garibaldi, 16th September 1840, she went with that infant and his father through unheard- of hardships and dangers in the disastrous retreat of Las Antas ; when at last Garibaldi, beginning to feel the responsibilities of a growing family, and despairing of the issues of an ill-con- ducted war, took leave of his Republican friends at Rio Grande and went for a short respite in his adventurous career to Montevideo. After trying on the journey to find employment as a cattle drover, Garibaldi settled at Montevideo in the capacity of a general broker and teacher of mathematics ; but, war having broken out between the Republic of the Uruguay and Buenos Ayres, the Condottiere was solicited to draw his sword for the former State which afforded him hospitality, and was trusted with the command of a little squadron destined to operate on the Parana river against a largely superior Argentine force. This expedition was contrived by enemies high in power in the Monte videan Government, who, jealous of the reputation won by Garibaldi at Rio Grande, vainly plotted to have him assassin- ated with his friend Anzani, and hoped to rid themselves of him by exposing him to dangers from which it seemed impossible that he could extricate himself. Garibaldi, however, made the best of his desperate position, and escaped, not only with his life, but also with " honour the only thing that was not lost." Presently, danger pressing sorely on the Republic, he organised his Italian Legion, which behaved well through a new series of land and sea combats, its band of only 400 combatants often beating the enemy's corps 600 men strong, at the close 16 EMINENT PERSONS of which exploits its soldiers refused grants of land offered to them by a grateful State, " the stimulus of their exertions," as their commander said, " being only the triumph of the Republi- can cause." The Legion was afterwards, as a mark of honour, allowed precedence over all the other troops of the Eepublic. The war continued, and under the auspices of their commander the soldiers of the Italian Legion rose to such distinction that at the affairs of the Boyada and of Salto Sant' Antonio, February 1846, Garibaldi was empowered to write to the Government of the Kepublic that the brilliant successes of those deeds of arms were entirely due to their gallantry. Meanwhile, however, news from Europe came to turn the attention of Italian patriots to the momentous events which were rapidly changing the conditions of the Peninsula. Years had passed. Pius IX. was Pope ; Sicily had risen in open and successful revolt ; a Republic had been proclaimed in France ; Constitutions were being wrested from the reluctant hands of most European despots. Austria was convulsed with insur- rectionary attempts ; the Milanese drove Radetzky from their city after five days' fighting, and Charles Albert unfurled the national standard and crossed the Ticino. The theatre of the exploits of the hero of Montevideo was soon changed. All who had a heart and soul in Italy were up and doing, and could Italy's greatest heart and soul remain beyond seas ? Garibaldi, on the first reports of the Pope's liberal leanings, wrote to the Nuncio Bedini at Montevideo, 17th October 1847, offering the services of the Italian Legion to His Holiness, who was now almost on the eve of a war with Austria, " although," the letter said, " the writer was well aware that St. Peter's throne rests on a solid basis proof against all human attacks, and needing no mortal defenders." The Nuncio returned thanks and praises and referred Garibaldi's tender to the Pontifical Government at Rome. But Garibaldi, never well disposed to losing time, after vainly waiting for further communication from Pope or Nuncio, brooked no longer delay. With incredible difficulty he scraped together money and means, and embarked with his brave friend Anzani (who died at Genoa soon after landing), having with him only eighty-five men and two cannon, and leaving the remainder of his Legion to follow when and how it could. He crossed the ocean, landed at Nice, proceeded to Genoa and Milan, and when Charles Albert, de- GENERAL GARIBALDI 17 feated at Custozza, withdrew from the Lombard city and accepted an armistice which saved Piedmont from invasion, August 1848, Garibaldi passed over to Mazzini, and at the head of a volunteer force, of which Mazzini was the standard- bearer, issued a manifesto in which he proclaimed the Sardinian king a traitor, and declared that " the royal war was at an end, and that of the people was now to begin." That proclamation was, however, only an idle bravado. Mazzini, even if he had the spirit, lacked the physical strength of a fighting man. The Garibaldians, on hearing the news of the fall of Milan, lost heart, and many crossed over the frontier to Switzerland. With thinned and dispirited bands, Garibaldi, aided by his friend Medici, ventured on a few desultory fights near Luino, on Lake Maggiore, but soon fell back and withdrew to Lugano in the Canton Ticino, his health, it is said, breaking down, and his immediate followers being reduced to some 300. A few months later, Pius IX., fallen from his popularity and pressed hard by hia disaffected subjects, who murdered his Minister and almost stormed him in his palace at the Quirinal, ran away to Gae'ta, and a Roman Republic was proclaimed, of which Mazzini, in a triumvirate with two others, mere men of straw, became the head. Attacked by the French in flagrant violation of all rights of nations, Rome undertook to defend itself, and whatever Italy could boast of generous hearts, regardless of party differences, rallied round Garibaldi, who drove back the French from Porta Pancrazio, 29th and 30th April 1849, defeated the Neapolitans in that campaign of Velletri, which was like the farce contrasting with the tragic drama soon to be acted at Rome, and withstood a three months' siege in which many of the noblest champions of the Italian cause lavished their lives in a hopeless, yet, as it proved, not a fruitless struggle. The French having gained possession of the city, 13th July 1849, Garibaldi left it with a band of devoted volunteers, retired via Terni and Orvieto, gathering together about 2000 men in his progress, crossed the Apennines, pressed by the Austrians with overwhelming forces, sought a refuge at San Marino, gave the enemy the slip in the night, embarked at Cesenatico for Venice, which was still withstanding the Austrian siege, was met by four Austrian men-of-war, which compelled him to put back and land on the coast near Ravenna, and wandered ashore VOL. Ill C 18 EMINENT PERSONS in the woods, where Anita, his inseparable companion in this disastrous march, though in the same interesting state as she was on the retreat of Las Antas at Rio Grande, succumbed to the fatigues of the journey, and expired in the hero's arras. Garibaldi's devoted friends Ugo Bassi and Ciceruacchio, falling into the hands of the Austrians, were shot by them without any forms of trial and by an act of barbarism which no human or divine law could justify. The heartbroken hero, with a few trusty men, made his way from the Adriatic to the Mediter- ranean, was arrested by the Sardinian Carabinieri at Chiavari, conveyed to Genoa, where La Marmora was in command, and there embarked for Tunis ; hence, finding nowhere a refuge, he proceeded to the Island of La Maddalena, off the shore of Sardinia, and hence again to Gibraltar and Tangier. Our theme is Garibaldi, and we have neither time nor leisure to do more than sum up those pages of Italian history in which his name occurs almost at every line. Up to the close of this first dolorous episode of 1848-49, Garibaldi had shown himself a patriot rather than a partisan. His first application was to a Pope and a King, and he had evinced no relentless enmity to the monarchic principle. He arrived in Lombardy when Charles Albert had been overpowered, not so much by Radetzky as by Mazzini, a monomaniac, who though himself at first showing no reluctance to come to terms with a King, never forgave that King his unwillingness to attempt impossibilities, and who was determined that there should never be an Italy unless it could be made into a Republic with a Mazzinian dictatorship. That Republic was proclaimed at Rome, and Garibaldi joined it ; but even at that juncture he himself, and Medici and Bixio, and others, were Italians before they were Republicans ; and among the noblest combatants, Manara, the Dandolos, and others, who lavished their blood like water, made no parade of their democracy, and would have looked upon any bigoted political exclusiveness as arrant treason to the national cause. With the exception of Mazzini himself and of some obscure men anxious to shine by such lurid light as emanated from him, the Italians soon proved that they were of one mind on the subject. With respect to Garibaldi himself, there is ample evidence that it AVOS, in his sane moments, his country and not his party that was uppermost in his thoughts. Some letters of La GENERAL GARIBALDI 19 Marmora lately published in the Italian papers bear witness to the mutual esteem and sympathy that sprang up between those two brave men, when Garibaldi, soon after the fall of Rome and the loss of Anita, was brought before the General then in command of that city by the Carabinieri to whom he had in his helplessness surrendered as prisoner. La Marmora received the heartbroken fugitive as a brother, supplied him with ample means for his journey to Tunis, and obtained for him from the Turin Government the assignment of an honour- able pension, which Garibaldi did not in his straits disdain to accept. But, in his opinion, all seemed now over for Italy ; Charles Albert's son, Victor Emmanuel, after the defeat of Novara, had made his peace with Austria in March 1849. Venice had succumbed after heroic sufferings in August, and Garibaldi, again crossing the ocean, settled at New York as a tallow chandler, and only came back to Europe in 1855. When Garibaldi returned from America he did not look out for Mazzini or his Eepublicans in England or Switzerland, but sought a home in Piedmont, a Constitutional State, which allowed him an obscure but peaceful retreat in his hermitage at Caprera, an island rock on the Sardinian coast near the Maddalena, conveying to him a hint that the time might soon come in which his country's cause would summon him from his retirement. And, truly, four years later (1859) the destinies of Italy were nearing their fulfilment. France and Piedmont took the field against Austria. Garibaldi, leaving his island home, swore fealty to Victor Emmanuel as the best of Republics, took the command of the Chasseurs des Alpes, aided the royal army in its defence of the territory previous to the arrival of its great French auxiliary, and, following in the upper region a line parallel to that kept in the plain by the conquest of Palestro, Magenta, and Solferino, beat the Austrians at Varese and San Fermo, bewildered his adversary Urban by the rashness of his movements on the mountains above Como, advanced upon Bergamo and Brescia, and pushed on to the Valtellina up to the very summit of the Stelvio Pass. Here the peace of Villafranca put an end to the struggle, and Garibaldi, afflicted by the arthritic pains to which he was a martyr all his life, travelled for a few days' rest to Tuscany and Genoa. At Genoa, during the autumn and winter, Garibaldi, hospit- ably entertained by his friend Augusto Vecchi outside the city, 20 EMINENT PERSONS busied himself with that expedition of " the Thousand " which made one State of the South and North of Italy. He embarked on the llth of May 1860 at Genoa, landed at Marsala, beat the Neapolitans at Calatafimi, followed up his success to Palermo, and, aided by the insurgent city, compelled the garrison to surrender. He again routed the Bourbon troops at Milazzo, and had soon the whole island at his discretion, with the excep- tion of the citadel of Messina. He then crossed over into Calabria, and, almost without firing a shot, drove the Nea- politan King's troops before him all over the mainland, compelled the King to abandon the strong pass of La Cava and to withdraw his forces from his capital, where Garibaldi, with only a few of his staff, made his triumphal entry on the 7th of September 1860. After a few days' rest Garibaldi followed the disheartened King to Capua, obtained new signal successes on the Volturno, at Santa Maria, and Caserta ; but would probably have been unable to accomplish the enterprise had not the Piedmontese, whose Government had aided Garibaldi's expedition while pretending to oppose it, overrun the Marches, beaten La- moriciere and the Papal forces at Castel Fidardo, and, crossing the frontier and the Apennines, besieged and reduced the strong places of Capua and Gaeta. Garibaldi, who, as dictator, had with doubtful success endeavoured to establish something like rule in the Two Sicilies, aware of the arduousness of a task which would have exceeded many wiser men's powers, met the King at Naples, delivered the two kingdoms into his hands, and, declining all the proffered honours and emoluments for himself, took leave of his Sovereign and embarked for the solitude of his rock-farm at Caprera. This was the hero's crowning glory, and had he been wrecked on the voyage or landed with an unshaken deter- mination never to revisit the mainland, his achievements would have gone dowii to posterity as a myth, hardly second to the deeds of the ancient demigods ; and he would have been free from the alloy of the earthly passions which in almost all cases degraded their divine nature. But Garibaldi was elected a Deputy, and was over-persuaded to meet in Parliament adver- saries of a different nature from those he had been wont to encounter in the field. The discussion on the cession of his native city, Nice, to France, and the Bill for the amalgamation GENERAL GARIBALDI 21 of his volunteer forces into the royal army with a confirmation of the rank which he had in his sore need often too recklessly lavished on them, seemed to him to establish the necessity of his appearing in his place in the Chamber of Deputies. But a wrestling match with Cavour, or even with Cialdini, was no task for the debating powers of the blunt hero of Calatafimi. Overwhelmed by the strong logic of the Minister and by the less generous sarcasm of the rival warrior, Garibaldi withdrew to his lodgings, where more rational and trusty advisers pre- vailed upon him to give up the contest and go back to the solitude which he should never have quitted. But Cavour died ; Eicasoli forfeited the King's good graces, and the slippery Rattazzi acceded to power. Confronted by a hostile majority, he came to terms with the revolutionary party of the Left by engaging to supply Garibaldi with one million francs for an expedition against the Austrians at Venice. The Venetian enterprise turned out hopeless, and Garibaldi, abandoning it, listened to schemers who suggested a rescue of Home from the French. Garibaldi landed with some partisans in Sicily, collected a few bands of picciotti, or raw youths, in the island, and crossed to Calabria, hoping soon to find himself at the head of a force sufficient to drive the French garrison from Rome. Rattazzi, who could not blind himself to the disasters which awaited so foolhardy an enterprise, sent the royal forces against its projector under Pallavicini, who attacked, wounded, and seized Garibaldi at Aspromonte, 29th August 1862, and sent him a prisoner for a few days to the fort of Varigliano at Spezzia, whence he was conveyed to Caprera. Great sympathy was felt for him in England, and he was attended in his illness by Mr. Partridge, the English surgeon, sent to Italy for the purpose. In April 1864 he paid a visit to the country which had manifested so keen an interest in his career, and was welcomed with enthusiasm alike by the English people and the English aristocracy, his reception cul- minating in a grand banquet given in his honour by the Lord Mayor and City of London. Aspromonte led to Rattazzi's downfall. A Ministry suc- ceeded which, by the September Convention of 1864, removed the seat of government to Florence and seemed to have renounced all Italy's pretensions to Rome, from which France engaged to withdraw her garrison. Two years later a war 22 EMINENT PERSONS between Prussia and Austria led to the deliverance of Venice. During this campaign of 1866 Garibaldi again appeared in the field as the King's soldier, and, at the head of several thousand volunteers, vainly attempted to force his way into the gorges of the Southern Tyrol. Beaten by the superior skill of the Austrian marksmen, wounded, and overcome by ill -health, he fell back soon after the disaster of Custozza, and was again fain to seek his retreat of Caprera. But, in the following year, the La Marmora - Ricasoli Government having been compelled to yield to the hostile feeling of the deeply -humiliated country, Eattazzi was again in the ascendant, and, refining upon Cavour's cunning, laid the plan for an attempt upon defenceless Rome, and, while for- warding it with all his might, pretended to combat it by all the means at his disposal. Rattazzi, a mere frog of a states- man, trusted he could swell himself up to the size of the ox, Cavour. He hoped either that his manoeuvres could hood- wink the Emperor Napoleon or that the sympathies of that vacillating monarch could be easily won over to the fulfilment of Italy's last wishes. Enlistments of men and distributions of arms were carried on throughout Italy and in the capital under the very eyes, with the connivance and, indeed, the co-opera- tion of the Government. Volunteers gathered on the borders of the shrunken Pontifical State under command of Garibaldi's son, Menotti. Garibaldi himself landed at Genoa, travelled about the country, came to Florence, and addressed the multi- tude in language of which the Government affected to condemn the violence and which led to the farce of the General's arrest at Sinalunga and his removal to Caprera, where his movements were watched by royal cruisers, which, however, he was allowed to evade, when the great blow was to be struck and his assist- ance was needed. Garibaldi again landed at Leghorn, joined the volunteer force on the Papal frontier, advanced upon Monterotondo, and there and at Mentana succumbed to the superior forces of the Pontifical army aided by a few French battalions landing to the Pope's rescue under De Failly, 3rd November 1867. Sick at heart and wounded in spirit, Garibaldi was sent back to Caprera, where, three years later, upon the French garrison being again removed from Rome in consequence of the disasters of the Franco-German war, which led to the Emperor GENERAL GARIBALDI 23 Napoleon's overthrow at Sedan, he had the mortification of seeing Rome broken into by the royal Italian army, and the dream of his youth, the completion of a united, free, and independent State in Italy, achieved without his having a hand in the final exploit. By a strange revulsion of feeling the revengeful ill-will he had long harboured against all-powerful Imperial France was changed to enthusiastic interest in the fate of fast -sinking, Eepublican France; and, appealing to the ready sympathies of adventurers used to follow him without questioning, he again issued forth from his island solitude, joined Gambetta at Tours on the 9th of October 1870, and was by him sent in command of Francs-Tireurs and Gardes Mobiles to the Vosges. He betook himself to Besangon, fought the Germans at Autun, was beaten back by Werder at Montbard, and finally altogether bewildered and out-generalled at Dijon. In return for his devotion to the cause of a country which had twice beaten him at Rome and robbed him of his native Nice, the good man was treated with insult and scorn by the Retro- gradist party, then in the ascendant at the Bordeaux Assembly, to which he had been returned a Deputy, and, shaking the dust from his feet, he went back a sadder if not a wiser man to Caprera, 20th February 1871. Three years later he reappeared on the political stage at Rome, where a seat in the Chamber of Deputies was always reserved for him, and where his friends of the Opposition, even after Rattazzi's death, looked up to him as the champion who should grapple with the strength of the majority supporting the Minghetti Administration and determine its fall. The Italian cause had by this time achieved its complete triumph, and pure, enlightened, honourable patriotism could well afford to retire from business. The country was rid of the foreigner from the Alps to the sea, and at Rome the Pope had been brought to that condition of a mere High Priest which modern civilisation clearly assigned to him. There were, properly speaking, no political parties in Italy, for an overwhelming majority in the country had from beginning to end unanimously agreed in their wishes for the emancipation of the country and for its unity as far as it seemed practicable. Even the most sincere and devout Catholics were so far anti- Clerical that they looked on the combination of the attributes of a Pope with those of a King as something out of date, 24 EMINENT PERSONS abnormal, and monstrous. In the Chamber of Deputies neither the absolute Retrogradists nor the Ultra - Democrats had any place, nor could any have lawfully been allowed to them, for the representatives of the people swore their oath to the King and the Constitution, and it could not be assumed that any one of them would perjure himself, though a few of them were certainly guilty of unworthy equivocation and mental reserve. There was, nevertheless, or there grew up at an early period, a division in the Italian Parliament. There were a Right and a Left, and in time, also, the usual subdivisions of Right and Left Centres ; a tendency to splitting, an agreement to disagree, being, indeed, inevitable and far from undesirable in all deliberative Assemblies. The Right in Italy was under the leadership of Cavour so long as the great statesman lived, and after his death of the most distinguished disciples of his school, Ricasoli, Farini, etc., many of whom were carried away by premature death, but some of whom, like Lanza, Sella, Minghetti, Visconti, Venosta, maintained the ascendency of their party, and governed, or, as their adversaries contended, "misgoverned," the country for sixteen years (1860 to 1875). The Opposition acknowledged as its chief Rattazzi, a man who had begun life as Cavour's friend, and had only seceded from him from personal motives, having, indeed, absolutely no policy, but who, when Cavour was no more, contrived, as we have seen, to snatch power by associating himself with the impatient patriots of the tout ou rien school. These set up the cries of "Roma e Venezia !" and "Roma o morte !" disdaining the temporising conduct of the Cavour school, which, while aiming at the same ends, still troubled themselves about the efficiency and adequacy of the means. Rattazzi's strength lay in his insincere and unavowed alliance with the Garibaldians, men like Crispi, Nicotera, Cairoli, and others, who like most Italians had been Mazzinians in their own time, but who, upon the annexa- tion of Italy to Piedmont, had rallied round the standard of Victor Emmanuel and repudiated Republicanism, protesting themselves Monarchists and declaring that, whether by legal or illegal means, they were only acting with and for the King. With the support of these men Rattazzi attempted what his adversaries denounced as impossibilities, and the results were Aspromonte and Montana, all those tragic episodes in which Garibaldi was called to play the protagonist, and which ended GENERAL GARIBALDI 25 witli his sorrowful retirement to Caprera, and with the igno- minious downfall of the Rattazzi Administration, leaving the work which they had bungled to be accomplished by the moderate followers of the Cavour policy, who attempted nothing impracticable, inspired greater confidence, and were more con- stantly favoured by fortune. But Rattazzi died in 1874, and his party, left to the guidance of Depretis and aware of its impotence, hoped to recover some strength by troubling Garibaldi's repose, bringing him to Rome, and reawakening the enthusiasm of the multitude by the prestige of the hero's name. Garibaldi, however, at this juncture dis- appointed both friends and foes. Like a political Balaam, eventually blessing those he had gone to curse, he declared that Italy was free and his work was done, that he renounced politics, and intended to spend his remaining days in works of public utility, and, to begin with, in an embankment of the Tiber and the drainage of the Campagna. He was, of course, immediately pounced upon by an army of sharp contractors and dreamy projectors, and bewildered by plans and schemes, for the very survey of which the funds were not forthcoming, he turned his back upon them all and revisited his rocky hermitage, whence it was fondly hoped that in later years no seductions of false friends would have any longer the power to move him. These sanguine anticipations were, however, doomed to fresh disillusion. The blunders of the Minghetti Administration, and the necessary instability of all Parliamentary institutions, led to a crisis, in which the Left party, availing itself of a split in the majority, managed to wriggle itself into office, under the pre- sidency of Depretis, in March 1876. Depretis, at the head of a feeble Left Centre, sought his strength in men of more advanced opinions, and especially in the so-called men of action, Crispi, Nicotera, Cairoli, and others, who had sided with Garibaldi in all his enterprises, and had either prepared the ground for his exploits or powerfully contributed to his successes. The various Ministerial combinations which followed one upon another under Depretis were soon discredited by their want of ability and energy, and by their despotic tendencies. They were hampered by the popular outcry for Radical measures, which they had favoured while in Opposition, but of which they found the fulfilment impracticable when in power. Unable to hold their ground on any intelligible policy, they endeavoured to win 26 EMINENT PERSONS popularity by timidly and hypocritically countenancing a vague patriotic agitation, and courting a half-hearted alliance with the worn-out and almost extinguished Mazzinians. Great and important events had occurred in the interval. Mazzini had ended in 1872, consistent with himself, conspiring in death against that Italy for which he had always conspired in his lifetime. The catastrophe which in January 1878 carried off Victor Emmanuel a few days before the decease of Pope Pius IX. had given full demonstration that the Savoy dynasty and the monarchic principle were based in Italy on a rock of popular gratitude which neither Clerical Obscurantism nor rampant Republicanism had power to shake. Between Garibaldi and Mazzini no great cordiality had existed even at Eome during the Republic of 1849, as Mazzini, jealous of the hero's popularity, had unjustly placed Roselli above him in command of the Velletri expedition, a preference to which Garibaldi had not been insensible, although he professed in his Memoirs that he was " inaccessible to all such questions of amour propre," and that "had he been allowed to draw his sword even as a mere soldier against his country's enemy, he would gladly have served in. the ranks -;of the Bersaglieri," and that he, therefore, " accepted with gratitude the rank of a General of Division." Since then the two great patriots had followed a diverging course ; Garibaldi, though still professing himself a Republican, faithfully followed the royal standard, while Mazzini held up the red flag till the merest shred of it was left. Garibaldi, besides, in the hopeless confusion through which he strove to solve to his satisfaction social problems which puzzled the best- organised brains, had happened to clash with some of the views entertained by the no less perplexed but ultra-mystical Mazzini, with respect to the definition of the various tendencies of Socialism and Communism ; so that some sharp skirmishing had gone on between them and between their respective partisans, which, without interfering with the mutual esteem of the leaders, had widened the estrangement long existing between them. The Mazzinian party, now reduced to a few scribblers in the Dovere and the Unita Italiana poor creatures who clung to the great man's coat-skirts, and hoped to shine by his reflected light to a few transcendent enthusiasts like the high-gifted Aurelio Saffi, the upright-minded Nicola Fabrizi, and the hot- headed Bertani, Cavallotti, and others, after vainly trying to GENERAL GARIBALDI 27 interest the public on such subjects as universal suffrage, right of meeting, and other democratic measures, set up a clamour for the Italia Irredenta, a matter on which such Garibaldians as Cairoli, Crispi, and Nicotera were compromised by all their precedents. That Italian unity was incomplete so long as any territory geographically or nationally belonging to the Peninsula was in the foreigner's hands was a notion scouted by all men of sense ; and even the highly-respected Garibaldian, Nino Bixio, was invariably " coughed down " in the Chamber whenever he ventured to touch on that dangerous topic. That Trent and the valley of the Adige were purely Italian, and that the posses- sion of this district would considerably add to the strength of the frontier, no one would deny ; but the same principle would be equally applicable to the Canton Ticino, which belongs to Switzerland, and to Mentone and Eoccabruna, which France usurped in 1860, when Napoleon III. declared that the crest of the Alps should define the boundary line between his own empire and Victor Emmanuel's kingdom. To go to war for such mere slips of land as these would be too great a stretch of insanity for even the most reckless Radical government, while, as to Trieste, neither local interests nor practical geographical expediency, nor even ethnical considerations, could ever advise the separation of that city and of the Istrian Peninsula from the Slavic and German States to which those districts are of vital importance and the annexation of them to Italy, with which they have no community of interests whatever. Such were the views of all the most sincere, but rational patriots in Italy, and the subject was allowed to drop, especially as the advisability of cultivating the goodwill of Germany and keeping on friendly terms with Austria became apparent even to the most blind. But lately, in the complication of Eastern affairs, there arose in weak minds a notion that the dignity of Italy had been compromised and her interests sacrificed by the Depretis Government and the diplomatists representing Italy at the Congress of Berlin. The Mazzinian agitators, now finding sympathies among the Garibaldians, hoped to turn the situation to their purposes by bringing forward what remained of the broken-down idol of the uncompromising party. Garibaldi once more was seen in Rome, April 1879. He made his usual silly speeches and put forth his oft-repeated senseless proclamations ; he was supposed to be proposing great 28 EMINENT PERSONS purchases of arms, to be enlisting hosts of volunteers, to be planning thorough reforms and preparing formidable expeditions. But Garibaldi, away from Caprera, could not fail to have his good as well as his evil angels about him. He saw the King ; he listened to General Medici, his own right arm in so many campaigns, and now first aide-de-camp to King Humbert, as he had before been to King Victor Emmanuel. He listened, and, though not convinced, he was silenced. Although too proud to acknowledge the absurdity of his schemes in words, he was too wise not to give them up in deeds. He withdrew from the vain popular acclamation ; shut his door against the crowd of his visitors, and, although he announced his intention to take up his domicile in Eome, he pleaded indisposition as an excuse for inaction and retirement. Unfortunately there was only too much ground in the plea. The arthritic pains of which symptoms had manifested themselves as early as during the Lombard campaign of 1849, which had almost crippled him before his ill-advised intervention in behalf of the French Eepublic in 1871, had been seriously aggravated by its toils, and the sight of his helplessness in Rome, as he hobbled up the steps of Monte- citorio in 1874, was saddening to all beholders, and prepared his friends for that end which, however, was to be put off for several years. The fatigue of the voyage from Caprera in 1879, and still more the excitement of incessant calls, objectless con- ferences, and endless exhibitions, soon utterly prostrated the hero, and before the backward spring had fully set in it became evident that Garibaldi's life could only be a lingering agony. His life, if life it may be called, and at all events his suffer- ings were prolonged yet a few years. He left home in the spring of last year on a mad scheme of liberating, " by force if necessary," his son-in-law, Canzio, who had been arrested as a plotter for the Republic. But, having obtained the man's release from the King's Government, as a favour, he went to Milan, and there, as everywhere else, he met with the usual enthusiastic reception. But weary, as always happened, of all vain clamour, he once more sought the peace of his hermitage. He left it again a few weeks since for Palermo to attend the 600th anni- versary of the Sicilian Vespers. Garibaldi is dead. The spell attached to his name has partly been broken by the prolongation of his life beyond its sphere of possible usefulness ; but the worth of his character will bear GENERAL GARIBALDI 29 inspection, even when sober criticism had done its utmost to strip it of all the glitter with which popular enthusiasm had invested it. In the first place, this hero of a hundred fights has been made almost too much of as a warrior, but justice has hardly, perhaps, been done to his abilities as a leader. Garibaldi was no strategist. He knew little and cared less about organisation, equipment, or discipline ; never looked to means of transport or commissariat, but simply marched at the head of a few officers, hardly turning to see how the troops would follow. He never had a competent head of the staff. He thought he had found one in his friend Anzani, at Montevideo, a man of whose abilities and actual -genius Garibaldi had the most transcendent ideas, who had often brought order in the Legion where before his arrival all was confusion, and of whom Garibaldi said that " had such a genius as Anzani's conducted the Lombard campaign of 1848 or commanded at the battle of Novara or the siege of Rome, the stranger would from that moment have ceased to tread with impunity the bones of Italy's bravest combatants." But Anzani died, as we have seen, on his landing at Genoa in 1848, and Garibaldi was left only with valiant and heroic but inex- perienced and incapable men. The army which conquered Naples in 1860 trailed up a long straggling line from Reggio to Salerno, picking up the arms with which the fugitive Neapolitans strewed the fields, living as they could on the grapes and fruits providentially at that season ripening everywhere on the road- side. At Varese and Como, in the previous year, the Italian guerrillero astonished Urban by appearing before him where the Austrian was sure Garibaldi could not be, and where, indeed, the volunteer chief was almost alone ; "his 2000 volunteers," as he said, "straggling behind, while his adversary had 14,000 men at hand." What was mere rash confidence of the Italian struck the Austrian as deep stratagem, and he was put to flight by a mere trick of audacity, analogous to that which had served the purposes of Bonaparte and compelled the Austrian com- manders of his own time to surrender, sixty-two years before, in those same North Italian districts and only a little more to the east. Garibaldi, however, was a tactician, and would have creditably handled an army had a ready-made one, well armed and trained and led, been placed under his orders on the eve of battle. He 30 EMINENT PERSONS had the sure glance, the quick resolution, the prompt resource of that Enfant gdtd de la victoire, his townsman, Massena. As the Lombard volunteer, Emilio Dandolo, quoted by Dumas, graphically paints his chief " On the approach of a foe, Gari- baldi would ride up to a culminating point in the landscape, survey the ground for hours with the spy-glass in brooding silence, and come down with a swoop on the enemy, acting upon some well-contrived combination of movements by which advantage had been taken of all circumstances in his favour." And he possessed, besides, in a supreme degree that glamour which enslaved his volunteers' minds and hearts to his will. Though there was no order or discipline in his army, there was always the most blind and passive obedience wherever he was. Even with his crew on board his privateer sloop at Rio Grande he tells us he had ordered the life, honour, and property of the passengers of a vessel he had captured to be respected " I was almost saying under penalty of death," he adds, " but it would have been wrong to say that, for nobody ever disputed my orders. There never was anybody to be punished." A great craven must he be who would not fire up at sight of that calm and secure lion face. Garibaldi had faith in himself. He looked upon that handful of "the Thousand," who had been a match for 60,000 Neapolitans, as equally fit to cope with all the hosts of France and Austria, singly or conjointly. To make anything possible he had only to will it, to order it, and he never failed to find men ready and willing to attempt it. He called out in one instance in Rome for "forty volunteers wanted for an operation in which half of them would be sure to be killed, and the other half mortally wounded." " The whole battalion," he adds, " rushed forward to offer themselves, and we had to draw lots." On another occasion, also at Rome, he " called all well- disposed men to follow him." " Officers and soldiers instantly sprang up as if the ground had brought them forth." At the close of the siege, when, upon the surrender being voted by the Assembly, he had made up his mind to depart, he put forth this singular order of the day : " Whoever chooses to follow me will be received among my own men. All I ask of them is a heart full of love for our country. They will have no pay, no rest. They will get bread and water when chance may supply them. Whoever likes not this may remain behind. Once out of the gates of Rome every step will be one step nearer to death." GENERAL GARIBALDI 31 Four thousand infantry and five hundred horsemen, two-thirds of what was left of the defenders of Rome, accepted these conditions. And it was in peace as in war. In leisure hours in his wanderings, and more in his solitude at Caprera, Garibaldi read a good deal, and accumulated an ill-digested mass of know- ledge, of which the Utopian mysticisms of Mazzini and the paradoxical vagaries of Victor Hugo constituted the chief ingredients. But in politics as in arms his mind lacked the basis of a rudimental education. He rushed to conclusions without troubling his head about arguments. His crude notions of Democracy, of Communism, of Cosmopolitanism, of Positivism, were jumbled together in his brain and jostled one another in hopeless confusion, involving him in unconscious contradiction notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain a character for con- sistency. In sober moments he seemed to acknowledge his intellectual deficiencies, his imperfect education, the facility with which he allowed his own fancy or the advice of dangerous friends to run away with his better judgment ; but presently he would lay aside all diffidence, harangue, indite letters, preside at meetings, address multitudes, talk with the greatest boldness about what he least understood, and put his friends to the blush by his emphatic, trenchant, absolute tone, by his wild theories and sweeping assertions, as he did at Geneva at one of the Peace Society Congresses, when, before a bigoted Calvinistic audience, he settled the question whether St. Peter ever had or had not been in Rome "a futile question," he said, "for I can tell you no such person as Peter has ever existed." But with a heart like Garibaldi's a man may well afford to allow his brain to go a- woolgathering. As an earnest patriot as all Italians were while a country was denied to them Garibaldi never went wrong, or his error was repaired and atoned for before he had to rue its worst consequences. Let even his worst enemy write Garibaldi's biography and he will always appear the most single-minded and disinterested, the least self- conscious of all men. Not only did he for many years with unshaken consistency refuse all rewards and distinctions, but he shunned and dreaded popular clamour, and was worried and revolted, as well as confused and dismayed, at the abject wor- ship paid to him by high and low wherever he appeared. He stood or sat stern and sullen as women, men, and even priests 32 EMINENT PERSONS in Calabria hailed him as " Our Messiah ! our Redeemer ! " as in Lombardy mothers held up their new-born infants to be christened by him, " no other hand being so sure to bring God's blessing with it" ; or as in London, where, in 1864, he fairly ran away from the fine ladies who seemed at a loss to know how a true lion should be lionised. Garibaldi had the ideal lion nature in him, all the dignity and gentleness, the sudden flash of anger, the forgiveness, the absence of all rancour, malice, or uncharitableness. Even the brute Leonardo Millan, who had struck, racked, and imprisoned him without reason, when he fell into his power and trembled for 'his life was suffered to go unscathed, the only vengeance of Garibaldi being limited to fixing his look into his face so as to give him to understand that he was recognised but deemed utterly beneath a man's resentment. He was the most loving, the least hating of men. Whatever follies or even crimes may have been committed in his name, one may freely defy the world to trace an act of meanness or a deed of cruelty, or even a deliberately unkind word, to the man himself. However madly he dabbled in Republicanism, his devotion to Victor Emmanuel was proof against all slight or ill-treatment on the part of the King's Government. Whatever progress he made in the modern school of philosophers, his faith in God was unshaken. Unfortunately, his trust in men and women transcended all discretion. It is painful, but just, to record how his facile credulity entrapped him into a mock marriage with the Countess Raimondi, a young lady of rank, at Como, during the campaign of 1859 ; it is melancholy, but instructive, to recollect the spec- tacle he exhibited in Rome in 1874, when he made, for the first time, his appearance with a newly-wedded wife and babies in his suite, the results of his domestication with the nurse of his daughter's children, the only one of her sex, probably, besides his Teresita herself, who soothed the weary hours of the almost heartbroken Hermit of Caprera. It was with a view to benefit this offspring of his late marriage that Garibaldi, depart- ing from that rule of heroic disinterestedness which had made him reject all rewards, honours, and distinctions decreed by the King's Government and Parliament, accepted in these latter years an annuity for himself, with reversion to his widow and orphans. In order to establish the legitimacy of this union, he applied to the tribunals at Rome for the annulment of his GENERAL GARIBALDI 33 previous marriage with the Countess Raimondi a suit only too likely to drag to a wearisome length and to bring into light passages in the hero's career which might with greater wisdom have been buried in oblivion. The photographs of Garibaldi have reached so far and have been so long before the. world that a description of his personal appearance may be deemed superfluous. Indeed, neither words nor mere lights and shadows could give a satisfactory idea of that stately and commanding figure as it was before years and intense arthritic sufferings had contracted and, as it were, doubled it up. Garibaldi was a middle-sized man and not of an athletic build, though gifted with uncommon strength and surprising agility. He looked to the greatest advantage on horseback, as he sat in the saddle with such perfect ease and yet with such calm serenity, as if he were grown to it, having had, though originally a sailor, the benefit of a long experience in taming the wild mustangs of the Pampas.. But his chief beauty was the head and the unique dignity with which it rose on the shoulders. The features were cast in the old classic mould ; the forehead was high and broad, a perpendicular line from the roots of the hair to the eyebrows. His mass of tawny hair and full red beard gave the countenance its peculiar lion- like character. The brow was open, genial, sunny ; the eyes dark gray, deep, shining with a steady reddish light ; the nose, mouth, and chin exquisitely chiselled, the countenance habitually at rest, but at sight of those dear to him beaming with a " caressing smile, revealing all the innate strength and grace of his loving nature." There was both taste and simplicity in the costume to which he gave his name, and to which he adhered, on his return from America, with a fondness which was imputed to foppery, and with which Cialdini, with questionable discretion, taunted him when the volunteer chief appeared clad in it in the House of Deputies, where a military uniform was rarely seen except in the pageantry of a royal sitting. The garb consisted of a plain red shirt and gray trousers, over which he threw the folds of the Spanish- Ajnerican poncho, an ample upper garment of thin white woollen cloth with crimson lining, which did duty as a standard, and round which his volunteers were bidden to rally in the thick of the fight, as did the French Huguenot chivalry round Henry of Navarre's "panache blanche." His sword was a fine VOL. Ill D 34 EMINENT PERSONS cavalry blade, forged in England and the gift of English friends, and with it he might be seen at his early breakfast on the tented field cutting his bread and slicing his Bologna sausage, and inviting those he particularly wished to distinguish to share that savoury fare. The sabre did good slashing work at need, however, and at Milazzo, in Sicily, it bore him out safely from the midst of a knot of Neapolitan troopers who caught him by surprise and fancied they had him at their discretion. Gari- baldi carried no other weapons, though the officers in his suite had pistols and daggers at their belts ; and his negro groom, by name Aguyar, who for a long time followed him as his shadow, like Napoleon's Mameluke, and was shot dead by his side at Rome, was armed with a long lance with a crimson pennon, used as his chiefs banner. His staff officers were a numerous, quaint, and motley crew, men of all ages and conditions, mostly devoted personal friends not all of them available for personal strength or technical knowledge, but all to be relied upon for their readiness to die with or for him. Some of the most distinguished, like Nino Bixio, Medici, Sirtori, Cosenz, and others, had all the headlong bravery of their General more than that no man could boast and were his superiors in intelligence and in professional experience, ably conducting as his lieutenants field operations to which he was, from some cause or other, unable to attend. The veterans he brought with him from Montevideo, a Genoese battalion whom his friend Augusto Vecchi helped to enlist, and the Lombard Legion, under Manara, were all men of tried valour, well trained to the use of the rifle, inured to hardships and privations, and they constituted the nucleus of the Gari- baldian force throughout its campaigns. The remainder was a shapeless mass of raw recruits from all parts of Italy, joining or leaving the band almost at their pleasure mere boys from the universities, youths of noble and rich family, lean artisans from the towns, stout peasants and labourers from the country, adventurers of indifferent character, deserters from the army, and the like, all marching in loose companies, like FalstafPs recruits, under improvised officers and non - commissioned officers ; but all, or most of- them, entirely disinterested about pay or promotion, putting up with long fasts and heavy marches, only asking to be brought face to face with the enemy, and when under the immediate influence of Garibaldi himself or of GENERAL GAEIBALDI 35 his trusty friends seldom guilty of soldierly excesses or of any breach of discipline. The effect the presence of the hero had among them was surprising. A word addressed to them in his clear, ringing silver voice electrified even the dullest. An order coming from him was never questioned, never disregarded. No one waited for a second bidding or an explanation. " Your business is not to inquire how you are to storm that position. You must only go and do it." And it was done. There was nothing more providential in the combination of favourable circumstances to which the triumph of the Italian cause was owing than the opportune production of this singular, this " mysterious conqueror," as he was called, and the almost mythical prestige he threw on deeds of arms so amazing in their success as to disarm criticism and to present them to the startled world in the light of superhuman achievements. When even the steady valour of the Piedmontese army, owing to bad generalship, was succumbing to the Austrian invader at Custozza and Novara, in 1848-49, it was something to say that mere citizens, under Garibaldi, were gloriously giving the lie to the old taunt that " Italians don't fight " by not only standing their ground behind stone walls at Venice and Rome, but also crossing bayonets with the best troops of the French Republic outside the gates of the latter-named city, and giving their lives with a lavishness worthy of the ancient warlike race whose dust lay beneath their feet. Garibaldi and Rome were all that survived as a hallowed memory out of the wreck of Italian hopes at that gloomy period ; and Garibaldi and what remained of the heroes of Rome were what stood foremost in that more auspicious trial of 1859-60, in which the old errors were retrieved and the former disasters repaired. With the final emancipation of the country the three names of Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, and Garibaldi will be for ever associated ; but if the characters of the first and second of that triumvirate are sure to be deeply studied, thoroughly weighed, and rated at their just value as realities, the last-named will appeal to the imagination as something unauthenticated, like William Tell a mere un- demonstrable episode a legend. It was also by a favourable dispensation of heaven that, while on any prospect of a warlike struggle neither Garibaldi's confidence in himself nor his countrymen's faith in him ever belied itself for one moment, whenever any difficult political 36 EMINENT PERSONS question arose by which the destinies of the country might be compromised, the sane part of the nation fell away from the rash hero ; and he himself, never very sure of his own judgment and soon mistrusting the guidance of the designing partisans or crazy fanatics who played upon his sanguine imagination, allowed himself all at once to be sobered by more rational and trust- worthy advisers, and, without recanting his opinions or deserting his party, went quietly back to his solitude, and made, by abandoning the execution of his intended action, an implicit confession of all the erroneousness of his conception. For, after all, Garibaldi was not deficient in intelligence or plain common sense, and his faculties, had they received timely cultivation and development, would have been of no mean order. He told us himself that his attendance on the lessons of his priestly instructors was extremely desultory, and that his father's wishes to train him to some sedentary profession too early clashed with the son's restless disposition and adven- turous spirit. When in later life he became aware of the short- comings of his education and of the narrow range of his reading, while yet, in the leisure of his island home, he aspired to literary distinction, he was unable to perceive how hopelessly his sphere of thought was vitiated by the mysticism of Mazzini and his style tainted with the bombast of Victor Hugo. Yet, even in his most deplorable vagaries, his judgment was always more correct than that of the editor of Young Italy and his logic more sound than that of the author of Notre Dame de Paris. All the popularity of the Hermit of Caprera failed to procure the novel which he was tempted to publish a very extensive number of readers at home or abroad, and it is not likely that any unkind friend will outrage poor Garibaldi's memory by undertaking the publication of his letters and speeches. The saying of the old Eoman tyrant, "Would I had never learnt to write," must at many periods of his life have occurred to Garibaldi, though from different motives and altogether in a different sense. Yet that the Condottiere of Marsala was not without some aptitude as a writer, that he was not without con- siderable graphic power, and even a certain dry, grim humour, one may gather from many passages in those Oommentaires a la Jules C&ar which he jotted down without any pretensions to art, only for private circulation among his friends, and of which he was with great reluctance prevailed upon by his GENERAL GARIBALDI 37 French guest at the Chiatamone to sanction the publication. In those scanty and imperfect fragments not a little may be learnt, not only of the great man's doings, but also of the ins and outs of his mind and of the best and worst traits in his character. He had, he tells us, towards the close of the siege of Koine, in June 1849, chosen his headquarters at the Villa Savorelli, the very focus of the artillery fire from the advancing French parallels, and appointed Manara his chief of the staff. From the house one had a wide view of the Campagna and of the pro- gress of the operations of the siege. It was an interesting spot, and everybody crowded on the General, anxious to enjoy the singularity of the scene. Garibaldi says : " It is true that this diversion was not free from danger, for it was known that the Savorelli Villa was my headquarters, and balls and bullets and shells rattled all day on my windows. Especially when, to obtain a better view, I went up to the bel- vedere above the roof of the house, the matter became rather curious. It was a regular hail of bullets, and I have never heard a more incessant hissing of winged lead. The house, shaken by the cannon-balls, trembled as if in an earthquake. Often, to give the French artillerymen a more brisk employment, I had my breakfast served up on the belvedere, which had no other protection than a wooden parapet. Then, I can tell you, I had such a music as dispensed me from summoning that of the regimental bands. But matters became even worse when some practical joker of the staff amused himself by hoisting to the light- ning-conductor above the little terrace a banner, on which were written in large letters the words, ' Bonjour, Cardinal Oudinot.' "On the fourth or fifth day in which I thus amused the enemy's gunners and sharpshooters, General Avezzana (the War Minister) came to see me, and, not finding the parlour window sufficiently high, asked whether there was not some elevated spot on which the view of the plain might be more unlimited. I took him to the belvedere. Doubtless the French intended to do him especial honour, as on our first appearance the usual music burst out. The General very coolly surveyed the enemy's position, then went downstairs without saying one word. On the morrow I found my belvedere blindtf with earth-bags. I asked by whose order that had been done. The answer was, ' The War Minister's ! ' "This rage of the French artillerymen about riddling my 38 EMINENT PERSONS poor headquarters with shot gave rise now and then to amusing scenes. " One day the 5th or 6th of June, I think my friend Augusto Vecchi, who was both actor and author in the drama we were representing, paid me a visit at dinner-time. As I had some guests, I had got a dinner ready-made from Rome in a tin case. I saw that the sight of our bill of fare was tempting Vecchi, and I asked him to sit down with us. General Avezzana and Costantino Beta were of the party. We sat on the ground in the garden. The bullets shook the house so violently that to eat on a table we would have required such an apparatus as is used on board ship in foul weather. Just as we were halfway with our dinner a shell burst. Everybody vanished. Vecchi was about to follow, but I seized him by the wrist, and, compelling him to sit down, I told him laughing (he was a member of the Assembly), ' Father Conscript, leave not thy curule chair.' The shell burst, as I had correctly foreseen, on the opposite side to where we sat ; we escaped with a cloud of dust, which covered both ourselves and our dinner. . . . " Strange to say, it was always Vecchi who was the hero of similar adventures. Another day he came on business and found me at table. On this occasion MM. les Artilleurs were so obliging as to allow me some rest. Before me smoked a most appetising risotto. I made room for Vecchi on my right and bade him fall to. But just as he was about to sit down Manara stopped him. ' Do not do that, Vecchi,' he said ; ' this is the third day in which the officers invited by the General have been killed one after the other on that very spot, and no time left them for digestion.' And, in fact, Davio, Rozat, and Panizzi had fallen exactly as Manara described. But the savour of the rice had more weight with Vecchi than Manara's omen. ' All right,' said Vecchi, ' that fits admirably with a prediction which was made to me.' ' What prediction ? ' asked Manara. ' When I was a child,' replied Vecchi, ' a gipsy con- sulted the stars and foretold that I should be buried at Rome, thirty-six years old, and very rich. And again, in 1838, on a pedestrian trip to Naples, being at Sarno, near Salerno, I was pursuing in a cotton plantation a gipsy girl, eighteen years old, whose bright black eyes I was determined to kiss. She de- fended herself with her knife ; to her offensive weapon I opposed as defensive armour a beautiful brand-new scudo. The girl GENERAL GARIBALDI 39 took the crown, seized and examined my hand, and made out from the lines that I should be buried in Rome, at thirty-six, very rich. I am now in my thirty-sixth year, and, though not very rich, I am only too much so for one doomed to die. But I am as strong a fatalist as any Mahomedan ; what is written, is written. General, hand here the rice.' " We laughed at the story ; but Manara looked grave, and said, ' All very well, Vecchi ; but I shall not be easy in mind till this day is over.' Then, addressing myself, he added, ' General, in God's name, do not send him on any errand to-day.' " This suited Vecchi very well, for he was dreadfully tired after two nights' watching, and, after dinner, he asked leave to withdraw and take some rest. ' Lie down on my bed, if you like,' said Manara, whether in jest or in earnest ; ' I will not allow you to go out to-day.' Vecchi threw himself on the bed. " An hour later I saw some Frenchmen placing gabions on the trench open just in front of our bastion. I looked about me for an officer to point the fire of a dozen of our sharpshooters at them. I forget how I had disposed of them all, but found myself alone. I thought of Vecchi, who was sleeping with tight-closed fists ; I felt some qualms of compunction about waking him, but the balls made a dreadful ravage. I seized him by the leg ; he opened his eyes. ' Come,' said I, ' you have slept twenty-four hours. Manara's prediction has lost its spell. Pick me out a dozen of our best shots, and tickle me the sides of those fellows down yonder.' Vecchi, who is very brave, did not wait for more words. He chose twelve Bersa- glieri, and placed himself in ambush behind a barricade of gabions which a lieutenant of engineers, named Pozzio, was rearing. Hence he opened so murderous a fire against the French that these returned the rifle fire with cannon-shot. Half an hour later somebody came to tell me, ' Do you know, General, poor Vecchi has been killed ? ' I felt a sharp twitch in my heart. I had been the cause of my friend's death, and I loaded myself with reproaches ; but before an hour had elapsed, to my great joy, I saw him come back safe and sound. ' Ah, by God, let me hug thee to my heart ; I thought you had been killed.' ' Only buried,' he answered, and related how a cannon- ball had cut in twain an earth -bag, which had thrown its contents upon him ; that at the same instant this bag in its 40 EMINENT PERSONS collapse had determined the fall of the other bags, ten or twelve, which had fallen at once upon him, and literally interred him. " But in the meanwhile something had happened far more picturesque than even Vecchi's real death would have been. The same cannon-ball which buried him had struck against the wall, and by rebound had come back to wound a young soldier in the back, shattering the spine. The young soldier had been placed on a hand-barrow with his arms crossed on his breast, and his open eyes turned up heavenwards, having breathed his last. They were about to remove him to the ambulance, when an officer threw himself on the body and covered it with kisses. The officer was Lieutenant Pozzio, of the Engineers, and the young soldier was Colomba Antonietti, his wife, who had followed him to Velletri and had fought beside him on the 3rd of June." Such dramatic power, such talent for blending the humor- ous with the pathetic, Garibaldi displayed at least in his translator's hands. That the charm of the naive and graphic narrative belongs entirely to the original, and that it is a per- fectly correct picture of the events it records, it would seem for any one conversant with the scene and the actors represented absolutely impossible to doubt. Such tenderness of heart, such unaffected attachment to a friend, such minute seizure of all the salient points that can give a narrative piquancy and effect, are evidence of a sympathetic imagination, which could not be compatible with a selfish nature. Napoleon I., and perhaps Prince Bismarck, could never write such a touching scene. We shall conclude with the account of the share Garibaldi took in the last fight at Villa Spada, on the walls of Rome, 30th June : "The night of the 29th settled on Rome like a winding- sheet. To prevent the repairs in our breaches the French artillery thundered all night. It was a terrible night. The storm of heaven blended with that of the earth. The thunder growled, the lightning met the shell in mid-air, the thunder- bolt fell in two or three places as if to hallow the doomed city. In spite of St. Peter's Day, the two armies continued their mortal duel. At nightfall, as an attack in the dark was expected, the whole town was lighted up ; all, even the dome of St. Peter's. Such illumination, in fact, is the custom in GENERAL GARIBALDI 41 Rome on St. Peter's Eve. Any man throwing on that evening a glance on the Eternal City would have seen one of those sights which can be viewed but once in the lapse of centuries. At his feet he would have seen a grand valley of churches and palaces, cut in twain by the winding Tiber, dark at that moment as Phlegethon. On the left a mound, the Capitol, upon the tower of which waved the standard of the Republic. On the right, the dark outline of Monte Mario, where flaunted, in antagonism to ours, the French and Papal flags. Below it the dome of Michael Angelo, rearing itself to the clouds, a blaze of light ; and, finally, as a frame to the picture, the Janiculum and all the line of San Pancrazio also lighted up, but by the flashes of the artillery and musketry fire. . . . " At midnight the sky cleared, the thunder and the cannon were hushed, silence followed upon all that infernal roar, and the French profited by it to draw nearer and nearer to the walls and to take possession of the breach opened into bastion No. 8. At two in the morning we heard three cannon-shots fired at equal intervals. The sentries called to arms, the trumpets sounded. The Bersaglieri, always ready, always unweary, sallied from the Villa Spada and ran to the San Pancrazio gate, leaving two companies as a reserve in defence of the villa. They sank to their knees in the soaked earth. I placed myself at their head, with my sword -drawn, intoning the Italian popular hymn. At this moment, I confess, I had only one desire to get myself killed. I threw myself with my men upon the French. What happened then? I know nothing about it. For two hours I struck without intermission. When the day dawned I was all covered with blood. I had not a single scratch. It was a miracle." DR. PUSEY OBITUARY NOTICE, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1882 A GREAT and venerable name that now for half a century has been a living power in the Church of England is to-day of the past. The world-renowned Dr. Pusey, after a life of incessant labour, after his full share of those provocations of which even the best are known to be sensible, and after long suffering, to the special sorrow of those whom the poet describes as standing by while their sons are placed on the funeral pyre, is gone to his rest. So prolonged a career of unremitting industry, under some circumstances unfavourable to health, is an example of the intimate connection between mental vigour and physical vitality often found at our old universities. Dr. Pusey was a member of one of those numerous families that our neighbours could find no place for in their own political system, and drove to find shelter and welcome in ours. The first appearance of the Bouveries gave little promise of the distinguished position they now occupy. In 1568 a Fleming of that name, with his young wife from Frankfort, settled at Canterbury, and no doubt worshipped in the undercroft of the cathedral granted to the French Protestants by Queen Elizabeth. The family rose to wealth and eminence in the City of London as Turkey merchants. In due time it acquired a baronetcy and a peerage, the former just before the first Jacobite rebellion, the latter just after the second. The Earl of Radnor, the thorough- going Liberal and rigid economist, by the strength of his con- victions and his frequent appearances gave prominence and power to the family name. But it was only known to those who were personally acquainted with both him and his half- DR. PUSEY 43 cousin, Edward Bouverie Pusey, how much they resembled one another both in person and in character. The Pusey branch of the family, however, residing at Pusey, a mansion surrounded by a dozen or two cottages twelve miles from Oxford, in a region of sand-hills and fir-trees, were a modification of the Bouverie type. It is possible that local circumstances, as they certainly gave a turn to the life's work of the elder brother, may have had their influence on the younger. Edward Pusey spent his youth here in the imme- diate neighbourhood of the old Eoman Catholic family of Throckmorton, and in a district that had long been remarkable for extreme though not violent religious divisions. Under the shadow of the Throckmortons of Buckland there had grown up a large Roman Catholic community, side by side with an Inde- pendent congregation that had lapsed into Socinianism. Shute Barrington, who came to be Bishop of Durham, and others of his family, had been members of this congregation in its better days. It was here, a mile from Pusey House, that Berington, the Roman Catholic historian, passed away in 1827, with an old nurse and the clergyman's wife, suddenly called in, at his bedside. P'dlip Pusey, the elder brother, was an accomplished literary man, who was considered by some of his friends to live in the clouds, and who certainly knew more of agriculture than anybody else, though he paid very dearly for it. Edward Pusey, a hard student, and something of a recluse from his early years, went to Christ Church, and took a Classical First at Easter in 1822, together with Edward Denison, after- wards Bishop of Salisbury, and some others less known to fame. Two years after he gained the Latin essay prize for a comparison of the Greek and Roman colonies, and was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel. Here he found himself immediately junior to John Henry Newman and in the society of William James, John Keble, Tyler, Whately, Hawkins, soon to be Provost, and Jelf, afterwards Principal of King's College, London. To these were added, two years after, Robert Wilber- force and Richard Hurrell Froude, both of them undergraduate members of the College at the date of Pusey's election. Barring a few of those personal peculiarities which are to be found in all gentlemen, especially scholars, coming from different circles and schools, and which cause sometimes a difficulty, but much oftener a smile, there never was a set of men more bound 44 EMINENT PERSONS together by mutual admiration and affection, more willing to appreciate one another's powers, or more conscious of a great common cause. The formation of such a group speaks well for the discernment and also for the liberality of men like Cople- ston, then Provost, who could not but have an almost pre- ponderating part in these elections. It was unavoidable that there should be some singularity in Pusey's position, whether in the College or in the University. Though now in Oriel, he was not quite of it, for he was more of Christ Church. He had a position in the neighbouring county society. The " Pusey horn," by which the estate was held and transmitted, was a bit of antiquarian romance known to most undergraduates in Oxford. Not the least he was a German scholar, a rare thing in those days. A man cannot expel or even much control his instincts, and Pusey, from the first, could not help an involuntary recoil from the sort of men who in those days claimed the monopoly of spiritual religion. Some of them were Christians and gentlemen too, but Pusey was fastidious ; and, as he could not join in the merriment which religious pretensions associated with awkward manners and unprepossessing appearance sometimes occasioned, he con- fined himself to holding aloof from those people. His attitude to all sides of the Church of England was almost necessarily one of reserve. He could not go along with the " Evangelical " party, nor yet with the "High and Dry," as it had already come to be called. As little could he give his heart to the new school of speculative philosophy, which had already given a name to Oriel, and which proposed to submit all creeds, all opinions, all systems and institutions, to the test of logical analysis. The " Noetic " school it was styled in the University at large, from these critical pretensions, and from the substitu- tion of intellect for faith which the school seemed to pride itself on. Germany was supposed in those days to be the manufactory of opinions, and it was said all these battles had been fought there with one result. So Pusey went to Germany, and before long produced the results of his inquiries and studies, soon followed, as all his publications were, by a second and a fuller instalment. The book was singularly impartial, almost in- different in its tone. It introduced to the English reader as veritable personages, who had once lived in the flesh and done DR. PUSEY 45 their work and had their influence, the Rationalists and Pietists known here only as names. Such criticisms as there were in the theological world for there were not many were founded on a general feeling that the Germans nowadays were not much to us, that it did not much matter what they believed or did not believe, that we were not likely to share either their criti- cism or their philosophy or their sentimentalism, and that, upon the whole, Mr. Pusey had wasted his time and made a mistake. Yet there was no denying it was a considerable work, and out of Oxford there were those who perceived, if not its value, at least the capabilities of the writer. It would not surprise any Oxford man of that standing to find Cardinal Newman dating his intimacy with Pusey no farther back than the year 1827 or 1828. In those days the Fellows of Oriel, immediately upon their election, were requested to give up their rooms for the use of iindergraduates, and thus they lost one inducement to residence. Pusey had his home, his study, and his library a dozen miles off. After the completion of his probationary year, therefore, he was very little in Oxford, and, as appears, sometimes abroad. But the time came when all Oxford grieved to hear that Dr. Nicoll, after holding the Regius Professorship of Hebrew for six years, had died, some said of the dust of the Bodleian, some of the unwholesome air of his residence. Coming after White and Lawrencej Nicoll was chiefly remembered for one of the longest sermons ever preached at St. Mary's, proving, from Genesis iv. 7, the primitive institution of sacrifice. This was in the year 1828, when the Tories were still in the ascendant. Everything pointed to Pusey for the vacant Chair. Not to speak of his connections, nor yet of his attainments, which had to be seen through a veil of modesty, nor yet of his publi- cations, which it required learning and labour to appreciate, there was immense promise in both the man and his work, especially in the audacity with which he had invaded at so early an age so difficult a region as German theology, and exhibited the spoil, as it were, to the English public. Almost as a matter of course Pusey entered the house he was never to quit. It is the south-west angle of the famous " Tom Quad," and rises like a bastion over the dismal and dirty districts stretching to the Isis, and to the once sacred, now desolate Isle of Oseney. Peter Martyr was one of the first 46 EMINENT PERSONS occupants of the house ; but, a wanderer all his days, he was not to find rest there. His wife, and his obstinate refusal to wear the surplice, provoked the Catholics, who broke his windows and kept him awake with loud abuse. So he had to move to the heart of the College under the walls of the Cathedral. Dr. Pusey has been more fortunate in his cause and in his antagonists. They have thrown plenty of stones, but without breaking his windows ; and if they have disturbed his sleep it is because he has been only too happy to spend nights in replying to them. At the date of his appointment his Chair was of no great significance. Very few read Hebrew. Bishop Burgess had in vain been urging the study on all the clergy who came to him for institution. It was only here and there that a clergyman in some remote parish beguiled his solitude with this unearthly, unfathomable, incommunicable tongue, and got quizzed accord- ingly. Hebrew was supposed to have to do only with the Jewish dispensation, and hardly to concern a Christian. But the Professor was a Canon of Christ Church, and this was a very substantial thing, besides being a good standing-point for a great deal more. Except that the Tests and Corporation Acts had just been repealed in a very quiet way to save the trouble of an annual indemnity, there was then hardly a note of the coming storms. All the general public expected from the new Professor was that he would save the credit of Oxford for learning, and add some bulky volumes to the numerous Oxford libraries. About the time of his preferment to the Canonry, Dr. Pusey married a lady in every respect qualified to adorn his new position and to assist him in turning it to the best account. The next year came Catholic emancipation, followed rapidly by all the events which, at home and abroad, changed the aspect of human affairs, making it certain that no institution would remain what it had been, and that, consequently, people had better not concentrate all their powers in vain attempts to keep things as they were. Dr. Pusey entered as little as he could into the controversies of the day, which could not but be painful to him, not to say embarrassing. He devoted himself to the work of his Chair. He had classes in Hebrew senior and junior taking the former himself, and engaging for the latter a gentleman of Hebrew extraction who did his work well. But Dr. Pusey did DR. PUSEY 47 more. The Eegius Professors of Hebrew have, as a rule, been theologians as well as scholars, and have sometimes been best known in the former capacity. Dr. Pusey had weekly gather- ings of clergy in his house for the reading of papers and for discussions that is, if they could be provoked. The papers were generally his own, and when the time came for discussion he was the chief talker. The most capacious dining-room is inadequate to an assemblage of thirty or forty gentlemen, sitting in their cumbrous academical vestments, after dinner, under gas, to hear compositions presumed, not unjustly, to require close and undivided attention. Few who attended could call these meetings a success. Possibly it was a gain that people were thus familiarised with names, with controversies, with events and histories hardly realised before. Theology needs self-assertion like any other science. But the attempt laboured under special difficulties. Dr. Pusey had read more than anybody there, and it is hard to join issue with a man who knows, so to speak, more of the country to be fought over. Then he had not that ready, free, and fluent utterance which is necessary for a lead in conversa- tion. His was the not uncommon case of the man becoming inseparable from his writing. Pusey without the book, and the book without Pusey, could alike give no idea of the immense power of both combined. The habit of writing had formed the course of his thoughts, and he had to speak as he wrote that is, from a manuscript, and in the seat of authority. Once in the pulpit, with a well-prepared discourse, and himself deeply impressed with the gravity of what he had to say, Dr. Pusey was a preacher of the grand old school the School of Fathers and Divines. He held overflowing congregations in breathless attention, they never lost a word. The longest and most com- plicated sentence easily unfolded its meaning to their willing intelligence. They left the church with the solemn tone sound- ing still in their ears, and as long as they were under the spell they did not venture to criticise what they were called on to feel and believe. Such was Dr. Pusey in the pulpit ; out of it he could only write or talk. As to the former, his works, un- aided by his delivery, even in the disguise of a pamphlet, severely taxed the patience and the intelligence of ordinary readers. As to the latter, his hesitations and continual correc- tions prevented that flow which is necessary to ensure eloquence. 48 EMINENT PERSONS But these weekly musters were only one of several attempts at what may be called restoration attempts in which Dr. Pusey anticipated some of the recent University changes. He was very early an advocate for an examination in " Arts " at the end of two years, and examinations in special subjects, including theology, in the place of what was then the final examination for the degree. There was, too, in those days, as there is now, a serious want. When a man had passed his final examination and taken his degree, may be with great honour, with the greatest wish to contume his studies, and with every promise of doing so with good effect, he suddenly lost the University at the very time when it promised to be most useful to him. What are libraries, what are lecturers, what are societies of learned men made for, if not to assist scholars, no longer under daily instruction and tied to a curriculum, but free to study what they pleased ? Yet there was, and there is, no place for them in Oxford, unless they had the rare, and now still rarer, luck to get a fellowship, or would put their hands to the grindstone again, and take the chance of private pupils. So he took some theological students into his house. This developed into a " Hall." In conjunction with John Henry Newman, he took a house nearly opposite Christ Church, and furnished it with mediaeval simplicity for the use of graduates wishing to reside for study. It cannot be set down as an utter failure, when it is considered that one of the inmates, both of Dr. Pusey's house and of the hall, was the late Eegius Professor of Divinity, who remained there till his election to a Fellowship at Magdalen. Meanwhile, without any view of forming a party, as it might afterwards have been interpreted, Dr. Pusey extended the range of his hospitality, giving different generations of University men the valued oppor- tunity of meeting on social terms. There had now come a time when everything seemed going by the board, when all things, in the quaint words of a college foundation deed, tended visibly not to be, and then he was thought the best and cleverest who was for the most sweeping changes. As early as 1832 there was hardly anybody of note in the country who had not delivered himself on Church Reform, and it had become a necessity for a man to speak out now or for ever hold his tongue. In all these utterances there was one common supposition, and it was that great changes were inevit- DR. PTJSEY 49 able, and the only question was what they were to be. There were those who would not wait for the change, or thought the case hopeless. They were leaving the Church, right and left, discharging Parthian shots of denunciation and invective. "Set your house in order" was the universal cry. Then came the Tracts for the Times, first anonymous, but after a few numbers understood to be issued chiefly on the re- sponsibility of Newman, Pusey, and Keble. Everybody knew that it was scarcely possible to find three more different men, none more so than themselves. They contributed their several quotas to the undertaking. Pusey gave his great learning, his solidity, his unchangeableness, his position, his family name, and last, but not least, his having been a nominee of the Con- servative party. The antagonists, who were a legion, showed a due sense of Pusey's share in the new combination by giving his name to the movement. People do not like to fight with shadows. They look for an opponent whom it will be a dis- tinction to have to measure swords with. The Tracts, too, were rather flimsy things, in a publishing point of view mere litter on any table and rubbish on a counter. They were as the frogs of Egypt in the eyes of the booksellers. They wanted weight, and therefore required something in the nature of paper-weights to prevent them from being carried off by the first gust of wind. Pusey could never do anything under thirty pages, followed by sixty, and in due time by three hundred. His contributions to the Tracts are very good reading, but we doubt whether they were ever much read, or ever will be. They helped the vol- umes to goodly dimensions, and qualified them for a place on a gentleman's shelves. But while Dr. Pusey was thus performing the part of ballast, he accepted with a certain excess of gallantry the reckless course of the craft to which he had committed him- self. He went even farther in some points, as if anxious to draw the fire upon himself, confident of his power to reply. After the lapse of a whole generation, any record of personal relations must be in the nature of a monograph, and no two accounts of this period are found quite to agree. Even the contemporary narratives are evidently from very different points of view. Cardinal Newman, in his history of his religious opinions, published in his Apologia in 1 864, reduced to the smallest possible compass his carefully-elaborated account of Dr. Pusey's part in the Oxford movement. Its brevity allows of its insertion here : VOL. Ill E 50 EMINENT PERSONS " It was under these circumstances that Dr. Pusey joined us. I had known him well since 1827-28, and had felt for him an enthusiastic admiration. I xised to call him 6 //.eyas. His great learning, his immense diligence, his scholarlike mind, his simple devotion to the cause of religion overcame me ; and great of course was my joy when, in the last days of 1833, he showed a disposition to make common cause with us. His Tract on Fast- ing appeared as one of the series with the date of 21st December. He was not, however, I think, fully associated in the movement till 1835 and 1836, when he published his Tract on Baptism and started the Library of the Fathers. He at once gave to us a position and a name. Without him we should have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ Church ; he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his Professorship, his family connections, and his easy relations with University authorities. He was to the movement all that Mr. Rose might have been, with that indis- pensable addition which was wanting to Mr. Rose the intimate friendship and the familiar daily society of the persons who had commenced it. And he had that special claim on their attach- ment which lies in the living presence of a faithful and loyal affectionateness. There was henceforth a man who could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the country who were adopting the new opinions ; and not only so, but there was one who furnished the movement with a front to the world, and gained from it a recognition from other parties in the University. In 1829 Mr. Froude, or Mr. Wilberforce, or Mr. Newman were but individuals ; and, when they ranged themselves in the contest of that year on the side of Sir Robert Inglis, men on either side only asked with surprise how they got there, and attached no significance to the fact but Dr. Pusey was, to use the common expression, a host in himself ; he was able to give a name, a form, and a personality to what was without him a sort of mob ; and when various parties had to meet together in order to resist the liberal acts of the Government, we of the movement took our place by right among them. " Such was the benefit which he conferred on the movement externally ; nor was the internal advantage at all inferior to it. He was a man of large designs ; he had a hopeful, sanguine DR. PUSEY 51 mind ; he had no fear of others ; he was haunted by no intellectual perplexities. People are apt to say that he was once nearer to the Catholic Church than he is now ; I pray God that he may be one day far nearer to the Catholic Church than he was then ; for I believe that, in his reason and judgment, all the time that I knew him, he never was near to it at all. When I became a Catholic, I was often asked, 'What of Dr. Pusey ? ' When I said that I did not see symptoms of his doing as I had done, I was sometimes thought uncharitable. If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had it. The most remarkable instance of this was his statement, in one of his subsequent defences of the movement, when, too, it had advanced a con- siderable way in the direction of Rome, that among its most hopeful peculiarities was its ' stationariness.' He made it in good faith ; it was his subjective view of it. " Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. He saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts, and in the whole movement. It was through him that the character of the Tracts was changed. When he gave to us his Tract on Fasting he put his initials to it. In 1835 he published his elaborate Treatise on Baptism, which was followed by other Tracts from different authors, if not of equal learning, yet of equal power and appositeness. The Catenas of Anglican divines which occur in the series, though projected, I think, by me, were executed with a like aim at greater accuracy and method. In 1836 he advertised his great project for a translation of the Fathers. But I must return to myself. I am not writing the history either of Dr. Pusey or of the movement ; but it is a pleasure to me to have been able to introduce here reminiscences of the place which he held in it, which have so direct a bearing on myself that they are no digression from my narrative. " I suspect it was Dr. Pusey's influence and example which set me, and made me set others, on the larger and more careful works in defence of the principles of the movement which followed in a course of years some of them demanding and receiving from their authors such elaborate treatment that they did not make their appearance till both its temper and its fortunes had changed. I set about a work at once ; one in which was brought out with precision the relation in which we 52 EMINENT PERSONS stood to the Church of Eome. We could not move a step in comfort till this was done. It was of absolute necessity and a plain duty to provide as soon as possible a large statement which would encourage and reassure our friends and repel the attacks of our opponents." Dr. Pusey might have been slow to join the movement, but, once in, he showed no wish to be out. The work was thoroughly congenial meat and drink to him, it might be said. He took his part in the controversy, or rather theological warfare, which ensued upon the appointment of Mr. Hampden to the Regius Professorship of Divinity. He first published a com- parison of Dr. Hampden's theological statements with the Thirty -nine Articles ; and upon the appearance of the new Professor's inaugural lecture he published a sequel, comparing Dr. Hampden's past and present statements. The last pamphlet showed a rather milder tone than what was prevalent in those days. Apart from the true gentleness of Pusey's character, it is to be considered that, while up to that time he had had little personal acquaintance with Hampden, he was now doomed to live in some degree of companionship with him. He did his best to save Hampden's faith at the cost of his principles. Hampden might be a Christian, and a good one, but he was no theologian. He did not speak the language of the Church. Hampden probably knew this already ; indeed, it was just what he wished, and therefore, there was no reason why he and Pusey should not be as good friends as any two persons can be who speak different languages. " Many are the tongues of men," says Homer, "but there is only one in heaven." Dr. Pusey's own cautious tone was justified by the result. The campaign against Hampden could not but be a failure. The new Professor of Divinity, in due time a Bishop, forgot all his anti- scholastic lore as quickly as he had acquired it, and preached and charged very much as most bishops preach and charge. It was of no use then to attack him for what he had once been supposed to be. The whole feeling of this country is against a succession of trials and a continual ripping up of old charges. Hampden had won the day, fighting as he did under the segis of the royal supremacy. British philanthropy can take even bishops under its protection ; but the fact of the warfare and the bold defiance of the supremacy, hitherto DR. PUSEY 53 supposed to whitewash the favourite object from all suspicion of heresy, terrified the holders of place and power and all the aspirants for them in the country. Something must be done to abate this evil, which threatened ostracism all round. Already there were skirmishers, here, there, and everywhere ; but hence- forth the war was universal. After all the irregular forces of the Church, or not of it, had done their very worst, the bishops formed themselves into line, and delivered double -shotted charges against the disturbers of the general peace. Dr. Pusey was all the while looking out for something utterly unpalatable, and a bar to all reconciliation. As if to bring every baptized Christian on his knees before him, he preached a sermon from a well-known startling text in the Epistle to the Hebrews, drawing from it the doctrine, so at least he was understood, that wilful sin after baptism is never wholly forgiven. The burden of the sermon was the word " irreparable." The text admits of a different interpretation ; but Dr. Pusey, in his anxiety to bring his hearers to the very verge of the pit of destruction, seemed to be pushing them into it without a way of escape. The Evangelical party proclaimed it a downright heresy. The High Church did not take it so much amiss. They did not usually care to go out of their way in quest of storms, rocks, shoals, and quicksands ; but in this particular instance the blow seemed to be directed against the prevailing way of regarding the sacraments as outside and purely emblematic ordinances, the reception of which did not materially alter a man's case as regards his hope of salvation. The London church people, the bishop there, and the leading societies looked on Dr. Pusey as a powerful and comparatively safe agency, whom it was well to tame, to put in harness, and to utilise. He had to write a pamphlet in defence of the plan of the Metropolis Churches Fund, in which a well-known religious journal had begun to see flat rebellion against its own lines churches no longer purchasable, and clergy at liberty to interpret the Church as they pleased. In the year 1838, about midway between the beginning and the end of the Oxford movement, in the strict sense of that term, Dr. Pusey preached on the 5th of November in the University pulpit. The sermon, of which the real text was in the title-page " In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength " was on the providential government of the world, 54 EMINENT PERSONS as asserted and illustrated by Scripture, and as proved by the course of human affairs. It was full of the preacher's lifelong thoughts and feelings ; but it might have been preached from any Protestant pulpit in Ireland, where the preacher's remarks on the national deliverance effected by the arrival of the Prince of Orange would have been more appreciated than in this island. If it was not a thoroughly Orange demonstration if the preacher admitted, with Macaulay, that the Great Revolution was not glorious in its means and agency, and that there are things about it to be a little ashamed of yet he held it a great blessing, justified by circumstances and by results ; while the act of the Prince could not be considered guilty, inasmuch as he started with fair intentions, but was driven on to take the crown by a course of events over which he had no control. He allowed that there was nothing meritorious about the event, nothing for the nation to be proud of ; but held that on that very account it was the more plainly a blessing from heaven that we should be thankful for. The sermon was reviewed in the periodical then under Newman's editorship, when due praise and prominence were awarded to the leading thoughts, while the passages that might touch the political susceptibilities of the " Oxford party " were alluded to and omitted, with much regret, as too long for quotation. If this sermon were intended to be a sop to Cerberus, it had but a partial and temporary effect. St. Mary's itself became the scene of eager competition and rival demonstration. Every Sunday morning and afternoon the University had the use of the pulpit, while at four o'clock the vicar the present Cardinal entered into possession and preached to crowded graduate and undergraduate congregations. As he was always at his post, this seemed to leave him and his friends the lion's share of the coveted rostra, and all that his antagonists could do was to establish as close a monopoly of the pulpit as they could for the morning and early afternoon services. There arose a Vice- Chancellor who helped them. The pulpit blazed like an active volcano with "anti-Puseyism." All the authorities privileged to preach, the select preachers selected, indeed, for the purpose and the unselect, and the commonalty of M.A.'s coming up to take their turn, kept up an incessant fire of vituperation. Of course they had something to say, but they were not the men to stop there ; indeed, it is a way of polemical theologians to go on. DR. PUSEY 55 When several good men had been passed over in the choice of preachers, as too much of the new school, Dr. Pusey came to the resolution to absent himself from the University sermons. He preferred, as well anybody might do, the parish sermons preached from the same pulpit by Newman. It was a strong measure, for the laws of the University required attendance from every member of the University, but as the same laws required every Doctor of Divinity to take his place in the pro- cession before the service, and this rule had long been in abeyance, Dr. Pusey could claim the general licence of a negli- gent age. The heads of houses did not like seeing Brutus always conspicuous by his absence, and Looked out for their revenge. They had it. In 1843 Dr. Pusey's own turn for preaching came round. What a prudent man would have done in the circumstances it is needless to ask. Several times has it occurred in the memory of man that when all the University had assembled at St. Mary's in the hope of hearing something very surprising, or very obnoxious, they have been mildly rebuked by a sermon such as they might have heard from any village pastor. Dr. Pusey had improved the rare opportunity by an exposition of the high sacramental theory in the utmost strength of language that had ever been allowed to English Churchmen. The Vice-Chancellor, the head of the Evangelical school, sent for the sermon, with an intimation that action would be taken upon it. No doubt Dr. Pusey immediately set to work elaborating his defence, and adding to his pile of testimonies from all ages of the Church. Soon, however, he heard that the Vice-Chan- cellor had revived for the occasion a long-forgotten statute empowering the Vice-Chancellor to create a tribunal of six doctors for the trial of any person preaching or teaching contrary to the received doctrines of the University. What was more, he was informed that the sermon was all they required ; they had it, and therefore did not want the presence of the writer. Dr. Pusey remonstrated publicly, officially, and through one who claimed to be a friend in the Board of six doctors. The statute had been disinterred from arbitrary times, but not even in the most arbitrary times the days of the Star Chamber had there been denied to an accused person the right of making an appearance and saying what he had to say in his defence. Laud is frequently charged by Puritan writers with overbearing 56 EMINENT PERSONS and even outrageous conduct in the Star Chamber, but this itself proves that there was a trial, and that the accused was allowed a hearing. The terms of the statute implied a trial, and by English usage a public trial. The six doctors, however, took the ground that this was a matter of domestic discipline ; they had to preserve the peace of the University and the fate of young men not well able to take care of their faith them- selves. A public trial, they said, would be worse than the sermon itself, and would spread the mischief and interrupt all other studies. This was something like treating the University as a large boarding-school, a very natural result of the Laudian or College system, . but one which Laud could hardly have anticipated. For a week, therefore, Dr. Pusey had the pleasure of knowing that a Board, carefully composed of men more or less hostile to his opinions, was sitting with closed doors, considering how far they could venture to go in condemnation and punishment. The Board, however, had its difficulties. The sermon was guarded from the Komish doctrine. It savoured not of Transub- stantiation, but of Consubstantiation, and one of the members of the Board reminded his colleagues that Consubstantiation was preached in the precincts of St. James's Palace to the German members of the royal household, and was, in fact, the creed of Luther, and of such as still hold to him, including some of the reigning German families. The Board must there- fore take care what it was about. It did. It said not a word about the sermon, but suspended Dr. Pusey from the use of the University pulpit for two years. Had it been a trial of strength and skill between two factions of schoolboys, this would have been a happy hit As Dr. Pusey would not hear the six doctors preach, so they would put themselves out of the way of having to listen to him. Yet the actual result was to put the six doctors and their adherents in the wrong, and make a martyr of Dr. Pusey, who went on writing and publishing more than ever, and was now much more read than he had ever been. He went on contributing to the Tracts for the Times, though, if he ever read those which he did not write himself, he would have seen things to stagger him. It is not unlikely, however, that the only Tracts he read were his own. Writers are not always good readers, except for their own uses. There was from the first the understanding of a general joint responsibility DR. PUSEY 57 not to be too exactly interpreted. But the theology of the Tracts was not inexact. The critics, in fact, were very anxious to write, and were accordingly in. the mood of mutual toleration. Meanwhile Dr. Pusey was contributing largely in writing, in translating, in editorship, and in funds to several series still occupying much space in the shelves of University men of that period, and contributing largely to the profits of the enterprising class of tradesmen who undertake " removals." The Library of the Fathers, the English translations of them, the Anglo-Catholic Library are some of the portentous results of that tremendous incubation. The other side, not to be beat, brought out the English Keformers, quite as voluminous, unreadable, and unread as the poison of which they were to be the antidote. They still occupy upper shelves, their backs paler year by year, the dust thickening upon their edges, uncut, practically not worth the cutting ; for they speak not to the heart, or mind, or soul of these days. It is lamentable to reflect on the immense absorption of energy, opportunity, and resources of all kinds involved in these mountains of useless toil. Men qualified to take important parts in the Church, or in the world at large, became bookworms, antiquaries, hair-splitters, and disputants ready to rise at any fly, and to pick a quarrel with any fancied antagonist, high or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned. When they should have been emerging into the work of life, they went back to their cells. Men of simpler aims, though may be less mental calibre, were filling the open positions and accepting ordinary duties, thereby becoming acquainted with the world, and winning useful and honourable fields of exertion. The result is that not a few who started with the vision of turning the Church upside down, or rather taking it off its existing basis, and planting it anew on the early centuries, have found themselves nowhere, while the humble drudges they once contemned are masters of the situation. It is difficult to conceive that the estimable men who began this movement, and carried it on for many years, ever gave a serious thought to the consequences to the innumerable lesser men working as rank and file in the great army under their orders. Meanwhile, the movement had ramified according to the special taste of the converts or the demand of circumstances. Dr. Pusey himself was neither a poet nor an ecclesiologist, nor a ritualist. He wrote no verses, he translated none ; he designed 58 EMINENT PERSONS no churches, he planned no painted windows ; he wore no peculiar vestments, except those of his degree ; he practised no genuflections, gestures, or other novelties. Like Keble and Newman, he always performed the service as country clergymen had been accustomed to do, only with a deeper reverence and possibly more significance. A world of art nay, several worlds of art now sprang into existence. Of religious poetry, it might almost be said, up to this time there had been none. The critics of the day, if they chanced to perceive the least element of worship in a copy of verses, put it down as a forced and impossible hybrid. What could fancy and duty have to do with one another 1 Churchgoers had to choose between " Tate and Brady " and the hymns which drove Cowper mad, in which state he wrote more of them. Nowadays, in spite of many reasonable objections which have to be felt rather than expressed by old-fashioned Churchmen, " Hymns Ancient and Modern " have taken possession of the land, forcing themselves into churches where it is evident the pulpit and the choir are as much at variance as Ebal and Gerizim. We have no choice but to use them and interpret them as best we can, though criticism and devotion are apt to part company. As to ecclesiastical architecture, no doubt Dr. Pusey had to go along with the current. But in 1,832, when he preached and published a sermon at the consecration of a church he had been chiefly instrumental in raising at Grove, in the parish of Wantage, he dwelt on the Spiritual Church, not after our own devices or in fond rivalry of old Jewish magnificence, and he dropped not a word that could be considered prophetic of the visible change he lived to see. There has been an absolute resurrection of Gothic architecture, no longer called Gothic. We have revived a dead art at the very point where the most graceful and poetic style was suddenly abandoned for the more practical and exclus- ively English " Perpendicular." The earlier style now lives and grows, and develops into new forms, as if it were but a stripling in years after a death-sleep of five centuries. Cambridge is apt to take up a challenge from Oxford and win. So it did now by a length or two. It is true that Mr. J. H. Parker, a veritable Colossus of architectural and antiquarian literature, has sustained the credit of Oxford almost single-handed ; but Cambridge has sent out, on the whole, the greater number of publications and of propagandists for carrying out what came DR. PUSEY 59 to be called Puseyism into the details of worship and religious life. A very natural comparison has sometimes been made. On the one hand, the leaders of the movement, who professed to revive the Primitive Church, worshipped as the English parsons and squires had done till the other day. On the other hand, the followers, who only carried this teaching to its legitimate consequences, clothed the restored worship with its own proper vestments, appliances, forms, and ceremonies. Which are right, or least wrong ? For the former it must be said that people change more easily their opinions than their practice ; but it must be claimed for the Eitualists, as they are called, that they are logical and consistent. They think so themselves, and others think so too. Dr. Pusey was not strictly logical or consistent when in de- fence of his teaching he appealed to his own simplicity of practice in the performance of Church service. It is an appeal to mercy and no more, and the world always will have a tenderness for the simple folk who go on doing as they and their fathers have done before. The time has not arrived for a break. Nobody knows when the first Christian ceased from joining in the services of the temple, and observing the great feasts, as well as the routine of smaller ordinances. In the somewhat parallel case of our days, Dr. Pusey, to the end, remained in his practice a Berkshire country clergyman, while his disciples have thought nothing too quaint or too recondite for revival. Not long ago he claimed special weight for his advice to Mr. Pelham Dale to resist the judgment of the court given against him, and petitioned the Queen to override the authority of the judge and let him go without the required submission, on the very ground that he was not himself a Ritualist, and therefore, presumably, an im- partial adviser. It is true enough Dr. Pusey has ever been apt to let things about him go on as they are. It would be worth the while of a tourist to look in at Pusey Church and see whether baptism is still administered from an earthenware basin, with a large cat, the crest of the family, depicted inside, for so it was half a century ago. Nothing will now satisfy the true Churchman, in the absence of a baptistery, but a font of marbles and mosaics, as- cended by steps, and surmounted with a towering cover. On the other hand, indifferent as Dr. Pusey might be to these matters of detail, he has always stood by his adherents, often as 60 EMINENT PERSONS he must have lamented their zealous indiscretion. They have always found in him the deepest sympathy in respect of the grievances which are apt to take most hold on clerical natures. The Church of the Fathers was his province ; and had he con- cerned his taste or his reputation, we will venture to say he would not willingly have gone out of it. He would cheerfully have devoted the whole of his life to the mysteries of the Real Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice ; the inspiration of Scrip- ture ; the hidden meanings of the Sacred Text, especially where the significance has hitherto evaded exact determination. But he found himself the head of a great and even powerful party. The chance, for such it was, that gave his name to it was prophetic. Newman retired and seceded. Keble retired into country life and died. Many of the second rank retired, or passed away. Pusey remained strong, energetic, glad to be challenged, not a pleasant customer for the most adroit logo- machist, and beginning to be tolerably wide in the range of his interest. The cessation of his part in the Tracts for the Times and subsequently of his relations to Newman, in respect of the movement, has been briefly stated by the latter in the celebrated publication already quoted, and could have been stated in even fewer words. Dr. Pusey just held his ground and remained what he had been, as Newman, indeed, always expected he would do. He refused to believe, what at length he was told by all about him, that Newman was merely meditating a sacrifice to Rome. The latter wished him to be told it, as a fact ; but somehow, it is not very clear why, shrank himself from telling him. Strange it was, that the greatest master of the English language, living or even dead one might almost say, could not tell a very intimate friend and fellow-worker a truth then most important to both of them. At last he wrote some letters with an expressed wish that they should be shown to Pusey. The rest must be in Newman's own words : " On receiving these letters, my correspondent, if I recollect rightly, at once communicated the matter of them to Dr. Pusey, and this will enable me to state, as nearly as I can, the way in which my changed state of opinion was made known to him. " I had from the first a great difficulty in making Dr. Pusey understand such differences of opinion as existed between himself and me. When there was a proposal about the end of 1838 for a subscription for a Cranmer Memorial, he wished us both to DR. PUSEY 61 subscribe together to it. I could not, of course, and wished him to subscribe by himself. That he would not do ; he could not bear the thought of our appearing to the world in separate positions in a matter of importance. And, as time went on, he would not take any hints which I gave him on the subject of my growing inclination to Rome. When I found him so determined, I often had not the heart to go on. And then I knew that, from affection to me, he so often took up and threw himself into what I said, that I felt the great responsibility I should incur if I put things before him just as I might view them. And, not knowing him so well as I did afterwards, I feared lest I should unsettle him. And, moreover, I recollected well how prostrated he had been with illness in 1832, and I used always to think that the start of the movement had given him a fresh life. I fancied that his physical energies even depended on the presence of a vigorous hope and bright prospects for his imagination to feed upon ; so much so, that when he was so unworthily treated by the authorities of the place in 1843, I recollect writing to the late Mr. Dodsworth to state my anxiety lest, if his mind became dejected in consequence, his health would suffer seriously also. These were difficulties in my way ; and then, again, another difficulty was, that, as we were not together under the same roof, we only saw each other at set times ; others, indeed, who were coming in or out of my rooms freely, and as there might be need at the moment, knew all my thoughts easily ; but for him to know them well, formal efforts were necessary. A common friend of ours broke it all to him in 1841, as far as matters had gone at that time, and showed him clearly the logical conclusions which must lie in propositions to which I had committed myself ; but somehow or other, in a little while his mind fell back into its former happy state, and he could not bring himself to believe that he and I should not go on pleasantly together to the end. But that affectionate dream needs must have been broken at last ; and two years afterwards, that friend to whom I wrote the letters which I have just now inserted, set himself, as I have said, to break it. Upon that I, too, begged Dr. Pusey to tell in private to any one he would that I thought in the event I should leave the Church of England. However, he would not do so ; and at the end of 1844 had almost relapsed into his former thoughts about me, if I may judge from a letter of his which I have found. Nay, at the Commemoration of 1845, 62 EMINENT PERSONS a few months before I left the Anglican Church, I think he said about me to a friend, ' I trust after all we shall keep him.' " The truth is, these two men, from the beginning of the movement to the memorable year 1846, were working with unremitting industry and extreme concentration of mind on two divergent lines. It is not impossible that each was so absorbed in his work that he could not, or at least did not, address himself to the problem how long their surviving shadow of agreement and co-operation could last. It is not too much to suppose that each of them was pursuing his own course quite as uninterruptedly and unswervingly as if the other had no existence at all, Newman as if there was no Pusey, and Pusey as if the Cardinal had been one of the wonders of the seventeenth century instead of the nineteenth. Newman's secession, however, when at last he took a sorrowful parting with Pusey and other friends at the residence of the Radcliffe Observer, made a great difference in Pusey's position. He was now the head of the movement, the champion of the doctrines for which Laud died and the non-jurors gave up all their portion in this life. It was he, now, and he alone, that had to be consulted at every emergency, and that had to advise the numerous class that flock to every oracle to be encouraged in their own ways. The system had been binary ; there now was but one centre of attraction. Dr. Pusey gladly accepted all the responsibilities and all the labours of the new situation. His works, in the massive and voluminous sense of the word, show days and nights of incessant toil. Nevertheless, he was always prepared when " called on " to do battle for his cause and opinions. Our own columns have borne testimony to his constant readiness to join issue on fit occasion and with meet foe. Any such question as Church and State, royal supremacy, marriage after divorce or with a deceased wife's sister, was sure to bring him out. His letters to this journal extended over all the latter part of his life and were continued to its close. It was only the other day that, with the hand of death upon him, he claimed in our columns sympathy for an imprisoned ritualist. He seems to have taken care, at the beginning of the great movement, to ascertain the points on which he could and would make a stand thus far and no farther. He never surrendered ground once grasped for more than he could hold. People DR. PUSEY 63 forget the battles he has had to fight while they see the triumph of his cause in some thousand churches in this land. There was a period when Miss Sellon's case filled the papers examination after examination, letter after letter, bulky pamphlets and bulkier replies. Few people would now be able to recall what it was all about, and we have no wish to help them. Dr. Pusey has always stood to the lady, who naturally enjoyed persecution under such patronage, and he has continually acted as director, if not chief supporter, of Miss Sellon's establishment. Young England of the clerical type is sure to do even more than justice to the chivalrous, obstinate, and thorough -going. Twenty years ago Dr. Pusey had become the most popular man in the Church of England. He was not a bishop, and had to keep nobody in order ; nay, for the matter of that, he might be allowed to enjoy a little disorder. He was not a Church Commissioner and had to mulct nobody, and deny nobody's prayer. He was not a great patron, and had not to make ten men enemies and one man ungrateful. He was known to care nothing for money. Such was Pusey's hold upon the heart of thousands. He had only to show himself at any meeting of clergy, and all rose as to a patriarch. At the Church Congresses his name elicited vociferous welcomes. The English- man, whether he be lay or clerical, is not much in the habit of calculating what a course will lead to. He likes it, and takes his chance of the sequel. Mediaevalism pushed to the utmost extent of toleration, and evidently minded to go farther if possible, has won innumerable hearts among the wealthy, the intellectual, the young, and the fair ; but it is plainly a diverg- ence from the prevailing taste of the country, and incompatible with the state of things implied in the union of the Church with the State. It can only lead to great troubles of one kind or another, which the successes and triumphs of the hour may hide from the gaze, but cannot avert in the end or stave off very long. Such has been the career of an undoubtedly good and great man. The public feels a commendable interest in knowing in what circumstances such a man has fought his life's battle. It may be still said that in this country we are men first, theologians or politicians afterwards. Dr. Pusey became a widower in 1839. Besides two daughters he had a son, who for many years seemed likely to succeed to the Pusey estates. Though infirm of body, the younger Pusey 64 EMINENT PERSONS was a person of considerable ability and learning. Besides some independent authorship, he largely assisted his father in his works. He died a few years since. Dr. Pusey has had several severe illnesses, almost unto death, recovering seemingly more by mental energy than by any of nature's resources, for he was immediately at his work again. Private life and even official duty yield many long and unchanging careers. Dr. Pusey's home has been the seat of a working laboratory at high drive and the centre of a raging warfare for more than half a century, and he has been the same all through to the end. From his castle-like eminence he has seen the nineteenth century passing by, himself as great a figure as any in the pageant. If Cranmer was the most conspicuous ecclesiastical personage in the sixteenth century, Laud in the seventeenth, and it is hard to say who in the eighteenth, then no one could dispute with Dr. Pusey the honour of giving his name to the great Anglican reaction of the nineteenth. Nomenclature is apt to be pre- carious and even haphazard. Our continents, new or old, are not so much named as misnamed. Yet named they are, and there is now no help for it. By the concurrence of an infinite number of witnesses, Dr. Pusey is the nominal founder of the existing phase of the Church of England. As Regius Professor of Hebrew, he has seen every English see filled and filled again. He has seen an incessant warfare of controversy, litigation, and rival demonstrations. He has heard of more hostile charges than man could remember or read. But he has seen all sides agree in acknowledging Dr. Pusey to be the author of this restoration or of this corruption. It is he that has scattered blessings over the land, or curses. Half the English theological world has reverenced him as a saint, risen whenever he has shown himself, and pronounced even his name with bated breath ; half have found no charge or insinuation too bad for him. It is Dr. Pusey who has been the Reformer or the Heresiarch of the century. OBITUARY NOTICE, MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1882 BY the death of the Primate, the Church of England, as well as the whole Anglican community scattered throughout the world, has lost something more than a titular chief. It has lost the example of a genial and lofty character united to the mature powers of a keen and cultivated intellect; it has lost the leadership of one who was untiring in all good works, com- prehensive in charity, tolerant in opinion, and singularly fail- to all opponents ; above all, it has lost the guidance of a firm and temperate judgment, never vehement, never hasty, and very seldom at fault, such as is oftener, perhaps, associated with eminence in civil affairs than with the Primacy of the Anglican Communion. Dr. Tait will long be remembered as a worthy occupant of the archiepiscopal throne, not because he magnified his office, but because he administered it with unfailing good sense, never pandering to ecclesiastical pride, and always striving to infuse his own mitis sapientia and judicial moderation into the government of the Church. Dr. Tait was a Scotchman of Presbyterian parentage, and the fact has a direct bearing on his ecclesiastical character and career. To it he doubtless owed that broad comprehensiveness which some narrow theologians were inclined to censure as latitude, but which, at any rate, enabled him to do justice and to extend his sympathies towards the religious communities of the United Kingdom which do not recognise tbe authority of the Established Church. Probably no Primate ever lived on such friendly terms with Nonconformity terms which, though they fostered charity and good feeling, never did anything to VOL. Ill F 66 EMINENT PERSONS compromise his own position or that of his Church. Certainly no Primate ever realised so fully the essential unity of the greater Anglican communion and its catholic function in the modern world, and none ever strove more earnestly to compose and adjust the minor differences of parties within his own immediate jurisdiction. Such a man can ill be spared and will be not at all easy to replace. His character and qualities would have marked him for eminence in any calling in life. They enabled him to succeed Arnold at Rugby and Blomfield in the See of London and not to suffer by the comparison. In the See of Canterbury it was, perhaps, more easy to surpass his immediate predecessors. For the last century and a half the Archbishops of Canterbury have, with a few exceptions, been men of moderate abilities and commonplace qualities. But over the See of London have presided a Gibson, a Compton, a Porteus, a Lowth, and a Blomfield, and with each of these, as well as with our Howleys, Sumners, and Longleys, the late Arch- bishop's name will be handed down as one who has not only helped to keep up the dignity of the Episcopal and Archiepis- copal office among us, but even to render it illustrious. In the early years of George III., when Lord Bute was Prime Minister, it would have seemed nothing strange to see a Scotchman walk southwards from Edinburgh and rise by rapid steps to the See of London or even of Canterbury. But Archibald Campbell Tait was born long after the time when the star of the Butes was in the ascendant ; and he has afforded a rare instance of a man born north of the Tweed, and of Presbyterian parentage, taking his seat on the Bishops' Bench in the House of Peers. He was born in Edinburgh on the 22nd of December 1811, the youngest son of the late Mr. Craufurd Tait, of Harviestoun, in the county of Clackmannan, a gentle- man who did good service in his day as the fosterer of education and of scientific agriculture in his neighbourhood ; his mother was Susan, fourth daughter of the late Sir Islay Campbell, sometime Lord President of Scotland. Like most of the sons of the gentry of Scotland, he received his early education in " Modern Athens " at the Edinburgh Academy, then under the charge of the late Archdeacon Williams, a man of a very wide range of learning and scholarship, who is still remembered for his contributions to Homeric literature. Removing thence about the year 1827 to the University of THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 67 Glasgow, he completed his youthful education, and obtained in 1830 a "Snell" Exhibition, with which he went to Balliol College, Oxford. A story is told, we believe on the authority of the late Dean of Westminster, that when young Tait first went up to Balliol and called on Dr. Jenkyns, at that time Master of the College, the Master said to him, " Well, Mr. Tait, what have you come to Oxford for ? " " To improve myself, sir, and to make friends," was the reply of the future Archbishop of Canterbury. The answer was prophetic, for Tait's career at Oxford was a brilliant one, and many of his Oxford friendships lasted throughout his life, and retained a singular warmth of affection on both sides. He was elected to an open Scholarship at Balliol, and he took his BA. degree in 1833, when he obtained a first class in the School of Literce Humaniores, one of his examiners being Dr. Moberly, the present Bishop of Salisbury. Shortly afterwards he was elected to a Fellowship at Balliol and in due time he became Tutor and Dean, taking his M.A. degree in 1836. He examined twice in the School of Literce Hwma- niores, in 1841 and 1842, and in 1843, shortly after he had quitted Oxford for Eugby, he was appointed a Select Preacher. His eminence and success as a Tutor of Balliol a college which Jenkyns and an able staff were pushing to the foremost place, which it still occupies, in the University were considerable, as measured by the academical standard of his time. His " Logic Lectures" especially, as well as his "Catechetical Lectures" delivered in chapel, were, and are, gratefully remembered by many an old Balliol man who had the privilege of hearing them delivered. Tait was a man who always rose to the requirements of the post he occupied. In the old days of Oxford, when a gentleman and a good Churchman was considered fully qualified for any academical post, it was something of an experiment to appoint a young Scotchman of Presbyterian extraction to the Tutorship of an important college. He had not then acquired that bland geniality of address and demeanour which gave him in later life so strong a hold on all persons with whom he was brought into contact, and his Scottish stiffness placed him at some disadvan- tage in comparison with older tutors who were certainly his inferiors in intellect and attainments. At Eugby, again, he had to follow Arnold, and neither his colleagues nor his pupils were disposed at first to regard him as the equal of his great 68 EMINENT PERSONS predecessor. But both at Oxford and Rugby Tait succeeded, in spite of such disadvantages, by dint of earnestness and industry, by straightforwardness and good sense, and by his national habit, early acquired and never abandoned, of doing to the utmost all that he had to do. It was not merely at Oxford, but throughout his whole life, that he strove "to improve himself and to make friends." At Oxford. Rugby, Carlisle, London, and Canterbury he was always improving himself, always advancing to the height of the positions he was successively called upon to occupy ; and he never lost the friends whom he made throughout each portion of his career. In the spring of 1841 the name of Mr. Tait, who at that time had become Senior Tutor of Balliol, was brought some- what prominently before the world as one of the " Four Tutors " who publicly protested against the principles of interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles laid down by John Henry Newman, in his celebrated Tract for the Times No. 90, and so threw down the gauntlet to the Tractarian party, then just at the zenith of its power and popularity at Oxford. The publication of Tract 90 marked the crisis of the " Oxford Movement." It created a storm in the Church and the nation at large, the like of which has not been witnessed since, and though the movement itself was one which strove, as its leader avowed, to stem the tide of " Liberal- ism," it may be doubted whether a stroke more powerful in its indirect and ultimate results was ever struck in favour of freedom of thought than the publication of Tract 90. Dr. Newman's object was to show that the Thirty-nine Articles were susceptible of a Roman or quasi-Roman interpretation ; in many points he was successful, in others his subtle dialectical skill overshot the mark. But the net result of the whole controversy has been to bring to light and lay stress upon the historical fact that the Thirty- nine Articles are, and were originally meant to be, articles of peace, conciliation, and inclusion rather than a dogmatic and exclusive statement of the differences between England and Rome. Whether by inadvertence or intention, the framers of the Articles had given to them this ambiguous character. " Mr. Newman," says Mr. Oakeley, one of the historians of the movement, who was himself carried by it to Rome, " appeared to avoid all imputations on the honesty of the English Re- formers. He supposed them to have been rather diplomatic THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 69 than dishonest. He spoke of the Articles as the same sort of compromise as would result from two very different parties having to draw up a petition to Parliament, or other such public document, in which each side would have to secure a certain recognition of its own views by insisting largely upon the use of an ambiguous phraseology." "Rather diplomatic than dis- honest" the expression aptly defines the purpose of the writer of Tract 90. He would economise, minimise, and strictly define. Whatever of Romish doctrine was not excluded in set terms he would show to be constructively included. His purpose was poles asunder from that of the Jesuit writers who had treated the Articles in something of the same fashion. They strove so to interpret the formulae as to gain a clandestine entrance into a community they were sworn to destroy ; his endeavour was to retain within the Church to which they belonged, and to which they would fain be loyal, men whom the bare letter of the Articles seemed to exclude. His primary purpose failed ; he succeeded only in showing the way to Rome, and before long he was treading it himself. But once for all he destroyed the exclusive character of the Articles and demonstrated the in- sufficiency of traditional methods of interpreting them. By a singular irony of fate, the liberty which he had conquered for he was never formally condemned was, before many years had passed, claimed and claimed in vain by one of his earliest assailants. All this we can see clearly enough now. But the whole matter showed itself in quite another aspect to those among whom Tract 90 was thrown like a bombshell in the spring of 1841. " It is a fact," says the writer whom we have al- ready quoted, " though almost an incredible one, that Mr. Newman was totally unprepared for the reception which this most remarkable essay encountered both in the University and throughout the country. . . . He most conscientiously believed that the interpretation of the Articles which he proposed, however new and however little consistent, in some parts at least, with their primd facie aspect, was yet fairly attributable to them ; and he expressed the greatest surprise when a friend, to whom he showed his Tract previously to publication, gave it as his opinion (entirely borne out by the result) that it would completely electrify the University and the Church. . . . Tract 90 had not been out many days 70 EMINENT PERSONS before the University of Oxford was in a fever of excitement. It was bought with such avidity that the very presses were taxed almost beyond their powers to meet the exigencies of the demand. Edition followed edition by days rather than by weeks ; and it was not very long before Mr. Newman, as I have heard, realised money enough, by the sale of this shilling pamphlet, to purchase a valuable library. If, during the month which followed its appearance, you had happened to enter any common-room in Oxford between the hours of six and nine in the evening, you would have been safe to hear some ten or twenty voices eloquent on the subject of Tract 90. If you had happened to pass two heads of houses or tutors of colleges strolling down High Street in the afternoon, or return- ing from their walk over Magdalen Bridge, a thousand to one but you would have caught the words ' Newman ' and ' Tract 90.' Nor was it many days before action was taken upon the question. Four gentlemen, tutors of their respective colleges, came forward as the representatives of the great body of their order with a manifesto, in the course of which they stated that they were ' at a loss to see what security would remain were the principles of the Tract generally recognised ; that the most plainly erroneous doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome might now be inculcated in the lecture -rooms of the University and from the pulpits of our churches.' " Such is the story narrated by a contemporary witness and actor. The four tutors were Mr. Churton, of Brasenose ; Mr. H. B. Wilson, of St. John's ; Mr. Griffiths, of Wadham ; and Mr. Tait, of Balliol. Their protest was followed within a few days by a formal declaration of the Hebdomadal Board, which at that time consisted exclusively of the heads of houses, together with the two proctors as the representatives of the body of residents. But the author of the Tract was never formally condemned for writing it. The protest of the four tutors was personal and individual, and derived whatever public character it had from the statutory obligation then imposed upon all tutors of giving their pupils instruction in the formularies of the Church of England. The declaration of the Hebdomadal Board had no executive validity ; it could only have taken effect if the Board had followed up its issue by proposing in Convocation that Mr. Newman should either be deprived of his degree or be suspended from his academical THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 71 functions of teaching and preaching. But this machinery of condemnation, which was subsequently set in motion against Dr. Pusey and Mr. Ward, was never applied to the author of Tract 90. Dr. Bagot, the easy-going Bishop of the diocese in which Newman was a beneficed clergyman, sent him a message, stating that in his opinion the Tracts for the Times were doing mischief and ought to be given up. Newman promptly obeyed his ecclesiastical superior, and Tract 90 was the last of a memor- able series. With the subsequent history of the Tractarian movement Dr. Tait had no very direct relations ; he left Oxford for Rugby in the following year, and by the time he became Bishop of London, Tractarianism was practically dead and Ritualism had taken its place. In Macmillan's Magazine for October there was published a graceful essay from his pen, suggested by Mr. Mozley's Reminiscences, and written very shortly before his last illness, which contains reflections on the movement and its results, softened, no doubt, by the lapse of time, and certainly mellowed by the growth of experience. Of the four tutors, Mr. Churton is long since dead ; Mr. Griffiths became Warden of Wadham in succession to Dr. Symons, a conspicuous Evangelical leader, and though he resigned the Wardenship a year ago he is still resident in Oxford, where he holds the post of Keeper of the Archives. Mr. Wilson whose Bampton Lectures were long remembered in Oxford for their reach of thought and grandeur of style was afterwards a contributor to Essays and Reviews. It is one of the revenges of time that the tutor whose pen may have drafted the protest against Newman's latitude at any rate, it was he who subsequently explained and defended it in a published letter addressed to Mr. Churton was many years afterwards himself the defendant in a prolonged prosecu- tion for heresy. In June 1842 the sudden death of Dr. Arnold caused a vacancy in the Headinastership of Rugby School, and Mr. Tait was chosen as Arnold's successor against a very formidable field of competitors. The appointment at the time was regarded as about the best that could be made ; for, although Mr. Tait was not a great " scholar " in the narrow and restricted sense in which that term was formerly understood at Oxford, yet he was well known for his broad and powerful attainments in the almost more important field of " science " ; in his knowledge of 72 EMINENT PERSONS " logic " and " rhetoric," and in acquaintance with the Ethics of Aristotle, he was surpassed by none in the University. Besides this, he had shown great administrative capacities as Dean and Tutor of his College ; while his ex- perience of young men was as great as his knowledge of the world a point in which Oxford Dons are not always pre-eminent. The appointment was fully justified by its results. A list of his pupils at Rugby would include many eminent names ; among them may be mentioned the present Earl of Derby and M. Waddington, late Prime Minister of France, who entered at Rugby in 1841. To follow after a master so efficient and so liked as Thomas Arnold was in itself no easy task ; but to have succeeded, as Dr. Tait did, in the management of Rugby School was a sufficient proof of his possession of that practical wisdom and those elements of personal popularity which justified his subsequent advancement to still higher posts. Shortly after his appointment to the Headmastership of Rugby, Dr. Tait became engaged to be married to Miss Catharine Spooner, daughter of Archdeacon Spoouer, vicar of Elmdon, and niece of Mr. Richard Spooner, for many years one of the members of Parliament for Warwickshire. The marriage took place in the summer of 1843 and the union was one of singular happiness, but also of the severest trial. Mrs. Tait was the partner of all her husband's labours at Rugby and at Carlisle, in London, at Lambeth, and at Canterbury. Her life has been written partly by her own hand, in the touching and tragic account which she wrote for her surviving children of the deaths of five of her daughters at Carlisle in the spring of 1856, partly in the brief and feeling memoir written by the Archbishop himself, and partly in the memorials collected at the request of the Archbishop after her death in 1878 by the Rev. William Benham and published in the well - known volume entitled Catharine and Craufurd Tait. The domestic life of the Archbishop was one of singular beauty both in its joys and in its sorrows, and the latter, which were heavy, were borne with manly fortitude and Christian resignation. He has survived his only son by a little more than four years, and his own death has occurred within a day or two of the fourth anni- versary of that of his wife. The heavy bereavement of his later years never interfered with the faithful discharge of the duties of his high station ; but since the death of Mrs. Tait his THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 73 advancing years and growing infirmities had compelled him to husband his failing strength and to live in comparative retire- ment, as if he was patiently waiting his own release. He always felt that his life hung by a slender thread, and therefore when his last illness came he was the least surprised and the least disconcerted of all the inmates of his palace. At Rugby Dr. Tait was an intensely hard worker so hard, indeed, that before he had been there more than six or seven years his work began to tell seriously on his health, and brought on a dangerous attack of rheumatic fever, from the constitutional effects of which he never entirely recovered. His disregard of personal ease and his eager love of labour were known and felt powerfully among old and young Rugbeians, who, like all other Englishmen, and especially public-school men, are apt to honour and respect " thoroughness " in those who are set over them far above all mere intellectual qualities. In 1850 he accepted from the Government of Lord John Russell the Deanery of Carlisle, a post which it was thought and hoped would afford him some rest and respite after his labours at Rugby. But rest and indolence were not to the taste of Dr. Tait. No sooner had the fair northern city welcomed his arrival than its people became aware that a real hard worker had come to it. The establishment of a daily service, the increased efficiency of the schools of the place, and the frequent presence of the new Dean in the abodes of the poor made it evident that, whatever might be the opinion of other men, at all events Dr. Tait did not regard a Deanery as only another name for a well-paid sinecure. For six years he remained at Carlisle ; and there he lost within a few weeks five of his young children from scarlet fever, the infection of which he was supposed to have carried to the Deanery from the bedside of some sick man or woman whom he was visiting. From the Deanery of Carlisle to the Bishopric of London was a great step. But the promotion had not been unearned. While holding his Deanery, Dr. Tait had taken an active part in the proceedings of the first Oxford University Commission, and it is well known that next to the late Bishop of Peterborough (Dr. Jeune) he had the largest hand in the preparation of the Commissioners' Report. In the summer of 1856 Dr. Blomfield obtained leave to resign the See of London, and a Royal congtf d'e'lire was issued recommending the Very Rev. Archibald Camp- 74 EMINENT PERSONS bell Tait as a fit and proper person to be elected by the Chapter in his room. The offer of the see was conveyed to Dr. Tait by Lord Palmerston, who was Prime Minister at the time ; but it is understood that the appointment was made at the direct suggestion of the Queen. No sooner was his consecration over than he made it plain to all men that he had but enlarged his sphere of usefulness. The hard-working Dean did not settle down into an easy-going Bishop of the dilettante or drawing-room type. To the astonish- ment of all that loved respectability and routine, he made his presence felt in various out-of-the-way places, now preaching in omnibus yards, now visiting the sick wards of some metropolitan hospital, now penning a summons to the faithful, both clergy and laity, to make a noble and united effort on behalf of the spiritual destitution of that great city which is the centre of his diocese. For his spirited efforts to carry the light of the Gospel into the dark dwellings of the poor of London, and to secure the erection of at least one place of worship in each district of every parish of London, and, above all, for the plain-spoken zeal with which he placed this work as a duty neither more nor less before the wealthy classes of this great metropolis, he deserved and secured the gratitude of all religious men, whatever their opinions might be, excepting, perhaps, a few hot-headed partisans of the extreme High Church School. The result of his Lord- ship's appeal to the wealthier classes of the metropolis was the commencement of a large annual subscription called the Bishop of London's Fund, which in the first five years of its existence had raised a sum of nearly .350,000 for the erection of churches, schools, and parsonages in the poorer suburbs of the metropolis ; had called into being above seventy new districts, which have rapidly developed into separate and endowed parishes ; and, to say nothing of a whole army of scripture readers and " mission women," had the effect of adding some hundred clergymen to the permanent working staff of the diocese, before the elevation of its author to the archiepiscopal chair. The episcopal duties of hospitality were not forgotten amid the sterner occupations of the See of London. Mrs. Tait, who shared and seconded all her husband's labours as only a true woman can never putting herself unduly forward, never inter- fering in matters that did not concern her, but making her life a part of his and filling it with occupations congenial to her THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 75 character and station was indefatigable in her efforts to promote a kindly social intercourse between the Bishop and his clergy. Her garden-parties at Fulham, at which the clergy of the whole diocese were wont to assemble, were made by her the pleasantest and not the least valuable characteristics of Dr. Tait's episcopate. They were thoroughly friendly gatherings, where every one was made to feel at ease, and where gaiety and wit were not unwel- come even if bishops themselves were sometimes taken for a butt. The story of the emu which was sent to the Bishop from Australia is no doubt well known, but it is good enough to bear repetition. At one of these pleasant gatherings, says Mr. Benham, the emu was turned out into the meadows to be inspected by the guests ; but the cows resented the intrusion and gave chase to the unfortunate bird. " Halloa," exclaimed Dean Milman excitedly, " there goes Colenso, and all the bishops after him." It was on the same day that the Dean saw Bishops Wilberforce and Villiers into a cab together as they drove off to attend some meeting. He approached them as they started, and with much solemnity of manner whispered, " See that ye fall not out by the way !" In 1868 Archbishop Longley died and the Bishop of London was appointed his successor. In 1862 he had been offered the Archbishopric of York by Lord Palmerston and had declined it by the advice of his wife. " This," says the Archbishop himself, " was before the organisation of the Bishop of London's Fund, and at that time I was in more vigorous health, and much work in Condon to which my strength was equal seemed to lie before me. The offer of the Archbishopric of Canterbury presented none of the difficulty which must have attended a migration from London to York." The offer was made by Mr. Disraeli during his first brief tenure of the Premiership, and the selection has always been held to have done great credit to his sagacity and freedom from party predilections in the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage. It is probable, moreover, that the Queen's personal preference was again exercised in favour of Dr. Tait. In any case, Mr. Disraeli made a good choice, as the career of the Arch- bishop has abundantly proved. He chose a man who was well fitted to guide the Church with unfailing moderation and good sense, even though he might often be found voting on the side opposed to the Premier who appointed him. The first measure of importance on which, after his installa- 76 EMINENT PERSONS tion as Archbishop of Canterbury, the new Primate had to give counsel was the disestablishment of the Irish Church a measure of which he reluctantly acknowledged the political necessity and in respect of which he accordingly strove to act as mediator between the two parties, though he considered that it was not politic to oppose it. A hasty visit to Scotland, where the first Scottish -born Archbishop of Canterbury received a hearty welcome, and a sudden and sharp illness were notable incidents in the first year of his archiepiscopal life. There was no " Suffragan Bishop " then for him to rely upon, and hard work told with terrible effect on a constitution which the labours of the See of London had seriously impaired. One of the first works of the new Archbishop, aided by his noble-hearted wife, was the erection of St. Peter's Orphanage, in the Isle of Thanet, where his Grace had lately purchased a country residence. In 1870 the Archbishop was relieved of some portion of his heaviest duties by the appointment of a Suffragan Bishop of Dover, in the person of Archdeacon Parry ; and a winter spent in the North of Italy contributed largely to the re-establishment of his health. The rest of the career of the Archbishop, though his lot was cast in troublous times of controversy, was, for the most part, uneventful. Its history is recorded in his three quadrennial charges, the last of which was delivered in 1880. In his place in the House of Lords or in Convocation, he was always the same consistent advocate of all necessary toleration in lesser matters, the same censurer of harsh and irritating measures, whether against Boman Catholics or Nonconformists, and the constant counsellor of charity and peace. When the religious world was convulsed by the appointment of Dr. Temple to the See of Exeter, the Archbishop used all his influence to calm the storm which arose. It will also be remembered to the credit of his goodness of heart that, much as he disapproved the semi- Romanism of the ultra-Ritualistic school, he did his best to pro- mote legislation which would give a loophole of escape to Mr. Green from his durance in Lancaster Gaol. His charges and pastoral letters sufficiently show the man, advocating as they did a large comprehension of those who would agree to accept the broad principles of the Gospel without insisting on debatable points as essentials. On one subject, however, he wrote plainly, if not sternly namely, in the cause of temperance. One of the THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 77 latest acts of the Archbishop before his illness was to send, through his chaplain, a small contribution to the Salvation Army, whose services he was probably all the more anxious to utilise, in the cause of the poor, on account of the great support which he felt that they gave to the temperance cause, which he had deeply at heart. In the House of Lords, and in the Upper House of Convoca- tion, too, Archbishop Tait was not an infrequent speaker ; and on most practical subjects which bore in any way on the interests of the Established Church he was always listened to with respect. He took a keen interest in the universities, and he spoke with sagacity and authority in the debates of the House of Lords on Lord Salisbury's measures of University reform. In theological controversy he was always moderate and conciliatory, and when he engaged in polemic, as he did in some of his charges, he was careful to state the views of his opponents with rare precision and singular fairness. He had been one of those clergy who published their satisfaction at the decision of the Privy Council in the Gorham case, and from the time when he became a Bishop he exhibited that breadth and liberality of sentiment of which he had given such proofs while Headmaster of Rugby and Dean of Carlisle. The Church of England, he well knew and felt, was designed to be, not narrow, but largely comprehensive, and to embrace within its fold two powerful parties, or, at all events, all men of moderate opinions belonging to two rival schools of thought and teaching, with, perhaps, a large infusion of a third school of religious opinion, men who are inclined to " broad " views and a rigid neutrality. To the extreme Ritualistic school, indeed, he always showed himself a firm opponent, and more than once he had occasion to rebuke with some severity the wearing of coloured stoles and other attempts at gorgeous vestments, the use of which he considered incompatible with an honest adherence to the formularies of the Established Church. In his well-known work on The Dangers and Safeguards of Modern Theology, he laid down earnestly the principle that all controversy ought to be conducted in a Christian spirit of forbearance ; and, while strongly and firmly attached to the Articles of the Church, he enforced upon his readers his conviction that " the truths of a living Christian faith can never be made to find their way into reluctant minds through mere protests and negations, far less by the mere 78 EMINENT PERSONS attempt to inflict pains and penalties on those whom we think to be in error." To these broad and tolerant principles Dr. Tait was true from first to last through his archiepiscopal career, and in the paper to which we have referred above, he speaks with affection- ate remembrance of his lifelong intimacy with two of the Tractarian converts to Eomanism. The truth is that under a singularly cold and stern exterior the Archbishop wore a very warm and affectionate heart, and this fact was known and appreciated by all who knew him, from the Queen on the throne down to the humblest of the curates in his diocese. Strong as were his convictions against the Romish Church and all Romish and even Romeward tendencies, he never erred against Christian charity in their practical application ; and a future age will respect him as no unworthy successor of those who have sat in the chair of St. Augustine before him. The deaths of his son, the Rev. Craufurd Tait, not many months after his appointment to the vicarage of Netting Hill, and afterwards of Mrs. Tait, who had been for more than a quarter of a century the partner of all his cares, and, it may be said, of half his labours, told terribly on the health of the affectionate and home-loving man, whose heart beat so warmly and tenderly under the archiepiscopal purple. He never recovered the blow, and during his last illness, which he bore with patience and composure, as he had borne the heavy trials of his life, he more than once expressed his weariness of life and his perfect readiness to obey the final summons. Dr. Tait was the ninety-second occupant of the See of Canter- bury, reckoning from the first arrival of St. Augustine, and the twenty-third in succession from the first Protestant Archbishop, Matthew Parker. According to Sir Harris Nicolas, " the Arch- bishop is accounted Primate and Metropolitan of All England and is the first Peer in the realm, having precedence of all Dukes not of the Blood Royal and of all the great officers of state. He is styled ' His Grace,' and he styles himself officially Archbishop of Canterbury Divind Providentid, whereas the prelates of his province are styled bishops Divind Permissione. At coronations it is his duty and privilege to place the crown upon the Sovereign's head ; and, wherever the Court may be, the King and Queen are the proper domestic parishioners of the Archbishop. The Bishop of London is accounted his Provincial THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 79 Dean, the Bishop of Winchester his Sub-Dean, the Bishop of Lincoln his Chancellor, and the Bishop of Bochester his Chap- lain." It may be added, on the same authority, that the See of Canterbury has given to the Church no less than eighteen saints; to the Church of Borne nine Cardinals ; and to the civil state of England twelve Lord Chancellors, four Lord Treasurers, and one Chief Justice. The see is generally said to be valued in the King's books at ,2816 a year ; but in the good old days, before the Ecclesiasti- cal Commission, the income was probably ten times that amount, though it varied from year to year. It is now fixed at 15,000 with the palaces of Addington and Lambeth. The diocese of Canterbury includes nearly the whole of Kent, except the Deanery of Bochester and a few suburban parishes, and also the parishes of Addington and Croydon, in Surrey. The Archbishop, as such, enjoys the patronage of between 180 and 190 livings. The province of Canterbury includes twenty-two diocesan sees, exclusive of suffragans namely, London, Winchester, Bath and Wells, Bangor, Chichester, Ely, Exeter, Gloucester and Bristol, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff, Norwich, Oxford, Peter- borough, Bochester, St. Albans, St. Asaph, St. David's, Salisbury, Truro, and Worcester. The late Prelate was a Privy Councillor, an Official Trustee of the British Museum, a Governor of the Charter House, Visitor of All Souls, Merton, and Keble Colleges, Oxford, of Sion College, of Harrow School, and of Highgate School ; President of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and of the National Society ; and President of the Council of King's College, London, and of St. Mark's College, Chelsea. For many years he was Visitor of Balliol College, Oxford, a society which enjoys the singular privilege of electing its own Visitor, and exercised it in favour of its former Tutor and Dean. L^ON GAMBETTA OBITUARY NOTICE, TUESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1883 LEON MICHEL GAMBETTA was born at Cahors on the 3rd of April 1838. His father, who still lives, was a tradesman dealing in crockery ; his mother's maiden name was Massabie. Leon's grandfather was a Genoese, who emigrated to France at the beginning of this century ; and as his name signifies, in the dialect of Genoa, a liquid measure of two quarts' capacity, it has been supposed that it was conferred upon one of his fore- fathers as a sobriquet. Ldon Gambetta's grandfather was a poor man of no education, and his only son, Leon's father, thought he had done very well for himself when he set up a shop with the small dowry brought him by his wife, Mile. Massabie. The mother of Ldon died while he was a child, and he was indebted for his early teaching to his maternal aunt and to her brother, a priest, who held a small benefice in a village near Cahors. It was at first intended that L<$on should follow his father's trade ; but, as he was a boy very apt at learning and fond of books, his uncle and aunt decided that it would be better to put him at the seminary with a view to his ultimately taking holy orders. Le"on's father does not seem to have much liked this scheme, for he had no second son who could succeed to his business ; but he had a great love for his bright -witted boy, and, having conceived a high respect for his talents, yielded to the pleasing idea that he would some day become an ornament to the Church. This belief may be explained by the fact that Ln was, as a child, ardently religious. When twelve years old, he wrote an ode dedicated to his "patron, St. L<$on, and to all the Popes called Ldon," and this composition was printed in llON GAMBETTA 81 the Catholic journal of the diocese. In after years some of his political enemies tried to get hold of a copy, but failed, and published a spurious one, which they gave out for his. It may be remembered that M. Henri Rochefort also began his career as a writer by an ode to the Virgin Mary, published when he was seventeen. In M. Eochefort's case the ode was found and re- printed by Bonapartist journals, to the great indignation of the author, who tried to explain away his youthful opinions, with much unnecessary vituperation of the critics who had recalled them. But M. Gambetta was never so weak. When Cardinal Pecci was elected Pope and chose the title of Leo XIII., M. Gambetta, who was dining with some friends when the news arrived, remarked with a smile, " I ought to be in luck now, for that makes me a new patron ; I daresay I should have turned some fine verses on him while I was my uncle's pupil." The career of L4on Gambetta must continue to exercise over young advocates and journalists the same kind of fascination as that of Napoleon I. does over young officers ; and, indeed, the fact that Bonaparte and Gambetta were both of Italian origin, and came to sudden and great power while they were very young, was often quoted to draw a parallel between the two. But there is this difference between Bonaparte and Gambetta, that whereas the latter made his mark in life later by some three or four years than the former, brilliant destinies were prophesied for him, by others besides his relations, when he was still a child. While Bonaparte was a pupil at the school of Brieiine, his masters predicted that he would make a poor officer, because he had no aptitude for mathematics ; when Gambetta was at the seminary, his tutors foretold that he would make a great figure in life, " but never," they regretfully added, " as a Churchman." The boy began well, but he had evidently no vocation for the strict discipline of the Church ; he was too disputatious, not meek enough about taking blows without returning them, and, in short, too headstrong. Anticipating the judgment which M. Grevy passed upon him when he was thirty-three years old, his ecclesiastical masters reported of him that he was un esprit rebelle, turbulent, and they advised his removal to another school. Young Gambetta was accordingly sent to the lyc& that is, the lay public school of Cahors, and here he immediately won golden opinions by his cleverness, his industry, and the happy VOL. Ill G 82 EMINENT PERSONS vivacity of his character. One of the half-yearly bulletins of the lyce'e, which has been preserved in his family, records that he was " passionate without being vindictive, and proud without arrogance." In time he became the best Latin scholar at the school and the most proficient in French composition. When he was in his sixteenth year, however, an accident, which de- stroyed his left eye, quelled for a time the exuberance of his character and suddenly gave a new direction to his studies. Fearing lest he should lose his sight altogether, he set himself to learn the alphabet for the blind, in order that he might read in books with raised letters ; he also applied himself to the study of music and the violin. During a whole year he was forbidden to open a book, and in the evenings his aunt, Mile. Massabie, used to read to him. There were in the house several volumes of the Constitutionnel for the years 1840-42, and it was the boy's greatest pleasure to hear the Parliamentary debates of those years when Thiers and Guizot were struggling for ascendency. His aunt, who never tired in devotion to her motherless nephew, whom she loved as a son, could not under- stand what pleasure he took in listening to long speeches about Egypt and Mehemet Ali, the balance of power, the liberty of the press, etc. ; but Thiers's speeches used to make the boy quite enthusiastic, and it is to this early admiration which he con- ceived for the chief exponent of Liberal politics under Louis Philippe's reign that may be attributed much of the loyalty which Qambetta displayed towards Thiers in after-life. He always trusted Thiers, and one day in 1873, when there was a dissension in the office of the Rdpublique Frangaise as to whether the candidature of M. Barodet for Paris should be supported against that of Count de Rdmusat, who was M. Thiers's nominee, he quoted from memory a passage out of one of Thiers's speeches and exclaimed, "The man who spoke those words deserves our confidence." Eventually Gambetta let himself be persuaded to back up Barodet, but it was against his better judgment, and when the election of M. Barodet, by starting the " Conservative Union," led to M. Thiers's downfall, there was something like a storm in the office of the R^publique and the Barodists seceded from the staff. But, returning to Gambetta's school-days, one may note that his precocious zeal for politics nearly caused his expulsion from the bjcde of Cahors. In 1855 M. Fortoul, Minister of Public In- LEON GAMBETTA 83 struction, visited the town, and Gambetta, as the head scholar of the lycte, had to deliver before him an address in Latin. The speech was first revised by the headmaster ; but in declaiming it, Gambetta inserted a few unauthorised reflections of his own upon the reign of Tiberius, by whom he pretty clearly designated Napoleon III. What made the matter amusing was that M. Fortoul, who had probably been paying but little attention, patted young Gambetta solemnly on the head at the close of his oration, and said, " Tr&s lien, trls Hen." From Cahors Gambetta went to Paris to study law, and he quickly drew the attention of the Imperial police upon himself by acting as ringleader in those demonstrations which the students of the Latin Quarter were accustomed to make in times of public excitement Peaceful demonstrations they always were, because the police would stand nothing like rioting ; but it was something to march at the head of a procession carrying wreaths to the tomb of a Republican, or to lead cabals for hissing off the stage of the Theatre Frangais or the Ode"on pieces by unpopular writers, like M. Edmond About (for in those days M. About was a Bonapartist). Gambetta lodged for a time at that famous old-fashioned hostelry for students, the Hotel Corneille, near the Ode"on ; and one night when the Emperor and Empress visited the theatre and it was feared that the students might make some disrespect- ful uproar, he received private notice that if he tried to enter the Ode"on he would be arrested. " Well," he said to the friend at court who had brought him the message unofficially, " I was going to the theatre to try and keep order, for I don't want to have a disturbance there, and I think I am the only person having any authority over the students." The friend went away, but returned in about two hours with a clumsy request that Gambetta would go to the theatre and " keep order," a suspicious invitation, which was of course declined. Gambetta had not exaggerated the influence which he pos- sessed in the student world ; it was very great, and at the Cafe" Racine, where he spent a couple of hours every evening, he became the head - centre of an informal literary and political association, whose members were recruited from among the most brilliant pupils of the schools of law and medicine, and from among the artists who studied under Ingres and Delacroix that is, who belonged to the two crack studios. After he 84 EMINENT PERSONS had got his inscription at the Paris Bar in 1859, Garnbetta transferred his custom to the Cafd Procope, which stands in the Rue de 1'Ancienne Com^die, facing the old Theatre Frangais, where Beaumarchais's Mariage de Figaro was first performed. Gambetta's enemies have often made fun about his fondness for " draining bocks and spouting " at the Cafe" Procope ; but this is absurd, for, under the Empire, young men who wished to exchange ideas, and who had not large apartments at their dis- posal, could only meet in cafes. Political clubs were not tolerated, and the law as to secret societies, which prohibited persons from assembling to the number of more than twelve for any political purpose, made it very perilous for a reputed Liberal to receive his friends too often at home. At a cafe" men were pretty safe, because the proprietor was held in bail by the police for the good behaviour of his customers ; but nothing in the way of speechifying would have been allowed at one of these places, and Gambetta's discourses at the Cafe Procope were all held in an undertone amid the clinking of dominoes and the noise of waiters coming and going. For two or three years the Procope remained the only noted Opposition cafe" ; but just before the general election of 1863, M. Arthur Ranc, an amnestied ddportd (who had narrowly escaped the guillotine for getting mixed up in a plot against the Emperor's life), converted the Cafe" de Madrid into a head- quarters for the rising young men of the Opposition of all shades. It was M. Ranc's plan to band Legitimists, Orleanists, and Republicans all together against the Empire, and it is a proof of the terrible bitterness of party warfare in those days that M. Ranc, who afterwards became such a devoted friend and adherent of M. Gambetta, at first thought poorly of him for being too Republican that is, too frank an enemy of the reigning dynasty. He crossed the Seine one evening to hear the young man of whose Liberal fervour he had heard talk, and returned, expressing the opinion " Cette fougue, ce n'est pas de la politique" Gambetta was at this time a handsome man, with dark flowing hair, not curly, but thick and clustering, a somewhat Jewish face, dazzling teeth, and a boisterous voice. For the reasons already explained, he could not talk very loud at the cafe, but now and then, as he discussed some point in a speech delivered by M. Billault or M. Rouher in the Corps L6gislatif, he would bring his fist down with a sounding thump GAMBETTA 85 on the red marble table, represented by tradition to be that upon which Voltaire had corrected the acting edition of Zaire, or he would break out into a lusty Homeric laugh, that would startle and confound the spies from the Kue de Jerusalem, of whom there were always one or two in the place disguised as inoffensive bourgeois. But Gambetta did not spend all his time at the cafe". By day he worked very busily as secretary to M. Adolphe Cr^mieux, a staunch Republican, who had been a member of the Provisional Government of 1848, and who had a large practice at the Bar of Paris. The secretary to an eminent French avocat holds a position to which there is nothing analogous at the English Bar. He goes into court with his chief, watches cases for him, and by degrees picks up crumbs of his practice. Before entering M. Cre"mieux's office Gambetta had served for a while under M. Charles Lachaud, the most eloquent and popular counsel in criminal causes ; but Lachaud was a Bonapartist, and this induced his secretary to leave him after a few weeks. Cre'mieux was of the Jewish faith, and his practice was of two sorts ; in the Civil Courts he held briefs in most of the commercial and banking cases to which his co-religionists were parties, while in the Correctional Courts he defended Liberal journalists, who used to come up for trial in batches regularly every Friday. As he was an uncommonly hard worker, it used to be said of him that he took the press cases for relaxation ; but, advancing in years, the amusement palled upon him, and he soon handed over some of his briefs to his secretary. Gambetta's first public speech was delivered in 1861 in defence of the Marquis Le Guillois, a nobleman of facetious humour, who edited a comic newspaper called Le Hanndon. He was seized with unexpected nervousness as he began ; but before he had stammered out a dozen sentences he was stopped by the presiding judge, who told him mildly that no big words were required in a cause which only involved a fine of 1 00 francs " all the less so," added he, " as your client is acquitted." Gambetta used to say that after this it took him years to recover from the effect of the judge's quiet snub. Like many other young men of talent, he had gone into court expecting to carry everything before him, and had found that the art of forensic pleading is not to be acquired without practice. He did practise most diligently, and the speeches some thirty in all 86 EMINENT PERSONS which, he delivered in unimportant cases during the next seven years were conspicuous for their avoidance of rhetorical flourish. Adolphe Cre"mieux had cautioned him that the secret of oratory lies in mastering the subject of one's discourse " Don't try gymnastic feats until you have a firm platform to spring from " a maxim which a conceited young man, impatient of results, might have despised, but which commended itself to an ambitious man who felt that, although a chance comes to all, it is an important point to be prepared for the chance when it does come. A plutocrat once asked Horace Vernet to "do him a little thing in pencil " for his album. Vernet did the little thing and asked 1000 francs for it. "But it only took you five minutes to draw," exclaimed the man of wealth. " Yes, but it took me thirty years to learn to do it in five minutes," replied Vernet. And so Gambetta, when some one remarked that he was very lucky in having conquered renown by a single speech, broke out impetuously, " I was years preparing that speech twenty times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had it here (touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his breast) as if it would break my heart." The speech in question was delivered on the 1 7th of November 1868, before the notorious Judge Delesvaux (who has been called the Jeffreys of the Second Empire), in defence of Louis Charles Delescluze, editor of the Beveil. The Eeveil had started a sub- scription for erecting a monument to the memory of the Eepre- sentative Baudin, who was killed at the coup d'&at of 1851, and the Government unwisely instituted a prosecution against the editor. It was late in the afternoon when the case was called on after a number of others, but the sixth Chamber was crowded with journalists and barristers, as it always was on Fridays, when Delesvaux a man with hawk-like features and a flaming complexion would sit " tearing up newspaper articles with beak and talons," as Emile de Girardin said of him. Just before Gambetta rose, Delesvaux observed "I suppose you have not much to say ; so it will hardly be worth while to have the gas lighted." " Never mind the gas, sir, I will throw light enough on this affair," answered Gambetta, and it was amid the laughter produced by this joke that he began. His genius found vent that day, and he spoke from first to last without a halt. Reviewing his client's case, he brought Napoleon III. himself to book, and recalled the circumstances under which GAMBETTA 87 Baudin had died " defending that Republican Constitution which President Louis Bonaparte, in contempt of his oath, had violated." At this, Judge Delesvaux half rose in his seat and endeavoured to stop the speaker, but a positive roar from the whole crowd in court forced him to sit down. It was a sign of the approach- ing political earthquake that Delesvaux should have sat down in that way ; for he was a man of great resolution, but he must have felt then as if the earth were trembling under him. So Gambetta continued to speak, denouncing with unimaginable energy the tyrannies and turpitudes of the reign which had con- fiscated all the liberties of France, till at last he concluded with this magnificent peroration, which was rendered most solemn by the increasing darkness of the court and the intense, attentive silence of the audience : " In every country but this you see the people commemorate as a holiday the date which brought the reigning dynasty to the throne. You alone are ashamed of the day which gave you a bloodstained crown the 2nd of December, when Baudin died ! Well, that day which you reject, we Republicans will keep holy. It shall be the day of mourning for our martyrs and the festival of our hopes ! " When Gambetta left the court after this it was felt by all who had heard him that he was the coming man of the Republi- can party; and next day Opposition journals of every shade of opinion from one end of France to the other acclaimed him as a future leader. To understand Gambetta's success it must be remembered that in 1868 the Imperial system had gradually been losing ground in France, owing in a great measure to the Emperor's increasing infirmities of body and to the death of his most strenuous counsellors, Billault and De Morny. It was seen that Napoleon III.'s hand was growing feeble, and that the objects of his policy were confused. In M. Rouher the Emperor had a Minister who would have done well as a Parliamentary statesman, but who, being slow, cautious, and ponderous in all his ways, was not fitted for ruling such a nation as France with an iron rod. From 1852 to 1860 the Imperial reign had been terrible, almost ferocious, in its repression of all popular movements towards freedom. In 1860 an attempt was made to conciliate moderate Liberals by a few concessions, but they were grudg- ingly made. In 1867, De Morny being dead, there was a further instalment of half-hearted reforms, but the disastrous 88 EMINENT PERSONS collapse of the Mexican expedition, and the execution of the Emperor Maximilian in that year, impaired the prestige of the Empire ; and when, in 1868, Henri Rochefort, under cover of a new press law, started his Lanterne, he had no difficulty in turning the dynasty, its ministers, courtiers, achievements, and all the events that constituted the " Napoleonic legend " into ridicule. The days of wholesale transportations of men without trial were at an end ; an amnesty had brought back many hundreds of political prisoners from Cayenne and Lambessa, with exiles from London, Brussels, and Geneva, and these men were careering about the country as agitators. The Chambers, again, no longer held their sittings with closed doors, their debates were published, electoral meetings were tolerated, and the Government had parted with its prerogative of suppressing newspapers by mere official edict. In fact, it had taken to making war upon Liberalism by petty and vexatious methods imprisoning insignificant journalists for short terms in the mildly-conducted gaol of Ste. Pdlagie ; trying to check the circulation of Opposition journals by forbidding them to be sold in railway stations ; stifling debates in the Corps Legislatif by the cldture, and so forth. On the other hand, the Empire had begun to win over a certain number of its former opponents, who felt justly enough that if the Emperor was not met half-way when he made liberal advances he would inevitably recede, and that there must then ensue either a new coup d'etat or a revolution. Two members of the famous " Five," who formed the entire Opposi- tion in the Corps Legislatif from 1857 to 1863 MM. Emile Ollivier and Dariinon had gone over ; sundry Orleanists were making their terms with the Government ; and Emile de Girardin, who edited La Liberte', was advocating with much talent and conviction the formation of an Imperial -Liberal party which should aim at restoring Parliamentary government without trying to upset the throne. M. Gambetta, therefore, came to the front at a time when the Republicans pure, who would make no peace with the " Man of December," were in want of new leaders. When he made his great speech the general election of 1869 was at hand ; he was forthwith invited to stand for Paris and Mar- seilles, and throwing himself with a veritable furia into the double electoral contest, lie thundered out a series of philippics LEON GAMBETTA 89 in which he declared himself to be an "irreconcilable" and claimed the support of all in whose breasts burned " an un- quenchable hatred" of the Empire. He was elected in both constituencies, one of his opponents at Marseilles being M. de Lesseps ; but he had so exhausted himself by his round of speeches that he was seized with a throat affection, which prevented him from taking much part in the labours of the session of 1869. On the 2nd of January 1870 the Liberal Ministry of M. Emile Ollivier acceded to office ; and Gambetta, who was by that time restored to health, at once joined issue with the Cabinet on the question of confidence. " All that you may give us in the way of reforms we accept," he said ; "and we may possibly force you to yield more than you intend, but all you give and all we take we shall use simply as a bridge to carry us over to another form of government." Indirectly this speech was the cause of all the disasters which fell upon France in that year. It cotild not be expected that the Emperor should suffer any doubt to subsist as to whether he still enjoyed the confidence of the nation. The Republican Opposition though they held but twenty seats out of 263 in the Corps L^gislatif talked as if they had the popu- lation of all the large cities at their backs. The Emperor resolved to put this assertion to the test by holding a plebiscite ; and the result of the national poll taken in May was to give him 7,500,000 votes. But the Opposition got a million and a half of suffrages, and what dismayed the Court most was that 53,000 soldiers out of a standing army of about 200,000 voted against the Emperor. This was a truly alarming sign for a Government which placed so much reliance upon the army as an instrument of coercion at home ; and it was promptly decided by the Emperor's unofficial advisers that he must undertake a war in order to recover his authority over the army, and be enabled to cope successfully with the Republican faction. To this scheme M. Emile Ollivier was, of course, no party, as one of its objects was to dismiss him from office ; and when in July the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohen- zollern for the throne of Spain was seized upon by the war party as a pretext for conflict with Prussia, M. Ollivier could assure the Chamber with perfect good faith that there would be no war if the obnoxious candidature were withdrawn. On the very day before the war was declared, M. Ollivier, who knew 90 EMINENT PERSONS little of what was passing at St. Cloud (where Marshal Lebceuf, Prince Metternich, and M. Conti alone were in the Emperor's confidence), affirmed that he would resign sooner than be responsible for an "aggression" upon Prussia. This was during a dinner-party at his official residence in the Place Vendome, but, at dessert, he was summoned away to St. Cloud, where the Emperor, or rather the Empress, overcame his scruples so completely that on the following day he stated in the Corps Le'gislatif that he embarked upon the war with a light heart. Gambetta and the Kepublicans felt that they had every cause for fear when matters had taken this turn. Relying upon Marshal Lebceuf 's assurances that " everything was ready," they saw the prospect of a short sensational campaign like that against Austria in 1859, to be followed by some high-handed stroke of home policy that would sweep most of them into prison or exile. Gambetta could not refrain from bitterly upbraiding Ollivier " You will find that you have been fooled in all this," he said ; " for when the war is over you will be thrown aside like a squeezed orange." " I think my fate will be a happier one than yours, unless you mend your manners," answered Ollivier drily. Three weeks after this, however, everything was changed. The Imperial armies had been beaten at Woerth and Forbach ; the Ollivier Cabinet had fallen amid popular execration (hardly deserved) ; and Gam- betta, forced by circumstances into a position of great influence, received a private visit from Madame Bazaine, who prayed him to agitate that her husband might be appointed as the com- mander-in-chief of the armies. Gambetta was too sincerely patriotic to feel any partisan satisfaction at the reverses which Napoleon III.'s armies had suffered ; and in stirring up the Republicans in the Chamber and in the press to clamour for the appointment of Bazaine he believed he was urging the claims of a competent soldier who was being kept from the chief command solely by dynastic jealousies. He was to learn a couple of months later how much he had been mistaken in his estimate of Bazaine's talents and rectitude of purpose ; and, indeed, Bazaine's conduct towards Gambetta and the Republi- cans from first to last was the more inexplicable as it was un- questionably owing to their agitation that he was placed in the high position which he had coveted. GAMBETTA 91 During the three weeks between Forbach and Sedan Gam- betta had to take rather exciting precautions to ensure his own safety. He was aware that the Empress-Regent's advisers were urging her to have the leaders of the Opposition arrested, and he felt pretty certain that this course would be adopted if the news of a victory arrived. He used to sleep in a different house every night, and never ventured abroad unattended or without firearms. His position was one of great difficulty, for agents of the Internationale made overtures to him with a view to promote an insurrection in Paris, and he forfeited the con- fidence of these fanatics by declining to abet their plans. Gambetta was so little desirous of establishing a Republic by revolution that even when the tidings arrived on the night of the 3rd of September of the Emperor's surrender at Sedan, his chief concern was as to how he could get the deposition of Napoleon III. and the Empress -Regent effected by lawful methods. He hastened to M. Thiers's house, and asked him whether he would accept the Presidency of a Provisional Government? Thiers, sitting up in bed, said he was willing, provided that his office was conferred upon him by the Corps L^gislatif. Accordingly, Gambetta spent all the morning of Sunday, the 4th of September, whipping up members of the majority, and trying to persuade them to go down to the Palais Bourbon and elect a new Government. But he found most of these gentlemen anxious to get off to the different railway stations as soon as possible in cabs. Going to the Chamber himself towards one o'clock, he was carried through the doors by the surging mob which invaded the palace, and in half an hour he shouted himself quite hoarse in adjuring the crowds from the tribune to let the Assembly deliberate in peace. But while he was literally croaking in his attempts to make the people hear reason, news was brought to him that M. Blanqui and some other adventurous spirits, taking time by the forelock, had repaired to the Hotel de Ville, and were setting up a Govern- ment of their own. Upon this Gambetta precipitately left the palace, jumped into a victoria, and drove to the Hotel de Ville, amid a mob of several thousands of persons, who escorted him, cheering all the way. Before five o'clock the deputies for Paris, with the exception of M. Thiers, had constituted them- selves into a Government, which, at the suggestion of M. 92 EMINENT PERSONS Kochefort, took the name of Government of the National Defence ; and M. Gambetta received the appointment of Minister of the Interior. It may be remarked in passing that on the day after these events Judge Delesvaux, fearing, perhaps needlessly, that some of the triumphant Republicans whom, he had so often punished would wreak vengeance upon him, com- mitted suicide. On the other hand, Gambetta's client in the Baudin affair L. C. Delescluze came to him on the morning of the 5th of September and reproached him with much asperity for not having caused the Empress to be arrested. " We want no rose-water Republicans to rule us," said this honest but gloomy zealot, who was shot a few months later during the extermination of the Commune. The siege of Paris brought M. Gambetta to the most romantic part of his career. The National Defence Government had delegated two of their members, MM. Cremieux and Glaiz- Bizoin, to go to Tours and govern the provinces, but being both elderly men of weak health they were hardly up to their work ; and early in October M. Gambetta was ordered by his colleagues to join them. He had to leave Paris in a balloon, and in going over the German lines nearly met with misad- venture through the balloon sinking till it came within range of some marksmen's rifles. He reached Tours in safety, however, and set to work at once with marvellous activity to organise resistance against the invasion. He was ably seconded by M. de Freycinet, and between them these two did all that it was humanly possible to perform ; but from the first their task was one of formidable difficulty, and all chances of repelling the Germans from French soil vanished after the shameful capitula- tion of Bazaine at Metz. Nevertheless, all who saw M. Gambetta during his procon- sulate at Tours will remember with what a splendid energy he worked, how sincerely hopeful he was, and this must not be forgotten how uniformly generous and genial. Invested with despotic powers, he never once abused them to molest an opponent. Many Bonapartists trembled lest he should have them arrested, or, by quartering battalions of Mobiles upon them, eat up their substance ; but he let them alone, and would never suffer them to be bullied by any placeman under his orders. One of his greatest worries came from the horde of adventurers who besieged his house night and day begging for LEON GAMBETTA 93 contracts, official postu, and commissions, or suggesting plans of campaign for the rout of the enemy. Gambetta at last found out a way of dealing with these cormorants. He used to receive them in a large room full of clerks and officers, he the while seated in his shirt-sleeves, smoking. " Speak up, sir," he used to say, speaking sometimes with a voice like a gong ; at other times laughing with Rabelaisian joviality ; and by such means he readily put out of countenance men who had only come on foolish business. In his public harangues, both at Tours and Bordeaux (whither the Provisional Government repaired in December, being driven southward by the German advance), he somehow always managed to electrify his hearers. He spoke from balconies, railway carriages, kerb-stones ; wherever he went the people demanded a speech of him, and his words never failed to cheer, while they conquered for him a wide popularity. Indeed, Gambetta so deluded himself while diffusing hope and combativeness into others that when, after a five months' siege, Paris capitulated, he still persisted in thinking that resistance was possible, and rather than take any part in the national surrender he gave in his resignation. He was by that time fairly worn out and had to go to St. Sebastian to recruit his health. It was alleged that he went there so as to avoid taking any side in the civil war between the Parliament of Versailles and the Commune ; but after the Communist Government had been at work a fortnight, and when the impracticability of its aims was fully disclosed, he took care to let it be known that he was on the side of the National Assembly. M. Gambetta had been returned to the Assembly by nine constituencies at the Armistice Elections of 1871, but he was slow to take his seat in the Chamber, for he perceived that some time must elapse before he could again play any useful part in politics. The Radical majority in the Assembly held him re- sponsible for the undue prolongation of the war, with all its disasters, and even M. Thiers spoke often with unmeasured severity of his administration at Tours. All this M. Gambetta bore with something like meekness. In 1871 he founded a newspaper, La, RdpuUique Frangaise, and in the first number sounded the keynote of his prudent, self-effacing policy, which was to support M. Thiers in founding a nominal Republic, and to wait in patience for the rest that is, for the gradual adapta- 94 EMINENT PERSONS tion of free institutions to the new regime. Acting up to this principle when he returned to the Chamber in 1872, he entered upon a course of tactics which obliged him to win a daily victory over himself in order that he might keep his followers in sub- jection and yet not dispirit them. To those who knew the ardent nature of the man it was sometimes painful to see him sitting livid and with a forced smile upon his lips while attacks were being hurled at him which he felt that for the good of his party he must not answer. If he had broken lances with all who tilted against him he must have been up and fighting in the tribune every day, and if he had gratified his own natural impulses he would have fought in this way without respite. His self-control was all the more admirable as when on rare occasions he did speak, in order to reassure those who might have thought that his Liberalism was cooling, his oratory never failed in its effect. Friends and foes alike were subjugated by that strident voice and those amazing gestures, which showed that he put his whole heart and soul into every word he uttered. He had a way of turning towards those who interrupted him and raining fiery words upon them till they were cowed, while these denuncia- tions excited his partisans to frenzy, and caused them to start up from their places and flock towards the tribune, shouting and clapping their hands, so that the hall of debate often presented an indescribable spectacle. It used to be thought that M. Gambetta had an iron constitution to expend such nervous force as he did, not only in the tribune, but in the lobbies, the smoking-room, and wherever else he talked, to bring men round to his way of thinking. But it is evident now that he was wearing himself out rapidly ; and that every one of those discourses, which will be remembered as rare intellectual treats by those who heard them, cost the gifted orator days or months of life. M. Thiers did not understand Gambetta as Gambetta under- stood him, or he would not have resigned in 1873, saying that the Republicans were making his work too difficult. When Marshal MacMahon succeeded to the Presidency it looked as if the Republic were doomed, and nothing but M. Gambetta's wonderful suppleness and tact during the sessions of 1874-45 could have saved it. He had to keep himself in the background, to use an Italian astuteness in explaining away the blunders of L^ON GAMBETTA 95 his followers ; and when this would not do he had to use violent language, which should frighten timid doctrinaire Orleanists with prospects of popular risings in which he would take the lead. His greatest triumphs were earned when by dint of superhuman coaxing in the lobbies he got the Republic proclaimed as the Government of France (in 1875, on M. Wallon's motion) by a majority of one vote ; and again when at the first election for life Senators he concluded a treaty with the Legitimists, and by giving them a dozen seats secured fifty for the Republicans and ousted the Orleanists altogether. From this time the Republic was founded with at least temporary security, and although a coalition of all the re- actionary parties rallied against it in 1877, when M. Jules Simon's Ministry was dismissed, and when the Due de Broglie was induced to try to destroy the new form of Government by Caesarist methods, yet there was never any real danger that the Republic would succumb. From the day when M. Thiers died, M. Gambetta stood guarding it like a sentinel. Just before the general election of 1877 an emissary was sent to him from the De Broglie-Fourtou Ministry, requesting him for his own sake not to make a speech against Marshal MacMahon. He laughed when he heard that he would be prosecuted if he made the speech. He was twirling a cigarette, and laid down a copy of the Revue des Deux Motides in which he had been reading an essay on Mr. Gladstone's speeches about the Irish Church. " Tell the Prime Minister," he said, " that I will speak from a pedestal if I can ; but if not, from a housetop. In one way or another, my voice shall reach farther than his, and so long as I have a drop of blood to shed the Republic shall not fall." M. Gambetta was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for the speech in which he said that Marshal MacMahon would have to yield to the popular will or resign, but before he could be put into gaol the De Broglie Cabinet had ceased to exist. Marshal MacMahon's resignation in 1879 was the obviously natural consequence of the complete victory which the Republicans gained in 1877; but it was greatly to M. Gambetta's credit that he quietly tolerated during fifteen months the Presidency of the gallant soldier who had never been his friend. When urged to agitate for the Marshal's overthrow, he always said, " It will do the Republic good if its first President serves his term of office quietly to the end." 96 EMINENT PERSONS It was M. Gambetta who designated M. Grevy for the Pre- sidency of the Eepublic, and when he himself succeeded to the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies he entered upon quite a new phase of his public life. He had founded the Republic, but he had made a host of enemies among those who think that no Republic is worth having unless it unsettles the property of the industrious for the benefit of those who will not work but can only brawl. He himself had become Conservative not in the reactionary sense of that term, but Conservative as an English Whig may be, loving the perfect blending of liberty and order. Experience had taught him that there are men who cannot be parleyed with, whose mainspring is need and whose only policy is spoliation. He was as eager as ever to check the ascendency of the Roman Catholic Church in matters of education, but he had no wish whatever may have been said to the contrary to destroy the Church or to see France become a land of infidels. Besides this, he had a keen relish for the pomps of office. In his latter years Gambetta had become portly, gray-headed, a little unwieldy, and averse to locomotion. While he lived at the Palais Bourbon he loved to bathe in the Due de Moray's silver, parcel-gilt bath, and to have his carriage escorted by a troop of Cuirassiers when he went to pay official visits. He used to say that Louis Philippe had made himself cheap by too much simplicity a thing obnoxious to the French, who love to get their money's worth when they see their rulers make a public appearance. It is well known that M. Gambetta's personal ambition was to succeed to M. GreVy a legitimate object enough, seeing how he had worked for the Republic, but this ambition, never openly avowed, serves to explain why he took so little pains to remain in office when he became Prime Minister last year. Had his Cabinet lasted till 1884, it would by that time have become unpopular, as all Cabinets must become after a time in an agitated country where factions are many. Gambetta's only hope of retaining popularity as a Minister was by passing a scrutin de liste Bill, which would have enabled him to manage the constituencies by the caucus system. When this chance was denied him it became his natural policy to keep away from office altogether, so that he might enter with renovated prestige into the Presidential campaign of 1885. Whether he would have become President of the Republic had he lived it is impossible to say, but this much may be affirmed, that among LEON GAMBETTA 97 the Republicans who thwarted his designs, alleging that he was no true Liberal, few could match him for sincerity in his Republican convictions, fewer still for courage and industry, and none at all for patience under reverses, and good-humoured magnanimity in the hour of triumph. Now that he is gone many of his former opponents will acknowledge that he was the most useful and devoted champion, if not always the discreetest, that French Republicanism ever had. VOL. in PEINCE GORTCHAKOFF OBITUARY NOTICE, MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1883 MORE than a year ago we announced the retirement of Prince Alexander Gortchakoff from the Eussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. M. de Giers succeeded him, and, though brought up at his feet, has introduced into the Imperial policy a spirit which seems to relegate the period of the Prince's sway to remote antiquity. But the Prince remained titular Chancellor of the Russian Empire ; and his death, which occurred at Baden-Baden at four o'clock yesterday morning, takes from the circle of Euro- pean celebrities one of its most conspicuous and familiar figures. The extinction of a remarkable career does not produce the less the sense of a void that there is none to carry it on ; that Prince Gortchakoff, dying on the eve of the new Tsar's coronation, and of what it is hoped may be the beginning of a happier era for the Russian people, has left no heir to his peculiar powers and character as a statesman. Alexander Michaelowitsch Gortchakoff came of a princely family which claimed descent from Rurik. One of his ancestors was slain by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, and has been canonised by the Greek Church. Another, Peter, in 1611, had the equal ill-fortune without the saintly glory to be taken captive by the Poles in the fortress of Smolensk, which he com- manded. A third, Ivan, in the last century, during the reign of Catherine II., was neither unfortunate nor glorious, but proved more of a benefactor to his house by marrying into the Suwarrow family. That alliance introduced the Gortchakoffs within the narrow caste which for generations has monopolised the highest offices of the State. From the marriage descended three illus- PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF 99 trious Russians. Two of them, brothers, were soldiers, and fought in the Crimea. The elder, Prince Michael, was the skilful Commander-in-Chief who bravely defended Sebastopol, and, when the city became untenable, conducted a very brilliant retreat. Their cousin, Alexander Michaelowitsch, was born in 1798. He was educated at the aristocratic Lyceum of Zarskoe- Selo, and left it a sound classical scholar. What was more important for his future career, he also learnt to speak and write in French with elegance. For this accomplishment, according to Herr Klaczko, the author of Les Deux Chanceliers, who relies upon a Russian authority, he was indebted to a brother of the too-famous Marat. Among his fellow-pupils was the patriotic poet Pouschkin, who addressed to him several of his youthful lyrics. In one Pouschkin predicts the success in the world of " Fortune's favoured son." Young Gortchakoff had indeed his fortune still to carve out ; but he echoed his schoolfellow's sympathy. When Pouschkin was interned in a remote village for a poetical outburst against the established order, Gortchakoff was one of the only two among his old comrades who visited and consoled him. Diplomacy was the profession assigned to Gortchakoff, and on quitting the Lyceum he entered the office of Foreign Affairs. Count Nesselrode was at the time Foreign Minister. As his Attache, Gortchakoff, in January 1821, attended the Congress of Laybach, at which the Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the Kings of Prussia and Naples, met to concert the suppression of the revolutionary movement in Naples. The Laybach Con- gress broke up in May. In December 1822 another Congress assembled at Verona, to which also Gortchakoff accompanied Nesselrode. At that Congress, as is well known, the evacuation of Piedmont and Naples by the Austrian armies of occupation was decided upon. The young diplomatist was as yet only an apprentice to the mystery. No tradition remains of any especial impression having been produced by him at either unlucky con- sultation. In 1824 he was appointed Secretary to the Russian Legation in London. Here again he seems hardly to have left his mark. His name does not once occur in Greville's Diary. He so far, however, persuaded his official superiors of his abilities that in 1830 he was nominated Chargd d'Affaires at the Court of Tuscany, a position of importance on account of Austrian relations with Italian politics. Thence he was trans- 100 EMINENT PERSONS ferred within two years to Vienna. The death of his principal, the Russian Ambassador, gave him some prominence, and he used his opportunity. In 1841, when he was now forty-three, he was appointed to the Russian Legation at Stuttgart. He had thus risen slowly, and might have been supposed to have scarcely a career before him. The accident of the engage- ment of the Emperor Alexander's daughter, Olga, to the Crown Prince of Wurtemberg brought him into relations with the Court of St. Petersburg, which he knew how to turn to account. He negotiated the alliance as Ambassador Extraordinary, and was rewarded with the dignity of Privy Councillor. At Stuttgart he remained officially as Russian Minister, but in reality to advise the Grand Duchess in her new position, and to be a special intermediary between her adopted and her native home. From Stuttgart Gortchakoff watched the revolutionary spirit awaking throughout Germany. He witnessed its outbreak in Stuttgart itself, with the vain efforts of the old King William to quell it. Though he could not sympathise, he appreciated the force of the agitation better than many German statesmen. While stationed in Wurtemberg he maintained his old relations with Vienna. It was commonly believed that he was consulted on the state of Austria, and counselled the abdication of Ferdinand in favour of Francis Joseph. When in 1850 the reaction set in, and the German confederation was re-established in place of the Parlia- ment of Frankfort and its new empire, Prince Gortchakoff, who had studied the machinery in operation, without compromising himself, was appointed Russian Minister at the Diet. His ostensible duties were not very onerous. His real function was to observe and to report. He was a centre in Germany for all the influences which conflicted with revolution. No more characteristic representative of Russian diplomacy could have been selected to stand beside the grave of the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul's Cathedral on 18th November 1852. That grave marked a new departure for Russian policy in Europe, and the bearer of the Tsar's condolences was soon to initiate it. Above all, at the Frankfort Diet he made the acquaintance of a young lieutenant of Landwehr, the Prussian representative, Herr von Bismarck. The restored Bund was in a high degree the work of the Russian envoy's master. The Tsar had crushed the revolution in Hungary. He frowned it down in Germany proper. Russia PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF 101 represented, as it had represented since 1814, but more potently than ever, the principle of Conservatism in Europe. Russia, under Nicholas, up to this period affected to covet nothing for herself, but only peace for Europe. For that end she was prepared to join any league which would intervene against revolution wherever it might rear its head. She was prepared to intervene, if necessary, alone. That was the traditional policy of Russia for the earlier half of the nineteenth century. It had been the policy of the Tsar Alexander I. It was the policy of Nesselrode. It was the policy in which Gortchakoff had been educated. But it had ceased to be the policy of the reigning Emperor. Russian ascendency in Europe had stirred in Nicholas the latent thirst for Eastern domination. Nessel- rode and Gortchakoff were made acquainted with the Emperor's designs, and saw all that was dangerous in them. But the Emperor was his own Minister of Foreign Affairs in the last resort, and his Council had to find the means to do his bidding. From the Prussian nation, terrified by the explosion of 1848-49, and morally coerced by the family alliance of the Romanoffs and Hohenzollerns, there was nothing to fear. Nicholas imagined that, if not gratitude, timidity made him equally secure from interference on the part of Austria. He was speedily undeceived, and may have attributed the disappoint- ment to the close family relations with the Austrian Minister, Count Buol, of his Ambassador, Baron Meyendorff. Meyen- dorff was in any case not accounted sufficiently sympathetic with the Tsar's aspirations. The representative of Russia at the German Diet, and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Stuttgart, was more pliable and might show himself fuller of resource. Alexander Gortchakoff was transferred, at first pro- visionally, but in 1855 definitely, from Frankfort and Stuttgart to Vienna. Thus, at the ripe age of fifty-six, he had at length achieved the highest rank in his early vocation. He had won a great prize in diplomacy. But he had to justify his elevation, not by dexterity in improving a victory, but by prudence in repairing a defeat Like his cousin Michael, who shone yet more in the hour of retreat from the ruins of his great fortress than when threatening the allies behind their intrenchments, Alexander Gortchakoff knew how to make salvage of a very doleful wreck. The Hapsburgs whom Nicholas had rescued in 1849 had en- 102 EMINENT PERSONS raged him by indications that they felt a higher obligation than gratitude for dynastic aid. Prince Gortchakoff will be remem- bered for his bitter mot that Austria is not a nation, but only a Government. Yet as a Government, if not a nation, the Government of Austria-Hungary could not resign itself to see Russia swallow up Turkey. The new Russian Ambassador found at the Vienna Conference of 1854 Austria resolute to forbid the occupation by Russia of the Principalities. Thence- forth he knew that the enterprise against a Turkey supported by France and Great Britain was impossible, and directed his efforts to convince his own Court of that sad truth. To him it was in a great measure due that Russia did not continue to mortgage her future yet more irretrievably, but accepted the basis of a pacification. A patriotic Russian, he grieved over the necessity of agreeing to the Peace of Paris ; but just because he was a patriot he supported it with all his weight. As soon as the Congress of Paris closed, his new Sovereign, Alexander II., recognised the wisdom and courage he had exhibited in discounting a tremendous reverse. In 1856 Prince Gort- chakoff succeeded the superannuated Chancellor Nesselrode at the St. Petersburg Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Herr Klaczko has observed that the previous Foreign Minis- ters of Russia were simple nominees and clerks of the Tsar. They were important personages in Europe, but insignificant at home. The illustrious Nesselrode was a Westphalian who owed his rise wholly to the choice of Alexander I. The Russian people accepted him from the Emperor, of whom they held him the mere mouthpiece. Prince Gortchakoff, on the contrary, had become renowned in Russia as a sagacious states- man, and above all as the inveterate enemy of Austria, before he was put at the head of the Foreign Office. The popular voice in a manner elected him. His policy was as unlike that of his predecessors as the origin of his power. Count Nessel- rode, like Prince Metternich, had been the representative in Europe of a tideless Conservatism. Prince Gortchakoff repre- sented revenge and movement Eastwards. He was in no hurry. He contented himself with accustoming Europe anew to the voice of St. Petersburg in international questions. He neither sought nor rejected friendships. France first presented herself, and Gortchakoff listened to the friendly overtures of the Emperor Napoleon. He knew the exhaustion of his PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF 103 country, and took care that it should not be drawn into European complications. He took pleasure, however, in the French overthrow of Austria in 1859 at Magenta and Solferino, which he regarded as punishment for the ingratitude of 1854, and he acquiesced in the French intervention in 1860-61 in Syria, as a blow struck at Ottoman independence. While in his famous circular of 1856 he had denounced sarcastically the pretensions of the Western Powers to interfere with the internal administration of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he took advantage of the Italian war of 1859-60 to propose a European intervention in aid of the Turkish rayahs of Bosnia and Bulgaria. An expression in the circular of 1856 has become historical " La Russia ne boude pas; elle se recueille." Russia had not abandoned her love of interven- ing in European affairs. She was only re-collecting herself and recruiting her exhausted energies. Her Foreign Minister economised her resources for objects near and dear to Russia. Thus in 1862 he declined the proposal of M. Drouyn de Lhuys to join France and Great Britain in interposing between the Federals and the Confederates in the war of secession. During the same period he had enough indeed to do at home in repress- ing the Polish insurrection, and in rebuffing the suggestions of England, Austria, and France for an assuagement of the severities employed in quelling it. The argumentatively con- temptuous tone of his retorts to foreign diplomatic advice delighted the Russians, in whose minds the reverses of the Crimea still rankled. It had been a highly popular step on the part of the Tsar to name him Vice-Chancellor of the Empire. His appointment, in July 1863, to be Chancellor expressly in reward for his diplomatic attitude towards an indignant Europe was greeted with even more enthusiastic applause. By 1863 Prince Chancellor Gortchakoff, now sixty -five years old, was become the most powerful Minister, not in Russia alone, but in Europe. Gradually circumstances had been drawing very close to- gether the Berlin and St. Petersburg Foreign Offices. It had seemed at one time as if France and Russia were to approxi- mate. But there could be no real conjunction between Napoleonic ideas and Russian Conservatism. Russia and Prussia were united by a common jealousy of Austria. There was besides an ancient personal alliance between the Russian 104 EMINENT PERSONS and Prussian Ministers dating from the time when they listened together to the futile debates of the Frankfort Diet, and strengthened by Count Bismarck's residence as Prussian envoy at St. Petersburg in 1859-62. Prince Gortchakoff in 1863 smoothed the way to the occupation of Holstein by the Federal troops. It might seem that Austria was as much benefited as Prussia ; but Prussia reaped all the advantage. When Prussia precipitated herself on Austria in 1866, Prince Gortchakoff showed no intention to interpose. When Austria lay at the feet of Prussia, Russia seemingly was neither alarmed at the aggrandisement of her neighbour nor mournful at the abase- ment of Russian allies and connections among the minor States. In 1870 there was no longer simple abstinence from inter- ference between two belligerent nations. There was a positive understanding on the part of the two Chancellors that Russia should answer for the neutrality of Austria. France and Prussia had since Sadowa been bidding for the friendship of Prince Gortchakoff. France was willing to aid and abet Russia in wresting Crete from the Porte, and assigning it to the young bridegroom of the Grand Duchess Olga. Count Beust, on behalf of Austria, desired to recompact the collective authority of Europe over Turkey, which was a result by no means ac- ceptable to St. Petersburg. But he too could have been per- suaded to join in this extension of the Hellenic kingdom in order to win the goodwill of Russia. The Russian Chancellor received the proposal amicably. As for the attempt, however, to use Crete as a bribe to combine St. Petersburg with Vienna and the Tuileries against Berlin, that was trying to reverse a foregone conclusion. There was already a consummated understanding between the German and Russian Chancellors, which no negotiations of M. de Moustier and Count Beust could disturb by the breadth of an inch. It was never embodied in protocols ; but Prince Gortchakoff and his master were satisfied they had grounds for assuming that, in return for Russia keeping the lists free from Austrian intrusion on the side of France, what they considered the natural current of events in European Turkey was to be let flow unimpeded by Prussia. The abrogation of the Black Sea Article of the Treaty of Paris was supposed by Russia to be not the object of the tacit compact, but only its earnest. Slavonic agitation was rife in Roumania and the adjoining provinces of PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF 105 Turkey ; Hellenic agitation had a free course in Greece ; and the Conservative Foreign Office of St. Petersburg was the apologist of both. For a time it looked as if the Russian Chancellor were to be paid at once his share of the price of the understanding with Prussia. But Herr Klaczko thinks M. Bene- detti right in the belief he expressed to his negligent superiors at Paris in January 1870, that Prince Bismarck had always resolved he should himself make the first move, and not " become a card in the game of the St. Petersburg Cabinet." It is not necessary to think Prince GortchakofF was out- witted. The crisis may or may not have been sufficiently matured for a final Eastern struggle. At any rate, Prince GortchakofFs mind was not itself braced for it. He has never shown the audacity of his triumphant compeer. He contented himself with laying up gratitude at the Prussian Court for the fidelity with which he forbade Austrian and Danish interven- tion, and with which, when fortune declared against France, he negatived Count Beust's project of a concerted representation in favour of moderate terms of peace by the neutral Powers. He even rejected a suggestion by Lord Granville, then at the English Foreign Office, for an understanding between Great Britain and Eussia which might afford a basis for a general neutral appeal to King William's humanity. The thanks tele- graphed from Versailles from the German Emperor to the Tsar on 26th February 1871 were the immediate reward of Prince GortchakofFs policy. The concurrence of Prince Bismarck at the end of the war in the Russian demand for the abrogation of the article of the Treaty of 1856 forbidding the presence of Russian warships in the Black Sea was part of the material recompense. The tone in which Prince Gortchakoff demanded that abro- gation sufficiently showed his reliance on the countenance of Germany. He did not represent its inutility and ask Europe, which had imposed the restriction on Russia, for its surrender. He haughtily warned the Powers, by his circular of November 1870, that Russia did not intend to be bound by it in future. The Conference of London resulted in inducing Russia to conform in language to the obligations of treaties. Practically she had her way. Prince Gortchakoff was indebted to Prussia for being able to boast that he had torn up an essential portion of the arrangement which marked the lowest point of Russian 106 EMINENT PERSONS humiliation. Thenceforward, whether the impulse came from the Prince or the Tsar, from this time a different temper is observable in the relations between Berlin and St. Petersburg. Berlin acted almost as if it had paid in the London Conference its debt to St. Petersburg ; and the latter acted almost as if it had begun to repent of having given too long a tether to Prussian ambition. To the interposition of the Emperor Alexander has been commonly attributed the rescue of France from a threatened attack by Germany four years later. Whether any such attack was ever meditated must remain uncertain. We have been always indisposed to believe it. That the Tsar and his Chancellor were sincerely opposed to overbearing menaces against France can hardly be questioned. But what- ever aggression might have been attempted on national rights in Western Europe, it may be doubted if Russia would have done more than protest at Berlin. Prince Gortchakoff s hands were tied by Panslavism. So long as the Russian Chancery simply supervised the affairs of Europe it was an irresistible arbitrator. It had now descended into the arena, and was exposed to all the chances of a combatant. This was the radical defect of Prince Gortchakoffs policy, as contrasted with that of Count Nesselrode, or with his own for the six or eight years after the Treaty of Paris. It may not have been his own fault primarily. There is no reason for withholding belief from the assertion of the not very friendly author of Russia before and after the War, that " only at the eleventh hour the Chancellor of the Empire consented to take the side of the Nationalists." The volunteers who had served in Servia were treated, the same author admits, "with marked disfavour." But the Chancellor had from the moment of his rise to power adopted the course of attaching to his policy popular enthusiasm. He feared popular enthusiasm ; he feared still more to resist it. We should probably not be mistaken if we concluded that, perplexed by a force he could not control, he let himself go, trusting that the wave of national and Panslavic excitement might throw him up high and dry at the point he desired to reach and exhaust itself in the effort. Again, there is no reason altogether to deny the assertion of the eloquent authoress of Russia and England that " Prince Worontzoff, our Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, was a devoted advocate of the PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF 107 Anglo- Russian alliance, and that his convictions are shared by the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff." The Chancellor would very likely have preferred to have the assistance of Great Britain in coercing the Porte, on the bases laid down at the Constantinople Conference. With that assistance or without it, he was determined the coercion should be accomplished. When the Constantinople Conference broke up, Prince Gortchakoff did not cease to negotiate with England for her concurrence in ,a crusade against the Turks. When that concurrence was finally refused, the Russian Panslavists were let loose. There was first a conflict of Foreign Office circulars. So far as mere fencing with subtle arguments and innuendoes went, the Prince was not worsted. Never has any statesman used with more effect the art of putting on acts a construction they might honestly bear if proceeding from any other than the controver- sialist, in the security that the antagonist cannot in self-respect descend to an argumentum ad hominem vein of wrangling. All that Russia had done, or was doing, for the Servians and against the Turks might have been as innocent as the Prince asserted it to be had not Russian statesmen been known to have been playing for centuries at the same game. After the Russian army once crossed the Danube the Chan- cellor retired into the second place. He gave way to generals and engineers. Even when the Balkans were passed and the Bosphorus was in sight, Prince Gortchakoff was less heard of than General IgnatiefF. Yet when General Ignatieff was dis- credited, through the general repudiation of the Treaty of San Stefano, the effect was to discredit the Chancellor too. The principal figure on the Russian side at the Berlin Congress was not Prince Gortchakoff, but Count Schouvaloff. The Prince retained office, but after the Congress he held power ad interim. Europe looked upon him as fighting a desperate battle of per- sonal influence with Prince Bismarck, in the forlorn hope of re-establishing the tottering edifice of his predominance. Prob- ably the reports of the feud between the ancient friends have been much exaggerated. If the aged Chancellor, at a German bath, threw out hints to a Paris journalist of a design to patch up the old Franco-Russian alliance, it was a policy he had often tried before. The jealousy imputed to him of the German Chancellor may have existed or not. If the dislike had grown to be real, a feeling like that was least of all likely to be 108 EMINENT PERSONS allowed by a statesman of Prince Gortchakoffs character to make or mar a policy. The truth is that the part of Russia in Europe which for- merly consisted in playing off one State against another and holding the balance between them, is, at any rate for the moment, exhausted ; and Prince Gortchakoff was too old to learn any other. New necessities have fallen upon Russia. It has become more urgent for her to maintain internal coherence than to present an aggressive or dictatorial front to external foes or rivals. A great Minister of the Interior is more wanted than the subtlest of Foreign Ministers. Prince Gortchakoff had studied Europe more closely than his own country. Even in the grand revolution by which the serfs were emancipated he took a subordinate part, if any. He knew no device for the healing of the plague-spots which infect Russian society. He was a past-master of the art of treating Europe as a chess-board, and states and peoples, including his own, as pawns. He was not prepared to find his pieces swept off the board by a hand beneath his own which he could neither guide nor feel. Before hia Imperial master was assassinated, and long before his lieu- tenant, M. de Giers, formally superseded him as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had ceased to be a controlling influence in Russia or Europe. General Loris Melikoff first, and then General Ignatieff, though not Foreign Ministers in name, were appointed to deal with problems which robbed the Chancellor- ship of all its energy and meaning. For Prince Gortchakoff Russia and the Russian people, and even its enthusiasms, had merely been so much force at his disposal for the movement of Europe. Nihilism, and regicide, and Jew-baiting, agricultural discontent, commercial stagnation, and financial embarrassments drained the resources on which he calculated for his projects. In his Chancery at St. Petersburg he had been as purely a diplomatist as in the Vienna Embassy. He had survived to a date when a Russian Foreign Minister had to reckon with Russia still more than with Europe. No studies in mental history could be more interesting if the Prince in his soft and luxurious leisure recorded his re- flections, at once perplexed and cynical, on a course of national change which had stranded his statesmanship high and dry. How Russian historians will, on their side, deal with his memory hereafter it is on the morrow of his death not the PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF 109 time to conjecture. It must at least be said that nowhere will the student of diplomacy discover more exquisite models of controversial ingenuity than in Prince GortchakofFs circulars. Working on the most unpromising materials, he oftener than not succeeded in putting his adversary logically in the wrong. His diction is always sharp and refined. For those who can read between the lines not a clause but is sharp as a dagger against the statesman he is assailing. If a diplomatic circular can ever be said to be witty, Prince Gortchakoff s despatches deserve that praise. The Prince has left two sons already grown up to manhood and engaged in diplomacy. They have earned the reputation of sagacity ; they do not pretend to genius. But Russian diplomatists ripen slowly. Their father himself was well advanced in middle life before he became remarked among his contemporaries. The same phenomenon may be reproduced in the case of his children. SIR GEOEGE JESSEL OBITUARY NOTICE, THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1883 SIR GEORGE JESSEL was born in 1824, being the son of the late Zadok Aaron Jessel, a Jewish merchant, who lived in Savile Row when Savile Row was to the City what Bayswater is now, and afterwards removed to Putney, as to a distant rural retire- ment, from which he watched the commencement of the brilliant career of his gifted son. Zadok Jessel is said to have dealt largely in coral and similar goods ; he bought land in the City ; and was able to provide handsomely for his four surviv- ing children, of whom the late Master of the Rolls was the youngest. The Master of the Rolls in his youth was educated by Mr. Neumegen, of Kew, who trained many of those of the Jewish community who have since become most distinguished. Being debarred by religious restrictions from a full enjoyment of the privileges of Oxford and Cambridge, young George Jessel entered as a student of University College, London, and passed the examinations of London University. He was a scholar of the College and of the University, took his B.A. degree with the highest honours in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy the year after Isaac Todhunter, and shortly before R. H. Hutton and Walter Bagehot. In these double distinctions he followed in the steps of the late Mr. Jacob Waley. He was specially reported by the examiners as possessed of " very distinguished merit." He also took honours and a prize in vegetable physiology and structural botany, and he continued his botanical studies to the last. When he was forming his gardens at Ladham, near Goudhurst, his house in Kent, Sir George Jessel went every Sunday to the Royal Botanical Gardens at SIR GEORGE JESSEL 111 Kew to observe the plants and select the species with which he would stock his grounds, and he read ponderous tomes on the classification of plants with the same care with which he got up his briefs. He became M.A. and gold medalist in 1844 in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He was the last Flaherty scholar at University College. Sir George Jessel completed his academical career at the age of twenty, and had entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn two years before. His London education had the effect of giving him an introduction to the practical work of his life at an earlier age than that at which graduates of Oxford and Cambridge learn the names of leading cases and the doctrines of law and equity. His retentive memory became stored at its most impressionable period with the rules of the Courts and the leading authorities for them ; and afterwards in argument he would cite from his unaided recollection case after case with a facility which baffled opposition. Mr. Jessel read with Bellinger Brodie, the eminent convey- ancer, the draftsman of the Fines and Recoveries Act. He also passed some time in the chambers of Mr. Peacock, afterwards Sir Barnes Peacock, Chief Justice of Bengal and member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ; and, being called to the Bar on the 4th of May 1847 by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, took chambers with his friend Mr. G. T. Jenkins, afterwards his secretary, and now a Master of the Supreme Court of Judicature, " devilled " gratuitously for his old master, Brodie, and sought practice on his own account as a convey- ancer. The interval in the life of a successful barrister between "call" and "silk" is sometimes as short as ten years. The rapidity with which Jessel did everything prepares us for a short interval here ; but, in fact, it was not till eighteen years from his admission to the outer Bar that he became Queen's Counsel. He very soon obtained a moderate amount of business, and in two years from his call refused to take the allowance which his father had made him. But his work stagnated for some years at an average of 600 a year, and, on talking over his prospects at the Bar with a friend in the same plight, Mr. George Jessel announced the conclusion that he had mistaken his vocation in life, and that he would have done better to have entered on almost any other career. But hitherto his occupation had been chiefly in conveyancing. It happened shortly after 112 EMINENT PERSONS this conversation that he was taken into Court, and in Court his really profound knowledge, added to the most perfect and unhesitating confidence in himself and readiness to assert his views against others, soon" marked him out. Lord "Westbury delayed the grant of a silk gown after a time when Mr. Jessel thought himself fairly entitled to it. But in 1865 Mr. Jessel obtained "rank"; he attached himself to the Court of Lord Eomilly, Master of the Rolls, and speedily rose to a commanding position there. He led the Court, and some added " by the nose " ; he had, certainly, a remarkable success in procuring the adoption of his view on debatable questions. Nine years before (in 1856) Mr. Jessel had married a daughter of Mr. Joseph Moses, of London, by his wife nte Konigswarter, a great heiress of Vienna. He settled in Cleveland Square, Hyde Park, whence he removed to 1 Hyde Park Gardens after his elevation to the Bench. In 1868 he was returned to Parliament for Dover in the Liberal interest, won the attention of Mr. Gladstone by a speech on the Bankruptcy Bill in 1869, and became Solicitor-General in 1871. On the whole, Sir George Jessel was not successful as a debater. The House was impatient of his dogmatism. He carried into the shifting art of politics the method of argument which he had learnt in a legal system based upon authority. But in the other and less showy part of a law officer's duty, that of giving sound and prompt advice to the Government on the thousand questions which arise, no law officer has, we believe, given more unqualified satisfaction. His opinions on legal points were solid and strong something on which a Minister could lean with confidence. Masses of papers on all branches of law, foreign law, international law, and domestic, were poured into his chambers from all the public offices. He contrived to get through all this work, in addition to his private practice, with but little assistance. His rapidity and penetration in grasping the essential parts of a long series of statements and arguments were something to wonder at and to despair of imitating. These qualities were employed to the full in the two years of his Solicitor-Generalship, in which he contrived to earn at the rate of from 20,000 to 23,000 a year, although on his entry into office the patent fees were taken away (not without a commutation allowance of smaller amount) from the office which they had previously helped to enrich. SIR GEORGE JESSEL 113 The acceptance of judicial office meant to Sir George Jessel the reduction of professional income to 6000 a year from the large sums which we have just mentioned. Fortunately his private means were considerable, and he could afford to dis- regard these considerations. The succession to Lord Eomilly, before whom Sir George Jessel had argued with so much success, was doubtless peculiarly agreeable to him, and it is remarkable that Mr. Justice Chitty, the leader in Sir George Jessel's Court, succeeded in like manner to the seat of the Master of the Rolls when the latter ceased to be a Judge of First Instance. It is not generally known that the post of Master of the Rolls was first offered to Lord Coleridge, then Sir John Coleridge, Attorney -General, and there was considerable delay in making a definitive appointment. The acceptance of the office by Lord Coleridge would doubtless have contributed powerfully to the "fusion" of law and equity, of which more was heard then even than now. But Lord Coleridge ultimately declined, and acceded later in the year, on the death of Lord Chief Justice Bovill, to the cushion of the Common Pleas, from which he after- wards passed to the Chief Justiceship of England. If any doubts were felt as to the appropriateness of the appointment of Sir George Jessel to the post of Master of the Rolls, they were speedily dispelled by the unexampled spectacle which his Court now presented. Never had there been within the memory of living lawyers, or within historical memory, such rapid, such satisfactory, such punctual discharge of legal business. As an advocate, Sir George Jessel had often been over- masterful. At Westminster Sir Alexander Cockburn called him to account for want of patience and unusual vehemence in addressing the dignified tribunal over which the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench presided. With Lord Justice James, like himself a consummate master of equity, and like himself impatient of opposition and confident of opinion, Sir George Jessel had come into somewhat rough collision in argument. But the temperament of the late Master of the Rolls was eminently Roman. It was only to equals or superiors that he was overbearing. His asperity was disarmed by submission, and when he was on the Bench, although eminent Queen's Counsel might fear his interruptions, to the diffident junior the Rolls was a suave fountain of advice and assistance. In the marvellously quick transaction of judicial business in VOL. Ill I 114 EMINENT PERSONS Court and Chambers, Sir George Jessel sometimes gave decisions which were successfully appealed from. This very week we have reported the reversal by the House of Lords of a judgment of the Court of Appeal, to which he was a party, on an im- portant point in the law of discovery. But the successful appeals from the Master of the Rolls rather illustrate the differences of opinion which may exist in different minds on legal questions, or on the legal conclusions to be drawn from complicated sets of facts, than mistake in the tribunal. An odd incident of his career at the Rolls was an attack made upon Sir George Jessel by a dangerous lunatic. The lunatic shot at Sir George Jessel, not from any special dissatisfaction with the Master of the Rolls, but from some crazy wish to express dissatisfaction generally with the judicial Bench. The office of Master of the Rolls was considerably modified during the tenure of it by Sir George Jessel, and it will be desir- able to explain what it originally was and what it became while he held it. The Master or Keeper of the Rolls is an officer of high antiquity, mentioned in the time of William the Conqueror, traceable, with duties akin to those discharged in our own days by Sir George Jessel, in the time of John. He was one of a troop of learned persons called Masters, who accompanied the Chan- cellor, and held from that high keeper of the conscience of the King a derivative jurisdiction, subject to appeal to the prime source of their authority. The Master who kept the Rolls was of special importance ; he took precedence of the chiefs of the Common Law, except the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and when the Lords Justices of Appeal were formed as a new appellate tribunal, the Master of the Rolls, although an appeal lay from him to the Lords Justices and they could over- turn his decisions, nevertheless was preferred to the Lords Justices on all occasions of State ceremony. He became a Judge of First Instance in Chancery, having, in general, con- current jurisdiction with the Vice-Chancellors. The Master of the Rolls had also in virtue of his office certain other high duties. He had in his custody all enrolments of the Court and certain public documents engrossed on parchment rolls. An ancient hospital in the neighbourhood of Fetter Lane and Chancery Lane had been established by royal authority for the reception of converted Jews. When the Jews were expelled by Edward I. this house was handed over to the Master of the SIR GEORGE JESSEL 115 Rolls. It thus, in our day, came into the keeping of a Jewish Master of the Rolls, who once omitted a Vacation Sitting on the groiind that it fell upon a Jewish fast^day. The records in his charge, which had at one time been kept in the Tower, came gradually to he preserved in this Rolls House. By the Act passed in the beginning of the reign of the Queen which established the Public Record Office, the Master of the Rolls was made keeper of all the records in the Public Record Office. Sir George Jessel took great interest in this department of his public duties. The magnificent series of publications illustrating the early history of this country which have been produced by the Office owe something to his enlightened super- vision. Judicially, the Master of the Rolls remained a Judge of First Instance till a year or two ago. But the Judicature Act and Appellate Jurisdiction Act gave him power to sit in the new Court of Appeal established by the Acts. By virtue of his high traditional rank, he usually had the presidency of the Court when he sat with it. In 1881 an Act passed which altered the duties of his office altogether. The Master of the Rolls was henceforth relieved of all his duties as Judge of First Instance and became the ordinary President of the Court of Appeal. As a Judge of Appeal Sir George Jessel treated the decisions which came before him with the utmost possible respect, using freely the liberty which his position gave him to disregard the perverse old cases which the Courts of lower jurisdiction had felt obliged to obey, and sometimes consciously modifying the law, in the true spirit of the old creators of Equity jurisprudence. If a personal history of English law is ever written, the part which in the Victorian era Sir George Jessel took in adapting the principles of Equity to a day in which cheques and tele- graphic transfers have superseded the use of moneys in bags, in which express and implied trusts have reached a complexity which must be appreciated and carefully dealt with, not solved by a resolution to disregard it, will be recorded as considerable. It is interesting to recall the language which he himself held on the subject. The words are taken from a luminous judgment in the thirteenth volume of the Chancery Division Reports. Speaking of " the modern rules of Equity," the Master of the Rolls said : " I intentionally say modern rules, because it must not be forgotten that the rules of Courts of Equity are not like the 116 EMINENT PERSONS rules of the Common Law, supposed to be established from time immemorial. It is perfectly well known that they have been established from time to time altered, improved, and refined from time to time. In many cases we know the names of the Chancellors who invented them. No doubt they were invented for the purpose of securing the better administration of justice, but still they were invented. Take such things as these the separate use of a married woman, the restraint on alienation, the modern rule against perpetuities, and the rules of equitable waste. We can name the Chancellors who first invented them, and state the date when they were first introduced into Equity jurisprudence ; and, therefore, in cases of this kind the older precedents in Equity are of very little value. The doctrines are progressive, refined, and improved ; and if we want to know what the rules of Equity are we must look, of course, rather to the more modern than to the more ancient cases." In the very judgment in which these words occur the Master of the Eolls laid down such a development of the pre-existing law as is practically new law. Many of his judgments in the Court of Appeal are luminous essays, not only models of orderly arrange- ment and scientific induction, but great efforts of creation. Cases of much popular interest do not often come into the hands of the Equity draftsman or before a Master of the Rolls. Sir George Jessel tried the respective rights of the Rev. Frank and Mrs. Besant to the custody of their children, and decided in accordance with the feelings of most Englishmen. His recent decision in the case of Robarts against the City of London will be fresh in the public mind. Here Sir George Jessel and his colleagues in the Court of Appeal studiously deviated from the salutary general rule laid down by Lord Coleridge, that judges should not travel from the record before them to make observa- tions on matters not directly in issue, the object being to correct observations of a similar nature which had been made in the Court below. Sir George Jessel has recently taken part in deciding important telephone cases. His scientific attainments were of great use in the Plimpton skate and other patent cases. In 1880 Sir George Jessel was unanimously elected by the Senate of the University of London as Vice-Chancellor (Lord Granville being Chancellor), an office previously held by Sir John Lefevre and by Mr. Grote. Sir George was the first SIR GEORGE JESSEL 117 graduate who ever held this office, and he was extremely gratified by the distinction. His education, his knowledge of the history and working of the University, his deep interest in its welfare, and his remarkable skill in the conduct of its business and of the meetings of the Senate constituted him one of the ablest and most efficient officers. His loss is felt to be irreparable. He never failed, even after a long and fatiguing day in Court, to attend the meetings at which his presence was expected. To those who witnessed with concern the efforts which he made to discharge his duties it was almost of painful interest to see how, when breathless and exhausted after ascend- ing the stairs and then resting for a few minutes, his clear, bright intellect, and his power of guiding and controlling opinions, led to the settlement of troubles and questions which in other hands would have caused endless discussion. It is about a week ago since he attended a meeting of the Brown Institute Committee in reference to the study and treatment of the diseases and injuries of animals, and submitted a report on the subject, prepared by himself, which will have a permanent influence on the welfare and usefulness of the Institution. Among his many other public duties, Sir George accepted office on the Royal Commission for the amendment of the Medical Acts ; indeed, it is not saying too much to assert that the fact of his consenting to act induced the Government with more confidence to appoint the Commission over which Lord Camperdown presided. This confidence was fully justified. Sir George took the deepest interest in the subject, and the report, in the preparation of which he took a large part, is the basis on which the Bill introduced by the Lord President in the House of Lords, which promises to have a lasting and healthful influence on the medical profession, is founded. He was a trustee of the British Museum and one of the Commis- sioners of Patents, having special duties under the Trade Mark Acts with regard to the registration of trade marks. Sir George Jessel's forte was in detail, and on the Committees of the Judges he rendered services which can hardly be over-estimated. Under the Judicature Act of 1873 a long series of rules of Court was drafted, which ultimately became the schedule to the Act of 1875, and established, in fact, a new code of practice for the Courts. Sir George Jessel was the ordinary chairman of the Committee of Judges which settled the draft, and took an active 118 EMINENT PERSONS part in all subsequent modifications. In the discussions on the impending new rules his experience was often invoked. Sir George Jessel was sworn of Her Majesty's Privy Council on his elevation to the Bench in 1873. The Master of the Rolls was the last of the judges who were capable of sitting in the House of Commons. Although this privilege still existed at the time when Sir George Jessel was appointed, he deemed it becoming, in view of the approaching abolition of the excep- tion, to resign his seat for Dover ; but his references to the subject in his farewell address and a willingness afterwards shown to be nominated member for the University of London appeared to betray that he retired with reluctance from Parliamentary life. It was thought probable that in the not very distant future the Sovereign might mark her gracious sense of the services of the eminent judge by a call to the Upper House, such as had been extended to earlier Masters of the Rolls. Sir George Jessel was appointed Treasurer to his Inn of Court, Lincoln's Inn, for 1883. As a young man, Sir George Jessel travelled a good deal, visiting Constantinople and America. Afterwards he often passed the vacation abroad, as at Homburg, with his friend Vice -Chancellor Malins, or in the Tyrol. But when he had fairly laid out his estate in Kent, it became his favourite amusement in the holidays to spend his days there in harmless rural pleasures. He did not shoot or hunt, but would collect and classify fungi, or would throw into the marking out of the tennis-lawn the same close attention to the matter in hand which was invaluable to him in deciding cases. He took pains to keep himself abreast of the discoveries of modern sciences, made a special journey to Paris for the Electrical Exhibition, etc. In distributing prizes to some school - children recently, near his country home, Sir George Jessel energetically preached the doctrine of hard work. His speeches at City dinners were often interesting. In London he rode in the Park every day in summer ; in winter he was as constant in his afternoon's attendance at the Athenseum. Sir George Jessel was fond of the theatre and of society, and was a yearly visitor to the Master of Balliol, but otherwise was difficult to tempt from his own country house. THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD OBITUARY NOTICE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1883 YESTERDAY died, on Austrian soil, "the last of the kings of France," a prince who at his birth was surnamed " L'Enfant du Miracle" and baptized " Dieudonn4," or God -given. He was born more than seven months after his father had fallen under the dagger of an assassin, and his coming into the world was regarded as such an auspicious event from assuring the suc- cession to the throne in the line of the elder Bourbons that even people who believed in luck rather than in providential dispensation came to the superstitious conclusion that the Bourbons were fated to reign long. The Prince was the son of Charles Ferdinand, Due de Berry, himself the second son of the Comte d'Artois, afterwards Charles X., and the situation of the dynasty at the time of his birth was this : The throne was filled by Louis XVIII., brother of the ill-fated Louis XVI. and formerly Comte de Provence, who had no children. His heir- presumptive was his brother, the Comte d'Artois, who had two sons Antoine, Due d'Angouleme, married to Marie -Thdrese, daughter of Louis XVI., but having no issue ; and the Due de Berry, who, in 1816, married the Princess Caroline of Naples. From this union was born, in 1819, a daughter, Louise, after- wards Duchess of Parma ; but as the Salic Law excluded women from the throne the Due d'Orldans, head of the younger branch of Bourbons, stood heir to the Due de Berry in case the latter died without leaving a son ; and it was in the hope of destroy- ing the elder Bourbon line that a fanatic named Louvel, a journeyman saddler, assassinated the Due de Berry on the 13th of February 1 820. 120 EMINENT PERSONS The crime was committed under the portico of the Old Opera- House, in what is now the Place Louvois. As the Prince was escorting the Duchesse de Berry to her coach, and gaily humming a snatch from Gluck's Orphde, he was struck in the back, and the blow was dealt with such savage force that the point of the knife went right through his chest and pierced the sky-blue moir Riband of the Order of the Holy Spirit which he was wearing. Louvel had no accomplices, and he did not attempt to fly, but folded his arms, and only expressed regret that his stab had not caused instantaneous death. The scene of the Prince's final hour was dramatic beyond description. He was carried into the private foyer of the Opera, and there, mingling with singers in their paint and ballet-dancers in their tinsel, were presently gathered all the members of the royal family, the Ministers, and great officers of State. The King arrived from the Tuileries old Louis XVIII., impotent in his feet, and hobbling painfully along, with his black gaiters, starched cravat, and powdered hair, which made him look like an old-fashioned notary. The Comte d'Artois was there too, his handsome face, usually so serene, pinched with anguish ; and so was the portly Due d'Orl^ans afterwards Louis Philippe who had a difficult part to play under the malevolent glances of courtiers seeking on his physiognomy for some sign of satisfaction at an event which appeared likely to establish the fortunes of his family. When all the illustrious company were assembled round the " property " mattress on which the Duke lay dying, the mild and polished Due de Quelen, Archbishop of Paris the last of the grand seigneur prelates, who wore diamonds and rubies like a Court beauty walked in bearing the viaticum, and attended by choristers with incense. He was preceded by a vicar-general, who scattered holy water around him with an asperges brush to purify the place ; and, indeed, the Archbishop's first care was to consecrate the room, in consequence of which the building was never more used as an opera-house after that day. The Due de Berry, who was but forty-two years of age and of vigorous constitution, wrestled long with death ; and almost in his last breath he prayed that his murderer might be pardoned. Meanwhile, Louvel stood in a corner of the room, guarded by soldiers, who had so maltreated him with the stocks of their muskets that his face streamed with blood ; and as he leaned against the wall ready to faint, the Duke, espying him, said, THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 121 " Give him some water." M. Elie Decazes, the Minister of the Interior (father of the present Duke of that name), had just entered the room, and, taking up a glass of water, he approached the murderer and whispered, " Miserable man, was the dagger poisoned ? " These whispered words were to cost him dear. M. Decazes was a Liberal, and the exasperation of the ultra- Royalists at the Duke's death reached such a point that they did not scruple to accuse him of being Louvel's accomplice. " The dagger that killed the Duke was a Liberal idea," said Benjamin Constant, the flippant Opposition orator ; and these foolish words, besides causing M. Decazes's downfall, provoked a furious reaction throughout the country against what were called the principles of 1789. However, there was a sort of lull after the 29th of September, when the young widowed Duchess, to the unspeakable delight of all good Koyalists, gave birth to a son. Of course it was pre- tended in certain quarters that the royal baby was a changeling ; and the unfortunate Due d'Orleans, to whom all ill-natured rumours were attributed, became more odious to the Court than he had been before, from having, as it was alleged, paid a crazy woman to start up and declare that she had sold a baby to the Duchesse d'Angouleme. But the mass of the people never believed in the changeling story, and when the little Due de Bordeaux was exhibited to the public on the day of his christen- ing after having been baptized in water brought from the Jordan by Chateaubriand the enormous crowd under the balcony of the Tuileries, where the child was held up by his nurse, raised such acclamations as forced even the sceptical Louis XVIII. to borrow a pocket-handkerchief from Madame du Cayla. A national subscription had been set on foot to buy the baby an estate worthy of his rank, and more than 60,000 having been collected, the trustees purchased the Chateau de Chambord, a beautiful place near Blois, which had been the residence of Stanislas of Poland and of Marshal Saxe. The title of Due de Bordeaux had been bestowed upon the Prince out of compliment to the city which was the first to proclaim the Bourbons after the overthrow of Napoleon ; but the King now created his grand-nephew Comte de Chambord, and this was the title by which the Prince was generally styled after the revolu- tion of 1830, which drove Charles X. and his family into exile. Six years before this revolution, when Louis XVIII. lay 122 EMINENT PERSONS dying, the little Due de Bordeaux was brought to his bedside, and the King, laying a hand on the child's head, said to the Comte d'Artois, " Brother, be ruled by the thought of this boy's welfare ; do nothing that will lose him his crown." The heir- apparent bowed, but whispered to the Due de Montmorency that he considered the advice was "in bad taste." One of Charles X.'s first acts after ascending the throne was to commis- sion his little grandson to a colonelship of Hussars. It will be remembered that Napoleon III., by way of reviving the sobriquet of " le petit Caporal," made the Prince Imperial, at the age of three, a corporal in the Imperial Guard ; but under Charles X. there was no such humouring of democratic instincts. The boy- prince had the Due de Montmorency for his governor, the Duchesse de Chevreuse for his governess, two marquises as his equerries ; and once a week his regiment of Hussars was brought into the Cour du Carrousel to be paraded before his eyes. On these occasions it was customary to allow a certain number of persons to press forward with petitions and thrust them into the child's hands, in order that his name might be associated with acts of royal clemency or favour. As the petitions which the boy touched were always granted, it may be supposed that the claims in them had been officially entertained beforehand. In 1825, when Charles X. was anointed and crowned in the Cathedral of Rheims with a pomp that recalled the grandiose splendour of the old Monarchy, the Due de Bordeaux figured in the royal procession, riding in a silvered coach drawn by six white horses, and wearing a white satin costume embroidered with silver lilies, and the blue Riband of the Holy Spirit. In accordance with a Catholic custom, he had been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and, until he was six years old, he never wore any colours but blue and white, which are regarded as hers. He was a pretty boy, with fair hair and blue eyes, very docile, and with a sweet smile, which he had been taught to display to everybody. Lamartine and Victor Hugo both rhymed odes to him ; the writers in the Drapeau Blanc and Quotidienne, which were the principal Royalist organs of the day, vied with one another in their invention of anecdotes which described him as always saying or doing good things ; and by these means the boy became really a darling of loyal subjects. But Charles X. himself, who had royal qualities as well as defects, was not unpopular ; and if he lost his throne in a sudden THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 123 squall it was not because he sought to deprive the French of their liberties, but because he chose the wrong man to abet him in this endeavour. Prince Polignac, who became Prime Minister in 1829, was a puzzle-headed man a "mere idiot," as M. Guizot described him in speaking to the late Bishop Wilberforce. During Napoleon's reign he had been condemned for taking part in the plot of Georges and Pichegru, and confined for ten years as a State prisoner in a private madhouse. In this retreat he had learnt, like our James II., " to dream and tell his beads." After the King had tried to get rid of a Liberal Chamber by two dissolutions within a few weeks, Prince Polignac advised him to sign those famous Ordinances which abrogated the Charter of 1815 ; but this he did without having taken any precautions to follow up his move by the energetic fusillade which, as De Morny said in after years, " is the proper accompaniment of a despot singing a solo." The Ordinances were signed, not without hesi- tation, at the Palace of St. Cloud, on the morning of the 25th of July 1830, after Charles X. had attended mass. There was a cloud on the King's brow for some time after he had done this foolish thing ; but presently this cleared away and he went to hunt the stag in the forest of Rambouillet, relying on the assurances of Marshal Marmont that the garrison of Paris would do its duty. The Liberals were so little confident in their power of resisting the royal troops that Adolphe Thiers, then editor of the National, betook himself to Montmorency, and it was not till after a day's meditation that, feeling ashamed of himself, he returned to Paris and drew up his magnificent "Protest," which was signed by 210 journalists of the Liberal party. Meanwhile Paris began to simmer, and Charles X.'s regiments, though full of loyalty, were not strong enough to cope with the enormous multitude which filled the streets, encouraging gamins, students, and girls to tear down Polignac's posters ; nor at the outset were they commanded with sufficient spirit. In the work of bill-tearing Jules Grevy, then a law student, distinguished himself, and got nothing worse than a wound from the boot of a staff lieutenant, who, as historical legends pretend, was the future Marshal MacMahon. On the afternoon of Tuesday, the 27th, a deputation of mothers, chiefly market-women, went to St. Cloud with a box of bonbons and a bouquet for the little Due de Bordeaux, and tried to present a petition to the Duchesse 124 EMINENT PERSONS de Berry, praying that she would use her influence to get the Ordinances withdrawn, in order that other boys might not be made fatherless like hers through civil strife. But the gift and the petition were declined, and the noise of firing began to be heard over Paris as the market-women trudged back, eating between them the sweetmeats which they had brought for the little Prince. The fighting between the King's troops and the insurgents lasted three days. The Garde Royale, whose officers were all sons of peers, and the Swiss Guards, who hated the Parisians well, fought with desperation ; but they were overmatched. On the evening of the 28th Charles X. played his rubber of whist as usual, and tried to look cheerful ; but on the following day it was all over with the Bourbon dynasty, and the Due d'Angouleme, in a paroxysm of rage such as he never exhibited before or after, tore off Marmont's epaulets, accusing him of having betrayed the King as he had betrayed VAutre that is, Napoleon. Marmont was one of those unfortunate men whose conduct always requires to be explained in books of three volumes ; but his Memoirs have not altered the general opinion that he was a poor creature. On the 1st of August the King withdrew to Rambouillet, and on the 2nd abdicated ; at the same time the Due d'Angouleme an easy, unambitious man renounced his own rights in favour of his nephew, who thus became King of France, the Due d'0rle"ans being appointed Lieutenant-General of the kingdom until the boy should attain his majority. All these arrangements came too late. The Liberal leaders did not want a regency ; they urged the Due d'0r!4ans to accept the Crown that a Republic might not be established ; and the new King King of the French he called himself in servile homage to the mob sent M. Odilon Barrot, as Com- missioner, to escort Charles X. to Cherbourg. Even at this juncture the old King could not believe that his subjects wished to drive him out. A few months before he had gone on a tour through his dominions, and had been received everywhere with enthusiasm, so that he kept hoping the provinces would rise up and undo the seditious work of Paris. He journeyed towards the sea like a conqueror in state, accompanied by his family, his guards, and courtiers enough to fill fifty coaches. It took him more than a fortnight, travelling with royal slowness, to THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 125 reach the port where he was to embark for England ; and all along his route he heard words of compassion uttered for the little Due de Bordeaux who stood at the window of a coach with his sister blowing pretty kisses to the crowds. The boy had not been informed as to what had happened ; he was in high glee at hearing himself addressed as King and Majesty, and the rigid observance of Court etiquette during the journey kept him from guessing that he was going into exile. At Laigle etiquette nearly robbed the two kings of their dinners, for the hotel at which they alighted had only round tables tables, therefore, of which their Majesties could not take the head. However, a carpenter was called in to saw one of the tables into a rectangle, after which the juvenile monarch and his grandfather could sit down without shocking the High Chamberlain. Prince Polignac followed his mis-served master to England ; but he lay concealed in a baggage-waggon, having as much to fear from infuriated Royalists as from the rabble. There may be some natives of Edinburgh who still remember the time when Charles X. held his court at Holyrood, and when the Due de Bordeaux was frequently to be seen riding about the city in a chaise driven by postilions with white cockades. The Reform agitation in England rendered it undesirable that the exiled family should establish themselves and plot against Louis Philippe in or near London, and, after a while, William IV.'s Minister gave hints that even Holyrood must not be made a centre of intrigues. So the Bourbon Court removed to Prague, and there it was soon resolved that the Duchesse de Berry a Princess full of spirit and liveliness, who was the idol of the Royalists should start for France, land privately in La Vendee, and try to revive the old Breton loyalty in favour of her boy. But this expedition, though carefully planned, ended in disaster. If there had been a Republic in Paris the Venddens would have understood the issues set before them ; but the crown had been transmitted with comparative quietness, so far as the provinces were concerned, from Charles X. to Louis Philippe, and the peasantry could not see all the points of difference between one king and another. A single engagement with the new King's troops sufficed to rout the small body of the Duchess's adherents, and the discomfited lady, trying to escape from the country in the disguise of a peasant woman, sabots and all, was betrayed into the hands of the Government 126 EMINENT PERSONS by an infamous man, named Deutz, who charged ,40,000 as the price of his treachery. Then the most calamitous blow of all fell upon the Legitimists, for the Duchess, being confined for months in the Chateau de Blaye, could not conceal that she was pregnant, and was obliged to confess that she had been privately married to an Italian nobleman, Count Lucchesi-Palli. Charles X. never forgave this mesalliance. The little Comte de Chambord had not been captured with his mother, but had been conveyed out of France by the Marquis de la Rochejaquelein and the Due de Blacas ; and when the Duchess left her prison she was denied permission to join her boy or even to see him again, except in the presence of strangers. The Comte was confided to the care of his aunt, the Duchesse d'Angouleme, a princess of masculine energy, who in face and character resembled her grandmother, the Empress Maria Theresa, and whom Napoleon called " the only man among the Bourbons." Her placid husband seems to have found her virility too much for him, for in 1832 he assumed the title of Comte de Marnes, and retired altogether into private life, saying his wife had " stolen his breeches, and that he was content she should wear them since they fitted her." The daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette was an excellent woman, intelligent though hard ; but it would have been better for the young Henri V. if he had been brought up under the softer influence of his warm-hearted, cheerful, and most lovable mother. The Duchesse de Berry was not pretty, but she was a great charmer ; " to listen half an hour to her prattle is worth two glasses of good wine," said Lord Stuart de Eothesay, when he was Ambassador in Paris. There was something very touching in the humility with which she submitted to be banished from the royal family, as if her second marriage had disgraced her, whereas, in truth, the gentleman to whom she had given her hand was not unworthy of her. " Would you have thought it more moral if I had not married him ? " she asked of her strong-minded cousin. " II y a une morale d'Etat," answered the Duchesse d'Angouleme sourly ; and afterwards this good lady alluded with complacency to the excellent example set by another beau gar f on, who, having married a princess of blood -royal, had been satisfied "with some left- handed ceremony in a vestry," and described himself wittily on his cards as " Master of her Royal Highness's household." THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 127 Charles X. died in 1836 at Goertz, or Goritz, a small town of Istria, long noted as the chief place where Hebrew books were printed for the East. He had gone there from Prague in 1 835, and it was at Goertz that the Comte de Chambord received an education that was to estrange him completely from the political thought of the century. His principal tutor was the Due de Dainas, a man who might have compared with the present Bishop of St. Andrews for the variety of his accomplishments as scholar, athlete, Churchman, and causeur. He was one of those amusing, exuberant, sentimental, and winning men who always disclaim sentiment in arguing and profess to be guided by cold reason unanswerable men, having erudition, anecdote, syllogisms, and humour all at their command for the defence of any prejudice or paradox. The Due de Damas was no bigot. He would almost have subscribed to the' proposition of a certain English peer that " the Church is a branch of the Civil Service." But as such he understood its uses, and claimed for it his pupil's whole- hearted devotion. " Men seek shelter under that which is firm," was his favourite maxim. " Tired sceptics return to Rome because its doctrines are immutable, and disappointed politicians to absolutism. France will grow sick of the new systems which promise more than they yield, and her people will then crave for a restoration of the old Monarchy, which stood upright a thousand years." In this doctrine of reaction applied to an un- settled country like France there was a great deal of truth. But the flaw lay in ignoring the fact that in politics people are attracted chiefly to men, not to ideas. We regulate our spiritual lives by principles, but we like that our temporal business shall be managed for us by men of nerve, who can persuade us that they are leading us forward, even though they are doing the contrary. The Comte de Chambord's education should have fostered in Mm that happy audacity which enables a man to give new names to old things, as Napoleon III. did in 1852, when he established a Monarchy more despotic than that of Louis XIV., and called it the latest development of democracy. Instead of that the Comte's pious aunt and his romantic tutor taught him to attach himself to the symbols, imaginary glories, and not less imaginary principles of the old Monarchy ; in fact, what the Comte de Chambord really did was to create in fancy an ideal Monarchy, such as had never existed. " Our dear Henri is a little 128 EMINENT PERSONS mystical ; his is a poet's nature," wrote the Duchesse d'Angou- leme in 1840 to P. A. Berryer, the great Legitimist orator ; but Henri V. never wrote a passable line of poetry, and he was mystical only because his mind had been nourished entirely on fictions. He had learned the history of France out of that queer book by Father Lorriquet, which makes no mention of the follies, crimes, and tribulations of the French kings, but records only their pomps and victories. They are all crowned saints, including Louis XV., and the downfall of their power was explained to Henri V. by the circumstance that the aristocracy, who ought to have been the supporters of the Church and of the Throne, had been led away by the heresies of a certain Voltaire. This fact, this one great smirch on the pages of French history, made a deep mark on the mind of the young Prince, who knew nothing of Voltaire beyond that he was the devil's emissary, like Luther ; but a time came when the Due de Damas found that his pupil, by dint of brooding over the unexpiated sin of his country, was lapsing into a dangerous train of thought. In his twentieth year the Prince began to fast often, spent hours daily in the chapel of his chateau, and would come out thence with streaming eyes ; his great fear was that he could never become so good a man as his ancestors, and that he might draw down new calamities on France by his want of firmness. He pushed introspection to such a point that he began to trouble his confessor, the Jesuit Father Lemercier, with sheets of letter-paper covered with memoranda as to his evil thoughts. A visit from the wise Cardinal Lambruschini (who was very nearly being elected Pope a few years afterwards in the place of him who became Pius IX.) restored composure to his mind. But the Cardinal advised that he should travel, and soon afterwards the Prince set off on a tour with the amusing Due de Ldvis and General Latour-Foissac. He journeyed over Austria, part of Germany, and Italy, being received in all the Courts with royal honours, much to the disgust of Louis Philippe's envoys ; and he excited everywhere feelings of mingled admiration and astonishment. He was a handsome young man, who bore himself with a kingly dignity, but he was grave beyond his years, shy with women being no Frenchman in this respect and he betrayed his ignorance on almost all subjects with such an astounding coolness that some of his THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 129 hosts at first eyed him askance, wondering whether he was a practical joker. Sir Robert Gordon, who was British Ambassador at Vienna, wrote to a friend in England : " The young King of France has been here amusing everybody. People do not know what to make of him. The other night, speaking to the Emperor, he said something so incredibly simple that the Emperor looked hard at him twice, expecting he was going to smile." After a while, however, the surprise which the Comte created gave way to a kind of enthusiasm, and sovereigns passed the word to one another that he was a young Prince really worth studying. He had never read a novel, he took no interest in science, his knowledge of history was derived from a tissue of ballads and fairy tales ; but his faith in the divine right of kings and the ardour with which he expressed himself about the duties of princes in setting models of piety to their subjects were refreshing novelties to certain blasts potentates, who were weary of hear- ing most young princes boast of comprehending " the Liberal principles of the age." The King of Naples (Bomba) exclaimed in a transport that Henri V. would be a new David a simple boy with a sling, who would slay the Goliath of Impiety. Count d'Orsay, who saw the Prince two or three years later in London, and who thought poorly of him, conveyed a similar idea in other words. Somebody had remarked that the Comte de Chambord had a fine head. " Yes," he said, " it is a palace with no room furnished in it except the chapel." In 1841, two months before he became of age, the Comte de Chambord met with a bad accident of which he was to feel the consequences for the remainder of his life. Riding in the neighbourhood of Kirchberg, he was thrown from his horse, and fractured his left thigh. A permanent lameness was the result, not very marked, but sufficient to make prolonged exercise dis- tasteful to him. Moreover, the accident spoilt his nerve for riding and made it impossible that he should figure in the military pageants of foreign Courts. This was a great dis- appointment to his adherents, who had been anxious that he should appear frequently in uniform, and be represented as having military tastes and aptitudes. In that same year, 1841, the Duchesse d'Angouleme pur- chased the castle and estate of Frohsdorf, about forty miles from Vienna, and the Comte de Chambord had been taken there from VOL. Ill K 130 EMINENT PERSONS Goertz for a change of air, when news arrived of the sudden death of the Due d'Orleans, Louis Philippe's heir, through a carriage accident. This event seemed likely to be of great import- ance to the Comte de Chambord, for the Due d'Orleans had en- joyed an immense popularity. Affable, generous, brave, highly educated, the friend of artists and authors, and a sincere Liberal, he promised to make an excellent king ; but the eldest of his children, the Comte de Paris, was only four years old, and Guizot's Government, having to introduce a Kegency Bill, found itself in difficulties. The Duchesse d'Orleans (Hdlene of Meck- lenburg) was a Protestant, and Guizot, though a Calvinist himself, dared not propose her for fear of offending the Roman Catholics. On the other hand, the Due de Nemours, the King's second son, was not popular, and his nomination as Eegent greatly weakened the Monarchy of July. The Comte de Chambord was still confined to his couch when all these events happened, and he was not well enough to be moved until November 1843. He then went to London, where a house in Belgrave Square had been hired for him, and he announced his pretensions to the throne in the most public fashion, calling upon all his partisans to come and do him homage. They flocked to London in great numbers, and Louis Philippe grew so alarmed that it was arranged the Deputies of the majority should, in their address answering the Speech from the Throne in the session of 1844, censure the conduct of twenty-six members of the Lower House who had been among the pilgrims. These gentlemen at once resigned their seats, but were re-elected. What was worse, a sudden fashion set in for " Chambordism " ; the circulation of the Legitimist papers was quintupled ; ladies wore bonnets A la Chambord ; actors, " g a ggi n g" i n their parts, introduced allusions to " lilies," the " Grand Monarque," "Henri IV." and the "poule aupot," and were frantically applauded. Paris, always on the quest for some new thing, chose to look upon the young Henri V. as a hero whose elevated ideas dwarfed the petty peaceful policy of a bourgeois king. At this time the future Napoleon III. was a prisoner at Ham, ridiculous on account of his two mad raids upon Strasburg and Boulogne ; the Republican party were discredited owing to the foolish insurrection of Barbes in 1839; and the Comte de Chambord, who had most of the clergy and nobility and a large THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 131 mass of malcontents on his side, to say nothing of Berryer, who was a host in himself, was the only serious pretender whom Louis Philippe had to fear. He much strengthened himself in 1847 by marrying the Princess Maria-Theresa, daughter of the Duke of Modena, who added a very large fortune to that which he possessed already ; and in 1848, when all of a sudden a revolution broke out in Paris and drove Louis Philippe from the throne, he could reckon that he had every chance in his favour. He was on a visit to his mother at Venice when the news of Louis Philippe's ludicrous fall reached him, for, since his majority, he had often sought the companionship of the amiable woman whom the Duchesse d'Angouleme still called contemptuously "la Palli." The Duchesse de Berry, always impulsive, jumped up, clapping her hands, and danced round the room ; but the Duchesse d'Angouleme received the tidings at Frohsdorf in a manner which showed a much deeper, more intense feeling of triumph. When she heard of Louis Philippe's pitiful hesitations, of his unkingly weakness and shameful flight, in which no element of humiliation and of just retribution, according to her view was wanting, she stopped the Due de Blacas, who had come to her with the story, and who related it laughing. " C?est assez" she said, thrilling all over in her black robes (she had lost her husband in 1844). "Mon Dieu, I dare not listen any more ; we are too completely avenged." Why did not the Comte de Chambord make a better use of his opportunities in 1848 ? The answer must be the plain one that he was deficient in personal courage. The fact might be varnished by saying that he was over-conscientious and more of a monk than a prince ; but this would not be true. He was bigoted and very ignorant, but he had outgrown the religious hysteria of his twentieth year ; he had become a bon vivant, was vain of his rank, and much wished to be king. Nor was there in him any resolute objection to reigning as a constitutional sovereign, for in several little addresses to deputations, and in letters he was always writing letters he declared that he meant to rule with the help of advisers elected by the people. The organs of his party, and especially L' Union and La Gazette de France, which were known to draw their inspirations directly from his circle, stated the same thing in much more explicit terms ; but it was a suspicious circumstance that scruples always 132 EMINENT PERSONS' overcame the Comte when it was necessary that he should take personal action. Four months after the revolution of February the second Republic was doomed. The Communist insurrection of June had broken out and had been thoroughly repressed by General Cavaignac ; a Conservative reaction set in, and the first Legis- lature elected during the General's rule contained a strong minority of Legitimists and a large number of members who were ready to rally round Henri V. on condition that he should issue a manifesto embodying a charter of public liberties. But this he would never do, though he repeatedly promised to do it. He flitted about from place to place, inviting his friends to meet him in palaces or hotels ; and at his hospitable table he spoke with so much sense and sweetness that his guests went away enchanted. But at the very moment when, after toiling and moiling, arrangements had been effected in accordance with his own suggestions, he would mysteriously vanish, and would be next heard of as performing a "retreat" in a monastery. Again, when he ran away he would leave some confusing letter behind him which darkened the political waters like the discharges of an ink-fish. Tricky would be a hard term to use about the Comte de Chambord, but he gave his word lightly, and it was worth little, because his moods were so variable. When the battle was far off he snorted like a war-horse ; when the time came for actually joining in the fray he always found it necessary to consult some reverend father as to whether it were fitting he should fight. Louis Napoleon, a very different man, canvassed the country while the Bourbon Prince idled, and in a few weeks, by dint of clever electioneering, he won all the popularity which Henri V. might have got if he had shown vigour, or if he had simply refrained from thwarting those who worked for him. But even after the Presidential election of December 1848 the Comte de Chambord still had good prospects. Most of the Legitimists had voted for Prince Bonaparte so that Cavaignac might not prevail, but they regarded the Prince merely as a stopgap, and were confident that before the expiring of his four years' term they should be able to arrange for Henri V.'s suc- ceeding him. By the light of all that has happened since, it seems strange that so astute a man as Berryer, the Parliamentary leader of the THE- COMTE DE CHAMBORD 133 Legitimists, should never have divined that Louis Napoleon, when once placed in command of the strongly -centralised administrative machinery of France, would not easily be got rid of. But Berryer's delusions were shared by a great many other sharp men, including Thiers, and the years 1849-51 were consumed in intrigues tending to bring about a fusion between the two Royalist parties. The Marquis de la Roche- jaquelein was the first among the Legitimist leaders who saw through the Comte de Chambord. " (Test un farceur, une poule mouille'e," he said, giving deadly offence to Berry er by those words. The Duchesse d'Angouleme, however, had arrived at the same painful conclusion. For her religion's sake she pre- tended to acquiesce in her nephew's untimely scruples, but she was grievously disappointed to see him miss his destiny as a modern David by his lack of the spirit which conquered the Philistines, and the last year of her life was one of fretfulness. She died in 1851, just in time to be spared the sorrow of wit- nessing the destruction of all Royalist hopes by Louis Napoleon's coup d'e'tat. In 1852 the fortunes of the Comte de Chambord had fallen so low that he was obliged to employ a stationer in the Passage Choiseul, named Jeanne, to act as his political agent-general. From this man's shop were issued childish tracts of the Comte's own composition, prophesying disaster to France unless her people made atonement ; but the nature of the atonement was only hinted at in vague mystical terms. The nation was " to fall at the feet of the Prince who bore the standard of Joan of Arc," to " hail the reign of the Cross and the lilies," and so forth. One morning the Imperial police entered M. Jeanne's shop and seized two cartloads of these little books, but they were deemed so harmless that nobody was prosecuted for having cir- culated them. The Comte de Chambord's vagaries during the second Re- public had alienated a section of his followers, who rallied to the Empire ; unfortunately, a larger section remained faithful to him, and this was a melancholy thing for themselves and for France. In reviewing the career of the " honorary King," one is bound not to forget how very mischievous his influence was how selfishly and unpatriotically he acted in not releasing from their allegiance men whom he had been unable to lead, and who, by remaining in subjection to him, had to renounce 134 EMINENT PERSONS all chance of serving their country. The Legitimists became a sulking party. They could not, consistently with Royalist principles, condemn the policy of an Emperor who ruled as autocratically as the old King, and who maintained an army of 20,000 men in Rome to uphold the temporal power ; so they had to base their opposition to Napoleon III. on metaphysical divine right principle. During eighteen years the miserable spectacle was witnessed of thousands of well-educated, honourable gentlemen withdrawing altogether from public life, and refusing to serve France as soldiers, sailors, statesmen, or judges, because they could not swear obedience to an Emperor elected by plebiscite. All this time the Comte de Chambord lived in easy and cheerful retirement. No children were born of his marriage, and as he bore no love to his heir-presumptive, the Comte de Paris, he had not to trouble himself about that Prince's future. His large fortune allowed him to keep up a stately court on a small scale, to travel much and with great comfort, to indulge his taste for sport, and to receive a succession of visitors all the year round. Anybody who came to him from France, no matter what was his rank or business, was sure to be most courteously entertained ; but the Due de Blacas, who acted as chamberlain, used to inform visitors that they were not to address the Prince as Sire, and Your Majesty, or to talk politics, the truth being that the Comte did not wish to be put to the trouble of explaining his mysterious views. He preferred to keep up his character as a royal hermit, pensive and impenetrable ; and if by chance he emitted an opinion it was pontifically, without inviting dis- cussion. The Imperial Court of France always treated him with a deep respect from policy. M. Alphonse Daudet tells an amusing story of how, being a young man and having been offered the post of secretary to the Due de Morny, he thought good to inform that statesman that he was a Legitimist. " So is the Empress," was the unexpected answer. The Empress cherished, indeed, some pretty project for getting the Prince Imperial betrothed to Henri V.'s niece (who eventually married Don Carlos), and prevailing upon the Comte to acknowledge Napoleon III.'s son as his political heir, but the Emperor and Empress also made a point of honouring their enemy in order that they might conciliate his titled adherents and attract them to the Tuileries. As M. Edmond About THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 135 remarked, " On fait la guerre aux Re'publicains a coups de baton, aux Le'gitimistes a coup d'encensoir." To thwart the Imperial designs the Comte de Chambord now and then launched a proclamation ordering his friends not to vote at this or that election ; and after the Italian war, when the Papal States were in danger, he wrote a valiant letter, declaring that he was ready to shed his blood for the temporal power, but as he did not buckle on his sword to go and encounter Garibaldi, this out- burst only made people smile. It must be added that the Bourbon Prince's reputation de- clined year by year from its getting gradually known through newspapers that he was truly a very dull man. Journalists went to interview him in German watering-places ; and two distinguished savants falling in with him during his Syrian travels in 1863-64 took his intellectual measure ; but nobody was ever able to report that he was a man of parts. Advancing into middle age he had become stout and bald ; and he had a good-humoured expression, which made him pleasant as a host ; but the only topics on which he was fluent were sport and the curiosities to be found in churches. Being unable to ride, he had caused his forest at Frohsdorf to be intersected by splendid roads along which he could follow his hounds at boar or stag hunts in a phaeton ; as for churches he had visited hundreds of them and probably knew more than any man about the miracu- lous properties attaching to different relics. For the rest, he bought pictures, but they were selected for him ; he had no preference for any particular composer ; it made him yawn to go to the theatre ; and being once asked what he thought of M. Alexandre Dumas's romances, he answered solemnly that their author had taken " great liberties " with French history. Alto- gether, the Comte de Chambord had become rather a laughing- stock among Frenchmen when the events of 1870-71 occurred and placed him once more in a position where it needed only a little daring to make him king. Of course the daring failed him ; though he had stronger moral support from 1871 to 1873 than under the second Re- public. In 1848 nobody thought that the French could submit to a restoration of despotic monarchy, so that in demanding that France should entrust her destinies to him " unconditionally," he seemed even to his own followers to be asking too much. But after Napoleon III.'s reign the Comte de Chambord could 136 EMINENT PERSONS urge that despotism was by no means so contrary to the spirit of the age as had once been supposed ; and he could prove that Napoleon had prospered so long as he had been faithful to the principles of autocracy, and had only begun to totter from the day when he made a half-hearted attempt to restore Parliament- ary institutions. Unfortunately, Henri V.'s failing had never been sturdiness, but instability ; and under the third Republic he commenced exactly the same old game of hasty promises and unblushing retractations as he had played twenty years before. From Geneva, from Antwerp, from Bruges, from his own Chateau de Chambord which he revisited, he issued a series of letters which were expressly intended to allay the public prejudices touching his opinions. He plainly declared that he would never disown the tricolour, " reddened by the blood of French soldiers " ; he stated that it was absurd to think that he could wish to govern without a Parliament or that he had any idea of reviving Church tithes or of suppressing political equality, " which is but a guarantee of the love which a good king bears towards all his subjects equally as to his children." Had the Comte not made these declarations the Royalists could never have pitched their hopes so high or pushed their intrigues so far as they did. The cabal which overthrew M. Thiers in May 1873 went to work on the understanding that the Comte de Chambord was ready to accept the Crown and to recognise the Comte de Paris as his heir, provided the latter went to Frohsdorf to do him homage. Accordingly, the long-delayed interview between the heads of the two royal houses took place on the 5th of August 1873 ; but nothing came of it. The Comte de Paris was received somewhat like the prodigal son kindly by the Comte de Chambord, very coldly by the Comtesse, a lady of exemplary life but rather chilling manners. The Due de Chartres accom- panied his brother, but the Comte de Chambord expected, or pretended to have expected, that the elder princes, Louis Philippe's sons, would have come too. In taking leave of his kinsman he could not help administering a soft coup de patte : " Your uncles are not ill, I hope ? " he said ; and the Comte de Paris returned to France feeling that he had compromised him- self without assured profit, for though he had done homage to Henri V. as chief of his house, the latter had not returned the compliment by greeting him as his heir. THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 137 A few weeks after this the Comte de Chambord came privately to Versailles, and there his friends urged him to take the Crown suddenly by a coup de main. Everything was ready, as they assured him. There was a Royalist majority in the National Assembly, and if he would only march into the hall of debate and personally demand the recognition of his rights, he should be hailed King by acclamation ; and Marshal MacMahon would take care that the army obeyed the decree of the Assembly. One night the Comte de Chambord, who was staying in the house of a Breton deputy, M. de la Rochette, paced about the dining-room musing in agony of mind as to whether he ought to do what his host and others asked of him ; but at last he took to flight in his favourite way, and left a letter saying that it would have been derogatory to his dignity to act as he had been advised. The truth is, he was waiting for a national call and he had not heard it ; on that point his prudent ears could not deceive him. He had come to Versailles expecting to be braced in the atmosphere of the royal city where four kings of his race had held their splendid and mighty courts ; but all he had seen brought disappointment and sadness. Better than any man he knew what were the glories of old Versailles when it was the residence of the greatest nobles; the place to which victorious generals came to receive their Sovereign's rewards and the smiles of society ; the centre of arts, literature, wit, and graceful manners ; the most polished academy in the world, as well as the finest Court. But of the old Versailles no traces were left in the new except under the form of bricks and stones. With some shrewdness the Prince looked for signs of a Royalist feeling where assuredly they would have been most displayed had they existed over the doors of shops and in the enseignes of public- houses. Had the memory of the martyred Louis XVI. been honoured by any wine-shop bearing the sign Au bon Louis XVI. ; had tradesmen exhibited the azure shield of the Bourbons in boast that their predecessors had once been purveyors to the Court, Henri V. might have believed that he had friends among the people. But seeking for tokens of constancy or of penitence among the sons of those who had been his forefathers' subjects he found none. In the most conspicuous part of the town rose the statue of the Republican General Hoche, who vanquished the Royalists and shattered their last hopes in the Vendee ; and, notwith- 138 EMINENT PERSONS standing that in 1873 the fires and massacres of the Commune were things of yesterday, Radical electoral addresses bloomed on every hoarding red as ever. The Prince went to visit the palace a clandestine visit and he was almost disguised by a muffler which hid his beard. He leaned on the arm of M. de la Rochette, and the guide who showed them round had no suspicion of the thrill which must have passed through the gentleman who limped so dejectedly behind him when he said, " This is the bed in which .Louis XIV. died ; and this the balcony where the heralds used to stand to proclaim a king's death, crying ' Le Roi est mort : Vive le Eoi.' " The palace was then being occupied by the National Assembly. The deputies held their sittings in the theatre where J. J. Rousseau's Devin du Village had been per- formed before Louis XV.'s Court. The chapel where Bossuet and Massillon had preached was disused. Most of the reception- rooms were devoted to the museum of pictures which represent the battles of Napoleon, episodes in the Revolution of 1830, and the pomps of Napoleon III.'s reign. Ae'for the stately Galerie des Glaces, the most important items about it which suggested themselves to the guide's mind were that William I. had been proclaimed there Emperor of Germany, and that during the Commune the room had served as a dormitory to some Republican deputies. All this was not very inspiriting ; and it may be that the unsuspecting guide taught his thoughtful hearer " the last of the kings " a lesson. Henri V. may have gone away from the palace determined that before he stretched out his hand to a crown he would make sure that the men who had snatched it away from him when he was a boy were offering it to him again in real earnest. His ever-indulgent partisans excused his hesitations, blamed M. de la Rochette for his excess of zeal, and resolved that two members of the Right MM. Chesnelong and Lucien Brun should go to Salzburg and formally offer the Crown to the Prince in the name of the Parliamentary majority. They were encouraged to take this step by the Union, and when they started on their journey the general opinion in Paris was that all difficulties were about to be removed. State carriages had actually been ordered for Henri V.'s triumphal entry into Paris ; and the factories of Lyons were receiving from Parisian drapers large orders for silks embroidered with golden lilies. But once again and for the last time the grandson of Charles X. THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD 139 played his double game. To MM. Chesnelong and Brun he said, in the most correct constitutional language, that he accepted their proposals, and would leave it to the National Assembly to frame a new Constitution for France ; but scarcely had the two politicians returned home with these glad tidings than the Prince telegraphed a note to the Union to the effect that he "would never consent to be the King of the Revolution." A week later 27th October 1873 he gave the final blow to the hopes of his friends by a manifesto, in which he proclaimed that he. " would never renounce the white flag the standard of Arques and Ivry." Arques and Ivry were Protestant victories gained by Henri IV. over the Catholic Leaguers, and it showed a comical ignorance of history in Henri V. to allude to them as he did. But was not his whole life mixed strangely with the comic element ? One can have no wish to speak disrespectfully of a Prince of gentle character whose ideal of moral duty was, no doubt, high ; but historical truth compels the remark that the Comte de Chambord was never equal to the high destinies which his birth had prepared for him. He may have been born with talents, but his education marred them, while the mental and physical distress he experienced whenever he was instigated to a course involving personal danger surely proved that he was more fitted to wear a cowl than a crown. He will remain known in history as Henry the Unready. Fortune did more for him than she generally does for men of his stamp by offering him her spurned favours two or three times over ; but it is, at least, consoling to remember that he never fretted much over the chances which he threw away. He did not pine in exile like Charles X., but had in him much of the philosophical self- contentment of Louis XVIII., with some mixture of the meditativeness which made solitude dear to Louis XVI. When he had to give up the hope of seeing children born to him, he appears to have become secretly indifferent to recovering his throne, and it is only a pity that he did not avow this indiffer- ence, sparing his devoted followers much trouble and France the many worries that have resulted from useless party strife. It is unquestionable that the Comte de Chambord's conduct in 1873 was dictated partly by the alarms of the Princess his wife, who shrank from the prospect of revolutionary horrors, and partly by the antipathy felt both by the Comte and the Comtesse 140 EMINENT PERSONS towards the Orleans Princes. The Bourbon Prince's quiet, cool, but implacable dislike of his cousins of the younger branch would be enough by itself to explain why he should have been in no hurry to take any course which must eventually have facilitated the Comte de Paris's succession to the throne. Nevertheless, it is probable that many, ignoring the human motives that prompted some of Henri V.'s actions, remembering only his good points, and the patiently-borne agonies of his last illness, may from this time please to speak of him as a paragon among princes, in whom was no pettiness and who sacrificed everything to principle. One need not grudge any Royalist this pious belief. It is enough to have indicated our reasons -for not sharing it. MR. CHENERY OBITUARY NOTICE, FEBRUARY 12, 1884 IT is with the deepest regret that we record the death of Mr. Thomas Chenery, the editor of this journal, which occurred at his house in Serjeants' Inn at seven o'clock yesterday morning. The fatal illness was of very brief duration, and Mr. Chenery died literally at his post. So late as Friday, the 1st of February, he was at the Times office discharging the full duties of his laborious and responsible position, bearing the burden of his increasing malady with manifest suffering, though without a murmur of complaint, and manfully striving to combat an illness, the signs of which he seemed reluctant to recognise, though they were only too painfully apparent to his colleagues and assistants. For some time past, indeed for the greater part of the last twelve months, Mr. Chenery's usually robust health had seemed to those who watched him closely to exhibit signs of the strain to which he habitually subjected it by his unceasing devotion to work and duty. But towards the end of the year he seemed to be better again, and when, at the beginning of last month, he went away for a brief holiday in order to prepare for the heavy labours awaiting him in the Parliamentary session, he appeared to be in a fair way to recover his usual health and spirits. This, however, was not to be. He went to Paris, as was his wont, but came back to London in a few days ; and when he returned to his work towards the close of the month the signs of serious illness in his face and bearing were only too visible to his colleagues. For some days he struggled on with rare courage and devotion, and at times it seemed as 142 EMINENT PERSONS though he were slowly recovering. On Saturday, the 2nd of February, however, he was too ill to rise, and from that time his strength was slowly ebbing away. Last Sunday evening he underwent an operation, performed by Mr. Haward, surgeon to St. George's Hospital, at the request of Mr. Henry Lee, his regular medical attendant. The operation was satisfactorily performed, but afterwards Mr. Chenery sank into a state of partial unconsciousness, from which he never recovered, and he passed quietly away at an early hour yesterday morning. Of our own loss by the death of a man of Mr. Chenery's wide knowledge, sound judgment, and great capacity, we have no desire to speak at undue length ; but it certainly behoves us to dwell on the magnificent devotion and self-sacrifice dis- played by one who, though little before the world in his personal capacity, was nevertheless an important public servant, and who gave not merely his strength, but his weakness and even his life itself, to the service in which he was engaged. There is very little that is eventful to be told of the life of Mr. Chenery. The life of the editor of such a journal as the Times is not, of course, devoid of events, but its events are those of current history rather than of the individual career. In this connection, however, it may truly be said that hardly within the memory of living men with the possible exception of the five or six years which included the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny could a period be found so crowded with momentous and critical events as the six years that have elapsed since Mr. Chenery became editor of the Times. In 1878 the Russo-Turkish War was virtually over. Plevna had fallen in the last days of 1877, Gourko had made his gallant march across the Balkans in mid-winter, and when Parliament met in 1878 the Russian forces were at the very gates of Constanti- nople. Then followed the passage of the Dardanelles by the British Fleet, the negotiation of the Treaty of San Stefano, the resignation of Lord Derby, and the changes of policy that resulted from it, the movement of the Indian troops to Malta, and all the long negotiations which preceded the meeting of the Congress at Berlin. The occupation of Cyprus, the Anglo- Turkish Convention, the outbreak of the Afghan War, and the meeting of Parliament in the autumn were incidents of the latter half of the eventful year 1878. In 1879 we had the troubles in Zululand, and the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari at MR. CHENERY 143 Cabul ; 1880 brought the general election, the change of Government, and the rise of the Irish troubles. The Land Act was passed in 1881, and Mr. Parnell was imprisoned in the autumn of the same year. The Phoenix Park murders and the Egyptian campaign were the most memorable events of 1882, while the history of last year is still too fresh in the memory of all to need any recapitulation here. In this brief survey of an eventful period we have mentioned only the most salient and memorable events, and have omitted others of almost equal importance. These are the events in the midst of which Mr. Chenery had to move as editor, and on many of them he must be held to have exercised an amount of influence such as few individuals can claim in respect of the great affairs of mankind. But an editor of the Times must move and work, not merely in great^iffairs. Humani nihil a se alienum putat ; whatever concerns mankind for the moment, from a war to a whim, from a passing fancy or transient fashion to the great secular movements of humanity, from a great crime to a great catastrophe, the tragedy of life and its comedy, the victories of science and the achievements of literature, the vicissitudes of circumstance and the inexorable harvest of death these, and much more than these, are threads in the web of which an editor's life is woven, and belong as much to his personal life as they do to the general history of his time. All these events, however, belong only to the brief and final period of six years in an active and well-spent life. It behoves us to give some fuller account of Mr. Chenery's history before he assumed the onerous and responsible post of editor of the Times. He was born in Barbados in the year 1826. In early youth he made several voyages between the West Indies, where his parents lived, and this country, and he seems thus to have acquired that love of travel which never afterwards forsook him. He was sent to school at Eton, and thence he proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge. After the conclusion of his University career, Mr. Chenery was called to the Bar, and was soon afterwards appointed to represent this journal as its correspondent at Constantinople in the stormy diplomatic period which preceded the Crimean War. His experience in this capacity was excellent training for a publicist ; but his residence at Constantinople, which lasted for some years, exercised in another direction a very decisive 144 EMINENT PERSONS influence on his life. Constantinople in tliose days was the abode of eminent men and the scene of remarkable events. We need only mention the great Eltchi Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and the severe diplomatic contest which he sustained against the representatives of Russia and other Powers, and recall the many Englishmen of note who passed the Bosphorus in those years on their way to or from the seat of war in the Crimea. Among the friends whom Mr. Chenery made at this period of his life was the gifted Algernon Smythe afterwards Lord Strangford and we may conjecture that it was the influence of this kindred spirit that gave Mr. Chenery that turn for philo- logical studies in which he was afterwards to attain so remark- able an eminence. Mr. Chenery also lived much with the leaders of the Greek community at Constantinople, and his acquisition of their native language gave him an interest in the connection of Modern Romaic with classical Greek on the one hand, and with the Oriental languages in use at Constantinople on the other, which also tended in the direction of his favourite bias for philology. These, however, were only the occupations of his leisure. The task of correspondent of this journal at Constantinople in those momentous years was no light one, and it should be mentioned that on more than one occasion Mr. Chenery went up to the front in the Crimea to relieve Dr. W. H. Russell, who, as is well known, was our special correspondent at the seat of war. After the war Mr. Chenery returned to this country and was forth- with employed on the staff of the Times as a regular contributor of leading articles, reviews, and other original papers. This employment was continuous from the time of his return to England until he became editor, so that it may be said without exaggeration that, from the time when he quitted the University until almost the very hour of his death, his life was devoted to the service of the Times. His command of a powerful and impressive style, his wide general culture, and his extensive knowledge of European politics, both in their contemporary bear- ings and in their historical relations, rendered his services of peculiar value. But though his occupation as a journalist was sufficient to engage the whole attention of an ordinary man, Mr. Chenery, while never neglecting his duties in that capacity, neverthe- less found time to pursue the Oriental studies of which he MR. CHENERY 145 had become enamoured in the East. He seemed to live the life of two men, and to give to each the energy and application which many men would have found a heavy burden in either. So completely were his two occupations separated that many of his friends who knew him only as an Oriental scholar never knew, and found it difficult to believe, that he was also one of the busiest and most accomplished journalists of his time. His Oriental studies were pursued with surpassing enthusiasm. For languages he had a most remarkable gift. French, German, and, we believe, Italian, he read with ease and spoke with fluency, he was master of modern Greek and Turkish, and as an Arabic and Hebrew scholar he had few rivals among his contemporaries. It was constantly his habit with his Oriental friends to converse freely in Hebrew, and he wrote an intro- duction in Hebrew to one of his philological works which has been regarded by competent Hebraists as one of the most finished pieces of composition ever produced by a man who had not learnt Hebrew as a vernacular language in his childhood. His capacity for acquiring the colloquial use of languages, whether European or Oriental, was comparable only to that of men like the late Professor Palmer or M. Vambe'ry ; but, in addition to this, he brought to the study of language a scholarly instinct and a philological acumen like that of Lord Strangford himself, and such as is rarely associated with an exceptional colloquial capacity. When the company for the revision of the Old Testament was formed, it was natural that Mr. Chenery should be invited to join it ; he devoted much time and thought to its labours before he became editor of the Times ; and even after his assumption of that post he seemed to find a welcome relaxation in an occasional participation in its labours. For some time he was Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, and his studies in Arabic literature are well known and appreciated by all Oriental scholars. His great work in this department was a translation, accompanied by learned historical and grammatical notes, and a masterly introduction, of the well-known Arabic classic entitled The Assemblies of Al-Harin. This was published in 1867, and at once established Mr. Chenery's reputation throughout the learned world as one of the most accomplished of living Oriental scholars. We may mention in this connection that a few years ago two men so competent to judge as the late Professor VOL. Ill L 146 EMINENT PERSONS Bernays, of Bonn, a Jew by birth and a student of Oriental literature by predilection, and M. Kenan, incontestably the most brilliant Semitic scholar of France, spoke to a common friend in terms of enthusiastic admiration of Mr. Chenery's philological attainments. In 1868 the Lord Almoner's Professorship of Arabic at Oxford became vacant by the death of the late Dr. Macbride, and Mr. Chenery was appointed to the Chair by the then Lord Almoner, Dr. Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. The Chair is one of small emolument and intermittent duties, but such duties as there were Mr. Chenery discharged with his usual thoroughness, soon engaging the confidence of Dr. Pusey and other Oxford Orientalists, and bearing his part when opportunity offered in promoting the welfare of Oriental studies in Oxford. His inaugural lecture, a masterly account of the Arabic language in its historical and philological relations, was delivered on 3rd December 1868, and published shortly afterwards. Mr. Chenery, who, as we have said, was a graduate of Cambridge, was incorporated soon after his appointment to the Arabic Chair at Oxford as a member of Christ Church, and was received with kindly welcome and appreciation by the members of that distinguished Society a reception which he in his turn Avarmly appreciated, and often spoke of in terms of cordial and grateful recognition. His appointment as Professor did not interfere with his occupation as a journalist. If his days were given to his own loved Oriental studies, his nights were still devoted to contemporary politics. A singular result of this rare combination of employments was exhibited in his pamphlet published in 1869, entitled Suggestions for a Railway Route to India. In this pamphlet the writer shows an equal command of contemporary politics, of practical affairs, and of a scholar's historical knowledge of Oriental conditions of life. In 1872 Mr. Chenery published an edition of the Machberoth Ithiel, a Hebrew work written in imitation of the Assemblies of Al-Hariri, by Yehudah ben Shelomo Alknarizi, and it was his introduction to this work, written in Hebrew, which, as we have mentioned, extorted the enthusiastic admiration of Hebrew scholars, both Jewish and Christian. Mr. Chenery retained the Lord Almoner's Professorship of Arabic at Oxford until 1877, when, on the failure of Mr. Delane's health, he was appointed Mr. Delane's successor as MR. CHENERY 147 editor. From that time, as was inevitable, his Oriental studies were for the most part suspended, though it would seem that nothing was more congenial to him than an occasional return to them. His scholarly instincts and tastes never forsook him ; more than once he has been seen during his brief holidays searching the boxes of the booksellers on the Quai Voltaire, in Paris, and carrying off some dusty treasure of classical or Oriental lore with the ardour of a true lover of books. For a longer holiday he would go by choice to the meetings of the International Congress of Orientalists he was present at Leyden last autumn and for a brief relaxation he would attend a session of the company of Old Testament Revisers. These, however, were genuine relaxations, and taken only at times when relaxa- tion was possible, not to say necessary, to him. Since he became editor, a little more than six years ago, his first and last thought was always for, the welfare of this journal, to which his rare power of application, his rapid and compre- hensive judgment, his large experience of affairs, and his capacious stores of knowledge were devoted without stint, with no thought of his ease and comfort, and perhaps with too little regard for his health and strength. To the world which knew him not it may have seemed incongruous that a learned Oriental scholar was chosen by those who did know him to succeed Mr. Delane. But the learned Oriental scholar was only half the man ; the other half was an accomplished publicist, an ex- perienced man of affairs ; and as the period of public affairs with which it has fallen to his lot to deal has been in large measure a period of which the dominant interest has centred in the course of events in the East, it will be acknowledged that the selection was amply justified both by his personal fitness on general grounds and by his special and peculiar aptitude for dealing with Oriental affairs. Mr. Chenery's life during his editorship is nothing more nor less than the history of this journal, and that, after the brief summary we have given above, we must leave to speak for itself. Of his personal characteristics, to none known so well as to his sorrowing colleagues in the Times office, we have scarcely the heart to speak on the very morrow of his untimely death. In society he was widely known and highly esteemed, though much of his life had been that of a retired student, and though his disposition was naturally shy, and his manner in consequence 148 EMINENT PERSONS somewhat reserved. He was rarely provoked into saying an unkindly word of any one, and his unfailing consideration for all with whom he was brought into contact in the discharge of his editorial duties secured for him their genuine and affectionate regard. The public loss in the death of such a man, so versed in affairs, so masculine in judgment, so flexible and versatile in capacity, is no slight one ; to his colleagues and private friends it is a heavy personal sorrow. To the world he leaves a record of work, both public and private, which will not be easily forgotten ; to his friends and associates in the conduct of this journal he bequeaths the consoling and stimulating example of a life cheerfully spent and a death manfully faced in the loyal discharge of public duty. SIR BARTLE FRERE OBITUARY NOTICE, FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1884 THE death of Sir Bartle Frere brings to a sad and sudden conclusion the most notable and varied career among con- temporary Anglo-Indians. His public life covered a period of more than half a century, and from the very first day of his entry into the service of the East India Company he succeeded in showing that he was a man of no common stamp. More than any of his contemporaries was he thought at one time to be favoured by fortune. Whatever he touched succeeded. He not only triumphed over difficulties ; they vanished from his path. He gained the approval of his superiors, the admiration of his subordinates, and the affection of the native peoples whom he governed with such gentle firmness. For forty years and more everything he did turned to the advantage of the State and to his own honour ; and then he fell upon evil days. The last few years were clouded with doubt and personal misfortune, though he maintained to the last the full and unshaken conviction that his African stewardship had been guided, not merely by a sense of justice, but in accordance with the dictates of a sound policy. It is as an Anglo-Indian states- man and administrator, however, that Sir Bartle Frere will be permanently remembered, and in that capacity it will be difficult even for his enemies to deny him a place beside his great rival and contemporary, John Lawrence, and among that galaxy of Englishmen who have made the government of India the most remarkable achievement of an alien government recorded in history. The Freres were not merely an ancient, but a remarkable 150 EMINENT PERSONS family. Established in the eastern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk from the time of the Conquest, they had sent more than one representative to Parliament. Sir Bartle Frere's own grand- father had been member for St. Ives, and had perhaps a higher claim to recollection for having keenly contested the Senior Wranglership with the celebrated Paley. One of the sons of this Mr. Frere was the well-known wit, the Right Hon. John Hookham Frere, the friend of Canning ; another was Mr. Edward Frere, the father of the subject of this memoir. Henry Bartle Edward Frere was his fifth son. He was born in one of the wildest parts of Wales on the 29th March 1815. From Wales he went to Bath, where he was educated at one of those numerous grammar schools which trace their origin to the bounty of Edward VI. The education he received at this school was not extensive, but it was thorough as far as it went. When he was seventeen years of age he was nominated to Haileybury, but in the entrance examination he only passed by the narrowest margin. He came out on the list last but one. There is no doubt that he felt this result with keen mortification, as he had been considered a promising scholar at Bath, and a high place had been predicted for him. Once admitted, he set himself to work with such energy that at the end of the first term he had raised himself to the second place in his class ; at the close of the following term he had gained the first place, and, as Colonel Malleson tells us, in a very interesting sketch of his career, written some twelve years ago, he "never afterwards lost it." At the end of 1833 he passed from Haileybury as its foremost student into the ranks of the Company's Civil Service. At that time the long sea route was still the only way of reaching India from England. During the Napoleonic struggle important news had been several times conveyed across Syria, and this fact had suggested the idea of an overland route. Lord William Bentinck had said something in favour of the realisation of this idea, and had even proposed sending the first steamer constructed for the Indian service to Suez in order to convey any civilians or officers who cared to proceed by the Red Sea to India. Bartle Frere had heard of this project, and determined to avail himself of the opportunity. He presented a request in the form of a petition to the directors in Leadenhall Street for permission to be allowed to take this route in his journey to India, and the application was as gravely discussed SIR BARTLE FRERE 151 as if it had been a matter of annexing some independent State or deciding whether a right of adoption should be granted. It seems probable that so unusual a favour would have been refused for fear of creating a dangerous precedent but for the intervention of Mr. Butterworth Bayley, the member of a distinguished Anglo-Indian family which even in our own time has given several able men to the Indian services. Mr. Frere left England in May 1834 for the Mediterranean. At Malta he passed a few days with his uncle, Mr. Hookham Frere, and thence proceeded in a Greek brigantine to Alexandria. Not the least of his difficulties consisted in the fact that there were no regular passenger boats, and he had to avail himself of the best means of travelling that offered itself. He went to Cairo, where, hearing no news of the expected steamer, he and his three companions proceeded by Thebes and Keneh to Kossier on the Red Sea. They crossed that sea in an open boat, touching at the Arabian ports of Yambo and Jeddah ; but they could get no tidings of Lord William Bentinck's steamer, for the very good reason that it had never proceeded west of Ceylon. At Mocha they took passage on board of an Arab buggalow conveying pilgrims to Surat, and, as Frere already knew enough Arabic to converse with the crew and the religiously-disposed passengers, the trip was both instructive and interesting. With regard to his Arabic Dr. Wolff, the eccentric traveller, had pronounced him to be "fit to scold his way through Egypt." After nineteen days at sea, during the latter half of which provisions ran short and the voyagers had to live on hulwa, a glutinous sweetmeat, the young official reached Bombay on the 23rd of September 1834. The adventures of this journey did not cease with his arrival, for the authorities refused for a time to believe it possible that the first civilian out of Haileybury would have come in such an outlandish fashion. He had to establish his identity, and there are still a few Anglo-Indians living who can recall the excite- ment produced by Mr. Bartle Frere's unusual mode of travelling. The young civilian, who had not yet attained his twentieth year, threw himself with as much energy into the duties of his appointment as he had shown in the choice of his route and in his manner of carrying out his intention. Within three months he had passed the necessary examination in Hindostani. He then devoted his attention to the Mahratta and Guzerat tongues, 152 EMINENT PERSONS which he mastered with extraordinary rapidity. But Mr. Frere had the instincts of a sportsman as well as the happy knack of acquiring a mastery of languages. He was only entering upon manhood, and hearing that there was excellent sport at Belgaum, he made an application to Lord Clare, the Governor of Bombay, for an appointment to that station. This application is remarkable for the additional reason that it was the first and last request he ever made in connection with his sphere of work. Lord Clare did not consider it proper to comply with the request, and sent him instead to Poona, where there was very hard work, no prospect of sport and still less of promotion. Mr. Frere had to turn his attention from thoughts of tiger and bison slaying to questions of revenue. He employed his leisure in studying at their seat of government the history and character of the Mahratta people, in whose language he had already made himself fluent. Attached to the Revenue Department, under Mr. Goldsmid, he assisted that officer in his efforts to improve the system of collecting the taxes then in vogue among a long- oppressed people. During this period he lived in the very heart of the Mahratta country, and under precisely the same conditions as if he had been a native official and not a member of a ruling caste. By this means he acquired an intimate ac- quaintance with the Mahratta people, which made him un- questionably the greatest authority on the subject. When he succeeded, in course of time, to Mr. Goldsmid's post, he found in Khandesh the opportunity of the sport of which he had been deprived on his first taking up his official duties. It was during this period that Mr. Frere came into contact with Sir James Outram. The meeting was under appropriate circumstances, after an exciting boar chase in Khan- desh, for both were enthusiastic shikaris ; and Sir Bartle himself wrote an account of the scene long afterwards for the biography of the Bayard of India, written by the friend and lieutenant of both, Sir Frederick Goldsmid. While many of his con- temporaries were gaining fame and promotion in connection with the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Frere, not so fortunate, was employed in the routine work of revenue assessment in Kattiawar or the Deccan. A further misfortune befell him. He was attacked with jungle fever, and, after a severe illness, only recovered to be told by the medical men at Bombay that SIR BARTLE FRERE 153 it would be folly to think of remaining in India, as lie could not stand the climate. He disregarded the warning, and remained in India, with the results to be recorded. His Mahratta experiences closed the first period of his Indian career. The results attained by him and his associates were so successful that their system was forthwith adopted and applied in the rest of the Bombay Presidency, and eventually in Mysore, Scinde, and Berar. The effect on the people was almost magical. As Mr. Frere himself wrote some years later, " from being the most wretched, depressed set in the Deccan they have become thriving independent fellows, thoroughly grateful for what has been done for them." The second period of his public life began with his appoint- ment as private secretary to Sir George Arthur, the Governor of Bombay. He obtained this post unexpectedly through the death of the gentleman appointed on his way out from England. It was one for which his tact, courtesy, and conciliatory manners pre-eminently fitted him. No long interval elapsed before the opportunity occurred of evincing all these qualities in reference to a critical question of historical interest. Sir Charles Napier attacked the Ameers of Scinde in 1843, and on the overthrow of their army at Miani, Lord Ellenborough formally annexed their territory. A great outcry was raised against this measure, partly on the ground that it was unjust, partly that it was inexpedient, and the whole Civil Service, chiefly because they were alarmed at the growing partiality to the civil employment of military officers, took up the side of Outram in his campaign against Sir Charles Napier and the annexation of Scinde. The discussion of that subject agitated Indian society for more than two years ; and it naturally excited the greatest commotion of all in Bombay. Every effort was made by the supporters of the one side or the other to draw some word or act of par- tisanship from the Governor. But neither Sir George Arthur nor his private secretary was to be caught napping. The former kept the general in the field supplied with all the stores and officers that he required. The latter turned aside all the direct applications and the indirect manoeuvres to obtain from him any expression of opinion. When the heat of the contro- versy cooled down, Sir George Arthur had the double satisfaction of retaining the undiminished confidence of the Government and the respect of Outram's warmest supporters. Whenever 154 EMINENT PERSONS the subject was referred to at a later period, Sir Bartle would usually turn the question by extolling Outrani's gallant defence of the Hyderabad Residency. This second period terminated in an auspicious manner with his marriage in 1844 to Sir George Arthur's second daughter, a lady who has shared with him for forty years every vicissitude of fortune, and to whose unfailing graciousness has been due much of her husband's success and popularity. Up to this point in his career Mr. Frere had not been brought as prominently forward as several of his contemporaries, men who had passed out of Haileybury below him. He had also filled only subordinate positions, although they were such as required great tact and accurate knowledge. But in 1847 he was appointed, in succession to Outram, Resident at Sattara, and very shortly after his appointment the occurrence known as the Sattara lapse occurred, and the event, important as it was on political grounds, was also worthy of notice as revealing Mr. Frere's character in its true light. The affairs of Sattara had been long in a state of confusion. One rajah had been deposed and deprived of the right of adoption. His brother was placed in the seat of authority, but when he too died a few months after Mr. Frere's appointment and adopted a kinsman as his heir, there ensued a conflict of views. Mr. Frere recognised him as rajah ; the Governor-General ignored the fact of adoption and formally annexed Sattara to the Company's dominions. Both Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone and Captain Grant Duff signified their opinion, as the officials responsible for the treaty of 1819, that Mr. Frere had taken the right step, and that the action of the Governor-General was in contravention of that solemn engagement. However, it did not alter the fact that Sattara ceased to be an independent principality, and Mr. Frere's appointment was changed from that of Resident to Commissioner. Mr. Frere remained more than two years at Sattara, and in 1850 he was transferred to Scinde as Chief Commissioner, in succession to its conqueror, Sir Charles Napier. In Scinde, a barren tract of country through which the Indus passes without fertilising it, Mr. Frere threw himself with all his energies into the work of improving the communications, constructing canals, and establishing a great seaport at Kurrachee as the most convenient outlet for the resources of the province and of the SIR BARTLE FRERE 155 country beyond. In his dealings with the frontier tribes, he was, no doubt, supported by that remarkable man General John Jacob ; but Jacob's policy in his dealings with the border clans of always carefully distinguishing between the innocent and the guilty was one essentially in accordance with Frere's innate love of justice. In 1856 he came to England on a short holiday, and on his return in the spring of the following year he learnt at Kurrachee of the outbreak at Meerut. In great crises little men expose their shallowness, while the born leaders reveal talents only half suspected before. Mr. Bartle Frere took in the whole situation at a glance. If mutiny could be successful at Meerut there was not a station from one end of India to the other where it might not be tried with every reasonable chance of success. The loss of Delhi was a loss of prestige which could only be recovered slowly and painfully. An hour of peril was evidently approaching, when it behoved every Englishman to think not only of retaining the ground on which he stood, but of helping his countrymen at every menaced point to hold theirs. Mr. Bartle Frere saw with his fresh and vigorous understanding still more than this. He realised with the insight of genius that everything depended on the preserva- tion of tranquillity in the Punjab and on the ultimate recovery of Delhi Seeing thus clearly, the next point he asked himself was what he could do to assist towards the attainment of those objects. He decided with the greatest promptitude. The population of Scinde included two million Mahomedans, and to keep this large number in order he had only two weak European regiments, four native regiments, the Scinde horse, some native artillery, a troop of Horse Artillery, and a mutinous cavalry regiment. Most men would have thought that the Europeans were far too few to keep the natives in order. Mr. Frere decided in a few hours after his arrival that it was his bounden duty to send off the strongest of his English regiments without delay to Moultan. The late Lord Lawrence had also read the situation with the eye of a master mind ; and he and Frere, only to be compared with each other among Anglo-Indians of their time in this as in general intellect and capacity, enjoy the right to claim that they alone saw what was the effectual thing to be done, and that a little local danger was wisely incurred in order to meet and crush a great peril to the Empire. Bartle Frere's prompt 156 EMINENT PERSONS measure secured the strong fortress of Moultan throughout the worst days of the Mutiny. He followed up this statesmanlike act with many others as an administrator scarcely less remark- able or worthy of praise in their way. He repressed three distinct attempts to mutiny among his native troops. Having purged their ranks of traitors and restored some sense of discipline, he despatched one Beloochee regiment to the Punjab, and some of his artillery to Central India. It was then he wrote the famous sentence to Lord Elphinstone that " when the head and heart are threatened, the extremities must take care of themselves." Such service, rendered in such graceful, not less than efficient manner, called for special recognition. He twice received the thanks of Parliament, he was made a K.C.B., and one of his former chiefs, Lord Falkland, extolled the merits of twenty-five years' service among the peoples of India, of which his own countrymen had been ignorant. Again, perhaps, the most striking testimony to his merit came from the lips of a private individual. The aged Mountstuart Elphinstone, who fifty years before had visited the Afghan monarch in the character of English envoy, and whose career was one of the most remarkable and instructive in the whole course of Anglo-Indian history, said, when Frere's name was mentioned, " Ah, tell me about him, he is a man after my own heart." After the close of the Mutiny, Mr. Frere was nominated to the Viceroy's Council, and left Scinde for Calcutta. As might be considered inevitable after so great a crisis, the state of affairs at headquarters was one of confusion and disorganisation. In no department were these more painfully apparent than in that of the finances. A trained and experienced financier, Mr. James Wilson, was sent out from England for the express purpose of arranging the taxes and the expenditure on a firm and equitable basis. Sir Bartle Frere assisted him in all his investigations and propositions from the abundant stores of his information, and approved the remedies he suggested, not because they were above all criticism, but because " the risk involved was as nothing compared with the certain ruin of drifting into bank- ruptcy by remaining as we are." On Mr. Wilson's death, Sir Bartle Frere assumed for a time the personal discharge of the duties of Finance Minister, and when Mr. Samuel Laing arrived he entered into the same hearty co-operation with SIR BARTLE FRERE 157 him in his difficult task as with his predecessor. He also devoted himself to the work of restoring so far as he possibly could the social relations between Europeans and natives which had been violently broken off by the events of the Mutiny. His residence at Calcutta became the principal place of assembly in the capital. Another exceptional feature in Sir Bartle's character was the cordiality which he always succeeded in establishing with the military authorities. Unlike other civilians, and particularly his great contemporary Lord Lawrence, he was on the most friendly terms with Lord Strathnairn and the many distinguished officers who took a part in the reorganisation of the Indian armies, and was never disposed to repeat the cuckoo cry that soldiers only think of spending money, and nothing of how it is to be obtained from the people's pockets. In 1862 he was appointed Governor of Bombay, and Lord Canning, writing on his way home to congratulate him, said, " God grant you health and strength to do your work in your own noble spirit." As Governor of Bombay Sir Bartle devoted himself to every object calculated to improve the condition of the people or to increase the prosperity of the great Presidency entrusted to his charge. In all this good work he found an able and energetic colleague in his wife, and Lady Frere was among the very first English ladies to devote time and attention to the question of female education. He founded more public buildings and started more works of public utility than any of his pre- decessors. He gave Bombay a municipality. During his government the death-rate of Bombay was reduced to almost one-half of what it had been. He was at Bombay during the height of the great cotton fever, and he controlled affairs during the crisis which followed in its fortunes after the close of the American Civil War. He returned to England in 1867, when he was appointed on the first vacancy a member of the Indian Council. Although his Indian career had practically closed, he was far too valuable and experienced a public servant to be allowed to remain idle. In October 1872 he was sent as Special Com- missioner to the East Coast of Africa, and in the following May negotiated the treaty with the Sultan of Zanzibar by which that potentate pledged himself to put an end to slavery throughout his dominions. On his return he was entrusted with the 158 EMINENT PERSONS responsible duty of accompanying the Prince of Wales on his tour through India, and of acting as a mentor on all questions of Indian policy and history. In January 1877 he was appointed to the Cape of Good Hope. With reference to this portion of his career, the events are too near our .time and the final solution of the many local difficulties is too uncertain for an attempt to be made to decide the exact merit or demerit of the policy which he wished to carry out, and with the execution of which he was entrusted. Had he succeeded, he would no doubt have conferred a great and timely service on his country. How far he erred in not better adapting his means to his end must remain for a later posterity finally to decide ; but, perhaps, when South African confederation is an accomplished fact there will be a lenient and half-regretful remembrance of the man who first endeavoured to realise it. Sir Bartle Frere's South African stewardship was unfortunate for him in every way, and it is not generally known that he returned after four years' absence a considerably poorer man than when he went out. But it is not for his conduct of affairs in South Africa that Sir Bartle Frere will be permanently remembered by his countrymen. They will think of him mainly as a very able and distinguished Anglo-Indian administrator, and as one of those men who devote their energies and the best years of their life to the service of the millions of India. His long residence in India was marked by sterling work rendered, not only to his country, but to the cause of justice and good government on more than one critical occasion. His popularity with his own countrymen was equalled by his popularity among the natives. He was their friend in word and deed long before the spurious and sickly sentimentality as to race equality had come into vogue. The first thing the natives used to ask on their arrival in this country was, " How is Sir Bartle ? " Such general homage showed that he possessed character as well as a charming manner. His detractors used to say that his performance belied his promise ; but that was only because they had mistaken the kindness of his mode of expressing that their requests were inadmissible. Sir Bartle was known everywhere at Kurrachee, at Calcutta, at Bombay, as well as at the Cape for his liberal hospitality ; and very few persons were brought into contact with him without confessing the charm of his manner. But those who imagined that Sir Bartle Frere was either weak or SIR BARTLE FRERE 159 hesitating in his action because he was slow to say an unkind word only looked on the surface. No one was more decided in his opinions than he. Few men could act more promptly, and no one better typified the saying of " the hand of iron in the glove of silk." It was Sir Bartle Frere's misfortune not to have had the same opportunities as his contemporary, the late Lord Lawrence, for he would have used them with as much effect. India, large as it is, could not furnish space for two independent careers worthy of these rivals. Sir Bartle Frere had all the instincts of a statesman. He always saw the point to be finally attained for the settlement of a difficulty, if he sometimes overlooked the obstacles to be removed. His letter to Sir John Kaye in 1874 on our Afghan policy was a remarkable State paper which will be permanently quoted and referred to, and his views on Indian government were both broad and sound. His courage and fortitude were worthy of all praise, and sustained him when he laboured under the sense that his efforts had been misunderstood and not appreciated by his Government. The careers of Englishmen connected with India that might be placed on the same footing as his are very few. They may be counted on the fingers of the hand. And not one of those who either preceded or accompanied him in his work has left a name that will endure longer as the possessor of the great and good qualities which will make the hearts of natives and of Englishmen alike overflow with grief at the news of the death of Sir Bartle Frere. ME. FAWCETT OBITUARY NOTICE, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1884 THE premature and lamented death of the Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, M.P., has removed a notable figure from the sphere of Parliamentary life. Short as was Mr. Fawcett's official career, it was yet sufficiently long to prove that he possessed no small share of administrative ability. It has been said that the academic mind fails when it comes to grapple with the details of practical work ; but Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet contains more than one member whose experience contradicts this assertion. Certainly the statesman who has been cut off at a moment when it seemed that further possibilities of political usefulness were opening out before him was signally successful in grasping the duties of his office and in carrying them out to the satisfaction of the nation at large. During his tenure of the office of Post- master-General, Mr. Fawcett demonstrated his capacity for deal- ing with the complicated business questions which constantly arose for settlement, and he infused more life and vigour generally into his administration of the Post Office than was the case with many of his predecessors. The deceased, who was the son of Mr. W. Fawcett, J.P., of Salisbury, was born on the 26th of August 1833, so that at the time of his death he was in his fifty-second year. The "elder Fawcett was one of the earliest members of the Anti-Corn Law League, and he was well known to and esteemed by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. When he had attained his eightieth year he was still an excellent and effective speaker. He appears to have transmitted something of his own fine, robust constitution to his son, who until suddenly struck down by illness a short time MR. FAWCETT 161 ago, and now again by the attack which has had a melancholy and fatal result enjoyed the most perfect physical health and spirits. Educated first at a local school near Salisbury, Henry Fawcett was sent, at the age of fourteen, to Queenwood College, Hampshire, where Professor Tyndall chanced to be a teacher at the time. In his seventeenth year the young student entered at King's College, London, and it was during his residence here that his imagination was first fired by the desire to embark upon a Parliamentary life. In 1852 he proceeded to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and here the ability and enthusiasm he displayed were such that the most sanguine hopes were indulged in for his future. Alike at Cambridge as elsewhere, Mr. Fawcett's motto seems to have been " mens sana in corpore sano," and he was passion- ately fond of all healthy athletic exercises. For nearly four years he remained at the University, graduating in 1856 with high mathematical honours, being seventh Wrangler, and in the same year he was elected a Fellow of his Hall. On leaving Cambridge, Mr. Fawcett went to London, where he began studying for the Bar. He made no secret, however, of his dis- taste for the profession, which he would not have adopted save as a stepping-stone to a career in Parliament. He was already much more enamoured of questions affecting philosophy and political economy, and was an ardent admirer and student of the writings of John Stuart Mill. On the 17th of September 1858 it was the terrible mis- fortune of Mr. Fawcett, senior, unwittingly to deprive his son of the greatest physical blessing which man enjoys the privilege of sight They were out partridge-shooting together, when two stray shots from the father's gun struck the face of his son, the sad and singular result being that the centre of each eye was perfectly pierced by the shot. In a moment Mr. Fawcett was rendered quite blind, the eyes being completely destroyed. Most men, in the face of such a calamity, would have been over- whelmed by their feelings and plunged into irremediable despair. With Mr. Fawcett it was quite different. While feeling the deprivation keenly, in a short time he recovered his usual elasticity of spirits, and was far less afflicted by the melancholy event than his sorrowing father. The accident occurred on a spot overlooking Salisbury Cathedral, and the last gleam of nature Mr.' Fawcett was able to perceive was thus associated with his native place. VOL. m M 162 EMINENT PERSONS Facing the future with a brave heart, in the course of a few weeks he had resolved upon his course of action. His general health was not at all injured by his accident, and he returned to Cambridge University, where he devoted himself to the systematic study of political economy. With the aid of a reader, who now became his constant companion, and subsequently by the aid also of his devoted wife, he was able to minimise the evil effects of the accident. In just a twelvemonth after the occurrence he attended the meetings of the British Association at Aberdeen. Here he read, or rather spoke, a paper upon " The Economic Effects of the recent Gold Discoveries." As this paper was full of elaborate statistics, the extraordinary strength and retentiveness of the speaker's memory were tested in a very remarkable degree ; but he mastered all his difficulties, and surprised his hearers by the readiness with which he also answered the objections advanced against his theories. Having thus broken the ice, he now appeared frequently in public, taking, for example, a prominent part in the proceedings of the British Association and the Social Science Association. He was encouraged to persevere in his economic studies by Mr. Mill and Mr. Cobden, and a speech which he delivered on " Co-operation," at the meeting of the Social Science Congress at Glasgow, drew high praise from Lord Brougham and other critics. He also delivered at Exeter Hall an admirable address on Trade Unionism, during the period of the great builders' strike in London, and this at once constituted him one of the ablest and most trusted friends and advocates of the working classes. In 1861, on the death of Sir Charles Napier, member for Southwark, Mr. Fawcett made his first effort to get into Parlia- ment for that borough. He resolved not to contest the seat on the paid agency principle, and this and other things weighed against him, especially the circumstance that he did not speci- fically pledge himself to go to the poll. In the end. he retired from the contest, and Mr. Layard was returned. In 1863 Mr. Fawcett contested the borough of Cambridge, but lost by eighty votes. The same year appeared his Manual of Political Economy, and he was also at this time a voluminous contributor of articles on economic and political science to the leading reviews and magazines. He was elected in 1863 Professor of Political Economy in Cambridge University, and about the same period MR. FAWCETT 163 made a third unsuccessful attempt to get into the House of Commons, contesting the representation of Brighton. During the American Civil War he was a warm supporter of the cause of the North, speaking forcibly on its behalf on several occasions. At the general election of 1865 Mr. Fawcett's wish was gratified, as he was now returned to Parliament for Brighton by a majority of 500 over his Conservative opponent. Re-elected in 1868, at the general election of 1874 he was rejected, Brighton being one of those constituencies which felt the wave of the Conservative reaction in that year. He obtained a seat for Hackney, however, in April 1874, and this borough he con- tinued to represent until his death. Mr. Fawcett was an effective speaker, though he somewhat lacked fervour. His maiden speech in the House of Commons was delivered in connection with the Whig Reform Bill of 1866. This Bill he warmly approved as a wise and just concession to the claims of the working classes. He made a smart and effective attack upon Mr. Lowe. The speech generally was regarded as very successful, and the new member received hearty congratu- lations from his friends. In the session of 1867, when Mr. Coleridge brought forward his Bill to abolish the religious tests required from members of the University of Oxford, Mr. Fawcett was successful in carrying an instruction to the Committee on the Bill empower- ing them to extend its provisions to Cambridge. The measure, however, was subsequently thrown out in the House of Lords. Towards the close of the session of 1869 Mr. Fawcett raised the question of University Education in Ireland by drawing attention to the restrictions on the scholarships and fellowships of Trinity College. He had given notice of his intention to move a resolution in favour of the removal of these restrictions, when the authorities of Trinity College themselves voluntarily anticipated the motion. Mr. Fawcett brought forward his resolution notwithstanding, being anxious for its discussion. In the following session the Government carried their University Tests Bill, by which, for the first time, all lay students of whatever religious creeds were admitted to the English universities on equal terms. Mr. Fawcett also brought in his Bill for opening to all sects the endowments of Trinity College, Dublin. As we have already seen, the College itself had, in consequence of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, 164 EMINENT PERSONS determined to consent to the abolition of tests ; and Mr. Plunket, the Parliamentary representative of the College, had taken the opportunity, on a motion by Mr. Fawcett for the production of correspondence, to challenge the Government to adopt or reject the liberal offer of his constituents. Mr. Fawcett, in moving the second reading of his Bill, delivered an able speech, and he received powerful support from both sides of the House. Mr. Gladstone, however, argued against the Bill, without indicating the views of the Government upon the whole question, and the Solicitor-General for Ireland subsequently talked out the measure. Another attempt was made by Mr. Fawcett to settle this question in the session of 1872, but Mr. Gladstone still declined to allow his hand to be forced in the matter of Irish University education, and the Bill was again talked out, without a crucial division being taken upon its principle. In this session Mr. Fawcett spoke powerfully on the education question, exhorting all parties not to waste time in striving after miserable sectarian triumphs, but to unite for the solution of a difficult problem. Mr. Gladstone's Government at this time incurred considerable unpopularity in consequence of the Ewelme Rectory appoint- ment, Sir Robert Collier's elevation to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and other matters. Professor Fawcett, while generally a friend to the Ministry, took a decidedly independent tone at this juncture. Speaking at Brighton, and referring to the appointment of Sir Robert Collier, he said it would be far better that a dozen Administrations should fall than that Parliament should sanction the act of lawlessness involved in the colourable evasion of a positive legal enactment. The Irish University question was not allowed to sleep, and in the session of 1873 it was destined to effect a defeat of the Government. Mr. Gladstone introduced the Ministerial measure, on which occasion he delivered one of his most important speeches. When the division on the second reading was taken, the Roman Catholic members coalesced with the Conservatives and placed the Government in a minority of three in a House of 571 members. The Premier resigned office, but Mr. Disraeli, being unwilling at the time to succeed his rival, Ministers resumed their places. Before the session closed, Mr. Fawcett again introduced his Bill for the reform of the University of Dublin, and this time it was allowed to pass as a simple measure MR. FAWCETT 165 for the abolition of tests. During the debate on the defunct Ministerial Bill, the hon. member had delivered himself of a strong philippic against the Government, asserting that their Bill, if carried, could lead to no other conclusion but the establishment of denominational education in Ireland. The Bill, however, as we have seen, did not pass, and Ministers were now chary of burning their fingers again over this matter. Mr. Fawcett took a deep interest in all questions affecting India. In fact, so warmly did he identify himself with these subjects that he was once described as "member for Hackney and India." He was for effecting broad reforms in the ad- ministration of India. One of his earliest speeches in con- nection with our great Eastern dependency was delivered on the occasion of the Sultan's visit to this country, when it was proposed to defray the expenses of his entertainment out of the Indian revenues. He strongly attacked the Government for their proposal, and found himself one of the most popular men with the people of India in consequence. In 1872 he delivered a very telling speech upon the financial condition of India, when he obtained a Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the condition of the Indian finances. He made on this occasion a strong attack upon the supposed Indian surpluses, which were always said to exist, but which were very difficult to realise. His efforts in connection with India and his resistance to the efforts made to take away Epping Forest from the people made him exceedingly popular with the electors of Hackney. This feeling was further stimulated by his endeavours to get the benefit of the Factory Acts extended to the children of agricultural labourers, and by his support of other humanitarian measures affecting the health and welfare of the humbler classes. On several occasions in the session of 1878 he was heard in the House of Commons upon Indian questions. He initiated in the first place an important discussion on Sir John Strachey's previous Budget, condemning the increase in the duties on salt in Bombay and Madras in order to equalise them over India, when they might have been equalised by lowering them ; and the imposition of the license tax on trades and professions, as falling with most weight upon the poor. He also condemned the expenditure of the famine taxes on doubtful public works. Mr. Fawcett delivered a second important speech in connection 166 EMINENT PERSONS with the movement of the Indian troops to Malta, charging the Beaconsfield Government with having deceived the House in this matter. As to the statement that it was unnecessary for the Government to inform Parliament of its intentions, he said " he would rather the Government had squandered and wasted millions of English money than that they should have started on the career of bringing Indian troops to fight European battles without consulting Parliament. If this could be done there was not a single thing the Executive could not do without first consulting Parliament. Before such a step was carried out, Parliament ought at least to have been informed of the cost it would involve. Parliament was responsible for the good government of India, and if anything wrong happened there, Parliament could not escape the responsibility." Lord Beacons- field's Government, however, was at this time all-powerful, and its action on this and other questions which excited much comment was endorsed by Parliament. Towards the close of the session, Mr. Fawcett once more raised this topic. During the debate on the Indian Budget, he stigmatised the Indian Secretary's statistics as fallacious, and moved a resolution declaring that the House regarded with apprehension the present position of Indian finance ; and that, in view of the power claimed by the Crown to employ any number of Indian troops in all parts of Her Majesty's dominions, there was not sufficient security against the military expenditure of India being unduly increased. After a lengthy debate, the resolution was negatived by fifty -nine to twenty. When it was proposed to defray the expenses of the Afghan War out of the revenues of India, Mr. Fawcett moved as an amendment, "That this House is of opinion that it would be unjust that the revenues of India should be applied to defray the extraordinary expenses of the military operations now being carried on against the Ameer of Afghanistan." He argued that the Government had declared the war for Imperial far more than for Indian purposes. If the war was an Imperial one then England was bound to pay for it. He contended that there was no real surplus of Indian revenue, and that the money they were proposing to take for the war was money appropriated as a famine fund, and obtained by the most onerous of taxes. Mr. Gladstone seconded the amendment, but it was lost by a majority of 110. MR. FAWCETT 167 A sharp passage of arms occurred early in 1880 in connection with the Indian Budget It was found that instead of the surplus which the Indian Government had expected, when the Budget was made public, Sir John Strachey discovered that he would have to make provision for a large deficit, and that this deficit was caused by an extraordinary miscalculation in the cost of the Afghan War. Mr. Fawcett stated at Hackney that Lord Cranbrook was made aware on 1 3th March of the miscalculation, although the prosperity of India and the existence of a surplus were boasted of by Conservative candidates throughout the general electioneering campaign. Mr. Stanhope indignantly denied this, and Mr. Fawcett at the same time wrote to the papers saying that he had been misinformed. It was not until the elections had nearly concluded that an explicit statement re- specting the deficiency reached the India Office. In the follow- ing September Mr. Fawcett received from some native inhabitants of Bombay, who had previously subscribed 250 towards his election expenses, a silver tea-service and salver of Cutch work, enclosed in a carved wood case, also of native manufacture. The case was inscribed, " Presented to the Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, M.P., by his native friends and admirers in Bombay, India, June 1880." When Mr. Gladstone came into power after the general election of 1880 he proffered Mr. Fawcett the office of Post- master-General, which was accepted. Before the close of the first session of his official career the new Postmaster-General had introduced several legislative reforms affecting the business of the Post Office. The most important of these was the Money Orders Act, the object of which was to reduce the charge for orders, and to facilitate their currency. The cost of orders was reduced, and the transmission of the notes made less cumbrous. Another reform was also introduced in connection with the Savings Bank. It was provided that forms containing twelve spaces each could be obtained at the Post Office, and when a penny stamp had been affixed in each space the form might be put in the Savings Bank, and an account opened in the name of the depositor. These reforms the public speedily availed themselves of to a large extent. Mr. Fawcett also established a new Parcel Post, which has proved a great boon to the mercan- tile community, though as yet it has not been very successful financially. He further instituted many useful reforms in con- 168 EMINENT PERSONS nection with the postal department, and brought the telegraphic service into a much greater state of efficiency than when he found it. But of all the reforms by which Mr. Fawcett signalised his control of the Post Office, perhaps there was none which promises to be more beneficial (especially to the working classes) than his elaborate scheme of Post Office annuities and insurance, which came into operation in June of the present year. The chief reason which had heretofore prevented annuities and policies of life insurance from being obtained in any considerable number through the Post Office was that so many cumbrous and trouble- some formalities had to be gone through. Under the new scheme annuities and insurance are made through the deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks, and instead of a special visit being required each time a payment is due the depositor has only to give a written order that a certain portion of his deposits should be devoted to his annuity or insurance. There are more than 7400 Post Office Savings Banks in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The number of depositors is upwards of 3,000,000, and the aggregate amount of deposits nearly 45,000,000. With a few exceptions, these depositors may devote any part of their deposits, or of the interest thereon, to the purchase of an annuity for old age, or to securing an insurance policy. A person may also become a depositor with the sole object of having his money applied to the purchase of an annuity or insurance policy. Annuities of any amount between l and 100 a year can be purchased on the life of any person not under five years of age. There is thus brought within the reach of every family a ready and feasible plan of insurance and annuity. Mr. Fawcett determined to make his scheme self-supporting, so that it should not become a charge in any way upon the tax- payers of the country. But while responsible for the elaboration of this scheme the deceased did not fail to give the credit of its inception to the Assistant-Keceiver and Accountant-General of the Post Office. At the time of his death it is understood that Mr. Fawcett was engaged in perfecting other useful reforms in connection with the postal and telegraphic services. The Postmaster-General, in addition to his appearances in Parliament, delivered several addresses in public within the past two years, and only quite recently we reported his annual address to his constituents at Hackney. MR. FAWCETT 169 A new edition of Mr. Fawcett's Manual of Political Economy appeared in 1869, with two fresh chapters entitled respectively, " National Education " and " The Poor Laws and their Influence on Pauperism" ; and in 1874 a third edition of the work was published, likewise with additional chapters. He was also the author of a work on Pauperism, its Causes and Remedies, issued in 1871, and of Speeches on some Current Political Questions (1873) ; and Free Trade and Protection, which appeared in 1878. With regard to the last-named work, it may be stated that a fourth edition of it was published in 1882, at the time when the present attempted revival of protectionist theories in this country began to assume shape. While the author, however, did not ignore the strong position occupied by protection on the Continent, in the United States, and in many of our English colonies, he affirmed that it could be shown that nothing had occurred either to make us estimate less highly the advantages of free trade than we had formerly done, or to encourage any departure from its principles. " Yet a restatement of the principles of free trade," he remarked, " cannot be out of place when it is observed that even in England many of those who profess strong adherence to these principles hold them by so slender a thread that, when they settle in our colonies and are surrounded by a somewhat different set of economic circumstances, they become, in numerous instances, ardent protectionists." This little work forms a very excellent plea for Free Trade versus Protection, and for that reason will doubtless continue to possess a permanent value. Allusion has already been made to Mr. Fawcett's partiality for out-door exercises, but it may now be added that he was an excellent angler, and although this pursuit requires the greatest delicacy and sensitiveness of touch he was able always to follow it after he lost his sight on the banks of his favourite river the Itchen. This was doubtless owing to the fact that he was very familiar with its waters, and when taken to various points of the river he could throw the line with great advantage. Walking, rowing, and skating he also delighted in, and frequently went for a spin of thirty or forty miles on the ice in the Cam- bridgeshire and Lincolnshire fens. As a hard rider he had few rivals, and there was a joke against him at Cambridge that when he went out riding with a couple of friends, as was cus- tomary with him, fifty per cent was placed on the hire of the 170 EMINENT PERSONS horses when the livery -stable keeper discovered that he had enjoyed the honour of having the Professor of Political Economy for a companion. As a speaker, the deceased was distinguished for a close, compact, and argumentative style. He had no pretensions to eloquence of the emotional and imaginative type ; but there have been few speakers in the House of Commons of recent years who could so marshal the facts and statistics of their addresses that the whole should be clearly and readily under- stood. This was due to his own mental orderliness, and the utter absence of all confusion in his ideas. He was always clear and perspicuous, simple in illustration and arrangement, and yet full of matter. He was one of that small band of Parliamentary orators who have, first, something to say, and who, secondly, manage to say it well. He could not sway the masses as a great orator, but with a fit audience he was always effective, and frequently convincing. GENERAL GORDON OBITUARY NOTICE, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1885 THE death of General Gordon is accompanied by every circum- stance that could make the event most distressing and painful for his relations, his friends, and his countrymen. It is only a few weeks ago since the details of his magnificent defence of Khartoum were summed up and recorded in our columns, and on the very same day, as it happened, Sir Herbert Stewart struck on the field of Abu Klea what seemed the first blow towards effecting his deliverance. At the very moment we were beginning to flatter ourselves that all anxiety might be laid aside, and that the doubts of many weary months of delay and uncertainty could be safely banished, General Gordon was placed by the treachery of some of his followers in the hands of the enemy whom he had so long and so valiantly defied. Even then the hope was cherished that although Khartoum had fallen its heroic defender might have been spared ; but a t harsh fate has decreed otherwise. If we accept the accounts which have reached this country, and which are unfortunately only too consistent, he was stabbed in the palace while rallying his men to make head against the treachery which had admitted to Khartoum a fanatical host who marked their capture of the town that had so long resisted them by an indiscriminate slaughter. This pain- ful and pathetic end intensifies the dramatic interest of an episode in our history as an Imperial people which has all the complete- ness of a Greek tragedy in its exhibition of a remorseless fate and the intensity of human passion and suffering, and with which the name of General Gordon will be gloriously associated until the end of time. 172 EMINENT PERSONS Charles George Gordon was born on the 28th of January 1833, at Woolwich, in the very cradle of that branch of the service in which he was destined to pass a career of more than usual distinction, even if his own proper career as an English officer be alone taken into consideration. He was the fourth son of an artillery officer, Henry William Gordon, who attained the rank of Lieutenant-General, and the associations of his youth, as well as the traditions of his family, proud, and rightly so, of its connection with the great Highland house of the same name, left him no choice save to adopt the profession of arms. He was educated at different private schools, having as his com- panion and mentor at one of these in Somersetshire his elder brother, the late Major-General Enderby Gordon ; but when he was a little more than fifteen he was entered at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. Whether his earlier training had been deficient, or that he did not take kindly to the course of cramming even then necessary to gain admission into the ranks of the senior arm of the service, the fact remains that he did not at first achieve any great distinction in his studies, and on one occasion he received the rebuke " that he would never make an officer." Whatever doubt there may have been as to Gordon's mental capacity or as to his assiduity, there never was any real ground to doubt the quality of his temper or the lofti- ness of his aspirations. His reply to the officer who thus undeservedly, as we must think, rebuked him served to prove over again that " the boy is father to the man." He " tore his epaulets from his shoulders and cast them at his superior's feet." Despite all unfavourable prognostications, he passed his examinations successfully, and obtained the much-coveted dis- tinction of a commission in the Royal Engineers. His first station in 1854 was at Pembroke Dock, where he was employed in connection with the fortifications then being erected for the protection of the new docks, while the most exciting events of the Crimean War were in progress. His letters home, which were published last summer, and which furnish an exceedingly interesting record of his early military experiences, show that from the first day of his entrance into the army he took a keen interest in all the details of his profession, to the mastery of which he zealously applied himself. At the end of 1854, when it was perceived that the allied forces would be detained GENERAL GORDON 173 before Sebastopol during the winter, he was ordered to proceed with some huts to the Crimea ; but by a piece of good luck he obtained permission to travel overland to Marseilles, while the huts were sent round by sea in a collier. On his arrival in January 1855 he was at once placed under the officer in command of a portion of the trenches, and during the remaining nine months of the siege he took a prominent part in the engineering operations in front of the Eussian stronghold. On one occasion he wrote saying that he had been continuously employed in the trenches for more than a month. When the Russians evacuated the southern portion of the town which they had so gallantly defended, he was entrusted with a responsible share in the work of destroying the harbour and fortifications upon which successive Tsars had bestowed their millions. No one can deny that in this early and familiar correspond- ence to his relations the young engineer revealed the qualities which most characterised his more recent and more famous achievements in Asia and Africa. It is not merely characterised by his natural simplicity and steadfast devotion to duty, but also evinces military skill and the extraordinary fascination he was able to exercise over all men with whom he was brought into contact. But while these letters contain many characteristic stories of the siege, in which, almost unconsciously, the writer reveals the part he played in the dangers and excitement of those eventful days, perhaps what will be considered the most striking personal incident has had to be recorded by others. If this anecdote stood alone there would be nothing to excite surprise in his having been able at so early an age (he was only twenty-two) to impress his soldiers with an implicit belief in him and to gain their unswerving devotion. The following is a brief account of the anecdote to which we refer : " One day in going the round of the trenches he heard a corporal and sapper of engineers in violent altercation. He stopped to ask what was the matter, when he was told that the men were engaged placing some fresh gabions in the battery, and that the corporal had ordered the sapper to stand up on the parapet, where he was exposed to the enemy's fire, while he, in the full shelter of the battery, handed the baskets up to him. Gordon at once jumped up to the parapet, ordered the corporal to join him, while the sapper handed them the gabions. When the work was done, and done under the fire of the watchful Russian 174 EMINENT PERSONS gunners, Gordon turned to the corporal and said, ' Never order a man to do anything that you are afraid to do yourself.' " The close of the Crimean War did not bring Gordon's connec- tion with the Russians to an end. While the majority of the English officers and troops returned either to England or to India, he was specially attached to the Commission appointed to define the new frontier of Bessarabia ; and the experience he gained in this capacity was considered so useful that, despite a mild remonstrance on his part, he was peremptorily directed to proceed on similar work to Armenia. On the first occasion he acted as assistant to Colonel Simmons, when the great point was to obtain the restoration to Turkey of the strong fortress of Kars. After the completion of this part of the incidental labours arising out of the Treaty of Paris he returned^to England, but it was only a brief holiday he enjoyed during the winter of 1857 ; and early in the following year he was sent as Special Commissioner to the Caucasus to arrange certain points in connection with the Armenian frontier from the Russian side. On this occasion he ascended one of the peaks of Mount Ararat ; and it may be interesting to state that while the impression he formed of the Russians at a distance, from their defence of Sebastopol, was most favourable to them in their character of soldiers, his opinion was very much modified, if not completely altered, on closer contact. The most striking trait in Gordon's character at this time was the absence of the religious zeal which at a later period made it so pronounced and peculiarly marked. His letters show him to have been a very intelligent and a very assiduous officer in his profession, with the true military instinct and a skill in draughtsmanship not often surpassed. At the same time there are many indications that the writer was even at the early age to which we refer something more than serious, and a skilful analyser of the human mind might have declared that his original religious belief would, under the precise circum- stances of his later wonder-working career in China and the Soudan, have produced exactly such a state of religious conviction as Gordon had attained during the last fifteen or sixteen years of his life. But in these early days the young engineer kept his opinions on these matters of supreme importance to himself, and even in his confidential and private letters there is only a casual reference to the subject. The letters are full, however, of GENERAL GORDON 175 military knowledge and enthusiasm, and reveal the caution, the energy, and the thoroughness in regard to detail which, when combined with the high moral qualities needed for the assertion of European superiority over Asiatics, enabled him in China to achieve some of the most remarkable military triumphs that are recorded in history. After his second return from Armenia Gordon was stationed at Chatham for a short period, but in the summer of 1860 he proceeded to China, where an Anglo-French expedition was carrying on operations to compel the Chinese to ratify the treaty concluded by Lord Elgin in the previous year, and also to exact reparation for the attack on Admiral Hope's squadron by the garrison of the Taku Forts. Gordon took part in the advance on Pekin, the battle of Chan Chia Wan, and the subsequent destruction of the Summer Palace in punishment of the treacherous capture and ill-treatment of Sir Harry Parkes, his companions, and escort. Gordon sent home a very graphic description of the burning of the Summer Palace, but it, like much else that he wrote, must remain here unquoted. After the signing of peace he was stationed at Tientsin, which remained occupied by an English force pending the final arrangements for the establishment of the English and other foreign Ministers in Pekin itself. There, as everywhere else, he employed his leisure in useful work. He surveyed much of the country surrounding Tientsin, mapped down the road along the banks of the Peiho to the Taku Forts, and on one occasion rode with his friend Lieutenant Cardew to Kalgan, one of the principal towns and gates of the Great Wall, through a part of China then little known, although later travellers have since made it tolerably familiar ground. They carried their luggage in two of the lumbering native carts, which have no springs, and the large wooden wheels of which are only adaptable to the deep ruts of certain parts of the province. When they quitted the part of the province in which it had been made the axle had to be widened to suit the broader ruts. A Chinese boy served as interpreter. Although the Chinese people were generally civil and well-behaved, the journey did not end without an adventure. At Taiyuen, which has been called the Toledo of China from the fame of its cutlery, they got into trouble with their innkeeper, who charged an extortionate sum 176 EMINENT PERSONS for the night's lodging and meagre fare that he had provided. Expostulation made no impression, and, discovering that the crowd were in sympathy with their countryman, Captain Gordon took a prompt resolve. He ordered the boy and his carts to hasten as fast as they could along the road to Pekin, while he repressed the most demonstrative of the crowd with a sight of his revolver, which, however, they succeeded in taking from him. He then called out, " Let us go to the Yamen,". and settle the matter before the mandarin. This pacified the crowd and the revolver was returned. They then proceeded to the Yamen, but as they reached the door Gordon gave his comrade a signal, and they both turned their horses' heads and galloped off as hard as they could, followed in close pursuit by the mob of this Chinese city. They succeeded in getting rid of their pursuers and in reaching Tientsin in safety, although not without several adventures of an equally inconvenient but less dangerous character. When Captain Gordon had had nearly two years' experience of Northern China he was summoned in the course of his military duty to the coast of Central China, which had become the scene of the most important events then happening in that Empire. The English military occupation of certain places in the province of Pechihli ceased in the spring of 1862, and some of the troops were transferred to Shanghai, where the depreda- tions of the Taeping rebels compelled Sir Charles Staveley to take steps to clear the neighbourhood of the foreign settlement of these marauders. Captain Gordon took a responsible part as Chief Engineer in the operations carried out during the last six months of that year against the Taepings. The followers of Tien Wang were expelled, not without hard fighting and some loss, from all the towns which they had seized within a radius of thirty miles of Shanghai ; but when this was accomplished the English policy again became one of strict, if vigilant, neutrality between the Chinese Government and those defying its authority. The cessation of warlike measures brought no rest to Captain Gordon. In the field he had to build bridges over the numerous canals and creeks and to superintend all the measures for carry- ing the places attacked by assault ; and when other officers returned to the usual routine of garrison duty, there devolved on him as engineer officer the onerous and responsible task of GENERAL GORDON 177 making a complete survey of the region which had just been cleared from the presence of the Taepings. There can be no doubt that it was while engaged on this survey that he acquired that intimate knowledge of the country, and also of the peculiar features of the people, which enabled him in so signal and successful a manner to win victories and to crush a rebellion with men who, as he said, fled in panic from their villages at the -mere rumour of the approach of a Taeping band. During these months he also had opportunities of perceiving the hollow- ness of Taeping pretensions, and the disastrous consequences to the people and country which their acts entailed. His one feeling was compassion for the unfortunate country people, and his sole wish was that an end might be put as speedily as possible to the civil war which it was obvious to him could not prove permanently successful, and which, even if successful, would represent the triumph of men who had no higher idea of government than their own exaltation, and no greater desire than to effect their own personal gain. When many thought the Taepings would be the regenerators of China and the propagators of Christianity, Captain Gordon detected the imposture, and revealed their true character and ambition. It is unnecessary to record here the different attempts made by Chinese troops in conjunction with a special corps trained and led by European and American officers, and to which had been given the high-sounding title of the Ever- Victorious Army, for the purpose of expelling the Taepings from the province of Kiangsu. Suffice it to say that of those officers Ward had been killed in action, Burgevine disgraced and dismissed the service for an act of violence, and both Holland and Tapp discredited by reverses in the field, when the present Viceroy, Li-Hung- Chang, appealed to General Staveley to appoint an English officer in whom he had confidence for the command of the foreign- drilled force, to which the Chinese authorities mainly trusted to bring the rebels again into subjection. General Staveley responded to this application in the same spirit as that in which it was made, and, although there would seem to have been some happy inspiration in the selection, those who will sift the qualifications of the officers available will have no difficulty in accepting the statement that there was absolutely no other English officer on the spot who had anything approach- ing the same claim to be nominated for this highly honourable VOL. in N 178 EMINENT PERSONS and extremely difficult post as Captain Gordon. General Staveley nominated him ; but the appointment had to be referred to the Horse Guards, and Gordon himself was not sanguine as to the result, for he wrote home that he did " not suppose the English Government would allow an officer of his low rank to take so high a command." However, they did so, although Gordon, who was given the brevet rank of Major, did not, at his own request, take up the active command in the field until 24th March 1863, for he wished to complete the survey upon which he had been long engaged, and to which he rightly attached the utmost importance. The request was in one sense highly typical of the man. At the beginning, as well as at the end of his career he was strongly impressed with the wisdom of doing one thing at a time, and of overcoming a difficulty with the least possible outlay in either men or resources. When Major Gordon assumed the command of the force called the Ever- Victorious Army a name which, until he led it, was quite undeserved and a misnomer the fortunes of the Imperial cause had again become clouded over. It is true that on the great river Yang-tse-Kiang the Taepings held little more than Nankin, and that the forces of the Government had been increased in numbers and efficiency by the efforts of Tseng Kwofan. In Chekiang, also, Tso-Tsung-Tang had completed the levies of men necessary to the reassertion of the Emperor's authority in that province. But, still, in the most important districts of Kiangsu and on the route of the Grand Canal the efforts of Chung Wang, the ablest of the Taepings, had been crowned with success, and the Imperialists, who had. abandoned all thought of opposing his forces in the open field, surrendered the few towns remaining in their possession more often than not at the first summons. The confidence of the enemy and the skill of their leader constituted one danger. The jealousy of his Chinese colleagues and the insubordination of the force to the command of which he had just been appointed were still greater perils in the path of the young captain. Chung Wang and his followers were in themselves sufficiently formidable opponents without any internal element of weakness or dis- union. Yet, perhaps, it is not going too far to declare that the difficulties which Gordon had to overcome on his own side were quite as great as those which presented themselves from his enemies. The position on his assuming the command has been GENERAL GORDON 179 thus summed up by one who wrote with a full acquaintance of General Gordon's correspondence during this period : " It would have been unreasonable to suppose that the appointment of a young English engineer officer to the command of a force which it was considered would more probably disobey him than accept him as its leader could suffice to restore the doubtful fortune of a war that had already continued for two years under very similar conditions. Yet clearly the whole result depended on whether he would succeed better than Ward, or Burgevine, or Holland in vanquishing the more desperate and well-armed rebels who were in actual possession of all the strong places in the province of Kiangsu, and whose detach- ments stretched from Hangchow to Nankin. There was also another danger the disciplined Chinese contingent, now numbering five regiments, with their foreign officers, of all nationalities, adventurers unrestrained by any consideration of obedience to their own Governments, furnished the means of great mischief should any leader present himself to exhort them to fight for their own hand and to carve out a dominion for themselves. The possibility was far from chimerical ; it was fully realised and appreciated by the English authorities. A great responsibility therefore devolved upon Captain Gordon. He had not merely to beat a victorious enemy and to restore the confidence and discipline of his defeated troops, but he had also to advance the objects of the English Government and to redeem the rights of a long-outraged people. Unlike his pre- decessors, he had no personal aims for himself ; he did not wish to displace or weaken the authority of the Chinese officials ; and his paramount thought was how to rescue the unfortunate inhabitants of Kiangsu from the calamities which had desolated their hearths and driven whole towns and districts to the verge of destruction and despair." One week after he assumed the command Major Gordon began his campaign with the recapture of Fushan, a small town on the coast north of Shanghai, and, as the consequence of this success, the Taepings who had been long blockading Chanzu retired from before that place and allowed one of the few remaining Imperial garrisons to recover its communication with the outer world. This success was somewhat counterbalanced by the loss of 1500 Chinese troops, who were led into an ambuscade at Taitsan under the pretence of a desire on the part 180 EMINENT PERSONS of the garrison to surrender. Major Gordon was at once requested by Li-Hung-Chang to retrieve this disaster, especially because Taitsan had witnessed more than one previous discom- fiture of the Imperial forces. Major Gordon attacked this place on the 1st of May 1863, and the fighting continued far into the following day. The resistance was of a most stubborn character, and the Taepings manned the breach with the greatest deter- mination. Major Gordon attributed the favourable turn of a doubtful day to the opportune arrival of two howitzers, and at last he had the satisfaction of seeing the Taepings quit the ramparts and evacuate the town. From Taitsan the young commander marched on Quinsan, a strong and important position situated on a creek leading into the Grand Canal at Soochow. His arrangements for the attack were disturbed and had to be abandoned in consequence of the insubordination of his men. Major Gordon was compelled to return to his headquarters and restore a sense of discipline among his unruly men before he could attempt so grave a task as an attack on Quinsan. Not only were the men of the Ever- Victorious Army unruly by disposition, but the officers, insti- gated by the intrigues and representations of Burgevine, paid only partial respect to the orders of the young English officer. At last Major Gordon had to announce that he would march on a certain morning with or without his men. Influenced by this act of decision, they all obeyed, and he reached Quinsan at the head of 3000 men, who, although but recently impressed with a sense of duty, had in this short period acquired no slight belief and confidence in the skill and energy of their new leader. Quinsan was strongly built and defended by large numbers of the Taepings. It was evident that an attack in front would certainly entail heavy loss and might possibly prove unsuccessful. Major Gordon, therefore, attacked the stockades on the right flank and carried them. He then reconnoitred the rear of the town from a steamer, upon which he succeeded in making his way for some distance up the creek towards Soochow. Asiatics proverbially become alarmed and discouraged as soon as they discover that their line of retreat is in danger. So it was at Quinsan, for its defenders, far from imitating the valour of their comrades at Taitsan, retreated precipitately the moment they dis- covered that Gordon, in the " Hyson," had carried the stockades at Chumze, a short distance west of Quinsan itself. Quinsan, GENERAL GORDON 181 which had been one of the most formidable of the Taeping possessions, then became Major Gordon's headquarters and his base for the realisation of his most important object, the reduc- tion of Soochow. It was typical of the force which Major Gordon had under him that the transfer of his headquarters from Sunkiang to Quinsan was not effected without a mutiny. The non-com- missioned officers were particularly insubordinate. Major Gordon described this incident in his confidential report on the Quinsan force : "The non-commissioned officers, as usual, all paraded, and were sent for by Major Gordon, who asked them the reason why the men did not fall in and who wrote the proclamation. They, of course, did not know, and on Major Gordon telling them he would be obliged to shoot one in every five, they evinced their objection to this proceeding by a groan. The most prominent in this was a corporal, who was dragged out, and a couple of infantry who were standing by were ordered to load and directed to shoot the mutineer, which one did without the slightest hesitation. Since that time we had no trouble." Neither time nor space allows of a succinct account of the numerous minor operations which were the necessary pre- liminaries to the attack on Soochow, where the Taeping leaders had concentrated the chief part of their forces and the great bulk of their supplies. It will be interesting to record here what their commander thought of the troops with whom he had to carry on this campaign. Writing on the 16th of July to a military friend, he said : " I hope you do not think that I have a magnificent army. You never did see such a rabble as it was, and, although I think I have improved it, it is still sadly wanting. I now occupy a most commanding position with respect to the rebels, being able to attack them along a very wide front ; but then they have nearly 50,000 men in Soochow, and I have 3000 and three steamers. Now both officers and men, although ragged and perhaps slightly disreputable, are in capital order and well disposed. Some of the prisoners are in my body- guard, and want to fight their old friends." Major Gordon did not actually sit down before Soochow until September. Before that many engagements had been fought, with uniform success, and the ex-leader and adventurer, 182 EMINENT PERSONS Burgevine, had taken the decided step of joining the rebels in their chief stronghold. The latter event was not without its advantages, as it compelled Major Gordon to withdraw the resignation which he had placed in Li's hands in disgust at the apathy and opposition of his Chinese colleagues. Major Gordon's first action after his resumption of the command was to capture the village of Patachiaou, close to the southern limits of Soochow, which was already beleaguered on the eastern side by the Chinese forces under General Ching. Although the Taepings made several desperate efforts to recover this place, Major Gordon repulsed all their attacks, with heavy loss to the assailants. The progress of the siege, or, more correctly, the investment, of Soochow was marked by what may be called the Burgevine incident, when that misguided adventurer proposed to Major Gordon, who had always been particularly considerate towards him, that they should coalesce and establish a Govern- ment of their own making. These overtures were rejected with the indifference and contempt that might have been expected, and the self-appointed arbiter of the destinies of the Chinese Empire was coldly informed that it would be better and wiser to confine his attention to whether he intended to surrender or not, instead of discussing impossible schemes of personal ambition. The siege and capture of Soochow was the greatest and most difficult of Gordon's exploits in China. As soon as he found himself firmly established on both the eastern and southern sides of the town, Major Gordon took steps to shut the Taepings in on the western side also. He accomplished this without much difficulty, and, after a desperate battle at Leeku, where an officer was killed at his side, he acquired a position to the north of the town as well. By the middle of October Major Gordon had, with a force of less than 15,000 men, almost succeeded in completely investing the Taeping army of 40,000 men which garrisoned Soochow ; and it became his chief care to perfect the investment on the north by the capture of Fusaiquan, the last of the Taeping positions which gave them the command of the navigation of the Grand Canal. Through the treachery or incapacity of the commander, the resistance encountered was insignificant, and Major Gordon had the satisfaction of complet- ing the investment of Soochow at a very slight loss in comparison with the result achieved. GENERAL GORDON 183 On the 27th of November Major Gordon delivered his first attack on the main defences of Soochow by a night assault upon the Low Mun stockades, in front of the East Gate. For the first, but not, unfortunately, the last time, he was to experience the inconstancy of fortune. The Taepings had been warned of the coming foe, and in the dark the attacking party became disordered. After a desperate effort to restore the fight, Major Gordon drew off his force, with a loss of about 165 killed and wounded. Nothing dismayed, he concentrated the whole of his force for a fresh attack, and, after a heavy cannonade, carried the Low Mun stockades at the head of his men. It is appropriate to state here that, although he had to organise the simplest details in person, Major Gordon was always the first man in these attacks. It was he who showed the way to victory as well as how to prepare for it ; but he never carried any weapon save a small cane, which the Chinese soon regarded with almost superstitious reverence and named his "wand of victory." The capture of the Low Mun stockades practically entailed the fall of Soochow itself. Chung Wang, who in the worst extremity never despaired, abandoned it to its fate, and the Wangs, or chiefs, who remained turned their attention, not to prolonging the defence, but to obtaining the best possible terms from the Chinese authorities. Major Gordon was, of course, in favour of according the most lenient conditions to a brave enemy, and, indeed, there were the strongest reasons for not driving to desperation the large number of men in Soochow, who still far exceeded the force by which they were hemmed in. Several interviews were held between Gordon and Li-Hung- Chang on the one side and Mow Wang and his lieutenants on the other ; and as the result of these negotiations the garrison was admitted to terms and the Taeping leaders were promised their lives. Major Gordon held himself pledged personally for the safety of Mow Wang, who at his request had spared the life of Burgevine. His dismay and indignation may be imagined when he discovered that the Chinese leaders had consummated an act of treachery, not extraordinary if the Chinese character and the temptation to extirpate a band of rebels at one stroke be taken into consideration, but for which there appeared in the English officer's eyes at the time to be no extenuation whatever. It was by a mere accident that Major Gordon discovered that 184 EMINENT PERSONS the Wangs had been foully murdered, and when he hastened into the city to discover the full extent of the breach of faith that had been committed, or to exact summary vengeance on those who had perpetrated it and thereby sullied his name for good faith, he very nearly incurred a similar fate at the hands of the Taepings, who knew that something untoward had occurred, but who were fortunately ignorant of the death of their leaders. Had they been aware of it Major Gordon's life would not have been worth a moment's purchase. After he escaped from the clutches of the Taepings he resigned his command, refusing with indignation the large present of money and the other honours conferred upon him for the capture of Soochow. For two months, during which the Taepings recovered in some degree from the rude blows which he had inflicted upon them, he remained in inaction at Shanghai ; and it was only when it became clear that the war would relapse into its old desultory character without his personal direction that, at the earnest entreaties of Li-Hung-Chang, he consented to resume the conduct of the campaign. It is somewhat strange that these later operations, which were carried on with greater freedom from Chinese interference, were marked by more than one serious defeat in the field. After several successes the Ever- Victorious Army was repulsed with very heavy loss in an attack on Kintang, and Major Gordon was severely wounded. This reverse was followed by another at the village of Waisso ; but the com- mander's energy and promptitude sufficed to repair this disaster within a week. The decisive action of the campaign was to be the capture of Changchow, a town on the Grand Canal, half- way between Soochow and Nankin. It had been in the pos- session of the Taepings for four years, and was held in the spring of 1864 by all the forces which they could muster outside of Nankin. The garrison fought with the valour of despair, and two assaults, one of which was led by Gordon in person, were repulsed with heavy loss to both the Chinese army and the disciplined contingent. But on the llth of May, the anniversary of its capture by the Taepings in 1860, the besiegers surprised the garrison by attacking in the middle of the day, and carried the place by storm with little loss to themselves. The capture of Changchow brought the operations of the Ever- Victorious Army to a conclusion, and three weeks later that force was formally disbanded. The manner in which he con- GENERAL GORDON 185 verted the peasants of Kiangsu into excellent soldiers may be termed remarkable, and would justify the application to him of the words in which Shakespeare has described Hotspur, Whose spirit lent a fire Even to the dullest peasant in the camp. It was then that Gordon recorded the remarkable opinion that " the Chinese fight very well under their own officers, but under European leaders they must very soon become rebels to their own Government." The successful termination of the long struggle which had brought such misery upon China and her people was generally and rightly attributed to the young officer, who refused to profit in any worldly sense by his remarkable achievement. He accepted a few unmeaning honours at the hands of the Chinese Government, eager to express its gratitude, but he refused all offers of a more solid character. He also took every measure in his power to avoid the ovation with which his countrymen were prepared to welcome him on his return ; but his modesty could not stifle the general admiration felt towards him for what he had accomplished, nor prevent his receiving the name, by which he will, perhaps, be best remembered among his contemporaries, of Chinese Gordon. The first few months of his residence in England were passed with his family at- Southampton, but early in 1865 he was appointed chief engineer officer at Gravesend, and he retained that appointment until 1871. Many anecdotes have been pre- served of his life at Gravesend during these six years to show that he devoted himself with the same thoroughness to the question of dealing with the impoverished classes of the London outskirts as he had done to the suppression of the rebellion among the Taepings in China, and from them it seems only natural to suppose that his powers of organisation and his personal influence might have been employed in a work of transcendent utility in mitigating the evils of pauperism in the East End of the metropolis. It is generally known how he used not merely to take waifs out of the streets and supply their wants, but how he spent the spare hours of the evening in teaching them himself. When they arrived at the necessary age, and had passed through the required course of probation, he provided them with a career ; and it was characteristic of 186 EMINENT PERSONS the whole man's character that he should generally have selected one in the Navy. It became his practice to follow their after- lives with attention, and to mark the course of the vessels which they had joined with pins on the map from which he inspired his youthful audience with their first lessons in geography. There is little to cause surprise in the fact that many of his pupils or protdgtfs were not merely rescued from dishonest practices, but that through him more than one youth was spared the consequences of having yielded to a momentary temptation. A case of this kind may be mentioned. A boy stole some money from the tradesman who employed him, and his master was on the point of having him locked up, when the mother came in intense grief to Colonel Gordon to implore" him to help her in her dilemma. He was moved by her entreaties, and he induced the master not to publicly prosecute the culprit. Colonel Gordon then sent the boy to a school for twelve months, and afterwards procured him a berth at sea. The boy has grown into a man with a good character, thanks to his benefactor, and he is only one among many others who have had cause to exclaim when Gordon's name is mentioned, " God bless the Colonel." It should be remembered, in con- clusion, that all these deeds of mercy were done on his pay as an English colonel, and without any private resources whatever. In 1871 Colonel Gordon was appointed British Consul at Galatz, which place he had visited and described at the time of his serving on the Danubian Commission in 1857. In this corner of Europe he remained buried from public view for three years until he volunteered at the end of 1873 his services for any work in Egypt. At that moment Sir Samuel Baker had just resigned his command under the Khedive, and Colonel Gordon was appointed in his place, at first as Governor of the tribes on the Upper Nile, and later on with the higher title of Governor-General of the Soudan. From the beginning of 1874 until 1879 he governed the vast region of the Blacks with satisfaction to the Cairo Administration, which was extremely hard to please, and with credit to himself. He did much to restore the finances, and he inaugurated the necessary measures for the ultimate abolition of domestic slavery and the slave trade. He firmly established the power of the Khedive on the Nile by the use of steamers, in Darfour by the overthrow GENERAL GORDON 187 of Zebehr's son Suleiman, and on the Abyssinian frontier by a treaty with King John. He gained at the same time a high reputation among the people by his justice and courage. He had that great merit in the eyes of an Eastern people of being always accessible ; and he inspired his soldiers with something of his own inexhaustible ardour and confidence. His rule in the Soudan was glorious to himself, satisfactory even to the Khedive, and gratifying to Englishmen as a practical demonstration of the qualities which they must wish to see most common among their countrymen. When it closed there was no one to carry on the work he had so well begun, and the vast region which he had almost wrested from the hands of the slave dealers was allowed to lapse into their possession. The apathy or selfish designs of the Egyptian officials allowed matters to reach such a pass within their jurisdiction that the power of the Mahdi had become formidable, and had been granted time to consolidate itself almost before the outer world was aware of its existence. When General Gordon left the Soudan the public peace was undisturbed, and the tranquillity of the Khedive's latest acquisitions seemed assured. That this prospect has proved delusive must be attributed in the first place to the blunders of his successors, and in the second to the wilful shortsightedness of the English Government. One of the most peculiar incidents of his long and varied career occurred after his return from Egypt. We refer to his appointment to the post of private secretary to Lord Ripon when that nobleman proceeded to India as Viceroy in May 1880. His acceptance of that office caused no slight surprise, and when a few months later he suddenly resigned, the opinion was general that the latter event was less surprising than the former. Several reasons were suggested for his taking this step, but the true one has never been revealed. General Gordon stated in private that the following was the sole motive of his resignation. At the time of his arrival in India one of the chief political topics was whether Yakoob Khan, then a prisoner in honourable confinement at Murree, was guilty of connivance in the Cabul massacre or not As the Viceroy's private secretary, Gordon saw the documents sent from Cabul in support of the charge against the Ameer, and he declared that they failed to substantiate the accusation. Other 188 EMINENT PERSONS men would have stopped at that point, but not Gordon. He carried out the reasoning to the logical conclusion if Yakoob Khan was not guilty he should never have been deposed, and he ought to be restored to his country. The impossibility of accepting this conclusion may be obvious, but the fact shows the consistency of Gordon's character and redounds to his credit. It is satisfactory also to know that the officials of the Indian Foreign Office afterwards termed the documents sent from Cabul "worthless trash." This was the reason for General Gordon's sudden retirement from an uncongenial post, as he explained it himself, and on his return to England he made more than one attempt to procure what he considered justice for Yakoob Khan. From India he went to China in response to a summons from his former colleague Li-Hung-Chang, and he is credited with having inspired the Chinese with peaceful views at the most critical period of one of their disputes with Russia. Per- haps his presence in China may not have been without some effect also at St. Petersburg. However, he gave the Chinese excellent advice as to the kind of war they should wage, and it is possible to detect in their recent fighting with the French some trace of their having profited by his recommendations. From China he came back to England, but his stay was short. A distinguished brother officer had, in the usual course of duty, to proceed to the Mauritius to command the engineers in that possession. The work was uninviting and distasteful, and he mentioned the fact to Colonel Gordon. The latter, in his too generous fashion, at once replied, " Oh, I will go in your place." For more than a year he remained in this island, although the task proved exceedingly irksome, but on his attaining the rank of Major-General he was relieved from his post. Then the Cape authorities, with trouble on their hands in Basutoland, applied to him, and he went at once in response to their appeal. The true story has yet to be told of how he visited Masupha, and of the manner in which the colonial authorities played him false, and brought his life into jeopardy, had Masupha shown himself a less generous foe. It is one of the few blanks that remain to be filled up in the varied and remarkable career which has now closed. His South African experiences seem to have intensified his reserve, and to have strengthened his resolve to live apart from GENERAL GORDON 189 his fellow-men. After a very brief visit to this country he left for Palestine, where he resided principally at Jaffa during the whole of 1883. There he passed his time in meditation on the meaning of the Book of Revelation, and also in con- sidering the condition of the Turkish Empire. His interest in the Egyptian question was very keen, and he followed each move on the political chess-board at Cairo with great attention and intimate local knowledge. He suddenly returned to Europe in the last month of 1883, and it was not long before it became known that he had accepted a command from the King of the Belgians to proceed to the Congo. How that plan was changed at the last moment and how he proceeded at the shortest notice to Egypt has been too recently narrated in our columns to need repetition. Nor need anything more be said of that marvellous defence of Khartoum for nearly twelve months, which is in every way worthy of the man who was not only successful in almost everything he undertook, but who made the simplest tasks appear honourable by the noble manner in which he carried them out. There is no other name in history with which so many striking achievements will be permanently associated. The last is the most brilliant of them all ; and there is some solace in the thought that, while elsewhere he fought for the benefit of foreign countries, he upheld at Khar- toum the honour of his own country when it had been allowed by our statesmen to sink very low. For that alone he would command the gratitude of all true Englishmen. In conclusion, some reflections appropriately suggest them- selves about one who filled so prominent a place in the eyes of his countrymen, by whom he will ever be remembered with pride mingled with regret. One of the. salient features in Gordon's character, without a due allowance for which it is impossible to measure the exact value of his opinions, was his extraordinary placability. No one was gifted in a higher degree than he was with that marvellous insight into human character which amounts almost to an instinct, and in which women are, perhaps too credulously, believed to excel. He seldom failed to detect the impostor, the self-seeker, and the tyrant, whether he was only a minister or majesty himself ; and with some definite object of good in his mind he would express his opinions without qualification, and with a candour that spared not susceptibilities and that injured reputations. 190 EMINENT PERSONS And then, after a little time, when the object had been attained or had passed out of his mind, he would be disposed to relent towards the individual and to say, "Who am I that I should judge?" No one read Nubar with a truer glance than he on their first coming in contact ten years ago, but he more recently repented of the severity of his denunciation. It is not difficult, therefore, to find much that may at first sight appear inconsistent in Gordon's instinctive aversion, and his subsequent interviews and friendly intercourse with Nubar at Cairo. It is only removed by the certain conviction all who knew him well will have that Gordon never wavered or faltered in his own opinions. His humility led him to go out of his way to show that he considered that he had no right to judge harshly of any one. So it was also with Zebehr. He knew that we might as well expect the leopard to change its spots as to ask the king of the slaveholders to injure the institution which gave him political power and wealth. And when General Gordon expressed his desire for the return to the Soudan of the man whom he alone had kept at Cairo during all these years, there was further evidence of his relenting towards an adversary. He also charitably said that Zebehr had probably improved during his exile. At the same time, he justified Zebehr's appointment by the necessities of English policy in the Soudan if the evacuation was to be carried out. Another circumstance must be taken into account in deciding what Gordon's own views were on the subject of what he could perform and as to what policy was feasible. The man who has accomplished the marvellous, especially when the imperfection of his means leaves little or nothing to be detracted from the personal influence of his character, acquires a degree of self-con- fidence which in ordinary men becomes vanity or arrogance ; but in Gordon, whose mind was tinged with a strong religious feeling of the Puritan type from the earliest period, it became an intensified and increasing belief that he was a selected emissary and chosen agent of God. Something of this was perceptible so long ago as his China campaigns, when it may be said without exaggeration that he really represented the good and the advantage of the people as something apart and distinct from the political objects kept in view by the Chinese Govern- ment and the Taeping rebels. It became stronger during his GENERAL GORDON 191 residence at Gravesend, when he attached to his person boys of the poorer classes strictly speaking, of no class at all ; but it was the long solitary life in the Soudan that most strengthened the feeling, until it became so closely ingrained in his nature that it formed part of the man. The solitude of his life when he had no other companion than his Bible, as well as the character of his work, when he had to perform, as he has himself told us, all the functions of all the Ministers, naturally increased the conviction that the whole burden of the Government rested on his shoulders, and that without his personal energy every- thing would go wrong. General Gordon realised all this with as little sense of personal vanity as it is possible for weak human nature to feel ; but, while this was so, there was an accentuated assurance that he was the agent of good by Divine permission if not appoint- ment. He never sought but rather shunned employment. Yet when any specific work was offered or forced upon him he never refused or showed lukewarmness, accepting the summons as the decree of Providence with as much calmness as a Mahomedan would accept kismet. Sometimes when an avenue of doing some real good seemed open to him he would be filled with almost youthful enthusiasm ; but such cannot be said to have been the case with regard to his last journey to Khartoum, for he was going to announce to a people the promise of whose emancipation he had procured some years ago that the English people and Government had not the will and the power to redeem the pledge of their nominee the Khedive. When people ask why General Gordon went on this mission they forget that General Gordon was an officer of the Queen and on the Active List, and that his devotion to duty was always so strong that all his arrangements with foreign governments were accompanied by the proviso "unless my own Government requires my services." But still if General Gordon went back to the Soudan with the absence of that enthusiasm which in the case of men of his temperament is the best guarantee of success, it cannot be said that he was hopeless of doing any good. He was not able to assure the peoples of the Soudan that he had received the fiat of England to spare neither its treasure nor its authority in giving effect to the Convention of 1877; but still he might be able to bear the olive branch of peace if he could only allay the popular excitement by assuring the people that 192 EMINENT PERSONS nothing would be disturbed, that the slaves should remain slaves, and that their owners should be left unmolested in all their rights of property. The policy is not a worthy or, as events will prove, a profitable one ; but let the responsibility rest on those who ordered it, not on the agent who from the most laud- able motives sought to carry it out, even after he had clearly described what he considered to be the true policy. But there can be little doubt that General Gordon in accepting the mission to Khartoum was actuated by only two considerations first, a sense of duty ; and, secondly, a belief that if he could not do the greatest possible good he might still do much that would benefit the people and promote the chances of peace. His mode of reasoning was simple. It ran thus : " If God wills it, nothing is impossible. He has placed this work before me, and it is my part only to obey. At the worst I die or am killed, which is nothing, and nobody else is involved." With regard to his Congo mission, which it is appropriate to consider here from the sudden manner in which it was postponed and gave place to the journey to Khartoum, it is no longer indelicate to say that he regarded it with a double feeling. On the one hand he felt bound by his pledge to the King of the Belgians, and the fulfilment of his promise was rendered all the more pleasing to him by the frank and generous manner in which the King met every wish and accepted all the responsi- bilities of General Gordon's transfer from the English Army to his own, including the settlement of a sum of <7000 upon his heirs. He imagined and drew up for his own personal conviction a scheme for the suppression of the slave trade by means of armed levies raised on the Congo for the conquest or subjugation of the great slave-capturing people, the Niam Niam. The details of that scheme, as given by himself, were recorded in an article which appeared in the Times of the 17th of January last year, and although they were not destined to be realised they are interesting as a project of imaginative philanthropy. In the commercial prospects of the Congo route he took little or no interest. He revealed his own opinion when he said in a striking sentence, " Those equatorial regions of Africa are all the same, they have only steam." Still his heart was never thoroughly in this work, and on the morning of his last departure for Brussels he repeatedly expressed the hope that GENERAL GORDON 193 " there may be a respite, but in any case if I live I go to the Congo for the King in October." Whether this was merely a presentiment, or whether on that morning of the 16th of January he really knew that his destination had been changed but was under a promise of secrecy, we have no means of saying, but certainly his own relatives did not know until a later date that Egypt had been substituted for the Congo. The respite was granted, but there will be few of his friends who will not regret it. It would have been better to have attempted single- handed a chivalrous, if probably vain, crusade against the Niam Niam in the heart of Africa than to have been reserved for the fate of being the personal exponent of the weakness and pro- crastination of his own country. LEADING ARTICLE, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1885 The country is as yet in possession of no further authentic details respecting the reported death of General Gordon. Up to last night the War Office had received from Lord Wolseley no confirmation of the story which was brought on the preceding day to Korti from Gubat, and which so profoundly stirred the whole country yesterday. This absence of news is not, indeed, difficult to account for. As we announced yesterday, the head- quarters started on the previous day to cross the desert ; and consequently Lord Wolseley being removed from the end of his telegraph wire, messages from him would of course be longer in coming. Again, he would be especially careful not to send a positive confirmation of such important news until all doubt was finally cleared from his own mind. So far as it appears as yet, all that was yesterday telegraphed to England, whether by Router's Agency or through other channels, may have come from one source, the messenger or messengers who professed to bring news to Colonel Boscawen. If so, there is of course the possi- bility that the news may be an invention, or at least a perversion of the facts. This, however, is the very most that can be said, and it must be owned that it does not tell strongly on the side of hope. The story as we have it is so precise, so circumstantial, and fits in so exactly with what Sir Charles Wilson saw and inferred, that the chances in favour of its truth seem to be overwhelming. We are then, unhappily, justified in treating it as true, and in regarding that brilliant, that unique career, as VOL. in o 194 EMINENT PERSONS closed. On another page we tell the story of it in detail. Here we may be content to touch rapidly upon some of the main points in a life and character which stand alone in modern times, or, if not alone, which place the name of Gordon side by side with that of Garibaldi. All that has recently been told of Gordon's youth proves that he made his mark, and showed of what stuff he was made, very early in his career not, indeed, at Woolwich, but in the trenches before Sebastopol, whither he went at the age of one- and-twenty. The peculiar religious beliefs which coloured his whole later life had not then taken possession of him ; but the character was essentially the same then as always. The story which we tell this morning of his leaping on the bastion in the face of the Russian sharpshooters, by way of shaming a corporal into doing his duty, is thoroughly characteristic ; it is of a piece with his leading the storming parties in China armed but with a cane. Devotion of this rare kind was even then accom- panied with the highest military aptitudes and with the strictest performance of his purely professional duties ; his services as an engineer officer were conspicuous, and were highly valued by his official superiors, when, after the war was over, the young subaltern served on the Delimitation Commissions both in Bessarabia and Armenia. The next four years he seems to have spent at Chatham in the routine of his profession ; but in 1860 he took the step which, as it eventually happened, was to be the decisive step of his life. He went to China to join the British force which was co-operating with the French in endeavouring to compel respect for the Elgin Treaty ; he was present in the march on Pekin, and in the attack on the Summer Palace ; he was stationed at Tientsin for the two following years ; and he found himself at Shanghai during the critical time of the Taeping rebellion. In March 1863, at thirty years of age, and holding only the brevet rank of Major in the English Army, he took the command of the 3000 Chinese Imperialists to whom was com- mitted the forlorn hope of defeating and crushing the hordes of ferocious insurgents who had for a long time past been desolat- ing the richest province of the Chinese Empire and shaking the established authority to its foundations. How he performed his task, with what extraordinary combination of discipline and dash, courage and sympathy, enthusiasm and resource, he GENERAL GORDON 195 succeeded in making his ragged regiment into an army, and in taking fort after fort and city after cityj is told at length in our columns this morning. In fourteen months, with but a hand- ful of fighting men, and hampered by the corruptest officials in the world, he succeeded in completely suppressing a rebellion which, as is only fully realised by those who were in China at the time, has never been equalled in point of sheer wanton destructiveness since the days of Tamerlane. Gordon's task, as he conceived it, was simple. He knew that the officials of Pekin were corrupt, but he saw that the rebels would put nothing better in their place ; and he believed in Li-Hung-Chang. He carried out his achievement with that same unique combination of inventiveness and energy, self- devotion and sympathetic understanding of his materials, that the world has since then learned to identify with his name. The Chinese Empire was saved from anarchy ; and Gordon, henceforth " Chinese Gordon," refusing all reward, went back to his ordinary work as a simple officer of the British Army. He had achieved the first great work of his life, but much else remained. At Gravesend, where he was employed in improving the defences of the Thames, he set himself, according to the now familiar story, to reclaim scores of the young waifs and strays of London, and succeeded in making many a little outcast into an excellent servant of his country. Then he became Consul at Galatz, and was lost to view for three years, to emerge suddenly, at the end of 1873, as the successor of Sir Samuel Baker in the government of the Egyptian Soudan. Here, in two periods of less than two years each, and mainly by peaceful means, he achieved the second great work of his life a work which only causes independent of himself have made to be less permanent than his achievement in China. He surveyed the White Nile up to Gondokoro ; he prepared the way for the abolition of the slave trade ; he began the disband- ing of the Bashi-Bazouks who encouraged it, and tempted the people to revolt against their cruelties and exactions ; he con- ciliated and pacified the people ; and he spread the belief in his own name almost as successfully as he had spread it in China. Once he had resigned and returned to England ; but Ismail begged him to go back, and he consented. Then, on the accession of Tewfik, he resigned once more, on the ground that he had done as much as any one man could do. 196 EMINENT PERSONS There is an unpublished story of a conversation which he had at that time with an English official in Cairo, which throws a good deal of light both on his character and on the problem of government in those barbarous regions. " I shall go," he said, " and you must get a man to succeed me if you can. But I do not deny that he will want three qualifications which are seldom found together. First, he must have my iron con- stitution ; for Khartoum is too much for any one who has not. Then, he must have my contempt for money ; otherwise the people will never believe in his sincerity. Lastly, he must have my contempt for death." Such a man was not found ; and the Eastern Soudan relapsed into the state of administra- tive chaos of which the Mahdi, the representative alike of the vested interests of the slaveholders and of Mussulman fanati- cism, is the outcome. There is no need to tell more of the heroic but painful story how Gordon, called away from the equally superhuman task of coping with slavery on the Upper Congo, was sent a year ago to try to resettle the Soudan, to bring away the Egyptian garrisons, and to divide the region, if possible, among petty sultans who would be strong enough to keep order. He went, as all the world knows, unaided. He had but one English companion, the lamented Colonel Stewart ; his self-devotion asked no more. Still, it became very soon apparent that if his mission was to succeed he must be supported from England ; and we, unlike some of those who are now ostentatiously lamenting him, lost no opportunity of urging the Government to send support. The Government was silent, and for many months General Gordon had to employ against the besieging forces that endless resource, that unbounded ingenuity, in which he stood alone, and which made the story told by our late correspondent, Mr. Power, a document almost without a parallel among military annals. The marvellous career, it is to be feared, is now ended. The life is over ; at the moment when relief was at hand, treachery did that which force could not do, and Gordon, if we are to believe the too probable story, fell with the fall of Khartoum. All is over except his influence, his example, his name. Probably the grief and admiration of his country will find expression in some great material monument ; and the richest and the noblest that the sculptor's art could produce GENERAL GORDON 197 would be well deserved. But " the labour of an age in piled stones " is not necessary to keep alive the memory of one whose life was its own best monument. That life has done much for this generation. It has served conspicuously to remind us that the age of chivalry is not dead ; that chivalry in the highest sense is rare indeed, but that its influence is as great and as far-reaching as of old. It has proved, too, that the English race is in no sense degenerate if that needed to be proved to a people which, among much that is sad and sordid, yet sees all round it the daily acts of heroism that its best men and women are performing. Gordon's life and death bear bright and noble witness that even in a materialistic age the ideals of faith, duty, and enthusiasm are living forces still. EARL CAIRNS OBITUARY NOTICE, FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1885 THE death of Lord Cairns is a great, we had almost said an irremediable, loss to the Conservative party in the Upper House. His great legal acquirements and acumen, and his sagacious counsels, made him an invaluable leader of his party on all occasions, but more especially in periods of difficulty and of crisis. If Lord Salisbury may be called the Achilles of the Conservative party, the deceased Earl notwithstanding that he was not ripe in years as men count statesmanship was well entitled to the epithet of the Nestor of that party. The full extent of the loss the Conservatives are called upon to sustain by his death will not be realised until the leaders of the party are once more summoned to undertake the responsibilities of office. The influence of Lord Cairns upon Conservatism was pre-eminently a salutary one useful in moderating the zeal of the most active members of the party, and invaluable as a con- structive force in practical legislation. The Right Hon. Hugh MacCalmont, Earl Cairns, was the son of Mr. William Cairns, of Cultra, County Down, by Rosanna, daughter of Mr. H. Johnson. The Cairns family originally went over to Ireland from the South of Scotland. Thomas Cairns, of the Cairns, Orchardtown, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, migrated with Murray, Earl of Annandale, who was his uncle by marriage. He settled in Ulster in the reign of James I. A grandson of his, Alexander Cairns, was with Marlborough at the battle of Blenheim, and in 1708 was created a baronet for his services. The baronetcy afterwards became extinct. Another member of the family represented the borough EARL CAIRNS 199 of Belfast in the Irish Parliament from 1703 to 1707. The father of the deceased Earl ultimately became the representative of the family in the male line, Lord Cairns being his second son. His lordship was born in the year 1819, so that he had only completed his sixty -fifth year. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which he subsequently became Chancellor, a position he continued to hold until his death. While a student at Trinity College, he was placed by his father, for classical instruction, under the tutorship of the Rev. George Wheeler, afterwards Rector of Ballysax. When Mr. Cairns first introduced his son to Mr. Wheeler, he had, it is said, some thought of the Church for his profession ; but Mr. Wheeler who then counted among his pupils Hugh Law, Willes, Palles, and Fitzgibbon urged Mr. Cairns to give way to his son's own pre- dilections in favour of the law, and this was the course ultimately taken. Up to the close of Mr. Wheeler's life, Lord Cairns never ceased to remember and acknowledge in frank and generous terms his early obligations to his tutor. Mr. Cairns had a distinguished career at Trinity College, where he was in the first class in classics, and obtained other academical honours. On the 26th of January 1844 he was called to the English Bar at the Middle Temple, and he rapidly acquired an extensive practice in the Courts of Equity. Although only twenty-five years of age, his abilities were widely recognised among his professional brethren and the public ; and there was undoubtedly before him a very honourable and most lucrative career. Desirous of entering upon political life, Mr. Cairns contested Belfast in 1852. He was returned for that borough, and con- tinued to represent it in the Conservative interest until his elevation to the judicial bench. In 1856 Mr. Cairns was appointed one of Her Majesty's Counsel and a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. Lord Derby being called upon to form an Administration in February 1858, Mr. Cairns was offered the appointment of Solicitor-General, which he accepted, receiving on the occasion the honour of knighthood. The first important occasion on which Sir Hugh Cairns exhibited his powers as a debater was during the celebrated debate of May 1858, concerning Lord Ellenborough's censure of Lord Canning's proclamation to the inhabitants of our Indian Empire. In the following session the new law-officer gave an earnest of his intentions as a law reformer. He introduced two 200 EMINENT PERSONS important measures, one of which was designed to simplify titles, and the other to establish a registry of landed estates. His lucid exposition of these measures very favourably impressed the House, without distinction of party, but unfortunately a Ministerial crisis and the abrupt conclusion of the session pre- vented the Bills from being carried. But throughout his subse- quent career he laboured zealously to simplify legal enactments and procedure ; and his Chancery efforts, as well as those in relation to the Landed Estates Bill, were, to a very great extent, brought to a successful issue. Sir Hugh Cairns spoke with much force in the debate on the " Cagliari " question, and his persuasive eloquence, as well as his power of marshalling and dealing with facts, rendered him an invaluable debater on the Conservative side of the House. When the French Treaty was brought forward for Parliamentary sanction by Mr. Gladstone in the session of 1860, Sir Hugh Cairns accepted it on behalf of his party. At the same time he pointed out its defects, and contrasted the vigilance of the French negotiators of the treaty with ours, who had surrendered the power to prohibit the export of coal a power which was pos- sessed for political purposes, and had no relation to commerce. But although he considered the treaty one-sided, imperfect, and halting, he was not prepared to take the responsibility of defeat- ing it. This statesmanlike attitude Sir Hugh Cairns adopted with regard to other important legislative measures at a later period. When Mr. Monsell introduced the Eoman Catholic Oaths Bill in the session of 1865, Sir H. Cairns brought forward an amendment intended to secure the inviolability of the Protestant religion and the Protestant Government in the United Kingdom. He agreed that the defence of the Church and of our Protestant institutions rested on the affections of the vast majority of the people, but affirmed that one of the grounds for the maintenance of the Protestant Government and religion was the oath con- tained in the Act of 1829, the efficacy of which was shown by the abstention of many gentlemen from voting on questions affecting the Church. Mr. Disraeli supported the amendment, and the division was a very close one, the Government securing a majority of nineteen only. The Reform question was the absorbing topic of the session of 1866, and, the Liberal ranks being weakened by the defection of a band of members nick- EARL CAIRNS 201 named collectively the Cave of Adullam by Mr. Bright, the Government were ultimately defeated, after several severe contests, in which they had only secured small majorities. Being in a minority of eleven, the Ministry resigned, and the Earl of Derby was sent for by the Queen. It was universally felt that Sir Hugh Cairns had distinguished himself so greatly, both as a law adviser and a Parliamentary orator, that there could be no contest with him for the post of Attorney-General. It was consequently offered to him by the new Premier and accepted in June 1866. In the following October he was made Lord Justice of Appeal, succeeding Sir James Knight Bruce. In February of the following year, 1867, he was created a peer under the title of Baron Cairns, of Garmoyle, in the county of Antrim. In the session of 1867 Mr. Disraeli introduced his famous Reform Bill. When after many vicissitudes it had passed through the House of Commons and gone to the Upper House, Lord Cairns took a prominent part in the discussions upon the measure, and proposed several important amendments. Among these was one which sought to raise the qualification of the lodger franchise from ,10 to 15. It was accepted by the Government, and carried. Later, however, when the report of the Committee came to be considered, Earl Russell moved, with the assent of Lord Derby, to reinstate the 10 value. Lord Cairns, after stating that he was not aware when he moved his amendment that the franchise adopted by the Committee of the Commons was a compromise, agreed to abandon his own proposi- tion, and the 10 lodger franchise was restored. Another important amendment introduced by Lord Cairns was his provision for cumulative voting, otherwise a proposition for the representation of minorities. It was strongly denounced by Mr. Bright, who considered it to be a restriction of electoral power, but it gained the support of politicians so widely different as Mr. Stuart Mill and Mr. Disraeli. The amendment was carried, after a prolonged debate, by 253 to 204 votes. By way of showing the indefatigable energy of Lord Cairns, it may be stated that during the progress of the Reform Bill through the House of Lords he delivered no fewer than twenty- four speeches upon the various clauses of the measure. In this same session of 1867 Lord Cairns delivered an important speech upon Earl Russell's motion for an Address to the Queen praying 202 EMINENT PERSONS for a Royal Commission into the revenues of the Irish Church, with a view to their more equitable application for the benefit of the Irish people. Lord Cairns denied that the temporalities of the Irish Church had ever been the property of the Roman Catholic Church, claiming for tithes the strong right of pre- scription. He admitted that inequalities did exist in the application of the Irish Church funds, but insisted that the income was not in larger proportion to the members of the Church than in England. He predicted that the destruction of the Established Church would produce almost fatal social and political consequences to the landed interest and to the connection with Great Britain. This address was afterwards referred to by the Liberal speakers as a " No surrender " speech, which would help forward the end it sought to avert. In February 1868 Lord Derby relinquished the Premiership in consequence of failing health. Mr. Disraeli now became the head of the Administration, and among other changes which took place in the Ministry Lord Cairns became Lord Chancellor in the room of Lord Chelmsford. His lordship was again called upon to defend the interests of the Irish Church during the debate in the Upper House on Mr. Gladstone's Suspensory Bill. On that occasion Lord Cairns spoke with extraordinary force and eloquence, and his speech fully maintained, if it did not enhance, his reputation as a master in the arts of luminous statement and of close and subtle argumentation. So effective, indeed, was this oration as a defence of the Established Church of Ireland that it was subsequently printed and attained a very wide circulation, its arguments furnishing weapons for other speakers on the same subject. In this able address Lord Cairns strongly criticised the details of Mr. Gladstone's measure, point- ing out what he regarded as its grave defects, as well as its striking injustice, and he called upon the House of Lords not to be moved by the decision of the Commons, but to reject the Bill as an attack on property, on the supremacy of the Crown, and on the interests of Protestantism and of peace in Ireland. The Lords rejected the Bill by 192 to 97 votes, although it had been affirmed by large majorities in the House of Commons. When Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church Bill was brought for- ward in the Upper House in the ensuing session, Lord Cairns again spoke with his accustomed energy and ability. He examined at length the three great allegations upon which the EARL CAIRNS 203 measure was based viz. that the Irish Church was a badge of conquest, that it had not fulfilled its mission, and that it had formerly been guilty of many tyrannical acts. He argued warmly against the truth of these propositions, and disputed Hallam's doctrine of the right of the State to deal otherwise with corporate than with private property. He admitted that the nation was entitled to see that the property of the Irish Church was properly applied, but it was not entitled to con- fiscate it because all the Irish nation had not happened to benefit from it. He foresaw, he said, very calamitous results to Irish Protestantism from disendowment ; while the principle of adopting a numerical test of religious equality was of danger- ous example for the English Church. The second reading of the Bill was carried by 179 to 146, the House of Lords feeling the necessity of a compromise upon the question. Subsequently a conference was held between Lord Cairns and Lord Granville upon disputed points, and an amicable result was arrived at. Lord Cairns stated the points of compromise to the House, which consisted of the disposal of the surplus, the mode of commutation, etc. ; and he intimated that, much as he disliked the whole Bill, concessions were preferable to leaving the whole controversy in suspense for an indefinite period. The service rendered on this occasion by Lord Cairns was of great practical value in the settlement of this long-agitated question of the dis- establishment of the Irish Church. In 1869 Lord Cairns resigned his position as leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords, but on the opening of the session of 1870 he consented to resume it. There was no other member of the party deemed suitable for the place, Lord Salisbury at that time being disqualified by reason of the differences which separated him on some questions from his party, and more especially from Mr. Disraeli. Although Lord Cairns was regarded by some as being too exclusively the lawyer in his speeches, and although his oratory lacked the variety which that of a model Parliamentary leader should possess, his great ability gave him a commanding place in which he had no competitors. His health, however, soon gave way, and he was obliged to repair to Mentone, leaving the Duke of Richmond in temporary charge of the duties of the leadership. Lord Cairns, nevertheless, led the Conservative attack in the debate upon the Address, and later in the session he made an important speech 204 EMINENT PERSONS upon the New Triple Treaty signed by England, Prussia, and France, recording the determination of those Powers to maintain intact the independence and neutrality of Belgium, as provided in the Quintuple Treaty of 1839. In the debates which arose upon Sir Robert Collier's appointment to a seat in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Lord Cairns maintained that the spirit and essence of the Act had been clearly and palpably violated. He said that he honoured Lord Chief Justice Cock- burn for the stand he had taken against the appointment, and he emphatically traversed the doctrines by which the Ministerialists sought to defend the appointment. At this time Lord Cairns continued to take an active part himself, when his health permitted, in the judicial business of the House of Lords. Mr. Gladstone having retired from office in February 1874, Mr. Disraeli was summoned by the Queen to form a new Administration, and Lord Cairns again became Lord Chancellor. In the session of 1879 his lordship introduced the Irish Uni- versity Bill, put forward by the Government to supersede that of The O'Conor Don. The Ministerial measure, as first intro- duced, was one of extraordinary simplicity, being nothing more than a proposal to create an examining body which should have the power of conferring degrees upon all approved candidates, irrespective of their place of education. No scholarships, no lectureships or professorships were to be attached to the new University, no result fees were to be paid by it to training schools or colleges. It was, in fact, the Queen's University, with a difference, this difference simply being that its degrees were to be open to all comers. In consideration of this, the Government proposed to abolish the Queen's University, and to transfer the rights of its graduates to sit in convocation to the convocation of the new University. The annual grant of 5000 was also to be transferred, and the Senate of the new University was to consist of not more than thirty-six members, six of whom were to be elected by the convocation. Considerable agitation arose with respect to the measure, and in the end the Government decided to throw upon the Senate of the new University the duty of framing a scheme of exhibitions, prizes, scholarships, and fellowships, for which Parliament would be asked to provide the money in the annual votes. Lord Cairns continued to hold the office of Lord Chancellor until April 1880, when Lord Beaconsfield went out of office. EARL CAIRNS 205 On several occasions his lordship severely criticised the policy of Mr. Gladstone's Government, and in the session of 1881, when affairs in the Transvaal formed a prominent topic of discussion, he called attention to the arrangement which had been made by Her Majesty's Government with the Boers. His speech on that occasion, which was unusually impassioned, had a great effect upon the House, and afterwards upon the country. It was printed subsequently in the form of a pamphlet, and in this form was very widely circulated. After dwelling upon the disasters sustained by our troops, his lordship observed that the Transvaal had been ceded to the Boers, the annexation had been cancelled, the Republic had been restored, and the Queen had nothing more to say to that country. He accused the Govern- ment of having coined a new meaning for the word " suzerain," and then given that title to the Queen. Lord Cairns concluded with this stirring peroration, which was much applauded : " I wish that, while still the Transvaal remains, as you say it does, under our control, the British flag had not been first reversed and then trailed in insult through the mud. I wish that the moment when you are weakening our Empire in the East had not been selected for dismembering our Empire in South Africa. These are the aggravations of the transaction. You have used no pains to conceal what was humbling, and a shame that was real you have also made burning. But the transaction without the aggravations is bad enough. It has already touched, and will every day touch more deeply, the heart of the nation. Other reverses we have had, other disasters ; but a reverse is not dishonour, and a disaster does not necessarily imply disgrace. To Her Majesty's Government we owe a sensation which to this country of ours is new, and which certainly is not agreeable. ' ' In all the ills we ever bore We grieved, we sighed, we wept ; we never blushed before." It may be stated that on the 27th of September 1878 the late Earl was advanced to the dignities of Viscount Garmoyle and Earl Cairns. Known to the nation at large as an eminent lawyer, statesman, and judge, his lordship had also other claims to be remembered by his fellow-countrymen. Although occupy- ing the high and onerous position of Lord High Chancellor of England, he never relaxed to the last those benevolent and philanthropic efforts for which he was widely esteemed in all 206 EMINENT PERSONS circles. Like his successor on the woolsack, Lord Cairns was not ashamed of being a Sunday School teacher, and it is recorded of him that, when he was asked after his elevation whether he would not now be compelled to give up Sunday School work, he emphatically answered, "Certainly not." Although deeply attached to the Evangelical principles of the Church of England, he was ready to co-operate on all occasions with other workers in the religious field. He appeared on many platforms in the metropolis as an advocate of measures, social and religious, for the amelioration of the masses ; and with Lord Shaftesbury he shared the distinction of being the friend of the homeless city arab. In Dr. Barnardo's Homes for Destitute Children, at Stepney and Ilford, his lordship took a special interest. It will be remembered that when the management of these Homes was subjected to a good deal of criticism, and when a Board of Arbitration had decided that unjust accusations had been brought against the director of the Homes, Lord Cairns came forward and expressed his readiness to assume the office of president of a committee formed to assist Dr. Barnardo in the further development of his work. The Coffee-house move- ment, also, and many other movements and organisations which had for their object the reclamation of the masses of the popula- tion from degrading or vicious habits, Lord Cairns encouraged, not only by his name, but by his personal labours and influence. Several of the local institutions of Bournemouth, and notably the Young Men's Christian Association, of which he was an earnest and constant supporter, will suffer greatly by his death. Down to the end he laboured personally and strenuously in connection with the association just named. Lord Cairns received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Cambridge University in 1862, and that of D.C.L. from Oxford in the year following. He was also LL.D. of Trinity College, Dublin. His lordship married in May 1856 Mary Harriet, eldest daughter of Mr. John MacNeile of Parkmount, County Antrim, and had issue five sons and two daughters. His first- born son, Hugh, survived his birth only two days. The late Earl is consequently succeeded in the peerage by his second son, Arthur William, Viscount Garmoyle, who was born on the 21st of December 1861. Lord Garmoyle's name was not long ago before the public in connection with a cause cetebre in the Law Courts. VICTOR HUGO OBITUARY NOTICE, SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1885 BY the death of Victor Hugo yesterday, France loses the most variously gifted of her sons, and the world of letters its most brilliant ornament. From the universality of his genius he has frequently been compared with our own Shakespeare ; but while his power over human passion, his vivid and capacious imagina- tion, and his plastic intellectual energies may suggest and partially warrant such a comparison with the first of all poets, the great writer just deceased lacked the grand impartiality, the profound calm, and the serene and lofty judgment which are characteristic of Shakespeare and of the few great master spirits of the world. But, when this exception has been taken, the poet whose loss all humanity now mourns was not only one of the most remarkable figures of this generation, but perhaps the finest purely literary spirit that France has ever produced. Victor Marie Hugo was born at Besangon on the 26th of February 1802. He is generally reputed to have sprung from a family which had been ennobled three centuries before, in the person of George Hugo, Captain of the Guard to the Due de Lorraine. Joseph Leopold Sigisbert, the father of Victor Hugo, was a General in the French army, and held important commands in France and Italy. Beginning his military career under the Republic, he rose rapidly during the Empire, distinguishing himself by his courage and his brilliant services. His wife was a native of La Vendee, and an ardent Catholic and Royalist ; the character of both was strongly individualised, and the poet seems to have inherited many of their mental peculiarities. But the physical tenement of the child of genius was exceedingly 208 EMINENT PERSONS frail, and none who saw him gave him as many days to live as he survived to number years. While in an apparently moribund condition he was taken to the Mairie, and there his birth was registered. Years afterwards the poet celebrated in verse the care, the tenderness, and the love which were lavished upon him, and which made him in a twofold sense the child of his devoted mother. His earliest years were passed amid constant change and excitement. Before he had completed his fifth year he had travelled from Besangon to Elba, and thence into the province of Avellino, in Calabria, where his father was engaged in the extirpation of the brigand tribes, one of whose leaders was the famous bandit, Fra Diavolo. He also visited Florence, Rome, and Naples, and returned to Paris in the year 1809. Madame Hugo took up her abode at the old convent of the Feuillantines, and for two years the young Hugo led a quiet and studious existence, beginning his education under Lahorie, a proscribed general, and having near him his mother and the little child- friend Adele Foucher, who was afterwards to become the poet's wife. Lahorie, having been betrayed, was imprisoned and put to death by the Imperial Government, and this melancholy event made a profound impression upon his little pupil. It contributed, together with the teachings of his mother, to develop in the mind of the child those strong Royalist sentiments which found expression in his youthful works. In 1811 Victor was called by his father to Spain, where he passed a year in the seminary of nobles. At the early age of ten he began to experiment in verse. Returning to Paris, he resumed the old life at the Feuillantines, and his studies here, under the direction of his mother, continued for three years unchecked. But during the period of the Hundred Days, although Victor Hugo had given clear proof of the bent of his genius, his father resolved upon placing him in a preparatory school, before sending him to the Polytechnic, with the view of adopting a military career. Yet, even in his new and uncongenial quarters, the young poet did not neglect the muse. His literary precocity and fecundity were indeed marvellous. One writer states that during the years 1815-18 that is, from his thirteenth to his sixteenth year he made every possible kind of verse, odes, satires, epistles, poems, tragedies, elegies, idylls, imitations of Ossian, translations from Virgil, from Horace, and from Lucan. VICTOR HUGO 209 There were other translations from Ausonius and from Martial, romances, fables, stories, epigrams, madrigals, logographs, acrostics, charades, enigmas, and impromptus ; and he also achieved a comic opera. In 1816 he wrote the tragedy of Irtam&ne, to celebrate the accession of Louis XVIII., but not long afterwards this and other juvenile efforts he deemed it necessary to apologise for. He considerably puzzled the wise heads of the Academy in the year 1817, when he competed for the prize of poetry, the subject assigned being " The Happiness derived from Study in every Situation in Life." The examiners were struck with the merits of the poem, but refused credence to the statement of the author that he was but fifteen years of age. In order to convince the sceptics, the young poet forwarded his certificate of birth, but instead of obtaining the prize he had to content himself with the honourable mention of the Academy. Many anecdotes are told respecting these early days. By his poem of "Moses on the Nile," Hugo won the prize offered by the Academy of Toulouse. Having gained three prizes he was constituted Master of the Floral Games, and at the age of eighteen he became a provincial Academician. About this time he wrote the " Ode to La Vendee," and the curious story of " Bug-Jargal," which was published in the Conservateur Litteraire, a periodical founded by Victor and his two brothers. A singular example is furnished of the acuteness and fore- sight of Hugo's father. His talented son having on one occasion expressed himself strongly in favour of the Vendeans, the elder Hugo turned towards General Lucotte and observed : " Let us leave all to time. The child shares his mother's views ; the man will have the opinions of his father." This vaticination was strictly fulfilled. On the death of the Due de Berry, Victor Hugo wrote an ode which became very popular in Eoyalist circles. Madame Hugo died in the year 1821, to the great grief of her already famous son, who was devotedly attached to her. In his sorrow he turned to the one being who had alone the power to comfort him, and in 1822 Mile. Foucher became the wife of Victor Hugo. He was but twenty years of age, while the bride was much younger. In this same year appeared the first volume of Victor Hugo's Odes et Ballades, poems which united a classic form with romanticity of sentiment. For this work Hugo received 700f., and with the generous recklessness which dis- VOL. in p 210 EMINENT PERSONS tinguished him, he spent the whole sum on a French cashmere shawl, the gem of his wife's wedding trousseau. Han d'Islande quickly followed the odes, and the first edition of this work produced him lOOOf. The realism of this novel created many enemies in literary circles. While critics admitted the wit, the learning, and the picturesque force which stamped it with a refresh- ing originality, they complained of manifest defects, and condemned the author for his attempt to satiate his ambition and his hopes with the reputation and the excitement of the present moment. With the publication of the second volume of Odes et Ballades, in 1826, it was obvious that a change was coming over the ideas of the poet. A literary revolution preceded the political one of 1830. Hugo was one of the chief spirits among a band of writers who charged themselves with the formidable task of regenerating French literature. They resolved to discard the old classical models, and by the warmth of their imagination and the electrical fervour of their newly-emancipated spirits, to establish a new order of things in the realm of poetry. The monotonous Alexandrines were deposed, and irregular but powerful forms of verse usurped their place. Nor was it only in poetic form that they sought to effect a revolution. Matter must be changed as well as metre. Art must conform to Nature. Nature was mistress, and must be followed. The new school assumed the name of " La jeune France," but the outer world distinguished them by the generic title of the Romanticists, as opposed to their rivals and predecessors, the Classicists. Victor Hugo was the acknowledged head of the new movement, and the circle which was formed under the name of the Ce"nacle included such writers and critics as Sainte Beuve, Bdranger, and the brothers Deschamps. A newspaper, La Muse Frangaise, was established to advocate the new views. It was in 1827 that the first definite fruits of the literary revolution became apparent by the publication of Victor Hugo's drama of Cromwell. In composing the original draft of this drama, the author in- tended it for stage representation, with Talma as the chief character. But Talma died before the drama was completed, and, as ultimately finished, the author did not intend the drama for stage representation. In the preface he unfolded his views upon the dramatic art. Briefly put, they were to this effect that the stage is chiefly a reflex of society, a mirror in which the public should see its image faithfully reflected. The drama was not to VICTOR HUGO 211 be circumscribed by tragedy alone, but comedy was to render its share in the delineation of character. The author's resolve to make himself independent of the three unities led to much hostile criticism ; but he was also not without his defenders. In 1828 M. Hugo published a series of odes entitled Les Orientales. They contained much fresh and musical, but not very profound, verse, and advanced the author in the esteem of the public. He next engaged upon a play dealing with the history of Amy Robsart, but it was not given to the public, a pension granted by Louis XVIII. to the author enabling the latter to keep back such works as his judgment recommended him not to issue. The occasion of the next publication of Victor Hugo, Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamntf, furnishes an opportunity for referring to him in his character of a humanitarian. The abolition of capital punishment was a measure which he warmly and persistently supported, and his powerful writings had great influence in disgusting the French mind with the sickening details of public executions. The work above mentioned was a powerful protest against capital punishment, and it was followed up by an earnest and lifelong advocacy of the same course. After the lapse of a quarter of a century he wrote Claude Gueux, dealing with a convict of that name whose reprieve had been appealed for in vain. In 1839 Hugo was successful in interceding for the life of Barbes, who had been co- leader with Blanqui in an insurrection ; and twenty -three years later an interesting correspondence passed between the reprieved man and his benefactor. As a peer of France Victor Hugo sat in judgment in 1846 and 1847 on two men, named King and Lecomte, who had fired at the king, and in both cases he declined to vote for the capital sentence being executed. When the whole question of capital punishments was discussed by the Assembly in 1848, Victor Hugo delivered a brief but impassioned speech. " In the first act of the Constitution that you vote," he said, " you have carried out the first thought of the people you have overturned the throne. Now carry out the other ; overturn the scaffold ! I vote for the abolition, pure, simple, and definitive, of the penalty of death." The friends of condemned criminals repeatedly besought the intercession of Victor Hugo, knowing his horror of capital punishment. 212 EMINENT PERSONS In 1851, when the poet's eldest son, Charles Hugo, was summoned before the Court of Assize for having protested in L'Evtfnement against an execution which had been accompanied by horrible circumstances, the father claimed the right to defend him, which was accorded. In the course of his very powerful address on that occasion, he exclaimed, with much emotion, " The real culprit in this matter, if there is a culprit, is not my son. It is I myself I who for a quarter of a century have not ceased to battle against all forms of the irreparable penalty I who during all this time have never ceased to advocate the inviolability of human life." The speech was thrilling and argumentative by turns. But the speaker, notwithstanding his fervid eloquence, failed to convert his hearers, and Charles Hugo was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. In 1854 the hanging of a man named Tapner, in Guernsey, created a great sensation. Victor Hugo laboured for his reprieve, but in vain ; and he afterwards addressed a trenchant letter to Lord Palmer- ston, in which he recapitulated certain ghastly incidents which rendered the execution unusually horrible and repulsive. When John Brown, of Harper's Ferry celebrity, was condemned to death, Victor Hugo penned a stirring remonstrance to the United States. On many other occasions also he came forward to denounce the exaction of the death penalty. The power of his pen was so great that the Deputy Salverte declared it was owing to such " execrable books " as The Last Day of a Convict that France had adopted the plea of extenuating circumstances. To him also credit was given for the cry which arose in Switzerland for the abolition of the punishment of death, a letter which he wrote, and which was distributed widely throughout the cantons, having produced an immense effect To return to the literary efforts of M. Hugo. Having established a new dramatic school, it was but natural that he who was regarded as its founder should be urged to produce a work that should serve as a stage exposition of the new principles. This was forthcoming in the drama of Marion Delorme. This work was unquestionably original, and, in the opinion of some critics, as unquestionably immoral. It is full of excellent things, but the task which the author set himself in its composi- tion was a difficult and delicate one. But for its delineation of human passion it must take high rank among stage efforts. VICTOR HUGO 213 The censor, M. de Martignac, who held by the old school, de- cided against it, both on literary and political grounds. He saw in the description of Louis XIII. an unflattering allusion to Charles X. The author carried the matter to the King himself. Charles promised to look into the matter and give an immediate answer. He did so, but it was hostile to the play. Desiring to pacify Hugo, whose genius he admired, the King granted him a fresh pension of 4000f., but the poet refused the bribe, and the Constitutionnel remarked upon this : " Youth is less easily corrupted than the Ministers think." Another dramatic venture immediately succeeded, for Victor Hugo's was a restless and impulsive intellect, which sought only a fuller expression under a policy of repression. This time it was the famous drama of Hernani with which he delighted his friends and still further exasperated his enemies. The play was produced at the Theatre Fran