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CT SI 5 A3 HAUD IMMEMOR ■ '■ >> . / , CZaUc* j/cZZnrf * HAUD IMMEMOR REMINISCENCES OF LEGAL AND SOCIAL LIFE IN EDINBURGH AND LONDON 1850-1900 BY CHARLES STEWART EDINBURGH AND LONDON WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS MCMI CONTENTS PAGE Preface ....... xi CHAPTER I Preliminary and Historical ... 1 CHAPTER II Early Days— Dumfriesshire ... 15 CHAPTER III London, 1850-1870 ..... 27 CHAPTER IV School Days ... ... 34 CHAPTER V Edinburgh University .... 40 CHAPTER VI The Parliament House, 1860-1870 ... 57 CHAPTER VII The Court of Session, 1860-1870 ... 88 CHAPTER VIII The Parliament House and Court of Justiciary ...... 97 vii CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PAGE Edinburgh Society, 1860-1870 . . .114 CHAPTER X London — Professional Life, 1870-1900 . . 127 CHAPTER XI London— Social Life, 1870-1900 . . .138 CHAPTER XII Argyllshire ...... 150 V11J ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Frontispiece 2. Castle Stalcaire, Appin 3. Duncan Stewart, a.d. 1830 4. Harriet Stewart, a.d. 1825 . 5. The Old Court of Session, 1808 (with key) 6. Bench and Bar, 1830 (with key) 7. Parliament House, Edinburgh 8. Pinkie House 9. "His First Stag, 1889" . 10. Fasnacloich Loch Page 7 • ym 20 n 22 H KEY) „ 58 63 97 126 152 154 IX PREFACE The publication of the reminiscences of an obscure man, who has no wish to be otherwise than obscure, seems to require explanation, if not excuse. In the present instance the explanation is this : I have for some years past felt a vague desire to contribute something, however slight, towards the preservation of the recollection of the old Scottish Judges of forty years ago — the men not of past generations, but con- spicuous and noteworthy figures who had come within my own personal knowledge and acquaintance. The self - imposed task, or rather relaxation, has been a delightful pastime to myself, and I have been encouraged to believe that it might interest a some- what wider, though still of course a narrow, circle. I found as I progressed that my recollections of the Court of Session and of those who frequented it at the beginning of the second half of the past century required some setting or framework to explain the point of view of the observer, and it also occurred to me that my recollections of an earlier as well as of a later period embraced some personages of interest out- side Edinburgh and the Parliament House. It is vain to attempt to exclude the first person singular from records such as the present, and my memoranda have thus, I am somewhat ashamed to note, assumed an almost autobiographical form ; but it will, I trust, be well understood that I neither claim nor desire attention to the commonplace records of an unevent- ful though somewhat varied life, but that any interest xi PREFACE which may be found in the following pages is due solely to the persons who are recorded, my only ambition being that the reminiscences may be of some little use as m6moires pour servir towards the com- pilation by some more able hand of a legal and social history of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Forsitan hcec olim meminisse juvabit. These remini- scences would perchance be more interesting a quarter of a century hence than now, but it may easily happen that there may then be no one living or disposed to record them. Possibly, therefore, it may be " now or never." I suppose that it would have been easy to supple- ment my own personal recollections by collecting and borrowing from the reminiscences of others, and some- thing more complete and more interesting might thus have been attained ; but I felt that borrowing or collecting would detract something from the strictly personal character of what I have recalled, and I confess, too, that I have been unwilling to convert into a literary labour what has been nothing but a pleasant relaxation. But away with apology or excuse ! If the book needs anything but explanation, it should never have been written. C. S. 38 Baton Place, London, S.W. November 1901. XII HAUD IMMEMOR CHAPTER I King Edward VII. was born, as all the world knows, on 9th November 1841, and as my birthday was the same, His Majesty's lifetime is exactly the period covered by these records. It is not a remote one, and it is not exactly the present day. It is outside the range of the daily papers, inside the range of the history books; but manners and customs, people and things, change quickly ; events must be hit flying ; and history, political and social, must be made up from trifling records. It may be that these memories, or some of them, will have that humble value ; it may be that others will summon back pleasant recollections from the limbo of the almost forgotten; it may be, at the worst, that they will only give pleasure to him who records them, the amusement of the leisure hours of a busy man. From this innocent pleasure the apprehension of the severest criticism cannot deter me, nor can its lash rob me of it. Egotism, or what seems like egotism, is inseparable from personal reminiscences. If I am to speak of what I have seen and know (perhaps some kind friend will say, with Count d'Argenson, "Je n'en vois pas la A 1 HAUD IMMEMOR n^cessite^'), the first person singular cannot be re- legated into entire obscurity; but discerning readers will, it may be hoped, perceive that the present ■writer is not one of those enviable persons who place a high value on their own observations, or on the events which they deign to observe. The connecting link between the persons and things observed and the reader is necessarily myself, and the curiosity, however languid, about the personality of the link and about his point of observation must be to some extent satisfied. I have no life of distinction or of adventure to relate. I have gone through life thus far in medio tutissimus, and the reader who cares to follow or to dip will at least be safe from over-excite- ment. We live in a free country, and those who care neither to follow nor to dip, may go their own way without putting themselves to the trouble of flinging half a brick at me. I claim a great, though fortuitous, advantage in my birth. What can be better, or more pre-disposing to utility and distinction, than to be born of a Scottish father and an Irish mother? Either breed, if pure, is apt, it must be confessed, to produce rather too much of a good thing. Both are the better of crossing; but judiciously and happily intermingled, what may not one expect ? If the result in the present instance has been un- satisfactory, the rule is all the better proved by the exception. Colts bred for the race-course sometimes find a more appropriate home in the cab-rank, and we must not expect too much from careful breeding. 2 HAUD IMMEMOR The theory of national characteristics is apt to be overstrained. We attach, often on very insufficient grounds, special attributes to special nationalities, and we expect, or rather pretend to assume, that they will be found in every individual. An Englishman is expected to be stolid, a Scotsman canny, an Irish- man humorous, a Frenchman volatile, a German phlegmatic, and so on. It offends these prejudices, and seems to give the lie to their holders, to find a Scotsman witty and refined, or a Frenchman solemn and morose, but who does not know as many of the one sort as of the other? A pronounced accent, or a distinctively foreign air and costume, at once raises the expectation of an exhibition of the conventional characteristics. If they appear, as of course they often do, the convention is held to be confirmed and proved; if they do not, the convention is forgotten, but only for the moment. In talking with Thomas Carlyle, I have been tempted to fancy that all he said was characteristic of the Scot. In a chat with the late Lord Morris, one might have been deceived into thinking that the wit and the humour could come from none but an Irishman; but take away the suggestive accent and aspect, and who could tell that you were not conversing with a gentleman from the Isle of Wight ? But I know that few will accept my theory of the denationalisation of char- acteristics, and I abandon the digression. A Stewart and a Highlander almost necessarily hails from Argyllshire, and it is in that beloved county, grandest in scenery and most romantic in 3 HAUD 1MMEMOR history, that my family some centuries back found its home. History and truth compel me to admit that there are many families more thoroughly indigenous to the Highlands than my own, many indeed whose records show no other or earlier loca- tion. It was not until the fourteenth century, A.D. 1388, I believe, that the Stewarts were settled in the district of Appin on Loch Linnhe, and began their career, for weal or for woe, as a turbulent Highland clan. In the fifteenth century they were the Lords of Lorn; and lest that should seem like a claim to take the pas of the Campbells, let me humbly confess that the MacDougalls were the aboriginal Lords of Lorn, and that the Stewarts and the Campbells obtained the territory and the title mainly by following the good old plan of " Let him take who has the power, and let him keep who can." At least, so I believe, but be it re- membered that I make no claim to the accuracy of the historian. For the last five centuries the Stewart clan, like the larger family of the same name and the same origin which has spread through Galloway, Perth- shire, and the North of Ireland, has, I believe, given its share of sensible and stalwart men towards building up the history of the kingdom. Robbers, cattle stealers, soldiers, sailors, for the most part; few of distinction, I fear, in arts, science, or learn- ing, but good average citizens of no mean country.* * Mr Andrew Lang has recently edited the Report on the state of the Highlands in 1750, made in that year by a Commissioner 4 HAUD IMMEMOR For myself I am glad to think and to say that we have contributed something to Englands greatness. I dislike the petty and jealous distinctions between England and her component parts. We all know and feel that "England" means England and Wales and Scotland and Ireland, and, if you like, Canada and Australia and South Africa too. We are one, we have an equal share in our country's greatness, but while each taking pride in our own separate history, we must, for the exigencies of life, have a short name, a single word, to describe it, and that name must be, and is, England. Our bond is our King, and our common language. Let antiquarians and scholars preserve, and it is well that they should do so, their ancient diversities of tongue, the Welsh, the Erse, or the Gaelic, but away with the pseudo-patriotism that would artificially foster a semi - obsolete and semi - barbarous tongue at the expense of the Anglo-Saxon language which distinguishes our race, and at the expense of the country lad or lass whose time is wasted in the study. The fin-de-si&cle craze of propagating a dis- tinctive language, in church or school or law-court, in different parts of the United Kingdom, is not only appointed by the Government. The following extract relates to the Stewarts of Appin : — " Apine — The People of this Country are tall, strong and well bodied, and are Enthusiastically Mad in their zeal for Restoring the Stuart Family. They are not thieves, but Industrious in their Business and Honest in their Private Dealings. They can bring 300 Good Men to the Field." The testimonial to character is gratifying, but in one particular I am not sure that it is to be relied on. I had always supposed that my ancestors, or at least a good many of them, were thieves. 5 HAUD IMMEMOR baneful to the individual, but, as experience is show- ing in Ireland and Wales and in the Highlands of Scotland, it is practically injurious to the unity of the Empire. A Highlander myself, and deeply attached by opinion and by sentiment to all that is worth preserving in the Highlands, I hope I shall wound no susceptibility if I venture to suggest that none of the Celtic languages that still nicker feebly and artificially in these islands contain any literature that is worth preserving outside the walls of a museum. But I must get back to, and hurriedly dispose of, genealogical details. I have myself the same sort of shrinking from genealogy as I have from Euclid or Algebra, and I am satisfied that the general reader shares the aversion. I am happy in having a student of the science among my brothers,* but if I attempted to meddle with it myself, I should probably deserve the castigation which the Head of the Herald's College, the Garter King - at - Arms, received from the caustic tongue of Sir Richard Bethell, who had him in the witness-box. After turning the distin- guished specialist inside out, the cross-examining counsel turned to the jury and blandly remarked, "You see, gentlemen, that this silly old man does not even understand his silly old trade." In the year of grace 1513, Alan Stewart, third of Appin, who married a daughter of Cameron of * Colonel Duncan Stewart, late of the Gordon Highlanders, has written a " History of the Stewarts of Appin," but I strongly advise no one outside the family to attempt to read it. 6 HAUD IMMEMOR Lochiel, led the clan to Flodden Field in support of his Royal kinsman, James IV. On his return from the battle, he gave portions of the great district of Appin to each of his five sons who had accompanied him to the war. To James, his fourth son, he gave the estate of Fasnacloich in Glencreran, the other sons getting Ardsheal, Ballachulish, Achna- cone, and Invernahyle. My father, Duncan Stewart, was fourth in descent from John Stewart, sixth of Fasnacloich. Five out of six of the Appin estates have now passed out of Stewart hands. The Appin House property, with its lovely demesne and mansion- house, a conspicuous object to the tourists on the Loch Linnhe steamers, was sold in 1765 to a Mr Seton ; Ardsheal and Invernahyle soon followed ; Ballachulish went into the hands of the Sassenach about 1870, though it might have been saved by my relative Sir John Stuart (the Vice-Chancellor), who had made a fortune at the Bar, when it was sold by his brother Dugald ; Fasnacloich passed away only in 1901 ; and Achnacone, a small property in Strath -Appin, alone remains in the hands of a kins- man and a namesake. The change from the old order to the new is, of course, rapidly advancing through the country ; more rapidly in the Highlands than elsewhere ; most rapidly of all in Argyllshire. From South to North, it is true that one may still see Campbells in Stonefield, Inverneill, Ardpatrick, Kilberry, Barbreck, Ardmaddy, Ormsary, Shirvan, Achindarroch, Dunstaffnage, Loch- nell, and in Barcaldine Castle; MacNeills in Colonsay 7 HAUD IMMEMOR and Ugadale ; a MacDougall in Lunga, in Dunolly, and in Gallanach; a Stewart in Achnacone; a Maclean in Ardgour ; a Maclaine in Lochbuie ; and Camerons in Callart and in Lochiel ; but the gaps in the old ranks, and the new names and ways are — well, either woful or hopeful, according to the idiosyncrasy of the observer. But the change, no doubt, is in the main for the good of the country. To sneer at the nouveaux riches is ignorant and silly : the newness generally makes a better landlord ; the wealth, in most cases, brings benevolence and material improvement. My great grandfather, Charles Stewart, was "out in the '45." Dugald Stewart, tenth of Appin, was a boy of tender years when Prince Charles unfurled his standard in Glenfinnan, and the clan was led by Stewart of Ardsheal. Some three hundred and seventy Stewarts from Appin took the field with Prince Charles, and of these ninety - two were killed, and sixty -five wounded at the battle of Culloden alone, dire evidence of the bloodiness of the fight! My great-grandfather was purse-bearer to the Prince, and received from him the appointment of Sheriff of Argyll. He was present at the battles of Preston- pans, Falkirk, and Culloden, escaping afterwards to France. My grandfather, William Stewart, was also, in fact, present at Culloden, but being only seven years old, he could, of course, take no part in the battle. He was in the rear of the Prince's army, in a carriage with his mother, and he always remembered the English soldiers, after the battle, searching the 8 HAUD IMMEMOR carriage and stripping a little silver ring from his finger. It is a somewhat striking link with the past that my grandfather should himself have been present at the battle of Culloden in the '45; but it is perhaps even more so that my grandfather remembered, and used to tell of his having sat on the knee of an old man named James Taylor, who had seen Charles I. passing down Whitehall. James Taylor is buried in the kirkyard at Leadhills in Lanarkshire, and the dates of his birth and of his death confirm the re- miniscence. I remember telling the above circumstance to a clergyman, who was able to cap it by telling me that he had a week before buried an old woman in the same grave as her sister who had died one hundred and fifty years previously. The younger sister, whom he had just buried, died in 1892, at the age of one hundred and two. Her father, at her birth in 1790, was seventy years old, having been born in 1720. He had married his first wife in 1740, being then at the age of twenty. His first child and elder daughter was born in 1741 and died in 1742, his first wife, the mother of the elder daughter, dying not long after. He married again, fifty years later, and became the father of his younger daughter in 1790. There was thus an interval of one hundred and fifty years between the burial of his elder daughter in 1742 and the burial of his younger daughter in 1892. As my grandfather, William Stewart, grew up, Argyllshire in its conquered condition being distasteful 9 HAUD IMMEMOR to him, he went South, and in the year 1773 bought the small estate of St Michael's in Dryfesdale, in Dumfriesshire. He was a man of ability and re- source, and besides taking a prominent part in the business of the country, he undertook the manage- ment of the estate of Annandale, a property of great extent, with a rent-roll of some twenty to thirty thousand a year, belonging to the then Marquis of Annandale, but under the curatorship of his kinsman the Earl of Hopetoun. My grandfather married a daughter of Graham of Shaw, a laird of ancient lineage in the Border country, and he estab- lished what became not only the home of my father's boyhood, but of my own. Since 1833, about which year my grandfather died, it was the home of my grandmother and of many of her large family of children and grand-children. My uncle, Charles Stewart, who never married, and who became a man of light and leading in Dumfriesshire, was the head of the household, and, with his two sisters, made a home which it was a privilege to share, and is a delight to remember. Plain living and high thinking was not only the rule but the inexorable practice of the house. My uncle, stern and rigid in exterior, but generous and gentle in nature, was a man who impressed himself strongly on all his surroundings. Practical, enlightened, and benevolent, there was, I believe, no more useful man in Dum- friesshire between the years 1820 and 1870. Annan- dale was then only emerging from the ancient and rude methods of farming, and the consolidation of 10 HAUD IMMEMOR holdings, the erection of buildings and fences, and the encouragement of tenants in the adoption of improved systems of agriculture, was work in which the knowledge and the energy of Charles Stewart were invaluable. Its effect, extended over a career of some fifty or sixty years, was wide and marked. The rental of the Annandale estate, and of others which he managed or controlled, was probably doubled, if not trebled, in his time. Road-making, cottage-building, the foundation of the Caledonian Railway, of which he was one of the original directors, and the public business of the country, engrossed his busy and useful life. His strong sagacity, quick perception of financial results, and his experience in public business made him, along with Mr Hope - Johnstone of Annandale, and Mr Macalpine-Leny of Dalswinton, the chief mover and referee in all county matters, and his death in 1874 seemed almost to close an epoch in the county. The land in Dumfriesshire was then, as now, in the hands of but few proprietors. The Duke of Buccleuch is responsible for a very large rent-roll ; Mr Hope - Johnstone for a very considerable one ; and Sir Robert Jardine has now acquired and con- solidated a very large estate. Even where landlords are public-spirited and generous, I hope it is not treason to say that for both political and social purposes nine proprietors of £10,000 a year are preferable to one proprietor of £90,000 a year, especially if the magnate has so many mansions elsewhere that he can only spend a month or two 11 HAUD IMMEMOR every year in the county. But it is also undeniably true that large estates, in the hands of liberal land- lords such as the Dukes of Buccleuch have always proved themselves to be, are generally the best managed. Walter Francis, the fifth Duke of Buccleuch, was one of the foremost men of Scotland between 1830 and 1880, and although Edinburgh, Mid-Lothian, Rox- burghshire, and Selkirkshire had rival claims on his time and his presence, his high and active sense of duty, as well as his large possessions, gave him an almost overwhelming influence in Dumfriesshire. The Marquises of Queensberry, shorn of their duke- dom, which had passed to the Dukes of Buccleuch by a family devolution which is well known to all those to whom it is interesting, held a property of consider- ably less extent in the southern part of the county; but the traditions which distinguished " the black Douglases" still clung to them. Charles, the fifth Marquis, died in 1837, leaving no son, but seven daughters (I believe they were all red-haired), of one of whom, married to her cousin, Robert Johnstone Douglas of Lockerbie, I afterwards became the son- in-law. One only of these seven daughters survives, honoured and beloved by her family and friends, Lady Harriet, widow of Augustus Duncombe, some- time Dean of York. John, the sixth Marquis, succeeded his brother Charles, and lived till 1856; but he took little part in public affairs, less so than his son Archibald, who, as Lord Drumlanrig, was M.P. for the county until his succession, when Mr Hope- 12 HAUD IMMEMOR Johnstone of Annandale was elected. The Queensberry estates have since been disentailed and sold, and the county of Dumfriesshire knoweth them no more. The Johnstones of Annandale, or Hope-Johnstones, as they have been called for some generations, since an alliance and succession through a former Earl of Hopetoun, have for centuries filled a prominent place in the annals of Dumfriesshire. Their prolonged but still unsuccessful battle for the Annandale peerage is a mere episode in their history, and whether it results in their being Marquises or merely Lairds of Annandale is a matter of little moment in their position and estimation in the county, provided they can hold to their broad acres. The personal charms of many of the race, men and women, are of a kind which will always give them affection and estimation without any external adjuncts. The late Duke of Buccleuch, himself a Nithsdale and Eskdale man, used, I remember, to tell an Annan- dale story of a beggar man, a gangrel body, a " thigger and sorner," no doubt, who, slouching into an Annan- dale farm-yard, addressed the farmer, " Is there any Christian here who would help a puir body?" "Na, na," said the farmer, " we're nae Christians here, we're a' Johnstones or Jardines." The Jardine family have made an honourable and conspicuous place for themselves in Dumfriesshire. One branch of them, holding the old baronetcy of Applegirth, has (like the Maxwells of Springkell and the Johnstone Douglases of Lockerbie) parted with its lands ; but another branch, springing from the same 13 HAUD IMMEMOR soil, and happily enriched by commercial enterprise, riches, but not nouveaux, are established at Castlemilk, and are extending their landed possessions and their influence year by year. Their kindred, Bell-Irvings, Keswicks, and Patersons, no " interlopers," but of old Dumfriesshire blood, and mostly enriched out of the great commercial house of Jardine, Matheson & Co., are now also large land-owners in the county. A meet of the Dumfriesshire foxhounds in the fifties rises to one's mind's eye. Lord Drumlanrig, Carruthers of Dormont, John Johnstone of Halleaths, Robert and David Jardine, Henry Bell-Irving, George and David Hope-Johnstone, Edward Heron Maxwell, Colonel Graham of Mossknow, Colonel Salkeld, James Rogerson of Wamphray, Osmond Stewart, Tom Smith of Dalfibble, and, last but not least, Joe Graham the huntsman; every one of them, except Sir Robert Jardine, now gone to the happy hunting-grounds. 14 CHAPTER II The generation who were the friends and associates of Charles Stewart of St Michael's, and of my aunts at Hillside, has already well-nigh passed away. It is an intense pleasure to recall those times and those people. Many of my holidays between 1850 and 1870 were spent among them. Many valued friends, less conspicuous of position than those I have mentioned, but of memor- able qualities, come back to one's memory; parish ministers, sheep farmers, gamekeepers, and shepherds; high - minded men, who spent their days in those pastoral valleys and moorlands, and gentle and refined women, whose daily work was in the dairy and at the spinning-wheel. A man's circle of friends is poor indeed if it does not include many such. No one, of course, need expect that gamekeepers, any more than other men, will be all alike. Many years ago I spent a week at a deer forest in the High- lands, my host being a man who entertained largely, many of his guests being people of notoriety and distinction. A gamekeeper or stalker was told off to accompany me during the week. I found him to be a man of great intelligence and diversified knowledge, and surprisingly interested in literature of various kinds. In the long days of stalking we became great friends, and the day before I was leaving I told him 15 HAUD IMMEMOR that when I got home I should like to send him some book, of his own choosing, as a memento of the days we had spent together, in addition, of course, to the usual tip. He was greatly pleased, and said he would think it over, and let me know next morning what book he would choose. I fully expected that he would select some standard book on history or political economy. I could not conceal my astonishment when he told me next day that what he would like best would be a copy of " Burke's Peerage " ! I fancied that the book in question was studied only by ladies of fashion with daughters to marry; but when I asked him his reason for selecting it, I thought his answer a good one. " Ye see, sir, there's a good many folk came here wi' grand historical names — names that one reads o' in the history books — and I just want to know a bit mair aboot them and their forbears ; and they tell me yon's the book that'll tell me a' about them." He got his " Peerage " in due course, and I think he will make a good use of it. Thomas Carlyle, "the sage of Chelsea," whose home, as all the world knows, was at Ecclefechan in Lower Annandale, was an old friend and a constant visitor at my uncle's house. His long summer holi- days were, I think, nearly always spent at Ecclefechan, and a drive of some six or seven miles, through Lockerbie, always in his " gig " of respectability (the very symbol of the Scottish Lowland farmer), brought him to my uncle's house in Dryfesdale. He was generally accompanied by his brother, Dr Carlyle, himself a scholar and poet of some repute, and their 16 HAUD IMMEMOR conversation was of intense interest, even if a boy of my years had little personal share in it. Carlyle was a ready and willing talker, even in a family party such as ours, and my uncle was a stimulating companion. The sage's views, slashing, of course, and unreserved, were at the service of all of us, and his fury and savageness would increase, I remember, as the afternoon went on. Would that I had the memory or the note -book of a Boswell, that these crumbs, or pellets, or bullets rather, might have been preserved ! I remember that on one occasion, a Parliamentary election in the borough of West- minster, which was reported in the morning's newspaper, was being discussed. The mob, intent on some Radical fad (the Westminster mob was Radical in those days) had been parading the streets armed with sticks and stones. Carlyle stormed at the polloi and their aims; "I would just lash them with whips," were the words I remember. Another day that I recall, the influence of Cromwell on Chief-Justice Bradshaw, and the story of Cromwell seizing Bradshaw's hand and making him sign the King's death warrant, was under discussion. One of the party, not so enamoured of Cromwell's methods as was Carlyle, asked him how he could explain the episode. " Explain it ! just this way, it's a damned lie." The philosopher's methods of disputation were direct, but not quite parliamentary. The description of Carlyle's home at Ecclefechan is too familiar to all readers of his biography to bear repetition. His visits to my uncle's home were con- B 17 HAUD IMMEMOR tinued for many years. I never saw Mrs Carlyle until later years in London. I believe she seldom came to Ecclefechan with him, for she had no very close sympathy with his relations, and when he came there for his summer holidays she would go to her relations at Haddington, for, be it remembered, "her man was gey ill to live wi'." The last time I met Carlyle was in an omnibus in Cheapside, not very long before his death. I jumped in, and found myself seated opposite the well-known figure, well known to me, but happily not to the other sardines in the box. We conversed, mostly about Dumfriesshire folk, till I left him at Piccadilly, and I remember that I had no small difficulty in preventing him from making known his identity. Such a disclosure would assuredly have been involuntary on his part, for, with all his self - consciousness, no man could be more free from the petty desire to play to a gallery. Rather, perhaps, the gallery he wished to play to was world-wide. Before taking leave of Carlyle, let me repeat what Froude said to me one day, not long before Carlyle's death. Froude, as is well known, was very frequently in Carlyle's company, and I repeat what he told me in as nearly his own words as I can remember them: "I saw Carlyle this morning, and he said to me, 'Froude, I have just been reading an old book, a book that I read very often long ago, but not lately. I thought I would go back to it and see what I thought of it now, and I may tell you that I am greatly disappointed with it. You ask, what is the book. It is the Bible.' " The conversation is obviously in- 18 HAUD IMMEMOR complete, for no doubt Froude asked, and Carlyle explained, wherein his disappointment lay. But I was either not told the explanation, or I forget it. I will venture to guess it, however. Carlyle had, as every one knows, been educated for the Scottish kirk in the strictest sect of Presbyterianism, and he had him- self been a " dominie." The historian and philosopher had probably learned to appreciate the Bible lesson as fully as his teachers, but his studies had enabled him to rate at their proper value the superstitions which ecclesiastics have invented and interwoven with them. John Campbell Shairp, Professor and Principal at St Andrews, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford, then a Master at Rugby School, was a frequent visitor at my uncle's house. The two men, differing widely in their worldly pursuits, were profoundly sympathetic, and unbounded appreciation, far removed from the exercises of mutual-admiration circles, existed between them. Shairp, cultured and refined, gentle and lovable almost as a woman ; Charles Stewart, practical and reserved, inclined by nature and trained by education to stifle affections and suppress emotions. But they had much in common — earnest desire for the welfare of their country and its people, poetical thought and appreciation, manifest and overflowing in the one, strong and latent in the other; Highland and Border history and legend their favourite topic; Scottish patriotism of the truest sort their common motive. Shairp was by birth a Linlithgowshire man, his home the old tower of Houston in West Lothian; but he had married Miss Johnstone Douglas of Lockerbie, 19 HAUD IMMEMOR and the history and traditions of the Border country had captivated his spirit. My aunts, "the Miss Stewarts of Hillside," as they were known far and wide, were most admirable speci- mens of an excellent type. The type was not an uncommon one among the well-born ladies of Scottish houses in the two or three last generations, but it is one which, from the nature of things, is rapidly dis- appearing. Well educated, even widely read, liberal in ideas, cultivated in thought, dignified and kindly in manners ; plain, almost antiquated, in dress, the Miss Stewarts commanded the affection and respect of everyone. Conversation in their presence never de- scended to gossip or personalities; thought and feel- ing and speech were always kept at a high level of dignity and kindliness, — a home deeply loved by children, because commanding their respect, tinged only by regret in later years that one could not have more thoroughly imbibed its tone. From this home my father went forth into the world, to make his venture in mercantile life, like many a Scottish younger son. His first experiences in the study of commerce, pursued, I fancy, very much after the fashion of Francis Osbaldiston in " Rob Roy," were at Dantzic, and afterwards at Havre. His special friends and companions there were three young fellow- Scots — Sam Hay, of the family of Haystoun, whom all Edinburgh men of the elder generation will well re- member, and John and Sam Anderson, the younger brothers of David Anderson of Moredun, in Mid-Lothian. John and Sam Anderson were, I remember, remark- 20 './„,„.„„ .//,„.„,./. /x;r HAUD IMMEMOR ably handsome nien, as was another brother, Adam Anderson, who afterwards sat on the Scottish Bench as Lord Anderson. At Havre, my father found what was far more important than commercial success. Harriet Gore, a brilliant and beautiful young Irishwoman, captivated him, as well she might. Her father, Anthony Gore, a younger brother of Sir Ralph Gore, an Irish baronet of County Fermanagh, had, as well as her mother, died in her early childhood, and she was sent to France for a convent education, and then to the care of her guardian, Mr Gordon, who was British Consul at Havre. Miss Gore had already drawn round her guardian's home a small band of admirers, among whom she remembered with special interest, Washing- ton Irving, the American author, who was then engaged on his works of history and romance. I still possess some of the earlier editions of his books dedi- cated or inscribed to the young lady whose society he found so agreeable. Duncan Stewart and Harriet Gore were married in 1829, and had a happy married life of some forty years' duration. In my own earlier days they had settled in London. Almost the first homes which I can recollect were in Upper Seymour Street, and in Wilton Crescent, with long summer holidays in Dum- friesshire or in the Highlands. My father's tender and affectionate nature earned for him the deep affection of his children, and he received it in full measure up to his death in 1869. He had little taste either for a life of commerce or of London society. 21 HAUD IMMEMOR But he was of happy and sociable disposition, and he bore with both, for the sake of the education and upbringing of his children, and for love of the many and dear friends who surrounded his home. But he would get away to Scotland, to the river or the moor, whenever he decently could. My mother, though not more beloved, was, to the outer world, the more conspicuous figure. Of her beauty or personal charm it is inexpedient for me to say much. " C'etait done votre pere qui n'etait pas si beau" — Talleyrand's polite but necessary rebuke to an ugly man who was boasting of his mother's loveliness — might rise to one's friends' lips. But I love to record my sense of the enormous debt which I owe to my mother for her maternity — a debt, alas! incapable in my case of being repaid by imitation, for that is beyond my powers, but doubly repaid by gratitude and love and appreciation. The secret of her gifts and of her attraction to a wide and diversified circle of friends was not a hidden one. A lively intelligence, brilliant and ready wit, extensive reading, a marvellous memory, grace and piquancy of feature and figure, accounted for much ; but a wide and warm heart, and a surpassing unselfishness to her children and her friends, was the spark which brightened and electrified everything she touched. And her friends were ap- preciative. Disraeli, in my earliest days, Macready, Thackeray, Dickens, Landseer, and Millais, were among her intimates and sincere admirers, and it is among my earliest recollections to see them in my father's house. Count D'Orsay and Lady Blessington and 22 /////VW'/ - M /////-/ /'< HAUD IMMEMOR Leigh Hunt and a host of others were earlier still. She was in no sense a public character; she never held a "salon," and her admirers were, for the most part, intimate friends of her own and my father's. She thoroughly enjoyed and was appreciated by the " best " society ; if it happened to be the best born and the best bred, it was because, as is happily the rule in this country, the highest culture of thought and feeling was generally to be found there. The houses of the merely rich or the merely fashionable had no attraction for her if culture and refinement were lacking. Looking forward for a moment to her death in 1884, I may be pardoned for quoting a paragraph which I cut out of a London paper a day or two after her death r — "Death op Mrs Duncan Stewart. — A wide circle of friends at home and abroad will hear with regret of the death of Mrs Stewart, which took place on Saturday afternoon at her residence in Sloane Street, after an illness of brief duration. Mrs Stewart's natural qualities, her wit, vivacity, and incisive brilliance, made her distinguished in the most distinguished circles. Her extended acquaintance with the best minds of England and France during a long life, her large knowledge of literature, and her remarkable memory, which was a storehouse of the wit of others, made her conversation almost unrivalled in her generation in interest and charm. The goodness and sweetness of her heart riveted the affections which her mental 23 HAUD IMMEMOR powers attracted. A woman of and in the world, she lived in it more than eighty years without losing charity. The philosophy she learned from her im- mense experience of men and women she summed up in the phrase her friends often heard from her lips : ' Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.' It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the blank which is left amongst Mrs Stewart's friends by her departure. Her figure was one which her contemporaries at least can hardly hope to see replaced. To many she seemed to repre- sent the intellectual charm of a past generation, along with the freshness of the present, for she lived every day of her long life, and cared as much for the burn- ing questions of yesterday as she had done for those in the early years of the century. Age could not wither her, nor blunt the keenness of her tireless mind. Homes over the length and breadth of England and Scotland will long note the vacant place once filled by Harriet Stewart." I cannot remember whether it was in the Times, or the Daily Netos, or the Morning Post that this notice appeared, nor have I ever heard by whom it was written. I think the type and paper of the musty cutting which is before me is the type and paper of the Times, and if either John Delane or Horace Twiss had been alive at that date, I know that their per- sonal attachment would have yielded some such tribute ; but Algernon Borthwick of the Morning Post was among the oldest of her friends ; and yet I think I discern the hand of Frank Hill, who was then the editor of the Daily Neivs. 24 HAUD IMMEMOR A kind and loving friend of my mother's, Augustus Hare, has written an appreciative notice of her, pub- lished after her death in 1884, along with similar sketches of Dean Stanley and Lady Augusta Stanley, in his volume of " Biographical Sketches." Grateful as I am for his affectionate and truthful appreciation of a brilliant and remarkable woman, I almost feel that too much has been said in public there, and perhaps here, of one who shone not in public, but in private, as a friend and as a mother. It seems to me that her fine qualities were of a timbre more fittingly to be recorded in the verses of a poet than in the prose of a biographer. Will my friend Henry James (not the man of law, but the man of letters) forgive me if I draw from my desk into the light of day a letter of his which, I dare say, he supposed would have only an hour's life? "Dear Charles Stewart, — I am glad of anything and grateful for anything that reminds me of your mother, and seems an echo of the past that every year is pushing a little further into the 'dark back- ward,' as Milton says, ' and abysm of time.' I like even to see her dear name on any page, and am glad to see it in the piece of newspaper you send me. But she deserved, she always has deserved, to be better com- memorated. It should have been done somehow or somewhere, in a way in which it never has been. Every one who knew her that handled a pen must always have regretted that the right opportunity or form never should have presented itself. But it is 25 HAUD IMMEMOR not too late, and something may come yet. At any rate, I like to speak of her, and take pleasure even in the few words that you have given me occasion to say now." It reads like a mere string of names, but I like to record the fact of her loving friendship and apprecia- tion, I believe truly reciprocated, for such good and honoured friends, as William Spottiswoode and his wife, George Spottiswoode and his wife, Lady Ducie, Mrs Grote, Lady Eastlake, Lady Hamilton Gordon, Lady Strangford, the late Lord and Lady Denbigh, Sir Joseph Hooker, the late Lord Aberdare, the Miss Annesleys, Lady Legard, Miss Louisa Courtenay, Lady Airlie, Lady Stanhope, Lady Wynford, Sir W. Tyrone Power, and Mr and Mrs Frank Hamilton. Some of these have gone, like her, into the past. Those who survive will, I know, find a pleasure in hearing again even the name of Harriet Stewart. Her mind was replete with the wit and wisdom of the past, but there were no lines more often in her memory than these, and they express exactly her own thought, as death came near: " Life, we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather, 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear, Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear. Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time ; Say not 'Good-night'; but in some brighter clime Bid me • Good-morning.' " 26 CHAPTER III My earliest recollections of London were in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition. My father's house was near Hyde Park Corner, and I remember seeing the Duke of Wellington on several occasions walking or riding in the neighbourhood of Apsley House. His blue frock coat and white duck trousers would not have sufficed in those days to make him conspicuous, but his profile and stooping figure were memorable. A boy of thirteen or fourteen, at home only for the holidays, and hating to spend his holidays in London, sees little of the friends of his parents, but I have recollections of many interesting people who fre- quented my father's house. Captain Marryat, Mr and Mrs Milner - Gibson, Sir John Trelawney, M.P., and Lady Trelawney, Mr and Mrs Peter Borthwick, and the Charles Keans, were, I think, among the most intimate at the period. Milner-Gibson, the close ally of Cobden and Bright, and their colleague in more than one Liberal Cabinet, was the dandy of the Man- chester School, and his handsome face and figure, perhaps more than his intellect or his eloquence, gave a decorative element to his party. Their house in Wilton Crescent had always an open door for us as children, and Mrs Milner-Gibson's profuse generosity 27 HAUD 1MMEM0R to our nursery or schoolroom party made a lasting impression. Lady Trelawny (n6e Tremayne) is a sweet memory to all her friends. Beautiful, gentle, and intellectual, many of her charming qualities have passed to her daughters, one the wife of General Sterling, the other married to Sir Jonathan Backhouse. Mr Peter Borthwick had the reputation of being one of the best and readiest speakers in the House of Commons, and Mrs Borthwick had intellect as well as striking personal beauty. The Morning Post, though essentially the paper of the beau monde, was not then by any means so valuable a property as it is now, and Mr Peter Borthwick was far from being its sole pro- prietor; but his ability, and his friendship with Lord Palmerston, were laying the foundation of its com- mercial value, which was consummated later by its conversion at the right moment to a penny paper, and by the editorial ability of its proprietor Algernon Borthwick, now Lord Glenesk. The Borthwicks were old and firm friends in our house. Mr and Mrs Charles Kean were among the first actors who assumed and were admitted to a social position of equality with the upper classes. The equality had existed, in isolated cases, for a generation or more; but it has only been in the last half -century that the general culture of the theatrical profession, and, still more, the increase in the scale of their in- comes, has permitted them to mix in general society. Charles Kean, like his father, Edmund Kean, though educated at Eton, had known in his early professional 28 HAUD IMMEMOR life something of the res angusta of the strolling player. He had married Ellen Tree, a lady who had worked through a long career on the stage ; they had both known the vicissitudes of their calling, and it was not until middle life, and until their long lease of the Princess' Theatre was running its course, that their means allowed them to enjoy the general society for which they were so well fitted. The incomes of suc- cessful actors, and especially of successful actor- managers, are nowadays on a very different scale. To run a theatre successfully has become a business, and one requiring gifts perhaps not the most exalted or the most refined, and those who make fortunes in it may not, in all cases, be the most desirable as acquaint- ances. The Keans would probably not have succeeded at the present day, but they were people of refinement and culture. My father and mother believed in the theatre as an element in the education of children, and we were taken often to the play. By these early associations, or by chance, I have thus had the plea- sure of the friendship or acquaintance of many of the theatrical profession. Macready, the Keans, Tyrone Power, Helen Faucit, Regnier, Madame Ristori, and the Wigans, as guests in my father's house, stand out clearly in my memory, and in later days the Kendals, the Batemans, and a few other agreeable friends, belong to the region of the pre- sent. I cannot say that my slight intimacy with things theatrical induces me, even in these days of eager competition and over - stocking of other professions, to include the theatre as an eligible call- 29 HAUD IMMEMOR ing, except for the most talented. Like most other people, I have known a good many instances of young people of both sexes taking to it from various motives more or less permissible, and I believe that many of them would be the first to admit that a girl of gentle nurture and delicacy must necessarily encounter much to jar on her better feelings, and that a man will have to go through a great deal which he either must, or ought to, feel injurious to his manly dignity. If there is any friend of mine who should feel hurt by such an opinion, let me assure him or her that the regard and admiration which I feel for them is in spite of their calling and not because of it. But I believe that my view is a narrow one. What a splendid addition to our leisure evenings is the theatre, and how enormously important it is that the players should be ladies and gentlemen, or something like it ! In my slight theatrical reminiscences, I may include two old friends who were not actors, G. H. Lewes (I remember a play of his at the Lyceum, in six acts !) and Edward Pigott. I was perhaps too young at the time to enable me to claim G. H. Lewes as a personal friend, and to tell the truth, except for his brilliant ability and his wit, I feel no strong inclination to do so. He was an intimate in my father's house, and I was frequently in his, as a playmate of his boys, and as the recipient of kindness from Mrs Lewes, his wife. But it must be owned that in personal appearance and manners Lewes was unattractive. His long hair, his unaccountable personal vanity, and his unrestrained manners were unpleasing, and it was a matter of astonishment to his 30 HAUD IMMEMOR friends how such a body, even though clothing such a mind, could have attracted such a woman as George Eliot. Their liaison was explained and excused by varying theories. It was, of course, deeply interesting to their friends, but I may pass it by without comment, gratefully remembering, as I have often done, William Watson's noble lines on Burns : " He erred, he sinned : and if there be Who, from his hapless frailties free, Rich in the poorer virtues, see His faults alone, — To such, O Lord of Charity, Be mercy shown ! " Edward Pigott, who lived till within the last decade of the past century, and then died at the age of little over sixty, was a far more lovable man. Virtuous, gentle, and amiable, he was at peace with every man and woman, and with society at large. I think he enjoyed nothing more than to sit opposite my mother at the fireside in her drawing-room, to discuss the literature and the drama of the day. He was an accomplished scholar and critic, and it is surprising that his gifts did not carry him, as I think they never did, beyond mere journalism. When he was first intimate in our house, he was editor of the Leader, a weekly paper which aimed at, and, I believe, filled, a high position, and in which G. H. Lewes and others of equal literary rank supported him. He afterwards edited the Daily Neios, a position for which one never fancied him to be naturally fitted ; and in his latter days he was appointed to be Examiner of Plays to the Lord Chamberlain ; a happy day for the enterprising 31 HAUD IMMEMOR manager who had imported a somewhat risqu4 plot or dialogue from Paris ; for Pigott's appreciation of humour or literary excellence would never allow him to condemn a piece on the insufficient ground that it might shock a schoolgirl. Field Talfourd, an artist of talent and repute, the son of Mr Justice Talfourd, and Edward Sterling, the elder son of John Sterling of the Times, belonged to this period (1850-60), and were both constant fre- quenters of my father's house. Talfourd was Bohemian by proclivity, but Edward Sterling, though devoting his life to painting, was a captivating and delightful friend. His early death left many sad hearts. Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of the "History of Civilisation," was for a year or two a frequent and welcome guest. He was the only man within my own memory who at a dinner table assumed, and was admitted to play, the part of a professed talker. The generation, even in 1860, had passed away when men, even of the stamp of Macaulay, or Samuel Rogers, or Wordsworth monopolised not the conversation but the talk of the dinner or breakfast table. Buckle must have been one of the latest survivors. He was well equipped for the part, by learning, aptitude of expres- sion, and self-confidence. His disquisitions, extending sometimes for fifteen or twenty minutes without a break, almost assumed the form of a lecture ; but they were never tiresome, for his mind was stored by om- nivorous reading, extensive travel, resplendent latitude of thought and study. I think I remember his saying that up to the age of forty he had never written a 32 HAUD IMMEMOR line, contenting himself with filling his mind and his memory, taking in but never putting forth, till he was fully equipped for giving out his great book. The " History of Civilisation " was, I believe, his only work, and he died, I think, about the age of forty-five, before he had completed it. His thoughts and conversation were always on a high level, and I recollect a saying of his, which not only greatly impressed me at the time, but which I have ever since cherished as a test of the mental calibre of friends and acquaintances. Buckle said, in his dogmatic way: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence ; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons ; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest, by their preference for the discussion of ideas." The epigram, for an epigram, is, I think, unusually true; but the modifications it requires for practical life are too obvious to dwell on. The fact, of course, is that any of one's friends who was incapable of a little intermingling of these condiments would soon be con- signed to the home for dull dogs. 33 CHAPTER IV Such book learning as I have acquired has been mainly at the hands of private tutors. For three or four years I studied, not quite ineffectively, under the roof and personal care of the Rev. Josiah Walker, Vicar of Wood Ditton, near Newmarket, in Cambridgeshire. Mr Walker was a fine scholar, a good man, and a gentleman. He took charge of some seven or eight boys only, and it was, I am sure, not his fault but his pupils', if they did not imbibe both learning and morality at his hands. My school companions at Wood Ditton were mostly Cambridgeshire boys, and with some of them I have enjoyed continuous friendship. Charles Peter Allix of Swaffham Prior, Herbert Eaton of Stetchworth Park, Sir John Rae Reid, Seymour Portman of Hare Park, Arthur Jackson of Wisbech, Johnnie (afterwards Sir John) Farquhar and his younger brothers (afterwards Sir Robert and Sir Horace), Arthur and Edward Hailstone of Bottisham, Stanley and Edward Hicks of Wilbrahara, and John Cotton, were those whom I best remember. Some of them have now joined the majority, and others are still pursuing their careers with more or less mundane success. In 1855 I went to Rugby, then under the Head- mastership of Dr Goulburn, the successor of Tait, the 34 HAUD IMMEMOR predecessor of Temple. Goulburn was a man of great piety, and of good theological and classical attain- ments, but his selection as Headmaster, to follow Dr Arnold and Dr Tait, and to carry on their system, showed no great judgment on the part of the School Trustees. As a preacher at Quebec Chapel, as Dean of Norwich, as the author of devotional manuals, Dr Goulburn excelled ; but as guide, philosopher, and friend to boys of from thirteen to eighteen years old, he was out of his element. He was "donnish" in the extreme, austere and unsympathetic in manner, though I believe not in heart, and know- ing little, I fancy, of the nature of the four or five hundred young animals he had to supervise and educate. I had, no doubt, less opportunity than some others of judging of his qualities, for I boarded not at "the Schoolhouse," but with one of the house- masters, the Rev. C. T. Arnold, better known (even tradition never told why) as " Plug." Goulburn's influence was little felt throughout the school; at any rate, among the boys. He had little of close touch even with the leaders of the school. I remember H. Sidgwick, who was head of the school when I went there, and who occupied a distinguished position there and afterwards at Cambridge, telling me that he one day met Goulburn in Pall Mall only a short time after he had left Rugby. He stopped, as a matter of course, to speak to his former headmaster; but Goulburn was stiff and unresponsive, and it was only with difficulty he could be got to recognise his former pupil. I remember, too, another boy, a junior in the 35 HAUD IMMEMOR schoolhouse, who for some domestic reason was staying on at the schoolhouse through the Easter holidays. Goulburn good-naturedly asked the boy to join him every day in his afternoon ride. This was, no doubt, good physical exercise for the boy, but socially it must have been a dreary ordeal. Goulburn jogged along on his big horse; the boy followed on his pony, a yard or two in the rear. Not a word passed between the two during the long ride, until they parted at the door of the schoolhouse on their return. "We have had a delightful ride; good afternoon." The same cheery converse passed each day till the ordeal was over, at the end of the holidays. No doubt there are others who can remember Goulburn in more benignant and sympathetic moods ; benignant in spirit I think he always was, and I have myself dined with him in his Deanery at Norwich, when a little more of the common human clay manifested itself ; but he was always essentially an ecclesiastic, and his natural gifts were not those of a successful schoolmaster. But I know that he was beloved, and I believe deservedly so, by many. Some of the assistant masters at Rugby in my time deserved and attained distinction. Benson, whom Goulburn brought to the school as master in the junior form, became Archbishop of Canterbury; but during my experience of him, he was just beginning to find his feet, after recent emancipation from his own college career, and he took no prominent position in the school. G. G. Bradley, now Dean of West- minster, who had a large and well-managed house, 36 HAUD IMMEMOR was recognised as a strong and effective master, and his house was always full and his pupils among the foremost boys. J. C. Shairp, who afterwards became a Principal at St Andrews University, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford, had come to Rugby under the rigime of his friend and compatriot Tait, and remained for a time under Goulburn, but was soon drawn away to a professorship in his beloved North. He was liked by the boys, but he was hardly so much in his element among English boys, as among his beloved Doric students at St Andrews. His house was a small one, the only boy in it whom I can now remember, being Cross, who afterwards became the husband of " George Eliot." The other house-masters in my time were C. T. Evans, Bowden-Smith, Anstey, Burrows, C. T. Arnold, and Mayor. These reminiscences of Rugby seem meagre ; but it somehow happens that the three years I spent there do not fill a very prominent place in my recollections. I was myself undistinguished, and did nothing to attract or deserve attention. The " School-Runs," the football and cricket in the School Close, have not their glories and their terrors been recounted by " Tom Brown," and would they not be spoiled in the re-telling by a humbler pen? In truth, the school had a little fallen from its high place after Arnold and Tait had gone. Horace Davey, Charles Bowen, and Sandford had just left the school ranks, and the firmament was filled for the time by minor luminaries. After leaving Rugby in 1858, where I had attained none but the mediocre position to which the character 37 HAUD IMMEMOR of my gifts and attainments so justly restricted me, I spent some two years with private tutors and in occasional travels on the Continent. My elder sister had married Baron Otto von Klenck, Equerry or Hof- marschal to the King of Hanover, and she and her husband being resident in the Royal Palace at Herren- hausen, my visits to her brought me into contact with those royal personages. The end of the independence of the Kingdom of Hanover was not far distant, but the shadow of Prussian domination had not yet become visible, and the Royal House and the Royal Capital were still in their modest regal state. The blind king, a most kind and courteous gentleman, ruled his country and entertained his court in kingly fashion, and even a chance visitor like myself was permitted to see something of the royal interior, and of the family life ; for my sister and her husband, like my cousin Countess Bremer, were, as they still are, favoured people. They have devoted their lives to King George's family, and their faithful service is re- warded, I know, by close and undying friendship and affection. Queen Marie, through what I may perhaps be allowed to call a friendship of forty years, has always seemed to me the very model of what a queen should be, and our own beloved Queen Victoria has supplied us with the best and highest of standards. Now in her eighty-second year, Her Majesty has still the grace and dignity that befits a sovereign, with the kind heart and the loving spirit that are only found in a good woman. Her daughters, Princess Frederica and Princess Mary, then bright and handsome girls, 38 HAUD IMMEMOR have grown into bright and handsome women, Of the former I remember Lord Beaconsfield saying that he never saw anyone to whom Heaven had given more clearly the looks and bearing of a Princess. I think he would have said the same of the Princess Mary if he had had the same opportunities of knowing her. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, now the parents of a charming family of sons and daughters, have made their permanent home, as every one knows, at Gmunden in Upper Austria, a romantically beautiful spot, where I have still from time to time the pleasure of enjoying, from the house of my sister and her husband, their gracious and friendly society. But these things belong more essentially to the domain of private life. 39 CHAPTER V The choice of a profession is a problem which almost every father and every son has to solve, and year by year it seems to present increasing difficulties. Most young fellows of spirit between the ages of sixteen and twenty have a fit of the scarlet fever and dream for a time that the barrack-yard or the deck of a man-of-war offers the highest form of earthly delight. Up to the age of five-and-thirty or so, the life of a soldier or a sailor has everything to make it attractive, stirring scenes, a smart uniform, little study, a life of action; but after that age there are few who would not sadly admit that the balance of advantage is in favour of the arts of peace. A substantial income, a settled home, domestic life, wife and bairns, opportunities for sport or study, begin to make their appeal to "a man of forty," and then I fear the Army or the Navy are "not in it." The late William Spottiswoode, a man of the world as well as a man of learning, was one whose advice was often sought in regard to the choice of a profession. He was the head of a large commercial house as well as a leader in Science, Queen's Printer, and President of the Royal Society. He was not only a man of the sweetest and most amiable nature, but he had sound judgment and a practical knowledge of business, as well 40 HAUD IMMEMOR as a mind and head alive both to the material advan- tages of wealth and to the elevating influence of the higher studies. I have myself often had the benefit of hi3 advice, and there were few questions of the higher order on which he was not pre-eminently- qualified to give counsel. Many young men would consult him, when they had finished their university curriculum, on the choice of a profession; in some cases, men with promising openings in commercial life, for which college studies and perhaps university distinctions had given them a distaste. But William Spottiswoode's advice to them (I paraphrase it as best I can) was, " Stick to the shop ; serve it, and it will serve you. If you have no special aptitude, or no inclina- tion for any particular profession, stick to the trade where you can make money, not for the sake of the money, but for the sake of the opportunities that a good income will give you. Remember that of the twenty-four hours of the day, every man must spend, say eight hours in sleep, eight hours in work, and the remaining eight hours in some parergon, relaxation of one kind or another. For the eight hours of sleep, it is no matter at all what your profession or trade or calling may be ; all you want is a comfortable bed. For the eight hours of work, it matters very little what particular kind of work you are employed on ; work is work and not pleasure, and whether it be scientific in- vestigation, or reading law papers, or making brass buttons, the real object of it, besides being of some use to the world, is to provide yourself with the means of spending the eight hours of leisure agreeably and use- 41 HAUD IMMEMOR fully. The eight hours of leisure and the way of spending it, the parergon, is the thing that really matters. In the learned professions you may have to work ten or twelve hours a day without earning much money, and so you will have little time and perhaps little money for your leisure hours ; so I advise you to take up any money-making business where you have good opportunities, stick to it and put your best work into it, and you will find, not only that your university education will tell, but that you ■will have money in your pocket to follow your private tastes and inclinations whatever they may be." The advice was sound, but in my own case, unfor- tunately, no such opportunities offered themselves. I had no capital at command, and, unlike the proverb- ial Scotsman, I had an ardent desire to spend my life in my own country. The best and kindest of fathers left me a free choice. Two of my elder brothers had gone into the Army, one into the 2nd Dragoon Guards, and the other into the 92nd High- landers, and the third was sheep-farming in Scotland. I had no special penchant or, at all events, no special aptitude for the law, and, worse still, I had no writer- to-the-signet or solicitor to give me the start which an unknown youngster at the Bar stands so much in need of. But the Bar offers some glorious chances, and, whether wisely or not, I determined to become a Scottish advocate. I had been captivated by the annals of the Edinburgh Parliament House, and by the biographies and tales of the Law Courts which lighten Scottish history and give reality to Scottish 42 HAUD IMMEMOR fiction. The achievements of Brougham, who had begun life at the Scottish Bar, and the 6clat of Erskine, Jeffrey, and Cockburn were still fresh in con- versation and literature. The stories of the Porteous Mob and of Jeanie Deans, the trials of Burke and Hare and of Deacon Brodie, still thrilled the student of history and the novel reader, and the life of an advocate, however small might be one's aptitude for it, promised to gratify most of one's tastes. The choice between the Bar of Scotland and of England is one which must present itself to many men, and the relative advantages must in each case, of course, be carefully weighed. Family ties, resi- dence, and associations urge the Scot to remain in his own country; and if he has legal connections in Edinburgh or any of the larger towns, these should be of material assistance to him in Scotland, though useless, or nearly so, in London. A good connection, even though it be a limited one, among Edinburgh or Glasgow solicitors is sure to give the young advocate his chance in the Parliament House. He becomes known there much more easily and with much greater certainty than in London to actual or possible clients, and if he have the good fortune to belong to a known Scottish family, he will not remain unnoticed. Legal or social connections are by them- selves, of course, either in Edinburgh or in London, insufficient to ensure success. Combined with industry and ability, I think they make success tolerably certain in Edinburgh, while the same cannot be said for London. The reason is obvious to those who know 43 HAUD IMMEMOR the conditions of the struggle in the two cases. In Scotland the legal circle is comparatively small, both of barristers and the solicitors on whom they are dependent. The young advocate, if he is diligent and means business, spends his day, or at all events some hours of every day, in the Parliament House, his wig and gown advertising him for hire, in the Courts, in the library and in the hall, pursuing his studies or such little practice as he has secured, conspicuous to clients and patrons, and, among not more than a hundred or so of competitors, not unnoticed by them. In London, the difficulties which a young barrister has to encounter are undoubtedly greater. Studies are pursued in the privacy of chambers, the crowd of barristers and solicitors follow their callings with- out personal knowledge of young men who are not actually engaged in their cases ; and great ability and great industry may languish and decay unseen and unheard of. For a man of distinguished ability and forensic talent, it goes without saying that the English Bar presents the wider field and the higher prizes. I have known ambitious Scotsmen who might have done moderately well in their own country, who have gone down in the vortex of London. The best men of the Scottish Bench and Bar, as they are at the present day, are certainly equal to the best of their contemporaries in London, and in my opinion those Scotsmen who have remained in their own country, and who have attained high position on the Bench or at the Bar, have exercised as wise a choice as those who have migrated to England. If the 44 HAUD IMMEMOR bustle and the varied society of London be more to the tastes of some, those are not less wise who prefer the comparative ease and quiet and the cultivated leisure of Edinburgh. The education and examinations for the Bar in Scotland are more systematic and exacting than in England, though in neither case do they present any obstacle to a man of decent education. A prescribed course of university lectures on law is, for the Scottish Bar, essential, antecedently to the Faculty examination. The University of Edinburgh, where I became a student in 1859, had recently lost some of its more distinguished professors, but its reputation was well supported by a few men of eminence. Dr John Lee, the Principal, an old-fashioned theologian of the con- servative persuasion, maintained the dignity, but hardly advanced the public appreciation, of the divinity school ; he was eclipsed by the fervour and popular eloquence of Guthrie and Candlish in the pulpit and the class- room of the rival Church. In Classics, the college teaching had never been strong, for the time had not yet come when the Crown or the Town Council had the courage to look beyond Scotland for their professors. The truth is, that there was then no school of classical learning in Scotland w T hich was competent to supply the scholarship which was needed. Not many years later, more enlightened views pre- vailed, and scholars of the stamp of William Sellar, George Ramsay, Lushington, and Butcher, the best that the English universities could supply, sought and obtained the professorial appointments. But in 45 HAUD IMMEMOR my day, Pillans, the "paltry Pillans" of Byron's scurrilous English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, a worthy but worn-out dominie of the High School, was Professor of Humanity, and it must be confessed that the standard was not equal to what I had left behind at an English Public School. The Chair of Greek was filled by the popular and patriotic Professor Blackie, and though there was much of instruction and amusement, intellectual and otherwise, to be obtained in his class-room, I cannot say that I added much to my knowledge of Greek under his professorial care. Still, John Stuart Blackie was an institution in Edinburgh, and, on the whole, an admirable one. His handsome and picturesque presence, his perfervid and eccentric manners and address, were a notable feature in Edinburgh life, and the town as well as the college were richer and better for his zeal and patriotism. A large part of the lecture hour was spent in the inculcation of the modern Greek pronunciation, in place of what he denounced as the stupid usage of the English uni- versities, and if one learned little Greek in his class- room, one had at least the opportunity of picking up a good deal of Gaelic, and not a little Scottish poetry. For the B.A. degree a course of lectures on Belles Lettres was prescribed, and as William Edmondstone Aytoun was then the Professor, the lectures were both sound and delightful. Aytoun was then at the height of his literary powers, and in the society of the town, social as well as literary, he was a prominent and interesting figure. He was a member of the Bar, 46 HAUD IMMEMOR and though he had never any considerable practice, he held, besides his professorial chair, the Sheriffship of Orkney and Shetland. Few numbers of Black- wood's Magazine came out without a witty ballad, a political skit, or a humorous story from Aytoun's pen, and his humour and wit were always of the best. His Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, Edinburgh after Flodden, The Execution of Montrose, The Widow of Glencoe, and Charles Edward at Versailles, and the Bon Gaultier Ballads (the latter a collaboration with Sir Theodore Martin) place him in the foremost rank of Scottish poets. For emotional power, patriotic fire, and romantic patriotism it is only tradition and a wider public that can place him second to Scott or Burns. Alongside of these lofty gifts, it is delightful to recall his brilliant and humorous talk at the dinner- table of friends, and his good-natured satire at the fireplace in the Parliament House. Many of my contemporaries will remember, as I do, his splendid impersonation of a Newhaven fishwife at a fancy- dress ball of the St Andrew Boat Club, and they will recollect too how admirably he was seconded by Mark Napier, the learned author of the "Life of Montrose," as Miss Griselda Oldbuck from "The Antiquary," by Captain Forbes Mackay of the 92nd as "The Dougal Critter," and by Lawrence Lockhart in some character which I cannot at this moment remember. Aytoun's lectures were a delightful change from the dull disquisitions of the Moral Philosophy class, or from Professor Kelland on Mathematics. I do not 47 HAUD IMMEMOR think that Aytoun ever published his lectures, and I doubt whether he gave much pains to their com- position. I am afraid I regarded the lecture as too much of a relaxation for taking notes. I chance to remember his obiter dictum that the most musical line of poetry which he could think of was "The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall." There could be no better arbiter elegantiarum in literature than he. Cosmo Innes was our Professor of Constitutional History, and the chair could not have been better filled. He, too, was a member of the Bar and a Clerk of Session, sitting in the seat of Walter Scott, an office of ease and dignity, equivalent to the Registrar in the English Courts. Cosmo Innes was a fine gentleman of the old school, and his hospitable house in Inverleith Row had open door for all that was good in Edinburgh society. The Faculty of Law was not represented at that period in any unusual strength. John Schank More, as Professor of Scots Law, scarcely filled adequately the chair of George Joseph Bell, his more distin- guished predecessor. The class was disorderly and out of hand. More was kindly and considerate to a fault ; he could not bear to convict a student of a wrong answer. I well remember, in the monthly viva voce examination, his asking me a question which admitted only of a direct answer, Yes or No. I answered " Yes " at a hazard, when it should have been " No." " Try again," said More, " you are very 48 HAUD IMMEMOR nearly right." I did try again, more successfully, "No." "Very good indeed, that couldn't be better; now you can have full marks." His kindly system, which was very generally applied, made the Professor very popular, but it was not conducive to careful preparation. The other Law Professors were Archibald Camp- bell Swinton, who taught the Civil Law, and Sir Douglas Maclagan (elder brother to the present Archbishop of York), who lectured on Medical Juris- prudence. Dr, now Sir Henry, Little John also gave extra-mural lectures on the same subject, and his class qualified equally for the Bar examination. Little John had great zeal, and was a capital teacher, amusingly discursive, but always instructive. He was Surgeon to the Police, and a wounded constable injured in some criminal affray would occasionally supply an easy and agreeable object - lesson for his students. I remember an unfortunate policeman exhibiting a wounded arm to illustrate some point in the lecture, when Littlejohn, delicately handling the injured member, espied a heated spot on the unhappy man's face. " Ha, gentlemen, very interest- ing ; here we have an instance of the common pimple ; let us see if we can relieve the poor fellow ; he is an excellent officer, but I fear not sufficiently careful about his diet " ; and then followed a practical little disquisition on the common pimple, its causes and its cure. Littlejohn was extraordin- arily zealous in his profession, and extremely good- natured ; in the interests of truth and science he D 49 HAUD IMMEMOR would give unbounded assistance, without reward of any kind, to a young advocate engaged in prepara- tion for a criminal trial. I remember that on one occasion I was retained, along with Donald Crawford, my senior, to defend a man charged with the murder of his wife by strangulation, The trial was to come on at noon on the following day at the Circuit Court in Glasgow; the only possible defence was that the woman had died not by throttling but from natural causes. Everything turned on the condition of the windpipe and of other internal organs ; my medical or surgical knowledge was extremely superficial ; I hastened to Little John ; he sat up all night with me and crammed me for the examination and cross- examination of the medical witnesses ; at 2 A.M. he carried me off to the Surgical Museum, knocked up the custodian, and gave me finishing touches of clinical instruction on a thorax and lung in a glass bottle. By 7 a.m. I was in the train for Glasgow, and some forty-eight hours later our murderer, after a careful trial, was a free man, acquitted by the jury. The credit, or discredit, of the result was certainly Little John's rather than ours. The Medical Faculty was, I believe, exceptionally strong in 1859, and round that period. The teachers — I remember them little more than by name and aspect — were Sir James Y. Simpson, Christison, and Hughes Bennett the physicians, and Syme and Turner the surgeons. The life of a college student in Edinburgh is too well known to be described ; or, rather, it can best be 50 HAUD IMMEMOR described by saying that there is no college life at all. The students live where they please and as they please ; there are no college rooms and no college hall, or at least there were none in 1859; there was no corporate life, no traditions, and no etiquette; no college sports, or amusements, or dress ; there was not even a reading-room or a students' club in my time, and we never met except in the class-room. The old Speculative Society, and the Juridical Society should perhaps not be forgotten as exceptions; but the numbers of their members were few, and their exist- ence was not vigorous. Out of some fifty or sixty students in the lecture-room, one had a nodding acquaintance with half-a-dozen at the most, and one's personal ties with them began and ended for the most part at the lecture-room door. I had myself a strong inclination to make friends, but the oppor- tunity seemed always to be wanting. One's fellow- students certainly had the charm and interest of variety; one might by chance sit beside a Royal Prince (the Duke of Edinburgh was living at Holy- rood in those years and attending lectures in the college), but it was much more likely that one's class- mates were roughish young fellows of seventeen or eighteen, intent on their books, and inaccessible to sociable advances of any kind. In every class, at least in the Arts and Moral Philosophy, there were always a few middle-aged men of the Hugh Miller type, masons perhaps, and even shepherds, stirred by aims towards the higher education, but in most cases, I fear, wearily plodding towards disappointment. Of 51 HAUD IMMEMOR the actual peasant class there were probably fewer at Edinburgh than at St Andrews or Aberdeen. Edinburgh was more distant from their native glens or farms, and the cost of living, even in the poorest street of the capital, was probably rather more than in the smaller universities. But the type was well and amply represented, and the recollections even of one's limited comradeship with these homely youths, good men and true, makes one bless the munificence of Mr Andrew Carnegie, whose splendid generosity will make the upward path of many a man easier, and without, as I believe, injuring their spirit of independence. I remember one of my college friends, whose father was a farm-servant in the South of Scotland, telling me that the whole of his college expenses for the year (the session only lasted for the five or six winter months) never exceeded £20. The class fees of three lectures, probably Latin, Greek, and Moral Philosophy, amounted only to £9 or £10. A lodging on a fourth or fifth flat of a "common stair" in the Old Town was probably secured for two shillings a week; and the substantial part of his provender for the college session was, as he told me, provided by a cheese and a sack of oatmeal, sent up from his home by the carrier at the beginning of the term. The sixty or seventy miles of road from his home to Edinburgh was travelled twice a year on foot. The success of this lad in after-life was substantial; he was made, of course, of the right stuff, and one would regret to think that any change in the university system of Scotland would make 52 HAUD IMMEMOR such a career or such beginnings impossible or diffi- cult. In my humble opinion, the Scottish universities will do well to preserve their individual and time- honoured character, rather than to engage in a hope- less rivalry with the richer and more advanced uni- versities of the South. My own habitation in these college days was in the classic thoroughfare of Castle Street. Opposite my lodgings was the house formerly inhabited by Sir Walter Scott, where all his earlier poems and novels were written, where he was visited by Robert Burns, and where he spent the greater part of the year, pursuing his judicial studies as Sheriff of Selkirkshire, and afterwards as Clerk of Court in the Inner House of the Court of Session. Sitting at the window of my lodging, I had in full view, towards the south the glorious Castle and its Rock, and towards the north I looked out on the whole expanse of the Firth of Forth, with the hills of Fife and Kinross in the background. It is the glorious view from the very streets of Edinburgh which give the town an inex- tinguishable and undying charm. "Lives there a man with soul so dead" that can look from Princes Street at the Castle Rock and the Calton Hill; from Queen Street at the Firth of Forth from Kirkcaldy to Alloa, from Stirling to Inchkeith, at Ben Lomond, the Ochils and Largo Law; from the Castle, at Corstorphine and Braid and the Pentlands ; from the Calton Hill at the Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat, and at the Lammermoors, and North Berwick Law, " who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land." 53 HAUD IMMEMOR Even to the man whose daily round and common task takes him along Princes Street, and up "the Mound" or the High Street, these emotions, I think, are never far absent; but perhaps to feel them at their best, one must be removed from them by the current of the stream of life and then revisit these scenes in "the fall." In these fleeting recollections of my college days in Edinburgh I have assuredly not forgotten my old and good friend, Lyon Playfair. In 1860 he was Professor of Chemistry, one of the largest and most lucrative of the chairs. He filled the place admirably, socially, and scientifically. His personal qualities and wide social experience gave him an excellent position in Edinburgh, and the University, along with St Andrews, made an excellent choice in selecting him in later years as their first representative in Parliament. He was sociable in the highest degree, and witty. I remember in an after-dinner speech in late years, on an occasion when he was my guest, he told a story of an interesting archaeological discovery which had just been made on the banks of the Tweed, an un- covered bed of rock or clay showing the footprints of some pre-historic animal ; " and, gentlemen, you will not be surprised to hear that those footprints were turned towards the south." The dig was in- tended, I believe, both for me and for himself. I ventured to reply that if the search were prosecuted further it would probably be found that the same footprints were again discovered in some later stratum, but this time turned northwards. 54 HAUD IMMEMOR The periodical election of a Lord Rector which is in the hands of the students was, and is still, a great event in the college life. I took part in two of these elections, and on both occasions we carried our man, Thomas Carlyle and Lord Stanley. From both of them we had memorable addresses ; not merely brilliant or learned orations, which one admires and forgets, but weighty words which sink in and help in forming character and habits. Lord Derby's theme was not a wide one, but it was consistent with his formal and unemotional character, and it was well chosen for young men. He urged us to acquire the habit of moderation in language, and to avoid super- latives, except on the rare occasions when they are really called for. Why say you are " very sorry " or " extremely grieved," when " sorry " would convey the whole truth ? Why fritter away such words as " delighted " or " entranced," when you are only "pleased," paid so use up nouns and adjectives which should be kept for occasions when they are truly appropriate? The lesson was admirably taught, and 1 hope it remained on the minds of the other students as it did on mine. Carlyle's address to the students was in his best vein, and, heard at an emotional age, it made a permanent impression on my mind. His gospel was the reverse of what is usually addressed to young men. Instead of urging us to strive to "get on" in the world, he told us it was better not to be too keen for such a poor object. I remember his very words : " Don't be too ambitious ; don't be at all too 55 HAUD IMMEMOR desirous of success; be loyal and modest." ... "I am proof against that word ' failure ' — I have seen behind it ; the only failure a man need fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best." They are noble words, and deserve to be taken to the heart. They remind me, not agreeably, of a sermon I heard not long ago from the pulpit in a Scottish church. The preacher was holding up the life of Christ as a model for his hearers, not for its lowliness and humility, but as an example of how true religion helped a man to " get on " ! The rise from the carpenter's shop to the position of a teacher in the temple and thereafter to high social influence even among the wealthy classes of society, was treated as illustrating the advantages of high re- ligious endeavour. I fancied the worthy divine had somewhat misread the Bible story. 56 CHAPTER VI The Parliament House of Edinburgh has always been the centre of Scottish history, or at least of such part of the history as was not enacted on the tented field. The legislative powers of the Scottish Parliament, and the Parliament itself, had of course ceased on the Union with England; but the building, as the home of the Law Courts, and the gathering place of much of the intellectual life of the country and of the metropolis, has lost little of its im- portance. In 1859, when I first became acquainted with its purlieus as a law student, a good deal of the modern spirit had begun to infuse its denizens, and something of the picturesque individuality of the earlier times had departed, though it had not entirely disappeared. The process of modernisation was, of course, inevitable. Many of the younger advocates, and every year an increasing number of them, had passed through the English Universities and only commenced their legal studies after taking a degree in Arts at Oxford and Cambridge. The older barristers, or many of them, held seats in the House of Commons, as Law Officers of the Crown, or as private members. Others of them passed to and fro to London as Counsel in House of Lords Appeals, and in various ways their communication 57 HAUD IMMEMOR with the South became wider and more frequent. The judges were chosen from the Bar, and in most cases from the advocates who had filled the office of Lord Advocate or Solicitor-General, and who had consequently been subjected to the wider experiences of Parliamentary life. But in 1860 it was by no means so usual as it is now that both of the Law Officers of Scotland should hold seats in the House of Commons. In fact, I remember no instance of it until much more recent years. I believe the practice was discouraged, and what was expected of the Solicitor - General was that he should remain in Edinburgh and conduct the business of the Crown while the Lord Advocate was at Westminster. But in the middle of the last century, the " Senators of the College of Justice," as the Judges of the High Court are officially called, still included many men of the older school. Legends of the barbarities of Braxfield* and the coarse jocularity of Eskgrove,f the giants and ogres of an earlier generation, were still rife in the Parliament House, though the men themselves, or those at least of the more antiquated type, had passed away. But re- finement of speech and manner had not yet become universal, and these were still connecting "links with the past," whose personality I well remember, and whose figures and demeanour and language I can vividly recollect upon the Bench. The old plate which is reproduced here represents the fifteen * Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield, Lord Justice-Clerk in 1790. t David Rae, Lord Eskgrove, Lord Justice-Clerk in 1800. 58 7.3 1 a •■ a 2 a" ^ eg ro rr'w M 2 el * .2 o s a e : s .«. j: - o = S lb ||l I fe|| 3 ,3,36 o is "H-- «or-0! 03 3h c! a K a s * a a ° 2 ,33.3 3 3 ''-'■' .. k8 nn^ i ■ l^w i 1' MW ^j ii Pat r s •J t^S 1 S6 o w v. iV&^C/UTY °00 193 00 7